Obama compromised by Wall Street contributions, conservative group alleges
President Obama is too closely tied to Wall Street, claims a new web video that takes the tone of Occupy Wall Street, though it was produced by a conservative group.
The video, released by the American Future Fund, an Iowa-based organization designed to be “a voice for conservative principles” and “free market ideals,” alleges that raising tens of millions of dollars from Wall Street gave Obama reason to let (presumably culpable) Wall Street executives off easy:
“Nearly four years after America’s financial collapse, not a single senior Wall Street executive has been charged with a crime. Not one. Why? Could it be because Obama raised $49 million from Wall Street – more than any candidate in history? He rewarded top Wall Street donors and supporters with senior jobs. His chief of staff made millions from Wall Street — after Wall Street received billions in bailout money.”
The ad names Jon Corzine, the former Democratic senator and New Jersey governor who headed MF Global until it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last fall, as a particular example. Corzine “lost $1.6 billion in customers’ money but hasn’t been charged” the narrator says.
“Under Obama, Wall Street keeps winning, and Obama keeps taking their cash. Tell Obama to stop protecting his Wall Street donors.”
Watch, via the American Future Fund:
Washington Extra – Special Day
Before heading off to enjoy your weekend, I would encourage you to take a look at Emily Kaiser’s special report on income inequality in the United States, and a growing body of opinion that links high levels of income inequality with financial crises.
It may not be a coincidence, many economists believe, that income inequality in 2007, just before the latest crisis hit, reached its highest level since before the Great Depression. Read on.
And in other news, as they say in the business, Dan Quayle’s son can spell potato. Ben is vying to represent the Third Congressional District in Arizona, where he has come under fire for being too young and inexperienced to hold office. But as our blog reports, at least he passed the spell test.
And on that note, I am off to enjoy the rest of my birthday. Have a great weekend.
Here are our top stories from Washington today…
No surprises seen in WikiLeaks Iraq war data-Pentagon
The Pentagon does not expect big surprises from an imminent release of up to 500,000 Iraq war files by WikiLeaks, but warned that U.S. troops and Iraqis could be endangered by the file dump. The leak would be much larger than the group’s publication of more than 70,000 documents in July, the largest security breach of its kind in U.S. military history.
Yesterday, Congress approved the Americans With No Abilities Act, sweeping new legislation that provides benefits and protection for more than 135 million talentless Americans. Opponents questioned whether the Act unfairly favored politicians, lawyers and news reporters. Supporters responded saying, “yup”.
Washington Extra – Deja vu all over again
The Justice Department has stepped into the fray today over reports that the country’s largest mortgage lenders may have evicted tens of thousands of borrowers from their homes with little or no scrutiny of their documents. The lenders are accused of using “robo-signers” to approve foreclosures en masse, like GMAC official Jeffrey Stephan, who has testified to signing some 10,000 documents a month.
The number of foreclosures has slowed significantly since state officials began investigations into the practice in recent weeks, but this may be of scant comfort to the housing market as long as the uncertainty lingers, with a possible backlog of pending foreclosures hanging over the market.
The practice raises yet more questions about regulation of the financial industry, and plays into the narrative of inadequate oversight of greedy bankers undermining the economy, a narrative which lay behind the administration’s reform of financial regulation. But it also highlights the failure of the White House and Dodd-Frank to properly address one of the biggest issues behind the economic collapse, namely the housing market and reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Meanwhile, the media seem to have grown bored of the midterm elections already and turned their collective attention to 2012. First we had Donald Trump opening the door for a possible bid for the presidency. Then there was a leaked email which provided more evidence that Sarah Palin is seriously pondering a bid for the top job. Finally, there is the speculation, fuelled by Bob Woodward, that Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden might consider swapping jobs going into the 2012 campaign, to shore up support for President Barack Obama among his Democratic base.
