President Barack Obama - Term 1 and 2 Thread

[Seven Wishes2]

Twenty five CEOs of America's top companies earned more money than their companies paid in taxes last year, according to the Institute for Policy Studies' Executive Excess report.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/31/us-usa-tax-ceopay-idUSTRE77U0KW20110831

International Paper
John Faraci
CEO compensation: $12.3 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $249 million refund

Prudential
John Strangfeld
CEO compensation: $16.2 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $722 million refund

Verizon
Ivan Seidenberg
CEO compensation: $18.1 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $705 million refund

Bank of New York Mellon
Robert Kelly
CEO compensation: $19.4 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $670 million refund

Boeing
Jim McNerney
CEO compensation: $13.8 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $13 million

Marsh & McLennan
Brian Duperreault
CEO compensation: $14 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $90 million refund

Stanley Black & Decker
John Lundgren
CEO compensation: $32.6 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $75 million refund

Chesapeake Energy
Aubrey McClendon
CEO compensation: $21 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $0

eBay
John Donahoe
CEO compensation: $12.4 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $131 million refund

Ford
Alan Mulally
CEO compensation: $26.5 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $69 million refund

Aon
Gregory Case
CEO compensation: $20.8 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $16 million

Coca-Cola Enterprises
John F. Brock
CEO compensation: $19.1 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $8 million

Dow Chemical
Andrew Liveris
CEO compensation: $17.8 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $576 million refund

Ameriprise
James Cracchiolo
CEO compensation: $16.3 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $224 million refund

Honeywell
David Cote
CEO compensation: $15.2 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $471 million refund

General Electric
Jeff Immelt
CEO compensation: $15.2 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $3.3 billion refund

Alleghany Technologies
Patrick Hassey
CEO compensation: $15 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $47 million refund

Mylan Laboratories
Robert Coury
CEO compensation: $15 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $73 million refund

Capitol One Financial
Richard Fairbank
CEO compensation: $14.9 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $152 million refund

Wynn Resorts
Steve Wynn
CEO compensation: $14.6 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $0

Motorola Solutions
Gregory Q. Brown
CEO compensation: $14 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $7 million

Nabor Industries
Eugene Isenberg
CEO compensation: $13.5 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $138 million refund

Qwest Communications
Edward Mueller
CEO compensation: $13.4 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $14 million refund

Cablevision Systems
James Dolan
CEO compensation: $13.2 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $3 million refund

Motorola Mobility
Sanjay Jha
CEO compensation: $13 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $12 million

[iceberg]

Twenty five CEOs of America's top companies earned more money than their companies paid in taxes last year, according to the Institute for Policy Studies' Executive Excess report.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/31/us-usa-tax-ceopay-idUSTRE77U0KW20110831

International Paper
John Faraci
CEO compensation: $12.3 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $249 million refund

Prudential
John Strangfeld
CEO compensation: $16.2 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $722 million refund

Verizon
Ivan Seidenberg
CEO compensation: $18.1 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $705 million refund

Bank of New York Mellon
Robert Kelly
CEO compensation: $19.4 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $670 million refund

Boeing
Jim McNerney
CEO compensation: $13.8 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $13 million

Marsh & McLennan
Brian Duperreault
CEO compensation: $14 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $90 million refund

Stanley Black & Decker
John Lundgren
CEO compensation: $32.6 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $75 million refund

Chesapeake Energy
Aubrey McClendon
CEO compensation: $21 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $0

eBay
John Donahoe
CEO compensation: $12.4 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $131 million refund

Ford
Alan Mulally
CEO compensation: $26.5 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $69 million refund

Aon
Gregory Case
CEO compensation: $20.8 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $16 million

Coca-Cola Enterprises
John F. Brock
CEO compensation: $19.1 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $8 million

Dow Chemical
Andrew Liveris
CEO compensation: $17.8 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $576 million refund

Ameriprise
James Cracchiolo
CEO compensation: $16.3 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $224 million refund

Honeywell
David Cote
CEO compensation: $15.2 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $471 million refund

General Electric
Jeff Immelt
CEO compensation: $15.2 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $3.3 billion refund

Alleghany Technologies
Patrick Hassey
CEO compensation: $15 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $47 million refund

Mylan Laboratories
Robert Coury
CEO compensation: $15 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $73 million refund

Capitol One Financial
Richard Fairbank
CEO compensation: $14.9 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $152 million refund

Wynn Resorts
Steve Wynn
CEO compensation: $14.6 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $0

Motorola Solutions
Gregory Q. Brown
CEO compensation: $14 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $7 million

Nabor Industries
Eugene Isenberg
CEO compensation: $13.5 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $138 million refund

Qwest Communications
Edward Mueller
CEO compensation: $13.4 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $14 million refund

Cablevision Systems
James Dolan
CEO compensation: $13.2 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $3 million refund

Motorola Mobility
Sanjay Jha
CEO compensation: $13 million
U.S. federal income taxes: $12 million

17 pidgeons cried out in anger.

i dont' care about a side.

i care about it all.

