OBAMA’S
GRAND PERFORMANCE OF “CHANGE”… or how he punked us big time!
*
*
OBAMA’S CRONY CAPITALISM, A LOVE STORY
BETWEEN THE ACTOR PRESIDENT, AND HIS BANKSTER DONORS!
Records show that four out of Obama's top five
contributors are employees of financial industry giants - Goldman Sachs
($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup
($358,054).
*
THERE
IS A REASON WHY THE BANKSTERS PILED
MONEY ON OBAMA, AND WHEY THE WEALTHY AND LA RAZA WANT TO BUY HIM FOUR MORE YEARS
OF CORRUPTION, AND THE TRANSFER OF WHAT’S LEFT OF THE ECONOMY INTO WALL ST’S
HANDS!
*
OBAMA’S AGENDA: … “but to the
fact that those who can afford to buy influence are rewriting the rules so they
can cut themselves progressively larger slices of the American pie while paying
less of their fair share for it.”
*
AS
WE HAVE WITNESSED GO LIMP AT THE NOD OF HIS BANKSTER DONORS, OR ANY SPECIAL
INTERESTS, MEXICO OR MUSLIM DICTATORS… CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE HIM HAVING THE
BALLS TO SAY:
FRANKLIN
D. ROOSEVELT
“He cites the famous speech in 1936 at Madison Square
Garden, when Roosevelt declared, “Never before in all our history have these
forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are
unanimous in their hate for me--and I welcome their hatred.”
BARACK OBAMA – THE BANKSTER BOUGHT LA RAZA PRESIDENT!
“I’m
not here to punish banks!” Barack Obama from the floor of the Senate.
*
Instead of indicting the people whose recklessness wrecked
the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never explained that decision to
the public—a failure in storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in
judgment behind it.”
*
OBAMA
DOES HAVE A JOB PLAN! IT’S CALLED OPEN BORDERS, SABOTAGE OF E-VERIFY, CONTINUED
NON-ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS PROHIBITING THE EMPLOYMENT OF ILLEGALS, LEGAL
HARASSMENTS OF STATES LIKE ARIZONA AND ALABAMA ATTEMPTING TO LIMIT LA RAZA
OCCUPATION, AND INFESTING HIS ADMIN WITH LA RAZA SUPREMACIST, LIKE SEC. OF
LABOR HILDA SOLIS (LA RAZA).
Obama proposed an economic stimulus policy tailored to
boosting corporate profitability, not jobs, and rejected any direct job
creation by the federal government.
*
“Thus he writes that
no administration official would “explain why saving the banks was such a
priority, when saving the homes the banks were foreclosing didn’t seem to be.”
OBAMA AND HIS BANKSTERS’ ASSAULT ON AMERICAN HOME OWNERS:
As part of the bank bailout, the Treasury
Department was given $46 billion to spend on keeping homeowners in their
houses; to date, the agency has spent about $1.85 billion.
*
They
also say programs to curb foreclosure are voluntary, so they are limited in how
far they can push mortgage servicers and investors, who often make more from
foreclosures than from offering aid.
*
REALITY
BEHIND OBAMA’S CON JOBS AND PERFORMANCES:
This is only because he refuses to take seriously what Obama
himself has said in the course of the deficit talks: that he supports massive
cuts in entitlement programs, including Social Security, and that he supports
the most modest of tax increases on the wealthy in order to provide a patina of
“fairness” and “shared sacrifice,” without materially affecting the super-rich.
THE CON JOB
He writes: “Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence
on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his
biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president,
having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable
career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of
Chicago other than an autobiography…”
Once
again: Why Obama won’t—and can’t—be Roosevelt
By
Patrick Martin
13 August 2011
A lengthy commentary published
August 7 in the Sunday Review section of the New York Times makes many
criticisms of the policies of President Barack Obama, but collapses in the face
of the most vital and compelling issue: which
class interests the Obama administration serves.
Under the headline, “What Happened
to Obama?” Drew Westen, a professor of psychology at Emory University,
expresses the disillusionment of many liberal supporters of Obama, who believed
that the election of the first African-American president represented a
watershed and an opportunity to revive the liberal reform policies associated
with Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Great Society measures of the 1960s.
While couched in the language of
post-modernism—Westen complains about Obama’s failure to “tell a story” or
provide a compelling “counternarrative” to the Republican ultra-right—the
criticisms are sharper than anything that has appeared recently in the Times,
especially after the departure of two of the newspaper’s more liberal
columnists, Bob Herbert and Frank Rich.
