Obama's 9/14/09 Speech - Ramping up spending?

[WhiskeyGirl]

I listened to Obama's speech yesterday and a few things come to mind -

The fact is, many of the firms that are now returning to prosperity owe a debt to the American people. Though they were not the cause of the crisis, American taxpayers through their government took extraordinary action to stabilize the financial industry. They shouldered the burden of the bailout and they are still bearing the burden of the fallout - in lost jobs, lost homes and lost opportunities. It is neither right nor responsible after you've recovered with the help of your government to shirk your obligation to the goal of wider recovery, a more stable system, and a more broadly shared prosperity.

Who does Obama plan to share the prosperity with?  Foreign nations, businesses, and workers first?  No jobs for Americans?

I haven't heard anything about paying down the borrowed money, easing the taxpayer burden.  How many future generations of Americans will continue to pay due to politicians NOT returning this money and paying off DEBT created to help these companies?

So I want to urge you to demonstrate that you take this obligation to heart. To put greater effort into helping families who need their mortgages modified under my administration's homeownership plan. To help small business owners who desperately need loans and who are bearing the brunt of the decline in available credit. To help communities that would benefit from the financing you could provide, or the community development institutions you could support. To come up with creative approaches to improve financial education and to bring banking to those who live and work entirely outside the banking system. And, of course, to embrace serious financial reform, not fight it.

Another Cash for Clunkers?  Isn't the administrations homeownership plan out of money?  How well is it performing?  What does that portfolio of loans look like today?

Who are these folks who live and work outside the banking system?  I seem to recall that the law already provide for many, who would not otherwise qualify, to get a checking account.  What services does Barack think are lacking? 

That's why we're pushing to restore pay-as-you-go rules, because I will not go along with the old Washington ways which said it was OK to pass spending bills and tax cuts without a plan to pay for it.

Who get's to pay as Obama spends on healthcare?  How are the Obama tax cuts being paid for?  How long will the debt repayment take to pay for the Obama spending disguised as 'tax cuts'?  OOPS!!!  Debt and borrowing is kinda a plan...just future taxpayers that get stuck!!!  People who didn't vote for or against OBAMA.

I think jobs and wealth creation FOR

[WhiskeyGirl]

Posted before I got done -

I think jobs and wealth creation FOR and BY Americans is the track that will fix the mortgage and unemployment problems. 

Let folks keep the money they earn.  Cancel the rest of the TARP, TALF, and STIMULUS.  A stimulus that send billions to create foreign jobs and prosperity isn't doing anything for Main Street.

jmho

[WhiskeyGirl]

It was one year ago that we experienced just such a crisis. As investors and pension-holders watched with dread and dismay, and after a series of emergency meetings often conducted in the dead of the night, several of the world's largest and oldest financial institutions had fallen, either bankrupt, bought, or bailed out: Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Washington Mutual, Wachovia. A week before this began, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had been taken over by the government. Other large firms teetered on the brink of insolvency. Credit markets froze as banks refused to lend not only to families and businesses but to one another. Five trillion dollars of Americans' household wealth evaporated in the span of just three months.

Earlier this year, investors and pensionholders watched with dread and horror as they lost their life savings when government interferred with the bankruptcy of GM & Chrysler.

How many billions are going to GM and Chrysler quarterly?  25 billion?  50 billion?

How is this money being spend at GM & Chrysler?  Pass throughs to unions?  Foreign and domestic investors?  Large salaries?  Bonuses? 

Where are the documents supporting those actions?  Where did the money go?  Risk and reward?  Why reward failure? 

Did they go bankrupt overnight?  What caused everything to go bad in an instant?

Why isn't Barack starting with an audit of the Federal Reserve?

Something this suspicious should not have been decided in the middle of the night.  What is wrong with the light of day?  Transparency? 

Is Obama defending the Bush Administration?  Why?  The trillions spent on the bailout? 

Five trillion dollars of Americans' household wealth evaporated in the span of just three months.

