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	<title>Our Changing Globe &#187; stimulus</title>
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		<title>Twenty Questions Obama Needs To Answer</title>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:59:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Redbourn</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Obamanomics vs. Reaganomics: Destroying the lies about trickle &#8230; dancingczars.wordpress.com2/7/12 This entry was posted in Obamanomics vs. Reaganomics: Destroying the lies about trickle down economics and tagged conservative blog netowrk, Progressives are economic morons, Socialism doesn&#39;t, Trickle down works. Another Record for Obamanomics &#124; Wizbang wizbangblog.com2/3/12 Another Record for Obamanomics. February 3, 2012 &#124; Filed [...]
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<p><strong><a href='http://dancingczars.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/obamanomics-vs-reaganomics-destroying-the-lies-about-trickle-down-economics/'><b>Obamanomics</b> vs. Reaganomics: Destroying the lies about trickle <b>&#8230;</b></a></strong></p>
<p><img style='vertical-align: middle' src='http://g.etfv.co/http://dancingczars.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/obamanomics-vs-reaganomics-destroying-the-lies-about-trickle-down-economics/' /><span style= 'padding-left:10px'><a href='http://dancingczars.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/obamanomics-vs-reaganomics-destroying-the-lies-about-trickle-down-economics/'>dancingczars.wordpress.com</a></span><span style='padding-left:10px'>2/7/12</span></p>
<p>This entry was posted in <em>Obamanomics</em> vs. Reaganomics: Destroying the lies about trickle down economics and tagged conservative blog netowrk, Progressives are economic morons, Socialism doesn&#39;t, Trickle down works.</p>
<p><strong><a href='http://wizbangblog.com/2012/02/03/another-record-for-obamanomics/'>Another Record for <b>Obamanomics</b> | Wizbang</a></strong></p>
<p><img style='vertical-align: middle' src='http://g.etfv.co/http://wizbangblog.com/2012/02/03/another-record-for-obamanomics/' /><span style= 'padding-left:10px'><a href='http://wizbangblog.com/2012/02/03/another-record-for-obamanomics/'>wizbangblog.com</a></span><span style='padding-left:10px'>2/3/12</span></p>
<p>Another Record for <em>Obamanomics</em>. February 3, 2012 | Filed under Economics,Employment | Posted by Rodney Graves. And like all such records, it&#39;s not one that&#39;s doing the nation a damn bit of good.</p>
<hr />
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/obamanomics.jpg" target="_blank"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-5477" style="margin: 10px;" title="small-obamanomics" src="http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/small-obamanomics.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="240" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>President Obama has frequently justified his policies and judged their outcomes in terms of equity, justice and fairness. </p>
<p>All of which begs an obvious question,</p>
<p>How does our existing system and his own policy record stack up according to those criteria?</p>
<p style="clear: left;">
<p>1) Is it fair that the richest 1% of Americans pay nearly 40% of all federal income taxes, and the richest 10% pay two-thirds of the tax?</p>
<p>2) Is it fair that the richest 10% of Americans shoulder a higher share of their country&#8217;s income tax burden than do the richest 10% in every other industrialized nation, including socialist Sweden?</p>
<p>3) Is it fair that American corporations pay the highest statutory corporate tax rate of all other industrialized nations but Japan, which cuts its rate on April 1?</p>
<p>4) Is it fair that President Obama sends his two daughters to elite private schools that are safer, better-run, and produce higher test scores than public schools in Washington, D.C. while millions of other families across America are denied that free choice and are forced to send their kids to second-rate schools?</p>
<p>5) Is it fair that Americans who build a family business, hire workers, reinvest and save their money&mdash;paying a lifetime of federal, state and local taxes often climbing into the millions of dollars must then pay an additional estate tax of 35% (and up to 55% when the law changes next year) when they die, rather than passing that money onto their loved ones?</p>
<p>6) Is it fair that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, former Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel and other leading Democrats who preach tax fairness underpaid their own taxes?</p>
<p>7) Is it fair that after the first three years of Obamanomics that the poor are poorer, that the poverty rate is rising, that the middle class is losing income, and some 5.5 million fewer Americans have jobs today than in 2007?</p>
<p><i>8</i>) Is it fair that roughly 88% of political contributions from supposedly impartial network television reporters, producers and other employees in 2008 went to Democrats?</p>
<p>9) Is it fair that the three counties with America&#8217;s highest median family income just happen to be located in the Washington, D.C., metro area?</p>
<p>10) Is it fair that wind, solar and ethanol producers get billions of dollars of subsidies each year and pay virtually no taxes, while the oil and gas industry which provides at least 10 times as much energy pays tens of billions of dollars of taxes while the president complains that it is &quot;subsidized&quot;?</p>
<p>11) Is it fair that those who work full-time jobs, and sometimes more than one in order to make ends meet have to pay taxes to support up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits for those who don&#8217;t work?</p>
<p>12 Is it fair that those who took out responsible mortgages and pay them each month have to see their tax dollars used to subsidize those who acted recklessly, greedily and sometimes deceitfully in taking out mortgages they now can&#8217;t afford to repay?</p>
<p>13) Is it fair that thousands of workers won&#8217;t have jobs because the president sided with environmentalists and blocked the shovel-ready Keystone XL oil pipeline?</p>
<p>14) Is it fair that some of Mr. Obama&#8217;s largest campaign contributors received federal loan guarantees on their investments in renewable energy projects that went bust?</p>
<p>15) Is it fair that federal employees receive benefits that are nearly 50% higher than those of private-sector workers whose taxes pay their salaries, according to the Congressional Budget Office?</p>
<p>16) Is it fair that soon almost half the federal budget will take income from young working people and redistribute it to old non-working people, even though those over age 65 are already among the wealthiest Americans?</p>
<p>17) Is it fair that in 27 states workers can be compelled to join a union in order to keep their jobs?</p>
<p><i>18</i>) Is it fair that nearly four out of 10 American households now pay no federal income tax at all, and is a number that has risen every year under Mr. Obama?</p>
<p>19) Is it fair that Boeing, which is a private company, was threatened by a federal agency when it sought to add jobs in a right-to-work state rather than in a forced-union state?</p>
<p>20) Is it fair that our kids and grandstands and great-grand-kids who never voted for Mr. Obama will have to pay off the $5 trillion of debt accumulated over the past four years, without any benefits to them?</p>
<h3>What do you think? Was it fair?</h3>
<p>Related posts:<ol>
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		<title>US Watchdog Say Taxpayers Still Owed $132.9 Billion From Bailouts</title>
		<link>http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/taxpayers-still-owed-132-9b-from-financial-bailout/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=taxpayers-still-owed-132-9b-from-financial-bailout</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:35:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Redbourn</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Bailed-Out Companies Pressured TARP Pay Czar To Keep &#8230; www.huffingtonpost.com1/24/12 The official overseeing executive pay for bailout firms limited cash compensation and made some reductions in pay, but still approved compensation packages in the millions, the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) inspector general said in the report. Former U.S. pay &#8230; In Mexico in the [...]
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<p><strong><a href='http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/tarp-executive-pay_n_1226485.html'>Bailed-Out Companies Pressured <b>TARP</b> Pay Czar To Keep <b>&#8230;</b></a></strong></p>
<p><img style='vertical-align: middle' src='http://g.etfv.co/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/tarp-executive-pay_n_1226485.html' /><span style= 'padding-left:10px'><a href='http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/tarp-executive-pay_n_1226485.html'>www.huffingtonpost.com</a></span><span style='padding-left:10px'>1/24/12</span></p>
<p>The official overseeing executive pay for bailout firms limited cash compensation and made some reductions in pay, but still approved compensation packages in the millions, the <em>TARP</em> (Troubled Asset Relief Program) inspector general said in the report. Former U.S. pay <b>&#8230;</b> In Mexico in the mid-&#39;90s Wall Street engineered a currency coup that tripled the debt <em>owed</em> by small businesses and family farms and also allowed for them to be massively ratejacked on top of it.</p>
<p><strong><a href='http://www.nndcpa.com/nndblog1/2012/01/26/taxpayers-still-on-the-hook-for-133b-from-bailouts/'>Taxpayers Still on the Hook for $133B from Bailouts | Nanavaty <b>&#8230;</b></a></strong></p>
<p><img style='vertical-align: middle' src='http://g.etfv.co/http://www.nndcpa.com/nndblog1/2012/01/26/taxpayers-still-on-the-hook-for-133b-from-bailouts/' /><span style= 'padding-left:10px'><a href='http://www.nndcpa.com/nndblog1/2012/01/26/taxpayers-still-on-the-hook-for-133b-from-bailouts/'>www.nndcpa.com</a></span><span style='padding-left:10px'>1/26/12</span></p>
<p>The federal overseer of the government&#39;s bank bailout program says taxpayers are still <em>owed</em> $132.9 billion on investments in 458 bailed-out banks and companies, including failed insurer American International Group (AIG: 25.31, 0.00, 0.00%), General Motors (GM: 25.08, <b>&#8230;</b> SIGTARP now warns <em>TARP</em> could be cemented in the government&#39;s architecture as a permanent bailout program, even though the public initially “perceived <em>TARP</em> as primarily a bank bailout.” <b>&#8230;</b></p>
<hr />
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/wasted-money.jpg"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-5274" style="margin: 10px;" title="wasted-money" src="http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/wasted-money.jpg" alt="Taxpayers Still Owed $132.9B From Financial Bailout" width="220" height="220" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Government watchdog Christy Romero says that U.S. taxpayers are still owed $132.9 billion by companies that received bailouts, and adds that much of it will never be recovered.</p>
<h3>TARP &#8211; Troubled Asset Relief Program</h3>
<p>The bailout debt which was launched at the height of the financial crisis in September 2008 will continue for years, says a report issued Thursday January 26, 2012 by Christy Romero, who is the acting special inspector general for the $700 billion bailout. </p>
<p style="clear: right;">
<p>What&#8217;s worse is that some bailout programs, such as the one to help homeowners avoid foreclosure by reducing mortgage payments, will continue into late 2017, and they will cost the government an additional $51 billion, plus or minus a few billion dollars.</p>
<p>The report also notes that the roller coaster stock market slowed the Treasury Department&#8217;s efforts to sell off its stakes in 458 bailed-out companies, which include insurers, American International Group Inc., General Motors Co. and Ally Financial Inc.</p>
<h3>The Present Share Prices And Needed Share Prices</h3>
<p>AIG&#8217;s shares closed Wednesday at $25.31, while GM ended at $24.92 and Ally isn&#8217;t publicly traded.</p>
<p>They were $28.73 a share for AIG, and $53.98 for GM so it could take a long time for the market to rebound to that level.</p>
<p>The report concludes that it will also be challenging for the government to get out of the 458 companies as the market remains volatile and banks struggle keep afloat in the tough economy.</p>
<h3>The Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP</h3>
<p>Congress authorized $700 billion for the bailout of financial companies and automakers and $413.4 billion was paid out. </p>
<p>So far, the government has recovered about $318 billion.</p>
<h3>The Treasury&#8217;s Response</h3>
<p>Treasury spokesman Matt Anderson said the department,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>&quot;has made substantial progress winding down TARP and has already recovered more than 77% of the funds disbursed for the program, through repayments and other income&quot;.</p>
<p>&quot;We&#8217;ll continue to balance the important goals of exiting our investments as soon as practicable and maximizing value for taxpayers&quot;.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To be fair however, it needs be said that the government has recovered its investments in four of the companies that received the most aid: </p>
<p>Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Chrysler Group LLC and Chrysler Financial, which is the automaker&#8217;s old lending arm.</p>
<h3>Criminal Activity</h3>
<p>In Romero&#8217;s quarterly report to Congress, she said her office,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>&quot;has uncovered and prevented fraud related to TARP&quot;. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Investigations by her office have resulted in criminal charges against ten people and three convictions.</p>
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		<title>More Than Eighty Reasons Why Obama Shouldn&#8217;t Be Reelected!</title>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 17 Nov 2011 19:51:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Redbourn</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Daily Kos: What I said to Joe Biden and the Obama re-election &#8230; www.dailykos.com11/19/11 In the past two days I have received emails from Joe Biden and Jim Messina of the Obama re-election committee asking me to contribute and become active in the re-election effort. I support President Obama (in 2008 and will &#8230; Mitt [...]