[Seven Wishes2]

It's just an observation. Has nothing to do with politics. It's just disgusting, that's all.

[Saint John]

Before most of us collected all the necessary W-2s, 1099s and K-1s, the New York Times revealed that mega-conglomerate General Electric Co. (GE), which made over $14 billion in income in 2010 ($5 billion within the U.S. alone), will pay nothing in federal income taxes. Of course, they did have to pay an army of lobbyists and accountants to help achieve this goal, each making more than the average American, and they did earn all those large carry over losses though GE Capital’s irrational exuberance.
Well, maybe we should, but also maybe GE did pay some income tax. According to GE’s income statements, GE stated that it paid income taxes totaling $1.05 billion. That would be a fairly low tax rate, at around 7.5%, but still over a billion dollars away from zero. To be fair to the New York Times, the provision could be made up of foreign and state taxes, and state taxes paid are deductible.

GE Was in the Red but is Now Black and Green

GE has responded that the difference between what it paid and the prevailing tax rate is primarily made up of GE Capital losses from big financial bets that failed. In total, GE Capital racked up about $30 billion dollars in losses during the financial crisis. To some of us, losing $30 billion dollars would be a bad thing, and we may even go bankrupt, but after receiving a bridge loan from Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-a), going forward, those losses will shield GE from a significant tax burden. Incidentally, Berkshire paid a nearly 30% tax rate on about $19 billion in income.

One must also consider GE getting-on board the President’s green job and technology push. Those green initiatives are helping out in spades, as so very much that GE Industrial makes, such as solar cells, wind turbines and GE Lighting’s new, expensive light bulbs qualify for breaks. The company expects to spend approximately $10 billion over the next 5 years on these ‘ecomagination’ products.
And it isn’t just what GE is making, but also what they are buying. GE has stated that it will buy as many as 11,000 of the General Motors (GM) electric car, the Chevrolet Volt, in 2011 alone (roughly half the year’s anticipated production) and a total of 25,000 by 2015. Hey, someone had to buy them and it does not look like it was going to be the average American consumer.
Further, by providing GE with tax breaks for such green initiatives, the government can at least temporarily help ensure the sustainability of GM, yet another company with green deductions and substantial losses to carry forward. One must presume that GM will also refrain from paying a high rate of income tax in the coming years, should they continue to find themselves profitable.

Offshore Tax Techniques

Another reason that GE kept its tax bill low is that it is making and keeping a larger and faster growing segment of total revenue overseas. The corporate tax rates in the U.S. are higher than most other first world nations. The U.S. does not tax profit earned and kept overseas until the money is transferred into the U.S., though the sad and obvious consequence of such a rule is that corporations are reluctant to ever repatriate income.
This is why so many larger U.S. companies maintain so much cash outside the county; it is simply bad business to send it home. For example, in 2010, Apple Inc. (AAPL) reported that it has over $30 billion in cash maintained overseas. Apple partially earned this money from international sales, but largely by holding various intellectual property patents within foreign holding company subsidiaries so that the cash leaves the U.S. as a tax-deductible business expense. Similarly, we also learned that Google Inc. (GOOG) uses practices with names such as the DutchSandwich and DoubleIrish to funnel the company’s revenue to countries with lower tax rates. Through these techniques, GOOG was able to have a tax rate of about 20% for 2010, even without losing $30 billion in years past like GE.
This money and these tax revenues stay out of the U.S. because of common sense. Some have argued that providing an amnesty period might allow for a significant level of repatriation to occur over a short period of time, while others believe that repositioning the U.S. tax rate more in line with the global average would make these companies less inclined to DoubleIrish their income. Nonetheless, it appears that neither concept will be utilized in the near future. Watch as more and more companies reorganize subsidiaries to hold high margin segments overseas, forcing the government to look elsewhere for the tax revenue it craves.

[Gin and Tonic Sky]

Twenty five CEOs of America's top companies earned more money than their companies paid in taxes last year, according to the Institute for Policy Studies' Executive Excess report.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/31/us-usa-tax-ceopay-idUSTRE77U0KW20110831
ensation: $19.4 million

the problem is these are all total tax Refunds not total taxes paid. Only when you look at the numbers of total taxes paid do you know whether or not this stinks. Did the IPS report these numbers in the same report?

[Monker]

Whatever...that just seems like too little straw being grasped at.

He'll just let the judicial system handle it and let it be.

De they even really know each other? I mean, do they spend holidays together or is it just a "Oh, yeah, that's guy is my half uncle...I haven't seen him in 30yrs."

Gonna be tough for Obama to sidestep this politically if his uncle gets to stay... irony is he may have to order him deported to protect his 2012 hopes...