“I think the vice president is doing a wonderful job and he is a great friend of mine,” Clinton said today, declaring she had no interest in the job or reason to do it. “There is so much to do and I think both of us are very happy doing what we are doing.” Washington Extra can only add that it would be rare for a president to change his running mate, and perhaps tough for Hillary Clinton to give up a solid job at State for the slightly nebulous role of vice president. But stranger things have happened.
Here are our top stories from Washington today…
Court considers anti-gay protests at funerals
democrats really screwed up they should have nominated hillary, and they would have been quaranteed a second term in office the way its going obama will not make it another time around and rightly so!!!!!!
First Draft: White House “victory garden”
Spring blew into Washington this morning and the signs are everywhere: the cherry blossoms are starting to come out, magnolia trees are budding and at the White House, workers are digging up the lawn.
Um, what?
As it turns out, the Obamas are part of the local food movement and plan to grow veggies in a patch of lawn on the executive mansion grounds. This was front page news in The New York Times, and a big headline in The Washington Post’s well-read Style section.
Calling up memories of the “victory gardens” of World War II, when Americans were encouraged to grow their own produce to help the war effort, the White House garden is not a brand new idea. John Adams and Eleanor Roosevelt had gardens, while Woodrow Wilson had a flock of sheep and the Clintons grew some vegetables in pots on the White House roof.
The Obamas seem to be taking gardening to a whole new level. They’ll have some 55 varieties of produce, from a patch of mixed berries — blueberries, blackberries and strawberries — to hot peppers, kale, collards and spinach, according to the Times, which featured a garden layout in their coverage.
Roger Doiron, founder of the nonprofit Kitchen Gardeners International, was elated. “I’m thrilled for the Obama family and for all who will be inspired by their example to grow gardens of their own this year.”
Alice Waters, the chef at the celebrated Chez Panisse restaurant in California and a booster of local eating, probably isn’t surprised. Back in January, she told Reuters she was heartened by signs from Michelle Obama that the president was concerned about childhood obesity and sustainable farming. “I’ve spoken to him through his wife,” Waters said then. “I’m encouraged.”
I have been involved in organic gardening and alternative
health for many years. I know the value of them and keep
abreast of the threats to them.
Codex Alimentarius does not get near enough attention. Codex Alimentarius represents the single largest threat to our health and freedom. We are talking about control of our food supply and the banning of vitamins and herbal supplements.
Organic seeds will be considered contaminants and you will be fed the genetically modified (GMO) food that has too little nutrients.
Obama as stockbroker in chief?
President Barack Obama is wearing many hats these days — commander in chief, head of state, father — so what about stock broker? The new president, who has spent the first weeks of his administration working on proposals to boost the economy, lifted eyebrows and, at least briefly, stocks on Tuesday when he suggested that battered shares were a potentially a good investment at low prices they are currently touching. Speaking in the Oval Office with visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Obama said it was natural that markets would be suffering from bad economic news. But then he weighed in with this observation: “What you’re now seeing is — is profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long-term perspective on it.” Sound like cheerleading at all? Stocks inched upward in response to his words, but his spokesman, Robert Gibbs, played down the comments later, saying they were in line with Obama’s previous statements on the economy. Tell us what you think. Is the president encouraging Americans to buy stocks? And is that good advice? For more Reuters political news, click here.
Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Obama and Brown at the White House)
Our economy runs on trust. Trust, that wise behavior is rewarded and unwise and crooked behavior is punished. No one is being punished and all the crooks who got us into this mess are being rewarded. That is why the economy will continue to tank. Everything is the opposite of what it should be and we’ve gone down the rabbit hole. I wouldn’t invest in that economy until I see heads roll.
Bold budget boosts bailout
How do you buy $750 billion of toxic bank assets with only $250 billion of taxpayer money?
If you know to play U.S. budget rules like a violin.
President Barack Obama told Congress in passing this week he might need more money than lawmakers have already approved to stabilize banks and pull the economy out of the ditch.
How much? His budget virtuoso Peter Orszag said on Thursday he could support buying up to $750 billion in bad assets but only needed to set aside $250 billion to do it.
