AMERICAN’S ARE NOW “CHANGE WARY”

Valarie Jarrett, Assistant to President Obama is an arrogant woman who originally hired Michele Obama in a hospital system in Chicago, a woman who came up through the Chicago political machine, she appeared this morning on CNBC Squawk Box and when ask why Jack Welch, past chairman of GE commented that President Obama’s jamming so much down the throats of taxpayers in a huge rush will cause waste and bad decision making, she discounts him saying so. …She says to Jack Welsh…. Obama was elected and has a total mandate to invoke his vision for America. She says Jack Welsh; go away, you don’t know what you’re talking about? Jack Welsh of course is a great business man and Icon who built up GE to a respected and dynamic corporation in this country. He certainly has credentials to say what he did. I believe he spoke for far more than half of the voters in this wonderful country.

Valarie Jarrett is but one of all of the Chicago clan of Barack Obama that believe that they are invincible and can handle changing the complete landscape of what this county is, based on their perception of the so called Obama mandate. They have already put our country in the tank on debt obligations while they continue to push three new programs, Obama healthcare, Obama Cap and Tax, and Obama Immigration Gate. Any one of these let alone all three will certainly put a yoke of extreme debt obligation around the neck of the next three generations of citizen in this country, and put American as the largest debtor nation in the world, with status of a third world nation. Many economists claim with this kind of debt, America cannot sustain its self.

What Obama Administration people refuse to see and allow for is that they are planting the seeds of hatred of their policies through their steam-rollering of policy while they have a willing Congress to play out their fantasies, at the expense of terrible consequences that will befall our country.

I believe we will see a title wave of protestation and anger by a very large majority of Americans soon, at least when a true leader emerges if one does, representing the greater than half of Americans that are already “Change Wary” for change sake. The Change Wary folks have had it with all this talk by President Obama of apologizing for our way of life, our ethics and our leadership in the world landscape. We do not feel that we need to apologize for our success which is what Barack Obama seems to feel is appropriate.

The answer is NO, we don’t apologize, we applaud our 200 plus year history and that is that Barack Obama. You are not speaking for me or for all those Change Wary citizens of this great country. We do not need to change it into what Europe wants us to be, nonsense Barack Obama, we need to say we will fire you if you continue to apologize for our success and prosperity as demonstrated in the past. We need to get back to the order of business we have enjoyed prior to Barack Obama’s view of America. I for one find myself in disbelief of the tearing down of our way of life by a sitting President. Barack Obama, your change concept in the election said nothing of the socialistic and extreme left wing views that you are now forcing down our throats. That Sir is dishonest. Your claim that you are carrying out a so called mandate for extreme leftist policies is just deceitful. This is not where the bulk of American citizens are politically and you know it. You are tearing this country apart with your rush to change our way of life.
Jim the Conservative

Someone Is Looking At Your Salary

Today we see the results of Congress and a President that has put business on the ropes so to speak, and now the Liberals are having their day taking aim at corporate salaries, not just those that are ridicules, but within the whole corporate world of public companies. President Obama has little empathy for the corporate world and has taken a stance in his campaign and now as President that has and continues to drive a wedge between government and corporations across the land. Some see this as extending class division

The Feds are starting under Timothy Geithner’s direction to institute the kind of regulation that we saw with Sarbanes Oxley that cost countless corporations Billions and Billions of expenses that turned out to be totally un-worthy by most standards and captured few villains as it was intended to. Now we see Rep. Barney Frank and Senator Chris Dodd on a mission to instill earnings controls over all companies that are public companies (Stock Holder owned) across our land. I am researching stories of executives that have received bonus dollars or stock ownership that has been devalued and bonuses that were force to be given back even after executives had made investments and or purchased real estate with their bonuses and are now forced to sell such assets at huge losses as a result. Contract salary payments are no longer untouchable from the long arm of the regulators. As the article below indicates concern exists as to whether risk taking is going to be possible and whether we will see talent willing to work for public companies when they can set up small non public companies and earn the kinds of money they desire. There will always be work-a-rounds when government gets down to stifling executive pay.

Jim The Conservative

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1027275020090611

http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/ceou/database.cfm?tkr=AIG&pg=1

