BS: Obama Goes For Broke

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Amos
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 11:23 PM

Seems so far the only serious counter-proposal from Limbaugh and his rotten ilk is lowering taxes on the wealthy and hoping for trickle-down.

The only trickle-down he's ever seen is his own incontinence.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 11:31 PM

I thought the Republican party was gone.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Sawzaw
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 11:51 PM

Well I don't see no hands up in the air with the answer.

I just need somebody to educate me on how Obama is going to collect an extra Trillion from the top 2% of tax payers to finance his socialist agenda.

It does not sound workable to me but I will remain open minded on the matter.

PS:

The DJI is now in the shitter due to Obama's Budget proposals.

It is back down to the Clinton era, pre dot com bubble levels.

Corporations will have to evacuate the US to make a profit and shift all their jobs offshore. This is because of a more favorable labor market (read non union) and lower corporate income tax rates.

November 15, 2005
The U.S. Corporate Income Tax System: Once a World Leader, Now A Millstone Around the Neck of American Business

by Chris Atkins and Scott A. Hodge

Special Report No. 136

Executive Summary
In the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA'86) the U.S. Congress lowered the top corporate income tax rate from 46 percent to 34 percent, the largest reduction since the tax was enacted in 1909. This change, along with an earlier move in the United Kingdom, started a wave of corporate income tax reduction worldwide.

One of the ironies of tax policy during the Bush presidency is that five years of tax-cutting legislation have left the corporate income tax rate unchanged. Meanwhile, another wave of corporate income tax reduction has swept around the world and is still underway. The United States is not the leader this time around. In fact, the U.S. is lagging behind and now has the highest combined statutory corporate income tax rate among OECD countries.

A review of corporate tax policies in the OECD countries reinforces a theme that is well developed in the economic literature: a nation will not attract new and expanded business and its attendant job creation if its corporate income tax is significantly higher than it is in comparable nations. Therefore, as the U.S. contemplates fundamental tax reform, one of the major goals should be a lower corporate income tax rate.

The President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform has done just that in its new report, but possibly with an overly modest rate cut. The panel suggested a 31.5 percent top rate in one plan and a 30 percent top rate in an alternative plan. Both plans would improve the U.S. worldwide ranking, but the U.S. would still be taxing corporate income at a rate well above the OECD average. Lawmakers should consider reducing the federal rate to 25 percent which, when coupled with state corporate income taxes, would almost bring the U.S. rate down to the OECD average of 29.2 percent.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: number 6
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 11:52 PM

Limbaugh .... didn't state he hoped Obama would fail .. he stated he hoped socialism would fail.

Conservatives (republicans) hate and fear socialism.

Lefties (democrats) hate and fear capitalism.

All in all things are just as polarized with the new power (machine) in Washington as it was before.

The war will continue. The crooks on wall street and the corporate board rooms will take as much as they can. The bureaucrats throughout the country will take as much as they can. The little working stiff loses in the long run.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 01:37 AM

Obama's tax policies could create an environment in which the presence of the large corporations becomes unnecessary for a strong healthy middle class in this country. Once employers are no longer depended on for their employees' access to health care, we will see a lot of growth in the number of successful small businesses in this country, and they will be much more competitive in the global economy. Obama's approach to the green economy will also help small businesses in this country. It's entirely possible that increasing the tax rate on large corporations could have no effect on employment in this country at all. A lot of those huge corporations aren't really paying any taxes anyway, with all of the loopholes and offshore tax havens they currently enjoy.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 06:03 AM

Of course. Although it remains ominous that while Obama is liberating things economically at home, he is really doing the same old stuff politically in the rest of the world -- bombing other countries, fighting for secrecy, etc.   

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 06:29 AM

I'm definitely concerned about the possibility that Obama will continue some of the imperialist foreign policies of past presidents. But under the surface of what appears to be his foreign policy stance, I see undercurrents of possible approaches that are at odds with what we have seen from past presidents. I'm watching what he and his people do very carefully, but at this time, I don't feel that I have a very complete picture of where he's headed with his foreign policy approach. I think it's going to take several months, at least, before I will feel that I have a good understanding of the relationship he is shaping for the US and the rest of the world.