Westen focuses his critique especially on Obama’s refusal to
denounce those responsible for the 2008 financial collapse—the bankers and
billionaire speculators—and to promote an aggressively liberal alternative to
the bank bailout initiated in the final months of the Bush administration and
then expanded after the Democratic administration took over.
Pinning the blame for the crisis on
the financial elite “would have made clear that the president understood that
the American people had given Democrats the presidency and majorities in both
houses of Congress to fix the mess the Republicans and Wall Street had made of
the country, and that this would not be a power-sharing arrangement,” he
argues.
“It would have made clear that the
problem wasn’t tax-and-spend liberalism or the deficit--a deficit that didn’t
exist until George W. Bush gave nearly $2 trillion in tax breaks largely to the
wealthiest Americans and squandered $1 trillion in two wars. And perhaps most
important, it would have offered a clear, compelling alternative to the
dominant narrative of the right, that our problem is not due to spending on
things like the pensions of firefighters, but
to the fact that those who can afford to buy influence are rewriting the rules
so they can cut themselves progressively larger slices of the American pie
while paying less of their fair share for it.”
Westen contrasts Obama’s failure to
the actions and words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose New Deal
policies used government resources to “put Americans directly to work,” and who
made a regular display of hostility to the big bankers, and vice versa. He cites the famous speech in 1936 at
Madison Square Garden, when Roosevelt declared, “Never before in all our
history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand
today. They are unanimous in their hate for me--and I welcome their hatred.”
While Roosevelt was himself just as
committed to the capitalist system as his Wall Street foes, he clearly
understood that in order to save capitalism, it was necessary to chastise the
capitalists publicly, to appease popular anger, and to place some constraints
on their operations in order to prevent a recurrence of the financial
manipulations that produced the 1929 stock market crash.
Westen bemoans Obama’s refusal to
follow this example. He writes: “In contrast, when faced with the greatest
economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest
levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama
stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the people whose
recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never
explained that decision to the public—a failure in storytelling as
extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind it.”
This criticism assumes, of course, that Obama could have
provided a credible explanation for his decision to put the lunatics in charge
of the capitalist asylum—including, most obviously, his selection of Timothy
Geithner, head of the New York Federal Reserve during the 2008 crash and one of
three principal organizers of the bank bailout, as his secretary of the
treasury. Likewise, he chose to renominate Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben
Bernanke, another key architect of the bailout, for a new four-year term.
More importantly, Obama chose to
continue the bailout of the banks begun by Geithner, Bernanke and Bush’s
treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, and then to greatly expand it. Every aspect
of the new administration’s financial and economic policy was driven by the
determination to restore solvency to the investment banks, stock traders and
hedge funds, at the expense of the working class.
Obama proposed an economic stimulus policy tailored to
boosting corporate profitability, not jobs, and rejected any direct job
creation by the federal government. After
blocking efforts to limit executive pay at the bailed-out banks, the president
demanded a 50 percent wage cut for newly hired auto workers as the price of
bailing out General Motors and Chrysler. And his health care “reform” was
driven by cost-cutting, not the extension of coverage to the uninsured.
Westen admits that these policies
led to widespread confusion and then disillusionment among those voters who had
expected a progressive alternative from Obama, and opened the way for the
ultra-right Tea Party movement to divert popular discontent and gain influence.
But he attributes this to Obama’s failure to motivate his policies, not to the
objective content of the policies themselves. Thus he writes that no administration official would “explain why
saving the banks was such a priority, when saving the homes the banks were
foreclosing didn’t seem to be.”
Such a formulation suggests that
such an explanation was possible; in other words, that Obama was pursuing a
policy that was ultimately in the interests of working people, but failed to
communicate it properly. The truth is
far different: Obama’s policies were determined solely by the interests of the
banks and corporations, and it proved impossible for him to disguise this fact
from the working class. The Madison Avenue techniques and rhetoric of “hope”
and “change” employed during the 2008 presidential campaign proved inadequate
for gulling the masses indefinitely in the face of continued double-digit
unemployment and declining living standards.
Westen concludes by effectively
throwing up his hands over the recent confrontation between the
Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Obama administration
over raising the federal debt ceiling and cutting the federal deficit. He
describes the deficit debate as divorced from the real concerns of the American
people about jobs and the ongoing economic slump, but expresses bewilderment
about Obama’s role.
