Obama's Unceasing Hypocrisy, Pt 337

Here's a video that highlights Mr. Obama's hypocrisy when it pertains to executive compensation. Over the past several years he's propounded that American executives who work for companies who received bailout funds were being over-compensated...but, when it comes to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...crickets

.“Barack Obama has exhorted supporters to object to large bonus payouts at financial institutions that took TARB bailout money. The House Oversight Committee and its chair, Rep. Darrell Issa, want to know why Obama hasn’t objected to the ridiculous levels of compensation at the two largest bailout recipients — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In a new report (embedded below) titled ‘Government-Sponsored Moguls: Executive Compensation at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,’ Issa and the Oversight Committee detail executive compensation at the two GSEs, who — unlike their private-sector counterparts who have either fully repaid or are in the process of repaying their bailout funds — still demand more bailout money from Congress.”

via the blogfather...

Fed Gives $220 Mil to the Housewives of Morgan Stanley Bankers

When a magazine like Rolling Stone has a story like this, there is something terribly wrong with how our medai operates.  According to the story, the wives of 2 Morgan Stanley bankers were given some $220 million dollars by the Federal Reserve.

Waterfall TALF Opportunity. At first glance, Waterfall's haul doesn't seem all that huge — just nine loans totaling some $220 million, made through a Fed bailout program. That doesn't seem like a whole lot, considering that Goldman Sachs alone received roughly $800 billion in loans from the Fed. But upon closer inspection, Waterfall TALF Opportunity boasts a couple of interesting names among its chief investors: Christy Mack and Susan Karches.   Christy is the wife of John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley. Susan is the widow of Peter Karches, a close friend of the Macks who served as president of Morgan Stanley's investment-banking division. 

...

In the case of Waterfall TALF Opportunity, here's what we know: The company was founded in June 2009 with $14.87 million of investment capital, money that likely came from Christy Mack and Susan Karches. The two Wall Street wives then used the $220 million they got from the Fed to buy up a bunch of securities, including a large pool of commercial mortgages managed by Credit Suisse, a company John Mack once headed. Those securities were valued at $253.6 million, though the Fed refuses to explain how it arrived at that estimate. And here's the kicker: Of the $220 million the two wives got from the Fed, roughly $150 million had not been paid back as of last fall — meaning that you and I are still on the hook for most of whatever the Wall Street spouses bought on their government-funded shopping spree.

Most of the money hasn't been paid back...where is it and why hasn't a media outlet with a higher profile looked into this?  Seriously, this is nearly as much money as was saved in the budget "negotiations" last week.  If this is really happening, someone, a prosecutor, should be looking into just HOW the Fed spent our money.  More importantly, we need someone to look into why it hasn't been paid back.

HT, Thanks for pointing  me to this JP

Yet Another Appology For Barack Obama

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is a hasidic rabbi who made waves in the haredi community a few years ago with a book entitled "Kosher Sex"...I've not read it, haven't had either the time or the money to buy it. But I digress he wrote for AOL today yet another appology opinion piece on how Mr. Obama has lost his "magic." 

The real story in this election is not that America has no jobs, that the economy continues to falter or that the national debt continues to balloon. While all three are true and, more importantly, Obama has failed to fix them, it is also true that these conditions existed prior to Obama's election. Yet somehow his personal charisma and captivating charm elevated the electorate.


The real story of campaign 2010 is how boring Obama has become.

This is pretty much how he starts off...not really inspiring to say the least.  The gist of his peice is that Mr. Obama has over exposed himself  by always being in the public eye...which I think is true, but he fails to reach the hearf of why Mr. Obama is flailing and failing in the White House.  There were several pertinent comments, but here is mine: 

The were always signs of what kind of President Mr. Obama would make. They were obscured as much as possible by the syncophantic reporters of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN & MSNBC as well as the NY Times, LA Times, Wash Post, Time, etc...but if you took a close look with WHOM he associated himself with. Those people who influenced him in his formative years...they were all socialists or communists.

.
After all, he kicked off his political career in the living room of one of America's few domestic terrorists. A man whom Mr. Obama later referred to as..."just someone who lives in my neighborhood."
.
Mr. Obama is the least prepared president in our history. He's never had to actually make any real decisions prior to his election to the Presidency...nor has he any real executive experience. Running for office isn't executive experience, since a campaign manager makes many if not most of the campaign decisions. What we have is...a disaster unfolding on a daily basis.
.
Mr. Obama did in fact inherit a financial mess, one of his own party's making. Three leaders of the Democratic Party pushed for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to extend "sub-marginal" loans...loans to people who didn't put any money down, were extended often 125% of the value of the home "to make repairs & renovations." Nor could many of these people actually pay the mortgages...thus many defaulted and those homes were forclosed on. Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA4) and Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Chris Dodd (D-CT) fought every single attempt to reign in Fanny and Freddy, often lambasting those who tried to stop the runaway train as "racists"....Geo Bush tried in 2003 and John McCain in 2005. By 2007 the signs were there that both were beyond being on an unsustainable path.
.
Then cam TARP...AIG was bailed out because it managed Congress' retirement funds (can't have those in jeapardy). The "Stimulus" that wasn't sucked a trillion dollars out of the credit markets and socked them into 30 year treasurey notes...that money's gone as if it never was...Cap & Trade (which will probably be passed in the Mad Duck session in December) will add $2400.00 per household in fuel and electricity costs. Then there was ObamaCare...which will add significantly to the cost of health insurance and the deficit, which in the past two years has added $3,000,000,000,000.00 to the debt and when combined with the budgets that have been passed since Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Reid (both Democrats I might add) took control of Congress in 2007...that number become $5 trillion dollars...more than 1/3 of the national debt has been added in the past four years!
.
No wonder voters are pissed...the Tea Party was brewing BEFORE Mr. Obama took office...the rumblings were there to see since 2006...but they bloomed full when the Democratic leadership last year ignored the economy and worked for a year to pass seizure of health care...
.
So...we'll see what happens next Tuesday...and then next year. This is the last chance for the GOP. If they don't get it right...by reducing spending significantly. Ending earmarks and all extra-Constitutional methods of wasting tax dollars as well as significantly reducing both the size and scope of the federal government, you WILL see a 3rd party running against them in 2012. Bet on it.

