In August of 2008 my cousin sent me this video. Like most Utube videos I didn’t give it much thought to really watch it. But for some reason I sat through the whole 11 minutes and began to think. I said this can’t be true. This has to be someone’s mean spirited video against Bill Clinton and the Democrats. But at almost the end the frame kept coming up saying “If you don’t believe it Google it yourself.” I took that to task and did about a months research to see if this could have happened. Did Monica Lewinsky really upstage the the biggest travesty in the economic history of the United States? What you are about to read will make you think. My goal here is not to change anyone’s mind. It is rather to get people to think and perform their due diligence to research the past track record and core beliefs of the party and candidate that they are going to vote for.
Please read, enjoy and just do some research instead of listening to popularity polls and who your friend is going to vote for.
Here is an updated version (With a much better sound track).
Slowly Bill Clinton’s 1997 Expansion of the CRA started to create financial discrepancies in Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. Later on I will go into detail about the original Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 that was created by Jimmy Carter. The Democrats have been lying to us since 2004 stating there are no problems with Fannie Mae or Freddy Mac. The Democrats blocked Republicans that saw a future melt down of the United States economy and wanted to regulate or at least oversee these financial institutions. The Democrats said no. You don’t believe me? Watch this video of real conversations in the United States Congress, not a commercial or program that was created to change the minds of the public.
In this video we see Maxine Waters stating that Fannie Mae and Freddi Mac are not broken. As of today 3/15/09 we are discovering why the Democrats especially Maxine Waters did not want to interfere with the lending practices that was eventually going to cause Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to collapse. Here is a news story that is developing today 3/15/09
As this story unfolds I have been doing the research to understand the connection from when Maxine Waters stated to Congress in early 2004 that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did not have to be fixed and “there is not crisis at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.” The reason that Ms. Waters did not want any regulation for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was that Ms Waters and her husband Sidney Williams were investors in OneUnited Bank in Massachusetts. In fact, Sidney Williams joined the Board of Directors of the minority owned OneUnited Bank in early 2004. The video above from the congressional hearings were conducted in late 2004 after Sidney Williams joined the Board of Directors for the minority owned OneUnited Bank.
Here is an article written by Susan Schmidt at the Wall Street Journal going into detail on what I just discussed in the previous paragraph.
“My husband Ambassador Sidney Williams, who has represented the United States as an Ambassador and has been a respected and active member of the Los Angeles community for many years, was asked to sit on the board of OneUnited Bank. This bank services our community and was the successor to the bank of which we had been customers at for many years. He accepted the position and did not accept any director’s compensation for his work on behalf of the bank and the community it serves.”
“Despite suggestions to the contrary, I have fully disclosed all of my financial interests in official filings. These filings included the stock my husband purchased upon joining OneUnited’s board (it is required under Massachusetts law, where OneUnited is headquartered, that individuals hold stock in a bank before joining its board). Furthermore, Ambassador Williams is proud to be invested in a minority owned community bank that was given an “outstanding” lending rating from its regulator for its lending activity in underserved communities in Los Angeles, where traditional banks have refused to lend. I even took additional steps beyond what is required of Members of Congress when I voluntarily and publicly disclosed my husband’s relationship with OneUnited during an October 30, 2007 Financial Services Committee hearing entitled “Preserving and Expanding Minority Banks.”(3) Both the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of Thrift Supervision were present at this hearing.”
However Ms. Waters doesn’t mention anything about the dollar amount in investment positions that Ms Waters and her husband had in OneUnited Bank.
This is from Ms Schmidt’s Wall Street Journal article:
“Ms. Waters and her husband, Sidney Williams, were investors in two African-American owned California banks that merged with other lenders in 2002 to form OneUnited. Congressional financial-disclosure forms show Ms. Waters acquired OneUnited stock worth between $250,000 and $500,000 in March 2004, as did Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams joined the board of OneUnited that year. Each sold shares in September 2004–including Ms. Waters’s entire stake–but Mr. Williams continued to hold varying amounts of the company’s stock. On the lawmaker’s most recent financial-disclosure form, dated May 2008 and covering the prior year, Ms. Waters reported that her husband held between $250,000 and $500,000 worth of the bank’s stock.”
OK so how does this all get connected?
It appears that Ms. Waters and her husband Sidney Williams were financially involved with a minority owned lending institution called OneUnited Bank. During the course of Ms. Waters and Mr Williams involvement with OneUnited Bank, sub-prime loans were being made to minorities that could not afford to pay back the loans that were being made. This of course was a derivative of William Clinton’s mandated 1997 expansion of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. Ms. Waters did not want any regulation against Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae because Ms. Waters and Mr. Williams were making a lot of money off of their investments in OneUnited Bank. In turn I would imagine that OneUnited Bank sold these loans maybe to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac or both and did not service or carry the loan debt of the sub-prime loans. So why would Maxine Waters want any kind of regulation for Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac as the Republicans asked for in the the above video that I have re-linked here.
Here is were this gets real interesting.
Austin Tighe who represents the NAACP has filed a lawsuit on March 13th, 2009 against HSBC and Wells Fargo banks for discrimination and predatory lending practices towards minorities in particular Afro Americans. Mr. Tighe states that the two aforementioned banks “Discriminated” against poor Afro Americans for writing bad loans to that group of people. How strange that Mr. Tighe would never bring these charges against OneUnited Bank that I’m sure did the same thing for years.
