Madame Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, and the First Lady of the United States:
I’ve come here tonight not only to address the distinguished men and women in this great chamber, but to speak frankly and directly to the men and women who sent us here.
I know that for many Americans watching right now, the state of our economy is a concern that rises above all others. And rightly so. If you haven’t been personally affected by this recession, you probably know someone who has – a friend; a neighbor; a member of your family. You don’t need to hear another list of statistics to know that our economy is in crisis, because you live it every day. It’s the worry you wake up with and the source of sleepless nights. It’s the job you thought you’d retire from but now have lost; the business you built your dreams upon that’s now hanging by a thread; the college acceptance letter your child had to put back in the envelope. The impact of this recession is real, and it is everywhere.
But while our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this:
We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.
The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth. Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.
Now, if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that for too long, we have not always met these responsibilities – as a government or as a people. I say this not to lay blame or look backwards, but because it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we’ll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament.
The fact is, our economy did not fall into decline overnight. Nor did all of our problems begin when the housing market collapsed or the stock market sank. We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before. The cost of health care eats up more and more of our savings each year, yet we keep delaying reform. Our children will compete for jobs in a global economy that too many of our schools do not prepare them for. And though all these challenges went unsolved, we still managed to spend more money and pile up more debt, both as individuals and through our government, than ever before.
In other words, we have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election. A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn’t afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.
Well that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here.
Now is the time to act boldly and wisely – to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity. Now is the time to jumpstart job creation, re-start lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down. That is what my economic agenda is designed to do, and that’s what I’d like to talk to you about tonight.
It’s an agenda that begins with jobs.
As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress to send me a recovery plan by President’s Day that would put people back to work and put money in their pockets. Not because I believe in bigger government – I don’t. Not because I’m not mindful of the massive debt we’ve inherited – I am. I called for action because the failure to do so would have cost more jobs and caused more hardships. In fact, a failure to act would have worsened our long-term deficit by assuring weak economic growth for years. That’s why I pushed for quick action. And tonight, I am grateful that this Congress delivered, and pleased to say that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is now law.
Over the next two years, this plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs. More than 90% of these jobs will be in the private sector – jobs rebuilding our roads and bridges; constructing wind turbines and solar panels; laying broadband and expanding mass transit.
Because of this plan, there are teachers who can now keep their jobs and educate our kids. Health care professionals can continue caring for our sick. There are 57 police officers who are still on the streets of Minneapolis tonight because this plan prevented the layoffs their department was about to make.
Because of this plan, 95% of the working households in America will receive a tax cut – a tax cut that you will see in your paychecks beginning on April 1st.
Because of this plan, families who are struggling to pay tuition costs will receive a $2,500 tax credit for all four years of college. And Americans who have lost their jobs in this recession will be able to receive extended unemployment benefits and continued health care coverage to help them weather this storm.
I know there are some in this chamber and watching at home who are skeptical of whether this plan will work. I understand that skepticism. Here in Washington, we’ve all seen how quickly good intentions can turn into broken promises and wasteful spending. And with a plan of this scale comes enormous responsibility to get it right.
That is why I have asked Vice President Biden to lead a tough, unprecedented oversight effort – because nobody messes with Joe. I have told each member of my Cabinet as well as mayors and governors across the country that they will be held accountable by me and the American people for every dollar they spend. I have appointed a proven and aggressive Inspector General to ferret out any and all cases of waste and fraud. And we have created a new website called recovery.gov so that every American can find out how and where their money is being spent.
So the recovery plan we passed is the first step in getting our economy back on track. But it is just the first step. Because even if we manage this plan flawlessly, there will be no real recovery unless we clean up the credit crisis that has severely weakened our financial system.
I want to speak plainly and candidly about this issue tonight, because every American should know that it directly affects you and your family’s well-being. You should also know that the money you’ve deposited in banks across the country is safe; your insurance is secure; and you can rely on the continued operation of our financial system. That is not the source of concern.
The concern is that if we do not re-start lending in this country, our recovery will be choked off before it even begins.
You see, the flow of credit is the lifeblood of our economy. The ability to get a loan is how you finance the purchase of everything from a home to a car to a college education; how stores stock their shelves, farms buy equipment, and businesses make payroll.
But credit has stopped flowing the way it should. Too many bad loans from the housing crisis have made their way onto the books of too many banks. With so much debt and so little confidence, these banks are now fearful of lending out any more money to households, to businesses, or to each other. When there is no lending, families can’t afford to buy homes or cars. So businesses are forced to make layoffs. Our economy suffers even more, and credit dries up even further.
That is why this administration is moving swiftly and aggressively to break this destructive cycle, restore confidence, and re-start lending.
We will do so in several ways. First, we are creating a new lending fund that represents the largest effort ever to help provide auto loans, college loans, and small business loans to the consumers and entrepreneurs who keep this economy running.
Second, we have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and re-finance their mortgages. It’s a plan that won’t help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values – Americans who will now be able to take advantage of the lower interest rates that this plan has already helped bring about. In fact, the average family who re-finances today can save nearly $2000 per year on their mortgage.
Third, we will act with the full force of the federal government to ensure that the major banks that Americans depend on have enough confidence and enough money to lend even in more difficult times. And when we learn that a major bank has serious problems, we will hold accountable those responsible, force the necessary adjustments, provide the support to clean up their balance sheets, and assure the continuity of a strong, viable institution that can serve our people and our economy.
I understand that on any given day, Wall Street may be more comforted by an approach that gives banks bailouts with no strings attached, and that holds nobody accountable for their reckless decisions. But such an approach won’t solve the problem. And our goal is to quicken the day when we re-start lending to the American people and American business and end this crisis once and for all.
I intend to hold these banks fully accountable for the assistance they receive, and this time, they will have to clearly demonstrate how taxpayer dollars result in more lending for the American taxpayer. This time, CEOs won’t be able to use taxpayer money to pad their paychecks or buy fancy drapes or disappear on a private jet. Those days are over.
Still, this plan will require significant resources from the federal government – and yes, probably more than we’ve already set aside. But while the cost of action will be great, I can assure you that the cost of inaction will be far greater, for it could result in an economy that sputters along for not months or years, but perhaps a decade. That would be worse for our deficit, worse for business, worse for you, and worse for the next generation. And I refuse to let that happen.
I understand that when the last administration asked this Congress to provide assistance for struggling banks, Democrats and Republicans alike were infuriated by the mismanagement and results that followed. So were the American taxpayers. So was I.
So I know how unpopular it is to be seen as helping banks right now, especially when everyone is suffering in part from their bad decisions. I promise you – I get it.
But I also know that in a time of crisis, we cannot afford to govern out of anger, or yield to the politics of the moment. My job – our job – is to solve the problem. Our job is to govern with a sense of responsibility. I will not spend a single penny for the purpose of rewarding a single Wall Street executive, but I will do whatever it takes to help the small business that can’t pay its workers or the family that has saved and still can’t get a mortgage.
That’s what this is about. It’s not about helping banks – it’s about helping people. Because when credit is available again, that young family can finally buy a new home. And then some company will hire workers to build it. And then those workers will have money to spend, and if they can get a loan too, maybe they’ll finally buy that car, or open their own business. Investors will return to the market, and American families will see their retirement secured once more. Slowly, but surely, confidence will return, and our economy will recover.
So I ask this Congress to join me in doing whatever proves necessary. Because we cannot consign our nation to an open-ended recession. And to ensure that a crisis of this magnitude never happens again, I ask Congress to move quickly on legislation that will finally reform our outdated regulatory system. It is time to put in place tough, new common-sense rules of the road so that our financial market rewards drive and innovation, and punishes short-cuts and abuse.
The recovery plan and the financial stability plan are the immediate steps we’re taking to revive our economy in the short-term. But the only way to fully restore America’s economic strength is to make the long-term investments that will lead to new jobs, new industries, and a renewed ability to compete with the rest of the world. The only way this century will be another American century is if we confront at last the price of our dependence on oil and the high cost of health care; the schools that aren’t preparing our children and the mountain of debt they stand to inherit. That is our responsibility.
In the next few days, I will submit a budget to Congress. So often, we have come to view these documents as simply numbers on a page or laundry lists of programs. I see this document differently. I see it as a vision for America – as a blueprint for our future.
My budget does not attempt to solve every problem or address every issue. It reflects the stark reality of what we’ve inherited – a trillion dollar deficit, a financial crisis, and a costly recession.
Given these realities, everyone in this chamber – Democrats and Republicans – will have to sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars. And that includes me.
But that does not mean we can afford to ignore our long-term challenges. I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves; that says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity.
For history tells a different story. History reminds us that at every moment of economic upheaval and transformation, this nation has responded with bold action and big ideas. In the midst of civil war, we laid railroad tracks from one coast to another that spurred commerce and industry. From the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution came a system of public high schools that prepared our citizens for a new age. In the wake of war and depression, the GI Bill sent a generation to college and created the largest middle-class in history. And a twilight struggle for freedom led to a nation of highways, an American on the moon, and an explosion of technology that still shapes our world.
In each case, government didn’t supplant private enterprise; it catalyzed private enterprise. It created the conditions for thousands of entrepreneurs and new businesses to adapt and to thrive.
We are a nation that has seen promise amid peril, and claimed opportunity from ordeal. Now we must be that nation again. That is why, even as it cuts back on the programs we don’t need, the budget I submit will invest in the three areas that are absolutely critical to our economic future: energy, health care, and education.
It begins with energy.
We know the country that harnesses the power of clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century. And yet, it is China that has launched the largest effort in history to make their economy energy efficient. We invented solar technology, but we’ve fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it. New plug-in hybrids roll off our assembly lines, but they will run on batteries made in Korea.
Well I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders – and I know you don’t either. It is time for America to lead again.
