Greed.....and income inequality......what?

Thomas Sowell says "I have never understood why it is "Greed" to keep the money you've earned and not greed to want to take someone else's money." Do you agree?

How far do you expect Obama's going to go in his fight against INCOME INEQUALITY?  

What do you think Obama's "Income Equality," which he says is his next big goal, looks like beyond minimum wage?  If it was only raising minimum wage, he'd be calling it that.  This is something more, this INCOME INEQUALITY.
How's this going to work?  What happens?   

Are WE going to become the same sort of socialist mess other countries are?  I've met Canadians who've come to America in the last few years to escape their mess, I've met a lot of Eastern Europeans who've come here for the opportunity to get ahead.  What's this weird new push do to America?  They've come here to have it better........will we still offer that?  Will we still BE that?

Z

Obama and the Protests......what do you think?

The Washington Times  by Jeffrey T Kuhner

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Marchers with Occupy Wall Street lead off a march that included labor unions through Lower Manhattan Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011, in New York. Unions gave a high-profile boost to the long-running protest against Wall Street and economic inequality, with their members joining thousands of protesters in a lower Manhattan march. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

President Obama’s shock troops are marching in the streets. Occupy Wall Street - a movement composed of communists, anarchists, socialists and anti-globalization student radicals - is spreading. Protests have swelled in cities including New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver and Philadelphia. The protesters are gaining influence and numbers. A ragtag group of hippie students has turned into a potent political force.

Occupy Wall Street seeks to demonize big banks, large corporations and capitalism. Its goal is to overturn America’s economic structure. The protesters are calling for wealth redistribution, fees on bank profits and massive tax increases on the rich. Many are demanding a socialist revolution - the confiscation of private property and nationalization of the economy. They are the heirs of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin. Their aim is to impose the hammer and sickle upon America.

Leftist radicals, such as Michael Moore and Norm Chomsky, have endorsed the anti-capitalist movement. Both men have glorified authoritarian communist regimes - Fidel Castro's Cuba, Hugo Chavez' Venezuela and the old Soviet Union. Their hatred for America has found expression in the rabble on the streets of New York and Washington. Actress Roseanne Barr even has called for the return of the “guillotine.” She wants bankers to be sent to “re-education camps,” and if they still refuse to hand over their profits, they should be beheaded, she says. This is the language of revolutionary terror and Marxist violence.

Mr. Obama has said he “sympathizes” with the protesters - especially their anger at Wall Street and “fat-cat” bankers. For years, he has demonized billionaires and millionaires, jet owners and corporate America. His divisive, irresponsible rhetoric has laid the groundwork for Occupy Wall Street.

The White House connection is even deeper. The protest’s main players all have ties to the Obama administration. Its primary organizer is former Obama “green-jobs czar” Van Jones. Mr. Jones is a self-avowed communist and follower of Saul Alinsky, the radical community organizer who also was Mr. Obama’s intellectual mentor. Mr. Jones said October is the month of the long-awaited “progressive offensive” - the watershed moment when students, labor unions, socialists and civil rights activists coalesce into an anti-Tea Party to blunt Middle America’s growing opposition to Mr. Obama.

Occupy Wall Street also is being supported by MoveOn.org. The group was one of the first to back Mr. Obama’s presidential candidacy when he was still an obscure senator from Illinois. The protests are being funded by socialist billionaire George Soros - a key Obama ally. (Z:  by the way, the Soros spokesmen deny he's funding them.  But, check THIS out) And the protesters are being joined by big labor, the administration’s most powerful constituency.

Hence, Occupy Wall Street is not a spontaneous uprising of disenchanted citizens frustrated with corporate plutocracy and capitalist excess. Rather, it is a planned, manufactured attempt to prop up Mr. Obama’s failed presidency. It is a page taken straight from the Alinsky playbook: Demonize bankers and businessmen in order to divert attention from the real source of our economic woes, Mr. Obama’s policies.

The president inherited a recession, and he has deepened it. His out-of-control spending and trillion-dollar deficits have brought us to the brink of bankruptcy. America’s debt credit rating has been downgraded. Growth has slowed to less than 1 percent. Unemployment has risen above 9 percent. Inflation is rising as consumer confidence declines. Obamacare is strangling job creation and business investment. Mr. Obama has waged war upon the private sector. If those students are truly angry about joblessness and a bleak future, they should direct their fury at the president.

Instead, they mouth leftist pieties. They are a spoiled, dependent and illiterate generation that believes it is entitled to government handouts, state coddling and permanent prosperity. They don’t wish to be self-reliant and make their own way; rather, they want others - successful, productive members of society - to transfer their hard-earned money to subsidize their indolence. They are the kind of deadbeats the welfare state eventually produces - lazy, whining and shameless.

