Ellington

Barack Obama wants the government to give attention to families and workers as well as the financial industry. CNN reports:

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama on Friday called for an economic plan for working families, saying, "We cannot only have a plan for Wall Street. Sen. Barack Obama says homeowners and workers must also receive help. "We must also help Main Street," he said. While "tough new regulations on financial institutions" are needed, the Illinois senator called for an emergency economic plan for working families.

Obama spoke after meeting with his economic advisers in Coral Gables, Florida.

Obama on Friday also backed administration and congressional leaders' efforts to develop a "a more stable and permanent solution" to the U.S. financial crisis. Obama's statement came after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox met with congressional leaders to discuss a plan that would allow banks to get rid of bad mortgage-related assets that have been a drag on their balance sheets.

Previous Comments

ID

135955

Comment

Obama's heart may be with Main Street, but Wall Street will receive most of the aid no matter who becomes the next president. Thousands of billions will be spent soon in an attempt to save the businesses of billionaires. The sub-prime mortgages disaster was only the straw that broke the camel's back, the system itself is fundamentally flawed. Democrats and Republicans alike will soon convince all of us to incur a few trillion dollars of new debt in an attempt to save "the world's" financial system. The fundamental flaw with the current system is that debt is used as if it were money. If we need new money in our system, we must incur new debt (plus the interest associated with that debt). This system results in an exponentially rising total debt that can never be repaid. We must change the way we create new money. We can no longer create money that is linked to a corresponding debt. How? Those interested in this issue should view the 47 minute video called "Money as Debt" by Paul Grignon at: http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/135.html I promise that it will not be dull! I also promise that 99 percent of those that view it will say they have just received a true education. Tommy Gregory

Author

Tommy

Date

2008-09-19T21:13:28-06:00

ID

135956

Comment

MSNBC is posting on its front page right now an article or column based on a recent poll done with Stanford University that says, "Racial Views Steer Some Away from Obam." And you would think they would be talking about republicans but they aren't. This column speaks squarely and honestly about white Democrats, something white republicans seem to know well, and likely is partially the reason they keep asking us why are we nearly all Democrats. Specifically, the column says, "Deep seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the WHite House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third og white Democrats harbor negative views towards blacks - many calling them lazy, violent or responsible for their own troubles." What unreconstructed racists after all this time. We do bear some blame though! Before any republican asks again why are we blacks so heavily Democrats let me suggest we think it's better to be in a party with only 1/3 of the members hating you than to be in one where 99% of them hates you and shows it overtly on a daily basis. We certainly got to figure out a way to make these racist Democrats pay for this unjustified ole-style yet lingering misgiving about us by forcing them to become real and open republicans or by confronting them forcefully to fess up and change. The column goes on to say, "There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn't mean there are only a few bigots. Everyone should read this column. It even says white republicans say they're not voting against Obama because he's black but are voting against him instead because he's democrat. I don't doubt they said this, but I don't believe it applies to most of them. It probably does apply to some I'm happy to note. I agree with Obama about Main Street. His sppech was likely beore Congress agreed to fork up the 75 billions.

Author

Walt

Date

2008-09-20T10:31:03-06:00

ID

135957

Comment

This column goes on to say, "Race is not the biggest factor driving Democrats and independents away from Obama. Doubt about his competency loom even larger, the poll indicated. More than a quarter of Democrats expressed doubt that Obama can bring the kind of change they want, and are likely to vote against him because of that." Gee Wheez! When you got the wrong skin color no matter your demonstrated brillance some folks just cant trust your ability. When you got the wrong skin color, putting you in a position that only white men have held before does not present the kind of change some folks prefer and are comfortable with. This is news to me as a Black Americans. Just kidding! "Three in in 10 of those Democrats who don't trust Obama change-making credentials say they plan to vote for McCain." I simply wonder if they voted for Kerry and Gore as well. What has Obama done to gain so much distrust? Anyone knows of anything he did in the Illinois House, Senate or the University of Chicago that makes him so untrustworthy? Could it simply be racism? Yet these same kind of people who can't trust Obama vote for less trustworthy whites all the time. These three nuts out of ten have declared they trust a white man to make change who has voted with Bush 90 percent of the time. Is this dumb or just racist?