Thanks to our recovery plan, we will double this nation’s supply of renewable energy in the next three years. We have also made the largest investment in basic research funding in American history – an investment that will spur not only new discoveries in energy, but breakthroughs in medicine, science, and technology.
We will soon lay down thousands of miles of power lines that can carry new energy to cities and towns across this country. And we will put Americans to work making our homes and buildings more efficient so that we can save billions of dollars on our energy bills.
But to truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy. So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America. And to support that innovation, we will invest fifteen billion dollars a year to develop technologies like wind power and solar power; advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more fuel-efficient cars and trucks built right here in America.
As for our auto industry, everyone recognizes that years of bad decision-making and a global recession have pushed our automakers to the brink. We should not, and will not, protect them from their own bad practices. But we are committed to the goal of a re-tooled, re-imagined auto industry that can compete and win. Millions of jobs depend on it. Scores of communities depend on it. And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.
None of this will come without cost, nor will it be easy. But this is America. We don’t do what’s easy. We do what is necessary to move this country forward.
For that same reason, we must also address the crushing cost of health care.
This is a cost that now causes a bankruptcy in America every thirty seconds. By the end of the year, it could cause 1.5 million Americans to lose their homes. In the last eight years, premiums have grown four times faster than wages. And in each of these years, one million more Americans have lost their health insurance. It is one of the major reasons why small businesses close their doors and corporations ship jobs overseas. And it’s one of the largest and fastest-growing parts of our budget.
Given these facts, we can no longer afford to put health care reform on hold.
Already, we have done more to advance the cause of health care reform in the last thirty days than we have in the last decade. When it was days old, this Congress passed a law to provide and protect health insurance for eleven million American children whose parents work full-time. Our recovery plan will invest in electronic health records and new technology that will reduce errors, bring down costs, ensure privacy, and save lives. It will launch a new effort to conquer a disease that has touched the life of nearly every American by seeking a cure for cancer in our time. And it makes the largest investment ever in preventive care, because that is one of the best ways to keep our people healthy and our costs under control.
This budget builds on these reforms. It includes an historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform – a down-payment on the principle that we must have quality, affordable health care for every American. It’s a commitment that’s paid for in part by efficiencies in our system that are long overdue. And it’s a step we must take if we hope to bring down our deficit in the years to come.
Now, there will be many different opinions and ideas about how to achieve reform, and that is why I’m bringing together businesses and workers, doctors and health care providers, Democrats and Republicans to begin work on this issue next week.
I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. It will be hard. But I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year.
The third challenge we must address is the urgent need to expand the promise of education in America.
In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity – it is a pre-requisite.
Right now, three-quarters of the fastest-growing occupations require more than a high school diploma. And yet, just over half of our citizens have that level of education. We have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation. And half of the students who begin college never finish.
This is a prescription for economic decline, because we know the countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow. That is why it will be the goal of this administration to ensure that every child has access to a complete and competitive education – from the day they are born to the day they begin a career.
Already, we have made an historic investment in education through the economic recovery plan. We have dramatically expanded early childhood education and will continue to improve its quality, because we know that the most formative learning comes in those first years of life. We have made college affordable for nearly seven million more students. And we have provided the resources necessary to prevent painful cuts and teacher layoffs that would set back our children’s progress.
But we know that our schools don’t just need more resources. They need more reform. That is why this budget creates new incentives for teacher performance; pathways for advancement, and rewards for success. We’ll invest in innovative programs that are already helping schools meet high standards and close achievement gaps. And we will expand our commitment to charter schools.
It is our responsibility as lawmakers and educators to make this system work. But it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in it. And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country – and this country needs and values the talents of every American. That is why we will provide the support necessary for you to complete college and meet a new goal: by 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.
I know that the price of tuition is higher than ever, which is why if you are willing to volunteer in your neighborhood or give back to your community or serve your country, we will make sure that you can afford a higher education. And to encourage a renewed spirit of national service for this and future generations, I ask this Congress to send me the bipartisan legislation that bears the name of Senator Orrin Hatch as well as an American who has never stopped asking what he can do for his country – Senator Edward Kennedy.
These education policies will open the doors of opportunity for our children. But it is up to us to ensure they walk through them. In the end, there is no program or policy that can substitute for a mother or father who will attend those parent/teacher conferences, or help with homework after dinner, or turn off the TV, put away the video games, and read to their child. I speak to you not just as a President, but as a father when I say that responsibility for our children’s education must begin at home.
There is, of course, another responsibility we have to our children. And that is the responsibility to ensure that we do not pass on to them a debt they cannot pay. With the deficit we inherited, the cost of the crisis we face, and the long-term challenges we must meet, it has never been more important to ensure that as our economy recovers, we do what it takes to bring this deficit down.
I’m proud that we passed the recovery plan free of earmarks, and I want to pass a budget next year that ensures that each dollar we spend reflects only our most important national priorities.
Yesterday, I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office. My administration has also begun to go line by line through the federal budget in order to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs. As you can imagine, this is a process that will take some time. But we’re starting with the biggest lines. We have already identified two trillion dollars in savings over the next decade.
In this budget, we will end education programs that don’t work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don’t need them. We’ll eliminate the no-bid contracts that have wasted billions in Iraq, and reform our defense budget so that we’re not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use. We will root out the waste, fraud, and abuse in our Medicare program that doesn’t make our seniors any healthier, and we will restore a sense of fairness and balance to our tax code by finally ending the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas.
In order to save our children from a future of debt, we will also end the tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans. But let me perfectly clear, because I know you’ll hear the same old claims that rolling back these tax breaks means a massive tax increase on the American people: if your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime. In fact, the recovery plan provides a tax cut – that’s right, a tax cut – for 95% of working families. And these checks are on the way.
To preserve our long-term fiscal health, we must also address the growing costs in Medicare and Social Security. Comprehensive health care reform is the best way to strengthen Medicare for years to come. And we must also begin a conversation on how to do the same for Social Security, while creating tax-free universal savings accounts for all Americans.
Finally, because we’re also suffering from a deficit of trust, I am committed to restoring a sense of honesty and accountability to our budget. That is why this budget looks ahead ten years and accounts for spending that was left out under the old rules – and for the first time, that includes the full cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price.
We are now carefully reviewing our policies in both wars, and I will soon announce a way forward in Iraq that leaves Iraq to its people and responsibly ends this war.
And with our friends and allies, we will forge a new and comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat al Qaeda and combat extremism. Because I will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people from safe havens half a world away.
As we meet here tonight, our men and women in uniform stand watch abroad and more are readying to deploy. To each and every one of them, and to the families who bear the quiet burden of their absence, Americans are united in sending one message: we honor your service, we are inspired by your sacrifice, and you have our unyielding support. To relieve the strain on our forces, my budget increases the number of our soldiers and Marines. And to keep our sacred trust with those who serve, we will raise their pay, and give our veterans the expanded health care and benefits that they have earned.
To overcome extremism, we must also be vigilant in upholding the values our troops defend – because there is no force in the world more powerful than the example of America. That is why I have ordered the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, and will seek swift and certain justice for captured terrorists – because living our values doesn’t make us weaker, it makes us safer and it makes us stronger. And that is why I can stand here tonight and say without exception or equivocation that the United States of America does not torture.
In words and deeds, we are showing the world that a new era of engagement has begun. For we know that America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, but the world cannot meet them without America. We cannot shun the negotiating table, nor ignore the foes or forces that could do us harm. We are instead called to move forward with the sense of confidence and candor that serious times demand.
To seek progress toward a secure and lasting peace between Israel and her neighbors, we have appointed an envoy to sustain our effort. To meet the challenges of the 21st century – from terrorism to nuclear proliferation; from pandemic disease to cyber threats to crushing poverty – we will strengthen old alliances, forge new ones, and use all elements of our national power.
And to respond to an economic crisis that is global in scope, we are working with the nations of the G-20 to restore confidence in our financial system, avoid the possibility of escalating protectionism, and spur demand for American goods in markets across the globe. For the world depends on us to have a strong economy, just as our economy depends on the strength of the world’s.
As we stand at this crossroads of history, the eyes of all people in all nations are once again upon us – watching to see what we do with this moment; waiting for us to lead.
Those of us gathered here tonight have been called to govern in extraordinary times. It is a tremendous burden, but also a great privilege – one that has been entrusted to few generations of Americans. For in our hands lies the ability to shape our world for good or for ill.
I know that it is easy to lose sight of this truth – to become cynical and doubtful; consumed with the petty and the trivial.
But in my life, I have also learned that hope is found in unlikely places; that inspiration often comes not from those with the most power or celebrity, but from the dreams and aspirations of Americans who are anything but ordinary.
I think about Leonard Abess, the bank president from Miami who reportedly cashed out of his company, took a $60 million bonus, and gave it out to all 399 people who worked for him, plus another 72 who used to work for him. He didn’t tell anyone, but when the local newspaper found out, he simply said, ”I knew some of these people since I was 7 years old. I didn’t feel right getting the money myself.”
I think about Greensburg, Kansas, a town that was completely destroyed by a tornado, but is being rebuilt by its residents as a global example of how clean energy can power an entire community – how it can bring jobs and businesses to a place where piles of bricks and rubble once lay. “The tragedy was terrible,” said one of the men who helped them rebuild. “But the folks here know that it also provided an incredible opportunity.”
And I think about Ty’Sheoma Bethea, the young girl from that school I visited in Dillon, South Carolina – a place where the ceilings leak, the paint peels off the walls, and they have to stop teaching six times a day because the train barrels by their classroom. She has been told that her school is hopeless, but the other day after class she went to the public library and typed up a letter to the people sitting in this room. She even asked her principal for the money to buy a stamp. The letter asks us for help, and says, “We are just students trying to become lawyers, doctors, congressmen like yourself and one day president, so we can make a change to not just the state of South Carolina but also the world. We are not quitters.”
