Obama asserts government control over the auto industry

[KO1927]

Any action by a president is allowed by congress and the supreme court. (Those checks
and balances they tried to teach you in civics class.)

[wildstoats]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_181862.html



He gave the Queen of England an ipod. OMG A F'ING IPOD! Unbelievable (actually it isn't)...

Yeah I caught a clip online of Jon Stewart talking about this and had to double check to make sure it was true. I hope the aide that thought up that idea got fired and dumped in the North Atlantic. It's even worse considering the gift Gordon Brown gave Obama:

[Mr.] Brown presented Obama with a pen holder crafted from the timbers of the 19th century British warship HMS President (whose sister ship, HMS Resolute, provided the wood for the Oval Office's desk)

I mean, DVD's? Is that the best we can do in this country? What a joke. The problem is that it makes our entire country look stupid. Giving something so cheap and impersonal to a visiting head of state is disrespectful in my opinion.

[dinanm3atl]

The thing that I think needs to happen is force them into damn bankruptcy. The biggest LEECH on on GM is their stupid unions. It is run and filled with morons that continue to cheat and steal and are overpaid. How come GM can't compete globally? Oh yeah, union makes the cost go up too high...

The damn unions will not concede ANYTHING. How can they not see the writing on the wall. Take a paycut, keep your job and house. Put some food on the table for your family... no they will not do that.

Bankruptcy CLEARS them of the damn unions. You can bet there is a line millions deep waiting to work for 10-20 dollars an hour at GM. If GM wasn't forced to spend so much on labor and the cost of each car went down just from labor you could bet they could make a run to the front...

Unions are the leech on that company.


On a side note, when you single out "Bush" you sound like a moron. "Bush" didn't do anything alone. There are others with more direct blame but there is plenty to go around. Bush didn't force mortgage brokers to give loans for homes to couples making very little money. Bush didn't force anyone to combine those mortgages into a 'product' to sell to people as an investment. The list goes on and on. Give it up on the Bush blaming.

[wildstoats]

Come on... when has any of that stuff infringed upon YOUR civil liberties, that's the point.

The Patriot Act has been blown so far out of proportion, it's funny. The only thing it provides that is really different than before is the ability to monitor specific suspects without a warrant for a period of time (not indefnintely and if physical searches are needed, they still have to get warrants).

Bush was a giant floundering carp for the last 4 years. He let shit happen that he shouldn't have. He got burned by being assertive in his first 4 years so he curled up in a little ball and stopped trying to fight against the opposition (from a political and media perspective). I think the Republican Party had a lot to do with it. They wanted to minimize his exposure and in so doing, pretty much guaranteed they would lose the next election.

I think Obama's policies on things such as health care, private business, community service and other things will most definitely infringe upon the civil liberties of ALL of us. The Patriot Act might be bad (not as bad as it has been depicted, but possibly still bad) but Obama's policies are guaranteed to invade your space like has never, ever happened before.

Look I'll be really honest here. None of this stuff has infringed upon MY personal liberties one bit. And no, that's not the point AT ALL. By your logic then if I was a man of the 1920s then I shouldn't have been concerned about womens sufferage because women not being able to vote doesn't infringe upon MY rights. If that's your viewpoint then I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree. But my opinion is that just because it doesn't affect you right at this moment doesn't mean that it's ok. I'm not arguing whether it is worse or better than any other piece of legislation that's been passed or is on the table at the moment. I wasn't even that concerned about the Bush administration using it against people in this country due to the widespread public outrage at the Patriot Act in general and how the whole situation was put under a microscope thus discouraging abuse. What pisses me off is that laws like this stay on the books well past their intended life span and who knows what kind of president's we will have in the future. It just exposes all of us to a huge risk because of the lack of oversight and its inherent vagueness.

Also I don't think I ever said Obama's policies are all peachy keen. Honestly I think he's doing a pretty lousy job right now. I find it hilarious that he's listening to Geithner and Summers about how to fix the economy when they are the typical Wall Street insiders that caused much of this mess. Talk about letting the foxes guard the hen house.

A couple of exerpts from a decent article on the issue:

What Geithner does not want the public to understand, his ‘dirty little secret’ is that the repeal of Glass-Steagall and the passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act in 2000 allowed the creation of a tiny handful of banks that would virtually monopolize key parts of the global ‘off-balance sheet’ or Over-The-Counter derivatives issuance. Today five US banks according to data in the just-released Federal Office of Comptroller of the Currency’s Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activity, hold 96% of all US bank derivatives positions in terms of nominal values, and an eye-popping 81% of the total net credit risk exposure in event of default.

The five are, in declining order of importance: JPMorgan Chase which holds a staggering $88 trillion in derivatives (€66 trillion!). Morgan Chase is followed by Bank of America with $38 trillion in derivatives, and Citibank with $32 trillion. Number four in the derivatives sweepstakes is Goldman Sachs with a ‘mere’ $30 trillion in derivatives. Number five, the merged Wells Fargo-Wachovia Bank, drops dramatically in size to $5 trillion. Number six, Britain’s HSBC Bank USA has $3.7 trillion. After that the size of US bank exposure to these explosive off-balance-sheet unregulated derivative obligations falls off dramatically. Just to underscore the magnitude, trillion is written 1,000,000,000,000. Continuing to pour taxpayer money into these five banks without changing their operating system, is tantamount to treating an alcoholic with unlimited free booze.

