Posted by CrabbyCon on May 20, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Take that!
Here’s the transcript – no video yet:
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who just finished testifying before Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) Senate Banking committee, said that “it’s not fair” that AIG counter-parties are getting paid 100 cents on the dollar by government bailout money but “if I felt there was a better way…I would support it.”
Geithner was responding to tart questioning by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) asking why, when others owed money by the troubled insurance giant are taking “haircuts,” the counter-parties (such as Goldman Sachs) are getting all the money owed to them.
“It is an incredibly difficult balance and it is very hard to know if we’re going to get the balance right,” Geithner said. AIG has received or been promised more than $150 billion in bailout money.
Geither got his anger up at one point, saying that, “I would not give a penny to AIG to protect counter-parties” if he didn’t have pay them to reduce the risk to pensions and other taxpayer-related funds that have done business with AIG and that are owed money by the company.
GOP Senator Hammers Geithner
11:29 A.M.: Geithner was hammered by a Republican senator decrying Treasury’s growing power over the American economy.
“This is not mission-creep,” said Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.). “This is a stampede of any traditional understanding of constitutional boundaries.”
DeMint called Geithner the chief executive of the American economy. And he didn’t mean it in a good way.
DeMint complained that “we hear very little talk about exit strategies.” He asked Geithner how much of the $700 billion government bailout will be returned to Treasury’s general fund within five to six years.
“That’s hard to say right now,” Geithner said, deflecting: “If we are successful, that money will come back with substantial interest.”
Geithner added that the way the bailout was designed, for each $1 that is paid back, $1 can be lent back out.
“So it’s your understanding that you have $700 billion to use permanently as you see fit?” DeMint asked incredulously.
Geithner wouldn’t take the bait. “I’m not quite sure ‘permanently’ is right,” he said.
Rest of the questioning from other Republicans can be found here.
Later Geithner pulled a Clinton and asked what the definition of permanently is… j/k!
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Filed under Bailouts, Congress, Economy, Obama Administration, Socialism, Treasury · Tagged with AIG, Bailouts, Congress, Economy, Geithner, Obama Administration, Socialism, Treasury
Posted by Pete on May 9, 2009 · 2 Comments
If there was one thing you could always say about President Bush, it is that he always stood on his principles and values. He had an enormous amount of integrity and did not compromise any of those things for political expediency. He firmly believed every move and decision he made was based on what was best for the American people. He did not rely on polling data or popularity statistics. President Bush’s firmly held beliefs in a post 9/11 world are what guided him.
Now President Obama, on the other hand, stands on his teleprompter. As he has “navigated” his way through the first 100 days in the Oval Office, we have yet to really see the characteristics of integrity or doing what is right by the American People. At least two of his cabinet members should have been tossed; Turbo Tax Tim Geithner and Secretary Napolitano, both of whom have embarrassed the Oval Office and outraged the American people. If he really stood on principle and integrity they would have been gone.
President Obama showed signs of this early in the election cycle when he said he would accept public financing of the campaign, but when the primary season was over and he was the nominee, he opted out of the system and continued to collect just shy of 3/4 of a billion dollars, most of which is untraceable. That in itself goes against the Open Government Act by fully disclosing all donors.
President Bush walked his talk after the campaign. He worked with the Democratic leadership, showing bipartisanship on the budget, FISA, immigration and other issues. The only thing he would not compromise on (thank goodness) was a troop withdrawal time table. Democrats tried in vain to force his hand as the Obama backing MSM flooded the evening news night after night with each road side bomb image they could find. Very little attention was paid to the success we were having, only the carnage. This unwavering stance against a timed withdrawal was significant because he did not want give the emboldened insurgency a window in which to “wait it out”, and to prevent these politicians from micromanaging commanders in the field. True, there was pressures to change strategies in order to combat this issue, and the administration did just that; they initiated the “surge”. And guess what, it worked! Now Mr. Obama on the other hand has shown about as much bipartisanship as Iran has shown cooperation with the UN….Uh that would be none! The GOP has been completely shut out of the administration, being told to basically shut up and sit down because “we” (the Dems) won. So much for a new era of cooperation and open government.
What people fail to realize in Iraq, is that not only did we rid the world of a very evil dictator, who’s atrocities are well documented (so in fact there is you weapon of mass destruction), shut down Dr. Germ Rihab Taha (who was identified by UN weapon inspectors specifically), the mission also brought stability to the region as a whole.