Alinsky argued that an economic crisis inevitably fosters a political crisis. The key for the hard left was to take advantage of our misery to seize power and impose a socialist regime. By sowing street mayhem, Occupy Wall Street is hoping to demoralize and distract Middle America into believing big business is the evil culprit for the financial collapse. The very opposite, however, is true. Meddlesome government intervention caused the housing bubble, the subprime mortgage debacle and the reckless bank lending practices that triggered the Great Recession. The way out is not more statism; it is less. Only a vibrant free market can restore economic recovery and stimulate job growth.

The protesters are not interested in real solutions. They are political activists masquerading as concerned citizens. Progressives are desperate to keep Mr. Obama in office. This is why the president is deliberately encouraging Occupy Wall Street. He hopes to create enough bedlam and then target Republicans, the Tea Party and the rich. He is pursuing the Alinsky strategy of divide and conquer, pitting interest groups and different classes against each other.

Mr. Obama has unleashed class hatred and racial hostility in the pursuit of state socialism. It is clear that his 2008 campaign slogan of “hope and change” was really a thinly veiled rallying cry, not to save the nation, but to precipitate the downfall of American capitalism.

Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at The Washington Times and president of the Edmund Burke Institute.

Z: Put aside some of the overreaching in this article (I do not think all the protesters are 'illiterate,' for example), put aside some of the truth in the fact that there are some Wall Street companies who've been dishonest, etc., and tell me if his main point has any validity.  How much HAS Obama had to do with this and where do you think it's going?
z

 

The Phantom Conservative suggests...........

How about a new tax called the “National Debt Solution Tax”.  A flat 1% tax on all retail sales, tied to a balanced budget amendment with teeth.  This is kind of a National Consumption Tax and every penny goes to paying off the national debt and the idiots in Congress cannot move these funds around or tamper with this tax.  This would be handled by a whole new government agency, NOT THE IRS.  This is a very fair tax to the poor and the super rich.  Yes, food stamps would be excluded and maybe home purchases.  Let's say that I am a middle class American and I go to buy a car that costs $20,000: I pay $200 bucks.  Donald Trump wants to buy a $600,000 Maybach Mercedes, so he pays $6,000.  A poor person buys a $1,500 junker, they pay only $15.  I go to the store and get $100 buck of groceries, I chip in $1.00.  Someone should calculate how much this would generate and how fast it might start to bring down the debt or, if nothing else, cover the damn interest.  This is not the same as the Flat Tax that Herman Cain and others are recommending and have recommended over the years.  This is a special tax to solve a special problem and it would send a strong message to the rest of the world that the American people are going to step up to the bar and address the problem with their pocket book.  This would not bother me and, as stated, it would have to be tied to a balanced budget amendment.   I wish I had the numbers to calculate the financial impact of this.  This would not be on wholesale sales, only on retail sales or sales of goods and services to the end users.  Yes, even the attorneys and accountants would pay 1% for selling there services.  This is much better than the 1% transaction tax that has been bounced around, because many people do not have bank accounts and there is the entire underground cash economy that would avoid the transaction tax.  1% would not kill anyone!!!!!!!!!!, but Congress would be forbidden to ever increase this amount or use these funds for anything else that to pay the nation debt.

 

SO.....THE PHANTOM would like your opinion (he's a good friend of mine) and so would I......GO FOR IT.   thanks.

z

Obama and JOBS.........OOOOPS!