While Barack Obama was employed buy Minor, Barnhill & Galland, Barack Obama represented ACORN in a lawsuit against CitiBank for not writting enough Sub-Prime Loans to Afro-Americans.
So now let’s look at the origins of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977
The CRA was devised by Jimmy Carter (D) in 1977 when he was in office. I have to admit that President Carter’s intention was very good. Lending Institutions were practicing something called “Redlining.” Lending Institutions were refusing to write loans in any way or form in predetermined zip codes usually in inner cities or blighted areas of a city like for instance Brooklyn, NY.
Here is an article in the NY Times dated December 25, 1989
Jimmy Carter’s goal in mandating the CRA in 1977 was a good thing because as you know there were people in those zip codes that could easily qualify for a traditional 30 year loan. In addition there were landlords that wanted to do improvements to their properties but they couldn’t get a loan to do that.
This all went horribly and tragically wrong when in 1997 Bill Clinton went beyond the original intention of Jimmy Carter’s 1977 CRA and mandated that banks should make loans to people that could not qualify for a traditional 30 year loan. If Bill Clinton hadn’t created this mandate. Then bank’s and third party lending institutions would have not ventured into creative lending practices like the 5/25, 2/28, No Down Payment and Interest Only loans. When the banks and lending institutions created these creative lending practices they created an artificially high number of home buyers that would have not qualified for a traditional, secured 30 year loan. The result of the number of people that could now qualify for a mortgage loan created a “Sellers Market.” Buy the nature of “Supply and Demand” and “What the market will bear”, sellers of both new and pre-owned houses were allowed to inflate the prices in the housing market otherwise know as the “Housing Bubble.” This was exacerbated by the fact that a person that could have qualified for a $150,000.00 traditional 30 year loan could now qualify for a $250,000.00 home with creative financing like a 5/25, 2/ 28, No Down Payment, or interest only loan. This led to people qualifying, borrowing and buying a house way beyond their fiscal capabilities. Eventually these new homeowners could not support the bubble payment that was in their mortgage contract and the housing bubble collapsed. This in turn eventually affected the people that had good 30 year loans and were able to pay the mortgage back. This phenomena proceeded to fester like a cancer throughout the financial markets all over the world for one simple reason: The Devaluation of the American Dollar. Now we fear that China will not buy our debt as they have in the past. I’m sure there is a lot more that I don’t know pertaining to how far this line of falling dominos goes.
“In early 1993 PresidentBill Clinton ordered new regulations for the CRA which would increase access to mortgage credit for inner city and distressed rural communities.[6] The new rules January 31, 1995 and featured: requiring strictly numerical assessments to get a satisfactory CRA rating; using federal home-loan data broken down by neighborhood, income group, and race; encouraging community groups to complain when banks were not loaning enough to specified neighborhood, income group, and race; allowing community groups that marketed loans to target to groups to collect a fee from the banks.[4][7] The new rules, during a time when many banks were merging and needed to pass the CRA review process to do so, substantially increased the number and aggregate amount of loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers for home loans, some of which were “risky mortgages.” Banks set up CRA departments, a CRA consultant industry was created and new financial-services firms helped banks invest in packaged portfolios of CRA loans to ensure compliance. Established and new community groups began marketing such mortgages. The Senate Banking Committee estimated that as of 2000, as a result of CRA, such groups had received $9.5 billion in services and salaries. As of that time such groups also had received tens of billions of dollars in multi-year commitments from banks, including ACORN Housing $760 million; Boston-based Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America $3 billion; a New Jersey Citizen Action-led coalition $13 billion; the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance $220 million.[4] The number of CRA mortgage loans increased by 39 percent between 1993 and 1998, while other loans increased by only 17 percent.[8][9] Related rule changes gave Fannie and Freddie extraordinary leverage, allowing them to hold just 2.5% of capital to back their investments, vs. 10% for banks. By 2007, Fannie and Freddie owned or guaranteed nearly half of the $12 trillion U.S. mortgage market.[5] Due to massive financial losses, on September 7, 2008 the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) put Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under the conservatorship of the FHFA.[10]“
Here is a detailed description of 1995 CRA Rule 60 FR 22156 (May 4, 1995) (1995 Rule) from the Federal Register.
“C. Experience With the 1978 Rule The experience with the 1978 rule was summarized in the preamble to the Agencies’ 1995 CRA rule. 60 FR 22156 (May 4, 1995) (1995 rule).
It stated: The CRA has come to play an increasingly important role in improving access to credit in communities—both rural and urban— across the country. Under the impetus of the CRA, many banks and thrifts opened new branches, provided expanded services, and made substantial commitments to increase lending to all segments of society. Despite these successes, the CRA examination system has been criticized. Financial institutions have indicated that policy guidance from the agencies on the CRA is unclear and that examination standards are applied inconsistently. Financial institutions have also stated that the CRA examination process encourages them to generate excessive paperwork at the expense of providing loans, services, and investments to their communities. Community, consumer, and other groups have agreed with the industry that there are inconsistencies in CRA evaluations and that current examinations overemphasize process and underemphasize performance. Community and consumer groups also have criticized the agencies for failing aggressively to penalize banks and thrifts for poor performance. Noting that the CRA examination process could be improved, President Clinton requested in July 1993 that the Federal financial supervisory agencies reform the CRA regulatory system. The President asked the agencies to consult with the banking and thrift industries, Congressional leaders, and leaders of community-based organizations across the country to develop new CRA regulations and examination procedures that ‘‘replace paperwork and uncertainty with greater performance, clarity, and objectivity.’’ Specifically, the President asked the agencies to refocus the CRA examination system on more objective, performance-based assessment standards that minimize compliance burden while stimulating improved performance. He also asked the agencies to develop a well-trained corps of examiners who would specialize in CRA examinations. The President requested that the agencies promote consistency and evenhandedness, improve CRA performance evaluations, and institute more effective sanctions against institutions with consistently poor performance.
