There are five gifts President Obama promised his special interests under their Christmas trees when their money got him elected president. Thanks to nearly $1 billion they investment in him, he did become president riding a wave of disapproval of his predecessor George Bush. But one person's gift may be another's yoke and any tax paying citizen of the USA faces a future full of yuletide yokes courtesy of the new administration.
The gifts promised:
Wall Street Bailouts
Card Check
Cap and Trade
Health Care Reform
Global Warming Funding
Wall Street Bailouts
The first legitimized the greatest robbery in history, the pillaging of the American treasury. Between the actions of the Treasury Department through the bank, insurance and auto bailouts and the action of the Federal Reserve in waiving all procedures and saving Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley by changing their banking status, this is a gift that just keeps on giving, at least to the Goldman executive bonus pool.
On September 21, 2008 the Federal Reserve stunned the financial world by announcing that Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the last two independent banks in America, will become bank holding companies. The Wall Street titans would be allowed to transition into holding companies following a mandatory five-day waiting period, and would be able to take advantage of credit from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in order to complete the transition.
The Fed's move was described at the time as the latest milestone in a jaw-dropping couple of weeks for Wall Street and American business. Goldman and Morgan were the last two independent investment banks, following the filing for bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the acquiring of Bear Stearns by JP Morgan this spring, and the sale of Merrill Lynch to the Bank of America.
Goldman now had access to incredibly cheap money. Exploiting its new status, Goldman became the first financial institution to sell $5 billion in government-backed bonds through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which allowed Goldman to start doing deals when the markets were at a near standstill. The president of the New York Federal Reserve at the time was Timothy Geithner, now Obama's Secretary of Treasury.
All activity by Bush Treasury Secretary and former Goldman executive Henry Paulson was approved by candidate Obama before he was elected, and legitimized by him after being elected. The cost to the taxpayer, untold trillions in short term debt and a nearly $2 trillion increase in the national debt.
Card Check
Legislation long sought by unions to force open voting for union membership which many view as a means to expose voter intentions and open the floodgates to union pressure on non-union employees was endorsed by Obama. It was blocked in the Senate but union advocates believe they can get it approved with a few modifications that will still give unions control of the workers and elections for union representatives. In Congress nothing is ever really dead. If approved labor costs for much of the manufacturing, retail, health care and other industries will significantly increase as union control spreads under Obama and the multiple executive orders he has already signed expanding union influence.
Cap and Trade
Designed by Goldman Sachs and Al Gore and associates like Gore's financial partner, also from Goldman Sachs, the Cap and Trade bill, touted as a tool for carbon management, is nothing more than an investment ruse to allow barrels of money to be made on trading emissions instead of oil futures which are also controlled by Goldman and others. It has already made Gore $100 million developing the concept and he stands to make hundreds of more millions if approved. It will directly lead to a significantly higher cost for oil products.
Health Care Reform
The Democratic bill endorsed by Obama will open the door to the most powerful union backer of Obama, the SEIU, to organize the health care industry. This will increase the cost of health care no matter what else the bill does. Other provisions of the bill will help maintain high costs for drugs because of deals between the White House and major pharmaceutical corporations, will increase taxes on businesses and taxpayers for expanding coverage to all uninsured, could cost over $2 billion after the first ten years, and does nothing to limit excessive legal fees being generated under the present malpractice rules. All costs will be passed on to the taxpayer in the end.
Global Warming Funding
Back when Obama and Congress thought the people would give them carte blank power to sign away federal money there were thoughts of a massive increase in carbon reduction at the World Global Warming conference currently underway in Copenhagen. Now after the Chicago Olympic bid disaster in Copenhagen Obama should know better than to expect good things over there but some people never learn.
Thanks to a hard line by China the newest goals may not become mandatory but the hope of the social activists at the conference is still to get the industrial countries to finance all third world efforts to control global warming to the tune of ten billion or more dollars a year. Now most third world countries are so caught up in corruption you could give them 100 billion and it might disappear but the Obama gang was expected to be the leading financier of the third world efforts. That means the taxpayers, deficit spending and increased national debt and it does not even impact directly on America.
There you have it, your Christmas present from our new president and Nancy Pelosi and Congress. Four major reforms all leading to increased costs, increased taxes and reduced availability of services in they are implemented. Congress has one last chance to stop the nonsense. However, Congress may also believe it has one last chance to pass the nonsense so citizens beware, these expansions of government may be hidden in other actions by our pork barrel addicted legislators in Washington.
We can give them a present, give them a permanent vacation from doing harm to our country by voting them out of office, but vigilance is needed until then to make sure the actions are not buried in other mundane actions by Congress, a trick they have used often.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year...
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