Author

Walt

Date

2008-09-20T10:55:17-06:00

ID

135961

Comment

Roger Cohen puts the deal in perspective in the NY Times today: …

Author

FreeClif

Date

2008-09-22T11:48:01-06:00

ID

135964

Comment

Legalized Grand Theft by the Billionaires Boys Club has been proposed! Read Section 8 of the Treasury Plan: Only one sentence http://www.housingwire.com/2008/09/21/full-text-of-treasurys-proposal/

Author

FrankMickens

Date

2008-09-22T13:01:11-06:00

ID

135965

Comment

The line that jumps out at me is that it will establish the new statutory limit on the national debt at a staggering 11.3 TRILLION dollars. We better get (and stay) lovy dovy with the Chinese, Russians, and Arabian oil states so that they will keep a portion of their loot in dollar denominated assets or we will be up the ole creek with no money to get back home! I guess the right wingnuts who hate Obama as much as they hate America have forgotten the old golden rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules". How can we tell the Chinese, "Get off my planet by sundown" when they will own the plan at the present rate? OH, I forgot, according to McCain, this is all the fault of Obama and that other black guy at Fannie Mae.

Author

FreeClif

Date

2008-09-22T14:08:29-06:00

ID

135967

Comment

And let's not forget the CEOs under whose watch this mess occurred. Republicans are fighting for the CEOs to be able to keep their hefty salaries and severance packages before they run.

Author

Ronni_Mott

Date

2008-09-22T16:38:13-06:00

ID

135968

Comment

So much for that middle class tax cut...

Author

Jeff Lucas

Date

2008-09-22T17:37:49-06:00

ID

137455

Comment

I would rather we bailed out all the poor folks in danger of losing their homes.

Author

FreeClif

Date

2008-09-22T19:50:22-06:00

ID

137456

Comment

Dear Ms/Mr Whitley, My sentiments are with you. However, under our current monetary system, it is impossible to create the money needed to bail out all the poor folks in danger of losing their homes without creating more debt. But that is the problem: there is too much debt in the system now. In fact, virtually the entire U.S. money supply is, in reality, electronic digits that represent debt. Therefore, we must change the monetary system itself so that the electronic digits represent real wealth, not debt. Some examples of real wealth are bridges, highways, sewer systems, stocks of grain, stable educational institutions, hospitals, etc. Each example I mentioned enables human life to grow, thrive, and reach its full potential. That is why each one is an example of true wealth, not debt. A rational monetary system would allow the creation of new wealth without the requirement that society accept debt in exchange for money. This can be done. Money does not exist in the natural world. It is a product of the human mind. Our monetary system will change dramatically, soon. Now we have small opportunity to change to a system that will allow us to create new money debt-free to help the sick, educate the young, and provide justice for all. This is one of those times when the old maxim, "Be as wise as serpents, but as harmless as doves" has fallen upon us with renewed urgency. If we fail to see through the plans of the billionaires who brought us this disaster, our descendents will pay dearly for generations. How can such a utopian system work? First, by recognizing that it is not utopian. Such systems have worked very successfully in history. The Greek city of Sparta is one early example. The early centuries of Rome provide another. Colonial Pennsylvania provides another example closer to our time. God did not make a world and then give all the money to the rich. The rich are rich largely because they have an unfair claim on the creation of new money. It is the highest folly to allow the rich to create ALL the new money when we could do so ourselves (rich AND poor alike) as a society. Visit www.monetary.org for more information. Tommy Gregory P.S. Forgive me if Whitely is your first name.

