The Obama Economy

[godoftrading]

Dick Morris has written an interesting article on what he expects will happen to the economy under Obama.

Here is an excerpt: "...In the name of short-term stimulus, he will give every American family (who makes less than $200,000) a welfare check of $1,000 euphemistically called a refundable tax credit. And he will so sharply cut taxes on the middle class and the poor that the number of Americans who pay no federal income tax will rise from the current one-third of all households to more than half. In the process, he will create a permanent electoral majority that does not pay taxes, but counts on ever-expanding welfare checks from the government. The dependency on the dole, formerly limited in pre-Clinton days to 14 million women and children on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, will now grow to a clear majority of the American population."

http://thehill.com/dick-morris/the-obama-presidency--here-comes-socialism-2009-01-20.html

[freakscene]

i enjoy Morris's historical perspective regarding his tenure at the White House during the Clinton years. He has some great stories, none all that flattering of our new Secretary of State.

His batting average on predictions is not that high though, but he does make quite a few.

Today's column is full of predictions, and it will be interesting to see how close he gets it. If he only bats .300, then we're in trouble. .500 and you'll not recognize the country. more than that, and ya may as well call us Cuba north.

two other good pieces written today.

Bill May Not Stimulate Jobs Right Away

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123257985064904169.html?mod=googlenews_wsj


The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected less than half of the $355 billion that House Democrats want to spend on highways, bridges and other job-creating investments is likely to be used before the end of fiscal 2010. The CBO said the balance would likely be spent over the next several years, after the recession is projected to end.

Stimulus Deferred

http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=317434416453597

The idea behind a "stimulus" package is to give the slumping economy an immediate boost. At least, that's how we've been sold on the need for $825 billion in new spending. President Obama himself, in Tuesday's inaugural address, called for "bold and swift" action on the economy.

But now comes a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that says of the $355 billion tagged by House leaders in their plan for infrastructure and other discretionary outlays, only $136 billion would be spent by October 2010.

"The rest," noted a Washington Post story, "would come in future years, long after the CBO and other economists predict the recession will have ended." In short, it's not stimulus at all. And it's certainly not "bold and swift."..........

You might like these ideas. And you might not mind the hundreds of billions in new spending. But let's not call it stimulus. Under Congress' plan, it's pork.

[concrete]

He also predicted the nomination of Hillary Clinton, and predicted John McCain would win, and that he would win due to his brilliant move of suspending his campaign in his famous "trip back to Washington". You could spend a day listing things Morris has been wrong about, in fact, Morris is a f*cking idiot who is wrong about everything. He got fired by the Democrats when he got caught using his expense accounts to hire whores to suck his dick, and he's been mad at them ever since. Bill O'rielly keeps him around for some reason, maybe for the same reason.

[freakscene]

i would think in this situation, given your political leanings, you would want his predictions to come true

one can not support obama, and defile socialism with any sort of credibility

[Gordo]

Bill O'rielly keeps him around for some reason, maybe for the same reason.


:laugh:

[smartinvestor30]

He also predicted the nomination of Hillary Clinton, and predicted John McCain would win, and that he would win due to his brilliant move of suspending his campaign in his famous "trip back to Washington". You could spend a day listing things Morris has been wrong about, in fact, Morris is a f*cking idiot who is wrong about everything. He got fired by the Democrats when he got caught using his expense accounts to hire whores to suck his dick, and he's been mad at them ever since. Bill O'rielly keeps him around for some reason, maybe for the same reason.

That was the biggest joke in Presidential race history. John McCain is a joke and that's why he lost. What were they thinking when they nominated him? When I found out he got the nomination I couldn't believe it, I thought why are the republican's giving this one away??? They really thought if they put out more war hero stories they could capture the campaign, he is an honorable man but being tortured does not make you a better president, I'm sorry to say. People saw through that and that's why he lost


LOL at the end of your post.

On a side note, this guy has been right in his predictions for quite some time, his name is Gerald Selente


46MEqEgdLTg

Some of his predictions are:

1. America will become the first "undeveloped" country
2. Revolution, riots, rebellion, marches
3. Holiday's 2012, food becomes more important than gifts.

[useless]

His point about creating a non tax paying voting block has already come to fruition... its time to expand it.

The problem is once you give something away for free, it is very hard to take it back with pissing the recipient off.

[freakscene]

[B]
What were they thinking when they nominated him?


depends on who you mean by "they".

McCain won because of Republican primary rules in certain states like Florida, allowed for open voting. that meant anyone could vote in the Republican primary.

liberal democrats helped him win Florida, and thus the nomination, knowing he would not appeal to traditional conservatives.

The party needs to close its primaries in every State so that doesnt happen again.

[freakscene]

His point about creating a non tax paying voting block has already come to fruition... its time to expand it. .

can you elaborate on why it should be expanded?

[useless]

Uhm, I did not mean it was time to expand it like, "yay we can expand it"

I meant, from Obama's perspective, it is time to expand it. since he won. This is how you keep the power so to speak.

I was trying to be rhetorical or something. Facetious maybe a better word.

[freakscene]

oh, no doubt. he has the political capital thats for sure.

granting citizenship to those that violated immigration laws will be a sure way to increase his bloc too

[freakscene]

regarding the trillion dollar "stimulus" proposed by "democrats", this exchange from yesterday i believe, is interesting if nothing else.

they cant point to 1 private or public sector job it will create.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtFwS2W3ITI

[freakscene]

Economic stimulus or just more pork?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/26/MNU515G2DD.DTL

Is $200 million to rehabilitate the National Mall a crucial way to stimulate the U.S. economy? How about $276 million to fix the computer systems at the State Department? And what about $650 million to repair dilapidated Forest Service facilities?.............

........$50 million outlay for the National Endowment for the Arts -.......

a part of the bill's $87 billion package to help states with Medicaid costs that would allow states to expand their family planning services. Leaving a White House meeting with Obama on Friday, Boehner said, "How can you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives? How does that stimulate the economy?"...............

$44 million for repairs at the Agriculture Department headquarters in Washington.

$200 million to rehabilitate the National Mall.

$360 million for new child care centers at military bases.

$1.8 billion to repair National Park Service facilities.

$276 million to update technology at the State Department.

$500 million for the Transportation Security Administration to install bomb detectors at airports.

$600 million for General Services Administration to replace older vehicles with alternative fuel vehicles.

$2.5 billion to upgrade low-income housing.

$400 million for NASA scientists to conduct climate change research.

$426 million to construct facilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

$800 million to clean up Superfund sites.

$150 million for the Coast Guard to repair or remove bridges deemed a hazard to navigation.

$6.7 billion to renovate and improve energy efficiency at federal buildings.

$400 million to replace the Social Security Administration's 30-year-old National Computer Center.

[Humbleone]

It seems to me that the majority of the money is being used to inflate the Government and to push through and finance the liberal agenda. When we are in a state of panic, anything can happen

[Mastajab]

It would be cool if Obama just lowered taxes, and .....just lowered taxes. Infastructure doesn't have an immediate impact and does not create lasting jobs.

[useless]

Depends which taxes he lowers.

IMHO, the real problem in the country is lower income families fail to save any money. I am talking people making up to 75k or so. I know countless people who are planning on having only their 401k/Pension and SS.

Does cutting taxes really help these people? They just blow the money on more crap from china.

We are in a odd situation that I think can only be fixed by only lending to people with really high credit scores, and this is considered racist or regressive-ly discriminatory.

[Mastajab]

Obama should cut taxes that effect businesses, like that big old corporate tax we got goin on here. We should go back to what used to make America great lower taxes.

And why are there so many people on TV crying about the lack of lending? Like you said the only way to solve that part of the problem is to NOT lend to those high risk people.

[freakscene]

Depends which taxes he lowers.

IMHO, the real problem in the country is lower income families fail to save any money. I am talking people making up to 75k or so. I know countless people who are planning on having only their 401k/Pension and SS.

Does cutting taxes really help these people? They just blow the money on more crap from china.

We are in a odd situation that I think can only be fixed by only lending to people with really high credit scores, and this is considered racist or regressive-ly discriminatory.

This is very well said and something I agree with. They share some blame in the current mess, but in many ways one could make the argument that all they are doing is behaving like their government.

When unable to pay back your debts, borrowing more money rarely works


It seems to me that the majority of the money is being used to inflate the Government and to push through and finance the liberal agenda. When we are in a state of panic, anything can happen


Thats precisely what the administration is trying to do. Create as much public concern as possible over the crisis that they themselves created, and use it to lurch the country as left as they can.

[freakscene]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/01/27/republican-leaders-raise-concerns-acorn-stimulus-dollars/

dont want to leave out ACORN

He said the money was previously limited to state and local governments, but that Democrats now want part of it to be available to non-profit entities. That means groups like ACORN would be eligible for a portion of the funds.

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., told FOX News Tuesday that the money could be seen as "payoff" for groups' political activities in the last election. ACORN generally supports Democratic candidates and actively backed President Obama last year.

But he said the funding is just one example of frivolous spending items in the $825 billion package.

"It's just a long list of spending items. Not a real economic stimulus job creation bill," Vitter said. "It's line after line after line of favorite liberal spending programs, and it amounts to a big government bill -- not a job creation bill."

[madcowdisease]

Dick Morris has written an interesting article on what he expects will happen to the economy under Obama.

Here is an excerpt: "...In the name of short-term stimulus, he will give every American family (who makes less than $200,000) a welfare check of $1,000 euphemistically called a refundable tax credit. And he will so sharply cut taxes on the middle class and the poor that the number of Americans who pay no federal income tax will rise from the current one-third of all households to more than half. In the process, he will create a permanent electoral majority that does not pay taxes, but counts on ever-expanding welfare checks from the government. The dependency on the dole, formerly limited in pre-Clinton days to 14 million women and children on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, will now grow to a clear majority of the American population."

http://thehill.com/dick-morris/the-obama-presidency--here-comes-socialism-2009-01-20.html

This has been the Democrat Party strategy for decades. Increase gifts from the Treasury and enslave the population via welfare and government programs. As the populace becomes dependent on the government for their means of life the Dems have secured their power and ensured they get elected time and time again. This is nothing but pandering and the biggest target they could ever hit and what they've been aiming for since ClintonCare is nationalized healthcare.

It may sound hard to believe after reading the above but I am not a partisan hack and don't support Republicans nor do I support Dems, obviously. My fear is that this country will essentially be bankrupted as the power brokers in the Federal Government will sell this country down shi'ite creek in an effort to hold on to their power. Nationalized healthcare will run this country $10s of trillions each year and in a generation we will be bankrupt.

It is amazing that Americans do not realize how akin to slavery the actions of our government are. The government takes the fruits of our labor in the form of taxes, and under the guise of providing goods and services dole out and ration our own sweat via government programs and assistance all the while skimming their cut for their fat paychecks and lavish liefstyles.

How is this all that different than the slave-owner who in exchange for labor in the cotton or sugar cane fields provided food, shelter, and clothing? We are complicit in our own slavery.

In a overly acute sense of my surroundings I recall saying long before I could even legally vote that he/she who promises the most gifts gets the most votes.

Here is a poignant quote from one of the sharpest, and ostensibly prescient, minds in American history:

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." ~ Thomas Jefferson

[freakscene]

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." ~ Thomas Jefferson

i sympathize with the efforts MCD. most Americans today are so freaking dumb, they'll just cast aside the warnings of Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin as "times were different then", or "they didnt really mean that"

i've heard it myself when trying to explain to people just how far off course this country has drifted.

you are also 100% correct at "democrats" pandering to any group they can. see below.


Stimulus aids illegal immigrants

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9...;show_article=1

[madcowdisease]

i sympathize with the efforts MCD. most Americans today are so freaking dumb, they'll just cast aside the warnings of Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin as "times were different then", or "they didnt really mean that"

i've heard it myself when trying to explain to people just how far off course this country has drifted.

you are also 100% correct at "democrats" pandering to any group they can. see below.


Stimulus aids illegal immigrants

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9...;show_article=1

Unfortunately it appears the article has been pulled from your link. I was directed to a main page sans an article.


btw, your avatar is rather disconcerting. I can only hope it does not prove accurate.

[concrete]

Breaking news: Trickle down economics failed - get comfortable with that fact. Your nonsense has left us 60 trillion dollar in debt. We just finished with six long, miserable years of the "conservatives" ruling all three branches of gov't. How'd that work out? The fantasy that what has happened in the last election is somehow leading to "socialism" considering the past thirty five years of socialism for the rich is amusing. Obama simply has proposed that the tax structure be returned back to what it was before Bush took office. How you guys get "share the wealth" out of that is an insight into how intellectually bankrupt the right has become. How about "share the cost of government" - especially given the fact that your party has added unneeded trillions to the national debt?

The rich in this country benefit by a disproportionate amount from our system of government and our economic system and from the military-industrial complex's profits and high paying jobs. It's about f*cking time they paid for it, instead of getting what amounts to free money from our grandchildren in the form of deficit-financed "tax cuts", a wealth transfer that rivals anything Marx could have thought up.

What is most telling in the decline of the right is that fear has now become the mainstay of their message. While the rest of this country is trying its damndest to get beyond the age of partisanship, the right wing fear message is still relentless. Fear of Obama. Fear of an America that is not the so-called "real America". Fear of homosexuals. Fear of a fairer economic system, in fact, fear of the future. The reality is that a big percentage of this Congress consists of Democrats elected to previously Republican districts, and a President who won the election by appealing to the middle of the political spectrum. The idea they are 'socialists' is utterly ludicrous. The Republican Party has put the nation's ox in a big ditch, and if they don't want to help pull it out, well, f*ck them, we now have a working majority in this country that could last for decades as the GOP becomes a modern version of the old Know Nothing Party - a bunch of fools who were unable to adjust to the realities of a new century.

What people having been saying for three years is that we were building an economy based on debt, as we destroyed the manufacturing base. In past recessions, the lower labor costs and material costs eventually reticulated the manufacturing base. Tell me, who is going to re-stimulate our debt base? The world is tired of loaning us money. Many predicted this would happen, and this isn't just some downturn, it’s a catastrophe, and all because Republican shit heads tried to create a sustainable economy based on borrowing from our grand kids and from the nations who are bleeding us white. Yes, we've been telling you that for three years.

Welcome to the part of right wing religious neocon kooks

If you still believe: that the Earth is 5,000 years old, that global warming isn't man-made, that Terri Schiavo was this close to a full recovery, that 9/11 was an inside job, or that the Book of Revelations describes the anti-Christ as someone with characteristics matching Barack Obama...Well, then, you may as well fly back on your pet pterodactyl to the fortified compound back in Waco, pour yourself some Koolaid, and wait for the Apocalypse, you moronic sh*theads.

[Survivor]

Put the blame where it belongs...
Obama was handed a sh*t sandwich.
BUSH/CHENEY.:thefinger:

545 People

Charlie Reese - 2008-10-10

THROW THE RASCALS OUT DEPT.

This piece is so right on that it should be nailed on the door of every American. For after all, it is the electorate that continues to vote in the very people who are failing to promote their best interests. I realize that there are a few good people in Congress, people who, though marginalized by the corporate mass media, try to offer and support laws to actually help the public. But the time for selectivity has passed. The only sure-fire means to rid ourselves of the 545 persons who are responsible for our current financial and social mess is to vote every one of them out of office.
Force them to work for a living.

545 PEOPLE

By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does (although it's not his Constitutionally granted authority).

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, ethically and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional Duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ.

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way. There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like 'the economy,' 'inflation,' or 'politics' that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper
What you do with this article now that you have read it is up to you.

Which is absolutely nothing, They want it that way.

[freakscene]

We just finished with six long, miserable years of the "conservatives" ruling all three branches of gov't.

how in the world do you keep getting this wrong over and over, especially when i provided you with a nice easy chart that a 5th grader could follow?

the 110th congress )1/3 of your 6 years) had a Democratic controlled House, and a 49-49 tie in the Senate, along with a Liberal Republican in the Executive. (i'd be very interested in you pointing out when "conservatives" last had a majority power in the Senate, please. thanks in advance. i dont think its been in my lifetime)

why should anyone bother reading the rest of the tripe you post, when within 3 sentences your post is so wrong?

[freakscene]

btw, your avatar is rather disconcerting. I can only hope it does not prove accurate.


i agree, but i fear its too late although most of the sheep havent a clue. the majority of the federal budget is already unconstitutional.

after obama nationalizes banks, maybe some will see it.
after he nationalizes the health care industry, maybe more.
when he crushes talk radio it might open more eyes
expect 'hate speech' to be applied to the internet after that. we cant have people being so critical of "change"

and i havent even mentioned the coming second amendment limitations ........................

obama will put an end to the Jefferson, Madison, Franklin experiment.

expect America to become more like Venezuela......perhaps Cuba, under his stewardship with the ability to undo the damage his "change" creates very very difficult.

[madcowdisease]

Concrete & Survivor, I can only hope your partisan vitriol is not directed at me. I am not a fan of either of the two main political parties. In addition I do not possess an obsequious obsession with Obama that blinds me to the fact there are political strategies at work here.

The Neocons pander to the wealthy via tax breaks and loop holes. The liberal elite pander to the poor and working class via income redistribution (e.g. refundable tax credits to those who don't pay tax) and bureuacratic programs to enslave the populace in effect ensuring constituents depend on them.

If we were all simply more self-relient and were given a fair shake and an even playing field -- meaning no loop-holes for the uber rich and no free gifts to the bottom 50% -- perhaps we would be more of a meritocratic and egalitarian society.

In sum, I am far from rich and all I want is to be left alone. I do not want the government to provide for me nor do I want them to tax my labor to provide for others. I will pay to play, for example the gasoline tax for roads, but the income tax to send billions to Africa for AIDS relief is a heist of my toils.

[freakscene]

that was mostly directed at me i believe

i deserve it, sort of ;)

[BentleyVTech]

"In sum, I am far from rich and all I want is to be left alone. I do not want the government to provide for me nor do I want them to tax my labor to provide for others. I will pay to play, for example the gasoline tax for roads, but the income tax to send billions to Africa for AIDS relief is a heist of my toils."

-Thats pretty sad to hear. I am not a socialist by any means, but it should be human nature to try to make the world a better place...give 'a little help' to help those less fortunate. If we were all like you, there would always be the very wealthy and the very poor. If you were born poor, you'd remain poor. America is for opportunity..


"expect America to become more like Venezuela......perhaps Cuba"

- Talk about extremes...you might as well go join the taliban with those extreme comments. Its not even worth a response.

[Survivor]

Damn...

You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much.

Heres another battle.

I also have included the URL's for verification of all the following facts.

1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments.
Verify at: http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecenters7fd 8

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!
Verify at http://www.transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
Verify at http://www.transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.
Verify at: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

9. $200 Billion dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border.
Verify at: Homeland Security Report: http://www.house.gov/mccaul/pdf/Investigaions-Border-Report.pdf

12. The National policy Institute, estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.'
Verify at: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf

13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances to their countries of origin.
Verify at: http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm>;

14. 'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One million sex crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States .'
Verify at: http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml

The tax of labor trains illegals for U.S. jobs.

[concrete]

Damn...

You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much.

Heres another battle.

I also have included the URL's for verification of all the following facts.

1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments.
Verify at: http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecenters7fd 8

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!
Verify at http://www.transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
Verify at http://www.transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.
Verify at: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

9. $200 Billion dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border.
Verify at: Homeland Security Report: http://www.house.gov/mccaul/pdf/Investigaions-Border-Report.pdf

12. The National policy Institute, estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.'
Verify at: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf

13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances to their countries of origin.
Verify at: http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm>;

14. 'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One million sex crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States .'
Verify at: http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml

The tax of labor trains illegals for U.S. jobs.

Is your point that we shouldn't provide any benefits to our slave labor force who clean, mow, roof and build our house's along with ever other filthy job nobody else want to do?

[concrete]

Concrete & Survivor, I can only hope your partisan vitriol is not directed at me. I am not a fan of either of the two main political parties. In addition I do not possess an obsequious obsession with Obama that blinds me to the fact there are political strategies at work here.

The Neocons pander to the wealthy via tax breaks and loop holes. The liberal elite pander to the poor and working class via income redistribution (e.g. refundable tax credits to those who don't pay tax) and bureuacratic programs to enslave the populace in effect ensuring constituents depend on them.

If we were all simply more self-relient and were given a fair shake and an even playing field -- meaning no loop-holes for the uber rich and no free gifts to the bottom 50% -- perhaps we would be more of a meritocratic and egalitarian society.

In sum, I am far from rich and all I want is to be left alone. I do not want the government to provide for me nor do I want them to tax my labor to provide for others. I will pay to play, for example the gasoline tax for roads, but the income tax to send billions to Africa for AIDS relief is a heist of my toils.

Your point seems to be that John Donne was wrong when he claimed that, "no man is an island". So, no, my post wasn't directed at you. But, it appears that you feel the shoe fits.

[jas1n]

We should make the mexican border a mine field. Have it say in ENGLISH and only english "live Mine field" See how many illegals cross then.

[Survivor]

Is your point that we shouldn't provide any benefits to our slave labor force who clean, mow, roof and build our house's along with ever other filthy job nobody else want to do?

Pointing out the billions of dollars spent.

This is big business can you capitalize from it? or just keep paying for it.

Filthy job, only a lazy mother fu-ker could come up with that one.

[BuyOnDips]

The economy has solved a lot of the illegal immigration problem. Millions have gone home back to Mexico and Latin America. There's little or no work here. The construction and landscaping jobs have vanished for now. I used to see dozens and dozens of illegals walking the streets in my neighborhood. Every time I'd go to the grocery store in the evening, I would always see several illegals at the service counter wiring money back to their families. I rarely seen any illegals anymore. As the economy gets worse and unemployment rises to double digits, I'll probably see even fewer illegals.