How much of that evaporated wealth was due to Dark Pool trading?  High Frequency Trading?  Do Dark Pools or HFT add any value to investments of those on Main Street?  What is Obama doing to add a long term focus on investing?  What is the value of trading in nano-seconds, other than to make money?  I read that many consider the Dark Pool and HFT as linked to front running schemes, and insider trading.

Martha Stewart went to jail.  What if they started asking about all those anonymous folks involved in Dark Pool trading or HFT?  Who trades all that stuff?  Anyone ask them?  Keep track of the trades?  Insider deals? 

What led to Freddie and Fannie being taken over?  Weren't there warning signs?  Was Congress asleep at the wheel?  All those banking and finance committees?  Who made all those bad loans?

What about Barnie?  Isn't he part of the Obama Administration?  What did he do to PREVENT these problems?

Why isn't the audit of the Federal Reserve already in full swing?  Isn't that a good logical place to start?  Should the American people know who is spending and mortgaging their nation and future away?  Shouldn't they know who benefits from all this spending and debt?  Money creation?

[WhiskeyGirl]

First, we're proposing new rules to protect consumers and a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency to enforce those rules. This crisis was not just the result of decisions made by the mightiest of financial firms. It was also the result of decisions made by ordinary Americans to open credit cards and take on mortgages. And while there were many who took out loans they knew they couldn't afford, there were also millions of Americans who signed contracts they didn't fully understand offered by lenders who didn't always tell the truth.

Why isn't there consumer protection in the Obamacare plan?  The opportunity to opt out?  Greater opportunity for folks who want a minimum catastrophic plan, something they can afford? 

What kind of consumer reform has the Obama administration already put in force?  No limit on interest charged for credit cards?  What kind of protection is that?

I seem to recall (as do others that read here), that years ago, states limited the amount of interest credit card and other loan companies, could charge consumers. 

I believe the theory worked like this - by limiting the amount of interest that could be earned, companies would be forced to ensure they gave credit to only those who were good credit risks.   In the olden days for example, a SEARS card was hard to get.  Young folks could be turned down several times. 

Today, if one is shopping, they ask at the register, send people around to offer you a card while you shop, and solicit you at the entrance. 

What is the advantage of unlimited interest and profits?  How much does one company need to profit off of an individual consumer?  Is this another privatize profits, and socialize losses?  Responsible people get stuck making up for the irresponsible folks by paying outrageous interest? 

Trick people into slowing building up a balance, and then at some point or trigger, start raising the interest rate?  Maybe someone could have afforded the payment at 12%, but not 45% interest?  Same with percentage of balance - maybe someone could have afforded to pay 2% of the balance plus interest, but rocket that to 5% plus interest and they collapse?

Why not give folks the opportunity of having level predictable payments?

What happens when hyperinflation and and interest rates skyrocket? 

Is the goal, a national bankruptcy?  Folks walking away from their debt?  Much like they are doing with their underwater mortgages?  OOPS  forgot, the mortgage folks get Obama refinancing.  Keep making that mortgage smaller and smaller on paper - taxpayers will just take the HIT for you, again and again. 

After hyperinflation, it will be like many getting their homes for free.  The savings and investments of many will be wiped out too.

Another idea - was that credit card companies should be responsible enough NOT to offer card after card and increase limits to those were were maxed out. 

jmho

[WhiskeyGirl]

The Consumer Financial Protection Agency will have the power to ensure that consumers get information that is clear and concise, and to prevent the worst kinds of abuses. Consumers shouldn't have to worry about loan contracts designed to be unintelligible, hidden fees attached to their mortgages, and financial penalties - whether through a credit card or debit card - that appear without warning on their statements. And responsible lenders, including community banks, doing the right thing shouldn't have to worry about ruinous competition from unregulated competitors.

The clear and concise, unintelligible, hidden fees, and financial penalties should apply to healthcare/insurance reform/public option too. 

What about insurance companies that are 'doing it right'?  Why doesn't Obama identify all those bad companies doing bad things?  Why demonize an entire industry? 

In the Obama words, I think the government plan/option/coop will be the 'unregulated competitors'.  If your sponsor makes the rules, what are the chances that the playing field will be level?  

Lots of people like the plan they have and the company.  Why change the plan?

