President Obama: The First 100 Days - Page 9

Thats the thing...there were a few firms (JPM, WF, GS, USB supposedly) that were forced to accept TARP funds so as to not create a lack of confidence in firms that actually needed them (C, BAC, AIG, etc).

This whole $5 billion thing is the problem in my mind. Why not limit the penalty (which is what it is) to firms that either applied on their own or have taken more than one infusion?

Now naturally you could argue that the aforementioned firms that were compelled to accept funds when not needed could simply give the money back, but its safe to say that by doing that the firms (which now have less liquid capital) would reduce lending in order to preserve what they have (which is one of the main points of the infusions in the first place*).

*A strategy I personally dont agree with, by the way. You cant solve a problem created by lending too much by lending even more.

I agree with you in principle, but wasn't the creeping fear that with the credit markets frozen, business would start to fold as they became unable to cover their operating and payroll costs without obtainable credit? Again, I agree the whole thing has been badly mishandled, to a criminal degree in some cases, but surely some degree of lending had to be secured in order to keep the economy from seizing up more than it already has?

That is my basic understanding of it, at least. Beyond the lending I am more troubled by the ongoing attempts to artificially prop up property prices. Stabilize them, yes, (so as to stop foreclosures from bringing levels down to an unreasonably weak level) but someone needs to articulate how we are going to bring the overall level in line with fair market valuations. The Swedish 'bad bank' model won't work on this scale, I suspect. For a trillion or two (haha, that is really a shit-ton of money), couldn't you just deal with the asset differentials for mortgages that are upside down instead of going whole-hog into buying up the whole damned asset? What, its a moral hazard? No, it's not, that's not what moral hazard means. A moral hazard is going out and actively doing something because you are hedged against the outcome (like, say, buying car & life insurance and then driving your car off a cliff). We are long passed that phase of the problem. This is damage control.

Yeah sorry, I meant to say lending to individuals. The gubment going into even more debt by purchasing mortgage securities (and treasuries) pushing down the lending rates in conjunction with trying to inflate property values is what concerns me.

I do agree that there needs to be something done to aid responsible homeowners, but artificially pushing the rates down then telling people to go out and borrow more sounds a little 2001-2002 for me. Just like everything else were doing now, Japan tried this and it didnt work out too well for them.

Joe Biden validates his existence:

That's great stuff.

The other day on DailyKos (a site on the verge of becoming totally irrelevant in the post-Bush era, by the way), one of the writers quoted the line in Office Space about "federal pound me in the ass prison" in relation to potential jail terms in these Ponzi Schemes.

I'm not remotely joking when I say the first seventy five to one hundred replies to that article were people screaming bloody murder about that line and how it wasn't funny. How it deameaned gays. How "ass rape isn't part of the punishment" etc. It was simutaneously hilarious and pathetic.

Point is, there are people out there that wake up every morning looking for a reason to be offended. They're miserable, humorless fucks that have made the world a shittier place to live, but they're so very loud.

Coming from a site like DailyKos, it's not surprising at all. Those people need to get a damn life and grow up.

Bernie Sanders, the Independent Senator from Vermont, is my hero. From Harpers:

I just realized that its been around 60 days into Obama's term...

When is he going to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"?

60 days? World hunger should have been solved already with world peace a few handshakes away. WTF is the Obama administration doing with all their time?

Well, hyperbole aside, he made a huge deal about don't ask, don't tell and then when he got in office basically said "Yeah, we might need to re-evaluate how we were talking about changing that" and it completely vanished.

He'll get it done. His quick work on stem-cell research can tide me over.

It's a fair question, I was just poking fun at the "it's been 60 days" part. He promised it and he should revisit it as soon as possible. The problem is, the minute he does someone will cry "but what are you doing about the economy." That does not excuse him if he does not revisit it but I'd say give him a few months to work on the economy.

Late in getting in the game, so excuse me if I am repeating what others may have said.