“Like most Americans, at this
point,” he concludes, “I have no idea what Barack Obama—and by extension the
party he leads—believes on virtually any issue.” This is only because he refuses to take seriously what Obama himself
has said in the course of the deficit talks: that he supports massive cuts in
entitlement programs, including Social Security, and that he supports the most
modest of tax increases on the wealthy in order to provide a patina of
“fairness” and “shared sacrifice,” without materially affecting the super-rich.
In attempting to explain why Obama
made the decisions he did, however, Westen reduces great historical questions
to the small change of personality and temperament, citing “lack of experience
and a character defect that might not have been so debilitating at some other
time in history.”
He writes: “Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence
on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his
biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president,
having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable
career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of
Chicago other than an autobiography…”
These aspects of Obama’s biography
are significant, but only in demonstrating that his elevation to the presidency
was not the result of his personal achievements, but rather a decision by
powerful sections of the ruling elite that a change in image and personnel was
needed, along with some adjustments in foreign policy after the disasters of
the Bush years, and a young African-American Democrat with conservative and
solidly pro-capitalist loyalties would fit the bill.
While Westen faults Obama for his
failure to indict the Wall Street criminals for causing the 2008 crash, it was
precisely his behavior during those critical weeks that reassured the ruling
elite that he could be entrusted with the presidency. While Republican John
McCain improvised wildly—suspending his campaign, attempting to cancel the
first debate, then reversing himself—and congressional Republicans precipitated
a stock market collapse by initially voting down the bailout bill, Obama lined
up 100 percent behind the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve in
mobilizing every possible federal resource to save the banks and speculators.
September 2008 was Obama’s final
audition for the White House, and he passed with flying colors. Why should
anyone expect anything different from his presidency?
Westen ends his lament with a litany of complaints about the
growing economic inequality in America, where “400 people control more of the
wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans… the average middle-class
family has seen its income stagnate over the last 30 years while the richest 1
percent has seen its income rise astronomically… we cut the fixed incomes of
our parents and grandparents so hedge fund managers can keep their 15 percent
tax rates.”
Obama’s failure to challenge this
social reality is not a personal one, or the result of individual policy
choices. It rather is an objectively determined expression of very different circumstances
from those that prevailed when Franklin Roosevelt was in the White House. The
major difference is the long-term historical decline of American capitalism.
When Roosevelt took office, the
economic conditions were even more dire than those confronting Obama in January
2009, but even in the depths of the Great Depression the United States was
still the most powerful capitalist nation, with enormous economic reserves and
industrial might. Today, however, the United States is a declining power, with a
national debt approaching $17 trillion, an enormous negative balance of trade,
and a shrinking industrial base.
Obama’s failure to offer a New Deal
or echo the reformist rhetoric of FDR is not merely the product of his failure
of imagination. It is an expression of the un-viability of such a policy today
and the lack of support for it in the American ruling elite.
In the 1930s, fearful of the recent
example of the Russian Revolution, facing immense upheavals from the American
working class, the US capitalist class could afford to part with a relatively
small portion of its vast wealth to stave off social and political disaster.
Today it can neither afford nor envision such a policy. That makes a
revolutionary settling of accounts by the American working class all the more
necessary and historically inevitable.
*
WHAT IS OBAMA? A WALL ST. OWNED
PERFORMER THAT WORKS HARD FOR HIS LA RAZA “THE RACE” PARTY BASE OF ILLEGALS!
WHAT’S WRONG WITH
OBAMA?
What's wrong with Obama?
The President's quest for re-election leaves
progressives bitterly disillusioned
By Steve Breyman
Published 12:00 a.m., Sunday, August 7, 2011
Supporters are
flabbergasted by the President's playbook. Why does he roll over
so easily?
How come he let
Wall Street off the hook? Why does he leave Main Street to suffer?
Answer: To do
otherwise might -- he thinks -- endanger his political future.
Re-election is
the usual top priority of national politicians. The President's politics and
policies are carefully calculated to appeal to middle-of-the-roaders and
swing voters.
The substance of
an Obama policy is much less important than the political signals it sends, the
flanks it covers and the powerful constituencies it serves. Let's look at
some particulars.
Foreign policy:
Obama's
opposition to the war in Iraq? A position consonant with public opinion, and
with the activist base of his party. Support for the war in Afghanistan?
Brilliant flank covering. Obama took away the Republicans' electoral advantage on national
security by promising to wage the war more fiercely than George Bush, escalating drone strikes in Pakistan
and intensifying covert interventions in Yemen and Somalia.