D. The 1995 Rule and Subsequent Guidance
The experience with the 1978 rule led the Agencies to replace it in 1995 with a rule designed to emphasize performance (Quantity of loans) rather than process (Quality of Loans), promote consistency in evaluations, and eliminate unnecessary burden. 60 FR 22156. Among other things, it established a large retail institution test comprised of three tests: one for lending, one for investment, and one for service.”
If you notice that this mandate created a “TEST” for the banks. Does this sound familiar to what Timothy Geitner is doing right now.
And then came the unregulated start up third party lenders (Countrywide, New Century Mortgage) that thrived under the auspices of the CRA and started issuing loans to people with no income or little income and no money down. For the most part these third party lenders had no intention of servicing these loans. These third party lenders had the intentions of making a lot of money on the sales commissions then they would sell the loans to Ginnie Mae to be issued as “MBS’s that in turn were issued to various investment groups as an investment vehicle. The next thing to happen is that as these very bad mortgage loans started to sour so did the Mortgage Backed Securities that were in 401 Ks, IRAs an any other type of investment portfolios became worthless. Banks, Brokerage firms, pension plans, and anyone or any company that had bought and sold these worthless MBSs began to fail. And now the picture is a little clearer as to how we got to where we are today June 15, 2009
All of this was done by third party lenders with the mandated Bill Clinton’s 1997 expansion of the CRA as its mantra.
This is from Wikipedia Community Reinvestment Act
“Congressman and 2008 Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has partially attributed the ongoing subprime mortgage crisis to legislation such as the CRA.[16] Economist Stan Liebowitz has also expressed his opinion that banks were forced to loan to un-credit worthy consumers with “no verification of income or assets; little consideration of the applicant’s ability to make payments; no down payment.” However, the chief executive of Countrywide Financial, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, is said to have “bragged” that to approve minority applications “lenders have had to stretch the rules a bit”, suggesting that Countrywide was responsible for relaxing its standards rather than the other way around.[17]“
Yes, they were unregulated but the democrats blocked any reform as they were on the take like old business as usual. And so wealth and prosperity of bankers and third party loan companies grew through the both of the Bush administrations. But there was danger ahead and during the years there were various people including John Mc Cain that saw a problem in the works. He was defeated by democratic stonewalling as any change would not allow poor people to continue to get loans under the CRA that they could not afford . These third party lenders were not regulated and would not be regulated or the Democrats would be defeating themselves in the quest to take from the rich and give to the poor. The poor did not have a way to pay for the bad loans that could not be paid by the people that took out these loans that they were “Entitled” to by the CRA. Now that being said there were a lot of things that the Bush Administration could have done but those pesky Democrats that were on the take from “Wealthy Banks” would not allow their (Democrats) cash cow to die. Finally now all those bad loans that were mandated by the CRA came to a head.
Now again the Democrats want to protect all the irresponsible people that took out these loans that the government said they were “Entitled” to according to Jimmy Carter’s CRA. As it may happen shrewd businessmen both Republican and Democrat capitalized on an extremely flawed mandate called the CRA. No matter what they did, the federal law said that now people who didn’t have the resources to pay back the loans should be given an easier way to qualify for a loan. Enter the Clinton administration that created a mandate that led to the birth of sub-prime loans. The third party lenders (unregulated, non banks) then exploded over the years. These third party lenders then packaged these very bad, risky loans as an investment that the likes of Freddie and Fannie who bought them without qualifying their credibility. Housing prices exploded. Why, Because of sub-prime loan, people that could not only not afford homes but they could afford more expensive homes. But guess what? They qualified for risky no down payment, interest only loans to pay for inflated housing prices. Enter the person who takes the 2/28 loan because he or she is going to “FLIP” the house and make a lot of money by artificially pumping up the price of that some poor person can qualify for a loan for. Thank you CRA. What makes it worse it that now the Democrats are turning like rabid dogs on all the CEOs that made big profits off of the CRA. The democrats provided a vehicle for CEOs to make a lot of money off of the CRA and like all people both democrat and republican who are in the business to make money did exactly that. Now The Democrats call them “RICH BASTARDS” and do not want to reward them for making good on a law (CRA) that they (Democrats) passed.