Fray on Pay
The battle over executive compensation and what it means for you.
Russ Banham, CFO Magazine
June 1, 2009
When it comes to the public outcry over executive compensation, the sounds of protest may have faded but the fury lives on. Bands of placard-carrying citizens have disappeared from lower Manhattan, but efforts to rein in what many perceive as outrageous paydays are, if anything, intensifying. From Capitol Hill to boardrooms across the country, efforts are under way to restrict the compensation of executives of all publicly traded companies, even those far removed from any form of bailout.
“People have been excoriating executive-pay practices for decades, and this is their ‘pitchfork’ moment, with mobs literally taking to the streets to protest the bonuses at AIG, Merrill Lynch, and other firms,” says Ira Kay, director of executive compensation consulting at Watson Wyatt.
Already the repercussions are being felt far and wide, from Silicon Valley, where Apple shareholders pushed through a “say-on-pay” proposal despite board members advocating for its rejection, to The Netherlands, where the CEO of ING made a “moral appeal” to executives to return their recent bonuses. A Watson Wyatt survey found that nearly two-thirds of board members believe companies need to change their executive compensation plans in response to current political and market pressures.
A Volatile Mix
It is political pressure in particular that has many observers, not to mention CFOs, seeing red. Soon Congress is expected to unveil a slate of executive pay legislation that could extend the government’s recent rules for companies receiving federal dollars from the Troubled Asset Relief Program to other publicly traded companies. “The sad thing about AIG and the TARP regulations on executive pay is that successful, careful companies will be painted with the same broad brush, affecting their ability to compete in the global marketplace,” says Jeffrey A. Burchill, senior vice president and CFO of FM Global, a large business-property insurer.
If the remarks coming from the two primary movers in Congress — House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank (D–Mass.) and Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee chairman Christopher Dodd (D–Conn.) — are any indication, companies can expect substantive changes, although the full scope is anyone’s guess. “Specific caps on compensation are not very likely,” says Alexander Cwirko-Godycki, research manager at compensation benchmarking firm Equilar Inc., “but there is definite momentum behind say-on-pay provisions, mandates for wider clawback policies, and increased compensation disclosure requirements, among others.” It remains to be seen which of these, if any, will become law, but in Cwirko-Godycki’s view, “there has certainly never been a stronger case for these proposals to become reality.”
“Situations of excessive pay are not rampant,” says Brent Longnecker, chairman and CEO of Longnecker & Associates, a Houston-based compensation consultancy. “Only about 2% of companies have rewarded failure, but the government is keen to do something to appease the public’s outrage.” He is not alone in this view. “Nobody knows what the rules will be or how the Treasury Department will write the regulations, but they’re coming,” says Patrick McGurn, special counsel to the institutional shareholders services unit of RiskMetrics.
In a worst-case scenario, some or all of the compensation provisions in TARP would be extended to all public companies (see “Laying Out the TARP” at the end of this article). While that’s a long shot, even the possibility has many people raising a battle cry. “If companies don’t get out in front of this issue now, with their compensation committees leading the charge, the government will get in and make things worse,” says Ben W. Heineman Jr., former General Electric senior vice president and general counsel and currently a senior fellow at Harvard University’s schools of law and public policy. “This is not the time to go into the bunkers.”
“The question is how far Congress will go,” says Claudia Allen, chair of the corporate-governance practice at Chicago-based law firm Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg. “You have politics and the law getting stirred in the same pot, and it is a volatile mix.”
Many observers fear the law of unintended consequences, and point to the 1993 creation of Section 162(m) of the Internal Revenue Code as Exhibit A. The regulation forbade corporate tax deductions for salaries exceeding $1 million, but made an exception for performance-based incentive compensation, such as stock options vesting at a particular date. Not surprisingly, or so it seems now, companies shifted from high salaries to high stock options and bonuses, while also lifting the salaries of many seemingly underpaid CEOs and other senior executives to $1 million. Now the Obama Administration is considering revising 162(m) downward, disallowing tax deductions above $500,000 and closing the loophole for stock options. “As we’ve seen happen in the past with respect to executive pay, the government has a way of making things worse,” Longnecker says.
CFOs React
CFOs certainly seem disinclined to burrow into the bunkers. “This country was built on capitalism, on people wanting to better themselves, working long hours to achieve cherished dreams of success,” says Marc Rosenblum, CFO of cosmetics company Clarins USA. “Unlike socialist societies, people could become rich if their companies became successful. We have to be very careful not to make this country a place where dreams can no longer be realized.”

“If the government begins setting bright-line tests limiting compensation and enacts one-size-fits-all regulations,” says Holly Koeppel, CFO at Midwest utility American Electric Power (AEP), “it may change the perception and motivations of managers, ultimately rendering the organization less competitive.”
Rosenblum, however, concedes that some reforms are needed. “You cannot reward someone for sales volume without regard for whether or not it’s good for the business,” he says, taking a swipe at AIG. “I don’t blame traders there for getting bonuses — they should be compensated for bringing in volume. But it’s the CFO’s job to make sure that what they’re selling is not too risky.” He suggests, in fact, that CFOs should play a key role in bringing sanity to bear on compensation. “Abolishing bonuses isn’t the answer: managing risk is. As long as finance has a say, everybody wins.”
Koeppel agrees. “The issue is risk and how to align it with executive reward,” she says. “We lost our way when reward was linked to financial metrics that did not translate into cash flow.”
In Search of Better Metrics
There may be a lesson in that for compensation committees, which are now on a collective hot seat from which they are unlikely to extricate themselves any time soon. “The typically light agenda of summer committee meetings will be a distant memory,” says Myrna Hellerman, senior vice president at Sibson Consulting. “Committees will have to make [vital] decisions about what stays and what goes in 2010 compensation plans.” RiskMetrics’s McGurn agrees, adding that “AIG and other egregious examples of ‘pay-for-failure’ have served as a consciousness-raising exercise for boards and compensation committees.”
“I think that compensation committees should be in the crosshairs on this issue,” says Lester A. Hudson, chairman of the Human Resources Committee of AEP’s board (which also addresses executive-compensation policies), “and not the executives receiving incentive compensation. The problems reside with the directors; many just don’t understand the implications of their plans. It is their responsibility to ensure that incentive compensation doesn’t increase the risk level of the company, and some committees failed to grasp this.”
As for what such committees might do, Bruce Ellig, a compensation adviser and author of the revised and updated Complete Guide to Executive Compensation, echoes Koeppel’s comments on metrics in general and cash flow in particular. “There are a number of ways that boards can address these issues before the government [steps in],” he says. “For example, they may want to use both net income and cash flow as pay-for-performance measures, as opposed to just net income. Cash flow is much harder to fudge — you either have it or you don’t.”
FM Global’s compensation program links incentive compensation to three key metrics: profitability, customer retention (measured as revenues from the existing customer base), and new customers (measured as additional revenues). If profitability falls precipitously and the other two metrics rise, executive compensation suffers — the reverse of the equation used by AIG. “Of the three key metrics, profitability is the one weighted largest, accounting for 50%,” Burchill says. “Customer retention is 40%, and only 10% is new business. You have to have company results before you pay incentive compensation.”
Despite the uncertainty regarding legislation, many companies are addressing compensation issues already. The Watson Wyatt survey found that fully 55% have frozen salaries — 34 percentage points higher than the consultancy’s December 2008 survey recorded. Thirty-eight percent of respondents also are making changes to their annual incentive-plan performance measures and 30% are making changes to their long-term incentive-plan measures. About one-third have already shifted to time-based restricted stock and performance-based shares, and another third have changed or are considering changes to their executive-pay programs to address excessive risk.
Tensions and Checkpoints
Given that companies seem to be taking action, however belatedly, on this hot-button issue, many argue that no government intervention is needed. “I’m a firm believer that the current system is working,” says Mylle Harvey Mangum, chairman and CEO of IBT Holdings, a designer and builder of retail environments for bank branches. Mangum sits on several boards and currently chairs two compensation committees, at Haverty Furniture and Collective Brands (owner of Payless retail shoe stores). “Compensation committees are in the best and most knowledgeable position to address the perceived abuses,” she says. “Directors today are chosen by other board members and voted on by the shareholders. Nobody slips by anymore.”
To assure that executive pay is aligned with company performance, she says, compensation committees should consider scenario-planning exercises in which the key metrics governing an executive’s pay are put through different circumstances. On the two compensation committees she chairs, “we use tally sheets to plot the financial metrics against salary and performance-based compensation to see where things might end up down the line. Each company is different, which is why one-size-fits-all regulations just don’t work. You want to set up healthy tensions and checkpoints that encourage salespeople to sell like crazy, but then have a finance person who has to approve the pricing and margins before things get out of control.”

