quote:

Originally posted by LazFX OMG! Obama drinks! In front of minors! U.S. President Barack Obama, sitting next to 5-year-old Nick Aiello (L), sips his beverage while attending the Washington Wizards NBA basketball game against the Chicago Bulls in Washington February 27, 2009. REUTERS/Molly Riley (UNITED STATES) This country is going to hell in a hand basket.

LOL!! That's gotta be apple juice. No way a sitting US president would drink an adult beverage like that in front of... *gulp*.... the public!

I am highly disappointed with Obama so far. Sure there are many things that Obama is doing correctly- but not forcing some of these derivatives speculators like Citi and Bank of America into Chapter 11 is going to drag the whole country down.

I would suspect the U.S. should cut 50% of military spending within 5 years given our astronomical debt levels, but not under Obama. This is in my view continued military-industrial complex under left cover.

Furthmore Obama alludes we are all responisble and we have to cut our priorities- I say bullshit to that. I will not be responsible for the actions of a few derivatives speculators, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs. Obama's overall theme so far has been payments to bankers- $4.6 trillion so far. In return I get a measly $10 per week in my pay and a crappy $40billion spending in infrastructure? Most of the other money goes to povery pimps like Acorn. We need a national Maglev- public works projects on a grand scale similar to the nature of the New Deal. Obama's theme has been payments to bankers- exactly the policy employed by Herbert Hoover.

Other things I am dissapointed with-
1. $50 billion in cash bribes to mortgage lenders to reduce mortgages for home owners. If you want to stop foreclosures make it a federal crime - no need to subsidize the losses of mortgage lenders.
2. A second $750 billion TARP mainly for 5 large insolvent financial institutions that engaged in risky derivatives speculation. Most banks are fine. Break up the large banks and sell the assets to smaller ones. Decentralization is what the market needs
3. Another $300 billion more in guarantees (announced today) on credit default swaps sold by AIG. AIG should be in Ch 11.
4. $135 billion per year for Afghanistan and Iraq (most troops not coming home anytime soon). $537 billion for the Pentagon which is an increase over Bush.
5. Drastic cuts in social security and medicare (I am 30 and not eligible for social security till I"m 67 as it is- now i have to work till I'm dead??)
6. Carbon taxes that threaten what little industrial production is left (when water vapor is the real greenhouse gas and little of the CO2 emitted comes from industrial production).

I find it ironic the very architects of this crisis (Summers, Rubin, etc) are now the ones to fix the problem?
http://solari.com/blog/?p=2006
And what about Obama's Deputy Secretary of Defense? $3.3 trillion went missing from the Pentagon while he was the CFO. Maybe he could help Obama by getting the money back for us?
http://solari.com/blog/?p=1983

Here is a great site where you can find the most critical analysis of Obama's policies without the garbage and nonsense by the neo-cons on Fox News.
www.globalresearch.ca

___________________
Me gusta la salsa picante!! ??Y'tu??

Last edited by tonybologna on Feb-28-2009 at 22:05

^^^^
That is a whole lotta stupid. Let me guess, you like Ron Paul?

BTW, do you even know what "derivative speculation" is, because you used it 3 times like someone who just uses some buzzword that they read on Digg.

___________________
"Go back to bed america your government is in control
Here's American Gladiators, here is 56 channels of it,
Watch these picturary retards bang their fuckin' skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom,
Here you go America you are free to do as we tell you
We want your soul
Your cash, your house, your phone, your cash, your house, your life" -Adam Freeland - We Want Your Soul

I am working on my CFA designation so yes I do know what derivatives are. I use "derivatives speculation" as a catch all for those large financial institutions that created a whole bubble economy by creating paper based on paper. This magnifies the risk in the marketplace as one default or one drop in the price of an asset causes a domino effect of other defaults and a generally downward spiral which is what we are seeing today. Do you really believe that Joe shmoe out in some trailer park in Missouri who can't pay his mortgage is responsible for this? Its the credit default swaps (the insurance products)and the all the collaterized debt out there (some of which may be fraudulent I might add) that is responsible for this. Wall St payed themselves huge fees over the years in this bubble economy and now that it comes crashing down, we the people are responsible? We are supposed to say its OK to give $4.6 trillion dollars to these banks, with trillions more to come?

