Where is the US economy headed?

Obama shows no interest in having the government run day to day operations. He is fine with appointing directors, using political pressure as in the case with excessive bonuses, and having the power to merge and push into bankruptcy the firms that the taxpayer partly owns.

Never cared for them bailouts of poorly managed companies to begin with; waste of money.

Banks are the exception; without banks/credit, our economy will not survive.

Hawkeye 10 wrote:

Re: cicerone imposter (Post 3664828)
Obama shows no interest in having the government run day to day operations. He is fine with appointing directors, using political pressure as in the case with excessive bonuses, and having the power to merge and push into bankruptcy the firms that the taxpayer partly owns.

Maporsche wrote:

Re: Cycloptichorn (Post 3662119)
I don't think we'll see 10% the NEXT 6 years, but when I look at the SSN, the Medicare numbers, and our 10 year deficit numbers, coupled with the fact that China and other foreign investors ARE becoming less likly to finance our debt....what else can we do besides print more money....and it's looking like trillions of dollars in new money.

Okie referenced Obama and Chicago. Cyclops objected.

Okie is completely correct--Perhaps more correct than he knows. Obama is dirty.

Note following from the Chicago Sun-Times:

Obama's letters for Rezko
NOT A FAVOR? | As a state senator, he went to bat for now-indicted developer's deal
Comments

June 13, 2007

BY TIM NOVAK Staff Reporter/[email protected]
As a state senator, Barack Obama wrote letters to city and state officials supporting his political patron Tony Rezko's successful bid to get more than $14 million from taxpayers to build apartments for senior citizens.

The deal included $855,000 in development fees for Rezko and his partner, Allison S. Davis, Obama's former boss, according to records from the project, which was four blocks outside Obama's state Senate district.

The deal included $855,000 in development fees for Rezko and his partner, Allison S. Davis, Obama's former boss, according to records from the project, which was four blocks outside Obama's state Senate district.

Obama's letters, written nearly nine years ago, for the first time show the Democratic presidential hopeful did a political favor for Rezko -- a longtime friend, campaign fund-raiser and client of the law firm where Obama worked -- who was indicted last fall on federal charges that accuse him of demanding kickbacks from companies seeking state business under Gov. Blagojevich.

****************************************************************

So what? Everyone has heard about Obama and Rezko. But the important part of this article relates to


REZKO AND HIS PARTNER, ALLISON S. DAVIS, O B A M A 'S F O R M E R B O S S.

So what?

Note article in Today's Chicago Tribune--


Robert Vanecko, Courtesy Chicago Sun Times
Regular Photo Size
Feds Probe Daley City
Pension Deals
Updated: Friday, 29 May 2009, 7:00 PM CDT
Published : Friday, 29 May 2009, 6:58 PM CDT

City pension officials have been hit with subpoenas from a federal grand jury trying to determine how they decided to invest $68 million with a start-up company co-owned by Mayor Daley’s nephew.


The grand jury issued the subpoenas Wednesday, nearly two months after city pension officials refused to comply with similar subpoenas issued by the city of Chicago’s inspector general, David Hoffman.

Hoffman said Friday that he and federal investigators are now jointly investigating the pension fund investments with DV Urban Realty Partners, co-owned by Daley’s nephew Robert Vanecko and one of the mayor’s top African-American allies, Allison S. Davis.

This is the second joint investigation that Hoffman and federal authorities are conducting into Vanecko’s businesses.

The other investigation involves the hidden ownership stake Vanecko and the mayor’s son, Patrick Daley, held in a sewer-cleaning company that won millions of dollars in no-bid contract extensions from City Hall. Vanecko and Patrick Daley have said they sold their investment in the company in late 2004 when Patrick Daley enlisted in the Army and Vanecko went into business with Davis.

Hoffman began investigating Vanecko and Patrick Daley in the wake of Chicago Sun-Times investigations into the mayor’s son and nephew during the past two years.