Such checks and balances also are in play at AEP. Koeppel assists the board in linking business outcomes with compensation metrics. “We take the board through new scenarios every year,” she says, noting that finance provided “a wider range of possible outcomes this year in light of the economy.”
AEP’s board has the discretion to make adjustments to the compensation plan if they perceive it to have negative unintended consequences. Directors did that earlier this year, when the company lowered its 2009 earnings guidance. The board changed AEP’s methodology for annual incentive compensation by increasing the threshold earnings per share needed to fund the program, moving it to the midpoint, rather than the low end, of the company’s earnings guidance. The board decided that “requiring employees to work harder to achieve incentive awards more-appropriately balanced employee and shareholder interests, since shareholders would be negatively impacted by the lower anticipated earnings,” Koeppel says.
Such best practices may be moot, however. “The die has been cast,” says Kay. “We’re in a deep recession and people are looking for victims. Executive compensation is number one on that list. The government is getting high marks from the public. For the time being, Corporate America cannot defend itself.”
Russ Banham is a contributing editor of CFO.
________________________________________
Putting More Claws in Clawbacks
One of the less controversial aspects of executive-compensation reform concerns clawbacks, or procedures for retrieving bonuses from executives whose managerial prowess was evident only for the very short-term, if at all. But current laws can make retrieving undeserved bonuses tricky. There isn’t much case law on the subject, with only one successful clawback to draw from — a 2007 settlement with William W. McGuire, former CEO of UnitedHealth Group, who was required to repay $468 million of his bonus for allegedly backdating stock options.
A spate of pending litigation may change that. In April the SEIU Master Trust, a consortium of pension funds with approximately $1.3 billion in assets, demanded that the boards of directors of 29 major companies in its investment portfolio investigate more than $5 billion of incentivized executive pay alleged to have been tied to poorly understood derivatives and other financial instruments. Since 2005, the top five most highly paid executives at the 29 firms, which include AIG, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, American Express, Goldman Sachs, and McGraw-Hill, received more than $3.5 billion in cash and equity pay and more than $1.5 billion in stock options. During that same period, the share prices of the 29 firms plummeted.
Meanwhile, corporate antipathy toward “say-on-pay” shareholder provisions seems likely to fade even though many experts say such policies lack nuance. “It’s a blunt instrument,” asserts Russell Miller, managing director of Executive Compensation Advisors, a division of executive search firm Korn/Ferry International. “Shareholders will be asked to vote either yes or no. It doesn’t give them the ability to vote on the merits or detractions of various elements within compensation programs, or to engage in any kind of meaningful discussion with management.” Then again, most such provisions are nonbinding anyway, which once again puts compensation committees on the line as they debate whether to act on such votes. — R.B.
________________________________________
Laying Out the Tarp
Notable executive-pay rules within TARP legislation include:
• A prohibition on cash bonuses and incentive compensation other than restricted stock for the top five officers and others
• A prohibition on bonuses to these top executives in excess of one-third of their annual compensation, until the TARP loans are repaid
• Stringent “clawback” provisions requiring TARP recipients to recover performance-based compensation awarded to the top executives if the bonuses were based on statements of earnings, revenues, gains, or other criteria that are later found to be materially inaccurate (The new rule stiffens the clawback provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which addressed only CEO and CFO pay.)
• A “say-on-pay” provision permitting shareholders to vote “for” or “against” a public company’s executive-compensation program
• An end to “golden parachutes,” as well as other restrictions on severance payments
• The effective banning of such executive perquisites as free country-club memberships and chic office remodels — R.B.

© CFO Publishing Corporation 2008. All rights reserved.

Obama’s Dream for Healthcare Reform Will Reform Our Way of Life

Currently we understand we are at about 25 Percent of Gross Domestic Product now, as a result of Obama Administration expenditures, an increase just in the first part of Obama’s administration of a 5% increase over 2008. This does not include healthcare reform that will add substantially $1.4 Trillion per annum, and the calculation will probably move the 25% mentioned in the below article upwards toward 35% -to- 40% of GDP. This would be very unhealthy by many economic standards. It would put the US in a position never before realized and we would join with other socialistic countries and third world countries. The poor countries of the world often depended upon world wide services having been in part funded by the US through foreign aid. We have been the Daddy so to speak for the economic engines of the free world, but this will end abruptly and jarringly in the near future with the current and anticipated Obama expenditures. The US state budgets will increasingly be well underfunded in the US, and will have to be abruptly downsized immediately, services curtailed and many institutions will fail. While we have been living large by world standards, we will have to readjust our living standards dramatically downward, and then the issues will finally hit the general masses of citizens in America as to the cost of going socialistic under the populist leadership of Barack Obama while he goes forward unchecked with the two houses of Congress rubber stamping his every move.

