Obama and His Clueless Economic Clowns

“Overlooked by many in President Obama’s budget proposal is a provision that would reduce by 20 percent the amount wealthy people can deduct from their taxes for making charitable donations.”

Voluntary charity is competition for the progressive agenda. Why should you be trusted to support charities of your choice? The government is here to redistribute your (shrinking) wealth for you.

Love the analogy you make in your first paragraph — so apt.

Never before have I appreciated the merits of a two-party system. Republicans so thoroughly squandered any credibility they may have had that we’re now a one-party country. And that party is cakewalking it’s way to what — an unnecessarily-prolonged recession? Inflation? Deflation? Stagnation? Depression? Certainly their agenda is even more irrational exuberance, which is what we’re trying to overcome in the first place, no?

Who’s going to offer effective opposition to the profligate spending spree? Before the election, some pundits tried to assuage us saying that Obama would be restrained by fiscal reality. Seems to me the POTUS and legislators feel no restraint whatsoever. Aren’t any Democrats going to be the designated drivers at this bacchanal?

Yes, great analogy. The message is clear–we are in for a rough time….

Many are heading for the back seat or simply throwing themselves under the bus!

Mr. Johnson used the word ‘niggardly’ in reference to a white guy. Therefore Mr. Johnson is a racist.

Just thought I’d get that out of the way. You know the far left blogs will jump on that one word.

this post is right on. Republicans screwed us now the Dimwits are.

I read today that FDIC insured banks have had their insurance fees increased by the FDIC because of the bank failures. I would suspect the increase will be passed to consumers – yet more banking fees, lower interest on savings.

I don’t think that there is one politician who has a clue what they are doing to our economy. Bush’s policies and the greed they inspired severely damaged our economy. Seems that BO intends to put the stake in its heart. Excesive borrowing with less productionis very bad. Where do they expect to get taxes when nothing is being produced? Probably loot the Social Security Funds in the name of “reform.”

You are absolutely correct. Obama believes government is the only viable solution to every problem we face. As charities falter and close Obama will “Since these hard times have affected many charities we(Meaning the government) must step in to fill the void. This will mean sacrifices for you plebeians, I mean citizens, because I need more of your money to do their work.” You can call me crazy but it really seems like they are trying to drive the economy in the cr@pper on purpose in order to gain more control over and create a goverment dependent society.

Very good analysis LJ comparing Obama to Bush as clown for clown and idiot for idiot. The only difference is that Bush maladjustment had specifics intentions (designed by Greenspan) of raising GDP even when knowingly it would result in what we have now. Obama’s intention is more perverse, imo. He really can give a crap if the country spins into unprecedented unmitigated chaos. Why? Because he has a plan in his left pocket, snatch between the pages of his Alinsky’s rules for this kind of situations.

I am an apocalyptic nut. I want my money in WalMart credits.

You are absolutely correct. Obama believes government is the only viable solution to every problem we face. As charities falter and close Obama will “Since these hard times have affected many charities we(Meaning the government) must step in to fill the void. This will mean sacrifices for you plebeians, I mean citizens, because I need more of your money to do their work.” You can call me crazy but it really seems like they are trying to drive the economy in the cr@pper on purpose in order to gain more control over and create a government dependent society.

Or, you can just you a credit union.

Yes, very dumb.

I have a bridge I’d like to offer “Changes Like The Wind” Obama.

Sorry for the fat finger…

“Or, you can just USE a credit union.”

This is the worst of all worlds.

Although it is true that his economic policies are driving down the market, I do not believe his intent is to become Reagan and look for greater prosperity.

Obama is a socialist (not liberal). Period. There is nothing in his life that does not point to a man who was mentored at an early age to adopt radical socialist beliefs

Obama was in Hawaii from 1971-1979, where, at some point in time, he developed a close relationship with Franklin Marshall Davis, a well known Black communist. He was introduced to him by his grandfather who shared the same beliefs as Davis. Davis treated Obama almost like a son and provided advice on his career path. In his book, Dreams From My Father, Obama refers to him repeatedly as just “Frank.”

In his books, Obama admits attending “socialist conferences” and coming into contact with Marxist literature. Through Frank Marshall Davis, Obama had an admitted relationship with someone who was publicly identified as a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA).

While there is no evidence that Obama was a bright student, the questions surrounding his years at Columbia, where he transferred from Occidental College, leave a lot of suspicion about who he associated with and what courses he took.

Barack Obama had just graduated from Columbia and was looking for a job. Some white leftists were looking for someone who could recruit in a black neighborhood in the south side of Chicago. Obama answered a help-wanted ad for a position as a community organizer for the Developing Communities Project of the Calumet Community Religious Conference (CCRC) in Chicago. Both the CCRC and the DCP were built on the well known socialist Saul Alinsky model of community agitation, wherein paid organizers learned how to “rub raw the sores of discontent,” in Alinsky’s words.

To complete his education and mentoring for a political future Obama needed a law degree from a prestigious law school. It was former Manhattan Borough president Percy Sutton who told a New York cable channel that a former business partner who was “raising money” for Obama had approached him in 1988 to help Obama get into Harvard Law School. In the interview, Sutton says he first heard of Obama about twenty years ago from Khalid Al-Mansour, a Black Muslim and Black Nationalist who was a “mentor” to the founders of the Black Panther party at the time the party was founded in the early 1960s.

It is apparent that Obama’s life was a socialist mentoring that has led to this moment.

Obama’s only interest is to take advantage of the current economic crisis as well as Democratic majority to force through a socialist revolution and use as much debt as possible to enact these changes.
How is he doing this. Just go back to what the agitator’s job, according to Alinsky, is:

First to bring folks to the “realization” that they are indeed miserable, that their misery is the fault of unresponsive governments or greedy corporations, then help them to bond together to demand what they deserve, and to make such an almighty stink that the dastardly governments and corporations will see imminent “self-interest” in granting whatever it is that will cause the harassment to cease.

Listen to every one of Obama’s speeches and it will carry the education he received from Alinsky.
Obama is not stupid. He has a mission. Only Joe The Plumber confronted him head on with it.

Maybe Michael Bloomberg could be the first Independent president in 2012.

If you examine Obama’s previous record of dealing with big sums of money, i.e. when he was doing that school study with his pal, Ayers, the result wasnot very good. My main concern has to do with his basic personality which has, as many have noted, a lot of grandiosity in it. He calls it audacity. This budget certainly represents an example of that. Arrogance is another part of his personality, which suggests he has not really examined his approach to any self scrutiny or criticism.

Baloney – the Clintons understood the economy, McCain understands the economy better than Obama.

A lot don’t grasp the economy but plenty do.

Obama, on the other hand, has not a clue.

And then, there are fees that will flow down to those who just got a little tax break. Obama has in his budget a $50 million this year, which grows to $500 million for use of wireless spectrum that AT&T and Verizon use. That means higher fees for wireless service.
wireless

Yeah when you get grants for a project you really don’t have to consider cost/benefit or return on investment.