[BuyOnDips]

Is your point that we shouldn't provide any benefits to our slave labor force who clean, mow, roof and build our house's along with ever other filthy job nobody else want to do?

They are not slaves. They come here on their own will. Most are good people and are very hard workers. The USA should close the border to stop illegal crossing, but make it easy for immigrants to legally enter the country and get temporary work permits. I have no problem with people wanting to come to this country to better themselves. But to get any benefits from this country, they have to come here legally.

[freakscene]

- Talk about extremes...you might as well go join the taliban with those extreme comments. Its not even worth a response.


Thats a fairly typical response from an obama boot licker with their head buried in the sand afraid to accept what it is they support.

i laid out several concrete ;) examples.

now lets watch and see how many come true, and how close to venezuala or cuba we become, thanks to an empty slate called "change"

the nationalization of industries is an old pastime of dear Hugo

[freakscene]

Is your point that we shouldn't provide any benefits to our slave labor force who clean, mow, roof and build our house's along with ever other filthy job nobody else want to do?


thanks for posting this and continuing to expose just how illogical many obama supporters are.

[BentleyVTech]

Thats a fairly typical response from an obama boot licker with their head buried in the sand afraid to accept what it is they support.

Thats a response that has become typical of you freakscene...someone makes a comment about what you say, and then they are automatically an Obama loyalist with their head up his ass...

I know what I support, and I'm not at all afraid to accept what I support. I dont think Obama has done much different than McCain would have done so far...besides talk about bringing more troops home and closing Guantanamo Bay.

The economy does need work done...I dont know the perfect answer, nor does Obama, nor does McCain, nor do you. We have some of the smartest people in the country saying very different things are the answer.

For god's sake, give the guy at least a few weeks in office before you start your bashing. He assembled his team much quicker than any other President, and tried his best to hit the ground running.

I do not think he is Messiah..or will be the greatest President ever. But before anything even happens, I'm not going to act like he's the worst either. Give him time...

I feel like you believe that your ideas are the only right ones...and I know some point in your life, you must have been wrong...at least ONCE!

[madcowdisease]

-Thats pretty sad to hear. I am not a socialist by any means, but it should be human nature to try to make the world a better place...give 'a little help' to help those less fortunate. If we were all like you, there would always be the very wealthy and the very poor. If you were born poor, you'd remain poor. America is for opportunity...

I disagree VTech. If you reread my post you will see I am simply lobbying for equal opportunity. Close the loopholes for the uber rich and eliminate the social welfare for those that do not put forth the effort that I do.

What bothers me is that under the guise of "making the world a better place" our government wastes the labors of regular people like me and my family. As I've stated in other posts, income tax is simply the contemporary form of slavery. The government TAKES the fruit of your labor under threat of imprisonment, keeps their cut in the form of top-notch healthcare and fat salaries for government workers and officials, and then distributes the remainder as they see fit in the form of low quality goods and services. This isn't all that different, theoretically, than slavery where the slave owner provided housing, clothing, food, and shelter to his slaves for working the land.

The difference between you and I is that I have lost faith, if I ever had it, in our government's ability to "make the world a better place" as you put it. Again, an ever burgeoning and corpulant government that must feed off of my sweat to sustain itself while it poorly distributes capital is hardly my idea of doing good. Mind you I volunteer for Habitat for Humanity and another local not for profit 9 months out of the year, routinely give blood, donate to Red Cross from my paycheck, and throw the March of Dimes a bone or two a couple times a year for the address labels they send me. Imagine what else I would be able to do if the government was not TAKING 30% of my paycheck and forcing me to work until April just to pay for social entitlements?

Let us not forget that absolute power currupts absolutely. The corruption -- based on the broadest definition of the word -- at the Federal and State level is disgusting. These individuals have the power, under threat of taking your freedom, to seize the fruit of your labor and spend it on whatever they see fit. They regularly vote themselves pay increases and pass legaislation loaded with pork projects to pay back those that contrbuted to their campaign coffers all at your and my expense. Still sound like we're making "the world a better place?"

Just so we're clear, I'm not advocating throwing people in the streets. I simply want to be left alone. This is coming from someone with a working class background. Too poor to pay for college on my own but too "wealthy" to qualify for government aid. All I'm saying is if we're going to do this then let's close ALL the loopholes. Many of the rich got rich because they were/are politically connected. Many of the poor are poor because they don't possess a strong work ethic. How do we seperate the wheat from the chaffe? Level the playing field. It is the only fair way to approach the subject. That's all I'm asking.

If you want to "make the world a better place" come join me every Wednesday and Thursday night and build a house with Habitat. Come join me every 8 weeks as I donate a pint of blood. Come donate a % of your bi-weekly paycheck to the Red Cross. Come give up a Saturday a month to cleaning a polluted river 9 months a year. And if you have anything left over send March of Dimes a $20 check for those nice address labels that just showed up one day. But please, do not just rob me of 30% of my labor to benefit only a few.

Your point seems to be that John Donne was wrong when he claimed that, "no man is an island". So, no, my post wasn't directed at you. But, it appears that you feel the shoe fits.

Or perhaps the fact that your comments directly followed mine. But see it how you want to.

[concrete]

Only two weeks in office and the die is cast.

Soothsayer alert

[BentleyVTech]

"But please, do not just rob me of 30% of my labor to benefit only a few."MCD

Of the 30% of your income that you pay to the government by taxation, do you know how that is allocated? You speak as if a large part of it is used for raises to those in power...helping those with bad work ethic...etc...

And some of it does. Like you said,
"Many of the poor are poor because they don't possess a strong work ethic. How do we seperate the wheat from the chaffe? Level the playing field. It is the only fair way to approach the subject."

-But how do you determine which of the poor has strong vs. weak work ethic? When times are down, and unemployment raises dramatically, there are plenty more qualified to take over the jobs that were once held by those less fortunate and poor. I want to help those that want help to get on their feet, then walk on their own...and I do not want to help those that will continue to need a hand because they are lazy. But until you can come up with a better way to tell the 2 apart...there will always be ones who take advantage.


But MCD, a lot of your money does go to Schools, Roads, Police, Fire, Emergency Rescue. And of course there is corruption in there too...when your dealing with a country of 250-300+ million people, theres gonna be corruption somewhere! But the point I'm trying to make is that taxes do go to things that you need..

[freakscene]

T
For god's sake, give the guy at least a few weeks in office before you start your bashing. He assembled his team much quicker than any other President, and tried his best to hit the ground running.

I do not think he is Messiah..or will be the greatest President ever. But before anything even happens, I'm not going to act like he's the worst either. Give him time...

I feel like you believe that your ideas are the only right ones...and I know some point in your life, you must have been wrong...at least ONCE!


First, i never supported McCain, nor did i vote for him. period.

Within Obama's first few weeks (days actually) he decided that even though we are in an economic crisis of biblical proportions, if you listen to his warnings, he still decided the crisis was not all that bad, and that sending my tax dollars and your tax dollars to foreign countries to promote abortions was a priority.

his 3rd executive order i believe.

are we in a crisis or not? if so, how is that being a good Shepard of tax payer dollars?

he assembled quite a team, a few tax dodgers and lobbyists (even though he promised an ethical administration and no lobbyists)

daschle is only the latest, republicans should be ashamed of themselves for rolling over on geithner and holder's confirmation.

the nerve of any of them for prosecuting anyone during the messiahs administration for not paying taxes will be the height of hypocrisy, though im certain the boot lickers will never understand it

i gave you a list to watch. socializing the banks, socializing health care, silencing talk radio, restricting the 2nd amendment

those are all things I would expect from Chavez and Castro.................and Obama.

not an American executive who understands liberty

and to answer your "question", I was wrong in believing my fellow countrymen were smart enough to never elect a socialist.

[freakscene]

Of the 30% of your income that you pay to the government by taxation, do you know how that is allocated? You speak as if a large part of it is used for raises to those in power...helping those with bad work ethic...etc...


mostly on unconstitutional social(ist) programs

[freakscene]

geez, here is a tax dodger that i was unaware of.

did obama nominate anyone ethical? i guess she gets some credit for withdrawing.

Performance czar withdraws candidacy

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9646DBG0&show_article=1

if obama is painting a picture, its that he admires those who screw the IRS, so much so that not paying taxes gets a pass to the front of the line

i challenge any of you to try it at home, and see if the oligarchy is as kind to you as they were to..............our new leader of the IRS

[concrete]

daschle is only the latest, republicans should be ashamed of themselves for rolling over on geithner and holder's confirmation.


I've never cared for Daschle, I thought he was an ineffective toady who caved to Bush at every opportunity. I think this is Obama's first serious political mistake. The Geitner thing seemed like what one could call a tax dispute, something that is routine for those of us who deal with the bastards on a regular basis, and my opinion it was just a typical attempt by the party out of power to blow something all out of proportion, but this Daschle thing seems to go beyond that. It involves a shitload of money, and is only one of many ethical problems he has. Obama wanted the guy bad because Daschle is a smooth operator especially on health care issues, and he knows all the big players in the Senate. But I think O's backing this guy was a mistake. Obama has stated he is going to ride this horse's ass - looks like he just got thrown.
His decision making as majority, then minority leader, was all bad. He is about as enthusiam-generating as a turnip. Worst of all, just looking at him reminds me of the Democrat's cave-in to Bush that gave The Worst President the green light to invade Iraq - I hate the bastard for that. The only thing I can figure is that he has photo's of Michelle Obama working at a Juarez donkey show.

[freakscene]

Daschle, I thought he was an ineffective toady who caved to Bush at every opportunity.

you do pay attention to politics, dont you?

have you any evidence to back this absurd claim up? (rhetorical, because ive come to learn you never have any)

he was labeled an "obstructionist" for a reason.

[concrete]

Some obstructionist. Here, have a history lesson, and keep in mind the Senate was controlled by the Democrats at the time:

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/11/iraq.us/

I'm glad the bastard is out, Obama needs to stay clear of the 2000-2002 Democratic pol leaders, they suck.

Note how the resolution reads "Bush can attack if Saddam won't give up his WMDs". What a f*cking sham, the guy didn't even have them, and Bush attacked. Daschle got played for a sucker.

And anyone who wants to see what an evil bastard Bush was, read this:

Iraq has denied having weapons of mass destruction and has offered to allow U.N. weapons inspectors to return for the first time since 1998. Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Tawab Al-Mulah Huwaish called the allegations "lies" Thursday and offered to let U.S. officials inspect plants they say are developing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

"If the American administration is interested in inspecting these sites, then they're welcome to come over and have a look for themselves," he said.

The White House immediately rejected the offer, saying the matter is up to the United Nations, not Iraq.

[freakscene]

thats 1 example

this is what you said

Daschle, I thought he was an ineffective toady who caved to Bush at every opportunity.

I'll make bold the part most glaringly wrong.

who caved to Bush at every opportunity.


1 example, does not "every opportunity" make

I'd also bet Daschle supported President Bill Clinton who made it official US policy of regime change in Iraq before he left office, based on Human Rights violations of the grossest kinds, and Saddam's ability/desire to make WMD

thats a history lesson you "democrats" love to forget

[madcowdisease]

Give Obama credit for admitting his mistake.

He clearly said when interviewed by Brian Williams that "I screwed up." That is about as much humility as we've seen from a President in 16 years.

[freakscene]

How much of a socialist is he, Bentley, that is the new question?


Obama caps executive pay tied to bailout money

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Obama-caps-executive-pay-tied-apf-14250829.html

the top 10 banks in America were forced to accept TARP money

now that they have, Obama's change, leads to wage caps

[freakscene]

you just cant make this stuff up

in the above link the messiah says

"But what gets people upset -- and rightfully so -- are executives being rewarded for failure. Especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers."

hmmmmmmmm

$500K spent on Dem caucus retreats

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/500k-spent-on-dem-caucus-retreats-2009-02-03.html


The House Democratic Caucus spent more than $500,000 in taxpayer money over the past five years for its annual retreats at resorts in Pennsylvania and Virginia.


“This retreat is strategic planning for the country,” said Democratic Caucus spokeswoman Emily Barocas. “The president, vice president and three Cabinet secretaries will be meeting with the caucus to plan the direction we are taking the country in.”


i wonder how many will fly on private jets ?

[BentleyVTech]

Does it not bother you that they, 'managed' their company right into failure?

Their employees lose jobs, stockholders lose oodles of money, and they somehow make it out with all of these 'bonuses' worth millions?!?

Someone needs to be held accountable in this situation - so far, the shareholders have been the accountable ones, because they are the ones that lost the $$$...and who better than the head honcho of the company?

You can call me a socialist, a bootlicker, or whatever else you want, but I see something wrong with that situation.


Obama is capping the $$$ the executives can make, but they will still receive stock options that will exceed the cap.

[freakscene]

Does it not bother you that they, 'managed' their company right into failure?

Their employees lose jobs, stockholders lose oodles of money, and they somehow make it out with all of these 'bonuses' worth millions?!?

Someone needs to be held accountable in this situation - so far, the shareholders have been the accountable ones, because they are the ones that lost the $$$...and who better than the head honcho of the company?

You can call me a socialist, a bootlicker, or whatever else you want, but I see something wrong with that situation.


Obama is capping the $$$ the executives can make, but they will still receive stock options that will exceed the cap.

managed ?

interesting that no one in the government who was responsible for the social engineering that created this mess lost their job, eh?

not barney frank
not chris dodd

yet, this somehow excuses Obama to begin capping private sector industry salaries (very much like Chavez or Castro mind you) ????????? that were forced to take TARP money

i hope he caps whatever profession you are in. id be interested in seeing your joy over it.

[BentleyVTech]

You always have a very unique way looking at things, I'll give you that. 'Managed', yes, is that weird? That an executive should manage a company to maximize shareholder value?!?

You can blame the financial sector problems on the government for wanting everyone to own a home (Greenspan)...or you can blame the actual companies that wanted to give mortgage loans to everyone, no matter their credit.

You can blame the government for the lack of regulation...or you can blame the companies for being to risky with shareholder money.

You are just anti-government, so thats why you always take your side. I personally think its both parties fault. The government should have had more regulation, and the banking companies should have conducted business responsibly.

You say he's 'capping' private sector companies salaries, which is too broad of a statement. He is capping the monetary salary of executives. Executives get paid in 2 ways, money & stock options. He is not touching the stock options, he is capping the salary they earn and the $$$ bonuses. not stock options!...because while they have been making tons of money...the stockholders, owners of the company, have been robbed of their money.

[freakscene]

its called incrementalism

it looks like the Unites States of Socialist American government believes it now has the authority to tell private companies what salaries should be.

keep in mind they forced the 10 largest banks to accept TARP money. they had no ability to deny it.

very Chavez-like
very Castro-like

I told you so.

and you dont call yourself a bootlicker ? :biggrin:

[BentleyVTech]

how many of the 10 biggest banks would have failed without the governments help?

[freakscene]

you have never learned anything about American history have you?

banks have failed before, and America survived it

they will fail again

especially if they are forced by the Federal government to loan money to people who cant afford to pay it back

[BentleyVTech]

"you have never learned anything about American history have you?"

"banks have failed before, and America survived it"

Please, tell me one time in American History where we had a banking crisis like we are having today...since I know nothing about American History according to you.

Sure if it would have been 1-2 banks failing, it wouldnt have been AS big of a deal.

Citi? Wachovia? Merrill Lynch? Lehman Bros?...the list could go on and on...and even insurance co. AIG?!?

But you still didnt answer my question, how many of the top 10 banks that received TARP funds would have failed without the TARP funds?????

[freakscene]

Please, tell me one time in American History where we had a banking crisis like we are having today...since I know nothing about American History according to you.

ok, well i'll provide this history lesson for free

in modern times:

over 2,000 from 1981-1989

534 banks failed in 1989 alone

925 from 1990 to 1999

ancient history:


312 from 1934 to 1939


now to expand on your education listen to what one of the messiah's closest advisors has to say about opportunities: (within the first few seconds)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mzcbXi1Tkk

they want this.
they need this.

they relish the opportunity to scare the dumbest of you

[Gordo]

managed ?

interesting that no one in the government who was responsible for the social engineering that created this mess lost their job, eh?

not barney frank
not chris dodd

yet, this somehow excuses Obama to begin capping private sector industry salaries (very much like Chavez or Castro mind you) ????????? that were forced to take TARP money

i hope he caps whatever profession you are in. id be interested in seeing your joy over it.

I like how you worded the bold text.

I agree government has alot to do with the mess we are in yet THEY (mostly democrats) keep blaming the Wall Street evildoers knowing all too well THEY mandated the disaster.

[BentleyVTech]

You can't just listen to the first few words out of a 5 minute video and know what he's saying...

where would the stock market be if AIG, WB, CITI, Merril Lynch...and many other banking/financial insitutions failed?

[freakscene]

You can't just listen to the first few words out of a 5 minute video and know what he's saying...

why ? he's rather precise. crystal clear. its pretty simple.

the point he makes in the first few seconds is supported by the rest of his words. the messiah is upholding it every day.

Obama from yesterday:

A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe and guarantee a longer recession, a less robust recovery, and a more uncertain future," he said

if the crisis is so bad, why not pass the 20 or 30% now that Congress agrees with, to get that part of the bill working? something a real leader would do, yes ?

here is your answer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mzcbXi1Tkk

where would the stock market be if AIG, WB, CITI, Merril Lynch...and many other banking/financial insitutions failed?


none of us know.

we also dont know what banks and institutions missed great opportunities ;)provided by free market capitalism at being able to buy some of these institutions and turn into the next "biggest banks of America"

instead, assets that may have ZERO value (we'll never know thanks to TARP), were dumped onto the American tax payer, based on this type of thinking:


A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe and guarantee a longer recession, a less robust recovery, and a more uncertain future," he said

[freakscene]

regarding the Fidel Castro-like, capping of salaries:

http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/090204/business_us_obama.html?.v=9

"This is pure political grandstanding. If the limit has bite, it will be counterproductive and the unintended consequences will hurt the U.S. as skilled and bright senior managers make choices," said David Kotok, chief investment officer at Cumberland Advisors. "If the limits have loopholes, they are a sham. Industrial policies fail. So will this one."


Obama's Salary Cap Could Seriously Hurt New York

http://wcbstv.com/politics/executive.pay.limits.2.927082.html


Expert Says Limit Will Lead To Critical Brain Drain For New York City, State

"Without the talent of Wall Street to bring us back into a position of leadership in the global economy, we're going to be in bad shape as a world economic power," said Kathryn Wilde of the Partnership for New York.

Wylde says the Obama salary cap will lead to a critical brain drain – China and the United Arab Emirates have already come to poach Wall Street talent. She also says lower salaries in the financial industry will mean dramatically lower tax revenues for the city and state.

"We also depend heavily on the financial services industry to fund our economy and our tax rolls," said Wylde. "Last year 20 percent of our income taxes in the states – 12 percent in New York City came from Wall Street."



the consequences of being duped by a slick marketing campaign, coming to fruition.

[freakscene]

Glenn Beck's

Comrade Obama Update.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuwgHNtyD54


Obama's Perks: Private Jet, Chef Tax-Free

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/CEOProfiles/Story?id=6806414&page=1

America's CEOs are coming under fire these days not just for their hefty salaries but also for their use of private jets, limos with drivers and free trips to posh resorts.
presidential pay

The president gets a private jet, driver, security and chef, all tax-free.

But they aren't alone in living this lavish lifestyle -- the president of United States gets all these perks and more.

And unlike some of his Cabinet appointments, he doesn't have to pay taxes on these benefits.

It might be a bit of a stretch to compare today's corporate titans with the commander in chief, but some Wall Street bloggers clearly upset with President Obama's attempts to rein in executive pay are doing just that.


the criticism he gets, is absolutely deserved

[freakscene]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090205/ap_on_go_pr_wh/congress_stimulus_126

Obama warns of need for stimulus bill right away

Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that,at some point, we may not be able to reverse," Obama wrote in the newspaper piece titled, "The Action Americans Need."


Unbelievable. i wonder if he actually believes this ?

thankfully, the American people arent buying this crap


http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/economic_stimulus_package/50_say_stimulus_plan_likely_to_make_things_worse

Fifty percent (50%) of U.S. voters say the final economic recovery plan that emerges from Congress is at least somewhat likely to make things worse rather than better


http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/economic_stimulus_package/support_for_stimulus_package_falls_to_37


Support for Stimulus Package Falls to 37%

[concrete]

Never would of seen this happen under W. This I like.


Senators going through stimulus bill 'line by line'Story Highlights


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A bipartisan group of senators said Thursday they were going "line by line" through the economic stimulus bill as they try to reach a compromise on an amendment to cut some spending from the package.


Sen. Susan Collins says senators worked late into the night on the stimulus bill.

Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Indiana, said there is a "backbone" to a deal, but the details were being worked out between the 12 Democrats and five Republicans at the meeting.

"It's been a painstaking, very thorough, very comprehensive process," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Republicans have objected to some provisions in the bill that they say have nothing to do with stimulating the economy.

The president stepped up his personal lobbying for the bill this week, holding a series of one-on-one meetings in the Oval Office on Wednesday with key senators still on the fence.

Obama met separately with Collins, Democrat Ben Nelson and Republican Olympia Snowe.

Collins said she went through some specific programs with the president to see which ones he would be willing to cut.

Collins said she was originally in favor of a bill that would have cost about $650 billion, but after meeting with Obama, she was convinced of the need for a proposal that would be in the neighborhood of $800 billion.

"But I will tell you, particularly on my side of the aisle, there is a vigorous debate over what the size of the package should be," she said.

"We don't want a package that is too small because that will end up just wasting money. On the other hand, we're very leery of having an enormous package that would not be necessary and would just boost the federal deficit," Collins said as Nelson nodded in agreement.