The aim is to
actively wage the War on Terror and reduce the threat to "the
homeland" so as to prevent tragedy on his watch. Even if something bad
happens between now and November 2012, this is the President who killed Osama bin Laden.
Libya?
Not a single
American death, a few billions down the drain, a Libyan opposition in his debt,
a Republican opposition unwilling to really challenge him, a novel
interpretation of the War Powers Act.
What's not to
like from the re-election perspective? Keep your eyes on the prize.
Israel/Palestine?
Netanyahu has
been a thorn is Obama's side but worry not. Beyond the issue of illegal
settlements, Obama's loyalty to the Israeli right wing appears boundless.
Why? Zionist
campaign contributions.
Push the
corporate domination schemes also known as "free trade
agreements?" Check.
Unprecedented
persecution of whistle-blowers ("worse than Nixon" thinks John Dean)? Check.
More money for
the nuclear weapons complex? A small price to pay for New START. Another giant defense budget? No
problem, we'll cut it in the second term.
Domestic policy:
The debt ceiling
"deal"? Does anyone to the left of Michele Bachmann
believe it's in the interest of working families?
Got civil
liberties? Who cares?
Social Security,
Medicaid and Medicare on the chopping block? If slashing benefits for granny
will confer political advantage, then so be it. Warehousing millions in jails
and prisons? Beats having to find jobs for them.
Immigration
reform? Can't do it without the Republicans.
Sustainable
agriculture? Don't be a "professional leftist;" only GMOs, plus a lot
of oil, crop subsidies, and petrochemicals can feed the world.
Nuclear energy?
Fukushima can't happen here.
Clean coal? It's
not an oxymoron, it's the key to votes in West Virginia. Fracking? Natural gas
is the "bridge" to a green energy future.
Offshore oil
drilling? BP's Gulf geyser was a tough couple of months. But we innovated a new
regulatory agency, and can now move forward.
Health care
reform? The greatest accomplishment of the administration. Medicare for all is
simply not the American way, and pharmaceutical and insurance companies were OK
with it.
Avoidance of
initiatives that look like "black politics"? Check.
Lousy mortgage
adjustment program? At least the big banks were saved.
Bush tax cuts?
We extended those. A Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that Republicans
hate? Appoint a "Jeopardy" champion to run it. High unemployment?
Jobs programs are so 1930s.
The politics of
re-election:
Obama might lack
Bill Clinton's folksiness; he does not lack his
political instincts. Triangulation places Obama in the New Center, and much further to the political
right than a generation ago. Centrism enables Obama to vacuum up campaign cash
at record pace.
Again,
politicians will generally do what they think it takes to get re-elected; Obama
is no different. This President believes you hit the political sweet spot by
ignoring your base. And he knows that you don't succeed in national politics by
biting the hands that feed you.
What would it
take for Obama to change?
A massive
sustained mobilization of angry citizens demanding radical change? Maybe.
In the meantime?
Campaign cash. Lots of it.
*
Obama campaign raises record sums from the wealthy
By Patrick Martin
15 July 2011
Proving that President Obama is the
first choice of Wall Street and the American super-rich, his reelection
campaign announced Wednesday that it had broken all previous records for
fundraising, raking in $86 million during the second quarter of this year.
The
$86 million total dwarfed the previous record for presidential reelection
fundraising, the $50 million raised by George W. Bush in the third quarter of
2003. It was far above the $60 million target set by Obama’s campaign manager,
Jim Messina.
Obama
for America, the official name of the reelection effort, raised $47 million,
while the Democratic National Committee collected $38 million, largely from
fundraising events featuring the president, where big donors are allowed to
give up to $30,800 apiece. Individual donations to Obama for America are
limited under federal election laws to a maximum of $5,000.
By
comparison, the leading Republican fundraiser, former Massachusetts governor
and investment banker Mitt Romney, raised $18.25 million in the April-June
quarter. The total raised by all the Republican presidential hopefuls who have
filed reports with the Federal Election Commission came to only $36 million,
less than half Obama’s haul.
The
Obama reelection campaign will be the most lavishly funded in American history.
It is expected to dwarf the $745 million Obama raised in 2008, and could top
the $1 billion mark. Only two decades ago, $20 million was sufficient to
finance a full-scale presidential campaign.
According
to press accounts, the Obama campaign has already opened 60 offices in various
states around the country, nearly a year and a half before Election Day, and
hired hundreds of full-time operatives.
