WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sunday, December 21, 2008 – We’ve been had bad . . . again!

The Associated Press reports that two supposedly smart guys, Treasury Secretary Henry (Hank) Merritt Paulson, Jr. (B.A. in English from Dartmouth and an MBA from Harvard and former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs) and his bagman, Neel Kashkari (Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, University of Illinois; Master’s degree in Engineering, University of Illinois, and Master’s degree in Business Administration, Wharton School of Business) have handed out nearly 1.6 billion taxpayer dollars to banks that used the money for cash bonuses, chauffeurs, company jets, country club memberships, multi-million dollar executive pay packages, salaries and stock options.

Remember last September 21, when Treasury Secretary Paulson so somberly urged Congress to move quickly to give him 700 billion taxpayer dollars to bailout financial firms?

Paulson went on MEET THE PRESS and justified the historic bailout by saying, “Credit markets are still very fragile right now and frozen. We need to deal with this and deal with it quickly.”

The Treasury Secretary also said, “I am convinced that this bold approach will cost American families far less than the alternative – a continuing series of financial institution failures and frozen credit markets unable to fund economic expansion. The financial security of all Americans depends on our ability to restore our financial institutions to a sound footing.”

‘Hank’ didn’t say a word about giving banks $1.6 billion for cash bonuses, chauffeurs, company jets, country club memberships, multi-million dollar executive pay packages, salaries and stock options.

George W. Bush, the man who has all the financial expertise in the free world at his fingertips said, “My first instinct (sic) was to let the market work.” But then, according to White House insiders, Bush actually listened to some of his financial advisors, evidently changed his mind, and said, “a robust and strong bailout was necessary.”

Bush went on to explain to all of us who wouldn’t otherwise understand by saying, “It is a big package because it was a big problem.”

And, then, if that wasn’t enough, the 43rd President made sure we were able to understand the complexity of his thought process by letting us know that “The risk of doing nothing far outweighed the risk of the package.”

Thank you, Mr. President, for explaining this very complex set of financial machinations so we can understand, too.

But, wait a minute . . . there was nothing in Bush’s statement about giving banks $1.6 billion for cash bonuses, chauffeurs, company jets, country club memberships, multi-million dollar executive pay packages, salaries and stock options.

Hmmm.

Okay, let’s give these guys the benefit of the doubt and take a hard look at where we are now . . . perhaps I’m being too picky about Paulson and Kashkari handing out $1.6 billion so banks could pay for cash bonuses, chauffeurs, company jets, country club memberships, multi-million dollar executive pay packages, salaries and stock options.

Three months after Paulson urged Congress to give him $700 billion, Paulson and Kashkari have handed out $350 billion.

How much better off is our economy today?

Paulson said the bailout was necessary to prevent a ‘series of financial institution failures’?

How’s that working for us?

Since Paulson got his $350 billion, the following financial institutions failed: Franklin Bank (Houston), Security Pacific Bank (Los Angeles), Community Bank (Loganville, Georgia), Downey Savings & Loan (Newport Beach, California), PFF Bank and Trust (Pomona, California), First Georgia Community Bank (Jackson, Georgia), Haven Trust Bank (Duluth, Georgia), and Sanderson State Bank (Sanderson, Texas).

Okay . . . but, surely, the inflow of $350 billion in taxpayer money into bank coffers has eased the credit crunch, hasn’t it?

Yes or no?

No.

Why?

Because nothing in the bailout bill requires banks to lend a red cent to any one, any time, under any circumstance.

I know it sounds nutty, but it’s true.

So . . . why on earth would any bank risk loaning ‘found’ money when the Treasury Department doesn’t require them to?

Does anyone believe bankers have the character it takes to use the bailout money to help anybody but themselves?

Of course not.

So, I wondered, why would supposedly ‘smart guys’ like Paulson and Kashkari hand out hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to prevent bank failures and free up credit markets without conditions to prevent bank failures and free up credit markets?

But then, I remembered the great words of wisdom left us by an equally great American, Forrest Gump, who said, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

And then I knew.

 

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

 

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BAGHDAD, IRAQ – Sunday, December 14, 2008 – Under a strict veil of secrecy, the White House issued false schedules detailing George W. Bush’s activities for today so he could tiptoe off to Baghdad where he attempted - for the umpteenth time – to convince the world that the Iraq war was necessary.

“The work hasn’t been easy, but it has been necessary for American security, Iraqi hope, and world peace,” George W. Bush said with a straight face. “I’m just so grateful I had the chance to come back to Iraq before my presidency ends.”

Let’s evaluate the 43rd President’s own words and we’ll decide the truth – not the spin - about Bush’s legacy!

“The work hasn’t been easy,”

Thinking people will ask, what work has George W. Bush done?

While Donald Rumsfeld was doing his senile best to screw things up in Iraq, by his own admission to Bob Woodward, George W. Bush had so little concern for hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops he put in harm’s way that he handed the Iraq war over to Stephen Hadley, a lawyer turned career bureaucrat who’d earned enough political points to become Bush’s National Security Advisor.

Hadley, a man with no military experience, was the White House Iraq Groupie who ‘allowed’ Bush to lie about Saddam Hussein’s supposed attempt to secure nuclear materials from Niger in the President’s 2003 State of the Union Address. Hadley is also the man who didn’t know the difference between Nepal and Tibet when interviewed by George Stephanopoulos as recently as last April.

This is also the man George W. Bush considered to be best qualified, in his abdicated absence, to protect more than a hundred thousand American men and women who went to Iraq to risk their lives in service to their Commander-in-Chief.

That this Commander-in-Chief would abdicate his responsibility to protect our troops, that he would turn over that responsibility to a Washington bureaucrat, fits what we know about George W. Bush’s character.

When George W. Bush assumed the Presidency, he had every power and every resource necessary to govern wisely, to use his office to protect and defend Americans in particular and the people of the world in general.

He was given a majority in the House and the Senate.

He was given a budget surplus by President Clinton.

Moreover, he was given the trust of millions of Americans and millions more freedom loving people around the world.

But George W. Bush lacked the intellectual curiosity, the compassion, the intelligence, the insight, and the vision to use the gifts he was given to make the nation and the world better today than it was when he took the oath of office . . . twice.

“but it has been necessary for American security,”

How does George W. Bush, with any true sense of history, reason or logic, say that the Iraq war was necessary for American security?

Do the families of 4,209 brave Americans who gave their lives because George W. Bush ordered them to fight an unnecessary war based on lies trust this assessment from a man whose own record of military service is at best questionable?

How about the thousands upon thousands of brave American men and women whose bodies and souls have been forever damaged by horrific war wounds? Do they believe they gave their limbs, their flesh and bones for a war that was necessary for American security?

Prove to us, George W. Bush . . . not with rhetoric, but with facts . . . that the Iraq war was indeed necessary to keep America safe, stay silent, or admit your culpability, apologize profusely to the victims of your misguided ego, then go away.

“Iraqi hope,”

Would George W. Bush have the courage to sit down, face-to-face with even one of the millions of Iraqis who’ve lost sons and daughters and husbands and wives and fathers and mothers in firefights, bombings, and mortar and rocket attacks in his war and tell him or her that their sacrifice was worth it because Iraqis now have hope?

“and world peace.”

            World peace . . . by what measure beyond rhetoric?

Since the Bush/Cheney invasion of Iraq 5½ years and a trillion dollars ago, U.S. troops continue to lose life and limb in Iraq, terrorist organizations around the world still threaten to attack the United States and its allies, expanding conflicts threaten to engulf Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, and a revived ‘Cold War’ with more nuclear players on the pitch than ever before is evolving even as I write this piece.

Epilogue: Mr. President, I have news for you: Your legacy is inviolable . . . it cannot be tampered with . . . no number of talking points can change eight years of bumbling, narrow-minded, stupid, wasteful actions, inactions disguised as your ‘policies’.

Just go away Mr. 43rd President, quietly, while millions of Americans hope and pray we never see your kind again.

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

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DETROIT, MI – Tuesday, December 9, 2008 – WHY ‘bailout’ Detroit when we don’t have to?

Why not guarantee the success of the Big Three Detroit automakers – short-term and long-term – by utilizing taxpayer investments to develop a new 3-Part business model so Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors never again have to return to Washington D.C. for a handout?

We’ve all heard the propaganda – for and against – the so-called ‘Detroit bailout’ and to those who oppose the government rescue of any private enterprise, I understand and respect your opposition.

However, no matter which side of the so-called ‘bailout’ argument you’re on, it’s important to remember that Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors do not just build cars and trucks . . . they create, design, manufacture and deliver a broad range of vehicles for a variety of applications at various price points.

These capabilities, developed and delivered by thousands upon thousands of educated, experienced, skilled, talented people working with an incredible array of advanced mechanical and electronic tools and high-tech facilities, are too valuable for the nation to throw away.

   Read More »

SOMEWHERE IN THE WINDMILLS OF GEORGE W. BUSH’S MIND – Saturday, December 6, 2008 – What brought our almost erstwhile President George W. Bush (remember him?) out of the shadows of the White House this week?

Some think Bush came out into the open because of a Labor Department report which confirms that under his vicarious leadership, the nation has chalked up another ignoble statistic in the Bush/Cheney record book: American businesses dumped 533,000 Americans out of their jobs in the month of November, reportedly the largest job loss in 34 years.

After more than 7½ years of deft leadership, skilled management, and responsible budgets, Bush, Cheney, and their helpers finally managed to punch up the unemployment rate to 6.7%, the highest rate we’ve seen in a decade and a half.

George W. Bush surprised lots of us today when he said, “I am concerned about the viability of the automobile companies.”

Don’t get me wrong . . . I don’t mean to get your hopes up.

One moment of near-lucidity doesn’t mean that George W. Bush actually understands – or even cares – that 3 million Americans could lose their jobs if the Federal government doesn’t ‘loan’ 34 billion ‘conditional’ taxpayer dollars to Chrysler, Ford and General Motors.

Bush confounded millions of Americans who believe he’s a complete fool and even those who don’t think he’s a complete fool, when he said, “I’m concerned about those who work for the automobile companies and their families.” (QUESTION: Did the President mean he’s concerned about people who work for automobile companies and the families of those automobile companies or did he mean he’s concerned about the families of people who work for automobile companies?) “And, likewise (sic), I am concerned about taxpayer money being provided to those companies that may not survive.”

George W. Bush’s concern for ‘taxpayer money’ is out of character for a man who blew through Bill Clinton’s legacy budget surplus like there was no tomorrow, ran up huge deficits every year of his presidency, and who leaves American taxpayers, their children, and grandchildren in debt to the tune of more than $10 trillion . . . and counting.

