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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LLCF who wrote (53491)	8/2/2012 9:27:28 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Obama Revises Economic History In New Ad Election 2012: The president's re-election strategy boils down to: What I've done ain't so hot, but do we really want to go back to Republicans' disastrous policies? Actually, yes, because they weren't disastrous. That's the big lie. And for the first time, an increasingly desperate Obama has personally delivered it in a new campaign commercial. In the ad, debuting this week in key battleground states, Obama looks directly into the camera and stresses the stakes of the election. "You have a choice to make," he intones. "It's a choice between two very different plans for our country." Then he warns: "Gov. Romney's plan would cut taxes for the folks at the very top. Roll back regulations on big banks. And he says that if we do, our economy will grow and everyone will benefit." Obama continues: "But you know what? We tried that top-down approach. It's what caused the mess in the first place." It's plain the president is trying to portray Romney as a continuation of Bush economic policies — which he describes as more tax cuts and deregulation — and which he contends caused the recession and stunted the recovery. Of course, this is revisionism writ large. For starters, Republican deregulation could not have caused the recession because there was nothing of the sort in the run-up to the crisis. In fact, it was Bush who publicly called for financial regulation — namely, reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the central culprits in the crisis — no fewer than 17 times before 2008. What brought down the economy was overregulation of the mortgage industry through the Community Reinvestment Act, which controlled bank underwriting, and HUD, which controlled the underwriting of Fannie and Freddie and primary lenders. Now what's retarding the recovery is Obama's re-regulation of that sector. And far from triggering the recession, the Bush tax rate cuts of 2003 sparked a 46-consecutive-month boom in small-business job gains. "In January 2003, I called on Congress to accelerate the tax cuts from 2001, which had not fully taken effect, and to pass further tax cuts that would encourage business investment and job creation," Bush said. He was right. The final round of tax cuts took effect in May 2003, when the economy was still soft from the Clinton recession and 9/11. By September, the economy started adding jobs again. After the tax cuts, unemployment averaged 5.3%, compared with Obama's 9%. The problem is Obama keeps threatening to end the Bush tax cuts "for the rich." As a trained agitator, Obama knows how to "rub raw the sores of social discontent," as his mentor Saul "The Red" Alinsky was fond of saying. As a trained business leader and former governor, Romney knows how to turn companies and economies around. In this, the "choice" could not be more clear.

To: LLCF who wrote (53491)	8/2/2012 9:28:41 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	3 Recommendations Respond to of 71588

Labor Dept. Waives 60-Day Notice To Help Obama Win Politics: An administration that doesn't want layoff notices required by law going out days before the November election is telling defense contractors they don't have to send them for the cuts required by sequestration. As the heads of major defense contractors Lockheed Martin, EADS North America, Pratt & Whitney and Williams-Pyro testified recently before the House Armed Services Committee, they are bound by law to give employees 60 days' notice if their jobs are going to be terminated as a result of sequestration cuts scheduled for Jan. 2. Federal law under the WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice) Act required employers to give workers a minimum of 60 days notice before potential mass layoffs. That means layoff warning notices could go out to hundreds of thousands of workers just days before the presidential election, a prospect President Obama and his administration do not relish. Some $500 billion in defense-spending reductions are scheduled to kick in beginning Jan. 2. These cuts come on top of $487 billion in Defense Department cuts recently approved and threaten to not only to put our national security in jeopardy but also gut the skilled workforce in the aerospace industry. Robert Stevens, chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, told lawmakers that his company alone is looking at laying off roughly 10,000 employees from its 120,000 workforce. The layoffs would be the result of cuts to its largest programs, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the Littoral Combat Ship. To avoid the electoral consequences of these cuts, the Department of Labor (DOL) is informing defense contractors that since sequestration hasn't actually happened yet, and some in Congress are trying to find ways around it, it might be nice if they didn't obey federal law and send out the pink slips just this once. Otherwise, outraged voters might give President Obama a pink slip a few days later. The DOL has issued guidelines that acknowledge it is "currently known that sequestration may occur, it is also known that efforts are being made to avoid sequestration." So, Labor argues, the "WARN Act notice to employees of Federal contractors, including in the defense industry, is not required 60 days in advance of January 2, 2013, and would be inappropriate, given the lack of certainty about how the budget cuts will be implemented and the possibility that the sequester will be avoided before January." What is "inappropriate" is the Department of Labor playing election year political games to save the boss' political skin. It's the law and employees have the right to know what is about to hit them, not have the administration whistle past an economic graveyard of its own making. Interestingly, as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., points out, the DOL had previously argued that it has "no administrative or enforcement responsibility under (the WARN Act)" and "cannot provide specific advice or guidance with respect to individual situations." Well, it just did, and the threat to Obama's re-election chances by mass defense layoffs is the reason. There are a lot of voters in Northern Virginia, a critical swing state, who work for defense contractors, and cuts caused by sequestration will affect them and the future of their families. Nationwide, Stephen Fuller, director of George Mason University's Center of Regional Analysis, estimates the across-the-board reduction could cost the country 2.14 million jobs and increase unemployment by as much as 1.5 percentage points. "Sequestration is currently the law of the land, and our nation's workers have a right to know how these sequestration cuts which begin in January may impact them," Sen. McCain noted. They deserve to know when they're about to lose their jobs, and that President Obama did it for them. So do the voters

