We All Need to Step-up and Help the President

Good Morning Papamoka Bloggers - I knew it would happen, but I hoped it would take longer to coalesce. In addition to the no-no-no GOP, President Obama is beginning to face opposition from both leading and rank-and-file Democrats on critical issues such as housing, global warming, and tax haven legislation. The signs are ominous, and the American people's critical change agenda may suffer damage if we don't watch it.

As usual, the bought-and-paid-for (to varying degrees) Washington insiders are ignoring the voters and making decisions based on special interest politics. We must stand ready to help the President!

It's the usual cast of characters. While most of them are committee leaders, there are also some junior members jumping into the debate. It almost makes you wonder who's paying their salary. Eliminating corporate tax loop-holes that hurt the middle-class has been an issue since President Kennedy. President Obama is right to try and tackle it, considering the fact that he campaigned on it - openly and honestly. Unfortunately, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) called for “further study” within minutes of the president’s announcement yesterday. That is the first step in trying to KILL something in DC speak.

The same kinds of responses are coming from Senator Barbara Boxer (I intend to write to her soon), as well as Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Committee Member Joseph Crowley (D-NY). We cannot allow their special interest alliances to undermine the President's effort to restructure the tax code to help honest American business. Eliminating tax loop-holes and shutting down tax havens is crucial to improving fairness in the American tax system.

Global warming is also at risk. It has a tremendous ally in my Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) who did a wonderful thing after he ousted Michigan Democrat John Dingell earlier this year taking over the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee. Dingell was a close ally of the auto industry who aimed to water down any global warming legislation. Unfortunately, 14-term Congressman Rich Boucher (D-VA) is fighting hard to keep the fossil fuel companies happy. He has many allies, mostly from coal producing states. President Obama's "green economy" is at risk from many Democrats - as well as ALL Republicans.

It's incredible to think just how many "enemies" President Obama faces on every issue. Housing and the economy are probably the most complicated, so let's just say that he has dark forces massing on all fronts. Change in Washington is never easy, and President Obama is trying to pull off a miracle - for our future. We need him to succeed. What many Americans fail to understand is just how BROKEN the system is today. He's trying to repair it, while making improvements. The man is undoubtedly incredible, but he may need a miracle. The odds are against him.

So, I'm asking everybody who understands this critical situation to please contact your representatives to give President Obama and his "change agenda" as much support as possible. The dark forces representing the broken status quo, supported by special interest millions, have taken over politicians on both sides of the aisle. It's important for us, the American people, to do whatever we can to support POSITIVE CHANGE.

If you agree with the President on any one of his many initiatives, then step-up and support him with an email or phone call to your Senators or Congresspeople in DC. It's the least we can do considering all that he's trying to do for us.

Michael Boh
Papamoka's Left Coast Contributor
from Our Rants & Raves Blog

PS - If you decide to take action, here are a few links that may help you. Email President Obama, and/or your national elected officials. If you wish to call, simply call the White House at 202-456-1414, or the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. I also suggest you contact your local newspaper. Please let them all know how feel. President Obama needs our help.

Buy American Buffoonery

Politicians never cease to amaze me and the latest crew in The House is no different. Somebody was bamboozled into thinking that we need to start a trade war at the beginning of an economic recession and slipped in a “Buy American” only requirement into the stimulus package. Pardon me but I am about to go super nova with rage over this issue since none of these morons has looked at the world economy that is just as much dependent on the American economy as our industrial base is reliant on them!

Over at the New York Times they had this simple and eloquent explanation as to why a “Buy American” stance is idiotic and should be scratched out of the stimulus package in the Senate…

Op-Ed Contributor
If We Buy American, No One Else Will

By DOUGLAS A. IRWIN
Published: January 31, 2009
Hanover, N.H.

WORLD trade is collapsing. The United States trade deficit dropped sharply in November as imports from the rest of the world plummeted in response to the financial crisis and global recession. United States imports from China, Japan and elsewhere declined at double digit rates. The last thing the world economy needs is for governments to give a further downward shove to trade. Unfortunately, we may be doing just that.

Steel industry lobbyists seem to have persuaded the House to insert a “Buy American” provision in the stimulus bill it passed last week. This provision requires that preference be given to domestic steel producers in building contracts and other spending. The House bill also requires that the uniforms and other textiles used by the Transportation Security Administration be produced in the United States, and the Senate may broaden such provisions to include many other products.

Snippet

Remember the golden rule, or the consequences could be severe. When the United States imposed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff in 1930, it helped set off a worldwide movement toward higher tariffs. When everyone tried to restrict imports, the combined effect was a deeper global economic slump. - New York Times

I’ve worked my entire life in the manufacturing sector where goods are produced here in the USA and shipped all over the world. Most of them are shipped to other manufacturers here in the United States that then sell some of their finished products overseas. Those overseas companies look for replacement parts sometime down the road that are technically specified on drawings of the product of who and where to buy those parts from and what do you know, it points back to the United States for a high tech gadget used in India, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, South Africa, Japan, China, Australia and the list goes on.