Today reports from Donna Shalala, Clinton’s prior HHS Secretary, was interviewed this morning on CNN, when you listened carefully, she stated twice that much has to be discovered yet in how Obama’s plan for single payer healthcare nationally will be funded, but she indicated that his advisors will probably have to institute new taxes on the wealthy, and on middle class citizens based upon their healthcare utilization, and the Obama administration will simply have to work out the funding problems as they build the system. In other words Obama has no real way of paying for this system other than to lower living standards for each citizen of this country in order to obtain his dream and the dream of the liberal extremists to get to where they want to be. He is now quietly developing a VAT tax, that in earlier years was a kind of alternative to the IRS system in place now, but Obama is not talking about eliminated the IRS tax system, his Value Added Tax system would be on top of the existing national tax or IRS tax. This would be a 10% tax on raw materials, another 10% tax on the manufacturing process or services delivery like health care, and then we might have 80% of the new single payer healthcare system paid for. In other words, the Obama healthcare system on top of existing increased debt we now have may put us behind many third world countries and this is totally unacceptable. The below article however tells the story of how this might actually happen as a slight of hand due to the enormous popularity enjoyed by Obama by the public due to the fawning liberal press that is predominant today. The press is shaping the debate on behalf of Obama. Conservative press cannot even begin to get the message across to the vast majority of citizens, and we see our free enterprise system in jeopardy as a result. The question then is how do we educate the average citizens about the pending perils that are before us?

Jim the Conservative

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN07272586 Opposition to Obama article link

http://healthpolicyandmarket.blogspot.com/ Large body of material on Obama’s plans for healthcare reform by Robert Laszewski

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/business/global/21yen.html Japan’s contraction at 15.2% past year, US to follow this kind of path if our spending keep increasing

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aj5HHIKfogR8&refer=worldwide Obama’s totally re-worked ideas as of yesterday, mandates to business to insure

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090606/D98L67500.html Is the liberal spending party backfiring?

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Obama infatuation not healthy for country or policies

BY ROBERT J. SAMUELSON
June 08, 2009
Washington Post Writers Group

The Obama infatuation is the great unreported story of our time. Has any recent president basked in so much favorable media coverage? Well, maybe John Kennedy for a moment; but no president since. On the whole, this is not healthy for America.

Our political system works best when a president faces checks on his power. But the main checks on Obama are modest. They come from congressional Democrats, who largely share his goals if not always his means. The leaderless and confused Republicans don’t provide effective opposition. And the press – on domestic, if not foreign, policy – has so far largely abdicated its role as skeptical observer.

Obama has inspired a collective fawning. What started in the campaign (the chief victim was Hillary Clinton, not John McCain) has continued, as a study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism shows. It concludes: “President Barack Obama has enjoyed substantially more positive media coverage than either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush during their first months in the White House.”

The study examined 1,261 stores by The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC, CBS and NBC, Newsweek magazine and the NewsHour on PBS.

Favorable stories (42 percent) were double the unfavorable (20 percent), while the rest were “neutral” or “mixed.” Obama’s treatment contrasts sharply with coverage in the first two months of the presidencies of Bush (22 percent of stories favorable) and Clinton (27 percent).

Unlike Bush and Clinton, Obama received favorable coverage in both news columns and opinion pages. The nature of stories also changed. “Roughly twice as much of the coverage of Obama (44 percent) has concerned his personal and leadership qualities than was the case for Bush (22 percent) or Clinton (26 percent),” the report said. “Less of the coverage, meanwhile, has focused on his policy agenda.”

When Pew broadened the analysis to 49 outlets – cable channels, news

Web sites, morning news shows, more newspapers and National Public Radio – the results were similar, despite some outliers. No surprise: MSNBC was favorable, Fox was not. Another study, released by the Center for Media and

Public Affairs at George Mason University, reached parallel conclusions.

The infatuation matters because Obama’s ambitions are so grand. He wants to expand health care subsidies, tightly control energy use and overhaul immigration. He envisions the greatest growth of government since Lyndon Johnson. The Congressional Budget Office estimates federal spending in 2019 at nearly 25 percent of the economy (gross domestic product).

That’s well up from the 21 percent in 2008, and far above the post-World

War II average; it would also occur before many baby boomers retire.

Are his proposals practical, even if desirable? Maybe they’re neither? What might be unintended consequences? All “reforms” do not succeed; some cause more problems than they solve. Johnson’s economic policies, inherited from Kennedy, proved disastrous; they led to the 1970s’ “stagflation.” The “war on poverty” failed. The press should not be hostile; but it ought to be skeptical.

Mostly, it isn’t. The idea of a “critical” Obama story is a tactical conflict with congressional Democrats or criticism from an important constituency. Larger issues are minimized, despite ample grounds for skepticism.

Obama’s rhetoric brims with inconsistencies. In the campaign, he claimed he would de-emphasize partisanship – and also enact a highly-partisan agenda; both couldn’t be true. He got a pass. Now, he claims he will control health care spending even though he proposes more government spending. He promotes “fiscal responsibility” when projections show huge and continuous budget deficits. Journalists seem to take his pronouncements at face value even when many are two-faced.

The cause of this acquiescence isn’t clear. The press sometimes follows opinion polls; popular presidents get good coverage, and Obama is enormously popular. By Pew, his job performance rating is 63 percent. But because favorable coverage began in the campaign, this explanation is at best partial.

Perhaps the preoccupation with the present economic crisis has diverted attention from the long-term implications of other policies. But the deeper explanation may be as straightforward as this: most journalists like Obama; they admire his command of language; he’s a relief after Bush; they agree with his agenda (so it never occurs to them to question basic premises); and they don’t want to see the first African-American president fail.

Whatever, a great edifice of government may arise on the narrow foundation of Obama’s personal popularity. Another Pew survey shows that since the election both self-identified Republicans and Democrats have declined. “Independents” have increased, and “there has been no consistent movement away from conservatism, nor a shift toward liberalism.”

The press has become Obama’s silent ally and seems in a state of denial. But the story goes untold: Unsurprisingly, the study of all the favorable coverage received little coverage.