We need a former business owner to run for president, either Mike Bloomberg or even Sarah Palin.

Read my condensed version up this thread.

The real problem with Obama? He has no wisdom.

He is an ersatz hero – where’s a real one that is so desperately needed? With such cowardly politicians in charge we each need to have the courage to speak out and stay involved.

I too like all of the goodies in the budget. But WE HAVE NO MONEY!!!! If we keep borrowing and printing, we will surely destroy our precious nation and our freedom.

No wisdom.

I’m sorry, but a man who avoids the arena all his life in order to keep his record perfect in order to become president is not worthy of the job.

Visit the top universities in your area, this is an obedient, infantalized generation now in college. They don’t even get irony. This is based on my interactions with U.C. Berkeley students.

The ones slogging it out in Iraq, watching some friends die, meeting real Iraqis, are probably going to emerge as the leaders of this age group.

This was another bad bad week. Bad week bad week.

Exactly.

He also knows that he has the political capital now and the majority now (since history shows a new President loses seats in the first mid-year election) so he must execute as much as he can now.

What is startling to me is why these economic advisors are allowing this? These are not Paul Volker or Lawrence Summers recommendations.

He expanded welfare and wants to gut the money we paid into Social Security.

States will actually MAKE more money by putting more people on welfare.

A world in need driven by a socialist’ ego.

Volcker’s already made noise these aren’t his ideas.

I predict even Summers will quit before the first term is up. Summers expanding welfare? Not his style at all.

Wisdom is earned and we all know he has no experience in running anything. Unfortunately he has no common sense either.

My main concern is as always; I just flat don’t trust him. Never did. And my intuition is rarely off.

Now what happened to the rest of the Democratic leadership is a mystery.

I guess we were so focused on Bush, we didn’t see how messed up our own party really was.

The goose that laid the golden egg in this country is dead.

if anybody really listened to obama during the primaries and the election they would see that he told us he was going to do this. he said he wants a civilian army as powerful and well funded as the military. hence all those millions going to La Raza and Acorn. not only as payback for helping him steal the election but to guarantee their support and loyalty in his private army. he was heard telling Acorn they will be involved and consulted in any and all desisions he makes. what???!!! now he wants to take away our right to beaR arms (leaving us defenseless against his private army) in his book he says
“if the political winds shift in an ugly direction he will stand with the muslims”(another reason to to ban our weapons?) next up is his Fairness Doctrine which will silence his detractors (us).we cant say he didnt warn us. too bad no one was listening.

He is doing the economic equivalent of George W. Bush invading Iraq.

I’d have to disagree Larry. Even as asinine as Bush’s dealing with Iraq was, Obama’s ideas on the economy are more aptly compared with sending a Cub Scout troop to invade North Korea armed with supersoakers.

I truly think O is hanging out with people who have never had to worry about money–trust funders all of them. These are people who believe it all grows on trees (despite O’s mother’s supposed use of welfare ). He thinks that if he just wants it, it will come. I truly believe he does not know a thing about how money works; so Larry’s use of the word “clueless” is accurate as far as I am concerned.

Here’s my suggestion: Since he is still in campaign mode, maybe the magical campaign web site can still generate money for him from all those obots both in the U.S. and in countries all around the world. I think all those people who “invested” in him should just keep on investing. I think that if they have any understanding of what they got us into, they should feel that they owe those of us who knew better that courtesy. They need to keep sending him money so he can use it to pay the country’s debt.

But then I’m just dreaming. O would use it to build a golden-domed temple to himself. Maybe he can play his fiddle while D.C. burns to clear the way for such a temple.

I am just rambling–feeling depressed by the economic situation and the political situation in general.

The following bits are off topic, but just contribute to my general sense of frustration with the world lateley:

1.) Our oldest newspaper in Colorado, the Rocky Mountain News, turned out its last paper today 55 days short of its 150th birtday. It makes me sad since I’ve been reading it since I was very little.

2.) Bill Ayers and CU’s fired professor, Ward Chuchill (he of the “little Nazis’ comment), will be holding a rally at the ultra-liberal, obot-inhabited Boulder campus at the Dalton Trumbo fountain. I do believe they’re trying to bring back the hippie movement or something. The student groups what are sponsoring it are balking at paying the fee for security, and so Ayers’ and Churchill’s people are, of course, saying its another plot to stifle freedom of speech. Two losers who deserve each other’s company–that’s my thinking.

Exactly, Cloward-Piven were small thinkers. They postulated the intentional overburdening and crash of the welfare system. They were small thinkers, because you expand that thought to the economy as a whole and nobody cares apparently. Call this the Obama-Pelosi strategy. Put it this way, if you haven’t had a garage sale in a while… don’t. That crap in your garage may be your most sound investment once Chinese made crap becomes more expensive.

Bush and Obama are very much alike in my opinion. They both grabbed power by taking advantage of a crisis in order to do so. Also, they both like to give; one enjoys giving to the rich, the other enjoys giving to the poor….and the middleclass is squeezed as usual.

Sorry about your paper, I live in SF and our paper is circling the drain.

But just like Obama, these papers think money will just appear somehow. They give their content away for free. I notice more and more Wall Street Journals dotting the doorsteps on my street. The WSJ doesn’t give their content away for free.

Mr. Johnson used the word ‘niggardly’ in reference to a white guy. Therefore Mr. Johnson is a racist.

Just thought I’d get that out of the way. You know the far left blogs will jump on that one word.

LMAO. They probably couldn’t find it in an on-line dictionary since they seem to have problems spelling even monosyllabic words.

You’re right, the bots will come here, make supreme jackasses out of themselves, and then blame the dictionary.

now he wants to take away our right to beaR arms (leaving us defenseless against his private army) in his book he says

There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell he could ever get that done, at least not without creating some truly serious domestic trouble.

I’m not an economist but I can certainly tell what is going on and that is the government (under the control of the Man of Many Names) is going one way and We the People are going another. He borrows from Peter to pay Paul and we Have Nots have started paying in cash.

I remember reading an article before the election charade of 2008 started and it stated that the economy wasn’t that bad, we still had 16 trillion dollars available for common folk like us to borrow. But so many of us were in financial trouble because of low wages, inflation and job insecurity that we didn’t want more debt for ourselves or our government.

What we need to do is downsize all those new departments Soertoro/Obama has created and slash government spending from blackhole projects and every other item they fund “off budget” for a start. (Especially that sneaky funding for terrorists.)

When government becomes so exaggerated and separated from the People it is supposed to protect, it must be pruned back to its original form as defined by our Constitution in order to “provide new Guards for [our] future security”. And Soertoro/Obama doesn’t get it, he, like Bush, brought extravagance and greed into Our White House when we needed moderation and restraint.

Bush and Obama are very much alike in my opinion. One is a reverse carbon copy of the other, so to speak.

What we need to do is downsize all those new departments Soertoro/Obama has created and slash government spending from blackhole projects and every other item they fund “off budget” for a start. (Especially that sneaky funding for terrorists.)

