I've been paying attention to President Obamas interactions with Congressional leaders who oppose his Administration's bailout plan. I've tracked his public statements to the Press and the American people, and have come to some conclusions. We are being sold a bill of goods. President Obama is playing "good cop, bad cop" with the American people and our national future.
The perfect example of this was his first meeting with the opposition. The Republican Leadership met with the new President, formally, for the first time, on Friday, January 23rd, along with the Democratic leaders. The President said he wanted to hear from all sides on the bailout issue. This was supposed to be a bi-partisan moment. It went something like this. The President listened to the Republicans concerns and then stated, "I Won", and intimated he was eventually going to get his way, according to sources inside the meeting.
See Jonathan Martin and Carol E. Lee excellent article at: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17862.html
On the Sunday news show This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi uttered the now infamous statements about contraception being a stimulus to the economy, which led to the Drudge Report News Flash: "DRUDGE FLASH 2009© Pelosi says: Birth Control Will Help Economy". http://www.drudgereport.com/flashpbc.htm
How did this particular subject come up? There weren't many details available on the actual content of the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan". It would have been interesting to have been a "fifth party" to to the daily conference calls* between long time friends, Rahm Emanuel, James Carville, Paul Begala and George Stephanopoulos, before George's show on Sunday, Jan 24th. I'm sure Nancy was probably in the loop too. Her comments set off a firestorm of conservative blow back over the "family planning" issue, just as the Administration knew it would.
On Monday January 26th, President Obama rode into the fray on his white horse to save the day! He withdrew the funding request. This was probably orchestrated to change public opinion about the bailout...and the Religious Right swooned... http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/148769293.html
This in a week when President Obama reversed a long standing policy of the Bush Administration by executive order, on funding "Family Planning" in foreign countries to the tune of $400 million dollars. Twice the amount he "saved" us by withdrawing the "Contraception" funding from the Stimulus Bill.
Obama;s administration is filled with "Smart people". Men and women with fancy college pedigrees and long political backgrounds. His ambitions are filled with "Smart rhetoric" and "Smart ideas". One of the things mentioned is "Smart meters" to be installed in 40 million American homes (to monitor energy usage—can anyone say rationing?) and the "Smart Grid" (Power Grid2.0). http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/gigaom/green/2009_01_26_faq_smart_grid.html
He is being called the Smartest President in history!
http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/11/11/smartest-president-ever/
The only Smart thing that hasn't been mentioned is his Smart alec personality. He displays it with his subtle hand gestures for his critics and curt statements to opponents.
At every opportunity we are seeing carrot and stick maneuvers from the Administration showing the American people how reasonable the President is and how hateful his critics are.
Wake Up America!
In the immortal words of Star Trek's Spock, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Gang of Four phone buddies:
* http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/18011.html
©Gayle Brown, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Who Bought America's Soul?
If insanity is doing the same things over and over again and getting the same results, then America is insane!
Freddie Mac was just "bailed out" to the tune of $17 billion and now they say they need an additional $35, billion! I don't know if anyones looking at the facts but the "Grand Plan" of the geniuses in the government is not working. I'm not an economist, but when I see money being thrown away on bad investments I know it is an unworkable solution.
More and more workers are losing their jobs because of this crisis. Confidence in our economic system is worse than during the Great Depression. Our leaders are telling us the only hope we have to save us from extinction is for the government to own us.
Our new President, Barak Obama, seems to be schizophrenic on the subject of the economy. One minute he tells us there is hope and the next minute he says if we don't spend trillions of dollars, immediately, we are doomed.
He doesn't say what the money will be spent on just that we need to spend it and Congress is obliging him. America is being raped and plundered by the biggest crooks America has ever seen, our Congress. Bernard Madoff, the Ponzi scheme king, looks like a petty thief in comparison to these jokers.
Think about it, a year ago our economy was booming. There were some clouds on the horizon that even President Bush recognized. Two years before this crisis he asked for changes to be made to our financial system and congress ignored him.
All it took was one big push from the manufactured oil crisis, (yes, I said the manufactured oil crisis) to topple our financial apple cart. Isn't it interesting that "oil speculators" ran up the cost of oil to record levels just in time to help Obama zoom past John McCain in the Presidential sweepstakes. (Can you say George Soros and the Bank of England)
And then came the Housing Crisis, in the making since 1932 and the Roosevelt Administration and exacerbated by every administration since. It was about fairness they told us. New lending practices that would allow every American to own a home whether they could afford it or not.