House Speaker Pelosi, Chairman of the House Financial Service Committee Barney Frank, and Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid know they can’t trust the President of the United States to save millions of American jobs. So they came up with a ‘backdoor’ stunt to prevent the bankruptcies and liquidations of Chrysler and General Motors in the next couple of months. Congress will use $25 billion Congress already approved to help Detroit design and build truly fuel-efficient cars and trucks to keep Chrysler and GM in business until January 20, 2009 when a real, oops, I mean, our next President will be in the White House.

Because George W. Bush refuses to back current Congressional efforts to provide meaningful ‘bridge loans’ to the Big Three automakers, taxpayers will be forced to throw away $25 billion over the next 44 days on a ‘cash-flow bailout’.

Given the staggering economic realities facing the Big Three Detroit automakers, what other choice do we have?

Would it be possible to get George W. Bush and Dick Cheney out of the way by bringing them up on impeachment charges for gross incompetence compounded by a thorough lack of character and integrity?

Nice thought, but no dice . . . not enough time.

What if millions of taxpayers went to Washington D.C., got down on their knees, and ‘begged’ the President and Vice-President to please go home so Nancy Pelosi could be the Interim President who would immediately sign off on a sensible series of bridge loans to make the Detroit Big Three competitive?

Naw . . . who’s to say that Bush or Cheney would notice, much less care?

President-elect Obama, Vice-President-elect Biden, and the economic transition team could take over the White House tomorrow, put the finishing touches on a comprehensive loan package for Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors, get congressional approval, and save 3 million jobs.

Then again, it probably wouldn’t be constitutional to take over the White House. Besides, if Bush and Cheney happened to realize they weren’t alone, the country could get bogged down in a costly 44 day court battle and Obama might even lose credibility with millions of conservatives around the country.

Okay, then, what other choices do we have?

Give me a moment . . . let me think through every possible contingency.

Hold on . . . I’m thinking.

Hold on . . . I’m still thinking.

Hold on . . . And, I’m still thinking.

Okay . . . I’ve thought it through and I know precisely what we can do.

Care to join me in prayer?

 

                Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

 
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SOMEWHERE – Tuesday, December 3, 2008 – When will we ever learn to stop trusting the ‘smart people’?

We trusted some supposedly smart people, people we pay lots of money to, to use 700 billion taxpayer ‘bailout’ dollars wisely and, now we find out from the Associated Press that those highly-paid, well-benefitted folks failed to do the smart thing.

Auditors from the Government Accounting Office are telling us that the Department of Treasury, headed by Henry (Hank) Merritt Paulson, Jr. (you’d think a guy who has a B.A. in English from Dartmouth and an MBA from Harvard and was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs would be fairly smart, wouldn’t you?) failed to understand that it would be stupid to give $150 billion to banks (so far) without monitoring how they spend – and lend – our money.

Right?

Wrong.

The GAO report says, “Treasury has not yet determined how it will monitor compliance with this or other requirements such as limitations on dividend payments and stock repurchases.”

Huh?

Let me translate this into terms people like me (no Harvard MBA, I’ve never been Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs, and I’ve certainly never been Secretary of the Treasury) will understand: This is like me going down to my local bank and asking to borrow fifty or a million dollars. I don’t tell the bank how I’m going to spend the money and I don’t tell the bank how much my ‘collateral’ is worth and I don’t tell the bank when, if ever, I plan to give them back their money.

But they give me the money, anyway.

Whattadeal!

The GAO’s 72-page report also tells us that banks are not lending taxpayer money to ’stimulate’ the economy!

But, wait a minute . . . we were sold this ‘bailout’ plan by people who talk a lot about ‘putting country first’ and who chatter incessantly (especially in front of TV cameras) about how devoted they are to ‘protecting taxpayers’.

The list of these patriots includes Senator John McCain (Annapolis, class of ‘58), George W. Bush (remember him?), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (JD Georgetown University), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (JD, Kentucky Law School), Senator Chris Dodd, Chair of the Banking Committee (JD, University of Louisville), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Degree in something from Trinity College), Representative Brad Miller (JD, Columbia University), Representative John Shadegg (JD, University of Arizona) and too many other well-educated geniuses to mention here.

So, why didn’t even one of these very smart folks understand that it is not very smart to allow bankers to run free with billions of taxpayer dollars?

And, if even one of them was smart enough to figure that out, why didn’t that ‘smarter-than-the-rest’ person do something about it?

Unfortunately, you know as well as I know that we’ll never know.

So, how did Hank’s Treasury Department react to the GAO report?

Neel Kashkari (Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, University of Illinois; Master’s degree in Engineering, University of Illinois, and Master’s degree in Business Administration, Wharton School of Business), is evidently the smartest person in the Treasury Department’s so-called Office of Financial Stability because he’s the guy who actually hands out cash to banks, but he doesn’t think it’s necessary to work with regulators.

In fact, Kashkari is so smart, he’s perfectly comfortable with the Department of Treasury coming up with its own program to monitor banks . . . but he doesn’t know where or when.

So . . . when will we ever learn not to trust the ‘smart’ people?

We believed them when they gravely announced that we were in a so-called ‘financial crisis’ and we trusted them when they told us, just a couple of months ago, they could save the economy . . . if only we would allow them to borrow $700 billion in our names to give to banks in their names.

And, how has that worked out for us?

They let us down . . . again.

Surprised?

No.

Why?

Because this is the same group that pushed us into a pointless war in Iraq war that cost thousands of precious American lives lost and caused countless billions of dollars to be forever unaccounted for. This is the same bunch that sat by and allowed wounded veterans to be ignored and mistreated at Walter Reed Army Hospital. This is the shameless Congress of the United States of America that has been content to allow millions of Americans on the Gulf Coast to still suffer from the damage done by Hurricane Katrina . . . 3 years after the fact. These are the people who were ‘smart’ enough to spend us into a ten trillion dollar national debt?

So, we shouldn’t be surprised that they let us down on the bailout.

That is what these people do.

They let us down . . . you know that, I know that.

My question is, why do we continue to let them get away with this stuff?

When will we ever actually hold these people accountable to do the jobs we elect – and pay - them to do?

When will we screw up enough courage to tell them to stop wasting their time and our money with all the self-aggrandizement, posturing, and strutting?

When will we tell them to either do the people’s work or get out of the way so someone else can?

After all, there are more than 300,000,000 of us and only 535 of them.

So . . . what are we afraid of?

 

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

 
If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

 

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WASHINGTON, DC - Monday, December 1, 2008 – The ‘experts’ have finally gotten around to telling us that we’re in a recession and we’ve been there . . . for an entire year!

This brilliant deduction came in the form of an announcement by an organization that calls itself the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) (http://www.nber.org/info).

NBER announced today that December, 2007 was when the economy went into recession; a recession which evidently precipitated the economic slide into the current financial crisis, culminating in September’s Wall Street meltdown and subsequent economic problems.

Who supports the National Bureau of Economic Research?

Well, don’t worry . . . you don’t.

NBER likes to say that it’s a non-profit, non-partisan research group dedicated to helping Americans understand how the economy functions.

Okay.

The NBER has been around since 1920 and is quite proud of the fact that it has produced 31 Nobel Prize Winners, 6 Chairs of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and a thousand or so professors of economics and business teaching in universities all over the country.

Sounds good . . . but with all due respect to the NBER, thousands of people who lost their jobs a year ago could have told us – way back then- that we were in a recession.

All sorts of people in George W. Bush’s Administration with access to more economic data than you or me have yammered on and on about some sort of economic problem facing the nation at least since March; but not one of those people had the character or integrity to dare to use the “R” word.

Despite the fact that the 43rd President of the United States and all the people he considers to be the best and the brightest the nation has to offer wouldn’t be honest about something the entire world already knows says more about character and integrity than I could ever explain.

However, if it is true that we can’t change what we won’t acknowledge, why wouldn’t the President, Vice-President, all their advisors, and all the Cabinet Secretaries who accept our money and benefits come clean with us in time to fix the economy before it ‘melted-down’?

If the Bush Administration hadn’t been so concerned about covering its collective butt, it could have taken steps at the time, on time, in time, to prevent the collapse of Wall Street, the banking industry, the auto industry, and other industries that are laying off American men and women at the rate of 500,000 each week, every week.

Now, I admit I shouldn’t be so one-sided . . . it’s just that I hate to see people lose their jobs through no fault of their own.

So I’ll give the Bush White House the benefit of the doubt and ask a fair question; How did the Bush White House react to the NBER’s announcement?

Did the White House admit that if it had acknowledged the fact that we were in a recession a year ago, it could have done something sooner to protect the jobs of millions of Americans? Did the White House accept responsibility for trillions of dollars in retirement savings and investments lost by millions of Americans over the past year? Moreover, did the White House admit that George W. Bush’s failed policies contributed to the recession?

No . . . the White House made a political statement.

The Bush Administration sent Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto, 42, (a well-connected Republican . . . former spokesman for ex-Senator Rick Santorum, former campaign worker for Tom Ridge’s re-election as Pennsylvania Governor, and lobbyist who was rewarded by George W. Bush with a position as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Treasury Department and then re-rewarded by George W. Bush who named him Deputy Press Secretary in 2006) out to dismiss the fact that the nation has been in a recession for a year by saying, “The most important things we can do for the economy right now are to return the financial and credit markets to normal and to continue to make progress in housing and that’s where we’ll continue to focus.”

What?

What does that mean?

We have to ‘return the financial and credit markets to normal’?

Why the heck would we do that?

A year ago the financial and credit markets were normal and look where that’s gotten us!

By the way, what did you mean when you said, “continue to make progress in housing”?

Ask home builders and home owners to tell you about the ‘progress’ they see and they’ll ask, “What progress?”

I gotta tell you, Mr. Deputy Press Secretary, I’m disappointed.

The taxpayers of this great nation pay you $141,000.00 per year ($11,750.00 per month; $2,937.50 per week), plus cushy benefits they can’t afford for themselves.

Yet, where were you a year ago?

Why didn’t you or one of your highly-paid, well-benefited colleagues on the White House roster earn your pay by coming clean with the people who pay you? Why didn’t you admit then what the President, the Vice-President, advisors, plus Cabinet members were too chicken to admit . . . that we were in a recession?

Wait a second . . . since we just discovered that we’re running a year behind on ‘official’ economic news, could we already be out of the recession and not know it?

I could ask the NBER or I could ask Tony Fratto . . . or I could ask one of the half million Americans who lost their jobs last week.

Who do you think would know best?

Huh?