Whitehouse Healthcare Summit..No Republicans Allowed

 

There was a new spin as of yesterday in a Whitehouse summit on how to get government healthcare package sold to the public. The message will be Obama’s healthcare is great and it will put money in the pockets of families, but here is the problem.  Not one Republican was present for this meeting. The meeting was also a challenge to Democrats and of course one independent the Socialist Bernie Sanders to get this healthcare package in place as quickly as possible and work the details out later if necessary.  Note the language of the New York Times summary of report on the Whitehouse directives to Democrats. If you believe this plan will put $2,600. and up to $10,000. of new income to the average family of four, later, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale. This is dishonest and ranks with snake oil sales tactics to make promises like this. This meeting was secret to Republicans because it was the sales meeting directives from Obama to Congress how to sell this foul package. Obama believes he can run automobile companies, sell cars, run banks, so why not, he is now a huckster for a lame bill for government run healthcare.  One day they talk of a duel system, the next a single payer system. To be sure, we will end up with a Canadian or UK type system that will be terrible if he has his way. This is an outrage. Republicans have no clue as to what is going on. Transparency right????

 

This announcement copied below was put out Tuesday, reports Wednesday morning have no elaboration other than to say the existing healthcare system is terrible and our lives are at stake???? Bernie Sanders is talking to any live microphone he can find saying that the Canadian or UK healthcare system is far superior to our existing system, but he adds that Democrats have even better news, the new healthcare system will put money in the pockets of the average citizen in the USA.  So this is clearly the shell game they are using, to give out outrageous statements about a better healthcare system for all with extra money in family budgets?  I have never imagined a more dishonest administration. The Obama people believe the American public as gullible and stupid.

 

Jim The Conservative

 

Top Democrats to attend White House meeting on health care

NAIC NewsWire | 06/02/2009

President Barack Obama is scheduled to meet with top Democratic lawmakers this week to discuss health care reform options. The president will meet with the leaders of the Senate panels responsible for writing the health bill in order to urge them to move quickly in passing the legislation. Also this week, the White House released a report showing that Obama’s health care proposals would add $2,600 to the income of the average family of four by 2020, a figure set to increase to $10,000 by 2030. New York Times, The (06/01)

CAP AND TRADE ANOTHER OBAMA NIGHTMARE COMING OUR WAY

When ever the Obama administration talks new programs it most often translates into how he plans to put a dent in the ever expanding deficits he has created for every American family. This is particularly so in that Obama has indicated that half of the deficits will be paid back in his first four years. This is complete nonsense to suggest he can do this and we must focus like a laser on everything this man says from this point forward. He cannot be trusted and cap and trade is a perfect example. The trickle down cost to a typical family will be at or more than $3,000. per year in new energy costs. Obama will not pay back the deficit, we taxpayers will, and it will get worse because this is only one way the Obama administration will extract dollars out of your wallets.

Remember, when government develops and sells a new tax, and cap and trade is nothing more than a shell game, it is a new taxing method, the income derived will be spent, it will probably not go against the deficits, that is a pipe dream, as these schemes are developed by Obama’s spin masters to satisfy their spending plans.

The Republicans would do well to tie in the cap and trade to the plans that Obama has to reduce the deficits, and this is how they can either defeat or make the cap and trade so undesirable to Obama’s people that they abandon it totally. At the same time they must get the message out that new expenses will impact each family as a result of cap and trade taxes. The Republicans must call cap and trade a tax which is what it is.

How did this idea get started, and the answer is switch and bate by Democrats, and their issue is carbon emissions. If you talk to real scientists, you will learn that Carbon has been around for billions of years, it is not destructive, in fact carbon is the foundation of much of the basis of life, and we might even harm nature if we remove carbon by any meaningful amount. We cannot do that, so this is nothing but a myth generated by Al Gore who probably generates more carbon footprints in his jet and massive home in Tennessee than any 100 families in America combined. This save the earth stuff is creating opportunities for snake oil salesmen and that is what this is all about. It is good that Republicans are doing energy summits but they need to tie in the actual truth of what the carbon issue is all about. It is about taxing the day lights out of each American family.

Now this Whitehouse tax machine is adding into cap and trade carbon emissions “AND OTHER GREEHOUSE GASSES”. This is because the argument has been raised that carbon is not as evil as the Whitehouse experts have suggested. So you see, the tax machine (Obama Whitehouse) has had to expand the notion beyond carbon as insurance against declining scientific evidence that carbon is not that harmful. Other gasses give them insurance that they have some kind of reason to tax the living daylights out of each citizen of this country when the carbon issue dies. Unbelievable how these spin machines reinvent their missions and there are endless new crisis ideas they will create to continue this bait and switch machine.

Of course this is elementary, but carbon is being blamed for global warming, but the concept of global warming is under attack as a non-provable problem, as seen in the literature of recent. Cycles can explain the ebb and flow of warming and cooling over a wide demographic period, therefore we are looking at a cap and trade program that may not be needed. There is no science yet that says carbon is harmful to humans or the earth other than it is blamed for man’s recent claims of global warming. Now because that myth is being questioned, why move forward with a cap and trade program that most likely will prove to be nonsense also.

The cap and trade would cost jobs, lots and lots of jobs, 2.3 Million to be expected, but this is a conservative figure, it could be more like 3.5 to 5 Million jobs lost, and these are permanent losses according to The Charles River Associates report in the WSJ referenced article below.

All of the Cap and Trade has to be viewed in context of a continuing Kyoto Protocol decision yet to be made, that is the next bomb to drop on global warming, so the Democrats are not discussing the Kyoto issue now, that is laying in wait for another day, a massive negative issue that will raise up again after the Democrats either get the Cap and Trade passed or not, another way to insult the American family with needless cost and economic hardship if Kyoto is passed in this country. Kyoto is the vehicle of most of the survivors of the communistic rulers who have lost their positions in USSR and Kyoto types of groups are their new home to pillage the world of economic dollars and benefit with their own personal wealth.

Of course what the public is not being educated on is that the Obama administration has lied and is shutting down any chance of meaningful exploration, discovery and drilling for existing petroleum within our borders, which is utter stupidity, at a time when we could be looking for new energy sources, but keeping our economy moving forward at the same time while using existing petroleum resources effectively. The Obama spin masters are practicing massive government re-engineering of the American economic system to extract what they will say is the payback tax needed to continue their appetite for spending massively.

