Well at least he wasn't compared to Jesus...
Gah! Well to be fair I'm sure I could find more doctored photos of him as anything. But for the sakes of this blog post, lets focus on Barack Obama as the newly re-elected 44th president of the United States and more importantly on what he wants to accomplish in this, his second term.
Now before anyone goes on and claims that I'm a liberal, a conservative, a democrat, a republican, or a zoo animal with opposable thumbs; let me set the record straight. I have absolutely no interest in either political party. I share values with both liberals and conservatives. I am neither. My sole interest here is to basically say this to whatever party is currently in charge:
Essentially I believe all politicians are liars and have absolutely no interest in doing anything but lining their own pockets before retiring to a highly enriched lifestyle - all on the backs of us little people. To me, that is like saying the sky is blue. If you disagree, well I don't care. I think you are naive for buying into the constant stream of bullshit flowing from our capital to us little people on a daily basis. I find it even more pathetic to watch liberals and conservatives try to carve out battle lines around every single issue, as if they really had any stake in the outcome. No, the only winners are the extremely rich CORPORATIONS that run this country and the politicians who pocket change moving money around the system while enriching said corporations."I hear your promises to save us all. Blah blah blah. Whoop de freakin do."
That out of the way, lets talk about what the Obama Administration has outlined for its goals on term number two. Now, term number one saw:
- A War on Whistleblowers
- Continuation of Torture and Rendition
- Use of Military Drones Over America
- Record Food Stamp Usage
- Record Poverty Rates
- Record Corporate Profits
- Record Executive Pay
- A Slew of Quantitative Easing
- A Rise in Violent Crime
- Failure to Prosecute Bankers who caused Financial Crisis
- Continuation/Escalation of Wars
- Continuation of the Operation of Guantanamo Bay
- Further deterioration of the middle class
- Young shut out of housing market
- Record Student Loan Debts
- Continuation of the Patriot Act
Etc. etc. I was going to go on and on (and believe me I could . . . for days) but then I realized that Obama supporters will complain no matter how much I put here. Like if I don't put the full record of everything he has ever done in the space above, it somehow nullifies everything listed. Honestly I don't feel like boring the hell out of myself by even attempting to add more. You have fingers. You have google. Do your own homework.
Anyway the point is that Obama has a pretty dismal record when you get down to it. The economy is in the shitter. Middle income and poor people are suffering through it. The rich are taking the money and laughing all the way to the bank . . . which they OWN! We still are fighting wars. VERY EXPENSIVE WARS. Students and the very young are graduating with debt they can never pay back. Graduates can't find living wage jobs (oh and I know it is their fault for choosing a liberal arts degree - which almost no one has). And it is completely JUST that students have to pay 8% plus on government student loans while banks, institutes that caused the financial crisis, get to borrow money for 0% interest. But hey, he is only 1 man trying to do the best for us all. I hear you. And I would believe you if I was high.
SOCIAL SAFETY NET:
"Together, we resolved that a great nation must care for the vulnerable, and protect its people from life’s worst hazards and misfortune."On this Issue, I'm going to give Mr Obama a huge pass. Why? Simply because he isn't tearing down the safety net in a time where most people need it. While it is a shame that there are a record number of people on food stamps, at least they can get food stamps in the first place. While unemployment is awful (and under reported), at least people in need can still mostly get it.
Some of you will say that this is awful and is just contributing to the bankruptcy of this nation. That is half true. Unfortunately for you, every Republican politician you support who would cut this spending would not use it to fix the deficit. They would instead use it to fund their own pet projects. They have a particular love of bulldozing money towards the
NO POLITICIAN ON EARTH GIVES A RATS ASS ABOUT THE DEFICIT OR THE NATIONAL DEBT. THEY ONLY SAY THEY CARE SO DUMBASSES LIKE YOU GO OUT AND VOTE FOR THEM.Then when they get in office, they are allowed to trade and profiteer on insider information to enrich themselves on the dime of the population (which is why they make sure they have loopholes). A citizen trading on that information would be arrested.
