This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Democracy in Action
By Phil Davis of Phil's Stock World
The WSJ noted this morning, small business firms (the ones the Republicans claim to protect) want a strong dollar so that American Citizens, who live and work in America - can afford to own a heated home with enough left over to buy some food and, hopefully, even be able to purchase their goods and services. Big Business wants a weak dollar, so they can sell their goods overseas and use those profits to buy land and capital equipment from struggling American individuals and firms at relatively bargain prices - maybe even in foreclosure!
Who do you think is getting their way? As Charlie Koch says in his featured Op-Ed piece in the Journal this morning: "Government spending on business only aggravates the problem. Too many businesses have successfully lobbied for special favors and treatment by seeking mandates for their products, subsidies (in the form of cash payments from the government), and regulations or tariffs to keep more efficient competitors (i.e. Koch Industries) at bay." But don't worry, the Koch Brothers are on the case, spending their Billions to support far-right and Tea Party causes looking to roll back the Progressive causes all the way to where we were before the Great Depression (the first one, not the one their idiocy is likely to bring about next). Charlie says:
"Because of our activism, we've been vilified by various groups. Despite this criticism, we're determined to keep contributing and standing up for those politicians, like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who are taking these challenges seriously."
So that's why we're shorting small business. The worst part is they are too stupid to know who their enemies are. Small businesspeople are suffering every bit as much as Middle Class Americans yet they believe they are the same as the Koch Brothers and they look to get Government out of their lives and support Big Business causes, much like Hansel and Gretel moving into the Koch's gingerbread house - not realizing that they are the desert.
One of the great jokes played on Small Business in America is the Chamber of Commerce, an organization that claims to represents small business (and takes their money, letting them think they have representation) but is really just another mouthpiece for the top 1% (see "The Scam Chamber"). The Chamber of Commerce has, in fact, swung so far to the right that responsible corporate citizens like Nike, Apple, Exelon Energy, PG&E quit the Chamber over its extremist positions.
.jpg)
Small Business is dying in America from lack of representation and, even worse, those that claim to represent them are selling them down the river (when they are not stabbing them in the backs). In fact, we can create a profitable investing premise buy simply investing in the people who do all the lobbying these days and shorting those who do the least - look how well this idea would have played out tracking 2010 Lobbying Spending by Sector.
See how Defense needs to step it up? Also, you can see why Labor has no chance at all of having their voice heard. Consider for a moment that all this money is used to "influence" just 435 Congressmen, 100 Senators, 9 judges and one President in one year! This matter came to our attention when one of our Conservative Members put up statistics from the National Review that "proved" that unions have plenty of influence in Washington. In that article in that once-respected magazine, the author says: "Here are the ten largest donors in U.S. politics as of February 7, according to OpenSecrets.Org: ActBlue: $51 million, AT&T: $46 million, AFSCME: $43 million..."
Wow, that sounds impressive doesn't it. Unless, of course you follow the link and notice that this represents the TOTAL spending of those groups since 1989 - $51M in 21 years vs. THIS CHART'S 2010 SPENDING.
I don't know when the National Review turned into the National Enquirer but shame on them for misleading Conservatives like that! Fortunately Kevin Williamson, who wrote this hack piece, is only the Deputy Managing Editor of the National Review and not the Managing Editor - now THAT would be embarrassing!
Anyway, so where was I? Oh yes, small businesses are being screwed over and likely to be slammed by the inflation that Big Businesses are pushing for and the Fed, of course, is 100% on the inflationary bandwagon. As David Fry said yesterday:
Last week it was Bullard, Lacker and Kohn throwing the spin around and today it was Dudley with a notable assist from Buffett. And, since it was month-end, headline writers got the green close they wanted with the third month of gains. Kohn’s comments last week were incoherent overall while Dudley’s TV appearance consisted of misleading BS with comments like, “The Fed is keeping its mandate” and, “It’s unwise to overreact to rising commodity prices.”