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<p><strong><a href='http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/19/1038201/-What-I-said-to-Joe-Biden-and-the-Obama-re-election-committee'>Daily Kos: What I said to Joe Biden and the <b>Obama re-election</b> <b>&#8230;</b></a></strong></p>
<p><img style='vertical-align: middle' src='http://g.etfv.co/http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/19/1038201/-What-I-said-to-Joe-Biden-and-the-Obama-re-election-committee' /><span style= 'padding-left:10px'><a href='http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/19/1038201/-What-I-said-to-Joe-Biden-and-the-Obama-re-election-committee'>www.dailykos.com</a></span><span style='padding-left:10px'>11/19/11</span></p>
<p>In the past two days I have received emails from Joe Biden and Jim Messina of the <em>Obama re-election</em> committee asking me to contribute and become active in the re-election effort. I support President Obama (in 2008 and will <b>&#8230;</b></p>
<p><strong><a href='http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/12/mitt-romney-nuclear-iran-obama-reelection_n_1090505.html'>Mitt Romney: Nuclear Iran Would Be Consequence Of <b>Obama Re</b> <b>&#8230;</b></a></strong></p>
<p><img style='vertical-align: middle' src='http://g.etfv.co/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/12/mitt-romney-nuclear-iran-obama-reelection_n_1090505.html' /><span style= 'padding-left:10px'><a href='http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/12/mitt-romney-nuclear-iran-obama-reelection_n_1090505.html'>www.huffingtonpost.com</a></span><span style='padding-left:10px'>11/13/11</span></p>
<p>Mitt Romney: Nuclear Iran Would Be Consequence Of <em>Obama Re-Election</em>. Romney Obama. KASIE HUNT 11/12/11 11:54 PM ET Associated Press AP. React. Important Funny Typical Scary Outrageous Amazing Innovative Finally. Follow <b>&#8230;</b></p>
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<p><a href="http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/worst-president.jpg"><img src="http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/worst-president.jpg" alt="More Than 80 Reasons to Elect a New President Worthy of a Great Nation!" title="worst-president" width="197" height="334" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-4430" /></a>
</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>More Than 80 Reasons to Elect a New President Worthy of a Great Nation: Not the Abomination of an Obama Nation</p>
<p>With very rare exceptions, everything on this site was written by me; but this one was too good not to promote.</p>
<p><em>Courtesy of <a href="http://www.rabbidov.com/" title="rabbidov" target="_blank">www.rabbidov.com</a></em></p>
<p><em>(Based on an Idea and Initiative, and <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/hughhewitt/2011/04/27/the_obama_project__the_case_for_change" title="townhall.com" target="_blank">Built off a List,</a> Launched by</em> <em><a href="http://www.hughhewitt.com/blog/" title="KRLA radio" target="_blank">KRLA Radio</a> Talk Show Host and Constitutional Law Professor <a href="http://www.hughhewitt.com/blog" title="hugh hewitt" target="_blank">Hugh Hewitt</a>)</em></p>
<p style="clear: left;">
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>1. <strong>Obamacare</strong> &#8211; Attempting to federalize local state rights, extending federal control over massive components of the national bourse, extending federal control over individuals&#8217; lives in violation of the Constitution&#8217;s Commerce Clause.  Cynically lining up supporters in white doctors&#8217; robes, while refusing to consult with much more prominent and predominant medical groups who oppose. Lying about the program&#8217;s cost and tax burden by subterfuging it with exorbitant taxes that begin several years into its anticipated roll-out.  Robbing $500 billion from Medicare that will destroy access for seniors, while lying about the Ryan proposal that would not affect people over 55.</p>
<p><strong>2. The catastrophic</strong> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gp0JuBp8xA&#038;feature=player_embedded" title="850 billion stimulus" target="_blank">$850 billion stimulus</a>.  $700,000 to develop a robot that tells jokes.  $3.4 million for an underground tunnel for turtles to cross the road in Florida. $1 million to help smokers kick the habit by giving them Blackberry &quot;smartphones.&quot;  $2.6 million for Chinese prostitutes in China to drink responsibly. Lying to Americans by claiming the money was going to &quot;shovel-ready jobs&quot; &#8212; and then joking about the falsehood. Lying by hiding the amounts transferred to favored liberal projects unrelated to job growth or economic stimulation.</p>
<p><strong>3. Chronically high, persistent unemployment</strong> &#8211; His own staff said that he would bring it under 8% ; yet it remains over 9% thirty months into his one term, with real unemployment actually exceeding 15% as huge numbers of unemployed Americans withdraw from searching hopelessly for jobs. Lying about a Summer of Recovery (2010).</p>
<p><strong>4. Gas prices</strong><strong> &#8211;</strong> Now exceeding $4.50 a gallon in California, while he bars exploration in ANWR, restricts licenses to explore along the Atlantic coast or in the Gulf, but exports American dollars to help Brazil explore for oil in the Gulf even as Obama promises that America then will buy that oil from Brazil.  (See also #82.)</p>
<p><strong>5. Failure to pass a budget. </strong>The abject failure by the Chief Executive to get any kind of budget adopted for 2010.</p>
<p><strong>6. Multi-trillion debt free-fall. </strong>Turning the disastrous Bush deficits into a multi-trillion-dollar economic free-fall, now leaving the nation with a debt exceeding $14.3 trillion . . . and pressing for authorization to increase the free-fall.  His own latest mad deficit proposal was demolished in a House vote 97-318, as his own Democrats abandoned him in droves.</p>
<p><strong>7. The seizure of GM and Chrysler.</strong> The illegal transfer of bondholder wealth to unions,  imposing his views on parts of the American auto industry, artificially trying to jump-start his favored companies with &quot;Cash for Clunkers,&quot; only to find that American tax dollars were  used instead by people buying preferred Japanese cars to acquire them cheaper while being forced to destroy throughly sound used cars.</p>
<p><strong>8. Dodd-Frank</strong>.  </p>
<p><strong>9. Unremitting hostility to </strong><strong>Israel. </strong> Destroying the Mideast process by imposing unilateral burdens on Israel, forcing Israel to cease construction of Jewish homes, even in Jerusalem, thus compelling Abbas to harden several positions, all while publicly snubbing Prime Minister Netanyahu in the basement of the White House (the first visit) and trying to snub him on the second visit with a horrible policy speech as Netanyahu was flying en route to America.</p>
<p><strong>10. Failure to support </strong><strong>Iran</strong><strong>&#8216;s Green Revolution</strong>. A complete silence and abandonment of leadership when Iranians risked their lives for freedom, while backing the Moslem Brotherhood uprising in Egypt.</p>
<p><strong>11. Failure to support the Syrian people&#8217;s revolution</strong><strong> against Assad. </strong>Utter failure to lead until it was impossible to overlook the massacres by a dictator who actively finances and supports Iran and Hezbollah, America&#8217;s sworn enemies in Iraq and South Lebanon.</p>
<p><strong>12. The Libyan Fiasco</strong>.  Entering Libya while failing to consult Congress.  No sense of whether we are supporting people just as bad as Qaddafi.  Remaining in the war more than 90 days without obtaining Congressional approval.  Lying about violating the War Powers Act by claiming there are no &quot;hostilities&quot; in Libya. </p>
<p><strong>13. The Gulf oil disaster. </strong>Bumbling in handling the Gulf oil disaster &#8211; refusing aid from countries with oil-cleaning vessels, failing to accept offers of boom to corral the spill, bringing in underwater filmmaker James Cameron as an expert.</p>
<p><strong>14. Closing down oil exploration.</strong> The unnecessary moritorium on permitting oil exploration in the aftermath of the Gulf oil disaster, contributing to a massive explosion of oil prices, even leading a federal court to overturn him.</p>
<p><strong>15. EPA interference. </strong>The shutdown of Shell&#8217;s Arctic oil exploration by EPA</p>
<p><strong>16. Cap-and-Trade Fiasco. </strong>The push in Congress for a disastrous &quot;cap-and-trade&quot; plan that would stymie the coal, electric, and natural gas industries, while enormously raising Americans&#8217; home fuel prices, leading even his own party&#8217;s U.S. Senator from West Virginia to film a TV promise to voters that he will shoot the proposal full of holes.</p>
<p><strong>17. Use of federal agencies to bypass Congressional oversight. </strong>The attempt, after Congress refused to adopt his cap-and-trade nonsense, to bypass Congressional opposition and impose cap-and-trade undemocratically via the EPA.</p>
<p><strong>18. Use of FCC initially to restrict free speech. </strong>The push for unconstitutional restrictions on free speech on his political enemies on Talk Radio while assuring protections for unions to spend money on campaigns via The Disclose Act.</p>
<p><strong>19. The Disclose Act and cherry-picking. </strong>The attempt to unconstitutionally impose The Disclose Act on his political opponents but not unions via Executive Order.</p>