We are not quitters.
These words and these stories tell us something about the spirit of the people who sent us here. They tell us that even in the most trying times, amid the most difficult circumstances, there is a generosity, a resilience, a decency, and a determination that perseveres; a willingness to take responsibility for our future and for posterity.
Their resolve must be our inspiration. Their concerns must be our cause. And we must show them and all our people that we are equal to the task before us.
I know that we haven’t agreed on every issue thus far, and there are surely times in the future when we will part ways. But I also know that every American who is sitting here tonight loves this country and wants it to succeed. That must be the starting point for every debate we have in the coming months, and where we return after those debates are done. That is the foundation on which the American people expect us to build common ground.
And if we do – if we come together and lift this nation from the depths of this crisis; if we put our people back to work and restart the engine of our prosperity; if we confront without fear the challenges of our time and summon that enduring spirit of an America that does not quit, then someday years from now our children can tell their children that this was the time when we performed, in the words that are carved into this very chamber, “something worthy to be remembered.” Thank you, God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.
Joe Duck 
Not only did FDR do a good job, but we invented the automobile and Al Gore invented the internet.
The liberal keep revising history to meet their game plan.
Now illegals can get mortgage relief…are they serious?
Pelosi/Reid/Obama are no different than any other crook that fleeced the hard working people of America. This country is headed for a civil war because of the far left maniacs.
BO’s “the first lady is out there somewhere” ruled: and then flash, and hottie MO’s pulling a rock pipe out her skanky top, sparks it, and inhalin’ some ice…:-]
Serio, at least Obama gets his lines right, even if we don’t agree to all of his proposals. BO’s a Demosthenes compared to Dubya, who generally sounded about like a drunken salesman at the Houston Rotary club.
I have always been a true Republican since the year I started to vote but President Obama has my vote. He seems to be a true blue American. Someone who has seen struggle and knows what it’s like not to have. Where as our past few presidents have never know what it’s like to struggle. I support him 100%. The government and big corporations need to learn to “give up” and to ask themselves “Is it a need or a want”. I do hate that phase but our government needs to look at it that way now and so do these big companies who have all these big executive planes and unlimited travel expenses and big vacations. They all have to cut back for a while. Maybe when profits start rolling in and we have our jobs back maybe then can the add back in some of the luxuries they had to cut back on.
I’m impressed President Obama. I hope you get all the support you need to keep this country going.
(3) Deb it’s too bad that our government won’t cut back as well. The government isn’t the answer to our problems. The government is primarily responsible for causing many.
Deb I like Obama a lot as well, and agree that he’s got the country’s best interests in mind. This will be among the most challenging times in US history by all accounts and I think we picked somebody who can speak and act powerfully dealing with both the rich and the poor.
(continued in the next blog post)
I am just glad none of you ever met the Rev Jim Jones…you would have all sucked up that kool-aid as well…literally.
This is without a doubt the largest spending and wasteful government in the history of our country. They will stop at nothing to re-write and/or destroy our constitution, they will restrict state’s rights, etc.
In the end it is all going to fail and future generations are not going to enjoy the quality of life that could have been afforded by a great country that this will be remembered as.
Once again Dick Morris seems to sum up last night’s speech accurately.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/02252009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/bams_bold_gamble_156775.htm
“””We are a nation that has seen promise amid peril, and claimed opportunity from ordeal.”””
Platitudes, thy name is Barack. He must work hard at this. However his comment on celebrites was interesting, and follows a day after the Academy Awards game-show. Perhaps BO and the Pelosicrats will implement a Ministry of Culture? Wunderbar.
Deb the government has the record for being the biggest waistful spender of hard working Americans money. How about you throw a few bucks in the account and pay my bills. It takes only a little common sense to know that more waistful spending will lead us to bigger debt and devaluation of the dollar. Why does the government get to “create money” to back this stimulus plan? How different is that from making your own money? At the end of the day – It has the same value.
Excellent rhetoric, devoid of details. Here’s my top list of observations:
1. Free of “earmarks?” How can this country allow him to make such a remark? There are at least 1,000 earmarks in the bill – go read it for yourself.
2. The speech is a good pep talk, but it lacks strategy. We need: 1) tax incentives for private equity investment in suffering industries (this worked in the 80’s), 2) change the mark-to-market accounting rules so that banks will not have to hoard their capital and rather may lend it out.
(9) Why couldn’t they pass a bill this year that stated – no earmarks, pork for 2009. We simply can’t afford it.
See how many people vote for the bill then? See how many people actually support this reckless plan of spending with no plan for recovery.
Corruption is the biggest problem facing our country now. Everything decision is bought and paid for. Nothing is done on principle anymore.
Anyone that claims they are a fiscal conservative could NEVER vote for any of this. Anyone who claims they were a Republican and voted for Obama has never really been a Republican. The term is RINO.
It is all going to change…the grass roots swell that is currently underway in the US will make the clowns within ACORN look like a bunch of nuts laying on the ground next to a tree!
Change is coming…and all these wrongs will be righted.
You think you are going to exaggerate and bellyache your way back to power?
Do you even know what an earmark is? If there were no earmarks, then the executive branch would be exceedingly powerful.
But JCH are you making the case that *all* the spending is going to be great and stimulating here?
All spending stimulates. Not all spending ends up creating Tang. If the criteria is it has to create Tang, then we would be in an untenable position.
GDP is not calculated by adding only the government spending that created a Tang.
It’s no different than investing. All investing creates economic activity. Not all investments end up being Google. Do we quit investing because we know going in that not every buck of investment will yield a bang?
Tang is, of course, the greatest and most useful product ever created by government spending.
(11) I know exactly what an earmark is intended for…it is to provide an opportunity to get something funding that wouldn’t survive an up and down tally. Unfortunately JCH as any liberal would do…they rationalize and stretch the definition so that it will fit their needs – do I need to bring up “depends on what the definition of is – is”.
In this situation, this year, this economy, the promises of this president and you can sit there with a straight face and make a statement like that? The bottom line: WE CAN ONLY AFFORD TO DO THINGS THAT ACTUALLY CREATE JOBS RIGHT NOW. – NOTHING ELSE.
The massive spending in today’s bill is ludicrous and it falls squarely on the idiots in our congress like Pelosi/Reid/Frank, etc… these people are completely out of control and have no basic understanding of budgets, income and spending. You know JCH…why don’t you send me a $100 a week so I can put it to good use?
Speaking of the executive branch we need line item veto and as far as the executive branch goes they actually very little power. It is Congress that ultimately passes everything. I know you think Barney Frank is powerless and has never done anything wrong except maybe paint his toenails the wrong color.
Let the voting records be clear, let exactly what they are voting on be known – give the public a chance to see these ridiculous expenditures and let them have a say.
JCH you do not understand the level of correction that is happening in our markets because of government screw ups and over-regulation. Spend some time researching the elliot wave theory and you will learn something.
The have determined that the optimum size of a government should be less than 25% of a nation’s GDP. Currently we are 36% and quickly heading to 40% – none of that is good news for the economy. Stop looking for some bureaucrat to solve your problems. Do it yourself.
I’m really hoping for *simple* transparency once the spending begins and I expect Obama will deliver. We need a website where you can drill down to each expense item and then follow up on where it went and, later, whether jobs followed.
Say a newly elected commie President gets Putin approved as his Secretary of Defense and Putin asks for 35 cents for fighter-jet maintenance in the defense appropriations bill.
A conservative Senator, a former fighter pilot, thinks that is inadequate, and he has experts who agree with him. He adds 1 billion for fighter-jet maintenance to the bill with an EARMARK.
No matter what the commie Prez and Putin want or say, 1 billion will be spent on fighter-jet maintenance.
Presto, fighter jets are not auguring in all over hell’s half acre.
WE CAN ONLY AFFORD TO DO THINGS THAT ACTUALLY CREATE JOBS RIGHT NOW. – NOTHING ELSE.
This is, of course, a preposterous and unattainable goal, which is why it is raised.
Let’s work with the possible.
(15) Yeah Joe Biden will tell you the website number…ROFL.
JCH the funny thing today on the floor while they were kibitzing about the earmarks…the Democrat actually had the audacity to state: The Republican should realized that 40% of the earmarks are for them…
That means 60% are for the Democrats and that is 50% more than the Republicans…the rationalizations from this crew are staggering!
It amazes me JCH that you can sit here and actually think this government spending is going to do anything good. Do you agree with Obama’s mortgage rescue plan where illegals can actually get mortgage assistance?
Seriously…how can anyone that actually isn’t mentally ill think that is somehow a reasonable thing to be doing right now?
Those illegals should be foreclosed on and deported – PERIOD.
(17) JCH you bring up a good point. Uninformed and misinformed voters have put people in power that are corrupt and you are right it is not reasonable to think an honest effort would be put forth to solve the problems of this country. Point taken. It will only spell the end of our great nation as we have known it.
Look at HR-80…the house passed a bill today outlawing chimpanzees as pets.
Now you would think in light of the horrible face ripping off situation last week would have inspired the house to pass such legislation. In effect to protect another human from a potentially dangerous animal.
But no…not the raging left loons led by Pelosi…they passed the bill to protect the chimpanzees…ROFL. They were upset that the cops blasted an animal gone crazy that literally almost killed someone.
Next they will pass a bill to protect the rabid drug users or illegals that kill people when they are robbing them of their hard earned money…
Glennster’s starting to sound like one lengthy Limbaugh rant (and I say that as old-fashioned moderate, er moderate anarchist). Bush/Cheney/neocon incompetence and corruption led to the Obama backlash–that applies both politically and economically.
The GOP-led congress of 2001-2004 itself did little to prevent the lending crisis–made possible with the de-reg schemes of Gramm/Gingrich (though Bill Clinton helped out as well). That’s sort of understandable, since bullish markets (whether finance, oil, tech, war-profiteering etc) generally benefit the wealthy–mostly conservatives–at least until the phunn ended last year.
