Guess the whole change thing wasn't just rhetoric

[P562045]

I need to explain what I keep saying about Fannie Mae a little further. Fannie Mae was actually started back in the late 1930's during the Roosevelt administration and was a part of his New Deal.

But in the late 1960's just about thirty years after it started the Johnson Administration wanted to get the amount of money that was in Fannie Mae off the federal books and this eventually in 1970 led to Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae must have had little competition on what the terms of their mortgage was. I am sure this caused at least some problems and Freddie Mac came along and was supposed to fix some of these problems but Freddie Mac became very large and caused some of the problems we have in economy. So another example of trying to help fix a problem but then the solution to the problem became a problem as well.

Oh the brilliance of Washington.

[P562045]

Well the American Civil Liberties Union brought a court case about civil liberties and the A.C.L.U. openly questioned Obama's decision when it comes to should the C.I.A. keep these secret prisons that may torture people open or not.

Well an official from Obama's Justice Department told a court yes these symbols of deplorable actions by the United States should stay open.

As the A.C.L.U. blog entry says,

"Is this the 'change we can believe in'?"

Well I hope Obama fixes this after he fixes the economy, Iraq, Afghanistan, getting the world to love the United State again, and finding jobs for people, getting reelected etc.

Doesn't the A.C.L.U. realize how many problems Obama is trying to deal with right now?

Well it would appear to me from this court case that the A.C.L.U. is much more committed to people's civil liberties than the Obama administration is.

[P562045]

Well I am going to have to severely revise how many millionaires can be made from this stimulus package.

I was over at recovery.gov and there is only 81 billion dollars for what is called, "Protecting the Vulnerable".

I need to add another 10% from both health care and education part of the stimulus bill as well. Because as we should know that is what this country needs to stimulate the economy. Well if that is the case we should have a booming economy because we spend more money in these two areas than any other country on the face of the earth. Including two countries that have three and almost four times as much total population as we do.

So another 12 billion from these two areas.

But wait I forgot another area. The money is supposed to spread around from all of these jobs this bill is supposed to produce. So another 14.4 billion that will come from State and Local relief. Because they will be able to give this money to the less fortunate right?

So 81 billion plus 12 billion plus 14.4 billion.

So only 107.4 billion which is a little less than fourteen percent of the stimulus package is going to the people that need this money the most.

Then our Treasury Secretary Mr. G if I remembering correctly is going to be giving out 50 billion dollars for people that may be "vulnerable" but they may have just bought to much house as well.

Just because I think the little people get not as much as they need for obvious reasons which is they must come back and get more money more latter on. So I am going to add another 17 billion for the "vulnerable" from Mr. G's little scheme.

So the most vulnerable of people get 124.4 billion. So let us see how many millionaires we can get out of this amount of money. So we can only get 124,400 millionaires now.

So sorry I must take away the 17 billion from Mr. G little scheme because that money is only supposed to be used for people being able to stay in their homes and so the people that actually hold these mortgages will get to spend the money but the family does get to keep their house which a good thing of course.

So we are back to 107.4 billion dollars for the most "vulnerable" among us.

We could make 107,400 millionaires with that kind of money though.

In summary I find it rather interesting that recovery.gov only has 81 billion dollars out of 787.2 billion to help as the Website calls it "the vulnerable".

81 billion/787.2 is 10.28 percent. Why such a small percentage for the people that need it the most?

I have already answered that question in this thread. Well I will just say it again. We should not give the most "vulnerable" among us to much money at one time because they will not need to come back again for more money if we give them to much money at one time.

That does sort of remind me of something.

I do find it rather fascinating that people would actually believe that all of sudden the congress is going to make sure this money is spent wisely through their oversight powers. I must ask how the first half of the bailout went. And all of sudden since we have a new president this money will be spent so much more wisely now. I sure do wish that was the case but sadly I do not think it is the case at all. Part of the reason is that what much of the money is to be spent on is very vague for a very important reason. An earmark is used for a very specific purpose for example building a bridge in a very specific area. Part of this stimulus bill can be spent on just about anything a state or local government thinks is best. There is also deadlines on when some of the money must be started to be spent and that is by September 30, 2010. Does a person really think that a state would just give this money up and not buy something that is nice to have but not really needed. I will just give an example of this. A town had some money after 9/11 for homeland security. Well they felt they needed to spend the money on something before the deadline came and they could not use the money anymore so they bought the police department the most state of the art radio system at the time in the whole state. I always wondered if the town found something latter on that would have helped them even more or not.

It sure would be nice if I could say something even the least bit encouraging about Washington but this has been a theme of my mine for quite some time now.