Manufacturers here in the United States that have survived the China Syndrome, and the India Technical Revolution have learned how to compete, beat, and sometimes buy into the companies in those nations in order to stay in business. Our American manufacturing businesses has survived and prospered because it was compete or close shop. Something the people in our government, apparently more so in The House, that could never understand even in the simplest of terms.

Needless to say, we now live in a world economy where companies owned in say Japan, have multiple manufacturing facilities all across America. Hint, hint, hint, AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY Speaker Pelosi!!! American companies also own manufacturing facilities all over the world too now!

Smucks! Now if we want to discuss fair trade then that is another subject for another post…

Papamoka

Moments of Clarity and Clinton

While on a recent road trip Hillary Clinton is talking about the economy and now is the time to talk about the economy and how we all got into this horrible mess. The near future is not as positive as some people would like to think and a clear path through it is needed. With the latest reports coming in from all of the world stock exchanges, the “Maybe Recession” is a world wide concern when you are talking about the United States of America. World economics is the key to saving not only our own economy but the worlds.

One of the key factors to the U.S. economy is the middle class and the shear numbers of them with disposable income. The facts are simple and the middle class in America has been downsized and locked out of the “Bush” economy from benefits too salary increases. In that same time period the cost of living in America has gone through the roof. One large contributor to that lockout was the executive release of responsibility in corporate America. In the world of business it should be called a signing statement, similar to the thoughts of our current President and the Constitution. Downsizing and outsourcing of entire manufacturing plants out of the country not to be competitive but to ensure the yearly top executives bonuses are protected and of course adjusted for inflation.

In some circles it could be argued that NAFTA and every other acronym for free trade helped to boost the economy in America but they never really stipulated if it was South America or North of the border of America? In reality, free trade literally meant a migration of American middle class jobs out of America and that is yet just one more source of the downfall of our economy. When our government supports the rights of other nations citizens for good jobs at good wages you better look at your last days of employment because that is the first tax break for corporate America to send your job over the border. Key phrases for shutting a factory or manufacturing plant here in the states is “Stock Holder Value”. Largest benefactors to stock holder value are CEO’s and top executives with stock options.

Senator Clinton in her race for the White House spoke about where she thinks we as a nation need to be and it is hard to argue with her thoughts when you look at the numbers realistically. Over at the New York Times they have this interview with Senator Clinton…

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said that if she became president, the federal government would take a more active role in the economy to address what she called the excesses of the market and of the Bush administration.

In one of her most extensive interviews about how she would approach the economy, Mrs. Clinton laid out a view of economic policy that differed in some ways from that of her husband, Bill Clinton. Mr. Clinton campaigned on his centrist views, and as president, he championed deficit reduction and trade agreements.

Reflecting what her aides said were very different conditions today, Mrs. Clinton put her emphasis on issues like inequality and the role of institutions like government, rather than market forces, in addressing them.

She said that economic excesses — including executive-pay packages she characterized as often “offensive” and “wrong” and a tax code that had become “so far out of whack” in favoring the wealthy — were holding down middle-class living standards.

Interviewed between campaign appearances in Los Angeles on Thursday, she said those problems were also keeping the United States economy from growing as quickly as it could.

“If you go back and look at our history, we were most successful when we had that balance between an effective, vigorous government and a dynamic, appropriately regulated market,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And we have systematically diminished the role and the responsibility of our government, and we have watched our market become imbalanced.”

She added: “I want to get back to the appropriate balance of power between government and the market.” - New York Times

Senator Clinton is obviously correct in stating that the markets from housing to Wall Street’s power brokers are out of control and need government oversight more now than ever. If our nation is to survive the current recession then restraints and intervention needs to come from our government. If it does not then the Robber Barron’s of days long gone will run the economy and the nation into the ground and ride out the destruction on the billions earned prior. And you can bet your last Rockefeller shiny new dime that they will pull their investments out of the stock market long before it crashes and outsource it to safer shores.

Salaries of record for one year to think about from Too Much…

$118.9 million for Leslie Blodgett, CEO of Bare Escentuals, who cashed out over 5 million option shares in her cosmetics company for a $117.6 million personal profit.

$415.5 million for Occidental Petroleum CEO Ray Irani. To reach this total, the Times added to Irani's $52.1 million in pay, as calculated by Equilar, the $270.1 million Irani cleared from cashing out stock options and the $93.3 million he withdrew from his deferred stock plan. Irani still holds another $124 million in deferred pay.

$647 million for Apple CEO Steve Jobs

$127 million for UnitedHealth CEO William McGuire

$32.6 million for Todd Nelson, CEO of the Apollo Group, a profit-making collection of higher education institutions

$131 million for Robert Nardelli, the Home Depot CEO forced out in January

$97 million for Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis

$1.5 billion for James Simons, Renaissance Technologies

$39.1 million for Ford CEO Alan Mulally, a sum that includes an $18.5-million bonus for leaving Boeing to join Ford. Ford had six executives in the industry's top 15, despite record 2006 losses of $12.6 billion.

