Fiscal Cliff, Spending, CONgress, Ill-Informed Rant for 2012

Okay, it's only a few days to go to the dreaded fiscal cliff. Both parties are maneuvering to win the hearts and minds of their constiuants. Let's break down a few points.

 1. The Republicans are in a no win battle. They are struggling with what side to take. If they support raising taxes on the rich and leave taxes alone for the "98%" then they will likely lose many dollars in their re-election campaigns. Think about it...they get big bucks from the 2% not only in cash, but in bundling and kick backs. If they leave things alone and let the car drive off the cliff, well they lose votes. That's right, many people that are in the 98% will switch over to voting for someone who promises "not to raise taxes" instead of the clown that raised taxes while in office. They are struggling with what to do. No good answer for them especially if they come up for re-election in two years.
 2. The Democrats cannot lose. If the car does go over the cliff they point to the Republicans as the ones who made your take home pay less.  If the Repubs cave and allow the tax rebates expire for the 2% but keep the rebates for the 98% then they look weak and siding with the Democrats...and hence lose votes and money. Dems win either way.What is the real problem? Spending! Bingo, that's the WHOLE problem and no one, Repubs or the Dems want to face this issue. Why doesn't Boehner come out and say "we don't need to cut taxes or change the tax laws, what we need to do is have a balanced budget and only spend what we take in. In fact Mr. President, why haven't you had a balanced budget since you have been in office? Mr. Reid, why hasn't the Senate required the President to have a balanced budget or heck even a budget that the Senate can approve like is required by law?" No, we don't hear anything come out of his mouth. In fact, we don't hear anything like that come out of any politicians mouth. Where are our elected officials that took an oath to uphold the laws of this great nation?

People, I will tell you that this soap opera will continue right down to the 11th hour and then a deal will be made. A day after the "deal" we will see officials from both parties on the tube touting what "they" did, despite the opposing party, to help the people and "save America" from plummeting off the cliff. What saddens me is that NO MSM reporter will nail either party with the spending issue. They let this slide right on by and allow the politicians to dodge the real issue, spending.

We will hear that if nothing was done, then we would be laying off policemen, firemen, teachers and garbage will be piling up in the streets. The government will have to lay off employees in all departments and the Social Security checks and EBT cards will be stopped. Medicare and Medicaid will have funding reduced or stopped. Bravo Serria  on this.

Look at a few more points.
1. We now have Obama phones for people unemployed. Why you ask? Well they need to have a way for all the potential employers to contact them. If they don't have enough minutes, then they can purchase more. What! These people are out of work, have a free phone and can buy more time? Shouldn't they be spending that money on food, or utilities?

2. Food, well they get EBT cards. And now the amount of people receiving "food stamps" is 1 EBT holder for every 6.5 people employed.

3. Well if you are looking for a job, you need a computer. Yep, you guessed it. There is a government program to assist with a purchase of a computer.

4. A computer is no good without Internet. Yep, if you qualify, you can get free or reduced Internet services. All in the name of seeking jobs.

5. That computer doesn't run on solar power, (yet), so we need to allow them to have help paying the electrical bills, all in the name of getting a job.

6. The computer will get destroyed living in the woods, so we better help them with housing...enter Section 8 housing.

7. And how will they get to work when they get a job? Well I'm sure they will have a government program to assist with that soon, if it's not already in place now.

Spending is out of control and will get worse. We have 51% of our voting people that are ill-informed. They are also the majority of the people that are receiving handouts from the government. We are not going to get our budget under control until the CONgress gets their $hit together and stop pissing in the wind. The $2 trillion spending cuts that the President was proposing is over ten years. Yep, we would knock off a big $200 billion from the deficit each and every year. The ill-informed will look at that and say, well at least we are doing something. And they are correct, we are still going into debt a trillion dollars each year! 

Let's look at something else while we are talking about the debt. We are at $16 trillion currently and pay about a measly 2% interest rate (and you wonder why Big Ben is keeping the interest rates low?). That means we are paying approximately $320 billion just in interest payments. If the interest were to rise just 3% then we would be paying $800 billion. What, you don't think interest rates will climb? I would say...OPEN YOUR EYES! The borrowing rates for banks is essentially zero, it cannot go lower and can only go up. When, dunno. But I do know it will go up and when it does it won't just climb to 3% it likely will jump and jump big. But let's just leave it at 5% in four years. If we don't get spending under control and continue down the same path we are on now, we will have another $5-6 trillion in debt for a grand total of $21-22 trillion by the end of 2016. At a 5% interest rate that will be $1,000,000,000,000+ per year in interest and that doesn't include the principal payment. So in four years our interest rate jumps from 2% to 5% ( which I think is low) and our interest payment jumps from $320 billion to $1000 billion plus. WE CANNOT KEEP THIS UP! Where are the Statesmen? Where are our Patriots? Can you say III Congress? (look it up)

And QE 3 of $40 billion a month for mortgage securities and now QE 4 of another $45 billion a month forTreasury Bonds? Both programs are for infinety or until unemployment drops below 6.5%. has anyone told the idiots in DC that this has been tried before, enter Japan, and IT DOESN'T WORK! You cannot buy your way out of high unemployment. So now we are spending $85 billion a month (forever)...where are we getting that money? Do the math that's another $1020 billion a year. I guess since there is no written budget we can just add it in. Isn't that how you do it at home with your budget?

So, the President and CONgress want to lower our deficit by $200 billion a year for ten years but we increase our debt by over $1 trillion just with QE3&4 and another trillion just because we keep spending more than we take in. So, we really will be increasing our debt by $2 trillion per year so at the end of Mr. Obama's next four years we will be up to about $26 trillion in debt. Now that changes the interest rate scenario a bit...at a low 5% rate, we will be paying $1300 billion per year in interest! Folks, I believe this is a strong possibility of becoming a reality.  

The requested 2013 budget by the President is $3.8 trillion in expenditures with anticipated revenues of $2.9 trillion. Both those numbers will be adjusted through the year with the expenditures increasing and the revenues decreasing, count on it.

While I'm ranting, elected officials come to mind. Senator Inouye , who just passed away last week, had been in the Senate for 49 years. The MSM is seeing this as a good thing, (the time serving as a Senator not the dying thing). I cannot see that someone serving that long as an elected official in CONgress is a good thing. They get ingrained and bought by special interest groups. These groups donate en mass to these officials. Look at some of our members of CONgress.

John Dingell, (D), 57 years
John Conyers, (D), 47 years
Charles Rangel, (D), 41 years
Bill Young, (R), 41 years
Thad Cochran, (R), 39 years
Pete Stark, (D), 39 years
Don Young, (R), 39 years
Patrick Leahy, (D), 37 years
Max Baucus (D), 37 years
Chuck Grassley (R),37 years
Tom Harkin (D), 37 years
George Miller (D), 37 years
Henry Waxman (D), 37 years
Ed Markey (D), 36 years
Harry Reid (D), 26 years
Nancy Pelosi (D), 25 years
John Boehner (R), 22 years

When was the last time ANYTHING good came from one of these members? Have you heard from these "experienced" memebrs of CONgress on how is the best way to balance the budget? Fix the cliff thing? Fix the economy...oh wait you can do that by just spending what you take in...I had to help them a bit here. Increase the employment for the American people? Help small businesses...as they do employ approximately 70% of the workers.

Here are the term limits I would propose;
President-two 4 year terms and no other Federal office
Vice-President-two 4 year terms and only can serve one 4 year term as President then no other Federal office
Senate-two 4 year terms
House-three 2 year terms
Supreme Court-two 6 year terms

No person could serve more than 12 years at the Federal level.

Well, here is my rant for the end of 2012. Like it, hate it or deny it. Your choice. I know I'm not looking forward the the next four years and it's not just because who was elected in November. It's because of what is coming through the tunnel...and the bright light IS a freight train and it's just shifted into high gear and picking up speed. There are 535 people in DC making decisions for the 300 million living here legally (oh don't get me started on illegal immigration). Why can we not get them to listen to us? Oh, wait...maybe because there is still the 51%...the ill-informed. We are outnumbered. Get ready.

Gun Control? Really? Not Needed!!

Obama's Hypocrisy Problem On Guns

Well there are many things that can and should be done to help avoid the violence, but gun control is NOT one of them as it would not matter. Read the above link all the way through as it is very insightful and informative.

Read
Resist

Expect Recession in 2013

This is being reported by a left-leaning, Obama praising media organization. 

Tangibles
Prepare
Pray

Debt Ceiling Eliminated

Well, not yet....but it is coming.

Now, if he thinks this will solve the problem he is more of an idiot than I thought. The rest of the world will see that we are fiscally irresponsible (which they are starting to believe) and will sell off any dollars they hold. If that happens the trust in the USD will drop like a rock. You will see runs on banks, but that will be too late. We will head into a hyperinflation where we will be seeing prices changing daily or even every few hours. Look at Zimbabwe, or Wiemar Republic.

Tangibles
Gold
Silver
Food
Ammo
Real Estate

This Is Bad

Well, my teenagers say that math sucks. I disagree. Math when done properly tells the truth. I bet that Spend More Ben is thinking that math sucks though as he tries to figure out another way to offset the truth. It cannot be done as the math will always win.

The UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS REPORT came out today. The seasonally adjusted initial claims was 439,000, an increase of 78,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 361,000. The 4-week moving average was 383,750, an increase of 11,750 from the previous week's revised average of 372,000.

Now, they claim that it is because of the Superstorm Sandy. I call B.S. on that. Sure it probably accounts for some of the claims, but I would bet that the majority are from the claims that had been "back-logged" from the few weeks before the election.

Watch these reports through the end of the year, if they continue to decline or plateau, watch how the market reacts. 

Hold on!
Prepare
Food
Pay off bills
Silver

Are You Prepared?

Now, we all presume that Obama has stolen, err, won the election, but are you aware of what is to come?

Also if you don't think there was voter fraud.... it seems that there was 141% voter turnout in St. Lucie County, FL in the Allen West vs. Patrick Murphy contest. Makes you wonder how there was a greater than 100% turnout, huh? And even if there was a 100% turnout, that would still raise suspicion. When was the last time you EVER heard of a 100% voter turnout?

Now take this statement made by Valerie Jarrett...

“After we win this election, it’s our turn.  Payback time.  Everyone not with us is against us and they better be ready because we don’t forget. The ones who helped us will be rewarded, the ones who opposed us will get what they deserve. There is going to be hell to pay.  Congress won’t be a problem for us this time. No election to worry about after this is over and we have two judges ready to go.” 
-WHITE HOUSE SR. ADVISER VALERIE JARRETT DAYS BEFORE THE 2012 ELECTION.



Prepare

Food

Ammo

Weapons

Mindset

Tangibles

Veteran's Day 2012

Thank you to all that served....

This Is Nothing

Well spoken words from Arctic Patriot.

Read it all, then put on your armor of Faith!

A Noble Manner

Very well written.....


http://tlinexile.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-noble-manner.html

A Noble Manner

A post-election view of America might be very different from the norm. Traditionally, the election settles everything. Even the losers have to accept defeat and work hard to elect someone better next time. This president, however, has not been the President in any real terms, he has been a dictator, using the majorities he had in congress when he had the House and the Executive Order when he no longer controlled both houses.

Obama is the only president I ever heard use the pronoun "I" so many times when describing actions that could only be done by many, many people. "I got Bin Laden" is a favorite one at election time, but there is always the sense that there has been a hidden secret; some deal cut between the Muslims and himself, assuming for a moment that he is not one, which under Islamic culture would suggest that if his father was a Muslim, then he is as well, no matter what church he had to go to in order to become part of the American political scene. The fact that the church he chose was an American-hating Black Evolution church might say something to the compromise he had to make.

Think for a moment though about the October Surprise he might have planned for November 6th. The Black Panthers staged out in front of a polling place was not even prosecuted by the Attorney General, Eric Holder, because as he candidly revealed that it did not arise to the level to which "his people" had been kept from the voting booths for decades following the Civil War and all the way up to the Sixties. They want you to forget that it was largely Democrats that refused those voting rights, not Republicans.

Eric Holder, were he not in place to exonerate, or fail to prosecute the same type of strategy, only on a larger scale, would be the ideal person to have in place as Attorney General for a November Surprise, perhaps one reason that Obama selected him to begin with and has not forced him to resign over the Fast and Furious/Gunwalker scandal.

I am not getting all Conspiracy Theory on you, read on.

Obama has never balked at using union labor to do his leg-breaking in a political sense, even a literal sense, as documented by Breitbart on a number of occasions. He has never thought twice about calling up class envy or race hatred to do his bidding. By race hatred, I mean the other way around, black hatred for whites. He is at his core a community organizer, a person who stirs up civil unrest to intimidate people, he made a career out of it and has perfected it, why would he not use those talents and abilities to retain the White House and cement his Marxist transformation of America?

What he can not do legally and Constitutionally he has done illegally and unconstitutionally and no one has said a word about it, he has just cruised on without a second thought. Why would this close election be any different? His followers are lawless thugs, even the kind old teacher who sports the 2012 bumper sticker and speaks in a very soft, but somehow threatening tone.

I had hoped, after the last election, despite all of the Marxist propoganda he spouted, that Obama would ultimately heal the race tension and division caused by so many different events in American history over the past two hundred and thirty-six years, but he did just the opposite, he inflamed it; he used it; he fueled his campaign on two parts black hatred and one part white guilt.

I don't know what tomorrow will hold. It will be an election and an aftermath of an election the likes of which we have never seen, drowning out the uncertainty and disillusionment of the 2000 election of George Bush.

What I am hoping from the Patriot/Liberty Community is a pledge to act against the injustice of a stolen, fraudulent and manipulated election. If things run according to tradition and there is a winner and a loser and everyone goes home to celebrate or stew, fine with me, but if there is a concerted effort to intimidate voters, to threaten violence and manipulate the polls, that we act. Voting is the last act left to the people to right that which has been wrong and uphold that great American tradition of citizen government, once that is gone, what is there left to fight for?

The vote, while merely one of a hundred million, is a sacred bond between the people and their government. No matter how corrupt, vile and seemingly pointless it is, once we have allowed the institution of the vote to become just another corrupt government swindle, we have lost any hope other than revolution to rectify our condition.

This is a time and a place for any or all of us to stand up to the brutality of government against the people. We need no coordination or support. We need no communication or signal to go. All we need to do is recognize where voter intimidation is occurring and to remedy the situation ourselves. Consider it a duty. I would consider it a priviledge to give my life in such a manner, for my nation.

Posted by T.L. Davis at 8:35 AM

Navy Seals

Ronald Reagan on Libya

Ironic

Birther? Maybe, you decide...

While we are asking Obama some real questions, since the Main Stream Media refuses to do their job, here are 4, yes just 4 more questions that need to be answered.

 

1. Back in 1961 people of color were called 'Negroes.' So how can the Obama 'birth certificate' state he is 'African-American' when the term wasn't even used at that time?

 

2. The birth certificate that the White House released lists Obama's birth as August 4, 1961.  It indicates that Barack Hussein Obama was his father. No big deal, right? At the time of Obama's birth, it also shows that his father is aged 25 years old, and that Obama's father was born in " Kenya , East Africa ".  This wouldn't seem like anything of  concern, except the fact that Kenya did not even exist until 1963, two whole years after Obama's birth, and 27 years after his father's birth.

 

How could Obama's father have been born in a country that did not yet exist? Up and until Kenya was formed in 1963, it was known as the " British East Africa Protectorate".      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya_

 

3. On the birth certificate released by the White House, the listed place of birth is "Kapi'olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital". This cannot be,  because the hospital(s) in question in 1961 were called "KauiKeolani Children's Hospital" and "Kapi'olani Maternity Home", respectively. The name did not change to Kapi'olani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital until 1978, when these two hospitals merged.

 

How can this particular name of the hospital be on a birth certificate dated 1961 if this name had not yet been applied to it until 1978?

_ http://www.kapiolani.org/women-and-children/about-us/default.aspx_

 

 

4. Why hasn't this been discussed in the major  media? Perhaps a clue comes from Obama's book. He states how proud he is of his father fighting in WW II. I'm not a math genius, so I may need some help from you. Barack Obama's birth certificate says his father was 25 years old in 1961 when he was born. That should have put his father's date of birth approximately 1936.  WW II was basically between 1939 and 1945.. Just how many 3 year olds fight in wars? Even in the later stages of WW II his father wouldn't have been more than 9. Does that mean that Mr. Obama is a liar, or simply chooses to alter the facts to satisfy his imagination or political purposes (still qualifies as a liar)?

 

 

Now....you think about this -- long and hard!!!  YOU  decide!

The REAL Question that Obama Needs To Answer

This should be a must read before anyone in this country votes in this election.

From Matt Bracken:

Did Obama Withhold Cross-Border Authority?
Please help me.
I am trying as hard as I can to get out the word about cross-border authority (CBA).
I just can’t believe reporters don’t know enough to ask the right questions! It’s infuriating.

Libya, as far as standing down the rescue, is 100% Obama’s show, and nobody else’s. Only he can grant CBA, not Biden, not Panetta, not Dempsey, not Hillary, and certainly not Ham in Germany.

The entire episode is explained perfectly inside the context of not granting CBA. The CIA QRF in Tripoli? No problem, send them on the local Tripoli station chief’s say-so. He merely informs up COC that he has done so. CCs them so to speak. “This is what I am doing.” Ditto if Predators were in country, no problem using them.

But the big rescue air armada streaming toward Libya right away after the alarm got to Stuttgart and Africom? That has to stop. I believe at the 5pm meeting with Panetta and Biden in the Oval Office, he said, “No outside military intervention,” on the basis that the last report was the “lull” from the consulate, at about 1030 p.m. in Benghazi, when the attack appeared to be over and the situation stabilizing.
(As a soft exception, Obama may have authorized sending an unarmed Predator from outside of Libya, but I am thinking the two Predators were already in-country, and hence available to use within “no CBA granted” rules.)

“No outside military intervention” equals “no cross-border authority” and that constitutes “standing orders” until POTUS changes them. Nobody else can “un-decide” the POTUS decree. The rescue air-armada of C-17s, C-130s and SOF helos like MH-47 Chinooks and Pavehawks cannot proceed directly to Libya without CBA being granted, so instead they are all staged at Sigonella, Sicily.