In addition, we could get rid of the Bush-league boondoggle, The Department of Homeland (In)Security. We need that worthless POS like we need holes in our collective heads.

Want security? It’s called border barriers and does not consist of a bloated, incompetent bureaucracy.

When has Obama ever given anything but an excuse to the poor?!?

Obama has been primed for this. He’s been well-funded since 2000 and put through rigorous training on how to appear in public, how to give speeches, how to act and walk like a person of authority. He is a puppet of the radical socialist left whose only goal is to destroy capitalism and put themselves in charge of the poor miserable masses. They spent almost a billion dollars to get their man to the Presidency via grass roots organizations like ACORN whose fraudulent tactics are still under investigation by the FBI. But in choosing an African American they stifled almost all avenues that might lead to vetting, dissent or opposition. So now we must wait for the American people to turn on this Marxist puppet and they will. Then those that have the goods on this guy will start to come forward. The race card can not be used because the majority of people will have opened their eyes.

“niggardly”? > LOL

They want to reduce the flow of US assault weapons to drug cartel forces just across our southern border. They’ve got very good reasons. This is tricky, though, because US citizens in our border states have an increasingly legitimate reason for wanting to own firearms. A general ban on sale and purchase would never stand up.

The government of Mexico, by the way, shouldn’t have a damn thing to say about US domestic policy. They need to get their own house in order.

If That One wants to stop the flow of assault weapons-seal the god-damn borders.

I’m tired of both the left- and right-wing bloviators trying to emasculate the Constitution for their own cynical purposes. These extremists can have my free speech when they can pry it off my cold, dead lips and my right to bear arms when they can pry the weapons from my cold, dead hands.

Constitution First

I wouldn’t trust That One to clean latrines. He’d screw that up, too.

The noun is niggard, from the Middle English nigard. A stingy, grasping person; a miser.

The word is often amusing to those who also find humor in the name of the seventh planet from the Sun.

Termo, I copied your post and e-mailed it to 20 of my friends and family (even those who voted Obama). It was a great summary of this man’s life and what has led up to all of this. I expect I will get some grief from some of the recipients, but I cannot sit by and watch this happen without speaking up. If I am wrong, they can hate me, so what. If not, then at least they have been warned and perhaps will take some precautions to protect themselves and their families from financial ruin.

niggardly is in the dictionary…and it means a cheap ass. “small,scanty, or meager. STINGY,like obama. i want that on a bumper sticker, but alas i would probably be shot going down the road. Do i feel revolution in the air ? Anybody heard about the “tea-party” in Sacramento today ?

“Obama and many of the more “progressive” of the Dummycrats still don’t get it”

I beg to differ. The effort seems to be to “expose” Obama as the idiot that he is. That’s all well and good, but it is also self-evident. Obama is not trying to “fix” the economy, and arguing as to the effectiveness of his fixes plays right into his hand. He is installing, not so subtly or slowly even, socialism. THAT is what we should be screaming about. Not whether or not something that everyone already knows won’t work is a good or bad idea. While we expose the trees, we are missing the forest, and I guarantee you, he is laughing out loud everyday we do so…

Obama is doing this on purpose. He has no intention of paying back any of the debt. He is Soros` and the rest of the elites puppet. Soros has all of his money offshore. Obama`s gigantic ego just needs to be fed. Obama and Valerie Jarret left the black people in Chicago poor and without proper living conditions. Mayor Daley`s thugs, of whom Emanuel is one, don`t give a damn about anyone. The progressives intend to bankrupt this nation and then Soros will come in and clean up like he always does. Soros is personally responsible for Russia failing to accept democracy. These people are evil and they took over our party. They used Bush as a distraction for us. Were screwed.

Isn’t it obvious? The dictionary hates black people…/snark

The one involving liberalization of federal medical marijuana enforcement policies?

Obama has instructed the DEA to back the hell off. Score one for states’ rights!

The way they are going there will be no more wealth to redistribute or rich to tax! A deep nationalization of the private sector and expropriation of all pension and 401K s will be done in order to “save ” them a la Argentina. once they run through that in a couple of years Obama will escalate his war with Pakistan. in order to divert attention from his complete destruction of the US dollar . he is worse than Bush 2!!

Now all he has to do is legalize it, impose a $50 per ounce federal tax, cut off Mexican suppliers by closing the southern border, and our budget problems would be greatly diminished.

Marijuana is presently the single largest cash crop in the United States economy.

Thank you Larry.

I copied the post also and will be sending it along to friends and family. It is very thorough in a nice compact summary.

You may want to add yet another milestone for Captain Zero’s bizarre economic record:

“The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 119.15 points, or 1.7%, to end at 7062.93. The blue-chip benchmark ended down 937.93 points, or 11.72% on the month — the worst percentage drop for February since 1933, when it fell 15.62%.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123573389322793621.html

While he is railing against all those evil people on Wall Street one – any one – of those economic gurus should yell in his ear to “SHUT THE (blank) UP.” That is where our 401K’s, IRA’s, pensions, and mutual funds are.

Obama’s cabinet appointments as well as many of his high profile key advisors were for appearances – particularly for domestic policy.

Obama wants to cloak his socialism by having us believe that these capitalistic stalwarts are behind him.

The problem he is having is that Obama really is not experienced nor is he that intelligent.

The Wall Street Journal on line just declared that this February market was the worst February decline since February of 1933.

There is no way he can blame this on GWB. This is Obama’s mess.

If you look at the Dow trend from the September dive through today, you will see that the Dow had bottomed out in December and there was evidence that it was beginning to grow back.

And it was until Obama began to scare everyone about the economy and Geithner showed that they had no handle on policies.
Then you will see that the Dow has taken a sharp nose dive that has not stopped. It can be expected to dive down to about 6000 at this point.

Please note that the President actually ran on the economic plan he just outlined. Thus he is doing something rare in politics ; honoring his campaign pledges.

Now to the meat of Larry’s argument. Frankly I hope that he has a better handle on National Security and terrorism than he does on economic policy because he can’t even get the big items of the president proposals right.

First for 95% of the public there will be tax cut. Got that Larry? Seeing as you are an ex-federal worker that probably means you too get a cut. Only those who have income in excess of $250,000 will feel the pinch. And that pinch will be no more than what they felt during Bill Clinton’s term of office. That means marginal rates no more than 40% for people who make a quarter of a million dollars a piece.

One the charity cap, again this is for people who make more than 1/4 of a million dollars per year. Smart charities will readjust and target small donors. In the long run that actually helps the charities that adapt because they will have a larger base to draw on. Charities that have a small base or are poorly run will wither on the vine–as they should. The charities that have the best outreach and the best stories, the ones that can best justify their existence, the one that can harness masses of small donations (most likely from the internet) survive; those that are defendant on angel donors or cater to a too small base will not.