“It amazes me JCH that you can sit here and actually think this government spending is going to do anything good. …”
The frisbee will be ever so much better in its specially designed frisbee park. The potential benefits could so large as to be immeasurable.
I think it will rival the good done for society by the past spending on things in parks like swing sets for children.
(21) I don’t listen to Rush or anybody else for that matter. My viewpoint is mainly about three things:
1) We need to end corruption in our government or it will be the end of our great nation.
2) We need to stop wasting money just because we can print it.
3) We need a re-focus back on our constitution and states rights before we see things getting corrected in this country.
Currently neither party can solve this. There are a handful of good people (both Dem and Rep) but they are mostly silenced by the fringes of their parties. Unfortunately now we have to “side” with people that we may not agree with because we have something in common with them. Pelosi/Reid/Obama literally represent the ethics and values of about 10% of the population of this country.
Obama is no different than Bush on the military and what they are doing…with one major exception – Obama will definitely weaken us.
Obama will go down in history has the most wasteful and spend thrifty administration in the history of this country.
TARP failed, TARP 2 is going to fail. Funny how no one will speak about TARP these days…just like some of us predicted it would be an utter failure and it has been. It has done nothing to help our situation.
The massive expansion of government is going to further cripple our economy – not help it. When you are in financial trouble you don’t pile on debt and more risk, you figure out exactly what you are good at and focus on delivering that. The government has little or no track record of success in many of the grand experiments it is trying now.
This whole situation is a complete farce and we as Americans are fools to continue to support it. This market correction is the most serious economic crisis in the history of our country. We are just at the very beginning of this problem. Believe me I wish I were wrong but I don’t think I am. Thank god I listened to Bob Prechter over the last several years – he saved my entire financial portfolio. His positions were not popular but they were right on.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=elliottwaveintl&annotation_id=annotation_103269&feature=iv
I know America will be a great country again but we are talking about a problem here that could last 15-20 years just like the Great Depression did. People in this country forget how bad it was. My parents lived through it and fortunately I can still talk to them about it – it wasn’t a good time and it took WWII for us to get out of it.
Why would anyone want another global conflict where millions of people will be killed? For some reason we seem to continue to make the historical makes that have always led us to that spot – global war. And we are doing it again – to me that just doesn’t make sense. It all stems from corruption within governments.
Glenn you should consider the conditions that might come to pass that would make you reconsider your concerns about Obama. You are so critical now – what will you say when the inevitable “test” comes from the bad guys? You simply cannot reasonably blame Obama so much for so little – it makes no sense.
Horatiox correctly notes that we’ve had many years of very hard line US foreign policy and soft economic regulatory policy and that appears to have contributed in a significant way to the worst economic *and* global threat conditions in our generation. I’ll give Obama huge credit if he simply *stabilizes* this mess in his first year.
For example if the markets start slowly creeping back up soon (which I think will happen), then will you simply say this is for some reason other than the stimulus? I don’t follow at all why you think the stimulus will have visible *short term* bad consequences. Even foolishly spend Gov. money will still have something of a stimulating effect.
(24) Joe you can answer your own point about short-term effect? TARP hurt us way more than it helped us. For one reason the banks hoarded the cash. The money that the government is spending actually has to make it into the system.
It has to go from the banks to the corporations and consumers so it will enter the market and thus stimulate something.
People, businesses, etc are going to continue hoarding cash for the foreseeable future. Jobs are not going to be created. All the politicians know this and their answer is to force people to use the money the way they think will be best. Our government has as close to epsilon track record in dictating where money should be spent to produce effect.
Take CRA and the housing debacle. Since the civil war we have had 6 major housing collapses in this country – all because the government instituted a program which threw caution to the wind, abandoned sound fiscal processes to give access to homes to people that simply couldn’t afford them and each time (6 freaking times) we ended up with the same exact result. All the politicians know this and yet they continue to try to do it…EVEN NOW Frank, Dodd, etc want to relax mortgages, give hundreds of billions to corrupt organizations like Fannie to buy up even more toxic debt that will only deepen the problems.
Please explain how this makes sense?
Take foreign policy we are now in a Chamberlain approach once again. We have maniacs in the world that for some reason we think are going to end up differently than Hitler and other fanatics that have driven our world into unimaginable conflict with millions and millions of people affected…yet for some reason we think we are going to do it better this time.
The irony and fraud of the entire liberal agenda is proven when you compare this to the GW scam. Think about it. We have a couple hundred years of solid financial information about our country. We even have thousands of years of really solid financial information about the world and yet we ignore what is there all in the name of supporting an ideology yet when you compare to how bad the assumptions are in the global warming calculations (statistically it is impossible to give them any weight on accuracy on literally every variable examined) yet they jump on the band wagon if it is scientific fact…lol.
When nuclear war breaks in the middle east (and we will see it in our life times) it will fall squarely on this congress and president’s shoulders. I hope you all can live with your decision.
Joe I didn’t set the bar for this admin. Obama did during his campaign – so he deserves as much critical introspection as possible. You play the game as hard as he has done during the campaign you deserve the same expectations from EVERYONE once you get in.
Funny how JCH responds to the ridiculous pork with a statement well a reasonable making sense solutions is impossible…thank god his mindset wasn’t involved in the Apollo program he would have just blown every astronaut up on the launch pad and said see…it’s impossible we should just give up.
That isn’t America nor is it the way this country was created and became so great. Can’t be done is NOT an option here especially now. Take the current spending bills he could have said…no earmarks, not now, not this year. But he didn’t – what does the Whitehouse say…this is left over business from Bush…ROFL…they still want to blame their bad decisions on Bush.
Smart people can see right through this.
Joe I expect a leader to make tough choices. With the budget today it is complete and utter waste of taxpayers monies. Write this number out on a piece of paper…since Obama has taken office Pelosi/Reid/Obama has approved $1.2 trillion NEW spending on top of the trillions already promised. Think about that.
A real leader stands up and says…you know this budget stinks, let’s fix it and do what I promised on the campaign.
What does Obama do? Passes it off as a Bush budget left-over and has nothing to do with his administration…yet more Democrats voted against this budget than did Republicans that voted for it.
This budget has nothing to do with Bush. This is all Pelosi/Reid/Obama and is exactly what a lot of people would say would happen. Funny how Obama can over-turn things Bush did with a swipe of pen and yet for some reason at this critical time (using Obama’s positioning of crisis makes his decision to support this budget even more insane) he can’t seem to push back and act like a real leader.
Only a weasel would try to pull what his administration tried today in regard to the passing of this budget. This country needs a real leader now – not someone who does a good job reading a teleprompter.
The CRA did not throw caution to the wind. To build 5.5 million houses for minority home buyers, George Bush had to figure out a way to get almost al of them financed through the private system – where he could enforce zero regulations.
But, you’ll make whatever you need to support the unsupportable.
CRA has rules. The people, both within and without government, who manage it understand that foreclosures are to be avoided. Their goal is successful lending.
(27) JCH…seriously…do I have to keep doing this? NOTE the ominous warning about the bail-out.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.
Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.
In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980’s.
”From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,” said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ”If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.”
Under Fannie Mae’s pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 — a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.
So that begs the question…why would you implement a racist program for housing anyway? It doesn’t make any sense…about as much sense as a whitey mortgage program.
You can’t blame this incarnation on Bush. It was a stupid idea by Carter and turbo-charged by Bill Clinton. The Bush admin along with Republican lawmakers tried to do something about it.
and here is more proof for you JCH.
How can anyone look at the facts have any different opinion about this?
Prechter truly understands how our markets work and what it means now and in the future.
The truth about the Fed…
Let’s get to the real problems facing our country. Let’s talk real solutions and do something that is going to get us back on track.
Jim Rogers doesn’t mix words about TARP, etc…
Plain words, good advice and he is right!
We know what to do but we lack the leadership in this country to do the right thing! Our president is bought and paid for.
CRA Loans:
It appears the claim that CRA loans were a big factor in the crisis was totally wrong. Subprime, not CRA,appears to represent most of the bad loans and then I think the *really* toxic assets come from the derivatives created with those subprimes. CRA folks have been, on balance, responsible payers.
… a new study of default rates among low-income and minority home buyers conducted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Center for Community Capital.
The results of the study show that home loan borrowers with similar risk characteristics defaulted at much higher rates when they borrowed subprime mortgages than when they received loans made primarily for Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) purposes.
(31) Joe CRA was the beginning of this mess.
Clinton super-charged it and the sub-prime market soared in the 90’s when Clinton was in charge and the Democrats were in charge of the Congress. These are facts.
The derivatives market is literally no different than the Fed. Both trade on what isn’t really there. They are the cause of inflation and deflation, etc…and both are scams and ultimately like any scam they eventually collapse.
Just like Social Security it is a ponzi scheme and eventually that scheme is going to collapse as well – it is inevitable.
All of these factors are systemic with our way of doing business and primarily spurned ahead by an uncontrolled liberal agenda. Nobody wants to do with the heart and core of these problems we just keep patching, playing games ALL at the taxpayer’s expense.
http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/blog/index.php/2008/05/05/29/
It’s funny how people want to blame Republican driven deregulation and shrinking of government for this – WHEN ALL OF THIS WAS CLEARLY driven to a whole new level under Clinton and the Democrats. The organizations behind ALL of the sub prime garbage had strong lobbying support and you just need to follow the money trail to identify the real culprits who enabled this debacle.
You need to go back over the last couple of years and find information that has been published during the time before ALL of this collapsed and everyone’s spin machine go into the game.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1812
The bottom line is the companies that enabled these problems that includes organizations like Fannie, Freddie, Moody’s, etc and the lobbyists who connected them to lawmakers all of these players need to be held accountable for this. Investors that jumped into this should have recourse against ALL of these players involved (taxpayers shouldn’t be bailing ANY of this out).
