Day: March 17, 2009

Let Us Help Small Business

Holy Crap!  You people are thick!

Obama and his cracker jack economic team has come up with the idea of helping small business.  A noble endeavor but their approach is missing something.

President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner today are outlining a plan to free up credit for the nation’s struggling small businesses by raising federal loan guarantees and bolstering bank liquidity.

“Small businesses are one of the biggest drivers of employment we have,” Obama told a gathering of small-business owners, community banking executives and lawmakers at the White House today. “This is going to be a first step” of a continuing effort to help small business.

The Small Business Administration currently guarantees payment on 85 percent of a loan up to $150,000, and as much as 75 percent on loans of more than $150,000. The administration is raising the guarantee to 90 percent, reducing lender risk, and waiving fees of as much as $75,000 that are paid by borrowers.

Obama also is planning steps to thaw the secondary credit market using more than $10 billion from the $700 billion bank rescue fund. The estimated $375 million for the small-business lending initiative will come out of the $787 billion economic stimulus plan passed by Congress last month.

Yes small business is the engine that drives the economy and employment.  But once again it comes to the point that they are missing the entire problem.  They are looking for solutions in the economic bailout field.

One more time…dammit how many times does this have to be said?  The government can guarantee loans until they go stupid, if they already have not, but it will do NO good.  What bank will oan to a company that has NO sales?

Demand!!!!!!!!  Okay dipsticks……one more time…….there can be NO sales without DEMAND!  The only way to help small businesses is to put money in the hands of the people…they will spend it and business will profit….This is NOT rocket science.

Health Care: Hot Button Issue

The health care “reform” proposals being developed by the Obama administration, like every element of its policy, are entirely subordinated to the interests of the corporate and financial elite. For this reason, they are not only inadequate, they are reactionary and will serve only to deepen the health care crisis in the United States.

As of yet, the administration’s health care proposals have been described only in the vaguest terms. This is for definite reasons. Obama is seeking a procedure for ditching even his limited campaign pledges regarding health care. At the same time, he wants to make clear that business interests will have the final say on how any new program is structured.

It is already clear that a number of the proposals on which Obama campaigned only a few months ago—including a limited government-operated insurance program and a measure that would force employers to pay more for health care—will be ditched. Other more far-reaching proposals, such as the establishment of a single-payer universal health insurance program, have been excluded from the discussion entirely.

Unlike many industrialized countries, the United States never implemented a state-run universal system of health insurance or health care. Some 50 million Americans are completely uninsured, while tens of millions more are inadequately insured. Most workers who are able to get insurance do so through their employers or from Medicare or Medicaid, the federal entitlement programs for the elderly and the poor. Others are forced to purchase high-cost private insurance.

In the midst of a growing economic crisis, employers are anxious to cut costs by reducing health care payments or eliminating company insurance programs completely. The program developed by the Obama administration will likely establish as a substitute the partial subsidization of private insurance. This will be a boondoggle for the insurance companies and allow companies to cut back or eliminate health coverage for their employees, while forcing workers to pay more for less-comprehensive care.

There is more to the story……

The Obama administration is signaling that it’s open to taxing employee health benefits, a position that President Barack Obama criticized U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for holding during last fall’s campaign.

The potential tax would finance an overhaul of the U.S. health-care system, according to reports. However, it may prove to be politically troublesome for Mr. Obama, who decried the idea, accusing Mr. McCain of ruining the health-care system for the middle class.

Currently, health-care benefits provided by employers are tax-free, regardless of the details of the plan or the salary of the employee. Although any change in the current system would be opposed by union leaders and some employers, the New York Times reported while the president will not propose changing the tax-free status of employee health benefits himself, he would not oppose the same measure if proposed by Congress.

Is it just me or are things not changing for the better?

Do Not Screw With Our Money!

Basically, that is what China is telling the US.

In a public statement raising questions about the solvency of the US government, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said Friday that China, the largest holder of US treasury debt, was “concerned about the security of our assets.”

Wen’s remarks came at a news conference following the annual session of China’s parliament, where he commented on the economic policies of the new US administration. “President Obama and his new government have adopted a series of measures to deal with the financial crisis,” Wen said. “We have expectations as to the effects of these measures. We have lent a huge amount of money to the US. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I am definitely a little worried.”

He called on the United States to “maintain its good credit, to honor its promises and to guarantee the safety of China’s assets.”

Chinese officials fear that the huge borrowing in world credit markets required to finance the US government’s budget deficits—a projected $5 trillion over the next four years according to an estimate released by the Obama administration last month—will lead to a decline in the value of the dollar.

Since Beijing now holds about $1 trillion in dollar-denominated assets, including nearly $700 billion in US Treasury debt, a decline in the value of the US currency would hit China hard.

