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[john p]

I'll try to tone down the bashing... I always footnote the basis of my opinions.

http://www.cfinst.org/pr/prRelease.aspx?ReleaseID=216

According to this report 47% of Obama's record breaking $452,852,990 came from donors contributing over $1,000.

That 47% of fat cat donors equals $212,840,905 which is more than McCain's entire haul of $212,840,905. Didn't Obama say that it was big money that was corrupting politicans?

I hope USA Today isn't too right wing for you:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-12-02-obama-money_N.htm

The title of this article is "Obama's fundraising obliterates records".

These aren't right wing talking points, these are Obama's actual words look at this youtube of Obama criticizing how elections are bought.

http://www.publicampaign.org/obama_on_fair_elections

You're right, he did say 16 months, go to second 55

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFhpdbXjMCg&feature=related

My issue is that prior to that he talks about how saving money in Iraq will help our Economy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3Sj2QTfKhM

now go to 1 minute 50 seconds and listen to Obama's certitude about ending the Iraq War in 2009 (11 months from when he starts office). So when he's in front of his crowds he throws out the "End the War" red meat but he has these fall back interviews that he can quote when others cite the discrepancy. I guess if you say a whole range of things you can footnote whatever you want.

Obama is a wildcard right now because, like most politicans he has said one thing and might do another. My writing isn't to entertain anyone, but to get people to stop drinking the Kool-Aide and be open to the notion that he may just be a politican who won't follow through on stuff and will come up with lame excuses like "Things Changed". Obama has some very good attributes(like Clinton) that may help trade, I'm sure I'll like much of that, but believe me, you will see some of his die-hard supporters turn on him and call him worse than a "Turd".

I apologize for calling him a turd. I'll go to the Penalty Box and feel shame.

[john p]

Oh, go to 1 minute 45 seconds on this link, sorry,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPMTGIh6N6I

He says numerous times, that he "Will End this War in 2009". That's shorter than 16 months from when he begins office and he seems to have some language he can fall back on in case he decides to wait longer.

[john p]

Regarding the Community Reinvestment Act:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU6fuFrdCJY

Go to second 54 to see what Clinton did to it.

In 1995 Clinton allowed the securitization of subprime loans. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guaranteed these mortgages. Banks wouldn't have given loans to most of these people that didn't qualify, but now that they could get a commission and bundle and sell the mortgages and not have the risk, and they were guaranteed by the Government, it created a huge wave of subprime lending and with the adjustable rate mortgages that were adjusting to the LIBOR with the falling dollar it was a huge tsumani of foreclosures and the securitized mortgages plunged because we all knew that people couldn't pay back what they couldn't afford in the first place.

Now in 2005, McCain wrote legislation to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and warned about the mess we are currently in.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=109-s20060525-16&bill=s109-190

If I didn't know about the abuse of the Community Reinvestment Act and John McCain's attempt to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the fact that Barack Obama got the second most amount of contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, I might be offended if someone called Obama a turd. I was offended when John Kerry said that McCain wears "Depend's" underwear, and there was a lot in that campaign that would shake up people and get the tone to be heightened. The hypocrisy of Obama, Dodd, and Frank were too much for me to sit quietly with.

[john p]

http://www.thepoliticalcapital.com/index.php?topic=2776.0;wap2

[john p]

Here's another:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6_VoHfqQMc

Obama was trying to appeal to the far left and said in 2007 that he filed a bill to get our troops out by March of 08. This was before the Surge. If we did what he wanted we would have left a failed Iraq without a stable Democracy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H64yKJhB528&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFQXpGiBvnk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8MCtLwIUBI&feature=related

this one is a dooozie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-q9w_H2ACA&feature=related

What's he going to do about NAFTA? Who knows?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY5CQnOn75c&feature=related

"I believe that you should know what you're doing before you apply for a job" Reason why Obama say's he won't run for President in 08.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BnLozS-TnM&feature=related

Good one when his telepromter goes blank:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDJSVPAx8xc&feature=related

Obama thinks we have 58 or 59 States?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpGH02DtIws&feature=related

Here's the one you might have heard:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWwU7l25OD8&feature=related

How on earth does this guy have a congregation? Doesn't this guy seem a trifle unbalanced? How could Obama not have figured out what this guy was like. It wasn't like he had one bad moment. He's got some new material coming...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUbUBTlmAiA&feature=related

My point with all of this is that Obama is a wildcard because he, like most politicans say what we want to hear to get elected.