Some people would say that each one of these people earned their pay and in some cases I might not argue with you. In most cases though it is a race to the top of the heap and they never look back at all the folks they stepped on to get those annual salaries and mega stock options. That is not part of the horizon they are looking at when they cash out, sell out or move on to another corporate position to repeat the process all over again. Once there they never forget the politics that kept them there either with donations that max out. Atilla the Hun would have been very comfortable in corporate America but he would have owned it all.

Hillary Clinton is talking the talk and I would not be surprised if she became President that she would look at corporate politics with an evil eye but she will not hesitate to cash those campaign checks coming in till that day comes. She isn’t alone in the cashing of those check and that my friends scares me.

If your interested in seeing whom is giving political donations to whom and how much then I highly recommend NewsMeat. It’s a great search engine for political thoughts and seeing who is maxing out to their favorite candidates.

Papamoka

Posted on MichaelLinnJones.com and Bring It ON!

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Is the Bush Conspiracy Proven at the Pump?

Given the fact that raising the minimum wage to a decent level could break the economy of America according to President Bush I think that the prices at the pump are going to pretty much bury the American people for the good graces of our President. I was talking to a good friend of mine this evening and he brought this comparison up.

When Exxon/Mobile posts a $30 Billion dollar profit for one three month span is that going to wake people up to know that our President is corrupt and sacrificing his people for his few oil Barron friends? What does it take to make the people wake up and know that the fix is in and Bush is sitting there in the Oval office chucking the bird at the American people because we know that he is an idiot? From where he sits it looks like we are all the idiots. From where his friends in the oil industry sit the sky is green with cash, yours, mine and anyone driving a car in America.

Over at the Boston Herald they have this to say about this issue…

Gas prices soar above $3 a gallon and toward $4 in some areas
By Associated Press
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
- Updated: 04:05 PM ESTNEW YORK -

For all their complaining as they pay $3 a gallon or more to fill up their cars, few American drivers have yet to reach the point of cutting back.

That’s the message from government statistics showing that demand for gasoline is only just starting to level off even as refinery outages and tight supplies have sent pump prices soaring by 43 percent since the end of January.

And brace yourself: experts say with gas already closing in on $4 a gallon in Chicago and San Francisco ahead of the peak summer driving season, higher prices could be in the cards.

"I drive 55 miles each way to work every day," said Sandy Colden, of Medford, N.J., one recent morning while loading groceries into her Honda Pilot SUV. "So I really don’t have a choice, unfortunately." – Boston Herald

President Bush and his crew of thieves are stealing from all Americans by punishing us for simply being Americans and not agreeing to his political ideology. That ideology is summed up with your seeing things his way or taking the highway. Pick an article in any paper and the corruption and boldness of the deception in his administration is printed every single day! What better way to put the knife to your people’s throat than at the good old gas pump?

What really boggles my mind is that he isn’t just screwing Democrats and Liberals over with his lack of concern for the cost of gasoline at the pump is the simple fact that he is screwing over all Americans regardless of political affiliation.

This man is not the President of America as much as he is the protector of big oil and turning the other way as they rape Americans on a daily basis. Democrat or Republican, Bush is pissed and we will pay through the nose till he is gone. Only till he leaves office will this situation be corrected and even then the Robber Barron’s of today will walk away with pockets full of cash. Your cash, my cash, our senior’s cash, our grocery money, our kids college money, our retirement money, our new born babies’ money for formula and the list goes on and on. How much have you as a person or as a family had to cut back to afford the raping at the pump courtesy of this administration? How much more are you willing to give up and still defend this man that dares to call himself the leader of the free world?

There are emails out there suggesting a boycott of certain gas stations and I for one participated today. Moving forward in my life I will never purchase gas from the gas stations listed in them and if you want a voice in this fight then you should do so as well. I’m boycotting Exxon Mobile for the rest of my life. If they are going to screw me over at the pump anyway with a guy or gal making minimum wage manning the pumps then I am telling you that we should tell them to screw! I’ll spend my fifty dollars to fill my tank at another gas station just down the street. I’m fed up and I am sure that you are too. Be proactive in your disgust and send the message to the corporations bending you over the barrel at the gas pump.

Moving on and according to the Bush mentality and political thought process, the minimum wage hike will kill the economy? Small businesses will collapse; death and destruction to mid sized companies will lend a hand at bringing on a recession. Think again! Mr. President, you and your lack of defending the people and the supper table at home are killing the American economy. Wake the hell up will you! You sir, and your friends in big oil have taken far too much away from my families supper table and we can not afford you or them anymore. This President should be shown the exit post haste.

Let the investigations begin and if Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have the guts to do it then she too should step aside. America is crying for help and all of Washington is looking the other way. Enough is enough! I can't afford politicians that look the other way while my family suffers for their ignorance of what the people at home need.

I'm asking my readers to boycott Exxon Mobil not for just me but for yourself. Send a loud and clear message from your own wallet!

Papamoka

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