Wall Street Regulation (TARP 2): MoveOn VS Morris

So the government wants to vastly expand it's regulatory powers even more over Wall Street. This of course is being sold to us in the context of the righteous politician's trying to protect people like you and I from the evil big corporations and their greedy exec's.

Here's MoveOn.org's opinion about how the Democrats are trying to save all of us and the Republicans are just protecting their friends at the big banks.

"It seems hard to believe that anyone would want to oppose Wall Street reform in the middle of a major financial crisis like this. But the Republicans are willing to do it to protect their allies at the big banks."

Dear MoveOn member,

Wall Street is spending $500 million to convince Congress to kill the reform bill that will finally curb their reckless behavior.

That's one investment that's paying off. Every single Republican is now on record opposing Wall Street reform.

That means every single Republican is on record protecting the big banks instead of the countless Americans who lost jobs, money, houses, or their pensions because of Wall Street's behavior.

We have to call them out right away. If we don't, their bogus arguments against reform will stick—just like they did on health care.

We're working on a hard-hitting ad that lays out for the American people exactly whose side Republicans are on. But we need to get it up on the air fast—while this story is hot. Can you chip in $5?

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/wallstreet.html?bg_id=hpc5&id=19921-17182837-Ku6Eszx&t=3

It seems hard to believe that anyone would want to oppose Wall Street reform in the middle of a major financial crisis like this. But the Republicans are willing to do it to protect their allies at the big banks.

They know this is a high risk strategy. Their pollsters say the only way they'll get away with it is if they lie about Obama's plan and say it will cause more bailouts—even though they know that it will do the exact opposite.

But if we don't expose them—their lies will stick. Remember health care?

The truth is that Wall Street reform will:

End the bailouts by forcing big financial companies to put aside money now, so if there's another AIG-like disaster, taxpayers won't be on the hook. We'll use the big banks' own money to shut them down.

Protect consumers by creating an independent watchdog that would finally stop credit card companies, mortgage brokers, and big banks from hiding information in the fine print.

Shut down the "shadow markets" by cracking down on the backroom trading that put our economy at risk. Unlike the stock market, these "shadow markets"—where trillions of dollars of "derivatives" are traded each year—are secret, highly risky, and virtually unregulated.

So we're fighting back. But we need help. Can you chip in $5?

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/wallstreet.html?bg_id=hpc5&id=19921-17182837-Ku6Eszx&t=4

Thanks for all you do.

–Nita, Laura, Daniel, Ilyse and the rest of the team

"But if we don't expose them—their lies will stick. Remember health care?" I find that interesting. Do you mean the lies like Obamacare will increase health care costs? Whose the liar here?

Dick Morris had a pretty good analysis of what financial regulation is really about here.

"Republicans complain, correctly, about the power the secretary of the Treasury is given under the bill to seize any financial institution he deems too big to fail and thinks is at risk of insolvency. They rightly worry about the constraint this provision imposes on business growth and the dictatorial powers it gives the administration to fire management, replace directors, liquidate stock value and sell off parts of the companies they seize."

So far the Dem's haven't been able to get the votes in the Senate. They haven't even gotten every Democrat on board. It's interesting also to see how after health care passed against the will of the American people some Liberals are deciding not to run for re-election since they know they'll lose.

Take Chris Dodd (D - Conn.), for example. Here's some of Ronald Reagan's opinion's of Dodd:

April 28, 1983

"Today named Dick Stone, former Dem. Senator as personal envoy to Central America. Sen. Dodd & other far out liberals & left wingers are all over the tube screaming foul. Dodd calls me ignorant. His claims to expertise on Central America is 2 years as a peace corps volunteer many years ago in Dominica."

This ones even better:

July 18, 1983

"Announced today in Florida that Henry Kissinger will be chairman of the Commission on Central America. One of the press yelled a question at me that Sen. Dodd says commission is a ploy to get around Congress. I wonder which side Dodd is on. He comes down against the U.S. on almost every issue."

Source: The Reagan Diaries

How can we trust corrupt politicians to regulate corrupt businesses? Think about that for a second. The left, like MoveOn.org etc. are trying to paint a picture that the Republican's are all corrupt liar's in Washington and that the Liberals are these perfect player's looking out for all of us. I think a majority of Americans see through that for the BS that it is.