I do not see good things with Obama as he profited from this situation also. More than likely if Obama gets into office he will go back on his word and with the power of the Democratic Majority will seek to raise taxes to payback up to 700 Billion dollars. For the next 4 years Obama and the Democratic Party will blame this on the Bush Administration who were only partial responsible for the sub-prime debacle. I think Obama has a hidden agenda that no one knows about, not even Joe Biden. It scares the manure out of me. Yes, he wants change……..but change to what is what no one really knows. Billy Carter wanted change too and he got his change 31 years later with the change of a destroyed American economy. He wanted all poor people to own a home. But how were those poor people going to pay for the loans? Fast forward to 1995 Bill Clinton mandates that it should be even easier to for poor people to get mortgages and the sub-prime era begins. Fast forward to 2008. 700 Billion tax dollars to pay for the bad loans that were written in the past under the command of Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and the CRA. That is how poor people were able to buy and then loose their houses. And yes, I realize that Obama has sold a lot of uneducated people bill of goods, but we all pay the price if he gets elected. Far worse than what we have now.
Ultimately this has come full circle now that the tax payers are now paying for bad debt that was started in 1977 and built up over the years. The mantra of the Democratic party is Tax and Spend. Taxpayers are now buying houses for poor people. Sounds a little like Social Communism. The more and more I look at what is going on I am coming to this decision: If Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi get control of this government they could destroy Wall Street and the RICH BASTARDS. If this happens and everyone’s savings and investments are lost and have to rely on the Government then this will be the beginning of Marxist Socialism in the United States. The Democrats are constantly complaining about the deficit. Why is that? Again the Democrats mantra is TAX & SPEND. Well, it is obvious. The Democrats want a huge surplus of money in the coffers to be a socialist government. The Democrats want the US Government to have all the money and power to do what ever they want to do.
Remember, if the Democrats can keep people poor, uneducated, unemployed and desperate they will always have a voter base.
I am not sold on Mc Cain and I will now probably vote third party (undecided as of this time) for the first time in my life. There will be no change as long as we keep re-electing a Democrat or a Republican.
Today was one of those days were things didn’t go as planned with work. Tomorrow is another new day and things will be better. In the mean time it got me to thinking about what I’m going to do with the rest of my life at 59 years old. I have to admit that work as a freelancer has been good to me over the past 12 years and continues to roll right a long.
But there are times that I would just like to quite, pick up my still camera, get in my car and just see all there is to see int the beautiful rural parts of the USA and take a lot of pictures that would make people smile. People spend millions of dollars to go see other countries when most haven’t even explored what the good ole’ USA has to offer.
However, there is a problem with that thought. In particular it is the problem of uncertainty that Barack Obama brings to the table.
Barack Obama is very concerned with taking my hard earned savings, eating away at it with taxes and giving it to people that do not have the work ethic that I have cultured over the years. All kind of taxes on companies that would drive the costs of retirement to a very uncomfortable place.
Barack Obama would rather concentrate on having a green country with people that have low cost or free healthcare that is very bad in quality instead of having a healthy economy. An economy where people have a strong work ethic and do not rely on the federal government stealing from hard working people and giving it away to slackers for free. When people are working, crime goes down, tax revenues at all levels of local, county, state and federal government goes up.
I came up with the topic of my blog from a picture from the blog linked below. I want to thank that person for posting these pictures as they are a snapshot of what people in the country are really thinking. The Tea Party was a small movement at first but as soon as people see the errors in waste that big government is taking our hard earned money for, they begin to see the light. A some people have said, “A sleeping giant has been awakened.”
A lot of my friends have said. “WAIT, He has only been if office for 9 months.” Well ya know I don’t have a lot of time. By the time Obama gets thrown out of office I will be 62 and I still will not have the confidence to retire.
There is a chance of redemption that in 2010 a significant number of senate seats that will go to Republicans and I hope Libertarians. It seems that the most corrupt people are in the Senate. If the people vote to cripple the Democratic Senate then we can reduce Barack Obama to the lame duck president that he was even before he was elected.
I really think that this sold be the new mantra for 2009:
It has been awhile since I have sat down and expressed my views. When I first started to blog before Barack Obama was corruptly elected to office. (Remember he is from Chicago and that is how Democratic politicians are elected to office) he hadn’t started the destruction of the United States that we are witnessing today. We now know what he meant by “CHANGE.” “CHANGE” means destruction if the United States as we have know it for 200 years. The one thing that Barack Obama has done very effectively is resurrect racism in this country. Ever since the day he took office that topic is in the news.
It finally comes down to this: “If you disagree with Barack Obama and his policies you are a racist and you hate Afro-Americans.” This is the most destructive chain of thought to evolve out of the Barack Obama Presidency. Is this Barack’s Problem? Of course not. But wait, or is it? If it is not his problem why is he not calling out the people like Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and a host of other Barack Obama supporters to tell them that it is wrong to make the racial comment above. Maybe Barack Obama is not not responsible for the racial comments, however he has the position to make the statement “If you disagree with Barack Obama and his policies you are a racist and you hate Afro-Americans.” socially unacceptable. But his decision not to speak out against this statement means that he agrees with that statement. This making him a racially motivated person.
This is what our country has been reduced to. Is civil war a possibility? I doubt it very highly. Will our country become more and more divided? That is a guarantee that you can take to the mountain top. Barack Obama has shown in the last few days how unqualified he is to be President of the United States when it comes to foreign policy and diplomacy. He has no idea of how to handle the military when it comes to overseas commitment. At the end of the day we are in a religious war in the middle east and those last for hundreds of years. The choice is to keep fighting or surrender to the enemies. Only two choices.