Overreact? I don't see anyone reacting, other than speculators who are BUYBUYBUYing more and more commodities as the prices rise. In fact, as of February 22nd, Hedge Funds had taken the largest speculative net long position on oil futures since June 2006, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's weekly Commitments of Traders report. "Money managers are looking and seeing the Middle East situation is far from resolved," said Carl Larry, president of Oil Outlooks & Opinions in Houston. "The upside is unlimited, depending on how bad things get."
Of course I mean no one in THIS country is reacting. In more thoughtful nations, people are rioting. Although, did you know there are more people protesting in Madison, Wisconsin this week than in Tripoli, Libya? No, you wouldn't know that because that's not the way the Corporate Media in this country reports things, is it? To be fair, in Libya, the Government is threatening the protesters with guns while Governor Walker is only threatening to fire the protesters in Wisconsin. Makes you kind of proud we live in a Democracy, doesn't it?
Bad news that will be ignored this morning includes a 0.5% drop in ICSC Retail Store Sales (those pesky small businesses), who are losing consumer discretionary dollars to energy producing companies - like Koch Industries! Chinese PMI fell again in February but still an expansionist 52.2 but a separate HSBC survey shows a more significant drop to 51.7, a 7 month low. I apologize for the link there to the Liberal rag-sheet NY Times but the WSJ apparently has no idea Chinese PMI went lower as their headline on the same subject is "Asian Factory Data Show Growth Intact." I must say I am proud to live in a country where we are free to choose the facts we want to hear from such a wide variety of media outlets. Imagine how dull it would be if there was just one truth and we all read the same thing...
Ben Bernanke addresses Congress today and tomorrow and those people will hear the same thing and draw completely different conclusions from it but we're playing the Dollar bullish as other countries are loosening their money to keep up with us and I do believe there will be enough anti-Fed noise made this week that QE3 begins to be called into question. Of course, it's budget showdown week as well and, as Paul Krugman points out: "While low spending may sound good in the abstract, what it amounts to in practice is low spending on children, who account directly or indirectly for a large part of government outlays at the state and local level." Krugman points to the "Texas Miracle" and it's not-so-miraculous aftermath:
in low-tax, low-spending Texas, the kids are not all right. The high school graduation rate, at just 61.3 percent, puts Texas 43rd out of 50 in state rankings. Nationally, the state ranks fifth in child poverty; it leads in the percentage of children without health insurance. And only 78 percent of Texas children are in excellent or very good health, significantly below the national average... The really striking thing about all this isn’t the cruelty — at this point you expect that — but the shortsightedness. What’s supposed to happen when today’s neglected children become tomorrow’s work force?
Unfortunately, that's not a question that concerns the Koch Brothers or President Obama's Economic Adviser, Jeff Immelt of GE - they are outsourcing their labor and they can't wait for the day when American schools begin to turn out graduates who will live 8 to a room in a factory dormitory and work 12-hour shifts at $2 per hour. It's called "Putting America Back to Work" and there are armies of lobbyists either lining the pockets or twisting the arms of each and every Congressman you'll see on TV over the next two days.
That's Democracy in action!
»
- ilene's blog
- 9203 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
As a micro business owner I just want the government out of the way. I dont need any favors or subsidized loans. I dont want the government granting anyone else favors or giving special interests an advantage.
I dont think the Koch approach necessarily favors big business. The government needs to quit doing so much and just cut taxes and get a lot smaller.
Being a small businessman, I have watched in horror as Bernanke et al has wrecked havoc with QE to secure the top 1% of the international bankers at the expense of the rest of the world.
I believed in the fairness of free markets and have been betrayed by the brutal reality that we have allowed corporations to control every aspect of government policy. And the Krugmans of the progressive agenda do a disservice to society, advocating that more government is the solution.
Unfortunately, like in Libya, major change only occurs through violent opposition. Is Marc Farber right? That in effect we are all doomed at this point and all that is left is to scramble through the mess to try and survive the aftermath of global systemic stupidity?