Collins took the information she got from the president and worked late into the night with Nelson to figure out what they can do to scrub unnecessary spending from the bill in a way that the White House and Democratic leaders will accept.

"Whatever you have in there ... you want to be as robust a stimulus as you can have it so that it's not just a spending bill," Nelson said.

The senators' aides were asked to leave the meeting while the lawmakers worked, and wound up standing in the hallway.

"We felt that staff could be helpful, but in this situation, that we needed to work with one another to put together something that we as members really can feel comfortable with, and use staff as a resource rather than the traditional way," Nelson said.

In the House, the leaders of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of conservative Democrats, sent a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi asking that some of the provisions Republicans have objected to be removed from the House bill and be taken up later outside of the stimulus debate.

"A number of other provisions were included that, while in and of themselves may be worthy of consideration in the regular order of business, were not properly included as part of an emergency spending package, with the nation facing what could be the worst economic recession since the Great Depression," the eight representatives wrote.

The House last week passed an $819 billion version of the plan, but no Republican voted in favor of it. The president has been trying to gain Republican support before the Senate votes on its version of the bill. See what's in the House bill »

The result of Thursday's meeting could determine whether Obama's stimulus bill goes to a vote in the Senate.

The president will need at least some Republican support in order to get the 60 votes needed to bring the bill before the full Senate.

The Senate has 56 Democrats and two Independents who usually vote with them. There are 41 Republicans.

President Obama is privately telling senators in both parties he is confident his economic recovery plan will pass in the Senate by the end of the week, according to two senior administration officials and two Congressional officials.

"We will have the votes," said a senior administration official.

Sources said that in meetings on Wednesday, Obama suggested he would accept minor changes to his tax cuts, but was open to pulling more of the controversial spending projects in the bill.

The Senate has been debating amendments to the bill all week.

The fate of the package has been in some doubt as the president ran into opposition from moderate Democrats and Republicans in the Senate who are concerned about some of the spending projects in the package.

Republicans have been pushing for more tax cuts and a greater emphasis on housing relief.

The Senate on Wednesday approved an amendment to offer a $15,000 tax credit to people who purchase a home in the next year.

The housing amendment -- introduced by Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Georgia -- was seen by some as a move to sweeten the deal for Republicans.

Getting the bill through the Senate by the end of the week would keep the legislation on track to be signed into law by Presidents Day, February 16, which has been Obama's target.


In an op-ed in the Washington Post on Thursday, Obama wrote, "What Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the urgency they feel in their daily lives -- action that's swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis." See the White House's estimate of the bills impact in each state »

"Every day, our economy gets sicker -- and the time for a remedy that puts Americans back to work, jump-starts our economy and invests in lasting growth is now," he wrote, reiterating the same message he's been sending in his interviews and speeches this week.

[freakscene]

The Fierce Urgency of Pork

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/05/AR2009020502766_pf.html

"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe."

-- President Obama, Feb. 4.

Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear." Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.

And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn't understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent.......

And yet more damaging to Obama's image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama's name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.

It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It's not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.

It's the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus -- and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress's own budget office says won't be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish. He said.


The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, reports the Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a new plan to repatriate overseas profits that would yield major tax savings. California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change a single phrase in one provision. Substituting "planted" for "ready to market" would mean a windfall garnered from a new "bonus depreciation" incentive.

After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone.

I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.

[freakscene]

heheheh

i just posted something similar, and now this breaks

i should work for the CBO

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/04/cbo-obama-stimulus-harmful-over-long-haul/

President Obama's economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday.

CBO, the official scorekeepers for legislation, said the House and Senate bills will help in the short term but result in so much government debt that within a few years they would crowd out private investment, actually leading to a lower Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years than if the government had done nothing.

[freakscene]

great read.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/02/sorry_o_i_won_wont_cover_this.html

If he had pledged in October to double federal domestic discretionary spending in a matter of weeks - including increasing the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts by a third, spending hundreds of millions more on federal buildings and throwing tens of billions on every traditional liberal priority from job training to Pell Grants - he'd have been hard-pressed to win at all.

The president should read the transcript of the third presidential debate. He claimed his program represented "a net spending cut." He called himself "a strong proponent of pay-as-you-go. Every dollar that I've proposed, I've proposed an additional cut so that it matches." He added, "We need to eliminate a whole host of programs that don't work."

[Gordo]

Americans heightened sense of their political/financial surroundings due to the past 6 months of financial turmoil has in my opinion twarted the pork spending of this latest proposed bill. I hope future bills come under the same srutiny for the benefit of future generations.

Flame away.

[freakscene]

i wouldnt say thwarted just yet.

harry reid is threatening a clouture vote Sunday

Voinovich is now voting no thankfully, which leaves Collins, Snowe and Specter as the only 3 Republicans they have left to sway

i've called all 3 offices today urging a no vote

let the party in power hang by this, should they pass is alone in the name of expediency

[madcowdisease]

Obama sounded a little fired up yesterday and Pelosi et al was ready to go.

Obama was doing a masterful job walking a center-left line before last night. His praise of Pelosi and blasting of the entire Republican party revealed his immaturity and lack of experience for the position.

I said it before, that Obama was in over his head. What hubris to think one man can change Washington. The system is designed to be plodding, methodical, and rather poor at abrupt changes. That is how it was designed. And when you have 585 Congressmen and women infighting this is what happens. Everyone has a say.

I hope Obama can come to grips with the fact this is not a dictatorship and those Representatives he is berating are representing real people like you and me. His 53% of the popular votes is not a dictatorship so I hope he is willing to acquiesce a little more in the future.

Pelosi et al feel they have a blank check in Obama and they just might if the minority party does not fight to restrain their profligate ambitions. Whether the deficit is his doing or not -- and I would argue that it partially is from his tenure as a Senator -- he must acknowledge it exists and not run us into the ground and turn the Greenback to heating fodder and toilet paper.

His antics and speech -- to childishly state the deficit is not his -- seemed immature to me. Analyze the mess we're in and do the best you can. A pork laden spending spree is never a prudent idea let alone when the credit card is already maxed out.

With that being said I do not utterly oppose a bailout package. I just ask that it be succinct, and precisely focused. This should not be viewed as an opportunity to pass leftist pet projects like increasing entitlement programs such as Federally subsidized healthcare (which Barack has done this week already).

[madcowdisease]

Something to think about when you hear comments regarding derugulation:

A MINORITY VIEW

BY WALTER E. WILLIAMS

RELEASE: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2009 AND THEREAFTER



Congress' Financial Mess



News media people, often plagued with little understanding, fail miserably in their duty to inform the public. This is particularly evident in their reporting on the current financial meltdown, suggesting it was caused by deregulation and free markets.

Professor David Henderson, research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, writes about regulation in "Are We Ailing From Too Much Deregulation?" in Cato Policy Report (November/December 2008). The Federal Register, which lists new regulations, annually averaged 72,844 pages between 1977 and 1980. During the Reagan years, the average fell to 54,335. During the Bush I years, they rose to 59,527, to 71,590 during the Clinton years and rose to a record of 75,526 during the Bush II years. Employees in government regulatory agencies grew from 146,139 in 1980 to 238,351 in 2007, a 63 percent increase. In the banking and finance industries, regulatory spending between 1980 and 2007 almost tripled, rising from $725 million to $2.07 billion. So here's my question: What are we to make of congressmen, talking heads and news media people who tell us the financial meltdown is a result of deregulation and free markets? Are they ignorant, stupid or venal?

A New York Times article, "Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending" (9/30/99), reported, "Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people …" The pressure was the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act that was beefed up during the Clinton Administration. It required banks to make high-risk loans they would not have otherwise made. Failure to comply meant fines and difficulty in getting approval for mergers and branch expansion.

When questions began to arise about government policy that intimidated lenders into making high-risk loans, we received congressional assurances. At hearings investigating the solvency of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Rep. Barney Frank said, ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.'' In a speech to the Mortgage Bankers Association, Frank advised, "People tend to pay their mortgages. I don't think we are in any remote danger here. This focus on receivership, I think, is intended to create fears that aren't there." Protesting against greater controls against lax mortgage lending, Sen. Harry Reid said, "While I favor improving oversight by our federal housing regulators to ensure safety and soundness, we cannot pass legislation that could limit Americans from owning homes and potentially harm our economy in the process."

One-third of the $15 trillion of mortgages in existence in 2008 are owned, or securitized by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae, the Federal Housing and the Veterans Administration. Wall Street buyers of repackaged loans didn't mind buying risky paper because they assumed that they would be guaranteed by the federal government: read bailout from the taxpayers. Today's housing mess can be laid directly at the feet of Congress and the White House.

Congress and the White House aren't finished with the taxpayers yet. Once a bailout parade gets started, it has a momentum of its own. President Bush, citing danger to the economy, signed a $17 billion bailout for the auto industry. According to the Wall Street Journal article "Shovel-Ready on Campus" (December 17, 2008), presidents of 36 state government universities have called for bailouts; they call it a "federal infusion of capital." Soon, if not already, state governors and city mayors will descend on Washington seeking bailouts. California is $15 billion in the hole, Florida $5 billion and things are so bad in Michigan that the governor has shut down one prison to save money.

What kind of assumptions do politicians and news media make about the intelligence of Americans to expect us to buy the idea that our current mess results from deregulation and free markets? I do not find that assumption flattering.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.


http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/articles/09/CongressFinancialMess.htm

[BentleyVTech]

How is this in the topic of Stock Picks and Strategies? I think it should be moved.

No strategies given here, just Obama hater talk. It has been 2.5 weeks since Obama has been in office, you all speak as if hes been there for 8 years. He did hit the ground running, and he's started to pick up speed, but damn - let him at least move in!!

Theres all this hate towards Obama before he's even done anything, wait til he f**ks up. Do you even remember the previous 8 years? Did you scrub everything political then like you do now?

[Gordo]

How is this in the topic of Stock Picks and Strategies? I think it should be moved.

No strategies given here, just Obama hater talk. It has been 2.5 weeks since Obama has been in office, you all speak as if hes been there for 8 years. He did hit the ground running, and he's started to pick up speed, but damn - let him at least move in!!

Theres all this hate towards Obama before he's even done anything, wait til he f**ks up. Do you even remember the previous 8 years? Did you scrub everything political then like you do now?



I see this thread as very informative. Regardless of you thinking it should be here or not, I actually learn something from it all. Some things are taken with a grain of salt and others are gleaned with an eye towards where our market may go based on Obama/congress decision.

Yeah, I am republican.....and yes I was critical of Bush matters I care not to delve into because that is in the past. Obama is now and I will be critical of his (and the congress) every move. Nuff said.


I realize the new TARP plan isn't out yet and can't be analyzed, but did you really like the previous plan?

[BuyOnDips]

Yeah, he's been in office 2.5 weeks and things are a disaster. So much for hope and change. :)

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson020609.html

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/02/obamas_shine_wears_off_faster.html

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/obama-hope-water-2301373-walk-didn

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123396623933859023.html

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OGUwZjlkZWE1YWNkYmVjMzQ4YTI4ZWRmMDhlODVhMmU=

FWIW, McCain would be almost as bad. But Obama is in way over his head and he can't vote "present". Romney was the guy to elect.

[madcowdisease]

"But please, do not just rob me of 30% of my labor to benefit only a few."MCD

Of the 30% of your income that you pay to the government by taxation, do you know how that is allocated? You speak as if a large part of it is used for raises to those in power...helping those with bad work ethic...etc...

And some of it does. Like you said,
"Many of the poor are poor because they don't possess a strong work ethic. How do we seperate the wheat from the chaffe? Level the playing field. It is the only fair way to approach the subject."

-But how do you determine which of the poor has strong vs. weak work ethic? When times are down, and unemployment raises dramatically, there are plenty more qualified to take over the jobs that were once held by those less fortunate and poor. I want to help those that want help to get on their feet, then walk on their own...and I do not want to help those that will continue to need a hand because they are lazy. But until you can come up with a better way to tell the 2 apart...there will always be ones who take advantage.


But MCD, a lot of your money does go to Schools, Roads, Police, Fire, Emergency Rescue. And of course there is corruption in there too...when your dealing with a country of 250-300+ million people, theres gonna be corruption somewhere! But the point I'm trying to make is that taxes do go to things that you need..

Bentley, I will admit I do not know what specific portion of the tax money taken from me is allocated to each individual project. However, I don't thnk it imperitive that I know so. I do know that government is taking my money, skimming their cut, and in many a pet project wasting it on pork and other constituent-enslaving services to guarantee their future election. I see it as self-preservation of the priviliged class -- the politicians.

As was stated in my post I have no qualms paying taxes directly on things that I use. In fact, I am in favor of a consumption tax. I have no beef with the gasoline tax as it goes directly to rebuilding roads. I do not have a problem with property tax, sales tax, sewer tax, telephone tax, etc. All of these taxes are taxes on the direct usage of something. But I do have a problem with the government jacking my paycheck and spending that money profligately. Allow me to control just how much tax I am subject to through behavior modification.

A consumption tax would place the biggest tax burden on the most prodigal of us -- athletes and musicians would freak. The McMansion, Ferrari, and new yacht just got a lot more expensive with a consumption tax. Also, think about the environmental benefit of a consumption tax. If conspicuous consumption were discouraged via a tax you would see less consumption and ergo a theortical reduction in the amount of natural resources used. Lumber, paper, coal, iron ore, etc. It would all be used much more wisely. Place the tax burden on the user and not the producer like we do now. We effectively tax productivity with an income tax.

I may have digressed a little but the pith of what I am trying to say is that I am looking for fairness. I do not think the fruit of my labor should be taken from me and doled out how some priviliged-class, self-serving politician sees fit.

[freakscene]

I think it should be moved.

of course you do. you probably also support silencing talk radio and any other outlet those who criticize obama will use.

No strategies given here, just Obama hater talk. It has been 2.5 weeks since Obama has been in office, you all speak as if hes been there for 8 years. He did hit the ground running, and he's started to pick up speed, but damn - let him at least move in!!

Theres all this hate towards Obama before he's even done anything, wait til he f**ks up. Do you even remember the previous 8 years? Did you scrub everything political then like you do now?

you probably would have been a Tory sympathizer during the Colonial period

In 2.5 weeks he's F***'ed up substantially enough to make me believe he will be worse than I predicted. from all the tax cheaters he nominated to the saul alinsky scare tactics he's used regarding the "stimulus"..........its been a domestic train wreck so far

and Internationally, the Russians, Iranians, and North Koreans are making him look like the empty suit he is. Pay attention, because you will be hard pressed to find the media explaining it to you. They are making a mockery of him.

By his 4th week in office he will add another Trillion to the national debt, even when objective CBO analysis says "doing nothing" will be better for the long term of our Country, than the bill he about to sign.

TARP 2 will add even more to the debt as a nice payout to a small collection of banker families.

And its being reported this morning that he is considering moving the Census oversight to the White House, despite what the Constitution says. If this is true, its yet another example of the Venezualation of America right in front of you.

madcowdisease:

I may have digressed a little but the pith of what I am trying to say is that I am looking for fairness. I do not think the fruit of my labor should be taken from me and doled out how some priviliged-class, self-serving politician sees fit.

while i certainly agree, i believe its too late. we're already a socialist welfare state.

the question is, for how much longer will the populace tolerate it.................

[useless]

while i certainly agree, i believe its too late. we're already a socialist welfare state.

the question is, for how much longer will the populace tolerate it.................

uh, half the populace , or close, is already the beneficiaries of the welfare. that is where the problem lies. you have the largest paid voting block ever

[freakscene]

you are right, and obama will increase it when he legalizes all those who violated US immigration policy.

[freakscene]

how many posters here plan on aging?

getting old sound nice?

retiring early perhaps and just enjoying life ?

Hey Bentley, remember that list I gave you to watch?

i knew some components were buried in this miserable legislation. i didnt know how much. if the below link is right, then this bill could all but Socialize the Health Care Industry

Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan: Betsy McCaughey

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_mccaughey&sid=aLzfDxfbwhzs

Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.

Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

link to EH

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.+1:

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.

New Penalties

Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)

What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.

The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.

Elderly Hardest Hit

Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.



Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”

More Scrutiny Needed

On Friday, President Obama called it “inexcusable and irresponsible” for senators to delay passing the stimulus bill. In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.

The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy.

[BuyOnDips]

how many posters here plan on aging?

getting old sound nice?

retiring early perhaps and just enjoying life ?

Hey Bentley, remember that list I gave you to watch?

i knew some components were buried in this miserable legislation. i didnt know how much. if the below link is right, then this bill could all but Socialize the Health Care Industry

Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan: Betsy McCaughey

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_mccaughey&sid=aLzfDxfbwhzs



link to EH

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.+1:

Scary stuff. Are we headed for "Logan's Run"? How about "Soylent Green"? Of course Congress members and their families will be exempt from any health laws.

"Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem." - Ronald Reagan

[freakscene]

We Are All Socialists Now

http://www.newsweek.com/id/183663

Bush brought the Age of Reagan to a close; now Obama has gone further, reversing Bill Clinton's end of big government. The story, as always, is complicated. Polls show that Americans don't trust government and still don't want big government.

67% Say They Could Do A Better Job On The Economy Than Congress

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics2/67_say_they_could_do_a_better_job_on_the_economy_t han_congress

58% Say Most Congress Members Won’t Know Stimulus Plan When They Vote On It

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/february_2009/58_say_most_congress_members_won_t_know_stimulus_p lan_when_they_vote_on_it

On Economic Issues, Voter Trust in Democrats Is Falling

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/trust_on_issues/trust_on_issues

[BuyOnDips]

The current economy is like a kayak on a deep lake with a punctured hole spewing in water. Obama and the Democrats solution to fix the problem is to drill a much larger hole in the kayak to let the water drain out.

P.S.
Paul Krugman is upset because he wants even a larger hole drilled in the kayak.

:)

I wished we lived in boring times. At least 1 sector in retail is doing well... http://www.kvbc.com/Global/story.asp?S=9695992
I'll give Obama and Biden credit for that. :)

[concrete]

Just look at history. The Great Depression lasted for years until the government instituted a massive stimulus program known as "World War II". The stimulus package is the same idea, we just don't kill anyone this time.

[freakscene]

Just look at history. The Great Depression lasted for years until the government instituted a massive stimulus program known as "World War II". The stimulus package is the same idea, we just don't kill anyone this time.

wrong, although its a common "democrat" talking point they like to use when defending oppressive, big government

thankfully, what WWII did, was put an end to FDR's new deal programs which kept the economy from recovering on its own.

once those ended, life eventually recovered.

and BuyonDips

Krugman may be one of the biggest boobs at the NYT. and thats saying something ~!

I wished we lived in boring times. At least 1 sector in retail is doing well... http://www.kvbc.com/Global/story.asp?S=9695992
I'll give Obama and Biden credit for that. :)

dont worry. soon enough "common sense" legislation will kill that American liberty too ;)

[Rich]

you are right, and obama will increase it when he legalizes all those who violated US immigration policy.

Why is it that grandma needs a passport to go to Canada but we give driving licenses to illegal’s, social security, welfare, free medical and other things?
The reason is the same as every other liberal issue and action of the past, to advance the liberal addenda no matter if it harms the innocent as long as their agenda is advanced. More illegal’s means more liberals and all those illegals will vote for democrats and the party knows it. They wish to upset the balance of power and will sell their own souls to accomplish it. History shows they have sold their souls in the past with laws protecting perverts and instead of calling any woman who has an abortion a murderer, tramp and disgusting pig as they are, they make laws under a façade of ‘RIGHTS”, instead of calling it MURDER as it is. So not stopping the illegals is NOTHING compared to their other atrocities! After all, doesn’t the ‘end justifies the means’?

[concrete]

. History shows they have sold their souls in the past with laws protecting perverts and instead of calling any woman who has an abortion a murderer, tramp and disgusting pig as they are, they make laws under a façade of ‘RIGHTS”, instead of calling it MURDER as it is.

Abortion is a sin. The only cure is rampant homosexuality. Just ask any Catholic priest.

[freakscene]

Will the stimulus actually stimulate? Economists say no

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/62082.html

"I think (doing) nothing would have been better," said Ed Yardeni, an investment analyst who's usually an optimist, in an interview with McClatchy. He argued that the plan fails to provide the right incentives to spur spending.

"It's unfocused. That is my problem. It is a lot of money for a lot of nickel-and- dime programs.

"All this is 25 years of government expansion jammed into one bill and sold as stimulus," said Brian Riedl, the director of budget analysis for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy research group.


SURPRISE! Dems Break Promise

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30697

In a press conference Thursday, the House Republican leadership spoke candidly about being kept out of the House-Senate conference on the Obama-Pelosi-Reid so-called “economic stimulus” bill. They confirmed they had not yet seen the text of the bill as of 4 p.m.

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he was unsure how many Democrats would vote with Republicans again on this bill but that he thought Republicans “may get a few” Democrats to side with them. The fact that the Demos have now broken their promise to have the public able to see the bill for 48 hours may drive more Dems into the Republican camp.

“[I] don’t know, ‘cause they haven’t seen the bill either,” Boehner said

“The American people have a right to know what’s in this bill,” Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind) told HUMAN EVENTS after the press conference. “Every member of Congress -- Republicans and Democrats -- voted to post this bill on the internet for 48 hours, 48 hours ago. We’ll see if the Democrats keep their word.”



D'oh! Caterpillar CEO Contradicts President on Whether Stimulus Will Allow Him to Re-Hire Laid Off Workers

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/02/doh-caterpillar.html

President Obama today repeated the claim we asked about yesterday at the press briefing that Jim Owens, the CEO of Caterpillar, Inc., "said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off."

Caterpillar announced 22,000 layoffs last month.