Now Deval Patrick said he would lower property taxes, but instead, they're going up.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/12/dimasi_local_ai.html

So property taxes are going up because Patrick couldn't restrain spending.

Thanks Boston Globe (read their endorsement)

http://www.boston.com/news/local/politics/candidates/articles/2006/10/29/patrick_for_governor/

The Globe did qualify "

[quote]At times in this campaign we have worried that Patrick's policy proposals were not detailed enough, and that if he won without an explicit to-do list he would lack a mandate to govern.[quote]

Here's one detail the Globe didn't report on before the election, again, thanks Globe:

http://bostonist.com/attachments/sloan/deval.jpg

So, we don't have any idea what Patrick or Obama will do because they don't tell the truth. It is hard to do personal finance when you have no idea about what they're going to do, casinos, trillions of new spending and skyrocketting debt, are we staying in Iraq or now, who the hell knows? Who's getting a bailout? Who knows?

[JCK]

[JCK]

[JCK]

[showgunx]

[Boston ITer]

[john p]

Thanks for the respect, honestly. My mother just hangs up the phone when I go on my Obama rants, literally. My uncle has dropped calls, my sister, and a few. I must admit, being the bad wrestler / Andy Kaufmann character is kind of fun. What is great is when I try calling back a couple days later and sort of pick a light topic to start off and then unravel like a good night of drinking, which is when they shut me off... Besides just for sport, I want people to just have their eyes open and respect Obama for what he is, an extremely talented politician. If you think he has a silver bullet, you're dreaming in my opinion. My fear is that people don't even care about fixing it because they can just shift gears and turn into parasites and vultures and feast off the dead bodies.

I see Patrick as Obama because they had the same campaign manager, David Axelrod and their slogans were almost the same "Together We Can" and "Yes We Can". Beyond that, Patrick promised lower property taxes when his challenger challenged that with the spending he was proposing that would not be a reality. She was right, but we wanted to hear the cheery flowery outlook and not the cold reality based on facts. My problem with them is that it is easy to be the flowery guy if you're not burdened with reality. The Boston Globe in their endorsement qualified that they were too concerned about his lack of detail in his plans, but thought his great leadership persona would make our problems disappear. Well his… what’s the word.. oh “TEMPERMENT” yeah, that’s it, the buzzword is that he has the “temperament” to be President. I see temperament as being modified when under stress. If you have no specific plans and it is just fluff, you’re not really burdened with reality or performance measures are you? People who are all happy, flowery are often those that take no accountability for anything and they aren’t burdened with having to turn a profit, or maintaining any performance levels etc. Obama and Patrick did not burden themselves with any formal plans or criteria or put themselves on the hook with any policy and future forecasts. They threw out red meat to get elected but also some wiggle room wording to back out of political season language when the reality came to light. I mean Obama in the throws of the election communicated certitude when he said over and over and over again, "We will be out of Iraq in 09". He also laid out some wiggle room and said that depending on what his Generals said about conditions on the ground.... That's Bush and McCain's position, which is responsible; we broke it so we can't leave it in complete chaos. In fact, if we got out when Obama said originally when it was early on in the primaries when he was trying to pick up the anti-War segment we would have left it in chaos. The moral hazard here is that if you say what you need to say politically at the time (go far left early on in a Democratic Primary) and then shift to the center when it is expedient, it says that the politician will be an opportunist and who knows what principles will guide them when perseverance and resolve is needed?

Obama and Patrick are in the context of this "Positive Thinking" mentality. They have movies called the "Secret" that say everything is about the law of attraction. If you think positively, you'll see a positive reality. It's almost like if you use enough body English you can will your bowling ball out of the gutter. I still believe in working hard to learn how to bowl before relying on new age love fest stuff. I mean when people fall in love and get caught up in that love fest, they repel rationality. They don't want anyone to be a buzz kill. I find it responsible to be a buzz kill and offer a life line of reality almost like trying to rescue someone from a cult. Obama does offer benefits even if you're not a delusional follower, but he will require a strong citizenship to oversee him because he is prone to drift with the political winds and does try to avoid dealing with harsh realities and ignore things that seem like a buzz kill.

I am kind of worried about Obama because his political maneuvering was brilliant and if he used some people during the election they will be pissed when he turns on them i.e. Reverend Wright (who actually recognized and said Obama is saying what he needs to say as a politician who wants to be elected).