Official: Obama uncle here illegally since 1992

By Denise Lavoie
Associated Press
Posted: 08/31/2011 12:07:16 PM PDT
Updated: 08/31/2011 12:07:17 PM PDT

BOSTON -- A federal official says President Barack Obama's uncle, an illegal immigrant charged with drunken driving in Massachusetts last week, was ordered by an immigration judge to leave the country almost two decades ago.

The official says a deportation order was issued against Onyango Obama in 1992. The official spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release details on the case.

The 67-year-old Onyango Obama is the half-brother of the president's late father. He is originally from Kenya.
Onyango Obama has pleaded not guilty to operating under the influence of alcohol and is now jailed on an immigration detainer.

His attorney declined to comment on his case or how long the uncle has been living in the U.S. illegally.

The White House also has declined to comment.

lmao.. you are officially Mr. "Whatever"...


It's political ammo... and Obama is gonna have a hard time answering a question like:

"Mr President, given that your uncle has been in the country illegally since 1992, when he was order to leave by the court, would you not agree that his deportation be immediately enforced, as the law requires?"

"The judicial system is currently handling this case. I will support whatever verdict comes out of it."

Unless they 'know' each other fairly well, then it means nothing.

[conversationpc]

Twenty five CEOs of America's top companies earned more money than their companies paid in taxes last year, according to the Institute for Policy Studies' Executive Excess report.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/31/us-usa-tax-ceopay-idUSTRE77U0KW20110831
ensation: $19.4 million

the problem is these are all total tax Refunds not total taxes paid. Only when you look at the numbers of total taxes paid do you know whether or not this stinks. Did the IPS report these numbers in the same report?

I was going to say...That stuff posted by Seven Wishes is very misleading. All it means is that the paid in more in taxes than they actually owed. That doesn't mean the CEOs earned more many that was the company paid to the government.

[Saint John]

“Little gremlins” have proposed a massive government-sponsored mortgage refinancing program for struggling homeowners that is doomed to fail, analyst Dick Bove said.

In a scathing note and subsequent CNBC appearance, the Rochdale Securities vice president of equity research said the Obama Administration’s plans will foist new costs on both taxpayers and the banking industry.

Under the plan, homeowners suffering under previously negotiated high rates will be able to refinance under the current rock-bottom rates near 4 percent. The plan comes as about 1 in 4 homeowners owe more than their homes are worth. Advocates believe the plan could help ease the underwater mortgage problem and help generate consumer spending by lowering mortgage payments

But Bove said the $85 billion in estimated savings for homeowners would translate to costs for taxpayers who subsidize government-sponsored agencies such as Fannie Mae, and to banks which will lose that much revenue with the refinancing. The estimate comes from a New York Times report on the program that cited sources familiar with the plan.

“The point that neither the administration, the Treasury nor the Fed [cnbc explains] can seem to understand is that they have strangled bank lending with their capital and liquidity rules and their price fixing requirements,” he wrote. “This was a core reason why bank lending did not open up to facilitate a refinancing boom.”

Indeed, historically low rates have done little to stimulate the housing market, where sales and price trends are mired at Depression-era levels.

One of the reasons most often cited is an unwillingness to lend on the part of banks that face higher capital constraints and have raised their credit requirements. The changes came in the wake of the subprime mortgage fiasco when millions of homeowners with poor credit and little or no cash received mortgages for homes they could not afford.

Bove has been a frequent critic of the new rules, saying they are cutting off capital to an economy teetering on recession [cnbc explains] .

“It is a classic example of how badly the people who are supposed to understand banking do not have a clue as to how it works,” he said. “They love to pass laws and new regulations but they do not care nor do they understand what these regulations will do. Then they get frustrated when the simplistic monetary theories they put in place do not work.”

But the plan is generating some support.

“This is the best stimulus out there because it doesn’t increase the deficit, it accomplishes monetary policy, and it reduces defaults in housing,” Christopher J. Mayer, an economist at the Columbia Business School, told the Times. “So I think this is low-hanging fruit.”

Bove, though, said a simple relaxing of capital requirements for banks and allowing rates to drift higher would accomplish the same thing at no cost.

“The biggest failure is that these people are still working on consumption rather than production programs,” he said. “Until they figure out that more production is what is required we will continue to take money out of one pocket and put it into another and assume that we have accomplished something.”

I am 100% against this. You signed a 15 or 30 year contract. Abide by it. No breaks for anyone. If anything, and I propose we do nothing, but if we're going to do something, reward those that have paid their mortgages. Once, just fucking once, let's pat the people on the back that have done right by this country. I know people that have lost their homes or are in the process of doing so. i do not know of one such instance where they cut their spending, traded in their cars for beaters, got an extra job, mandated that their kids help out and/or took in a roommate or two for extra cash. They simply say "(sigh) I just don't know what I'm/we're going to do." Swallow glass and light yourself on fire. That's my suggestion.

