Freedom of BLEEP

The Obama Power Grab, Part V

Multiple banks have tried to pay back their bailout money (with interest) but the Obama administration is refusing to accept it. Even banks that have reported profits since the bailout and have successfully restored investor confidence are being forced to sit on piles of borrowed cash. CNN also reports, “It’s likely the Treasury will not permit bankers to return taxpayer money for many more months.”

The reason for this is clear: the government wants to control these banks, just like they control GM and Chrysler. Why? Well for one thing, the Pay for Performance Act was just passed by the house. This legislation allows the government to dictate pay for anyone working for any company that accepted TARP money (in other words, it has nothing to do with performance).

If the government can fire the CEO of GM and mandate what comes off their production lines certainly they will take unprecedented authority over the banks as well. They will be able to regulate who can receive loans, ultimately determining which businesses in the US can stay open. Chairmen have already been threatened with “adverse” consequences if they persist in trying to pay the loans back.

While it’s disturbing that the government could have this much control, it’s even more disturbing who will now be running these banks… A man who couldn’t even figure out how to pay his taxes!

Obama’s Power Grab, Part III

Even the head of the European Union is criticizing Obama’s socialist spending spree, saying that the United States is on “the road to hell.” Other high-ranking officials in France, including the French President have commented that Obama’s plan to spend $2 trillion to escape the recession is absurd.

Obama’s budget will create almost $10 trillion in debt over the next decade so that he can expand the government. This is $10 trillion that tax payers will have to pay interest on just so Obama can create worthless government programs to expand his power. This is $10 trillion to provide “tax-relief” for people who don’t pay taxes. This is $10 trillion to pay mortgages for people who lied about their income and can’t afford their houses. This is $10 trillion that Obama and Pelosi are robbing from our children and grandchildren to create bailouts for reality television. This is $10 trillion of government that we don’t need and can’t afford.

Too bad Obama can’t see this on his telepromter.

CNBC’s Rick Santelli said that Obama’s bailout plan is promoting “bad behavior” and correctly pointed out the American people do not support foreclosure bailouts. He even called for a “Chicago Tea Party,” since our elected officials clearly aren’t representing us.

CNBC did a poll and 90% of the 63,000 Americans surveyed said they agree: they don’t like Obama’s plan.

Politicians are not representing their constituents anymore; they are representing the lobbyists and special interest groups that keep them in power.

Even the high school students Obama visited this week realize his plan is a bad idea:

“The spending bill he just passed is just progressing the Democratic agenda rather than addressing the economic issues in the country.” said senior Maaike Albach.

“This puts us more into debt,” said Daudfar, 18. “It’s a horrible situation we’re in.”

“I think it’s cool he’s here,” said Miller, 18. “I just don’t believe all the things he’s telling us.”

Instead of developing a plan to save their company, the brainiacs at GM spent their last resources on a huge ad campaign to increase support for their initial bailout. And they are already asking for more money!

If you checked your Gmail or AOL account prior to the first bailout, you might have see ads that looks like this:

In the end, their efforts only served as another reminder that this company is a sinking ship, and the first 17 billion they received only delayed the inevitable. Now they want a second bailout for twice that amount - another $39 billion!

How is GM losing so much money? Well for one thing, their workers currently make about 44 percent more than Toyota workers in the United States. The average worker wages at GM amount to $69 per hour, while American-based Toyota facilities average only $48 per hour. Toyota doesn’t allow unionized labor.

While bailout bargaining, the United Auto Workers have repeatedly said they would be willing to renegotiate their current contracts. But truth be told, all concessions the unions have made are trivial. They’ve only agreed to reduce medical benefits for retired workers by less than 10 percent, and temporarily suspend pay to laid off workers (who previously got 95% of their pay indefinitely). This policy was muscled in by the union and basically made it impossible for GM to cut their payroll. Now the company finally won’t have to pay for workers that aren’t working… Yeah, those union leaders are really bending over backwards.

Fearing that they will lose their power, the unions have also propagated a myth that filing for bankruptcy won’t help GM. In reality, chapter 11 allows companies to restructure their contracts and internal organization. GM would no longer be obligated to provide extravagant benefits to their overpaid employees, and they would not have to fulfill supplier contracts they can’t afford to meet. Just look at United Airlines - they emerged to be an even stronger company after filing for bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy would probably help GM even more than the measly $17 billion band-aid, especially since they lost $39 billion in a single quarter last year.

Still, many are worried about what could happen if GM goes completely out of business. People seem to love bad news, and so the media has been reporting that a total of 2.5 million jobs will be lost if GM disappears. These projections are greatly exaggerated, however. First of all, the derivations assume that all of The Big Three go out of business (not just GM), which is unlikely since Ford has enough cash to last a year and a half.

Additionally, several innovative American car companies have been able to rise in the wake of The Big Three Failures. Carbon Motors, for instance, will have their E7 on production lines this year. This vehicle is essentially a ready-made police car that’s loaded with features and offered at a price that beats the competition. For years, state governments have been purchasing Big Three models only to transform them into police cars and emergency vehicles. So why didn’t GM, Ford, or Chrysler come up with this idea?

During his campaign, Obama said he would run the most transparent government we’ve ever had. But the new stimulus bill is up for vote today, and the Republican congressmen still haven’t even seen it - let alone the general public!

The day after inauguration, our President said, “Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency. Our commitment to openness means more than simply informing the American people about how decisions are made.”

Well at least we know how decisions are made… Congressmen will have only a few hours to read hundreds of pages of legislation before 9 AM!

What happened to the democrats’ promise that the new stimulus bill would be posted on the internet at least 48 hours prior to the vote? They flat out lied. Why are they are so afraid of letting the American people know what’s in this bill?

