Obama - New Social Architect or Special Interest Stooge?

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Now that President Obama has his coveted health care reform in hand, albeit there is a ways to go before it can become a reality, and we have seen what he did with the banks, insurance companies, auto companies and mortgage companies, it is time to ask if he is truly a social architect intent on forming a new American social structure based on government ownership and/or control, or if he is simply a stooge for the powerful special interests who helped finance his campaigns.



With his detached attitude and unwillingness to get immersed in the mechanics of fighting for his own legislative agenda, it seems he may be the consummate compromiser yet his actions are leading us in a very specific direction. Since he first took office there has been an obvious pattern of first taking care of his special interest contributors which leaves his true intent in question.



Look at the record. Several of the first Executive Orders he issued as president greatly strengthened the unions and even gave them a degree of control and influence over construction projects and other activities that were contained in his economic stimulus program. No Democrat or Republican president before ever made such blatant concessions to the unions.



The auto bailout he engineered guaranteed the unions major control of General Motors and protected them from losing billions of dollars in unsecured losses from GM stock they owned while the bond holders from General Motors were left out in the cold.



He even delayed the provision in the health care reform bill to tax the most luxurious health insurance policies until 2018, long after he would be president. Under the contracts negotiated by the unions with auto makers these luxury policies were a major contributor to the very bankruptcy of the auto industry.



The most frequent visitor to the White House is Andy Stern, President of the SEIU, the service workers union who Stern claims spent more than $60 million to get Obama elected. So who is to benefit most from expanded health care, the service workers union of Stern who is trying to unionize the health care industry.



Then when Congress did not approve his Deficit Reduction Task Force he created it by Executive Order and then promptly appointed the same Andy Stern to the group. I find it rather odd that a union organizer qualifies as an expert in economics and knows how to reduce our federal debt when he has been benefitting from the very Obama initiatives that have resulted in an avalanche of new debt.



Of course Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the housing mortgage companies, were taken over by the Obama government although the media does not seem interested in talking about it. In this case Obama took care of Wall Street poster boy Goldman Sachs, another major Obama contributor and supporter, whose actions in selling the sub-prime mortgages helped destroy the housing market.

Did you know $217 billion have already been given by Obama to these two housing agencies to bail them out of their last mess?. Did you know Rahm Emanuel was on the Board of one of them and when he was with the Clinton administration they passed the federal commodity loopholes that allowed the deceptive investment practices that caused oil price spikes and brought down the world economy?



In fact his ties to Goldman Sachs are best illustrated by the fact he approved the AIG insurance bailout to protect a too big to fail company and $64 billion in government money went to Goldman and other banks who recouped 100% of their toxic holdings in the bankrupt company while the stock and bond holders got a fraction of their value.



Finally, though Obama promised he was considering taking on the powerful Trial Lawyers Association and was going to incorporate tort reform to reduce the multi-billion dollar cost of medical malpractice, it was left out of his final bill. It's not surprising since they were at the top of the list of special interest contributors to his campaign.



Social architect or special interest stooge, the jury is out but the actions seem to have taken a sharp left turn. Big government and multi-trillion dollar debt are the products of his efforts, a very left leaning legacy to date. Yet he may be the godfather of his own special interests and at the top of the list come Goldman Sachs (Wall Street), the Trial Lawyers and the unions, particularly SEIU. All stand to benefit greatly from his health care reform.



His unfinished agenda includes more social redirection as he says Immigration reform is next followed by Cap and Trade and other initiatives. Ironically, he and the Democrats controlling congress still are not even talking about the economy, unemployment, jobs and credit issues affecting Main Street, the very issues Main Street wants addressed.

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Our Nation at a Glance - Obama's Words versus Actions

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Well, we have had about three years of non-stop campaigning from the Washington establishment, ever since Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats took over the House in 2006, two years before Obama was even elected president.



In 2008 the Democrats completed their sweep into control of the White House, House and Senate in Washington and a huge margin of victory was achieved including a super majority in the Senate. We were told to believe that a super majority in the Senate means the minority party cannot stop the majority, yet we have heard nothing but whining from the president and Congress on how the Republicans are blocking progress.



I guess that makes me wonder why Obama, Pelosi and Reid along with all the Democratic campaign committees keep blaming the Republicans when nothing happens. According to the political pundits the Democrats had enough votes to silence the Republicans yet they let that power slip away. What really happened is the Democrats found themselves just as hard to get along with as the Republicans. This intra-party bickering has led to stagnation in Congress.