<p><strong>20. Czars to bypass Congressional oversight. </strong>The use of unaccountable &quot;czars&quot; who effectively run huge segments of the American Government without being accountable to Congress and who are protected from Congressional subpoena power.</p>
<p><strong>21. Boorish shaming of Supreme Court justices. </strong>The embarrassing and arrogant verbal assault on the Supreme Court while Court Justices courteously attended the first State of the Unionaddress, sitting in front of him, leading most to boycott the subsequent State of Union addresses.</p>
<p><strong>22.  Boorish attempt to shame Paul Ryan.</strong> The similarly embarrassing and arrogant verbal assault on Rep. Paul Ryan when addressing the federal budget, with Ryan having been invited personally by Obama to attend the speech and sit in front of him.</p>
<p><strong>23.  Boorish attempt to shame John McCain. </strong>The insulting, embarrassing, and arrogant gloating at John McCain during the televised sham negotiation over Obamacare, when he responded to McCain not substantively but by saying that Obama had won and McCain had lost the election &#8212; so there!</p>
<p><strong>24.  Refusal to prosecute Black Panthers for Voter Intimidation.</strong> Obama&#8217;s and Attorney-General Eric Holder&#8217;s politicization of the Department of Justice, including refusing to prosecute the Black Panther voter-intimidation case in Philadelphia.</p>
<p><strong>25. Marriage Act.  </strong>Obama&#8217;s and Holder&#8217;s refusal to defend the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, an act of Congress.  </p>
<p><strong>26. Lies, Lies, Lies. </strong>The regular use of straw-man demonizations to try winning support for his unpopular legislation, like accusing doctors of performing unnecessary surgery so that they can enrich themselves by imposing misery on their patients.</p>
<p><strong>27.  Throwing his grandmother under the bus. </strong>Using his grandmother as a foil to win points, calling her a racist like &quot;typical white people.&quot;</p>
<p><strong>28. Bowing to the Saudi King and the Japanese emperor</strong><strong>. </strong> Literally.</p>
<p><strong>29. Treating our British alliance contemptuously.</strong> Shamefully returning to Great Britain the bust of Winston Churchill that they had given us and that had reposed in the White House, while insulting the Queen and the Prime Minister with inane gifts like DVDs.  The subsequent fiasco while toasting the Queen, continuing to talk during the playing of the British National Anthem.</p>
<p><strong>30. Violating and abrogating long-standing promises to our allies.</strong>  Removing the missile shield from Poland and the Czech Republic to placate Putin.</p>
<p><strong>31. Standing with the aspiring Honduran dictator. </strong>Backing the would-be dictator of Honduras when that nation&#8217;s duly convoked Supreme Court had removed him from office in careful compliance with law.</p>
<p><strong>32. FTAs with allies. </strong>Failure to push for quick ratification of free trade agreements with Columbia, Panama and South Korea.</p>
<p><strong>33. Amateurish handling of Afghanistan military effort. </strong>The painfully over-extended indecision, for months, whether to authorize a military surge into Afghanistan, then exacerbating the indecision by announcing to our enemies a date-certain withdrawal timeline &#8212; a time coordinated with his reelection bid.</p>
<p><strong>34. Incoherence on </strong><strong>how to handle the anti-Mubarak uprising in Egypt. </strong>Having  Frank Wisner despatched as his emissary, and then rejecting Wizner&#8217;s advice.</p>
<p><strong>35. Radicalizing the NLRB outside Congressional purview.</strong> Appointing [Harold] Craig Becker, a radical unionist, to the NLRB through a recess appointment that otherwise never would have passed Congress.</p>
<p><strong>36. Radicalizing FCC outside Congressional purview.</strong> Appointing FCC commissioners who are pursuing &quot;net neutrality&quot; without Congressional authorization.</p>
<p><strong>37. Ecology gone wild in California. </strong>Wiping out much of the agricultural economy of California&#8217;s Central Valley by restricting full water deliveries to protect a small Delta Smelt fish</p>
<p><strong>38. Gitmo debacles. </strong>Promising to close the Guantanamo Bay facility that interns terrorists, trying to close it, failing to close it, refusing to concede his error or assure that &quot;Gitmo&quot; will remain open.</p>
<p><strong>39. </strong><strong>Civil trials for terrorists debacles. </strong>Promising to move terrorist trials to civilian courts, then trying to prosecute Khalid Sheik Mohammed in Downtown New York, only to be opposed even by the two ultra-liberal Democrat U.S. Senators of New York, then pressing to try another terrorist, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, in civilian court, resulting in the terrorist being acquitted on 284 of 285 counts.</p>
<p><strong>40. Napolitano out of touch. </strong>The shameful failure of Obama&#8217;s Homeland Security chief, Janet Napolitano, to appreciate the Obama Administration&#8217;s security failures in the face of the near-catastrophe of the &quot;underwear bomber&quot; in the skies over Detroit, as she insisted &quot;the system worked.&quot;</p>
<p><strong>41. Student loans. </strong> Government takeover of the student loan program</p>
<p><strong>42. Border security. </strong>Cancellation of the &quot;virtual border fence&quot; project with no replacement, while deploying National Guard troops to do paper work at desk jobs and provide office assistance rather than stand armed along the border.</p>
<p><strong>43. The &quot;Beer Summit.&quot;</strong> In the aftermath of wrongly castigating and erroneously pre-judging fault regarding the Cambridge Police Department, tying up the country with a foolish spectacle on the White House lawn.</p>
<p><strong>44. Immigration and Arizona. </strong>The Department of Justice&#8217;s attack on Arizona for that state&#8217;s exercise of its sovereign legislative authority on the issue of citizen identification rules.  Failure of his own federal government to execute the law on immigration.</p>
<p><strong>45. The attack on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. </strong>Attacking the Wisconsin governor and his state legislature for exercising their sovereign legislative authority on public employment issues, while Obama failed to acknowledge that the new Wisconsin rules are comparable to those that always have applied to federal employees.</p>
<p><strong>46. Lying to McCain on their deal over campaign fundraising.</strong> Violating his pledge to John McCain to abide by McCain-Feingold limits for funding his Presidential campaign.</p>
<p><strong>47. Downplaying American exceptionalism.</strong>  Apology tours. </p>
<p>48. Implying that the Minnesota bridge collapse was the result of lack of infrastructure funding</p>
<p><strong>49. Chicago Olympics fiasco. </strong>Shamefully inserting himself into a botched campaign to bring Olympic Games to Chicago, thereby exposing the Presidency of the United States to ridicule and formal rejection, and demonstrating early-on his overconfident sense of himself and his unpreparedness for the seriousness of his office.</p>
<p><strong>50. Hypocritical attack on D.C. public school voucher effort.</strong> The attack on a voucher program for Washington, D.C. schools, even as his own children are protected from the educational failures that curse the Washington populace.</p>
<p><strong>51. Associating with the murky.</strong>  Associations with convicted unrepentant domestic terrorists and eccentric haters of America: the Reverend Wright, William Ayres, Van Jones.</p>
<p><strong>52.  Anita Dunn.</strong> Her war against Fox News and her boastfulness that the Obama White House has the &quot;courage to speak truth to Power&quot; &#8212; when it is the White House, not a cable TV station, that is &quot;Power&quot;; and her speech to schoolchildren, as a White House representative, sharing with the young and impressionable her idolization and admiration of mass-murderer Mao Tse-Tung.</p>
<p><strong>53.  ACORN. </strong></p>
<p><strong>54.  SEIU. </strong> Having Andrew Stern, President of SEIU, as the man who has visited the White House more than any other person during the Obama term.</p>
<p><strong>55. Teleprompters / White House for Dummies. </strong>A reliance on teleprompters to protect him from stumbling and bumbling speeches when, without scripting, he has spoken of his visits to America&#8217;s &quot;57 states,&quot; has denigrated the handicapped, could not pronounce &quot;corpsman,&quot; moronically said that Austrians speak &quot;Austrian,&quot; referred to deceased war heroes adding that many were in the audience he was addressing, and has made more gaffes than Dan Quayle.</p>
<p><strong>56.  Arrogance and Haughtiness. </strong>An extreme level of personal nose-in-the-air arrogance and lack of graciousness, from physical comportment to the way he addresses others.  The Roman columns. The arrogant temerity to tell Americans, God-like, that history will record his coronation as the moment that the rivers stopped rising and the planet healed.  </p>
<p><strong>57.  Chicago Corruption. </strong>The house he corruptly acquired through Tony Rezko.</p>
<p><strong>58.  The artificial shifting dialects. </strong>Affecting an artificial accent when speaking to unions, and to others with whom he allies in his &quot;class wars,&quot; that belies his having grown up in Hawaii, reared by a Caucasian grandmother, his having spent years being schooled in Indonesia, and later attending school at Occidental College in California, Columbia University, and Harvard Law School.</p>