One thing I am noticing is that he and his people are extremely adept at knowing where the levers and fulcrums are and knowing how to use them. And he seems to value an approach that I understand and use myself. When raising baby raccoons as a wildlife rehabilitation worker, I would observe in which corner the raccoons liked to do their business, and I would put the paper there, instead of deciding myself where I wanted them to go and trying to make them use that place. I find that using this approach is also very effective with people (obviously not the same exact circumstances, but the same basic approach). Obama and his people seem to like this approach as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 08:17 AM

Doesn't the Republican Boobocracy EVER get tired of spewing the bullshit that the graduated income tax- or for that matter, any progressive policies or whatsoever are socialism??

I know I'M tired od hearing it.

However, this this nonsense does mobilize their knuckledragger constituency to foam at the mouth ...

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:12 AM

Senator Byrd is just not up to making coherent comparisons between Rome and the American empire anymore so I will try to fill the bet I can.

President Obama has much the same challenge as did Octavian did as Ceasar of a divided Rome. The rich members of the Republic 'party' had soaked the people beyond all reasonable bounds. Octavian was a threat to the very rich depnding upon how he was going to help the people at the expense of the rich or even worse, rouse the people against the upper class. Octavian defended himself by the clever use of propoganda in the form of his image on coins and statue. His image was crafted to be almost demure in his pose of offering a hand to the poor while not being overly militaristic in his clothing.

Obama has to satisfy a similar two masters. It will be perilous especially when dealing with the current spokesman of the military industrial complex, Gates.

Obama's dilemma is not just that he is offending the plutocrats of the US financial sector, or that he faces Republican resistance in Congress, or that he's running headlong into the Right's potent media machine.

Obama also will have to take on key leaders of the US military. Part of this is his own fault for listening to centrist Democrats who urged him to retain President Bush's Defense Secretary Robert Gates, one of Obama's high-profile gestures of bipartisanship.

Though well-liked in Washington power circles – and possessing a disarming style – Gates has a history as a hawkish policymaker who will undercut a President he sees as going soft. As a young CIA officer, Gates was linked to the behind-the-scenes sabotage of Carter in 1980. [See Parry's Secrecy & Privilege, or Consortiumnews.com's "The Secret World of Robert Gates."]

When Bush nominated Gates to replace Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in November 2006, Official Washington (and many Democrats) assumed that the move meant that Bush was adopting a more pragmatic approach to Iraq and would soon begin a phased withdrawal.

Gates has caused Obama to break with his planned quick withdrawl from Iraq and has even promised an expanded land war in southern Asia / Pashtoonistan / Afghanistan / Pakistan.

How cleverly Barak can navigate around these great forces while restoring some stability to the people of the United States will rely on circumstances and providence. A quick fake and move to the inside, as he does in basketball will serve him well.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Amos
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:24 AM

IF Obama really wanted to cut to the quick of our festering national disarray, he would nationalize the banks and castrate their ability to invent money out of whole cloth, reserving that right solely to the Federal government. This would suddenly and sharply apply the brakes to the catastrophic exponential growth path of the money supply as a function of debt, and put it on the path back to being the index of stored value it used to be.

This single mechanism would suddenly stop the treadmill, and require a conscientiius re-evaluation of policies andbusiness models throughout the banking industry. Not such a bad idea. But...screams? Oh, they would be world-class!! Probably result in a whole flock of hit-men showing up in DC.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:28 AM

While as a northern Druid I am an ardent proponent of the Rome=America analogy, and the imperial presidency, there are some issues here. Octavian -- when he became Augustus -- could have killed anyone in Rome he wanted to, and burned the place down.   He decided to back off a little, but no one with any brains ever really tested him.   

The great problem which Octavian and everyone else had to wrestle with was the grim fact that the expansion of Rome into a colonial power, and its total reliance on African grain, completely corrupted Roman politics. The huge amounts of money that corrupted the political system and made the rich obscenely rich was a structural problem no one could dea with -- change the name from grain to oil, and you have the exact same problem.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: DougR
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 12:01 PM

"Obama Goes For Broke." An understatement if I ever heard one. Trouble is WE are the ones who will be broke due to his "enlightened" "progressive" economic policies.

I do believe, however, that the the thinking portion of our population is beginning to wake up. Obama's approval ratings are beginning to slide and I have little doubt he may succeed in breaking GWB's lowest ranking by year's end.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 12:03 PM

"The DJI is now in the shitter due to Obama's Budget proposals."