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack H. Obama's promise Thursday that everything in his jobs plan will be paid for rests on highly iffy propositions. It will only be paid for if a committee he can't control does his bidding, if Congress puts that into law and if leaders in the future - the ones who will feel the fiscal pinch of his proposals - don't roll it back. Underscoring the gravity of the nation's high employment rate, Obama chose a joint session of Congress, normally reserved for a State of the Union speech, to lay out his proposals. But if the moment was extraordinary, the plan he presented was conventional Washington rhetoric in one respect: It employs sleight-of-hand accounting. A look at some of Obama's claims and how they compare with the facts: OBAMA: "Everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything." THE FACTS: Obama did not spell out exactly how he would pay for the measures contained in his nearly $450 billion American Jobs Act but said he would send his proposed specifics in a week to the new congressional supercommittee charged with finding budget savings. White House aides suggested that new deficit spending in the near term to try to promote job creation would be paid for in the future - the "out years," in legislative jargon - but they did not specify what would be cut or what revenues they would use. Essentially, the jobs plan is an IOU from a president and lawmakers who may not even be in office down the road when the bills come due. Today's Congress cannot bind a later one for future spending. A future Congress could simply reverse it. Currently, roughly all federal taxes and other revenues are consumed in spending on various federal benefit programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' benefits, food stamps, farm subsidies and other social-assistance programs and payments on the national debt. Pretty much everything else is done on credit with borrowed money. So there is no guarantee that programs that clearly will increase annual deficits in the near term will be paid for in the long term. --- OBAMA: "Everything in here is the kind of proposal that's been supported by both Democrats and Republicans, including many who sit here tonight." THE FACTS: Obama's proposed cut in the Social Security payroll tax does seem likely to garner significant GOP support. But Obama proposes paying for the plan in part with tax increases that have already generated stiff Republican opposition. For instance, Obama makes a pitch anew to end Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, which he has defined as couples earning over $250,000 a year or individuals over $200,000 a year. Republicans have adamantly blocked what they view as new taxes. As recently as last month, House Republicans refused to go along with any deal to raise the government's borrowing authority that included new revenues, or taxes. --- OBAMA: "It will not add to the deficit." THE FACTS: It's hard to see how the program would not raise the deficit over the next year or two because most of the envisioned spending cuts and tax increases are designed to come later rather than now, when they could jeopardize the fragile recovery. Deficits are calculated for individual years. The accumulation of years of deficit spending has produced a national debt headed toward $15 trillion. Perhaps Obama meant to say that, in the long run, his hoped-for programs would not further increase the national debt, not annual deficits. --- OBAMA: "The American Jobs Act answers the urgent need to create jobs right away." THE FACTS: Not all of the president's major proposals are likely to yield quick job growth if adopted. One is to set up a national infrastructure bank to raise private capital for roads, rail, bridges, airports and waterways. Even supporters of such a bank doubt it could have much impact on jobs in the next two years because it takes time to set up. The idea is likely to run into opposition from some Republicans who say such a bank would give the federal government too much power. They'd rather divide money among existing state infrastructure banks. --- Associated Press writer Joan Lowy contributed to this report. Z: There's so much left out of this critique about Obama's plans, but I (And Elmer's Brother...thanks!) thought it was important enough to discuss.  I know my readers can find a lot more wrong even with just the "OBAMA REMARKS" above.........some are so obviously deficient in reasons for why they're bad, that it pains me that I have too much work today to get into depth.  Maybe you can help.  (For instance, does anybody know how much it would help our deficit if every rich person gave all they had? Answer: nearly nothing) If Buffet wants to be used as someone who SHOULD pay more, WHY DOESN'T HE? Is there a law about not sending the IRS MORE?  And, when Barack says we should tax harder those 'more FORTUNATE', does he mean 'fortunate' or 'harder working'?   MANY of those "Fortunate" didn't sit around letting someone else study or earn their money...they EARNED this good fortune.   Saying "FORTUNATE" makes it sound like they're all trust fund babies and who wouldn't rather steal from them than someone who worked hard?   And, please, LET them work on plugging up loopholes:  I'm okay with that. What I'm not okay with is Jeffrey Immelt sending so many jobs to China and planning to send more.  Are you?   (you remember, ol' Jeff, the guy sitting next to Mrs. Obama during her husband's JOBS SPEECH!?  Oh, the IRONY) Thanks!  z

Warren Buffett...."We rich don't pay enough taxes...Darn it!"

The Real Reason Warren Buffett's Taxes are Low

By Peter J Reilly

Warren Buffett was in the New York Times  today bragging about his low effective tax rate and saying how he would like to be paying more.   Fellow Forbes contributor Tim Worstall weighed in quibbling about Mr. Buffet not factoring in the corporate taxes on Berkshire Hathaway's earnings.  I'm just a simple CPA, whose firm won't even let him sign audit reports anymore. (That's true of all tax partners here by the way.  I don't take it personally).  I don't want to quibble with a quibble but apparently economists have a hard time figuring out the incidence of the corporate income tax (i.e. who is really paying it), so I think we can let go of that piece of the analysis.

Still Mr. Buffet is not sharing the real reason that he doesn't pay much in the way of income tax relative to his great fortune.  The secret is hidden in plain sight.  Mr. Worstall alludes to it when he mentions that Berkshire Hathaway does not in fact pay dividends.  Mr. Buffet's secret which you can find blasted all over the Internet is one of his famous quotations:

Our favorite holding period is forever

You only pay income taxes at any rate on realized appreciation.  An investment with a holding period of forever incurs a capital gains tax of 0%, while all along the holder can be getting wealthy from appreciation.  That's the real reason Mr. Buffet does not pay a lot of income taxes. (end of article)
  
 Z: This fascinated me because I heard what Mr. Buffet said on Monday about how he only pays 17% in taxes and the rich need to pay more, when most of us know the 'rich' pay the huge bulk of American taxes.
By the way, if Mr. Buffett wants to pay more, what's keeping him from it?

Z

How Australia straightened up their S&P rating......listen up

Australia lost and then finally recovered its AAA rating ...
From THIS site, we get the following article: 

EVEN though Standard and Poor's downgraded the US credit rating, Americans may be cheered by the examples of Australia and Canada, which both managed to restore their lost triple-A scores.

S&P revised the nation's rating downwards to a AA+ with a negative outlook, despite a push back from the White House which said the agency's analysis of the US economy was deeply flawed.

While some nations have managed to climb back again to the top notch rating, others have found it extremely difficult to recover the coveted crown.

S&P removed Australia's AAA in 1986 and only gave it back 17 years later.

During that time Canberra adhered to strict budgetary discipline and even capped its debt in 1997.