I am going to be even less encouraging now. I love how various media outlets keep reporting what this group of people and that group of people will be getting that benefits them from this stimulus package money.

What do I think the real purpose of this stimulus package is.

To have a one party system in this country that can do whatever it darn well pleases to do.

Well there is another purpose for the stimulus package as well. That is to make the health care industry more affordable in the extremely short term at the expense of making health care even more expensive to administer latter on down the road. This goes to the real purpose of putting people medical records onto electronic devices. And heck no it is not to prevent medical errors. Well that is one purpose but how many people actually die each year from medical errors and yes some of them are from simple things such as doctor's horrible handwriting. So how many deaths are going to be prevented from putting medical records on electronic devices?

I have been holding this article back for a while now because it gives some other reasons we must start making medical records electronic. This is good article for another reason though. There will be some unintended consequences of this stimulus package but in the case of the health care portion of the stimulus package the consequences will actually be on purpose. If this article does not open people's eyes nothing will. I am sure Obama would deny that these are some of the real reasons for what I keep mentioning.

I must first point out one other thing. This is just one person's opinion but if this is true people will all of sudden be up in arms about this but don't worry we it will take some time to get everyone's medical records to be electronic. I sure would hope this would not be complete until after November 2, 2010 at least. I just love the title of this article, "Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan: Betsy McCaughey"

Story Here

No wonder very little is mentioned about the health care portion of congress and Obama's stimulus plan.

This is another reason why member of congress were given very little time to actually read this stimulus bill. Member of congress got this bill to read very late on a Thursday night and the next afternoon the house voted on it. A member of congress first started reading it around 11:00 p.m. and the voting was just before 3:00 p.m. the next day. So a member of the house only had sixteen hours to read just about 1,100 pages in this bill. Latter on in the day on Friday Senator Brown of Ohio at 9:46 p.m. said "Aye" and that was the sixtieth vote need to end cloture and debate on the bill.

I am trying to figure out why the senate would want to end debate less than twenty four hours after the stimulus bill was first allowed to be read by a member of congress.

This so reminds me of something that happened back in October of 2001. That bill was also given out for people to read on a Thursday evening as well but there was one difference the members of congress had until Monday morning to actually read the bill and to vote on it.

So what are some real reasons why this stimulus bill was passed so quickly?

[P562045]

Speaking of recovery.gov

I think this has two main purposes.

One is so that Obama can say he is being transparent.

The other reason is so that for the first time as it happens people can watch their money in some cases being spent for very foolish purposes.

[P562045]

Originally Posted by Bill Shaw

Dude. You should get the Nobel in economics for this one.

Would I really want to be like Paul Krugman who won this very important prize just last year.

Plus I think this prize should go to someone who can actually explain the concrete benefits of this stimulus package.

First thing that should be stated is how many permanent jobs are created by this stimulus package. This is very important because will we basically be back where we started if these people are seeking employment again two to four years down the road.

Then another very useful thing is to explain how this 81 billion dollars is actually going be spent on the "Protecting the Vulnerable" and also to explain the real reasons why they are so vulnerable in the first place.

Well come to think of it my little project would not win a Nobel prize in economics but they are very good to try to explain several reasons for this stimulus package.

[P562045]

Well it is your favorite mathematician is at it again.

We are going to be spending 75 billion to help three to four million "at risk homeowners". And no these are not the ones that bought houses that they had no business buying that particular figure is missing from this article for some reason.

Well I will just put the relevant portion of this article right here, "2. Stability: Create A $75 Billion Homeowner Stability Initiative to Reach Up to 3 to 4 Million At-Risk Homeowners[.]"

$75,000,000,000/4,000,000 million home owners.

That comes out to $18,750,000 per home owner.

That sure is some expensive houses we could buy for these people with the second part of the bailout for people that got some very bad loans indeed. I know I should not even ask the question for the umpteenth time where was the congress when these bad loans were being given to people in the first place?

I wonder what all of that extra money is really going to be spent on.

I think I need to make myself feel better about this. I will say that each of these homeowners has two houses so that we are only paying $9,375,000 per house.

And to think we are just starting with what Washington deems necessary to get us out of this financial crisis.

It could well be that much of this money would not be spent right away only on the ones that really need relief but I get a sneaky suspicion for some reason that Washington, and the main reason is the astronomical amount of money each homeowner will have spent on them, expects more of these bad loans to be given to people. Which I need to be quite frank about should not be happening under any circumstances but these various things call them what you want that are supposed to be helping people are the very reason we find ourselves in this mess in the first place.