All the people that couldn’t afford homes, well unfortunately they should lose them. If they were “true” victims of predatory lending then they should have recourse against those same players.
Of course we couldn’t allow something fair to happen in this country – it isn’t the liberal way. The liberal empowers and rewards the so called victims like people that had no business taking a mortgage, like corrupt CEO’s in organizations that took advantage, like corrupt politicians that turned a blind eye as they gladly took lobbyists money. The liberal way then punishes the hard working Americans that make good sound choices and try to do the “right” thing every day.
Let’s all understand this clearly…liberals just think it is just too hard for everyone to make the right choices. The reality is they need victims so they can create more power.
Joe I posted a response to (31) with a couple of links from Wharton, etc that explain the problem pretty well including how CRA got it all started. It wasn’t until the Clintons and the Democratic congress in the 90’s that took the subprime into the stratosphere.
I think the post went into moderation. I think there are two posts with multiple links that went into moderation – must be the number of links.
Also here are the numbers now for Obama’s budget. It is double what I thought…$4 trillion in one year!!!!!!!
President Barack Obama is sending Congress a budget Thursday that projects the government’s deficit for this year will soar to $1.75 trillion, reflecting efforts to pull the nation out of a deep recession and a severe financial crisis.
Obama’s budget overview will call for nearly $4 trillion in spending in fiscal year 2010 and creates space for up to $750 billion in additional bank bailout funds this year – money that hasn’t been requested and the administration hopes will not be necessary to stabilize the still-reeling financial system.
Senior administration officials would not disclose a precise figure for the entire budget, but said it would likely fall between $3.8 trillion and $4 billion for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. The White House will formally release its budget overview at 11 a.m. Thursday.
The president’s budget will also set aside a $634 billion “reserve fund” as a down payment to cover roughly two-thirds of the anticipated 10-year cost of universal health care coverage — projected at $1 trillion.
The administration will work with Congress to locate the remaining funds to finance the plan.
WASHINGTON, Feb 26 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will forecast the biggest U.S. deficit since World War Two in a budget that urges a costly overhaul of the healthcare system and would spend billions to arrest the economy’s freefall.
An eye-popping $1.75 trillion deficit for the 2009 fiscal year is projected in Obama’s first budget, according to U.S. officials who briefed reporters on the numbers.
That is equal to 12.3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product — the largest share since 1945 when the country ran a shortfall of 21.5 percent of GDP.
Obama will unveil the budget at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT). It provides the broad outlines of a more detailed document to be released in April.
The soaring deficit figure sent U.S. Treasury bond prices lower and yields up to three week highs on Thursday.
Gold prices slid to their lowest level in more than a week, after testing all time highs over $1,000 an ounce earlier this month. Spot gold fell to $941.20 an ounce, the lowest since February 17. Stock futures rose.
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2644850320090226?sp=true
This is pure insanity…
Glenn, you are out of your mind and out of facts.
George Bush openly stated that selling 5.5 million homes to minority buyers would require a new form of financing – what is called exotic subprime.
When the mortgage lenders realized how easy it was to make fees, the started extending exotic subprime to whites who had horrific credit histories.
Clinton had nothing to do with that. Nothing. The CRA had nothing to do with it.
Why did Bush want to do something so incredibly stupid? He was trying to seed the suburbs with future black Republicans. He wanted to assure a 100-year neocon reign – plain and simple. He and Rove believed that home ownership makes people tend to become Republicans.
(36) JCH as I have said I am no fan of George Bush he obviously was a RINO. He was as much a Democrat as Clinton, Obama, Pelosi, etc.
He did not and does not represent the views of a fiscal conservative. The cycles of the markets, etc are very clear.
The bottom line you can do these “Rodney King” approaches to anything in life. It NEVER works.
Future Black Republicans…ROFL…you mean all those Uncle Tom’s that are out there. Aye yi yi. Give me a break.
Bush was as misguided as the rest. The irony here is you want to defend ALL this bad stuff and I want to rid our country of this cancer and get things on a normal, reasonable track where our children will actually benefit.
You won’t admit our current system is broken. It is massively broken and we are in a downward spiral and we now have a President and Congress that are COMPLETELY out of control spending wise. Look at his new budget – how can anyone out there reconcile this? It is so ridiculous and our country has tried these things twice before and both landed us in global conflicts.
That is exactly where we are going now. But this time it will be our country that is being bombed, occupied, etc. You are just a fool if you don’t see where this is going.
There is a saying…let’s have a war…we need the money.
Even if Obama took 100% of the money earned from the top taxpayers in the country it won’t amount to half of the money he needs to fund his deficits. ALL of his tax numbers, etc are vapor…the deficits we are racking up now will make the outrageous Bush deficits look like nothing.
At the end we will have a completely divided country, lower quality of life, less opportunity, sub-par health care, the United Nations dictating how we can parent, legalized drugs, criminals on the streets, terrorists freed and allowed to do whatever they want right here, outrageous gun control, racism at all time highs, a corrupted census process, over 50% of America getting a check from the Government, etc…
We can only hope that long term ALL will be held accountable for this debacle.
Paragraphs and youtube links – by the gobzillions.
All you can do is claim Bush was not one of you. Pathetic. He not only was one of you, he was exactly you.
As for future black Republicans, and Latinos, the neocons actually wrote all that stuff down. It’s undeniable fact. It was part of their grand strategy to build the world for which you are mourning the loss.
All the Republicans tried to do was free minorities from the ridiculous control of the liberal Democrats who are hell bent on keeping them down and locked in for their votes.
There is one point you are missing about all of this JCH.
How before Bush was even in office how could a black writer from the NY Times predict exactly what was going to happen to the housing market? Did he have some vision of Bush’s awful housing program?
Wake up JCH…this is all about bad policy, corrupt politicians, etc…they are all part of the same core problem ravaging our country and people like you fully support it. It’s unethical and immoral.
Did he predict that George Bush was going to build 10 million surplus houses and finance their sale by having unregulated private mortgage institutions, his buddies, issue incredibly risky and stupid exotic subprime loans in a total amount so staggering it would bring down the world’s financial system?
No, he didn’t.
You are so awesomely gullible.
“All the Republicans tried to do was free minorities from the ridiculous control of the liberal Democrats who are hell bent on keeping them down and locked in for their votes. …”
This is, of course, sheer lunacy. Blacks can vote for anybody they want. Nobody has them “locked in”. Nobody controls them.
I suspect they vote against Republicans because their perception is that Republicans have been voting against them. And I agree with that perception.
(39) JCH it is a fact…Democrats enslaved them. Republicans set them free. Unbelievable how you want to revise history and insult the intelligence of people.
(38) JCH the writer at the NY Times predicted that it would fail and the government would need to bail it out. Those are the facts and he did it before Bush was even elected…LOL.
Now we have a trillion in new taxes thanks to Obama.
It is really sad when a group of people has to have the government bail them out of their personal situations that they put themselves into.
It will all change and the pendulum swing back in 2010 is going to be momentous. I hope the 10% of America (people like JCH) enjoy this boondoggle while it lasts…because now you have pissed off the majority of Americans.
1) On people making more than $250,000.
$338 billion – Bush tax cuts expire
$179 billlion – eliminate itemized deduction
$118 billion – capital gains tax hike
Total: $636 billion/10 years
2) Businesses:
$17 billion – Reinstate Superfund taxes
$24 billion – tax carried-interest as income
$5 billion – codify “economic substance doctrine”
$61 billion – repeal LIFO
$210 billion – international enforcement, reform deferral, other tax reform
$4 billion – information reporting for rental payments
$5.3 billion – excise tax on Gulf of Mexico oil and gas
$3.4 billion – repeal expensing of tangible drilling costs
$62 million – repeal deduction for tertiary injectants
$49 million – repeal passive loss exception for working interests in oil and natural gas properties
$13 billion – repeal manufacturing tax deduction for oil and natural gas companies
$1 billion – increase to 7 years geological and geophysical amortization period for independent producers
$882 million – eliminate advanced earned income tax credit
Total: $353 billion/10 years
This list is disastrous. These people do NOT have a clue on how to stimulate the economy. In fact these taxes are going to increase our reliance on foreign oil.
Really insane…at least Bush was victorious in Iraq…Obama is going to fail in Afghanistan…simply unbelievable.
JCH you need to spend some time understanding the international impact on what is happening and the relationship between the Russian Othordox Church and Kremlin and how they are influencing Iran and other nations hellbent on destroying our way of life. The writing is on the wall it is clear as day as long you take the time to read about it, understand it because if you don’t you will not be prepared for what is coming and your recklessness on these topics will unfortunately endanger your family when we are dealing with global conflicts like we have never seen before. I hope you take the time and get prepared regardless of your party affiliation no American should have to suffer from what our current President and lawmakers are setting us up for.
JCH do you and Barney belong to some secret club and secret decoder rings or something. Barney Frank actually wants to blame Ronald Reagan for the meltdown.
This is really just amazing. Barney Frank is mentally ill. PERIOD.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/scituate/news/x594723946/A-Frank-discussion
Those that are guilty love to try to revise history…it is so absurd, laughable and yet people in this country will believe it.
The two greatest times of economic expansion in this country and rising prosperity where immediately after the Civil War and during Reagan.
Reagan’s trickle-down policy may have created a boomtown economy for a few years (benefitting the wealthy, mostly). RR also tripled the deficit, and increased defense spending, and let’s forget James Watt and the diastrous environmental policies. Bush I and Clinton were forced to raise taxes to cover the expenses of the Reagan years.