As the emotional and financial stability of our nation crumbles, the Democratic Party has only three agendas:
1. Raise taxes
2. Make the top 5% of high income people pay for the rest of the country.
3. Provide the country with a huge amount of free, low cost, poor quality entitlement programs.
1. How are you going to pay for this Health Care Train Wreck (HCTW)?
2. Can you show the public a powerpoint presentation of precise facts and figures on exactly where the funds are going to come from to pay for the HCTW?
3. How is Barack Obama going to prevent illegal immigrants from benefiting from his HCTW.
4. How is Barack Obama going to prevent illegal immigrants from rushing over the border to sign up for his HCTW?
5. One of the methods that has been tabled is to tax health care benefits. If that method is chosen, will the healthcare benefits of the SEIU, UAW, United Steel workers and every other member of any union have their healthcare benefits taxed?
6. If Barack Obama’s HCTW passes and presents itself with a business model like Wal Mart, how will private healthcare survive? When Barack Obama says he want to provide “Affordable” healthcare, Describe affordable. 10 % less than average, 20% less than average, 50% less than average, 75% less than average, 85% less than average? Tell me.
7. If Barack Obama’s HCTW hammers the healthcare industry on costs much like Wal Mart does to it’s venders, what incentives do the healthcare industry have to expand and build facilities, hire personal and promote R&D in healthcare medicine?
8. Barack Obama’s HCTW proposes to cover 45 Million uninsured people with healthcare. At this time the healthcare industry does not have adequate facilities to take care of the people that have insurance now.
Do you think that people will be interested in going to medical school if they will not be able to earn more than $30,000 a year because of payment limits in the Obama HCTW?
9. Congressman Schiff besides your degree in law, do you have an MBA?
10. Congressman Schiff, do you have any kind of degree in economics?
Finally I command you to vote NO against Barack Obama’s Healthcare Train Wreck.
I command you to vote NO against Barack Obama’s “Cap and Tax” Train Wreck.
I am thoroughly disgusted in AARP’s decision to support Barack Obama’s Marxist Socialist Government Administered Health Care Program. Thank you AARP for throwing seniors under the bus to satisfy the wishes of a very selfish, morally damaged Democratic party. You are supposed to support us seniors and prevent organizations from taking advantage of us. The mere fact that Barack Obama wants to cut back on medicare to pay for this program is just wrong. Basically he will shift healthcare benefits from the elderly to much younger people that can still monetarily contribute to his healthcare train wreck. While older people that are retired, that are not working and will not contribute to the coffers of Barackos’ plan will then be denied healthcare in their later years. This is so wrong on so many levels it is disgusting. I have no idea how much money AARP gave to Barack Obama but if it was more than $1.00 it was a total waste of AARP’s members money. Being originally from Chicago, I am very familiar with corrupt Democratic “Pay to Play” politics. If AARP is involved with “Pay to Play” in the Obama administration, it will surface one day. I’ll be expecting a new press release with the official position of the AARP to be voting against the Barack Obama Government Administered Healthcare Train Wreck.
P.S. I am not part of the Conservative “Mob.”
STMARIE
I’d like to make a correction that came from a comment from GDN. He/she pointed out that Mr. Novelli was replaced by a Mr. Barry Rand who supported Barack Obama with the maximum political donation of $4600.00 with a total of $15,900 total to the DNC since since 1995. Here is the source of that information.
And no you are wrong Al Gore. Global warming does not influence El Nino and La Nina conditions. It is a natural occurring event that has been going on for centuries.
What this means is that the Atlantic Ocean is cool (Reduced fuel for hurricanes) thus far at this time there have been no named hurricane systems in the Atlantic to threaten the Southern States.
However when there is an EL Nino in effect then there is a history of torrential rains for the West Coast of the US when El Nino is active. Also at this time there is a possibility of Hurricane Felicia (8-7-09) affecting Hawaii. However the prognosis is that this hurricane will be reduced to tropical storm Felicia by the time it gets to Hawaii
So here is the point of my writings:
Barack Obama is concentrating on spending trillions of dollars for his Pork Barrel projects like Nationalized Heath Care and there will be no money available to help the people in the near future for what could possibly be a very bad flood and series of heavy rain events that may plague the Western Pacific States. Recently it has been very hot and dry in the Pacific Northwest. That means that the jet stream has dropped further south.
More importantly when the El Nino subsides and La Nina returns, the number of named Hurricanes will increase again in the Atlantic. These storms as you know have caused the most severe damage to largely populated areas.
Here are the questions that I have:
1. Where is the money going to come from to help people recover from potentially devastating hurricanes in the future?
2. Where is the money going to come from to repair any damage from the “Pineapple Express” if it occurs again in the West Coast of the United States.
3. How will Barack Obama respond to these natural disasters in a timely manor?
4. How much experience does he have with dealing with a natural disaster like Katrina?
5. Will Barack Obama blame his shortfalls in FEMA’s response on George W. Bush?
6. Who will Barack Obama choose as the “Hurricane Czar” to be in charge of managing and directing hurricanes and being the official PIO for the hurricanes that may come ashore in the future?
Hopefully FEMA has learned a lot about Hurricane Response. Maybe it will be better this time around if there is another Katrina. It is always possible that a CAT 5 storm could hit the continental US again in the future.
It seems that Barack Obama is taking the “Out of Sight Out of Mind” approach to the future on this topic. Oh I know. Barack Obama will deal with that when and if necessary.
