Amen Brother Yogi!!!!!

Let's not get all Socialist!! I still believe in Capitalism. However, there are certain changes that need to be made.

If we want to reduce the use of fossil fuels, then lets get some programs that make them AFFORDABLE. Until recently, Toyota was waving the Prius under everyone's nose as if to say, "You can have one, but you'll be waiting six months and are you going to PAY."

Give REAL incentives for people to buy more fuel efficient cars. Give people REAL incentives to put solar power on their rooftops. Make the technology more efficient. Quadruple the number of electrons each panel can produce. And then make them within the financial grasp of those who want to use them.

CREATE new industries by investing in new forms of energy. This will create jobs and stimulate the economy. STOP the outflow of jobs to foreign countries. We've outsourced our brainpower and production, and we're shocked that the nation is in the shape it is. If companies want to outsource US jobs to India or Mexico, then those companies should pay MORE taxes. Reward the companies that keep the jobs here in the US.

AMEN! The years and years of outsourcing of jobs has had a major impact on our current economical situation! We are no longer a producing nation and that is what is also making it very tough for us to climb out of this financial mess that we are in!

As a people, we also need to start demanding that our local elected officials like our congressman and state senators be our voices over in Washington. They need to start demanding, on our behalf, that Banks like Citibank be held accountable for the bad mortgages that they backed and allowed to be written by not only their mortgage departments, but by the mortgage brokers that they outsourced many mortgages to. Banks like Citibank need to be held accountable for the huge bonuses that their executives have given themselves with one hand while taking bailout money with the other hand. Enough is enough with throwing our tax money at these fiscally and finacially irresponsible selfish companies and banks!

We need ot have our elected officials demand that the bailout programs for those homeowners who are in trouble bail only those out who legitimatley have fallen on hard times paying their mortgages because of job losses or pay cuts. These home bailout programs should only be offered to those who when originally purchasing their homes showed fiscal responsibility and due dilligence in purchasing a home that they could afford at the time.

Instead our government is giving money to homeowners who claim that they now are in trouble with paying their mortgages. Many or these homeowners knowingly and willingly purchased homes that, at the time, they knew damn well that they could not afford. Their irresponsibility and selfishness has caught up with them and our government is, in a sense, rewarding these people by throwing money at them and helping them save a home that they really couldn't afford in the first place!

Many homeowners who have done the right thing over the years by keeping up with their payments because they responsibly purchased homes that, at the time, they could afford, are now being turned away because according to some of the guidelines set in some of these mortgage bailout programs they are not in "dire" need of help!

Yet the guy who was only making $25,000 a year and went out and knowingly and willingly got a $750,000 mortgage that he really couldn't afford and said to himself and his mortgage broker "I want it now and I'll worry about it later" has no problem qualifying for a mortgage bailout program.

Something is really wrong with this picture.

Do you feel that the Government should overturn nafta? I do.

No, I don't.

I cannot say it is fine just the way it is, at least not when it comes to Mexico and the United States. I would not suggest we should do away with free trade altogether (life in a closed economy seems pretty shitty to me), but I don't see how its current incarnation is in our best interest as a nation. US manufacturing workers lost their jobs, Mexican farm workers lost their jobs (provoking a massive wave of illegal immigration), while robber baron CEOs prospered.

The Mexican corn farmers were especially hurt by NAFTA, so it's hard for me to reconcile myself with the way it's currently structured. However, free trade does increase U.S sales, create middle class jobs and it allows each country to concentrate on what it does best, which actually helps poorer countries. So, in short, I'd keep it, but overhaul it.

The Dow rallied tremendously after President Obama spoke yesterday. It closed at the highest number for 2009. And futures are up this morning. There MUST be a correlation.

My experience tells me that the positive news that Citigroup put out has much more to do with a rally in the market than the President speaking. The market wound up having it's best day of the year after finally hearing some good news from Citigroup. Citigroup reported that it actually made a profit during the first two months of the year! That news immediatly drove financial stocks up which resulted in the entire market closing higher.