It also benefited from rapid growth and a broad transformation of its economy, modernising its financial system and deregulating uncompetitive sectors. Meanwhile, demand from a resurgent China drove a boom in the Australian mining industry.

S&P took away Canada's AAA rating on debt denominated in foreign currencies in 1992.

But Ottawa recovered the grade in 2002 after reducing government spending as a fraction of GDP by more than 8 per cent, through a series of stringent spending cuts. (Canada's sovereign debt as denominated in Canadian dollars was never downgraded.)

S&P cut Japan's AAA rating in 2001, and since then the debt-ridden country has descended to AA-.
But Japan's borrowing costs did not rise immediately after the first cut -- suggesting a US downgrade might not be catastrophic.

Tokyo's lenders -- who are mainly domestic -- continue to buy its debt today even though Japan's debt-to-GDP ratio is a colossal 225.8 per cent, the largest of any country.

More recently, three European countries were in the AAA club before being booted out: Ireland from 2001 to 2009, Iceland from 2005 to 2008 and Spain from 2003 to 2010.

All three benefited from speculative real estate bubbles that swelled tax revenues, until the bubbles popped. Ireland, rated BBB+ by S&P, has not been able to tap credit markets since 2010. Iceland, at BBB-, successfully issued bonds only in June after three years of no access to commercial credit markets.

Madrid retains a respectable AA rating, but jitters in the bond markets over its debt load has sent the risk premium on Spanish bonds -- the extra return demanded by investors compared to safe-bet German debt -- to a euro-era record of 407 basis points.  (end of article)

Z............pretty interesting stuff;  and look what Australia and Canada had to do to get back into shape.    Will we?  Of course not.   We've got people who won't listen to anybody but Geithner and Krugman!!  What a joke.

z

Democrats......just because they accuse, does it make sense?

You and I keep hearing from the Leftwing politicians, media, and the president and his people, that .....


1.  "The Republican candidates are caving to the TEA PARTY"  (as if they're succumbing to cholera)

       Has any of them considered that the candidates aren't 'caving in' but might just share the opinions of the Tea Party and other Americans who don't believe raising the debt ceiling and raising taxes are the best solution for the economic problems we're facing?

2.  "The Republicans caused the Standards and Poor rating loss because they held up the talks."

       Really?  So, the Republicans should have given in on things they really didn't believe in just to hurry along what they felt were really bad compromises for this country? 

Do you see the spin?....as if what they say is the truth because they said it, spun it?  They know the public hears them as the media has repeated the claims ad nauseum;    just sayin'...........

An interesting fact is that, in Australia, Peter Costello (of the Liberal Party, not to be mistaken with the actually liberal LABOR PARTY), under Conservative (Liberal Party) PM John Howard, did the really hard work and turned their country around after having been downgraded by S&P.  It took 17 years of swimming upstream to get their rating back, going against the leftwing media (according to him) and some Australians asking "what's the big deal about the ratings?" !
They have finally achieved a surplus, and now are doing very well. Wouldn't it be good to hear a conversation on television, with both sides of our political aisle, about how Australia handled their situation?   Costello is considering running for Prime Minister in a few years.   Maybe we can get him here? :-)

geeeeZ

F WORD ALERT: But you WILL laugh and agree, I guarantee!

I "stole" this from my blogger buddy BROOKE; I just HAD to because this guy is so good to watch. ..And he makes such good points!    How DID we get to the CEILING not knowing it was coming? :-) He points out some pretty obvious stuff Americans are afraid to look at.  He is fabulous!  thanks, Brooke!
z

Drunken sailors......US?

Does THIS INFORMATION we're being good world citizens or "Drunken Sailors?" When Sailors are dead broke and their families are suffering, do they give money to their neighbor?  I'm not sure where I fall on this, but I think I know.   How about you? It's probably a very NICE thing of America to do;  is it WISE?
z

THE ECONOMY.....first GOP Campaign ad?

I have nothing to add.  Except I wish EVERYBODY would borrow this from Opus and blog it...I'd hope it would be a GOP campaign ad but I doubt it will be.  Please give it a watch and please send it to your email list....... It's something people need to hear......

Unbelievable.

z

United States of Alinsky? Are things THIS BAD? You decide..............

Was the dangerous situation in our country planned?  Are things following as scheduled?   Obama recently, again, said this: "We knew this was going to take time because we've got this big, messy, tough democracy."  He says things like that quite often, even suggesting that he regrets having to go through Congress (remember my post on that?)....is changing this country from a democracy to.......?.......what the 'change' was?  REALLY?

Please read this article and let us know what you think...............thanks.

Cloward-Piven Paradise Now?  from American Thinker

By Jeannie DeAngelis

Combine class warfare, demonizing the rich, getting as many people onto the welfare rolls as possible, and pushing the economic system to collapse and you have a flawless formula for Cloward-Piven 2.0 -- and a vehicle that ensures Obama remains in power.