Regular US budget rules assume government credit subsidies will recoup some of their value. Appropriators budget for such items according to how much they think the government will lose — not the full amount of the credit.
Orszag explained his thinking on Thursday:
“Honest budgeting suggests, when you pay a dollar for a financial asset, that doesn’t make the government worse off by a dollar,” he said at a news conference. “It’s not the same thing as a net cost of a dollar, because you are getting something in exchange for it.”
Americans deserve this hell. We had a chance to nominate and elect a great leader. But we chose an inexperienced guy who gives great speeches. Guess what? This guy is so clueless about finance and money, he has to hire a Wall Street goon to decipher it for him.
I listened to this great leader, and his wise words have prevented me from losing any money in this entire debacle.
Pssh.
hint: Ron Paul
Fed staff in trouble, but cited for raise, too
It’s not just U.S. stocks that are on a roller coaster ride in reaction to congressional testimony by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and other top officials.
Fed staff stock plunged on Wednesday when they put their boss in an awkward position during Bernanke’s testimony before Congress on the financial bailout and efforts to stabilize the swooning economy.
Rep. Scott Garrett testily reminded Bernanke that he was still waiting for answers for a letter he sent in December.
“We need to move on some of these issues,” Garrett said.
“You have not received a reply?” Bernanke asked, sounding surprised.
When Garrett said he had not, the Fed chairman took time out from discussing the narrowly averted global financial meltdown to assure the lawmaker he would crack down on his wayward staff.
“After some concerns about this, I have asked staff to try to put a one-month limit on (response) time. And so, clearly, that has not been met in this case, and I will check up on the situation,” Bernanke said.
This new regime is giddy with its blank-check power. I’m frightened beyond words how the TRILLIONS of dollars the Democrats/Obama/Pelosi want to spend are just the tip of a growing iceberg of fiscal irresponsibility and demand on all Americans.
More taxes, more taxes, more taxes. The numbers presented in Obama’s new budget are foolhardy. They are fictional, and do not compute with the number of taxpaying Americans, even if you were to figure in all retired people, those in a coma, those in the war zone, and newborn infants paying income taxes to sustain the demands of this new budget. Overtaxing the “rich” has never worked. For the bloated amount of money Obama wants, there is not enough money to squeeze out of “rich folks.” There aren’t enough rich people in the country to pay for his grandiose budget. So, the taxes on average people will have to be raised – soon. We all will have to “put more skin in the game,” breaking yet another of his “promises.”
To quote economist and author Thomas Sowell, “The question is not what anybody deserves. The question is who is to take on the God-like role of deciding what everybody else deserves. You can talk about ‘social justice’ all you want. But what death taxes boil down to is letting politicians take money from widows and orphans to pay for goodies that they will hand out to others, in order to buy votes to get re-elected. That is not social justice or any other kind of justice.”
It was Thomas Jefferson who declared, more than 225 years ago, “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
When is a housing crisis like venereal disease?
If you’re among those upset that your taxpayer dollars may be spent in volume to rescue people who — for whatever reason — can’t make their mortgage payments, Federal Financial Analytics analyst Karen Shaw Petrou recommends thinking about it this way:
“Preventing foreclosures has a lot in common with treating syphilis. In both cases, you help some who are undeserving, but – in an economic collapse or a public-health emergency – one acts nonetheless. ”
Just as in an serious epidemic, you’d take care of the problem and leave moral judgements to others, the right course of action is to take action to halt the housing crisis and leave the debate about moral hazard to economists, she wrote in a note to clients on Friday.
Yes, it’s possible that under President Obama’s plan to prevent mortgage foreclosures, some borrowers who could make their current payments may score a “quickie refi” at potential taxpayer risk, Petrou says. Others may abuse a provision that allows judges to reduce the amount of principal on some loans, she adds.
But give the Obama plan credit for trying to be fair by trying to weed out the the undeserving by limiting relief in certain ways, Petrou writes.
And in any case, the current crisis is the “the financial equivalent of a mortal epidemic,” she says.
