The Numbers Say Obama is Toast

By Jack Kelly

Last week in the RealClear Politics average of polls, 46.6 per cent approved of the job President Obama is doing; 48.9 percent disapproved.  The key fact liberal journalists try to hide, Jay said, is that no president with a job approval rating below 50 percent has ever been re-elected.

Zero is in worse shape than this indicates, because many polls over-sample Democrats.  But even in the slanted polls, the truth is there if you know what to look for:

*In a Washington Post poll released Tuesday, only 24 percent of respondents were Republicans.  But even in that poll, 54 percent disapproved of the job Obama is doing
on the economy.  In the presidential race, Romney and Zero were tied at 47 percent.  Among independents, Zero trailed Romney by 14 percentage points.

*A Zogby poll for the Washington Times released Monday had Romney leading, 43-42.  A small plurality said they agreed with the Supreme Court's Obamacare ruling, but the poll found 45 percent of self-identified independents said they are less likely to support the president now after the ruling.  Just 20 percent said the ruling made them more likely to back him.

*A poll by Pulse Opinion Research for The Hill newspaper  released Monday found that 56 percent of respondents think Obama has transformed the country - for the worse.

*Zero is sinking to historic lows among blue collar men, said Ron Brownstein of the National Journal.

*The Dems are bleeding voters in the swing states, according to a Bloomberg News analysis.

*According to Gallup's tracking poll, only 51 percent of Americans aged 18-29 approve of the job Obama is doing, down from 70 percent in the first week of July, 2009.
 
Elections are about numbers, and right now the president's are bad, Karl Rove wrote Thursday.  Only 37 percent of white voters approve of the job Zero is doing, Jay Cost found.  That's much less than what Michael Dukakis and John Kerry got in their losing races.  And, compared to them, Zero isn't doing so hot among minorities, either.

If the economy improves, so may Obama's job approval.  But it looks as if it's headed further south - maybe down Tierra del Fuego way.

Small business confidence fell in June to the lowest level in eight months.  The "perfect storm" of economic calamities that portend a depression  is happening now, says economist Nouriel Roubini. A deteriorating economy means a comfortable Romney win, says the bank BBVA Compass.

Even the polls which oversample Democrats show the race as a dead heat, which, in the second week in July, is a remarkably strong position for a challenger. There's always a stature gap between the challenger and the incumbent - who is, after all, the president - which usually doesn't close until after the out party's nominating convention.  At this point in 1980, Jimmy Carter had a comfortable lead over Ronald Reagan.

A tie now is even worse for Zero than it appears at first glance, because Team Obama and allied SuperPacs have spent $91 million in eight swing states attacking Romney as a rich, out of touch outsourcer of jobs - and barely moved the needle.

The Bain Capital attacks haven't worked, Ed Morrissey said, because: "even the WaPo/ABC poll shows that half of voters don't care, and only 24% in a sample with 33% being Democrats think it constitutes a reason to vote against Romney."

The New Face of American Healthcare

This woman - NOT your doctor - is now in charge of your health...

My Doctor Is Now The IRS!

Obamacare is the biggest victory for President Obama, biggest loss of personal freedom, downgrading of medical care quality, highest tax hike

 

Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh  Tuesday, July 10, 2012 

 

The Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, “A Brief Overview of the Law, Implementation, and Legal Challenges,” gives a new definition to Nancy Pelosi’s statement that we had “to pass Obamacare to find out what’s in it.” Not only did Congressmen not read the 2,700-page law before they voted and passed it by twisting arms and briberies, but they now have to be informed of the disaster they have created. (C. Stephen Redhead, Hinda Chaikind, Bernadette Fernandez, Jennifer Staman, July 3, 2012)

The unfortunately named Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010, passed by the 111th Congress, touted the following:

• increased access to health insurance coverage (not necessarily access to health care)
• expansion of federal private health insurance market requirements
• creation of health insurance exchanges to provide individuals and small employers with access to insurance
• expansion of Medicaid coverage  

 

The federal government pledged to cover the cost of the most massive bureaucratic expansion of our health care system by an increase in tax revenues and reduction in spending on Medicare and other federal health programs.

According to the Congressional Budget Office estimates, Obamacare will add at least $1 trillion dollars to spending over the next ten years. Since we are already broke, do we really need more spending we cannot afford? 