[Seven Wishes2]

I was going to say...That stuff posted by Seven Wishes is very misleading.

Way to swoop into the fray to rescue your Sauron-esque corporate overlords from their blind and maimed serfs. Utterly predictable. And wrong.

These corporations are paying less than one-quarter the rate they would in Europe or Asia. But thanks to GOP deregulation, it's really easy to move businesses abroad now, the American worker be damned.

[conversationpc]

I was going to say...That stuff posted by Seven Wishes is very misleading.

Way to swoop into the fray to rescue your Sauron-esque corporate overlords from their blind and maimed serfs. Utterly predictable. And wrong.

These corporations are paying less than one-quarter the rate they would in Europe or Asia. But thanks to GOP deregulation, it's really easy to move businesses abroad now, the American worker be damned.

Woh, hold the fort there, moron. What you posted is easy enough for a 7-year old to disprove as Gin and Tonic Sky pointed out. So because I agreed with what he said, that means I'm sympathetic to the overpaid corporate cronies, huh? Interesting thought process and wrong as usual.

[RedWingFan]

I was going to say...That stuff posted by Seven Wishes is very misleading.

Way to swoop into the fray to rescue your Sauron-esque corporate overlords from their blind and maimed serfs. Utterly predictable. And wrong.

These corporations are paying less than one-quarter the rate they would in Europe or Asia. But thanks to GOP deregulation, it's really easy to move businesses abroad now, the American worker be damned.

Woh, hold the fort there, moron. What you posted is easy enough for a 7-year old to disprove as Gin and Tonic Sky pointed out. So because I agreed with what he said, that means I'm sympathetic to the overpaid corporate cronies, huh? Interesting thought process and wrong as usual.

Easy on the guy Dave, remember, he's an "Obama voter". Til the day he dies, he'll be an "Obama voter"

[Seven Wishes2]

I was going to say...That stuff posted by Seven Wishes is very misleading.

Way to swoop into the fray to rescue your Sauron-esque corporate overlords from their blind and maimed serfs. Utterly predictable. And wrong.

These corporations are paying less than one-quarter the rate they would in Europe or Asia. But thanks to GOP deregulation, it's really easy to move businesses abroad now, the American worker be damned.

Woh, hold the fort there, moron. What you posted is easy enough for a 7-year old to disprove as Gin and Tonic Sky pointed out. So because I agreed with what he said, that means I'm sympathetic to the overpaid corporate cronies, huh? Interesting thought process and wrong as usual.

Whatever. No-one "disproved" anything. The only thing that has been proven is that you're Limbaugh's whipping boy, and that major corporations are making record profits and paying less than they ever have in corporate taxes...not hiring in SPITE of those record profits, and giving their CEO's and BOD's hideously outrageous salaries.

Nice try, Dave. Move onto a subject you're more qualified to weigh in on.

[RossValoryRocks]

I was going to say...That stuff posted by Seven Wishes is very misleading.

Way to swoop into the fray to rescue your Sauron-esque corporate overlords from their blind and maimed serfs. Utterly predictable. And wrong.

These corporations are paying less than one-quarter the rate they would in Europe or Asia. But thanks to GOP deregulation, it's really easy to move businesses abroad now, the American worker be damned.

Woh, hold the fort there, moron. What you posted is easy enough for a 7-year old to disprove as Gin and Tonic Sky pointed out. So because I agreed with what he said, that means I'm sympathetic to the overpaid corporate cronies, huh? Interesting thought process and wrong as usual.

Whatever. No-one "disproved" anything. The only thing that has been proven is that you're Limbaugh's whipping boy, and that major corporations are making record profits and paying less than they ever have in corporate taxes...not hiring in SPITE of those record profits, and giving their CEO's and BOD's hideously outrageous salaries.

Nice try, Dave. Move onto a subject you're more qualified to weigh in on.

So you are saying that a company should be FORCED to hire people??? And that Companies should be FORCED to only hire workers in the US ignoring the cost associated with that??? Oh and pay how much again in corporate taxes??? What is fair?? I asked you once before about that...what the "fair" tax rate should be on people and companies...60%?? 70%?? 80%???

You do know that companies are in business to MAKE profits right??? Record profits are good...very good...what is WRONG with them making record profits?? What is wrong with paying as little in taxes as is legally allowed??? Don't YOU do that when you do your taxes by taking everything to which you are entitled???

What exactly is an outrageous salary?? Do you know what a CEO actually does??? What he or she gives up to run a successful company??? Who are YOU to define what is outrageous???

Good lord man...you are really lost in the wilderness.

[Seven Wishes2]

No, Stu...I'm not.