Author

Tommy

Date

2008-09-22T22:26:46-06:00

ID

137457

Comment

Tommy, The billionaires boys club is already making the shift to your asset based wealth model. There is a distinct movement towards the privitazation of public resoures (roads, bridges, water filtration plants, waste treatment plants, airports, docks, etc). This movement is being led by the old Republican double whammy of "The private sector can do it chgeaper, more efficiently and better than government" (and make a 30% profit) and "No new taxes" (let's finacially handicap governments ability to performby taking away their ability to self finance government services). We see this here in Jackson with the privatization of the operation of the waste treatment plant..which is in danger of causing a new problem because Mayor Melton has refused to make a timely decision on hiring a new operator or re-hiring the current operator. It's truly amazing. The City Fathers see the wisdom of increasing rates to pay the for the increasing fees of the private sector waste treatment plant operators, but won't raise fees to cover the increased maintenance and personnel costs at the city run water filtration plant. The Republican's (corporate interests) have done a fantastic job of "brinwashing" the American middle class. Yes I know that the waste treatment plant and the water filtration plant are financed through the same water bill. However if you look closer at the budgets and conditions at both plants you will see that the private operators are getting a larger and larger share of the budget at the expense of facility maintenance and City personnel salaries.

Author

FrankMickens

Date

2008-09-23T08:47:20-06:00

ID

137458

Comment

Thanks for the link, Tommy. I'll have to find the time to read the site thoroughly.

Author

LatashaWillis

Date

2008-09-23T09:00:10-06:00

ID

137459

Comment

Likewise.

Author

FreeClif

Date

2008-09-23T09:17:53-06:00

ID

137461

Comment

Whatever happened to people (including government) learning to live within their means?

Author

Jeff Lucas

Date

2008-09-23T09:25:17-06:00

ID

137463

Comment

Good question Jeff. Saving rates have been trending down for over thirty years… http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/325/we-try-hard-we-fall-short-americans-assess-their-saving-habits . We have built our economy on spending on stuff we don't need rather than on saving and investing in things that we do need (like bridges, roads, modern power grids and schools. Our so-called leaders encourage this by encouraging us to go shopping in the face of national disasters. What we are experiencing now cannot be blamed on someone who was a child when these trends began to develop. A large government surplus has been turned into a deficit of epic proportions since 2001 by the so-called party of "small government"? Is this 1984 or what?

Author

FreeClif

Date

2008-09-23T10:39:48-06:00

ID

137464

Comment

1984? Lol, GWB has managed to do what I thought was impossible...make the late 1970's and early 80s look like the good ol' days.

Author

Jeff Lucas

Date

2008-09-23T10:52:04-06:00

ID

137465

Comment

...from a Federal spending standpoint, I meant to say.

Author

Jeff Lucas

Date

2008-09-23T13:24:04-06:00

ID

137467

Comment

Jeff, You commented "Whatever happened to people (including government) learning to live within their means?" and "...from a Federal spending standpoint, I meant to say." The American middle class has been bamboozled into believing that the US is living beyond it's "means". In fact, the exact opposite is true. This is a very rich country in assets, ideas, savings (YES SAVINGS..Our per capita percentage of savings may be low compared to other countries, but the aggregate amount of our savings is the largest in the world!)energy, private philanthropy and work ethic What has happended is that the benefits of record economic expansion of the last 16 years (yes that includes the Clinton years) has neither "trickeled up" to government, nor "trickeled down" to the middle class. Why? - Because the upper 1% of US taxpayers (who control 80% of the wealth of this country)are paying a smaller and smaller proportionate share of the taxes that are needed to define the "means" of government. Its like having a rich father who not only refuses to pay a proportionate share of the expenses of his family (the US Middle Class), he takes the resources of his family (the US economy)to support other families(emerging Asian economies). At first Dad, tells his family to replace "bread with cake", and then saying never mind...if you can't afford cake you certainly can't aspire to cake, so stop whining and "kiss my golden parachuted a**" Meanwhile poor MOM (US Gov't) and the Kids (US Middle Class) work harder and longer for less and less income. To add insult to injury our rich Dad intones - Stop whining and: 1) give me that Social Security program ( I can make your money grow while at the same time provide myself with a 30% profit on my investment) and 2)give me that equity in your home (don't be afraid..balloon notes and variable interest rates are government approved)and, 3) give me control of your public assets (for free), and 4)let me manage your health insurance (and don't worry about health care...that's just cake) And yes, you really must learn to live within your means!