But after the president left the event, Owens said the exact opposite.

Asked if the stimulus package would be able to stop the 22,000 layoffs or not, Owens said, "I think realistically no. The truth is we're going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again"


and this one is the best of all

GOP's Gregg Quits Over 'Irresolvable Conflicts' With Obama on Stimulus, Census

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123447333424979131.html

Census, eh Bentley? are you paying attention, or burying your head in the sand hoping to wake up from a bad dream......................

Gregg said

Like most Americans I really wanted to believe that President Obama, was, well, American. But after accepting his nomination, and then working closely with him, it became quite apparent, that he really doesn't have anything in common with Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Abe Lincoln, or Ben Franklin. It became apparent he really is more like Hugo Chavez, and I just can't work for Hugo Chavez type policies

ok, i paraphrased :p

add another week to what might be shaping up as perhaps one of the worst "hit the ground running" attempts ever.

[freakscene]

Democratic Senator Predicts None of His Colleagues 'Will Have the Chance' to Read Final Stimulus Bill Before Vote

http://cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=43478


how important is it then?

The bill is expected to land on President Obama’s desk no later than Monday, and the president is expected to sign it into law--whether the nation's lawmakers have read it or not.

lovely

[BentleyVTech]

In his statement, Mr. Gregg cited "irresolvable conflicts," including the stimulus package, which most Republicans have deemed bloated. Still, its outlines were well known when Mr. Gregg accepted the nomination.

You can read it how ever you choose..here's your quote,

add another week to what might be shaping up as perhaps one of the worst "hit the ground running" attempts ever.

After re-reading your own quote, freakscene, please re-read the above quote from the article...highlighting that the outlines of the Stimulus package were WELL KNOWN when Mr. Gregg accepted the nomination. So it looks like Mr. Gregg's indecisiveness has slowed up Obama's crew...you can't blame that one on Obama trying to reach across the aisle.


Asked about the census issue, Mr. Gregg said the issue was so insignificant that he would not even address it, though he had highlighted the matter in an earlier statement. He had warm words for Mr. Obama, saying he expected to help him move future legislation through the Senate.


Last fall, Mr. Gregg played a key role in the struggle to enact the $700 billion bank bailout plan, helping in negotiations that brought together Republican and Democratic leaders behind the Bush initiative. He was perceived as a fair broker, and the Obama White House hoped he would help build bridges to Republicans in Congress, especially on economic policy.

Read the bolded words in the above quote, and then read the quote below...now what party is it trying harder to make it a D vs. R battle?!?

A number of Republicans praised Mr. Gregg for deciding in the end not to join Mr. Obama, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), who said: "Sen. Gregg made a principled decision to return and we're glad to have him."

I don't appreciate your last quote in your post...Gregg never said anything about Obama being un-American, and never said anything about him being like Chavez.

[freakscene]

I don't appreciate your last quote in your post...Gregg never said anything about Obama being un-American, and never said anything about him being like Chavez.

well, i said i paraphrased him. :)

besides, the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Investors Business Daily all made the Chavez / Obama comparisons rather frequently last year

you just chose to ignore them.

its rather hard to ignore now isnt it?

i hope you enjoy that whopping $13 a week "tax cut"

edit >> and you ignored Obama's latest frequent lie about what the CEO of CAT said :)

[BuyOnDips]

The Democrats want the massive pork bill passed before any of the congressmen can actually read the entire bill. Simply amazing.

http://cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=43478

Is that the hope and change you Obama voters were looking for? What a disaster.

[concrete]

Support for the stimulus package is UP:

http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg85/concretisttexas/support.gif

http://www.gallup.com/poll/114577/Stimulus-Support-Edges-Higher.aspx

[freakscene]

yup

when Obama lies, like he is doing about CAT, the lemmings believe him without doing any research

go socialism !
go stupid obama supporters !!

http://s593.photobucket.com/albums/tt12/heyobama/flag.gif

[BentleyVTech]

The Democrats want the massive pork bill passed before any of the congressmen can actually read the entire bill. Simply amazing.

I was waiting for a comment like that! SO you're telling me that the stimulus plan in the Fall (under a Republican President) wasn't full of pork?!?!?!

Thats exactly what I'm talking about, playing the blame game against one and the other. You think that the Democrats are the only one that put pork in a bill?! Its both parties, and its gotta stop if the government is ever going to be efficient and transparent.

But yeah, you can keep saying my head is buried in the sand - when you are wearing blinders too!

[freakscene]

boot licker

[BentleyVTech]

President Obama today repeated the claim we asked about yesterday at the press briefing that Jim Owens, the CEO of Caterpillar, Inc., "said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off."

Caterpillar announced 22,000 layoffs last month.

But after the president left the event, Owens said the exact opposite.

Asked if the stimulus package would be able to stop the 22,000 layoffs or not, Owens said, "I think realistically no. The truth is we're going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again"

To show you I didnt "ignore" the post...

They might have to lay off some more people in the near term...because once the stimulus bill gets passed, the government said it will get the construction $$$ out within 120 days....4 months.

But once they do get the money, they WILL be rehiring. So maybe Obama did paint a rosier picture than it actually is...but it wasn't a flat out lie, because they will be re-hiring soon - and the CEO even said that.

[BentleyVTech]

boot licker

I'll take that as a point for me. If thats the only comeback, you obviously dont have much...so now go on and try to distort things to try and prove a point again.

[freakscene]

ya mean like this ?

Obama:

"Today, the chairman and CEO of Caterpillar said that if the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan passes, his company would be able to rehire some of those employees."

CEO of CAT:

"I think realistically no. The truth is we're going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again"

boot licker

[freakscene]

Congressional Offices Don't Have the Stimulus Bill, Lobbyists Do

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/washington-whispers/2009/2/12/congressional-offices-dont-have-the-stimulus-bill-lobbyists-do.html


:top:

[freakscene]

http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2009/02/01/GR2009020100154.gif

less than 100 billion for infrastructure

the rest is pure crap, not stimulus

[freakscene]

Change you can believe in Bentley !

lets get more people on welfare !!

Obama warned over ‘welfare spendathon’

The new administration's economic stimulus plan may undo reforms that cut the dole queues, critics say

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5733499.ece

RONALD REAGAN started it, Bill Clinton finished it and last week Barack Obama was accused of engineering its destruction. One of the few undisputed triumphs of American government of the past 20 years – the sweeping welfare reform programme that sent millions of dole claimants back to work – has been plunged into jeopardy by billions of dollars in state handouts included in the president’s controversial economic stimulus package.

Robert Rector, a prominent welfare researcher who was one of the architects of Clinton's 1996 reform bill, warned last week that Obama’s stimulus plan was a “welfare spendathon” that would amount to the largest one-year increase in government handouts in American history.

Douglas Besharov, author of a big study on welfare reform, said the stimulus bill passed by Congress and the Senate in separate votes on Friday would “unravel” most of the 1996 reforms that led to a 65% reduction in welfare caseloads and prompted the British and several other governments to consider similar measures.

Rector, a senior scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation, argued that Obama’s spending proposals in effect encouraged individual states to add more families to their welfare rolls; the more Americans sign on to the dole, the more state budgets will benefit from US Treasury payouts.

“They have completely overturned the fiscal and policy foundations of welfare reform,” Rector complained.

Even Mickey Kaus, a prominent liberal blogger, has denounced what he describes as the “get more people on welfare” provisions of Obama’s bill. Writing at Slate, the political website, Kaus said: “Lack of jobs isn’t a reason to loosen work requirements . . . Have the Dems never heard of ‘workfare’?

“Give recipients useful community service work, and if they do the work, then they get the [welfare] cash.”

Opinion polls last week showed that for all his administration’s errors in his first three weeks in office, the new president has lost little of his personal appeal. He continues to enjoy an average 64% approval rating.

Yet after another fracas over the withdrawal of the Republican senator Judd Gregg as Obama’s choice for commerce secretary – the second time a nominee has given up the post – Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, was obliged to insist that it was not “amateur hour” at the White House.

Obama also stumbled over a curious claim that his stimulus plan would enable Caterpillar, one of America’s leading manufacturers of heavy earth-moving equipment, to start rehiring workers. He was promptly contradicted by the company’s chief executive, who said he had no such intention and was planning more lay-offs.

The dangers are beginning to pile up for the novice president and his struggling economic crew.

[freakscene]

a good, brief, historical analysis

Obama's Rhetoric Is the Real 'Catastrophe'

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123457303244386495.html

President Barack Obama has turned fearmongering into an art form. He has repeatedly raised the specter of another Great Depression. First, he did so to win votes in the November election. He has done so again recently to sway congressional votes for his stimulus package.

In his remarks, every gloomy statistic on the economy becomes a harbinger of doom. As he tells it, today's economy is the worst since the Great Depression. Without his Recovery and Reinvestment Act, he says, the economy will fall back into that abyss and may never recover.

This fearmongering may be good politics, but it is bad history and bad economics. It is bad history because our current economic woes don't come close to those of the 1930s. At worst, a comparison to the 1981-82 recession might be appropriate. Consider the job losses that Mr. Obama always cites. In the last year, the U.S. economy shed 3.4 million jobs. That's a grim statistic for sure, but represents just 2.2% of the labor force. From November 1981 to October 1982, 2.4 million jobs were lost -- fewer in number than today, but the labor force was smaller. So 1981-82 job losses totaled 2.2% of the labor force, the same as now.

Job losses in the Great Depression were of an entirely different magnitude. In 1930, the economy shed 4.8% of the labor force. In 1931, 6.5%. And then in 1932, another 7.1%. Jobs were being lost at double or triple the rate of 2008-09 or 1981-82.



This was reflected in unemployment rates. The latest survey pegs U.S. unemployment at 7.6%. That's more than three percentage points below the 1982 peak (10.8%) and not even a third of the peak in 1932 (25.2%). You simply can't equate 7.6% unemployment with the Great Depression.

Other economic statistics also dispel any analogy between today's economic woes and the Great Depression. Real gross domestic product (GDP) rose in 2008, despite a bad fourth quarter. The Congressional Budget Office projects a GDP decline of 2% in 2009. That's comparable to 1982, when GDP contracted by 1.9%. It is nothing like 1930, when GDP fell by 9%, or 1931, when GDP contracted by another 8%, or 1932, when it fell yet another 13%.

Mr. Obama's analogies to the Great Depression are not only historically inaccurate, they're also dangerous. Repeated warnings from the White House about a coming economic apocalypse aren't likely to raise consumer and investor expectations for the future. In fact, they have contributed to the continuing decline in consumer confidence that is restraining a spending pickup. Beyond that, fearmongering can trigger a political stampede to embrace a "recovery" package that delivers a lot less than it promises. A more cool-headed assessment of the economy's woes might produce better policies.

[coolio]

a good, brief, historical analysis

Obama's Rhetoric Is the Real 'Catastrophe'

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123457303244386495.html

Wait a minute, didn't George "W" Bush and Paulson use the same kind of language when selling their $800B bank bailout?

[kingfisher]

George "W" didn't ask anyone! He Just enacted his desires via the war
. ACT!
We will pay for a long time to come IMO.

[BuyOnDips]

Mark Steyn: So far, it's been Obamateur Hour :)

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/obama-trillion-president-2308155-events-world

When you find yourself in a deep hole, the first thing you should do is stop digging. Obama and the Democrats solution to our problem is to use a bigger shovel.

[freakscene]

Wait a minute, didn't George "W" Bush and Paulson use the same kind of language when selling their $800B bank bailout?

very similar and it was equally wrong and damaging

however, i know that short term memory is sort of a skill, but not long ago obama was preaching about rejecting the "politics of fear" almost daily on the campaign trail

hence the very well deserved criticism since the moment he was elected he began using the politics of fear as well as anyone

George "W" didn't ask anyone! He Just enacted his desires via the war


i believe he asked Congress who granted authority; unconstitutionally perhaps, but they granted it.

its history

BuyonDips - obamateur hehehe i like that

[freakscene]

Emboldened Hugo Chávez to speed up his Bolivarian Revolution

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5747992.ece

An emboldened Hugo Chávez vowed to speed up “the construction of true socialism” in Venezuela after winning the right to stand for reelection indefinitely – a measure that opponents say puts the country on the path to dictatorship.

Venezuelans on Sunday voted 54 percent in favor of constitutional reform sought by President Hugo Chavez to run for unlimited reelection, in his bid to consolidate his brand of socialism critics compare to Cuba's communism

Obama's State Department congratulates Chavez

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.996d5cb1e73d96f0dfd0871ab8daba1 f.3f1&show_article=1

The United States Tuesday welcomed Venezuela's "civic" referendum lifting term limits for the president and all politicians, but urged support for democracy and tolerance in the country.

"We congratulate the civic and participatory spirit of the millions of Venezuelans who exercized their democratic right to vote," State Department spokesman Noel Clay told AFP.


its almost becoming comical

[freakscene]

Obama plan seeks to attack home mortgage foreclosures at heart of nation's economic crisis

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/090218/obama_home_foreclosures.html

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting the president, said the Obama administration also would use Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to help prevent borrowers from defaulting on their mortgages, and create national standards for loan modifications.


well, they certainly have a solid track record worthy of such responsibility

[BentleyVTech]

b00tlicker
:dito:
:dito:
:dito:
:dito:
:dito:
:dito:
:dito:
:dito:
:dito:

[0ICU812]

Fu#$#$%rs. I wish they let the markets bottom until buyers would come in and buy. All the bail outs do is prolong the problem. Heck, I'd put money in mortgages, land, whatever, if the risk/return was worth it. All they are doing is delaying the inevitable price realization.

[BuyOnDips]

The government won't be able to stop the fall in housing prices. They might slow it down some and make the pain much longer, but they won't be able to stop it. It's like a company facing terrible future sales that decides to buy back stock hoping to prop up their stock price. Eventually, the buy backs run out and the stock tanks to the market level. It's bad for a company to do that(wasting cash trying to make an artificial stock price). It's bad for the government to interfere with housing prices as well(I thought affordable housing was a good thing). IMO, housing prices have a long way to fall. And that won't be good for most bank's balance sheet.

http://optionarmageddon.ml-implode.com/2009/02/16/60-minutes-on-my-favorite-topic-option-arms/

[freakscene]

I'm certain everyone heard the Obamateur's plan today regarding the housing crisis; including Bentley who appears to live in some fantasy socialist world of denial.

Obama is going to reward those who borrowed beyond their ability to pay their mortgage.

he's going to punish those who actually played by the rules, by using their tax money to reward those who borrowed beyond their ability to pay their mortgage.

and he's going to lecture banks, bankers, lenders and all of us to live within our means..........

after signing a trillion dollar ponzi scam (of 100% borrowed money they have no plan to pay back), and accepting no responsibility for being part of the problem that caused the entire fiasco.

staggering isnt it ?

is there any doubt the obamorons accept his every word, and believe this is good for the country ?

[freakscene]

Fu#$#$%rs. I wish they let the markets bottom until buyers would come in and buy. All the bail outs do is prolong the problem. Heck, I'd put money in mortgages, land, whatever, if the risk/return was worth it. All they are doing is delaying the inevitable price realization.

you are correct, but we live in a time where socialized education has dumbed down the citizenry for decade after decade to the point of them actually believing socialism is a great way to go !

look at Bentley sucking this all up

[freakscene]

TRADERS REVOLT: CNBC HOST CALLS FOR NEW 'TEA PARTY'; CHICAGO FLOOR MOCKS OBAMA PLAN

VIDEO: 'The government is promoting bad behavior... do we really want to subsidize the losers' mortgages... This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor's mortgage? President Obama are you listening? How about we all stop paying our mortgage! It's a moral hazard'...


http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1039849853

[BuyOnDips]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEZB4taSEoA&eurl=http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/

[freakscene]

welcome to cuba north

Oklahoma City police officer pulls man over for anti-Obama sign on vehicle

http://www.newsok.com/okc-officer-pulls-man-over-for-anti-obama-sign-on-vehicle/article/3347038?custom_click=headlines_widget

[madcowdisease]

I'm certain everyone heard the Obamateur's plan today regarding the housing crisis; including Bentley who appears to live in some fantasy socialist world of denial.

Obama is going to reward those who borrowed beyond their ability to pay their mortgage.

he's going to punish those who actually played by the rules, by using their tax money to reward those who borrowed beyond their ability to pay their mortgage.

and he's going to lecture banks, bankers, lenders and all of us to live within our means..........

after signing a trillion dollar ponzi scam (of 100% borrowed money they have no plan to pay back), and accepting no responsibility for being part of the problem that caused the entire fiasco.

staggering isnt it ?

is there any doubt the obamorons accept his every word, and believe this is good for the country ?

Freakscene, I'm not siding with the profligate spending of the current Presidential administration or the previous administration. I've always considered myself fiscally conservative and side more with Ron Paul than any other federal official I am aware of.

With that being said, is it possible your broad generalization quoted above is mired in ideology rather than pragmatism? I proffer my own scenario for consideration. Being extremely conservative my home mortgage, with PMI, Escrow, etc. cost my household 19% of monthly gross income at purchase. Due to a sizeable raise in salary our mortgage now runs at 16% of monthly gross income. We do not have one of those exotic mortgages. We're talking a safe, conservative 30-year fixed non-FHA, mortgage. Very standard. Very safe.

However, the primary wage earner in our household is facing termination of employment. Should this manifest, and it is likely, our mortgage will consume 54% of the remaining household income. Employment prospects are bleak and it is almost certain we would not be able to replace the lost wage. A couple part-time jobs may be able to get us to the point where the mortgage only consume 35% of the monthly gross income but we must still pay utilities such as gas, electric, water, trash collection. We must still buy food and we do not eat out but twice a month. Furthermore, we would have another dependent on the sole full-time wage earners health insurance further raising the draw on the salary. In addition, we have one car payment, which we would be forced to sell, but insurance is mandatory for all vehicles according to state law and we still have to buy gasoline.

This would leave us in a situation where 401(k) contributions would probably not be feasible and raids on past Roth contributions would become necessary. As you can imagine when you can't afford to save and are living paycheck to paycheck any aspirations to further one's qualifications via continuing education to increase employment marketability would go out the window.

So while I don't necessarily agree with TARP, TARP 2, the undisclosed trillions of dollars in liquidity injections by the Federal Reserve, and the most recent $800 billion "stimulus" of governmental pet projects, perhaps the pragmatism of Obama's proposal to keep people in their homes is the one thing our government may get right.

If I foreclose on my house it will simply add to the two that are already for sale in the neighborhood further depressing prices. And much of the problem is not only foreclosures but buyers of the last 5 years walking away since they are so upside-down on their mortgage they can't see ever breaking even. Not that I condone this but know that it exists.

So in a way aren't we all in this mess together? What does foreclosing on my house do to benefit you? I can think of a handful of ways it harms my neighbors. Maybe limiting mortgage payments to 31% of gross income by governmental decree is a prudent move for the time being? This precipitous decline in the stock market, the eroding of public confidence and the loss of jobs is all attributable to the housing mess. If there is a way to put a floor under housing then shouldn't we do it?

Even Cramer's forbearance idea seems reasonable. Lower the principal owed on these properties, since they were so inflated to begin with, and issue certificates to the banks that entitles them to the original loan amount upon sale, assuming price appreciation. Also, prohibit home equity loans while the certificate is in effect.

I think the point of the President's plan, and Cramer's as well, is to simply stop the hemorrhaging of foreclosures. This would work wonders to restore public confidence and get people focused on living life again. Only the dimmest of us are capable of living blissfully while the threat of job loss and foreclosure is nigh.

I will argue my household did everything right and a deep recession threatens to erase all of it. Is it too much to ask that some government intervention be welcomed or applauded in this case?

[madcowdisease]

welcome to cuba north

Oklahoma City police officer pulls man over for anti-Obama sign on vehicle

http://www.newsok.com/okc-officer-pulls-man-over-for-anti-obama-sign-on-vehicle/article/3347038?custom_click=headlines_widget

This situation, while initially problematic, was corrected by the officer's superior. Hopefully the citizen is a reasonable individual and does not proceed with a frivolous lawsuit a la the idiot who burnt himself with McDonald's coffee.

[Gordo]

Madcow. I see your pain. Here is another side of the coin from my perspective. I am a small business owner of 15 years working in the residential home remodeling industry. We started on a shoestring back in the day and have built a nice client base. The company has employed up to 4 full time workers over the years providing some with retirement benefits. I too have a family like yours.

Here we are and I am as busy as ever (never advertised---word of mouth only) while some of my competitors are falling like flies. The bottom line is this: I know exactly how you feel because I've been living 'on the edge' not knowing where my next job is coming from for 15 years. We as a country can't rely on govament to bail us out. You need to make it happen.

I'm tired of the taxes, lazy people expecting handouts (most of my former employees), goverment mandating frivolous business employment laws, OSHA, etc. Funny thing is all of these things I'm tired of are funded by my hard work. The govament madness must stop!

[Hondaboy]

Gordo super nice post!

[freakscene]

This situation, while initially problematic, was corrected by the officer's superior. Hopefully the citizen is a reasonable individual and does not proceed with a frivolous lawsuit a la the idiot who burnt himself with McDonald's coffee.

Yes they did.

He is well within his right to a just lawsuit though.

The secret service had no reason to show up at his house. Of course he let them inside on his own, like most people would who wouldnt want more trouble. imagine what would have happened had he denied them access ?

i hope he sues the pants off the obama administration.

[freakscene]

Transportation secretary says taxing how much we drive may replace gasoline tax

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-lahood-vehicle-mileage-tax,0,6754105,print.story

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says he wants to consider taxing motorists based on how many miles they drive rather than how much gasoline they burn — an idea that has angered drivers in some states where it has been proposed.

in a way i dont understand this, because it will punish "the poor" much more than those that can afford it.

i do understand that they are worried about losing revenue from gas taxes based on higher fuel standards though

just another new tax coming at you.