I'm growing increasingly amazed at the level of mental acuity of those who keep saying that Obama is to blame for the big pile of steaming poop that the Republicans left on the national carpet.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: GUEST,number 6
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 12:16 PM

Obama ... first he was the new Kennedy, then the new FDR, and then further back inot history as the new Lincoln ... and now he's the new Octavian.

Good grief ... think I'll go out now and scrape ice off of my driveway.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Amos
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 12:21 PM

His approval ratings are at 62.6% as of March 1. Your boy? SOuth of 28% last I saw. Gee. Maybe DOugR is projecting.




A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 12:39 PM

Maybe DougR is an irrelevant inanity.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 12:51 PM

The person who is predicting that Obama's approval ratings will break GW's record low approval ratings by the end of the year is the same person who guaranteed us that we would not attack and invade Iraq. Not the best track record for predictions.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 01:44 PM

There is no chance Obama's rating will go that low, unless he turns out to be Osama Bin Laden in cunning disguise.   People realized that Bush was an idiot and completely out of touch with reality. It took them a long time, but they figured it out eventually.

Obama's personality is quite different: he is sane and reasonably in touch with reality. People may not like what he does, but they will give him a lot of mistake room.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 01:50 PM

Wishful thinking from the Right. Ain't gonna happen.

I think the Right is scared spitless that Obama is going to pull it off and get the country back on track again. By instituting, or reestablishing badly needed reforms and regulations that they regard as "socialistic." The ones Reagan got rid of, setting the scene for the mess we're now in.

It's all happened before. FDR in the Thirties. Hated and reviled by the Right. But he did institute the regulations and programs that went a long way toward pulling the country out of the Depression, and the Republicans have been smarting ever since.

Until Reagan screwed it up and put the foxes in charge of the chicken coop.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Amos
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 02:51 PM

Limbaugh .... didn't state he hoped Obama would fail .. he stated he hoped socialism would fail.

Umm, I think his exact line was "I hope he fails.", Bill.


Limbaugh spouts platitudes about loving people and America, but when you watch his actual attitudes he drips a very nasty brand of hatred from his enlarged pores.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Sawzaw
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 03:08 PM

our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened

FDR's policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate

Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt. After scrutinizing Roosevelt's record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years. "Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump," said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA's Department of Economics. "We found that a relapse isn't likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies."

In an article in the August issue of the Journal of Political Economy, Ohanian and Cole blame specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures that Roosevelt promoted and signed into law June 16, 1933.
"President Roosevelt believed that excessive competition was responsible for the Depression by reducing prices and wages, and by extension reducing employment and demand for goods and services," said Cole, also a UCLA professor of economics. "So he came up with a recovery package that would be unimaginable today, allowing businesses in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above where they ought to have been, given market forces. The economy was poised for a beautiful recovery, but that recovery was stalled by these misguided policies."

Using data collected in 1929 by the Conference Board and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Cole and Ohanian were able to establish average wages and prices across a range of industries just prior to the Depression. By adjusting for annual increases in productivity, they were able to use the 1929 benchmark to figure out what prices and wages would have been during every year of the Depression had Roosevelt's policies not gone into effect. They then compared those figures with actual prices and wages as reflected in the Conference Board data. In the three years following the implementation of Roosevelt's policies, wages in 11 key industries averaged 25 percent higher than they otherwise would have done, the economists calculate. But unemployment was also 25 percent higher than it should have been, given gains in productivity.

Meanwhile, prices across 19 industries averaged 23 percent above where they should have been, given the state of the economy. With goods and services that much harder for consumers to afford, demand stalled and the gross national product floundered at 27 percent below where it otherwise might have been. "High wages and high prices in an economic slump run contrary to everything we know about market forces in economic downturns," Ohanian said. "As we've seen in the past several years, salaries and prices fall when unemployment is high. By artificially inflating both, the New Deal policies short-circuited the market's self-correcting forces."

The policies were contained in the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which exempted industries from antitrust prosecution if they agreed to enter into collective bargaining agreements that significantly raised wages. Because protection from antitrust prosecution all but ensured higher prices for goods and services, a wide range of industries took the bait, Cole and Ohanian found. By 1934 more than 500 industries, which accounted for nearly 80 percent of private, non-agricultural employment, had entered into the collective bargaining agreements called for under NIRA.