The very fact that the Republican policy of lowering the corporate tax rates to historic all-time lows - and the subsequent record bottom-line profits of those corporations, the historically high CEO paychchecks, with the "inexplicable" hiring freeze, which is in fact a combination of GOP deregulation and the lowering of barriers making moving American jobs overeseas easier than ever - if concrete proof of the fallacy of the Bush Tax cut theory. More and more money flows into the hands of the rich, and yet they don't re-invest into the economy by "creating jobs". They simply pocket the money. Without stricutres and incentives in place to incentivize these mega-corporations to create more jobs, everything stagnates. That's what's happening. So your defense of these record profits is, ironically, proof that the trickle-down theory is DOA, and always has been.

[RossValoryRocks]

No, Stu...I'm not.

The very fact that the Republican policy of lowering the corporate tax rates to historic all-time lows - and the subsequent record bottom-line profits of those corporations, the historically high CEO paychchecks, with the "inexplicable" hiring freeze, which is in fact a combination of GOP deregulation and the lowering of barriers making moving American jobs overeseas easier than ever - if concrete proof of the fallacy of the Bush Tax cut theory. More and more money flows into the hands of the rich, and yet they don't re-invest into the economy by "creating jobs". They simply pocket the money. Without stricutres and incentives in place to incentivize these mega-corporations to create more jobs, everything stagnates. That's what's happening. So your defense of these record profits is, ironically, proof that the trickle-down theory is DOA, and always has been.

And still you don't answer the questions I asked...the system is broke...and the ONLY group you blame is republicans...amazing...As long as americans demand super high wages for even menial work then of course companies will move jobs to cheaper locals...you would too: It's smart business.

There is NO DEMAND...so of course companies are going to spend their money on hiring...and as a result of them downsizing they have learned to do more with less.

So again do you think that companies should be forced to spend their money to hire people or just be stripped of the capital so it can be given to people by the government...that is what you are advocating aren't you?

How about you do your part and just pay your taxes...no deductions or anything...I mean that's fair, right?

[conversationpc]

I was going to say...That stuff posted by Seven Wishes is very misleading.

Way to swoop into the fray to rescue your Sauron-esque corporate overlords from their blind and maimed serfs. Utterly predictable. And wrong.

These corporations are paying less than one-quarter the rate they would in Europe or Asia. But thanks to GOP deregulation, it's really easy to move businesses abroad now, the American worker be damned.

Woh, hold the fort there, moron. What you posted is easy enough for a 7-year old to disprove as Gin and Tonic Sky pointed out. So because I agreed with what he said, that means I'm sympathetic to the overpaid corporate cronies, huh? Interesting thought process and wrong as usual.

Whatever. No-one "disproved" anything. The only thing that has been proven is that you're Limbaugh's whipping boy, and that major corporations are making record profits and paying less than they ever have in corporate taxes...not hiring in SPITE of those record profits, and giving their CEO's and BOD's hideously outrageous salaries.

Nice try, Dave. Move onto a subject you're more qualified to weigh in on.

If posting in this thread were based on who was qualified to respond, there would likely be very few or no posts here from yourself. You might want to look in the mirror. Besides that fact, it's notable that you haven't been able to refute what G&TS said. Care to offer up a counterpoint or do you just want to keep avoiding the subject, hmmm?

[conversationpc]

In response to Sevens tax screed...I'm changing the names to keep anonymous..taxes I did last year, and there are many millions more just like them.


Jay and Lauren made $13,678, they had $492 withheld, refund of $5378.

John and Penny made $32,450, they had $1318 withheld, refund of $11,092. (Think $8000 for buying a house)


Transfering wealth through the IRS via the EITC, Make Work Pay Credit, Child TaxCredit, Additional Child Tax Credit and
1st time home buyers credit....indefensible IMHO.

BUT THE CORPORATIONS ARE EVIL!!!!!!!!!!!

[Seven Wishes2]

the problem is these are all total tax Refunds not total taxes paid. Only when you look at the numbers of total taxes paid do you know whether or not this stinks. Did the IPS report these numbers in the same report?

Wait...this speculative question is the "fact" to which I'm supposed to reply? Granted, it's an interesting QUESTION, but it's not addressed in the article and I'm not sure where I'd find the information, since this information was culled into the article I quoted.

Good grief, Dave. You, RWF, and FF are the ones who NEVER address ANY FACTS I post. You just move on to the next Faux talking point and pretend nothing was said or written. There are dozens of examples of this in the past few weeks alone.

[Seven Wishes2]

JOBS: ZERO...

First time since 1945...

UNEMPLOYMENT 9.1%...

AP Oops: Report could show signs of modest growth...

Obama: No comment, off to presidential retreat...

Dow plunges 2%...

Ø

Great job Barry!

Let's see...unemployment went from 4.2% to 8.2% under Bush, which is an increase of 4.0%. It's risen from 8.2% to 9.1% under Obama.

Glass houses, FartFinder....glass houses.

[Saint John]

Let's see...unemployment went from 4.2% to 8.2% under Bush, which is an increase of 4.0%. It's risen from 8.2% to 9.1% under Obama.