Rich Vail,
Pikesville, MD

Not much more to add...

Study Shows Government Spending Slows Job Growth

A new research study by Harvard's Business school professors, Lauren Cohen, Joshua Coval, and Christopher Malloy shows that when government spends money in a Congressional district or state, that businesses stop growing. Imagine that, when your government spends money in your state business don't invest money in either capital improvements or in hiring new employees.

companies experienced lower sales and retrenched by cutting payroll, R&D, and other expenses. Indeed, in the years that followed a congressman's ascendancy to the chairmanship of a powerful committee, the average firm in his state cut back capital expenditures by roughly 15 percent, according to their working paper, "Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?"

"It was an enormous surprise, at least to us, to learn that the average firm in the chairman's state did not benefit at all from the unanticipated increase in spending," Coval reports.

Now, what effect did the "stimulus package" and the various bailouts have upon the economy as a whole? When the government, in a 5 month period spent a minimum of $1.5 trillion dollars to, first prop up failing corporations (banks, investment firms, and GM/Chrysler) and then in the hugely ineffective porkulus package, it literally sucked the life out of the credit industry by taking those funds that would have been used by business to grow and expand and sank it into long term government bonds. That had the effect of stifling the ability of small business and then the construction industry who need easily available credit in order to conduct day to day business operations.

Small business need credit for operating capital in order to purchase necessary materials. The construction industry does so even more...for example, a housing construction company (as well as commercial firms) need to borrow money to purchase materials to build homes...when that money is available in much smaller increments, fewer houses are built. It's the same for large construction firms as well. When you build/manufacture less, you need fewer workers...fewer workers mean fewer available jobs, that means less taxes are raised...smaller tax revenue means municipalities/counties/states have less money to operate on...

Their conclusion is simple. The government shouldn't spend money to stimulate the economy. Reducing taxes and the increase in available money for loans will...have a much more positive effect.

Our findings suggest that they should revisit their belief that federal spending can stimulate private economic development. It is important to note that our research ignores all costs associated with paying for the spending such as higher taxes or increased borrowing. From the perspective of the target state, the funds are essentially free, but clearly at the national level someone has to pay for stimulus spending. And in the absence of a positive private-sector response, it seems even more difficult to justify federal spending than otherwise.

The National Debt = $38,974.34 Per Person

You now owe the US government $38,974.34. Each of your children owe this amount as well. I didn't make that much this year so far...Think about it that's more than the average income for the people of the United States. We hit the debt limit yesterday at 3:01 p.m. when the total debt amounted to $12,031,299,186,290.07.

This latest milestone in the ever-rising journey of the National Debt comes less than eight months after it hit $11 trillion for the first time. The latest high-point is not unexpected, considering the federal deficit for the just-ended 2009 fiscal year hit an all-time high at $1.42-trillion – more than triple the previous year's record high. Much of the increase in the deficit and debt is attributed to government spending outpacing revenue – both exacerbated by the recession and the government response to it – including hundreds of billions in bailouts and stimulus spending and tax cuts along with decreased tax revenues due to rising unemployment.

It's only now, now that this huge figure has been reached, after spending a record $2 trillion dollars this year, that Mr. Obama has begun to speak about bringing the rising deficit and debt under control.

Honestly, it's a little late for that. Of course, having lost the moderate independents, he may be getting a little nervous. After all, he doesn't want to go down in history like Mr. Carter...and James Buchanan as being one of the worst presidents in our history. Another point to keep in mind, all three are Democrats.

"I intend to take serious steps to reduce America's long-term deficit – because debt-driven growth cannot fuel America's long-term prosperity," he said in remarks prepared for delivery to the leader's meeting last Sunday at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

I don't think that the country will buy him as a spend thrift now. Not after he's spent $700 billion on TARP, $300 billion buying Chrysler and GM, $800 billion on the "stimulus package" (which has mightily little stimulus in it). It may very well be a matter of too little, too late.

The "Stimulus Package" would have been better unspent, but if it was deemed absolutely necessary, then it should have been spent on infrastructure projects instead of being portioned out to favoured constituencies and state governments. But as a tax, tax and then spend Democrat, that sort of thing would never have occurred to any of the Democrats presently inhabiting capitol hill these days. Not that the GOP is any better. I think we are well past time to limit the terms of all politicians in elective office, not just the president.

TARP, was wrong, so is the Stimulus Package

"When the government makes loans or subsidies to business, what it does is to tax successful private businesses in order to support unsuccessful private businesses."--Henry Hazlitt

and then there is this,

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."--George Bernard Shaw

So in 6 months, we've managed to add 20% to the deficit, and have literally NOTHING to show for it.