And now a new Democratic initiative to hit your wallets, Value Added Taxes, 25% on goods and services, a European type tax is now being considered by Obama, an additional tax because he has to come up with some way to pay for his Universal Health Care plus the massive debt load already on the books. This alone will be devastating to families, and it would be on top of cap and trade, and other taxes that are planned. A VAT tax is evil more so because it is a stealth tax not seen by the public, it is added onto the price of goods and services and does not show up in a sales slip. European counties have imposed a VAT tax for years, and the public in Europe has become accustomed to it, but that does not make it viable in the USA.

I will have a new posting on this evil VAT Tax plan next. We can only deal with a certain amount of bad news in a given day. I am exhausted just with what I covered in this posting, I cannot take any more today.

Common sense seems to be a forgotten commodity in Washington these days.

Jim The Conservative

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/how-much-will-cap-and-trade-cost/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123655590609066021.html

http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/dice_mss_091107_public.pdf

Thomas Wigley, “The Kyoto Protocol: CO2, CH4 and Climate Implications,” Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 25, No. 13 (1998), pp. 2285-2288.

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2009/05/27/National-sales-tax-debate-begins-to-stir/UPI-41781243442014/

Timely Article On Freedom of Speech

As an inkling of where the more conservative bunch are here is an article by David Limbaugh, yes the Brother of Rush, but a credible journalist appearing in many newspapers nationally and a lawyer of good reputation. I send this recent article to you to expose you to what a major body of American voters think, and my view is that there is much to be learned in this article. When I say the more conservative bunch, I am talking not only of Republicans, but inclusive and of a wider percentage of the American voters than you might consider at first, including many very recent converts to more conservative views as a result of what is going on in Washington in the last three months. There are signs of many people moving more to the conservative side of things, or at a minimum to a more right position recently due to perceptions that Obama and his inner circle are and have been administering well to the left of his voters. In other words many who voted for change were angry at President Bush, but are now realizing that their anger at Bush for what ever reason justified or not has resulted in a much more leftist world then they imagined when they entered the voting booth in November of 2008. Obama has used these prior more conservative votes to his advantage and not to the advantage of moderates and conservatives generally.

This real shift will cause a massive shift back more toward the center in the next few years and must be recognized. The Obama inner circle are awakening to this and will do nothing short of illegal, if not taking morally bankrupt actions to nullify the message to the center and right of the center political world. This will include the FCC Targeting Conservative Radio, as well as using our taxpayer monies to bailout the leftist media that has lost readership due to the apparent leftist message they have been spewing to the dismay of a majority of Americans. Electronic media (Radio and Television) has shown in the last few years, but more so in the last few months a remarkable increased listenership while liberal electronic and more importantly print media has taken a dramatic nose dive and this is worthy of significant finding in the eyes of the Pew Foundations for Public Opinion and many other reliable sources. Capitalism is under direct attack by the far left, and this shakes the foundations of many Americans who understand that Capitalism has made this country the most successful country on earth, and they don’t want that jeopardized in any way shape or manner, and the Obama administration is perceived to be throwing dirt upon the capitalist concept daily. The tide is turning very quickly and will be growing as a large force in the very near future. The newly awakened moderates and conservatives will activate more forcefully against the far left policies of the Obama administration because they see damage developing to the business world and thus the capitalist world, damage that must be stopped.

It is clear that we are now seeing a President that understands how to divide the political spectrum far better than President Clinton attempted to do, Barack is grounded in his entire shaping and development in the far left world from childhood through adulthood. Unlike Clinton, Obama really hates this country and what it stands for, and his ardent leftist popularity is evidence of that, and this assessment of Obama is beginning to be seen for all to see at this point. Many are beginning to see his mythology in stating his disinterest of the Fairness Doctrine, then out of the shining light of openness he exacts the policy he wants without public knowledge. He knows how to manipulate far better than typical politicians. He claims openness and transparency, but he has in reality shown contempt for these concepts. People are becoming afraid of the major shift from the free enterprise and capitalist heritage we have seen for our generation as a working and successful venture overall not to be judged on the basis of one five or ten year period of time. This hard time will pass, but do we really need to massively change our country as Obama is attempting to do? I think not.

Jim The Conservative

Newsmax
FCC Chief Targeting Conservative Radio
Tuesday, May 12, 2009 10:13 AM
By: David Limbaugh Article Font Size

Of the dozens of reasons to be concerned about the ever-growing and unchecked power of the federal government under President Barack Obama, the upcoming assault against conservative talk radio may surpass them all.

It’s not enough that liberals dominate the executive and legislative branches, liberals are poised to control the judiciary, and, at liberals’ direction, government is absorbing ownership and control of large chunks of the private sector. They also must shut up the opposition.

We have genuine cause for alarm on multiple fronts — and actual alarm indeed exists among increasing numbers of people, not all of whom are predisposed to excitability.

The government has declared war on innocent life in the womb in the name of “free choice.” It is spending unconscionable amounts of money it doesn’t have and can’t possibly acquire without taxing the primary producers in this nation into abject servitude. It’s set to impose “cap and trade” taxes in the name of protecting an environmental threat that exists mostly in the data-resistant prisons of their ideological minds, which will yield no environmental benefit but will cause irreparable economic harm.

It has passed constitutionally repugnant and morally odious legislation, carving out new crimes for violent acts motivated by “hate” against certain protected groups. Neither military veterans nor conservative males are among the protected groups, but pedophiles very well may be.

The proscribed “hate” under the statute may not be “hate” at all, but mere political or theological disagreement with the view of the dominant media culture and the ruling class on, for example, the normalcy of homosexual behavior.

Meanwhile, this same ruling class and its enablers, who are so selectively indignant about certain majority opinions they mischaracterize as “hate,” openly bask in the kind of behavior no one can dispute rationally as hateful at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

The government, through President Obama, has trotted the globe, painting the United States, the most magnanimous nation in the history of the world, as an international pariah and disgrace for which he must presume to apologize.

