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Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
By David Glenn Cox
"I do think it's important to get this right. And, if, at the end of the day, I do not yet see that we have it right, then I'm not going to sign a bill that, for example, adds to our deficit." Barack Obama, July 2009
What about the perfect being the enemy of the good? What about the argument if we don’t pass health care reform now it might be a generation before we can attempt it again?
"Part of the reason we want to have a public option is just to help keep the insurance companies honest." Barack Obama, July 2009
The issue of health care reform, or as White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called it in a Freudian slip, health insurance reform, boils down to who you believe.
The original story broke in August in the "New York Times," but like so many important stories it died alone and out in the cold. Ed Schultz has resuscitated the story and on his program Monday he hosted David Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick is the original author of the "New York Times" story which reported that Obama made a deal with both the for-profit hospital industry and the drug industry on health insurance reform.
Kirkpatrick said, “And I think what you're interested in is that in the background of these deals was the presumption, shared on behalf of the lobbyists on the one side and the White House on the other, that the public option was not going to be in the final product.” Kirkpatrick also offered for corroboration that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina had also acknowledged the deal.
It makes health care reform not just a bait and switch but an outright fraud. While President Obama was telling the public, "Part of the reason we want to have a public option is just to help keep the insurance companies honest," he was making deals with those healthcare industry lobbyists he wanted to keep honest.
We live in the times of Big Brother and Winston Smith. What do you believe? Who do you believe? What goes down the memory hole? Probably the greatest fraud perpetrated on the public today is by Wall Street. The Dow Jones average has risen in a year from 7,172 to close yesterday at 10,729. Has the economy sprouted wings? Are new businesses opening left and right? Is full employment just ahead?
March 16 (Bloomberg) -- "U.S. employers won’t hire enough workers this year to lower the jobless rate much below the level of 9.7 percent reached in February, three Obama administration economic officials said today. The proportion of Americans who can’t find work is likely to 'remain elevated for an extended period,' Timothy Geitner said."
They expect that unemployment might even rise above 10%, if you believe the government’s massaged unemployment numbers. Other estimates put the actual unemployment number near 19%. Actual unemployment first-time claims for the last week in February hovered around 469,000; this was called good news because it fell from 498,000. Obama’s economic team estimates the economy will add 100,000 jobs per month. So yes, it's pretty safe to say with 469,000 new claims per week that unemployment is going to be with us for a while.
Overall claims rose to a record high of 5.688 million. So how could the stock market be doing so well? The answer is free money. Free money for everyone, on Wall Street, that is!
March 16 (Bloomberg) -- "Federal Reserve officials repeated their pledge to keep the main Interest rate near zero for an 'extended period' and confirmed that emergency measures to prop up the housing market will end as planned this month.
"While the economy has 'continued to strengthen,' policy makers noted that housing starts have been flat at depressed levels and employers remain reluctant to add to payrolls.”
March 16 (Bloomberg) -- "Discover Financial Services will pay back $1.2 billion to the troubled Asset Relief Program, making the lender the last of the six biggest U.S. credit-card issuers to return bailout money.
“'All along, we suggested that when we saw the clouds part and we saw a clear path forward, that’s when you would expect for us to execute this exit,' Chief Financial Officer Roy Guthrie said today in a conference call with analysts after Riverwoods, Illinois-based Discover posted a first-quarter loss. 'Looking forward we feel a lot better about things.'”
Discover’s net loss for the three months ending Feb. 28 was only $103.5 million. But with the free money policy there’s always more, even if customer card defaults rose to 9.11 percent from 8.58 percent.
But the Chief Financial Officer for the Bank of Tokyo in New York, Christopher Rupkey, warns, “They need to work on the message, and right now the message is that there is not a lot to be hopeful about.” Rupkey added, “Warning about a slow jobless recovery can help make it a reality.”
Do you get it? It’s mind over matter. As long as they’ve got the gold mine, it doesn’t matter. Or in the words of W.C. Fields, “Never give a sucker an even break.”
Obama’s team then argued before Congress for more tax benefits for business to add workers. Treasury Secretary Tim Geitner also warned, “Deficits matter. Ours are too high; they are unsustainable.” Geithner said during testimony, “The American people, along with investors around the world, need to have more confidence in our ability to bring them down over time.”
Get it? Give to them, take from you! Wall Street soars and Main Street crashes.
Housing starts for February dropped 5.9 percent after dropping record amounts in both December and January, down to an annual rate of 575,000 units compared with 1.52 million in 2007. Add to that 300,000 continuing monthly home foreclosures and you have displayed before you a fraud. A humbug, complete with lots of promises for you and cash for the banks.
Thank God we’ve got real Democrats fighting for us out there.
March 16 (Bloomberg) -- "The House Ways and Means Committee will start next month the process of extending former President George W. Bush’s tax cuts that benefit American families earning under $250,000 annually, Representative Sander Levin said."
Average American income is around $43,317. The Bush Tax cuts saved the average tax payer $647 annually while those earning $250,000 saved around $25,000. The Bush tax cuts added $30 billion dollars to the budget deficit and created nothing in the way of jobs. President Obama is in favor of maintaining the tax cuts while at the same time his select committee on cutting the deficit plans cuts to social programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
“There are only two real ways to get ahead today - sell liquor or drink it.”
W.C. Fields
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