Thoughts on Obama SO FAR?

[beandip]

Obama, Nobel Peace Prize winner:

The Obama administration has quietly forged ahead with its proposal to sell $60 billion worth of fighter jets and attack helicopters to Saudi Arabia unhampered by Congress, despite questions raised in legislative inquiries and in an internal congressional report about the wisdom of the deal.

The massive arms deal would be the single largest sale of weapons to a foreign nation in the history of the U.S., outfitting Saudi Arabia with a fully modernized, potent new air force.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/critic...ry?id=12192558

[beandip]

This Rolling Stone piece outlines many of Obama's accomplishments, and I have to say it's impressive. We all know about the health care bill, but when you get right down to the bank and auto bailouts, those actions will ultimately pay for themselves as the government recoups money directly from the banks and auto companies.

You mean the health care bill that saddles every individual with a new $2600.00 a year tax? The health care bill that puts that tax monies into the general slush fund?
The health care bill that has no health care kicking in until 2014?

Bank Bail outs?

Are you aware of the fact that the 5 private banks that make up the FED are completely insolvent? Are you aware of the fact that the bail out money did NOT go towards providing liquidity in the markets?

Holy fucking shit, what ever you're smoking... put it the fuck down.

Granted, many of the tea partiers hate the bailouts on principle, but 2 yrs ago I was very worried about what would happen if we let the US Auto Industry and the State of Michigan to go belly up. The ripple effects would have creamed the economy.

You are bat-shit crazy.



GM fucked the US taxpayer 16 ways to Sunday. They're closing down plants here in the US and using your tax money to build plants in China.

Basically, there is no mechanism in private industry to prevent disastrous industry collapses from occurring that subsequently destroy the economy for all.

Yes there is you stupid fucker. It's legal, and it's called corporate bankruptcy. You do NOT reward failed business models. You let them go tits up and let SOLVENT businesses who know how to run a damned business pick their bones clean. At no cost to the tax payer I might add.

[Odelay]

Well, the title of the thread asked people how they thought Obama was doing. I said my piece. You resorted to calling me a "stupid fucker". I wonder who truly looks smarter in this exchange.

[yodajazz]

Well, the title of the thread asked people how they thought Obama was doing. I said my piece. You resorted to calling me a "stupid fucker". I wonder who truly looks smarter in this exchange.

I have noticed a lack of civility among many those expressing conservative, or anti-Obama views lately. Thier views of humanity seem to be pretty bleak.

[beandip]

I call it like I see it. If you're going to post something and have a position, at least get your fucking facts straight. I do not care if I look smarter or not. It's not about ME, and it's not about YOU, it's about the fact that this country is a turd circling the fucking bowl now because of complete ineptitude and corruption at the top. Argue the facts asshole, ok? As far as "conservatism" goes... I am a fiscal conservative, but actually quite liberal in my social views. I'm just so sick of stupid motherfuckers who can not grasp how government actually works....and can not deal with simple 3rd grade arithmetic.

Shrub was every bit of a scumbucket corrupt asshole as Nobama is. If we do not tackle the crony-ism and corruption in this country...all these bullshit arguments about God, Gays and Guns aren't gonna mean shit. If you can't get your fat fucking skull around the fact that the PTB at the top all work for the same masters... then you don't have a prayer to survive in the shit storm headed down the pike.

Sorry if I hurt your feeeeelings but some of you need a really good kick upside your fucking heads to knock the dust out of your cranium.

http://spectator.org/archives/2010/11/19....


Bestselling investigative reporter Charles Gasparino's latest tome Bought and Paid For: The Unholy Alliance Between Barack Obama and Wall Street commences not with a scene from the much-ballyhooed first one hundred days of the new Administration, but at a hush-hush 2007 pow-wow at Johnny's Half Shell in Washington, D.C. between then-Senator Barack Obama and executives from Wall Street's top firms -- Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns -- which went so swimmingly the only warm fuzzy it lacked was the ghost of Humphrey Bogart intoning, "Barry, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

From there the Fox Business Network senior correspondent and Daily Beast columnist lays out in gobstopping detail just how well both sides have since profited from this extended dalliance, combining fiery outsider indignation with hard-won insider knowledge, narrative prowess, and a true knack for the telling anecdote -- disgraced Bear Stearns hedge fund manager Warren Spector spending his days knocking on Florida doors as a volunteer Obama campaign worker and nights bedded down at luxury hotels while his preferred candidate ceaselessly derides Republicans as the party of Wall Street is but one among many doozies.