[madcowdisease]

Madcow. I see your pain. Here is another side of the coin from my perspective. I am a small business owner of 15 years working in the residential home remodeling industry. We started on a shoestring back in the day and have built a nice client base. The company has employed up to 4 full time workers over the years providing some with retirement benefits. I too have a family like yours.

Here we are and I am as busy as ever (never advertised---word of mouth only) while some of my competitors are falling like flies. The bottom line is this: I know exactly how you feel because I've been living 'on the edge' not knowing where my next job is coming from for 15 years. We as a country can't rely on govament to bail us out. You need to make it happen.

I'm tired of the taxes, lazy people expecting handouts (most of my former employees), goverment mandating frivolous business employment laws, OSHA, etc. Funny thing is all of these things I'm tired of are funded by my hard work. The govament madness must stop!

My best friend from childhood joined his father in a business scenario much like the one you've described so I feel I can relate. As I said in my more verbose post, I am fiscally conservative. I'm not championing TARP, TARP 2, or the stimulus. In fact I wrote my Rep demanding that he vote against all of them plus the homebuilder bailout from last year.

All I am saying is that Obama's plan to address the root cause of this issue - home foreclosure - may very well be a prudent move. It appears that this plan has been lumped in with all the other profligate expenditures from No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, Homebuilder Bailout, TARP, and the stimulus that no one is giving it a close examination but rather casting it off as spendthrift. I guess you've all become so skeptical and jaded that anything that finds its genesis in Washington DC is labelled crap and the mortgage plan Obama presented is the proverbial straw that broke the camels back.

I would urge you to look deeper. It looks cogent and succinct vis-a-vis the recent $800 billion stimulus of pet projects. Obama stated he was looking to assist homeowners who were still faithfully making payments and those that were on the brink. I don't think he's handing out real estate deeds a la welfare. Seriously, there are people out there that, tragically, are collateral damage in this mess. They didn't buy too much house or get involved in a no doc or interest-only loan. They only played with the cards they were dealt. They bought a house in a market where the price had been driven up due to unregulated and unethical behavior. So what if their upside down on their loan by 20%, they're still paying. And they are one lost job away from foreclosure due to a economic contraction where they were not a dealer at the table or even a player but simply a spectator.

I would draw the analogy to the case for innocent until proven guilty. Should we not err on the side of caution and risk letting 10 guilty persons go free rather than incarcerate one innocent individual? I think our societal ethos agree so. Ergo, if the Federal Government can help legitimate, hard working, and prudent citizens at this time of need should it not try to do what it can?

Yes they did.

He is well within his right to a just lawsuit though.

The secret service had no reason to show up at his house. Of course he let them inside on his own, like most people would who wouldnt want more trouble. imagine what would have happened had he denied them access ?

i hope he sues the pants off the obama administration.

I agree he has the right to sue. But is the suit monetarily driven or motivated by a need to exact change? If this guy seeks restitution from the government it is only you and I that will end up paying. However if he wishes to exempt his sign, and all future signs for that matter, from further investigation by the government then by all means push for case law via a legal precedent.

[freakscene]

months ago i said if the obamateur punishes successful Americans with higher taxes, the DOW falls beneath 7,000 and goes to 5,300

here we are

Obama to Unveil an Ambitious Budget Plan

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/21/AR2009022100911_pf.html

President Obama is putting the finishing touches on an ambitious first budget that seeks to cut the federal deficit in half over the next four years, primarily by raising taxes on business and the wealthy and by slashing spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, administration officials said.



doesnt look like his second month will be any better than his fisrt disaster

you can ignore the slashing in spending, because his budget will take more steps at socializing health care

[coolio]

months ago i said if the obamateur punishes successful Americans with higher taxes, the DOW falls beneath 7,000 and goes to 5,300

here we are

Obama to Unveil an Ambitious Budget Plan

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/21/AR2009022100911_pf.html





doesnt look like his second month will be any better than his fisrt disaster

you can ignore the slashing in spending, because his budget will take more steps at socializing health care

Richest 1% off Americans did really well the last 30 or so years. Maybe, all good things must come to an end?

[freakscene]

Democrat Senator Byrd, calls Obama's policies, Chavez-like

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/19303.html

[freakscene]

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/02/obamas-budget-a.html

Obama's Budget: Almost $1 Trillion in New Taxes Over Next 10 yrs, Starting 2011

February 26, 2009 12:00 PM

President Obama's budget proposes $989 billion in new taxes over the course of the next 10 years, starting fiscal year 2011, most of which are tax increases on individuals.

1) On people making more than $250,000.

$338 billion - Bush tax cuts expire
$179 billlion - eliminate itemized deduction
$118 billion - capital gains tax hike

Total: $636 billion/10 years

2) Businesses:

$17 billion - Reinstate Superfund taxes
$24 billion - tax carried-interest as income
$5 billion - codify "economic substance doctrine"
$61 billion - repeal LIFO
$210 billion - international enforcement, reform deferral, other tax reform
$4 billion - information reporting for rental payments
$5.3 billion - excise tax on Gulf of Mexico oil and gas
$3.4 billion - repeal expensing of tangible drilling costs
$62 million - repeal deduction for tertiary injectants
$49 million - repeal passive loss exception for working interests in oil and natural gas properties
$13 billion - repeal manufacturing tax deduction for oil and natural gas companies
$1 billion - increase to 7 years geological and geophysical amortization period for independent producers
$882 million - eliminate advanced earned income tax credit

Total: $353 billion/10 years


:top:

[concrete]

Now you see what the bill for eight years of irresponsible spending looks like.

Most folks who go out on credit card charging sprees and then finally open the bill after ignoring it also have that sobering moment of clarity.

Welcome to clarity.

[freakscene]

Now you see what the bill for eight years of irresponsible spending looks like.

Most folks who go out on credit card charging sprees and then finally open the bill after ignoring it also have that sobering moment of clarity.

Welcome to clarity.

welcome to government forced charity more likely

you actually come across dumb enough to believe this

forget that he isnt paying a bill, but adding new spending problems

like ive told you before, you shouldnt let reality get in your way


Edward Johnson slams FDR,‘New Deal II’

http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view/2009_02_25_Edward_Johnson_Slams_FDR_‘New_Deal_II_: _Blames_feds_for_crisis__derides_U_S__spending/srvc=home&position=5

Fidelity’s Edward “Ned” Johnson jumped into the controversial debate over President Obama’s “New Deal II” and what Johnson called government “make-work projects.”

Without naming names, Johnson praised the administration’s effort to make economic recovery its top priority, saying it was “admirable.”

But Johnson, sounding like he’s never been a big fan of the original New Dealers from the 1930s, warned of too much government involvement in the economy and indicated Fidelity is beefing up its government-affairs unit to fend off possibly burdensome new regulations.

“We can only hope that the government’s cure doesn’t further sicken the patient,” Johnson wrote in his annual update on Fidelity’s performance over the past year.

“During the ’30s, Congress - with guidance from the president and the same kind of good intentions - shifted the country’s cash flow away from productive businesses to government make-work projects, which most likely prolonged the Great Depression,” wrote Johnson, arguably Boston’s most powerful business executive.

As for the financial-system crisis, Johnson also took a somewhat anti-government conservative view toward its causes, saying “this climate was caused by many well-intentioned policies - stimulated by individuals at high levels in government and sanctioned by regulatory structures.”

[concrete]

The 2009 budget belongs to Bush [much like the 2001 budget belonged to Clinton]. The two major items that trigger all that negative spending in the budget are the Financial Sector Bailout from Fall 2008 and the Stimulus Package that was just signed, both due to ineffectiveness of Shrub.
As I said late last year, after the Financial sector bailout, it is going to be worse before it gets better and I would not be surprised if the Bush Economic Doctrine doesn't end up costing us a $13Trillion National Debt in the long run.

So, really nice try in an attempt to obfuscate but it really doesn't work.

Now the Omnibus Budget that Obama introduced today IS HIS. But that is different than the current 2009 budget that the current government is working under, submitted by Bush last August. It has all the Financial Sector Bailouts associated with it.

Now, with the Omnibus bill [OBAMA'S] there is a boatload of deficit spending. If you remember I have been posting that, because of reduced employment, and the recession [caused by guess who] there will be less revenue and that will also be deficit spending, just to keep the country running. The alternatives are gross tax increases and service cuts [I bet we will have both].

The $1.75Trillion projection is NOT "more than all of Bush's Deficits combined". Those added up to well over $5Trillion.

[freakscene]

right, i should have known

all these new entitlement increases are bush's fault


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=abOXicKiKopU&refer=worldwide

Treasuries fell for a third day as the government sold $22 billion of seven-year notes in the last of three auctions this week as it issues an unprecedented amount of debt to spur the U.S. economy.

Declines were led by 10- and 30-year securities. The administration forecasts a budget deficit of $1.75 trillion in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. That’s 23% higher than a forecast by economists at primary dealer Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and equivalent to about 12 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product.

[BentleyVTech]

"That’s 23% higher than a forecast by economists at primary dealer Goldman Sachs Group Inc."

So after Goldman's prediction of oil surpassing $200/barrel, and then oil dropping to 30! You value their forecast's that heavily still?!?

[concrete]

GOP future: The party of 'No'?
Thursday, February 26, 2009 9:14 AM by Mark Murray
Filed Under: Republicans

On the opening day of CPAC, this probably isn't the kind of Politico headline Republicans want: "GOP at risk of becoming party in the no.” Sixteen Republicans broke with party lines on the $410 billion omnibus package "on a vote Minority Whip Eric Cantor had urged his colleagues to reject. And the cracks in the facade appear to be the first public signal of Republican rank-and-file squeamishness with a remarkably high-risk strategy that promises an uncertain return. For Republicans, a central question looms: Is saying no to Obama’s agenda the way to get voters to say yes to an already beleaguered GOP brand?"

The AP's Fouhy wraps the groundswell of criticism Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal faced from the left and right for his response to Obama's address to Congress. "Insane. Childish. Disaster. And those were some of the kinder comments ... Jindal's voice and earnest, awkward delivery have drawn comparisons to Kenneth Parcell, the geeky Southern page on the NBC comedy '30 Rock.' Indeed, a new Facebook group titled 'Bobby Jindal is Kenneth the Page' had already attracted more than 1,800 members Wednesday afternoon."

The New York Times adds that Jindal “has been a rising star in the Republican Party, but his stock took a hit as he was roundly panned for his televised response to President Obama’s first speech to Congress on Tuesday night.”

[freakscene]

staggering this is from the reuters


Obama brings back era of big government

http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE51P73W20090226?sp=true

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bill Clinton declared more than a decade ago "the era of big government is over." With his new budget, President Barack Obama has brought it back.

Obama's $3.55 trillion budget proposal represents a gamble that Americans are ready for the sort of change they embraced by electing him in November, including a tax increase on Americans making more than $250,000 a year.

He proposes expansion of spending on the U.S. healthcare system, on greater energy independence and on education, hoping Americans weary of paying for a raft of expensive bailouts for banks and the car industry will go along.


"The taxing aspect of this is worse than Robin Hood," said economist Peter Morici, a University of Maryland professor. "He's resurrecting class warfare for political gain."

"POLITICAL JUDGMENT"

Obama's first budget was emblematic of a politician who, when he announced his run for the presidency two years ago, had rejected the conventional wisdom that, having little experience in national politics, he was moving too fast and should wait his turn.

"This is a matter of political judgment, not political science," said William Galston, a Brookings Institution economist who worked in the Clinton White House. "My judgment is that his reach will exceed his grasp. But I could easily be wrong about that."

[freakscene]

even more staggering that this is from the AP

FACT CHECK: Obama's words on home aid ring hollow

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090225/D96IFSC80.html

OBAMA: "We have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and refinance their mortgages. It's a plan that won't help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values."

THE FACTS: If the administration has come up with a way to ensure money only goes to those who got in honest trouble, it hasn't said so.

OBAMA: "And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it."

THE FACTS: Depends what your definition of automobiles, is. According to the Library of Congress, the inventor of the first true automobile was probably Germany's Karl Benz, who created the first auto powered by an internal combustion gasoline engine, in 1885 or 1886.

OBAMA: "We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before."

THE FACTS: Oil imports peaked in 2005 at just over 5 billion barrels, and have been declining slightly since. The figure in 2007 was 4.9 billion barrels, or about 58 percent of total consumption. The nation is on pace this year to import 4.7 billion barrels, and government projections are for imports to hold steady or decrease a bit over the next two decades.

OBAMA: "In this budget, we will end education programs that don't work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don't need them. We'll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq, and reform our defense budget so that we're not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don't use. We will root out the waste, fraud and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn't make our seniors any healthier, and we will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas."
THE FACTS: First, his budget does not accomplish any of that. It only proposes those steps. That's all a president can do, because control over spending rests with Congress.

OBAMA: "Thanks to our recovery plan, we will double this nation's supply of renewable energy in the next three years."

THE FACTS: While the president's stimulus package includes billions in aid for renewable energy and conservation, his goal is unlikely to be achieved through the recovery plan alone.

In 2007, the U.S. produced 8.4 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, including hydroelectric dams, solar panels and windmills. Under the status quo, the Energy Department says, it will take more than two decades to boost that figure to 12.5 percent.

OBAMA: "Over the next two years, this plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs."

THE FACTS: This is a recurrent Obama formulation. But job creation projections are uncertain even in stable times, and some of the economists relied on by Obama in making his forecast acknowledge a great deal of uncertainty in their numbers.

The president's own economists, in a report prepared last month, stated, "It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error."


:top:

[BuyOnDips]

It might not be a bad idea to visit your dentist and doctor now for a checkup and physical. Get any health problems fixed now before the government limits health care or if the dollar becomes worthless. Get those medical procedures done now.

[madcowdisease]

Freakscene, I too was quite surprised to see Reuters damning Barack as read here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2644850320090226?sp=true

Here's more profligate spending in the name of "stimulus":

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02262009/news/politics/congress_porky_pols_pig_out_on_fine_wine_157027.ht m

Tip of the iceburg:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/02/obamas-budget-a.html

Lastly, for those that are interested here's something from the spin room:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/fy2010_new_era/A_New_Era_of_Responsibility2.pdf

[freakscene]

Obama Declares War on Investors, Entrepreneurs, Businesses, And More

Friday, 27 Feb 2009 | 4:39 PM ET

Posted By: Larry Kudlow

http://www.cnbc.com/id/29434104


short in content, but the over all theme is rather obvious by now

[concrete]

In between bouts of dancing for joy, I do reflect on what has happened to the increasingly hapless GOP. Their problem is religion. If you look at the primary, two of the pillars of their religious base, the crazy Mormons and the crazy Evangelists went after each other, hammer and tong. It is not the split between the moderates represented by McCain vs. the far right Republicans, it is the split between the Huckabee and Romney factions that is destroying them. McCain merely took advantage of it. Thrown into the mix is the cartoon character cast of other candidates, Palin, Jindal, Thompson, Hunter, Tancredo, all vying for a slice of the nutcase pie. Since they are loud and all over the media and none of them has seemed to notice the election is over, they are presenting the face of the GOP to the public as just that: squabbling nutcases, all on extreme ends, with the only thing they have in common is the overwhelming desire to kiss Rush Limbaugh's ass more and better than the other guy as they rave on about how brilliant Ann Coulter Glenn Beck and Sean hannity are, seemingly unaware that the general public has moved on from these morons and the whole Fox News Culture and increasingly sees this crowd as part of the by-gone bad-old-days of Bushism.

But they haven't even noticed the world has changed, even after throwing the kitchen sink at Obama, as we have seen by his surrogates on this forum, in spite of throwing everything and shouting "William Ayers" as loud as they can, Obama's rating have gone up, not down. They are still living in an Alternate Universe, in a party where the only way to "make it" in the party is to be an even crazier right winger than the other guy. They have only themselves to blame: they made lockstep Checklist Conservatism the order of the day, pushing the ludicrous idea of "being a true conservative" as somehow being in total agreement on a whole list of issues that had a lot more to do with the repressed sexual dysfunctions of the religionists, the obsession with abortion, homosexuality, birth control, condoms, you name it, if it had to do with a cock, an asshole or a c#nt, they had a political bone to pick over it, and if you didn't agree with them on their sexual freak out, you weren't a "true conservative". Rove was a master at manipulating that type of crap for the purpose of getting Bush elected, yet not smart enough to realize he would destroy The Party as a result. He drove the moderates out of The Party, and the Independents were pushed further and further away until they eventually ended up with the Democrats. What they have left is the situation you saw at their CPAC thing, where they made a big deal out of a "straw vote" to "pick a leader who we can rally around". Instead, not one of them got more than 20%, and the vaunted Palin tied for third with the heretic Ron Paul, in other words, it showed what they are: a collection of 80% religious viewpoints and far right black helicopter crazies, and about 20% of sane people who simply haven't left yet, and showed the world who their leader was: Rush Limbaugh, who bloviated with over an hour of windbaggery that seemed utterly delusional at times, appropriate leadership for a party dying of talk radio bloviation and wind baggery.

Obama is playing them brilliantly, instead pushing out one issue at a time the way Clinton did, which allowed them to marshal their lobbyists and their talk-radio call-your-Congressman-machine into high gear, Obama is throwing the whole kitchen sink at them at a time they are disorganized, demoralized and saddled with what the public sees as a failed ideology. When he said "change", he meant it, we are looking at massive change coming.

While I prefer not to see it occur as I don't particularly agree with all the policies, what the CONSERVATIVES need to do is ditch ALL the NeoCon participants of the Republican Party. That would include EVERYONE that supported Bush and his Economic Doctrine, Phil Gramm and his Economic philosophy, Karl Rove and his Hate based divisive political strategy and the ass kissing to the Christian Conservative Fundamentals who feel that THEIR brand of religion should somehow become the National Brand.

What would be left would be a very streamlined fiscally conservative, politically active organization built on Nixonian foreign policy of non intervention and Eisenhower infrastructure building.

And the Conservatives would, as an organization pay for a mass Laryngectomy for Rush, Hannity, Coulter and O'Really. They have done more damage to the Republican Party than anyone group besides Bush, Chaney, Rumsfeld and Rove. I would add Beck to the list but he is great for comic relief.

[freakscene]

Obama's rating have gone up, not down.
.

i'll make a wild assumption that since you post on this forum, understanding basic trendlines isnt something else i need to 'splain to you

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/var/plain/storage/images/media/obama_index_graphics/obama_index_mar_02_2009/206419-1-eng-US/obama_index_mar_02_2009.jpg


59% Still Believe Government Is the Problem

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/59_still_believe_government_is_the_problem


as more people begin to understand that Obama is not a liberty loving, free market capitalist, but a central controlling authoritarian - much like chavez

expect those numbers to change

he will be Jimmy Carter 2. the only question is will we still have America left by 2012

[concrete]

Obama Approval Rating Increases to 67%
Had dropped to 59% prior to his Tuesday congressional address

by Jeffrey M. Jones
PRINCETON, NJ -- In the days immediately after Barack Obama's nationally televised address to Congress on Tuesday night, his public support has increased significantly to 67% in Feb. 24-26 Gallup Daily polling, and is now just two points below his term high. This comes on the heels of a term-low 59% reported by Gallup on Tuesday.

http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg85/concretisttexas/chart.gif


Obama's speech was well-received, and appears to have won him back support he had been losing in prior days, and then some.

The speech certainly came at an opportune time for Obama, but a recovery was easily achievable because the decline in his approval rating was accompanied by an increase in the percentage of Americans expressing no opinion, rather than an increase in the proportion disapproving of his performance in office.

Since the speech, the percentage having no opinion of Obama has fallen back to 11% from 16%, while his approval rating has increased eight points. There has been a slight drop in his disapproval rating as well, from 25% to 21%.



Obama's approval rebound is due to increased support from all political groups, but especially from independents and Republicans, whose support had been waning. Over the past week, independents' approval of Obama dropped from 62% to 54%, but is now back to 62%. There has been a sharp increase in support among Republicans, from 27% to 42%. Democrats' support for Obama was already extremely high at 86%, but even this has climbed slightly, to 90% in the latest polling.



Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,551 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Feb. 24-26, 2009, as part of Gallup Poll Daily tracking. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/116224/Obama-Approval-Rating-Increases.aspx

[Gordo]

Obama is playing them brilliantly, instead pushing out one issue at a time the way Clinton did, which allowed them to marshal their lobbyists and their talk-radio call-your-Congressman-machine into high gear, Obama is throwing the whole kitchen sink at them at a time they are disorganized, demoralized and saddled with what the public sees as a failed ideology. When he said "change", he meant it, we are looking at massive change coming.

.

Yes. I agree about the whole kitchen sink being thrown at one time. Whats he got to lose when he can blame it all on Bush and big business. I don't think Obama is using good business sense and is letting his political savvy interfere.

[freakscene]

When he said "change", he meant it, we are looking at massive change coming.

be careful for what you wish though. its not likely that dozens, and dozens, and dozens of millions of people are going to accept becoming Venezuela just because this guy can speak well.

[concrete]

be careful for what you wish though. its not likely that dozens, and dozens, and dozens of millions of people are going to accept becoming Venezuela just because this guy can speak well.

Someone has taken over Freaks computer. This reply contains no personal insult?

[BuyOnDips]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhEtBri2FA4&eurl=http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/

"Until they realize that their agenda is destroying the life savings of millions of Americans, then all I can give you is caution... I'm not saying Mr. President go stare at the Bloomberg quote machine and come to your senses. I just want some sign that Obama realizes the market is totally falling apart and that his agenda has a big hand in that happening. I don't know about you but I felt it everywhere I went this weekend... A young kid took me aside. He said I was right when I said we've elected a Leninist... I felt the total lack of control we all feel right now, the, "It's out of my hands but where's the authority?" The, "Hey it's amateur hour at our darkest moment."

