tagged w/ Fleecing of America
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Overseeing a dispirited nation, President Barack Obama on Saturday sought to assure people that bleak times will give way to better days, calling the mounting economic crisis a time to discover America's next "great opportunity."
"That is what we can do and must do today," Obama said in his weekly radio and video address, taped on Friday at the White House. "And I am absolutely confident that is what we will do."
On Saturday morning, the president and first lady Michelle Obama flew by helicopter to the presidential retreat in Camp David, Md., for the weekend. Their daughters, Sasha and Malia, traveled to Camp David separately, the White House said.
The work week ended on more down news, with the report of 651,000 more American jobs slashed and an unemployment rate climbing to 8.1 percent. That is the highest rate of people out of work in more than 25 years, as the recession continued to put enormous pressures on families and industries.
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Do you agree that things are going to get better? Are we going to be able to turn this crisis around and seize the opportunities this crisis is creating to cause great changes to occur?
With all the terrible news surrounding us on a daily basis, isn't a breath of fresh air to hear that things are going to get better?Overseeing a dispirited nation, President Barack Obama on Saturday sought to assure... more
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jubal
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2 years ago
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To see Neel Kashkari field questions from a crowded room, one might think he's still being paid by Goldman Sachs rather than American taxpayers.
The interim assistant secretary of the Treasury for financial stabilization yesterday had a tone of impatience during a question-and-answer session, leaving some attendees feeling cheated.
The Q&A followed a keynote speech that Kashkari gave at a conference in Midtown Manhattan, which was attended by hundreds of financial executives.
When it came time for questions, the former Goldman Sachs executive told the eager audience that he had time for just "two or three."
In response to the first question, about the government's latest lifeline for beleaguered insurance company American International Group, Kashkari gave a clipped response before quickly moving on.
"This morning's action at AIG was a one-off event" that was necessary for the financial stability of the markets, he said. "He didn't say anything that I couldn't have learned from going to the Web site," griped one mortgage entrepreneur. Treasury spokeswoman Jennifer Zuccarelli said it's not unusual for public officials to answer a few questions before moving on. Kashkari's impatient tone comes amid a growing desire for openness about how government agencies, including the Treasury, are handling billions of taxpayer dollars being used to prop up Wall Street.
Yesterday's news that the Treasury and Federal Reserve increased the size of American International Group's rescue to around $150 billion from $123 billion intensified concern that Uncle Sam isn't spending wisely.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg News sued the Federal Reserve for information under the US Freedom of Information Act, claiming the Fed refuses to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans as well as the troubled assets the bank is accepting as collateral.To see Neel Kashkari field questions from a crowded room, one might think he's... more
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TAMPA - Election Day isn't even here yet, but we already have our first voting mystery.
Thousands of pages of voter information were found lying along the shoulder of Interstate 4 this morning.
The papers, all with information about Hillsborough County voters, have been cleaned up and taken to a Department of Transportation maintenance facility for now, but voting officials still don't know where they came from.
Transportation workers spotted the nine bags of documents on their traffic cameras along a ramp off I-4 and I-275.
The Hillsborough County supervisor of elections says it did not come from his office, but looks like it may have come from a campaign office or a grassroots effort which drives voters to polling paces. The documents contain names, addresses, phone numbers, and party affiliation, and if the voter needs a ride.
Transportation officials have called the Florida Division of Elections to see if the state office wants to investigate, and are waiting back for a response. If not, the plan is to shred the documents this afternooTAMPA - Election Day isn't even here yet, but we already have our first voting... more
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he White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.
The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.
Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining.
Once such rules take effect, they typically can be undone only through a laborious new regulatory proceeding, including lengthy periods of public comment, drafting and mandated reanalysis.
"They want these rules to continue to have an impact long after they leave office," said Matthew Madia, a regulatory expert at OMB Watch, a nonprofit group critical of what it calls the Bush administration's penchant for deregulating in areas where industry wants more freedom. He called the coming deluge "a last-minute assault on the public . . . happening on multiple fronts."
White House spokesman Tony Fratto said: "This administration has taken extraordinary measures to avoid rushing regulations at the end of the term. And yes, we'd prefer our regulations stand for a very long time -- they're well reasoned and are being considered with the best interests of the nation in mind."