Cloward-Piven is a much talked-about strategy proposed in the mid-1960's by two Columbia University sociology professors named Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven.  The Cloward-Piven approach was sometimes referred to as the "crisis strategy," which they believed were a means to "end poverty."
The premise of the Cloward-Piven collective/anti-capitalist gospel decried "individual mobility and achievement," celebrated organized labor, fostered the principle that "if each finally found himself in the same relative economic relationship to his fellows ... all were infinitely better off."

**The duo taught that if you flooded the welfare rolls and bankrupted the cities and ultimately the nation, it would foster economic collapse, which would lead to political turmoil so severe that socialism would be accepted as a fix to an out-of-control set of circumstances.**

The idea was that if people were starving and the only way to eat was to accept government cheese, rather than starve, the masses would agree to what they would otherwise reject.  In essence, for the socialist-minded, the Cloward-Piven strategy is a simple formula that makes perfect sense; the radical husband-and-wife team had Saul Alinsky as their muse, and they went on to teach his social action principles to a cadre of socialist-leaning community organizers, one of whom was Barack Obama.

As the debt crisis continues to worsen, President Obama stands idly by an inferno with his arms crossed, shaking his head, and doing nothing other than kinking the fire hose and closing the spigot.  Spectator Obama is complaining that the structure of the American economy is engulfed in flames while accusing the Congress, which is trying desperately to douse the fire, of doing nothing about the problem.
Although speculative, if the Cloward-Piven strategy is the basis of the left's game plan, spearheaded by Alinsky devotee Barack Obama (Z: and Hillary Clinton, of course), it certainly explains the President's inaction and detached attitude.
The greatest nation in the history of the world is teetering on the brink of a catastrophic economic crisis. America was pushed to this point by a rapidly-expanding national debt and a stressed-out entitlement system; in the center of this crisis is the President, who insists on expanding it even further, all in the name "fairness" and "social justice."
As a default date nears and the President threatens seniors that there's a chance they may not receive their Social Security checks, it has been revealed that the federal government disperses a stunning 80 million checks a month, which means that about a third of the US adult population could be receiving some sort of entitlement. 
Since the 1960's when Cloward-Piven presented a socialistic guideline to usher in the type of evenhandedness Obama lauds, America's entitlement rolls have swelled from eight million to 80 million.  If the nation's ability to disperse handouts were ever disrupted, it's not hard to see how chaos would erupt should an angry army of millions demand what Cloward-Piven called "the right to income."

Couple the threat of dried-up funds for food stamps, Social Security, unemployment benefits and the like with the Obama administration's vigorous campaign to turn a tiny upper class of big earners into the enemy, and you have the Cloward-Piven recipe for anarchy and complete collapse.

If the worst happened, Saul Alinsky's biggest fan, whose poll numbers continue to plummet, could use mayhem in the streets to remain firmly ensconced in the White House.  Alinsky taught his students a basic principle that community organizer Barack Obama learned well: "Never let a good crisis go to waste." Fiscal disintegration coupled with lawlessness would deliver the type of Cloward-Piven/Saul Alinsky trifecta that progressives have worked toward and waited decades for.
Barack Obama has spent the last 1,000+ days defying reason and choosing policy directions that seem nonsensical to the rational mind: a failed stimulus package; ObamaCare; growing the deficit to astronomical proportions; and cynically portraying wealth as immoral. Now, when cuts are the only fix to a budgetary balloon about to burst, a seemingly illogical President digs in and demands additional phantom dollars to spend on a system that is collapsing under the weight of unmanageable debt. 
It's hard to figure out the method to the President's obvious madness, because based on Obama's approval rating, if the election were held today even Pee Wee Herman could replace Obama behind the Resolute Desk.  Maybe the "method" isn't "mad" in the least! 
Could it be that Barack Obama is purposely pressuring the system in a premeditated effort to foster a major crisis?   One that would demand extraordinary measures to control by a President who could then mete out basic sustenance to Americans who would agree to anything to regain some sense of normalcy.  And in the process successfully usher in the "socially just" system Barack Obama has dreamed of all his life.
While radical Alinsky/Cloward-Piven disciple Obama appears to be clueless and detached, it may be a ploy; he may actually be focused and engaged as he purposely pursues an Alinsky-inspired course of action to force the system to "live up" to its own rules.  Obama's ultimate goal of once-and-for-all discrediting the capitalist system and replacing America's foundational economic and social tenets with a broad-based socialist one headed by progressive Marxists like himself, is actually within reach.
As Obama pushes and prods the US economy and instigates social unrest, it could be that he believes a Cloward-Piven-style utopia resides just beyond the horizon -- a progressive panacea where an election-free, classless society, thankful for a simple crust of bread, looks to Barack Obama to keep the peace by remaining in power indefinitely. 

