bostonbubble.com

[Boston ITer]

[john p]

With politicans like Obama and Patrick, we won't get fewer six figure salaries for government workers, we'll get MORE.

Look at Charlie Rangal and the abuses of taxpayer money, look at Nancy Pelosi wagging her finger at the executive on their corporate jets when she pisses away more money on her non stop flights to California.

How about that congresswoman who was giving bailout money to this bank when she was a major investor in it and then was wagging her finger at these other banks... What was her name, it was in the WSJ the other day.

Obama's wife was some social type worker for the University of Chicago. No high level professional deal like she was doing open heart surgury or anything, and she got a $200k pay raise the year that Obama became Senator. Was Obama "OUTRAGED" at that like he is the bonuses that are going to those who's compensation models are bonuses? Her $200k increase wasn't a polical bonus, ohhh, no. While she was getting a nice fat paycheck, she was asking others to sacrifice and work for the greater good.

People loved Obama's words, but his actions are so far worse than anything we've had in the past. He has outspent Bush's entire tenure in his first 50 days. He has promised no corporate lobbyists and tax cheats and he can't even field a team at the Treasury. He said no earmarks and the Omnibus bill was worse than anything in history. He said we'd be out of Iraq in 09 and he lied. I predict taht we'll have more casualties in Afghanistan than we had in Iraq.

Deval Patrick promised lower property taxes. We're going to get taxed more now than any other period since Dukakis.

Europe learned its lesson with socialism and they are smart enough now to understand that it can cripple a generation economically. If you worked really hard to be able to live your dreams, you might have to put them on hold because government will control the flow of wealth and they will give it to their friends. It won't be a meritocracy.

[john p]

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2006/sep/27/news/chi-0609270216sep27

[Boston ITer]

[admin]

[Hard Rain]

[john p]

In the context of this conversation, which I led into a ditch.... we were talking about six figure salaries getting fewer and fewer in the public sector.

My point about Mrs. Obama was that she clearly got a huge lift in her pay (more than doubled) at the time her husband got elected to the Senate.

I simply don't believe that that promotion was based on merit and on not on politics. My point was that politicans give money to their friends, they give jobs and promotions to their friends and family members of their friends. It is pay to play in Chicago, and Obama got paid to play. Tony Rezko was someone who bought off Obama plain and simple. Rezko was a slum lord that was embezzling money that was meant for poor people. Deval Patrick took hundreds of thousands of dollars from Ameriquest, one of the worst predatory lenders that targetted the poor and minorities.

These are sleazy politicans, and what makes them worst is that they actually know right from wrong because they know what the right things to say are. Everyone seemed to fall in love with their words and latch on to them, but failed to see if there was any record to support them.

Michelle Obama's $200k raise is no different than any other politican's relative that gets a fat bonus because of their relatives political influence. (My opinion)

[Guest]

I agree all the corruption is sickening, AIG getting bailed out, Merrill getting bailed out but Lehman being allowed to fail. I don't know much about the Michelle Obama situation, although I did wonder how it was possible someone was making so much money in community relations at a hospital or whatever it was she was doing. I didn't really dig into as I should have. If she was a fundraiser though more power to her, if she raised millions or whatever for the hospital then she deserves the 200k salary if it's sort of a commission structure. Maybe the bump up was related to the new connections and fund raising capability.

In any case I will research this point, but I want to say, there are so many subsidies all over the place it's pretty ridiculous to single one out from the other.
I have posted elsewhere on this blog that I think we should have a flat tax. If russia and other newly capitalist nations can do it why can't we. Remove the subsidies for housing (mortgage interest) remove the subsidies for oil, remove the subsidies for affordable housing ,just strip it all away so we can finally see what is profitable and what isn't.