There's plenty of corruption to go around in Washington. That is the secret to the Tea Party movement. It's not a party issue, it's the expanding government, ridiculous spending, special interest frat party going on in Washington that we're so sick of.

It's a message more tied to our founding than any serious movement in recent American history. If the best shot you have against it is that it's supporter's are "tea-baggers" or racist extremist then I don't think we have anything to worry about. A message that weak has no chance of success, much less a chance of swaying an election.

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Obama's Inheritance And The Key To An Economy Based On Spending

I often wonder how far whining about inheriting a recession will get President Obama. Even some Liberals I know say that if things don't turn around in a big way in the next year then even they will have to turn on Obama.

It's no secret that we are an economy based largely on spending. You spend money on businesses and services, the businesses make money to pay employees and expand to create jobs. There's a profound difference in what kind of spending is healthy for out economy and it is a major difference between Liberals and Conservatives.

Liberals of the Obama mold think that it's government spending that can help a sick economy, Bush felt the same way. Obama can claim that he inherited a recession, fine. Bush's government spending didn't seem to help though so it doesn't make much sense that Obama expects spending far more money will.

The argument about a healthy economy as far as most everyday folks comes down to rests on pretty much one issue, jobs. If you have a job the only other issue becomes whether you make enough money to provide for your family.

Taxes need to be as low as possible so that you take home as much as possible. The more of your money you get to take home, the more you'll be able to spend. Conservatives understand that if you get more of the people's money into the people's own hands then they can spend more which helps our economy.

It's not government spending that helps our economy as progressives believe. If that were true then all of the past bailouts and stimulus packages would have the economy roaring back to life by now. The reason it hasn't is because even though the government has kept right on spending, we have all had to cut back our spending.

If you can't get a job then you have to rely on government assistance to spend any money. If you lose your job you need unemployment, welfare etc. That money has to come from taxes paid by people who do work.

It's pretty simple, if you don't create private sector jobs, (you know, the kind where you don't work for the government, remember those?), then you don't create tax payers that aren't also being paid by those same taxes. The creation of private sector jobs will increase the tax payer base, while not paying those workers with that same tax revenue. The result...INCREASED GOVERNMENT REVENUES.

Look it up, it's historically accurate, that's why so many liberal teachers refuse to stress the positive result of lower taxes despite so much evidence that proves it. Look at the Great Depression. FDR spent more money than ever before and made taxes astronomically high. After 2 terms unemployment had gone up and we were still enduring the Great Depression. That's 8 years of failure and it took a World War to turn unemployed into soldiers and unite the country behind a common cause, winning.

The New Deal gave us social security etc. and now we the back of our country is breaking due to some of those very same programs. Even some of FDR's own "brain trust", FDR's top advisers, began to turn on his spending after several years. The problem is that so many have been given this distorted view of how wonderful the New Deal was, (forgetting that even the supreme court declared much of it, like the NRA, unconstitutional in time).

Obama and modern day progressives stick to these stimulus and other spending programs because they have the belief that it will have the same effect as the New Deal. Well.....IT IS!!! The reason all of these wonderful programs aren't working is because they are cut from the same cloth as the New Deal and the New Deal didn't work.

Cut spending, cut taxes, encourage businesses (rather than vilify them), and create lasting private sector jobs and we will defeat this recession. Do the opposite and we will most likely see a depression that will one day be called The Greater Depression, far more people hurt, far more money spent, far more disastrous economic effect of a far more disastrous government than ever before.

Notice I said "disastrous government" not disastrous president, there's plenty of blame to go around from both parties and recent presidents. I'd like to close with some quotes from some other president's and government officials you may or may not have heard of.