The FTSE also rallied yesterday!

Rome wasn't built in a day i guess

"Change we all see repeat in," i.e., the Democratic party....tax and spend. Or maybe it should be, "Change we can all grieve in."

I truly believe this is, "The end of the world as we know it."

And I feel fiiiiiiine

The only change that I'm afraid that we will see is what's left in our pockets after the government is finished giving away millions and millions of our tax dollars to banks and companies that are investing overseas, providing jobs overseas and giving their executives expensive perks and big fat bonuses.


President and CEO, James (Jamie) Dimon said it perfectly in his speach today. While he did not bash the President and did not fault the President, he correctly stated that the President needs to start talking UP the economy instead of talking it down. And I have to agree with him. While I am in no way blaming the President for what is taking place in our country right now, I do find, at times, that the President seems to dwell a bit to much on the negatives instead of pointing out the positives, however minimal they may be at this time. Perhaps it's just inexperience on his part. Time will tell.

I want to believe in Obama...but I don't; I can't. It's just the same politics as usual. As I heard someone say, "Rome is burning, and the government is handing out fiddles." Forget Republican and Democrat. I've lived 47 years and have never seen this country so bad. And when I hear that it's the government who's going to bail us all out, I'm more scared than I already am. Furthermore, spending billions in tax dollars on earmarks--be it Democrats or Republicans--is insanity to me. I don't have the answers. But I know the "Messiah" hasn't a clue either...and it scares the hell outta' me.

So...you'd rather he lied to you and told everyone the economy was fundamentally sound when it is obviously not?

BTW, I apologize to all I offended with my "Glad Ted Kennedy has cancer" post. It was incredibly stupid. As I said, f*ck Republican/Democrat. Right now, I'm just an American, and I'm as scared as hell. I love this country, and I feel helpless as I watch it going down the drain.

Absolutely not LN. You chose to quote only a part of what I said which takes what I said a bit out of context.

As I said : "I do find, at times, that the President seems to dwell a bit to much on the negatives instead of pointing out the positives, however minimal they may be at this time."


I did not say that he should sugar coat or lie to us about what is happening.

My point, and I believe Mr. Dimon's point was that the American people are beaten down. Day after day we turn on our radios and our television sets and on almost every channel we find someone talking about how bad things have gotten and will continue to get. Each day the 1 hour news cast will spend 57 minutes talking about what is, went and will continue to go wrong and will maybe spend the other 3 minutes reporting about any positive progress that may have been made that day in regards ot our economy.

When your team is getting beat you do not have to keep reminding them of how terrible they are playing. There comes a point that if you keep doing that you will drain them of whatever hope they have left in them. There comes a point when no matter how bad your team is losing and how beat up they may be, a good and seasoned leader will no longer beat them down but instead pick out the positives, no matter how minimal they may be, and talk them up. Try to build on those positives. Help to try and restore some sense of hope back in the players.

President Obama did a spectacular job in providing hope in the American people during the homestretch of the election and after becoming the President elect. But I've noticed that as the weeks have passed, that firey hope that President Obama once displayed has begun to diminish somewhat. He seems to have swayed towards the negatives more than tryting to talk up the positives.

I want this President to be successful. I want this President's plan to work, to help this country and it's people. And I want this President to show the American people that he can inspire and lead them AS the President in the same way and on the same level that he was able to when he was running for President.

We all see things through different filters based on our experiences and beliefs.

I don't see Obama as being overly negative. I did notice him talking about creating millions of jobs, updating our infrastructure and rebuilding our roads.

News reports always report the bad. They report murders and violent crimes a lot more than anything positive. There is hardly any good news on news channels. This is not Obama's fault.

I would rather he talk to us about plans to make things better instead of trying to make me happy about the economy being shit.

EDIT: And we can't fix the problems if people don't know what they are. It needs to be talked about. To compare it to a losing team, they need to know what to fix in order to get better.