<p><strong>59. Lack of transparency. </strong>Refusing to share his academic records or the sources through which he paid for private college and law school, despite his pre-election calls for transparency.</p>
<p><strong>60.</strong><strong>  Failure to lead on immigration. </strong>Not confronting the immigration issue when he dominantly controlled both the House and a filibuster-proof Senate, then mocking the GOP on immigration, saying they would not be happy with &quot;alligators and moats&quot; &#8212; when all they want is secure borders.</p>
<p><strong>61. Fiscal irresponsibility on foreign relations with Egypt. </strong>Forgiving billions of dollars in Egyptian and related Mideast debt when we are past the 14.3 trillion debt line.</p>
<p><strong>62.  Wasting billions on corrupt &quot;Palestine&quot; agencies.</strong> Pumping billions more into the discredited United Nations Relief &amp; Works Agency (UNRWA) and the Palestinian Authority that merged with the terrorist Hamas.</p>
<p><strong>63. Radical judicial appointments.  </strong>Nominating a radical leftist, Professor Goodwin Liu, for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit despite Liu&#8217;s contempt for constitutional imperatives towards limited government.</p>
<p><strong>64.  Acceding to political bribery by cherry-picking waivers to Obamacare for favored donors. </strong>Forcing Obamacare down the throats of small businesses across America that cannot afford it . . . then approving politically correct and electoral pay-off waivers for his friends, donors, and rich boutique businesses. Granting 20% of all the country&#8217;s Obamacare waivers in Pelosi&#8217;s San Francisco district.  Buying off votes from Ben Nelson of Nebraska (the Cornhusker Deal), Mary Landrieu (the Louisiana Purchase) to pass Obamacare.</p>
<p><strong>65. Using the White House to crush political opposition.</strong> Trying to force donors to his political opponents to reveal their contributions.  Using the White House official website asking supporters to report to the Government instances of people criticizing  Government policies.</p>
<p><strong>66. Attempting to crush media opposition. </strong>Punishing a Boston newspaper whose editorial attacked him, having his White House conduct a war against Fox News, claiming they are an entertainment, not a news organization, and then boycotting Fox until that strategy backfired.</p>
<p><strong>67. Encouraging cultural decline. </strong>Inviting &quot;Common,&quot; a &quot;poet&quot; with disgusting lyrics of hate, to entertain at the White House</p>
<p><strong>68. The Louis XVI Factor.</strong> Vacations and high-profile golf during the Gulf oil crisis, prompting even Democrat strategist and Presidential advisor James Carville to erupt in fury. More high-profile golf at Cape Cod while the country was losing its AAA credit rating for the first time.</p>
<p><strong>69. The Marie Antoinette Factor. </strong><strong>Michelle high-profile huge trips abroad, a la Eva Peron, with family friends and their children partying on the public payroll, at 5-star hotels in places like Spain.</strong></p>
<p><strong>70.  Al Sharpton. </strong>Launching his national presidential reelection campaign with a speech to Al Sharpton&#8217;s base.</p>
<p><strong>71</strong><strong>. Secrecy in Legislation.</strong> Failing to honor his pledge to conduct transparent governance, crafting Obamacare with Democrats behind closed doors barred to Republicans, leaving Obamacare as a massive document so convoluted that Nancy Pelosi had to tell the media: &quot;But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.&quot; </p>
<p><strong>72</strong><strong>.  A philosophy of redistributing other people&#8217;s money.</strong> Trying to persuade &quot;Joe the Plumber&quot; that it is a beneficial national economic goal to &quot;redistribute the wealth.&quot;</p>
<p><strong>73</strong><strong>.  Cynically blaming Republicans and Talk Radio for the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle </strong><strong>Giffords. </strong>Blaming their rhetoric, while failing to address Democrat use of vile and violent language to describe Republicans and the Tea Party.</p>
<p><strong>74.  Lying about a family connection to the Holocaust.</strong> Lying and falsely telling Americans that his grandfather was among those who liberated Auschwitz when, in fact, no American troops liberated Auschwitz.</p>
<p><strong>75.  Failing to grasp the Israel narrative. </strong>Describing Israel&#8217;s right to exist as premised on the Holocaust, thus missing the entire point of a Jewish country built on the land where Jews have lived since Biblical times.</p>
<p><strong>76. </strong> <strong>Lying about a family connection to the Civil Rights movement. </strong>Telling Americans that his birth happened because his parents became amorous as a result of the 1965 Selma Civil Rights March &#8212; even though he was born in 1961.</p>
<p><strong>77.  Collapse of the housing market. </strong>American housing prices lowest since 2002.</p>
<p><strong>78.  Manipulating legislation by forcing votes on massive documents. </strong>Racing massive thousand-page legislation packages through Congress without allowing Congress or the American People time to read, comprehend, and absorb the bill &#8212; and thus breaking a major campaign promise.</p>
<p><strong>79.   The Credit Rating downgrade. </strong>Presiding over the first credit-rating downgrade in American history.</p>
<p><strong>80.  Timing military campaigns to coincide with election campaigns.</strong> Manipulating and sacrificing the lives of American soldiers, basing a withdrawal from Afghanistan not on strategic national security considerations but timed instead to coincide with the start of the 2012 Democrat Presidential Convention.</p>
<p><strong>81.  NLRB. </strong> Stacking the National Labor Relations Board with left-focused political hacks who are attempting to prevent America&#8217;s leading exporter, Boeing, from building a $1 billion manufacturing plant in South Carolina because that state permits employment of non-union labor.</p>
<p><strong>82.  Cynically manipulating the national Strategic Oil Reserve. </strong>Releasing 30 million barrels of oil from the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to obtain the temporary political goal of lowering gasoline prices that have skyrocketed in the face of his severe restrictions on permitting exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, along the Atlantic coast, and in Alaska in his obsessive pursuit of &quot;green jobs.&quot;</p>
<p><strong>83.  &quot;Operation Fast and Furious&quot; debacle. </strong>Allowing Mexican drug lords to access illegal firearms, then losing track of the firearms while the drug cartels used the illegal firearms for crime including murdering Americans.</p>
<p><strong>84.  Lying, lying, and more lying to voters. </strong> Trying to create class warfare by telling people that Republicans&#8217; refusal to raise taxes will cause youngsters to be unable to finance their college educations, while causing seniors to lose health care and social security payments.  Failing to admit honestly that Congress extended the Bush tax cuts and refused to increase taxes even  when Democrats had a filibuster-proof Senate and veto-proof control of both Congressional chambers.</p>
<p><strong>85.  Investigating CIA patriots. </strong>The Holder investigation into CIA operatives&#8217; interrogations of suspected Al Qaeda terrorists and their use of methods that had been approved in advance by the Justice Department.</p>
<hr />
<p>If there&#8217;s anything that you believe should be added to the list, then please post a response. </p>
<p>And please post why you think any sane person would vote to have Obama reelected.</p>
<p>Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/will-it-be-adios-obama-in-2012/' rel='bookmark' title='Will Youths Blacks And Hispanics Desert Obama?'>Will Youths Blacks And Hispanics Desert Obama?</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/new-poll-confirms-obamas-democratic-base-is-crumbling/' rel='bookmark' title='New Poll Says Obama&#8217;s Base Is Crumbling'>New Poll Says Obama&#8217;s Base Is Crumbling</a></li>
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</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>September 2011Unemployment Figures Were Terrible</title>
		<link>http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/september-unemployment-figures-without-the-spin/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=september-unemployment-figures-without-the-spin</link>
		<comments>http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/september-unemployment-figures-without-the-spin/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Oct 2011 20:14:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Redbourn</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[September Unemployment Unchanged At 9.1 Percent; 103000 Jobs &#8230; Nonfarm payroll employment edged up by 103000 in September, and the unemployment rate held at 9.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The increase in employment partially reflected the return to &#8230; Publish Date:&#160;10/07/2011 14:52 http://asternglance.com/2011/10/07/september-unemployment-unchanged-at-9-1-percent-103000-jobs-added/ Economy Added 103000 Jobs In September, Unemployment [...]