The attack on Biden’s and Obama’s stinginess in charitable donations is rather juvenile and unfortunately par for the course for Larry. More to the point it probably reflects the the habits of most Americans. We are, on the whole, a fairly pagan lot and rather stingy with our charitable contributions. There are of course some notable exceptions among individuals but in aggregate our charitable donations dwells in the low single digits.

Deficit hawks are an odd bread, more of a cult than a group of rational actors. Their answers to everything is to cut spending. Odd that Larry would channel the spirit of Hoover’s Secretary of the Treasury and scream ” liquidate capital, liquidate the farmers, liquidate labor, liquidate the banks” especially with the lessons of history staring him in the face. But the post is not actually about policy but about genuflecting to the angry gods of “fiscal responsibility”

The reason we are in this pickle is because no one is buying anything. With the housing market in free-fall consumers have shut their wallets. Because consumers have shut their wallets, business has shut their wallets. What Larry is proposing is that government should also shut its wallets. So if Consumers don’t spend, and businesses don’t spend, and government does not spend, who picks up the slack? That would be no one Larry.That would mean hello 1929-1932 again. Are you really willing to see 25% unemployment again? That would be the price of your idea of “responsibility”

You do remember how we finally got out of the deep hole of the Great Depression Larry don’t you? We borrowed like drunken sailors during WWII. At the peak of WWII Debt rose to 120% of GDP and we did not even blink. It was money well spent to put down the Nazi hoards and save democracy.

That huge chunk of debt ended up sparking a post war boom that lasted all the way up to the Mideast Oil embargo. Debt Mr. Johnson is not intrinsically evil.

Debt is not even intrinsically inflationary. At this moment government debt does “squeeze out private capitol” Private capitol is fleeing the markets just as fast as its fat little legs can carry it. It is either going into gold or its going into T-bills. For all intents and purposes the returns from T-bills are a big fat zero. This is because there is no other “safe” place to park ones money. The argument that investors will stop buying government debt and thus interest rates will go up for Government debt is bogus at least in the short run. There is no other place for the money to go. Confidence in the private equity markets is evaporating before our very eyes. Investors are coming to grips with the sorry fact that much of what they bought was hot air.

So how do we get out of this fix? We start spending again Larry. Unfortunately for you the only possible entity that can spend us out of our hole is the Government. Their are no other options. Yes Bush’s reckless war and reckless economic policies blew a huge hole in the economy. Worse yet Bush’s inaction in waning days of the melt down made the situation worse. Bush’s TARP program was only slightly better than doing nothing at all ( his first and true instinct) Thus either McCain or Obama had a huge stinking pile of horse-hooy to clean up when they took up the reigns from Bush. And frankly Larry do you really believe that Johny Mac would have handled this situation better than Obama? You do remember what the Republican “answer” to the present fiscal crisis was, right? It was even more tax cuts. Larry just think what that brilliant idea would have done to deficit. And please note tax cuts provide the absolute worst return on investment only $0.30 for every dollar invested, only slightly better than setting the money on fire. Meanwhile infrastructure spending returns $1,40 for every dollar spent.

This in a round about way returns us to tax policy. If that extra revenue from the top 5% of the population is wisely spent in infrastructure the economy actually benefits. Fortunately there is about thirty years of delayed investment in infrastructure that we can invest in. We need to spend some 2.2 Trillion dollars in the next five years just to get our infrastructure up to an average grade; right now it stands at a D minus. Remember each dollar spent returns about multiplies out to $1.40 for the economy.

Will we eventually see a tax increase for all this wonderfulness? Of course we will Larry. In the long run you are correct all of us will pay higher taxes for the Obama proposals. But what will you get for those taxes? Well for one, it is the peace of mind that knowing the bridge that you cross on your morning commute is not going to crumble into the river and thus end your life. Its knowing that the beach that you go to for your summer leisure will not be fouled by raw sewage from a rusted-out pipe that was put in thirty years ago. It will mean for some that their house won’t be buried in tons of toxic crud that came from a failed dam. It may finally mean that you won’t have to worry that a illness will destroy everything that you ever worked for and leave you bankrupt and on the street.

Deficit Hawks keep screaming that we can’t afford the “generous” social safety net Obama is proposing. Actually we can not afford not to do many of his proposals. The big Three prefer to make cars “Domestically” in Canada because of its single-payer health care system not despite it. All the foreign car makers get government provided health care in the home countries and that is one of the reasons they are eating the big threes lunch. It ain’t socialism, it’s a competitive advantage Larry.

Yes, the Europeans are not doing so well these days either. Their unemployment figures are grim too. But at least their citizens do not have to worry about health care. At least parents in Europe do not have to make the awful decision of whether to buy their kids medicine or food. At least they are not driven insolvent when a major illness strikes. Its a trade off, they pay much higher taxes but their lives are much more secure.

In the end it is a question of values. Larry obviously values limited government and personal freedom over everything else. That is a legitimate point of view. Unfortunately for Larry that viewpoint was massively rejected at the polls in both 2006 and 2008. The Democratic Party has taken a broom and swept out the Republicans. Look past the defeat of John McCain and look at the Congress: the Republicans got hammered. The voters delivered a clear message; they abandoned the Republicans ideas and gave the Democrats the nod. It is not like the voters did not understand what a vote for the Donkey Party meant. It is not like Obama did not posit his tax policy over 100 times during his contest with Johny Mac. It is not like the voters did not hear the screams of Redistributionist and Socialist over and over and over again. They were not impressed by Republicans arguments, they wanted Bush and the party of Bush to just go away.

Oh, for those people who think that somehow ACORN and the Democratic party somehow managed to steal the elections, well you are obviously not Democrats. The party is not that good. If it were, it would have dispensed with the election all together and seized power like the Bolsheviks did. Most Americans would probably had very little problems with such a coupe. ” You mean this means we get rid of Bush sooner rather than later? Cool!” would have been the mass sentiment.

Obama won the election because the economy was in the tank and the electorate was pissed off by that fact. Despite the best Rovian scare tactics the Republicans were unable to move the electorate away from their determination to take the elephants to the wood shed. Obama won fair and square–deal with it. And since he won with a clear majority, he gets to call the tune. Deal with that too.

Hi Larry, Paul Krugman has a piece in the NYT today. He likes the new plan.
He thinks Obama is finally making a move strong enough to take on this mess.
Normally, Krugman attacks Obama plans as tepid and ineffectual, but he’s a happy camper with this one.

No way! He’s on the right track.

Obama won the election because the economy was in the tank and the electorate was pissed off by that fact. Despite the best Rovian scare tactics the Republicans were unable to move the electorate away from their determination to take the elephants to the wood shed. Obama won fair and square–deal with it. And since he won with a clear majority, he gets to call the tune. Deal with that too.

Obama “won” the Primary because they lied cheated and stole with the help of Pelosi, and company not to mention the cheerleading MSM.

Obama won the election because the economy was in the tank and the electorate was pissed off by that fact.

He stole the damn election, Quasar.