If you look back, Moamar Kadafi quickly and quietly ended their rebellious ways and cracked down on terrorists in Libya. Syria also became much more user friendly, and cooperative. So there were broader positive effects.
Mr. Obama who was not a Senator when the Congress initially authorized action in Iraq, on the campaign trail he waved the “No More War” flag like the checker flag at the end of a car race. The election was soundly anti-Bush, and all the rhetoric that goes with that. ‘When he is elected president, we will be out of Iraq in 16 months at the most. There should be no confusion about that’.
Well as you all know, the mission (and I am not complaining about this) remains on target and is, in fact, in a winding down phase. We have consolidated much of our operations to specific areas in Iraq, handed over control and security operations to the Iraqi Army and Police force in many areas, continue to train and equip those forces so when we do leave, there will be stability and peace inside the borders. Mr. Obama’s rhetoric got him into the White House, but the reality of the situation on the ground in Iraq dictated his actions. And if the people who were so hell bent on completely ditching the quote “Bush Doctrine” (as Charlie Gibson tried to nail Sarah Palin with) they would have realized that this notion of up and run out of Iraq was not plausible in the least.
President Bush was thrust into a situation that day in September, unbeknown to America or our intelligence agencies. We went from a 20 plus year time of relative peace and suddenly thrust into war, against an enemy that does not belong to a nation or state, but operates in the shadows among innocent people whom they will sacrifice without any hesitation. Yes, mistakes were made. But this nation was kept safe, and still is, by those policies President Bush put into place.
Now we have a floppy fish in the White House. Yes he was thrust into an economic situation that has not been pretty. However, Mr. Teleprompter as not shown us anything except he is bent on a socialistic agenda and that he changes his word like we change underwear.
Now Mr. Obama wants to openly (yes there is that word open again) and without preconditions, have talks with these nations that simply hate the United States. Iran, who is pursuing nuclear weapons and calling for the destruction of Israel, North Korea, who has nuclear material but can not build a delivery vehicle, Venezuela, who just yesterday seized American Owned and Operated energy sites and equipment, and Cuba, where money can now flow freely without using a 3rd and 4th party intermediary. Oh yes lets not forget Mexico. Yet, another apology from Mr. Obama and Secretary Clinton for causing the drug war along the boarder.
Mr. Obama and his economic team have showered the coffers with billions and billions of dollars in order to prop up the economy. Thus far, nothing. New jobless filings hover around 600K and overall, 6.5 million people are out of work, and counting. Now that Chrysler and GM are making significant cuts, that is going to go up more this year. Not only does that effect line workers in the auto plants, but spills out to the suppliers and peripheral businesses that support them.
Mr. Obama, first week in office broke the most basic of his campaign pledges, saying that the practice of earmarks and pork spending would immediately come to and end. Say what? The first two things he signs into law are pork laden wasteful bills that did nothing. The Stimulus package, which failed to stimulate the American people, was shoved through the congress by the new Dem Majority in the middle of the night in which no one was even able to read. And what was in there (Mr. Dodd)? Bonuses for the executives at AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac!!! Next he signed an Omnibus bill that contained over 9000 earmarks, again pushed through on a Dem freight train in the middle of the night.
Now the administration continues to politicize national security doctrine as the administration stammers on what our evil interrogators did to terror suspects. This emboldens the enemy, teaches them our techniques so now they can prepare for what little we actually do. The September 10th mentality of the administration puts us in jeopardy. Many of the policies that Mr. Obama so vehemently touted against remain in effect. The naval prison at Guantanamo Bay was ordered closed yet remains open as Obama plans where to send its inmates; the president has yet to establish a coherent policy on Iran — following in the Bush administration’s footsteps and while American troops are being removed from Iraq, most will stay in place until 2010.
It is important to note that all the enhanced interrogation tactics that we used actually yielded crucially important intelligence that helped keep this country safe,” with the eight years of safety on the home front since Sept. 11, 2001. Even though congressional leaders claimed to be left out of the loop on these techniques, it was revealed that the same Dem leaders, who bewitched President Bush, were duly informed of those methods. But as Dems, true to color, they pretended to take the moral high road, and were thus outed as hypocrites using this issue for political expediency.
