Sep 15 2008
Obama’s Over Inflated Self Image
If an inflated ego was the way to energy independence, Obama would be floating America’s energy needs. Apparently he has a habit of exaggerating himself a bit (from a one time coworker):
I have to say that Barack engages in some serious exaggeration when he describes a job that he held in the mid-1980s. I know because I sat down the hall from him, in the same department, and worked closely with his boss.
This is what we call in the business ‘vetting a candidate’.
Reading the comments in the thread posting over there adds fuel to the fire since there are other prior staff members in the comment thread.
I want to know more about Obama’s trip to Pakistan and his travels “in the countryside” outside of the major cities in the 1980’s. That in addition to wanting to know more about why Saudi-connected individuals were hitting people up for letters of recommendation for Obama to attend Harvard.
It seems to me that everybody has overlooked the cause of the subprime mortgage meltdown. Wasn’t it COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS who went down in to to those areas where the poor and destitute lived and convinced them they deserved to get loans from banks and other racist lending institutions just like the “evil” middle classed whites were getting?. Weren’t we all told it was white racism and discrimination that blacks and the poor couldn’t get loans from banks and financing to start businesses and buy homes? So what did they do? they organized and put the pressure on until lending institutions were forced to give loans to people who historically were known to default on them. The Community Organizers were very successful in setting up this calamity and it looks like the rest of us are going to be stuck with the bill. I remember when Jesse Jackson, community organizers, and others of their ilk were demanding that government agencies invest their pension funds in Inner city and low income development investments. Everybody knows that nobody in any of the branches of our government has the nerve to stand up to these jokers. Whatever they demand, they get. Obama says he is for paying reparations. Wanna take bets they wont’ eventually get them?
You’ve got a good point, momdear, but don’t feel sorry for the banks. What you describe was indeed the genesis of the crisis, but the reason it got so big was that the banks (especially outfits like Countrywide and Indymac) figured out that they could cater to this market and raise profit margins by hiking up fees and other hidden costs. The higher the loan amount, the higher the fees so they had a built in incentive to push loan amounts ever higher. 90% loan? 95%? 100%? Better yet, higher fees all around! You could even get a 110% loan at the peak with almost no income documentation. Why not? You could get fannie mae and freddie mac to guarantee them, so the bank didn’t have to worry if the buyers went bust in a year or two. Besides, prices only go up, right? And as soon as those outfits started showing huge profits, everyone else in the banking business jumped on the easy money band wagon. Homeowners were happy – this is what pushed California, Arizona, and Florida real estate prices up by 10, 20, 30% per year.
The entire ponzi scheme was dependant on prices always going up, because in truth EVERYONE, not just the low end mortgage holders, was leveraged to the hilt. The Lehman collapse is easy to understand when you realize that the entire company was leveraged at a 30 – 1 ratio. Which means that it only took a 3% loss to wipe out all of that companies operating capital. (Lehman almost certainly has far greater than 3% losses) Yes, it was insane of regulators to ever allow (much less applaud) a major financial institution to put itself into such a precarious position.
When prices started going down, the leverage began to work in reverse all up and down the financial food chain. And this down cycle has got much, much farther to run before the rot is cleared out of the system. Several more major banks are going to fail before the end of the year. Be careful where you put your money.
I’m with Merlin, I read some of the comments down the page and cringed. This guy (Obama) really, really scares me.
Read this one.
AJ and I were laughing at the astronaut inspiration babble at the DNC Convention, since both of us had NASA Dads growing up, but it figures that BHO just made the whole thing up.
I just posted this on the Free Republic website regarding Palin’s trip to Iraq.
DOD to Palin- Do Not Divulge Trip to Iraq!!
My email to Alaskan Public Radio Network reporter Dave Donaldson regarding his question about Iraq during Governor Palin’s Press Conference in Kuwait on July 24, 2007.
Dear Mr. Donaldson,
I have listened to an audio recording from a July 24, 2007 Press Conference held by Governor Palin while she was visiting Alaskan troops in Kuwait. At around 14:06 of the audio from that Press Conference, you asked Governor Palin the following question:
“Dave Donaldson– Governor, very possibly my notes were incorrect, Your opening comments you said you had plans for tomorrow that you are going to be taking a Blackhawk Helicopter and heading North, ah, are you going into Iraq directly?”
Governor Palin– “DOD has asked me not to say specifically where I am going but just to say I am heading up North. and that was our mode of transportation today along with buses, but ya, tomorrow further North.”
In a radio report on July 24, 2007 posted on the Alaskan Public Radio Network website and based on your reporting of the Governor’s press conference, it says the following:
“Although the DOD will not allow her to divulge her further travel plans, she says she plans to go by helicopter further North tomorrow.”
Since you were at this press conference and heard this answer directly, have you reported any of this recently to resolve the issue in the media? If you have, please send me a link to your story clarifying Governor Palin’s trip to Iraq.
If you have not reported the answer to your July 24, 2007 press conference question regarding Governor Palin’s trip to Iraq, is it because you and the rest of the media forgot what country is further North from the border of Kuwait?
Let me help you refresh your memory, remember back on August 2, 1990 when a country in the Middle East crossed their southern border and invaded Kuwait? That was IRAQ which is NORTH of the KUWAIT border!!
Your Geography Instructor,
SBD