Of course GM has been the architect of their own demise, but I find it funny we make such a big deal about giving $17 billion to the big 3, yet its OK to give trillions to these banks. The big 3 represent one of the last straws of industrial production in this country, and this administration is seems willing to kill manufacturing but prop up the banks. Haven't we learned our lesson that we can't have an economy that is simply built on paper? Why does Obama's "stimulus" do so little to jumpstart industrial production in this country?
And oh did I mention who stands to benefit the most from Obama's cap and trade policy, which is based on the myth that global warming is caused by humans?
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/c.../view/2322/218/
http://www.documentarywire.com/grea...warming-swindle


I said it before and I'll say it again. Obama is a banker's boy. He works for Wall St. The opportunity cost of giving billions and billions to dead zombie banks like Bank of America and Citi is huge- that money could be utilized elsewhere to give a much much higher rate of return.

The links I provided are certainly not hogwash as you called it. I suggest you look at www.solari.com/blog. Catherine Austin Fitts runs that blog- she was assistant secretary of housing under Bush I and Clinton. Just developed software that was exposing wide spread HUD securities fraud which was seized by the DOJ, under orders from none other than Eric Holder himself. Her story can be found at www.dunwalke.com

And oh the things I could write about Summers and Rubin. Here is one interesting article with their names mentioned:
http://www.russians.org/williamson_testimony.htm

The way I see it, the neo-con crooks have been in power for the last 8 years, and now the neo-liberal crooks are at it. People are so foolish to think that people like Holder, Summers, Rubin, Arne Duncan, Geithner, Clinton, and the rest of these clowns have their best interest at heart.

You may also want to check out Max Keiser's most recent commentary at http://karmabanqueradio.com/2009/02...-february-2009/ for a more cynical viewpoint.

___________________
Me gusta la salsa picante!! ??Y'tu??

quote:

Originally posted by tonybologna I am working on my CFA designation so yes I do know what derivatives are. I use "derivatives speculation" as a catch all for those large financial institutions that created a whole bubble economy by creating paper based on paper. This magnifies the risk in the marketplace as one default or one drop in the price of an asset causes a domino effect of other defaults and a generally downward spiral which is what we are seeing today. Do you really believe that Joe shmoe out in some trailer park in Missouri who can't pay his mortgage is responsible for this? Its the credit default swaps (the insurance products)and the all the collaterized debt out there (some of which may be fraudulent I might add) that is responsible for this. Wall St payed themselves huge fees over the years in this bubble economy and now that it comes crashing down, we the people are responsible? We are supposed to say its OK to give $4.6 trillion dollars to these banks, with trillions more to come? Of course GM has been the architect of their own demise, but I find it funny we make such a big deal about giving $17 billion to the big 3, yet its OK to give trillions to these banks. The big 3 represent one of the last straws of industrial production in this country, and this administration is seems willing to kill manufacturing but prop up the banks. Haven't we learned our lesson that we can't have an economy that is simply built on paper? Why does Obama's "stimulus" do so little to jumpstart industrial production in this country? And oh did I mention who stands to benefit the most from Obama's cap and trade policy, which is based on the myth that global warming is caused by humans? http://www.climatechangefraud.com/c.../view/2322/218/ http://www.documentarywire.com/grea...warming-swindle I said it before and I'll say it again. Obama is a banker's boy. He works for Wall St. The opportunity cost of giving billions and billions to dead zombie banks like Bank of America and Citi is huge- that money could be utilized elsewhere to give a much much higher rate of return. The links I provided are certainly not hogwash as you called it. I suggest you look at www.solari.com/blog. Catherine Austin Fitts runs that blog- she was assistant secretary of housing under Bush I and Clinton. Just developed software that was exposing wide spread HUD securities fraud which was seized by the DOJ, under orders from none other than Eric Holder himself. Her story can be found at www.dunwalke.com And oh the things I could write about Summers and Rubin. Here is one interesting article with their names mentioned: http://www.russians.org/williamson_testimony.htm The way I see it, the neo-con crooks have been in power for the last 8 years, and now the neo-liberal crooks are at it. People are so foolish to think that people like Holder, Summers, Rubin, Arne Duncan, Geithner, Clinton, and the rest of these clowns have their best interest at heart. You may also want to check out Max Keiser's most recent commentary at http://karmabanqueradio.com/2009/02...-february-2009/ for a more cynical viewpoint.