Therefore, unless all of America, regardless of class or political persuasion, pays attention to the potential for a bleak future that lies ahead and realizes the President's non-plan could be itself an actual calculated plan, the resulting consequences will affect everyone, as Barack Obama transforms a once great nation into Cloward and Piven's idea of paradise. (end of article)

Funny, a year or two ago, most Americans would have said about this article "What a nut!  Such exaggeration, that's ridiculous."   Today, I'm not quite so sure what most Americans would think if they read this.  WOULD that they could.

z

Debt Ceilings and Alcohol

Holder: Approving loans for minorities with poor credit AGAIN? Wait till you see this

Investor's Business Daily, Mustang and I would like you to be appraised of something Eric Holder is doing now that might not surprise you but should alarm every American, especially now with our debt problem:

Eric Holder: Racketeer

Several forms of racketeering exist.  The best known is the protection racket, in which criminals demand money from businesses in exchange for the service of "protection" against crimes that the racketeers themselves instigate if unpaid; it is also known as extortion.  But not all forms of racketeering are illegal; for example, when the government or minority organizations do it, that’s okay.

For years, the Rainbow/Push coalition has threatened American corporations with charges of racism unless they “pony up” large sums of cash to help blacks.  This has been going on for years, and one corporate officer once said that no matter how much these corporations pay, it’s still cheaper than losing revenue to spurious claims of discrimination.

Not to be undone, now the federal government is doing it too.  Led by the racist Eric Holder, writer Paul Sperry of Investor’s Business Daily tells us:

“In what could be a repeat of the easy-lending cycle that led to the housing crisis, the Justice Department has asked several banks to relax their mortgage underwriting standards and approve loans for minorities with poor credit as part of a new crackdown on alleged discrimination [emphasis added], according to court documents reviewed by IBD.”

“Prosecutions have already generated more than $20 million in loan set-asides and other subsidies from banks that have settled out of court rather than battle the federal government and risk being branded racist. An additional 60 banks are under investigation, a DOJ spokeswoman says.”

“No Job, No Problem.”

This sounds exactly like the racketeering perpetrated by Rainbow/Push; worse, Obama/Holder appear committed to returning us to the problem that generated the housing crisis to begin with.  And, of course, the video below will show you what started the housing crisis.  Watch at your own risk.

Does this even make sense with an upside down economy?  Do we really need to repeat a huge mistake whose genesis you'll see in the video?  What are your opinions about what Holder's doing AGAIN, NOW?

Mr. Mudd looked like a deer in the headlights, didn't he.  One would think he realized what trouble he was creating for the housing market but just had to keep on keepin' on....for SOME reason. If ONLY people had LISTENED TO BUSH.
z

Marco Rubio on the Debt Ceiling/Jobs/and name-calling

 Marco Rubio is someone more people, Left AND Right, ought to listen to.  HERE is a link to a terrific speech he made on the Senate floor.   And here are quotes from it which I thought were the most important, quotes that all people ought to read regarding the debt situation regardless of they watch the video:


“And I've heard lot of talk today about delaying tactics and delaying votes. I would argue to you that this issue has been delayed at least for the last two and a half years.

“In the two years before I even came here, this chamber neither proposed nor passed a budget. It is a startling figure that for the last two years this government has operated without a budget. So think about that. Two years have gone by without a budget. The first two years that the President was the president, no budgets.
 
 ***

 “So all this name-calling, so I said let me read some quotes about this debt limit and I found some pretty extremist quotes.

“Here's one.

“It says, "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I, therefore, intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt.” A quote from a tea party extremist, right? No. This is a quote from March 16 of 2006 from Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

“I found another extremist quote. This one says, "Because this massive of accumulation of debt was predicted, because it was foreseeable, because it was unnecessary, because it was the result of willful and reckless disregard for the warnings that were given and for the fundamentals of economic management, I am voting against a debt limit increase.” Well, that must be from a tea party extremist member of the House, right? No. This is March 16, 2006, from Senator Joe Biden of Delaware.

“And last but not least, here's a quote from September 27 of 2007. It says, "I find it distasteful and disturbing to increase the debt limit yet again. Clearly we need to change course and this debt limit bill is just another reminder of that." And that is from the distinguished Senator from Nevada (Harry Reid), the majority leader. On that date in 2007.

“And yet now these same quotes in this context, what we're talking about raising the debt limit more than has ever been raised in one vote, is (rightwing/Tea Party) extremism? This name-calling is absurd and it sets this process back.

***

 “I am prepared to discuss the things that I believe we need to do not just to raise the debt limit. Raising the debt limit is the easiest thing. That's one vote away. The hard thing is to show the world we are serious about putting our spending in order so we can show people we'll able to pay our bills down the road.

“..... we need to do two things.

“Number one is we need to grow our economy because while the debt is the biggest issue in Washington, jobs are the biggest issue facing America. And if we could get more people back to work, we would have more people paying taxes, and if we had more people paying taxes, we'd have more revenue for government.

“And so that is the first thing we need to do, is figure out how to create jobs in America and I think there is bipartisan agreement on things we can do to do that.