USN ships are in position to “lilypad” helos for long over-water flights. Airborne tankers are coming into position. SOF forces in Sigonella are going over their gear for different contingencies. Fuming all night as officers keep checking in with operational commanders. “Hold in place, no rescue yet. We can’t find the President, it sounds like,” say the colonels to the majors and captains. 100s of military must know about this. I keep waiting for the conclusive whistle-blowers to come forward BEFORE the election. After won’t matter, it will be for the historians.

Panetta is falling on his sword for Obama with his absurd-on-its-face, “The military doesn’t do risky things” defense of no rescue. Panetta is destroying his future reputation entirely, to save Obama. The question is why? Loyalty?

Petreaus was probably “used” in some way early, about the supposed CIA intel link to the Mohammed video, and now he feels burned. So he conclusively said via his PAO, “The stand-down order did not come from CIA.”

Well, what is higher than CIA? Only White House. Obama, nobody else. Petreaus is naming Obama without naming him.

Now, as far as Obama / Huma Abedin / Valerie Jarrett etc actually wanting Ambassador Stevens dead, to terminate the end of the very dirty Libyan arms to Syrian AQ programs, I can’t speculate. Obama is not competent enough, I’m thinking.
But for sure, the ambassador going to unsecure Benghazi on 9-11 of all days stinks to me of a setup. You can bet Stevens would have told the Turks, “No, 9-11 is not a good day for us,” and stayed in Tripoli behind many high and thick walls. For him to go to dangerous Benghazi on 9-11 means the Turks totally insisted, but why would they care about the meeting date, unless they were in on a “hit” as the Judas goat?

Alternatively, ordering Stevens to meet the Turks in Benghazi on 9-11 may have come from down OUR chain of command. Stevens seems to have been wearing two hats as ambassador and CIA arms shipper. Moving between more-secure Tripoli, the Benghazi “consulate,” and the CIA “annex.” So orders to him might come down the State or the CIA commo channels, or both. I am unclear on his job title and true position, but either the CIA or State sends him final instructions. How this works with “dual-hatted” ambassadors, I haven’t a clue.

But Stevens meeting the Turks at the unsecure Benghazi “consulate” on 9-11 stinks to me of a deliberate setup. The Turks left the meeting and probably flashed their headlights to the attack team commanders lurking in shadows. A coded text, a word on a phone, meaning, “The ambassador is there, with minimal security: proceed with the attack plan.”

That is all pure speculation. What I know FOR SURE is that the big “stand down order” issue revolves around granting or withholding cross-border authority.

Every SOF officer and ops officer all the way up has this drummed into his head. We can make Obama respond to this question, even if reporters must shout it at him while he’s doing storm cleanup photo ops. If the reporters KNOW enough to ask the quesion.

That’s why I am shouting all over the internet about CBA.
I can’t believe cross-border authority permission is not one of the top discussion points about Benghazi.
That, and who “set him up” by sending him to Beghazi to meet the Turks on 9-11, with them leaving after dark.

And of course, down the road, was the military rescue-in-progress turned back because Obama actually wanted to make sure the consulate was wiped out? Is that why the spooks at the annex were refused permission to travel the under one mile to intervene? That would connect it all together, but for now, the best focus is on Obama either granting or withholding cross-border authority for the rescue.
 
Feel free to repost these musings of a long-ago SOF officer anywhere you please.


I posted this, so are YOU going to spread this to your friends?
PSD

Which One Are You?

http://youtu.be/el15bdzKBlQ

True That

Enough said

Who Says Crime Doen't Pay

Forgotten Man

OBAMANATION

1% or 99%, this tells the truth

It doesn't matter if you are a 1%er or a 99%er, these statistics from the IRS tells it all. Watch it yourself and see. I'm not a 1%er by their standards, but I don't consider myself a 99%er either. I am an American that wants our government to get back on track. Everyone needs to pay taxes, or like Bill says, "everyone needs to have skin in the game." You decide.

God and Jerusalem

They pushed this through....

Why do so many not want God or Jerusalem mentioned in their platform?

Insanity Gone Wild

You have heard of Girls gone wild, but the next story should be labeled Insanity gone wild. What does that mean, you say? Well after you read this article you will say "that's insane". Who was the PhD that thought of this deal? And better yet, is he still employed? Let me break down a few points of the article for you.

The government agreed to keep Fannie and Freddie afloat four years ago through a complex arrangement where the Treasury injects capital into the firms as needed every quarter to keep them afloat, and it receives preferred shares in exchange. Those shares pay a 10% dividend.

Well there you have it. It starts out pretty good, except for the 10% dividend. Why 10% when the common folk only gets maybe 2% interest. Okay, I know, because it was a risky loan. I mean, it is a government agency, US Treasury Department, bailing out Freddie and Fannie who are other government directed agencies. 

But the arrangement wasn’t expected to last this long. Congress and the Obama administration have taken few steps towards advancing any overhaul. That has led to perverse outcomes like the one currently facing the companies: Even if they’re profitable, there’s no mechanism for them to pay off the government–and they may continue to borrow money simply to pay those dividends.

Look at that section highlighted in red. Read it again and let it sink in until the light bulb comes on over your head. Yep, I see the lights on...you have figured it out. They may have to continue to borrow money just to pay the dividends. Now you might have thought, "well the economy has tanked further than anyone expected, so they may have to wait for the housing industry rebounds before profits return enough to pay those dividends". That is until you read this:

Fannie currently has to pay $12 billion in dividends every year. That’s more than the company has ever earned in one year.

Wow, more than they have ever earned in one year! Again, where were the PhD's and Accountants that are paid to figure these things out BEFORE they sign the contract. Anyone involved with approving this contract  should be fired.

In 2009, the Treasury Department said it would provide unlimited help for three years. But beginning in January, the companies once again will have a fixed amount of money available from the Treasury: $125 billion for Fannie and $150 billion for Freddie. 

Really, did they not learn the first time? Insanity Gone Wild I tell you. We peasants should be outraged as this is our money they play with. These actions cannot be sustained. The house of cards will collapse. 

Well 

Teenagers Speaking The Truth...

Now if we could only get the politicians to speak the truth as well. If someone would not be afraid of getting up in front of the cameras in America and speak these truths, maybe...just maybe they would get the majority of votes.

It has been a while since I have posted anything. I have been busy with personal things here at the homestead.

I have still been staying in touch with what is happening economically though as well as the slow takeover of countries by the radical Islamic groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. I will post about some of this later, but first here is a video (28 minutes) that is worth watching. Peter Schiff has been correct about many things over the years, and I'm afraid that he is spot on in his thoughts. http://youtu.be/NngxJz2aBqg

Would You Like To Get 78MPG?

Well, not for any time soon. It seems, according to this video, our gov is working against us. It is not about getting better mpg, despite what they say to the media, it is about the bottom dollar they get in taxes.

"If I wanted America to fail"

This says it all....

Let Us Look At Socialism

Class is called to order. The class will be taught by Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan. Pay attention please.




Any question? I didn't think so.

Obama Lawyer Admits Birth Certificate Forgery

Check it out here.

Wow! It seems they don't care to prove that he is a natural-born citizen of the United States. He only needs to be popular in order to be President. WTF?

Here are a couple quotes from the article. The whole article is worth a read, so click on the link above.

Obama’s lawyer, Alexandra Hill, admitted that the image of Obama’s birth certificate was a forgery and made the absurd claim that, therefore, it cannot be used as evidence to confirm his lack of natural born citizenship status. Therefore, she argued, it is “irrelevant to his placement on the ballot”.

Hill went on to contort reasoning by implying that Obama needs only invoke his political popularity, not legal qualifications, in order to be a candidate.

Hill, of Genova, Burn & Giantomasi Attorneys in Newark, made a desperate motion to dismiss the ballot objection arguing that Obama’s lack of natural-born citizenship status was not relevant to being placed on the New Jersey presidential ballot because no law exists in New Jersey which says that a candidate’s appearance on the ballot must be supported by evidence of natural born citizenship status. Only the U.S. constitution restricts eligibility to hold the office of president to natural born citizens.

Romney endorsed by Axelrod?

It seems that way.

You can watch it here.

F.B.I., Where Are You?

Why has the F.B. I. not arrested someone for this. I'm not a lawyer, but there is a direct threat to Zimmerman and some might say a direct threat of terrorism implied in this audio.



http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/04/08/New-Black-Panthers-Call-For-Race-War-Blood-Shed-Kill-Crackers-For-Trayvon-April-9th-Day-of-Action

You Want Budget Cuts?

Well, we all know that the White House and Congress needs to do something about the Federal budget deficits and debt. (I hope you all know the difference between debt and deficits) Anyway, let us get serious about cutting deficits and see what we have left to cut our debt. Here is a short video showing you what needs to be cut, just to balance the budget of the United States.

Where Will You Be In 15 Years?

Well, you see the stock market rising and think everything is hunky dorie. The "problems" in Europe with that, uh, Greek crisis has been averted. Oil has stabilized somewhat, albeit at $106 a barrel. We here in America have made it. Soon the banks will be lending again and unemployment will continue to decrease.