Cole and Ohanian calculate that NIRA and its aftermath account for 60 percent of the weak recovery. Without the policies, they contend that the Depression would have ended in 1936 instead of the year when they believe the slump actually ended: 1943. Roosevelt's role in lifting the nation out of the Great Depression has been so revered that Time magazine readers cited it in 1999 when naming him the 20th century's second-most influential figure. "This is exciting and valuable research," said Robert E. Lucas Jr., the 1995 Nobel Laureate in economics, and the John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. "The prevention and cure of depressions is a central mission of macroeconomics, and if we can't understand what happened in the 1930s, how can we be sure it won't happen again?"

NIRA's role in prolonging the Depression has not been more closely scrutinized because the Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional within two years of its passage. "Historians have assumed that the policies didn't have an impact because they were too short-lived, but the proof is in the pudding," Ohanian said. "We show that they really did artificially inflate wages and prices." Even after being deemed unconstitutional, Roosevelt's anti-competition policies persisted — albeit under a different guise, the scholars found. Ohanian and Cole painstakingly documented the extent to which the Roosevelt administration looked the other way as industries once protected by NIRA continued to engage in price-fixing practices for four more years.

The number of antitrust cases brought by the Department of Justice fell from an average of 12.5 cases per year during the 1920s to an average of 6.5 cases per year from 1935 to 1938, the scholars found. Collusion had become so widespread that one Department of Interior official complained of receiving identical bids from a protected industry (steel) on 257 different occasions between mid-1935 and mid-1936. The bids were not only identical but also 50 percent higher than foreign steel prices. Without competition, wholesale prices remained inflated, averaging 14 percent higher than they would have been without the troublesome practices, the UCLA economists calculate.

NIRA's labor provisions, meanwhile, were strengthened in the National Relations Act, signed into law in 1935. As union membership doubled, so did labor's bargaining power, rising from 14 million strike days in 1936 to about 28 million in 1937. By 1939 wages in protected industries remained 24 percent to 33 percent above where they should have been, based on 1929 figures, Cole and Ohanian calculate. Unemployment persisted. By 1939 the U.S. unemployment rate was 17.2 percent, down somewhat from its 1933 peak of 24.9 percent but still remarkably high. By comparison, in May 2003, the unemployment rate of 6.1 percent was the highest in nine years.

Recovery came only after the Department of Justice dramatically stepped enforcement of antitrust cases nearly four-fold and organized labor suffered a string of setbacks, the economists found. "The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes," Cole said. "Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened."

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: GUEST,number 6
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 03:18 PM

Amos ... what I'm trying to say is the right (republicans) want to see socialism fail ... just as the left (democrats) wanted to see the republicans fail ... our team has the right answer, while the other team is all wrong, way wrong .... god forbid the other team win.

In my stage in life right now I have become disillusioned with politics ... much the same way I have with religeon.

What the answer is I don't know. I feel no one really knows. All I can say is that there is a problem and we all have to come together to remedy it one way or another and no one has the answer, no one can find the way ... unfortunately.

Just my opinion ... for what it's worth.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 03:19 PM

Yes the banks will be nationalized. Right now the delay is allowing all bank shareholders to get as much of their money out as possible.

The current stress test of banks is minimal but revealing enough to nationalize target banks as soon as possible. The longer we wait the worse it gets.

We need to bring back the seperation of investment banks and holding banks forever.

Check out the IMF or the Peterson Institute for more info.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 04:16 PM

Japan's failure to nationalize its banks extended their depression for 10 years !!!!!!!!

They called them zombie banks.

Too weak to function but propped up to mimic being alive.

Rush Limbaugh is the crude mouthpiece of the 1% ruling class to dupe the unwashed masses to allow the super rich to have a working majority in areas where money alone won;t buy influence.

Lets paint a picture of what the failure Limbaugh speaks of would look like.

The empty homes we see today would triple in number. For those who still own the empty delapited homes they would burn them to the ground rather than pay fines to the State.

The people who lived in those homes would seek relatives to stay with. Doemstic violence understandably would double.
The tidal wave of homeless children now attending California schools would be seen coast to coast with small exceptions in Conn. and elsewhere.

Hunger and the failure of transportation of food and resources would create new gangs of organized crime and shanty towns. The migration of city folk would be seen as invasion by many of the gun worshipping Chritians enclaves in the country. The charity one would hope for would not be as ubiquitous as one would hope.