Now Obama is demanding fairness in the way the jobs he intends to create should be allocated. Most would go to minority workers because they have been under served in the job market. White workers have had it too good for too long and will go to the back of the line. (Sounds like payback for the civil rights crowd to me)
It's time for all American's to take a good look at this situation and ask the question: "Who Bought America's Soul?
It may have resulted from the end of banking regulation with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act* signed into law by Bill Clinton that ended the Glass-Steagall Act*; Mega mergers of banks and securities firms resulted, which had been forbidden by Glass-Steagall.
Greedy banks and securities firms could now collude to sell and resell bad assets thereby clearing their books of the bad debt. Too many loans made to people who normally couldn't be financed for anything let alone a house. The insolvency was passed around like a giant Ponzi scheme so that these institutions looked profitable. It had to end somewhere. It has ended in the American People's pocket books.
America has gotten the change they wanted but we are being offered very little hope. This is not the time to experiment with government. Some of the very same people who have profited from this situation are asking for more handouts. This is not the 1930's when poor men, with souls, were given government handouts. Now the handouts are being given to wealthy institutions that cased this mess in the first place and believe me these institutions have no soul.
1. http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=106_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ102.106
2. http://www.occ.treas.gov/ftp/workpaper/wp2000-5.pdf
Freddie Mac was just "bailed out" to the tune of $17 billion and now they say they need an additional $35, billion! I don't know if anyones looking at the facts but the "Grand Plan" of the geniuses in the government is not working. I'm not an economist, but when I see money being thrown away on bad investments I know it is an unworkable solution.
More and more workers are losing their jobs because of this crisis. Confidence in our economic system is worse than during the Great Depression. Our leaders are telling us the only hope we have to save us from extinction is for the government to own us.
Our new President, Barak Obama, seems to be schizophrenic on the subject of the economy. One minute he tells us there is hope and the next minute he says if we don't spend trillions of dollars, immediately, we are doomed.
He doesn't say what the money will be spent on just that we need to spend it and Congress is obliging him. America is being raped and plundered by the biggest crooks America has ever seen, our Congress. Bernard Madoff, the Ponzi scheme king, looks like a petty thief in comparison to these jokers.
Think about it, a year ago our economy was booming. There were some clouds on the horizon that even President Bush recognized. Two years before this crisis he asked for changes to be made to our financial system and congress ignored him.
All it took was one big push from the manufactured oil crisis, (yes, I said the manufactured oil crisis) to topple our financial apple cart. Isn't it interesting that "oil speculators" ran up the cost of oil to record levels just in time to help Obama zoom past John McCain in the Presidential sweepstakes. (Can you say George Soros and the Bank of England)
And then came the Housing Crisis, in the making since 1932 and the Roosevelt Administration and exacerbated by every administration since. It was about fairness they told us. New lending practices that would allow every American to own a home whether they could afford it or not.
Now Obama is demanding fairness in the way the jobs he intends to create should be allocated. Most would go to minority workers because they have been under served in the job market. White workers have had it too good for too long and will go to the back of the line. (Sounds like payback for the civil rights crowd to me)
It's time for all American's to take a good look at this situation and ask the question: "Who Bought America's Soul?
It may have resulted from the end of banking regulation with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act* signed into law by Bill Clinton that ended the Glass-Steagall Act*; Mega mergers of banks and securities firms resulted, which had been forbidden by Glass-Steagall.
Greedy banks and securities firms could now collude to sell and resell bad assets thereby clearing their books of the bad debt. Too many loans made to people who normally couldn't be financed for anything let alone a house. The insolvency was passed around like a giant Ponzi scheme so that these institutions looked profitable. It had to end somewhere. It has ended in the American People's pocket books.
America has gotten the change they wanted but we are being offered very little hope. This is not the time to experiment with government. Some of the very same people who have profited from this situation are asking for more handouts. This is not the 1930's when poor men, with souls, were given government handouts. Now the handouts are being given to wealthy institutions that cased this mess in the first place and believe me these institutions have no soul.
1. http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=106_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ102.106
2. http://www.occ.treas.gov/ftp/workpaper/wp2000-5.pdf
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