Author

FrankMickens

Date

2008-09-23T18:21:20-06:00

ID

138053

Comment

(It's late. I mistakenly posted Part 2 of 2 before Part 1 of 2!) Part 1 of 2 Dear Casual Observer, I wish to respond to your post dated 9/23/08 at 9:47 A.M. I agree completely with that post except for the first paragraph: "The billionaires (sic) boys club is already making the shift to your asset based wealth model." In my opinion that paragraph mistakenly takes privatization to be the topic I am discussing. But I am discussing the creation of money "out of nothing." I use that term in the same sense that the early church fathers referred to the creation of the universe "out of nothing" or the Latin term, "ex nihilo." Privatization occurs when one for more individuals transfer "already existing money" from their bank accounts to a government entity in order to gain legal ownership of land or infrastructure that was the property of that government. That transaction created not a single dollar that was not already existing in the economy. So how is money be created out of nothing? Take gold for example. When a nugget is torn from the ground, that nugget is NOT money. It is a commodity with a known value in the real economy. That gold is transformed into money when it is taken to a government mint. There it is changed from a nugget to a small disc. Next the mint stamps the disc and so declares the disc is now money with the value stamped on the coin. The mint would be foolish indeed to stamp the value of the newly created coin at the same value of the gold as a commodity. If it did so, the new money would be hoarded until its value as gold was greater than the value of the stamped declaration of its value as money. Therefore, all mints place the value of the coin much greater that the value of the gold as commodity. You see from the previous two paragraphs that the mint has "declared" the gold is money. The mint has created money "out of nothing." That gold had existed on the earth since the beginning of time, but the gold was never money until the Mint "declared" it to be so. Similarly, the gold in your teeth is not money. Reflection will lead one to realize that money is always the creation of a government. The creation of that money is always according to established law. Governments have the authority as sovereign entities to establish the law by which they will create money for the people under its governance. If all the people in the world suddenly died, all money would instantly cease to exist, also. So you see that money is nothing but a set of laws or rules under which people have agreed to exchange digits for things or services. But using gold to create money has ALWAYS failed throughout history. So, the ancient city of Sparta used cast iron a money to develop their society into a formidable military force. Early Rome followed Sparta's example but used bronze to create money. Needless to say, that monetary system was very successful. Since 1913, the U.S. government has contracted out the task of creating money to a private banking association known as the Federal Reserve. I'll describe their method below using the metaphor of the paper bank checks that we all use to pay our bills. But the reality is that the process in now done on computer keyboards rather than by writing paper checks. In the United States the creation of money is a two step process. First, the Federal Reserve has been delegated the authority to monitor the nation's money supply, and create more money for the economy when money supplies are low. Normal population growth alone will, over time, create the need for more new money. At this point the association of bank (aka the Federal Reserve) writes a check to a bond dealer to purchase a newly printed Treasury Bond. (The Treasury Bond is simply a piece of paper on which is printed the promise that the Government will pay the value of the bond plus interest at maturity.) The bond dealer receives the check from the Federal Reserve and send them a Treasury Bond in exchange. Then the bond dealer put the check into his own account at his bank. This transaction has created "brand new money" backed by "brand new debt" of the United States government. "But," you object, "The Fed paid for that bond with its own money!" Not so!

Author

Tommy

Date

2008-09-24T00:16:00-06:00