President Obama was so concerned that he had appeared to dismiss a question from New York Times reporters about whether he was a socialist that he called the newspaper from the Oval Office to clarify his policies.
"It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question," he told reporters, who had interviewed the president aboard Air Force One on Friday.
Opening the unusual presidential call to reporters by saying that there was "just one thing I was thinking about as I was getting on the copter," he said it wasn't he who started the federal government's intervention into the nation's financial system.
"I did think it might be useful to point out that it wasn't under me that we started buying a bunch of shares of banks. It wasn't on my watch. And it wasn't on my watch that we passed a massive new entitlement --- the prescription drug plan -- without a source of funding. And so I think it's important just to note when you start hearing folks throw these words around that we've actually been operating in a way that has been entirely consistent with free-market principles and that some of the same folks who are throwing the word 'socialist' around can't say the same."
The New York Times asked, "So whose watch are we talking about here?" but Obama wouldn't name names.
"Well, I just think it's clear by the time we got here, there already had been an enormous infusion of taxpayer money into the financial system. And the thing I constantly try to emphasize to people if that coming in, the market was doing fine, nobody would be happier than me to stay out of it. I have more than enough to do without having to worry the financial system. The fact that we've had to take these extraordinary measures and intervene is not an indication of my ideological preference, but an indication of the degree to which lax regulation and extravagant risk taking has precipitated a crisis."
He concluded the brief call by saying, "I think that covers it."
The phone call came after the president was asked aboard his plane: "Are you a socialist as some people have suggested?"
He was clear in his first answer: "You know, let's take a look at the budget -- the answer would be no."
"Is there anything wrong with saying, 'Yes'?" a Times reporter pressed.
"Let's just take a look at what we've done," Obama said, ticking off efforts his administration has made to stabilize the economy. But he acknowledged that, as he told Joe the Plumber, he plans to try to spread the wealth around.
"If you look on the revenue side what we're proposing, what we're looking at is essentially to go back to the tax rates that existed during the 1990s when, as I recall, rich people were doing very well. In fact everybody was doing very well. . . . We said that we'd give a tax cut to 95 percent of working Americans. That's exactly what we have done."
#1
"It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question," he told reporters, who had interviewed the president aboard Air Force One on Friday.
#2
Guess he's not ready to come out of the closet yet.
But I wonder how he voted in the Senate on the prescription drug program. And what was his position in regards to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the sub prime mortgages that caused all the difficulty we are now experiencing? Did he vote at all or did he just say "present"? And who does he think is going to pay for his universal health care? And why is he making nice with those communist bastards in Cuba?
This is quite amazing:
The government is seeking to resuscitate the nation's crippled financial system by forging an alliance with the very outfits that most benefited from the bonanza preceding the collapse of the credit markets: hedge funds and private-equity firms.
The initiative to revive the consumer lending business, outlined by officials this week, offers these wealthy investors a new chance to make sizable profits -- but, thanks to the government, without the risk of massive losses. The idea is to entice them to put their huge cash piles to work to stimulate the financial system. They would be invited to buy up recently issued, highly rated securities. These securities finance consumer lending, such as credit cards and student and auto loans."
In the past, hedge funds and private-equity firms have not been major buyers of the securities that provide financing for credit cards and other consumer loans.
But the government is turning to these investors in part because traditional buyers, such as retirement funds, mutual funds and university endowments, have fled the markets. Many are deep in the red and reeling from past forays into buying complicated debt securities. Moreover, many pension funds have rules that ban them from borrowing money to make investments, which is an essential ingredient in the government's program. So many pension funds will not be able to participate.
Federal officials, however, have not given up on the traditional investors and are considering setting up investment entities that would allow pension funds to get a piece of the profits. Officials said pension officials have expressed strong interest in this idea. Well, that's nice of the Feds, to give the screwed a chance to get something back. Not too much of a chance, of course.... And they can always tax the profits ...
Here's how a typical TALF deal would work: A hedge fund uses $1 million of its own money and gets a $9 million loan from the Fed, payable after three years, to buy a $10 million asset-backed security, which finances consumer loans. Hoping that the market for these assets recovers, the hedge fund would hold the asset for three years.
If the security rises in value to $11 million, the investor would keep the profit, essentially doubling the initial investment. The government, meanwhile, would consider the deal a success because consumer lending was spurred. If the value fell below $9 million, the hedge fund would lose its down payment but nothing more. The Treasury, using bailout funds approved by Congress, would cover the next set of losses, with the Fed ultimately on the hook for anything more. So the government essentially is going to be in the hedge fund business. And we all know how good government is at picking winners and losers.
If the asset-backed security really is AAA-rated the hedge funds won't need Obama dollars. If it isn't, they won't pony up the original $1 million in the first place.
Steven Schwartzman, chief executive of private-equity giant Blackstone, said the program is "highly attractive" because of the government financing. So the entities that skinned us on the upside now get to buy deeply undervalued assets at 10 to 1 leverage, with a government guarantee of no downside risk. Cute!
Now, if the government were to set up a fund with this kind of deal that ordinary citizens and taxpayers could buy shares in, there would be an enormous outpouring of money from the mattresses. But no, a deal like this has to go to the 'professionals'.
Makes you want to believe the conspiracy theorists. Jeeze.
AWASHINGTON: President Barack Obama has chided his attorney general, Eric Holder Jr., for describing America as a "nation of cowards" when discussing race, wading into a tumult that flared over Holder's indictment of the way this country talks about ethnicity.
"I think it's fair to say that if I had been advising my attorney general, we would have used different language," Obama said in a mild rebuke from America's first black president to its first black attorney general.