This is the finest example of Marxist Socialist Propaganda that I have ever seen in my life time. This is a clear display of the break down of the integrity of the United States of America. When the Government in Control deems the citizens of the United States are a ”Mob” then this is showing that this country is as divided as it was before the Civil War. This does not look good for the future of the United States of America. Every day Barack Obama makes this country look weaker and weaker. By the DNC showing a total disregard of the citizen’s wishes it demonstrates that we are becoming no more civilized than Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan.
As California’s Economy Collapses, This presents a preview of what will happen in other states and eventually in the Federal Government if Barack Obama’s out of control spending does not stop.
As you have been reading, California is on the brink of financial collapse. The Democrats are more concerned in giving away social benefits than making California business friendly, opening up businesses, and creating jobs. The greater population will not need free or reduced government, social benefits if new businesses are created, existing businesses are kept from closing, and current businesses are allowed to expand with new job creations. Not only will people not need government social benefits, the tax revenues will dramatically increase with the decrease in unemployment.
Lack of jobs, Businesses forced to leave the state because of strict EPA rules and regulations, enormous income, corporate, sales, and DMV Taxes are just creating a business vacuum in this state. So now Measure R kicks in today 7/1/09. This couldn’t have come at a worse time. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has tried time and time again to stop the runaway businesses, but he is a good Republican Governor that is being made to look bad by incompetent, inept, disconnected Democrats that are running this state into the ground by spending money that does not exist. Wow does this sound familiar? Well they say. “As California goes so does the rest of the nation. There is only one difference. The State of California Can’t Print Worthless Money Like Washington DC Can !!!!
California’s desperation along with other states are willing to destroy on line or “E-commerce” businesses by requiring Amazon and other E-Commerce businesses to collect state sales tax on items sold by California companies that are shipped outside of the state of California. This is an enormous expense and a huge burden to companies like Amazon.com, Barns and Noble etc. Again further eroding the business climate in the State of California.
“Officials for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority said that the worst recession since World War II would probably reduce the revenue collected under Measure R from about $40 billion to roughly $38.2 billion during the next 30 years.”
So this is saying that Los Angeles County is stuck with this looser tax from “Measure R” that the Democrats sold to the public for 30 years. If you are not from California then I’ll explain how this works.
The people in California do not like to have taxes forced on us so we get to vote on whether we pay taxes on certain projects or not. I voted against Measure R because it would be money wasted as usual. Los Angles does need light rail improvements and expansions to reduce freeway traffic. However if the light rail project becomes a pork barrel project and only goes to the areas in Los Angeles County where the politicians want it to go rather than where it NEEDS to go, it will be a complete waste of money.
Next item is that the County of Los Angeles is also in poor economic state. I can’t prove this fact to be true, but I would speculate that this last tax increase will end up in the “General Fund” and will not be applied to transportation projects for some years to come until the economy improves.
Yes, there are some very good intentions in Measure R. Let’s face it auto/truck traffic is horrible in Los Angeles and everyone wants it to improve. But will people use it enough to pay for it?
My point here is that the Democrats have just destroyed the economy here in Los Angeles and California. People are loosing jobs, businesses are closing. People with money are leaving the state to move to states that have no income tax like Nevada.
The state of California has reached a point of no return. The State of California has a budget deficit of 24.3 billion dollars. These are the points of no return:
1. The Democrats are forcing businesses to close with high sales, income and businesses taxes. This problem is exacerbated by heavy EPA rules and regulations to even open a business here in California.
2. As jobs are lost, the tax base shrinks as there are less people to pay sales tax (people cut back on buying things), Income tax withholding from checks decreases, people drive less paying less in local gasoline taxes.
3. The democrats think the only way to balance the budget is by punishing the people that are still lucky enough to have jobs with even more taxes across the board. The budget will never be balanced with this approach.
4. The Democrats have created a “State of Entitlement.” A state where people can receive public assistace for everything from free education, section 8 housing (http://www.hud.gov/local/index.cfm?state=ca&topic=renting) to free health care at County Hospitals.
5. California has one of if not the largest population of undocumented immigrants from all over the world. By law these people are not allowed to get Social Security Numbers so they are usually paid in cash and pay no income taxes at all. If they do pay income taxes it is usually with a fraudulent Social Security number.
6. The EPA requirements for everything from Exhaust Emissions, handling of industrial chemicals to building material content have a crippling effect on profitability, growth, employee hiring and just keeping the business doors open. I am concerned about the environment just like anyone else, but the government has to much control over these laws that are overkill.
7. Finally the fact that there are just to many people in this state is the major contribution to air, water and ground pollution.
So what can be done?
1. The state has to become 100% more business friendly.
2. Reduce Income taxes so people will have money to go out and spend and build the economy.
3. Reduce Corporate taxes and make it profitable to open and run a business in the state of California.
4. Reduce (not eliminate) the number of “Entitlement Programs.” These are free or low cost programs for people that do not have the incentive to get a job (any job.)
5. Decrease education fees in public colleges so more people can attend thus increasing the cash flow for maintaining the education venues. Administer some kind of tax reward or benefit to new graduates for the first 2 years as they start in their new careers.
6. This is the tough one. Make sure that undocumented immigrants from all over the world not just Mexico are not eligible for any state benefits including non emergency medical care, education, welfare, and child welfare.