Bought and Paid For is, in short, required reading for anyone interested in the obscured behind the scenes machinations of the economic maelstrom we currently find ourselves mired in. Gasparino was recently kind enough to speak with TAS about his book.

TAS: What compelled you to write Bought and Paid For?

Charles Gasparino: The notion of Big Government and Big Wall Street colluding to do bad things is something I've covered for a long time. I've always been interested in the conflicts between public policy and finance. What I've seen over the years is this seemingly bizarre anomaly of how Wall Street, which is allegedly the epicenter of capitalism, in reality thrived on something that is very anti-capitalist, which is Big Government. Crony capitalism. And these guys aren't doing it just to make money on fees selling government bonds to finance the deficit or government programs. The people at the top have political beliefs that are strongly aligned with progressivism.

TAS: Reading your book I was surprised to learn how kindred a spirit the big players of Big Finance saw in Barack Obama, particularly at first. They weren't supporting him simply as a pragmatic, strategic move. David Axelrod joked about Obama having a "man crush" on JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and you write financial executives saw the future president as "a guy who could have easily worked at a big Wall Street law firm if he hadn't gone into community organizing first."

Gasparino: I think a lot of the country was projecting something onto Obama they wanted to see but maybe wasn't there. Here was one of the most far left politicians I have ever seen -- based on his record, based on his associations, everything. People forget Reverend Wright, aside from his racially charged language, taught liberation theology, which basically says the Bible is infused with Marxism. That's his spiritual mentor. And all these Wall Street guys were lining up to support him.

TAS: Why?

Gasparino: Well, first, McCain couldn't stand them. It was oil and water. He screamed at Hank Paulson any chance he got. He'd spent five years in a prisoner-of-war camp, crashed a couple planes -- not exactly the type of guy who's gonna kiss a banker's ass. McCain was foreign to them and his campaign doubled down on that foreign-ness by picking Sarah Palin. When they looked at Obama they saw a guy who went to their schools, who shared their manners, who didn't break their chops. Obama was just so personally charming that something like Reverend Wright or Bill Ayers didn't have any effect. They believed at heart Obama was a moderate who understood them. And it panned out. If you look at one line of work that's done very well under Obama it isn't construction, it isn't small business or entrepreneurship. It's all the big banks that started making a ton of money the minute they got bailed out, and all those bailout mechanisms Bush put in place have been carried over and doubled down on under Obama.

TAS: Do you think the difference between the media caricature of Wall Street as a militant free-market bastion and its limousine liberal reality will ever be cleared up in the general public's mind?

Gasparino: I think it already has been. That's why the President started attacking Wall Street like a minute after Scott Brown won Teddy Kennedy's seat. The public has definitely started to put it all together. I'm not a member of the Tea Party by any stretch of the imagination, but I will say one of the good things about that movement is that they understand this inside game, they don't like it, and they want it to end. They understand how corrupting it is for the entire system when Big Business can exploit the growth of Big Government. They instinctively know there is huge hypocrisy in Obama calling these guys fat cats when Wall Street is just exploiting what he presented them to exploit. Now, Wall Street shouldn't be commended for that, but let's be honest about it: this was a partnership…. This country is in desperate, desperate straits because government has skewed the incentives. The free market, which has been demonized, wouldn't have given these guys a bonus. It would have destroyed all of their businesses.

TAS: Could there be Big Government on the scale we've recently seen it without the complicity of Big Finance and Wall Street?

Gasparino: They feed off each other. If there were no bailout, I guess you could say there'd be no opportunity to make money off the bailout. But what we can say is you need someone to underwrite Obamacare. Wall Street is there to do that. BlackRock managed all the toxic assets of Bear Stearns. When they do cap-and-trade, they'll be creating a new commodity to be traded on some exchange somewhere. The Fed, urged on by the White House, went in and bought $1.3 trillion mortgage backed securities, artificially propping up the market with taxpayer money. All the Wall Street firms that bought for pennies on the dollar are benefiting from the appreciation of a market that is only appreciating because of taxpayer money. Forget financial reform. The banks have made a killing since the bailout. And the average American? They're stuck with the wonderful stimulus package that gave us 9.6 percent unemployment.