Glass houses, FartFinder....glass houses.

Phenomenal job by president Bush, all things considered.

Oh, wait, I see ... Obama inherited everything from Bush, but Bush didn't inherit anything from Clinton ... other than a tech bubble and years of unanswered terrorist attacks:

The stock market crash of 2000–2002 caused the loss of $5 trillion in the market value of companies from March 2000 to October 2002. The 9/11 terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, killing almost 700 employees of Cantor-Fitzgerald, accelerated the stock market drop; the NYSE suspended trading for four sessions. When trading resumed, some of it was transacted in temporary new locations.

More in-depth analysis shows that 50% of the dot-coms companies survived through 2004.

And here's a little more reading for you:

The Mother of All Deregulation

The Clinton administration’s free-market program culminated in two momentous deregulatory acts. Near the end of his eight years in office, Clinton signed into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, one of the most far-reaching banking reforms since the Great Depression. It swept aside parts of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 that had provided significant regulatory firewalls between commercial banks, insurance companies, securities firms, and investment banks.


IT MAY be helpful to consider what has become of the old Federal Reserve Regulations W and X, the old margin requirements on consumer and housing loans. Since the gutting of Glass-Steagall, the new Regulation W deals with transactions between commercial banks and their securities affiliates. Federal regulatory resources, which in the past were directed to the safety and soundness of mortgage and consumer loans, are now redirected to the opaque transactions between affiliates within financial conglomerates. The former regulatory effort was prudential and preventive in nature, the latter more akin to monitoring the problem only after the horse had left the barn.

Wall Street had been lobbying for years for an end to Glass-Steagall, but it had not received much support before Clinton. Among those with a personal interest in the demise of Glass-Steagall was Robert Rubin, who had months earlier stepped down as treasury secretary to become chair of Citigroup, a financial-services conglomerate that was facing the possibility of having to sell off its insurance underwriting subsidiary. Although Rubin openly boasted of his lobbying efforts to abolish Glass-Steagall, the Clinton administration never brought charges against him for his obvious violations of the Ethics in Government Act.

Rubin also appealed to liberal sentiment. He claimed to have urged Congress and the White House to preserve the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which sought to prod banks to channel a portion of their lending to poor, inner city areas. But there was already widespread evidence that CRA was falling short by permitting banks to engage in meaningless reporting requirements in place of substantive investment in low- and moderate-income communities. The real action was not CRA renewal but the demise of the Glass-Steagall firewalls. Banks were suddenly free to load up on riskier investments as long as they did so through affiliated entities such as their own hedge funds and special investment vehicles. Those riskier investments included exotic financial innovations, such as the complex derivatives that were increasingly difficult for even experts to understand or value.

In 1998, the sudden meltdown and bailout of the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund showed the dangers of large derivative bets staked on borrowed money. But by March 1999, Greenspan was once again praising derivatives as hedging instruments and as enhancing the ability “to differentiate risk and allocate it to those investors most able and willing to take it.”

In 1993, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had considered extending capital requirements to derivatives, but such proposals went nowhere, and Wall Street lobbied to prevent any regulation of derivatives. Then in December 2000, in his final weeks in office, Bill Clinton signed into law the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which shielded the markets for derivatives from federal regulation.

Since then, derivatives have grown in size and become gigantic wagers on the movement of interest rates, commodity prices, and currency values. First came the CDO bubble, which acted as a transmission belt by which the subprime mortgage cancer metastasized and spread through financial institutions around the globe. Warren Buffett, legendary investor and chair of Berkshire Hathaway, would soon refer to such derivatives as “weapons of mass destruction.”

Since the collapse of the CDO market, the next derivatives bubble may be the market for credit default swaps, which are credit insurance contracts designed to cover losses to banks and bondholders when companies fail to pay their debts. Today the notional amount of the credit default swap market is at least $45 trillion, about half the total U.S. household wealth and about five times the national debt.

When Bear Stearns melted down this past spring, it was holding $2.5 trillion in credit default swaps that were worth perhaps $40.3 billion in fair market value. The run on Bear Stearns was largely caused by the collapsing mortgage and CDO markets. But it was the market for credit default swaps that may have led the Federal Reserve to intervene. If Bear Stearns had been allowed to fail, countless counterparties on these credit default swaps would have faced enormous losses. The shock waves could have taken down major insurance companies.

This is why George Soros, billionaire hedge-fund manager, has voiced his fears about the unregulated market for credit default swaps. According to Soros, the prospect of cascading defaults hangs over the financial system like a sword of Damocles. He has not called for outlawing the market but for its regulation by establishing a clearinghouse or exchange for the market, capital requirements, and strict margin requirements for all existing and future credit default swap contracts.