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

 
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WASHINGTON, D.C. Saturday, November 29, 2008 – SO . . . what’s the ‘monster’ story today?

Potential atomic war between India and Pakistan?

The death toll from terrorist attacks in Mumbai?

Continuing violence in Iraq?

The economic future of the world?

World poverty?

Famine?

The end of the Bush/Cheney reign of error?

No.

We’re talking about Samantha Power, Pulitzer Prize winning author, graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School, and Harvard professor; an accomplished American, bright, astute, who’s made a series of outstanding contributions to humanity.

Are we talking about Samantha Power because of her accomplishments?

Nope.

We talking about Samantha Power because the Washington Post wanted to remind us that last March she called Hillary Clinton (let’s be brave and drop the ‘Rodham’ . . . okay?) a ‘monster’.

Why on earth would Samantha Power say such a nasty thing about the Senator from New York, the wife of the 42nd President of the United States of America, the woman with ’35 years of experience’ who broke the glass ceiling by becoming the first serious female presidential candidate in the history of the nation?

It is reasonable to presume that Samantha simply expressed her considered opinion about a public figure.

If so, why would this story matter now . . . nearly nine months after the fact?

Let me refresh your memory on Samantha’s ‘monster’ comment.

It was the spring of 2008; the Democratic primaries were smoking with vitriol (arguably more from Hillary’s side than Obama’s).

As February became March, the Clinton’s were losing – big time - and they didn’t like it!

So, instead of giving Americans good reasons to vote for Hillary, the campaign and the candidate decided to come up with anything and everything negative – real or imagined – to knock down Senator Barack Obama as a man and as a candidate.

Remember when Hillary threw Barack under the bus by saying said she and John McCain had plans to lead America while Obama only had ‘a speech’?

Recall the insane insinuations Hillary Clinton made about Reverend Wright’s supposed influence over Barack Obama?

Do you remember the prime-time news spots featuring Hillary making fun of Barack’s campaign of ‘hope’?

Haven’t forgotten about Hillary’s allegations that Barack Obama simply was not qualified to lead on ‘day one’, have you?

Let’s put ourselves in Samantha Power’s shoes last Spring; she’s one of Obama’s foreign policy advisers and she’s sick and tired of listening to Clinton’s load of bull, so she refers to Hillary Clinton as a ‘monster’ in an off-the-record interview with a Scottish newspaper.

Samantha’s exact quote was, “She is a monster, too . . . that’s off the record . . . she is stooping to anything.”

Off the record or on, is it true that Hillary is, or was, a monster?

Who cares?

It was an opinion . . . not an edict, not an order, not a sentence.

So, when did people living in a democracy become obligated to hide their opinions about people who would dare to lead the nation?

The when in this case was March 7, 2008 . . . the day Samantha Power had to resign her position as an unpaid advisor to Barack Obama and apologize to Hillary Clinton.

I don’t like that Samantha Power had to resign, I don’t like that she had to apologize, but I understand that it’s over.

If the President-elect wants a bright, eminently qualified person like Samantha Power to advise him on ‘transition matters relating to the State Department’, why doesn’t the Washington Post get out of the guy’s way and let him do what he needs to do.

Maybe the Washington Post thinks the back story here is that Power and Clinton will run into each other at 2201 C Street NW and get into a cat fight.

If that happens, Washington Post, publish the story!

We’ll read it; more than once if you get pictures.

In the meantime, give us ‘monster’ stories that actually mean something.

Okay?

 

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

 

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CHICAGO, IL – Wednesday, November 26, 2008 – Ain’t it nice to finally have a smart guy in (coming in) to the White House?

Think about it . . . compare the way President-elect Obama handled himself in today’s press conference to the way George W. Bush muddled his way through eight years.

You remember, don’t you?

George W. Bush, the genius, was actually reelected after he said, "My plan reduces the national debt, and fast. So fast, in fact, that economists worry that we're going to run out of debt to retire."

And, despite the fact that there was no doubt about George W. Bush’s intelligence or lack thereof, voters sent him back to Washington for a second four year term after he said, "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

It is eminently refreshing that President-elect Barack Obama is more than able to string an entire series of sentences together to create cohesive paragraphs to convey a logical series of meaningful thoughts and ideas . . . a skill that is critically essential to anyone who aspires to the highest office in the country.

His ‘Help is on the way’ press conference today reassured the American people and financial markets around the world  that a thoughtful, intelligent, resourceful, committed, dedicated man has arrived to lead the nation out of the morass created by eight years of the meanderings of a failed frat boy who couldn’t convey a meaningful idea on his best day.

President-elect Obama said, “I was elected with the charge of getting this economy back in shape. We are going to implement starting day one when I come into office.”

Nice political statement . . . but he then went on to support that statement by conveying the following meaningful thoughts and ideas:

He announced the creation of the ‘President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board’ (not made up of old friends from college or campaign contributors or incompetent political hacks) headed by 81 year old Paul Volker, an epitome of Washington experience whose leadership will be augmented and balanced by top staffer, 39 year old Austin Goolsbee, a well-respected, visionary, economist from the University of Chicago.

In Monday’s news conference, the President-elect announced that he would nominate 41 year old Tim Geithner, current New York Federal Reserve President, to be Treasury Secretary and on Tuesday, Obama announced he would nominate Peter Orszag to manage the Office of Management and Budget with the immediate responsibility of evaluating the federal budget, ‘page-by-page, line-by-line’, to eliminate wasteful spending and realign how taxpayer dollars are spent.

In the coming week, President-elect Obama is expected to move on from putting together his economic team to naming his national security and foreign policy team, including the vaunted, but not yet confirmed nomination of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. He is also expected to confirm publicly that current Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates will stay on for the first year of his administration.

In response to a tough question from CNN’s Ed Henry about ‘playing musical chairs’ by recruiting people who worked in the Clinton Administration, Obama said, “The American people would be troubled if I selected a treasury secretary or a chairman of the National Economic Council at one of the most critical economic times in our history who had no experience in government whatsoever.”

“What we are going to do,” Obama went on to say, “is combine experience with fresh thinking. But understand where the vision for change comes from. First and foremost, it comes from me. That’s my job, is to provide a vision in terms of where we are going and to make sure then that my team is implementing.”

Lest we forget how George W. Bush handled a similarly tough question in a press conference, permit me to take you back to April 3, 2004, when the 43rd President of the United States of America, the leader of the free world, George W. Bush answered a question about whether he’d ever made a mistake in his presidency by saying, “I wish you’d have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it. I’m sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with answer, but it hadn’t yet . . . I don’t want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I’m confident I have. I just haven’t . . . you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I’m not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one.”

Huh?

President-elect Barack Obama, unlike his soon-to-be predecessor, has demonstrated that he is a man of action . . . holding three press conferences in as many days to send a clear message to not only millions of shaky Americans worried about their economic futures but to the world in general.

Be advised, America and the world, there is a new man taking the helm of democracy in America, an intelligent man, a man unafraid to work at being President, a man willing to reach out to the best and the brightest the nation has to offer to build not only a better nation but a better world as well.

Maybe I’m amazed, but I’m also relieved.

Aren’t you?

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

 

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WASHINGTON, DC - Monday, September 24, 2008 – Why are we spending hundreds of billions of our dollars to save Citigroup?

We’re taxpayers and the Bush Administration and Congress have put us in debt more than $10 trillion, we’re losing our businesses and jobs at the fastest rate in decades, our retirement accounts are going bust, and trillions of dollars we invested in the stock market, are gone . . . perhaps forever.

Tragically, our children and grandchildren will pay for the sins we committed by electing and re-electing the wrong people.

That fact was underscored this weekend when Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, abetted by George W. Bush, negotiated a secret deal to put us another $325 billion or so in debt.

Why does Citigroup need a bailout?

Because its management got greedy and funded thousands upon thousands of subprime (translation: potentially high profit) mortgages for people who couldn’t afford them.

And, because it got greedy and mismanaged its business, Citigroup lost money every quarter for the past four quarters.

The consequence of that greed and mismanagement was revealed yesterday when we learned that Bush, Bernanke, and Paulson agreed to give Citigroup a $20 billion cash bonus plus in excess of $300 billion in deferred bonuses.

Citigroup agreed to not pay more than a penny a share in the form of dividends for three years without approval from the federal government.

But why limit dividends? Why not require Citigroup to pay 75% of dividends to the taxpayers who made it possible for the company to be around to ever pay any dividends?

And why not require Citigroup to pay those dividends to taxpayers until it repays our investment?

Citigroup also agreed to limit compensation and bonuses for executives.

Limit bonuses?

What bonuses?

Why would any of the grossly incompetent Citigroup executives who created this mess or stood by and watched their colleagues create this mess, still have jobs, much less be eligible for a bonus of any kind?

The agreement ‘asks’, but does not require Citigroup to ‘take steps to help’ homeowners facing foreclosure.

Why not require Citigroup to use taxpayer money to help taxpayers save their homes?

Why can’t any portion of those hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars we are giving Citigroup go to revamp, revise, and refinance mortgages that have been foreclosed or will be foreclosed?

By the way, where’s the money coming from?

If any of the original $700 billion bailout ‘budget’ approved by Congress is still available, the Treasury Department will borrow and/or print the cash required to make this deal happen while the FED will ‘loan’ Citigroup enough cash to finance the remaining balance of its losses.

And where the FED will get the actual currency to ‘loan’ Citigroup?

Where else but to the same foreign banks and/or domestic printing presses?

And, what do we taxpayers give and get?

We give Citigroup approximately $325 billion in cash and loans and we get $7 billion in ‘preferred shares’ of Citigroup stock.

$325 billion for $7 billion?

Hmmmm.

Some deal.

By the way, what did George W. Bush, the obviously detached outgoing President, have to say about the Citigroup deal?

If anyone actually cares, the lame duck President threatened to reward other financial institutions for their greed and incompetence by saying, “If need be, we will make these kinds of decisions to safeguard our financial system in the future.”

So, where does this leave us?

Decorum prevents me from getting too graphic here, so permit me to simply say, “We’re screwed!”

What do you think?

 
Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

 
If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

 

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SMALL TOWN OHIO, Monday, September 24, 2008 – When 44 year old Doug Jones (not his real name) got his check last Friday, it was three times the normal amount.

You know how it is when you get your paycheck; even though you know it’ll be the same old amount, you kind of hope there’ll be more there just this once . . . and if there was more, you’d be happy . . . real happy!

But not Doug.

Not at all.

His check included two weeks’ severance pay.

After nineteen years as an equipment operator for Wollaceski Underground Contractors, Inc. (not the real company name), Doug ran a Wollaceski CAT 375 track-type excavator for the last time Friday morning, backfilling a repaired water line for the county.