TAS: The last chapter of your book sums up this collusion between Big Finance and Big Government, sarcastically, as "Money Well Spent." Does the failure of recent government intervention -- diehard, never-could-be-convinced-otherwise defenders notwithstanding -- signal that we're on the verge of this sort of alliance no longer being money well spent?

Gasparino: Look, I think crony capitalism hurts the system. It basically allows a few privileged, wealthy, connected people to do well exploiting the spoils of government that the rest of us can't. It's getting worse, it ain't getting better. The small business lobby is not as strong as the fat cat lobby in Washington. The bailouts of the last 30 years are how Wall Street got used to taking so much risk, and the latest bailouts? The government thought by creating a market of mortgage-backed securities somehow that whole shadow banking system that allowed the banks to make those loans in the first place would come back, but it never did because banks think logically about this: "Why should we be extending loans when we can just make money off this one program?"

Unintended consequences. That's the problem when government gets involved in this stuff. When will banks start making loans again? Well, you need the mortgage market to deflate. It'll only deflate when we have more pain. Now, there was no easy answer. But if you let natural forces take control in the financial crisis…firms go under, they stop lending, prices of securities drop dramatically, lots of losses. A tremendous amount of pain. And then the ones that survive pick up the pieces. But look what happens when you bail them out. They limp along for two years. Instead of the immediate pain you have a dead man walking. That's what we have right now. The bailouts just postpone the inevitable.

[hippifried]

I call it like I see it.

No you don't. You just parrot the Birchers.
You claim that facts are on your side, but all I see from you is innuendo based opinion, & a blind willingness to believe anything that supports your crusade without question.

Who are these "masters" you talk about? Let me guess: The CFR, Trilateral Commission, David Rockefeller, the Rothchilds, etc... Illuminati maybe? The foreign "owners" of the Fed? Anybody who's figured out the system & made money off of it? I've been hearing this same story fo over 40 years (since I started paying attention) with the same cast of characters, & when I looked a little farther, that was just warmed over McCarthyism.

What I've noticed from the extremes around the political sphere, regardless of bent, is the same theme & proposed solution, with the same cast of characters. The proposed solution from all sides is to destroy the system or let it collapse. Sorry. Can't buy the doom & gloom or the no-win scenario. I don't want to live in a third world country.

[Ben]

Saturday, November 20, 2010 by Agence France-Presse Obama's 'Beast' of a Limo Stands Out at Green NATO Summit

LISBON - The Portuguese hosts of Friday's NATO summit hoped to use the event to promote clean-energy and electric cars, but all eyes were on US President Barack Obama's diesel-guzzling "Beast" instead.
President Barack Obama steps out of his eight-ton armored behemoth of a limousine and is welcomed by his Portuguese counterpart Anibal Antonio Cavaco Silva (C) in Lisbon on Friday. The Portugese hosts of Friday's NATO summit hoped to use the event to promote the clean-living electric car, but all eyes were on Obama's diesel-guzzling "Beast" instead. (AFP/Pierre-Philippe Marcou)


As is usual when he travels, Obama's eight-ton armored behemoth of a limousine was flown out to Lisbon before the US leader's arrival, and it ferried him from the airport tarmac to his first meetings of the weekend.Doubtless he didn't intend the Beast's roar to drown out his hosts' green message, but a US presidential motorcade and its attendant escort of Secret Service SUVs do attract attention, even at the most elite gatherings.
Earlier, Prime Minister Jose Socrates and his fellow Portuguese, the president of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, had arrived at the summit in quiet, zero-emission electric cars.
"I'd like to underline the priority both our countries assign to renewable energy and electric vehicles," Socrates said, after meeting Obama, amid amused sniping from the Portuguese press at the mixed messages.
Portugal is proud of the lead it has taken in introducing what it says is the world's first national electric vehicle charging network, with 100 power outlets in 25 towns and plans to install 1,300 by next year.
The government was particularly keen for the press covering the summit to underline this, and a news release describing the recharging network was already on each of the tables in the media center as the global pack arrived.
Within the highly secure summit site, electric buses were put on to ferry journalists between venues.
In theory, at least, Obama was on side with the plan, remarking: "An area where I want to congratulate the prime minister and the Portuguese people is for the extraordinary leadership that you've shown in clean energy.
"The prime minister's leadership on electric cars will create new opportunities for American companies here in Portugal ... and this is an example of what Portugal and America can achieve together."
But there was no immediate reaction from the White House to criticism of Obama's rather less green form of transport, and the administration has in the past said that the president's security arrangements are non-negotiable.
© 2010 Agence France-Presse