First of all, I was being sarcastic with my post about a correlation.

Secondly, President Obama was handed an impossible job. WHY he wanted it, why anyone would want it, is beyond me. However, he did take it on. As has been pointed out, no other president has been handed a war AND an economic catastrophe. Personally, I believe that the two are related, but that's another debate.

There was an interesting point made above about the media. We are seeing sound bites. For all we know, the President is singing all sorts of praises, and the media takes the one thing that sounds negative!!

Obama is walking a tightrope, but in fact he needs to have more of Clinton and Reagan in his PR approach and less Carter or we are headed for trouble.

I agree dontamasso. Both President Reagan and President Clinton, especially President Clinton, like him and support them or not, were great orators in thier own respective ways. And I found during the recent race for the Presidency that then Presidential candidate Barack Obama also had the gift of being an excellent orator. As a matter of fact he is an outstanding orator. However I feel that since taking office he has abandoned his talent for speaking. He seems to have drifted away from a talent that was a huge contributing factor in making the voters believe in him and elect him president. I feel that he needs to go back to his oral strengths, particualry his ability to make people feel confident and positive. Because if he does not, and he continues to constantly talk down the economy the way that he has of late, then the american people will panic and will not use any of what little money they may have left over to help stimulate the economy. Instead they will dwell on the negatives and live in fear and be apprehensive about spending period!

It is still very early in President Obama's term, and for this reason I feel that if he is able to inject a bit more optimism about this country's future and it's economy, it will have a positive effect on the people and their attitude about this country and it's future.

President Obama's credibility is still very high right now and his PR people as well as himself need to realize this. If they take advatage of the high credibility rating that he currently has and use it along with the excellent orating skills that he possesses, I believe that it will help tremendously in making the American people believe in not only him, but the future of this country as a whole.

Wait, I thought Monica Lewinsky was the great orator...

Well put, DC. I think he needs to be candid about the mess we are in, but he alo needs to use the idea of American Exceptionalism to his advantage. I happen to agree with his approach of taking everything on at once, but he needs to explain himself. He needs to say that this is a holistic approach to the country's problems. He can compare it to treating someone with, say diabetes. You don't just do insulin and then wait a while and take on diet, then wait longer and take on obesity, and then wait longer to recommend exercise....you do it all at once.

He needs to talk about his dreams for a "Renewed America" and give people hope. He can use his upcoming trip to Europe as a platform to talk to us by telling the Europeans how much the USA is already doing to stimulate the economy, and take on the bad guys in Afg hanistan (the comparisons will be obvious). And when he gets back he's got to get away from the "malaise" stuff. Look what it did for Jimmy.

He also needs to show some cojones and threaten to veto anything with too many earmarks in the next budget

Would that make Bill Clinton "The Great Oratee"?

That,

or full of hot air...

I miss Bush, he was such a humble, next door kinda guy..
I bet you'll never see Obama doin' this

Yes he was and I miss him too.

I'm afraid that it has already begun Snake.


When he was running for President one of his main campaign promises was that if elected President he would "demand a federal government that is accountable to the people." He promised that he would "not sign legi­slation laden with billions of dollars in earmarks!" He swore in his campaign that he would "reject budget requests that let congressmen send money to their states!"


So last week the House passes a bill that would keep the government open for business through Sept. 30, when the federal budget year ends. Turns out that this bill has close to 9000 earmarks with an estimated cost totaling $7.7 billion!!!! And President Obama signed this bill.

Oh, yes, that was the famous "And the people who did this are going to hear from us!", just days after the attacks. Oh, wait, that's right, Osama Bin Laden, who was responsible for masterminding and financing those terrible attacks, never was caught during the Bush Administration. I sure hope that they find him soon, although it's coming up on the eighth anniversary! I hope the trail isn't too cold by now, after all this time.

Perhaps those other photos were taken of him with Katrina survivors, after President Bush FINALLY showed up DAYS after the disaster.