Joe Wollaceski, founder of the company that bears his name, is a bear of a man. Six feet four, two hundred and fifty pounds, he resembles former Vice-President Al Gore. He’s a 57 year old who succeeded where so many fail by out-working and out-smarting his competition in the rough and tumble construction business. “I don’t see how we get out of this mess,” Joe says with a shake of his head. “Nobody has cash, nobody can borrow, and nobody knows what to do about it. We give Bush and Paulson $700 billion, they give half of it away, yet banks are still failing and nobody’s lending. So, where did all that money go? My guy who sweeps the shop coulda handled it better than those boneheads!”

Wollaceski knows exactly where he is and why. “We’re shutting down after 32 years mainly because of the car business,” he says. “GM, Ford, and Chrysler lay off workers, those folks stop spending, and we lose sales tax revenues, plus income tax. And then, the businesses that rely on car worker wages have to lay off and those folks stop spending and we lose more sales tax revenues and income tax and, pretty soon, the city, county, and state cut back on construction projects. Since banks aren’t lending, there are no more commercial and residential developments to bid on, so guys like me get forced out of business.

“It’s going to be tough for my people to find good jobs. They’re used to making fifteen-twenty bucks an hour and more and they been getting good benefits; there aren’t many businesses left in Ohio that can afford to pay a living wage and give good benefits.”

The Wollaceski Underground Contractors shutdown kills 34 jobs, takes a $1,700,000.00 annual payroll out of the local economy, cancels the lease on a ten thousand square foot building on a half acre, and dooms the CAT 375 and 11 other backhoes, tractors, and compactors, plus 4 Kenworth T810 dump trucks, 6 Ford F250 jobsite pick-ups, batches of tools, barricades, safety equipment, a complete lubrication system, several compressors, storage racks, office furniture, computers, monitors, and a GMC tractor/low boy trailer to be liquidated at auction.

Doug and his wife, Elizabeth (not her real name), have three children under the age of 17, and are worried about when, if ever, he’ll find another job that pays as well and provides the benefits they got from WUC. “There’s nothing here in Ohio,” Doug says with a defeated tone. “Me and Liz talked about moving to California or Texas where I might find work, but we’re upside down on our house and we can’t sell right now. So, we’re stuck. Can’t live on unemployment so if I don’t find work soon, we’ll have to rent out the house and move in with Liz’s folks up in Cleveland.”

The manager of ‘Sandi’s’, a popular family restaurant a block from Wollaceski’s yard, says, “We’re not seeing regulars like we used to. Friday and Saturday nights are about half of what they were even six months ago. I know Doug and Elizabeth Jones and their three kids. Used to see them here probably three Friday nights and maybe two Saturday nights a month and we’d see them just about every Sunday after church . . . but not now. Not since we heard Joe Wollaceski was shutting down.”

“What kills me,” Wollaceski says, “is that, after all the money and power we gave Bush and Cheney over eight years, they’re leaving us with the largest deficit ever, the biggest national debt in history, a failed banking system, an economy in the worst shape since the depression, and two wars that are bleeding us dry.

“Those two geniuses screwed up the economy so bad that millions of skilled workers who’ve been making forty, fifty thousand a year will be forced to take minimum wage jobs at fast-food joints and places like Wal-Mart and give up their homes, cars, and their futures.

“So, besides making my worst nightmare come true, what have Dick Cheney and George W. Bush ever done for me or my people?

“Nothing,” he says, answering his own question with a sardonic smile, “absolutely nothing.”

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

 If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

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SMALL TOWN, OHIO – Sunday, November 23, 2008 – Even a casual encounter with any of the 27 men and women who work for Moreau’s Machine Works (not the company’s actual name) in Ohio today would tell you that something is seriously wrong. These are good, hardworking Americans, salt of the earth folks who love their country, who love their husbands and wives, who love their children, and who take pride in the quality of the products they produce.  

But they don’t smile much these days; that Midwest heart-of-the-country sparkle is gone from their eyes; they don’t stand quite as tall as they used to; and they walk and move not with the innate confidence of people born and raised in America’s heartland, but with the uncertainty of people who are lost.

One month from today, two days before Christmas, Paul Moreau (not his real name) will close the business founded by his father in 1948, a business that in better times not only supported the lives and families of 202 machinists, tool makers, estimators, quality control inspectors, warehousemen, secretaries, and managers but also supported the stores, gas stations, real estate agents, professionals, and the tax base in and around the little Ohio town they call home.

Moreau Machine Works will close its doors forever after it ships the last batch of parts due on the last purchase order from the last of the Big Three suppliers on the third Tuesday in December.

And 27 families will celebrate Christmas this year against the backdrop of economic uncertainty that promises not only to dampen their holiday spirit but will also dampen their hopes and plans for a happy, prosperous New Year.

Paul has run Moreau Machine Works since his father’s death in the early seventies and, like his father, he’s made it a point to work harder and longer than anyone else, creating a sense of family that contributed to pride of workmanship, maximum productivity, and a ‘never-say-die’ attitude on the part of everyone in the Moreau Machine Works family.

But as the car business goes, so goes Moreau Machine Works and things are not going well.

“At 67, I’m already past retirement age, but I’ve put everything back into the business, so me and my wife, only got Social Security to live on,” says Paul Moreau, Jr., a big man who resembles Harrison Ford, the actor. “We also got a ton of debt to pay and how we’re gonna make it, I don’t know.

“I mean, I never thought American car companies would ever be almost bankrupt. I can’t believe that here, in the greatest country in the world, good people who want to work can’t find good jobs. I mean, who’d have thought this would happen?

“But I’m more worried about the rest of the folks working here because most of ‘em are younger. They’ve got houses to pay for; they got car payments, and kids to raise. They’ve got college tuition to worry about . . . “ Standing in the small parking lot in front of the well maintained, immaculate, twelve thousand square foot single story brick building his family has owned since 1959, Paul sighed, blinked several times, held back an emotional moment, and then continued with, “. . . I, I worry about how they’re gonna make it. There aren’t any other jobs for them to get . . . not here, not in Ohio. They’re gonna have to go on unemployment and they won’t be able to afford the COBRA health deal. I don’t know what they’re gonna do.”

Paul is in personal and corporate debt up to his ears. In the years leading up to the current crash, when SUVs and pickup trucks were selling like hotcakes, when Ford could generate an $18,000.00 profit on a single Excursion, the Big Three and their top tier suppliers pressed Paul to upgrade his equipment to improve quality, to reduce lead times, and to reduce costs. In fact, his contracts to supply machined parts called for price reductions of as much as ten percent a year, every year, for at least three years.

It wasn’t like he had a choice . . . purchasing agents were quite clear about it: Either agree to drop your price by ten percent a year or we’ll deduct the difference from outstanding invoices and cancel our purchase orders . . . in other words, do it our way or go away.

So, Paul did what he had to do. He used up his savings, refinanced his house, and took on thousands of dollars of debt to buy and lease the newest, high-tech computerized control machine tools, expanded his facilities, and upgraded to an electronic energy management system to accommodate the new equipment.

            Paul’s wife, Loretta (not her real name), a pretty 65 year old petite lady with big blue eyes and a ready smile, Moreau Machine’s receptionist, payroll maker, and mother figure to just about everyone, held Paul’s hand and said, “It’s like this . . . Paul and I’ve worked hard all our lives so we could hand over a better world not only to our children and grandchildren, but also to our employees and their families. And now, because we’ve elected and re-elected politicians who don’t care, we’re going to hand them a world in much worse shape than when we arrived.

“And, for that, we should all be ashamed.”

 
Copyright © 2008 by l.t. Dravis. All rights reserved.

 If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at LTDAssociates@msn.com

(goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

SOMEWHERE IN CALIFORNIA – Friday, November 21, 2008 – Janice’s life as she’d known it for more than twenty years ended last Friday.

The end came as a total surprise on what she expected would be another challenging but rewarding day at the job she loved almost as much as she loved her husband and their daughter.

Forty-six year old Janice had been an account executive since the summer of 1986 for a small but successful ad agency. She was responsible for managing print advertising for a regional association of car dealers. She considered her customers to be family and thoroughly enjoyed every opportunity to help them sell as many cars and trucks as their markets could absorb.

Janice had been at her desk for about an hour, working on her schedule for the following week, when the owner of the agency, Marilee Banacek (not her real name), came in and asked a rhetorical question, “Got a minute?”

“Sure do,” Janice said, waving Marilee in with a smile. “What’s up?”

Marilee bit her bottom lip, looked away for a long moment, then sat in a chair in front of Janice’s desk and said, “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to tell you, straight out: I’m shutting down the business.”

“What? Shutting down the business? I know things are tough, but . . . ”

“The factory just announced it’s cutting off funding for co-op advertising.”

“Is this temporary or . . . “

Marilee sighed, “I got an Email early this morning announcing that, effective immediately, the factory has terminated all projects and canceled all progress payments.”

“All projects, all progress payments?” Janice asked.

“Yup,” Marilee said. “All projects and all progress payments, including last month’s check and the check we were supposed to receive next week. I’m maxed out on my credit cards, American Express has been calling, and I’m upside down on my house. With this credit crunch, I can’t borrow any more to keep things going. So, after thirty-two years of working six and seven day weeks to build this business, I’m 64 and broke.”

A couple hours later, after a series of tearful hugs and promises to keep in touch with 11 other good people who’d also lost their jobs through no fault of their own, with a small box of personal items in the back seat of her year-old Ford Fusion, Janice pulled away for the last time from the building she’d come to consider a second home.

As she headed out in traffic, all she could think of was how her husband, Tim, would react when she gave him the news.

Tim owned a small head-hunting company and business had been lousy for the last several months. He hadn’t billed a placement since August and still hadn’t collected that fee. With no money coming in, he’d been forced to lay off three assistants, and, for the first time in the twenty-six years he’d owned his own business, he was seriously thinking about closing down the office and looking for a job – any job – just to bring in some money to augment Janice’s paycheck.

For the first time in their twenty-three year marriage, Janice and Tim were forced to tap into savings to pay the monthly bills . . . Visa and MasterCard, mortgage payments, and loans on Janice’s Fusion and Tim’s two year old F150.

After deductions for taxes and health insurance, Janice’s $50,000.00 annual salary barely paid for essentials like food, clothing, utilities, and university tuition for their nineteen year old freshman daughter, Kimberly.

As Janice drove home, she realized that even though Tim had always provided primary support for the family, the simple fact that she could count on a paycheck every other Friday, provided a level of security she wasn’t sure she could live without. She also realized that not only had she lost a job, she’d also lost a group of friends she’d known and worked with for two decades; good people who provided a level of emotional support she certainly didn’t want to give up.