“We've all talked about tax reform. Flattening and simplifying our tax code. And if there are things in that tax code that do not belong there because they are the product of good lobbying instead of good policy, then let's go after those things. We’ve talked about that. Let's talk about that.

***

“Compromise is fantastic.

“I would love nothing more than to leave this building tomorrow night having said the republic still works. I was able to stand shoulder to shoulder with people from states far from mine with views different from mine but who love their country so much that we were able to come together and save it when it faced this catastrophe.

“I would love nothing more than compromise. But I would say to you that compromise that's not a solution is a waste of time.

“If my house was on fire, I can't compromise about which part of the house I'm going to save. You save the whole house or it will all burn down.

“We either save this country or we do not.

“And to save it, we must seek solutions.”

Thanks for this video, Pris...important that we watch it and read the quotes above...and start to GET REAL.  Rubio's terrific;  I wish he'd run.
z

The Debt Ceiling.....so clearly described....

You'll understand so well the Debt Ceiling situation if you take the very few minutes to watch this excellent video on the subject:

I don't know, but it seems to me that the last thing I'd want to do is be in massive debt and call my credit card company to raise my limit. 

any thoughts?  (thanks for the video, Mustang)

Also, if you didn't read about a remarkable woman's funeral, below, please do; I think you'll be glad you did.I  hope so.  

z

Geithner's cell phone!? You'll enjoy Rich's column today...please take the time to read it, it's also pretty funny, as usual!

Check out the part in RED...I thought that exact thing but thought "Corruption can't run THAT deep"...apparently, I'm wrong if someone like Rich Galen writes this.




®
An American Cyber-Column
We're Taking Advice from Whom?

Rich Galen Friday July 15, 2011

Let me start by saying American should pay its debts. If the debts are really, really large - that's too bad. We owe the money and we have to pay it. We're the richest, most blessed nation in the history of the world and we have to pay what we owe.

Period.

If I had any clue as to how to come to an agreement between what President Obama can live with and what the Republican freshmen in the House will swallow, I'd be packing for a fun-filled weekend at Camp David.

I don't, so I'm not.

On Wednesday a company known as a ratings agency, Standard & Poor's, weighed in on this debt limit business by putting the whole U.S. of A. on what it calls a "credit watch."

If we slip into the Wayback Machine we will see that S&P along with its partner in crime, Moody's Investor Services, were two of the major players in pretending that all those securitized mortgage instruments that were being bought and sold up until the whole world went broke had "AAA" ratings even though they turned out to have the accumulated value of a bucket of beach sand.

Standard & Poor's either lied about the value of all those mortgages, or it didn't understand how to value them, or it did understand that they were worthless but it (and Moody's) collected fees from the geniuses who almost made our ATM cards as useful as baseball cards in our bicycle spokes.

I think they knew what they were looking at but chose not to share that information with their high-paying clients so those clients - the executives at the big investment banks - could sell those worthless instruments to their pals in London, Frankfort, Paris, and Beijing, collecting enormous fees and buying larger and larger houses in the Hamptons.

If I were in a position to do so, I would haul the heads of Moody's and S&P in front of Congress, make them swear to tell the truth, and ask them if they had any conversations with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner or any of his people prior to issuing this warning.

My strong suspicion is that the White House, looking for leverage, told Geithner to call his buds at Moody's and S&P and get them to issue a warning hoping it would weaken the resolve of Congressional Republicans.

Timothy Geithner, remember, was the Chairman of the New York Fed when everything was collapsing back in 2008. He apparently didn't have any idea that Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and all the others were selling tissue paper and calling it gold bullion based on the ratings of Moody's and S&P.

Naturally, we made him Secretary of the Treasury.

Another actor on the stage this week has been JP Morgan Chase, which also warned about the dire consequences of missing the debt ceiling deadline of August 2.

JP Morgan Chase, bought the investment bank Bear Stearns for about $2 per share after the Federal Reserve (remember that Geithner was New York Fed Chairman) agreed to finance the deal to the tune of $300 billion during the Wall Street panic in the Spring of 2008.

By the way, JP Morgan reported its quarterly earnings this week and - what's this? - its profits rose 13 percent to $5.4 billion up from a paltry $4.8 billion a year ago.

That, in spite of the fact that JP Morgan's chairman, Jamie Dimon warned that the company has"already incurred significant costs, charged-off substantial amounts, and established significant reserves for mortgage-related issues."

I wonder if he means the "mortgage-related issues" that Moody's and Standard & Poor's rated as high-quality, take-them-to-the, er bank, can't-go-wrong "mortgage-related issues."

Nevertheless, with those results JP Morgan's executives, managers, limo drivers, and corporate pilots will all get brand spanking new bonuses. Did I hear President Obama put them in the same list as oil companies and successful authors as organizations which should have their tax loopholes closed?

No? Maybe I was out sick that day.

I say we tax the hell out of anyone who has Timothy Geithner's personal cell phone number. (Z's favorite line in this piece)

I don't think we need Moody's, Standard & Poor's and their masters on Wall Street telling us what is good for us.