7. Very, very heavy fines for employers that hire undocumented immigrants.
8. A minimum of a 10 year corporate tax incentive for any company that has been in existence more than 5 years in another state or country to move to or open another facility in California. Why 10 years? It is an incentive for the companies to stay in California and create jobs here.
9. There has to be legislation that will limit the power of the SEIU (http://www.seiu.org/splash/) I believe in good wages for talented people. But this Union is very corrupt and rewards incompetent people with high wages. Originally being from Chicago, I grew up with corrupt Democratic “Pay to Play.” The SEIU payed Barack Obama $60.7 Million dollars to play. This is a common corrupt Union/Politician relationship.
10. This is the most important of all of these ideas. Create a minimal corporate tax bracket for companies with 100 or less employees. We all know that the most important element in any successful economy is “Small Business.”
The only way this will ever happen is if the Democrats are voted out of office and the State of California is run by Republicans and Libertarians. Both of these parties understand the importance of small business.
As I have said before time and time again. As long as the Democrats can keep people uneducated, unemployed, poor and desperate they will always have a voter base.
Today is the saddest day in the history of the United States. Again Barack Obama has driven yet another nail in the coffin containing manufacturing in the United States. Cap and Tax will artificially and dramatically drive up the cost of energy in the United States. This is yet another artificial manipulation of the free market as we know it. I have been writing about Bill Clinton’s 1997 expansion of Jimmy Carter’s 1977 Community Reinvestment Act. When Bill Clinton mandated this, it artificially infused millions of unqualified home owners into the home buying market. You can see today what that did to our economy.
Barack Obama’s Cap and Tax will artificially affect the supply and demand of energy, energy prices, taxes and the newly created “Energy Credits.”
Let’s face it. There are some manufacturing processes that require a lot of electricity, less than green chemical ingredients, and will use more “Energy Credits” than allocated to that company. The amount of ”Energy Credits” that some politician that does not have a degree in chemistry or an MBA will determine that company will have.
So what happens here?’
Well the very first thing that comes to mind is this video of Barack Obama.
OK so now that this CAP and TAX has passed the house but not the senate. How will this affect the coal industry and the coal mines? Well I wrote about this topic on November 3, 2008.
This bill is so convoluted and complicated it is almost incomprehensible by the average home or business owner.
Also reading this it will require a huge amount of federal employees to enforce the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 H.R. 2454. Just a huge waste of tax payer dollars that will benefit the politicians way more than either the environment or the owners of businesses, residential houses, or factories.
OK so let’s all read this and see if you can make an “INTELLIGENT” decision on passing this tax assuming you know all the fact, figures, demographics of impact, caluculations of real results in say two years.
Please search for American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 H.R. 2454.EH in the Library of Congress Thomas
SEC. 204. BUILDING ENERGY PERFORMANCE LABELING PROGRAM. (Sec 204 (C) (3) (B) Residential Databases
(B) RESIDENTIAL DATABASES- The Administrator, in consultation with the Energy Information Administration and the Secretary of Energy, shall support improvements to the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) as authorized by section 205(k) of the Department of Energy Organization Act (42 U.S.C. 7135(k)), or such other residential energy performance databases as the Administrator considers appropriate, to aid the development of achieved performance measurement protocols for residential building energy use for at least 90 percent of the residential market within 5 years after the date of enactment of this Act.
So what is this? Well it is an invasion of privacy. In a nut shell you will have to have your home inspected, probed, prodded and exposed to see if it meets Resnet specifications within 5 years of this act being passed.
There are three things I cannot determine here.
1. Is there is going to be a fine or legal proceedings if you do not get your house inspected?
2. Will you have to have your house inspected and brought up to RESNET certification before it is sold?
3. Will there be an “Energy Tax, Fine, or Penalty” imposed until the house in question is upgraded to meet either additional federal standards that have not been written yet or to RESNET specifications?
It is obvious by these AOL polls that the majority of people do not want this bill to pass.
6/27/09
6/28/09
6/28/09 by state.
It’s not getting any more popular.
It seems that H. R. 2454 is not gaining any popularity anytime soon.
It still is not getting better as of 7:30 AM 6/29/09
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Still Not becoming more popular as of 6:41 PM PDT
H.R. 2454 has not become more popular as of 7:00 AM 7/1/09
Obama’s Bill H.R. 2454 is still not getting popular as of 7/1/09 3:30 PM PDT
Nope not yet. Still not popular at 8:30 AM PDT 7/2/09
Ok so it gain a a point as of 7/3/09 9:00 AM PDT. But it is still very unpopular by all means.
H. R. 2454 still is not getting any more popular as of 7/4/09 2:00 PM
Nope Still not any better as of 7-12-09
New AOL Poll 7-10-09 Cap and Tax is still not liked by the public.
Update to the AOL 7/10/09 Poll
Here is an update to an AOL Poll from 6/26/09 It still looks like people do not want a Cap and Tax Law. It appears that the Democratic party is not carrying out the will of the people. Rather the Democrats are executing their own agenda regardless of what the people want that voted for them in the first place.
It becomes very obvious that even with this small sample that the public has no desire to have this really bad legislation forced down their throats. In future days I will update this with new results of more votersof this poll until it drops off.