looks like the TA CT's hired a gun. sweet.

quote:

Originally posted by tonybologna I am working on my CFA designation so yes I do know what derivatives are. I use "derivatives speculation" as a catch all for those large financial institutions that created a whole bubble economy by creating paper based on paper. This magnifies the risk in the marketplace as one default or one drop in the price of an asset causes a domino effect of other defaults and a generally downward spiral which is what we are seeing today. Do you really believe that Joe shmoe out in some trailer park in Missouri who can't pay his mortgage is responsible for this? Its the credit default swaps (the insurance products)and the all the collaterized debt out there (some of which may be fraudulent I might add) that is responsible for this. Wall St payed themselves huge fees over the years in this bubble economy and now that it comes crashing down, we the people are responsible? We are supposed to say its OK to give $4.6 trillion dollars to these banks, with trillions more to come? Of course GM has been the architect of their own demise, but I find it funny we make such a big deal about giving $17 billion to the big 3, yet its OK to give trillions to these banks. The big 3 represent one of the last straws of industrial production in this country, and this administration is seems willing to kill manufacturing but prop up the banks. Haven't we learned our lesson that we can't have an economy that is simply built on paper? Why does Obama's "stimulus" do so little to jumpstart industrial production in this country? And oh did I mention who stands to benefit the most from Obama's cap and trade policy, which is based on the myth that global warming is caused by humans? http://www.climatechangefraud.com/c.../view/2322/218/ http://www.documentarywire.com/grea...warming-swindle I said it before and I'll say it again. Obama is a banker's boy. He works for Wall St. The opportunity cost of giving billions and billions to dead zombie banks like Bank of America and Citi is huge- that money could be utilized elsewhere to give a much much higher rate of return. The links I provided are certainly not hogwash as you called it. I suggest you look at www.solari.com/blog. Catherine Austin Fitts runs that blog- she was assistant secretary of housing under Bush I and Clinton. Just developed software that was exposing wide spread HUD securities fraud which was seized by the DOJ, under orders from none other than Eric Holder himself. Her story can be found at www.dunwalke.com And oh the things I could write about Summers and Rubin. Here is one interesting article with their names mentioned: http://www.russians.org/williamson_testimony.htm The way I see it, the neo-con crooks have been in power for the last 8 years, and now the neo-liberal crooks are at it. People are so foolish to think that people like Holder, Summers, Rubin, Arne Duncan, Geithner, Clinton, and the rest of these clowns have their best interest at heart. You may also want to check out Max Keiser's most recent commentary at http://karmabanqueradio.com/2009/02...-february-2009/ for a more cynical viewpoint.

where do you people find these obscure links to the blogs of these unknown people? furthermore, why should we care about the opinions of these unimportant people?

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has an official Krypton seal of approval. That is all.

When consumer spending is this bad, the government must be the one to fill the void, at least until market demand picks up again.

___________________

Last edited by Krypton on Mar-02-2009 at 02:05

quote:

Originally posted by tonybologna In return I get a measly $10 per week in my pay and a crappy $40billion spending in infrastructure? Most of the other money goes to povery pimps like Acorn. We need a national Maglev- public works projects on a grand scale similar to the nature of the New Deal. Obama's theme has been payments to bankers- exactly the policy employed by Herbert Hoover.

why is your hand out? i agree that more money should have been allocated to public works projects, but i would not complain that i don't receive enough. after all, the purpose of this national spending plan is to improve the national economy not your personal situation. with that said, i was opposed to sooooo much of this legislation. namely, the short term tax cuts (i.e., your $10 per week).