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<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/obamas-top-five-reelection-problems/' rel='bookmark' title='Obama&#8217;s Reelection Problems'>Obama&#8217;s Reelection Problems</a></li>
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<p><strong><a href='http://asternglance.com/2011/10/07/september-unemployment-unchanged-at-9-1-percent-103000-jobs-added/'><b>September Unemployment</b> Unchanged At 9.1 Percent; 103000 Jobs <b>&#8230;</b></a></strong></p>
<p>Nonfarm payroll <em>employment</em> edged up by 103000 in <em>September</em>, and the <em>unemployment</em> rate held at 9.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The increase in <em>employment</em> partially reflected the return to <b>&#8230;</b></p>
<p><b>Publish Date:</b>&nbsp;10/07/2011 14:52</p>
<p><font color='007000'>http://asternglance.com/2011/10/07/september-unemployment-unchanged-at-9-1-percent-103000-jobs-added/</font></p>
<p><strong><a href='http://www.mediabistro.com/mediajobsdaily/economy-added-103000-jobs-in-september-unemployment-rate-unchanged_b8661'>Economy Added 103000 Jobs In <b>September</b>, <b>Unemployment</b> Rate <b>&#8230;</b></a></strong></p>
<p>Economy Added 103000 Jobs In <em>September</em>, <em>Unemployment</em> Rate Unchanged.</p>
<p><b>Publish Date:</b>&nbsp;10/07/2011 11:02</p>
<p><font color='007000'>http://www.mediabistro.com/mediajobsdaily/economy-added-103000-jobs-in-september-unemployment-rate-unchanged_b8661</font></p>
<h3>What Could Be Worse Than 9.1 Percent? &#8211; Try 16.5 Percent!</h3>
<p>The number of part-time workers who want full-time hours rose sharply over the month, to 9.3 million, from 8.8 million in August, and  if you add  those workers to people that  have quit looking because they don&#8217;t see hope of getting hired, then the share of unemployed and underemployed among the U.S. workforce rose to 16.5% in September, up from 16.2% in the prior month and 15.8% in May.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>&quot;The upturn in this category is discouraging, it&#8217;s very discouraging. It shows the broader measure of underutilization of America&#8217;s productive capabilities, and reminds us that the labor market hasn&#8217;t recovered as much as we thought&quot;.</p>
</blockquote>
<p> said Harry Holzer, who is a labor economist at the Urban Institute and Georgetown University.</p>
<h3>The White House Spin &#8211; We Expected Worse</h3>
<p>Analysts say about 125,000 net new jobs are needed every month to keep pace with the population growth and maintain the current jobless rate, but the spin is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>&quot;Many forecasters were expecting about 60,000 net new jobs last month, but 103,000 were added!</p>
</blockquote>
<h3>The Reality</h3>
<blockquote>
<p>While construction employment rebounded and retailers hired more workers last month, manufacturing payrolls shrank again and government continued its sharp cutbacks.</p>
<p>The ranks of the unemployed in the U.S. remained at about 14 million, but the share of those who have been without jobs for six months or more, the so-called long-term unemployed, rose to 6.2 million from 6 million in August.</p>
<p>The third quarter&#8217;s average monthly tally at 96,000 jobs which is roughly the same as in the second quarter, but during the first three months of this year, job growth averaged 166,000 a month.</p>
<p>In September, local education jobs fell by another 24,400, accounting for most of the 34,000 positions lost in government overall. </p>
<p>The Postal Service slashed 5,300 jobs last month.</p>
<p>According to the National Women&#8217;s Law Center, women gained only 4,000 of the 103,000 total jobs added in September.</p>
<p>The count of September jobs, over all, was partially inflated by the return to work of about 45,000 striking Verizon workers, just as their temporary absence from payrolls lowered the August job numbers.</p>
</blockquote>
<h3>How Many Jobs Need To Be Added?</h3>
<p>Heidi Shierholz, who is a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington calculated that the economy would need to generate 280,000 jobs every month for five straight years to return to the 5% jobless rate that was in force before the recession hit in late 2007.</p>
<h3>Was There Good News?</h3>
<blockquote>
<p>The professional and business services led the industries in job growth by adding 48,000 to their payrolls last month, and the temporary-help field, often considered a harbinger of broader hiring by companies, rose by about 20,000 last month for the second straight month after weakening earlier in the year.</p>
<p>Healthcare employment increased by 44,000 in September, and the long-declining construction sector added an unexpectedly large 26,000 jobs over the month, almost entirely due to nonresidential building activity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/will-it-be-adios-obama-in-2012/' rel='bookmark' title='Will Youths Blacks And Hispanics Desert Obama?'>Will Youths Blacks And Hispanics Desert Obama?</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/more-than-eighty-reasons-why-obama-shouldnt-be-reelected/' rel='bookmark' title='More Than Eighty Reasons Why Obama Shouldn&#8217;t Be Reelected!'>More Than Eighty Reasons Why Obama Shouldn&#8217;t Be Reelected!</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/obamas-top-five-reelection-problems/' rel='bookmark' title='Obama&#8217;s Reelection Problems'>Obama&#8217;s Reelection Problems</a></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Obama Is Trying To Save His Liberal Base</title>
		<link>http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/obama-tries-to-save-his-liberal-base/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-tries-to-save-his-liberal-base</link>
		<comments>http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/obama-tries-to-save-his-liberal-base/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Sep 2011 11:54:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Redbourn</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Obama Medicare Cuts Target Providers, Then Beneficiaries For &#8230; WASHINGTON &#8212; President Obama wants to extract $320 billion in savings from the health care system in his push to trim the deficit, starting with cutting payments to Medicare and Medicaid providers and ending with making &#8230; Publish Date:&#160;09/19/2011 15:51 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/19/president-obama-targets-p_n_969991.html Obama to Pitch Higher Taxes, [...]
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<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/obamas-top-five-reelection-problems/' rel='bookmark' title='Obama&#8217;s Reelection Problems'>Obama&#8217;s Reelection Problems</a></li>
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<p><strong><a href='http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/19/president-obama-targets-p_n_969991.html'><b>Obama Medicare</b> Cuts Target Providers, Then Beneficiaries For <b>&#8230;</b></a></strong></p>
<p>WASHINGTON &#8212; President <em>Obama</em> wants to extract $320 billion in savings from the health care system in his push to trim the deficit, starting with cutting payments to <em>Medicare</em> and Medicaid providers and ending with making <b>&#8230;</b></p>
<p><b>Publish Date:</b>&nbsp;09/19/2011 15:51</p>
<p><font color='007000'>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/19/president-obama-targets-p_n_969991.html</font></p>
<hr />
<p><strong><a href='http://abcnewsradioonline.com/politics-news/obama-to-pitch-higher-taxes-means-testing-medicare.html'><b>Obama</b> to Pitch Higher Taxes, Means-Testing <b>Medicare</b> &#8211; Politics <b>&#8230;</b></a></strong></p>
<p>Political News and Headlines From ABC News Radio.</p>
<p><b>Publish Date:</b>&nbsp;09/19/2011 9:54</p>
<p><font color='007000'>http://abcnewsradioonline.com/politics-news/obama-to-pitch-higher-taxes-means-testing-medicare.html</font></p>
<hr />
<p>President Obama tried for months to convince critics on the far left that entitlement programs such as Medicare had to be cut in order to save the programs.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>&quot;With an aging population and rising health care costs, we are spending too fast to sustain the program&quot;, he said. </p>
<p>&quot;And if we don&#8217;t gradually reform the system while protecting current beneficiaries, it won&#8217;t be there when future retirees need it. We have to reform Medicare to strengthen it&quot;.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But after those speeches, several Democratic groups and lawmakers sent letters, held news conferences and even staged protests, including one in front of the White House by activists challenging the idea of any cuts in Medicaid benefits.</p>
<p>The president appears to have heard the objections, because in his Rose Garden speech Monday, he proposed <u>only half as much in savings</u> as he did in debt talks this summer, offering $320 billion in changes instead of $650 billion, and he took a very different tone:</p>
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<blockquote>
<p>&quot;We will reform Medicare and Medicaid, but we will not abandon the fundamental commitment that this country has kept for generations&quot;, he said.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Alison Fraser, of the conservative Heritage Foundation had this to say;</p>
<blockquote>
<p>&quot;He&#8217;s pulled way back on those proposals specifically on Medicare, Medicaid&quot;.</p>
<p>&quot;Even on Social Security, which at one point was in the mix, now it&#8217;s completely off the table. So it&#8217;s a disappointing step, rather than an encouraging one&quot;.</p>
<p>&quot;If we continue with even more of these provider crackdowns, you know, you&#8217;re going to have a lot more doctors, hospitals, pharmacists, and so forth, dropping out of the program&quot;.</p>
</blockquote>
<h3>Will Obama&#8217;s Backtrack Help Him?</h3>
<p>His recent comments on Medicare may or may not soften criticism from the left however, and the liberal group MoveOn.org urged its members last week to call the White House, and warned in a letter, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>&quot;If the President comes out on Monday calling for cuts to Medicare and Medicaid benefits, the enthusiasm he&#8217;s built up in the last week will disappear in an instant&quot;.</p>
</blockquote>
<h3>Many Doctors Are Already Quitting</h3>
<p>90% of the changes that Obama has proposed so are in the form of cuts to providers, such as doctors and hospitals, and many policy experts are concerned about access to care for seniors on Medicare, which is a trend already under way in some areas of the country.</p>
<p>Many doctors in rural areas are now saying that they will either have to seek alternative employment or go work at a hospital or clinic, because they&#8217;re no longer getting enough income to continue their practices.</p>
<h3>More Price Controls</h3>
<p>House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>&quot;So what we&#8217;ve seen from the president so far is, more price controls and rationing, but no plans to save it from bankruptcy&quot;.</p>
</blockquote>
<h3>The Bottom Line</h3>
<p>Taken together, the Medicare and Social Security programs are committed to $46 trillion dollars more in benefits than the government can pay for from the revenues it now receives, and cuts are inevitable.</p>
<p><a href="http://misconceptions.us/is-social-security-a-ponzi-scheme/" title="ponzi-scheme" target="_blank">Sounds like a Ponzi scheme?</a></p>
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<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/obamas-top-five-reelection-problems/' rel='bookmark' title='Obama&#8217;s Reelection Problems'>Obama&#8217;s Reelection Problems</a></li>
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		<title>Solyndra Spells Trouble For Obama</title>
		<link>http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/the-collapse-of-solyndra-spells-trouble-for-obama/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-collapse-of-solyndra-spells-trouble-for-obama</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 14 Sep 2011 12:49:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Redbourn</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Solyndra employees: Company suffered from mismanagement, heavy spending &#8211; Washington Post Solyndra employees: Company suffered from mismanagement, heavy spendingWashington PostThe Washington Post reported earlier this month that e-mails showed that White House officials pushed federal reviewers for a decision on the Solyndra loan as they sought to schedule a press announcement with the company and [...]
