The President Laughed ... and stock prices soared!

[Clio the Leo]

Yes, I realize these two things have nothing to do with one another .... but since when did that matter? :)

March 23, 2009
Obama dares to laugh on 60 Minutes -- critics pounce, media follows

Barack Obama has gone from the candidate who could do no wrong to the president who can't get anything right.

The latest squawking in pundit circles comes hours after President Obama's appearance on 60 Minutes, where he cracked rueful jokes about the state of the economy and public sentiment over measures taken to save it all.

The comment that seemed to set off this round of comments was Obama's crack that "I just want to say that the only thing less popular than putting money into banks is putting money into the auto industry." While the president chuckled over the line, Kroft himself smiled while asking whether people might misinterpret his laughter, wondering "are you punch-drunk?"

Obama attributed his comments to "gallows humor," saying "If you had said to us a year ago that the least of my problems would be Iraq, which is still a pretty serious problem, I don't think anybody would have believed it."

http://blogs.tampabay.com/media/2009/03/obama-dares-to-laugh-on-60-minutes-critics-pounce-media-follows.html

Stocks jump on bank plan, rise in home sales
By TIM PARADIS

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is getting the good news it wants on the economy's biggest problems: banks and housing.

Investors reignited a two-week rally Monday after hearing the government's plan to help banks remove as much as $1 trillion in bad assets from their books and home sales showed a surprise increase. Major stock indexes jumped as much as 4 percent, including the Dow Jones industrial average, which rose nearly 300 points.

The Treasury Department said its plan would rely on the government's $700 billion financial rescue fund, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., as well as private investors.

The report on housing came as good news even though prices fell sharply. Traders are simply encouraged to see any increase that will help eat away at a glut of homes on the market. That's the second bit of good housing news over the past week — last Tuesday, the government issued a better-than-expected housing starts report.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gHs5OM3gFG_DytQQZFbWfgPT08MAD973QB4G0

(one more for the road)
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nWpwm6lhWUs/SQaz5_-7x9I/AAAAAAAAEag/GbsVP1KOc38/s400/Obama+Laugh.jpg

[Aloha Spirit]

1. Can we have two more for the road thank you.

[Clio the Leo]

6. A'ight.

Here's one of him and Joe, but I wont charge any extra for it. ;)



Also no extra charge for Teddy and Michelle...



lol, apparently he likes that tie ... owns it in every color

[Aloha Spirit]

12. Haha! someone needs to start a website that tracks his ties

so eventually once we collect enough data, we can report what tie he's wearing and we'll know what's happening that day.

[Clio the Leo]

27. If only I had the time.......

.... I do have a bit of an Obama tie fetish. Whenever he's wearing a light blue one, I do a little happy dance. I become a bit dejected when he's NOT wearing a light blue one on special occasions. lol

[msongs]

2. meanwhile home equity loan rates = 7% if you have perfect credit nt

[ErinBerin84]

3. that's not a "rueful joke"

and candidate who could "do no wrong"? I seem to remember the media pointing out plenty of things that the Obama campaign was supposedly doing wrong.

[Possumpoint]

4. Theft

of 1 Trillion Dollars in taxpayer money to buy worthless paper from the banks so the good times in a debt based economy might come back. To Hell with Keynasian economic theories! We'll be sorry.

Let the sorry asses of the banks fail and have investors buy the good assests. That goes for insolvent corporations also.

[w4rma]

5. Exactly. This is really really bad. (nt)

[MarjorieG]

9. I don't think we have years or skills to go to agrarian economy. If we don't get investment going

again, enthusiastically, say bye to health care or other initiatives. We can simultaneously regulate, so not to go back where we were.

[Possumpoint]

11. We Don't

presently have the manufacturing capability to sustain the level of debt being carried. We tried a service based economy and that wasn't cutting it. The debt level the private factions grew as the Fed kept a unnatural low interest rate in place further inflating the real estate based debt bubble. The past 8 years of Republican control destroyed any chance of balancing the budget and with the collapse of the real estate bubble the governments use of Keynesian economic theories will bankrupt this country.

I hope most have learned that your house can no longer be used as a piggy bank to underpin excessive spending over income. We have to revert to a pay as you go economy.

[MarjorieG]

21. If media weren't so distracted with junk, Obama says all those things about how we need to recover.

How we deal with the best of a bad hand, recover and learn. You're right.

[girl gone mad]

17. It will never be what it was, Marjorie.

Our banks were able to pawn off all of these garbage securities onto unsuspecting foreign investors because of the reputation of the United States as a financial powerhouse with a well-regulated market.

That reputation has been utterly and thoroughly destroyed. Too bad we can't simply change our name and get a new logo.