As soon as Obamacare became law, the legal challenges began. Individuals, states, and other groups sued on constitutional grounds - the forced mandate for individuals to purchase health insurance being beyond Congress’s enumerated powers. The states sued because the expansion of Medicaid infringed on states’ rights, forcing them to accept “onerous conditions in exchange for federal funds.”

The Supreme Court issued on June 28, 2012 its decision on National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. The findings were as follows:

• “the individual mandate is a constitutional exercise of Congress’s authority to levy taxes”
• “the individual mandate is not a valid exercise of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause”
• “In regards to the Medicaid expansion, the federal government cannot terminate current Medicaid program federal matching funds if a state refuses to expand its Medicaid program”
• “If a state accepts the new Obamacare Medicaid expansion funds, it must abide by the new expansion coverage rules”
• A state can refuse to participate in the expansion without losing any of its current federal Medicaid matching funds”
• “All other provisions of Obamacare remain intact” (ACA: Summary, July 3, 2012)

The Supreme Court, using semantics in its decision, changed the law written and passed by Congress, making the individual mandate a “tax.” Justice Roberts used the opportunity to make his mark in “judicial activism from the bench” history, by siding with the liberals.

“While most of the major provisions of the law do not take effect until 2014, some provisions are already in place, with others to be phased in over the next few years,” more specifically, 2018. (CRS Report for Congress, July 3, 2012)

Temporary programs were created for “targeted groups.” These programs were responsible for the premium escalation of everybody’s health insurance since 2010. The targeted groups were:

• High-risk uninsured individuals with preexisting conditions
• Reinsurance program to reimburse employers for a portion of the health insurance claims costs for 55-64 year old retirees (unions must be protected)
• Small business tax credits for businesses with less than 25 full-time “equivalents” (FTEs), average wages below $50,000 who choose to offer health insurance.(suddenly, employees have become “equivalents” in federal jargon)
• Prior to 2014, “states may choose voluntarily to expand their Medicaid programs”

Private health insurance changes have taken effect and are responsible for such increase in premiums that eventually everybodywill be forced into the federal health exchanges, including “children” under the age of 26.

• Children under 19 cannot be denied insurance and benefits based on preexisting conditions
• Major medical plans cannot impose any lifetime dollar limits on essential health benefits and are prohibited from doing so beginning in 2014 (Does anyone believe that these companies will stay in business after 2014?)
• Preventive care with no cost sharing must be provided
• Coverage cannot be rescinded except in case of fraud
• Insurers must have an appeals process for coverage and claims (I thought that existed already, are they trying to reinvent the wheel?)
• Insurers have to limit the ratio of premiums spent on administrative costs v. medical costs – called the medical loss ratio, MLRs.

I predict that most private insurers will be pushed out of business. Americans will be forced into a government health insurance exchange, a privilege for which they will have to pay a tax determined by the omnipotent government. A 15-member bureaucratic death panel will deny as much medical care as possible based on age and utility of a “unit” (person) in order to save money.

Obamacare is so great that the ruling elites and Congress have exempted themselves from it. We will have a two tier healthcare system, just like under communism, the elites will have their private hospitals and polyclinics while the proletariat will become part of the exchanges where shortages, rationing, and denial of care will dominate.  

Health care will be financed, organized, and delivered according to the rules of the IRS and HHS. Poor families will receive subsidies to purchase coverage through health exchanges. Excise taxes will be imposed on those who can afford Cadillac plans. The tax code, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and other federal programs will be modified in order to reduce benefits for rationing purposes and to tax those able to pay more.

As enacted, Obamacare “requires state Medicaid programs to expand coverage to all eligible non-pregnant legal residents with incomes up to 133% of the federal poverty level, or risk losing their federal Medicaid matching funds.” The Supreme Court, however, found that the Medicaid expansion violated the Constitution. (CRS, p. 6)

Obamacare will make the doctor shortage worse. It has already caused the cancellation of many doctor-owned hospitals. Thousands of new bureaucrats will take over our health care system while the federal government will replace American trained physicians, who might leave the profession, with third world doctors. Plans to admit students to medical school based on racial and ethnic quotas and not merit, involving shorter training, will exacerbate the problem and deliver substandard care.