Now, in terms of getting things done Obama had a good run of luck at first getting the Bank Bailout, the Housing Bailout, the Auto (GM, Chrysler and Auto Workers) Industry Bailout, the AIG Insurance Bailout and of course his nearly trillion dollar economic stimulus all were approved. Have they worked?



Banks still aren't giving credit. The number of foreclosed homes have not been reduced. Lower interest loans for housing are still not available. GM remains marginal, Chrysler is still in trouble and the Auto Workers, well they lost their jobs but now own GM and will get their executive health care benefits. The AIG affair made Goldman Sachs about $13 billion and funneled about $64 billion into banks, some already receiving bailout money and others foreign owned. No one really knows what the Stimulus has done or even how much has been spent.



So in summary, he got a lot done right away but has it helped us or the bank executives? Has it saved small business or Wall Street? Are people able to keep their homes or still losing them? Are jobs being created as a result of the trillions of dollars already spent on bailouts and stimulus? Have new markets been created for green goods? Across the board the answer is no and that is the dichotomy of Obama's legislative record.



While claiming to do all these things to help Main Street Obama has almost exclusively helped Wall Street and labor unions and no one else. At the same time he has railed against lobbyists and special interests while hiring an army of lobbyists and coddling the special interests for campaign money.



The result is clear, Obama and the Democrats have become the favorite of Wall Street and the special interests as millions of dollars are pouring into the Democrats campaign funds. Whatever Obama and the Congress are doing, it sure has the backing of the big bucks on Wall Street, the recipients of the million dollar bonuses, and the free wheeling gamblers on Wall Street who consider your money their play money.



Okay, forget the things that got approved. Obama may no longer want to take credit for the series of big business bailouts, for saving executive bonuses, for keeping the credit market clogged up and for failing to get regulatory Reform through Congress. The unions did get a few bones tossed their way but when they compare it to the sharks on Wall Street they got little for their multi-million dollar investment in the Obama campaign.

Turn to pending legislation for a moment. Democrats got Card Check through the House and through a first round Senate vote, but it stalled. They waiting until Obama was elected and promised to champion the bill and the Senate had super majority that was achieved in the last election. In spite of these developments, the union bosses may want to get rid of secret union ballots in the workplace but the Senate still does not agree. I mean how could they, they are all elected by secret ballot. The bill remains stalled in the Democratic controlled Senate.



Obama's Cap and Trade bill to save us from energy dependence also passed the House, that Nancy has been busy fighting in the trenches for Obama, but it did not survive the scrutiny of reality and remains stalled, hopefully permanently. This was to be a dream come true for Al Gore, Goldman Sachs and all those who have figured out how to make a buck on the back of environmentalists. I mean how did Gore make over $100 million personally as the mouthpiece for the greening of America?



Let us see. Gore has a partner from Goldman Sachs handling his investment business to control which environmentally friendly companies will receive funding from the Greening of America, and of course Goldman stands ready to assist the Green economy by managing the carbon emission futures market which they already established. Does that mean Goldman will now control our oil futures and alternative futures markets? Not if the bill is dead on arrival which it seems to be once Congress discovered how they were being manipulated by the supposedly environmentalists on Wall Street, or is that really being controlled by Wall Street.

Wall Street regulatory reform has been stalled for over a year meaning the same things investment houses did to bend the rules and cheat the street on Wall Street remain available to them. If you don't believe Wall Street was the beneficiary of this inaction by Congress look what Goldman did to manipulate the near bankruptcy of Greece and other European nations for their own financial gain. Such predatory practices by those investing other people's money is criminal.

Obama also ran on a campaign calling for energy independence and promotion of alternative energy. That sounds good. But nothing has been done to achieve either promise. The Cap and Trade was flawed beyond repair and Obama has stubbornly refused to demand new production of our expansive oil, natural gas and coal reserves, reserves which could substantially lower our foreign energy demand. Drill baby drill Mr. President if you really want to be true to your word. If you don't drill, you are still protecting Goldman Sachs and their manipulation of the world oil futures.



Finally, health care reform, that giant puzzle that no one has seen, no one has evaluated, no one has been able to analyze and no one can guarantee that it will deliver any of the promises made. When we are considering a bill that impacts on 16% of our gross national product, we better know what the impact may be.

So don't tell me you are going to guarantee no one will lose insurance for pre-existing conditions, that 30-40 million more people are going to be insured, that there will be competition for insurance, that the cost of doctors and medicine will go down, that everyone with an existing plan will get to keep the benefits and pick their doctors, that no one's insurance premiums will increase, and that there will be no taxes on middle class America to pay for it when you can't deliver the goods.