The
vast fund-raising comes in two relatively distinct components: over half a
million small donors, reflecting lingering illusions in Obama in sections of
the population; and large donors, from the wealthy and the most affluent
sections of the upper-middle class.
A
total of 552,462 individuals gave money during the second quarter, including
260,000 who made no donations during the 2008 campaign. Of these, 98 percent
were of $250 or less, with an average contribution of $69. Based on that
average, the small donations accounted for less than half the total raised,
about $37 million.
The
remainder, about $49 million, came in large-dollar contributions, including
thousands who gave the maximum of $35,800—$30,800 to the DNC and $5,000 to
Obama for America.
The
Washington Post noted, “Much of the tens of millions Obama raised
through the Democratic National Committee came from big fundraising events that
the president attended throughout the spring. Donors to the DNC can give up to
$30,800, and many of those who made the maximum contribution got to attend
intimate, invitation-only dinners at which the president took their questions
behind closed doors.”
Moreover,
the total number of small donors was deliberately inflated by a promotion run
by the campaign in which anyone who gave as little as $5 was entered into a
lottery for a dinner with Obama and Vice President Biden.
The
Obama campaign, clearly concerned about releasing information that would
demonstrate corporate America’s enthusiasm for the president’s reelection,
declined to say how much Obama for America raised from large donors. These
numbers will be buried in the 15,000-page report the campaign files Friday with
the FEC.
The
report to the FEC will also detail the amount raised by “bundlers,” those who
solicit donations from a group of individuals and reach a total set by the
campaign, of $350,000 or more, as well as a group called Gen44, consisting of
individuals younger than 40 who raise $100,000 or more.
While
the 2008 Obama campaign was regularly described as fueled by small donors, the
actual figures demonstrate the opposite: Obama did indeed raise $180 million
from that source, but that came to less than one-quarter of his overall
fundraising. Nearly half of his total—and the bulk of the early money, critical
to sustaining his campaign against the initial frontrunner, Hillary
Clinton—came from big donors.
Some
details of the wooing of big-ticket donors were reported in the Washington
press. The Post reported June 29, “Campaign officials are working to
broaden Obama’s network of ‘bundlers,’ the well-connected rainmakers tasked
with soliciting big checks from wealthy donors, while seeking to preserve the
aura of a grass-roots movement by luring back the kind of small Internet
donations that helped shatter fundraising records four years ago. Obama has
attended 28 fundraisers from coast to coast—a pace that could continue, or even
accelerate, over the next several months.”
The
Post noted that White House Chief of Staff William Daley, former vice
chairman of JP Morgan Chase “has huddled in recent weeks over breakfasts and
dinners with business leaders and Wall Street financiers in Chicago, New York
and Washington,” while campaign manager Messina “made his pitch during at least
two meetings in Manhattan with Wall Street executives.”
Politico described one Wall Street fundraising dinner held at
Daniel, a top-drawer restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper East Side: “The tables
were filled with moneymen like Marc Lasry, the billionaire founder of the hedge
fund Avenue Capital; Robert Wolf, the chief executive of UBS Group Americas;
and Mark T. Gallogly, a co-founder of Centerbridge Partners.”
While
noting the absence of Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase and Lloyd Blankfein of
Goldman Sachs, this was said to be by mutual agreement—an effort to avoid
photographs of the president shaking hands with the CEOs of the largest
recipients of federal bailouts.
“While
Wall Street executives still complain about the president’s name-calling and
pressure for a regulatory overhaul,” Politico observed cynically, “many
say privately that his bark has been worse than his bite.”
The
event raised $2.3 million in a single evening, far more than the projected $1.5
million. Politico concluded that “Obama’s campaign set a goal of getting
400 individuals to each help raise $350,000 by year’s end. That may sound like
a tall order—especially with much of Wall Street on the sidelines—but early
indications suggest the effort is on track, according to people involved in the
campaign.”
*
More than 5 million households had their wealth wiped out
since 2005
By Andre Damon
28 July 2011
The
typical US household lost 28 percent of its wealth during the economic crisis,
with one third of these being totally wiped out, according to a recent analysis
of Census Bureau data carried out by the Pew Research Center, “Wealth Gaps Rise
to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks and Hispanics”.
While
the study headlines racial disparities, the most striking findings concern the
general impoverishment of all sections of the population. The percent of US
households who have a net worth of zero dollars or below—meaning they have more
debts than assets—grew from 15 percent in 2005, to 20 percent in 2009. This
means that 5.6 million households, or about 15 million people, had their wealth
totally wiped out during the first part of the economic downturn. These figures
come from an analysis of Census Bureau survey data for 2005 and 2009.