[Kunzy]

He's an Idiot!!

big spending ass kissing feminists man hating idiot

[beandip]

No you don't. You just parrot the Birchers.
You claim that facts are on your side, but all I see from you is innuendo based opinion, & a blind willingness to believe anything that supports your crusade without question.

Who are these "masters" you talk about? Let me guess: The CFR, Trilateral Commission, David Rockefeller, the Rothchilds, etc... Illuminati maybe? The foreign "owners" of the Fed? Anybody who's figured out the system & made money off of it? I've been hearing this same story fo over 40 years (since I started paying attention) with the same cast of characters, & when I looked a little farther, that was just warmed over McCarthyism.

What I've noticed from the extremes around the political sphere, regardless of bent, is the same theme & proposed solution, with the same cast of characters. The proposed solution from all sides is to destroy the system or let it collapse. Sorry. Can't buy the doom & gloom or the no-win scenario. I don't want to live in a third world country.

You stupid fucking useless excuse for a human being.

I've been hearing this same story for over 40 years (since I started paying attention) with the same cast of characters

Obviously you're not paying enough attention. Where there is smoke there is fire,

You've been baking fatties for 40 years. Must be just something typical of your useless generation (fried).

What I've noticed from the extremes around the political sphere, regardless of bent, is the same theme & proposed solution, with the same cast of characters.

Here is the voice of fraud.



Are you arguing that there is no fraud here?

Don't take my word for it. There are many voices of reason"

Chris Whalen:

When I am speaking on the banking industry, I tell the audience that the task ahead is like cutting off a few fingers with a kitchen knife. The bad news is that it will hurt like hell. The good news is that the fingers, eventually, will grow back. The Obama Administration needs to change direction and to embrace restructuring and national renewal instead of the current policy of extend and pretend. The same factors that drove Ambac into bankruptcy are working on Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorganChase and will eventually force a restructuring. The sooner we start the process, the sooner the U.S. economy will recover.
Indeed, I expect that the Obama Administration will eventually, reluctantly be forced to invoke the powers under the Dodd-Frank law and restructure the top-three U.S. banks. This will be near-total losses for equity holders and haircuts for creditors, but the end result will be a solvent bank that is smaller, profitable and able to again lend.

http://blogs.reuters.com/christopher...nancial-start/


Want proof of what's coming down the pike? Want more names?

Need charts?



Just how fucking stupid are you?

So voices from both the left and the right do not matter? Be specific please. What cast of characters upset you? With what people asking for social justice and fiscal sanity do you have a bone to pick?

Here are just a few that are asking for this nonsense and outright robbery of American wealth to stop.