You ask us to bet our futures as well as those of our children and grand children on your promises yet your own economic forecasters, your experts, have been wrong time after time on projections. If we believed your people America would still have 8% unemployment and millions of us would not be out of work. I'm afraid your inexperience at economics has already cost us too much. Let us just fix the things that can be fixed and then decide how we can expand health care, if it works on lowering insurance and health costs, to everyone.



So the pending stuff just doesn't look all that good. After our experience with what you got through, maybe that is a good thing. Maybe that is why the Senate has different rules, to protect us from empty promises. Maybe that is why you should listen to the people for a change and not suffer more losses like New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts. They could just be the tip of the iceberg.

So you just keep on promising bi-partisanship while stirring the fires of discontent. Keep on making exaggerated claims for the value of more promises on how we are going to get Wall Street and those nasty executives while acquiring an avalanche of campaign funds for the Democrats from those same bad guys and helping them get their million dollar bonuses. Keep on hiring those lobbyists you promised not to hire so special interests can control the national agenda.



Tomorrow we shall review the last two elements of Obama's first year in office, his foreign policy agenda and the forgotten agenda to help Main Street. I'm afraid the news isn't much better but at least we get to see the big picture of what we have realized in the post-election aftermath of the victory of the Chosen One and his impact on us Americans.

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Today the News Dominated the People, Not the People Dominated the News

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Today I watched in awe as the news dominated the world, not people dominated the news. In a way it was refreshing but it was also a stark reminder that mankind remains vulnerable to allowing their ego to become the center of the universe, especially in the world of politics, while missing much of what is important in the world.



For example, take today's stories that were not expected. After a month of the Obama administration claiming the economy and jobs situation had turned the corner toward recovery such soothsayers of good tidings were dealt a series of crushing reminders that we are not in control of our own destiny. It all started last week when Obama turned on the business sector and blasted companies for executive bonuses and taking advantage of the government.



Today came an unemployment report on job losses far worse than anticipated. Then came the next in a series of recalls from Toyota sending shocks waves through the domestic auto market and international money markets. Just last month Toyota became the number one auto seller in the world. No one is talking about it but most Toyotas sold in America are made in America so if the Japanese giant loses huge market share which is likely and probable, it will most certainly shut down the US operations first further accelerating the economic disaster for America.



The reaction to Obama's new budget this week finally surfaced, and it was a resounding dud with the record spending increases and ominous increase in our national debt. His budget says our budget deficit will reach a record $1.565 trillion this year, equal to 10.6% of the entire GDP, Gross Domestic Product, and the highest since World War II. Obama's long delayed concern for American jobs and our economy are doing little to reassure people the administration has a clue in managing the economy. The young president has stumbled through bank bailouts, insurance and auto bailouts, housing and mortgage bailouts, a non-stimulus and those incredible executive bonuses.



AIG, one of Obama's least discussed bailouts and actions, announced they were paying out another $100 million in bonuses to people who drove the company to the brink of bankruptcy, an action approved by the Obama management team. While Congress and the president twiddle their thumbs Wall Street, unions, auto companies and who knows who else pick apart the scraps left of America.



Finally came the action by Congress today to raise the national debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion to over $14 trillion, the highest in history, an emergency action to accommodate Obama's spending frenzy. It is the first time the national debt will equal the entire annual GDP of America and Obama says it will climb to $26 trillion over the next ten years.



As the world absorbed this rash of unexpected developments today the stock market wiped out all the gains over the past month dropping nearly 300 points and barely closing above 10,000 mark. Tomorrow the unemployment rate is likely to increase, not decrease as Obama projected, so the economic adjustments may be far from over.



Tomorrow begins the Tea Party national convention in Nashville, with Sarah Palin headlining the speakers this weekend, and I predict the horrible response of the media and both political parties to this independent movement will make it a far stronger force as it emerges from the convention. Right now it is a loose coalition but it could easily become a national force and stands as the greatest threat to back room politics and old time politicians, including our Ivy League president, in our nation's history.



For a year the media ignored the people's populist revolt and ever since the victories over the establishment in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts the past few weeks the political parties, Democrats and Republicans, and President Obama have tried to claim ownership of this independent movement. How stupid? The Tea Party movement is the only thing keeping our nation from being controlled by crooks and con artists disguised as politicians and media.

Today an earthquake of 6.0 magnitude hit a few miles off the coast of Northern California following another a couple of weeks ago of 6.5 magnitude. So far they have not reached the California fault lines but they are powerful enough that it could be an indication of imminent danger. For comparison the Haiti quake was 7.0 magnitude.