Without the stimulous plan it would be difficult to live on our present crumbling infrastructure. It would be hard to keep schools and govement buildings open for a multitude of civic uses during times of coming natural disasters and tending to varying migrations of a new class of well to do homeless people.
Its not a pretty picture.


The BANKS have misbehaved and gambled on a criminal form of super capitalism fow which we must pay. They arrogantly pay bonuses toi the crooks who failed us all. Banks have always had that unique property of being both private and national institutions because they will always get bailed out by the country they are in.

Sweden had to nationalize and take these banks away from their well intentioned but failed owners. Our brand of banking families were much less well intentioned.



I have little doubt that Limbaugh will be able to foment a violence against nationalizing the banks who sponsor his "conservative" crusade at the cost of many lives and fortunes. On one hand the longer we wait to natioanlize banks the worse it gets. And if if we don;t we will be in a 10 to 15 year hole like Japan suffered. No growth, no capital, no doemstic innovation on any large scale...

No one who apologizes to Rush for any critisism is apologizing to Limbaugh...they are apologizing to the banks.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 04:21 PM

btw, As one could research, I predicted the Dow will bottom out at or near 4500 and not the 7000 that thetalking heads a year ago tried to sell.

Don;t misunderstand me, The free market is great and valuable to us all. THe way to get it back is a bitter pill for the swindling rich to swallow. They Re not used to not getting their way, let alone punishment and losing their banks.

Rest assured that ownership of some banks by the goverment would only be several days, long einugh to seperate the commercially viable parts to be sold privately and the toxic parts to be quarantined.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: akenaton
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 04:32 PM

hmmm.....I'm afraid most of us were swingers when the good times rolled. In the UK we watched the price of our houses double in a couple of years, nobody but the anarchists and commies cared about anything but gettin' rich, so don't blame it all on a few fat cats.

The hard part, is in convincing people that it is inevitable and desirable that we become less prosperous, less wasteful, less envious, we must become "non consumers"

Our lifestyle has become a sick wasteful joke, but we continue to live it because the system says we must....that there is no alternative.
Well for you and I there is an alternative, but for the system there is none....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 04:46 PM

FWlittleIW I believe everything on Donuel's three-poster, above (and akenaton's too.)

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: DougR
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 04:59 PM

Let's check back a year from now and see who is the better predictor.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Sawzaw
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 05:24 PM

"Dow will bottom out at or near 4500"

But

Obama said that the market is down so low that it's near the point where buying some stock "is potentially a good deal."

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Amos
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 05:32 PM

Potentially, yes; but a lot of burned chilluns is shunning the fire.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 05:41 PM

Beginning to look like a swing to the Republicans in 2012.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 05:52 PM

I think the people who are putting the word out to their followers that Obama's approval numbers are going to tank worse than W's by the end of the year are planning to try to make that happen by sabotaging Obama every step of the way. I think such tactics will backfire.

I'll put a tracer on this thread and we can all meet here at the end of the year and see if anyone shows up to admit they were wrong. I predict that the one who is predicting such low approval numbers for Obama will not come back to this thread to eat crow if they turn out to be wrong in their prediction.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 06:07 PM

PRINCETON, NJ -- In the days immediately after Barack Obama's nationally televised address to Congress on Tuesday night, his public support has increased significantly to 67% in Feb. 24-26 Gallup Daily polling, and is now just two points below his term high. This comes on the heels of a term-low 59% reported by Gallup on Tuesday.

Obama's speech was well-received, and appears to have won him back support he had been losing in prior days, and then some.

The speech certainly came at an opportune time for Obama, but a recovery was easily achievable because the decline in his approval rating was accompanied by an increase in the percentage of Americans expressing no opinion, rather than an increase in the proportion disapproving of his performance in office.

Since the speech, the percentage having no opinion of Obama has fallen back to 11% from 16%, while his approval rating has increased eight points. There has been a slight drop in his disapproval rating as well, from 25% to 21%.

Obama's approval rebound is due to increased support from all political groups, but especially from independents and Republicans, whose support had been waning. Over the past week, independents' approval of Obama dropped from 62% to 54%, but is now back to 62%. There has been a sharp increase in support among Republicans, from 27% to 42%. Democrats' support for Obama was already extremely high at 86%, but even this has climbed slightly, to 90% in the latest polling.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/116224/Obama-Approval-Rating-Increases.aspx

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 06:24 PM

Sawz, you can quote armchair and ivory tower economists until hell freezes over, but I'm a fairly old geezer and I was there at the time. Yes, I was a kid, and there was a lot going on around me that I didn't understand, but there was a lot I did understand, and understood even better later on.