Obama’s own Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, wrote an internal memo last week citing the “high value” information about Al Qaeda’s operations yielded by tactics such as water boarding, but its morality has been called into question by human rights monitors and many others both in and out of the Obama administration.
So therein lays the conflict with this administration. Integrity, direction, political expediency, governing by polling data, and letting Nancy Pelosi write its budget a mere 3 Trillion and some change.
So we as Americans have to wonder, where the transparency, openness, and new era of cooperation is. Yeah, that is right, so sorry, we lost.
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Filed under Bailouts, Budget, Congress, Double Standards, Foreign Affairs, Legislation, National Security, Obama Administration, Pelosi, Politicians, Stimulus, Teleprompter, Treasury, War on Terror · Tagged with 9/11, AIG, Al-Qaeda, Chrystler, Democrats, Dennis Blair, detainees, earmarks, enhanced interrogations, Fannie Mae, FISA, Freddie Mac, Geithner, GM, GOP, Guantanamo, Immigration, Iraq, Iraq security forces, Mexico, Moamar Kadafi, NAFTA, Nancy Pelosi, Napalitano, North Korea, Obama, omnibus bill, Open Government Act, Oval Office, President Bush, public financing, Republicans, stimulous bill, TARP, Teleprompter, troop withdrawl, U.N., Values, Venezuela, Waterboarding
Posted by CrabbyCon on May 4, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Oh the irony, I am seriously trying to laugh these days but it is becoming more difficult to do as these things that one would never think were possible are all coming to pass… If we want to root out the tax cheats why don’t we take a look and investigate Obama’s cabinet first?
President Obama announced Monday a plan to prevent U.S. companies using offshore banks to deferr tax payments, saying that the effort to “shelter” money creates an unfair advantage to U.S. companies and amounts to evasion.
There is a legitimate reason that corporations use tax shelters/tax havens and this has everything to do with the economic policies that have been implemented by government officials who have never worked in a corporation or taken business or economics classes. The United States is the only country that requires double taxation on profits. Not only do you have to pay taxes from overseas operations you also get taxed again if you bring those profits back to the States. Tax shelters have been legal for a very long time and for that very reason. The company can use that money to reinvest in their overseas operations without losing additional money from the double taxation policies.
The president also called for more transparency in bank accounts held by Americans in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands.
“The way to make American businesses competitive is not to let some citizens and businesses dodge their responsibility, while ordinary Americans pick up the slack. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Obama said.
There is no responsibility dodging which is the amusing part about this statement. Technically speaking, they are responsible by paying their international taxes. This is just another power grab and a way in which their administration can use another avenue to pay off the massive amount of debt will be incurring over the years.
“If financial institutions won’t cooperate with us, we will assume that they are sheltering money in tax havens and act accordingly,” he continued.
Sounds like the beginning of another witch hunt. I feel like we may see a resurrgence of McCarthyism but this time on the other side of the aisle against all of us nasty Capitalists!
Under the plan, companies would not be able to write off domestic expenses for generating profits abroad. The goal is to reduce the incentive for U.S. companies to base all or part of their operations in other countries.
The reason that companies go overseas in the first place has everything to do with taxes that are already in place in the United States. Our corporate tax rate is the second highest in the world after Japan. Most companies like to diversify and have other means of income and more leniency with tax policy. It also gives the company an opportunity to market their products and services abroad. Companies don’t keep all of their money overseas and in tax havens – some of it is brought back over to the Stats to reinvest in home operations but much of it is kept outside the border if they plan on reinvesting that money back into it’s overseas locations. Maybe if Democrats could put their ideology aside due to economic or outside situations, they could actually do what is best for the country ~ cut corporate tax rates to bring more investment from overseas into the United States – this would resolve much of the problems and would help create jobs.
The current law, Obama said, “says you should pay lower taxes if you create a job in Bangalore, India, than if you create one in Buffalo, New York. ”
Obama said that his plan would generate $210 billion in new taxes over 10 years and “make it easier” for companies to create jobs at home. Over a decade, $210 billion would make a modest dent in the federal deficit, expected to be $1.2 trillion in 2010.
Exactly, due to his ridiculous spend thrift policies, this is just a drop in the bucket and will wind up having more negative effects than positive.
He said the government also is hiring nearly 800 new tax agents “to detect and pursue American tax evaders abroad.”
Oh goody – more jobs that actually produce nothing but will cost those who do produce more money due to all the red tape just like Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX).