In 04 voted for John Kerry because I thought his assessment and strategy was aligned with the realities of Iraq. I think he was ahead of the curve and people were still caught up in the whole cowboy shooting the wolf stuff. I had donated money to Kerry and was on his list and got his e-mails. During the Primary, the day after Kerry announced his support for Obama, the next day, I started getting Obama donation e-mails. Kerry must have given Obama the entire 04 Democratic Presidential Election donation contacts. Don't you think that helped his haul? I think Kerry was expecting to be Secretary of State. If you're Kerry and you've got decades of experience, made the right call in 04 and lost to a cowboy, and gave loyalty to Obama how happy are you that Clinton, a woman who was in a year long rock fight with Obama got the job he is more qualified to hold? Kerry proved to be no better as although McCain supported him in an election year through defending him from the Swift Boat accusations, Kerry didn't return the loyalty and did a hatchet job on Kerry.

Keep this in mind; the Press loved John McCain before this election. He was a maverick and would say what needed to be said. Because the media wanted Obama they had to disown McCain. For this reason I think they oversold any changes McCain made. I mean think about Joe Biden. When Biden's running for President He say's Obama's not qualified and that he'd be "honored" to be on the same ticket as McCain. Now ask yourself, did John McCain flip flop or did Biden have to manufacture reasons for his own about face? It may have been a little of both, but keep your eyes open to get a better sense of reality as events unfold.

If we want to get out of this mess, we don't close our eyes and imagine happy thoughts, we need to employ our industrious values. I have people very close to me who have been laid off. Layoffs today are based on performance and this television show "Survivor" loyalty and coalition building mentality. I knew someone who doubled their sales growth for the past few years and was laid off and replaced by a loyalist to the person making the decision of who to keep, and the replacement hadn't sold a piece of business in two years. Now people in that organization now get the message that politics are more important than performance. The rewards structure does not align with the business model. Now, that person who's laid off will be better off in the end by finding a new place with a more successful model, but it is wrong that politics can trump performance. I think Obama demonstrated that political skill trumps experience and a track record. Bush brought "Audacity" to society, meaning say something that you're not even remotely i.e. I'm the "Education President" when Texas was like 47th in education. People learned that if you gave yourself a title, it didn't matter if you could back it up (like Michael Brown running FEMA). People manufactured egotistical delusions to substitute feeling embarrassed about having no clue about what they were charged to do. We had the audacity to call the Patriot Act the Patriot Act even though it was reaching into our liberties. We had a "No Child Left Behind" policy that left the funding behind. Obama learned this Audacity stuff and how having experience didn't matter politically and saw an opening to run without the necessary experience. The truth was that he had less experience than Palin. The media can frame your perception and they went right after Palin. I think Palin wasn't as advertised and that if McCain understood that she was in love with pork and was poisoned with vanity, he'd know she was no different than the people he was trying to challenge. She was a bad pick. The media thinks that experience means being in front of their cameras so that you're a known commodity to their viewers. Their business model is based on viewership and that is based on entertainment. They trashed Palin and had a fairy tale of Obama.

Joe Biden's experience was screwy. He thinks we should have divided up Iraq into three countries. He was against the first Iraq War and he voted to authorize force against Hussein. I mean I don't get Obama's calculus. He says "judgment" is important and that Hillary has no judgment because she authorized the use of force against Hussein, yet he chooses Biden, a man who voted the same way as Clinton based on judgment? Biden proclaims his respect and adoration for McCain and then does an about face when a man he earlier said wasn't qualified dangles the VP post to him. I mean what does that say about Biden's integrity? To me Obama is a wildcard, Biden has sketchy judgment and lacks loyalty, Clinton really wasn't the most qualified to be Secretary of State and is "likeable enough" according to Obama. We're trying to have a shiny happy face for the world and we chose Clinton's acerbic personality?

I know a guy in the restaurant business and he said to me, more important than quality is consistency. I just don't know what we're going to get with this administration.

Here's another big thing guys. The reason why infrastructure is being offered is that for one, it has been neglected and is needed, but more importantly, it represents pork and the type of pork that politicians control and can give to their friends. Infrastructure and all this green stuff are very important but I don't think it will provide the stimulus that we need. I think we should treat this like trying to quit smoking. We need to stop spending, stop borrowing, stop nation building, stop dreaming and being delusional, stop overpaying for things, etc. That was Kerry Healy's campaign against Deval Patrick, and we chose the dreamy happy fuzzy guy who made us feel good so we didn't have to hear about the bad news and Kerry Healy was just a buzz kill who was talking about negative thoughts and we want positive thoughts because positive thoughts make positive results right? In the movie the Godfather, the father kept asking the son questions about his situation, stuff like if he had tapped the phones going in and out and all the different scenarios about who would be the traitor etc. He said to his son that children could be irresponsible and not careful, but men had to be careful. Obama framed careful people as "cynics" and if someone questioned the false facade of "Together We Can" they were cynics.