Doctors will be paid the same regardless of specialty and the government will set all doctors’ fees. (ACA, p. 241, p. 253)

Based on the Massachusetts model of Romneycare, the average wait to see a doctor will expand similarly from 33 days to over 55 days. Patients will have to pay for life-saving drugs but life-ending drugswill be free. If health care for everyone is important, shouldn’t life-saving drugs be free instead of life-ending drugs? 

The government will specify which doctors will write an end-of-life order. (p. 429) Patients on social security will be required to attend end-of-life planning seminars every five years, a sort of death counseling, and a mandated advanced-care planning consultation. (p. 425)

Oncology hospitals will ration cancer care according to the patient’s age. (p. 272, section 1145)

IRS will control the enforcing of Obamacare, have direct and mandated access to our bank accounts, will levy 20 new taxes, will control costs,  promote efficiency, and, in the process, will reduce our life expectancy by denying needed care - that will kill many Americans before their time.

IRS will have real-time access to an individual’s bank account and will have the authority to make electronic fund transfers from those accounts. (ACA, pp. 58-59)

The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation cost projections for Obamcare do not include the Supreme Court’s decision, which precludes HHS Secretary Sebelius from penalizing states that choose not to participate in the Medicaid expansion. (CRS Report, July 3, 2012, p. 5)

If a state decides not to implement the Medicaid expansion, “low-income adults below the poverty line who were not covered by, or eligible for, the state’s existing Medicaid program would in general be ineligible for the exchange subsidies.” (CRS Report, p. 8) 

Low-income Americans would have to pay for the health exchange out of their own pockets. The very people President Obama vowed to help with his mandate are now being taxed by his regime because they merely exist and the government knows what is best for them.

If the medical profession is allowed to unionize and thus strike, a new Pandora’s Box will be opened. Recently in the UK, unionized doctors and nurses went on strike, leaving patients without care,while scheduled surgeries were postponed.

David Martin, Executive President of the Media Research Center, said, “the media played a role in deceiving Americans about the impact of this horrific law, regurgitating verbatim every lie told by the Obama Administration. Every promise the media and the Obama Administration made about Obamacare – that it would make healthcare cheaper without increasing taxes or deficits, that you can keep your doctor, the businesses would not be hit with crippling regulations and taxes – has been broken.” (June 28, 2012)

Political pundits, liberals and RINOs, have attempted miserably to spin the Supreme Court’s decision in perplexing ways such as, Justice Roberts tricked the liberals by siding and voting with them, but he is such a brilliant and clever conservative. 

Interestingly, Senator Obama voted in 2005 against the man who saved his health care law. “The bottom line is this: I will be voting against John Roberts’ nomination.” Senator Obama continued, “I hope that his jurisprudence is one that stands up to the bullies of all ideological types.” Justice Robert’s “jurisprudence and outstanding legal thinking” did not stand up to liberal bullying and he voted against the productive Americans in our society.

Americans are not giving up. Orly Taitz filed aclass action suit on behalf of Christian and Jewish U.S citizens. 

“Healthcare Obama Tax is illegal as it violates Equal Protection Clause, Due Process Clause, Establishment Clause, and Free Exercise of Religion Clause of the U.S. Constitution by exempting Muslim citizens, and places a heavy tax burden on Christian and Jewish U.S. Citizens to pay a de facto Judeo-Christian Obama Tax not only for themselves, but also for Muslim citizens, who are exempt.” (July 5, 2012, 113-page complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California)

The stark truth in Realityville is that Obamacare is the biggest victory for President Obama, the biggest loss of personal freedom in America, the downgrading of medical care quality to levels of third world nations, the highest tax hike in the history of our country, and the biggest usurpation of our Constitution.

Columnist Note: Credit due to Honorable David Kithil of Marble Falls, Texas for providing specific page numbers from HB3200

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/47942

 

 

Why There Are No More Lumberjacks

Click Here to see "Why There Are No More Lumberjacks"...

It's called "creative destruction". A term coined by Joseph Schumpeter in his work entitled "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy" (1942) to denote a "process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one."

Creative destruction occurs when something new kills something older. A great example of this is personal computers. The industry, led by Microsoft and Intel, destroyed many mainframe computer companies, but in doing so, entrepreneurs created one of the most important inventions of this century.