We believe the Federal Reserve’s large-scale asset purchase plan (so-called “quantitative easing”) should be reconsidered and discontinued. We do not believe such a plan is necessary or advisable under current circumstances. The planned asset purchases risk currency debasement and inflation, and we do not think they will achieve the Fed’s objective of promoting employment.
We subscribe to your statement in the Washington Post on November 4 that “the Federal Reserve cannot solve all the economy’s problems on its own.” In this case, we think improvements in tax, spending and regulatory policies must take precedence in a national growth program, not further monetary stimulus.
We disagree with the view that inflation needs to be pushed higher, and worry that another round of asset purchases, with interest rates still near zero over a year into the recovery, will distort financial markets and greatly complicate future Fed efforts to normalize monetary policy.
The Fed’s purchase program has also met broad opposition from other central banks and we share their concerns that quantitative easing by the Fed is neither warranted nor helpful in addressing either U.S. or global economic problems.
Cliff Asness
AQR Capital
Michael J. Boskin
Stanford University
Former Chairman, President’s Council of Economic Advisors (George H.W. Bush Administration)
Richard X. Bove
Rochdale Securities
Charles W. Calomiris
Columbia University Graduate School of Business
Jim Chanos
Kynikos Associates
John F. Cogan
Stanford University
Former Associate Director, U.S. Office of Management and Budget (Reagan Administration)
Niall Ferguson
Harvard University
Author, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
Nicole Gelinas
Manhattan Institute & e21
Author, After the Fall: Saving Capitalism from Wall Street—and Washington
James Grant
Grant’s Interest Rate Observer
Kevin A. Hassett
American Enterprise Institute
Former Senior Economist, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
Roger Hertog
The Hertog Foundation
Gregory Hess
Claremont McKenna College
Douglas Holtz-Eakin
Former Director, Congressional Budget Office
Seth Klarman
Baupost Group
William Kristol
Editor, The Weekly Standard
David Malpass
GroPac
Former Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary (Reagan Administration)
Ronald I. McKinnon
Stanford University
Dan Senor
Council on Foreign Relations
Co-Author, Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle
Amity Shlaes
Council on Foreign Relations
Author, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression
Paul E. Singer
Elliott Associates
John B. Taylor
Stanford University
Former Undersecretary of Treasury for International Affairs (George W. Bush Administration)
Peter J. Wallison
American Enterprise Institute
Former Treasury and White House Counsel (Reagan Administration)
Geoffrey Wood
Cass Business School at City University London

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/...-ben-bernanke/

You fucking loser, read who signed the above statement, notice there are CFR members there...and even a former senior FED member.

So your bullshit theory about trying to blow this off as a conspiracy...is just that, more total bullshit from loser Hippifried.

Looky here...start at about the 5 minute spot:




You don't trust Reuters? WSJ? Bill Moyers / PBS?

You complete fucking retard. Do you see any innuendo above?

What I've noticed from the extremes around the political sphere, regardless of bent, is the same theme & proposed solution,..

You haven't noticed anything you useless shit bag.

The proposed solution from all sides is to destroy the system or let it collapse.

Wrong again you fucking mental midget.

There are legal mechanisms for solving this problem. It takes political balls, of which Nobama (or Shrub before him) has none. It takes action. It will fuck up everyones "program" for a few months at least... but the medicine , although painful is better than dying a slow, violent death. That's where we're all headed if we sit on our collective asses like Hippifried and just bake another fatty for the next few years.


So shit-for-(fried) brains. You've admittedly been "watching" this for 40 years and have done nothing. Again, so typical of your useless leach fuck generation. By doing nothing for 40 years we can all clearly see what choice you have made, to let it collapse.

Can't buy the doom & gloom or the no-win scenario. I don't want to live in a third world country.

You dont' have to buy anything asshole....just keep on sitting here and watch doom and gloom ass rape you sideways.

I don't want to live in a third world country.

Well it sucks being you, cause a third world country is where we're all headed.

Do
The
Math.

The fucking FED is the prime buyer of T-bonds now. That's the rest of the world telling USA "fuck off" just like I told you two years ago.

With bernanke wheezing every US citizen with QEII, with Nobama putting a freeze on SS increases for the next two years, do you have even the slightest fucking clue what that will do to the social fabric of this country?

But..I digress, it's all about "you" and not wanting to live in a third world country.

How about the seniors, old and frail who live on a fixed income. How do you think they'll handle a 30% rise in food cost in the next 12 months. How bad must it suck to have to make a choice between life saving medication....or food?

But hey you fuck-stick, as long as everything is ok on your "street".

You see the recent ramp in commodities in the last two weeks? That's just a start.

What kind of a douche-bag are you? Can you do 4th grade math? Can you see that by ramping commodities up like this worldwide condemns literally tens of millions of people around the world (in third world countries I might add) to starvation?

But hey... Hippifried is just concerned about him in his little hood.

All in the name of "saving the banks".


Fuck you, fuck your obfuscation of cold hard facts... fuck your arrogance, shit-bag.

[yodajazz]

You stupid fucking useless excuse for a human being.

.......

You haven't noticed anything you useless shit bag.

This is a simple argument. If you cannot see that every human being has some intrinsic worth, the rest of your argument is invalid.