CHESSNOID

The world celebrated getting a new US President and getting rid of Bush the war monger and the destroyer of global economies.  Now what I would like to see is Obama put the economy back on track.  Today we had a stock market rally as expected and I assume tomorrow will be the same.  However nothing will change for the next 3 months until he actually takes office.  Both Obama and McCain were both senators before running for President and they both did a crappy job.  To give you some perspective, Congress’ approval rating is lower than President Bush’s poor rating.

This is what Obama has promised to help jump start the economy as stated in a CNN article:

Investments and savings

• Allow penalty-free early withdrawals from their IRAs and 401(k)s made between Jan. 1, 2008 and Dec. 31, 2009. One could withdraw up to 15% of one’s balance but not more than $10,000. In addition to being subject to income tax, normally such withdrawals made before age 59-1/2 are subject to a 10% penalty rate, which would be temporarily suspended under this proposal.
• Temporarily exempt seniors who are at least 70-1/2 should not be required to take minimum distributions from their 401(k)s and IRAs in 2008 and 2009.

Jobs and unemployment

• Give a temporary tax credit of $3,000 in 2009 and 2010 to companies for each new full-time employee it hires in the United States.
• Temporarily eliminate taxes on unemployment benefits.

Housing and foreclosures

• Require any financial institution participating in Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program to put a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures for homeowners “acting in good faith.”
• Let the federal government lend to state and municipal governments to help counter the budget crunch faced by states due to the mortgage crisis.

As for taxes, I am middle class and so I expect some tax breaks as he promised. This is what it breaks down to although the $250,000 number has been going down to $150,000 out of Joe Biden’s mouth.

Obama wants to maintain the tax cuts for everyone except for singles making more than roughly $200,000 and married couples making more than $250,000.

Further, Obama wants to offer new tax breaks for lower- and middle-income groups. For example, he would expand the earned income tax credit; give those making less than $150,000 a $500 tax credit per person on the first $8,100 in income; offer those making under $75,000 a 50% federal match on the first $1,000 of savings; and exempt seniors making less than $50,000 from having to pay income tax.

And Obama would lessen the bite of the estate tax and the Alternative Minimum Tax – like McCain would, but to a lesser degree.

So it is time to put the tiresome rhetoric of “change we can believe in” and put some action into some change we can see! All I have seen up to this point from both candidates has not impressed me with their last efforts of passing the TRILLION DOLLAR FRAUD BAILOUT BILL last month. Obama talking to Oprah (the God complex diva) and Warren Buffett (Investor extraordinaire who has extraordinary losses this recession in the stock market) doesn’t impress me at all.

What will impress me is Obama balancing the budget (do not SPEND more than we make), fixing the health care system (he promised insurance for literally everyone), and getting the economy back in growth mode. We have the biggest deficit of all time, so what I don’t want to see is more deficit spending by giving stimulus checks out that don’t work and I definitely don’t want to see more BS Fraud bailout handouts to Wall Street CROOKS.

“We’re looking at a suggested guideline range of at least decades” of prison time for each defendant, he said. “There is a separate question of whether the judge will consider it necessary and appropriate to impose a prison sentence that is so long, particularly because these are first-time offenders.”

Convicted at trial were General Re’s former chief executive Ronald Ferguson, former chief financial officer Elizabeth Monrad, former assistant general counsel Robert Graham, former senior vice president Christopher Garand, and AIG former vice president of reinsurance Christian Milton.

Prosecutors, in court papers, have sought “substantial” prison terms. Defense lawyers have pleaded for leniency.

At the center of the case was a finite reinsurance transaction that prosecutors said allowed AIG to improperly boost loss reserves by $500 million in 2000 and 2001, artificially bolstering its share price.

In estimating the investor losses, U.S. District Judge Christopher Droney rejected calculations by a government expert that they could be as high as $1.4 billion. The judge concluded that the same expert, using a different methodology, made a “reasonable estimate” of losses between $544 million and $597 million.