To: LLCF who wrote (53491)	8/2/2012 9:30:07 PM
From: joseffy	3 Recommendations Respond to of 71588

Obama was TOAST from the moment he sold out the US to Russia on an open mike.

To: LLCF who wrote (53491)	8/2/2012 9:34:57 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	2 Recommendations Respond to of 71588

Recovery Requires Spending Cuts, Not Fed Stimulus Ben has the right map. That's the assumption about Ben Ainslie, Britain's top sailor, as he competes in the Olympics this week. The rest of us can't see what charts Ainslie follows or precisely what he does. We can't even see him perform unless a TV camera uses the correct high-powered lens. But we know Ainslie knows which maps to use, and how to read them, even if he has a challenge ahead to win his fourth career gold medal. "Ben has the right map" is also the common assumption when it comes to Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, whose navigational prowess was tested this week, as the Federal Open Market Committee met. When it comes to monetary policy, one can broaden "Ben's map" to say "the Fed's map." About all we ourselves know from its post-meeting statements is that the Fed is likely to prescribe some "expansionary" policy, even a third round of quantitative easing, and that this is supposed to be good. Public confidence in the Fed is based more on faith in Fed charts and Bernanke's ability to use what the charts show. Maybe Ainslie's map-reading was off this week, as he trails in the Finn class competition. Perhaps the Fed has the wrong map altogether. That is the conclusion about the central bank drawn by two economists, the Nobel Memorial Prize winner Vernon Smith and Steven Gjerstad, after a review of the 11 U.S. recessions since World War II and as well as crises abroad. In a paper in a new book on economic growth pulled together by the Bush Institute, where I work, Smith and Gjerstad found results that suggest our traditional monetary chart books, especially the parts that advocate federal spending or money creation, betray great flaws. They reject the idea that more monetary stimulus can work now. "An expansionary monetary policy today is unlikely to generate a recovery, regardless of its size," they conclude. To see how they arrive at this bold contention it helps to spell out the orthodox line and then the Smith-Gjerstad finding. The basic premise at the Fed is that the central bank, with the help of Congress, navigates the economy like a ship through something called the business cycle, and that the North Star is data on business investment, such as a measure called "gross fixed investment" (spending on plants, machinery or roads). Smith and Gjerstad found that business investment isn't the North Star to measure progress. They found that a less-used datum, purchases of new single and multifamily homes, predicted the timing, depth and duration of recessions. They reject the very term "business cycle." "We believe that 'business cycle' is a poor description for economic fluctuations in the U.S. over the past 85 years," they say. "We found evidence that a household expenditure cycle generates a business investment cycle" — and not the other way. Another given in monetary policy is that the best thing a monetary captain can do is to practice what the monetary sailors call countercyclical policy: match force with force. Encountering rough waters, the Fed or Congress must pour fuel — money — into the economy, powering it through the great waves. The technicians' discussion these days isn't about whether to pour such fuel; it's about how to do so and when. Monetary policy affects housing, Smith and Gjerstad agree. But homeowners who owe more than their houses are worth won't take more loans or spend more money until their budgets look better. So quantitative easing won't work now. There is a third strategy in the standard chart book that goes with the wind instead of against it, the "procyclical" stance. A procyclical policy would withdraw money from the economy via monetary tightening or tax increases in a period when the economy is already losing money due to recession. Procyclicality is supposed to be lethal. It was what Bernanke warned against with his reference to the "fiscal cliff" that looms when tax increases take effect in January. Smith and Gjerstad argue that the best course for recovery seems to be for the government to practice austerity, by reducing spending, even during the recession. In other words, to adopt that dreaded procyclical position. Additionally, countries should focus on recovery through exports, they say, and let their currency depreciate to improve terms of trade for exporters. Smith and Gjerstad found that "when government expenditures were brought under control, the currency depreciated significantly and the growth rate of exports moves sharply ahead of imports." President Barack Obama's idea of an export-driven recovery makes sense. "The austerity-depreciation mechanism is remarkable," the authors say. Not all of us can endorse the emphasis on exports or depreciation. Adopting such changes in a new Fed chart book represents a more radical shift for the U.S., something greater than that mandated by the "audit the Fed" legislation that Congress just passed. All the audit-the-Fed bill does is give the public a waterside seat. Still, any legislation or paper that provides a close-up of monetary navigation, and makes new suggestions, deserves its own gold medal. You can't prepare for the trip if you're worried about a nonexistent cliff, or using charts that deny the very possibility of the next storm. • Shlaes is a Bloomberg columnist and the director of the Four Percent Growth Project at the Bush Institute