What unmitigated hogwash. As a matter of fact, your entire comment could be used to line my cat-boxes for a week, although the cats would probably turn their noses up at your dreck, too.

Christ, can’t we at least get some Oblahblahbots who measure up to the pejorative, half-wit?

he is worse than Bush 2!!

For sure. How in the hell did this country find a way to get the two biggest boneheads on the planet to run this country (into the ground) in succession? It is beyond pitiful and shameful.

He wants our 401ks to sink in value. Then we’ll have to turn to him and make him our savior.

He wants attention, even if it’s negative.

termo, if I might …

…’he was looking for a job. Some white leftists were looking for someone who could recruit in a black neighborhood in the south side of Chicago…”

If I can connect the dots from Marshall to Ayers’ dad to BO and Ayers the terrorist,
from Percy and certian middle east contact to rev. wright and Louis Farakan.

The point that I am making is that, BO from the time he was a child , came into a string of people that put him a certian trajectory.
The fact that he and Ayers are moving in overlapping since his time at Occidental iis circumstantial to be sure but can not be ignored and is a fact supported by other facts.
He was dialed into that job and the way he portrays what happen is a lie.

In his book he says he stayed in the alley way across the street from his apartment when arriving from Occidental.

I lived in NYC, and have flown in from California on the red eye.

In the first place, there are enough places to get out of the night air, especially in that part of town. So if BO did not have enough common sense to get out of the cold what does that say?

Secondly, he was invited/followed Ayers from Occidental and the place he was across the street from was Ayers’ place.

The apartment building he lived in was owned by a person that knew Ayers dad.

Who paid for first and last on that apartment? BO didn’t have the money if he did not have enough for a cup of coffee in all night diner. Percy Sutton and others know the truth. And it is UUUglllyyy.

termo well said.

I was the first to point out on this site that Obama is to the US economy as Bush is to the war on terror.

Now that the shit is really smelling bad, how is the koolaid drinking going????

That’s is because Obama sent him a check for his house payement. hah ahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

James
I think the hope and change rhetoric has gone to your head. The problem isn’t the money so much at what this Marxist is going to do with it. You’re living in some kind of fairy tale land if you believe that one penny of this money is going to see its way to helping this economy. My brother in law asked me for a 1000.00 last year to pay his bills, seemed really sincere and said all the right things. Found out later he didn’t spend it on bills and got evicted from his apartment anyway–welcome to Obama’s world James.

Because we live in a country full of bone heads. Bush and obama speak their language.

I agree with you. At first I thought the economy was so screwed up that Obama wouldn’t dare tinker with it and try to shift it more towards a socialist model. Now I wonder if he isn’t trying to break it.

James,
Point by point -

1. Please note that the President actually ran on the economic plan he just outlined…yup he did but the fawning MSM and crazed rally goers weren’t listening.

2. Now to the meat of Larry’s argument. Frankly I hope that he has a better handle on National Security and terrorism than he does on economic policy because he can’t even get the big items of the president proposals right…was it necessary to insult Larry or is that all you really have?

3.First for 95% of the public there will be tax cuts…yup, we will get on average an extra $13 per week. With that we can pay the new carbon taxes, the gas taxes, higher food prices, new taxes on our non-hybrid vehicles, square footage of our houses, etc. With what is left-over, we will need to subsidize our social security because our 401Ks, IRA’s pensions, etc. have been wiped out!

4. One the charity cap, again this is for people who make more than 1/4 of a million dollars per year. Smart charities will readjust and target small donors…My local food cupboard and humane society doesn’t have a chance in the new world. People under $250K will need every nickel for themselves.

5. The attack on Biden’s and Obama’s stinginess in charitable donations is rather juvenile and unfortunately par for the course for Larry…I make less than $60K a year, my charitable contributions are at 10%. They are cheap admit it. Why not donate the $100K for redecorating the White House to Habitat for Humanity? Do they really need new furniture?

6. Deficit hawks are an odd bread, more of a cult than a group of rational actors…Many of our parents and grandparents are/were deficit hawks. Thank God. Most of would not have had the start in life if it were not for those before us that worked and saved to provide a better future for us.

7. The reason we are in this pickle is because no one is buying anything…we are in this mess because too many people who could not afford to buy things used credit to buy them. This encouraged the businesses to produce more and saturate the market. How many frikken TV sets do we need? Spending more for the sake of spending is not the answer. Everyone needs to take a breath, collect their resources and get back to basics, including the government.

8. You do remember how we finally got out of the deep hole of the Great Depression Larry don’t you? We borrowed like drunken sailors during WWII. At the peak of WWII Debt rose to 120% of GDP and we did not even blink. It was money well spent to put down the Nazi hoards and save democracy…Not arguing with that, but the war saved FDR’s butt.

9. That huge chunk of debt ended up sparking a post war boom that lasted all the way up to the Mideast Oil embargo. Debt Mr. Johnson is not intrinsically evil…Oh, please. The spark came because all those soldiers were so happy to be alive they came home and had sex which created a baby boom. It had nothing to do with the debt.

10. Debt is not even intrinsically inflationary. At this moment government debt does “squeeze out private capitol”…Private capitol also comes from the middle class folks like me who are fleeing the markets because we DO NOT TRUST Barack Obama or his band of merry men.

11. So how do we get out of this fix? We start spending again Larry…Have you ever started a business, do you currently own one, do you have a mortgage or a family at risk based on every decision you make? I have and I take a whole lot more time to research my spending and investments and I damned sure read every piece of paper before I sign anything. This past stimulus bill was created by a ninny who took every item from every suck-up Democratic, slapped it into a bill and shoved it down our throats. Absolutely, no reasonable review or debate about it. Disgusting!

12. This in a round about way returns us to tax policy. If that extra revenue from the top 5% of the population is wisely spent in infrastructure the economy actually benefits…what makes you so sure it is going to be wisely spent?

13. Will we eventually see a tax increase for all this wonderfulness? Of course we will Larry. In the long run you are correct all of us will pay higher taxes for the Obama proposals. But what will you get for those taxes? Gee, James, that train from LA to NV is going to make me feel sooooo safe. I can’t even address all the other bogus crap in the bill that is not for the common good or for safety, but is just plain wasteful.

14. Deficit Hawks keep screaming that we can’t afford the “generous” social safety net Obama is proposing…we can’t afford it, not here, not now. Just like the folks couldn’t afford the $450K ARM when they make 32K. Simple economics. Find another way. Take the 635billion and pay health insurance premiums like HRC suggested. It would employ a lot of people and provide for those without insurance. Medicare Part D is working and for those who cannot afford it, it is subsidized. Putting 635billion aside without a plan is just plain stupid.

15. Yes, the Europeans are not doing so well these days either. Their unemployment figures are grim too. But at least their citizens do not have to worry about health care…That’s why so many Canadians come here for healthcare and pay cash.