As many as 90 new regulations are in the works, and at least nine of them are considered "economically significant" because they impose costs or promote societal benefits that exceed $100 million annually. They include new rules governing employees who take family- and medical-related leaves, new standards for preventing or containing oil spills, and a simplified process for settling real estate transactions.
While it remains unclear how much the administration will be able to accomplish in the coming weeks, the last-minute rush appears to involve fewer regulations than Bush's predecessor, Bill Clinton, approved at the end of his tenure.
In some cases, Bush's regulations reflect new interpretations of language in federal laws. In other cases, such as several new counterterrorism initiatives, they reflect new executive branch decisions in areas where Congress -- now out of session and focused on the elections -- left the president considerable discretion.
The burst of activity has made this a busy period for lobbyists who fear that industry views will hold less sway after the elections. The doors at the New Executive Office Building have been whirling with corporate officials and advisers pleading for relief or, in many cases, for hastened decision making.
According to the Office of Management and Budget's regulatory calendar, the commercial scallop-fishing industry came in two weeks ago to urge that proposed catch limits be eased, nearly bumping into National Mining Association officials making the case for easing rules meant to keep coal slurry waste out of Appalachian streams. A few days earlier, lawyers for kidney dialysis and biotechnology companies registered their complaints at the OMB about new Medicare reimbursement rules. Lobbyists for customs brokers complained about proposed counterterrorism rules that require the advance reporting of shipping data.
Bush's aides are acutely aware of the political risks of completing their regulatory work too late. On the afternoon of Bush's inauguration, Jan. 20, 2001, his chief of staff issued a government-wide memo that blocked the completion or implementation of regulations drafted in the waning days of the Clinton administration that had not yet taken legal effect.
he White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which... more
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WASHINGTON — No one knows for sure, but auditors think the U.S. has paid well over $6 billion to private security companies who've been guarding diplomats, troops, Iraqi officials and reconstruction workers in Iraq.
The money amounts to about 12 percent of the $50 billion Americans are paying for reconstruction in the country, said Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen.
The figure, included in a report being released by Bowen's office Thursday, is likely to be taken as the most authoritative accounting so far of what it has cost taxpayers to provide private security since 2003 in the violence-plagued nation.
It included bodyguards for diplomats and top commanders and guards for U.S. military bases, as well as for military supply convoys, contractors, subcontractors and others supporting the U.S. mission and military.
Also included were personal security details for high-ranking Iraqi officials, as well as security advice and planning costs.
Government agencies in Iraq were not required to keep track in one place of how much money was going to security. So Bowen's office spent three months going through records from the State Department, Defense Department U.S. Agency for International Development and other government sources to try to pull together the figure.
There are likely more contractors he has yet to count and so the $6 billion is almost certainly not the full picture, he said in an interview Wednesday.
The report accompanies Bowen's quarterly reconstruction report to Congress, which included the following other findings:
More than $125.7 billion has now been committed to rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure and government since U.S.-led forces toppled the government of Saddam Hussein five years ago.
Though all of that has not been spent, it includes $50.77 billion in money appropriated by the U.S., $57.96 billion in Iraqi funds and $17 billion pledged by other international donor, the bulk of it in the latter in loans and under $5.3 billion in grants.
_ Iraq's rule-of-law system remains broken, most evidenced by the fact that Iraqi judges continue to be assassinated across the country. In 2008, terrorists killed seven judges, compared to 11 killed in 2007 and bringing the number to more than 40 judges and family members since 2003.
_ A serious problem remains with corruption _ which Bowen has long called a "second insurgency" in Iraq for the challenge it poses. For instance, auditors noted that a local contractor asked to be released from his work on three schools in Baghdad's Sadr City this quarter because he and his family were threatened when he refused repeated requests from government officials that he pay them bribes.
_ The United States has allocated nearly $25 billion to support training and equipping new Iraqi security forces and the justice system and spent more than $10 billion on Iraq infrastructure.
WASHINGTON — No one knows for sure, but auditors think the U.S. has paid well... more
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President Dwight David Eisenhower's Farewell Speech, "Military/Industrial Complex", 1961 - Part 1 of 2 ... guess who's really running this country today? it sure isn't "we the people"President Dwight David Eisenhower's Farewell Speech, "Military/Industrial... more
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