In high school we debated the proposition, "Is civil disobedience justified in a democracy?" Do we even have a democracy when the banks are funneling billions into the campaign coffers of our elected officials?
I submit that no one will care enough to change the situation until unemplyment is 50% and food stamps can't cover the costs of monthly feedings to quell potential riots. WTI Oil at $200 a barrel should make gas $7-$9 a gallon, bringing the farce of "recovery" to a staggering halt. Politics in 2012 is going to be a great year!
What the heck was the OP even supposed to be about? "I'm angry," "big business bad," "small business good," "boo right," "yay left" is about all I got out of it. Never mind that the Federal Reserve is a paragon of progressive central management of the economy. I don't thinke "ilene" even knows what Progressivism is; he/she appears to have a vague sense that it's "for the little guy" and "against the big guy," except of course "responsible corporations" like PG&E.
And really, people in the grip of 15th-century-style religion and even more backward government are "more thoughtful" than the USA? We might get a little too much Jersey Shore here, but at least we've never put some crazy theocrat who thinks Allah is telling him to destroy the Jews in the White House.
IF you applied critical reading skills, you just might realize it was about:
"So that's why we're shorting small business."
It's from PHIL'S STOCK WORLD, for crying out loud.
Not taking sides one way of the other - just being pragmatic & stepping on toes of the left & the right.
Bottom line - small business is screwed, and you can make money shorting their misfortune.
What’s supposed to happen when today’s neglected children become tomorrow’s work force?
You get what you have today. It's not like we don't reap what we sow.
Benito Mussolini called the form of government he imposed on Italy in 1922, “the corporate state,” the political name for which was Fascism. As he put it, “The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power.”
Any questions?
Did the Italians at least get paid off the deal?
they at least had the common sense to throw down their weapons when the armies of the ultimate corporate state landed on their shores.
Good answer!
Don't you wonder, though, how it worked out for the people before it started decay? It would be interesting if they (unlike us) actually benefited . . .
sorry, but you can make the same chart showing: wall street, unions, tech companies, enviromental groups, Soros, MIC, etc.
Your fixation on the left/right charade says that you still don't understand the problem.
The structure is fatally flawed. Our only chance is to fundamentally alter the current system so that special interest of all types are eliminated. fat chance of that.
In the mean time WE'RE BROKE. Budget accordingly.
Is there a coherent point to this post. Could the author please separate the problems of government unions bleeding the country dry from the big banks/Fed cartel bleeding the country dry from the corporate welfare bleeding the country dry? Each is a problem with possible solutions. Verbally thrashing about and blaming libertarians for all ills doesn't cut it.
funding for small business was in trouble years before the financial crisis. A friend called to to tell me his business needed money, he was travelling to China, getting new orders, but the bank wouldn't lend him money for supplies to operate. or they wanted 20%. i said why not refi your house at 3 1/2% and use that money? what was happening made no sense, the big banks were deliberately cutting off lending, the big banks which are part of corporate America, while America's corporations are flush with cash? while America's corporations borrow money for share buybacks? this was classwarfare, not social, but business, corporate America versus small business America. the mortgage crisis was a hoax. At the very bottom of the stock market, when the banks were supposedly on life support, a family member calls to tell me his is buying a house. Huh? I thought the banks were closed. They were but Credit Unions weren't and money kept flowing all though the so called financial crisis. Now we have a phony deficit crisis (guess which party created both criseses and you win the prize).
the first Great Depression was a massive transfer of wealth from private hands to corporate hands. The second one hasn't been a disappointment either, as the rich billionarires masquerade as populists. Their dirty secret is they don't really want to end the Fed (Paul) or cap the Federal spending (Kochs and the Tea Party) they just want to use the threat of those things to achieve their ends, which is the destruction of the social contract in America, and make it a country of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.