16. In the end it is a question of values. Larry obviously values limited government and personal freedom over everything else…I don’t think that is what Larry or anyone else on this site means. We are being screwed and we are powerless to stop it and it is happening because people like you are so blinded because of the joke GW was you see anything, anything as better than that.

17. Oh, for those people who think that somehow ACORN and the Democratic party somehow managed to steal the elections, well you are obviously not Democrats…I just call Bullshit on this one. We saw too much caucus fraud, too many stealing of votes, too many FBI investigations, too much manipulation by BO’s friends at Google, too many suspicious break-ins at the passport office, to not believe that this election was rigged.

18. Obama won the election because the economy was in the tank and the electorate was pissed off by that fact…the economy tanking was a calculated crisis designed to align the stars for George Soros to fulfill his plans for world power. Period!

Now I wonder if he isn’t trying to break it.

Obama is showing himself to be just as ideological as Bush.
Milhouse O will put through his program of taxing and destroying heavy industry no matter what the consequences.

Citizen: I believe that’s the plan. God help us get these thugs out of office in 4 years.

AF…You have hit the nail on the head!

I read the SF Chronicle beginning in the early 60′s. I loved Herb Caen and the columnists and the paper was the first thing every morning. I canceled with a complaint about their Obama bias. It became nauseating to read their Editorials and Letters to the Editor.

It’s a mere shadow of the newspaper it once was…actually best days were when the Thierrot family ran it. They sold it to Hearst. I’m sorry to say I won’t miss it.

James just likes to come here and take up space and annoy. He knows very well we won’t be converts. If he were in the room speaking aloud, my mother would say “He’s just talking to hear his head rattle.”

Go back to school and learn to write more concisely–for starters. You didn’t learn to write well, what else don’t you know?

Does anyone know the price of Arugula on the futures market? Or has BO, like the Hunt brothers before him, cornered the market?

BO is acting like he is Eddy Murphy in Trading Places….I just can’t decide if it is I or II.

Mr Johnson, how long before “stay tuned” won’t work anymore and BO, as a relevant part of the equation, is overtaken by events?
LD made a comment about the “market moving sideways” but only for so long.

The buck is supposed to stop on the desk of POTUS, instead of the way it is now, stopping at cash registers of Walmart.

This is not a house divided, it is a house foreclosed. Whether it stands or not has been rendered mute, unless you belong to ACORN.

Well, I just answered my own question. A quick look at your piece is all I need. I’m not interested in what you have to say; I don’t read the work of the under-educated.

I have to agree with Dick Morris on the point of heavy infrastructure deficit spending on mirroring Japan’s mistakes trying to recover from the early 1990′s real estate bubble burst and resulting credit crunch. The Japanese also attempted to stimulate the economy with massive doses of government spending that brought on deficits requiring tax increases later which has only prolonged the pain and led to a protracted period of turpor and stagnation. Their GDP is now over minus 12% with a catastrophic loss of the car export market.

Wonder what Krugman would say about those parallels ?

http: //www.frontpagemag.com/articles/Read.aspx?GUID=DD02AB71-2615-49EE-AB10-EBB13E3CF2EF

In Japan, banks that should’ve failed were allowed to live on. Employees who should have been laid off got lifetime-employment guarantees. Companies that should’ve gone under were propped up.

But Japan’s deficit spending didn’t work – all its economic stimulus fell flat. As economist Barry Elias notes, Japan raised its “gross government debt as a percentage of GDP” from 45 percent in 1989 to 170 percent today” with no real effect.

There was a “Trading Places 2″?

The reason we are in this pickle is because no one is buying anything.

You can say that again! Hey! Wait a minute! Many people, myself included, are not “buying” this line of crap from BO.

Of interest in your post James, is that you seem to thing that the Internet and the “small donors” will be the ones to step up to plate and replace all that “pay it forward” capital. I can see it now (fairy dust , fairy dust)… all that money we just sent to USAID was fom “small donors”…why does it look like a dried up bunch of grapes?

To that extent, the microfinancing world of the internet is unaccountable. How do I know this? mmmm let me see…OBot phone banks in Gaza ring a bell? Or colledge kids with cards handed out by BO bag men?

If this charitable move by BO, of transmitting money for charities via the horse he rode in on…well all I can say is, I saw Tonto reading “The Grapes of Wrath”

TeakWoodKite; A Knight who says Ni!

The $250K is for married couples filing jointly,or, in Obama’s immortal words, your family’s income. Forget the families that have single parents, forget single taxpayers with no children. The limit for them is much lower. As always, Obama is disingenuous in his “explanation”. Not exactly a lie, but a long way from the actual truth.

There comes a time in a person’s life that if he or she is too far in debt and can’t get out, that person goes bankrupt. It’s true for governtments also. (It appears California may soon go bankrupt.)

Obama IS, perhaps, keeping his promises, and that is why more people did not vote for him than expected. O didn’t win as great a victory as everyone originally thought he would, given the mess that W left us.

I’m lying low, however. Like the turtle at the beginning of Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath persitently trying to cross the road, it’s the worker who is poor and keeps on going against all odds that will get us out of this, not the banker, the Wall Street tycoon, the with-it know-it-all professional economic theorists.

I wonder if the reason my state, Colorado, is second from last in recieving help from the stimulus package is because its legislature MUST balance the budget and so we aren’t as “needy” as other states. It may be why so many like us are a little resentful at knowing we’ll be paying for those people who didn’t have any foresight. I wonder if that is also why our economy is comparatively better than that of other states also. Just a thought–the mystery religions always felt the microcosm reflected the macrocosm and visa versa. What’s true for a man is true for mankind.

Debt is not a good thing, no matter how you rationalize it.

McCain mentioned we had what it would take. He was right: we have hard-working Americans who know how to budget, save, make do and not expect to have everything right now.

your 401K’s already shrunk you dimwit – and it sure wasn’t Obama who did it.
Your beloved hillary would have taken every one of these budget points and put them in bold – this is a clinton budget ALL the way. and besides, Larry, those taxes on the rich will not go into effect until 2011, so maybe the recession will be over by then??
with a survey on wealthy people who REALLY give, the all said the decrease in deduction allowance is NOT a problem and will NOT affect their giving. Not everyone gives only for the deduction you know….only the non-profit people are screaming cause the babies think they might be losing their jobs.

you people are sickos, I swear-you might want to wait for at least 6 months before you start evaluating and slamming the president.

Can someone explain to me how American put in WH two times in a row the stupidest people in American, Bush and Obama??

The Obama collapse is self fulfilling prophesy and began when it was known to all that Obama would win.
Obama has constantly used class warfare and has vilified wall street and the productive class.

May 19th 2008 the Dow was above 13000 since then it has steadily eroded to 7000 today

May 19th 2008 was also the date that Obama pulled ahead of Hillary for the last time.

http://media.gallup.com/poll/graphs/20080520DailyUpdateGraph1_bnghtyr.gif

http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/npage/2_3051.html?mod=2_3002&sid=1643&page=us

These comments are truly so convoluted I am speechless!! I ask you to PROVE ONE of your comments – actually prove with facts from a reputable source.