Schumpeter goes so far as to say that the "process of creative destruction is the essential fact about capitalism."

Islam is Coming for America

Written by Geert Wilders

Thursday, 05 July 2012

[Last Saturday (6/30), Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders delivered this speech at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver, Colorado.] Thank you, dear friends, ladies and gentlemen, for inviting me to the Western Conservative Summit. It is always a pleasure to come to America. I was here a few weeks ago to meet with my dear friend, congresswoman Michele Bachmann, to talk about Islam and the threat to America and Europe. I feel honored to have been invited to address you today about the situation in Europe and in particular in my own country, the Netherlands. This situation serves as a warning to what might happen in America if you fail to be vigilant. As U.S. President Andrew Jackson said: "Remember, my fellow citizens, that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing." But first, let me start by introducing myself. I am one of the 150 members of the House of Representatives in the Netherlands, a small country of almost 17 million people in Western Europe. I am the leader of the Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid). My party is the third largest of eleven parties represented in the Dutch parliament. Perhaps many of you think that life for this politician in the Netherlands resembles the life of the members of your own Congress. Unfortunately, that is not the case. For the past eight years I have been living under 24 hour police protection. Wherever I go, plainclothes policemen go with me. I live in a government safe house, heavily protected and bulletproof. I am driven every day from the safe house to the Dutch parliament in armored police cars with flashing blue lights. I have not walked the streets on my own in the past eight years. When I occasionally go to a restaurant or a movie theater, the police will have to check everything first. My wife and I have lived in army barracks and prisons cells just to be safe from assassins. Why do I need this protection? I am not a president or a king; I am a mere parliamentarian. I have, however, been marked for death for criticizing Islam. I was placed under police protection in early November 2004 when an Islamic fanatic murdered th Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh because he had criticized Islam. Van Gogh was slaughtered in broad daylight in the streets of Amsterdam. A few hours later, the police found a letter written by the assassin threatening to kill me as well. What have I done, you might ask, to deserve those death threats? I have candidly expressed my views about Islam. My views, in a nutshell, are that Islam, rather than a religion, is predominantly a totalitarian ideology striving for world dominance. I believe that Islam and freedom are incompatible. Some people do not want to hear this message. That is why they threaten to murder everyone who states this truth. I am not the only one who has been marked for death. The British author Salman Rushdie, the Scandinavian cartoonists Kurt Westergaard and Lars Vilks have all been victims of assassination attempts. However, if you really love freedom, you have to speak the truth. If not, we will fall victim to Islam, like earlier the people in the Middle East, North Africa, Persia, India and Indonesia fell victim to it. That is why I spoke, why I speak and why I will continue speaking, whatever the consequences: I do not want Europe nor America to become Islamic. Before I continue I want to make clear that I do not have a problem with Moslems. There are many moderate Moslems. I always make a distinction between the people and the ideology, between Moslems and Islam. There are many moderate Moslems, but there is no such thing as a moderate Islam. There is only one Islam and it is a dangerous ideology. It is intolerant, it is violent. It should not be tolerated, but should be contained. In Europe, we are experiencing that as Islam becomes stronger in a society - even when the majority of Moslems are moderates - a society becomes less free and more intolerant of non- Moslems. Certain parts of our inner cities no longer look like Europe. They look like suburbs of Cairo, Rabat, Algiers, Damascus or Mecca. As the Moslem population is concentrated in urban areas, many European cities have very large Islamic concentrations. We are confronted with headscarves and burkas, polygamy, female genital mutilation, honor-killings. During the past three decades, Europe made a fatal mistake. It allowed millions of people from Islamic countries to immigrate into Europe. So many people rooted in a culture entirely different from our own Judeo-Christian and humanist tradition have entered Europe that our heritage, our freedoms, our prosperity and our culture are in danger. Perhaps, many Americans still believe that Europe is the place they know from a tourist trip or from their grandparents' stories. This Europe is on the verge of disappearing. "In each one of our cities" wrote the Italian author Oriana