We reached a (convenient) point in history where corporate America and the Federal government are really one in the same, which makes using these tools very efficacious. Obama is the supreme joke in all this, while he promised change, he just cemented his relationship with his corporate overlords. the man hasn't a populist bone in his head. He is simply a corrupt Chicago politician.
But it remains interesting, at least from the bleacher seats, to see how quickly the financial oligarchs took control of the opposition.
Sounds like you missed the kool-aid! Only a guy who looks black had any chance of slipping under the radar the way Barry has.
and how many retired firemen can you fit inside one Goldman's Sachs yearly bonus
I think that may be the very metric they're using. The answer is that if you starve them first, you can fit a fuck of a lot! And that in turn increases the size of the bonus container . . . which means it can fit even more! And so on . . .
I think you gotta luv this if you're a sociopath banker.
The Koch brothers are right.
We need to limit government and severely restrict taxes.
If the government has no money to give away to special interests then lobbyists will disappear.
Who is going to spend money lobbying a bum?
How much do they spend on students in Wash DC and what kind of results do they achieve?
Single parent households has nothing to do with anything.
Watered down academic standards are completely irrelevant.
Promotion of high birth rates amongst those least capable of parenting is totally benign.
Agenda ridden human race stifling scumbags.
When the union drone and the Arab ass licker applaud it is almost a virtual certainty said text is neo marxist at the minimum.
The scale of costs and benefits has tilted. Finally, we have lost enough jobs and accumulated enough debt that the cheap imports are looking like baubles. We all made pocketbook decisions individually and they slowly led to self-destruction. The average Americans also became very lazy students of things that matter and obsessed with the trivial.
We will not have the resolve to build communities and buy local until we are crawling on our knees. My plan has been to invest in tools and wait.
The Amish are nicely positioned right now.
Go down to your local metal scrap yard in a sizable blue collar area and you'll find millions of dollars worth of tools, boats, motors, mowers, recreation vehicles, everything you can imagine available for the price of the metal.
Pick up the Craftsman pieces even if they don't work . . . and return them to Sears for a free upgrade.
Looks like you stirred up a hornets' nest by naming names, ilene. What people seem to miss is that you're not talking up the apparent "other side" by any means in doing so.
So it goes. Nice analysis!
As I see it, the problem in America is massive corruption at every level of government, business and labor and it will only get worse as the average Joe and Jane join the party rather than wait until everything they have is stolen by some other segment of society. Most people in America are too ignorant and uneducated to understand what is happening and tend to blame blacks, the poor, welfare recipients, illegal immigrants, tea baggers, progressives, bankers, businessmen, jews, politicians, muslims, right wing christians, queers, lesbians, catholic priests, the cia, pentagon or whatever boogie man, straw man their small minds can wrap their ire around. Me? I blame Abe Lincoln. He was the biggest butcher in American history. He stared a civil war, shredded the constitution and began the genocide against the indians.
In addition to corruption, I would only add that fraud and the sense of entitlement (not relating to welfare) has really become the status quo at ALL levels of social interaction.
Let me be clear by what I mean by "entitlement" because it has nothing to do with social services. I recently interviewed several candidates for a research position at my company. I saw numerous, highly educated, people who had the attitude that I should hire them and pay them more than some staff that have been with me for five years or more because they were educated and had a shiny degree to prove it. Sorry assholes, your professors did you a great disservice if you really think that this is how the world works.
Being in small business I know for a fact that all democrats, tea partiers and republicans don't care about small business. They would rather have small business die off so large nonprofits (who are making big money in ways most don't understand) can control the rental markets and social services and large for-profits can take everything else.
It's a one party system, where if you pass a bill to get this person a corporate retirement after leaving congress, this person will do the same for you.
It's all there in plain sight if you follow the politician's life after the public service office is passed on to someone else.
Reps and Dems are two bullies in a schoolyard playing keep-away with the wherewithal for small business to get ahead. There is nobody to chaperon the bullying.
"Small Business is dying in America from lack of representation and, even worse, those that claim to represent them are selling them down the river (when they are not stabbing them in the backs)."