This article at the very bottom of page two wanted to mention that there will be "strong oversight" when it comes to how this money is spent. So what happened to the "strong oversight" with the first part of this bailout congress? And don't give me that tired line that Bush is evil and the money will be spent so much more efficiently with Obama as president. But I must ask the relevant question here again why are spending millions of dollars per house?

Story Here

p.s. Someone asked why some people of a particular political persuasion were not responding when it comes to the stimulus package. This particular news article is a very good example of why this is happening. I must point out here this is actually not a part of the stimulus package but in a way it is because this bailout is supposed to give people money to spend elsewhere right? So what other things besides the ones I have mentioned in the several previous post to this one are in this particular stimulus package. We have only scratched the surface of what is in this stimulus package and we will be finding out more and more about this stimulus package as time goes on.

[P562045]

Well I am going to make a huge assumption here.

These particular homeowners will not see a penny of this money.

So who will actually be getting this seventy five billion dollars?

It will be the lenders that made the bad loans in the first place.

I would hope that part of the money would be used to get rid of these toxic loans for lack of better term.

I hope that I am totally wrong about this because it would be very ironic to give this particular money to the very institutions that produced part of this financial mess in the first place.

[SiteWolf]

This is the big problem I've had with the bulk of this whole stimulus.....

Banks get big money to do exactly what with........make more bad loans?

If the people OWING them the money are in an ever-worsening economy, aren't more of those loans likely to end up being bad eventually?

In the 80s, Reaganomics had the trickle down theory...which, in that economy, had it's pros.........but cons as well.

In this situation, a trickle UP theory seems more in order. After all, what would happen if every tax payer received a cut of those same billions? They aren't going to put it under their mattress, right? They'll SPEND it...be it on bills, on new cars, whatever...but it'll almost ALL be put right back in to stimulate the economy. If every taxpayer got $5,000 and spent it....where does the bulk of it end up? Those very same banks who now are getting that money directly AND are still owed the money by taxpayers like you and me...the very people who are footing the bill in the first place.

[rich76]

I STILL contend that every taxpayer in America should get 250K (meaning 500K per household if both spouses are working) . You talk about stimulating an economy......people could pay off their homes...buy a newer vehicle if needed..... invest some money for the future and all would be well in the world. But nooooooooooooo....let's make sure that the people that get to dole out the money are the freakin idiots that got us where we are today.

[P562045]

Well these last two post reminded me of something. Not to long after Katrina I don't even really remember how people got their hands on some money from the feds but there were all kinds of stories on how people spent the money. And no in these types of stories they were not buying the necessities they needed such as food, water, and even shelter maybe, etc..

When I was reading Sitewolf's post about if people got some money they could use the money to pay of bills and buy cars. In these two instances where would the money most likely go. I would dare say one way or the other to a bank. And remember as I keep saying part of the reason we have the mess in the first place was that banks had to much money on their hands and in some cases this extra money was used to give people loans that had no business having the loan in the first place.

But then again the question becomes how will the feds be spending this money and in some cases and we don't know the answer right now. So could individuals, families, and even some businesses I guess spend this money better than the feds could or not? Talk about a very tough question to answer.

[SiteWolf]

I came up with $5,000 by the way by taking a trillion dollars and dividing it equally amongst every man and woman in the US age 18 and older.

Obviously, the logical way would be for that $5,000 be raised and lowered by various things like age, marital status, income levels....over a certain income possibly getting nothing, lower income levels getting more.

But even if it were a flat $5,000 per 18+ yr old, that would still significantly infuse every person's personal economy and, as they spend it, the overall economy.

...sure sounds better than giving billions to the very people who largely caused the problems in the first place

[P562045]

This should people feel so much better in my calculation yesterday I found a little zero problem.

$75,000,000,000/divided by 4,000,000 homeowners is actually $18,750.

So what will a troubled homeowner do with this money. Go out and spend it on other things or pay of their various bills that will more than likely just go back to a bank in the end one way or the other.

Well that will only temporarily get a homeowner out of the trouble they find themselves in though.

So why would we only give people a temporary fix to a long term problem?

Well as Obama has said several times just recently. This is only the beginning.

[P562045]

Well Obama has been our president for a month now.

I would like to examine the four things Obama has actually signed into law.

Just remember during his long campaign Obama promised countless times that when he is president Washington is going to change. Did Obama ever say for the better?

1. Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

This restores a law that I am sure Bush for his own selfish reason never really pursued because it makes for darn sure that businesses pay women and men equally. And if women are not paid equally people can go to court to make sure they are paid equally.

2. Reauthorizing S.C.H.I.P.S

This program needs to be expanded somehow I am sure but I am not quite sure how this will actually be achieved. I am sure some rules of the game have been changed so that more people are receiving assistance from this government program that is supposed to be for children.