Not only are we a country of credit addicts…our country is a credit addict…….we have been told by Washington and the conservs that the country should live within its means…all the while they assisted in turning the people of the country into the world’s biggest credit junkies.

Would they foreclose on the country?  Doubtful, they would lose too much money, but it is an interesting developement and watch the news…….to calm China nerves they will get all sorts of special deals from Washington.

How Does This Work?

The whole AIG thing is just so much bullshit!

Especially when the CEO of AIG Liddy talks.

Liddy, a former board member of Goldman Sachs—the investment house believed to have received a large portion of the bailout money after it was “laundered” through AIG’s insurance contracts—fired back an extraordinary letter telling the government to get lost.

“Quite frankly, AIG’s hands are tied,” he wrote, claiming that the bonuses were “binding obligations”—part of the executives’ employment contracts—and interfering with them could provoke lawsuits. Moreover, he argued that they were fully warranted, despite the massive losses for which those receiving them were responsible. Without doling out a billion in additional compensation, he claimed, AIG would be at risk of losing “the best and the brightest to lead and staff the AIG businesses.” Employees would leave if “their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the US Treasury,” he said.

First of all…CRAP!….retention of people?  Would these be the same people that screwed up everything in the past?  Why woul;d you want them to stay?  A better question is where will these pricks go?  If all WallStreet sucks, then they have choices, huh?

“The best and the brightest?” The executives in AIG’s financial division ran an unregulated credit-default swap operation that was just as much a scam as Bernie Madoff’s fund, and far more destructive.

The obvious question is: where precisely are these “best and brightest” going to go if they fail to get their hundreds of millions in bonuses? The market for this type of financial parasitism has collapsed, dragging down with it the livelihoods of millions upon millions of working people. Rather than getting bonuses, those in charge of the financial manipulations carried out by AIG and its partners should be on the receiving end of criminal investigations.

Let me see…thge treasury controls the cash that it gives out and Geithner says there is nothing he can do to stop the bonus pay outs……may I suggest a “stop payment” on their checks from the government.

Is the Federal government so impotent that it cannot control what is done with its money?  Or is it more that they do not want to do anything that would harm Wall Street?  I still do not understand why the American people are not more pissed at this type of story.  The American people are truly a flock of sheep, if they allow this type of crap to continue.  If you want to fix things then get rid of the a/holes you have in Washington, they are NOT helping.

World News Today

These are stories from the international scene that may not be a full post.

the Pakistani government imposed Section 144, or emergency rule, on the Sindh Province, matching a move yesterday in Punjab, and placing roughly two thirds of the nation’s 172 million people under harsh restrictions. The Punjab edict resulted in mass arrests of opposition members and a ban on all public gatherings. The Sindh edict has similarly banned public gatherings, and several have already been arrested. At least one district leader in Sindh has refused the order.

Shahbaz Sharif, who was Chief Minister of Punjab until last month when President Zardari imposed governor’s rule, today echoed his brother (former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif)’s call for people to take to the streets for a revolution.

This makes it to congress yet again….last time Turkey crapped on the deal.

Several U.S. lawmakers have written to President Barack Obama urging him to follow up on campaign statements and label the 1915 massacre of Armenians as genocide.

The pressure on Obama comes ahead of an expected presidential trip to Turkey, which has warned that such declarations by the United States would damage relations.

Turkey denies that up to 1.5 million Armenians suffered genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks during World War One. Turkey accepts many Armenians were killed, but denies they were victims of a systematic genocide.

Ronald Reagan was the only U.S. president to publicly call the killings genocide. Others avoided the term out of concern for the sensitivities of Turkey, an important NATO ally.

Good luck with that guys.

Obama’s new Afghan goals.

The White House objectives were expected to roughly parallel 15 goals contained in a 20-page classified report to the White House from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Among them were getting rid of terrorist safe havens in Pakistan and adopting a regional approach to reducing the threat of terrorism and extremism in both countries.

The U.S. goal in Afghanistan must be to protect Kabul’s fragile government from collapsing under pressure from the Taliban — a goal that can only be achieved by securing Pakistan’s cooperation, increasing substantially the size of Afghanistan’s national security forces and boosting economic aid in the region, according to senior military and intelligence officials.

The review addresses “the safe haven in Pakistan, making sure that Afghanistan doesn’t provide a capability in the long run or an environment in which al-Qaida could return or the Taliban could return,” Mullen said, as well as the need for stability, economic development and better governance in Afghanistan, and the development of the Afghan armed forces.

Propping up the Karzai government is kinda lame…basically he is the mayor of Kabul and the government is little more than the city council.  Afghanistan, where empires go to die……..