No numb nuts, small businesses are dying because of government and the overwhelming economic distortions it creates, not because of a lack of representation.
No, fucknuts. Small business is dying because of a lack of CUSTOMERS. It begins and ends with customers period. If you are truly a "free market" person (as most small business owners claim) and don't want any government intervention at all, then you need to make a BETTER product than you competition, and you need to do it CHEAPER. Unfortunately, in a finite system (like earth), growth economics that is built on cheap energy and labor costs (which are the ONLY things that matter) can not last forever. Simple thermodynamics really. Now it gets interesting. My company is capitalized to run for ten years and pretty much in control of our input costs. In addition to making sure my customers are happy, I figure this is the best I can do. Outside of that, we have silver and plenty of ordinance to defend our assets. Bring it, baby.
What a bunch of bunk.
George Soros much? This real-life Nazi collaborating pig: was given $2 billion of US taxpayer stimulus money by Obama to invest in offshore drilling in Brazil; got competing US Gulf drilling shut down despite Obama being found in contempt by a Federal Judge of the moratorium; has $321 million invested in Monsanto which was just given a monoploy in the Food Safety bill; and owned 10,000 shares in the TSA scanner machine company.
Those were all George Soros carve out laws. Little old ladies and children have to get scanned and patted down by the TSA because George Soros owned the TSA scanner company and needed a political mandate for their use. George Soros owns the socialist democratic party and pays for: Think Progress, Mediamatters, moveon.org, Tides foundation, and 12 other socialist groups and political organizations. It's because of the Soros infiltration that we're seeing the strawman anti-Koch brothers propaganda popping up.
And Soros does the same thing at the UN level. He is a gravy sucking pig.
I wonder how much of a killing Soros made on the Hungarian real-estate market selling those "empty" Jewish homes.
Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot. "KOCH! KOCH! KOCH!"
and speaking of Koch, the story of what a bunch of scum they are gets even better as you dig.
They are more than willing to rip off Americans as taxpayers and individuals.
Today, we hear about Charles and David Koch, but there's a third Koch brother - William. William wasn't the first to sue Charles and David for fraud, but his 1999 court action ended the most conclusively and dramatically. Ten years earlier, in 1989, William Koch was involved in a filing on the behalf of Native American Nations against Charles and David, but the interesting civil suit was when William sued his brothers personally for fraud in 1999.
And won.
William had ethical differences with Charles and David back in the '80s over Charles' "sociopathic management style". His message on "60 Minutes II" in November 2000 was to tell the world that Koch Industries was a criminal enterprise.
It was – was my family company. I was out of it," he says. "But that’s what appalled me so much... I did not want my family, my legacy, my father’s legacy to be based upon organized crime". - William Koch, 27 Nov 2000, 60 Minutes II
The fraud was perpetrated by doctoring the oil measurements. If the oil depth on your lands were really 7'3", Koch Industries guagers were told to report it as 7'1", and Koch would pocket the remainder. Koch would perpetrate this fraud largely on Federal and Native American lands, and it added up to hundreds of millions of dollars a year. 50 former Koch gaugers testified against the company, some in video depositions.
Are ya getting it yet??
Why watch thieves squabble over the booty they stole at gunpoint? Better spent time figuring out how to stop the crime syndicates, democrat, republican, lobbyists, bankers, govt - all anti-liberty pro state.
What you said, sir! Looters at the gates!
YEAH!!! Let's just vote in the Democrats--that'll change EVERYTHING!!!
/s
+1000
Cut/Jib/Newsletter, sir.
I think we were so collectively tired of the POTUS being so dumbed down for the eight years prior that when someone came along that could string a understandable sentence together we bought into it. I'm still hoping that when it comes time for Presidential elections, will be when we see the slew of arrests we all have been waiting for. I'm not holding my breath you know what they say " Fool me once shame on you fool me twice don't fool me again.".
I thought it was "fool me twice and I'll put a fuckin' bullet in ya."