Click Here for the Full Article

[Hallen]

Totally agree with you here. If someone absolutely has to throw blame on a President then toss some on Clinton. But honestly President's don't have that much control over the economy / economic policy.



Complete bullshit? Yeah I guess it is if you ignore the Patriot Act, executive orders for the NSA to start conducting warrant-less wiretapping inside the US, pushing for Telecom companies that supported ILLEGAL warrant-less wiretapping to be given retro-active immunity from civil-suits, that's just a couple off the top of my head. Granted the Telecom Immunity and the Patriot Act don't fall squarely on his shoulders alone but all of this stuff happened while he was the man in the hot seat.

So let's see here let me tally up the Constitutional Amendments that have been trashed under Bush's term:

Fourth Amendment - Patriot Act, NSA Wiretapping
Fifth Amendment - Patriot Act
Sixth Amendment - Patriot Act

I'm sure Obama is working on the rest of them right now. Probably start with the Second Amendment and go from there.

But like you said, Bush is done and over with it's Obama's turn to muck everything up.

Come on... when has any of that stuff infringed upon YOUR civil liberties, that's the point.

The Patriot Act has been blown so far out of proportion, it's funny. The only thing it provides that is really different than before is the ability to monitor specific suspects without a warrant for a period of time (not indefnintely and if physical searches are needed, they still have to get warrants).

Bush was a giant floundering carp for the last 4 years. He let shit happen that he shouldn't have. He got burned by being assertive in his first 4 years so he curled up in a little ball and stopped trying to fight against the opposition (from a political and media perspective). I think the Republican Party had a lot to do with it. They wanted to minimize his exposure and in so doing, pretty much guaranteed they would lose the next election.

I think Obama's policies on things such as health care, private business, community service and other things will most definitely infringe upon the civil liberties of ALL of us. The Patriot Act might be bad (not as bad as it has been depicted, but possibly still bad) but Obama's policies are guaranteed to invade your space like has never, ever happened before.

[NG_White30]

i'm not claiming to be at all informed about politics, details of government workings, or anything of the sort.

i'm simply basing this off of my knowledge of our present day situation and what i learned in history/economics class. the biggest difference between today's situation (economically) and the great depression is the proposed solution. yes i'm sure the great depression involved government spending and the like, but what i dont see today is the same drive for work that people back then had. at least i dont see it being pushed as much as it should be. like jon stewart said, our wealth here in america is work. plain and simple. good old fashion work. so until big corp. and big gov. acknowledge that fact once again then we'll be along for the ride in this vicious circle.
:drink: party on

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_181862.html



He gave the Queen of England an ipod. OMG A F'ING IPOD! Unbelievable (actually it isn't)...

Who cares?

[atomic]

Obama Gives Queen Elizabeth An iPod


President Obama gave Queen Elizabeth an iPod during their private meeting at Buckingham Palace, the BBC reports. "It contains footage of her state visit to the US in May 2007. The Queen has given the president a silver framed photograph of herself and her husband. The official picture is what she gives all visiting dignitaries."

The gift exchange was closely watched, the Wall Street Journal reports, "ever since the British press took high exception to the modest presents the Obamas gave Gordon Brown and wife on their visit to the White House last month: a box set of DVDs, allegedly in the wrong format, and a couple of models of Marine One for the Brown boys."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/01/obama-gives-queen-elizabe_n_181862.html

He gave the Queen of England an ipod. OMG A F'ING IPOD! Unbelievable (actually it isn't)...

[gwb72tii]

When was the last time you went there?

october 2008
every year since 1999, some years twice

and its not quite half, i was exagerating a little, but only a little

[Stephen]

^^^ Good post.

yes, i like this guy. Facts, and backing up assertions in these political threads

But honestly President's don't have that much control over the economy / economic policy.

[speedhop]

Month 4 - Government banks and government motors (GM).

This makes a good point...let's have a tally of what he does every mont. I certainly can't keep track these days. And goooo

[kronus]

lulz.

What do bread lines look like?

95% women. Get there at 4 AM or so, because someone told you that there's a truck with food (or some form of coat, bicycle, whatever) coming at 9 AM, no details. Waiting in line is almost a social affair, and when eventually the truck comes, you don't care what's on it - you buy it because it's there and you don't know when it'll be there again.

[Funkmasta]

Month 4 - Government banks and government motors (GM).

[Tree18is]

), then gave $$$ to HD to have them contract Porsche to redesign the Harley engine. What came out is a rejuvenation of the brand and mostly, of its antiquated engines

that was just the V-rod 1000cc vtwin, which was there race bike motor for years and might still be, every other bike has the same design with the addition to fuel in jection. That is the only motor Re-designed by engineers at porshe.

[Tree18is]

Blame california, not Obama.

word. what the fuck is solar reflectivity doing.. what about the fuckn ocean? or all the fuckn lakes? there on a very nice pipe over there. I wish I lived there to fuckn paintball these hippie fucks.