You really should be banned from posting such lies – but I guess that is what Larry’s place is anyway.

Right.

None of Obama’s economic policies or spending redirections have even taken effect yet.

Running on defeat as Obama and his minions have done has given them the mindset that America did wrong and needs punishing. Instead of boosting the markets Obama and his supporters have talked incessantly about economic collapse and class warfare. Is there any doubt that part of the reason the market lost 50% of it’s value since May was because the market knew Obama could win.The market is a good indicator of how business views a president.Up to 75% of business owners voted against Obama on the fear that he is bad for business and we have seen as a result $30 trillion in equities leave the markets. Was it the constant threats of capital gains tax increases,payroll tax increases,increased regulations,carbon taxes,health care punishment taxes and fiddling with NAFTA that has also contributed to tanking this market and putting the global economy in free fall.

I’m sure there are plenty of honest, productive people on Wall Street.

But there are also the people most to blame for wrecking the US and global economy.

Who was it that deliberately created trillions of dollars worth of essentially bogus financial instruments, concealed the level of risk they represented, and dumped them onto the global financial market to be purchased by unsuspecting investors?

Who was it that knowingly bundled billions of dollars worth of high risk debt specifically to conceal that risk, took their profits, and again passed them on to unsuspecting investors?

The bubble burst when people realized what had gone on, how extensive it had been, and how well hidden the crime was. There’s still no telling what has value, what is valueless, and who might be holding billions in unexploded bombs. It’s a daunting problem, because trillions worth are out there. How does a financial system continue to operate under such circumstances?

Basically this is why there’s only the government in a position to spend enough to restart the economy.

Indiana..I’m not disputing the obvious facts that you have brought up, but my point is that Obama is bad for business.
You can pump all the money you want to try to prop up a house of cards and the result may still be a continued correction in housing.
http://patrick.net/housing/crash.html
What troubles me is the continued class warfare rhetoric. Attempting to force through cap and trade when heavy industry like my own are just trying to hang on is the death nail to industry.
Obama needs to free up existing industries so that they can continue to survive and not keep talking about raising payroll and other taxes during an economic collapse.

I wish they were stupid. Unfortunately not. Diabolical? Crooked? Bush carried out all of his agenda. He just didn’t tell anyone ahead of time. Obama is just more arrogant. He saw what Bush got away with and decided he’d run on his agenda, cheat in the primary and talk centrist during the GE. Notice how he would mimic Hillary and McCain? But, there’s no doubt he’s ramming through as much as he can before risking losing momentum in 2010. I think he’ll lose the majority in congress. People won’t believe Bush is responsible for all of it and they’ll throw out a lot of Dims when it’s all said and done. When the public gets mad as hell, they’ll take it out on whomever is in front of them. That’s how Obama finally made it…tarring McCain with Bush. Next year, he owns it. If we can take back congress, there’s a chance to undo some of this.

You do your own frakin homework and if think that me saying BO is to stupid to get out of the night Ayers is a lie and that he is a immoral indifferent fraud, and makes me makes a liar that your issue, not mine.

I can prove what I said. For instance the owner of BO’s apartment building is a matter of public record. The fact that BO is, on more than three time frames, connected to Ayers in the same place is a matter of record.

As far as being banned, who the frak are you to my judge jury and executioner? If I am to be a causualty of Mr Johnsons spleen so be it. It will be an honor. It would not change the respect I have for him. But are you incapable of understanding that. Everyday I live, I will know BO is an a reflection of the abject poverty that is this nations political life.
Farkin unreal.

DO your own homework. I hope you do remain speachless until then.

MBC

BRAVO!!!!!

This is so dangerous. Greed pushing out all common sense. Clinton’s welfare reform cut the welfare rolls in half during his term. It’s disgusting, depressing and dangerous to dangle the welfare carrot in front of states. One nation depending on one dictator. That’s what bho the fraud wants. We the People better wake the hell up and inform the masses about this fascist plan.

Recessions are a normal event that occurs based only on free market forces. All past recessions were market forced events (even though we like to blame politicians for them even though they are not smart enough to effect them).

The one recession that was impeded by unchecked government intervention and was not allowed to recover on its own was The Great Depression.

The Stock Market is the best leading indicator for where our economy is headed. if you go back to the September collapse, you will see that the market had bottomed out in December was showing signs of growing back. Then look in January and February with Obama and you are now looking at a government intervention event: from his radical socialist policies, to the reckless spending, to his fear rhetoric.

Unemployment levels were high but were typical of past recessions until Obama started scaring people.

The tax increases Obama is imposing will effect most of us particularly home mortgage interest deduction.

I would not put any faith in most surveys whose aim to achieve a certain conclusion.

The people you are talking about were initially NOT on Wall Street.

The house mortgage situation began during the Carter Administration and it ended up being good intentions leading to unintended bad consequences.

The facilitator and imposer of those bad loans was not Wall Street – it was the government and its use of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Banks were forced to issue mortgage loans to undeserving people. Once that instrument was set up then Wall Street figured out a way of using it instead of trying to stop it.

Housing bubbles are a normal part of economic cycles but not to the extreme that this one happened. This one was a result of those short rate loans and enormous speculation in markets like Florida, Nevada, and Arizona.

It is sadly ironic that the two government officials most responsible for the empowerment of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in positions of power: Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.

Indiana –

“None of Obama’s economic policies or spending redirections have even taken effect yet.”

Check out the stock market day after day since Captain Zero started in on the economy. Then go back and check out the stock market in December before Captain Zero.

The leading indicator of the direction of our economy is the stock market and investors pay attention to what the government says it will do before it does it. Captain Zero has made one major mistake after another in his effort to impose socialism in this country.

Also, try learning what a “recession” is before regurgitating mindless Obama talking points.

HIS FATHER’S DREAMS AND HIS MOTHERS’ WISHES

I wonder if he isn’t trying to break it.

He is. Why? Well, now two items can be understood about BO and Michelle’s latent racism. His 20 visiting TUCC and his white race parents. Essentially he wants to bring equality between the Black and White races. Since it is virtually impossible to bring equality by raising blacks to the level of whites, then he wants to bring whites to the level of blacks. In that my friends lies BO underlying explanation and reason for his policies. It explain how his racism manifest into a set of solution patterns to bring equality to America. Thus fulfilling his father’s dreams and his mothers’ wishes.

Obama I don’t think is clueless. He is in a mission to bring equality between blacks and whites.

James, are you out there?

Hey,I told you so! From day one of the Dem primaries, “RED ALERT!” They stoled the elections from Clinton and the corrupt MSM helped put the “the one” into the WH. Now we are stuck witht eh charlatan for 4 years, unless he gets inpeached! The Globe came out with an interesting Obama drama scandal……A screaming headline regarding a gay sexual scandal regarding Mr. Barry Soetoro, WTF? Is going on????