Jim Cramer
CNBC host of "Mad Money"
March 3, 2009

[Horsefish]

Keep in mind that the rest of the world economies are tanking as bad or worse than ours. Is Obama responsible for all of those problems also? Is he the complete reason that markets are down? Investors are smarter than that. Don't get caught up in the verbal ideological scapegoating. Gotta blame it on somebody. Invest or trade for your own reasons. In the end, it's your fault if you make money or lose money.

[BuyOnDips]

The direction we are going is Obama's fault. It is impossible to spend one's way out of a problem, when the problem is reckless spending. We are headed for lots of pain.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=320977608242634

"Where the U.S. government usually consumes 21% of gross domestic product, this Obama budget spends 28% in 2009 and runs a deficit of $1.75 trillion, or 12.7% of GDP. That is four times the largest deficit of George W. Bush and twice as large a share of the economy as any deficit run since World War II.

Add that 28% of GDP spent by the U.S. government to the 12% spent by states, counties and cities, and government will consume 40% of the economy in 2009.

We are not "headed down the road to socialism." We are there. "


"Markets are not infallible. But the stock market has long been a "lead indicator" of where the economy will be six months from now. What are the markets, the collective decisions of millions of investors, saying?

Having fallen every month since Obama's election, with January and February the worst two months in history, they are telling us the stimulus package will not work, that Tim Geithner is clueless about how to save the banks, that the Obama budget portends disaster for the republic."

[concrete]

The direction we are going is Obama's fault. It is impossible to spend one's way out of a problem, when the problem is reckless spending. We are headed for lots of pain.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=320977608242634

"Where the U.S. government usually consumes 21% of gross domestic product, this Obama budget spends 28% in 2009 and runs a deficit of $1.75 trillion, or 12.7% of GDP. That is four times the largest deficit of George W. Bush and twice as large a share of the economy as any deficit run since World War II.

Add that 28% of GDP spent by the U.S. government to the 12% spent by states, counties and cities, and government will consume 40% of the economy in 2009.

We are not "headed down the road to socialism." We are there. "


"Markets are not infallible. But the stock market has long been a "lead indicator" of where the economy will be six months from now. What are the markets, the collective decisions of millions of investors, saying?

Having fallen every month since Obama's election, with January and February the worst two months in history, they are telling us the stimulus package will not work, that Tim Geithner is clueless about how to save the banks, that the Obama budget portends disaster for the republic."

Math, try it.

We have a 2008 GDP of 14.2 Trillion according to the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis.

We have a National Debt as of March 4, 2009 of $10,947,253,496,261.64 adding $3.71BILLION a DAY. And this doesn't touch a penny of Obama money yet.

Now, what are your percentages again?

[freakscene]

"Until they realize that their agenda is destroying the life savings of millions of Americans, then all I can give you is caution... I'm not saying Mr. President go stare at the Bloomberg quote machine and come to your senses. I just want some sign that Obama realizes the market is totally falling apart and that his agenda has a big hand in that happening. I don't know about you but I felt it everywhere I went this weekend... A young kid took me aside. He said I was right when I said we've elected a Leninist... I felt the total lack of control we all feel right now, the, "It's out of my hands but where's the authority?" The, "Hey it's amateur hour at our darkest moment."

Jim Cramer
CNBC host of "Mad Money"
March 3, 2009

I thought it was pretty funny that the White House, leaders of the supposed free world, actually had an official response to Cramer

This makes 3 people in the media they have directly responded to who have been critical of the messiah's policies (Santelli, and Limbagh being the other two)

Anyone recall any administration behaving similarly?

Rather petty, but its what we should expect from the prima donna


I guess Buchanan might be next

On The Road To Socialism? We've Arrived!

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=320977608242634

In his campaign and inaugural address, Barack Obama cast himself as a moderate man seeking common ground with conservatives.

Yet his budget calls for the radical restructuring of the U.S. economy, a sweeping redistribution of power and wealth to government and Democratic constituencies. It is a declaration of war on the right.

The real Obama has stood up and lived up to his ranking as the most left-wing member of the Senate..................................

Markets are not infallible. But the stock market has long been a "lead indicator" of where the economy will be six months from now. What are the markets, the collective decisions of millions of investors, saying?

Having fallen every month since Obama's election, with January and February the worst two months in history, they are telling us the stimulus package will not work, that Tim Geithner is clueless about how to save the banks, that the Obama budget portends disaster for the republic.

The president says he is gearing up for a fight on his budget.

Good. Let's give him one.


edit >>> Sorry BoD, I didnt realize it was the same link ;)

[Bolimomo]

We have a National Debt as of March 4, 2009 of $10,947,253,496,261.64 adding $3.71BILLION a DAY.

Damn! Who has added that sixty four cents today????

[freakscene]

its almost hard to tell them apart anymore

VENEZUELA'S CHAVEZ THREATENS TO EXPROPRIATE FOOD COMPANIES

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/venezuela/4938993/Venezuelas-Hugo-Chavez-tightens-state-control-of-food-amid-rocketing-inflation-and-food-shortages.html

"If any industry wants to ride roughshod over the consumers, with a view to getting better dividends, we are going to act

http://in.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idINN0454844120090304

Geithner attacks oil, gas companies for 'global warming'

It was one of the sharpest attacks yet on the oil and gas industry by a top Obama administration official, reinforcing the White House stance that new U.S. energy policy will focus on promoting renewable energy sources like wind and solar power and rely less on traditional fossil fuels like oil as America tackles climate change.



they arent going to promote renewable energy, as much as they are going to punish conventional energy

wait until you see what cap and trade does to your home bills. and remember, CO2 is plant food not a pollutant.

[BuyOnDips]

Gullible Jim Cramer thought Obama was a middle-of-the-road kind of Democrat. That's why he supported him. It seems like lots of Obamamatuer voters are having terrible buyers remorse now. If Cramer couldn't tell that Obama was an extreme left wing, liberal socialist, you have to wonder about his ability to analyze stocks. What's scary for me is that Obama is as incompetent as he is liberal. Reading a teleprompter well and looking cool does not qualify you as a competent executive.

http://www.mainstreet.com/article/moneyinvesting/news/cramer-my-response-white-house

In America’s time of need, we have JFK Jr. flying the plane instead of pilot Chesley Sullenberger(Romney). The next 4 years will be very painful.

[freakscene]

The next 4 years will be very painful.

It will at that, but I believe it might be 8 years sadly.

His oratory and presentation skills, even if they are teleprompter assisted, are so smooth that I am having trouble seeing anyone who can trump them.

Forget the policies of the challenger.

Presentation will carry him.

He can sell a blind man reading glasses, and make the blind man feel good about it.

[mopalm]

Gullible Jim Cramer thought Obama was a middle-of-the-road kind of Democrat. That's why he supported him. It seems like lots of Obamamatuer voters are having terrible buyers remorse now. If Cramer couldn't tell that Obama was an extreme left wing, liberal socialist, you have to wonder about his ability to analyze stocks. What's scary for me is that Obama is as incompetent as he is liberal. Reading a teleprompter well and looking cool does not qualify you as a competent executive.

http://www.mainstreet.com/article/moneyinvesting/news/cramer-my-response-white-house

In America’s time of need, we have JFK Jr. flying the plane instead of pilot Chesley Sullenberger(Romney). The next 4 years will be very painful.

My favorite was his comment about how "Profit and Earnings Ratios" are getting to the point where long-term investors should consider buying...

He's no economist that's for sure.

[mopalm]

It will at that, but I believe it might be 8 years sadly.

His oratory and presentation skills, even if they are teleprompter assisted, are so smooth that I am having trouble seeing anyone who can trump them.

Forget the policies of the challenger.

Presentation will carry him.

He can sell a blind man reading glasses, and make the blind man feel good about it.

True, but if the economy hasn't improved much in the next 4 years, I doubt the GOP won't be able to find a speaker good enough to put up a fight.

[BuyOnDips]

My favorite was his comment about how "Profit and Earnings Ratios" are getting to the point where long-term investors should consider buying...

He's no economist that's for sure.

There's a reason he didn't release any of his college transcripts. :)

Obama and his staff at the White House have looked totally incompetent so far. They are totally in way over their heads.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4953523/Barack-Obama-too-tired-to-give-proper-welcome-to-Gordon-Brown.html

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19719.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aGJ_.gr_awkY

[Gordo]

There's a reason he didn't release any of his college transcripts. :)

Obama and his staff at the White House have looked totally incompetent so far. They are totally in way over their heads.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4953523/Barack-Obama-too-tired-to-give-proper-welcome-to-Gordon-Brown.html

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19719.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aGJ_.gr_awkY


You ever see somebody that wanted something so bad that when they eventually got it they wondered why they wanted it in the first place?

[aiki14]

You ever see somebody that wanted something so bad that when they eventually got it they wondered why they wanted it in the first place?

99% of married men

[Gordo]

99% of married men


Funny!:biggrin:

[freakscene]

Buffett: Cap-and-Trade Is a ‘Regressive’ Tax

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/buffett-cap-and-trade-is-a-regressive-tax/

Buffet "gets" it.

i feel badly for all those stooges who bought into the charade that only those earning 250 large would see tax increases under this regime

[freakscene]

and this one is almost too funny.

ya just cant make this stuff up

Chavez Tells Obama He Should Follow Venezuela’s Socialist Path

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aB6yw1ihGZ2k&refer=latin_america

“I recommend to Obama -- they’re criticizing him because they say he’s moving towards socialism -- come Obama, ally with us on the path to socialism, it’s the only road.”

H Chavez AKA the Obama of South America

[freakscene]

looks like we might get a bullish crossover

:top:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/var/plain/storage/images/media/obama_index_graphics/obama_index_march_10_2009/207965-1-eng-US/obama_index_march_10_2009.jpg

[BuyOnDips]

After 50 days in office, Obamamateur is getting the grade he deserves.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29493093


“This is the greatest wealth destruction I’ve seen by a president.” - Jim Cramer

[BentleyVTech]

I do not know what some people expected out of Obama in his first 50 days of office.

I feel like all of you critics expected him to be a miracle worker and the economy would be churning as fast as ever once he stepped foot in to the office.

Do you realize the magnitude of trouble the economy is in and has been in for the last 6 months? Its been the worst economic decline since 1929, and people expect Obama to have it better in 50 days of being in office?

Hopefully, this week shows that he is in fact moving in the right direction...and he is getting his feet wet still.

What I wanna know is, what the hell would McCain be doing differently in regards to the economy if he had won the Presidency???? Would he really have done much differently already?

Oh and Freak, your comments on Buffet 'getting' it. Did you catch any of his interview on CNBC this week? He fully supported Obama during the campaign and said he still fully supports Obama.

[freakscene]

say Bentley,

aren't you one of those people who were gullible enough to believe only those making 250 large would see tax increases under the messiah?

hehehehe

sucker

Its been the worst economic decline since 1929

in many aspects its not even as bad as the 70's, but i understand your need to repeat the "democrat" talking point

and things have gotten worse since his election because he is in over his head, and has generated zero confidence in the markets with his socialist expansion.

lets all hope he is a carter re-make and we can get this over with in 4 years and go back to being America instead of Cuba north

[freakscene]

here is some objective criticism for ya Bentley

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/10/obamas-reliance-on-teleprompters/print/

Is President Obama able to conduct a news conference without a teleprompter? Is he is an automaton in answering questions? With all the jokes about Karl Rove as George Bush's brain or cracks during the 1980s about Ronald Reagan supposedly being an amiable dunce, could you imagine the reaction if either president had used a teleprompter to answer questions? The late night joke writers wouldn't have let it go until the president gave in to the merciless ridicule as he was painted as an idiot who couldn't tie his shoes without being fed instructions on how to do it.

As it was, Mr. Bush suffered a deluge of unfounded criticism over the "bulge" in his jacket during the first presidential debate in 2004. The bizarre claim was that somehow this bulge allowed Karl Rove or someone else to tell Mr. Bush what to say during the debate. Democratic National Committee Chairman Terence R. McAuliffe raised the issue. Salon.com asked, "Was President Bush literally channeling Karl Rove in his first debate with John Kerry?" The Washington Post noted, "Journalists had been passing around the link to the photo all week" and referred to the "widespread" speculation.

Well, it might be time to ask even more seriously if David Axelrod is Barack Obama's brain.



The American Spectator notes that for many events: "... down to many of the questions and the answers to those questions. ... [t]eleprompter screens at the events scrolled not only his opening remarks, but also statistics and information he could use to answer questions." It quoted one Obama advisor as saying that Mr. Obama is looking at installing a computer screen in White House podiums so "it would make it easier for the comms (communications) guys to pass along information without being obvious about it."

The notion that a computer technician is queuing up the president's answers to questions is disturbing. One can easily imagine a Saturday Night Live skit where a technician waits with a canned set of answers to possible questions and from time to time cues up the wrong one.

hehehehe

While the teleprompter might let Mr. Obama blame someone else whenever the answer turns out to be wrong, we would like to have a president who occasionally comes across as more than a TV anchor reading a script.

Barack Aziz ?

:mrgreen:

[BentleyVTech]

Buffett: Cap-and-Trade Is a ‘Regressive’ Tax

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/buffett-cap-and-trade-is-a-regressive-tax/

Buffet "gets" it.

i feel badly for all those stooges who bought into the charade that only those earning 250 large would see tax increases under this regime

I'm no where close to making 250K, so I've still got room before I get taxed! haha all jokes aside...

Ok so the Utilities have to essentially pay a tax...which is basically passed on to the consumer. I understand that part, because I work for a Utility Co., but that still leaves a few questions why it would be 'regressive'.
- Would it be a flat tax?
- Would it be based on electricity usage?
Each scenario would provide different results...and I dont think it'd really be considered 'regressive' in some instances.

So Carbon emissions are a problem right? And we must curb Carbon Emissions how? One of 2 options, we can conserve energy...or we can build new carbon-free power plants. The latter option is at least 10 years away before we build any nuclear plant...so thats not really a feasible option to get the carbon emissions down anytime soon...so that leaves conservation.

So these Utility Co. produce a necessity to its consumers for every day living...and if the consumers have no motive for conservation - the utility company would just be footing the bill on a carbon tax...without any benefit at all.

So in order for carbon emissions to drop...conservation needs to happen...and the only way conservation will happen is if the consumer has to pay more for each watt they use.

Oh and one other very important thing. Regulated Utility Co. are not just allowed to 'tax' the consumer whenever they want. They must go through long and in-depth rate cases in order to raise any rates...so the State Government would have to approve a rate increase for ANY tax, etc.

[BuyOnDips]

This article pretty much sums it up so far...

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/a-presidential-crisis-of-competence/

Even staunch Democrat Jim Cramer has been forced to conclude that “it’s amateur hour at our darkest moment.”

People have been focusing on Obama trying to deal with the economy, but Obama's foreign policy mistakes are really scaring me.

And Obama wanting to give 900 million bucks to the Palestinians,(the people that cheered on 9/11) when we are broke, is just insane.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=89949

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCr8VYpzwIA&NR=1

[freakscene]

So Carbon emissions are a problem right?
[/B]

No they are not a problem, unless you subscribe to an unproven myth that is being used to advance a global socialist agenda.

[BentleyVTech]

Freak,

Thats an easy way out of responding to the meat of my post. So we differ on yet another topic...that carbon does have a negative effect on the environment and should be minimized as much as we can.

Your post that I replied to was mainly discussing the 'regressive' tax against the consumer...care to discuss your original idea?

[freakscene]

Freak,.that carbon does have a negative effect on the environment and should be minimized as much as we can.

i guess you believe in myths and fairy tales, but thats your prerogative.


Your post that I replied to was mainly discussing the 'regressive' tax against the consumer...care to discuss your original idea?

sure. cap and trade will result in high prices, which you seem to agree with, as does buffet. thats something i told you would happen under this socialist regime. they will punish conventional energy use - based on a fairy tale.

some estimate a 40% increase on an average energy bill.

of course, its quite possible that obama will suggest everyone who makes 250 large pay for the increases that will be passed on to consumers out of fairness

http://www.tngop.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/mortgagestickerwebimage.gif

or we can build new carbon-free power plants. The latter option is at least 10 years away before we build any nuclear plant

the time frame has nothing to do with it. their end game is to create a pseudo carbon based economy - and ya just cant tax people who dont produce it, now can you ?

[BentleyVTech]

Freak,

I'd say majority of America is on the 'Green' wagon, and do a little to help better the economy.

Being an employee for a large utility company, I feel like I understand this pretty well.

A Carbon Tax, is not solely a way to generate money for the government. It will help the nation get to their long-term energy goals.

I don't think you can argue the point that this country has energy supply problems with the growing demand. How do you solve that problem? One of two ways, build more plants or conservation.

First option - build more plants. Now we can get into the talks about which plants to build...
-Carbon plants are definitely among the cheapest generators of electricity. But is that the solution to our long term energy needs? Build a lot of these plants that are extremely harmful to the environment? Sure, itd be cheaper than nuclear, and hell, itd be way more efficient than wind.
-Nuclear - I have a feeling Obama will come around to accepting nuclear with open arms...but nuclear poses two problems. It will be EXTREMELY expensive to build a new plant...so you'd have customers rates skyrocket with that option. Secondly, it will be 8-10 years before any new nuclear plant is built.

So if you were building a power plant...based on those assumptions...you'd obviously build a Coal plant because its much cheaper.

By having the carbon tax (which some of that will get passed to the customer by raises in rates approved by state governments)...they are doing numerous things to be prepared for the future.
-They are causing consumers to conserve....which in turn buys more time to build power plants.
-By taxing carbon, they also are trying to encourage the utility co.'s to look at other sources of energy that are better for the environment.

You can call it a socialist move to punish conventional energy use...I think its more of a long-term plan for this nation's energy problems.

[Gordo]

Bentley. You are correct in that the cost will be passed on to the customer, but it is not some .......it will be ALL.

Freak is right about the carbon fairy tale. How will we tax the volcanoes and brush fires that emit carbon monoxide naturally?

Al Gore has gone off the deep end. Please don't follow.

[Rich]

I view Carbon emissions as being a green house problem as a joke along with CO2 and chlorine destroying the ozone layer. When emissions increase in the upper atmosphere O3 increases relative to the amount of the pollution which in turn destroys the pollutants. O3 is nature’s natural defense and solution to the pollution and is NOT the pollutant as reported on the nightly weather. House fire damage is neutralized with the use of ozone generators which are so powerful they will turn your fish tank into hydrogen peroxide in less than eight hours. The chlorine in CFC refrigerants was reported as the BIG BAD BOYs that caused this huge hole in the ozone layer. The government under Clinton created massive taxation on refrigerants which bankrupted many businesses, and Clinton’s tax stole 45 BILLION dollars which was not used for the environment but was placed into the general fund. Service businesses had to invest heavily on new EPA machinery, equipment, education and inventory. All users of any form of refrigeration pay for this excessive cost for material and extra labor. The refrigerant use to be reclaimed but now they burn ALL that is sent back to the recyclers, so much for the environment! It was later discovered that many of the replacements are carcinogens and could cause cancer after one inhalation, one of our hospitals had us remove those on the carcinogen list after they spent great amounts to convert to these refrigerants; I think it’s fair to say the patients billfolds were emptied more excessively for this ‘environmental’ cure. While at a huge conference in Chicago I asked the speaker who just convinced everyone that CFC’s (Refrigerants with chlorine in them) was going to kill everyone on earth before the next rising sun, a simple question: “If chlorine in refrigerant are the problem to the ozone layer, then why is it permitted to be used in bleach, swimming pools, drinking water and manufacturing? ARE THERE DIFFERENT CHLORINE molecules? There was panic among the speakers and the audience. The speakers didn’t know what to say and the audience acted like they were woken from a deep sleep by a hypnotic cult speaker! Is this same logic true with CO2 from cars? Is the CO2 from cars different than all the tons of CO2 per day for soda drinks, refrigeration, and expanding gas for foam and plastics and manufacturing and welding? What about the CO2 from natural combustion and decaying of anything that was once living. Why aren’t the soda industry and every business being taxed like they did refrigerants?
I still have not had a proper answer from any expert, and I ask the question every chance I get. I believe people like Gore have aligned their finances up before they created this false tyranny, and they will make so much money. Gores personal lifestyle alone is proof enough for me to say it’s all lies.

Rich

[BentleyVTech]

Bentley. You are correct in that the cost will be passed on to the customer, but it is not some .......it will be ALL.

Freak is right about the carbon fairy tale. How will we tax the volcanoes and brush fires that emit carbon monoxide naturally?

Al Gore has gone off the deep end. Please don't follow.

Companies owning power plants have had programs in place for years to drastically reduce/limit their carbon emissions.

Jim Cramer was talking about Dominion just the other day. Dominion sits in the bottom third of the industry in terms of carbon intensity. They have been working on that for a while...and for a reason.

If there was no 'tax' or hurt to any utility company for emitting carbon into our environment....NO utility company would build anything more than a basic coal power plant. It is a relatively cheap energy source, and is MUCH cheaper than building other cleaner power plants.

So now I ask you, when there needs to be growing energy supply to match the ever growing demand...how do you meet that demand? You do know that these power plants have running lifespans for 40+ years. So we just wait for a couple generations to worry about the environment? Or do we take steps now to be in a better situation down the road?

The only point I can see from your side is if all of these other countries, like china, are building coal plants like crazy - why should we really worry about it either...they are going to pollute the whole earth themselves anyway.

[Mastajab]

You're a carbon emmission.

[freakscene]

You can call it a socialist move to punish conventional energy use...I think its more of a long-term plan for this nation's energy problems.