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<p><a href="http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/solyndra.jpg"><img src="http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/solyndra.jpg" alt="The Collapse Of Solyndra Spells Trouble For Obama In 2012" title="solyndra" width="480" height="132" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-4033" /></a></p>
<p><strong><a href='http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&#038;fd=R&#038;usg=AFQjCNGykrVNOISdnDZqVUdaKP7vAfY8_Q&#038;url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/solyndra-employees-company-suffered-from-mismanagement-heavy-spending/2011/09/20/gIQAMHC3lK_story.html'>Solyndra employees: Company suffered from mismanagement, heavy spending &#8211; Washington Post</a></strong></p>
<p>
<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="7" style="vertical-align:top;">
<tr>
<td width="80" align="center" valign="top"><font style="font-size:85%;font-family:arial,sans-serif"></font></td>
<td valign="top" class="j"><font style="font-size:85%;font-family:arial,sans-serif">
<div style="padding-top:0.8em;"><img alt="" height="1" width="1" /></div>
<div class="lh"><a href="http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&amp;fd=R&amp;usg=AFQjCNGykrVNOISdnDZqVUdaKP7vAfY8_Q&amp;url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/solyndra-employees-company-suffered-from-mismanagement-heavy-spending/2011/09/20/gIQAMHC3lK_story.html"><b>Solyndra employees: <b>Company suffered from mismanagement</b>, <b>heavy spending</b></b></a><br /><font size="-1"><b><font color="#6f6f6f">Washington Post</font></b></font><br /><font size="-1">The <b>Washington Post</b> reported earlier this month that e-mails showed that White House officials pushed federal reviewers for a decision on the Solyndra loan as they sought to schedule a press announcement with the <b>company</b> and Vice President Biden. <b>&#8230;</b></font><br /><font size="-1" class="p"></font><br /><font class="p" size="-1"><a class="p" href="http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&amp;ned=us&amp;ncl=dRgE8t2XjUTFO5M"><nobr><b>and more&nbsp;&raquo;</b></nobr></a></font></div>
<p></font></td>
</tr>
</table>
<hr />
<p><strong><a href='http://justpiper.com/2011/09/obamas-solyndra-scandal-reeks-of-the-chicago-way/'><b>Obama&#39;s Solyndra Scandal Reeks of the Chicago Way</b> | Just Piper</a></strong></p>
<p>Those of us from <em>Chicago</em> know exactly what the <em>Solyndra scandal smells</em> like. And It doesn&#39;t smell fresh and green. Kudos to John Kass,. <em>Chicago</em> Tribune is a.</p>
<p><b>Publish Date:</b>&nbsp;09/18/2011 20:45</p>
<p><font color='007000'>http://justpiper.com/2011/09/obamas-solyndra-scandal-reeks-of-the-chicago-way/</font></p>
<hr />
<p>The ongoing probes into the collapse of Solyndra could spell a lot of trouble for Team Obama in 2012</p>
<p>Until now, and in spite of all the ongoing failures that can be attributed, at least in large part to the Obama administration, Obama until just a few weeks ago remained personally liked by a large swathe of the population.</p>
<h3>Why Is Obama Still Personally Liked?</h3>
<p>I personally believed Obama to be a charlatan back in October 2008 when I wrote a piece entitled, <a href="http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/obama-and-the-missing-paper-trail/" title="no paper trail" target="_blank">Obama And The Missing Paper Trail,</a> but right now we&#8217;re talking about how people in general still feel about him, and not me personally, so let&#8217;s move on.</p>
<p>Obama has so far earned those high personal-quality ratings by avoiding any meaningful scandal, and his Cabinet and White House staff have similarly offered no reason to suspect any misdeeds. </p>
<p>It has in fact been one of the quietest White Houses on the scandal front in recent memory but that may be about to change.</p>
<p>It might have changed because of the implosion of a politically-connected green-tech firm in Northern California, called Solyndra, and the apparent disappearing act of more than $500 million in taxpayer funds.</p>
<h3>And &quot;Yes&quot; Obama Was Very Much Personally Involved</h3>
<p>In his 2009 stimulus plan, Obama both sought and received billions of dollars to subsidize a promised explosion in &quot;green jobs&quot; and the White House needed to demonstrate that the U.S. could quickly make use of alternative energy sources to replace the hydrocarbon-based energy that presently meets the needs of the massive U.S. economy, and Obama and his administration chose Solyndra as its poster child.</p>
<p>The White House fast-tracked approval for taxpayer-backed loan guarantees and the company received $535 million from the Treasury&#8217;s Federal Financing Bank to build a new manufacturing facility.</p>
<p>Obama later appeared at Solyndra touting his green-jobs initiative and Solyndra insisted, until at least late as this summer that their financial status was strong.</p>
<h3>The Collapse</h3>
<p>Suddenly and without warning Solyndra collapsed, and over one thousand employees showed up for work on August 31, only to discover that the company had shut its doors.</p>
<p>The company&#8217;s stock price had been falling almost continually over the previous two years because of questions about about Solyndra&#8217;s real competitiveness and financial strength.</p>
<h3>The Money Trail And George Kaiser</h3>
<p>When Solyndra initially applied for taxpayer subsidies, auditors at the Department of Energy were already questioning Solyndra&#8217;s viability, so why did the Obama administration fast-track Solyndra&#8217;s application? </p>
<p>One fairly obvious reason might be, that one of the chief investors in Solyndra was George Kaiser who was one of Obama&#8217;s campaign bundlers in 2008, and he raised between $50,000 and $1000,000 for Obama&#8217;s campaign. </p>
<h3>The Very Low Interest Rates</h3>
<p>Solyndra executives visited the White House more than twenty times between March 2009 and April 2011 and the company was give an interest rate from the feds at one-fourth the going rate for green-jobs projects.</p>
<h3>And Who Got Repaid First?</h3>
<p>The collapse of Solyndra also led to a somewhat strange arrangement for repayments to creditors.</p>
<p>Despite having put up $535 million in taxpayer loan guarantees, the Obama administration didn&#8217;t insist on putting taxpayers in the most senior position for creditors if Solyndra failed, but instead, Kaiser will get repaid first on a $75 million investment, before taxpayers see a dime.</p>
<h3>Sounds Fishy?</h3>
<p>Last week, in response to an investigation by the DOE&#8217;s Inspector General, the FBI raided Solyndra, seizing its business records, and federal agents also raided the homes of Solyndra executives and seized additional computers files. </p>
<p>What&#8217;s more, Congress, which had already opened an investigation into Solyndra&#8217;s loans, will undoubtedly press for access to this material for its own probe.</p>
<h3>This Will Damage Obama Personally</h3>
<p>ABC (a strong Obama supporter) just reported that DOE officials sat in on Solyndra&#8217;s board meetings for months before the collapse, and that despite having this unprecedented access, the Obama administration did nothing to alert Congress that Solyndra might fail, and in fact, failed to respond when Solyndra executives misrepresented the status of the company to members of Congress.</p>
<p>There have been several minor controversies and suggestions of impropriety in the Obama administration, such as Operation Fast and Furious in the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) office in Phoenix and the Department of Justice, but Solyndra is the first controversy that has the potential to directly stain Barack Obama himself.</p>
<p>The Dems lost a NY precinct today that had been in Dem hands for close to a century and yesterday it was announced that poverty is at it highest rate since the &#8217;50s.</p>
<h3>Update Septemeber15, 2011</h3>
<p>* The Treasury Inspector General&#8217;s Office said Wednesday night that it too, is now investigating the loan, because it was processed by Federal Financing Bank, a government lending institution that falls under the Treasury&#8217;s control.</p>
<p>*   &#8220;A half a billion dollars that was not supported in January under the Bush administration was then conditionally recommended in March&quot;. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas</p>
<p>Rick Perry and Mitt Romney must be licking their chops right now!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/will-it-be-adios-obama-in-2012/' rel='bookmark' title='Will Youths Blacks And Hispanics Desert Obama?'>Will Youths Blacks And Hispanics Desert Obama?</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/more-than-eighty-reasons-why-obama-shouldnt-be-reelected/' rel='bookmark' title='More Than Eighty Reasons Why Obama Shouldn&#8217;t Be Reelected!'>More Than Eighty Reasons Why Obama Shouldn&#8217;t Be Reelected!</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/obama-and-the-liberals-believe-more-in-redistribution-than-they-do-in-growth/' rel='bookmark' title='Obama and the liberals believe more in Redistribution than they do in Growth!'>Obama and the liberals believe more in Redistribution than they do in Growth!</a></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Obama and the liberals believe more in Redistribution than they do in Growth!</title>
		<link>http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/obama-and-the-liberals-believe-more-in-redistribution-than-they-do-in-growth/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-and-the-liberals-believe-more-in-redistribution-than-they-do-in-growth</link>
		<comments>http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/obama-and-the-liberals-believe-more-in-redistribution-than-they-do-in-growth/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 30 Oct 2010 12:27:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Redbourn</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The Obama Plan to Redistribute Housing &#124; Libertarian Party www.lp.org10/29/11 First Obama tried to redistribute wealth before he was President, by leading the charge to force banks to make loans to lower income Americans who could not afford to own homes (through the Community Reinvestment Act). &#8230; Applying Obama&#39;s “redistribution of wealth” to school grades [...]
Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/more-than-eighty-reasons-why-obama-shouldnt-be-reelected/' rel='bookmark' title='More Than Eighty Reasons Why Obama Shouldn&#8217;t Be Reelected!'>More Than Eighty Reasons Why Obama Shouldn&#8217;t Be Reelected!</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/the-%e2%80%98loan-modification-program%e2%80%99-finally-gets-underway/' rel='bookmark' title='The ‘Loan Modification Program’ Finally Gets Underway.'>The ‘Loan Modification Program’ Finally Gets Underway.</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/more-us-cities-are-bulldozing-abandoned-homes/' rel='bookmark' title='More U.S. Cities Are Bulldozing Abandoned Homes'>More U.S. Cities Are Bulldozing Abandoned Homes</a></li>
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<p><strong><a href='http://www.lp.org/blogs/wayne-allyn-root/the-obama-plan-to-redistribute-housing'>The <b>Obama</b> Plan to <b>Redistribute</b> Housing | Libertarian Party</a></strong></p>
<p><img style='vertical-align: middle' src='http://g.etfv.co/http://www.lp.org/blogs/wayne-allyn-root/the-obama-plan-to-redistribute-housing' /><span style= 'padding-left:10px'><a href='http://www.lp.org/blogs/wayne-allyn-root/the-obama-plan-to-redistribute-housing'>www.lp.org</a></span><span style='padding-left:10px'>10/29/11</span></p>
<p>First <em>Obama</em> tried to <em>redistribute</em> wealth before he was President, by leading the charge to force banks to make loans to lower income Americans who could not afford to own homes (through the Community Reinvestment Act). <b>&#8230;</b></p>
<p><strong><a href='http://usamericanfreedom.com/2011/11/19/applying-obamas-redistribution-of-wealth-to-school-grades/'>Applying <b>Obama&#39;s</b> “<b>redistribution</b> of wealth” to school grades <b>&#8230;</b></a></strong></p>
<p><img style='vertical-align: middle' src='http://g.etfv.co/http://usamericanfreedom.com/2011/11/19/applying-obamas-redistribution-of-wealth-to-school-grades/' /><span style= 'padding-left:10px'><a href='http://usamericanfreedom.com/2011/11/19/applying-obamas-redistribution-of-wealth-to-school-grades/'>usamericanfreedom.com</a></span><span style='padding-left:10px'>11/19/11</span></p>
<p>That class had insisted that <em>Obama</em>&#39;s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on <em>Obama&#39;s</em> plan”. <b>&#8230;</b></p>
<hr />
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><img class="alignleft" style="margin: 8px;" title="divide the pie" src="http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/images/divide-a-pie.jpg" alt="Obama and the liberals prefer redistribution to growth!" width="350" height="276" /></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Obama and the liberals could perhaps have achieved both growth and redistribution, but they chose only the latter, and they will pay heavily for their error on Tuesday!</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Will Obama change direction after the elections?</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>No He won&#8217;t!</p>
<p style="clear: left;">
<p>During his election campaign Obama said:</p>
<blockquote><p>“What people really want is fairness”.</p>
<p>“They want people paying their fair share of taxes&#8221;.</p>
<p>&#8220;They want that money allocated fairly&#8221;.</p></blockquote>
<h4>Redistribution Of Wealth</h4>
<p>People thought it sounded good and they voted for him, but they didn&#8217;t know that he would immediately attempt redistribution of wealth, and he went for it full throttle in spite of the recession.</p>
<p>What the vast majority of Americans believe in however is economic growth, and they understand full well that the threat of having more and more money taken away as you get richer and richer is simply a demotivator.</p>
<p>The result, motivation went down, small businesses stopped hiring and unemployment went up and stayed up; and in some states it&#8217;s still getting worse.</p>
<h4>Then Came ObamaCare</h4>
<p>With motivation down, the Obama administration then committed another horrendous error of judgment &#8211; they rammed ObamaCare down a mostly unwilling nation&#8217;s throat.</p>
<p>Obamcare essentially subsidizes health insurance for low and  middle-income groups and attempts to recover the cost by taxing high-earners even more, which in turn lowers motivation and causes people to hunker down instead of trying to grow their businesses.</p>
<p>And what makes it even worse is that low and moderate-income workers now feel no need to earn money because they can now maintain the same standard of living with even less effort.</p>
<h4>Obama&#8217;s Response?</h4>
<p>Seeing popularity wane both for him personally and for his policies Obama set out a stand and tried to sell the public his unwanted wares.</p>
<blockquote><p>Expanding health care coverage was somehow going to somehow drive down costs.</p>
<p>Handouts to state and local governments became a stimulus package.</p>
<p>Climate change legislation became a “green jobs” bill, and so on.</p></blockquote>
<p>When the voters didn&#8217;t buy his arguments his response was to tell them that, &#8220;They are confused and not thinking clearly&#8221; and that one statement will cost him dearly.</p>
<p>You don&#8217;t tell people that you want to vote for you that they are basically stupid if they don&#8217;t understand you, do you?</p>
<p>Harry Reid just said something equally stupid and it might cost him re-election in Nevada,  &#8220;He saved the world economy!&#8221;.</p>
<p>Doesn&#8217;t he know that Oblamer is the One?!</p>
<h4>Could Obama Have Played It Differently And Maybe Won?</h4>
<p>Yes, he could have!</p>
<p>Obama could have embraced at least two policies that would have enhanced both equity and economic performance simultaneously, and some of them might well have bridged the ideological divide.</p>
<h4>Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.</h4>
<p>Loan guarantees should not have been provided for Fannie and Freddie because they shifted risk from participants in real estate transactions to taxpayers, and the caused capital to flow into the industry under very favorable terms.</p>
<p>Creating the guarantees allowed mortgage lenders, realtors, homebuilders, developers, securities traders and others to reap enormous gains during the boom, only to later dump their losses on taxpayers during the ensuing bust.</p>
<p>Cutting off all federal support for Fannie and Freddie would have sent a completely different message.</p>
<p>It  would not only  have greatly enhanced equity, but would also have helped steer investment away from ever more conspicuous McMansions and into productive endeavors like building newer, more-efficient factories, all of which would have stimulated economic growth.</p>
<p>* &#8220;McMansion&#8221; is an originally pejorative term used to describe a large   house, particularly in the United States, that is constructed using   modern labor-saving techniques and materials</p>
<h4>The Tax Code</h4>
<p>Another area that was ripe for reform would have been the loophole-ridden tax code.</p>
<p>Today, the proliferation of carve-outs means that only around 40% of personal income is taxed!</p>
<p>The loopholes should have been removed as much as was possible and the tax base broadened, after which the Obama administration  could have slashed rates, enhanced equity, and provided a huge stimulus to the economy.</p>
<p>Instead, the administration did exactly the opposite; it added even more loopholes and promised to raise rates!</p>
<p>Right now we have a situation where similarly situated families often face vastly different tax burdens depending on their ability to game the system, and it also means that investment is steered away from companies that are adept at building better products, to those with the knack for lobbying.</p>
<h4>Will Obama Move The Goal Posts?</h4>
<p>Obama was a member of the <a title="Obama and the new party" href="http://tinyurl.com/obamafarleft" target="_blank">New Party</a> (communist) just 13 years ago, and he was no teen.</p>
<p>Michelle is a Black separatist of the worst kind as her <a title="Michelle Obama is a racist" href="http://tiny.cc/mobama-is-a-racist" target="_blank">Princeton thesis</a> shows.</p>
<p>Obama is on record as saying that he&#8217;d rather be a great one term President than an ineffectual two termer, so we can sadly expect him and Michelle to continue to try and force their socialist/communist on America!</p>
<p>Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/more-than-eighty-reasons-why-obama-shouldnt-be-reelected/' rel='bookmark' title='More Than Eighty Reasons Why Obama Shouldn&#8217;t Be Reelected!'>More Than Eighty Reasons Why Obama Shouldn&#8217;t Be Reelected!</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/the-%e2%80%98loan-modification-program%e2%80%99-finally-gets-underway/' rel='bookmark' title='The ‘Loan Modification Program’ Finally Gets Underway.'>The ‘Loan Modification Program’ Finally Gets Underway.</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/more-us-cities-are-bulldozing-abandoned-homes/' rel='bookmark' title='More U.S. Cities Are Bulldozing Abandoned Homes'>More U.S. Cities Are Bulldozing Abandoned Homes</a></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>A Meltdown Of The Euro Will Be Far Far Worse Than The Banking Crisis</title>
		<link>http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/a-meltdown-of-the-euro-will-be-worse-than-the-banking-crisis/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-meltdown-of-the-euro-will-be-worse-than-the-banking-crisis</link>
		<comments>http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/a-meltdown-of-the-euro-will-be-worse-than-the-banking-crisis/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 27 May 2010 20:08:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Redbourn</dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[World banks brace for euro collapse &#124; GoldSilver.com goldsilver.com12/26/11 Banks around the world are preparing for the possible collapse of the euro as fears of the European debt crisis increase. What Will Happen if the Euro Collapses? A Few Scenarios &#124; Global &#8230; globalspin.blogs.time.com12/13/11 Despite the distracting political drama over the UK&#39;s outlier rejection at [...]