The
study found that, after adjusting for inflation, the median wealth of US
households fell from $96,894 in 2005 to $70,000 in 2009, a drop of 28 percent.
The majority of this is attributable to the precipitous fall in real estate
values, by about 30 percent between 2006 and 2009 and even more since.
The
fall in home values has been compounded by falling wages. Between 2005 and
2009, workers’ average hourly earnings fell, on an inflation-adjusted basis, by
5 percent, according to the Labor Department.
*
UNDER OBAMA, THE
RICH GET RICHER, AND JOBS GO TO HIS LA RAZA PARTY BASE!
*
*
*
Obama's Regulatory Reform Sham Continues
By Lurita Doan
5/30/2011
President Obama's much-praised efforts at regulatory reform
remain a sham. This past week, while the President traveled overseas, the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in conjunction with rolled out its review of proposed
changes to government regulations.
The reform will affect at least 30 federal agencies and is
designed to "always consider costs and ways to reduce burdens for American
businesses when developing rules; expand opportunities for public participation
and public comment; and ensure that regulations are driven by real
science." An elegant White House web page, accompanied by an online,
explanatory video, supported by an in-person appearances from OMB Director
Jacob Lew and Cass Sunstein, and countless, premature victory laps around
Washington cannot disguise the emptiness of many of the proposed reforms. For,
what has been released is just the plan for the plan.
*
FROM CREOLE
FOLKS
Obama Seeks
Brother of "Chicago Mob Boss" for Top White House Post
The roaches and con-artist, fake journalist on cable news
are all lying about William Daley being all this and all that, this man is an
open borders, down with America, free trade globalist. MSNBC and Gretta
"the Scientology" Van Susteren from Fox News are knowingly
deceiving the public about D. Issa & his letter to "business
owners"=which they made into such a BIG DAM DEAL, but no one says
anything whenBarrack Hussein Obama, comes around with all of these shady
bankers, hedge fund managers and Wall St. Tycoons, which he puts in his
cabinet. All of Obama's meeting with Wall Street asking, "What can I
do for you?" is never something covered by Keith Oberman or Rachel
Maddow.
(Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama is
considering naming William Daley, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive and
former U.S. Commerce secretary, to a high-level administration post, possibly
White House chief of staff, people familiar with the matter said.
Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting
You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union
Bosses
BY
TIMOTHY P CARNEY
Editorial
Reviews
Obama
Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?
Goldman
Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack
Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from
Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and
consumers. In Obamanomics, investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs
up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you
wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate
socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s
corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.
Congressman
Ron Paul says, “Every libertarian and free-market conservative needs to read Obamanomics.”
And Johan Goldberg, columnist and bestselling author says, “Obamanomics
is conservative muckraking at its best and an indispensable field guide to the
Obama years.”
If
you’ve wondered what’s happening to America, as the federal government swallows
up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit
exploding “stimulus packages,” this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam.
Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every time government gets bigger,
somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book
names the names—and it will make your blood boil.
*
FROM JUDICIAL WATCH
Shaping up to be the most corrupt
administration in American history:
- Obama’s team: Not the “best of the Washington insiders,” as
the liberal media style them, but rather, a dysfunctional and dangerous conglomerate
of business-as-usual cronies and hacks
- In the first two weeks alone of his infant administration,
Obama had made no fewer than 17 exceptions to his “no-lobbyist” rule
- Why the fact that the massive infusion of union dues into his
campaign treasury didn’t trouble him in the least reveals Obama’s
credibility as a reformer
- The lack of unprecedented pace of withdrawals and botched
appointments -- and how getting through the confirmation process was no
guarantee of ethical cleanliness or competence, even as Obama’s
cheerleaders were glorifying the Greatest Transition in World History
- Inconsistency: How Obama, erstwhile critic of the campaign
finance practice known as “bundling,” happily accepted more than $350,000
in bundled contributions from billionaire hedge-fund managers
- How Obama broke his transparency pledge with the very first
bill he signed into law -- helping make hostility to transparency is a
running thread through Obama’s cabinet
- Michelle Obama: Beneath the cultured pearls, sleeveless designer
dresses, and eyelashes applied by her full-time makeup artist, is a
hardball Chicago politico
- Joe Biden: It’s not just that he lies, it’s that he lies so
well that you think he really believes the stuff he makes up