Fallaci shortly before her death in 2006, "there is a second city, a state within the state, a government within the government. A Moslem city, a city ruled by the Koran." Perhaps many Americans see immigration as something which is inherently good for a country, since it contributed so much to the United States. But while most of the former immigrants to the United States came from Europe, a continent with the same Judeo-Christian roots as America, Europe's contemporary immigrants do not share our common roots. On the contrary, the Islamization of our society is undermining our Western Judeo-Christian values. I am not just talking about the threat of terrorism or violence; there is also the phenomenon of non-violent jihad. Europe's increasingly assertive Islamic lobby has successfully pressured European politicians into implementing pro-Islamic policies and adopting elements of Islamic Sharia law. The number of people who organize their lives according to Islamic requirements is growing, especially among young people. Among 15-year-old German Moslems, 40 percent consider Islam more important than democracy. Among Moslem university students in Britain, 40 percent support Sharia. One in three of those students consider it legitimate to kill in the name of Islam. The rise of Islam also means the rise of Sharia law in our judicial systems. In Europe we have Sharia wills, Sharia schools, Sharia banks. The introduction of elements of Sharia law in our societies creates a system of legal apartheid. Sharia law systematically discriminates groups of people. I will give you some examples. Britain has official Sharia courts. One of these courts settled an inheritance dispute involving a man whose estate had to be divided between his children. It gave the sons twice as much as the daughters, in accordance with the Koranic pronouncement that a woman is only worth half a man. In my own country, the Netherlands, Sharia is being applied - I know that it is hard to believe but sadly it is true - by the Dutch courts. This is a disgrace. In our civilization, men and women are treated as equals before the law. Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake: Islam is also coming for America. Indeed, it has already arrived. Your country, too, is facing a stealth jihad - an Islamic attempt to introduce Sharia law bit by bit. Islam demands separate campus housing for Moslems; Islam demands that women have separate hours in gyms and swimming pools; schools are banning Christmas celebrations and are taking pork off their cafeteria menus to avoid offending Moslem students. And courts - even in America, we have seen an example in Florida - have begun to apply Sharia law. Be aware that this is only the beginning. If we do not stop the Islamization, we will lose everything: our identity, our culture, our democratic constitutional state, our freedom and our civilization. In Europe we are already losing the right to free speech, the right to criticize Islam. What we need, my friends, is a spirit of resistance. Resistance to evil is our moral duty. This resistance begins with expressing our solidarity to all Christians, all Jews, all non-Moslems, all Moslem apostates, all people, who are the victims of Islam. We can see what Islam has in store for us if we watch the fate of the Christians in the Islamic world, such as the Copts in Egypt, the Maronites in Lebanon, the Assyrians in Iraq, and Christians elsewhere, such as the brave Christian people in Nigeria. Almost every day, churches are arsoned and Christians are assassinated in Islamic countries. Even in so-called moderate countries such as Turkey and Indonesia, Christians face discrimination and humiliation on a daily basis. The cause of all this Christian suffering is Islam. Rivers of tears are flowing from the Middle East, where there is only one safe haven for Christians. Indeed, the only place in the Middle East where Christians are safe to be Christians is Israel. This is why Israel deserves the support of Christians worldwide. Israel is the canary in the coal mine. If Israel cannot exist in peace, none of us can. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. It is a safe haven for everyone. It is a beacon of light in an area of total darkness. If Israel falls, we, too, will feel the consequences. As a matter of fact Israel is fighting our fight. Mothers in the West can sleep safely because Israeli mothers at night worry about their sons in the army. We all are Israel. We should all support Israel because Islam's so-called "holy war" against Israel is a war against all of us. In March 2008, I released Fitna, a 15 minute documentary about the Koran and the threat of Islamization in the Netherlands. While at that time I was invited by Senator Jon Kyl to show Fitna to colleagues in the US Senate, the screening of my movie was banned by the European Parliament. The British government even barred me from entering the United Kingdom on the day that I was invited to show Fitna in the House of Lords. Later in 2008, leftist, liberal and Islamic organizations in the Netherlands brought me to court over Fitna. They accused me of group insult and incitement to hatred and discrimination. I was prosecuted for merely stating my opinion about Islam. Fortunately, I was acquitted on all charges, but the legal ordeal lasted almost three years. Imagine a member of parliament having to deal with a court case for 3 years. That is an enormous cost of time, energy and money. The court ultimately acquitted me because I had criticized Islam, not Moslems, and because, as an elected politician participating in a public debate, I was entitled to greater freedom of speech than everyday citizens. Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, it is important that we realize how the West got into the present situation. It is partly our own fault because we have foolishly adopted the ideology of multiculturalism. I use the term "multiculturalism" to refer to cultural relativism. This is the biggest disease of politically correct Europe and even America today. This is the crazy idea that all cultures are equal. Of course they are not. Our culture based on Christianity, Judaism and humanism is far better, far superior to the Islamic culture. We should not be afraid but proud to say so. Cultural relativism is weakening the West day by day. Government leaders, lawyers, judges, churches, trade unions, media, academia, charities - all of them are blinded by political correctness and are condoning Islam. As a result of cultural relativism a little bit of the free West dies each day. Multiculturalism is a disaster. Multiculturalism has been such an enormous catastrophe because it has been a tool to promote Islam - an ideology that threatens our core values, such as tolerance. Multiculturalism made us open our borders to those who cannot be assimilated; it made us tolerate the intolerant, and now intolerance is annihilating tolerance. We should, in the name of tolerance, claim the right not to tolerate the people who are intolerant to us anymore; we should, in the name of self-preservation, not allow those who refuse to assimilate to our values to enter our countries anymore. My dear friends, I am not a pessimist. We can still turn the tide - even in Europe - if we act today. There are four measures that we must take. First, we must tell people what is at stake. In Western Europe freedom of speech is being restricted at the demand of adherents of Islam and their collaborators. If Christianity is insulted it is considered a form of art, if Islam is insulted it is hate crime. There is reason for concern if the erosion of our freedom of speech is the price we must pay to accommodate Islam. There is reason for concern if those who deny that Islam is a problem do not grant us the right to debate the issue and speak the truth. This is our first and most important obligation: Defend the right to speak what we see as the truth. That is why we in Europe need to follow America's example and introduce a European First Amendment. But once we have the right to speak the truth, we need to use that right. The latter is also a message to you in America: Speak the truth, even when it's uncomfortable, even when it's not politically correct, even if we receive death threats. The truth cannot be compromised. Second, we must end cultural relativism. We should not be afraid to say who we are and to know who we are not. We must proudly proclaim that our Judeo-Christian values are far better and superior than the Islamic values. Third, we must stop the Islamization process. More Islam means more intolerance, more Sharia and less freedom. We must stop immigration from Islamic countries, we must expel criminal immigrants, we must forbid the construction of new mosques. There is enough Islam in the West already. Fourth, we must take pride in our nations again. We must demand that immigrants accept our values, and not the other way round. What we call home is more than a place on the map. It is our belonging to a community of values, a community of ideas and ideals. My friends, you and I, Americans and Europeans, we belong to a common Western culture. We share the values and ideals of our common heritage. In order to preserve our nations and  our homes, in order to pass our heritage on to our children, in order to survive, we must stand together. Otherwise we will be submerged in the uniform Nation of Islam. That is what we do not want to happen. Indeed, we must defend our own civilization. Ronald Reagan said that "the future doesn't belong to the fainthearted." And Reagan was right. We must be brave, or we will be swamped by totalitarianism. It is a constant struggle to preserve our faith, our family, our freedom. But we owe it to our children. That is why we must stand firm. We will not submit to Islam. Never. We will survive with our own Judeo-Christian heritage. We will defend our freedoms. We will speak the truth. Because we stand for the truth. And the truth will set us free. Thank you. Geert Wilders is the author of Marked For Death, and producer of Fitna, and extraordinary documentary about Islam (link is to the full 15-minute video).  He is the Parliamentary Leader of the Freedom Party in the Dutch House of Representatives.