If you really believe all that crap, well you better wake up to reality. The stock market is rising, although on low volumes. This most likely has happened due to the governments pumping of the system. If you have read any of my former posts, than you know that the EU is anything but out of trouble. Oil is only stabilized until the Arab countries decide we have accepted $4 per gallon gas then it will go up again. So then, who do we believe? Well how about the CBO (Congressional Budget Office). They are the people that look at the President's budget and make projections. They are supposed to be non-biased and look at the real numbers being proposed and make their analysis. Take seven minutes and watch this. This will make you feel just warm and fuzzy inside.

Greece Debt Crisis....Don't Think It Is Over

The main stream media wants to make you believe that the Greek debt crisis is over, but don't do it. It is far from over. Spain, Portugal and Ireland are sitting on the sidelines waiting to get in line for some bailout money as well. Here is the timeline of what has been happening in Greece.

January-March 2010 - First, Greece was claiming they didn't need a bailout as all was fine.

April 2010 - Greece reconsiders and starts asking for a bailout. It is funny what a few months brings.

May 2010 - First bailout

January-February 2011 - Oops, Greece cannot make payments on first bailout and asks for extension.

May 2011 - Double oops, Greece worse off than anyone thought (or talked about publicly) and asks for another payment extension.

July-October 2011 - Greece begins spilling the beans and everyone now sees that they are worse off than anyone anticipated and discussions begin on a second bailout...ouch.

February 2012 - Greece gets a second bailout, and if I'm not mistaken they claim it is all they will need.

March 2012 - Talks begin about a THIRD bailout.

Tensions are getting heated up in the Euro-zone. You see, if Greece tumbles, the whole Euro is in jeopardy. If you don't believe that this could happen, then why is Germany making Deutschmarks. They are expecting, and preparing for a Euro collapse and want to have an escape plan.

Watch this and hear what is happening...



 If you don't think a default from another country will affect us here in America, you are mistaken. Prepare now.

Pink Slime

Think about this for a while...something to chew on (pun intended).

Soldiers Tribute

Enough said. Thanks to our troops and may you be safe as you protect America!

WTF? Only In America!

Wow, is all I have to say....

What Do We Have Here?

We heard the other day that a volunteer team of cold case posse for Sheriff Arpaio has suggested that the birth certificate for Barack Obama is fake. Take a few minutes and review the information yourself and make your own conclusion.


Here are the videos from TeaPartyPowerHour And if you would like to watch the entire news conference with Sheriff Arpaio...

First Amendment Rights Diminishing

Read this carefully, as you may be caught in a web that you may not even see. This will be a federal offense. Now, I am not for threatening anyone of our elected officials and believe in peaceful protests, so this is (as I see it) an infringement on our First Amendment. Which courts will see peaceful protesting a disruptive activity? If a handful of people truly are disruptive then will ALL the protesters be part of "the disruptive crowd"? Think about the effects of this bill.

Here are some highlights from the article linked above.

House Passes Bill That Will Make Protesting Illegal at Secret Service Covered Events 

"The US House of Representatives voted 388-to-3 in favor of H.R. 347 late Monday, a bill which is being dubbed the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011."  

You have to love the names they give these bills. It should be, First Amendment Diminished Act of 2012.

"Under the act, the government is also given the power to bring charges against Americans engaged in political protest anywhere in the country." 

"Under H.R. 347, a federal law will formally be applied to such instances, but will also allow the government to bring charges to protesters, demonstrators and activists at political events and other outings across America." 

"Covered under the bill is any person protected by the Secret Service. Although such protection isn’t extended to just everybody, making it a federal offense to even accidentally disrupt an event attended by a person with such status essentially crushes whatever currently remains of the right to assemble and peacefully protest." 

"While presidential inaugurations and meeting of foreign dignitaries are awarded the title, nearly three dozen events in all have been considered a National Special Security Event (NSSE) since the term was created under President Clinton. Among past events on the DHS-sanctioned NSSE list are Super Bowl XXXVI, the funerals of Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, most State of the Union addresses and the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions...." Are you planning on protesting the 2012 Democratic or Republican National Conventions? If so, you may want to see if they are or have been deemed a NSSE.


"When thousands of protesters are expected to descend on Chicago this spring for the 2012 G8 and NATO summits, they will also be approaching the grounds of a National Special Security Event. That means disruptive activity, to whichever court has to consider it, will be a federal offense under the act.
And don’t forget if you intend on fighting such charges, you might not be able to rely on evidence of your own. In the state of Illinois, videotaping the police, under current law, brings criminals charges. 

Don’t fret. It’s not like the country will really try to enforce it — right?"

Got Inflation?

The official government inflation rate is right at 3%, but those of us that actually pay attention to the prices we pay, OR, the size of the packages know the inflation rate is much higher. According to American Institute for Economic Research the prices we pay are up some 8 percent! We have seen the price of gas continue to rise and in fact it was only $1.84 per gallon when Obama took office in January 2009. We have seen many food items rise as well, but the government still tells us that inflation is only about 3%. What they don't tell you is that they stopped including food and energy prices into the equation when figuring out the "official" government inflation rate.

Well, I don't know about you, but I use fuel and food EVERY DAY! It has a major impact on my life as I travel about 80 miles per day. My vehicle averages about 30mpg, thank God, but going from $1.84 per gallon a mere 3 years ago to $3.79 per gallon now means that I pay an extra $1.95 per gallon more. To me, this means an extra $5.20 per day, or $26.00 per week. Now this doesn't sound like much, but continue to follow this out...$104 per month (4 weeks) and $1352 per year. And this is only fuel and only one vehicle in my household (my other vehicle is an 8 cylinder pick-up truck). The cost of food has gone up as the delivery trucks use fuel and the power plant uses fuel and the stores use the power coming from the power plant. Get where I'm going? Just the fuel prices trickle down to many sectors of consumer goods.

Inflation is here and it will get worse. Prepare for it.

Got Cash?

DAVID STOCKMAN: You'd Be A Fool To Hold Anything But Cash Now

For those that do not know David Stockman, he was an architect of one of the biggest tax cuts in U.S. history.

Here is some text from the article linked above. (emphasis added)

Q: Why are you so down on the U.S. economy?
 A: It's become super-saturated with debt.
Typically the private and public sectors would borrow $1.50 or $1.60 each year for every $1 of GDP growth. That was the golden constant. It had been at that ratio for 100 years save for some minor squiggles during the bottom of the Depression. By the time we got to the mid-'90s, we were borrowing $3 for every $1 of GDP growth. And by the time we got to the peak in 2006 or 2007, we were actually taking on $6 of new debt to grind out $1 of new GDP.
People were taking $25,000, $50,000 out of their home for the fourth refinancing. That's what was keeping the economy going, creating jobs in restaurants, creating jobs in retail, creating jobs as gardeners, creating jobs as Pilates instructors that were not supportable with organic earnings and income.
It wasn't sustainable. It wasn't real consumption or real income. It was bubble economics.
So even the 1.6 percent (annual GDP growth in the past decade) is overstating what's really going on in our economy.

Q: How fast can the U.S. economy grow?
 A: People would say the standard is 3, 3.5 percent. I don't even know if we could grow at 1 or 2 percent. When you have to stop borrowing at these tremendous rates, the rate of GDP expansion stops as well.

Q: How does it end?
 A: At some point confidence is lost, and people don't want to own the (Treasury) paper. I mean why in the world, when the inflation rate has been 2.5 percent for the last 15 years, would you want to own a five-year note today at 80 basis points (0.8 percent)?
If the central banks ever stop buying, or actually begin to reduce their totally bloated, abnormal, freakishly large balance sheets, all of these speculators are going to sell their bonds in a heartbeat.
That's what happened in Greece.
Here's the heart of the matter. The Fed is a patsy. It is a pathetic dependent of the big Wall Street banks, traders and hedge funds. Everything (it does) is designed to keep this rickety structure from unwinding. If you had a (former Fed Chairman) Paul Volcker running the Fed today 7/8— utterly fearless and independent and willing to scare the hell out of the market any day of the week — you wouldn't have half, you wouldn't have 95 percent, of the speculative positions today.

Q: You sound as if we're facing a financial crisis like the one that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
 A: Oh, far worse than Lehman. When the real margin call in the great beyond arrives, the carnage will be unimaginable.

Q: How do investors protect themselves? What about the stock market?
 A: I wouldn't touch the stock market with a 100-foot pole. It's a dangerous place. It's not safe for men, women or children.

Q: Do you own any shares?
 A: No.

Q: But the stock market is trading cheap by some measures. It's valued at 12.5 times expected earnings this year. The typical multiple is 15 times.
 A: The typical multiple is based on a historic period when the economy could grow at a standard rate. The idea that you can capitalize this market at a rate that was safe to capitalize it in 1990 or 1970 or 1955 is a large mistake. It's a Wall Street sales pitch.

Q: Are you in short-term Treasurys?
 A: I'm just in short-term, yeah. Call it cash. I have some gold. I'm not going to take any risk
.
Q: Municipal bonds?
 A: No.

Q: No munis, no stocks. Wow. You're not making any money.
 A: Capital preservation is what your first, second and third priority ought to be in a system that is so jerry-built, so fragile, so exposed to major breakdown that it's not worth what you think you might be able to earn over six months or two years or three years if they can keep the bailing wire and bubble gum holding the system together, OK? It's not worth it.