We need to focus on what things move the needle and what things really matter. Many people are getting wound up about the community reinvestment act, like that really could have ON ITS OWN created a housing bubble??? Of course it was part of the problem, but Greenspan holding interest rates artifically low in 2001-2002 was a bigger factor in my view. Again, what moves the needle? It was the chase for yield by institutional investors because interest rates were artifically low and the chase for capital gains by all the flippers in middle to upper middle class places, many of whom really weren't related to the Community Reinvestment Act at all, that were more important in my view.

i am totally willing to listen to the other side on this, but I would like to see something that ranks what has cost more. Can anyone even estimate the subsidies that have been given to big oil? So they can then use their power to block things that would help me as a libertarian minded person get off the grid?

I appreciate more many of the ideas of Ron Paul than the big parties, crazy as that guy might be.

[Boston ITer]

[john p]

Here is a prime example of people who play the bleeding heart savior that we just fall in love and melt when we hear. The MSPCA, people that protect abandoned animals get money from donations of good hearted people and they have executives that pocket the money.

http://www.bluemassgroup.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=14846

At least the dirt bags at AIG are honest about their greed.

Oh, by the way, Obama got the second most campaign contributions from AIG from anyone except Chris Dodd.

http://www.examiner.com/x-268-Right-Side-Politics-Examiner~y2009m3d17-Obama-Received-a-101332-Bonus-from-AIG

Obama also got the third amount of political graft from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/07/top-senate-recipients-of-fanni.html

I'm sorry, it is just hard to hear the hipocrisy from sleazy politicans and then from people who allow him to get away with it.

[JCK]

john,

I know how you like to cite Obama as receiving money from "AIG" or "Freddie Mac" but keep in mind the companies themselves cannot donate to presidential campaigns. Only the employees.

And since Obama raised far more money from the population as a whole, I'm sure you can pick virtually any group you like, from veterinarians to loan collectors, and determine that Obama received "more" from that group than any other candidate.

[john p]

My point is that Obama sold us this myth that he was this pure outsider that was free from the corporate lobbyists, he was very preachy about how campaign financing was causing corruption and how it was a primary issue for us to purge that because the money was compromising politicans. If Obama truely believed this, he should not have taken money from these companies plain and simple.

Obama got something like 3 times the amount of donations from Wall Street than did McCain. People bought the myth.

Obama had all these straw man arguments about these corrupt people who were gaming the system and were irresponsible. Then we find out that the people he's been choosing in his cabinet are guilty and are the actual straw men that he's been arguing about and not of the lofty new breed he promised us with his lofty rhetoric. I mean he can't live up to his own promises in many major areas. Obama on the one hand likes to say that he warned the Bush Administration about the financial crisis. If AIG was corrupt why did Obama take money from them? HE either wasn't a leader and know what was going on or he did know what was going on and take the money anyway.

This input isn't just about Obama bashing. It is about helping you determine your long term prospects for wealth. If you buy Obama's plan you might have a rosier perspective and risk forecasting higher future earnings. I'm just saying be a little guarded right now and maybe play a little conservative, and if you're going to buy maybe expect a discount to buy yourself a little cushion.

[Boston ITer]

Hello John,

I think the theme of this thread concerned the govt payroll, forming the market bottom, for the price of housing in Boston, as oppose to let's say, a flourishing private sector, aka the 400th Boston Jubilee, Massachusetts Miracle Part Deux.

Yet, somehow... it's turned into another Patrick-Obama bashing feast with the idea that somehow, the govt killed the private sector than the private sector, self-imploding on its own narcissism.

I get the feeling that you've never dealt with the MBA culture of corporate America and hence, you feel that most companies out there have Thomas Alva Edison toiling away in the basement, inventing tomorrow's next big thing. Hate to say it, but that's seldom the case these days. Today we have an MBA culture which has rendered our corporate sectors into these stagnant behemoths of sloth and faux "lean 'n mean" mantras.

True, if Edison was still in the kitchen and our private R&D->to>production sectors were up to snuff, then we'd have a very prosperous region where everyone will opt for private sector employment than being a rubber stamper for the Town Assessor's office or an Med Tech for a local hospital. Unfortunately, given the state of affairs, a scared and prudent public will opt for the latter guns 'n buttah approach, to insure food on the table and that their kids could actually live in a home/apt than in a tent city ala Central Valley California.

[JCK]

[Boston ITer]