The government would have prosecuted officials of the previous administration for conducting enhanced interrogation techniques they reasonably believed were legal (and the lawyers who furnished the legal opinions approving the techniques) until it discovered, with egg on its face, that in a recent case, an appellate court (and the Justice Department, in another) had endorsed the previous administration’s definition of torture.

The government threatens and intimidates creditors into transferring wealth to the administration’s friends in labor. It uses taxpayer money to fund nefarious enterprises, such as ACORN, to engage in widespread illegal activities designed to corrupt and skew the census, elections and other democratic processes as we watch, with mouths agape, seemingly powerless — for now — to stop it.

The government is a heartbeat away from nationalizing healthcare based on deliberate misinformation about the nation’s uninsured and despite the 100 percent failure rate of such fantastic reforms elsewhere on the globe.

This government has declared a false moral equivalence between the respective behaviors of democratic Israel and Palestinians committed to the extinction of Israel. It will attempt to force the Israelis to accept the twin suicidal concessions of relinquishing strategic real estate vital to its security and agreeing to the “return” of millions of Palestinian refugees. It appears to have abandoned any pretense of preventing Iran, a nation also committed to Israel’s extermination, from acquiring nuclear weapons while encouraging Israel, instead, to disarm.

But of all the unfolding outrages, I doubt any will ignite true patriots more than the imminent resurrection of the government’s war on conservative talk radio. If we can’t even express political dissent, the nation we’ve known as a bastion of individual liberty will be no more.

President Obama, in classic misdirection, has proclaimed that he will not support efforts to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine, through which the government would silence conservative talkers in the name of achieving “balance.”

But he doesn’t have to support the Fairness Doctrine to accomplish the same sinister goal when Congress and the Federal Communications Commission will do his dirty work for him. WorldNetDaily reports that Michael J. Copps, acting FCC chairman, has denounced the lack of racial and gender diversity in the broadcast industry as “a shameful state of affairs.” Unsurprisingly, his proposed corrective is to force the transfer of station ownership to greater numbers of minorities, who are statistically more likely to carry liberal talk shows.

Let the record reflect emphatically that conservatives never have tried to use government to shut down the liberal media monopoly in network television and major newspapers, under the deceitful pretense of achieving balance or otherwise.

Let the record also acknowledge that, if this administration presses forward with this overreach, it finally might jolt the complacent among us out of their stubborn naiveté and apathy.

David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney.

A Universal Healthcare Sales Campaign Like We Have Never Seen Before is about to Blanket our Country

There is a huge sales campaign now in high gear getting the Obama Healthcare Plan approved and agreed upon. Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is now saying that the existing unacceptable healthcare system is a disaster and must be changed to a new system immediately. No time to waste this has to be done as an emergency measure. She is saying that high healthcare costs are because those who do not have healthcare coverage are bankrupting the system and must be brought into the system to make a new system work. A conference report by Sebelius Tuesday of this week based upon a meeting Monday with the leaders of the healthcare system, is declaring her assessment correct that the healthcare system as it exists cannot assume offering services to the underclass now not covered, and therefore we need a complete overhaul and a national healthcare plan for all Americans now. She is suggesting that all attending this so called planning meeting in Washington agreed with that outcome. I seriously question that. Ever since Obama assumed office we have seen one emergency after another all blamed on of course George Bush that has to be resolved immediately. Crisis is the Obama’s way of getting things done. Declare an emergency and it gets attention without discussion, just gets done. Wonder why we still have no credit flowing from the banking system, or why the Social Security system is now failing, or why is Medicaid suddenly failing, but no action there? Hmm. I guess Medicare and Medicaid are going to be used for something bigger? Perhaps they will be the new healthcare plan for all of us. Hmm. Obama does not need to worry about fixing these agencies, he will build them up for the new universal care system. Ok, we take failed systems and make them bigger?

This is the dishonest strategic way they will sell this. Using comments from existing providers of health care insurance, in response to questions Sebelius presented, then in turn arriving at her own conclusion, and interjecting the notion of the group of health care executives agreeing with her findings. Of course the question to the existing providers was…. can you assume costs of the underclass and all persons not now covered? The resounding response was probably no, so that is that. Government now has all they need to begin and complete their plan for a new government run system with approval of the existing healthcare system providers, or at least Sebelius making it appear that way. The Obama administration through Secretary Sebelius will try to make it appear that all options were discussed, and the final conclusion was to move toward universal health care for all. This of course avoids transparency totally.

This is the same construct that has been used in many school and educational systems* for years, making assumptions based upon pre-planned questioning that predicts the only response desirable to make the policy choice desired. The use of outcome-based strategy as defined below works in many forms called behavior modification, or values clarification. This really has been borrowed now by governments to get policy enacted with the help of the public through the same kinds of predictive modeling with questions that lead to the desired answer to the posed question and thus policy needed. The details of what the policy will be is not offered or explained. It is perceived by government that they need not bother with those details, it would only confuse the general public. They cannot take the chance of another Hillary Clinton debacle when the Clinton administration mounted their effort on Universal Healthcare. You see, the Clinton administration was using transparency tactics, and that is what got them in trouble. In fact details are the very root of the problem that the Obama administration wants to avoid at all costs. The policy is then suggested based upon the input, in this case that of the of healthcare providers, in their responses to outcome based questions to arrive at a conclusion that may or may not be what the healthcare providers believe or would want to be party to. It is becoming dangerous for professional and executives to attend Washington conferences because you will never really know how your views might be utilized in the final report. Just ask many of the scientists who initially participated in the Al Gore climate change surveys and groups.