Q: Give me your prescription to fix the economy.
 A: We have to eat our broccoli for a good period of time. And that means our taxes are going to go up on everybody, not just the rich. It means that we have to stop subsidizing debt by getting a sane set of people back in charge of the Fed, getting interest rates back to some kind of level that reflects the risk of holding debt over time. I think the federal funds rate ought to be 3 percent or 4 percent. (It is zero to 0.25 percent.) I mean, that's normal in an economy with inflation at 2 percent or 3 percent.

Q: Are you hopeful?
 A: No. 

Nuff said? 

Precious Metals Update

There are reports that Silver could bounce to $70 within 90 days. I don't know if this is true or not, but I am still bullish on Precious Metals and still invest in silver. With the U.S. Debt near $16 trillion, I feel there is only limited time before interest rates will increase and we will tumble. When interest rates climb, so does the debt payments the U.S. has to pay. This will be a tipping point. Prepare now.

White House Revolving Door With Goldman Sachs

Well, as we head deeper into the election you are starting to hear Obama rail against Wall Street. Has anyone looked into any ties between Obama and Wall Street? It seems like I've heard over the last few years that there were several of his "people" that work in the White House also worked at Goldman Sachs. I started looking into this connection and found an article written by "fflambeau" at firedoglake.com. I have linked to his article which is titled A List of Goldman Sachs People in the Obama Government: Names Attached to the Giant Squid’s Tentacles.

http://my.firedoglake.com/fflambeau/2010/04/27/a-list-of-goldman-sachs-people-in-the-obama-government-names-attached-to-the-giant-squids-tentacles/

Here is some text from the article.

Let’s start with The President...

OBAMA, BARACK.
Although to my knowledge he has never directly worked for Goldman, he has taken boatloads of their money (an investment repaid many times) and he calls Robert Rubin, the former head of Goldman Sachs "my friend Bob". (See the video clip of then Senator Barack Obama’s address to the Goldman-Rubin funded Hamilton Project in a link below where he uses these words and calls for cuts in entitlements and more NAFTA-type agreements).
Jesse Unruh, the late California politician and political thinker, once called "money the mother’s milk of politics." Certainly, Obama sucked at the teats of Goldman Sachs more than any other politician in recent times. It began for him as little-known Senator from Illinois with a razor- thin resume whose ambitions outshine his accomplishments. Obama’s eloquent, heavily prepped address to the Democratic National Convention caught not only the eyes of the Democratic top brass, but that of the big bankers. As early as the Spring of 2006, Senator Barack Obama was intimately involved with Bob Rubin and Goldman Sachs through his involvement with the Hamilton Project.
Fittingly, Senator Obama was chosen by Rubin and the Hamilton Project to give the inaugural address of the Hamilton Project in April, 2006. An excellent, seminal discussion of the Hamilton Project by Dr. Kirk James Murphy, M.D., can be found here. A video clip of then Senator Barack Obama speaking at the inauguration of the Hamilton Project in April, 2006 can be found here and here (with an excellent discussion) and here. Here Obama heaps lavish praise on Robert Rubin ("my friend Bob") and on the Hamilton Project while setting out its (and his subsequent administration’s agenda) of cuts in entitlements, the need for more NAFTA-type free trade pacts and a pro-big corporation government. In 2006 then, Obama was a Goldie and articulating its desires and policies.
Little wonder then, that Goldman and Rubin heavily funded Obama as a Senator (his biggest campaign contributor) and as a presidential candidate. Goldman Sachs employees (and they were not the floor cleaners) contributed $994,795 to Obama’s presidential bid, almost four times the amount they gave to his Republican opponent, according to OpenSecrets. Over Obama’s entire career, Goldman has been his second biggest contributor, according to OpenSecrets, giving him more than $1,051,000. Goldman not only wanted Obama to win, they paid lots of money to insure that their man would occupy the White House. Again, as William Black noted:

"The highest return on assets is always a political contribution."

Goldman’s 30 pieces of silver investment in Obama reaped them billions of dollars in returns as the TARP bailouts and the subsequent news about Goldman Sachs has shown. So although Obama may never have "worked for" Goldman in the traditional sense, he’s one of Robert Rubin’s boys and on Goldman’s books.
University of Minnesota political scientist Prof. Lawrence Jacobs, described the giant squid’s attachment to the Obama administration:

"almost everything that the White House has done has been haunted by the personnel and the money of Goldman . . . as well as the suspicion that the White House, particularly early on, was pulling its punches out of deference to Goldman and its war chest."

BIDEN, JOE.
Is it any wonder that between his service as "Senator Credit Card", his efforts to limit busing for desegregation, and his five draft deferments at the height of the Vietnam War that Joe Biden is attached to one of Goldman’s tentacles? Goldman has been a major campaign contributor to Biden and according to OpenSecrets, Biden in 2007 alone took almost $25,000 from the Robert Rubin related Citigroup (Rubin was its head as well as being a former head of Goldman).
And guess who was the keynote speaker at the Hamilton Project 2010 kickoff event a few days ago (April 20th, 2010) Tuesday morning at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel? That’s right: Vice President Joe Biden spoke at Goldman Sachs/Robert Rubin’s Rosemary’s Baby. You can see some pics of Biden at the Hamilton Project event along with who else–Robert Rubin–here.
As described by the Huffington Post:

          “Biden was speaking at the relaunch of the Hamilton Project, a think tank founded by

            ultimate Wall Street Democrat Robert Rubin to publicly despair about the deficit and 

            other things bankers worry about the most.”

Note too that in his address Biden paid tribute to Obama’s bipartisan deficit commission, something that the Hamilton Project and Robert Rubin (and Goldman) have been pushing for years because it really means cuts in entitlements (again, have a look at Sen. Obama’s 2006 speech at the Hamilton Project where he calls for entitlement cuts).

ALTMAN, ROGER.
Interestingly, the man who introduced Joe Biden at the Hamilton Project’s relaunch (described above) was none other than Roger Altman, who is connected to the Hamilton Project.
Altman may not hold down a desk job in the Obama administration–he’s too big a fish for that just as is Robert Rubin–but he is one of those power brokers with all encompassing contacts within the Democratic Party. Altman is a Hamilton Project member, according to Dan Frumkin’s excellent article in the Huffington Post, as well as having served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under none other than Mr. Goldman Sachs, Robert Rubin. He is now now Chairman of Evercore Partners, which the Hamilton Project program described as "the most active investment banking boutique in the world." (and the Obama administration is trying to sell itself as one that is getting tough on big banks and Goldman?).
Like so many of the Goldman people, Altman has a touch of scandal/criminality about him. According to Wikipedia, Altman was forced from his position as Assistant Treasury Secretary because of a records keeping scandal.
Altman is a co-author, along with Robert Rubin, of the Hamilton Project’s "From Recession to Recovery to Renewal: An Economic Strategy to Achieve Broadly Shared Growth." Some of Altman’s ties to the Goldman-Rubin funded Hamilton Project can be seen here.

BRAINARD, LAEL.
Brainard is the United States Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs in the administration of President Barack Obama. She is an associate and protege of Mr. Goldman Sachs, Robert Rubin. She has written numerous articles and bookson the joys of outsourcing work overseas.
Brainard also worked at Brookings which has embedded within in Goldman Sachs and Robert Rubin’s Hamilton Project. Goldman was clever in doing this because they hid a conservative thinking, pro business group like a Trojan Horse in what is generally perceived as a liberal think tank.
Like Timothy Geithner, who is her boss, Brainard is a brainy person who had trouble with income tax rules and regulations, thus joining quite a lengthy list of Goldies who ape the law. The Washington Post reported that:

          “Brainard’s nomination was held up by Republican concerns over allegations that 

           she failed to pay property taxes on time. (What is it with Treasury and tax problems?)”

BUFFETT, WARREN.
Speaking of big fish, Warren doesn’t need to work for the US government or for Goldman. But he’s invested billions in Goldman expecting even greater returns. Obama has also admitted in the debates to "pal’in around" with the Sage of Omaha and Buffett is one of Obama’s fundraisers and economic advisers.
For more on Buffett see this written by Michael Winship at Truthout:

          “On Friday, Susan Pulliam reported on the front page of The Wall Street Journal 

            that, "A Goldman Sachs Group Inc. director tipped off a hedge-fund billionaire 

            about a $5 billion investment in Goldman by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire 

           Hathaway Inc. before a public announcement of the deal at the height of the 

          2008 financial crisis, a person close to the situation says."

                        As the Journal notes, the Buffett deal came at a key point in the

                       Wall Street collapse, restoring confidence in the markets and lifting 

                       Goldman’s stock from a 40 percent slide to a 45 percent surge. 

                       The hedge-fund billionaire in question is Raj Rajaratnam, whose 

                      Galleon Group currently is embroiled in one of the biggest insider

                       trading scandals in history: 21, including Rajaratnam, have been 

                       charged; 11 already have pled guilty.” (emphasis added)

CLINTON, HILLARY.
Although Barack Obama was the overwhelming favorite of Goldman Sachs to be president in 2008, for he could serve as their Trojan Horse, they were smart enough to hedge their bets, so to speak and back Hillary too. According to the Washington Examiner, Goldman Sachs in 2008 alone gave:

          “($415,595.63 inflation adjusted), which was itself almost three times as much as

           Bush received as well.” 