If you are into natural disaster monitoring consider this. Between January 17, 2010 and today there have been 1,719 earthquakes in the Yellowstone National Park region of Wyoming ranging up to a 3.8 force. That is the second largest earthquake swarm ever recorded at Yellowstone and continues today. Underground at Yellowstone lies one of the largest magma pools of lava in the world measuring as much as a staggering 50-90 miles wide. Scientifically it is called a supervolcano and about 2.1 million years ago the area blew up and caused 2,500 times as much volcanic ash as the Mt. St. Helens eruption in 1980.



Other strange news today included the missionaries in Haiti who went to court expecting to be released and wound up being formally charged with kidnapping and conspiracy to steal children from Haiti. The guru who led a sweat lodge ceremony about a year ago in Sedona, Arizona that killed 3 and sent 18 more people to the hospital was charged with manslaughter. I have participated with Native Americans in many sweat lodge ceremonies, a spiritual ritual of the original Americans, and what he did was an insult to the culture and spirituality of Indian cultures.



The list goes on and on but that is enough for now. You get the impression that higher forces took control of events for the day to give us a break from the non-stop political nonsense we face and also to give us a warning that we are so preoccupied with what we want that we are losing sight of what really counts. Maybe we should be paying more attention to Mother Earth and Father Creator and less to our own needs and desires? If you need more read my last article on the Seven Cardinal Virtues and Seven Deadly Sins.

Goldman Sachs Gets Multi-Billion Dollar Payback for Backing Obama

Obama Buddies Get Richer as Congress Seems Dumbfounded

So what is the best investment in America? Buy a president. Just ask Goldman Sachs who secretly decided long before last year's election that the one candidate who could keep them from bankruptcy, who would allow them to cover up billions of dollars in bad mortgage loans and ignore oil price manipulation was the promising junior senator from Illinois.

As reported over and over the past three years in this paper, Goldman met secretly with Obama long before the election and decided Obama was the one. They helped raise millions of dollars for Obama and guided him throughout the campaign planting former Goldman executives throughout the Obama campaign and new Administration to help assure they got what they wanted.



They helped insure that federal government money would be used to pay them back all the bad loans made to AIG. One of Obama's top financial advisors was able to invest $5 billion in Goldman less than a year ago and has already made over $1 billion profit, Warren Buffett no less. A revolving door was set up to help usher former Goldman executives into the Obama White House and Treasury and throughout the many financial agencies of government.

As Goldman got government money to help them survive they were forcing competitors out of business to take over the world investment banking market. They used federal TARP funds and bailouts of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG to replenish their coffers and eliminate competition.



They are the only financial institution to triple their value since Obama got elected. There has been no meaningful investigation of their role in the sub prime mortgage disaster and oil price manipulation of last year and this year to expose how they have made billions of dollars at the expense of hapless and greedy institutional investors and private investment funds.

They were instrumental in modifying federal rules and regulations to keep the sub prime mortgages and oil futures derivatives outside government regulatory control while the world economy was brought to the brink of disaster. They even bought the very oil futures market that set the world prices while their own energy experts were predicting unjustified oil price cost hikes.

While Goldman was busy dumping billions of dollars in toxic mortgages into the world market they were also forcing AIG to repaying them billions in potential losses, a move that forced the federal government to come in with over $180 billion in federal bailout dollars for AIG under the new AIG CEO, a former Goldman executive, who helped Goldman receive 100% of all debt owed by AIG.



Last week Goldman joined fellow bankers JP Morgan, Credit Suisse Bank and Deutsche Bank in paying back the federal TARP funds, $88 billion between them, thus freeing themselves from federal scrutiny. Then secretly this past weekend they informed employees that the biggest bonuses in 140 years would be paid out this spring, though what they meant was the over $500 million in bonuses would be the most in history. It was also based on just the 1st quarter results, since Obama took office, in 2009. What a slap in the face to the president who complained about executive bonuses. Yet Obama has never uttered a word about the Goldman manipulation of the government, regulations, markets or bonuses.



Since 2006 Congress has stood idly by, perhaps because Goldman pumped millions of dollars into our presidential, house and senate campaigns, and Congress did nothing to investigate the Goldman role in the economic collapse. Obama is silent about Goldman, Congress is acting as if they got caught with their fingers in the cookie jar, and Goldman continues to use the federal economic system as their own private account.

If nothing comes out of this the citizens of America should know once and for all that our government leaders are really bought and paid for and demand impeachment. It is time to throw out all the scoundrels and the opportunity begins in 2010 before there is nothing left of America. Obama ran on a platform against Wall Street while being the patron saint of Wall Street. The media refuses to tell us the truth. The government can't. It is up to the citizens to take back America.