Like many libertarian-GOPers, Glennster often defends the Ayn Rand school of laissez-faire, based on the fault premise that what is good for Ayn (ie slashing taxes, axing programs, de-reg in general) is good for everyone. Not the case, as the lending crisis itself demonstrates (I recently read that Madame Rand herself did not approve of the Reagan conservatives, however: objecting to both the military buildup, and to the rise of the religious wingnuts).
ah pre-caffiene editing. ‘Scuzi.
Seems to me that The Reagan economy is very much exaggerated for reasons that mostly have to do with his personal appeal to many people – remarkable given that for some of his last term he was sometimes suffering from dementia.
Reagan ran budget deficits, though they were nothing like what we’ll see now and we saw under GW.
I almost totally reject the idea that Presidents or even Governments are the key to driving our economy, but even if you buy that silly notion then the man of the century is Bill Clinton. He’s the guy that almost balanced the budget even as he spent tons of money.
Conservatives sometimes suggest Clinton’s military spending was not enough but this is naive and wrong – it was, as military spending has been since WWII, totally excessive, out of line with actual threats, and often totally squandered on contracted weapons systems of dubious quality.
The problem with our military budgets, including Obama’s recklessly high one, is that we do not built infrastructure with this spending – it’s basically a “big stick insurance policy” to make sure others don’t get our stuff or hurt us. Never has so much been spent by so many to help so few. It’s the scandal of modern times and it’s simply appalling to me that so many fake conservatives are calling for *increases* in defense spending even as they want everything else cut.
If you are talking about the Abolitionists. Lol.
To suggest that blacks do not know who their enemy is, well, it’s nutz. They know perfectly well why they do not vote Republican: Nixon enslaved them when he started affirmative action!
Yes, not having that list of taxes stopped the recession in 2008, and has prevented the loss of a decade(s) of wealth. Yup, sure did.
Ronald Reagan hired Alan GreenRandSpam. Alan GreenRandSpam held the authority to halt exotic subprime in his desk drawer for at least 14 years.
Sounds like a pretty good case to me.
Let’s see, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin?
Other than there are just some astonishingly beautiful Russian women, I’m at a loss. I’ll guess: sex with altar boys?
I should say, for 14 years GreenRandSpam had the authority to regulate the part of the mortgage industry from which exotic subprime emanated in 2003.
(46) Yeah the projects were really part of the Republican agenda, yeah segregation was part of the Republican agenda.
Senator Byrd…give me a freakin break.
The Democrats would let Bin Laden run on the ticket…
Now today we learn in the current budget that was just passed with 9,000 earmarks.
Obama has several earmarks in the budget, so does Biden…shocker.
But here is the kicker…Obama is having his name removed from his earmarks…but the pork will stand.
What a joke, what a fraud…
He is fast tracking this country to civil war…
Senator Byrd is a former member of the KKK. Lots of white southerners have ancestors who were members of the KKK. They were almost exclusively Democrats. So what? What are the vast majority of them now? As Nixon predicted when Johnson was in office, the solid south stopped voting Democrat and started voting _____________?
This stuff is not hard to figure out.
NIGHTMARE…
An accused Al Qaeda sleeper agent held for 5 1/2 years at a Navy brig in South Carolina will soon be sent to Illinois for trial in civilian court, a move the government has fought for years saying terror suspects caught in the U.S. could be held indefinitely without charges.
Two people familiar with the case of Qatar native Ali al-Marri said Thursday the government plans to transfer him to the civilian court system. One of them said he would be charged with providing support to terrorists. The two people spoke on condition of anonymity because it’s a pending criminal case.
The transfer could avert a Supreme Court hearing in April and a subsequent ruling that would govern other cases against accused terrorists. Al-Marri’s transfer is the first signal of how the Obama administration is likely to handle accused terrorists, a significant shift from the strategy of the Bush administration.
Glenn what’s your concern – that he’ll be released? No way. More important is McCain’s point about this – we keep our own guys from torture and our credibility with moderates much higher with more transparent “no torture” policies.
If we start to see that actually following a reasonable interpretation of the law (which most legal experts think we were not doing before) leads to more terror then we may need to rethink existing rules, but simply invoking bogus interpretations of the torture and rendition laws had a lot of unintended consequences, most importantly it appears to have spawned a lot of propaganda for the terror machine.
But as with so much these days we cannot know – we’ve experimented with a budget breaking, hard line approach which has led to great instability globally in several regions. However we have had no major attacks after 9/11.
(53) Sorry Joe these scumbags deserve a bullet period.
You actually believe if we tell people that we don’t torture…that…
#1) our enemies will not torture our soldiers? You CANNOT be serious.
#2) that we will not use whatever methods necessary to save American lives?
(53) They do NOT deserve ANY rights whatsoever…Geneva conventions don’t even apply. A lot of people don’t realize that the Geneva Convention applies to uniformed armies.
Anyone from the intelligence community will tell you that “torture” do not yield results – typically because anyone trained knows that any information you receive will mostly be a lie with a little truth included.
However the definition of torture varies greatly among people.
The Islamic terrorist’s torture all captured personnel at a level that can only be described at barbarian. So do several other organizations that capture people. We have to stop playing this “rodney king” approach to war. It’s ridiculous and only gets more of our people killed.
Incredibly naive.
On Iwo Jima any Marine who was captured by the Japanese was a goner – and being tortured to death was likely. There is not a singe example of a Marine or corpsmen being captured and surviving it. The mutilated bodies of some Marines were discovered. But the vast majority of Marines who were caught in situations where there was no escape fought to the death.
To me that is one of the ironies. Historians will openly say the Japanese fought to death. when it was actually the Marines who were the most likely to fight to death – they had no option. The Marines captured around 150 Japanese during the battle. They would have captured more, but rather than come out of their holes, they committed suicide.
So how did the Marines treat the Japanese who surrendered? If wounded, they treated their wounds. They gave them hot food and fresh water. They had warm blankets. They were not beaten. The Marines were able to gather some astonishingly valuable intelligence.
Why? It’s what men with honor do.
On Iwo Jima Fed Haynes was a Captain in my father’s regiment – the 28th. Haynes went on to become a General. He discusses his opposition here:
(53) They do NOT deserve ANY rights whatsoever…Geneva conventions don’t even apply. A lot of people don’t realize that the Geneva Convention applies to uniformed armies.
That’s not correct. Article 3 applies to all prisoners of war in any conflict. POWs, however, do not have the Habeas corpus rights that citizens have (except perhaps “constructively”, as the Founding fathers would probably have argued, since they wanted the Habeas right to be construed broadly, and applied with that old blindfold in place: a point lost on rabid Limbaughians, or some hysterical leftists for that matter (i.e you’re guilty, for like, being from Texas). That said, many nations have violated the terms of the Geneva convention, as did LBJ and Nixon during ‘Nam when they started using napalm.
Even at a state or local level Habeas rights are often considered fairly insignificant by the judiciary gang: Girl Friday generally tosses the poor-boy defendant’s Writ away after Judge Schmutzberg glances at it (if he bothers to), unless defendant has the shekels to pay some Bay or LA defense shyster to write it up.
Glenn I think I’d say there is enough of a terror risk to consider this a *strategic* issue rather than a heavy duty moral issue. Of course *if there was good reason to believe torturing a guy* would actually lead to information needed to save a city most are OK making an exception in that case. But torture generally fails to give information that is helpful and even when it does you’ve got the huge number of unintended consequences to deal with.
Abu Ghraib set back the Iraq efforts months and maybe years with the perfect type of propaganda to keep recruiting suicide bombers, and was an unintended but direct product of the “torture isn’t torture” mentality at the prison. Our pro-torture policy has a big effect on enemy morale, and Obama’s policies are much more likely to undercut terror as moderates find it much easier to support US policy. This is already happening.
You can’t know who is who in the terror world so are you seriously suggesting we shoot every single *suspect?*
Of course you must say *no*, which means we have a major problem of killing or torturing innocent people – simply ignoring this because there is danger is not a moral alternative to worrying about it a lot more than we have in the past.
The main problem has never been “what do we do with terrorists”, it is “what do we do with terror suspects?”
Horatiox makes the key point in the torture debate. When in doubt, stick to the constitution. The founders were well aware of torture issues and hardly would have suggested that Govts have a right to torture insurgents, let alone suspected ones.
Founding fathers would probably have argued, since they wanted the Habeas right to be construed broadly, and applied with that old blindfold in place
(59) Horatiox I agree with your position regarding the founding fathers…however they never envisioned that judges would have problems keeping repeat offending pedophiles off the streets.
That is the core issue here…can you imagine what types of decisions some of these judges will make for a suspected first time offending terrorist?
They deserve a military trial and that’s it. Sorry these people are bent on destroying our way of life there is no way we should offer them any quarter. Huge mistake – they will be back. That has been proven over and over again – since the barracks bombing in Lebanon, we have known who is responsible and we play these games where we don’t solve the problem and here have a chance of keeping these guys out of the game and we will let them free…probably even allow them to sue the government to fund their activities, give them a foreclosed home with monies and a concealed weapons permit as long as they promise to hate Israel as well.
I never suggested that we support torture but we must define torture. Some techniques are not torture but quite effective however the far left would have you think that not providing them a hot tub would be torture.
Here is one for everyone…why not hold the press accountable for the misrepresentations about war? Why not have a fairness doctrine that requires them to report on a positive when they report a negative…?
Look the UN recently stating that Israel bombed a school…press jumped all over it and it was a complete fabrication. UN retracts the comments and the press ignores it.
If the game were fair and balanced we wouldn’t need a Guantanamo Bay.
(60) More and more Guantanamo prisoners that have been released are right back with their scumbag terrorist friends. I would submit that very very few people at Guantanamo are completely innocent if any.
From Guantanamo back to terrorism:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hZfIcWnHqBz4kQR90lC_pXaHeW4Q
Glenn I don’t think any that have been released under Obama’s superior program have returned to terrorism. I do not know why Bush let these guys go.