Anyone concerned about the National Debt and the budget deficit should stop wasting their time. We are bankrupt. It is already a done and done deal. As of writing this blog (and according to www.usdebtclock.org) we have already racked up a whopping $58 trillion in outstanding debt and $122 trillion in future liabilities. That represents a debt to GDP ratio of about 362% and 762% respectively, and that is if you believe the totally manipulated GDP numbers to begin with. We aren't paying it back. We are already in the process of defaulting on the debt. You may have heard of it. They call it Quantitative Easing. Its another word for devaluing the currency.
Point being that if we are bankrupt anyway, how would you like to spend the money while it is still worth something? Should we spend it to fluff billionaires pocketbooks or keep poor people from starving? Point to Obama. Though unfortunately he is still part of the problem as far as the cause of this default.
INCOME GAP:
"For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it. (Applause.) We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class."This is yet more lip service to placate the middle class. Sadly most people still buy it. The fact is Obama has done more to enrich those "shrinking few" and punish those who can "barely make it." Don't believe me?
Well lets look at HAMP. This program was designed to keep distressed homeowners in their homes. This was going to save millions from being foreclosed on. How did they do? Extremely bad. A quote from the article:
"He is one of an estimated 2.8 million distressed borrowers who have been denied a permanent modification under HAMP, according to the Government Accountability Office. By many accounts, HAMP has not been adequately implemented by mortgage servicers."Of course it turns out later that HAMP was for the banks, not for the people.
"The program was successful in the sense that it kept the patient alive until it had begun to heal. And the patient of this metaphor was not a struggling homeowner, but the financial system, a.k.a. the banks."So yet again the little people get screwed and the banking elite get bailed out. This all under the guise of helping out the little guy. Of course, if they were really serious about helping out the little guy than a scandal like the robo signing scandal would have been met with prison time for the perpetrators (meaning the banks who participated). Instead we get small players in the scam getting convicted. Not only are these banks "To Big To Fail." They also happen to be "To Big To Prosecute" which is a fancy way of admitting that they are above the law.
Another example of this is watching HSBC get away with money laundering, only having to pay a petty fine. Believe it or not, $1.9 billion is a drop in the bucket to a company worth trillions. Also necessary to point out that NO ONE in management faces any criminal convictions for this.
But probably the biggest point example of how little this income gap really matters to the Obama administration is in fact the student loan bubble. As mentioned above, if saving the middle class mattered then the LEAST this administration could do was set interest rates on government student loans to be the same interest rate given to banks. After all, these kids are the future middle class and saddling them with so much debt will keep them from doing big things that are important to the future of this economy. Things like getting married and buying their first house.
QE and the suspension of mark-to-market rules have pushed up asset prices considerably. Housing prices would be far lower without either program. Falling asset prices are a big boon to those just starting out. If you have trouble finding work or have to settle for lower paying work, falling prices are an aid. Your cost of living goes down with your wages. Buying a house is possible in that scenario. Instead we have the worst of both worlds. Stagnant asset prices, rising cost of living, and falling wages. Add to that the mortgage most are starting out with (called student loans) and you have a very bad situation. That is a big reason the young are shut out of the housing market.
And another insidious side effect comes from the suspension of mark-to-market rules. This allows banks to name their price on whatever asset they hold on their books. Many banks hold foreclosed properties on their books. Because they can hold the price to whatever they choose, there is no pressure on the banks to unload these properties. They sit there empty sometimes for years. I personally have seen properties that have been empty for at least 3 years. Let me talk about 2 of them:
- Property 1 - Listed at $150k, this was a 3 family property. It looked like it had been empty for at least 2 years. The outside was a mess. Birds had drilled holes in the side of the house and were nesting within the walls. Shingles were falling off the side of the house. The roof was a mess. Inside was no better. There were 3 boiler units that hadn't been run in god knows how long. The pipes had been taken off the mains, but any idea as to how long is anyones guess. The kitchen and bathrooms in each unit were in extreme disrepair and needed lots of maintenance. No appliances. But the worst of it was the mold growing in the bathroom. The cost to repair the house and make it livable would have been astronomical. Effectively worth $0.