3. Digital Television

This has been delayed for a while longer. I think I first heard about this was so happening some time late last century.

4. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

This is the so called the economy so needs to be stimulated or stimulus package and I have heard it called a few other things as well.

So let me get this correct. The federal government is going to spend some more money and like magic the economy is going to pick up again. Well if that was the case the economy should need no stimulus at all because Washington has spend a lot of money before right? And who really cares about the consequences of this at this point. I will come right and say it portions of this stimulus package will cause the next recession. Now this takes time we have to get out of this recession first. What areas do I think this next recession will come from. I think it will come from we must save the planet portion of this bill and also the health care portions of this bill as well.

Then late last month Obama signed a few executive orders as well.

Obama brought back the 1973 law regarding abortion overseas and in certain cases but not all of them federal dollars could be spent for a women to get an abortion.

Obama also said we must finally shut down the prison facility in Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Well does anyone have any idea when this is actually going to happen.

I have six examples here and it would appear to me that four out of the six have been done before and this is coming from someone that said he would really bring about change to Washington.

Talk about change we can believe in.

[P562045]

Well we need a new definition for what the word earmark on this online dictionary so that the president would not be a liar.

Now Obama said just the other day that there are no earmarks in this particular bill.

Now this is what definition three of what an earmark says.

"3. to set aside for a specific purpose, use, recipient, etc.: to earmark goods for export."

Link to what the definition of an earmark is.

Now if a person were to scroll down a bit to the actual bill the president signed last Tuesday. Under the heading of Bureau of the Census.

"For an additional amount for ``Periodic Censuses and Programs'', $1,000,000,000."

First section of the stimulus bill

So what should be the brand new definition of what an earmark is Mr. president?

[P562045]

Now the president was having a meeting with some mayors yesterday. I think another word is going to need a new definition as well very soon indeed.

"Invoking his own name-and-shame policy, President Barack Obama warned the nation's mayors on Friday that he will 'call them out' if they waste the money from his massive economic stimulus plan."

Eventually the word waste is going to need a new definition as well.

"With that comes unprecedented obligations to spend that money wisely, free from politics and free from personal agendas, he [Obama] said."

I made a comment recently how are people supposed to know if the money is being spent wisely. And mayors and governors are going to try to influence where this stimulus money is going in the first place.

I have several examples of what I think money may not have been spent very wisely by people in positions of power.

We have a light rail system for public transportation and there was a new extension added to it. At the time it was thought by the powers that be and me as well that the new part of the line would be a good thing. But there are actually far fewer people than expected that use the new part of the line. I think part of the reason why fewer people use it than expected is that there is not a whole lot to do around some of the stations. And at some of the stations it is a walk of a mile or more to even get to anything really of any interest at all. And there is even one example that it is very difficult to get to one of the malls and I would not even dare try to get over there during the busiest hours of the day. There are four lanes of traffic to cross and there is a tiny little island for a few people to stand on at one time and the light that way is very short because the street to cross over to get to the mall is a very busy street most of the time anyway.

Another section of the public transportation was done at great additional costs as well. There were some very snooty people that said where they lived a new section could be built but some people thought it would be a terrible eyesore so part of the new section was built underground so that these people would not have to see the train go by. There was a little bit of noise factor as well. It would stop every once in a while just like at a railroad crossing and toots it horn when it came close to where people were driving just as a train would. But the noise was not nearly that loud.

Obama talks to some mayors story

Next week I will actually be seeing if one of the proposed uses of the stimulus money is being used as Obama describes in this story.

The proposal is to repair and even build some new sidewalks along a very busy stretch of road that in years past was an interstate.

So I have several questions about this. How many people should I see on the existing part of the sidewalk for this to be a good deal for lack of better term. I would dare say a sidewalk is for people to walk on. And if not a lot of people are walking there then it might not be such a good idea. Especially the new part that may be built with this money from the stimulus package.

I may be giving Obama a good test of this next week.

So I gave several examples of where people might want to question how this stimulus money is going to be spent. It will be interesting to me several ways. How is Obama going to bring people's attention to something that people tell him the money should be spent either not at all or some other way. Because it is going to very important for people to see something happen when they take time to point out things that they think are not such a good idea in the first place.

And people may be thinking how are people going to be doing this in the first place. Well there is a place at recovery.gov to do just that.

This is really interesting approach by Obama. And for darn sure yes it is very different than what past president have done.

And yes it will take some effort from the people and Obama is going to need people's help to make sure that money from this stimulus package is not wasted.