- Treasury Secretary Geithner: His ineptness and epic
blundering -- including how he nearly caused the collapse of the dollar in
international trade with a single remark
- The appalling story of Technology Czar Vivek Kundra, the
convicted shoplifter in charge of the entire federal government’s information
security infrastructure
- Obama’s “Porker of the Month” Transportation Secretary, Roy
LaHood: An earmark-addicted influence peddler born and raised on the
politics of pay-to-play
- SEIU: Responsible for installing a cabal of hand-chosen
officers who exploited their cash-infused fiefdoms for personal gain and
presided over rigged elections -- in the process, becoming all that they
had professed to stand against as representatives of the downtrodden
worker
- How Obama lied on his “Fight the Smears” campaign website
when he claimed that he “never organized with ACORN”
- ACORN: How the profound threat the group poses is not merely
ideological or economic -- it’s electoral
- ACORN’s own internal review of shady money transfers among
its web of affiliates: How it underscores concerns that conservatives have
long raised about the organization
- Liar, liar, pantsuit on fire: How Hillary Clinton has already
trampled upon her promise not to let her husband’s financial dealings sway
her decisions as Secretary of State
- How even a few principled progressives are finally beginning
to question the cult of Obama -- even as Obama sycophants in the
mainstream media continue to celebrate his “hipness” and “swagga”
*
As part of the bank
bailout, the Treasury Department was given $46 billion to spend on keeping
homeowners in their houses; to date, the agency has spent about $1.85 billion.
*
They also say programs to curb foreclosure are
voluntary, so they are limited in how far they can push mortgage servicers and
investors, who often make more from foreclosures than from offering aid.
*
NEW YORK TIMES
June 4, 2011
For the Jobless, Little
U.S. Help on Foreclosure
The Obama
administration’s main program to keep distressed homeowners from falling into
foreclosure has been aimed at those who took out subprime loans or other risky
mortgages during the heady days of the housing boom. But these days, the
primary cause of foreclosures is unemployment.
As a result, there is a
mismatch between the homeowner program’s design and the country’s economic
realities — and a new round of finger-pointing about how best to fix it.
The administration’s
housing effort does include programs to help unemployed homeowners, but they
have been plagued by delays, dubious benefits and abysmal participation. For
example, a Treasury Department effort started in early 2010 allows the jobless
to postpone mortgage payments for three months, but the average length of
unemployment is now nine months. As of March 31, there were only 7,397 participants.
“So far, I think the
public record will show that programs to help unemployed homeowners have not
been very successful,” said Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, an executive vice president of
the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
Data released last week
suggests that the administration’s task is only growing more difficult as the
problems created by unemployment and housing persist. New job growth in May was
anemic, and unemployment inched up to 9.1 percent, the Labor Department
reported Friday.
Earlier in the week, a
widely watched index found that housing prices had dropped to their lowest
level in nearly a decade. And while the rate of homes falling into foreclosure
has slowed, the reason is delays in processing foreclosures, not a housing
recovery, according to RealtyTrac, a company that tracks foreclosures. There
were 219,258 foreclosure filings in April, the latest month available.
Critics of the Obama
administration’s approach to preventing foreclosures have pressed for two years
to get officials to focus more of their attention on unemployed homeowners,
with meager results. As part of the bank bailout, the Treasury Department was
given $46 billion to spend on keeping homeowners in their houses; to date, the
agency has spent about $1.85 billion.
Morris A. Davis, a
former Federal Reserve economist, estimates that as many as a million
homeowners slipped into foreclosure because of insufficient help for the
unemployed.
“The money was there and
they didn’t spend it,” said Mr. Davis, an associate real estate professor at
the University of Wisconsin. “I don’t mean to sound outraged, but I am pretty
outraged.”
Administration officials
said their programs have had a positive impact, albeit not as large as they had
hoped. But they say that the problems of unemployment and negative equity on
homes are not easily solved. They also
say programs to curb foreclosure are voluntary, so they are limited in how far
they can push mortgage servicers and investors, who often make more from
foreclosures than from offering aid.
“We are trying to be
careful in designing programs that at the end of the day aren’t just about
spending money but getting people back on their feet,” said James Parrott, a
senior adviser at the White House’s National Economic Council.
President Obama has been
scrambling to curb the number of foreclosures ever since he arrived at the
White House.
At the start of 2009,
the administration announced its primary foreclosure prevention initiative, the
Home Affordable Modification Program. It provides incentives to banks to modify
mortgages, reducing monthly payments for eligible homeowners.