And of course, it was Hillary’s hubby Bill Clinton who chose ex-Goldman chief Robert Rubin to serve in his White House. Bill, Hillary and Bob Rubin are Washington, D.C. kissing cousins.

CRAIG, GREGORY.
Another example of the revolving door between Goldman Sachs and Obama’s administration. Craig served as Obama’s White House Counsel and after resigning, has taken on a position as Goldman Sach’s chief lawyer in defending against its SEC suit. A former Goldie, Robert Hormats, sits at the top of SEC’s enforcement group too. What a hoot!
Note that Craig is a lawyer and lawyer’s rules of professional responsibility prohibit not only direct conflicts of interest but anything that hints at a conflict of interest.
Here is doubtlessly why Goldman wanted Craig as its top lawyer in the SEC complaint:

          “Greg Craig, Obama’s first White House counsel, has joined Goldman, we learned

           this week. He may not have too much pull in the West Wing, which drove him out 

           for hewing too close to Obama’s campaign promises, but as a former insider he 

           will provide valuable intelligence to the world’s largest investment bank.” 

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Is-Goldman-Obamas-Enron-No-its-worse-91613449.html#ixzz0mHKfS3hl

DONILON, THOMAS.
Thomas Donilon is Deputy National Security Adviser to Barack Obama (despite having a career that is mostly involved with domestic politics). Donilon was a lawyer at O’Melveny and Myers and made almost $4 million representing meltdown clients including Penny Pritzker (of Chicago) and Goldman. This from Michelle Malkin’s article RealClearPolitics. More information is available on Donilon over at Whorunsgov.com.

DUDLEY, BILL.
Joined Goldman in 1986; partner and managing director until 2007. Federal Reserve Bank of New York President since January 2009 (replacing none other than Timothy Geithner, his Goldman compadre). This all from the Wall Street Journal.

ELMENDORF, DOUGLAS.
Elmendorf became Obama’s Director of the Congressional Budget Office in January 2009. Elmendorf previously was the Director of the Hamilton Project; it’s third.
Note too that the first 3 Directors of the Hamilton Project ALL serve in the Obama administration. While other journalists/writers have explored the links between Goldman Sachs and Obama, few have looked at the connection between the Hamilton Project and the Obama administration. Note again that the Hamilton Project was funded by Robert Rubin and Goldman Sachs. Note too that the current director of the Hamilton Project, its 4th since its founding in 2006, is Michael Greenstone. How long will it be before Greenstone goes to the Obama administration, making it a perfect 4 for 4 for Directors of the Goldman funded Hamilton Project? To show that there is a revolving door between the Obama Administration and Goldman/Rubin/Hamilton Project, Greenstone served as of Obama’s chief economic advisers.

EMANUEL, RAHM.
Rahm, of course, is Obama’s Chief of Staff, the very first person Obama selected to be in his administration. Rahm has lengthy and fruitful ties to Goldman, and vice versa. Rahm took in about $75,000 from Goldman Sachs as a Congressman and was on a $3,000 a month retainer from Goldman while he worked as Bill Clinton’s chief fund raiser.
Timothy Carney has explored some of the links between Emanuel and Goldman Sachs:

          “…one of Barack Obama’s top sources of funds in this past election, Goldman 

           has always had some particularly strong allies within government. Emanuel is 

           one such ally. An interesting early chapter in the Goldman-Emanuel relationship 

           took place in the setting of Bill Clinton’s campaign for the White House in 1992. 

          Clinton hired Emanuel as his chief fundraiser. At the same time, however, Emanuel 

           was on the payroll of Goldman Sachs, receiving $3,000 per month from the firm to

         “introduce us to people,” in the words of one Goldman partner at the time. This is 

           certainly a noteworthy relationship, but it’s one that has almost entirely escaped 

           scrutiny. Corporations and partnerships are and were at the time prohibited by

           law from contributing to federal candidates out of the corporate coffers. So, 

           while Rahm tapped Goldman employees personally for six figures in gifts to 

           Clinton’s candidacy—more than any other firm—Goldman, as a company, was

           helping keep Clinton’s top fundraiser well-fed.

         …In his four terms in Congress, Emanuel has raised $74,750 from Goldman, 

             making the firm his number four source of funds. Goldman has helped Emanuel. 

            How has Emanuel helped Goldman? The most obvious answer, as mentioned in 

            this column two weeks ago, is in Emanuel’s lead role in shepherding the “$700 billion” 

            bailout—first proposed by former a Goldman CEO, Bush Treasury Secretary 

           Henry Paulson—through the skeptical House. Of course, back in the Clinton days, 

           Goldman benefited from NAFTA and the bailout of the Mexican currency, 

           with Emanuel pushing NAFTA through Congress, and Rubin hammering out 

           the peso bailout.”

McClatchey newspaper’s Greg Gordon, in his article entitled, "Goldman’s White House Connections Raise Eyebrows" also noted how Rahm and Goldman worked together to make money:
          

          “One White House insider who knows something about how Wall Street does 

            business is chief of staff Emanuel, who earned millions of dollars in investment 

            banking after he left the Clinton White House. His work for the Chicago-based 

            financial services firm Wasserstein Perella & Co. intersected with Goldman in 

           at least one deal. In 1999, Emanuel was a key player representing Unicom Corp., 

           the parent of Commonwealth Edison, in forging its merger with Peco Energy Co. 

           to create utility giant Exelon Corp. Goldman was also advising Unicom. The White House

           declined immediate comment on that connection.” 

So how real is the Obama/Democratic party’s supposed new toughness on big banks when the administration’s point guard was on the Goldman payroll and become a multi-millionaire through big banks and Wall St. deals?

FARRELL, DIANA.
Diana Farrell is Deputy Director of the National Economic Council (since January, 2009) in the administration of President Barack Obama. She formerly worked for two years at Goldman Sachs in New York according to Whorunsgov.com.
In 2003, Farrell was the author of a paper, "Perspective on Outsourcing" in which she argued that sending American jobs overseas might be "as beneficial to the U.S. as to the destination country, probably more so." In a book titled “The Economists’ Voice: Top Economists Take on Today’s Problems,” Farrell wrote a chapter titled “U.S. Offshoring: Small Steps to make it Win-Win.” Her chapter, published in 2008, centered on offshoring.
In the Obama administration, Farrell works with a coven of Goldies including Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, who is her boss.

FRIEDMAN, STEPHEN.
Chairman of Obama’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
According to Wikipedia, Friedman worked for much of his career with Goldman Sachs, holding numerous executive roles. He served as the company’s co-chief operating officer from 1987 to 1990, was the company’s co-chairman from 1990 to 1992, and the sole chairman from 1992 to 1994; he still serves on the company board.
Friedman was another Goldie involved in controversy, as many of the Goldies have been in government service, involving his former employer. His actions, like other affiliated with Goldman, show scant respect for rules, regulations or laws.
Wikipedia notes:
Wikipedia notes:
          

             “On May 7, 2009 Friedman resigned as Chairman of the Federal Reserve 

               Bank of New York in response to criticism of his December 2008 purchase 

               of $3 million of stock in Goldman Sachs. Friedman, who remains a member 

               of Goldman Sachs’ board, came into violation of Federal Reserve policy 

               when Goldman was converted to a bank holding company in September 2008, 

               thereby placing it under the regulatory authority of the New York Fed. Friedman

               requested a waiver from this violation when the conversion occurred, which 

              was granted roughly two and a half months later.”

FROHMAN, MICHAEL.
Robert Rubin’s Chief of Staff while Rubin served as Secretary of the Treasury and an Obama “head hunter” according to “Rubin Proteges Change Their Tune as They Join Obama’s Team” in the New York Times.


FURMAN, JASON.
Furman served as the second Director of the Hamilton Project after Peter Orszag’s departure for the Obama administration and he in turn left the Hamilton Project in June 2008 to direct economic policy for the Obama Presidential Campaign.

FUDGE, ANNE.
Obama just appointed Fudge to his budget deficit reduction committee. Fudge has been the pr craftsman for some of America’s largest corporations. She sits, according to the Washington Post, as a Trustee of the Brookings Institution within which the Hamilton Project is embedded.

GALLOGLY, MARK.
Gallogly sits on the Hamilton Project’s advisory council. He is also, according to Wikipedia, currently a member of President Barack Obama’s President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

GEITHNER, TIMOTHY.
He’s one of the most documented of all people within the Obama administration while serving as Obama’s Secretary of the Treasury. He was named head of the New York Fed by none other George W. Bush, again perhaps underscoring Gore Vidal’s observation that American is run by one corporate party and it has two wings: Republican and Democratic.
While at the head of the New York Fed, Geithner prior to the crisis not only failed to see storm clouds on the horizon, he also in 2008 ordered the bailed out AIG not to disclose its sweetheart payments to big banks including, you guessed it, Goldman Sachs. Geithner also worked with W’s Treasury Secretary Paulson to fashion the TARP agreements whereby billions were handed out to Wall St.
Geithner is a protoge of both Robert Rubin and Larry Summers.
Like other Goldies, Geithner has had trouble with rules, tax regulations and various. Recall that he had trouble at his confirmation hearings over his tax returns. Whorunsgov sums them up:

          “At the end of the Clinton administration, Geithner moved to the International 

            Monetary Fund, where he was director of policy development. That period led to 

           a blot on his personal record. The IMF, unlike most employers, does not pay the 

           employer match on Social Security and Medicare taxes. Geithner was responsible

           for paying those taxes himself. He did not to do so until he was audited in 2005, 

          and even then only paid the back taxes for 2003 and 2004. He did not pay the back 

          taxes for 2001 and 2002 until after Obama tapped him to be Treasury secretary at 

          the end of 2008.” 