Chickens Come Home to Roost

History should deal harshly with Bill Clinton. Throughout his terms, real wages stagnated, manufacturing and service jobs moved overseas in large numbers, and the middle class was squeezed. With the federal government asleep at the wheel, there was a significant rise in predatory lending practices by banks and mortgage companies. By Clinton’s final years in office, all of these trends had contributed to an ominous rise in delinquencies and foreclosures on subprime mortgage loans. This was particularly pronounced in urban America. In Chicago, for instance, foreclosures on subprime mortgages rose from 131 in 1993 to more than 5,000 in 1999.

By the time Bush took office in 2001, the Federal Reserve was once again stepping on the accelerator. The collapse of Enron, a wave of corporate governance scandals, and then the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were a drag on economic activity, and so the Fed lowered interest rates from 6 percent to 1 percent between January 2001 and June 2003.

The lower interest rates helped revive the stock market and housing bubbles. It was like pouring gasoline on a fire. By July 2005, the Economist was referring to the U.S. housing market as “the largest financial bubble in history.” Some officials began to sound the alarm. The debt of American households was climbing nearly 20 percent a year, the savings rate had fallen below zero, and the cash being pulled out of homes from mortgage refinancings had reached about 5 percent of GDP. This fueled an enormous consumption binge and a growing trade deficit that put downward pressure on the dollar. Oil producing countries, paid in dollars, began raising oil prices to make up the difference.

It was clear the housing bubble had spread into an even larger dollar bubble. Something had to be done. But without margin requirements or any other selective credit controls, the Federal Reserve could only raise short-term interest rates to cool the housing market and encourage household savings. Starting in 2004, the Fed began tapping on the brake, raising short-term interest rates seventeen consecutive times from 1 percent to 5.25 percent over a two-year period.

If Greenspan was worried that the rise in interest rates could lead to panic, he tried not to show it. “The vast majority of homeowners,” he said, “have a sizable equity cushion with which to absorb a potential decline in house prices.”

Greenspan could not have been more wrong. The steep rise in home foreclosures, now at an all-time record high, has contributed to a downward spiral of housing prices, which in turn has contributed to more foreclosures. By last August, there were more than 200,000 monthly foreclosure filings nationwide. For all of 2007, 1.2 million properties—more than 1 percent of all U.S. households—were in some stage of foreclosure, up 75 percent in only a year. By April 2008, about 2 percent were in foreclosure, and nearly 9 percent, some 4.8 million home loans, were past due or in foreclosure.

Losses from the subprime meltdown have surely passed half a trillion dollars, and some estimates now exceed a trillion dollars. Major U.S. financial institutions have turned for help to central banks and sovereign wealth funds from abroad. The housing market is in its worst decline in memory, the dollar is falling to record lows, and the U.S. economy may be heading into recession.

[conversationpc]

the problem is these are all total tax Refunds not total taxes paid. Only when you look at the numbers of total taxes paid do you know whether or not this stinks. Did the IPS report these numbers in the same report?

Wait...this speculative question is the "fact" to which I'm supposed to reply? Granted, it's an interesting QUESTION, but it's not addressed in the article and I'm not sure where I'd find the information, since this information was culled into the article I quoted.

Good grief, Dave. You, RWF, and FF are the ones who NEVER address ANY FACTS I post. You just move on to the next Faux talking point and pretend nothing was said or written. There are dozens of examples of this in the past few weeks alone.

There was no "Faux" talking point. I didn't even need to do a Google search on this one. That one was set up quite nicely on the tee.

[Memorex]

For the record, when Obama took office in January 2009, the "official" unemployment rate in seasonally adjusted numbers was 7.7%, with 11,919,000 people reported themselves as unemployed and actively looking.

I'll say it again - This is not all Obama's fault and not all Bush's fault. This situation we are in is clearly a result of many factors, all of which have enough blame to go around. Right now we seem to be in this phase of neither party wanting the other to have any kind of victory, and so it's become quite a bitter battle. All the while not a single net job was added last month? Not 1? I mean, that is insane. I don't give a shit who wins or loses, but these people need to start thinking about what is best for this country.

Fuck all these people. I understand economic cycles, but adding a layer of angry, bitter, bullshit decisions just to win while Joe is out of work is never going to solve anything.

I'm not sure if Obama planned the joint session next week during the debate on purpose, but denying the president his request was a total lack of respect. We're losing our cool up there. It's an early debate that no one gives a shit about anyway. You just take your lumps and give the office of the president the respect it deserves, even if you don't agree.

That said - it's a little God dammed late for the president to walk in to congress like a cowboy and want to present his ideas. This just smacks of using his position to campaign. I suppose they all do it. How about this - get people working. Present a damn budget and a plan to get the economy moving and jobs created. You don't need to do it on prime time, just have an idea good enough to actually work and go get it done.

Now, back to my normal calm self.