"To relieve the misfortunes of our fellow creatures is concurring with the Deity; it is godlike; but, if we provide encouragement for laziness, and supports for folly, may we not be found fighting against the order of God and Nature, which perhaps has appointed want and misery as the proper punishments for, and cautions against, as well as necessary consequences of, idleness and extravagance? Whenever we attempt to amend the scheme of Providence, and to interfere with the government of the world, we had need to be very circumspect, lest we do more harm than good" - Benjamin Franklin

"The utopian schemes of leveling [redistribution of the wealth], and a community of goods [central ownership of all the means of production and distribution], are as visionary and impracticable as those which vest all property in the Crown. [These ideas] are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government, unconstitutional" - Sam Adams

"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he then be trusted with the government of others?" - Thomas Jefferson

"Fellow citizens - a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities." - Thomas Jefferson

"If I may, let me explain the situation and what it is we were trying to do with Social Security. I have reneged no pledge. I said during the campaign that we would do nothing to hurt those presently dependent on Social Security checks - that we would not pull the rug out from under those people so dependent. I did say that I would try to restore the integrity to the program. As it is now, the program without change will run out of money for paying benefits to the present recipients sometime late in 1982. Beyond that, however, there is a long-range actuarial imbalance which means that down the road in the next century, but within the lifetime of younger workers today, the program will be several trillion dollars out of balance." - Ronald Reagan

"Taxes are paid in the sweat of every man who labors because they are a burden on production and are paid through production. If those taxes are excessive, they are reflected in idle factories, in tax-sold farms, and in hordes of hungry people, tramping the streets and seeking jobs in vain." - FDR on the campaign trail in 1932

"I regard reduction in Federal spending as one of the most important issues of this campaign. In my opinion it is the most direct and effective contribution that Government can make to business." - also FDR in 1932"

FDR spent more money than all previous presidents combined! It's funny how candidate FDR seemed to know what president FDR forgot, remind you of anyone?

"The suggestion that the voter must cast his ballot for Democratic candidates if he is to be permitted to share fairly in the future distribution of federal money's is an interesting but brazen attempt to corrupt the voters of the nation through the use of their own money." - John Hamilton - former Republican national chairman

His charge is a description of how FDR was disproportionately using New Deal money to influence votes in favor of Democrats.

"Politicians of whatever party seem unable to rise above the temptation of using government expenditures as reasons for persuading voters" - Henry Wallace - FDR's secretary of agriculture

4 months before the '36 election FDR hired 300,000 men through the Works Progress Administration (WPA). In the month after the election 300,000 were fired. Talk about buying votes.

"No depression can be ended by gifts, gratuities, doles, and alms handed out by the Federal Treasury, and extorted from taxpayers that are bleeding at every pore." - Thomas Gore, I know what you're thinking....who? He's a former Oklahoma Senator during the New Deal.

"The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. It is inimical to the dictates of a sound policy." - FDR

What the hell happened to this FDR?!! How come you don't hear enough about candidate FDR and only get sold a falsehood of how great President FDR was. He may have been a great wartime president, (he was since he fought to win and we won), but he was an economic disaster for this country.

"To be on relief for a few months was a boon to be extended by a great government to a patient people. But to be told that you are to be on relief for the rest of your days is to destroy the hope and, therefore, the morale of the people." - Joseph Ely, former governor of MA during the New Deal

Good old Massachusetts. Key word being "old" Scott Brown is a plus but modern day Massachusetts usually sucks. At least we had the tea party today though.

"Federal aid, encourages the expectations of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character." - Grover Cleveland

Ignore everything you just read though because President Obama is a genius and went to Harvard, so did Bush by the way. As you can see they are both much smarter than all of these old fashioned former politicians just look at the results of their programs.

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Excuses Already?!!

During the week of the health care votes many companies announced layoffs etc. Even the company I work for lay-ed off several hundred workers. The layoffs were announced 2 days after the health care vote. Many companies have done so. I find it fascinating that there are so many liberals trying to make excuses even in victory.

I mentioned in my last post that in time when this health care plan doesn't work it will be blamed on Republicans. I was astounded that the other day I heard this, "this health care bill probably won't help because Obama didn't get everything he wanted."....Well then, if it won't help then why sign it? This is the beginning of blaming Republicans for this bill not being the great fix to health care that the Dem's are promising.

With regards to the layoffs announced right after the bill passed the left here are trying to claim that it has nothing to do with the bill passing. Even though in the weeks prior to the bill passing people were being cut back in hours etc. to "prevent layoffs". As soon as the bill passed it became cut backs and layoffs.

