General Motors is an ANTI-AMERICAN Company...

Drinking With Bob
April 20, 2009

I love his videos. I pop blood vessels in my head just watching them.
Rees

Geithner Needs More Power - Voids The Constitution

U.S. May Oust CEOs at Banks Needing ‘Exceptional’ Aid

By Jesse Westbrook
April 5, 2009

(Bloomberg) -- Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said he’s prepared to oust the senior management and boards of directors at banks that require “exceptional” assistance from the U.S. government.

“If in the future, banks need exceptional assistance in order to get through this, then we will make sure that assistance comes,” while ensuring taxpayers are protected, Geithner said today in an interview on the CBS “Face the Nation” program. “Where that requires a change in management and the board, then we will do that.”

Geithner noted that American International Group Inc., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had their chief executives removed after it became clear the companies couldn’t survive without government rescues. The Treasury is reviewing how much capital the biggest U.S. financial companies need in order to endure a severe economic downturn.

“Where we’ve had to do exceptional things,” the government has replaced management and boards of directors, Geithner said.

Geithner’s pledge comes as signs emerge that the world economy may be stabilizing. Confidence among U.S. consumers climbed last month from the lowest level on record, according to the Conference Board. U.K. house prices rose in March for the first time since October 2007, while Chinese manufacturing increased, reports last week showed.

Compensation Limits

The Treasury secretary pledged to enforce congressional legislation that limits pay at companies receiving government loans. Geithner said the Obama administration has no intention of letting banks get around the rules.

“Our obligation is to apply the laws that Congress just passed,” he said. “We want the American taxpayer’s assistance going to generate greater lending, not providing excess compensation.”

Treasury last month proposed a public-private partnership to spur investors to buy -- and banks to sell -- the illiquid real estate assets clogging lenders’ books. The program relies on financing from the Federal Reserve and debt guarantees from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and it could use up to $100 billion from the government’s bank-rescue fund.

Geithner, responding to a question about whether rules approved by the Financial Accounting Standards Board last week may deter banks from participating, said Treasury will make sure companies do what’s needed to clean up their balance sheets.

‘Do What’s Necessary’

“We will do what’s necessary to make sure our banking system emerges out of this stronger,” he said. He declined to say whether Treasury will force banks to sell assets.

Norwalk, Connecticut-based FASB voted on April 2 to let banks use “significant” judgment in gauging how much securities are worth. Richard Dietrich, an accounting professor at Ohio State University, said the change may discourage financial companies from selling securities because it may allow them to avoid writing down the value of their holdings.

Geithner, who accompanied President Barack Obama to London last week for the meeting of the Group of 20 policy makers, also said the administration will “keep acting as forcefully as we can” to pull the nation out of a recession.

At the summit, the world leaders called for tougher oversight of hedge funds, executive pay, credit-rating firms and derivatives trading. They also boosted funding for the International Monetary Fund, increasing its resources to $1 trillion.

‘Turning Point’

Obama called the event “historic” and predicted it will be a “turning point” for economic recovery across the world.

Geithner is pushing for an overhaul of financial rules that calls for putting big hedge funds and private-equity funds under stricter federal supervision, as well as regulating derivatives markets. He’s also seeking new powers for the government to seize and wind down nonbank financial companies whose size poses threats to the stability of the financial system.

The World Bank is warning of an “unemployment crisis,” and the U.S. lost 663,000 jobs in March, the Labor Department said April 3. The jobless rate jumped to 8.5 percent, the highest level since 1983.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jesse Westbrook in Washington at jwestbrook1@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: April 5, 2009 13:11 EDT
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YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!...

from Breitbart.com
by Derek Broes
April 4, 2009

Over the past three months we have witnessed some truly amazing movements by the Obama administration.

- He has proposed more spending than all Presidents in history combined;
- He has trampled the Constitution by allowing the Treasury to take on a dictator style infringement on private companies, and now the democratically lead Congress has proposed the “Pay for Performance Act” which passed Thursday with even some Republican Congressman voted for it.