Why We Hate Bankers II

Jamie Dimon Is Not Alone

During the financial crisis, at least 18 former and current directors from Federal Reserve Banks worked in banks and corporations that collectively received over $4 trillion in low-interest loans from the Federal Reserve.

Jamie Dimon, the Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase, has served on the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since 2007. During the financial crisis, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with $391 billion in total financial assistance. JP Morgan Chase was also used by the Fed as a clearinghouse for the Fed’s emergency lending programs.

In March of 2008, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with $29 billion in financing to acquire Bear Stearns. During the financial crisis, the Fed provided JP Morgan Chase with an 18-month exemption from risk-based leverage and capital requirements. The Fed also agreed to take risky mortgage-related assets off of Bear Stearns balance sheet before JP Morgan Chase acquired this troubled investment bank.

Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, served on the New York Fed’s Board of Directors from 2006-2011. General Electric received $16 billion in low-interest financing from the Federal Reserve’s Commercial Paper Funding Facility during this time period.

Stephen Friedman. In 2008, the New York Fed approved an application from Goldman Sachs to become a bank holding company giving it access to cheap Fed loans. During the same period, Friedman, who was chairman of the New York Fed at the time, sat on the Goldman Sachs board of directors and owned Goldman stock, something the Fed’s rules prohibited. He received a waiver in late 2008 that was not made public. After Friedman received the waiver, he continued to purchase stock in Goldman from November 2008 through January of 2009 unbeknownst to the Fed, according to the GAO. During the financial crisis, Goldman Sachs received $814 billion in total financial assistance from the Fed.

Sanford Weill, the former CEO of Citigroup, served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in New York in 2006. During the financial crisis, Citigroup received over $2.5 trillion in total financial assistance from the Fed.

Richard Fuld, Jr, the former CEO of Lehman Brothers, served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in New York from 2006 to 2008. During the financial crisis, the Fed provided $183 billion in total financial assistance to Lehman before it collapsed.

James M. Wells, the Chairman and CEO of SunTrust Banks, has served on the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta since 2008. During the financial crisis, SunTrust received $7.5 billion in total financial assistance from the Fed.

Richard Carrion, the head of Popular Inc. in Puerto Rico, has served on the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since 2008. Popular received $1.2 billion in total financing from the Fed’s Term Auction Facility during the financial crisis.

James Smith, the Chairman and CEO of Webster Bank, served on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Directors in Boston from 2008-2010. Webster Bank received $550 million in total financing from the Federal Reserve’s Term Auction Facility during the financial crisis.

Ted Cecala, the former Chairman and CEO of Wilmington Trust, served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in Philadelphia from 2008-2010. Wilmington Trust received $3.2 billion in total financial assistance from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis.

Robert Jones, the President and CEO of Old National Bancorp, has served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in St. Louis since 2008. Old National Bancorp received a total of $550 million in low-interest loans from the Federal Reserve’s Term Auction Facility during the financial crisis.

James Rohr, the Chairman and CEO of PNC Financial Services Group, served on the Fed’s Board of Directors in Cleveland from 2008-2010. PNC received $6.5 billion in low-interest loans from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis.

George Fisk, the CEO of LegacyTexas Group, was a director at the Dallas Federal Reserve in 2009. During the financial crisis, his firm received a $5 million low-interest loan from the Federal Reserve’s Term Auction Facility.

Dennis Kuester, the former CEO of Marshall & Ilsley, served as a board director on the Chicago Federal Reserve from 2007-2008. During the financial crisis, his bank received over $21 billion in low-interest loans from the Fed.

George Jones, Jr., the CEO of Texas Capital Bank, has served as a board director at the Dallas Federal Reserve since 2009. During the financial crisis, his bank received $2.3 billion in total financing from the Fed’s Term Auction Facility.

Douglas Morrison, was the Chief Financial Officer at CitiBank in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, while he served as a board director at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank in 2006. During the financial crisis, CitiBank in Sioux Falls, South Dakota received over $21 billion in total financing from the Federal Reserve.

L. Phillip Humann, the former CEO of SunTrust Banks, served on the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta from 2006-2008. During the financial crisis, SunTrust received $7.5 billion in total financial assistance from the Fed.

Henry Meyer, III, the former CEO of KeyCorp, served on the Board of Directors at the Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland from 2006-2007. During the financial crisis, KeyBank (owned by KeyCorp) received over $40 billion in total financing from the Federal Reserve.

Ronald Logue, the former CEO of State Street Corporation, served as a board member of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank from 2006-2007. During the financial crisis, State Street Corporation received a total of $42 billion in financing from the Federal Reserve.