The apointments Obama has made have been inexcusable, and paint a very grim situation for the US. For instance, the director of the White Houses National Economic Council, Larry Summers, is one of the men to repeal the Glass Stegal Act, he also backed the Comoditys Future Modernization Act, the two key peices of deregulation completely responsible for this mess.

And now this fucker is in charge of the bailouts!

http://www.financialsense.com/editor...2009/0318.html


This guys a tool who does the bidding of banks and this of all people is who you pick to clean up the mess? And there hasn't been any talk about bringing back the Glass Steagal Act, its unbelievable. Its pretty clear Obama has retained the hiring practices of his predecessors.

Man, Obamas been a massive disappointment in so many ways.

This thread has gotten pretty long so I'm probably reiterating what others have said but I just need to vent on these two points:

1) His snickering, dismissive response to a question about marijuana legalization from a question via the Internet. I really expected better from him. I didn't expect him to agree or even to seriously consider it, but I expected a thoughtful, reasoned response and instead he just backhanded marijuana users and Internet support (both groups who I'm sure voted for him) while ignoring the hundreds of thousands of non-violent offenders locked up for drug-use. I know he has bigger fish to fry right now but that response was unacceptable.

2) Geithner and Summers have to go. I'm constantly reminded of Lincoln's first Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, and the key mistakes Lincoln made at the outset of the Civil War. Yes, Cameron was eventually replaced with the far superior Edwin M. Stanton (a man who was previously highly critical of the President but eventually grew to be a close confidant) but mistakes made by Cameron and Lincoln's generals led to a far bloodier and prolonged conflict than it needed to be. I feel like that's what we're headed towards with this economy and I need to know when Obama is going to wake up and get folks who weren't a part of this disaster and bring in the economists and get rid of the bankers.

About time: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20625.html

Matt, considering Obamas actions and apointments its clear he's a corpratist like Bush. Its not about Obama waking up, hes a smart guy, he knows what hes doing, he has already picked sides and it isn't the peoples one.

Its not merely the hiring of people who were part of the disaster, these people are the disaster, its not incompetency that caused this crisis, its the systematic undermining of laws by the very people in charge of cleaning up this mess. Theres absolutely no doubt people like Larry Summers and Tim Geithner loyalties are with the banks. Its not even funny how probank, and anitregulation Larry Summers is.

So its not a surprise that Larry Summers and Tim Geithner haven't made any mention about the first step in making sure this never happens again, about repealing the Commodities Future Act, or reinstating the Glass Steagal act, since they themselves are one of the few key players who created this deregulation.

In fact everything they have done is about protecting these two peices of deregulation, seriously, superbanks such as Citigroup have been funeled hundred of billions(using these billions to buy smaller regional banks), while the unregulated sercurities market still stands. Frankly its astounding the Commodity Futures Act still stands, and that there is still no regulation of this market, or even any serious plans.

As far as I can tell thats what Tim Geithner and Larry Summers are concerned with, making sure superbanks remain intact, instead of being broken into small mangeable chunks, and making sure the derivatives(only certain derivatives) market remains unregulated. I'd say they are doing an excellent job.

Hahaha "Not acceptable"?

Did you happen to read the questions? They proposed that legalizing Pot would literally save the economy. And of course there were the posts saying making Pot illegal was on the same level as keeping slavery in the Constitution, the Holocaust etc.....

He laughed it off because it should be laughed off...

Although maybe they're right! Think of the implications about making Pot legal

<Breaths new life into Philip Morris et al. They can now push Pot in ads, The Malboro Man gets a whole new look etc...

<Cheech and Chong comeback gets new legs!

<US Economy saved by huge resurgence of Nacho Industry. US becomes world'
s biggest consumer of Nachos.

< Millions of cancer patients miraculously cured via "Teh Pot Cure" thus saving the US billions in heathcare costs. Because everyone knows Pot was made illegal in the first place because it cures pretty much every disease known to Man and the Healthcare industry made it illegal to preserve their jobs

Oh, come on.

We're already the world's biggest consumer of nachos.

Given the audience at that particular townhall, I also wouldn't have championed pot as the cash crop for the new millennium. Any positive response towards the question on Obama's part would've been met with negativity from both the live audience and the right-wing blogtards.

"Legalize Pot" is an issue better slipped into legislation without warning.

Thats the problem he seems to be playing to his audience, considering the fact Obama himself was a huge pothead, surely he understands and believes its far less harmful than tobacco or alcohol, so he should say this.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123841609048669495.html

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20090330...b-03c9bed.html

Lots more at the link -- but I like it. This is something I can get behind.

I admit, I was teetering and thinking of buying the Honda Insight but this may have convinced me to go the Chevy Camero route and pick up a Volt later on down the line. I had already known about the tax incentives of buying this year but I was slightly concerned about the waranty. It's just a shame the convertable wont be offerened until next year.

Does that mean you'll be comin' to cruise chicks at Seaside Heights?

It's an issue better suited for freshmen level government papers than a town hall with the President.

But that wasn't mentioned in the question he was asked. Obama didn't spend the day on the Internet and come to the conclusion, "I'm going to mock these people!" He took the traditional, narrow-minded view of our current situation. If he disagrees with that opinion, then fine. But don't scoff the hundreds of thousands who legitimately want an answer to that question.

EDIT: So no one really read what I said. I didn't say Obama should come out in favor of legalization. I said he shouldn't laugh at people who take the issue seriously and if he disagrees, he should do so like an adult and not a condescending jerk-off.

I agree his answer wasn't satisfactory or serious, but my suspicion is that he's got too much on his plate right now and needs to tread lightly on the subject of weed, because any serious remark would have sent the far right into fits of apoplexy. Friggin Michelle Bachman is already in a panic against "world currency"; the last thing Obama needs is for the far right to attack him for being the pot president.

I hope, down the road, that somehow the power to classify and regulate pot goes from a national-level concern to the states. Because I know what California would do.

Obama still rides high in polls:

Also...

I like these polls. They keep me sane. Every other time I just see Drudge and FOX paint Americans as people who hate the Obama administration with fiery passion.

Yet again, even though I don't live in her district, I feel compelled to apologize to the nation for living in the state that produced her. Please remember that we're also responsible for The Replacements, the Coen brothers, and cheese curds.

If we could combine the three in some sort of ideology death-ray to rid the world of her brand of borderline psychotic martyrdom, that would be awesome. Otherwise, forgiven...for now.

If she takes Paul Westerberg hostage in a frantic power-grab, though, it's over. We'll send in DaveB to negotiate.

My fear? Never.

Pass it, then have a group of like...3 people push regulation stopping it, forcing another vote and then having it stuck in court for months and months on end while both sides rally across the country?

Just sayin'!

The Huffington Post currently has a slide show on their homepage of the Obamas' visit to France, and the second picture is my absolute favorite:

Buzzkill!

CUBA

This will certainly help with the Communist paranoia...

AP Poll: Americans high on Obama, direction of US

America ain't buying what you're selling, FOX pundits.

"We surround them", indeed.

Obama legal team wants to limit defendants' rights

Disappointing, to say the least.

The problem with this story is that the AP is so slanted that the whole piece is slightly incoherent. For instance, "The administration's legal move is a reminder that Obama, who has moved from campaigning to governing, now speaks for federal prosecutors." O RLY? Kind of an editorial statement in what should be for all practical purposes a straight news story. There are many such examples in this piece. I used to love the AP. This is a dark development.

Hilarious that the movie and music industries are peddling this crap as an answer to the current economic crisis.

Let's see who this "intellectual property czar" is going to be. I'm hoping it's not a hack from the MPAA or RIAA but I wouldn't be surprised if they appoint some type of "ex"-lobbyist.

Fox Says It Won't Show Obama Press Conference.

Jeez, it would obviously be alot easier on FOX if Obama would just hide on some ranch or golf course instead of having so much to say to the folks he works for. It's like those old Infocom text games..."Too Verbose"

Obama needs to be more of an old, ugly British woman with a tremendous singing voice. That's what our troubled world really needs to see in primetime now. Save the "Man of Action" shit for late morning new conferences.