I asked what was so great about the bill and the reply I got from a die hard liberal was that, "26 year old's can stay on their parents insurance since they can't find jobs". My reply was, "I thought Obama's stimulus was working, why can't they find jobs?" He had little to say after that.

The reason is simple, he's a big stimulus and health care supporting liberal. However after that question it left him with a choice to make. Either the stimulus package is working and people are finding jobs, or the 26 year old insurance stipulation is a good thing because they can't find jobs.

"U.S. private employers cut 23,000 jobs in March, missing expectations for an increase in jobs although fewer than the adjusted 24,000 jobs lost in February, a report by a private employment service said on Wednesday."

By the way, many of the layoffs gave workers a few weeks so they won't be reflected in March's numbers. They will show up in the April new claims for unemployment. Many of the new jobs are related to the census. There's a good analysis with a mix of the good and bad at the Wall Street Journal here.

"However, the 2010 decennial Census accounted for 48,000 of the employment boost last month. As those jobs will be lost in the second half of the year, economists cautioned not to read too much into the headline figure. Another 40,000 of the increase came in other temporary jobs."

Do you remember when unemployment was going down in the earlier Bush 43 years? I can't even begin to count how many times I heard unhappy liberals claiming that whenever unemployment went down under G. Bush the only jobs being created were "s**t jobs". Essentially liberals were saying that the only jobs being created were fast food etc. Well then, what do they make of this from the WSJ report?

"The so-called underemployment rate--which includes everyone in the official rate plus those who are neither working nor looking for work, but say they want a job and have looked for work recently -- rose to 16.9% in March from 16.8% the previous month. In January, the underemployment rate stood at 16.5%."

So...while there was some job creation in March, this report shows that Census and "underemployment" are a big factor in that job creation. It reminds me of a line from the movie Fun With Dick and Jane starring Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni which if you haven't seen yet, you should. The line is: "vice presidents are working at Burger King". That line sums up much of Obama's so called job creation, though perhaps not to that extreme. Where are the Bush bashing Obama supporters? Why aren't they calling the job listings at Taco Bell and Lowe's crap jobs?

The answer is simple, everything that Obama fails at is Bush's fault. That will be the excuse straight into 2012. Why do you think the health care bill doesn't take full effect until 2013 or '14? It's because they know this bill will be horrible for the economy and health care. The negative effects won't be in full effect in 2012 so Obama will be able to claim that all of the people who were against Obamacare were wrong about the negative effects this bill would have. He's already started this in a way. Watch.

"2 months from now, 6 months from now you can check it out, we'll look around and we'll see."

Actually Obama that can't be true. Since everyone knows the bill doesn't go fully in effect for a few years it will take a few years to check it out. Perhaps, then we'll indeed see. If it doesn't turn out to be as wonderful as he hopes for, which I of course suspect, who can be blamed? They will claim it isn't working because of all the concession's he had to make for it to pass. They will try to put the public option back in the bill in some sneaky way because they will claim it's got to be used to help fix and improve the bill.

The most common excuse you get when you ask why these kind of big government programs don't work in other areas of the world is that they "didn't do it right". It is believed by many of these people, like the admitted socialist's in this country, that America will be able to get socialism etc. right. To them it's not that the universal health care in other countries can't work, it's that those countries haven't implemented the programs in the right way. They think we can do it right and that's why it will work. I feel bad for those who believe such nonsense.

Many Conservatives bailed on Bush during term 2. Republicans do share the blame for opening the door to big government. Now it's time for the Democrats to do the same. I believe the Reagan Democrats are still here. They are the type you find at the Tea Parties.

Ronald Reagan gave a good answer at a press conference in 1982. Conservatives share the blame for the rise of progressive Republicanism during Bush's 2nd term. Yet we saw the rise of bailout's, deficits, and stimulus programs and turned away from such nonsense. Obama's falling poll numbers indicate that many Democrats have taken a second look at progressive liberalism and decided it isn't quite what they had in mind.

That is a part of why Obama has gone from a 65% approval rating to a %46 according to Rasmussen. That kind of drop in approval after only 15 months takes more than just partisan critics. It doesn't matter how many excuses your supporters come up with.

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