Davis, 69, and Vanecko, 43, set up their company, hoping to get money from public and private pension plans for real estate investments. But they were rejected by several private and government pension plans until 2006, when the five city pension funds agreed to invest $68 million with Davis and Vanecko.

Davis and Vanecko are guaranteed $8 million in management fees " they’ve been paid $2.7 million so far " under the eight-year deal that expires on Dec. 31, 2014. They can also share in any profits from their real estate investments.

They’ve invested the pension funds in eight Chicago properties, but all of their real estate deals have declined in value, partly because of the economic recession.

Davis and Vanecko are also trying to prevent the loss of $7.9 million in pension funds they invested in a stalled project to build a Dominick’s grocery store and condos at 3030 N. Broadway. They have been feuding with the developers, Michael O’Connor and Jon Zitzman, and are now trying to find people to buy out O’Connor and Zitzman at an auction set for June 5 in the law offices of Patrick Daley Thompson, another mayoral nephew.

City pension officials refused to comply with Hoffman’s subpoenas, arguing he had no authority to demand records from them. The federal grand jury stepped in, demanding records from the pension plans for Chicago municipal employees, laborers, police officers and firefighters even though the firefighters pension fund refused to invest any money with Davis and Vanecko.

The other two pension funds that in invested with Vanecko and Davis " Chicago teachers and the CTA " haven’t received any subpoenas from Hoffman or the grand jury.

Copyright Sun-Times Media Group
*****************************************************************

Notice that Obama's former boss, the African-American , Allison Davis as been subpoened by a FEDERAL GRAND JURY.

It is truly amazing. The man who some call the most intelligent and most perceptive of presidents DID NOT KNOW AND NEVER SUSPECTED THAT HIS FRIENDS AND BOSSES- Blagojevich, Rezko, Ayres, and now, Davis, are or were under investigation. Indeed, Rezko was convicted, Blagojevich impeached, Ayres discredited, and Davis, OBAMA'S FORMER BOSS, subpoened by a Federal Grand Jury.

And Obama is not corrupt? He was the only one that was not tainted?

What can be done, what WILL be done, is to raise taxes. As California will soon figure out it is necessary. This will leave less wealth available for servicing private debt, plus we need to save much more than we have recently. It all adds up to less to spend on our lifestyles. Homes will be downsized, cars will be allowed to get older, shopping will take place less often. It also means that any job recovery will be slow.

Absolutely correct, hawkeye 10 and with these massive tax raises will come inflation to further wipe out the savings of the American People. When Obama asked for "change", we did not know the kind of change he wanted.

Okie- Cicerone Imposter is a total imbecile. He thinks that Obama's minions will not run GM.

Note:

Sunday, May 31, 2009
Government Run GM Will Fail

While I have supported President Obama in many of the decisions he has made since becoming the 44th President of the United States, the idea that the U.S. federal government can run GM better than the management of the company is something I have a real problem with. After GM declares Chapter 11 bankruptcy tomorrow morning, U.S. taxpayers will own 60% of GM - which means that in effect President Barack Obama will be the new Chairman of the Board of GM. Frankly, if we thought GM management did a poor job in running GM - just wait until the U.S. federal government gets involved in running a huge American public company.

I understand why President Obama and Members of Congress do not want to see GM go away, but there is a real good chance that GM will go away anyway in the next few years and the total amount of taxpayer dollars that were flushed down the toilet in a futile attempt to save a failing company might be consider incompetent at best and criminal at worst. At the heart of President Obama's desire to keep GM afloat even when most Americans don't want to buy their cars anymore is the power that organized labor plays in the democratic party. In addition to labor concerns, an outright failure of GM and the job losses that would soon follow would be a major blow to the U.S. economy - which is finally starting to show some signs of new life in recent days.