[brandonx76]

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer. ... arth-vader

[RossValoryRocks]

Good grief, Dave. You, RWF, and FF are the ones who NEVER address ANY FACTS I post. You just move on to the next Faux talking point and pretend nothing was said or written. There are dozens of examples of this in the past few weeks alone.

You are one to talk...I have asked, repeatedly, just what you think a "fair" tax rate on businesses and high net worth individuals is. Where you think they should draw the line, and if they should require businesses to spend their "ill gotten and inflated profits" (NOTE: You didn't say that, I read it in an article I read) to hire people when they have no need to do so or if the government should just confiscate those profits via taxation or other statute and give it to people. You never answered any of those questions...you just want on to the next Democrat talking point (Blame Bush, Blame the Republicans for the down grade, oops Tea Party when that isn't even close to being factually true, called people racist etc etc).

You are EVERY bit as bad as FF or RWF or Dave at not addressing questions put to you. It's obvious, to me at least, you don't want to because then people would see you as some kind of communist/liberal nut job/Progessive stooge if you answered them truthfully.

All you and the rest of the liberals can do is rail against the conservatives and yet you OFFER nothing BUT blame...you have no solutions, no ideas on how to fix anything. Except do the same thing over and over and over, expecting a different result. All you want to do is assign blame, much like your own "Dear Leader" Obama.

By the way...I don't think Bush was a particularly effecting President when it came to economics, but it's time to realize you can't blame Bush any more. Remember: Pass the stimulus and the unemployment rate won't go over 7%...that didn't work...Pass the second stimulus and it won't break 8%...that didn't work either.

If you listen to any credible economist the TARP (you can blame that on Bush) and the 2 following stimulus bills hurt more than they helped, because it was done with borrowed money. If they would have just let the market correct normally, we would have a booming economy right now.

Oh and I will address a comment you made...you do know that a vast majority of President Bush's spending was in the last 2 years, via a Democrat controlled congress spending like there is no tomorrow right? Which lead directly to the collapse of our dollar...rising prices, lost jobs etc etc. You can say trickle down economics doesn't work, but trickle up poverty sure seems to work fine. See the African-American unemployment rate is now 16.7%? It's up a point from last month, it was about equal to white and hispanic unemployment rates when Obama took office give or take a point or two.

[Gin and Tonic Sky]

If you listen to any credible economist the TARP (you can blame that on Bush) and the 2 following stimulus bills hurt more than they helped, because it was done with borrowed money. If they would have just let the market correct normally, we would have a booming economy right now.

That hits the nail right on the head. If you listen to economists influenced by classical/Austrian free market economics they will tell you that it is the business cycle (and how human actions and expectations figure into it) that drives an economy. If you don't interfere with the business cycle the market clears bad debt at the bottom of the business cycle and the economy bounces back stronger. When the government interferes with the business cycle during a downturn ( like it did in 1929, 1930, 1933, 2008, 2009, 2010) it turns recessions into either depressions or prolonged periods of no growth.

[conversationpc]

You are EVERY bit as bad as FF or RWF or Dave at not addressing questions put to you.

Hey now...We're on the same side on this one...Ease up!

[RossValoryRocks]

You are EVERY bit as bad as FF or RWF or Dave at not addressing questions put to you.

Hey now...We're on the same side on this one...Ease up!

I should have said "every bit as bad as you CLAIM FF, RWF or Dave are...". Sorry about that.

[conversationpc]

You are EVERY bit as bad as FF or RWF or Dave at not addressing questions put to you.

Hey now...We're on the same side on this one...Ease up!

I should have said "every bit as bad as you CLAIM FF, RWF or Dave are...". Sorry about that.

I figured that's what you meant. I just felt like busting your ass.

[RossValoryRocks]

You are EVERY bit as bad as FF or RWF or Dave at not addressing questions put to you.

Hey now...We're on the same side on this one...Ease up!

I should have said "every bit as bad as you CLAIM FF, RWF or Dave are...". Sorry about that.

I figured that's what you meant. I just felt like busting your ass.

Thanks so much...But isn't that what we have 7 here for???? To bust our chops, our ass and such?

[RossValoryRocks]

If you listen to any credible economist the TARP (you can blame that on Bush) and the 2 following stimulus bills hurt more than they helped, because it was done with borrowed money. If they would have just let the market correct normally, we would have a booming economy right now.

That hits the nail right on the head. If you listen to economists influenced by classical/Austrian free market economics they will tell you that it is the business cycle (and how human actions and expectations figure into it) that drives an economy. If you don't interfere with the business cycle the market clears bad debt at the bottom of the business cycle and the economy bounces back stronger. When the government interferes with the business cycle during a downturn ( like it did in 1929, 1930, 1933, 2008, 2009, 2010) it turns recessions into either depressions or prolonged periods of no growth.

Blame is on the Fed...worst idea ever...a central bank does nothing but enslave the people...and our Founders knew this...most of them anyways...