We already know that they have been very, very bad for us.

Z:  Rich is smart and watches things closely.........I found particularly interesting the JP Morgan Chase situation and absolutely agree that anybody with Geithner's cell phone should be taxed BIG TIME!
z

Tee for Two.......Obama and Biden are playing golf ...

....no, that's not the beginning of a joke!...........they're linking up to play golf Saturday.  HERE is the article on it and here are the parts I found interesting (in bold) and my comments:


WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama and Republican leader John Boehner will hit the golf course on Saturday with many hoping that over 18 holes they can knock Washington's troubled debt limit talks out of the rough.
Obama and Boehner, Speaker of the House of Representatives, will play golf together for the first time and discuss how to reach a deal to raise the country's $14.3 trillion debt limit by August 2 to avoid the first default in U.S. history.

So........that could be interesting, huh?  It gives Boehner and Biden's handicaps in the article...check it out.  And, the article says "Traditionally, out of respect to the commander-in-chief and his guests, the scores in a presidential golf match are not publicly disclosed."  bummer!

Under the bonhomie that will be on show during the game, the stakes could not be higher. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has warned that failure to raise the borrowing cap by August 2 will trigger turmoil in the bond markets and economic "catastrophe."

Except some people don't think so....but they don't add the alternate viewpoint here, of course.

The White House says no debt deal will be struck during the golf outing, but the subject will be broached.

Well, there goes that sense of optimism.......why bother to suggest that no deal will be struck?  What's the point of that? 

Boehner told reporters on June 1 that the White House rarely telephones him, while administration officials privately gripe that Boehner has refused invitations to state dinners.

That was my favorite part of the article......Boehner would like the White House to call him to try to get business done (as Speaker of the House, you'd think they might?) but the White House is griping he won't have dinner with them?  


Do you think this golf game could help? 

z

Harry Reid stoops to even newer lows.......

I watched Harry Reid this morning on CSPAN....did you know that "Republicans want to shut down government because they think there is nothing more important than preventing women from getting cancer screenings?"    Oh, Harry, THAT's why the Republicans WANT to shut down government...now we get it.  (sarcasm and repugnance huge here on my part)

And did you know that "This isn't about saving money any longer.  The Tea Party is trying to move its extreme social agenda to throw women under the bus"?  (I guess the Tea Partiers got that throwing under the bus thing from Obama's play book, huh?) :-)


“But Republicans are asking me to sacrifice my wife’s health, my daughter’s health and my nine granddaughters’ health. They’re asking me to sacrifice the health of women in Nevada and across America. I won’t do it.“  "As a legislator, I’m frustrated. And as an American, I’m appalled. As a husband, a father and a grandfather, I’m personally offended," whined Mr. Reid.

Z: I'm personally offended that the Democrats can't stop the exaggerations and fear mongering.  I am personally offended that the Democrats don't understand that we can't save money without tightening belts and actually denying some services.   How about denying them to illegals?   But, of course, how can the Left survive if not for making everyone, American and illegal, dependent on entitlements, freebies, the generosity of the Left's heart paid for by all of us?   Oh, and I'm also personally offended by having watched CNN this morning and see that they truly are, shamefully,  the media arm of the Democrat Party... We got news readers giving their opinions about the shut down, and Europe's, too!   On FOX we got the Left and Right discussing what's happening and how to avoid shut down or not, and why, and protecting our troops and ..........well, tell me again how FOX is biased and CNN is even handed, okay, lefties? :-)

If a family is faced with poverty, do they put food or flowers on the table?   
z

BUSINESS in America...does it have a future?

PLEASE listen to this because I shamelessly 'stole' it from my buddy Joe-Jo Politico and it'll help me feel less guilty since I know he knows this MUST BE SEEN by more and more Americans. Come to think of it, this could have been a very interesting SIXTY MINUTES or an interview with Matt Lauer on TODAY, huh? (as if the leftwing media would EVER do a piece about struggling American businessmen against raising taxes with proof of why that helps America succeed!)


Another thing not completely unrelated to the video was something Professor Heldman (the resident liberal prof from Occidental College on Hannity's show) said last night...she lamented that Americans are 'cleaning toilets and working up to 3 jobs and the lower classes like them, working THAT hard, show that our system is NOT MERITORIOUS!' I sat there numb, thinking "Wow, doesn't going to school, following the rules, working hard to succeed and running a dental office or law firm that employees 300 people count as MERITORIOUS?"
Then, in this excellent video, we see the perfect example of a guy whose merits and hard work should be paying off for him and our country but our government won't let him? Maybe they think his work isn't meritorious, either. Or they just plain don't want him to do well. It's hard to tell lately.
geeeeez

Limit the GOVERNMENT or Tax Increases?

I got this from Beamish's blog.............SO, what do you think?   Any arguments with this guy?  It's worth a listen......so simple...TOO simple?  Can't we start with 'simple' and go on from there with details, etc.?
geeeeeez