She walked into her house and realized that everything, while actually the same, looked different . . . she’d never seen the familiar through the eyes of someone who was completely useless, someone who was unable to contribute to anyone or anything.

Janice realized that her only challenge now was to get her emotions in check. She didn’t want Tim to see her like this. He had enough problems; he didn’t need to watch his wife come unglued.

Thank goodness, Janice thought as she cried herself to sleep on the living room sofa last Friday afternoon, Kimberly’s not home to see me like this.

Copyright © 2008 by l.t. Dravis. All rights reserved.

 If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at LTDAssociates@msn.com

(goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Wednesday, November 19, 2008 – HEY, CONGRESS . . . STOP THE POSTURING!

            If you don’t want to bail out Detroit, don’t!

If you do, do.

But whatever you do, stop the public posturing!

You’ve only been grilling Detroit bigwigs for one day but we’re already sick of your ‘sound-bite’ complaints . . . Okay?

Besides, though you may not believe it, we don’t need you to tell us what’s wrong with Detroit.

We know what’s wrong with Detroit; they’re not selling enough cars.

And, because they’re not selling enough cars, General Motors is burning through cash at the rate of $2 billion a month.

We understand that at that rate, GM will soon run out of money . . . who wouldn’t?

We’ve also figured out that Chrysler is on its last legs.

And, we know that although Ford may not be in as bad shape as its ‘brothers-in-arms’, that big blue ain’t exactly sittin’ in high cotton.

            We know that bankruptcy filings are possible, but we wonder, why would you push the Big Three that far?

            What’s the gain?

            Sure, you get to make political points and let us know how tough you are, but though the posturing is important to you, it isn’t to us.

            We don’t care about how tough you are, we care about 3 million Americans who will lose their jobs; we care about thousands of Big Three vendors that will fail; we care about thousands of Chrysler, Ford, and GM dealerships that will lose even more customers if one or more of the Big Three file for bankruptcy protection; and we care about the ‘rumble’ effect that will take away tax revenues from entire states, counties, cities, and towns if the Big Three go down.

You want guarantees that the Big Three will become more efficient to be more competitive?

Okay . . . spell out those guarantees . . . chapter and verse!

You want the Big Three to build more fuel efficient cars and trucks?

Okay . . . tell them what you want and when you want it!

You want the Big Three to renegotiate union contracts?

Okay . . . tell them how much you think the unions should give up and when.

Just lay it out . . . tell them . . . and us . . . the truth about what you want.

Detroit will either do what you want or it won’t.

Don’t forget that the current crisis isn’t entirely the fault of the Big Three; after all, for the past eight years you and the Bush Administration overspent the nation into virtual bankruptcy, diluting capital available for consumer lending; causing unprecedented small business failures; helping to cause the Wall Street Meltdown and subsequent credit crunch and huge job losses.

So, what do you plan to do now about easing credit and what do you plan to do now about creating more jobs so more Americans can buy more of those more efficient cars Detroit will produce after your new rules and regulations kick in?

Huh?

 
Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

 
If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

 

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Monday, November 17, 2008 – We can’t afford to waste another minute watching the Bush Administration, the House of Representatives, and the United States Senate waste their time and our money with the absurd, nonsensical political gamesmanship that has defined the state of this government’s so-called efforts to ‘fix’ the economy.

Isn’t it time we told those geniuses what to do, how to do it, and when to do it?

Where do we start?

We’d be wasting our time trying to tell George Bush or Dick Cheney to get to work, so we have to get after Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

We have to tell them to get to work and stay at work until the economy is headed in the right direction . . . if that means no more recesses or holidays for the House and the Senate . . . so what?

Hey, Harry and Nancy . . . if you want to take off Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day . . . okay, but that’s it!

You and all your colleagues have been paid big bucks by taxpayers for years; we’ve paid your office expenses; we’ve paid for your health insurance; we’ve paid for your security; we’ve supported your staff; we’ve supported your cushy lifestyle for too long and, now, it’s time for you to earn your keep.

It’s time for you to fix the economy.

How?

You do two simple things.

1. You stop handing out billions of taxpayer dollars to financial institutions . . . it ain’t working.

2. You create jobs . . . because if you want people to spend, they need to work.

And, to make sure people work, you gotta create jobs.

By the way, if you want to keep your paychecks from bouncing, you need to create some tax revenue.

To generate tax revenue, you gotta create . . . yep, you got it . . . jobs!

Okay . . . now that the concept is clear, where do you start?

Simple . . . convene a joint session of the House of Representatives and the United States Senate to write legislation necessary to:

1.      Implement Job Retention and Job Creation Strategy – Short-Term – 30 to 60 days from start to job creation

a.       Convene a Small Business conference in each Congressional District to determine how best to use private and public funds to prevent layoffs and create new jobs

b.      Provide private and public funding, technologies, and information to assist Small businesses to generate sales revenues, cash flow, and profitability required to retain employees and create new jobs as they develop, build, and  rebuild community assets and infrastructure utilizing Green technologies and products

c.       Provide fast-track contract bid processes for qualified Small Businesses to win contracts and retain employees and create new jobs as they build, rebuild, and repair infrastructure assets

2.      Implement a Job Retention and Job Creation Strategy – Long-Term – 61 to 180 days from start to job creation

a.       Convene General Business regional conferences in ten standard Federal Regions to determine how best to invest institutional, private, and public resources to increase Medium and Large business participation in product and service job-intensive, inclusive, and innovative markets

b.      Assess occupational mobility to help Medium and Large businesses retain employees and create new employment opportunities as they develop, build, and  rebuild community assets and infrastructure utilizing Green technologies and products

c.       Provide contract bid opportunities for Medium and Large businesses to retain employees and create new jobs by rebuilding, repairing, and building infrastructure assets

3.      Keys to Ensure Success

a.       Create jobs that not only produce products and deliver services, but also provide pathways to meaningful, secure, upwardly mobile, long-term employment

b.      Build-in the training necessary to prepare workers to perform job functions as required

c.       Provide flexible, efficient, and proactive public service support for each Private and/or Public project

  LIKE IT OR NOT, FOLKS, we’re in uncharted economic waters these days. The old saw about how government should allow markets to seek their own levels is as obsolete today as white wall tires.             The only entity that can solve the massive economic mess the Bush Administration left us is the Federal Government.             Who else has the resources?             Who else can borrow or print the trillions of dollars it’s going to take to get us back on our economic feet?             It ain’t Chrysler, GM, or Ford; it ain’t Bank of America, Citigroup, or Wells Fargo; it ain’t even Microsoft or Oprah!             It’s the government.             Don’t like it? I don’t. But what choice do we have?             As he said so often in the campaign, President-elect Obama understands that the only way to move consumers back into malls, restaurants, car dealerships, RV dealers, and realtors’ offices, is to put them back to work. American workers need to keep the jobs they have or replace the jobs they’ve lost . . . NOW! We have to create a new economy that continually expands its capacity to absorb more and more jobs; an economy that continues to create jobs as we shift from the initial, ‘rebuild-the-long-neglected-infrastructure’ phase to the production of high value products, services, and technologies. I’m not talking about ‘make-work’ jobs . . . I’m talking about creating jobs that challenge workers to learn new capabilities and skills; I’m talking about jobs that provide a living wage; jobs that give workers and their families the security of knowing they’re covered by adequate health insurance; jobs that provide meaningful retirement benefits; jobs that generate significant local, state, and federal tax revenues. I’m also talking about productive jobs that make businesses healthy by generating consistent revenues, cash flow, and profits.   Additional points to ponder include:   ·         Offer tax credits of up to $5,000.00 for each new job created . . . provided the employee is retained for two years ·         Offer additional financial and contractual incentives for businesses that create products and technologies to reduce energy consumption and offer contract extensions for companies that cut costs, improve quality, and reduce delivery times ·         Create mutually profitable training partnerships between private enterprise and public education to train workers to produce and deliver Green products and technologies (design, development, and production of high-efficiency wind generators, etc.) ·         Create joint Public/Private partnerships to leverage investment in core business enterprises (infrastructure and transportation innovations) ·         Establish electronically connected local Public/Private service centers to coordinate, manage, and monitor individual and joint projects ·         Coordinate, manage, and monitor the delivery of funding for each project to maximize local economic development ·         Invite union participation in training and job placement wherever and whenever possible   EPILOGUE: Come on, folks . . . we need to take a stand here! We can’t let Washington throw away the future of the nation because our Representatives and Senators are too busy with petty self-interest, obsolete ideologies, and foolish power plays to take care of the people’s business. It’s time for Congress to look at this crisis for what it is, not for how each party can twist it to gain some stupid political advantage.             They can’t work their usual 3-day weeks any more. They can’t take all their little ‘recesses’ and holidays. It is time for each of the 535 Representatives and Senators to finally stand up and do their jobs by creating jobs. It’s time for them to work as hard as we do! Anything less – at this critical moment in time – would be shameful. Isn’t it time to contact your Representative and your Senator and tell them what you want them to do? If not now, when . . . ?

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

             Want to go to a Blog that listens to you and speaks for you as well?

               GO TO bothsidesnowbiz.blogspot.com/ AND SPEAK UP . . .

PRESS THE POLITICIAN . . .

A Fictional Sunday morning News Show like you’ve never seen

TODAY’S TOPIC: TO HECK WITH THE BIG THREE?

DETROIT, MICHIGAN – Sunday, November 16, 2008 – WE are tuned in to a fictitious Sunday morning news program, PRESS THE POLITICIAN, and we’re watching the moderator discuss the Senate vote tomorrow on whether or not to bail out the Big Three Auto makers with two fictional Senators, one Democratic and one Republican:

FICTIONAL MODERATOR NELSON NEWSMAN (a middle-aged guy with white hair, a ready smile and sharp as a tack): Good morning, America. The big question facing us today is how far should government bailout programs go? Specifically, can we afford to bailout the Big Three Automakers and if we do, will they come back in a month, three months, or six months for more money? Or, should we just let America’s car companies go bankrupt?

            I would like to welcome two experienced Senators to our program this morning . . . Senator Carl Blue from a northern state and Senator Richard Red from a southern state are here to present two diametrically opposed positions on a Senate bill to ‘give’ or ‘loan’ $25 billion in taxpayer money to ‘bailout’ the Big Three carmakers.