When the public talked about George Bush Jr being out of touch with the public, his lack of connection is paled by the disconnect between the people of this country and the socialist government that is running the country now. It would appear that the only people that want the “CAP AND TAX” legislation passed are Al Gore, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosie, Barney Franks, Harry Reid, Rep. Henry A. Waxman, Rep. Edward J. Markey et al. So this boils down to “CAP AND TAX” legislation that is a personal mission by the formentioned people and is not “What the people of the United States want”
To me when a government decides what is best for the citizens of the United Sates is a not a government, it is a
So lets look at all the things that this will affect. Basically any industry that uses electricity, coal or fossil fuel such as gasoline, diesel, or natural gas. Hmm it seems that every company and citizen will be affected by this “CAP AND TAX” legislation. It would appear that H. R. 2454 will create financial chaos in this country.
One of the things that it will create are “Energy Credits.” The question is who will control, disperse and manage the “Evergy Credits”?
1. Will it be Wall Street? Will “Energy Credits” be a commodity that is bought and sold on the commodities market?
This could be problematic as we have seen with Crude Oil and the buying and selling of Crude Oil futures by speculative investors based on Supply and Demand. This could have a significant impact on the cost of running a business and the everyday lives of US citizens.
2, Will it be a huge socialist government bureaucracy that will practice “Pay to Play” tactics to control “Energy Credits” by legal taxes and illegal political contributions. We all know how this game is played. The more money you put in the socialist government coffers, the more “Extra” “Energy Credits” you are allowed for your business or special interest group like for example the UAW for American and American automobile manufacturers only.
The truth is that no one on the face of the earth can guess how much more this is going to cost the tax payer, business owner or anyone else in this country.
Yesterday I took a little drive and I ended up in Santa Paula, CA I parked my car, and began to look around at the demographics of what I saw on the street. This town is predominately Hispanic that votes for the socialist democrats based on the promise of Amnesty and the growth of the Farm Workers Union. In general these people are of low income and are having a tough time paying daily bills. If ”CAP and TAX” passes these are the people that will be affected the most with increased costs on electricity, food and gasoline for their cars to get to and from work. This may be exacerbated by job loss when companies shutter their doors as cost of doing business forces the owners to either shut down and move their businesses off shore. In the case of the farmers, instead of growing food they may turn to importing food instead.
As for the petroleum industry, they hands are tied as they are now and will not be allowed to drill for more crude oil as this will, in the eyes of the democrats, “Contribute to Global Warming.” So this industry may run into problems as they will not be able to afford to pay for “Energy Credits” and pass the costs down to the consumer.
Remember petroleum is not just about heating oil (yet another discussion on the effects of H. R. 2454 on the economy), gasoline, diesel fuel (trucking and rail industry), and Jet A fuel (Airlines) it is about plastics (Did you think about that?) also. These are all things that will be sharply affected by H. R. 2454. Do you now see how damaging this “CAP and TAX” bill will be?
Santa Paula, California has two basic industries: Farming agriculture and petroleum.
Farming uses a lot of fossil fuel for trucks, tractors and farming equipment in general. My next thought was that solar, electric or wind power can not be used for the aforementioned vehicles. Battery powered electric trucks, tractors, cultivators, generators and irrigation pumps. How can you possibly make this green? OK maybe Natural Compressed Gas (NCG) but it is way more dangerous and difficult to transport as it always has to me in high pressure tanks.
Farming also uses a lot of electricity in packing and processing. Lot’s of refrigeration for freshness and freezing foods.
So what happens to food prices if these farming and food processing companies exceed their “Energy Caps”?
These companies will have to buy addition energy credits if the processing plants do not become solar or wind powered.
Solution? Nuclear powered food packing plants. Hmm. Now that sounds safe.
Now let’s look at petroleum.
The argument for “CAP and TAX” is to create new jobs and eliminate out dependance on foreign oil.
So if petroleum is a bad thing because of carbon pollution and the utopian goal is to eliminate it all together then what happens to the petroleum industry in Santa Paula. CA? How many jobs will be lost because the Dictatorship of the Proletariat deemed that the petroleum industry was bad for the earth?
So once the windmills are built and the solar panel farms are built. Just how many jobs will there be to maintain and support these two energy sources? I bet this country losses more “Non-Green Jobs” compared to the “Green Jobs that will replace the “Non-Green” jobs.
So what does that mean for just this one town of Santa Paula, CA?
One would guess there will be a lot less petroleum jobs in the Santa Paula area this further destroying the economy in this area.
What about farming and agriculture? It may be to expensive for these farms to stay open because of the cost of energy and subsequent taxes that are imposed. This of course will lead to further job loss in the United States.
Where will we get our farm food? It is looking like now the US may loose out dependency on foreign out but it may dramatically increase for foreign food.
I saw a clip from C-Span that I cannot find yet. When I do I will post it.
The clip was Nancy Pelosie just bantering while selling the “CAP and TAX” bill in congress. She said something to the effect of “Basically this bill is about Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.”
What she failed to say was Job’s for Americans. She is right. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs for foreign countries as businesses leave this country if this H.R 2454 AKA the “CAP AND TAX” bill passes the Senate.
Please call, email or write to your senator and tell him or her not to pass this socially destructive H. R. 2454
Just think about this for a second: Did you ever see anyone arrested wearing a Bush shirt, or–for you older people–an Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan or Dole shirt? This crowd is in love with Obama.
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