Who will keep the government honest?  Who will keep the Congress and the White House honest?  Is our government honest in their dealings with taxpayers, citizens, and those here legally?

[WhiskeyGirl]

The lack of clear rules in the past meant we had innovation of the wrong kind: the firm that could make its products look best by doing the best job of hiding the real costs won. For example, we had "teaser" rates on credit cards and mortgages that lured people in and then surprised them with big rate increases. By setting ground rules, we'll increase the kind of competition that actually provides people better and greater choices, as companies compete to offer the best product, not the one that's most complex or confusing.

Are affordability credits and 'free' the teaser rates for Obamacare? 

What kind of rules is Obama planning?  Rules that will increase the competition? 

How many folks would take a credit card if they were told in advance the rate would skyrocket to 45% after their balance was at say $2,000 and increase to say 90% when the balance was say $5,000? 

How many of those folks would have the capability to pay off that balance?  People get in trouble, but are these reforms likely to make it worse?

If folks could get a personal loan at a lower interest rate, who profits from all the fees generated by rolling this debt?   How many times will debt be rolled?  Another mortgage crisis in the making?

Why not return to the days when the credit card companies were responsible for ensuring they did not offer credit to folks that had no chance in h_ll of paying it back?

We have all kinds of INSTANT computer data access.  Why give a drowning man more weight to carry? 

Do they new rules offer an anchor of debt or a lifeline?

Now, one of the main reasons this crisis could take place is that many agencies and regulators were responsible for oversight of individual financial firms and their subsidiaries, but no one was responsible for protecting the whole system. In other words, regulators were charged with seeing the trees, but not the forest. And even then, some firms that posed a "systemic risk" were not regulated as strongly as others, exploiting loopholes in the system to take on greater risk with less scrutiny. As a result, the failure of one firm threatened the viability of many others. We were facing one of the largest financial crises in history and those responsible for oversight were caught off guard and without the authority to act.

This sounds good.  A good place to start?  Audit the Federal Reserve pronto.  A good robust plan of discovery.  Transparency. 

I think that ending the job rotation between the Federal Reserve, Unions, Treasury, Wall Street, and Congress is a good next step.  Somewhere, in this nation there must exist smart people who do not have conflicts of interest, financial interests, and challenges with nepotism, cronyism, and favoritism. 

There are good people everywhere that want to see Americans and those on Main Street prosper. 

[WhiskeyGirl]

If a bank approaches insolvency, we have a process through the FDIC that protects depositors and maintains confidence in the banking system. This process was created during the Great Depression when the failure of one bank led to runs on other banks, which in turn threatened the banking system. And it works. Yet we don't have any kind of process in place to contain the failure of a Lehman Brothers or AIG or any of the largest and most interconnected financial firms in our country.

How about firewalls between financial firms in this country and other countries?

FDIC is paid for by taxpayers.  Why should taxpayers 'contain' the failure of any of these big interconnected banks and firms?

Privatize profits, socialize losses.

There seems to be a process in place to contain the failure of firms like AIG and those connected to them, and it seems to work to the detriment of taxpayers.  Special midnight plans for the well connected.

Maybe it's time for change?  How much does the FDIC guarantee to individual account holders?  $250,000?

How much did firms like Goldman get from taxpayers?  AIG passthroughs?  Access to cheap money from the Treasury and Federal Reserve? 

Why shouldn't firms like Goldman raise private capital?  Is there a reason the private capital should not be at risk?  Why should taxpayers contain the losses?  That just doesn't make sense.

Did the process work for the S&L debacle a few years ago?  Seems to me, from memory, that many in government office, and well connected made off like bandits, and taxpayers footed the bill.

Fannie and Freddie?  Who made fees for all those loans and took on NO risk?  How much in fees will companies make for selling the government healthcare option/plan?

What good does it do to give the Fox keys to the henhouse, and a blank check and unlimited line of credit for replacing the hens that go missing? 

Firewalls.  Why do some seem to think access to taxpayer money should be easy?  Why should it be easy to access the taxpayer wallet?   It's like the big firms are being setup to continue picking the pockets of folks on Main Street, and Congress and the White House are looking the other way.   

imho