Regan had it right after all with his trickle down economics:
Money runs uphill and shit runs downhill. YUCK
A friend lent me the talking book of Obama's 'dreams of my father' or whatever its called....
She's a good person, married to a lawyer, socialist leaning - can afford to be.
Its taken me about 8 months to get round to listening to it in my car.
Its listenable, well articulated and suggests he had a childhood where he mixed with ordinary people.
In a line a chicago pastor tells him the problems in the world are due to
1) Wall St bankers 2) Rich lobbyists and i can't recall the other.
My point is this.
Obama knows who the problem is - he even says it in his book.
And he's done nothing, except line their pockets.
What a fucking disappointment.
He was supposed to be different...certainly not a silver spoon IQ 90 like Bush
aw shit.
You actually fell for Obama's bullshit? How smart can Obama possibly be if he never got the memo from the 20th century that marxism doesn't work?
No college records, no anything on this guy before Harvard. It's as if the media wants to pretend a black lawyer from Harvard just dropped out of the sky at age 35 and landed in Chicago. But even a quick 20 minute internet search by an eigth grader reveals plenty and shows the media is just covering up for him.
As editor of the Harvard law review Obama was the only editor in the history of all the ivy leagues (not just Harvard) to never have written a paper.
Professor John Lott (lawyer and economist), University Chicago, relates that Obama was not wanted on staff at UC after his interview because the guy just "didn't know anything". A phone call was made to the university 2 weeks later with the instructions to "just him on the payroll." So they gave him a part time job where he lectured 1-2 times per week on community organizing and marxist Saul Alinsky tactics.
In the senate, Obama was more socialist by voting record (#1) than the admitted socialist (#4) Bernie Sanders. Joe Biden was (#3), Ted Kennedy (#2). Obama teamed with Hugo Chavez in the attempted marxist takeover of Honduras by Manuel Zelaya in 2009. His Childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis was a admitted pedophile and active member of the Communist Party USA who wrote for the national commie newspaper in the 1950's and 60's. Valerie Jarret's father was another commie who was friends with F.M. Davis, and that's how he knows Jarrett and ended up in Chicago. In Chicago, everybody already knows about commie friend Bill Ayers who has now retired from UC teaching, but most would be surprised to hear he has been "organizing" the last two years with Hamas in Palestine and the ME for "social justice."
Former college classmate, Dr. John Drew, has oft repeated to the media that Obama was a marxist leader and organizer on campus at Occidental but has been ignored. And John Drew knows, because he used to be the biggest marxist organizer at Occidental on campus at the time before he grew up and moved on to graduate school.
Obama came from a broken home but went to all the finest schools, became a multi-millionaire, senator, and president. His message should be that if he can make it in America, anybody can make it; that there's no lack of opportunity in America, only wasted opportunity.
According to his hero, Karl Marx, he never should have made it.
http://c4ss.org/content/5740
Obama Marxism Watch -- Be Very Afraid! by Kevin Carson For over two years, we unappreciated patriots have taken upon ourselves the thankless task of outing Barack Obama as a closeted Marxist and exposing his insidious socialist agenda for enslaving this country.....
http://c4ss.org/content/5740 Obama Marxism Watch -- Be Very Afraid! by Kevin Carson For over two years, we unappreciated patriots have taken upon ourselves the thankless task of outing Barack Obama as a closeted Marxist and exposing his insidious socialist agenda for enslaving this country.....
He came from a broken home and? Check his parent's records. He was far from being resourceless.
People without resources have a hard time in the US as the US promotional programs usually include to steal from another so it is gifted to US citizens.
See Indian land grabbing, Homestead act and all.
That is the way of the US: rob to entitle the US citizenry.
Was i fooled by Obama?
Not really , i'm in Australia so we've got our own socialist numpty here.