In an interview with The New York Times on Friday, the president said that despite Holder's choice of words, he had a point."We're often times uncomfortable with talking about race until there's some sort of racial flare-up or conflict," he said, adding, "We could probably be more constructive in facing up to sort of the painful legacy of slavery and Jim Crow and discrimination." Just how disingenuous are these 2 sentences? Amazing. He's saying exactly the same thing as Holder in the second sentence. Let's see how long it takes for those "elites" in the press to pick it up and point it out.
Holder made his comments last month during an address to employees at the Justice Department, saying that "though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been and we, I believe, continue to be in too many ways essentially a nation of cowards."
His remarks ignited protest, particularly from conservatives. One post, by Stephan Tawney on the American Pundit blog, said that "our attorney general is black, both major parties are led by black men, the president is black."
"And yet," Tawney wrote, "we're apparently a 'nation of cowards' on race."
Obama was asked whether he agreed with Holder. He hesitated for five seconds before responding. The teleprompter was stuck for a moment? "Mr. Axelrod! Mr. Axelrod! We got a core meltdown!"
"Load the race tape and keep him talking! I'll be right there!"
"I'm not somebody who believes that constantly talking about race somehow solves racial tensions," Obama said. "I think what solves racial tensions is fixing the economy, putting people to work, making sure that people have health care, ensuring that every kid is learning out there. I think if we do that, then we'll probably have more fruitful conversations." Translation: Taking from the producers and gratuitously handing it over to the consumers And in those fruitful conversations of the future we'll still be beating people in the head ...
Posted by: Omoter Speaking for Boskone7794 ||
03/09/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Want to solve our 'racial' problems?
Start teaching kids in public schools about the dangers of ALL prejudice and bigotry instead of 'racism' or 'sexism' solely.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
03/09/2009 7:37 Comments ||
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#2
Take the first right out of the roundabout at the sign that reads Chesherbury - London and proceed South.
or
Take the first right out of the roundabout at the sign that reads London - Chesherbury and proceed south.
#4
"Pain and legacy?" Fully and irreversably recovered here, I'm over it. My house sits on top of a former cotton field as does 9 others in our subdivision and we pay a boatload of taxes. There, I did my part. Have a nice day!
#5
"I think what solves racial tensions is fixing the economy, blah, blah, blah
Rather then man up and tell the race baiting industry that its time to wind down the struggle, Obama takes the easy route and blame poverty as the cause. And of course, then Government can be the roundabout solution. Ill say it again. AG Holder was spot on. Cowards!
Its "kind of silly" to keep debating the science, Mr. Gore said Yep. Why let inconvenient facts get in the way of a good story?
Former Vice President Al Gore repeated his message that climate change is a planetary emergency at the WSJ's Eco:nomics conference in California. The Nobel-prize winner declined to take any questions from reporters, but he did receive a couple of challenges from attendees, including Bjorn Lomborg. But don't expect Mr. Gore to debate the merits of how best to tackle climate change anytime soon.
Mr. Gore stuck to his prepared script about the urgency of taking action to curb global greenhouse-gas emissions, down to well-worn phrases he trots out at conferences across the country: America is at "a political tipping point" on climate change, and even if Washington has failed to address the energy challenge in the last 35 years, "political will is a renewable resource."
But he was challenged by Mr. Lomborg, the Danish skeptical environmentalist who thinks the world would be better off spending more money on health and education issues than curbing carbon emissions.
"I don't mean to corner you, or maybe I do mean to corner you, but would you be willing to have a debate with me on that point?" asked the polo-shirt wearing Dane.
"I want to be polite to you," Mr. Gore responded. But, no. "The scientific community has gone through this chapter and verse. We have long since passed the time when we should pretend this is a 'on the one hand, on the other hand' issue," he said. "It's not a matter of theory or conjecture, for goodness sake," he added. Really!? The whole point of science is that we continue to debate issues, look at new data, and re-examine what we thought was 'settled'. It's that kind of debate that pushes science forward. The moment someone says that the science is 'settled' and therefore off-limits, it's no longer a scientific argument but a political one.
As an example, he pointed to a new addition to the budget for the island nation of the Maldives: "Funds to buy a new nation." So how would he describe the multi trillion dollar budget?
Posted by: Omoter Speaking for Boskone7794 ||
03/09/2009 00:00 ||
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Al Gore is a politician - not a scientist. Such things as 'scientific method' goes over his head and to him 'debate' isn't about the facts - but the presentation and 'feelings'....
#3
What is left out of the encounter is some context. Bjorn Lomborg also believes in global warming and the manmade kind. However, he also has shown that our mitigation strategies (carbon cap and trade, severe restrictions of CO2) will lead to an insignificant reduction in temperature over the next 50 years and have the result of squandering trillions of dollars. His point is that on the basis of economics decision-making, for far less "investment" we could help all people to adapt to climate change and maintain our wealth to be in a position to do so.
#5
But he was challenged by Mr. Lomborg, the Danish skeptical environmentalist who thinks the world would be better off spending more money on health and education issues than curbing carbon emissions.
Yep, sure sounds like it's 'settled science' to me...
#8
Listen to me! I invented the internet. I also have a Nobel Piece Prize and an Oscar from Hollyweird. Global Warming is real I tell you. I also have this carbon credit snakeoil scam plan that will benefit mankind. I don't give a damn what science says.
Posted by: Weird Al Gore ||
03/09/2009 11:20 Comments ||
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#9
I say we change Ground Hog Day to Al Gore Day. If Al Gore sees his shadow, it's six more weeks of global warming.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
President Obama was so concerned that he had appeared to dismiss a question from New York Times reporters about whether he was a socialist that he called the newspaper from the Oval Office to clarify his policies.