Many of Geithner’s actions profited Goldman Sachs directly or indirectly, such as Geithner’s decision to deny Goldman’s competitor the same treatment he gave Goldman. As Time magazine noted:

          “[Geithner]Would not grant Lehman Brothers the right to become a bank-holding 

            company — a status given to both Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs just 

            days after Lehman filed for bankruptcy.”

Lehman Brothers collapsed, leaving Goldman Sachs with fewer competitors and a greater market share.

GENSLER, GARY.
Gensler was a Goldman Sachs partner who is Obama’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission head. Gensler is the guy who as a former Treasury official exempted the $58 trillion credit default market from oversight. Those financial instrumentals played a key role in the global economic downturn and led to billions of dollars in profits for banks like Goldman Sachs.

GREENSTONE, MICHAEL.
Greenstone is the 4th Director of the Hamilton Project. Just as attorney Craig went from advising Obama to defending Goldman Sachs against the SEC complaint, Greenstone has used the revolving door to go from went an economic adviser position to Obama to one of the Goldman Sachs outlets, in this case its think tank embedded in the Brookings Institution and funded by Goldman and Robert Rubin. All 3 previous Directors of the Hamilton Project work in the Obama administration.

HAMILTON PROJECT, THE.
The pro-corporatist think group funded by Goldman Sachs and Robert Rubin and cleverly hidden in the Brookings Institution as their Rosemary’s Baby/Trojan Horse. Espouses cutbacks in entitlements, strict budgetary thinking applied to all social programs (but not the defense department); outsourcing of American jobs overseas; more NAFTA-type agreements. Three of the first 4 Directors of the Hamilton Project serve in the Obama Administration. The fourth went from an economic adviser to Obama to the Hamilton Project.
It might also help to recall that the name "Hamilton Project" is significant. Recall that Alexander Hamilton, after whom the institute was named, had as his most famous dictum that "the people are a great beast." Hamilton espoused a powerful state bank and centralized government and presidency.
Note too that Sen. Barack Obama was the inaugural speaker at the Hamilton Project and lavished praise on "my friend Bob [Rubin]" and called for cuts in entitlements (Social Security) and more NAFTA agreements. This is the same guy who lied to the electorate, then, in union states like Ohio and Pennsylvania during the Democratic primaries when he said "NAFTA needs rethinking." He is firmly and totally behind NAFTA and has done no "rethinking" of it while President and with his party in firm control of Congress.
For more information, see the reading listed below on this subject and the Project’s web site.

HORMATS, ROBERT.
The top economics official at Obama’s State Department, Hormats spent the prior 27 years at Goldman Sachs, including as the Vice Chairman of Goldman’s international arm.
Hormat’s appointment to the Obama administration led Glenn Greenwald to this observation:

          “A Goldman executive as COO of the SEC’s enforcement division. This is all 

            consistent with the observation of Desmond Lachman — previously chief 

           emerging market strategist at Salomon Smith Barney and IMF deputy director — 

           regarding "Goldman Sachs’s seeming lock on high-level U.S. Treasury jobs," 

           which he cited as but one of the many "parallels between U.S. policymaking and 

           what we see in emerging markets."

Imagine how this will play out. The SEC has lodged a complaint against Goldman Sachs. Goldman’s former Vice President in charge of Business Intelligence sits in the SEC’s enforcement division while Obama’s former top lawyer, White House Counsel Gregory Craig, has gone to defend Goldman Sachs!

KASHKARI, NEEL.
Former Vice President of Goldman Sachs in San Francisco where he where he led Goldman’s Information Technology Security Investment Banking practice. Kashkari served under Treasury Secretary Paulson and was kept on by Obama after his inauguration for a limited period to work on TARP oversight.

KORNBLUH, KAREN.
Sometimes called "Obama’s brain", she serves as Obama’s Ambassador to the OECD. Kornbluh was Deputy Chief of Staff to Mr. Goldman Sachs, Robert Rubin.

LEW, JACOB (AKA "JACK") J.
Lew is the United States Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources. According to Wikipedia, Lew sits on the Brookings-Rubin funded Hamilton Project Advisory Board. He also served with Robert Rubin in Bill Clinton’s cabinet as Director of OMB.
Like many affiliates of the Hamilton Project, along with Barack Obama, Lew believes that fiscal discipline needs to be applied to Social Security (not much talk about runaway costs in the military budget). According to the New York Times, Lew has testified that:

          “Fiscal discipline is essential to protect Social Security and strengthen Medicare,

            so that both will be there in the years ahead. Reducing the accumulated federal 

           debt will help us to protect these important programs.” (Congressional testimony 

            in March 2000.)  

Also like Robert Rubin, Lew has worked with Citicorp. The New York Times reported (same link as above) that:

           “As executive vice president of New York University, he tangled with a union 

             representing graduate students who help teach courses.” 

LIPTON, DAVID A.

According to Paul Krugman, Lipton is at now at Obama’s National Economic Council and the National Security Council. Lipton worked with Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner, again according to Krugman, on the US response to the Asian financial crisis of the 1990′s. MergeFoundations reports that Lipton worked closely with Robert Rubin:

“[he] advised and assisted Secretary Rubin on many key aspects of international economic policy.”

MINDICH, ERIC.
Eric Mindich, while not officially serving in the Obama administration, is a strong Obama supporter with extensive ties to the President, according to a Ben Smith/Politico article. Mindich is a hedge fund manager and sits on the Advisory Council of the Hamilton Project and has worked at Goldman Sachs. In fact, he was the youngest ever partner with Goldman Sachs at the age of 27.
According to Wikipedia:

          “Prior to forming Eton Park in 2004, Mindich spent 15 years at Goldman Sachs 

            in two main roles: leading the firm’s equities risk arbitrage business and managing

          the firm’s equities division. He joined the firm in 1988 in the equities arbitrage 

          department and ran that department from 1992 until 2000.[1] In 1994, at age 27, 

          he became the youngest partner ever in the history of Goldman Sachs.[1] In 2000, 

          he became co-chief operating officer of the equities division and in 2002 became 

          co-head of the equities division and a member of the Goldman Sachs Management

          Committee. In 2003, Mindich joined the Executive Office as senior strategy officer 

          and chair of the Firmwide Strategy Committee.

Another website, Operational Due Diligence at Checkfundmanager, indicates the following about Mindich:

         "In March of 2009, Eton Park’s [hedge fund founded by him] assets under 

           management were estimated to be around $13 billion.

An article from April of 2009 lists Mr. Mindich among the “inner circle” of economic advisors to Lawrence H. Summers, who is the current chief economic adviser to President Barack Obama. Mr. Mindich is also listed in another article as being a top level Democrat fundraiser.

…Eric Mindich, founder of Eton Park fund, reportedly supports Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy (2007).

…A February 2005 article rattles off a number of impressive credentials for Eric Mindich, including launching the largest hedge fund in history, graduating summa cum laude from Harvard, becoming the youngest ever partner at Goldman Sachs, and being endorsed by former Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin.”

ORSZAG, PETER.
Obama’s Budget Director was the founding director of the Hamilton Project, funded by Goldman Sachs and Robert Rubin. Furthermore, Wikipedia indicates that Robert Rubin, Goldman’s ex-head, was one of Orszag’s mentors.
A BBC article notes Orsag’s commitment to Hamilton Project ideals like cutting the budget (mostly by cutting entitlements) and his ties to Goldman Sachs:

          “Mr. Obama has signaled his determination to keep the budget deficit in check 

            by appointing Peter Orszag, the head of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), 

            to head the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). It is the OMB, rather 

            than the Treasury, that allocates government spending and estimates the size 

           of future budget deficits. His appointment could help ease the new president’s 

           relations with Congress. Peter Orszag is well-known as a fiscal conservative, 

          who is concerned to keep spending and tax cuts in check. He was one of the first 

          directors of the Hamilton Project, a Brookings think tank initiative backed by Robert Rubin…”

The BBC failed to point out that Goldman Sachs also contributed to funding the Hamilton Project, and he was not "one of the first directors of the Hamilton Project" he was its first Director.

PATTERSON, MARK.
Former lobbyist for Goldman Sachs who serves under Timothy Geithner as his top deputy and overseer of TARP bailout funds, $10 billion of which went to Goldman.

RATTNER, STEVE.
Ratner is the shady billionaire financier who Obama appointed as his “car czar” and who resigned after it was revealed that his company, the Quadrangle Group, was apparently involved in “pay to play” for a billion dollars or so of New York State pension funds, and was under possible indictment by the New York AG and the SEC, also sits on the Advisory Council of the Goldman funded Hamilton Project.
Rattner is yet another Goldie-Hamilton Project person in trouble with the law. He was the main financial supporter of Harold Ford’s aborted New York Senate run and speculation was that Rattner wanted a Senator to help protect him.