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<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/watchdog-causes-of-financial-crisis-have-not-been-addressed/' rel='bookmark' title='Watchdog-  &#8220;Causes Of Financial Crisis Have Not Been Addressed&#8221;.'>Watchdog-  &#8220;Causes Of Financial Crisis Have Not Been Addressed&#8221;.</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/ten-of-the-nations-banks-need-a-total-of-75-billion/' rel='bookmark' title='Ten US Banks Needs A Total Of $75 Billion'>Ten US Banks Needs A Total Of $75 Billion</a></li>
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<p><strong><a href='https://goldsilver.com/new/world-banks-brace-for-euro-collapse/'>World banks brace for <b>euro collapse</b> | GoldSilver.com</a></strong></p>
<p><img style='vertical-align: middle' src='http://g.etfv.co/https://goldsilver.com/new/world-banks-brace-for-euro-collapse/' /><span style= 'padding-left:10px'><a href='https://goldsilver.com/new/world-banks-brace-for-euro-collapse/'>goldsilver.com</a></span><span style='padding-left:10px'>12/26/11</span></p>
<p>Banks around the world are preparing for the possible <em>collapse</em> of the <em>euro</em> as fears of the <em>European</em> debt crisis increase.</p>
<p><strong><a href='http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/12/13/as-the-crisis-refuses-to-calm-scenarios-of-euro-collapse-appear/'>What Will Happen if the <b>Euro Collapses</b>? A Few Scenarios | Global <b>&#8230;</b></a></strong></p>
<p><img style='vertical-align: middle' src='http://g.etfv.co/http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/12/13/as-the-crisis-refuses-to-calm-scenarios-of-euro-collapse-appear/' /><span style= 'padding-left:10px'><a href='http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/12/13/as-the-crisis-refuses-to-calm-scenarios-of-euro-collapse-appear/'>globalspin.blogs.time.com</a></span><span style='padding-left:10px'>12/13/11</span></p>
<p>Despite the distracting political drama over the UK&#39;s outlier rejection at last week&#39;s <em>European</em> Union agreement on fiscal and budgetary coordination, it&#39;s now become clear that main objective of the collective effort&#8211;to ensure <b>&#8230;</b></p>
<hr />
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>If you think that the European financial crisis resembles the  American banking crisis of a couple of years ago then you&#8217;re underestimating  the gravity of Europe&#8217;s problem.<br />
</br><br />
<img class="aligncenter" title="The Meltdown Of The Euro" src="http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/images/melting-euro.gif" alt="The Meltdown Of The Euro" width="350" height="252" /></p>
<p>The European sub-prime crisis of 2007 and 2008 was &#8216;solved&#8217;, although most likely only temporarily, by nationalizing bank debt, and whilst that calmed the markets, the bottom line is that bank  debt was merely being transferred onto the public-sector balance sheets.</p>
<p>The  governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King perhaps summed it up best  when he said:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;Dealing with a banking crisis was difficult enough, but  at least there were public-sector balance sheets onto which the problems could  be moved. Once you move into sovereign debt, there is no answer; there&#8217;s no  backstop&#8221;.</p></blockquote>
<p>The investors who leapt back into the US markets in 2009 and fueled  the biggest stock-market leap since the recovery from the Wall Street Crash in  the early 1930s, are now quickly disappearing and the confusion on European  bourses is even worse, and we are now in a similar position to that of 2008.</p>
<p>The crunch that is now happening in Europe was foreseen by a  great many economists for many years however, because of the difference in approach by  Germany and Holland who practice high saving and low spending, and the Mediterranean  countries and southern Ireland who have exactly the opposite approach.</p>
<p>The Mediterranean countries and the U.K. too, borrowed cheap  in order to raise their standards of living, ignoring the question of whether  they could afford to take on so much debt, and that was one of the main causes of  the sub-prime disaster.</p>
<h3>The Big Danger</h3>
<p>Whereas it was possible to bail out sub-prime households, and the  banks that lent to them, the International Monetary Fund doesn&#8217;t  have enough cash to bail out major economies like Spain, Italy or Britain.</p>
<p>The sub-prime property market in the US, together with its  slightly less toxic relatives represented a <strong>$2 trillion</strong> mound of debt, but the  combined public and private debt of the most troubled European countries which  include Greece, Portugal and Spain is closer to <strong>$9 trillion</strong>.</p>
<p>If Greek and other government bonds collapse, then that  country&#8217;s banking system would de facto become insolvent overnight and banks throughout  the euro area would be at risk because they hold so much of their neighbors&#8217;  government debt.</p>
<h4>The Prognosis</h4>
<p>It took Britain just a few days in September 2008 for the  Government to push through the semi-nationalization of Royal Bank of Scotland  and HBOS, but as politicians are now discovering, organizing a European  sovereign bail-out is far, far more difficult than rescuing a bank, or banks.</p>
<p>The euro continues to fall and European politicians who are  torn between Brussels and their electorates are emitting confusing signals  which only tend to destabilize the markets even further.</p>
<p>The single currency might possibly survive, but only if its members  were to agree to an even closer political union, and the likelihood of that  happening seems as likely as the survival of the Euro.</p>
<p>Related posts:<ol>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/will-china-cause-americas-next-financial-crisis/' rel='bookmark' title='Will China Cause America&#8217;s Next Financial Crisis?'>Will China Cause America&#8217;s Next Financial Crisis?</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/watchdog-causes-of-financial-crisis-have-not-been-addressed/' rel='bookmark' title='Watchdog-  &#8220;Causes Of Financial Crisis Have Not Been Addressed&#8221;.'>Watchdog-  &#8220;Causes Of Financial Crisis Have Not Been Addressed&#8221;.</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/ten-of-the-nations-banks-need-a-total-of-75-billion/' rel='bookmark' title='Ten US Banks Needs A Total Of $75 Billion'>Ten US Banks Needs A Total Of $75 Billion</a></li>
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		<title>Tarp And Its Tentacles Could End Up Costing $23.7 Trillion</title>
		<link>http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/tarp-and-its-tentacles-could-end-up-costing-23-7-trillion/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=tarp-and-its-tentacles-could-end-up-costing-23-7-trillion</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:35:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Redbourn</dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/?p=1303</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Neil Barofsky, the inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), is due to deliver his report to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee tomorrow, Tuesday July 20th. Barofsky, who is the government&#8217;s top bailout watchdog says that the total price tag for federal support stemming from the financial crisis could reach as [...]
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<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/the-%e2%80%98loan-modification-program%e2%80%99-finally-gets-underway/' rel='bookmark' title='The ‘Loan Modification Program’ Finally Gets Underway.'>The ‘Loan Modification Program’ Finally Gets Underway.</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/does-obamas-8-6-trillion-deficit-worry-you/' rel='bookmark' title='Does Obama&#8217;s $8.6 Trillion Deficit Worry You?'>Does Obama&#8217;s $8.6 Trillion Deficit Worry You?</a></li>
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			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.ourchangingglobe.com"><img class="alignleft" style="margin: 8px;" title="Wasted Money Or Worse" src="http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/images/wasted_money.jpg" alt="" width="93" height="130" /></a>Neil Barofsky, the inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), is due to deliver his report to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee tomorrow, Tuesday July 20th.</p>
<p>Barofsky, who is the government&#8217;s top bailout watchdog says that the total price tag for federal support stemming from the financial crisis could reach as much as $23.7 trillion in the after factoring in commitments from dozens of programs that were implemented throughout the federal government since 2007, and added that just the financial exposure of TARP and its related programs could reach $3 trillion.</p>
<p>He says that TARP, which started as a $700 billion bailout has expanded way beyond that;</p>
<p>&#8220;TARP has evolved into a program of unprecedented scope, scale and complexity. Moreover, TARP does not function in a vacuum but is rather part of the broader government efforts to stabilize the financial system&#8221;.<br />
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The estimate covers commitments that could have been made by the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Federal Housing Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs and other agencies.</p>
<p>In his report, Barofsky also says that the Treasury Department has repeatedly failed to adopt recommendations that his office believes would bring more transparency and accountability to the execution of the bailout.</p>
<p>In a written response, the Treasury again rejected that call saying, &#8220;Although it might be tempting to do so, it is not possible to say that investment of TARP dollars resulted in particular loans, investments or other activities by the recipient&#8221;.</p>
<p>The report found that fifteen banks had used funds that were acquired from the FDIC to buy weaker rivals, with the banks saying that &#8220;the acquisitions helped preserve banking services to customers&#8221;.<br />
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<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/does-obamas-8-6-trillion-deficit-worry-you/' rel='bookmark' title='Does Obama&#8217;s $8.6 Trillion Deficit Worry You?'>Does Obama&#8217;s $8.6 Trillion Deficit Worry You?</a></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Let&#8217;s Look At The Health Bill</title>
		<link>http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/lets-look-at-the-health-bill/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=lets-look-at-the-health-bill</link>
		<comments>http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/lets-look-at-the-health-bill/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 18 Jul 2009 17:49:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Michael Redbourn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[CBO]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/?p=1293</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#160; Given what is already known about the health bill that Obama is forcefully trying to get approved, we can clearly state with a good deal of certainty what the effects of the bill&#8217;s passage would mean. a) Taxes will have to be raised. b) Federal spending will spiral out of control. c) Unemployment will [...]
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			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.ourchangingglobe.com"><img class="alignleft" style="margin: 8px;" title="Health Bill" src="http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/images/health_bill.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="164" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Given what is already known about the health bill that Obama is forcefully trying to get approved, we can clearly state with a good deal of certainty what the effects of the bill&#8217;s passage would mean.
<p style="clear: left;">
a) Taxes will have to be raised.</p>
<p>b) Federal spending will spiral out of control.</p>
<p>c) Unemployment will increase dramatically.</p>
<p>d) Wages will be reduced.</p>
<p>So it&#8217;s not surprising that a recent poll showed that 38% of Americans strongly oppose the bill, whilst only 22% strongly favor it, especially when you consider that nobody would benefit from any of the changes until at least 2013.</p>
<p>Taxes</p>
<p>A conservative figure of $583 billion would have to be collected by way of higher income taxes, and although the White House claims that only the rich would have their taxes raised, it patently untrue.</p>
<p>More than half of those that would have to pay substantial additional taxes would be small business, and it would in fact be a tax on job creation.</p>
<p>Anybody that&#8217;s left uninsured will be obliged to pay a 2.5% penalty, so those that are unable to pay for health insurance will subsidize those that already have it.</p>
<p>Federal Spending</p>
<p>A budget office analysis that was released Friday July18,  said the intended House bill would “result in a net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion over 10 years&#8221;, partly because of an increase in Medicare spending that would be needed in order to avert sharp cuts in payments to doctors.<br />
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Moreover the director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas W. Elmendorf, stunned listeners one day earlier when he was asked by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., whether costs would be lowered and he replied, &#8220;The health care overhauls released to date would increase, not reduce, the burgeoning long-term health costs&#8221;.</p>
<p>On the same day that the health bill was released, the Treasury Department announced that America had for the first time, amassed a one year deficit of $1 trillion, and it&#8217;s only July.</p>
<p>Unemployment</p>
<p>The bill contains a pay-or-play provision that would require all but the very smallest of businesses to provide health insurance, or else pay a fine equal to 8% of payroll.</p>
<p>Based on The White House&#8217;s own lowball internal estimates, the effect of hitting employers with an additional $300 billion in costs would result in the loss of a further 5 million jobs.</p>
<p>Wages</p>
<p>The health bill also mandates that employers offer health plans with greater benefits, and the Congressional Budget Office noted that employers will effectively pass along the costs of those increased benefits to workers, by paying lower wages.</p>
<p>The fact that Obama rammed a half read stimulus bill though both houses, and is now attempting to do the same with the health bill, has not been lost on Americans.</p>
<p>According to a July 13 CBS News poll;</p>
<p>a) The president&#8217;s approval rating now stands at 57%, which is down 11 points from April.</p>
<p>b) Approximately one half of Americans think the recession will last an additional two years, or more.</p>
<p>c) 52% think Obama is trying to accomplish too much.</p>
<p>d) 57% percent think the country is on the wrong track&#8221;<br />
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<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/the-health-plan-is-about-insurance-and-not-health-care/' rel='bookmark' title='The Health Plan Is About Insurance And Not Health Care'>The Health Plan Is About Insurance And Not Health Care</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/if-youre-middle-class-then-get-ready-to-pay-more-taxes/' rel='bookmark' title='If You&#8217;re Middle Class Then Get Ready To Pay More Taxes'>If You&#8217;re Middle Class Then Get Ready To Pay More Taxes</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.ourchangingglobe.com/chutzpa-denial-and-suicide/' rel='bookmark' title='Chutzpa, Denial, And Suicide'>Chutzpa, Denial, And Suicide</a></li>
</ol></p>]]></content:encoded>
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