(63) Joe Bush let them go because at some point he decided to become a big spending liberal Democrat. Have you noticed Obama is continuing the same policies as Bush?
You guys talk about the constitution and I am a big supporter of the constitution and what our fore-fathers intended.
Unfortunately the DC Voting rights bill is a direct assault on the constitution yet there is no squawking about it. I have no problem with DC getting voting rights however to do that they need it ratified by the states as per the constitution.
The real secret in the DC Voter bill is Dick Durbin’s S.160 rider. It is designed “to encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership, and to ensure that the public airwaves are used in public interest”. Welcome to the sleazy way to slide in a new fairness doctrine.
Glenn I’m not up on the DC bill but we’ll probably agree that the gerrymandering the dems will be doing after the census will be scandalous. I think the founders did not even remotely anticipate how modern computing would let the “one man one vote” rule be demolished by setting up districts in bizarre ways to favor a candidate or party.
(66) Joe unfortunately within the next few years this country will be embroiled in a civil war…it’s horrible but it is coming.
The writing is on the wall. The far left is out of control and people are about to break. So much hassle and stress over the last two years and this is going to take it completely over the top.
Literally everything I was concerned about the Pelosi/Reid/Obama cabal is coming true and some of it is even worse than I thought. I think a storm is brewing where a lot of people that voted for “change” are pretty upset with what they voted for. Of course I think this was all completely obvious if people just took the time to read the fine print.
Obama is now going overturn the bill that allowed physicians to not perform abortions because of religious reasons…many doctors and hospitals are now going to get out of the medical gig. It computes to almost 25% of the hospital beds in this country. Think about that for a second with massive inefficient health-care system with 25% less capacity than we currently have.
When you get into Durbin’s rider you see the ominous wording that is going to allow the FCC to prematurely pull broadcast licenses, etc…this is actually really scary stuff – it is going to lead to violence.
Ironically Obama wants states to have the right to decide whether they allow gay marriage and marijuana now but they won’t allow states to have the right to decide on abortion. The level of hypocrisy is mind numbing now.
The census fiasco is just another clear example of what is going on here. All this is…a major power grab to forever change the voting landscape in this country. As I predicted if we didn’t hold people accountable for has happened within our country they would be empowered to be even more bold and it is exactly what the American people bargained for.
Most economists on Wall-Street and investors are now seeing exactly the negatives to the Obama economic plans – they are not going to work Joe…it is a complete assault on anything positive that is non-government. They are truly trying to destroy non-government business and opportunity in this country, they are trying to wipe out any non-government wealth in this country.
Some of us have enough assets to protect our families and pretty much weather anything thrown at us…but many millions in this country are about to have a very rough decade or so.
This election and this change is truly a sad change for this country.
(66) As I have said over and over again…we need the following to fix this country:
1) Fair tax – biggest move to put the power in our hands and cap what the government can spend.
2) Monetary system based on gold or something similar, something tangible, something real so that people know in 30 years that what they have will be valuable.
3) A focus on savings and investment for every citizen.
4) The elimination of social security – it is a ponzi scheme and it has to fail.
5) term limits
6) Abolish the electoral college – all national positions done by popular vote
7) All positions are up for election every 4 years
8) All national chair positions are voted on by the country
9) No life pension for anyone elected, with exception of the President,VP, etc…
10) Our government has to abide by all the same exact laws it passes including all the accounting rules, regs, etc.
11) No more pork, all expenditures have to stand on their own, be published to the public and accountability must come full circle on 100% of the expenditures – JUST LIKE A BIZ HAS TO.
12) Majority of decisions need to be handled by the states.
13) Massive tort reform
14) Campaign finance limits and based fully on public money – no more private raises
15) Lobbying is ONLY about free speech and no financial gain can occur, etc…
That’s just a dozen or so of the many things that need to be done to put this country back on track and back in the hand of the people that work so hard to make it happen.
And oh yeah, btw…if your a biz or a person and screw up…well you pay for your screw up…period.
Yes, let’s continue letting public’s AM band be in the sole possession of anti-America cretins like Michael Savage and Lush Bimbaugh. That’s really American.
(69) What is true America is that the liberal talk hosts and their programs have FAILED on radio…just like the liberal programs they pursue…they all fail.
That is the American way. Liberals have had as much access to the air-waves as anyone else. The listening audience has chosen what they want to listen to.
But this is exactly how liberals want thing to be…I can’t play the game fair and square, my ideology trumps all, so let’s regulate so we can force our agenda on the people. Forget free enterprise, free will, democracy…
JCH exactly how did these people end up in sole possession of the AM band?
You dizzy noodle, the ownership of the radio bands will continue to get to tell every lie they want to spew, Only, the band will also broadcast the truth.
Fair and balanced – the real fair and balanced.
Your side is the side that does not want it fair and square. You’re scared to death of what the truth will do to your lyin’ pile.
(71) A response without a real response…the liberal way…lol.
I suggest you review the ratings.
If you want fair and balanced then you must be a FOX viewer they were independently rated as the most fair and balanced news network available.
What about the NY Times, LA Times, etc…why not force them to be balanced as well? How about the U.N.? JCH you just want to prop up as many corrupt organizations and ideas so that the ideology trumps all and the government controls all – you are incapable of independent thought – you need to be told what to think, what to do, what toilet paper to use…
You speak of honor and what honorable men must do…yet you support a President who has broken his word on countless occasions, broken written signed contracts, hides the truth about his past, etc…honorable men do not act that way.
But hey let’s not little things like the constitution, ethics and honor get in the way of the man we need to push your ideology down everyone’s throats!!!
It would be great if the truth came out…let’s see Obama’s college records, COLB, let’s expose all that he is hiding…as they say the truth will set you free!
The Obama budget calls for publicly held debt of 65 percent of gross domestic product in 2010 – a jump of 24 percentage points.
By 2019, debt would be 67 percent of GDP, totaling $15 trillion.
GAME OVER
Good Analogies…read this on the Monkey Business Blog.
Two Cows
SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.
COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.
FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.
BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away…
TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.
AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow has dropped dead.
GOLDMAN SACHS VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at JPM Chase, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of
the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.
You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows.
The public then buys your bull.
PERFECT
More wonderful perspective from JCH’s class of friends. Everything about the far left liberal agenda is about destroying the very fabric of what makes America great.
Just how little is the sanctity of marriage and fidelity revered by the mainstream media?
Consider the following astounding statement made today by “CNN Saturday Morning News” host T. J. Holmes:
Unfortunately, you know, people have to stop cheating in this recession. But given the recession, people are being forced to improvise a little bit more as they’re looking for a little variety out there in their lives.
Glenn! Civil War? Where do you get these ideas? There’s no way any group could stand up against a federal govt that had the military behind them. So are you thinking there will be a military coup in the USA where the majority view is suppressed by a treasonous and anti-constitutional military force that divorces itself from politics? Who’s going to lead that effort? Last time I checked Gates, Powell, Joint Chiefs, etc, etc still believe in rule of constitutional law and that the President is at the top of the Command Chain as he *must be* to preserve all we hold dear.
(76) Civil wars come in a variety of forms. Things are different now than in the 1860’s…you will see a lot of electronic activism, etc…the whole point is the country is now more fractured and divided then ever before.
Obama and crew are trampling the constitution…
For JCH…I just spent the time to read through Limbaugh’s speech at CPAC…what exactly did he say that was anti-American? He sounds a hell of a lot more American than a lot of Democrats in office?
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_030209/content/01125106.guest.html
Maybe they’ll get Smedley Butler to lead the military coupe. 2nd try might be a charm.
Red states buy more porn, and do just as much cheating.
TRADITIONAL HORSE SENSE
You have two cows.
You keep both and at night
you sneak them in with
your neighbor’s bull: the one with one cow
and one really horny bull)
Your herd multiplies twice as fast
you sell more milk.
When your neighbor comments about
how happy his bull is lately, you feign
innocence.
See JCH – at RealClimate you could *never* have posted anything like that last one ….
Well, I did once recommend killing all the cows and switching to eating horses.
(78) JCH you know that study is a bunch of horse hockey.
ABC trumpets the bare “facts” in its February 28 piece titled, “Porn in the USA: Conservatives Are Biggest Consumers.” In its first few paragraphs the report claims that, “Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious” than states in the more liberal areas of the country. But there is a problem with ABC’s heavy-handed claim. Even the Harvard researcher doesn’t put too much emphasis on the “conservative states” aspect because his data doesn’t show a very wide gulf between states, conservative or not.
In fact, professor Edelman takes pains to say, “When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the same than different.” This tends to relay that the rates from state to state really aren’t that notable. Edelman also says later in the piece that, “The differences here are not so stark,” where it concerns the data he compiled.
The per thousand citizens numbers don’t seem that varied from state to state, really. For instance, according to Edelman’s stats the state with the lowest online purchases of porn was West Virginia at a rate of 0.50 per thousand residents. Yet the highest, Utah, was only at 1.69 per thousand. That is not such a big difference, is it? At least, Edelmen didn’t seem to think it was too notable and it’s his study!
In essence, ABC is making far more of these supposed differences than even the author of the study makes. Don’t you wonder why that is?
There is one other small problem with Edelman’s efforts. His very first reference in the paper is built on a source long known to be completely false. On the second page of the report on his study published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives (Vol 23, #1, Winter 2009), Edelman relies on the claims of porn industry trade publication AVN Media Network that says the online porn industry made $2.8 billion dollars in 2006. AVN also claims that the entire porn industry pulled in nearly $13 billion in 2006.
However, it has long been known that the numbers presented by AVN are in no way verifiable. Forbes Magazine took AVN’s claims to task back in 2001 (after one of AVN’s earlier reports of porn industry takings) and found the numbers impossible to verify. In 2001 Forbes reckoned that the industry could not have made more than $4 billion, a number far less than the $10 billion AVN was then claiming. A 2007Boing, Boing article also discussed the unverifiable AVN numbers.
