CHESSNOID

One of the things that irritate me about our new “change” President is that he is using the same tactics as our former “non-change” Bush.  Most of his actions coincide those of his predecessor. This is what Obama said to try to push his stimulus package:

Boston Globe:

At a campaign-style speech to Energy Department employees, Obama directly rebuked Republican fiscal dogma even as a spokesman said he continued to welcome the minority party’s input. “We can’t delay and we can’t go back to the same worn-out ideas that led us here in the first place,” Obama said. “Let me be clear: those ideas have been tested, and they have failed.”

Yes, those ideas have failed so why is OBAMA attempting  to do the same thing??? He is trying to push a stimulus package that will not work.  Remember when Bush did this last year, it was approved under a Democratic controlled House and Senate.  It did not work then and our economy went into the tank.  I remember Bush, Beranake and Paulson were all saying if they don’t get the bailout bill passed the recession would get worse.  That bill was passed, the money didn’t loosen credit up, and the US economy went into a deeper recession.

Much of that Fraud bailout money went  unaccounted and the parts of it that were accounted for went to CEO and employee bonuses, company lavish parties, CEO office renovations (including a $35,000 toilet).  Some of the bailout money that was about to be spent was to go to Citibank’s $45 million jet purchase and a Wells Fargo 5 star Las Vegas hotel lavish party.  Fortunately they were found out, outed in the media, and pressured to cancel those purchases.  Simply because they were caught.  About $20 BILLION of the TARP FRAUD BAILOUT went into the over 100 BANK CEOs BONUSES.

All this was taxpayer money approved by the Democratic controlled Senate and House last year.  2 of those senators were Obama and Biden.  I don’t give a crap that they are now “admonishing” those CEOs with words such as “shameful and disgraceful”.  I think they should get that money back to NOW.

So when I hear Obama saying that things will get worse before they get better, it is the same as when Bush was in office.  Former President Bush, Federal Reserve’s Bernanke, US  Treasury’sPaulson, former senator now President Obama, former senator and now Vice President Biden and the rest of Congress promised the American people that the $750 billion bailout bill would be transparent and people would be held accountable, even though the majority was against this bailout. They have spent about half that money ($350,000,000,000.00) and so far we have only discovered that our politicians are all guilty of breaking their promise. No one has been held accountable and over a 100 CEOs have legally stolen at least $20 billion ($20,000,000,000.00).

Bailout watchdog: Treasury paid too much

The Treasury Department overpaid for the assets it purchased as part of the $700 billion financial sector bailout, according to testimony of a bailout oversight official before Congress on Thursday.

At a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Elizabeth Warren, head of the Congressional Oversight Panel, testified that the more than $254 billion in assets that the government purchased in 2008 are worth just $176 billion – $78 billion less than what Treasury paid for them.

Warren said the shortfall happened on the date of the transaction, and is not representative of the market’s movements since then. She noted that Treasury has failed to delineate a clear reason for such an overpayment.

“At various points Treasury has articulated policy objectives which could result in a program involved in paying substantially more for investments than they appear to have been worth at the time of the transaction,” said Warren. “The American people want to know what’s going on and they deserve answers.”

NY Times:

Under the $700 billion program meant to stabilize the financial system, the Treasury Department has so far spent nearly $300 billion to bolster financial institutions and automakers in exchange for preferred shares and warrants.

But in buying those securities, Henry M. Paulson Jr., then the Treasury secretary, misled the public about how it was going to price them, said Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor and head of an oversight panel for the bailout, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

“Treasury simply did not do what it said it was doing,” Ms. Warren said at a hearing before the Senate banking committee. Many members of the panel condemned management of the program, which is barely four months old.

The program proceeded “in a chaotic, unorganized and ad hoc manner,” said Daniel K. Akaka, Democrat of Hawaii.

Neil M. Barofsky, another watchdog for the program, told the Senate committee his office was turning to criminal investigations. “That’s going to be a large focus of my office,” he said.

I am happy with the non-economic bills he has signed into office, but when it comes to this stimulus bill he completely misses the mark. Obama and Geithner want to use the other half of the FRAUD bailout and make the same promises as before in transparency and accountability.  Their record for keeping their promises on this bailout is 0%  and they have not gone after the money that was fraudulently taken ($20,000,000,000.00 is a lot of money.)  Making new requirements that CEOs will not be allowed to collect more than $500,000 moving forward on the remaining TARP money is disingenuous.   Those companies are bankrupt so why would you pay those same CEOs for failing?  Fire them and put new CEOs to get them out of the hole they dug for themselves.

Personally, I believe no companies should be saved, let them go bankrupt. No tax money should ever be used for private companies.    If we are going to spend billions and trillions of dollars, it needs to go directly into the economy and not funneled through companies so they can take a slice off.  Better yet, just cut the spending and balance the budget.  There is a lot of fat that can be trimmed off  in the government.

When this bill passed the House, not one Republican supported it and about a dozen Democrats crossed over because this bill doesn’t convince them it will work.  We are speaking of a trillion dollars and we know with that amount of money, corruption will be rampant.  Just look at how good the last 7 trillion dollars spent on FRAUD bailouts  have helped our economy. The worse recession since the Great Depression and we are now entering a possible BUSH-OBAMA depression.