To: LLCF who wrote (53491)	8/2/2012 9:35:35 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	4 Recommendations Respond to of 71588

Obama stiffs California city $35,000 while Romney pays his bill Here's how much financial trouble Barack Obama's presidential campaign appears to be in: He's stiffing the California city of Newport Beach $35,000 for extra security costs incurred when the campaigner-in-chief held a fundraiser in the oceanfront community early this year. The bill is already nearly two months overdue. The Democratic National Committee and Secret Service are giving the city the old "Talk to them, No, talk to them" routine that would immediately get any real business operation on the Better Business Bureau's "Do Not Hire Again" list. The Democratic organization, which pulled in more than a million dollars at the February event, told City Manager Dave Kiff to talk to the Secret Service. The Secret Service told Kiff that it only handles security. never extra costs associated with added local police expenses such as motorcycle escorts, road closures, overpass guards and freeway ramp blocks. "Had this been a 'business trip' — if the president came to Newport Beach to talk about one of his policies with our residents," Kiff explained to City Council members, "the city would not have sent an invoice." Kiff says he'd just like the matter to go away, that Newport Beach is honored to have any president visit. However, this was a large private political fundraising event with local residents excluded. According to standard city policy, if the Chicago Democrat's May bill remains unpaid after 120 days, it will be turned over to a collection agency. Which shouldn't have much trouble tracking the campaign down, given all the flashing lights and extra security surrounding Obama's fundraisers every other day. The Deficit King is down in Florida again today. Oh, one other thing. In May Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney also held a campaign fundraiser in Newport Beach. Kiff sent him a bill too for extra police costs. It was paid in full within 30 days. But you might expect that from a successful businessman who turned a profit on the 2002 Olympics and balanced budgets in business and government. RELATED: 36 Obama aides owe $833,000 in back taxes

To: LLCF who wrote (53491)	8/2/2012 9:36:10 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	4 Recommendations Respond to of 71588

news.investors.com

To: LLCF who wrote (53491)	8/3/2012 10:12:01 AM
From: Peter Dierks	3 Recommendations Respond to of 71588

Ann Corrigen banned me for the truth Actually, she claims to have banned you for being offensive. While she may be more tolerant of the same behavior from those she agrees with I have the opinion that she is generally fair. I recall having requested you tone down the arrogance. For instance your post to calgal about Uncle Milty was arrogant. (http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=28311012) just like she banned me for predicting ... As far as predicting the future elections, how much do you expect Obama to lose to Governor Romney by?