The administration said
the program would help three million to four million homeowners, but so far,
only 670,000 homeowners have received permanent modifications. In addition, the
program was primarily meant for homeowners with risky mortgages; jobless owners
are often ineligible because some payment, albeit reduced, is required.
Administration officials
said the program was helping homeowners whose income had been reduced.
Sixty-one percent of homeowners who received permanent modifications listed
“curtailment of income” as their reason for applying, though it is not known
how many of them are unemployed or simply had their hours or pay reduced.
The Department of
Housing and Urban Development received $1 billion as part of the financial
regulatory reforms that passed last year to help unemployed homeowners. That
money will be used to provide government loans to unemployed homeowners for up
to 24 months.
Though the program was
announced last fall, so far applications are being accepted in only five
states; the others are delayed because of “implementation challenges,” a HUD
spokeswoman said.
Critics do acknowledge
one bright spot — the Hardest Hit Fund, a federal program that will provide
$7.6 billion so that some states can administer their own programs for
struggling homeowners. Of that, 70 percent will be directed to unemployed
homeowners, said Andrea Risotto, a Treasury spokeswoman.
So far, $455 million has
been spent. Over the last several years, academics, housing groups and
government economists offered proposals to Treasury officials to help the
unemployed avoid foreclosure.
One, which Mr. Fuhrer of
the Boston Fed helped write, called on the government to provide loans, or
grants, to unemployed or underemployed homeowners to make up for the amount of
income they lost. The loan would have to be repaid once the homeowner found a
new job.
Another proposal, by a
non-profit group called the PICO National Network, a coalition of faith-based
community organizations, would have allowed unemployed homeowners to postpone
much or all of their mortgage payments for a year or more.
But administration
officials have balked, arguing that regulators and “other industry stakeholders
expressed strong reservations” about allowing unemployed homeowners to extend
payments for longer terms, according to a Dec. 23 letter that Treasury
Secretary Timothy F. Geithner sent to Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of
Massachusetts, who had pressed for measures that would more directly aid the
unemployed.
The debate is playing
out on the sidelines of partisan Washington politics, since Republican
lawmakers have made clear they would like to get rid of anti-foreclosure
programs altogether, and would block any new programs. Instead, it is setting
homeowner advocates against administration officials over how to spend money
already appropriated.
Administration officials
maintain that the decision on whether to offer mortgage relief to homeowners
ultimately was up to mortgage servicers and investors, not the government,
which can provide incentives but not compel action.
“We as an administration
have limited levers,” Mr. Parrot said. “We can push them on the margins.”
But Lewis Finfer, a PICO
organizer, said he could not understand why the administration had not been
more receptive given the extent of unemployment.
“We have a program to
deal with this,” he said.
Many unemployed or
underemployed homeowners said they would welcome an extended break in mortgage
payments.
Mary Ernest, 51, of
Blackstone, Mass., lost her job as a school aide and said she had been “reduced
to begging, more or less,” to keep her home. Adam Heyman, 41, of Chelsea,
Mass., scraped together enough money to pay the mortgage on his condominium for
about 18 months. Though he finally got another full-time job, his bank had
already foreclosed on his condo.
“If I had a way to slow
down the process or stop it for a while, that would have been nice,” Mr. Heyman
said, adding, “Now I can certainly afford to pay.”
*
OBAMA’S BANKSTER
DONORS DOIN’ GOOD! PROFITS UP! FORECLOSURES UP! BANK NO REGULATION GUARANTEED!
BAILOUTS FOR BUYOUTS…. And not a single bankster donor in prison!
WHAT DID THE
BANKSTERS KNOW ABOUT OUR ACTOR OBAMA THAT WE DIDN’T KNOW?
Records show
that four out of Obama's top five contributors are employees of financial
industry giants - Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase
($362,207) and Citigroup ($358,054).
*
“Obama's rhetoric covered the whole financial
industry, but the key changes will affect only a few high-profile players,
including JPMorgan Chase & Co., while sparing investment banks like Goldman
Sachs Group Inc.”
*
Lou Dobbs
Tonight
Thursday, July
9, 2009
And Harvard
economics professor JEFFREY MIRON will weigh in on the state of the U.S.
economy—and why the only plausible argument for bailing out banks crumbles on
close examination.
*
"There is a populist and conservative revolt against
Wall Street and financial elites, Congress and government," Democratic
pollster Stanley Greenberg warned in an analysis this week. "Democrats and
President Obama are seen as more interested in bailing out Wall Street than
helping Main Street."