This bill essentially allows the Treasury to define “fair pay” for all employees, at any level. Worse, the Treasury would like to be able to take over any company it deemed as important enough to take over regardless of whether or not it had accepted bailout funds.

Worse still, the Serve Act proposes to make volunteering for the government mandatory (with pay, of course). Last time I looked, working for pay was called A JOB.

The scariest part of the bill is that while you’re serving as a “volunteer,” you’re prohibited from participating in worship and church activities, political rallies and being involved in a union. In short, your essential freedoms are gone. I keep hearing about Obama being a socialist but, I have to disagree. Based on these measures he appears to more like a person pursuing Communism or Fascism.

Let’s face it; if you wanted to tear down the Republic and install a Communist Oligarchy you would first have to take over all major industries where corporate power resides, then you must get the wealth away from the rich — but how would you do that? Well, you create an even larger economic crisis so the country thinks your massive debt spending is a way to help the country when your real plan is to incur so much debt that the only way to prevent the country from bankruptcy is to impose a tax system that depletes the wealth of the top 1% until we’re all equally “wealthy.” …Well, except for those wealthy people who helped you get there. You know the ones I’m talking about. I don’t mean to HARPO on the subject, but we seemed to have forgotten what we’re protecting. What about the Republic? Is it already gone?

When the government ignores legal contractual obligations because they judge someone’s bonus as unfair the law has been ignored, which means it was violated and this violation occurred at the highest level of government. I’m not saying the AIG bonuses weren’t excessive. My point is, we don’t know what these people did to deserve or NOT to deserve them because this was never mentioned or examined. Maybe some of those people brought in a billion dollars of business and their bonuses were based? Maybe the CEO is the main reason the company is failing? Does that mean that some guy who worked hard to bring in that billion dollars in business shouldn’t be rewarded? But Obama needs a way to regulate pay and the bill proposed doesn’t even stop at executives, it doesn’t even stop at dollar amounts. In fact, it has no specification whatsoever.

So we can all look forward to government cars, government jobs, paid civilian volunteers who watch our every move and the the loss of our ability to reach for our dreams. The sad part is that Obama told us exactly what he was going to do and 52% of you refused to hear what he said. In fact many of you cheered at these things. Let’s remember just of few of the things he said.

1. The Constitution is fundamentally flawed. It only protects the rights of the people but does not allow the government to do anything on your behalf.
2. He wants a civilian Army as large as our military, and as well funded ($650 billion annually).
3. He wants to “spread the wealth.” Oh, don’t pretend you don’t remember Joe the Plumber.

And let’s not forget good ole Reverend Wright whose teachings about America being evil and unequal ring in Obama’s ears. Funny … It’s equality that got Obama elected. Change? Oh yes, there’s change and if we don’t act soon the meaning of hope will have a very different meaning.

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Would You Buy A Car From This Guy?

from the blog THE POWERS THAT BE

Call me inattentive to history, but I think that Obama’s speech today about the government taking over the restructure of General Motors was the first time I ever heard a president telling me what a killer warranty, service and repairs I’m going to get if I buy an automobile from him… er, I mean, from General Motors or Chrysler.

In related news, Government Motors unveiled a new logo:

Warning! A Very Disturbing Graphic!

Trillion Dollar Obama Stimulus Plan: Visual of What One Trillion Dollars Looks Like


from Death By 1000 Paper Cuts
Posted by RidesAPaleHorseMarch 26th, 2009

What does one TRILLION dollars look like?

All this talk about “stimulus packages” and “bailouts”…

A billion dollars…

A hundred billion dollars…

Eight hundred billion dollars…

One TRILLION dollars…

What does that look like? I mean, these various numbers are tossed around like so many doggie treats, so I thought I’d take Google Sketchup out for a test drive and try to get a sense of what exactly a trillion dollars looks like.

We’ll start with a $100 dollar bill. Currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. Most everyone has seen them, slightly fewer have owned them. Guaranteed to make friends wherever they go.

A packet of one hundred $100 bills less than 1/2″ thick contains $10,000. Fits in your pocket easily and is more than enough for a week or two of shamefully decadent fun.
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