What everyone is forgetting is that obama is not the one making these kakamamie decisions, the men behind obama are! The ones who have been calling the shots all along.

obama is nothing more than a front man for those who put him into power — Soros, Brezinski, David Rockefeller — once the American people can wrap their heads around the reality that the presidency is nothing more than a symbol of democracy and is now virtually owned and operated by the corporate elites, which have taken control every other level of our government – local, state and national.

It’s going to be up to the people themselves to decide whether they are willing to fight for a government of, by and for the people or if they are simply going to hand over our country to corporatists.

I don’t know about any of you, but I don’t want to be at the mercy of this corrupt government and become a corporate toady for the rest of my life.

When the obama administration completes the government’s takeover of the banking system, the government will then have total control over the people and their very livelihoods. Thus, forcing us to work for the government, rather than the government working for us.

THIS IS NOT WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE.

I agree with spending on infrastructure, not that it may be stimulative enough to pull us out of this recession. There’s a lot of deferred maintenance and repairing rails, roads, bridges, etc. plus expanding mass transit are the responsibility/domain of government, not the private sector.

And debt per se isn’t bad — most of us wouldn’t have houses or cars were it not for debt. It’s the AMOUNT of debt this administration is incurring that’s worrisome, as Larry rightly points out. Government cannot be the only spender if we’re to recover from this recession. And so far the administration isn’t focusing enough on solving the credit crisis, which when resolved would allow for more consumer and business spending, resulting in a positive effect on job loss happening RIGHT NOW. This should’ve been more of a priority from the get-go.

James made some valid points but he and his fellow partisans are being disingenuous and intellectually dishonest to too large a degree. So far, the agenda ostensibly deals with the recession but in reality too much of the proposed spending is political patronage/bribery and movement-progressive wish fulfillment.

Plus, why aren’t we hearing any howling about Iraq and Afghanistan? Do people realize the abysmal track record of waging war in Afghanistan? Where’s the hue and cry about quagmire?

Pres. Clinton cut military and welfare spending. While not everything was perfect in those days (it never is, is it?), I suspect a lot of us would welcome something more along the lines of his agenda rather than what we’re stuck with now.

“Where’s the hue and cry about quagmire?”

Obama cares less about foreign affairs and homeland security. His mission is to transform this country to be European socialist, so his agenda is purely domestic.

You are absolutely right about Afghanistan/Pakistan, which is why when Bush pinned the Taliban/Al Qaeda into those no-man’s regions they decided to leave them there rather than risk American lives for what would be suicidal missions.

I agree that Obama and Congress have utterly abused this situation by selling Americans that they were passing a stimulus package when in fact it was a catch all for political patronage and bribes so try and ensure re-election.

as far as the days of Clinton, he did not use government intervention in the economy, although there were things he should have done. One thing he admits he regrest doing was stopping this mortgage mess during his watch. Bush should have done the same thing.

When you have lived on the dole, and been taken care of your entire worthless life, its hard to know any other way !! Obamy and his supporters are both idiots.

noproblama: Though ridicule will usually follow a statement of intuition by most persons, no me. The subconscious is a hell of a lot more intellectually astute than the conscious mind and typically more accurate. I have the same gut feeling for Obama as I had for Nixon and Bush. I trust that gut feeling of mistrust because after 60 years it has rarely been incorrect.

“First for 95% of the public there will be tax cut.”

No true at all. In fact there wil be tax increases for many of us that are buried in his other proposals. Also 95% of the public do not pay 95% of the tax revenue.

“Only those who have income in excess of $250,000 will feel the pinch.”

“Those” are households and therefore two people making $125,000/yr. are considred rich under Captain Zero’s plan. Also if you live in cities like New York, Boston, LA, SF, Chicago and mak that kind of income you are definately not rich.

This also includes all the small businesses who this economy depends upon to create real jobs (not short term government jobs).

“You do remember how we finally got out of the deep hole of the Great Depression Larry don’t you? We borrowed like drunken sailors during WWII.”

Do you know how we got into The Great Depression? We borrowed like drunken sailors and had massive government intervention which shut down the free market and did nothing to incent private investment. Itn was a world war that got us out of the Great Depression and not govenment programs.

Obama is doing exactly what FDR did except he is also using Alinsky tactics to scare americans and in doing so scaring off investors.

But there is a plan for Obama and that is to abuse this crisis to force in his socialist policies which have nothing at all to do with this recession. A good part of this is a massive redistribution of wealth.

Obama is not fulfilling on his campaign promises (which seemed to constantly shift). What he is doing is using the ignorance of people like you to push an agenda we have never seen in this country.

I agree with you totally. The top level graduates in this country have never been told no. It is a generation of semi-gods, of me-first, of I’ll cross that bridge when it comes. Me now, first and always. They beleive themselves not only to be exceptional but exceptions. They have no leadership quality, because contrary to their beleif, leadership means sacrifices.

This man/child does not realize that good looks and smooth speech are no substitute for knowledge and understanding.

That’s because he gets away with it. With the fawning press, and the group-think of adulatory crowds, it’s a winning combination as far as he’s concerned. He isn’t held accountable for his mistakes and lies, so his hubris has grown to dangerous proportions. This recklessness is now manifest in his overreaching. If this stimulus/budget fails, he will come crashing down–but the rest of us will pay too.

My previous comment didn’t show up.

Banks were forced to issue mortgage loans to undeserving people.

Nope. Banks were pushed to make loans available to qualified borrowers in historically underserviced sectors, which had long tended to coincide with identifiable ethnic and racial segments of the population. They weren’t pushed issue to knowingly issue bad loans to persons who wouldn’t be able to repay them, nor were they pushed to lower their levels of diligence in verifying borrower qualifications. All of that was done by individuals and institutions who realized they could profit enormously from a well-meant initiative by creating an unprecedentedly high volume of transactions. They knowingly created unacceptably risky loans, concealing that risk from both borrowers and the institutions they passed the loans on to. This mentality was prevalent each step of the way to the far end of the chain, where risk was hidden in complex investment instruments that were given bogus ratings and dumped on unsuspecting global investors. Trusting people were deliberately being played for fools on both ends of the conveyer belt. The government’s chief fault lies in having trusted the financial industry to regulate itself. The assumption was that the financial industry would manage risk well itself, since good risk management had always been central to operating profitably. Unfortunately that’s not true when you’re essentially operating a highly sophisticated scam, and playing your game with other people’s money.

It is a matter of record that activist groups went to court to force mortgages to people who did not qualify because they wanted to have equal housing opportunity. Democrats through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac allowed for those to happen.

The “sophisticated scam” was perfectly okay with Barney and Chris and both are on record havcing no problems with them and castigating the GOP for even questioning them.

These loans were a direct result of government intervention into a system that was working for decades.

The people who allowed this scandel to go on and perpetuate are ironically calling the shots instead of being behind bars where Dodd and Frank belong.

hidden secrets to getting government grants…

I can’t believe that I missed your point, I will have to do some research on this….