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a statement saying that changing the provisions would hurt job prospects.
But why listen to the non-partisan group, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, let’s just do whatever my socialist agenda tells me to…
This is a nightmare!
Don’t be surprised if the DOW remains up today – this is most likely those lovely limousine liberals on Wall Street who love to sucker regular people into fake rallies. Check out the trade volume before you get any ideas.
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Filed under Double Standards, Economy, Obama, Obama Administration, Socialism, Treasury, Wall Street · Tagged with Economy, Geithner, Hypocrisy, Obama, Obama Administration, Socialism, Tax Cheats, Tax Havens, Treasury
Posted by CrabbyCon on April 25, 2009 · 1 Comment
Are you getting scared yet America?
Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit’s job security is increasingly in jeopardy as momentum grows in Washington to oust him.
With the bank stress tests wrapping up, sources tell The Post that regulators think they might have to make the bold move of removing Pandit to signal Washington is taking as hard a line with the banks as it did with General Motors when it effectively ousted GM CEO Rick Wagoner.
The talk of Pandit being dismissed comes amid speculation that a visit to Citi’s offices by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner a week and a half ago might have been to discuss a change at the bank’s helm. However, people familiar with the meeting said the visit was simply to conduct a checkup on the bank.
Pandit, who took over in December 2007 from the deposed Charles Prince, has voiced his commitment to breathing life into the troubled bank, and is widely seen as not being part of Citi’s problem.
However, amid criticism that Citi hasn’t moved fast enough to clean up its balance sheet and speculation that Citi may need to raise more cash amid rising writedowns from consumer debt, sources said there’s a growing sense Pandit might have to be sacrificed.
Pandit inherited the mess of Citigroup at the end of 2007 and has done a fairly decent job at getting it back on track or at least moving in the right direction. Obama should know all about inheriting messes, since that’s all he can say when he speaks about the economy – does that mean we can oust him since the economy hasn’t turned around since his election? They run a big risk by doing this of completely demolishing Citigroup and the financial system. Pandit’s strides over the past year and his business strategy going forward have helped the company, but it will take time. If they oust him before real results can be seen, we may see the collapse of this company. But then again, that may be what the government wants in order to force these institutions into nationalization.
This is so completely anti-capitalist it isn’t funny! The government should not be allowed to go over the heads of the board of directors or scare a company into making a decision that befits the government’s agenda. Who in their right mind would ever want to become the CEO of a floundering company, when the MSM has put their entire focus and scrutiny on your job performance without giving you a chance to actually enact the appropriate changes? The government and the MSM turn this into a public side show and a witch hunt – something that the Obama Administration is incredibly good at. They turn the focus off of those who really caused this mess, namely the government and some prominent democrats, and spin it into another AIG debacle. This is shameful.
Credit Suisse has caught onto this game and they’re not happy. They are in fact warning about the over-involvement of the government in private business affairs.
The chairman of Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse on Friday warned against excessive government intervention in the lending policies of banks that have been bailed out by the state.
“In view of the growing number of banks relying on government support, however, I have concerns that excessive state intervention regarding the lending policies of banks or the realignment of their structures could have negative implications for the entire sector,” said Walter Kielholz.
Many of Credit Suisse’s competitors, including local rival UBS, US banks Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, have received state funding to weather the financial crisis.
Credit Suisse has turned to private investors, but has not taken government funds.
Kielholz acknowledged during the bank’s annual general meeting that state intervention had been necessary to prevent a meltdown of the entire financial sector.
However, he said the action by governments to inject funds into banks was already giving rise to a “two-tiered banking system.”
“This has led to a distortion of competition, particularly in the refinancing market or in terms of client guarantees,” he explained.
“There is also uncertainty about how and when governments will be able to exit their stakes in these companies,” he added.
In addition, he cautioned against over-regulation of the sector, saying that while stricter supervision has been prescribed for the sector, the “benefits of additional regulation have yet to be demonstrated.”
“In particular, I believe there is a risk that these changes could be exploited as a means of ushering in protectionist measures,” he warned.
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Filed under Bailouts, Economy, Obama, Obama Administration, Socialism, Treasury, Wall Street · Tagged with Bailouts, Banking, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Economy, Financial Institutions, Geithner, Nationalization, Obama, Obama Administration, Pandit, Socialism, Treasury, Wall Street