You are so close to saying it Bentley. Let me see if I can help connect the dots.

The Central Government will artificially inflate prices/costs as an attempt control output and distribution (consumption).

You seem to agree with this.

Now call it what it is.

Also, the unintended consequences of creating a pseudo economy based on carbon and carbon outputs may have serious detrimental affects on American businesses - since much of their global competition (India and China for instance) have no such ponzi scam with which to compete.

This of course as I posted many many times, all based on some myth of "global warming" (which isnt occurring, so "lets call it climate change" since that cant be disproved)

Bentley, can you point to a period in the Earth's entire existence where climate has not changed?

Thanks in advance.

http://images2.cafepress.com/product/322762332v8_350x350_Front.jpg

[freakscene]

Corporate oil booms in low-tax Switzerland

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssEnergyNews/idUSL312427120090312?feedType=RSS&feedName=rbssEnergyNews&rpc=22

a wave of energy companies has in the last few months announced plans to move to Switzerland -- mainly for its appeal as a low-tax corporate domicile that looks relatively likely to stay out of reach of Barack Obama's tax-seeking administration.

watch for "Exit" taxes to be discussed. In other words, if you want to move your company to a place where we cant tax the hell out of you, we'll make it so damn expensive to move you'll probably want to reconsider.

Over the past six months companies including offshore drilling contractors Noble Corp and Transocean, energy-focused engineering group Foster Wheeler and oilfield services company Weatherfield International have all announced plans to shift domicile to Switzerland.

"One trend that we see is that particularly Bermuda-based companies are now moving to Switzerland," said Martin Frey, a partner at law company Baker & McKenzie. "That may only partly be obviously for tax reasons, but also for security reasons and the fact that the Obama administration may go after them."

another example of government being responsible for "American jobs moving overseas" or whatever the buzzphrase of the week is

the drawback:

In the current climate, the attractions for the companies that move clearly outweigh one drawback: by making the switch they potentially sacrifice inclusion in stock market indexes such as the closely watched benchmark Standard & Poor's 500.

"In the past and most recently with Transocean, Standard & Poor's has ruled that the process of redomesticating to Switzerland renders a company 'ineligible for continued inclusion' in the S&P 500," said Macquarie Research analyst Angie Sedita in a note.

In buoyant times, inclusion in such indexes has offered access to equity capital. But the S&P 500 has fallen more than 50 percent since October. (Additional reporting by Braden Reddall in Houston; Editing by Sara Ledwith) ($1=1.158 Swiss Franc)


:top:

[Rich]

Freakscene

Better stop making too much sense, you'll start loosing peoples attention span, especially with this administration!

[freakscene]

hehehe - thanks Rich. the oligarchy isnt the target though. its the uneducated boobs that fall for the marketing campaign

here is some more evidence of a word Bentley refuses to say


The Obama Rosetta Stone

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123681860305802821.html

Barack Obama has written two famous, widely read books of autobiography -- "Dreams from My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope." Let me introduce his third, a book that will touch everyone's life: "A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America's Promise. The President's Budget and Fiscal Preview" (Government Printing Office, 141 pages, $26; free on the Web). This is the U.S. budget for laymen, and it's a must read.

Turn immediately to page 11. There sits a chart called Figure 9. This is the Rosetta Stone to the presidential mind of Barack Obama. Memorize Figure 9, and you will never be confused. Not happy, perhaps, but not confused..............

Mr. Obama made clear in the campaign his intention to raise taxes on this income class by letting the Bush tax cuts expire. What is becoming clearer as his presidency unfolds is that something deeper is underway here than merely using higher taxes to fund his policy goals in health, education and energy.

The "top 1%" isn't just going to pay for these policies. Many of them would assent to that. The rancorous language used to describe these taxpayers makes it clear that as a matter of public policy they will be made to "pay for" the fact of their wealth -- no matter how many of them worked honestly and honorably to produce it. No Democratic president in 60 years has been this explicit.

One of the first technical examinations of the Romer-Bernstein projections has been released by Hoover Institution economists John Cogan and John Taylor, and German economists Tobias Cwik and Volker Wieland. They conclude that the growth and jobs stimulus will be only one-sixth what the administration predicts. In part, this is because people anticipate that the spending burst will have to be financed by higher taxes and so will spend less than anticipated

The White House says its goal is simple "fairness." That may be, as they understand fairness. But Figure 9 makes it clear that for the top earners, there will be blood. This presidency is going to be an act of retribution. In the words of the third book from Mr. Obama, "it is our duty to change it."

[BuyOnDips]

52 days. At least 52 mistakes.

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/2009/03/12/52-days-52-mistakes/

[freakscene]

thats pretty funny - especially the criticism he is getting about using the teleprompter so often - so much so that theyre discussing placing a computer monitor in the podium so he can be fed answers

hysterical actually

[BlackholeDivestment]

Obama, if allowed to survive the next 911; the Oracle of Omaha version ''Last Best Chance'' scenario, that will codify the global security system and provide the ''New World Order New Deal'' that shall bind all the nations under the ensuing call for peace, do to the massive global state of fear and panic ...enough to claim a resolution for Israel and it's Middle East foes etc... he is the last President.

The false peace will not last of course ...but for about three years or so, then all this talk about Armageddon and Apocalypse now being touted flippantly among the financial and political media pundits and clueless knotheads ...shall be realized according to the Word of God in Christ.

Many do not realize, unless they read and understand Revelation, the prophetic description of a global market liken to the writing on the wall in the city of Babylon ...is upon us now.

If persons know what time it is, they either claim to dismiss the truth or remain sustained. Confirmation is defined by wisdom in agreement with the spirit in the season ...as the rain is fallen upon the tree. People shall not escape the truth with a claim of dismissal, that claim is a perishing principle, a delusion. The Mulligan has already been played.

The people that cast their vote to sustain one of two delusional claims of dominion offered by the two ruling political parties, are equally deceived, completely ridiculous and pathetic. They are living suicides for now and the change they call to receive ...approaches exponentially with every breath.

[freakscene]

thats pretty funny - especially the criticism he is getting about using the teleprompter so often - so much so that theyre discussing placing a computer monitor in the podium so he can be fed answers

hysterical actually

heheheh this is funny

even obama's supporters *might* be able to laugh at this

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Barack-Obama-Thanks-Himself-In-Teleprompt-Blunder-During-Address-With-Irish-PM-On-St-Patricks-Day/Article/200903315243932?lpos=World_News_First_World_News_A rticle_Teaser_Region_1&lid=ARTICLE_15243932_Barack_Obama_Thanks_Himself_I n_Teleprompt_Blunder_During_Address_With_Irish_PM_ On_St_Patricks_Day

A teleprompt blunder has led to Barack Obama thanking himself in a speech at the White House in a St Patrick's Day celebration

.Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was just a few paragraphs into an address in Washington when he realised it all sounded a bit too familiar.

It was. He was repeating the speech President Barack Obama had just read from the same teleprompter.

Mr Cowen stopped, turned to the president and said: "That's your speech."

A laughing Mr Obama returned to the podium to take over but it seems the script had finally been switched and the US president ended up thanking himself for inviting everyone to the party.

Mr Obama is an accomplished orator but is becoming known in America as the "teleprompt president" over his reliance on the machine when he gives a speech.


:top:

[BentleyVTech]

I can't believe how many non-sense articles get so much media attention?

Bonuses? Sure someone needs to fix it, but does that need to be what the President and Secretary of Treasury is talking about for days and days? We are talking about a $200M out of a $1 trillion package? We are spending enormous time and energy on .02% of the package?!?!?! .02%!

Who really cares if Obama reads from note cards, his blackberry, someone doing sign language in the crowd, braille, or even a teleprompter. Whats the big deal? Damn, he's got a hellofa lot on his plate, and this news is changing daily - evenly hourly or 'minutely'...you expect speeches from a couple of bullets or what?!?

[freakscene]

I can't believe how many non-sense articles get so much media attention?

Bonuses? Sure someone needs to fix it, but does that need to be what the President and Secretary of Treasury is talking about for days and days? We are talking about a $200M out of a $1 trillion package? We are spending enormous time and energy on .02% of the package?!?!?! .02%!

Who really cares if Obama reads from note cards, his blackberry, someone doing sign language in the crowd, braille, or even a teleprompter. Whats the big deal? Damn, he's got a hellofa lot on his plate, and this news is changing daily - evenly hourly or 'minutely'...you expect speeches from a couple of bullets or what?!?

theyre running Bentley.

running because they see poll numbers turning on them very quickly

which is why Barackistan will be sent out campaigning over the next several days, because thats what he does best.

[freakscene]

and history may end up calling obama not only the first black president, but quite possible the first communist president

Is Obama Designing the End of Capitalism?

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=45230

All of Obama’s economic policies thus far are designed to drive America into full embrace of socialism. His chief means for this transformation: inflation. He is attempting to inflate the currency through two primary means: intense deficit spending, and pushing up production costs through union subsidization.

It’s a beautiful strategy for purposefully trashing capitalism, all the while blaming capitalism for its own downfall. John Maynard Keynes, the liberal economist who championed government intervention during recessions, recognized Obama’s inflationary strategy for what it is: “Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency,” said Keynes. “Lenin was certainly right. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”

Obama pursues inflation—government devaluation of the currency—with the zeal of the newly converted. His deficit spending will be financed either through higher taxes or through inflation. Obama says he will push higher taxes—after all, he wants to appease the Chinese, who don’t want their U.S. securities paid off with inflated dollars. But covertly, Obama fully intends on inflating the currency to pay of the massive deficit he has shoved through Congress.

Meanwhile, he uses the increased prices produced by inflation to justify continuing unionization—he backs “card check” legislation—forcing up the cost of doing business and throwing people out of work. He then blames unemployment on the failure of the free market and states that the government must step in to hire more Americans.

It’s the same tried and true policy that created the Great Depression. During the inflationary period following the institution of the Federal Reserve in 1913, the purchasing power of the dollar fell rapidly -- 56 percent by 1929. The easy availability of credit led to the same sort of economic bubble mirrored during the recent real estate boom.

The government’s response was the same, too. According to economist Murray Rothbard, within a week after the stock market crash of 1929, the Federal Reserve pumped cash into the system: it added $300 million to the private bank reserves; it doubled its holdings of government securities, adding $150 million to the reserves, and discounting $200 million for member banks.

Writes Rothbard, “As a result, the weekly reporting member banks expanded their deposits during the fateful last week of October by $1.8 billion (a monetary expansion of nearly 10 percent in one week).” The Federal Reserve lowered its discount rate from 6 percent to 4.5 percent.


Now Obama wants to pursue the same inflationary policies. He’s pushing the deficit beyond the breaking point. He’s using “card check” to inflate wages, producing unemployment. He’s destroying savings.

And he’s loving every minute of it. When it comes to inflation, very few people can identify its pernicious effects; it’s far easier to cite the dangers of laissez-faire capitalism. Which, of course, is Obama’s plan. Capitalism will be different when Obama finishes with it—it will be another name for socialism, purposefully brought on by governmental measures.


i trust you saw the trillion dollars printed out of thin air yesterday?

http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/18/business/fed.php

[freakscene]

this is pretty funny

Obama Gives the GOP an Opening

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123742266398778963.html

President Barack Obama and his West Wing lieutenants are playing on the world's largest stage, yet act as if no one is watching them when they contradict their campaign promises. That behavior is unwittingly giving the Republicans an opening.................

With the Dow at 7,486 and unemployment at 8.1%, Mr. Obama says the economy is fundamentally sound. Does he suppose the nation won't recall him attacking John McCain last September for saying the same thing -- when the Dow was at 11,000 and unemployment at 6.2%?

[freakscene]

anyone who watched the obamateurs performance last night, or read about it in todays news, understands exactly why he needs his teleprompter to speak.

Special Olympics ?

:top:

[concrete]

anyone who watched the obamateurs performance last night, or read about it in todays news, understands exactly why he needs his teleprompter to speak.

Special Olympics ?

:top:

How odd this is coming from those who shout "down with Political Correctness". The remark was an off hand joke of a type all of us make, all in all, I found the Leno thing a refreshing departure from the sinisiter hidden government of President Cheney and Stooge-in-Chief Bush. Leno, unlike the usual politcal reporters, seemed to have a real comman-man focus to his questions, and Obama's answers seemed absent the dodgy crap.

I think the thing that bugs Republicans the most is that we finally have a president that is willing to talk directly to the people, as if they were actually adults. This is such a radical departure from Bush's platitudionous drivel delivered in eight-year-old-speak, it is frightening for them, as they may have to actually hear the truth.

Again we see the kiddies on the right unwilling to focus on the meat of the issues because their boy screwed that up so bad and choose, instead to dwell on nits. If folks had focused on this level of Bush's nits in the first sixty days of his Administration the internet would have bogged down to zero...well, except that, during the dot.com bust he chose to take a vacation for half of those days.

[freakscene]

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/03/19/terence-corcoran-is-this-the-end-of-america.aspx


Is this the end of America?


Helicopter Ben Bernanke’s Federal Reserve is dropping trillions of fresh paper dollars on the world economy, the President of the United States is cracking jokes on late night comedy shows, his energy minister is threatening a trade war over carbon emissions, his treasury secretary is dithering over a banking reform program amid rising concerns over his competence and a monumentally dysfunctional U.S. Congress is launching another public jihad against corporations and bankers.

As an aghast world — from China to Chicago and Chihuahua — watches, the circus-like U.S. political system seems to be declining into near chaos. Through it all, stock and financial markets are paralyzed. The more the policy regime does, the worse the outlook gets. The multi-ringed spectacle raises a disturbing question in many minds: Is this the end of America?

Probably not

Past success, however, is no guarantee of future recovery, especially now when there are daily disasters and new indicators of political breakdown. All developments are not disasters in themselves. The AIG bonus firestorm is a diversion from real issues , but it puts the ghastly political classes who make U.S. law on display for what they are: ageing self-serving demagogues who have spent decades warping the U.S. political system for their own ends. We see the system up close, law-making that is riddled with slapdash, incompetence and gamesmanship.

One test of whether we are witnessing the end of America is how many more times Americans put up with congressional show trials of individual business people and their employees, slandering and vilifying them for their actions and motives. And for how long will they tolerate a President who berates business and corporations as dens of crime and malfeasance? If the majority of Americans come to accept the caricatures of business as true, then America is closer to the end of its life as a global leader, as a champion of markets and individualism.

But America is at risk in other ways, especially in the technical business of setting and executing policy. The presidency of Barack Obama has set out on a course that has no precedent in U.S. history. Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose New Deal transformed the U.S. economy during the Great Depression, pushed America off on a sharply different political and ideological course. The Obama administration is different in many ways, not least in its supreme self-confidence in its methods and objectives.

Reform of health care, environmental policy, education, energy, banking, regulation — every nook and cranny of the U.S. economy has been put on alert for major change. Expansion of government spending, plunging the U.S. into unprecedented deficits, is without parallel. In economic policy, through regulation and control of energy output, financial services and monetary expansion, the U.S. government has embarked on a fundamental reshaping of America. It is designed, in short, to bring on the end of America

change you can believe in bentley

[madcowdisease]

Sure his comment wan't very PC but I am more concerned with the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office's findings that the Obama budget runs a much larger deficit than previosuly purported and will essentially bankrupt the country over the next ten years as shown here:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=a3FY84ILxIUc

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/03/20/business/Obama-Budget.php

With all of these hurried spending programs I'm beginning to think the moniker Obamateur is fitting and that perhaps Obama's campaign opponents were right in saying "we can't afford for the President to learn on the job."

[freakscene]

Again we see the kiddies on the right unwilling to focus on the meat of the issues because their boy screwed that up so bad and choose, instead to dwell on nits.

I find it quite entertaining that anyone who criticizes the COOTUS (community organizer of the united states) is automatically a Bush supporter/fanatic.

George Bush was many things. A conservative is not one of them.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/var/plain/storage/images/media/obama_index_graphics/obama_index_march_21_2009/209874-1-eng-US/obama_index_march_21_2009.jpg

bullish crossover coming

[freakscene]

With all of these hurried spending programs I'm beginning to think the moniker Obamateur is fitting and that perhaps Obama's campaign opponents were right in saying "we can't afford for the President to learn on the job."


Not only domestic policies MCD.

Check this out. He actually sent a video tape to Iran.

Too Clever by Half

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/03/too_clever_by_half.html

It is now spring; the vernal equinox was reached Friday morning. To celebrate, Barack Obama sent a video of himself to Iran.

This was one of several end-of-week media performances, as Mr. Obama went back into "campaign mode" after a break of several months. The message of the polls is that he had better start selling his policies harder, because they are showing signs of not going over very well. Moreover, the unpolled elites, including those within the Democratic Party, have started to ask questions aloud about whether their man is competent; and as we know from painful history, such uncertainties from an elite tend to "trickle down.............."

As I mentioned during the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama was seriously unqualified for the job of president. He had no practical experience in running anything, except political campaigns; but worse, his background was one-dimensional..............

He is a free soul, but he is also the product of environments in which even moderately conservative ideas are never considered; but where people on the further reaches of the left are automatically welcomed as "avant-garde." His whole idea of where the middle might be, is well to the left of where the average American might think it is. To a man like Obama, as he has let slip on too many occasions when away from his teleprompter, "Middle America" is not something to be compromised with, but rather, something that must be manipulated, because it is stupid. And the proof that it can be manipulated, is that he is the president today.

It is at this point that the phenomenon known as "too clever by half" sets in. Technically, it is indistinguishable from arrogance and hubris, but it is unnecessary to stress the point. Sixty days into his first term (and I begin to doubt there'll be a second), he would seem already to have dug a hole from which no rhetorical skill can lift him.

The video to Iran is the latest catastrophe. Mr. Obama simply does not understand how his "olive branch" will be received, not only by the mullahs in Iran itself, but wherever else on the surface of the planet the United States has enemies. It "reads" -- to people who do not share anything like America's aspirations -- as an unambiguous confession of weakness. He has moved the American position towards Iran from offensive to defensive, for no defensible reason.

[Gordo]

The video is a joke. Obama.....wake up and realize these people don't want to be our friends no matter how hard you try. http://cbs11tv.com/national/president.barack.obama.2.963706.html

[concrete]

About friggin time we mend our relations with Iran and solve our differences in a civilized way. I know, I know, you want war, blood and gore; I sure hope you NEVER get your wishes. Does peace scare you?

[WiqqyNYU]

Gordo, america has done enough harm to the world for it to be making friend requests.

[Gordo]

Gordo, america has done enough harm to the world for it to be making friend requests.

Really? We give the world money, humanitarian aide, act as police, and we are doing harm?

My previous comment was directed at the muslim creed/culture more than anything else.

[fizzziks]

Really? We give the world money, humanitarian aide, act as police, and we are doing harm?

My previous comment was directed at the muslim creed/culture more than anything else.

Acts of violence and war often cover the news, rather than our humanitarian efforts. That's a known fact.

It's more "entertaining" for people to hear about U.S. offensive strikes in Pakistan/Afghanistan/Iraq and their consequences than hearing about how we've delivered bottled waters to remote regions in the Sahara, or how we've helped with the Red Cross.

[freakscene]

About friggin time we mend our relations with Iran and solve our differences in a civilized way.

Yeah. Youtube diplomacy sure shows a hand of strength to a culture where strength means everything

:top:

[freakscene]

Dollar Declines Most Since 1985 Plaza Accord on Fed Bond Buying


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aNdu22y30zwc&refer=worldwide

“What it introduces is the problem of the currency to the extent that the Fed is buying what isn’t desired by foreign holders,”

[BuyOnDips]

Yeah. Youtube diplomacy sure shows a hand of strength to a culture where strength means everything

:top:

Obama's foreign policies so far have been a disaster. He's very naive and it shows.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03252009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/os_foreign_failures_161154.htm

[BentleyVTech]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/25/begala.gop/index.html

[freakscene]

Paul Begala ???

good grief, he's hardly an objective thinker

the best thing for our Republic is for this charlatan to go back to being a thug organizer in chicago and return the White House to an actual American

President Obama failed to sell his budget plans to the American people

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/03/25/2009-03-25_president_obama_failed_to_sell_his_budge.html

EU presidency: US economic plans 'a road to hell'

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/EU-presidency-US-economic-apf-14737788.html

The president of the European Union slammed President Barack Obama's plans to have the U.S. spend its way out of recession as "a road to hell," underscoring European differences with Washington ahead of a crucial summit next week on fixing the world economy.

[freakscene]

http://antiobamabumperstickers.us/images/bEND_oVER.jpg

[Rich]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqkMfToY9Pk&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpiratenews%2Dtv%2Eblogspot%2Ecom %2F2009%2F02%2Fpirate%2Dnews%2Dtv%2Dbanned%2Ehtml&feature=player_embedded

[win/win]

This is awesome, Obama was not in this crash.
No armor plated limousine for you bud.
Love this one. 1961 Chevy Impala
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx2IxlsZVf8

[cramerica1972]

all the disrepect for obama here is sickening,the 1st black president in 400 yrs of america being called racist names here.

[tlsurfsupper]

What kind of "racist" names?

Names such as.....

warmonger

idiot

liar

nazi

doofus

Hmmmm..seems there was a lot of name calling the past few years as I recall.

You are right, it is a shame.

But it is what it is.

[freakscene]

all the disrepect for obama here is sickening,the 1st black president in 400 yrs of america being called racist names here.

calling him a communist has nothing to do with race, and it is not disrespectful

if you dont like accurate descriptions of his policies, then stop reading the internet and simply watch NBC for your news coverage

[cramerica1972]

why wasnt bush called a commie/liberal?

[Mastajab]

Cramerica is such a clown.

