President Obama's Second Inauguration

Here we are celebrating the second inauguration of President Obama, yet we are still hearing from the stonewallers on the right. Listening to NPR this afternoon, I heard more delusional grandstanding by rightwing pundits.

Their old and stale presidential campaign slogan of the “takers and makers” is still being pulled up from the grave, and their belief that the corporate elite are the makers, when in reality they are the nation’s most dramatic, and at times, grotesque takers!!! They cannot make the profits they have experienced unless the government steps in to offer them significant handouts, perks and favors, along with opportunities to feed from the government gravy train.

They have loved their government no-bid contracts, government bid contracts, government military support in regions of the world where they are mining and drilling and need public protections to make their profits, along with shipping lanes protections; tax write-offs, tax breaks, corporation protections; patent and copyright protections; tax abatements; good roads, bridges, shipping ports, rails all paid for by the taxpayers; government grants; bailouts; government subsidies; cheap Federal Reserve borrowing; inexpensive government leases on public lands; and more!

When will they stop getting drunk on the Kool-Aid that they mix up for each other and serve in their fantasy beakers? I guess it will never end until they are further marginalized by a public that will wake up to the truth-one person at a time. Then and only then will the voting public choose candidates that represent THEIR own best interests and not the interests of the corporate elite who want to deny then health care, good wages, educational opportunities, and truth. Too many people have not a clue other than they are haters and deniers of fact.

The sad truth now is that more and more people are leaving high school without the skills that would allow their brains to read for meaning, analyze and formulate deductions from the content they are reading. Fiction is too abstract for many; therefore, schools are using non-fiction instead. Often we blame the teacher instead of blaming the individual, their family, or other factors.

Our GOPsychopathetics want to rail about their individualism and that people need to take care of themselves instead of having the government take care of them. Yet, this thinking fails when they blame teachers instead of the individual for not taking responsibility for their own learning. They want all of us to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps!

I would like Bobby Jindal aka Alfred E. Newman, and Mitch – the – Scarecrow (Wizard of Oz) – McConnell to sit on the floor and try pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. It cannot be done. It is a delusion. It is very clear that neither of them, nor their sociopathic cellmates in Congress or in various governorship positions have NEVER EVER accomplished a damn thing totally by themselves. Nor has BP or any other corporation, for that matter.

What we are hearing today from the rightwing GOPsychopathetics is that Obama needs to be less divisive and more uniting. How hypocritical these blank-slated humans are to their own history. Don’t they remember their last president LilboyBush who upon winning a second term said that he had gained political capital and was going to use it?

President Mission Accomplished spent his political capital giving more to the Real Takers of this nation while the Democrats felt it should be spent differently. On the other side, President Obama has always tried to compromise, find consensus, and communicate to the GOP, yet has found them not willing to do the same. The difference in the use of political capital is that President Obama has clearly stated his commitment to those who have paid into their payroll tax commitments and who expect to receive them upon retirement, while those in the GOP want to alter that commitment in favor of more and more offerings and transfers of wealth to those 1%ers buying up all the political favor cards.

One GOPie said on the radio that too many people are receiving Social Security and that should stop. The middle class don’t require such a benefit, since they are not that needy when compared to the less fortunate among us. Social Security is not a pending issue!! It can be fixed by simply removing the cap on wages over $106,800. At that point, a means testing formula could be implemented for those at the top of the earning’s scale.

I do believe that these GOPsychopathetics seem to ignore the fact that it has not been President Obama who has been divisive but the very folks on the right. We have had Boehner and McConnell both preaching how their objective was to stand in Obama’s way throughout his first term in hopes of making him a one-term president. Well, what they had hoped for just didn’t happen as they had expected. They decided to nominate Mr. 47% as their presidential candidate, and had their rape denying zombies run for congressional seats as they flushed diversity down the toilet. Don’t forget their hatred for anyone voting against them to do it easily. Or, their brigade of psychopaths led by the likes of Allen West hoping to retain their spot in the congressional dining room. And then, there is the Tea Party, which is totally bent over showing its array of obstructionist assholes.

So, the fact is that it has been the rightwing style jihadist (modified definition: refers to a person who believes that a far-right state governing the entire community of Americans must be created, and that this necessity justifies hateful and hostile conflict with those who stand in its way.) that have been standing in the way of progress, jobs, growth, stimulus, reforms in health care, banking, finance, taxes, military spending, global climate change, alternative energy development, and more.

We all know what the GOP playbook was throughout President Obama’s first term, now we have to see if Barack is able to use HIS political capital to set the stage for a turn over in 2014 that will send those obstructionist GOPies back home for good; and, if that would make a difference.

(http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com)

The Fiscal Cliff and the CEO Corporate Psychopaths Inside the Campaign To Fix The Debt

This country is filling up its time with frenzied talk about the Fiscal Cliff. The real story is how the corporate financial clots are hardening up the arteries of the nation’s circulatory system, which is made up mostly by hard working middle and lower class Americans. But, the GOP, which are “clot” deposits clogging the arteries restricting the flow of blood, or prosperity by layering their austerity proposals, or fatty deposits, upon the clots. Instead, they want to produce a cardio infarction that would lead toward a middle and lower class austerity diet, while those have caused the infarction would continue to suck off the government’s teat feeding from the glutinous trough of tax cuts, tax abatements, tax write-offs, bail outs, low tax rates, no-bid/bid government contracts, benefits from discounts when using public lands, benefits from military protections, such as trade lanes, government grants, subsidies, and list can go on and on and on.

Currently, we are seeing a feeding frenzy facilitated by the Campaign To Fix The Debt corporate groupies who want to stick-it to working people. They don’t believe that people, who don’t wear $1000 suits to work, or have padded expense account credit cards, or drive high end luxury cars to work, or have their executive assistants do their dirty work for them should be able to retire at 65 and receive their Social Security checks.

These corporate crybaby predators want the age extended so those who get their hands dirty, or strain their bodies, or are on their feet all day have to work extra years to receive what they have paid into by the age of 65.

These corporate crybaby predators don’t want these hard working people to receive Medicare, or Medicaid, at the price they are hoping to pay. They want cuts to Medicare so these people, who make the things that corporations make and sell, have to pay more for it straining their retirement budgets, while these CEO and CFO corporate predators, who, on average will receive $9 million, will retire in luxury.

These corporate crybabies are today’s modern day psychopaths.

From Dr. Brian Moench, written on Truthout.org—“Schizophrenics, Psychopaths Holding America Hostage”:

“A 2005 British study compared the psychological profiles of 39 senior business executives at leading British companies with those of mental patients in the UK's Broadmoor Special Hospital. The business leaders scored a clear "victory" in the three traits normally used to identify the emotional dysfunction of psychopaths: histrionic personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and compulsive personality disorder.



Other studies suggest that financial elites, like psychopaths, are more likely to feel like rules and societal constraints don't apply to them. Mitt Romney's entire business and political career, especially his approach to paying taxes, is the freshest, most conspicuous example of this personality trait.”

The piece goes on to talk about the CEOs behind the Fix The Debt efforts:

“Enter the 71 corporate CEOs behind the current Campaign To Fix The Debt. These are CEOs making the media rounds and spending $30 million dollars pounding the table on achieving federal deficit reduction exclusively by dismantling the social safety nets - Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security - while they sit on their own massive retirement funds averaging $9.1 million. These are the same CEOs who have contributed mightily to and benefited personally from the deficit they now want closed. Their companies have received trillions in federal war contracts, subsidies and bailouts, as well as specialized tax breaks and loopholes that virtually eliminate the companies' tax bills - companies like Goldman Sachs, Honeywell, AT &T, and Boeing. And no, they are not offering to reduce their feeding at the public trough, instead they want us to turn away the poor, disabled and the vulnerable, calling government support for them "low priority spending."

“Meanwhile, CEOs of the major fossil fuel companies have enough scientific expertise to know that their business model of extracting all the carbon they can get their hands on threatens the very survival of all of mankind, yet they are undaunted in doing exactly that. Who cares about the collapse of civilization when there are quarterly profits to be made? How are these captains of the fossil fuel industry not psychopaths?”

This is what America is dealing with inside our legislative branch of government. We have all kinds of deniers. Those who believe the Earth is only 6000 years old. Or, that climate change does not exist. Or, that a woman’s body can naturally abort the seed of a rapist. Or, that an aspirin held between a woman’s legs will prevent pregnancies.

We have psychopaths and the mentally deranged making decisions for the rest of the country. Most live inside the GOP, ie. The Grotesquely Oligarchian Psychopathic Party. This GOP is made up of John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor, and other “fatty deposits” that are not wanting to believe that a majority of the American people have said “NO” to their agenda and their presidential candidate.

They don’t want to hear what the American people have said:

• Raise tax rates on all those earning over $250K.
• Leave Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid alone.
• Make deep cuts in the defense budget.

And, here are some added pieces that the American people want to include in this Fiscal Cliff budget deal (or some facsimile thereof):

• Eliminate the cap on Social Security and then, means test anyone earning over $500k.
• Put into place a Wall Street financial transaction tax on all short term transactions.
• Tax dividends and capital gains at a 32% tax rate for anyone earning over $300K per year.
• Raise tax rates on all income over $250K.
• Cut tax loopholes for anyone earning over $500K.
• Demand that the government negotiate with drug companies for lower drug prices on behalf of all Medicare and Medicaid recipients just as it is done for the Veterans Association.
• Begin to reduce the amount of private contracts for work that military personnel can do.

Doing what I have listed could save the government a great deal of money, and bring about the desired level of new revenues the president is asking for.

Eliot Spitzer wrote on Alternet.org instituting a financial transaction tax in his piece titled

“Tax the Traders! It Would Solve Economic Crisis and Stop Reckless Activity”.

These high end corporate crybaby psychopaths and their legislative stooges in the GOP don’t want to see any government stimulus in order to put Americans back to work doing jobs that cannot be exported. They hate that!!!

They don’t want to admit that China is the world’s leader in manufacturing as a result of huge amounts of government stimulus. They love to ship jobs overseas, especially China, because of their large injections of government cash in the building of a successful industrial infrastructure.

In the article written by Dr. Stephen Leeb, on Seekingalpha.com, titled “A Bright Spot in the Global Economic Landscape”, we read just how successful China is and how Japan, in spite of its fiscal problems won’t institute austerity programs upon its people, but instead, believes in adding more stimulus into the economy.

“One bright spot in the global economic landscape, despite its many detractors today, is China. That country's economy appears to be stabilizing and is likely to accelerate in the months ahead. We learned recently, for instance, that China's manufacturing activity increased last month for the first time in more than a year. This is the latest in a string of reports in the last few months supporting a turnaround in China's economy. The de-stocking cycle there appears to be ending, and the rebuilding of inventories coupled with greater investment and government spending on infrastructure should drive domestic demand higher.”

“Looking further east: Japan, the world's third-largest economy, contracted by 3.5 percent in the third quarter on an annual basis - and the fourth quarter is shaping up to be equally bad. If so, it will mark the fifth time in the past 15 years that Japan's economy has fallen into recession.

Japan is less concerned with austerity, but still has a tough road ahead. To combat this situation, Japan's government is adding more stimulus, announcing a new fiscal package last week worth 880 billion yen ($10.7 billion), while the Bank of Japan expanded its asset purchase program in October to about 91 trillion yen ($1.1 trillion). Moreover, Shinzo Abe, the presumptive next prime minister after elections are held in a couple of weeks, has vowed to take additional monetary measures to drive down the value of the yen to spur the economy.”

These high end corporate crybaby predators, led by Peter G. Peterson, of the Peter Peterson Foundation and founder of the Comeback America Initiative, are wanting to gorge themselves on more and more government money and profits.

This is from Huffington Post, Richard (RJ) Eskow, in the piece “'Fix the Debt' Shows Its True, Billionaire-Funded, Anti-Tax Colors”:

“Peterson's Hydra-headed operation has gone by many names over the years, including the "Comeback America Initiative," "The Can Kicks Back," and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, to name just a few. But while the guises have been many, the message has always been the same: Gut Social Security and Medicare. Shrink government. And absurdly, reduce tax rates for millionaires and corporations in the name of deficit reduction.”

This is the agenda of American’s current number of corporate psychopaths.

Here is some propaganda spewed by one of the financial sucking predators on the right.

[Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and head of the Campaign to Fix the Debt] “MacGuineas herself has been an extreme anti-tax ideologue for quite some time, using her billionaire-funded platform for years to write appropriately revenue-unfriendly commentary, often with chirpy sales-brochure-ish titles like "The Corporate Tax Is Dying!" (Exclamation point included.) That 2005 piece, published in Legal Affairs, included statements like this one:

"American corporate tax rates are higher than those imposed by most of our trading partners, and that disadvantage takes its toll."

Not so. The official tax rate is on the high-end, but the actual taxes paid by US corporations are lower than those of most other industrialized countries.”

This is what the GOP is great at---lying, and then, lying some more!!

Here is more from the Maya Monster:

“MacGuineas proposes a severely regressive consumption tax that would hit consumers far harder than corporations. (There are arguments for well-structured "VAT" programs; MacGuineas doesn't make any of them.) She also argues for eliminating home mortgage deductions and employer health benefit tax breaks, which would have a devastating impact on the middle class.

MacGuineas is also given to arguing for another position: means-testing Social Security and Medicare. That's not surprising, since the idea was first widely promoted by another Peterson entity, the Concord Coalition. And while the idea may sound reasonable, the Concord Coalition's idea of "high earners" who ought to see their benefits cut starts at a lifetime average annual income of only $20,000 per year.”

Here is more from the Huffington Post author:

 “With all these tax breaks for high earners and corporations, do MacGuineas and Crew have any ideas for raising revenue? Actually, they do: take it from the struggling middle class. MacGuineas co-authored a paper with economist Martin Feldstein arguing for a cap on individual income tax deductions -- a move that would effectively gut employer health insurance and other vital middle-class programs. (Feldstein's name may ring a bell with viewers of Inside Job, which explored his use of government positions to promote deregulation -- to the great advantage of corporations he served as a board member.

That's the hidden agenda behind the Peterson/corporate/billionaire lobby: cut tax rates for millionaires, billionaires, and corporations; end the payroll tax; downsize government, including Social Security and Medicare; and gain a little added revenue by shifting the tax burden onto the middle class. And that's why the lobby's "Committee For a Responsible Federal Budget" runs articles promoting "rate-reducing tax reform" and others with titles like "Reducing Both Tax Rates and the Deficit is Possible."

Mr. Eskow concludes:

“Let's be clear: This crowd doesn't really care about deficits. It never has. It's an anti-tax group, which pursues its goals by fighting to downsize government programs and "reform" the Internal Revenue code.  Its natural allies are the Republican Party, the nation's mega-corporations, and billionaires.”

“Fix The Debt Campaign's Bipartisan Veneer Masks Conservative Backing”, written by Paul Blumenthal and Christina Wilkie, you will find a link to the list of the high end corporate crybaby psychopaths comprising the Campaign To Fix The Debt cabal.

Here is link for you.

http://www.fixthedebt.org/uploads/files/CEO-Fiscal-Leadership-Council-Membership.pdf

I want to conclude this piece by saying that President Obama and the Democrats MUST squash the dangerous group of psychopaths inside the Congress who are “clotting” up the system preventing it from moving forward toward improved health.

In addition, the Congress, the President, and Eric Holder must go after people like Florida Governor Rick Scott, and others around the nation that worked very hard to suppress the vote, intimidate voters, and control the outcome of the election through their tampering of the process.

We have learned that the organization called Anonymous had allegedly “firewalled” Karl Rove’s computer servers that were programmed to sabotage the Obama vote in Ohio. Rove did not know that his servers were blocked by Anonymous’ interventions numerous times. That is why Rove was shocked when Ohio went to Obama and was trying to convince Fox News to just wait for the real results.

http://www.examiner.com/article/anonymous-claims-karl-rove-tried-to-hack-steal-the-election

 Scott must be investigated, along with those in Ohio, and elsewhere, who did what they could to Fix The Vote in favor of Romney. We cannot allow this corruption, and treasonous acts to go untouched. We must speak out and push for justice, along with the Congressional Democrats and the President to not waver in regards to the debt problems.

The clot thickens!

(http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com)

More Ponzi Scheming From Ben Bernanke

Isn't this part of why we have an Occupy Wall Street movement today?

Federal Reserve Ponzi Schemer, Ben Bernanke is at it again. He is out there hoping that Congress and Mr.  Suck-Up Obama will hand over a cool $800B in free cash to bail out the banksta suckuhs, once again. Their toxic and crumbling Mortgage Backed Securities are shriveling up in value, as European investors are about to let their crappy US Banksta MBS losses go for a fraction of their value in order to raise cash. In addition to banksta MBS assets shriveling, the Fed is scheming ways to prevent banksta held  foreclosures from having to hit the market at significantly reduced prices. Their plan is to make the taxpayers fund bonds that will allow private equity firms, like the one Romney loves so much (Bain Capital) to buy up blocks of foreclosures at a fraction of the market value and rent them out. This scheme keeps those homes off the market artificially keeping home prices inflated.

How is this possible? Well, the financial predatory banksta sector, which is really a banking crime syndicate, are  the campaign contributors, or financial pimps, to the Washington legislators and president, and therefore, a calling in of their chips by  pressing Congress to allow for Treasury cash to be used for this Bernanke Ponzi Scheme, or QE3.

Read all about it below:

Bernanke's Double-Whammy  The Foreclosure-to-Rental Screwjob  by MIKE WHITNEY 1/13-15/12

From Counterpunch.org

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke wants US taxpayers to purchase more of the garbage loans and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) that the big banks still have on their books. (Cash for trash) That’s the impetus behind the Fed’s 26-page white paper that was delivered to Congress last Wednesday. The document outlines the Fed’s plan for ‘stabilizing the housing market’, which is a phrase that Bernanke employs when he wants to provide more buy-backs, giveaways, subsidies and other corporate welfare to big finance.

“Restoring the health of the housing market is a necessary part of a broader strategy for economic recovery,”  Bernanke opined in a letter to the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committees.

Indeed. The housing depression continues into its 5th year with no end in sight, mainly because the people who created the crisis are still in positions of power. And, they’re still offering the same remedies, too, like handing the banks another blank check to save them from losses on their bad bets. That’s what this new “housing stabilization” boondoggle is really all about, bailing out the bankers. Here’s a summary from Bloomberg:

“Bernanke’s Fed study said “more might be done,” including eliminating entirely the reduced fees for risky loans, “more comprehensively” cutting lenders’ put-back risks; and further streamlining refinancing for other Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac borrowers. The U.S. also should consider having Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac refinance loans not already backed by the government, which would add credit risk for the companies, according to the report….” (Bloomberg)

First of all, Fannie and Freddie only return loans (“put-backs”) that don’t meet their standards and which the banks foisted on them so they wouldn’t have to face the losses. The idea that the publicly-funded GSE’s should just “eat the losses” is ridiculous.

And, why–in heaven’s name–would congress want to take on more risk when they can keep millions of people in their homes by simply reducing the principle on their mortgages to the present value of the house? (aka–”Cramdowns”) Naturally, the losses would have to be absorbed by the banks who–by everyone’s admission–were responsible for the present crisis due to their lax lending standards and, oftentimes, fraudulent behavior. This would lead to a restructuring of the country’s biggest banks through a Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) so their toxic assets and backlog of foreclosed properties can be auctioned off as soon as possible.

This is a straightforward way to fix the housing market and it should have been done long ago. Bernanke’s solution is not only unreasonable, it’s also deceitful. Here’s more from the Fed’s paper: “Continued weakness in the housing market poses a significant barrier to a more vigorous economic recovery”..(without action)…“the adjustment process will take longer and incur more deadweight losses, pushing house prices lower and thereby prolonging the downward pressure on the wealth of current homeowners and the resultant drag on the economy at large.”

Did it really take Bernanke 5 years to figure out that housing is a “drag on the economy”?

No, of course not. So, what’s going on now that has suddenly spurred him to act?

Well, for one thing, the banks are losing a great deal of money on the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) that they bought in the last few years. Here’s the story in the Wall Street Journal:

“After flickering to life early in 2011, the market for subprime- and other risky residential-mortgage bonds has returned to its comatose state. And many investors believe a revival could be years away.

Prices on some bonds, which are backed by mortgages that don’t meet the standards needed to get backing from government-controlled companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, plummeted as much as 30% last year. The ABX, an index that tracks the value of subprime bonds, ended the year at 43.44 cents on the dollar, down from 59.90 cents at year-end 2010 and a peak of 62.68 cents in February 2011

While that decline pushed yields up to as much as 17%—bond yields rise as prices fall—many fund managers have pulled out of the market due to worries about further price declines. Moreover, repeated downgrades have left too few investment-grade securities for them to own. Wall Street banks, which traditionally have played a key role in the market matching buyers and sellers, are backing away ahead of new regulations that will make it more expensive to hold riskier assets.” (Investors Sour on Subprime Bonds, WSJ)

So, Wall Street’s financial geniuses got back into the MBS-biz (for a second time) and got whacked again? That’s right; and now they want John Q. Public to pay for it with another bailout.

And, there’s more to this story, too. European banks own roughly $100 billion of these mortgage-backed turkeys which they’re presently shedding like crazy in order to meet new capital requirements. That means US bank balance sheets are dripping red as the value of their financial asset-stockpile continues to plunge. That’s  why Sugar Daddy Bernanke has stepped in, because it’s time for another multi-billion dollar bank rescue.

Look, the Fed has already purchased over $1.25 trillion of these toxic MBS which represents humongous long-term losses for the taxpayer. Do we really need more of this sludge?

Bernanke promised that the first round of quantitative easing (QE1) would boost employment (It hasn’t) and improve housing sales (it never happened) The only uptick in sales occurred because the colluding banks deliberately reduced the supply of foreclosed homes they put on the market. The reduction has led to a massive 1.7 million backlog of housing units (shadow inventory) that will eventually be dumped onto the market triggering another sharp decline in housing prices. Bernanke wants to do something about the bulging inventory as well as prop up the value of sagging MBS. So, the Fed’s plan actually has two main objectives; in other words, it’s the double whammy. Here’s more from Bloomberg:

 “Since the Fed started buying $1.25 trillion of mortgage bonds in January 2009, the value of U.S. housing has fallen 4.1 percent, and is down 32 percent from its 2006 peak, according to an S&P/Case-Shiller index. The central bank is poised to buy about $200 billion this year, or more than 20 percent of new loans, as it reinvests debt that’s being paid off. Some Fed officials have said they may support additional purchases that Barclays Capital estimates could total as much as $750 billion.”

 Did you catch that? Taxpayers are going to get slammed for another $750 billion. That’s nearly as much as Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the fiscal stimulus that added 2 percent to GDP and kept unemployment from rocketing to 13 percent. Bernanke wants to throw that same amount down a Wall Street sinkhole.

So maybe you think this won’t happen, after all, could Congress really be so gullible as to fall for Bernanke’s fearmongering flim-flam again?

Maybe and maybe not. But there are some pretty wealthy and well-connected people who are betting that the Fed will do as it’s told and pave the way for another hefty bailout. In fact, the world’s largest bond fund (Pimco) has stumped up a mountain of cash betting that good buddy Bernanke will get the printing presses whirring sometime in mid-January. Here’s the story from Zero Hedge:

 ”….in December the fund (Total Return Fund or TRF) doubled down on its QE3 all in bet, by “borrowing” even more cash, or a record $78 billion, using the proceeds to buy even more MBS, as well as Treasurys, which hit a combined 31% of the TRF’s holdings. In other words, between MBS and USTs, Pimco holds a whopping 79% of total, mostly in very long duration exposure. In fact, this combination of long duration and pre-QE exposure has not been seen at PIMCO since late 2008, early 2009, meaning that as many banks have been suggesting, (Bill) Gross is convinced that the Fed will announce if not outright QE3 this January, then at least intimate it is coming.”(“Pimco Doubles Down On All In Bet Fed Will Monetize MBS”, Zero Hedge)

 So what does Pimco know that we don’t know? More importantly, from whom are they getting their information?

And, there’s another thing, too. This whole deal about converting foreclosed homes into rental properties is another scam. Here’s the scoop from another article in the Wall Street Journal:

 “The paper also signaled that the Fed…. will try to involve banks more directly in housing-revival approaches… One area involves efforts to turn foreclosed homes into rental properties….

Banking regulations typically direct banks to sell foreclosed homes quickly, although the rules do recognize this isn’t always practical and so these properties can be held up to five years. The Fed said it is now “contemplating issuing guidance” to banks and regulators that would possibly allow banks to turn some of these foreclosed homes into rental properties…..The hope is this may help stanch the flow of foreclosed properties into markets…” (“Fed Up With the Depressed State of Housing”, Wall Street Journal)

 Bingo. The banks are not only sitting on 1.7 million shadow inventory of homes they’ve stockpiled to keep prices artificially high. They also have millions more in the pipeline when a settlement is finally reached on the robo-signing scandal. So, what are they going to do with all that backlog?

That’s easy. They’ll schluff it off on the taxpayer by creating a foreclosure-to-rental swindle where the government provides lavish incentives for banks and private equity scavengers to buy the homes (in bulk) for pennies on the dollar with loans provided by–you guessed it–Uncle Sam.  Here’s a summary of what’s going on behind the scenes:

 “As the Obama administration and federal regulators work on a program to sell government-owned foreclosures in bulk to investors, those investors aren’t wasting any time stockpiling cash and buying foreclosed properties at auction and from the major banks.

Oakland, California-based Waypoint Real Estate Group, a major acquirer of so-called “REO to Rental” (Real Estate Owned) just announced a partnership with a private equity firm, Menlo Park, California-based GI Partners, to buy foreclosed properties….

“Our approach to buying distressed single-family houses, renovating them, and leasing to residents who are committed to a path to future home ownership is a viable solution to our nation’s housing crisis,” said Colin Wiel, managing director and co-founder of Waypoint in a press release. “Our partnership with GI Partners ensures we can take the next step in our company’s evolution.”

GI is taking an increasingly popular bet on distressed real estate, closing on a $400 million fund with Waypoint, which has plans to purchase $1 billion in distressed real estate assets over the next two years, according to its release. (“Private Equity Readying a Run on Foreclosures”, Diana Olick, CNBC)

 So, what do these guys know that we don’t know? And why are they plunking down big money when the details have not even been released yet?

None of this really passes the smell test, does it? The only thing we know for sure is that the “fix is in” and that Bernanke will do what he always does when the banks are in a pinch. Throw them a lifeline.

MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, forthcoming from AK Press. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/13/the-foreclosure-to-rental-screwjob/

The Gang of 12 in Congress Must Be Prosecuted for Treason!!!

The Teapublicans are engaging in a subversion of the U.S. Constitution!!! They are committing treason, at the very most, and at the very least, should be "Fired"!--RECALLED!

The American Civil Liberties Group need to jump into this assault upon the U.S. Constitution.

The American people are being held hostage by our government, which is working very hard to inflict hardship upon average workers, who had nothing to do with the economic collapse that brought down this economy and began to strip working people of their asset values.

The Teapublicans say that shrinking government will resort in a growth in private sector employment and growth. What a crock of crap!!!! It shows just how ignorant they are of economics, as well as reality. If they believed it, then they should be voted out in the next election cycle. If it is only a smoke-screen to screw with wages and entitlements in order to push more wealth upwards, and to sell off public sector infrastructure to their corporate elite benefactors, they should be "fired"!!

Here are my calculations:

Based on 2010 figures, the public sector spending makes up 10-15% of GDP. The US government makes up 40% of the GDP. I guessed that the US government: fed, state, local spends $430B in the private sector.

Small businesses, and companies make up around 23% of federal government contract spending.

Therefore, the plan to shrink the US government will resort in a loss of jobs, lower wages, less working class spending, a further decline in asset wealth, and a significant recession, if not depression. AND, NOT THE OPPOSITE! AS THE TEAPUBLICANS PREACH.

This is from Robert Reich: The two universes have nothing whatever to do with one another -- except for one thing. If consumers can't and won't buy, and employers won't hire without customers, the spender of last resort must be government. We've understood this since government spending on World War II catapulted America out of the Great Depression -- reversing the most vicious of vicious cycles. We've understood it in every economic downturn since then." "This is not rocket science. And it's not difficult for government to do this -- through a new WPA or Civilian Conservation Corps, an infrastructure bank, tax incentives for employers to hire, a two-year payroll tax holiday on the first $20K of income, and partial unemployment benefits for those who have lost part-time jobs."

As Professor Michael Hudson stated the Obama administration would like wages to fall another 30% in order to make US production more globally competitive, but instead, it will result in a national depression, since lower wages will be able to keep up with commodity inflation costs. 

Michael Hudson is the only economist who appears to see and have a clear viewpoint regarding the future of the American, and world working person.

We will not see food, fuel, energy, building products, appliances, transportation and other products drop by 30%. We will likely see those prices increase. And if the dollar drops in value, price inflation will occur at the same time.

In addition, Professor Hudson says that a goal of the financial elite, and the US government Teapublican, and lapdog Democrats, along with President Obama, is for our government to sell-off public assets, such as roads, bridges, government departments, parking meters, parks, along with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to the private sector making rentiers of the taxpayers, who will have to pay interest on the bank loans used by the private sector to purchase these government assets.

This is what is happening in Greece, and Ireland. As the TBTF banking system bails out banks in Greece, and not actually the government or citizens, public land and assets will be sold off to the investor class to pay the interest on the debts. As Hudson says the central banks don't actually bailout the government but the banks that have gone into near default, and then, lend to the government. At which point, the private sector owns what was once public assets, and part of the common-wealth of a nation.

This sounds like the Vladimir Putin model of economics!!

let's list our Congresspersons who have sold out their constituencies by joining the Teapublican Party and their agenda.


Those who have gone over to the Dark Side:

Pennsylvania Congressman Tim Murphy district 18

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

America Under Attack!

The GOP Clown Car Unloads

America is surrounded by a thousand clowns, which are dangerously delusional clowns pathetically grotesque and diagnosed and/or undiagnosed with sociopathetic or psychopathetic disorders. Many roam the boardrooms and executive suites of the multinational corporations receiving various government subsides, which improves their profits, bonuses, expense accounts, and dividends off the backs of average American wage earners, students and children, as well as seniors. Mega-companies that are involved in farming/ agribusiness, oil/natural gas are just two sectors that receive government subsides, handouts, freebees, tax breaks, and more.

In addition, we have Wall Street corporations that benefit from military contracts, as well as Pell Grants, such as the University of Phoenix, and other for-profit universities and colleges. Many of these Wall Streeters also receive bailouts or obtain near zero percent Federal Reserve handouts. If we continue strolling through the clown tent of Congress, we see medical research hospitals doing drug testing all of which benefits the predatory drug and pharmaceutical companies. All of these mega-corporations hire lobbyists to “convince”-- “persuade” legislators, presidential advisors, cabinet appointees, Supreme Court Justices, and the other parasites that live on the corporate hosts to design legislation that benefit their predatory practices all of which leads to scrumptious salaries, bigger bonuses, extraordinary expense accounts and smiling shareholders, along with reduced regulation.

But all the while, we hear their legislative lackeys lipsinking their corporate message of smaller government, lower taxes, and praising their free-market-free-enterprise fantasies. Without government’s “intervention” strategy that is designed to fill up corporate balance sheets with government revenues, there would be NO Wall Street clown cars making noise. Many would be Pink-Slipped like many of their underlings have been over the years.

Corporate socialism has out shined social handouts. Yet just this week, we heard from one of the GOP clowns John Cornyn who said that his Grotesquely Oligarchy Psychopathic Party want to stop the “spending spree” in Washington!!!

Where were the destructive clowns over the last 30 years, and especially under the spending-free-for-all under LilBoy Bush? That’s when we saw subprime home mortgages handed out to anyone that could stand in line, any line, and when those predatory private “universities” siphoned off billions of dollars from the government all the time knowing they were enrolling many, many students who were unable to complete the degree programs. Does this sound familiar? The same “practices” went on with the predatory mega-banks selling mortgages to people who were unable to pay ballooning mortgages all the while betting and selling bets without any collateral, while leveraging those bets as high as they could, as they earned massive fees, and commissions knowing the big tent would come crashing down. But LilBoyBush, Hanksta Paulson, and Bada Bing Bernanke were there to pull the rabbit outta da hat with sweet, smelling bailouts, furry TARP funding, and more free passes to keep the corporate-socialism show on the road.

I guess Corny Cornyn, Gecko Gingrich, Bonehead Boehner, and Blathering Bachmann, along with the rest of their Ghoulishly Oppressive Party who brought about two massively expensive wars, which ruined the lives of thousands/millions of people, while simultaneously creating a bloated and over-the-top Homeland Security program financing crony capitalistic corporations, such as Blackwater, Halliburtion, GE, and former HLS chief, Mr. Michael-Revolving Door- Chertoff’s airport body scanning business-The Chertoff Group, among other predatory corporations requiring taxpayer funding to function. There is nothing like feeding your own zombies with taxpayer cash.

Is this like the FBI covering the backsides of the telecommunications companies who are giving away freely YOUR personal data, while the government says that we don’t need to know which cell phone and data phone companies are doing such things in the name of national security? If you knew that your cell phone company was giving away your personal data to the FBI, would you drop your company?

While this government spending spree gala was going on, approved, and sanctioned by the GOPers and their leashed compatriots called Democrats, worker’s wages weakened into stagnation, or just collapsing, as job seekers got canned from one job, then forced to take a pay cut if they were lucky enough to get a next-one. These are the same folks who led the way for collapsing home price values, presided over retirement savings getting burned, jobs outsourced, and the trade deficit soaring, all the while their corporate predator campaign contributors ravaged the nation. But the GOP decided to blame the current government for providing job stimulus, unemployment insurance, and an attempt to return to needed regulations, while calling it just too much socialism.

They remind me of a bunch of frat boys who through their pranks seriously injured a house guest and then plotted and spun a tall tale hoping to protect themselves from an investigation and prosecution.

They all want to cover up their motivations for screwing with the victims-the average wage earner- who pay their taxes, bills, while trying to save for a time when working will be a hardship on their body and health. As it should be. It is critical that the older worker makes room for younger workers to keep the cycle moving. But today, this is near impossible for most, since older workers find themselves required to work in order to stay alive and solvent.

We recently learned that, at least, two Democrats have come to the cover-up aid of the Grotesquely Oligarchy Psychopathetic party who have cried out in a rancorous out roar that Obummer would like to force private sector contractors to make transparent all of their campaign contributions and political donations made to officials if they want to participate in the government contract process.

Oh, the up roar this has made!!! The politicians all have declared how invasive this would be, and, of course, the public must NOT know such complicated details. They just aren’t smart enough to understand such things.

Democrats Mary Landrieu, and Mark Begich have expressed their outrage, as well. THE PUBLIC NEED NOT KNOW!!!

It is not enough that the corporate royalists, such as the Koch brothers, Murdoch, Gates, the elitist right wing think tanks, the Scaife Foundation, and others controlling the GOP, and their leashed Demodogs, along with the Tea Party.

As it has been said there is now just one party and it is called the Bipartisan Party. It is now one party ruled, and paid for by the Corporate Elite---a type of enemy non-combatant. They are the nation’s domestic terrorists. They are engaging in a jihad against their victims, who are the innocent working stiffs that make the Real Economy function. They are not in the front offices, or the corporate offices, but on the line doing the real jobs.

As Anonymous, a commenter on my other blogspot http://moontownshippa.blogspot.com, wrote in regards to the predatory Marcellus Shale drilling and Fracking industry in Pennsylvania, which I will paraphrase, ‘I am more frightened of these terrorists than any foreign ones. If a foreign terrorist poisoned the drinking water of an entire region or county of people with their toxic Fracking fluids, then there would be a nationwide code red alert with fighter planes attacking the enemy, who in this case would be the predatory natural gas extraction and processing industry. But if such an action was done by a private sector, free market capitalist entrepreneur it would be ignored, downplayed, excused, minimized, and eventually, rewritten in order to glorify them.’

It was reported that 70% of American young people are so unfit that the military cannot accept them into their volunteer army due to a lack of intelligence, obesity, criminal record, or other medical conditions.

This is the state of our decrepit American condition. Yet our dangerously deluded and professionally unfit-to-serve government representatives are focused on their preservation of the Defense of Marriage Act. Is this all they have to do? Is what is pressing on the string of the nation?

As the toxic volcanic lava flows over the nation, most of our representatives are out there trying to save their precious deck chairs.

President Obummer has stood before the nation with his staff and snake telling us that he will open up Alaskan and Gulf of Mexico oil leases and reserves as a result of the current high gas prices. Unfortunately, he has not addressed the very reason for the high gas prices---gasoline, natural gas, and home heating oil—all of which happens to be directly linked to market manipulation and futures speculation making up around 70% of the price.

The reason for this reaches back to the Commodity Future Modernization Act of 2000 and points its dirty finger at gecko Gingrich and his take-back-America GOP, which snuck into the Act, during the session’s late night hours, a provision that allowed for future derivative trading to go unregulated. LilBoyBush permitted U.S. oil and gas futures to be traded through Over-The-Counter market systems, an unregulated market where amounts traded did not have to be recorded. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, along with hedge funds had been manipulating the price, as they do now.

We should not forget how Dick Cheney and LilBoy removed many environmental rules from the oil and gas industry, which have not been reinstated under this administration’s watch. That is why the Marcellus Shale industry is destroying local environments without harsh penalties, or prosecution, and why local governments cannot write ordinances to protect their own communities and citizens from this predatory industry.

Because of futures trading, oil companies that process, and sell the actual product are storing oil hoping to release their stashed reserves until a future time when the price goes up resulting from such speculative market futures gambling. Why sell oil now, when the price is lower, when it could be sold later when the price is projected to be higher.

The problem lies with our current government. The Financial Reform and Consumer Protection Bill did nothing about such commodity pricing manipulation, nor has President Obummer. But instead, he proclaims the problem lies with not enough corporate elite predatory domestic drilling.

Drill Obummer, Drill!

This is the State of Union today!

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

President Obama’s Christmas and New Year’s Greeting

Well, we have now put Christmas day behind us with new years approaching and our Obamadier had enjoyed his Christmas holiday with his family. Most Americans have been handed canned rations, while our president feasted upon the famous White House Christmas dinner served up by the White House cook and staff. How nice.

New Year’s celebrations will bring merriment and joy as The Obamadier toasts to the delusional optimistic fantasies that float about in his sugarplum brain. Chaos will likely be the legacy of 2011.

The past week has shown us that Barack Obama has been bitten by the rabid dogs of Congress, once more, certifying that he now has a full-blown case of rabies. Our president is a rabid Democrat who has been filled with the toxic venom of the Grotesquely Outrageous Psychopathetics-GOP-engaged in a planned demolition of the lives of many working Americans trying to keep from drowning in their pool of personal debt.

It is a sad day for a Democratic president, although it is in name only, and not by action, when a rabid GOP pundit, Charles Krauthammer, says that he has made centrist decisions of which he approves.  Mr. Krauthammer is a contributing editor of the Weekly Standard and has been proclaimed as the centrist voice for conservatives.

The joke is what counts for centrist in America today was considered radical rightwing around 30 plus years ago. But now, the right has moved so far right that they should be called the American Reichwing. Obamadier has leaped into the GOP’s regressive sliding scale of insanity and austerity-building programming on one end, and with an American style fascism on the other. So, where does centrism fit in?

This is the HOPE and CHANGE he has delivered to all of those who dedicated time and energy into electing him to the Office of President of the United States. It was a major con-job. It was an attack upon Democrats by The Obamadier, who has been praised by the likes of those who supported LilBoyBush and his introduction into an American-style fascism.

I have been saying this for 10 years, now, and little has changed. For nearly 20% of working Americans, it has gotten worse, throughout most or all of the states making up this union of American states by those Neoconclastics living among us.

Neoconclastics - I will define my new word as the deliberate destruction of the working class culture, which relies upon social safety nets, as well as, worker’s rights, environmental protections, local sovereign rights by community residents, and the overall protections amassed by average Americans and held up as democratic icons over the centuries. This planned destruction has been moved forward by plutocrats for the sole purpose of protecting and enriching the regressive elite corporate and greedy members within the government and society.

What is currently evolving is a movement by them to move the nation and the rights of citizens away from democracy.

Here is one example, as stated by Karl Denninger, in the piece called Recission Under Fire by the Fed (12-17-10, Market-ticker):

“Fraud…is a business practice. And protecting fraud is the primary function of The Fed:

Consumer groups and industry lawyers say a rule under consideration by the central bank would make it harder for borrowers to exercise their right of “rescission,” which forces a lender to relinquish a lien on a mortgaged property. They said the number of rescissions have grown in recent years as a result of the foreclosure crisis and allegations that mortgage documents were fabricated or processed improperly.

Ken Markison, regulatory counsel at the Mortgage Bankers Association, said the change would save lenders money. “Greater clarity will help avoid unnecessary litigation and reduce costs.”

Nowhere is the point made that the reason these “costs” show up is that the lender screwed the borrower in the first instance. What The Fed proposes to do is to force the principal repayment to happen before the lien is released. This effectively destroys the remedy, since without the ability to pledge the collateral for the new loan it will be impossible to obtain a new loan.” (End)

We have a Fed, and those who support the economic crime syndicate’s banker-Ben Bernanke- believing that the foreclosed-upon homeowner has no right to demand the fraudulent banksta prove he/she actually holds the mortgage paperwork!!

As Ben Bernanke says out loud to the mirror whenever he trims his beard, “We don’t need no stinkin’ paperwork!”

The Neoconclastics are hard at work to kill YOU!

The President [and his team] also chose to cover up the economic crimes. “Not only has the greatest wave of financial fraud in our history gone largely uninvestigated and unpunished, the government and this administration with its stress tests (which were fakes), its relaxation of accounting standards which permitted banks to hold toxic assets on their books at far higher prices than any investor would pay, with its failure to make criminal referrals where these were clearly warranted, with its continuation in office—sometimes in acting capacities—of some of the leading non-regulators of the earlier era, has continued an ongoing active complicity in financial fraud. And, the perpetrators, of course, prospered as never before: reporting profits that they would not have been able to report under honest accounting standards and converting tax payer support into bonuses; while at the same time cutting back savagely on loans to businesses and individuals, and ramping up foreclosures, much of that accomplished with forged documents and perjured affidavits.

Could the President and his administration have done something? Yes, they could have. Where was the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation? Why did they choose not to implement the law—the Prompt Corrective Action law—which requires the federal government to take into receivership financial institutions when there is a significant risk of large taxpayer losses to the insurance fund? Where were the FBI and the Department of Justice? Did the President do anything? No. Is he doing anything now? No. Why not? The most likely answer is that he did not want to.” (James K. Galbraith: Whose Side Is Obama On?, Alternet. Org, 12-10-10).

Yet, The Obamadier wants to demonize unions and public government employees who have representation through a union. He wants to finger wag at workers who have been severely damaged, economically, by those who he has given a Green-Light-GO—those inside and working for the economic crime syndicate. He has listened to the likes of Larry Summers, Timmie Geithner, Gensler, Rubin, Bernanke and others when they told him that it was all under control, so forgetaboutit!

Right.

‘It was all under control’ meaning that the criminals, fraudsters, shysters, bankstas, conartists whose pockets are filled with the free money handed out to them, are now under the Government Protection Program.

Here is what Paul Krugman said in his NYT piece, “Humbug Express”:

“If you listen to the recent speeches of Republican presidential hopefuls, you’ll find several of them talking at length about the harm done by unionized government workers, who have, they say, multiplied under the Obama administration. A recent example was an op-ed article by the outgoing Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, who declared that “thanks to President Obama,” government is the only booming sector in our economy: “Since January 2008” — silly me, I thought Mr. Obama wasn’t inaugurated until 2009 — “the private sector has lost nearly eight million jobs, while local, state and federal governments added 590,000.

Horrors! Except that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, government employment has fallen, not risen, since January 2008. And since January 2009, when Mr. Obama actually did take office, government employment has fallen by more than 300,000 as hard-pressed state and local governments have been forced to lay off teachers, police officers, firefighters and other workers.

But anyone paying attention knew why public employment had risen — and it had nothing to do with Big Government. It was, instead, the fact that the federal government had to hire a lot of temporary workers to carry out the 2010 Census — workers who have almost all left the payroll now that the Census is done.

There has not, however, been any visible effort to retract those erroneous claims. And this isn’t the only case of a claimed huge expansion in government that turns out to be nothing of the kind. Have you heard the one about how there’s been an explosion in the number of federal regulators? Mike Konczal of the Roosevelt Institute looked into the numbers behind that claim, and it turns out that almost all of those additional “regulators” work for the Department of Homeland Security, protecting us against terrorists.”

Mr. Obamadier has joined the ranks of the Neoconclastics who want to cut your Social Security but privatizing it and reducing benefits, cut Medicaid and Medicare, ie.- to kill you, outsource more of your jobs, steal your retirement, jack up the price of your health care, take more of your wages, and hijack your democracy!

The Obamadier scam continues. What is clear is that he, nor his TeamingWeenings want us to know the economy is failing. He claims that tax cuts for the rich are required to bring back jobs, when in fact, those tax cuts will be used to defeat liberal and progressive Democrats, and moderate Republicans in 2012. The tax cut for the rich will become a taxpayer funded subsidy campaign contribution for those running as Reichpublicans.

Who and what is responsible for the lousy economy? Robert Reich says this:

 “Story A: Big government, bureaucrats, and the cultural and intellectual elites that back them.” [This is the Republican and Obama tale of woe as they place blame on the easy marks.] “Story B: Big business, Wall Street, and the powerful and privileged who represent them.” [A more accurate account of the culprits.]

Reich continues by saying, “In reality, the lousy economy is due to insufficient demand—the result of the nation’s almost unprecedented concentration of income at the top. The very rich don’t spend as much of their income. And since the housing bubble burst, the middle class hasn’t had the buying power to keep the economy going. That concentration of income, in turn, is due to globalization and technological change—along with unprecedented campaign contributions and lobbying designed to make the rich even richer and do nothing to help average Americans, insider trading, and political bribery.

[Story] A is the story President Obama is telling, indirectly, through his deficit commission, his freeze on federal pay, his freeze on discretionary spending, and his wavering on extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich.

[Obama] “He’s telling story A. Making a big deal out of the deficit—appointing a deficit commission and letting them grandstand with a plan to cut $4 trillion out of the projected deficit over the next ten years--$3 of government spending for every $1 of tax increase—is telling story A. Announcing a two-year freeze on federal salaries—explaining that “I did not reach this decision easily—these are people’s lives”—is also telling story A. What the public hears is government bureaucrats are being paid too much, and that if we get the federal payroll under control we’ll all be better off. Proposing a freeze on non-discretionary (non-defense) spending is telling story A. So is signaling a willingness to extend the Bush tax cuts to the top.” And so, is [the likely appointment] of a Wall Streeter to be his top economic advisor another confirmation that story A is The Obamadier’s agenda? (Robert Reich, The Big Economic Story, and Why Obama Isn’t Telling It, 12-1-10).

And, if this isn’t enough for ya.

“Nine firms—five of them foreign—were able to borrow between $5.2 billion and $6.2 billion in U.S. government securities, which effectively act like cash on Wall Street, for four-week intervals while paying one-time fees that amount to the miniscule rate of 0.0078 percent. This was all done with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The program, called the Term Securities Lending Facility ensured that the firms had cash on hand to lend, invest, and trade.” (Shahien Nasiripour, Huffingtonpost, Money For Nothing: Wall Street Borrowed from Fed at 0.0078 Percent, 12-1-10).

Paul Krugman wrote, “Last week, reports Shahien Nasiripour of The Huffington Post, all the Republican members of the [Financial Crisis Inquiry] [C]ommission voted to exclude the following terms from the[ir] report: “deregulation”, “shadow banking”, “interconnection”, and, yes, “Wall Street”.”

He also stated, “This bubble was inflated by irresponsible lending, made possible both by bank deregulation and the failure to extend regulation to “shadow banks”, which weren’t covered by traditional regulation but nonetheless engaged in banking activities and created bank-type risks. It turned out that Wall Street had created a web of interconnection nobody understood…”

Krugman stated in his “Wall Street Whitewash” (NYT, 12-16-10), with quote:

“Last week, Spencer Bachus, the incoming G.O.P. chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told The Birmingham News that “in Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.”

Now Reuters wrote that “The plan agreed to by President Barack Obama and Republican leaders last week could push up debt levels, increasing the likelihood of a negative outlook on the United States rating in the coming two years, the ratings agency said.”

Holy shit! A downgrade from A to Aaa could cause a serious blow to US Treasuries, which are barely paying anything at all, and wound what is considered to be the only safe security for many Americans.

Reuters also said that “After Obama announced his plan, Treasury prices fell sharply in volatile trade last week and yields have hit a six-month high, in part due to concerns over the effect the package will have on government debt levels. If the bill becomes law, it will "adversely affect the federal government budget deficit and debt level," Moody's said.”

The Obamadier appears to be listening to his Neoconclastic regressive henchmen who are out to behead the working class American. Is this his HOPE AND CHANGE?

If it were not for Jon Stewart, maybe the 9/11 responders would have ignored by the Reichpublicans, once again.

This Neoconclastic ideology is what took the economy down the rabbit hole, which will end up getting deeper for many Americans.

Such a plutocracy (those in political control of the state by an oligarchy of the wealthy) is filled with Regressive evildoers who have been elected by the American sub-literates, and who thus far haven’t realized that they are being dope-slapped and robbed by the very people they elected to represent them.

Happy New Year!

Thanks for reading, jerry

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com