While I consider myself a conservative leaning moderate politically, what the Obama administration is doing right now in regards to GM is nothing short of all out socialism. Do the American people really want to be major stockholders in a company that could fail anyway? I doubt it, but most people do not understand how business works and also most people certainly do not understand how a government run GM will differ from the company we have known for several generations. While I hope the government will do a good job running GM, history proves that the U.S. government is worse at managing things than any public run company including Enron.

What worries me the most about a government run GM is the fact that the U.S. federal government will succeed in implement social programs into the daily activities of a once publicly held company. The problem with trying to put public policy goals into the running of a company like GM is that no other private or public companies will be doing the same thing - which will leave GM at a tremendous cost disadvantage to all other automobile competitor in the years to come. In the real world, there is a place for business and there is a place for government. However, businesses are terrible at trying to do government things and government is terrible at running a business. I have grave concerns about the amount of money that will be sunk into GM in upcoming years just to try and integrate social programs into a major U.S. business.

Ominous, this is......

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/31/AR2009053102079.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

And, that information, Hawkeye 10 came not from a right wing source but from the Washington Post, a source that some say is slightly leftish and others say is mainstream.

Not only did the "War on Poverty" fail, Hawkeye 10, the massive and expensive transfer of Millions of Dollars of tax monies gathered by the Treasury from US Citizens to ghetto schools have done nothing-nothing to improve education.
The students in the inner city schools are still reading far below most of the students in the rest of the country.

I mentioned, a week or so go back on this thread (I think) that my big credit card was being canceled due to Advanta ceasing operations. Later I heard a story about an "open mike" competition where aspiring entrepreneurs had 90-seconds to a panel of judges. The program was underwritten by Advanta.
Today came a fellow listener's response to that piece, noting that his Advanta card, like mine, had been abruptly terminated. Ironic.

more on Avanta

http://www.thenewstribune.com/business/story/758644.html

sounds to me like they were a very poorly run company.

I thought that name, Advanta, sounded familiar. I used to have one of their credit cards many years ago.

Sir -

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/1/737325/-Subprime-meltdown-over;-now-comes-the-bad-part

For your perusal

Cycloptichorn

The asset charts sort of supports my opinion about the fear of inflation in the short term.

On what is this opinion based ci?

I trust it isn't based on the idea that expressing such an opinion makes you sound like an expert on economics.

The younger end don't fear inflation.

"The younger end don't fear inflation."

In fact spendius, I'm very, very, very much looking forward to it.

Interesting charts, Cyclo. I think most folks who follow these things realize that there are many classes of debt out there beyond sub-prime and ARM's waiting to go off like land-mines. And we talked before (I think it was when the stress tests results came out) about how the banks are not making the bookkeeping entry to increase their loss reserves.
But the banks sure are not lending, despite the bailouts. They are sitting on every penny. I have 2 projects - one of which is ready to go and the other getting close. They are great commercial projects, literally next door to UVA and its hospital complex. But no bank will talk to us. There are obvious effects in construction companies having no work for employees. In addition, I calculated how much the city is not collecting in real estate taxes: $500,000 per year. One of projects involves a hotel, so add in lodging tax and food tax.
By the way, I can search but does anyone know what Alt A loans are?

It just means 'riskier than prime, but not as risky as sub-prime.' But the defaults on them are looking scary bad.

Cycloptichorn

That's because those who have held good jobs and have lived responsibly in the past are now losing them by the thousands almost daily.

People are being stretched in ways not thought about or possible before Bush Jr took over the white house.

More than eight million more Americans lost their health insurance since 2001. Most wages and benefits did not keep up with inflation since 2000.

For many who were living on the brink of disaster must now pay more to fuel their cars, and the equity they once had in their homes and 401ks just disappeared with losses of 30% for most during that same period.

High school kids can't find jobs any more, because all those fast food restaurants are now being staffed with older folks trying to make ends meet.

Over five million high school and college grads can't find jobs, adding to their parent's expenses.

It's a tough world out there not only for the young but for seniors too, and it's going to get tougher for the next several years!

Hang onto your hats.