Bush was compared to a monkey constantly.
Obama was compared to a monkey once, and losers like Cramerica get their panties in a bunch and go march and whine about Racism...

[Survivor]

[QUOTE=Mastajab;216736]Cramerica is such a clown.

Lay off buckwheat.

[freakscene]

why wasnt bush called a commie/liberal?

Well, he wasnt/isnt a communist - thats why.

and i have called him a liberal. he was as liberal of a Republican that has ever been elected.

[cramerica1972]

there a huge difference btween calling bush a monkey and obama.

[blynch]

there a huge difference btween calling bush a monkey and obama.

that there is a difference is racist

People that get their panties up in a bunch over trivial name calling are creating racism.

[cramerica1972]

that there is a difference is racist

People that get their panties up in a bunch over trivial name calling are creating racism.
LOOK up the use of the word monkey as it has been used as a deragatory term 2wards black people.calling him that is just as racist as calling him the n word.if you cant respect him as president,y bother wasting your breath?

[tlsurfsupper]

LOOK up the use of the word monkey as it has been used as a deragatory term 2wards black people.calling him that is just as racist as calling him the n word.if you cant respect him as president,y bother wasting your breath?

Why does monkey equate to "black people". Who the hell sees color these days?

Apparently you do.

[Blood De]

Why does monkey equate to "black people". Who the hell sees color these days?

Apparently you do.


I agree, I dont get the monkey thing either. You cant go around taking words in the name of a race ( or any other group).

The "nword".. fine. I dont say "g*d damn" out of respect for religious people even though I'm not religious. But you liberals are goin a little too far with the politically correct word games.

[blynch]

Why does monkey equate to "black people". Who the hell sees color these days?

Apparently you do.

this was the point I was making

[freakscene]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/toby_harnden/blog/2009/04/01/barack_obamas_gift_for_the_queen_an_ipod_your_maje sty

you have to read the comments posted by citizens of Europe to really laugh at what an embarrassment the Obama's are

good stuff !

[BentleyVTech]

So during the election process you were all caught-up on Obama not discussing the real 'issues' (although he did more than his Republican counter-parts)....

And once he gets elected, it seems like we hear more about this dumb, little, non-important cases.

Freak...please provide a list of all the presidents you like and approve of.

Next, I wanna know what all of their gifts were to foreign leaders.

You better not approve of a President that gives bad gifts! Thats truely a sign of Foreign Policy.

[freakscene]

whats the matter bentley? just like obama, you cant take the honest truth - and this time from some non Americans?

he's an embarrassment, aside from being a communist

some of my favorites for those not clicking

These clowns remind me of the old TV show, "The Beverly Hillbillies". The obamas have lots of class. Regrettably, it's all low class...

Note to Michelle: Don't give ANY more presents. Ask someone who has experience giving - not taking - to do this important diplomatic task for you

Another note: In the third to the last paragraph, what Obama said, if it is quoted exactly, makes absolutely no sense. But that is expected if he didn't have his teleprompter with him.

The Obamas are tasteless and uncouth in manners. The gift to the Queen could have been special if Michelle's staff had spoken with the Queen's staff. But typical of the know everything Obama world, the two of them managed to appear ignorant and are. What a sorry excuse for a President and Wife [First Ladies have taste].

I was expecting the Queen to present Obama with a gift set of 25 DVD's of American 'classics'. "here you go, these don't play here".

and my personnel favorite which i will bold because i happen to agree with it:

To all you Americans who have had your feelings hurt with my comments about the American educational system, the dumb Americans were mostly responsible for Obama's election. It has been proven over and over in surveys of Obama voters. They were clueless.

[freakscene]

Freak...please provide a list of all the presidents you like and approve of.



can i do it in the form of a YouTube video, sort of like obama's diplomacy towards iran?

to the tune of Simon and Garfunkels Mrs Robinson:

where have ya gone Thomas Jefferson,

our nation needs you more than you will know

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLAg8a0vCZQ

the lyrics could have been better, but the point is there

[BentleyVTech]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090402/ap_on_re_eu/g20_michelle_obama

"Michelle Obama charms queen away from protocol"

-So I guess this is an instance where Michelle didnt follow what past leaders and first ladys have done, and displayed more affection - and it was openly accepted.

And freak...when you established this thread in 'Stock Picks and Strategies" - you may have meant to keep it on topic. But just like most of the Republican party, you veered off course and have been caught up in immaterial and nonsense articles. Read most of your recent posts and you will see that few have anything to do with picking stocks or strategies.

[concrete]

It's time for the whole dress-up game to go, kings and queens, popes, screw these a-holes who dress up in crowns and pointy hats and are therefore more important than the rest of us. To the guillotines, the lot of them. The French knew how to deal with these useless parasites. Just ask Louis, he might be able to get another word or two out:
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg85/concretisttexas/guillotine.jpg

[freakscene]

And freak...when you established this thread in 'Stock Picks and Strategies" - you may have meant to keep it on topic. But just like most of the Republican party, you veered off course and have been caught up in immaterial and nonsense articles. Read most of your recent posts and you will see that few have anything to do with picking stocks or strategies.

perhaps you should check to see who established the thread before accusing me of doing it, or being unable to stay on topic.

i would expect nothing less from someone who proudly voted for a communist.

unaware of the surroundings right in front of him

[freakscene]

on topic, just for bentley

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D979POSG0&show_article=1

another obama lie, which, well, is hardly surprising to those of us who are aware

"I can make a firm pledge," he said in Dover, N.H., on Sept. 12. "Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."

He repeatedly vowed "you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime."

"No one making less than $250,000 under Barack Obama's plan will see one single penny of their tax raised," Joe Biden said, "whether it's their capital gains tax, their income tax, investment tax, any tax."



One of President Barack Obama's campaign pledges on taxes went up in puffs of smoke Wednesday.

The largest increase in tobacco taxes took effect despite Obama's promise not to raise taxes of any kind on families earning under $250,000 or individuals under $200,000.

This is one tax that disproportionately affects the poor, who are more likely to smoke than the rich.

i dont smoke so i dont really care - other than to chuckle at the chuckle heads who voted for this clown and will find this the first of many of their taxes that will go up

queue up Bush response from the obamabots

[BentleyVTech]

Was the tax a good or bad thing freak? So you want things to be fair right? You want the wealthy to keep the money they deserve right? Not give money to the poor? What about the healthy paying for the healthcare for the less fortunate - that chose to do things that cause cancer?

What happens when someone who's poor their whole life and smokes cigarettes their whole life....they get lung cancer....who pays for their healthcare freak?!? Everyone else....even though they were the ones that chose to smoke something that specifically states it causes cancer.

I think this is a great idea, and will generate good money for the Government & more importantly, keep more people healthier...and decrease healthcare costs.

Let me get this straight, you are not for someone born to a less fortunate family to receive more of a break during these economic hardships (aka a tax system that taxes the wealthy more than the poor - I am not for this at ALL TIMES, but for rough times, like a recession, I am)

But are you for someone receiving healthcare benefits because they chose to put their health at risk?

Or are just trying to make a point that this President doesn't live up to EVERY single word he said during a campaign...and if that is your point - name a President that has.


How about we stop looking at if he promised he'd do it or not, and see if it was the RIGHT thing to do.

[freakscene]

How about we stop looking at if he promised he'd do it or not, and see if it was the RIGHT thing to do. [/B]

spoken like a true boot licker bentley.

took him 3 months to break one of his main campaign promises, which he repeated day in and day out for a year plus, duping stupid people like yourself, conning may be a better word, to vote for him

were you not one of those people who told me he wouldnt raise taxes on those make under 250 large?

well, some of us tried to warn you

wait until the rest of what we warned about comes true, if he cant even live up to one of his main promises


oh, i like how you ignored my response to your claim about the thread creation

just another example supporting the Zogby poll of what type of person voted for this charlatan ..............

:mrgreen:

[BentleyVTech]

And you highlighted the negative points of the article...

The extra money will be used to finance a major expansion of health insurance for children. That represents a step toward achieving another promise, to make sure all kids are covered.

[BentleyVTech]

Let me get this straight, you are not for someone born to a less fortunate family to receive more of a break during these economic hardships (aka a tax system that taxes the wealthy more than the poor - I am not for this at ALL TIMES, but for rough times, like a recession, I am)

But are you for someone receiving healthcare benefits because they chose to put their health at risk?

Or are just trying to make a point that this President doesn't live up to EVERY single word he said during a campaign...and if that is your point - name a President that has.


How about we stop looking at if he promised he'd do it or not, and see if it was the RIGHT thing to do.

[freakscene]

should i just copy/paste the last response i had to that post?

you fell for one of the oldest bait and switches in the book

and you are too much in love with him to admit it

he is a communist

you are a communist supporter

[madcowdisease]

From an email that is now making its way around:


An economics professor at Texas Tech said he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class. The class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said okay, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism.

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset, and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too, so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the third test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise. And the professor told them that socialism would ultimately fail because the harder to succeed, the greater the reward, but when a government takes all the reward away, no one will try or succeed.

[concrete]

It would be a shame if we had to help the disadvantaged out with a little health care at the expense of socialism to the wall street bankers were bailing out. The War on Poverty brought a decent life to millions of black people whom were freed from the jackboots of the southern white fascists, and cost-wise, compared to Bush it was a pittance.

Things you have to believe to be a Republican today:

Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multinational corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our longtime allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.

HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.

Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense.

A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.

Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness, and you need our prayers for your recovery.

You support states' rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they have the right to adopt.

What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.

[Gordo]

Good points Concrete, but many (if not most) are generalizations. I am Republican and don't believe most of your list.

[blynch]

What the Rebulican Party has become is almost as far away from Rebulican as the Dems are. However, Obama looks to take things even further with our monsterous national government and well fare state.

I feel, or rather hope, that many who call themselves Republicans do not fall into said "Party" generalizations and rather believe in traditional Republican values: Non-interventionism, State's rights, the constitution, and a minimalist national government. What the Republican Party should do is renounce their actions over the past several decades and pledge to return to responsible policy.

[win/win]

It would be a shame if we had to help the disadvantaged out with a little health care at the expense of socialism to the wall street bankers were bailing out. The War on Poverty brought a decent life to millions of black people whom were freed from the jackboots of the southern white fascists, and cost-wise, compared to Bush it was a pittance.

Things you have to believe to be a Republican today:

Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multinational corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our longtime allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.

HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.

Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense.

A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.

Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness, and you need our prayers for your recovery.

You support states' rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they have the right to adopt.

What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.

:dito:
Nice with a touch of sarcasm, left one out though-
Ask not how the country is screwing you but how can you screw the country.

[madcowdisease]

It would be a shame if we had to help the disadvantaged out with a little health care at the expense of socialism to the wall street bankers were bailing out. The War on Poverty brought a decent life to millions of black people whom were freed from the jackboots of the southern white fascists, and cost-wise, compared to Bush it was a pittance.

Things you have to believe to be a Republican today:

I do not claim to be a Republican but rather fiscally conservative and socially liberal -- so yes, that means advocating gay marriage and pro-choice. I have my beefs with the Republican party as well as the Dems so please don't lump me into that trash heap. In fact I think your tit-for-tat post is exactly what is wrong with our political system. Too many of the populace does not have the cojones to support a logical third party candidate.

So just to play devil's advocate here, keep in mind it was the southern Democrats that attempted to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1964 including Al Gore Sr. In addition northern Democrats were opposed to the gender protections of the Act, such woman's rights that were long advocated for by Republicans.

Before citing LBJ's policies consider the words of renowned economist Thomas Sowell regarding the efficacy of The War on Poverty which can be read here:

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3864

August 20th marks the 40th anniversary of one of the major turning points in American social history. That was the date on which President Lyndon Johnson signed legislation creating his "War on Poverty" program in 1964.

Never had there been such a comprehensive program to tackle poverty at its roots, to offer more opportunities to those starting out in life, to rehabilitate those who had fallen by the wayside, and to make dependent people self-supporting. Its intentions were the best. But we know what road is paved with good intentions.

The War on Poverty represented the crowning triumph of the liberal vision of society -- and of government programs as the solution to social problems. The disastrous consequences that followed have made the word "liberal" so much of a political liability that today even candidates with long left-wing track records have evaded or denied that designation.

In the liberal vision, slums bred crime. But brand-new government housing projects almost immediately became new centers of crime and quickly degenerated into new slums. Many of these projects later had to be demolished. Unfortunately, the assumptions behind those projects were not demolished, but live on in other disastrous programs, such as Section 8 housing.

Rates of teenage pregnancy and venereal disease had been going down for years before the new 1960s attitudes toward sex spread rapidly through the schools, helped by War on Poverty money. These downward trends suddenly reversed and skyrocketed.

The murder rate had also been going down, for decades, and in 1960 was just under half of what it had been in 1934. Then the new 1960s policies toward curing the "root causes" of crime and creating new "rights" for criminals began. Rates of violent crime, including murder, skyrocketed.

The black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life.

Government social programs such as the War on Poverty were considered a way to reduce urban riots. Such programs increased sharply during the 1960s. So did urban riots. Later, during the Reagan administration, which was denounced for not promoting social programs, there were far fewer urban riots.

Neither the media nor most of our educational institutions question the assumptions behind the War on Poverty. Even conservatives often attribute much of the progress that has been made by lower-income people to these programs.

For example, the usually insightful quarterly magazine City Journal says in its current issue: "Beginning in the mid-sixties, the condition of most black Americans improved markedly."

That is completely false and misleading.

The economic rise of blacks began decades earlier, before any of the legislation and policies that are credited with producing that rise. The continuation of the rise of blacks out of poverty did not -- repeat, did not -- accelerate during the 1960s.

The poverty rate among black families fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent in 1960, during an era of virtually no major civil rights legislation or anti-poverty programs. It dropped another 17 percentage points during the decade of the 1960s and one percentage point during the 1970s, but this continuation of the previous trend was neither unprecedented nor something to be arbitrarily attributed to the programs like the War on Poverty.

In various skilled trades, the incomes of blacks relative to whites more than doubled between 1936 and 1959 -- that is, before the magic 1960s decade when supposedly all progress began. The rise of blacks in professional and other high-level occupations was greater in the five years preceding the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than in the five years afterwards.

While some good things did come out of the 1960s, as out of many other decades, so did major social disasters that continue to plague us today. Many of those disasters began quite clearly during the 1960s.

But what are mere facts compared to a heady vision? Liberal assumptions -- "two Americas," for example -- are being recycled this election year, even by candidates who evade the "liberal" label.

[concrete]

MCD:
I think we’ve debated the civil rights act before so I’ll let it slide especially considering it’s totally irrelevant to today’s GOP, which is Goldwater’s worst nightmare. A party made up of a bunch of AM radio trolls screaming revolution and violence loaded with racist code words (the magic negro), black helicopter nuts and religious crusaders. The GOP is finished, period. They’re finished because who wants to be associated with that lunatic crowd and they were exposed for what they are. The ruling class that loves socialism for the rich but screw the little guy. They belittle and loathe the little guy, especially if he’s black, gay or non-Christian. Most of the world lives on the European social democracy model; I am always amazed when the GOP throw this lie around that it has "always failed everywhere". Yeah, like Sweden, Britain, Norway, Germany, France, Italy... all those failed states, hey, excuse me, I got to send some gruel to Ireland. Last week I heard some GOP dinosaur congressman exclaiming "this budget will mark the point in our history when we became European!" and all I could think was, ok, so what's the bad news?

I can’t see how a third party could rise to power with our system. The Founders were essentially Classicists. They wanted a government modeled after the best Greek Democracy and Republican Rome had to offer, tempered by the lessons from each that resulted in the rise of the Tyrant, and tempered by the lessons of English Parliamentarianism and it's eventual failure in the English Civil War, a failure that again resulted in a resurgence of the Tyrant. In all three, it was the unbridled passions of the people that they saw as the main aid to the rise of tyranny as either a reaction to or manipulation of democracy. Caesar did not rise to the top thru the Senate, it was his control of the Roman mobs that allowed him to manipulate the Senate, something that they would see as now possible due to our direct election of Senators and I think it did happen in the railroading of this country into Iraq. The lessons of the English Civil War were applied as well, although you will never get right wing "Christian Nation" religious kooks to admit, the mob was this time inflamed by religion and the Founders saw fit to deal with that as well.

The Founders essentially combined the two major features of England and Rome-Parliament and the Senate, making them co-equal in power, underpinned the Parliament with Greek universalism and the Senate and President with Roman Patricianism, and then added their own unique feature, the removal of the judiciary from subservience to the Executive into a co-equal branch of government, a balance that Bush tried to destroy during the infamous Gonzalez episode for which he and Cheney should have been impeached. It was essentially the election of a Democratic Congress and the return of Check and Balance that defeated Bush's attempt to complete his vision of a neo-fascist presidency, where even the Law itself was a toy for the Executive.

The founders rejected direct democracy because history shows the mob eventually elects a Tyrant to correct its own excesses or in response to emotional argument, like Hitler or Bush, for example. There is more to society than the passage of laws, there is the necessity for the guaranteeal of rights. The co-equal branches of government are designed as much to that as they are to pass laws. A popular democracy would simply vote away the rights of the minorities and hamstring the courts. IMO, we should either return to the Founder's original model or simply return to the British model, which I think has in the end turned out to be the better form of government, better than the bastardized pseudo-democracy, or actually the Dictatorship of Capital, that this government has become.

[BlackholeDivestment]

It's written is stone, the truth is not a choice, unless you are a monkey, then it's constructed with concrete and metal bars by man, for man to claim stewardship as long as the highest intelligence is in charge of sustaining the order of man but, since the environment offers no choice, nothing ever matters, there is no choice. Do what you will, thus be the whole of the law ...of Concrete or the monkey, there is no matter at hand... change is a black hole.

Labor is defined in agreement with the truth, if not ...well, principle sustains order regardless and does not change. Principle perfectly measures the virtue of labor. The market place does not lie, labor sets the foundation and represents the cause that sustains order, it's own individual interest, life, liberty freedom and justice for all. The market can devour principle, labor ...and attempt to levitate on a delusion expressed by the counterweight of short term gain, hope and faith in it's own image, it's own long term projection but, not without devouring the principle of labor and inflating the black hole of corruption. Labor shall suffer until the devouring corruption produces it's own image, crap, ...then shall there be fertile ground. The image of corruption is enslavement, war and death, ...it stinks.

The two party system is corrupt, it is devouring principle, labor, not because it has regard for life, liberty, freedom and justice for all and not because it gives a damn about the environment. A corrupt body, political and economic conspiracy that consumes it's own rate of return, because it can't produce, defines a singularity that requires a host, a fool, a slave, a whore ...to produce another temporal surrogate. The two parties defines a New World Order corrupt global slave system, a principle that never changes, it just expands and contracts the principle of it's own desire, it's own domain claim as an attempt to remain corrupt. The parties murder perfection, they do not provide security or safety for anyone or anything, they do not have the principle for it and never will.

Concrete, your savior can't be a dumb, corrupt chump, he's a pro-choice christian. He's just like you, he thinks the truth is a choice, not the love of God in Christ. You geniuses aborted the principle of labor for your own image. You compromised the Constitution, you offer a change for the rule of law, a New World Order to sustain your own image, at the expense the principle for your own image. You will never escape your own offer, your own judgment. You are so brilliant, your own principle can't exist, it has no future because, your own image is an offer that eliminates the principle cause for it. You exist principally by chance, defined by your of definition, your own accidental existence. There is no possibility for intelligence, you have no design model that provides for you. Your brilliance defines your god-like production according to your own U.N.-Sustainable Development, agenda.
Your own standard sets the rule, you have no choice, no mark cause, the end is defined by a dead host that represents your assumption, your beginning. You are your own measure in time, without cause for life. The fact that you exists, is not based on your own intelligence but, a fascist principle claim of selection, absent cause for your own intelligence to agree with your impossible presence.

You are the elect ...that stand accused by your own judgment. You did not choose to be born, you have no choice and no principle cause.
The Truth is Love. Love is not a choice, it is the rule that sustains life, liberty, freedom and justice for all. You better snap out of it and agree with the principle of labor and the perfection that sustains you, provides a return and cause for you, if not for the sake of principle, that being the physical reality required to provide and sustain order. If you do not, the labor you devour will always suffer your stupidity, your corrupt principle and you will remain as you were, out of order, in judgment.

Stand fast, do no harm, fear not, go with God in Christ, if not the principle. If you don't agree, the spirit of your law will continue to corrupt the whole body and destroy the peace labor provides when it is at rest.

In short, stop kicking your own butt, it's unbecoming. Counterintelligence will not work for you ...ever, it can't offer a choice, it provides no labor and will not sustain you.

[BuyOnDips]

Obama Wants to Control the Banks

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123879833094588163.html

[Gordo]

Concrete, you are free to move to Europe. Whats holding you back?

[Horsefish]

Concrete, you are free to move to Europe. Whats holding you back?

He and I are waiting to move to the moon as soon as Virgin Airlines arranges regular service. OH! and we have to figure out how to reduce bid and ask and stock order execution delay times.......:beer::smokin:

[freakscene]

Obama Wants to Control the Banks

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123879833094588163.html

quite staggering that Banks want to give TARP money back, in some instances money that was forced upon them, and this administration wont take it

yet concrete, as simple as the argument is, continues to try and link Republicans with corporate welfare?

[concrete]

quite staggering that Banks want to give TARP money back, in some instances money that was forced upon them, and this administration wont take it

yet concrete, as simple as the argument is, continues to try and link Republicans with corporate welfare?

Ask Bush, Tarp was his idea.

[freakscene]

seems to me he needed votes to pass it

votes from communists like the obamateur - if your long term memory isnt working.

and that communist obama released the second 350 billion, with no bush around for you to blame

sad, isnt it?