Senator Red, you seem to be the front man on the Republican side of the effort to kill any legislation that would bailout carmakers. Is there anything your Democratic colleagues can do to change your mind on a bill you’ve been so vocally opposed to? You seem to have ignored or perhaps you don’t care about a recent report from CAR Research, a non-profit research corporation which says that if Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors fail, 3 million jobs will be lost, costing $158 billion in personal income, and $60 billion in tax revenues in 2009. How do you respond?”

FICTIONAL SENATOR RED (R - Southern State) (another middle-aged man but this one has brown hair . . . he squints a lot, talks out of the right side of his mouth and speaks with a pronounced southern drawl):  “Detroit isn’t building the kinds of cars and trucks Americans want to buy. They’ve refused to invest in fuel-efficient cars and trucks for decades and now they’re getting what they deserve. The Big Three have been run for decades by a bunch of jackasses and I don’t know why we should reward their incompetence. Besides, the $25 billion they’re asking for now is just the first of a series of bailouts these guys will want from us.”

MODERATOR NELSON NEWSMAN: “Whoa, wait a second . . . you’re playing a blame game here. How does any of what you’re saying help the millions of workers who will lose their jobs if the Big Three bailout bill is defeated? How can you play politics with what could be the single largest loss of jobs in the history of the nation?”

SENATOR RED: “Hey, Nelson, don’t get snotty with me! If you ever want to get me or any of my friends in the Senate to come on your program in the future, you’d better watch your tone and your words.  I’m a United States Senator and I don’t have to run for reelection for four more years. So I’ve got lots of political favors to trade before I have to face the voters again. So I’m going to push the Democrats as far as I can here . . . who knows how many millions in earmarks I can get out of this bailout business for my state, my supporters, and my lobbyists?”

NELSON NEWSMAN: “Senator Red . . . for the record, you didn’t respond with anything close to an answer to the question I asked. But, rather than beat a dead horse, I’ll turn to Senator Carl Blue, the long-time senator from the state where hundreds of thousands of auto workers live and work. You heard what Senator Red said. Do you agree with Senator Red when he says if the Senate approves a bailout, you’re only opening the door for the Big Three to come back to you for more money in the future?

FICTIONAL SENATOR BLUE (D – Northern State) (another middle-aged guy with a gray comb-over, a sincere smile, and a Midwest twang): “I can’t believe what I’m hearing . . . Senator Red actually revealed a little something about his true political character. How about that? Betcha the MSNBC is all over that story by nightfall. In any case, there are as many as 3 million jobs dependent upon the survival of the American auto industry. This is not a Wall Street problem . . . this is a problem that impacts Main Street in cities and towns all across the country. Besides, look at Europe . . . look at other countries around the world. They’re not going to allow their automotive industries fail. Why should we?”

MODERATOR NELSON NEWSMAN: “Don’t waste my audience’s time talking about what other countries will or won’t do . . . you and Senator Red were elected to protect your constituents. Each of you gets nearly $200 grand a year, you’ve got the best health insurance taxpayer money can buy, you’ve got people kissing up to you all day every day, and you’re locked into cushy jobs for the foreseeable future. Why can’t you stop the political double talk and get some work done for the people who pay you? The people who actually have to work for a living, the people whose lives you’re playing with, want to know whether you and Senator Red are going to take away their jobs, their pensions, and their health insurance, and . . . “

SENATOR BLUE (Interrupting): “. . . Hey, Nelson, don’t bust my chops! I’m the guy who’s for the Big Three bailout. Unlike Senator Red, I’m actually trying to save jobs, pensions, and health insurance . . . not only for the folks who work for General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford but I’m thinking about all the people who work for their suppliers, vendors, and dealerships.

“As far as what Senator Red said about Detroit’s management, you gotta admit these guys know how to build cars. Detroit’s quality today is more than comparable to anything produced by the Japanese, Germans, or Swedes. Detroit also knows how to make fuel-efficient cars . . . I mean, General Motors currently offers nine hybrids and offers twice as many cars and trucks that get over 30 miles to the gallon as any other car maker.

“Detroit is introducing new models to meet customer demand as quickly as it can . . . but keep in mind that while it only takes a few days, weeks, or months for the price of gasoline to double, it can take years for an automaker to create a design, build prototypes, go through the NHTSA and EPA testing process, refine, build, market, and deliver a new, more fuel-efficient car or truck.

“So, don’t give me that hackneyed baloney about the auto industry not trying to meet consumer demand.”

NELSON NEWSMAN: “Okay, okay, Senator Blue . . . calm down! Senator Red, did Senator Blue say anything that would stop you from filibustering to prevent the Big Three bailout from ever coming to a vote?”

SENATOR RED: “Carl and I are good friends. We run with the same group of wealthy, power crazy group of mostly white men and we’ve been friends forever. I mean, we think so much alike, we often finish each other’s sentences. However, when it comes to the Big Three bailout, I have to play my cards close to the vest. Carl understands that . . . he lets me play my game: I pretend I’m not going to support the bill while we negotiate behind closed doors for pork barrel projects I want . . . and then, when he’s looking for some reciprocity in the future, I do the same for him.”

NELSON NEWSMAN: “You completely ignored my question. Are you going to filibuster this bill to prevent it from coming to a vote or not?”

SENATOR RED (Laughing): “Hey, I didn’t know I’d have to give you straight answers to straight questions . . . what are you doing to us?”

NELSON NEWSMAN: “Since this is a fictional news program and we are fictional characters talking about a real problem, the author thought he’d actually make everyone be honest . . . you know . . . for a change?”

EPILOGUE: Okay . . . enough fiction . . . what’s the real deal here?

If the Big Three American carmakers don’t get a bailout beyond the $25 billion already approved to help them build more fuel-efficient cars, they’ll soon burn through their cash and they’ll be forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The experts think that General Motors will probably be the first to go, with Chrysler running a close second, and Ford running a distant third.

            Some dealers will close their doors before the bankruptcy, some will go out of business on the day Chrysler, Ford, or GM file for bankruptcy protection, and others will fail soon thereafter.

            When dealer locations shut down, as many as three quarters of a million jobs will be lost, sales tax revenues will be cut off to local communities, and property leases will go unpaid.

            Thousands of suppliers of raw materials and vendors who make the parts and pieces so critical to keep the assembly lines going will liquidate, or reorganize, throwing more thousands of workers out of jobs.

            Car and truck sales will slow down even more as consumers worried about lack of dealer service and future parts problems refuse to buy vehicles from a company in bankruptcy.

            So, let’s take a moment for a reality check here . . . What is the real cause of the current drop in car and light truck sales across the country?

            Is it, as Senator Red would like us to believe, because Detroit produces gas guzzling SUVs, doesn’t offer the product mix Americans want, and can’t or won’t produce quality vehicles?

Not at all . . . American car sales have plummeted because people can’t or won’t buy cars and trucks because of the Wall Street-induced credit crunch, job losses at the rate of 2 million a month, and the nation’s uncertain economic future.

Who, besides the Senator Reds of the world, can’t understand that?

And, what will the United States Senate do today about bailing out the Big Three carmakers?

We hope 100 Senators are smart enough to create a bailout plan that will not only help Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors emerge from the current economic mess, leaner, meaner, and more consistently profitable than ever.

We also hope the 100 are smart enough to design a plan that will return a profit to the taxpayers.

We can hope . . .

Can’t we?

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

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LOS ANGELES, CA – Friday, November 14, 2008 – HEY, TREASURY SECRETARY HANK PAULSON . . . what the heck’s going on?

            Less than a month ago you said government purchases of stock in banks stuck with so-called ‘toxic assets’ (talk about an oxymoron), represented a good investment for taxpayers. You said the government (nee taxpayers) would own shares in the form of warrants issued by banks. “This is an investment,” you said, “not an expenditure, and there is no reason to expect this program will cost taxpayers anything.”

Your immediate plan was to spend $250 billion in direct stock purchases; half of those dollars would go to the nine largest banks in the country and the other half would go to buy stock in thousands of other banks. Though the big nine banks would be receiving nearly $14 billion each, you didn’t require them or any of the other thousands of banks and other financial institutions to lend any portion of any of those taxpayer billions to business and/or consumers.

You said that taxpayer cash handed out by the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), would increase banks’ confidence so they will “deploy, not hoard, their capital,”

TRANSLATION: If we give banks billions of dollars, they’ll lend it!

Okay . . .

Given everything you said up to October 20, thinking taxpayers would think your plan was working . . . that business and consumer lending would begin to ‘free-up’; that the hemorrhaging of jobs would slow or even stop; that the rate of foreclosures would begin to decline; that some of us might even be able to sleep the whole night through.

Then, on Wednesday, November 12, you suddenly announced that you were abandoning the idea of purchasing bank stocks (aka ‘toxic assets’); you said, however, that you were going to continue to use (the balance of) $250 billion (36% of the $700 billion) to buy stock in banks to ‘encourage them to resume more ‘normal lending’.

And, if I was confused before Wednesday (and I was), I’m really confused now, Hank.

Does your turnabout mean the original plan, your plan, was the wrong plan?

If so, why did you present it in the first place and why did the House and Senate go along with it?

You told CNBC today that the ‘facts had changed’ which caused you to abandon your original plan.

Okay . . . does that mean the banking system that was in such bad shape less than a month ago is now in good shape?

If that’s the case, why not put our checkbook away, finish your work with the transition team, and finalize your post-January 20 vacation plans?

But, wait a minute, you are still Secretary of the Treasury and, despite the quarter of a trillion dollars you’ve doled out to banks, the economy is still in the tank (not for you, not for the big shot Wall Streeters who’ll run like rats with million dollar bonuses and golden parachutes, not for George W. Bush or Dick Cheney or any of the rest of the Bush bunch who will ride off into the Washington, D.C. sunset with cushy pensions, book deals, and lives of privilege and ease) for the millions of hard working Americans and their children who are paying and will continue to pay with lost jobs, savings, retirement accounts, homes, and dignity for Wall Street greed and Washington incompetence.

So, what will you do with the remaining 64% of the $700 billion to protect millions more businesses, jobs, families, and homeowners who’ve been put at risk by greedy financiers and inept politicians?

At this point, Hank, you may be wondering (as I’m sure you’ve wondered thousands of times in the past several months), how did you become responsible for saving the entire economy of the United States of America?

In other words, who died and made you the big economic Sheriff of America?

Well, Sheriff Paulson, you got yourself in this spot by accepting a job with an administration too stupid, too incompetent, and too short-sighted, for too many years to build a strong, vibrant, flexible economy.

And, while we all understand that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzalez, et al, were stupid, we can’t ignore the fact that the House and Senate were even stupider.

The House and Senate allowed all those stupid people, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez and the rest of the Bush bunch, to run the country into the ground . . . for nearly eight very long years.