1*“Part of any theory of behavior modification, values clarification or outcome-based education involves the idea of “what do we want the future to be like?” To decide on how to modify values, beliefs, or behavior, one must first decide what “outcomes” they want to exist in the future, then what behaviors are necessary to bring the outcomes about, and finally what values, beliefs and convictions are necessary to enable or support these. All these “social engineers” first establish a very clear idea and model of what they want the future to be like, but you will have to fight against those who would happily make those decisions for you”. They have always been around sowing their mischief. They are here now. They are our Federal Government in the form of the Obama Administration who want Universal Health Care like those programs in Canada and elsewhere where they don’t live up to their stated expectations. *As any hospital near the Canadian border will attest, they do brisk business treating Canadians that cannot get approved of or have to wait for months or years for medical procedures in Canada, so they pay full price to get what they need in American hospitals so they can continue with their lives, or avoid perishing.
Source
Modern Education, Values Clarification, OBE, Behaviorism – The REAL Problems
by Gene Zimmer

2*http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/reprint/157/6/767.pdf

Jim The Conservative

States Becoming Dependent Upon Stimulus Funds

Many states are beginning to be dependent upon massive funds flowing from the Obama Stimulus bill and this will heal short term problems, but create long term problems in that the states using stimulus funds to balance state shortfalls, such as their Medicaid programs or educational programs without assurances that stimulus funds will be forthcoming in future years. The Obama administration seems to be looking the other way on this serious problem, and is letting the states put their budgets at risk perhaps saying to the states that the Federal government may be able to assume costs later in a few years down the road with new tax revenues generated by taxing the big corporations and the rich, yet to be identified Federal income sources like Cap and Trade, and new tax sources. Obama has said the results of his Stimulus bill will not be seen for a couple of years, leading states to believe the Federal budgets will be flush with money to continue state bailouts on a more permanent basis. This is suicide for states in out years if they buy into this garbage. Also it seems to fit into Obama’s theory of creating dependency then making demands upon the dependant states to perform according to Federal standards, rather than state standards, as is the case with the Banks and the Auto Companies. If you do a search on Google for states use of Stimulus bill monies, it is amazing how creative states are in expanding their future state mandates with one time stimulus funds. In a couple of years, if the Federal government does not replace these funds with new stimulus funding, the states will be vested in long term unfunded programs, then the pressure will be on states to cut their programs. Is there a purpose in mind by the Obama administration to create this dependency on purpose? I think there is. This does not encourage good management of state resources, and is a very significant problem now being created by the Obama administration. There may be a method to the madness, namely that Obama fueled expansion of dollars into these programs will have many strings attached to move his agenda forward.
Jim the Conservative

http://www.meridianstar.com/editorials/local_story_049003247.html

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2009/04/12/news/local/doc49e0079e804a0206370222.txt

http://www.state.sd.us/news/showDoc.aspx?i=10578

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/politics/story/64920.html

http://blogs.thenewstribune.com/politics/2009/02/10/state_budget_writers_hope_u_s_house_stim

Etc, Etc.

Chrysler Fate on the Line, This is Pressure Time

The story this morning on April 30, 2009 is that Fiat and Chrysler are posturing to close a deal to have Chrysler go through a quick bankruptcy, to clean out the various problems, and possibly have Fiat take over the company, without Federal government interference, but the Feds are not happy with that, it is assumed because they don’t get the kind of control they got with GM. My feeling is that the Obama machine is holding out for control over the interests of Chrysler bond holders. Chrysler bond holders who will only do well if the company goes through quick bankruptcy and emerges either on their own, or with Fiat as owner bond holders having been given payout of one sort or another. It is my opinion that the union issue is driving the Feds with regard to these solutions. This may be coming down with private enterprise taking the initiatives away from the Feds, and this may bring pressure from Obama administration to fight the private deal making. We know the Feds want the union votes and will want to structure a deal to benefit the unions. That seems to be how the Obama machine functions, it looks for potential political standing with their constitutants in this case the unions. My view is that private enterprise should be the first choice in any options, and if this stalls, then the government can make their solutions available.

The mantle of the Obama administration may be in the lens of ethics on this deal having seen how the bond holders of GM were I believe fed to the fishes. Perhaps the Obama machine players are being one upped on this and it is about time. The continuing shabby operation of the takeover of industrial giants by the Obama administration could be ending with this move. By the end of today, we will probably see what this Obama team is made of. They may attempt to control the deal, and not let the private sector work this out. The question is will Obama interject the feds for the union votes, putting the bond holders at risk? This is clearly political and is a getting Democratic votes strategy for the Obama machine. Obama signals now are that they control the loans in TARP or bailouts, and this is their big stick used to force the deal they want. Is this how we want our Federal Government to be working? I doubt it strongly, but then we have President Obama who believes he is supreme and can do things no other President would dare to attempt because of his “CHANGE” mandate? When are the majority of Americans going to recognize how shabby this administration really is?

Jim the Conservative

Pontiac Line Ready for burial.

We are a Country that is changing as a result of Obamanomics and we will all be the lesser for it. With the closure of the Pontiac division we will see the end of a long history of stylish cars and the flashy dreams of many car owners in the future.

As a result of our President, now the controlling force of GM deciding to end both Pontiac, and possibly GMC divisions. Government does not seem to care that the profit centers of GM were these cars, and the truck lines and classy RVs…without these lines, GM probably will not be around much longer.

Nationalization of industries is appalling and this is the result to be expected. What most people don’t know is the cost of all of this nonsense to the American people will be astounding and fruitless. Same thing with the banking takeovers, this is complete lunacy. We await the next industry to be run from the Whitehouse by a man who is 47 years old who has never run anything in his life and is influenced chiefly by Sol Alinsky, the 50’s and 60’s revolutionary, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and of course his friend denied, William Ayers.

It is almost a game to read the newspapers or watch television each day to see what new odd ball concept in the Obama Change Express for the day brings to us like the leavings of what the cat brought to the back door step overnight. People who have owned an outside cat know what I mean. The three or four press conferences he holds each day is an exercise in frustration to see what he plans to do next that will harm the USA. I wish he would take a thee month vacation now, let everything settle so we can judge what works and what does not before he attempts to do anything else whatsoever. It might save us a couple of hundred billion dollars of new debt.

Jim the Conservative