I had a finance professor in my MBA who had us do exercises that gave us both a mechanical understanding of working capital and such, but he also gave us these deep insights that ring true when doing forecasts. I remember this one financial analysis surrounding whether or not this company ought to scrap their older ships, pay to fix them, or just continue running them. Of course the newer ships were faster and you could get more trips, but being financially bonded or have more debt to pay by owning them would put you at risk. Being bonded with debt meant you couldn't take on more debt and your "top was closed", so people weighed financial flexibility with their forecasts about what they thought about the future's prospects. You can tell by what people decide what their forecasts are, they are like tell signs. Here's one:

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/1746315

He also taught us about inventory supply and gave us cases where one company over saturated the market in certain years and it took a few years to get back to balance. It had us weigh deflationary pressures against pent up demand.

I don't know why I even bother, but fundamentally, if you see that our financial "Top is closed" or we can't just keep borrowing and borrowing because we have no ability to pay back what we're borrowing. Obama is Chicago, and we know Chicago is corrupt, hell, look at the Governor trying to sell Obama's seat. But Chicago has this old Burnham "Make no small plans” mentality. Would a financial advisor tell a family in debt to their ears to spend and borrow more on their credit card? Individuals who have a closed top have banks say no and they reach limits. Because individuals vote for a President, the President can be just as irresponsible as the people that voted for him and won't limit themselves or restrain themselves with fundamentals. They'll just blow the lid off with regard to spending. Guy's what got us out of the Depression wasn't FDR's WPA, it was World War II. We got WWII because nations imploded. If we love peace, we need to behave responsibly and we NEED TO SUCCEED. Because if we succeed other growing nations will model their behavior to ours. If we fail, we empower those that don't like capitalism or democracy. I believe Obama will start off with WPA in infrastructure to help solidify his positions politically and pay back the politicians who put him in office, but if there are adults in the room, they'll explain to him that borrowing more just digs the hold deeper. I pray that we don't get so far deep that we need to become a predator and start taking from others. We never really got anything from Iraq other than have a democracy that wasn't radical Islam in that region, and that is important as much as we'd like not to recognize.

Now when all these companies make those decisions about whether or not to invest or fix that ship or scrap it, they need consistency, they need to have an honest plan to be the basis of their business plan. If Obama is all over the place, meaning he distorts fundamentals and the ground rules with bailouts, incentive handouts, etc. people won't have any basis to forecast and it gives a great excuse for fragging a loyal industrious employee that you're suspect of with politically. People can scratch their heads and say, why did you get rid of Bill, didn't Bill double his sales growth the past few years, year over year. Well the person can say, all bets are off moving forward, who knows how things will shake out, and even if sales drop in the future you can blame everything on this fundamental change that will completely distort fundamentals which are the basis for diagnostics, measuring success and failure, measure forecasted sales, performance etc. When fundamentals are shattered, it's like prison rules, political jungle, like the show Survivor. When business leaders or bosses start to tell you that the sky is red and if you don't agree with them you're job is in jeopardy and you see everyone lining up to tell the boss that he's right, the sky is red, you know that organization won't survive when things get back to normal and that is just politics during a down cycle. I wonder how long politically some of these "Advisors” will have to tell Obama the sky is red before the feel safe to tell him the truth? I've been bounced from jobs for telling the truth, but I've been asked back numerous times to those places because they understood that what I said was right and I was trying to protect them. I'm at my current job because someone recognized that I had a good track record. I'm trading on performance and track record and Obama just obliterated that value.

What we’re dealing with is herd behavior. People that are suffering with today’s fundamentals are trying to blow the roof off, create massive inflation and shuffle the deck to avoid responsibility. It is kind of like Martial Law of the Economy and I don’t like it. I mean we had Glass Stegall to keep commercial banks from being investment banks and now our Treasury Secretary is an investment banker and he’s doing what he knows, acting like an investment banker. We’ve made the FED an investment bank by purchasing shares in companies. What the fuck?

[john p]

This guy does a better job of explaining it...

http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.28772/pub_detail.asp