So, here we are . . . relying on you and the best and the brightest in the Department of the Treasury to save the nation and what have you done?

You’ve spent more than a third of the $700 billion and the credit crisis is still in crisis, hundreds of thousands of people are losing their jobs each week, foreclosures continue to climb, bankruptcy filings continue to increase, and there is no reason to believe anything will change any time soon.

Doesn’t sound like we’re getting much for our money, does it?

Mind if I ask a question?

If I worked for you at Goldman Sachs and I handled my job like you and your group have handled this bailout mess, would I still have a job?

And, if not, why not?

           

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

 

If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

 

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Friday, November 7, 2008 – WITH BILLIONS OF TAXPAYER BAILOUT DOLLARS FLOODING BANKS, WILL THE ECONOMY TURNAROUND TODAY, TOMORROW, NEXT WEEK, NEXT MONTH . . . EVER?

The Bush administration just announced plans to borrow $550 billion to finance the Wall Street bailout through the end of the year.

At the same time, the Federal Reserve said it will boost interest payments to banks and the Treasury Department plans to auction off $55 billion in government bonds next week.

These efforts won’t do anything more than put a slight dent in the stack of cash required to fund the $700 billion bailout plus cover the $1 trillion deficit anticipated for next year.

Nevertheless, with all that cash flowing into banks, the economy should begin to stabilize . . . sooner or later . . . shouldn’t it?

After all, didn’t all those ‘experts’ who testified before Congress a couple of months ago assure us that as soon as bailout bucks hit banks to relieve their liquidity problems, credit would be freed-up, businesses and consumers would start spending, folks would stop losing their jobs, and the economy would stabilize and begin to grow again?

I’m not talking about ‘immediate’ results . . . I don’t expect the economy to turn around on a dime . . . it won’t because it can’t.

But, were the ‘experts’ telling us the truth when they said the ‘bailout’ would fix the economy?

Let’s go beyond the sales pitch laid on us by all those ‘experts’ and look at the bailout package for what it is.

The bailout was designed to save banks from a liquidity crisis.

It was not designed to increase the buying power of the millions of individuals and hundreds of thousands of businesses who actually drive the economy.

While the House and Senate want us to believe they did something great for the nation by surrendering $700 billion to the Treasury Department to ‘save the economy’, that money is not likely to ever reach the people – consumers and business owners – who ultimately need cash and credit to spend the economy out of this recession.

We don’t need some high-falutin’ expert with a bunch of letters after his or her name to tell us that credit is essential to get the economy moving again. It’s an uncomfortable truth hard-working Americans live with every day.

In these days of tighter credit standards, business and consumers can’t get new credit essentially because they can’t pay back current credit. So, they can’t spend.

And if business and consumers can’t spend, they can’t create demand for products and services, more jobs will be lost, more businesses will fail, and the recession will continue to deepen and extend.

The solution to the economic legacy left us by eight years of the combined arrogance, incompetence, and impotence of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and a Republican House and Senate lies not in stuffing billions of taxpayer dollars into the back pockets of bankers but in increasing the buying power of consumers and business.

And, unless and until the ‘experts’ get that concept through their thick skulls, the recession will continue to spread . . . ever deeper and wider.

But we don’t have to wait.

We have the power to change things.

Contact your representative and senators – incumbents and new ones, if you have new ones – and ask them to support or even introduce the Debt Relief Act of 2008.

If they don’t know anything about the Debt Relief Act of 2008, don’t be surprised . . . I’m just about to write an abbreviated version of it.

Read on:

DEBT RELIEF ACT OF 2008

TITLE: This is a bill to provide authority for the Federal Government to purchase secured and unsecured personal and business credit card debt, secured and unsecured personal and business loans, and mortgage debt at discounted rates to be repaid to the government plus interest over definitive periods of time. This bill is designed to prevent disruption in the economy and the financial system and to provide significant returns on investment to taxpayers. Specifically, this bill will free up billions of dollars in buying power for businesses and consumers; Consumers who take advantage of the provisions of this bill will manage future credit wisely; Banks and other financial institutions will be relieved of potentially devastating losses and exorbitant collection costs; Small, medium, and large businesses – including service, manufacturing, distribution, transportation, and retailers – benefit from immediate, managed consumer purchasing power; Credit markets will be stabilized and will become predictable and profitable; and, Taxpayers will become shareholders in the U.S. economy with accumulated profits to lower taxes, offset government spending, and pay down the national debt.

SUMMARY

SECTION 101: Authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to establish a Debt Refinancing Program (DRP) to purchase secured and unsecured consumer and business debts from any financial institution in accordance with terms and conditions defined herein.

SECTION 102: CONSUMERS AND BUSINESS WITHOUT MORTGAGE DEBT - Directs the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase secured and unsecured business loans, credit card debt, personal loans, student loans, and vehicle loans from banks and financial institutions at a discounted rate of twenty percent (20%) for qualified individuals and businesses with proven ability to repay on a monthly basis over a term of up to fifteen (15) years, plus interest at the rate of six percent (6%) per year. Monthly payments will be automatically deducted from payroll income, business income, investment income, insurance income, retirement income, and all other forms of income, no matter the source or frequency. EXAMPLE: Total debt acquired by the Treasury department in the amount of $50,000.00 (discounted to $40,000.00) for an individual would be paid back at the rate of $421.93 per month. Including the initial discount rate and interest revenue, total gross profit generated for taxpayers would be: $35,947.40.

SECTION 103: CONSUMERS AND BUSINESSES WITH MORTGAGE DEBT - Directs the Secretary of the Treasury to purchase secured and unsecured business loans, credit card debt, mortgages, personal loans, student loans, and vehicle loans from banks and financial institutions at a discounted rate of fifteen percent (15%) for qualified individuals and businesses with proven ability to repay on a monthly basis over a term of up to thirty (30) years, plus interest at the rate of six percent (6%) per year. Monthly payments will be automatically deducted from payroll income, business income, investment income, insurance income, retirement income, and all other forms of income, no matter the source or frequency. If the home is sold prior to repayment of the loan, the federal government would be entitled to half of the profit but would not sustain a loss. EXAMPLE: Total debt acquired by the Treasury department in the amount of $350,000.00 (discounted to $315,000.00) for each individual would be paid back at the rate of $2098.43 per month. Including the initial discount rate and interest revenue, total gross profit generated for taxpayers would be: $439,434.80.

SECTION 104: Individuals who participate in DRP, irrespective of current credit rating, would qualify provided they can prove the ability to make monthly payments, agree to attain a minimum 700 FICO score within 24 months, maintain all appropriate forms of insurance on collateral, and file state and federal tax returns, subject to annual audit, on time. There would be no prepayment penalties.

SECTION 105: Individuals who participate in DRP and who serve the nation would be credited with a portion of the monthly payment, dependent upon service rendered. For example, those who serve in the armed forces could receive 75% credit of monthly payments for their period of service, without limitation. Others who teach in inner city schools or practice medicine in rural communities could receive 50% credit of monthly payments for their period of service, without limitation. If then, a homeowner served in the military or taught in inner city schools or served in another approved vocation for thirty years, he or she would able to retire, debt-free, with a paid-for home, and with a substantial retirement income. Done right, we could create a generation of financially secure retirees in this country by 2038.

SECTION 106: Directs the Secretary of the Treasury to integrate DRP within the existing infrastructure of the Treasury Department so as to not incur excessive program management costs.

SECTION 107: Directs the Secretary of the Treasury to authorize financial institutions to operate as financial agents of the Treasury Department with no compensation or reimbursement of expenses associated with DRP and to establish protocols to purchase, hold, and sell secured and unsecured debts and collateral, thereof.

SECTION 108: Directs the Secretary of the Treasury to designate local agents to monitor transactions to prevent financial irregularities, including sales or disposals of collateral without prior Department of Treasury approval. Exemption: Collateral and/or debt acquired by the Treasury Department acquired through an acquisition, merger, or purchase of collateral or debt from a financial institution in bankruptcy, under conservatorship, or in receivership.

SECTION 109: Requires the Secretary of the Treasury to deposit all funds, deposits, and receipts collected from participating financial institutions, individuals, and businesses into the Treasury of the United States.

SECTION 110: Establishes an Oversight Board to monitor, review, and report to Congress on expenditures, obligations, assets, and revenue resultant from the purchase, management, disposition, and sale of debt and collateral under this Act.

SECTION 111: Directs the Secretary of the Treasury to report monthly to Congress regarding assets, liabilities, expenditures, collections, and the status of regulatory oversight.

SECTION 112: Authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury or his designee to negotiate the sale or other disposition of any collateral or asset acquired under this Act. Requires the Secretary of the Treasury to deposit all revenue and proceeds from the sale of any and all collateral and assets into the Treasury of the United States.

SECTION 113: Directs the Secretary of the Treasury to manage this Act in accordance with all applicable Federal, State, and local laws, regulations, and protocol.

SECTION 114: Subjects the actions of the Secretary of the Treasury under this Act to judicial review.

SECTION 115: Terminates this Act, subject to Congressional revue, on December 31, 2009. Authorizes a one year extension of this Act if the Secretary of the Treasury submits an approved certification to Congress.

 SECTION 116: Authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury or his designee to negotiate the sale or other disposition of any collateral or asset acquired under this Act. Requires the Secretary of the Treasury to deposit all revenue and proceeds from the sale of any and all collateral and assets into the Treasury of the United States.

 Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

 If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Want to go to a Blog that listens to you and speaks for you as well? GO TO bothsidesnowbiz.blogspot.com/ AND SPEAK UP . . .

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – November 5, 2008 – Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." – ARTICLE II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution

Good stuff.

An essential element of our democracy: The leader of the nation stands before the world and affirms he (or she, some day soon) will preserve, protect, and defend our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.

No wonder we’ve survived as a nation for 219 years since George Washington first spoke those words on April 30, 1789, followed by 42 subsequent Presidents who’ve repeated that oath of office.

The first inaugural was actually held on March 4, 1801 (the 20th Amendment to the Constitution changed the inaugural date to January 20 in 1937) when Thomas Jefferson, our third President, was sworn in.

But what’s with these inaugural balls . . . you know those extravagant parties newly elected Presidents typically throw for themselves?

Why do they cost so much and why have costs escalated so dramatically over the years?

Let’s go back 35 years and track who spent what and when.

 ·         Before they both resigned from office, Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew spent about $4 million to congratulate themselves in 1973.

·         In the 1977 Inauguration Day parade, Jimmy Carter not only delighted thousands of spectators by walking down Pennsylvania Avenue, holding hands with Rosalynn, he also cut inauguration costs to $3.5 million.