US Senator Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.)
Washington, DC
June 12, 2012

Why We Hate Bankers

Casino Capitalists Playing with Fire

By Pat Buchanan

Comes now news from across the pond that executives at one of the world’s most respected banks, Barclays, rigged Libor. Even the venerable Bank of England is apparently being investigated. 

For sports fans, this is like fixing the Super Bowl or doping a horse in the Derby. But it is rather more serious. For the London Interbank Offered Rate is the benchmark interest rate for trillions in loans around the world.

Manipulate Libor a small fraction of a point, and lenders reap millions more in interest income on hundreds of billions in loans. 

How many more such blows to their credibility can the financial elites sustain before people turn on the capitalist system itself? 

Recall. Three years into the Great Depression, the Republican Party – America’s Party since Abraham Lincoln’s time – was crushed by FDR. Socialist Norman Thomas won 900,000 votes in 1932. Communist William Z. Foster won more than 100,000. 

Charging “money-changers in the temple of our civilization” with moral culpability, FDR became the century’s most successful politician.

Demagogic, perhaps, but in 1936 FDR would carry every state but Maine and Vermont. 

In recent decades, a series of shocks has fertilized the ground for a populist assault on global capitalism. In Europe, radical parties of the right and left are rising – to overthrow the establishment center. 

Manifest incompetence is but one cause of the sinking confidence in our financial elite. In the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, our idiot-bankers had to be bailed out with Brady bonds. In 1995, one year after NAFTA passed, Mexico threatened to default. Goldman Sachs was bailed out of its huge Mexican exposure by a loyal alumnus, Treasury’s Robert Rubin, who dipped into the U.S. Exchange Stabilization Fund. 

Mexico devalued and began dumping winter vegetables into the United States, wiping out Florida producers, as U.S. plants moved south to exploit the newly cheapened Mexican labor. 

In the Asian debt crisis of the 1990s, Rubin and Alan Greenspan led the bailouts. Asia’s nations devalued and began exporting heavily to the United States to earn the dollars to pay back their loans. 

Who paid for that bailout? U.S. workers who lost manufacturing jobs when cheap Asian goods poured into the U.S. market, forcing the closure of U.S. factories. 

The Great Recession of 2008-2012, too, is the creation of a financial elite and political class who have largely escaped its consequences. 

George W. Bush and Congress pushed banks to make home loans to individuals who were credit risks. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bought up the subprime mortgages and bundled them together into securities. Big banks traded them like gilt-edged bonds. When the whole house of paper collapsed in 2008, the banks screamed: “We’re too big to fail. If we go down, the country goes down.” 

They were rescued. The Fed bought up the bad paper, tripled the money supply and lent at near zero interest to the banks. Profits soared. 

But Middle America was not rescued. Middle America has gone through four years of deprivation without precedent since the 1930s. 

But now something beyond the incompetence of the financial elite and the big banks may be putting capitalism in peril – an unmistakable odor of amorality, sleaziness and corruption. 

With the “Robber Barons,” one could see a connection between the wealth of the Rockefellers, Harrimans, Carnegies and Henry Ford, and their contributions. 

Railroads were tying America together. Oil was fueling industry. America was surpassing Britain in steel production. Ford was putting the nation on wheels. When J.P. Morgan took to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in 1907 to issue a buy order, he stopped a panic. 

There was perceived to be a connection between the wealth of these men and their achievements. They were helping make America the most awesome industrial nation known to man. 

But as scholar William Quirk writes in his essay “Saving the Big Casino,” our big banks now seem to rise and fall on profits and losses from the trading of “derivatives,” “credit default swaps” and “exotic securities” that not one man in a thousand understands. 

Fortunes are lost and made overnight. Names appear on the list of richest Americans no one has ever heard of. Cheating and corner-cutting are constantly being unearthed. Broker- and banker-gamblers in their 30s amass and flaunt nine-figure fortunes. 

Were the rest of America doing well, this might not matter. 

But America is not doing well. And Americans are coming to believe that a system where high-rollers rake in tens of millions playing Monopoly while workers who build things and make things never see a pay raise is rigged and wrong. 

Few begrudge a Bill Gates his fortune. But where vast wealth accrues to people whose actions seem unrelated to any contribution to society or country, and to have come simply from rigging the system for their own benefit, that system will not endure. 

Our casino capitalists are playing with fire.