Anyway, the point here is, if prof Edelman relied on AVN’s fake claims, what else did he get wrong in his piece? What other methods and statistics were informed by shady sources?
Still, regardless of what Edelman did or didn’t do, and regardless of whether his study is accurate, he wasn’t making a big deal out of the conservative vs. liberal porn consumption. ABC, however, unaccountably tried to make one of the central points of the story.
Study here:
Click to access redlightstates.pdf
(81) JCH now we all know how you feel about donkeys, cows, bulls and horses. Why don’t you tell us how you feel about sheep?
I grew up in an agriculture business. We commonly handled large herds of cattle, pigs, and sheep. You remind me of sheep. They’re weak and consequently always scared to death of the big bad wolf.
(84) yeah we are the weak type…need the big ole friendly gov-a-ment to tell me what to do every day…
JCH look at AIG, look at the market below 7k, your big ole friends in the government ripping us off and you think it is all a good idea…your the one that is being led to the slaughter…sheeple of America unite for the messiah – or more likely a false prophet (or should I say profit).
AIG = Phil Gramm = no regulation.
You really are totally unaware of what happened, who did it, and why.
As for sheep and the messiah – sheep run away. They don’t run toward something that is in their interest; they get scared and run. They’re so stupid they most often, in terms of their best interests, run in the wrong direction. Read all of your dire “the sky is gonna fall” crap. You are a sheep.
Do you seriously think the market today means anything? Lol.
(86) Your right JCH the last 12 years of wealth from hard-working Americans means nothing…especially if you buy your bunk that the government is the answer.
I hope the day comes where the Pelosi do-nothing congress can be investigated to see how much of a hand they had in letting these issue fester to the point to ensure victory for the white-house.
BTW…we aren’t scared, and we certainly aren’t running. The game in the U.S. is over for liberals now – it is only a matter of time that we expunge this scourge from our great land.
You keep pegging me back with Republicans…lol…you are the one that is lock-step (or should I say goose-step) with your raging left loon buddies in our government. I am against all that are corrupt, they need to go, we need to restore reality into our country and wake-up to the outrageous stupidity of PC and how it is helping to destroy our great country.
The day is coming when everyone will actually have to wake up on time in the morning and actually do something productive for their society instead of rationalizing, blaming everyone and everything for their own personal failures, laziness, irresponsibility and downright stupid decisions.
In the 1830s Alexis de Tocqueville identified as one of this country’s great strengths Americans’ propensity to form voluntary associations. It remains one of America’s great strengths today, one which distinguishes us from every other nation. But it is under attack from the Obama administration. As the Wall Street Journal reports:
The tax increases would raise an estimated $318 billion over 10 years by reducing the value of such longstanding deductions as mortgage interest and charitable contributions for people in the highest tax brackets. Households paying income taxes at the 33% and 35% rates can currently claim deductions at those rates. Under the Obama proposal, they could deduct only 28% of the value of those payments.
Reducing the value of the charitable deduction is a threat to voluntary associations. For worthy commentary, check out Jennifer Rubin of Commentary and, on videotape she links to, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and this reaction in the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
This is an attempt to channel money away from voluntary associations and direct it to the state. Some of that money, in turn, would be directed to public employee unions, and much if not most of that would be directed to the Democratic Party. It would be interesting to know what White House counselor and former President of Harvard University Lawrence Summers thinks of this.
One of the strengths of American society is that we do not rely solely on the government to address social problems. Because of our vast network of voluntary associations, of charities and foundations and universities and nonprofits, we address social problems in a wide variety of ways. We can examine what works and what doesn’t work; we have competition in the marketplace of ideas and good works. We have faith-based and proudly secular voluntary associations, market-oriented and statist-oriented voluntary associations, research-oriented and service-oriented voluntary associations.
Barack Obama evidently wants us to shift vast sums of money from the voluntary associations extolled by Alexis de Tocqueville to the bureaucratic networks described by Max Weber. This is a profoundly bad idea.
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/barone/2009/2/27/obamas-threat-to-charities-and-universities-his-budget-and-taxes.html
More JCH supported crap to turn everything over the government. The only difference now will be those “charitable” donations will now go to groups that continue to expose the Pelosi/Reid/Obama fraud…
Limbaugh’s speech at CPAC
Classic Rotarian-royalist rhetoric from Duke Limbaugh. The GOP yacht club has now installed Steele as Chairhomie, and I expect Rush toned down the race-bating because of that– the party of Lincoln and so forth. Rush formerly represented for the GOP Evinrude club–Mike Huckabee, CEO (usually told to keep quiet, except during campaigns).
A few million later and Limbaugh’s upgraded to Yacht club, and like most rich conservatives, sounds a bit Winston Churchill like: note the reference to Hayek, gold standard guy and pal of royalists everywhere.
(89) Horatiox what is wrong with the gold standard?
Lots. For one, it’s an old aristocratic idea that some libertarians throw around, without knowing what it entails: it’s used mostly for effect. Not enough gold exists in the world to serve as a basis for currency anyway, unless a govt. were to increase the value artificially.
El Oro’s not really a commodity as say grains, cotton, lumber are: so it doesn’t really have intrinsic value (contrary to what some quacks claim). You can at least bake bread with wheat, make clothes with cotton, etc Yes, Gold’s traded, and deep pockets make a lot of shekels even with small moves, but’s that’s…blood money.
The Randian sorts also argue gold would stabilize the currency and so forth, but so would a grain standard (which Abe Lincoln in fact supported). Various commodities have been used as money, or as basis for bartering: rice, barley, livestocks, etc. In some areas of Humboldt they use sinsemilla in place of cash. In vegas…er we won’t go there.
(91) Hortiox the point of the gold standard is to create a bottom line basis for value. Right now we have nothing. The Fed was created out of the idea of original robber barons like Rockefeller, Astor, Carnegie, Huntington, Stanford, etc that wanted to increase their power and create instruments that allowed them to extend beyond their means.
The Fed is a completely secret organization with absolutely no oversight, no accountability, no auditing, etc.
They meet in secret and make decisions how to manipulate vapor and we pay for their recklessness. The folly here is they actually believe they can control this stuff and since they started this fiasco they have only proven that they can’t. The Fed should be eliminated.
We need to return to basis for value and something should be tied to it otherwise we will continue this cycle.
The Fed was created out of the idea of original robber barons like Rockefeller, Astor, Carnegie, Huntington, Stanford, etc that wanted to increase their power and create instruments that allowed them to extend beyond their means.
Not exactly. Woodrow Wilson created the Federal reserve though some of the robber barons may have helped out: JP Morgan, I believe. Anyway, Limbaugh seems pretty comfy with Rockefeller/JP Morgan-like econ-policies.
The Rand/Hayek crew claim gold would be more stable than “fiat currency” or something, but don’t offer much in the way of evidence. I think it’s some aristocratic fetish or something; Ayn Rand was rather fond of that. Gold prices fluctuate a great deal anyway.
To be honest, I object to Limbaugh’s politics and economic views, and his PT Barnum style, and find him fairly obnoxious, yet, at the same time, actually admire his pluck–like how some older cops might respect the big mobsters they have to bust. He dissed the new GOP man Steele today, for instance: pluck, man.
(94) Well Limbaugh is there for entertainment…lol…no different than any other talk personality. He is the Howard Stern of right wing politics and should be viewed as much.
I reviewed what he said a CPAC and couldn’t find anything that he said that was anti-American…certainly many of the things Obama is putting forward could definitely be viewed at anti-American (charitable deductions, etc).
They created the fractional reserve banking system to artificially inflate the money supply. It was brought into the colonial America and the entire concept is the same as a massive fraud. No business in the USA would be allowed to operate this way – it just doesn’t make sense.
Thomas Jefferson was completely against this form of centralized banking and so was Andrew Jackson. Each time they created a central bank we would go in boom and bust cycles. Every time we have gone back to a “gold” standard the money system stabilized and we had the greatest periods of prosperity and real growth (averaged 4% a year for decades).
The ICC started with protecting the railroads, the movement with the robber barons and ultimately it hurt consumers. After the railroads they decided to do it to banks as well.
The fractional reserve banking system was the basis for The Fed and was JP Morgan and John Rockefeller were key proponents of the Fed…they wanted access to cheap money (credit) to finance the expansion of their empires. They literally marketed the concept to the American people and quite frankly misrepresented the truth behind their idea. They pitched the concept as a form of elasticity for our money supply. The 1907 bank run really started the ball rolling. The banks in NY were way over-stretched because of their fractional reserve implementation and the Government seized the opportunity to force the The Fed into existence.
Gee sound familiar. We have been paying for it ever since!
Take a serious look at the economic growth periods when the US was on a “gold” standard.
Back to talk show hosts…everyone has been saying to listen to Glenn Beck and today I watched his show…I think this dog can hunt. It will be interesting to see how large his audience grows – plus his name is great.
(93) BTW…Hortiox it was Senator Aldrich who orchestrated the Fed in a secret meeting…he just happened to the be the father-in-law of Rockefeller.
Unbelievable…
Chas Freeman tapped by Obama to serve as the chairman of the group that prepares the U.S. intelligence assessments…
He has not submitted his financial disclosures as required…gee I wonder why. He is connected with China National Offshore Oil Co – oh yeah those are the guys that just secured a deal with Cuba to drill in the waters where our liberal pinko congress blocked – but hey it’s ok for China to do it…as long as an Obama friend makes some money.
He is also the President of the Middle East Policy Council. This guy has actually received at least $1 million from a Saudi prince.
Can we get any more anti-Israel people in key positions in our government? Can we get any more corruption?
The Obama fraud continues…
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/05/foreign-ties-of-nominee-queried/
Great bllog