·         Ronald Reagan rolled out his revolution by raising the inaugural ball bar to $16 million in 1981.

·         The Reagan group then bumped the inaugural ball bar to $20 million in 1985.

·         Not to be outdone by his former boss, George H.W. Bush spent $30 million on self-congratulations in 1989.

·         Bill Clinton’s first inauguration in 1993 cut inaugural costs to a mere $25 million.

·         But in the second Clinton term, in 1997, inaugural costs jumped to $29 million.

·         George W. Bush and Dick Cheney spent $30 million congratulating themselves for taking a court-ordered election in 2001.

·         Bush and Cheney really went wild in 2005 after they actually won an election and spent $40 million on 9 lavish inaugural balls.

Okay . . . so how much do taxpayers pay for all this political partying, glad-handing, back-slapping, and access-creation?

We pay direct and indirect costs for House and Senate members and staff to come up with a joint House and Senate committee to plan and budget inaugural ceremonies, to prepare the Capitol Rotunda for use in the case of bad weather, and to provide money to archive inaugural documents, files, and records. We also pay direct and indirect costs for security (Secret Service, Capitol Police, U.S. Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard).

If that isn’t enough, Congress also generously devotes $1 million of our money for the swearing-in ceremony (why it would cost $27,771.78 per word to administer the 36 word (including the President-elect’s first and last names) oath of office is beyond me).

Additionally, the Office of Personnel Management has determined that Inauguration day should be a paid-holiday for thousands upon thousands of taxpayer-paid federal employees who work ‘“in the District of Columbia, Montgomery or Prince George’s Counties in Maryland, Arlington or Fairfax Counties in Virginia, or the cities of Alexandria or Fairfax in Virginia, and who [are] regularly scheduled to perform non-overtime work on Inauguration Day”.

Though we may never know exactly how many millions of taxpayer dollars go to support all those Federal employees who cool their heels on the ‘Inauguration Day Federal Holiday’, I’d bet it’s a bunch.

So, who pays the balance of the bills for all that inaugural partying?

You won’t like the answer because . . . despite volumes of campaign rhetoric every candidate spews about the evils of influence peddling, despite every candidate’s cries about how ‘it’s time to throw out the lobbyists and special interests’, every President (so far) has launched his presidency by sending out legions of surrogates to beg and borrow cash, products, and ‘in-kind’ services from individuals, corporations, labor, lobbyists, and other special interests to pay for inaugural parties (aka ‘balls’).

Booze makers donate cases of champagne sporting the Presidential Seal, car makers happily loan hundreds of cars and trucks, hair care product manufacturers fall all over themselves to give free hair styles to politicos and journalists, HBO buys televised performances of celebrities for rebroadcast for profit, TV networks create special productions for sale with profits going to the Presidential Inaugural Committee, and on and on. Cash also pours in from tax-deductible donations from individuals, corporations, and labor unions, short-term, interest-free loans from the same groups to Inaugural organizers, ticket sales to inaugural balls and events, plus sales of inaugural trinkets (everything from medallions to temporary tattoos to umbrellas to yo-yos).

I know what you’re thinking.

But it is all legal (remember who’s writing the laws).

So, why would wealthy individuals, corporations, labor, lobbyists, and other special interests give up millions of dollars for inaugural balls?

Just because they were asked to?

Couldn’t be they’re trying to ‘buy’ access, could it?

Hmmmm.

President Obama . . . forget the inaugural balls and ask all the individuals, corporations, and labor unions who would otherwise have danced the night away to do something better with their money, products, time and efforts . . . like rebuilding homes and neighborhoods along the Gulf Coast still devastated three years after Katrina.

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Want to go to a Blog that listens to you and speaks for you as well?

                         GO TO bothsidesnowbiz.blogspot.com/ AND SPEAK UP . . .

ELECTION NIGHT – Tuesday, November 4, 2008 – HEY, WOLF, DAVID, KEITH, RACHEL, and all the other pundits on the two best cable news networks on the planet . . . Don’t drag out election night returns just for ratings!

Come on . . . you knew early on – after you called Ohio and Pennsylvania for Obama that he had more than enough electoral votes to win the presidency.

But you didn’t come clean with us . . . even after MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann suddenly asked the question that must have frosted the innards of every MSNBC bean counter and sales person who must have seen ratings beginning to melt away . . . you still dogged it.

And what was Olbermann’s question?

Simple . . . Keith suddenly asked whether or not Obama wouldn’t have more than 270 electoral votes after the polls in California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii closed.

And, David Gregory about passed out.

How about the look of panic that flicked across Wolf Blitzer’s face (I don’t think I’ve seen Wolf look that worried since he was stuck in Baghdad in 1991) when John King was playing with his electronic electoral map and realized that the race was over . . . long before it was supposed to be over; at least in terms of all those advertisers who were counting on CNN to hold the ratings as long – and as late – as possible.

Folks . . . we were working our laptops, working on your ‘calculator’ electoral maps and we’d already figured out what you weren’t telling us.

Next time – please – tell us the truth and give us great coverage on other aspects of the winning team’s transition personnel, plans, ideas, etc.

If your coverage is good enough (and as a CNN/MSNBC ‘Dead-Head’, I’m sure it will be), don’t worry . . . we’ll stay with you.

And you can tell your bean counters and sales people that we’ll probably watch your commercials, too.

Honest.

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

 

Want to go to a Blog that listens to you and speaks for you as well?

GO TO bothsidesnowbiz.blogspot.com/ AND SPEAK UP . . .

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Monday, November 3, 2008S – Millions of Americans are not only upside down on their mortgages, they’re also upside down on credit card debt, car loans, student loans and other debt, and have no way to create any more buying power. So, if consumers can’t borrow to buy, how on earth do the Washington gurus who engineered the $700 billion bailout think freeing up the credit markets will have any meaningful impact on the economy?

            Auto sales in October were down by 45% for General Motors, down by 30% for Ford, and down by 23% for Toyota.

            Circuit City announced today that it is closing 20% of its stores nationwide, costing more jobs and further reducing sales tax revenues.

            The Institute of Supply Management reported today that its manufacturing index fell to 38.9, the lowest reading since September, 1982 when the United States was in the depths of a recession.

            Why all the bad news? Because consumers can’t tap credit cards and they sure as heck can’t rely on home equity any longer, now can they?

If consumers – homeowners plus nearly 100 million renters – are buried under mountains of debt, how do Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson, et al, expect them to take advantage of the freer credit supposedly created by the $700 billion bailout and spend the economy out of recession?

Bernanke, Chair of the Federal Reserve Board, said Friday that “The boom in subprime mortgage lending was only part of a much broader credit boom characterized by under pricing of risk, excessive leverage, and the creation of complex and opaque financial instruments that proved fragile under stress. The unwinding of these developments is the source of the severe financial strain and tight credit that now damp economic growth.”

Translation into plain English: The Wall Street bailout won’t be enough to turn the economy around because subprime mortgage lending is only part of the problem.

Consumers need a restructuring of a variety of types of debt, including car loans, credit card debt, mortgages, student loans, and other debt.

Why?

Because trillions of dollars of current debt prevents consumers from purchasing future trillions in products and services.

So, how do we restructure consumer debt?

We turn it into a profit center for the federal government by purchasing all forms of consumer debt at a discount and restructuring that debt to be paid over extended periods of time, plus a fair rate of interest.

Let’s say that a consumer owes $25,000.00 in credit card debt, $10,000.00 in student loans, and has a $15,000.00 car loan. The total debt of $50,000.00 would be purchased from creditors by the federal government for $40,000.00 and would be secured by tangible property (in this case, the car would be released to the consumer upon receipt of a cash payment or cumulative monthly payments equal to its appraised value). The debt would be paid back by mandatory withholding of monthly payments of $421.93 from the consumer’s paycheck income and/or business income and tax refunds for a period of fifteen years at 6%. This example would generate a gross profit for the taxpayers of $35,947.40.

If a homeowner owed $300,000.00 on a mortgage, $25,000.00 in credit card debt, $10,000.00 in student loans, and had a $15,000.00 car loan, the total debt of $350,000.00 would be purchased from creditors by the federal government for $315,000.00 and would be secured by tangible property (in this case, title to the home and the car, either or which would be released to the consumer upon receipt of a cash payment or cumulative monthly payments equal to the appraised value of either item). The debt would be paid by mandatory withholding of monthly payments of $2098.43 from the consumer’s paycheck income and/or business income and tax refunds for a period of thirty years at 6%. This example would generate a gross profit for taxpayers of $439,434.80. If the home is sold prior to repayment of the loan, the federal government would be entitled to half of the profit but would not sustain a loss.

Consumers, irrespective of current credit rating, would qualify provided they can prove the ability to make monthly payments, agree to attain a minimum 700 FICO score within 24 months, maintain all appropriate forms of insurance on collateral, and file state and federal tax returns, subject to annual audit, on time. There would be no prepayment penalties.

Consumers who serve the nation would be credited with a portion of the monthly payment, dependent upon service rendered. For example, those who serve in the armed forces could receive 75% credit of monthly payments for their period of service, without limitation. Others who teach in inner city schools or practice medicine in rural communities could receive 50% credit of monthly payments for their period of service, without limitation. If then, a homeowner served in the military or taught in inner city schools or served in another approved vocation for thirty years, he or she would able to retire, debt-free, with a paid-for home, and with a substantial retirement income. Done right, we could create a generation of financially secure retirees in this country by 2038.

This approach strengthens the economy in a number of ways:

1.      Billions of dollars in buying power are freed up for consumers

2.      Consumers who take advantage of the program will manage future credit wisely

3.      Banks and other financial institutions are relieved of potentially devastating losses and exorbitant collection costs

4.      Small, medium, and large businesses – including service, manufacturing, distribution, transportation, and retailers – benefit from immediate, managed consumer purchasing power

5.      Credit markets are stabilized and become predictable and profitable

6.      Taxpayers become shareholders in the U.S. economy because they accumulate profits that can be used to lower taxes, offset government spending, and pay down the national debt

Because a consumer bailout is politically distasteful, it would take courageous, thoughtful, intelligent leadership and cooperation on the part of government, business, and consumer groups to fashion a viable program  . . . but the risk of not creating a meaningful way to unburden the primary source of economic driving power in this country – the everyday, average consumer – may be fatal for the nation’s economy.

So, it’s time to make a decision . . . which way do you want to go America . . . up or down?

Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.

 
If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

 

Want to go to a Blog that listens to you and speaks for you as well?

                         GO TO bothsidesnowbiz.blogspot.com/ AND SPEAK UP . . .