I do know that a lot of people—friends of the family, relatives, neighbors—were out of work, including my father. The WPA (Works Projects Administration) put a lot of those people to work building roads, bridges, and infrastructure in general (which we are still using today), including my father, who was supporting a wife and three kids. That "pick and shovel" job that my father was able to get because of the WPA paid the rent and fed the family. Like I say, I was there. The CCC (The Civilian Conservation Corp, another New Deal program) put a lot of college age people with no job prospects to work developing national and local parks (which we are still enjoying today) and allowed them to earn enough money to go on to college if they chose to.

I remember a lot of Republicans were pissing and moaning about Roosevelt "wasting money on these 'make work' programs," but these programs did make work for a large segment of the people who, otherwise, would be standing in bread lines. 25% unemployment, until Roosevelt's New Deal programs kicked in.

What was "reducing employment and demand for goods and services" was that those millions of unemployed didn't have any money to buy goods and services with. Once people had money to spend as a result of Roosevelt's New Deal programs, the economy started to pick up again, factories started hiring, and the Depression slid into the annals of history.

Simple common sense!

Until Reagan and the Right Wing-nuts thought it would be nice to renew it by turning the foxes loose again and put the regulatory agencies that Roosevelt instituted, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, in the Dumpster by allowing it and similar agencies to staff themselves with the very people they were supposed to oversee and regulate.

The idea that "the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years" is simply not true, as anyone old enough to remember or who has studied a bit of recent history, knows. Look up what happened when, and then do the arithmetic. Fifteen years? No way! Look it up in reliable sources, don't just take Rush Limbaugh's word for it.

Or Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian. Professorships notwithstanding, they are generally regarded by other economist as the Right-Wing Beavis and Butthead of economic theory

Here, Sawz, let me help. Read THIS.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 06:32 PM

Here is one video of Limbaugh saying he wants Obama to fail. Keep in mind this is not the first instance of it- in this one he is covering his spoor.

By the way, I've watched several YouTubed Limbaughs now - want to bet he is not on some kind of chemically induced high? I know that is crass and cruel of me but... Take a look.

Limbaugh in Action

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 08:17 PM

I was there too. The depression lasted from 1929 until at least 1940 (unemployment rate still 17 per cent.), when the build-up to WW2 started industry going again despite Roosevelt's policies. For me, that was from age six to 17. Outside of industry concentrations it lasted longer, but it was at least ten years. Roosevelt's anti-competition stance and widespread price-fixing led to stagnation, even though NIRA was declared unconstitutional.

Would recovery from the current bust be more rapid without government intervention? We can only guess. EU countries, Japan and others besides the U. S. are pouring money into the hole, but the stance is protectionist and probably wasted.

This release from UCLA, Cole (of Penn State) and Ohanian of UCLA, is worth reading. "FDR's Policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate."
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.apx

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 08:27 PM

Sure, and JFK was killed by the CIA.

This ridiculous article has been circulating as if it meant something. If you bought it, then the whole point of the article still is that massive government spending (known as World War II) pulled America out of the recession. Either FDR spent or World War II spent. Which is it? In either case it wasn't purist capitalism.

So. You believe in massive governnment intervention.


yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 08:53 PM

Yeah, that sums it up...

Recovery = Spending

Doesn't much matter if its guns, butter or porkbellies, the money gets out there...

The US is cash starpped right now... Does that mean that we are lacking for dollars??? No... It means that too many rich people are sitting on it... That takes cash outta circulation... If GNP is a based on multiplicty of dallars being spend and you take alot of dollars out of circulation then ***this*** is what you get...

Ain't rocket surgery...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Amos
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 08:58 PM

WASHINGTON - After Barack Obama's first six weeks as president, the American public's attitudes about the two political parties couldn't be more different, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds.

Despite the country's struggling economy and vocal opposition to some of his policies, President Obama's favorability rating is at an all-time high. Two-thirds feel hopeful about his leadership and six in 10 approve of the job he's doing in the White House.

"What is amazing here is how much political capital Obama has spent in the first six weeks," said Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. "And against that, he stands at the end of this six weeks with as much or more capital in the bank."