Furthermore, our President has been telling lies left and right to get this bill passed. According to Obama, the CEO of Caterpillar “said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off.”

But Jim Owens actually said the exact opposite! “I think realistically no. The reality is we’re going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again.”

What else is Obama lying about?

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled his financial sector rescue plan today… Immediately afterward, stocks plummeted across the board - down almost 500 points in all today.

To investors, the incompetence of this man is obvious. They want to know why “critical details of the plan remained unanswered, despite the weeks of planning leading up to Tuesday’s announcement.”

Geithner’s best response is, “We are not going to put out the details, until we get it right.” What does that even mean? Blind trial and error, without even telling the American people what the government is up to?

Geithner also said they will “try things we’ve never tried before. We will make mistakes. We will go through periods in which things get worse…” That sounds exactly like something Wall Street likes to hear.

Again, you can probably guess who we have to thank for this pinhead appointment. What was Obama thinking? This guy is one of the reasons we are in the crisis we now face. He’s a total moron. He even cheated on his taxes, and now he’s in charge of the IRS! He’s employed an illegal immigrant. He’s a crooked thief like all of Obama’s other friends.

FEAR. It’s the only apparatus that democrats have left to get their “stimulus” bill passed, especially as the general public becomes more aware of their idiotic plan. According to the latest poll, only 37% of the nation supports the stimulus package in its current form.

Now democrats have resorted to the drastic measures of making up statistics. Nancy Pelosi said “every month we do not have an economic recover package 500 MILLION Americans lose their jobs.” 500 million? As in 200 million more than the entire U.S. population? Could she have meant 500 thousand? That figure would still be inaccurate. It’s just smoke in mirrors, a scare tactic to make people support her.

President Obama is using the same tactics, saying if the bill isn’t passed now we will enter into a depression which “we may not be able to reverse.” But remember, this is coming from the same guy who said the national deficit doesn’t matter.

Apparently the Democratic Caucus agrees that the deficit doesn’t matter. They are spending $100,000 of taxpayer money on a trip to the country club this weekend…

Facebook staff has displayed an appalling lack of ethics this week.

An Ad from Facebook

It should be pretty obvious that the “Get Your Obama Check” ad campaign is a total scam. Basically you give them five bucks and they send you a pamphlet so that you can get a “$12,000 bailout.” Then after stealing your money they probably sell your email address to a spam advertising company.

Why is Facebook hosting a scam campaign? All ads are hand-picked by Facebook (I know because I’m applying to advertise another project), so why would they pick a company that wants to steal your money? Since Facebook has a vested interest in the success of the scam campaign to maintain their client base, Facebook is essentially trying to scam you. They’re trying to take advantage of people who believe in our President.

Mark deserves a swift kick in the nuts for this. Send the creator of Facebook a message to express your displeasure (he’s the one with no “add as friend” link). He already knows about this campaign because I’ve sent him multiple messages about it.

By the way, you won’t be getting a $12,000 bailout. Obama has consistently fought against putting tax cuts in the stimulus package. Likewise, he has fought against grants for small business to stimulate the economy. As a matter of fact, the only funding he has pushed will give the government (and himself) more power.

More Scam Ads from Facebook

Over 70% of U.S. businesses have announced freezes on hiring and/or pay increases. My employer is included in this figure, which is frequently hailed as one of the most recession-resistant companies in the world.

And it looks like the freezes will be around for a while. In the words of ADP’s CEO, this will “likely continue [...] into 2010.” Why do businesses in the United States expect this economic crisis to last so long? Isn’t the government about to pass out an $800 billion stimulus package?

Well, the Congressional Budget Office says only 25% of the money will go out this year. Most of it won’t be spent until 2011 or 2012. How is this supposed to help the economy?

It won’t. An analysis by the Wall Street Journal indicates that only 12% of the stimulus package legislation could plausibly be considered an economic stimulus. No wonder CEO’s have said they won’t be hiring for awhile.

It sure is convenient for the politicians though, as their porkbarrel money will be spent right before elections. And if you still think your government cares about you, think about what will happen to the economy when we print $800 billion dollars and just put it into circulation as if it were mana from heaven. Over the next four years, we’ll see inflation skyrocket while we are stuck with stagnant wages. But we’ll save the economics lecture for another post.

As a side note, the stimulus package could fund all of the soup kitchens in America for about 15 years if we eliminated the wasteful spending. And considering the direction that our government is taking us, this would probably be a good investment.

In her conquest to nationalize every corporation in America, Nazi Pelosi is now pushing a massive bailout for General Motors.

Here’s a news flash: GM stock has been dropping for more than 10 years!

This company is not a victim of an economic crisis; GM is a failing enterprise that has proven it can’t compete with the market. Okay, so they had a huge loss this quarter. It’s not the first time. What about the $21 billion loss in first quarter 1992? What about the $10 billion loss in 2005? What about the $4.8 billion loss in forth quarter 2006? What about the $39 billion loss in the third quarter last year? Did the government consider buying them out then?

Let’s consider why GM consistently performs poorly in the market. A huge contributing factor is the outrageous healthcare and benefits package they offer to employees, which hikes up the price of their vehicles. GM is a company that spends more than $17 million on erectile-dysfunction drugs such as Viagra and Cialis every year. This is just a small part of their $5.8 billion dollar a year luxury healthcare plan. There are plenty of other reasons why GM is nose diving, but I’ll let you look into that on your own. This company doesn’t need a bailout… They need to get their act together!

But why is the government even considering this bailout when labor unions contracts have not been revised? There is no reason that American tax dollars should pay for Viagra. It’s pretty obvious that the union organizers just want to screw us.

“GM has many hard workers.”