The financial sector isn't coming back. It was a giant Ponzi scheme, and everybody knows it. The fact that American taxpayers are now being forced to prop up the remnants of these rotting corpses because nobody with free will wants to should be the first clue. It's over.

[MarjorieG]

22. Agree, and that's why a giant FU to obligations and foreign debt not good.

I'm not ready to say its over and have China recall all its debts. That Geithner can work any of this with foreign interests, while we stay afloat to try health care, produce jobs, let's give Geithner and our future a chance.

[Occam Bandage]

10. Since when did DUers turn into radical right-wing economic libertarians?

[Possumpoint]

13. Simple

When the policies of the present have failed, return to what worked in the past.

[Occam Bandage]

14. When has total libertarianism ever worked for the economy?

We gave up on that around, oh 1933.

[nichomachus]

18. Libertarianism has never worked, because it's never been tried

it's just a silly Utopian theory that attracts college sophomores and assorted fruitcakes.

[galloglas]

19. Right !! The Pearl Harbor Paradigm ??

Yes, when all our battleships were sunk by the Japanese Carriers, we then returned to the successful strategies of the past. Remember the glory of McArthur's Cavalry Charge up the hill to the Japanese Emperor's Palace?? :rofl:

[Possumpoint]

24. What Oriface

did you pull that out of? I was referring to the 50's. When savings was still encouraged and not taxable as income. Before credit cards became the vogue for charging everything from groceries to disposable diapers. Usually only big ticket items were financed. We need to relearn how to save to buy what we want. The days of instant gratification need to stop.

[galloglas]

25. Beg pardon ??

The "Orifice" which spouted the original was thine own yap. Without you giving an example I had to go fishing. But now that you have, let us deal with it. You say:

"I was referring to the 50's. When savings was still encouraged and not taxable as income."

What country is that in?? Other than Treasury Bonds, all savings in the 1950s were taxed as ordinary income. Put it in your marginal tax bracket. Capisce?

"The days of instant gratification need to stop."

I don't disagree. On the other hand, having been there and done that as an NASD Registered Rep and Financial Planner, I do know what was happening then. And spouting about misremembered "non-taxable income" on savings is destructive to those ends, not to speak of rudeness in your manner of address (what orifice??) If we wish to cure the present problems by restoring those artifacts of the past that are appropriate, we should all be sure of what we speak of. Otherwise we lose all credibility.

So with a view to what the Federal Government proposed today, in respect to the "toxic loans" that are abounding, I can say that it should be an excellent vehicle for curing what ails the US. The individual modification of many of these mortgages will result in a higher Net Present Value than now exist. Indeed, there is no current market for the "toxic mortgages" because there in no trading in them!

In the 1980s, the US faced a similar problem with mortgages within the S&L system. It was largely ignored by the GOP government, and its accomplices, and was allowed to fester until the US finally ate the bad mortgages (low interest fixed mortgages) to the tune of 750 Billion dollars. If they had modified those mortgages instead, the US would have actually made money on the problem.

And all of that raises another point. All of the bellyaching over a Trillion?? That is only 1/3 more than we blew away in the mid 1980s! Comparatively, much less than that now. So the Obama-Geithner plan is very workable and addresses the problem. That is, unless the GOP Doomsayers in Congress and the Chicken Little liberals make so much noise it is torpedoed.

In an old military axiom it is said, "If you can lead,lead. If you can't lead, follow. If you can't follow, get the hell out of the way and let someone else do it."

Good advice, I think, for GOP and incensed liberals alike.

[underpants]

7. THE NUMBER LIKES US!!!!

[OKNancy]

8. I'll rec this thread!!

:kick: :yourock:

[HughMoran]

15. Wait 5 minutes

Your post will be outdated :rofl:

[Clio the Leo]

26. But it wasn't. ;-)

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7153525&page=1

[HughMoran]

28. I'm glad - I need some good news

:woohoo:

[girl gone mad]

16. No, Wall Street is just happy that Geithner is letting them loot our treasury.

Plus, investors are rushing out of the dollar since the Fed announced they were going to run the printing presses at full speed.

Happy days are here again for the robber barons.

[rosesaylavee]

20. His confidence is what Wall Street needs to see.

Fortunately, he has a long view and not too bothered by day-to-day critics.

[TexasObserver]

23. More than anything, the American people need Obama to exude confidence.

Confident people know that virtually every day calls for laughter at some point. Even on the day we bury our loved ones, we find reasons to laugh, to smile.

Obama is going through a period of hyper criticism. In a crisis, it doesn't matter what he does, it won't be the thing someone would approve.

[opihimoimoi]

29. Joy, Laughter is essential to Good Health,,,,Proverbs