REISCHAUER, ROBERT D.
He was a member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission from 2000-2009 and was its vice chair from 2001-2008. He too sits on the Hamilton Project’s advisory board.
From this excellent discussion at "Meet Robert Rubin" here’s more information on Reischauer and his extensive links to Robert Rubin:

          “Robert Reischauer, another policy insider who penned a memo in 2009 with 

            fellow Brookings Institution elites calling for Obama to take "action to stem 

          the growth of Social Security and Medicare," were recently nominated by Obama 

           to be Social Security Trustees. (The Blahous pick he apparently owed to 

           Senator Mitch McConnell.) Reischauer has close ties to economic wrecking ball 

         Robert Rubin—the Goldman Sachs chairman who became Clinton Treasury Secretary

       and pushed through radical deregulatory banking laws, then went to Citigroup 

           to score $120 million for driving his company into the ground. Rubin and 

    Reischauer knew each other at both the Harvard Corporation and the Clinton White House,

           where Reischauer was director of CBO. Reischauer is on the advisory board of 

         Rubin’s Hamilton Project, and the two most recent CBO directors have

             come straight from Hamilton.” 

NOTE: since writing this, it appears the above (and the quote below on Alice Rivkin) comes word for word from an Alternet article by Matthew Skomarovsky found here.

RIVLIN, ALICE.
Obama just named in March Alice Rivlin to his so called deficit reduction commission. Have a look at her background and you’ll see why and that Obama has stacked that commission with people who want cuts in entitlements.
Again, an excellent summary of her Goldman-Brookings (read Hamilton Project) Obama connections:

             “One of Reischauer’s co-signers of the Brookings memo, Alice Rivlin, is another 

            fox Obama has put in charge of the Social Security henhouse. Former Vice Chair 

      of the Federal Reserve under Greenspan at the peak of the tech bubble, and also

              a Hamilton Project board member, Rivlin will likely make another great 

          Wall Street ally on the commission. In 2004 Rivlin co-authored (with Obama’s 

     current Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, among others) a 138-page

            Brookings report titled "Restoring Fiscal Sanity" advocating $47 billion in 

               entitlement cuts, including an "increase in the retirement age under Social Security" 

           and "more accurate inflation adjustments to Social Security benefits."

Wikipedia also says of her:

“She is currently on the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange.”

Wikipedia also notes that she has extensive Brookings Institution connections (within which the Hamilton Project is now embedded) including from 1957–66, 1969–75, 1983–93, and 1999 to the present.
Rivlin is a frequent speaker at the Hamilton Project as shown by this page at the Hamilton Project’s web site; you can see videos of her talks and the subjects of her papers here.

RUBIN, JAMES.
Son of Robert Rubin (see next entry). Served as a headhunter for Obama per the New York Times article, "Rubin Proteges Change Their Tune as They Join Obama’s Team".

RUBIN, ROBERT.
Mr. Goldman Sachs and co-funder, along with Goldman, of the Hamilton Project. Served as the 70th U.S. Sect. of the Treasury under Bill Clinton and spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs becoming its Co-Chairman from 1990-1992. He also served as Chairman of Citigroup. Along with Goldman Sachs, Rubin funded the Hamilton Project embedded in the Brookings Institution. In other words, he embedded within what is perceived as a liberal think tank a Trojan Horse that espouses cutbacks in entitlements (but not Defense budgets), more NAFTA like agreements, outsourcing of jobs overseas and strict budget consciousness applied to health care. Rubin used the same tactic with Barack Obama: choosing an essentially ambitious yet cautious conservative and turning him into a Trojan Horse for his causes and those of Goldman’s/the Hamilton Project’s. Rubin is the de facto President of the United States and he and the Hamilton Project tell Obama and his administration what to do. Obama gets to ride on Air Force One.
According to a recent Politico article:
 

           “Behind the scenes, Rubin still wields enormous influence in Barack Obama’s 

           Washington, chatting regularly with a legion of former employees who dominate 

          the ranks of the young administration’s policy team. He speaks regularly to 

           Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who once worked for Rubin at Treasury.”

SPERLING, GENE.
Prior to advising Timothy Geithner on bailouts, Sperling was paid the paltry sum of $887,727 by Goldman Sachs for one year of consulting work. Sperling, another acolyte of Robert Rubin’s raked in even more that year, according to William Grieder at the Nation:

           “[he was paid in addition] $480,051 as a director of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, 

                plus $250,000 for his quarterly briefings to two hedge funds, plus the speaking gigs 

        [$158,000] (including an appearance before the Stanford Group in Houston subsequently 

                 charged with running a Ponzi scheme). Meantime, his day job at the Council on 

                      Foreign Relations paid $116,653. A busy, busy wonk.”

 STORCH, ADAM.
Storch worked for Goldman Sachs for 5 years reaching the position of Vice President in the Business Intelligence Group. He is Obama’s Managing Executive of the Security and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement.

SUMMERS, LARRY.
It didn’t take Larry Summers long to land a big time job after he crashed and burned as Harvard’s President. He sits at Obama’s right hand as Obama’s chief economic adviser and head of the National Economic Counsel. Summers’s boss at Goldman was non other than Robert Rubin, former co-Chairman of Goldman and also former head of Citicorp.
Summers has reaped nearly $2.8 million in speaking fees to banks and institutions he is now supposed to be helping to regulate and oversee.
Goldman Sachs paid him $135,000 for a single speech he gave in April, 2008, a very good investment repaid many times to Goldman.

CONCLUSION.
Although a lot of work and research was put into this list, I am sure I missed many people. But it gives the most comprehensive look ever published at how extensive the Goldman Sachs ties are in the Obama administration and the revolving door between the two (See attorney Craig’s description above).
It also shines light on a subject that has virtually received no mainstream media attention: the importance of the Hamilton Project (funded by Robert Rubin and Goldman Sachs) as the policy voice for their pro-corporate interests. While Matt Taibbi has dissected Goldman, no journalist has looked at the Hamilton Project (Taibbi misses it too) despite the fact that all three of its first directors serve now in the Obama administration. Its current director, its fourth, worked as an economic adviser to Obama Administration and at MIT. It formulate the pro-big business that Goldman wants and spreads it through academia and the Obama administration.
Robert Rubin and Goldman Sachs cleverly disguished their Rosemary’s baby, the Hamilton Project, within the essentially liberal Brookings Institution. Lots of journalists (including the BBC) have been misled by this, thinking that if it comes out of Brookings, it must be liberal or even progressive. Discussing Peter Orszag, the BBC made this blunder:

“He was one of the first directors of the Hamilton Project, a Brookings think tank initiative backed by Robert Rubin which aimed to combine fiscal responsibility with progressive politics.” (emphasis added)

Not so! The clear message from the Hamilton Project is this:

1) entitlements must be cut, including Social Security;
2) more jobs must be outsourced overseas;
3) more NAFTA-type agreements must be drafted and entered into;
4) strict budgetary policies must be applied to entitlements and especially health care "reform" (whereas the defense department is skirted). 

One only has to look at the Hamilton Project, at Obama’s speech to that group in April 2006, and the numerous articles and books that they have peddled to see that their outlook is overwhelmingly corporatist and pro-big business. It is then, anti-progressive not liberal and certainly not progressive.

RECOMMENDED FURTHER READING:
1. Greg Gordon (McClatchy Newspapers), "Goldman’s White House Connections Raise Eyebrows" April 21, 2010.
2. Fflambeau, "With the Obama Administration Infested With Goldman Sachs People, How Real is the Obama/Democratic Attack on Big Banks" FDL Diary, April 21, 2010.
3. "More Investigations of Goldman Sachs, A Double-Edge Swords for Obama and Democrats"
4. "Meet Robert Rubin" at MyOpera/Personal Finance Blog
5. Paul Street’s article showing that Obama held corporatist ideas long before elected and his indebtedness to the interests of big business.
6. Matthew Skomarovsky, "Obama Packs Debt Commission with Social Security Looters", March 28, 2010 at Alternet.

ESSENTIAL READING ON THE HAMILTON PROJECT AND ITS TIES TO THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION:
1. Kirk James Murphy, M.D. "The Hamilton Project: Same Corporatist Whine In New DLC Vessels." THE seminal article on the Hamilton Project which also features a video clip of then Senator Barack Obama talking about "my friend, Bob [Rubin]" and espousing cuts in entitlements and the "need" for more free trade pacts like NAFTA.
2. Fflambeau, "Obama’s ‘Smoking Gun’: His Hamilton Project Speech Shows His Links to Goldman, Entitlement Cuts, Part 1.
3. Fflambeau, "Obama’s ‘Smoking Gun’: His Hamilton Project Speech Shows His Links to Goldman, Entitlement Cuts, Part 2".
4. Another source for Obama’s Hamilton Project speech of April 2006. Contains video clip.
5. James Kirk Murphy, M.D., "Remember the Hamilton Project?" Dr. Murph’s latest look at the Hamilton Project.
6. David Sirota, "Wall Street Democrats Unveil Plan to Undermine Progessives", April 5, 2006.