I thought Bush really fucked the USA with his dumb war in iraq.
so costly. in money and men.
messed up soldiers returning home so that you get Cog Diss doing articles on these guys shooting their own peoplein time - you wouldn't get an article like that (with support) in australia - our soldiers are part of us, the community. its ungrateful and rude, but i didn't comment on it, i'm shutting up a bit now.
USA now has played its hand and can do nothing about iran getting nukes.
i was sick of bush and non plussed by the rest.
Hilary? Fuck em all.
Interesting thoughts here on it. Educating...
I simply love the smell of napalmed lobbyist in the morning....
smells like freedom fries....
Right on, Gwar5.
The media totally covered for him. Let's not forget that he is a product of the Chicago machine. How else could he have risen rapidly through the biggest machine political system in the country? There was enough with the Tony Rezko scandal alone to have prevented his nomination & election had it been properly investigated and reported.
So, he gets elected & brings the Chicago machine to D.C.....& now we see the train track runs both ways. Welcome the new mayor of Chicago!
There was NEVER going to be any "change" for the common man - just PR & rhetoric. Obama is owned by the FIRE community, just like the rest of Washington.
The Republican candidate for the IL Senate seat imploded when it was revealed through leaked divorce court documents that he on more than one occasion tried to engage his wife in group sex with strangers. The wife in question was actress Jeri Ryan who played "Seven of Nine" on Star Trek:
Gives a new spin on Republican family values, no?
So, if Ryan had been able to keep it in his pants and not try to involve his wife, he'd have been elected.
Nothing nefarious about Obama's Senate win in IL. It was handed to him by an idiot Republican candidate.
Junking the truth and facts won't change them.
Ryan would have been the Rep. Senator from IL if he hadn't been such a sick fuck.
And Obama would still be sitting in the IL State Senate.
...and how did he get to the IL State Senate, and how did he then get the Democratic nomination to run for the U.S. Senate seat against Ryan?
....and even if Ryan had not screwed up so royally, please explain how you know he would have beaten Obama?
Hillary thought she would beat him, and McCain did, too.
http://joesixpack.me/orig_letter.html
Duke, get thee to thine Huey Bravo!
"Hope and Change" was always a lie. The entire reason Obama became President was his silent pledge to run interference for the Banksters. Do you not recall that he sat down with Wall Street in 2007 and secured their support? They were sick of the Bushes, even though the Bush Family were Old Street.
Obama has his Thirty Pieces of Silver. He is, in all likelihood, an old jumped-up collegiate Marxist who thinks he can make a deal with the Banksters to get their support for his March to the Radiant Future. He is a fool. There were four Presidents who ever understood the Banksters; one was Andrew Jackson, the next was TR, followed by his relative Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the last was Ike. Each of them had the guts, experience, wisdom, and guile (especially FDR) that Obama lacks.
Soros vouched for him; the Banksters supported him, the Sheeple voted for him.
Obama is the Banksters' Poodle. Accepting that is the beginning of wisdom.
Don't be disappointed in Obama. You were being lied to all along. Once you get that he's the lower-case flip side of George W. Bush, then you'll understand why every day of the 21st Century is a Bankster's Holiday. More HopeNChange means fatter bonus envelopes all 'round!
Anyone for Pecora Hearings? Anyone?
The Fed is the enabler of progressive government and it owes it's existence to the Theodore Roosevelt. He ran on the Bull Moose ticket to prevent Taft from winning the 1912 presidential election. In 1913 Wilson and congress created the Fed. The great depression was triggered in part by the Fed's first credit bubble and FDR was elected as a result. His confiscation of gold and various regulatory "reforms" cemented the Fed's monopoly on the value money in the United States. He also started the ponzi known as Social Security and tried to bring on socialized medicine. I would consider him the president most responsible for the mess we have today. But he did have guts. Jackson carried his balls around in a wheel barrow and was the only American president that wasn't a tool of the banks. Eisenhower lamented about the military industrial complex in his farewell speech but did little to oppose them during his presidency.
Shhhh ... he's on a roll ...
(Think Bluto's speech from Animal House when reading victor82's post)