btw - maglev is stupid. this country is far too large and the property ownership between major metropolitan areas is too disparate to efficiently create any sort of maglev system. The logistics are too complicated. while the idea of a maglev train from NYC to chicago is a nice idea, think about how many legal battles there will be just on the eminent domain issues. in this age of personal property rights, projects of that magnitude are impossible to accomplish.

quote:

Originally posted by tonybologna 5. Drastic cuts in social security and medicare (I am 30 and not eligible for social security till I"m 67 as it is- now i have to work till I'm dead??)

any intelligent person understands that they can't rely on social security when they retire. the SSI tax is simply a tax imposed on you for the benefit of the elderly living today, and it is not a contribution a pension for your future. understand the tax for what it is and it is easy to deal with.

quote:

Originally posted by tonybologna 6. Carbon taxes that threaten what little industrial production is left (when water vapor is the real greenhouse gas and little of the CO2 emitted comes from industrial production).

how about the fact that 1/5 of all US imports is for energy production. That is 1/5 of our wealth being transferred to the middle east. i would rather have a higher cost of producing energy (with its collateral consequences, i.e., higher cost of goods), than to export 1/5 of our wealth every year.

quote:

Originally posted by tonybologna I find it ironic the very architects of this crisis (Summers, Rubin, etc) are now the ones to fix the problem? http://solari.com/blog/?p=2006 And what about Obama's Deputy Secretary of Defense? $3.3 trillion went missing from the Pentagon while he was the CFO.

the CFO of the pentagon? is that an official title?

quote:

Originally posted by Krypton The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has an official Krypton seal of approval. That is all. When consumer spending is this bad, the government must be the one to fill the void, at least until market demand picks up again.

the point is that when consumers decide to stop spending, government does the spending indirectly for the consumers. so, in reality, the consumers are still spending, just not based on individual decisions. when the consumers (viewed as an aggregate) reduce spending, the government should adjust its spending to fill the void since its actions represent the indirect actions of the consumers.

the relevant question is whether we were spending too much in the first place. it is not in the long term interest of the country for the government to sustain spending that is in excess of the capacity of the population (since the government debt is really the debt of the people who pay taxes). it appears that the debt burden of the average consumer was so high that the spending habits were too much in the first place. while i agree on a spending package, it must be narrowly directed for future growth given the massive amount of debt needed to fund the projects. I can't agree that this package is the best or even a good package.

the only thing the package should have focused on were energy, education, infrastructure improvement, and scientific advances. tax cuts and all that other bullshit should have been left out.

quote:

Originally posted by jerZ07002 the only thing the package should have focused on were energy, education, infrastructure improvement, and scientific advances. tax cuts and all that other bullshit should have been left out.

AKA leave out every single thing that the GOP considers "pork" and take out the only things that they actually wanted.

___________________

quote:

Originally posted by ******** Seplling don't demonstrate intelligence and educatoin - knowing does.

quote:

Originally posted by Clovis AKA leave out every single thing that the GOP considers "pork" and take out the only things that they actually wanted.

for the most part. however, the GOP would considering spending on education (for example) 'pork' because (i) they don't know the definition of pork (appropriations by individual members of congress on projects that benefit a specific constituent), and (ii) they think it is the responsibility of the individual to pay for his own education.

i actually heard a conservative commentator today on some news radio show express disgust that democrats wanted to expand pell grants. i think we should be spending more on public (higher) education so that private educational institutes have more competition for quality education and are forced to reduce tuition to compete. since educational institutions don't pay taxes (property or income), there is no reason students should be paying 30K a year for an education. some basic math reveals that a class of 30 students produces revenue of about 90k (with a 30K tuition). Perhaps schools should eliminate some layers of fat (considering we have all experienced the ineffectiveness of school resources). it seems to me that educational institutions are either hoarding money somewhere, or are ineffectively utilizing their resources. maybe the tax exempt applications shouldn't be given so easily to some of these schools.

Last edited by jerZ07002 on Mar-02-2009 at 02:42