- Property 2 - Was even worse. Each apartment needed total gutting. Back to studs gutting. There was a giant hole in the roof leaking water into the 3rd floor. God knows where the mold was growing, but you know you were going to find it. The front steps were caving in on themselves. The outside was in total disrepair. Asking price of $120k. Should have been razed. Absolutely worthless in its current state.
There are tons of examples out there of stuff similar to what I just described. Properties which have an underlying $0 price tag. The banks however are able to keep it on their books at full price and thus it will sit on the market either until some sucker buys the property or until it falls down. Even if a sucker does try to buy it, they still have to get the lending bank's approval of the property as being worth the asking price before they can get the money to buy it. Tell me what bank is going to approve a $120k loan on a property that is practically falling down. Without QE and mark-to-market, they would have to liquidate and sell at whatever price they could get.
Bottom line on this point: Our corporate masters have done very well and will continue to do so because they get to play by a different set of rules. We, in turn, have to struggle through a system that makes life more expensive and keeps the American Dream out of reach. Obama loses here. He is enabling this system to continue.
SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE:
"We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit. But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future."Lines like this make my head hurt. Nothing and I mean NOTHING has been done to address the cost of health care. In fact, premiums are going up! This has been and always will be a cash cow. If you remember, part of Obama's original plan for healthcare was to start a government health care company which would lower costs by introducing competition. That didn't make it to the final bill because, as it turns out, the insurance industry hates competition. All Obamacare did was introduce another 2-tiered system to America. Big Corporations like McDonalds and WalMart got waivers. Small employers got the middle finger. Individuals couldn't be denied insurance, however they never said anything about making the premiums affordable. The kicker: If you can't afford the insurance and you are not insured, you have to pay a fine to the government of about $1000. God bless the oligarchs.
Now there are some of you that claim that this program has and will do wonderful things. The problem is nobody knows for sure. What we do know is that there are still a lot of uninsured people and the number 1 reason people slip into poverty is still medical bills. At best, it did nothing.
Social security is just a program they occasionally pay lip service to. You know, pretend they know and/or care about the issues. It will follow this country into bankruptcy eventually.
CLIMATE CHANGE
"We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. (Applause.) Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms."I know what you are thinking. ITS ABOUT TIME! Well you would be wrong. See there is no real plan to fix the planet. The good news is the climate will fix itself eventually. The bad news is it will be well after our species finally goes extinct in a way that can be best described as "choking on our own feces." Take these cases (hat tip to Dave Cohen):
- Acidification of the Oceans
- Mass Extinctions happening in the Oceans
- Results of Acidification of the Oceans
- Endangered Species
- Al Gore's Carbon version of Credit Default Swaps
- Bluefin TunaGoing extinct
No reason to go on and on. The science is out there. The problem I have with this is not with climate change deniers. No. The problem is with people who pretend to care meanwhile all they are doing is making a scheme to enrich themselves out of it. How exactly is making a carbon trading scheme going to solve ANYTHING? Meanwhile if you really cared, you would be the worlds best example of what to do rather than be an annoying blow-hard who only really seems to care about his pocket book. You disgust me. And really, that is the problem. What many think of as our best hope is nothing more than a bullshit artist peddling his schemes to enrich himself. Common theme in our society. People scamming other people to become disgustingly filthy rich while half of the planet starves.
If Obama does address climate change, look for it to create opportunities for already rich people to become richer. You and I? Well we won't have access to the Carbon Credit Default swap market. And by the time we do, it will be just so they can fleece us more for our money. Needless to say these schemes will do exactly nothing to address the real issue. And it isn't climate change. The real issue? Write this down:
THE EXTINCTION OF THE SPECIES HOMO SAPIEN.We will take a lot of species with us. It is even possible that we will make the Earth uninhabitable for any species for a little while. Though even mother nature at her most pissed off never was able to kill everything off. So who are we?
CONCLUSION:
Obama will do little in his second term. Maybe that is a good thing. However the problem is that we continue to march this party off a cliff and into the deepest, darkest abyss anyone could conceive of.
Until next time.