Plenty of time to lecture about practicing safe credit later.
idea has been used by the banks etc ,they bought cars and houses they could not afford.
Obama says housing help just for ‘responsible’ homeowners
MESA, Ariz. – Memo to U.S. homeowners who bought places they couldn’t really afford: don’t expect assistance from President Barack Obama.
Obama unveiled a housing plan on Wednesday that aims to stem home foreclosures and draw a line under a problem that sparked the nation’s financial crisis.
But the assistance the president outlined had a caveat – only “responsible” homeowners need apply.
”I want to be very clear about what this plan will not do: It will not rescue the unscrupulous or irresponsible by throwing good taxpayer money after bad loans,” Obama told an excited crowd in Arizona, the home of his former presidential rival, Republican John McCain, and a state that has been especially hard hit by the housing crisis.
”It will not help speculators who took risky bets on a rising market and bought homes not to live in but to sell,” he continued.
”And it will not reward folks who bought homes they knew from the beginning they would never be able to afford.”
this guy is all about change,as criticism shows up ,the plan changes.the original plan was for the people who were in foreclosure to get help ,the latest announcement every house owner is going to get an incentive,4%interest rate.perhaps the next proposal, you can buy a house nothing down, and like what they do now in car sales, money back in your hand,and a free vacation thrown in.
The First Draft, Wednesday, Dec. 10
There’s nothing like a sexy political sleaze story, especially one ridden with “f—ing” expletives, to distract from the plight of the United States’ ailing auto industry. A $15 billion rescue package for the industry may be voted on in the House of Representatives today after the White House and congressional Democrats reached an agreement in principle late on Tuesday night. But morning TV shows paid the bailout scant attention as they replayed U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s news conference announcing that he was charging Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich with corruption over, among other things, an alleged plan to sell the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. Not surprisingly Blagojevich’s use of expletives in conversations taped by the FBI featured prominently, “Bleep ‘em,” Fitzgerald quoted the governor as saying in one conversation. “And the word ‘bleep’ was not the word he used,” he added helpfully, just in case there was any doubt. Back in Washington, the House of Representatives Financial Service Committee will hold a hearing at 10 a.m. EST on how the Treasury Department has handled the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP. The Wall Street Journal reported that a congressionally appointed panel that oversees TARP is expected to release a report highly critical of how it has been handled. Acting Comptroller General Gene Dodaro of the Government Accountability Office and Neel Kashkari, the Treasury Department point man on the financial rescue package, will testify. Wall Street is seen opening higher, with shares of automakers expected to remain in focus. But there was more grim econmic news. A new survey said the economy was likely to shrink 1.1 percent next year as job losses mount.
I find it rather unrealistic that Obama had no connections with Blagojevich. He is using the same line that he used when referenced with William Ayers.
pot meet kettle. Seriously, do they think the voters are stupid? Oh, wait.
http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/01/05/223 2/hedge-funds-bet-heavily-republicans-en d-election
“A small network of hedge fund executives pumped at least $10 million into Republican campaign committees and allied groups in last year’s elections, helping bankroll GOP victories that changed the balance of power in Washington, according to a review of campaign records and interviews with industry insiders.
The review by the Center for Public Integrity and NBC found that some of the heaviest contributions from industry leaders came late in the campaign or were funneled through obscure “joint fundraising committees” and other independent GOP allies — some of which were set up to maximize campaign fundraising or to avoid disclosing the names of big donors. The Center and NBC analyzed campaign data compiled by CQ Moneyline and the Internal Revenue Service.
Bitterly opposed to economic and regulatory policies backed by President Barack Obama and Democrats — including proposals to increase taxes on some of their profits — top Wall Street hedge fund moguls were unusually energized during last year’s election. They held multiple fundraisers and coordinated strategy to direct what appear to be unprecedented sums into the coffers of GOP and allied political committees.
The net effect has given hedge funds important new allies at a time when they are fending off some regulations mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and an aggressive Justice Department investigation into insider trading.”