By comparison, the Republican Party — which resisted Obama's recently passed stimulus plan and has criticized the spending in his budget — finds its favorability at an all-time low. It also receives most of the blame for the current partisanship in Washington and trails the Democrats by nearly 30 percentage points on the question of which party could best lead the nation out of recession. ...()MSNBC)

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 10:02 PM

Here's an example of the economic stimulus bill doing what it was designed to do...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/29473355#29473355


As more and more things like this happen, more and more people will benefit from the stimulus bill, and so will the economy. We are in a pivotal time right now, in which the old way of doing things is falling away, and the new way of doing things is rising up to take the place of the old way. It's scary and/or distasteful for those who are wedded to the old way of doing things, but as they used to say back in the '60s, you can't stand in the way of progress.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 10:05 PM

By the way, if people want to know what to invest in at this time, green technology is probably one of the safer bets.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Ref
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 10:11 PM

Let me point out that Obama's lowest point is way higher than Bush's average. Wealthy pundits and rich corporate media owners don't like getting their taxes raised to a fair level, so we're bombarded with dire warnings. Working Americans have a pretty good idea what's really going on.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: number 6
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 10:43 PM

MSNBC is to the Democrats as FOX NEWS is to the Republicans.

Of course the NBC stats will be a bit in on the upside in regards to Obama .... and Fox, well of course we know what their stats will tell ya.

Anyway ....

Do not put your faith in what statistics say until you have carefully considered what they do not say. ~William W. Watt

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:06 PM

If you have 10 years to wait there are some stock that could be bought today at what will one day be called a bargain. But for my money, which is currently 0, The ultimate bargains will be below 5,000.

Beware of wooden nickels and GM stock.

The companies I would like to invest in are all privately owned or in an exclusive consortium. Companies like advanced solar cell plastic roofing sheets.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:11 PM

Sitting there goggle-eyed in our living room and listening to the grown-ups talk, and comparing that with now, it all sounds a bit familiar. Those who advocated voting Republican kept talking about "wasteful spending" and predicting economic collapse (what did they think had just happened!??). The country was doomed! Those who voted for yet another term for Roosevelt had a pretty optimistic outlook, based on the fact that they were now working and making a living again as a direct result of Roosevelt's programs. Not just WPA jobs. The economy was turning around as Roosevelt said it would, and there were jobs to be had again.

When I heard Obama's inaugural speech, I also heard echoes of FDR's "fireside chats." It sounded to me (and still does) that now the country has a President.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:29 PM

Gwen Ifill on 'Newshour with Jim Lehrer' tonight interviewed two Republican figures to explore the current divisions in the GOP. Her questions boiled down to 'Who is speaking for your party: Rush Limbaugh or Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele? (Steele yesterday disavowed Limbaugh as a voice for the Party, saying tha he was "an entertainer, incendiary, yes, ugly, yes - but an entertainer." Today he apologized to Limbaugh.)

The two Republicans tonight were a former Representative and Grover Norquist, more conservaative a Republican than whom you will not find.

But Norquist said an astonishing thing that expleains to me a great deal about the Republican party and Republicans in general. It may even adequately explain the Mudcat's handful of Republican Conservatives.

Having been asked by Ifill what the Republican Party shoud do first to mend its tattered presence, Norquist said: Well, being free from the last 8 years and no longer having to defend the indefensible..."

Does being Republican these days literally require you to lay your honesty -your very honor - aside?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:36 PM

Olbermann said tonight something along the lines of, how can they stand up to the likes of Al Qaeda if they can't even stand up to Rush Limbaugh?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:48 PM

I suspect that it is because down deep inside they are that simplistic and they like and admire him; they feel he speaks the truth that they don't have the courage to display.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Mar 09 - 12:22 AM

I think he was talking about the ones who criticize him and then back down and kiss his arse when he threatens them. I laughed when he said it.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Goes For Broke
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 04 Mar 09 - 12:49 AM

Not that this matters, but some people on here are full of it!

NYTimes.
Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending
By STEVEN A. HOLMES
Published: Thursday, September 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.

Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990's. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.

In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent.

Despite these gains, home ownership rates for minorities continue to lag behind non-Hispanic whites, in part because blacks and Hispanics in particular tend to have on average worse credit ratings.

In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.

The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants.