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January 20, 2009 - 9:39am
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The Inauguration
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Yeah, if we use the market to judge, it's already a step up from his predecessor!
Can't do worse than the previous guy. Not possible.
Market down from 14,000 to 8,000. You need to look all the way back to Nixon to find a President who left the market as poorly. Who before that, Hoover?
Actually, it was Roosevelt...you also forget the DDNC (Democrat Do Nothing Congress) who has ruled from when the Market was at that 14,000 till today. While the media and Obama's adoring public are all enthralled with the Coronation, the rest of the world had been crashing over the last week. Nikkei way down, European Markets way down, near panic in the UK and yes, our markets are also not demonstrating any great confidence.
Remember, it is not the president who spends the money, Bush or Obama, it is Congress....see my tag line.
"our markets are also not demonstrating any great confidence."
I assume we're talking about the same markets that managed to waste, steal, and lose trillions of dollars in less than a year's time? The markets that insist they know the best way to run themselves, while playing like drunk gamblers in Vegas who would spend everyone else's money on bad bets they themselves only vaguely understand? Those markets?
Well, they'll find a way to get over it, I'm sure. Never let politics get in the way of trying to make buck, right?
The rest of us are glad to have somebody back at the wheel who has some vision and ideas.
"The rest of us are glad to have somebody back at the wheel who has some vision and ideas."
and who is not asleep at the wheel.
Yep, and the Democrat Congress that protected Fannie and Freddie from any real reform, and then managed to spend several trillion in bailouts, bribeouts, and rebates and wants to do it again with another $850 billion.
Like it or not, the markets ARE the nations wealth and frittering it away through taxes and spending will kill the world economy, solidly.
Besides, we all saw the market failing over a year ago. I VERY loudly noted in August of 2007 on a score of conservative political forums that the issue in the 08 election would be the economic meltdown we were having and not the war. The left laughed and called me an idiot as the issue would, of course be the war. The right did the 'don't worry, be happy' dance and said 'what meltdown?'. I moved what little money I had into very conservative funds and bought gold. I just got my 4th quarter statement and found I had made $500. I would bet the lefties whining about the war and the rights doing the happy feet dance are all now whining about the evil markets instead of looking in the mirror. If I could figure out the economy of the world was in free fall 19 months ago, anyone with half a brain could, but didn't...including the Democrat Do Nothing Congress.
I note the DOW closed down over 332 and under 8000...
Man, you won't drink the global warming Kool Aid, but you'll have a triple shot of Limbaugh flavor.
Well, the good news is that while the 'left' ran Congress from the minority poisition, overpowering the poor helpless red majority, the red party can now return the favor and save us now that they are in the same position!
Woo Hoo!
Reds in the majority 1984-2006, Reds in the White House 1980-1992, and 2000 to now...and it's a Democrat problem?
Dude, that takes more faith than believing in global warming.
Too easy...here are the spending numbers
I'm with you on this one, JIMV!
This is one of the worst days of my life!!!
Bush is moving back here to Texas!!!!!
The good news is Cheney isn't coming back to live in Dallas again. Probably gonna end up somewhere where his cash has more value than the USD.
Oh, hey, while we're talking about that, did anyone ever mention the Constitution forbids two same state citizens from being elected VP an P?
Is it too late to take a mulligan?
Aretha Franklin sucked.
just awful
Yeah, but don't you know there were a lot of whiteys with red necks sitting there going, "Sheeeeeeet! An' this is wha' we're gonna get fo' the next fo'r years." You have to appreciate the irony in that!
I had the day off and forgot all about it until about 5 PM MTN. I became disgusted when our governor left to become Secretary of Commerce but had to resign because of some sort of "investigation". He had the nerve to come back as our governor. Just another day. another blow job. I think I got that from, "Go Ask Alice", which we all know now was total bullshit. I'm afraid this so-called dream is already a nightmare. Take the bridges for example. FDR could make a bridge any day of the week. Today, you need to jump through too many hoops to even get a bridge planned, including environmental impact studies. Not to mention there isn't enough real citizens with the skills to take on the same magnitude as FDR projects. Hell, in FDR's days they used cats tied to a rope to crawl through tiny conduits in such things like Hoover Dam to run the electrical cables through. You think that sort of shit is going to fly today? This entire special interest house-of-cards power play isn't going to last one year. Pelosi is already drawing a line in the sand and B. Hussien Obama is talking about getting rid of the old power in Washington? How far can this plane fly on one engine? Straight to the scene of the crash. What we need is Oddball!
UP YOURS BABY! BURNING BRIDGES...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqSiLL8U3vo&
But just to be on the safe side I purchased all the firearms I've been wanting for a long time. That was easy thanks to B. Hussien Obama. And I want to thank him for that. There was nothing Mrs. Sanford could do. I had the perfect reasoning.
There's a Mrs. Sanford?!
Well, ...
... there are a few things she could do.
Well, finally we know what really goes on inside your head. Not a pretty sight.
Hell, did I miss anything important?
Yeah, I know. For every action there is an equal and opposite action. It may come back to bite me on the ass.
nc, Could it have been the cold weather? Is it possible to sing your best under those conditions?
It must be hard for her to follow her own incredible act. So many years of great performing...
Of course, one must remember that the basis for these spending issues was created by the Federal Reserve bank, which is a private corporation. They tend to ( ie, 100%) put their own man in the 'Secretary of the treasury' position, so the entire federal deficit is a federal reserve contrivance.
The idea of political connectedness of the federal reserve to the US government is an illusion that is created and held, so the average person on the USA streets will not understand that their entire lives have been manipulated by a private company, who's owners are bent on spending America's intensity up for their own purposes and burning it to the ground when it's usefulness as a weapon against the globe -- has been exhausted.
That weapon has been exhausted and the burning down (proper-as in actual) has now begun.
Get it?
The 'trend' in the chart shows the lack of correlation of spending vs 'party in control' (what a joke!).
What you are seeing in the chart is the ultimate result of having a fiat currency system in the hands of a private company with low ethics and low morals. The result is always the same.
You will have to really dig around with an open mind if you want to find the real reasons for these issues and happenings. For one, they certainly aren't printed in any newspapers or on any on-line big media websites.
"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America - as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did you know beforehand that it would never appear in print.
"I am paid $150 a week for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for things, and if any of you would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before 24 hours, my occupation would be gone.
"The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes.
"We are Jumping-Jacks -- they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes!"
-- John Swinton, 1914, former Editor New York Times, at his retirement party at the Press Club.
A free and independent press?
Not at all.
The New York Times owns the Boston Globe. Look at who owns both:
Cede & Co., c/o The Depository Trust Co. (the Federal Reserve)(a private company)
United States Trust Company of New York
Wells Fargo Institutional Trust Company
Bank of New York
Bank One Ohio Trust Company
Bankers Trust Company
Boston Safe Deposit & Trust Co.
Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.
The Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A.
Boston Safe Deposit & Trust Co.
Goldman, Sachs & Co.
Mellon Bank, N.A.
Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith
Morgan Guaranty Trust Co.
Northern Trust Co.
Smith Barney, Inc.
The federal reserve was created in 1913 as a result of the crash of 1907, where the market lost 50% in one monht making today's problems look trivial.
The FED is a problem but they are screwed with by the Congress and regulatory agencies and both are venal and crooked.
Hey, rvance. There are varying schools of thought on that. I have some colleagues who go to great lengths to make sure that their throats are wrapped in scarves, constantly sip on tea, consume mints like mad... because they are absolutely "convinced" that the cold weather is harming their precious voices...while some chain smoke, party till 4 or 5 am, come in hungover and sing like angels. the truth of the matter is, a well warmed up(by that I mean having vocalized lightly, solfege, etc)and rested singer should have no problem performing under any condition, provided that they are physically safe... I think Aretha's main problem is that she is way, way past her prime. The female voice matures earlier(and deteriorates sooner) than that of the male. Too many years of that screech of hers, and the demanding lifestyle have probably given her vocal nodes and other problems. She should have bowed out a long time ago. I was embarassed for her.
(I dont know if you are interested in this or not, but my Bible for vocal technique is a book called The four voices of man , written by my all time favorite bass, Jerome Hines --amazing stuff in there)
btw, an archive of rare recordings is HERE only mp3, but still amazing..Hines was a god amongst singers.
Looks can be deceiving. Taking the weighted average for the beginning and ending period and the end period in-between the Democrat, Divided, and Republican controlled congresses have about the same spending increase For example, the Democrats highest weighted average is 18% for the current period beginning approx. 2006, the highest for a divided congress is approx. 16% for the period ending around 2004, and the Republican congress approx. 17% for the period ending approx 2006. Up until 2004 there is a consistent and steady increase in spending. After 2004 there is the longest period of a slowing down of spending regardless of the spike towards the end of the graph due to the flat line during the transition between a Republican congress and a Democrat congress before and after 2006.
What is interesting is the following graph from the same source as the above graph.
Look at the nose dive in defense spending after the Cold War and throughout the Clinton Administration. Even after 911 defense spending still isn't near Cold War levels. We're apparently fighting a couple of counter-insurgency wars on a budget in direct proportion to the decline in defense spending prior to 911. In other words, we are getting back to the amount of defense spending that should have been occurring prior to 911 and during the same time the end of the Clinton Administration and the beginning the Bush Administration were dealing with a recession. To be subjective we were blatantly ignoring security and national interests at the expense of a failing economy and special interests. There is no legacy to attribute to this blatant lack of concern for our safety and infrastructure.
No comments so far on the cost of the coronation. $150+ million is the figure most quoted. Bush's was $42 million. Can you imagine if McCain's coronation was $150+ million? The media would have crusified him. Maybe Obama will have a better teflon coat than Clinton had that keeps the media off his back!
The more things change the more the stay the same.
Old news...that was a week ago. Today we have a few very unreliable cabinet choices, an $850 billion boondogle, and a headlong rush to shut down our anti terror programs (after 7 years of success). They want to raise taxes on the capable and give welfare checks to the hopeless. Lots of stuff to discuss as we head into the great depression. Did Hoover and Roosevelt have as idiot a Congress?
Wasn't it the Democratic Congress and Senate that saved us in 1980-1988?
Only as they went along with Reagan. Remember, the plan was lower taxes AND spending....When the lower taxes brought in increased revenue, as promised, Congress spent like a drunken Hollywood trophy wife.
What's get me is the appointment of a tax evader as the Secretary of Treasury. It makes no sense to me. A tax evader with his signature on our currency. This is going to work splendidly.
I agree. What better way to catch a thief than to employ a thief as your chief thief catcher? This dude knows how to work the IRS, so I see that as a definite plus.
It is tough to lose, JIMV , but you should probably get used to it for the next 30 years while we undo all the damage the Republicans did.
That was really something.
I'm trying to picture how it went...
"OK, you are being considered for a cabinet level appointment, but we want to run a squeaky clean ship. Any skeletons, illegal nannies, anything we need to know about? You are going to be investigated, so speak up if there is anything."
"No, I'm good. Clean."
"I'll ask again, just to make sure. If there's anything at all, you'll be called on it."
"No, really, I'm good. There's nothing."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
A few weeks later:
"Dude, you promised. You said there was nothing. You failed to pay income tax? WTF?"
"Oh, THAT, well....."
As folk on a lot of forums have noted, elections have consequences. The dems avoided all consequences after their gaining Congress 2 years ago but now they have it all. One of the consequences of winning is responsibility. If the economy improves in the next couple of years and we do not have another terror attack, then Obama and the idiot democrat congress will get credit. If, as I expect, the economy gets worse as we throw money we don't have at it and the terrorists attack next year again as they realize we did indeed tear down our defenses, then responsibility will go directly to the dems.
BDS only carries so far when one has total control.
1) it is the Democratic congress, not Democrat congress.
You Repugnantcans love to play with words.
It took Bush and the Repugnantcans 8 years to destroy this economy, it will take Obama longer than 2 years to restore it. If congress is ineffective it will be because of Repugnantcan obstructionism.
Your game plan is transparently easy to see. I think the American public is no longer easily fooled by Repugnantcan propaganda.
You are on the losing side and will be for 30 years since we are seeing a sea change in the political cycle.
Have fun with that.
"Democrat Congress" = Dittohead word.
That term is a form of 'handshake' and acts as a sign of being an accolyte of a certain drug addled serial divorce' who, although a social copnservative and unmarried, carries bottles of Viagra (that aren't his) to the Dominican Republic for weekend teen hooker junkets.
He's teflon to those addicted to his vitriol.
On the plus side...
JIMV is halfway there, though. Idiocy is bipartisan, so he only has to look at his onwer party to be up to speed!
But it's all good, the genius of President Palin will "halp" us after her win in 2012.
Lets be accurate, it was the Democrat Do Nothing Congress (DDNC). Now that they have total power, and all events good or bad, belong to them, it is the Democrat, I blame Bush, Congress.
BUZZZZZ, warning, opinion masking as fact. The republicans took power in 2001, having inherited the Clinton Tech Bubble recession, and also the peace dividend produced by gutting the military. We were promptly attacked in a strike planed and made possible by Clinton Justice policies, and the rest is history. In November 2006 the DOW was over 12,000....today after 2 years of the DDNC the DOW is around 8000. Obama's tax increase and rebate scheme will have it down to 7000 by mid summer, where it will just sit for the next two years.
What game plan...I simply note what is. The Dems own it all and have total responsibility. If things get better they did it. If worse they also own that. I expect worse, you expect nirvaha....we will see who is right.
Actually, the economic crisis started on a downside before Clinton left office. There is no such thing as this party's economy or that party's economy. Unless you erroneously believe that the federal government runs our economy and whomever is president is a Democrat economy or a Republican economy? Only national/socialist party governments control their economy. A few fine examples would be Hitler's National Socialist Workers Party, Mussolini's National Fascist Party, and Hussien's Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. There is good reason why Italy amended their constitution to include, "it shall be forbidden to reorganize, under any form whatever, the dissolved [national] fascist party"
I would go so far as to state that anyone should stay out of American government topics if they don't shit about it. If you live in America than fine, consider yourself lucky. If you don't than just shut the fuck up and go down and see if there is any bread on the shelf down the block.
Anyway, why the hell is anyone crying about the economy? All the Circuit City stores are closed down. And that's a bad thing? They went-out-business for the same reasons all the others are going out-of-business. They sold shit and couldn't withstand the slightest change in the economy. It's their own fault. Fuck them. We buy the best. New or used.
Because we're losing our jobs? Perhaps because our savings and pensions got wiped out in what we thought were safe investment instruments? How about because we cannot get credit to finance our businesses? Or how about because the value of our homes plummeted? Gee, I can think of a few reasons why we're crying about the economy.
Mr. Sanford must be terribly flush not to recognize when the "little people" are hurting.
And the lefts response to it is to both tax folk and print money!!!
Gee, maybe some of you should have been paying off your homes instead of spending more than enough money for stereo equipment. Little people my ass. WTF is this little people shit? Buck up and take the pain. You helped make it.
Tell us how you really feel , Lamont, stop holding back
BTW, Lamont, I do sympathize with your view.
I owe 42,000 in a 15 year note at 4.5% on my home valued at 300,000.
I didn't succumb to the home finance lunacy of the last 10 years.
Some of my economist friends think we shoud do nothing and suffer more severe pain now in order to make the recession shorter.
Many feel that rescue attempts will only prolong the problem.
Herbert Hoover, who was an economist felt the same way from 1929 to 1932.
That's right.
If WWII hadn't rolled around FDR would have been lynched. In fact, people were sick of his bullshit so much that we reduced the number of terms one jackass can be president. Thank god for world wars. Viva la France.
Seems our FINE Senate just confirmed the tax cheat as head of the IRS....You cannot make this stuff up.
Dude, you got the emphasis all wrong.
The new Secretary of Commerce is ONLY a tax cheat.
JHC, JIMV, you are one sore loser.
I just noted that the new Treasury secretary is a tax cheat, which he is...the folk who have no problem with that are far more a problem than those of us who note it...I mean, this is not even subject to opinion...he didn't pay years of taxes and only paid up when asked to become a cabinet officer.
Home sales are up because prices have fallen. The kick-in-the-ass to the whole thing is that the government had nothing to do with it and the banks are only selling homes to people with good credit. Go figure. Hard working "little people" with good credit buying homes at a fair price. Sort of like the price of gasoline these days. Bad economy. Bad bad bad economy.
http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=58747&page=0&vc=1
I think he's an all American. He didn't believe in taxation without representation. As soon as he was given an opportunity to represent himself within the IRS, he paid all his taxes. I don't know how much more American one can get.
LOL, that is an astute observation.
I'm sure if he was a California resident he would pay his state taxes with California State tax refund IOU's...