Where is the indignation?

[clover]

http://money.cnn.com/2001/11/26/401k/q_retire_enron_re/

[rykat]

wanna sit down at the card table better be prepared to hold em or fold em, HEH?
Any gun to head forcing purchase of company stock? I didnt think so. f'em!

[ragman]

Clover, Then you agree with the President.  The American people are too stupid to make their own decisions and must be protected from cradle to grave.     With freedom to make decisions sometimes comes failure.  Who in their right mine would but their entire retirement savings in one stock and think that is a good idea?  The normal max is about 4% unless you really have good information and then it may be 10% for any prudent investor. 

Don't worry though the government will show you how to invest.  We all they they are very good at handling money.  Besides that I would say that the real reason may be to get additional funds to purchase Treasuries.  Didn't China sell 45 Billion in Treasuries last week?  What if that kept up? 

[clover]

The latest scheme.  The government is thinking of requiring a portion of everyones' IRA & 401K to be in Treasuries through an annuity. This proposed confiscation of our monies to this new annuity program was discovered by a person who found that the Department of Labor and Treasury have issued a request for information this week and requested public comments.  The public comment period began on January 27th and will last 90 days. http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache%3AJGTZjNozNXEJ%3Awww.dol.gov%2Ffederalregister%2FPdfDisplay.aspx%3FDocId%3D23512+request+for+information+regarding+lifetime+income+options+for+participants+and+beneficiaries&hl=en&gl=us  

I read that entire link and did not see one reference to "the President". So how could I be accused of agreeing with the President?  
This scheme was one of the 8 put forth by the Bush administration between 2003-2008 to attempt to fix some of the tremendous debt run up over the last 10 years.  Americans didn't like it then................maybe they'll just wait until China cashes in it's marker before they realize they're Americans first.
I don't trust big business at all, nor do I trust big government as the end all to our financial woes.  However, if they were to create a plan where this program was truly a Trust, where the funds couldn't be touched by Congress, it might be one of the best deals in town.

Besides.....the organizations are looking for comments and input.   When it turns into a bill and goes to the floor for a vote is when this idea becomes reality.  Until the it's just a vehicle for the crazies to stir more unfounded conspiracies for the Glenn Beck show

 
 

[ragman]

Clover,  Well I stated that I didn't believe it would go forward.  However do I have to remind you again that the debt in the last year makes Bush look like a cheap skate.  Further more you have been reminded many times that a lot of us are not happy with the amount of money that was spent under Bush. 

I think it is safe to say "the President" when this administration embarks on a measure like this.  Especially seeing that the last President would have got blamed if your toilet didn't flush properly.    

Anyway the news cycle was a little slow but this bares watching. 

[ragman]

The latest indignation:

Mohegan Sun Casino Owners Received $54 Million In Stimulus Money
Indian Tribe That Runs Connecticut Casino Earning $1 Billion-Plus Per Year Got Government Check
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/mohegan-sun-casino-owners-received-54-million-stimulus/story?id=10889408

Now does this seem like a good use of our money?    

[ragman]

The government at its finess.     Do you thing it might work?   
I'll tell you one way to save money, STOP SPENDING!  OTO = Clueless

Obama to agencies: Don't pay dead people
By MARK S. SMITH
Associated Press Writer
June 18, 2010 3:24 PMWASHINGTON — Here's an idea, Uncle Sam: Stop writing checks to dead people.

The government sent benefit checks to 20,000 departed Americans over three years, totaling more than $180 million — a remarkable number that provoked the Obama administration to create a government-wide "do not pay" list as part of its brainstorming for ways to save taxpayer money.

[azbob]

Yea and every other front they are having a "brain fart"!

[Pugwash]

I don't trust big business at all, nor do I trust big government as the end all to our financial woes.  However, if they were to create a plan where this program was truly a Trust, where the funds couldn't be touched by Congress, it might be one of the best deals in town.

You mean something like the Social Security proposal that allowed individuals to control their own monies under accounts linked to their social security numbers?

Whatever happened to that idea anyway...how come it didn't get passed, it was one of Bushes better moments

It was just a small portion, and was voluntary, but the Fvcking Democrats shot it down in a heartbeat...couldn't possibly let the little people have any control of their own money......

[azbob]

Pug, do you mean the "small people" rather than "little people"?  I'm so freaking big neither one fits!!

[clover]

You mean something like the Social Security proposal that allowed individuals to control their own monies under accounts linked to their social security numbers?

Whatever happened to that idea anyway...how come it didn't get passed, it was one of Bushes better moments

It was just a small portion, and was voluntary, but the Fvcking Democrats shot it down in a heartbeat...couldn't possibly let the little people have any control of their own money......

Blame it on the democrats.......absolutely ludicrous.  Prove your point....if you can! LOL

[martinbsmithjr]

I could not agree with Barone more......



Obama's thuggery is useless in fighting spill
By: MICHAEL BARONE
Senior Political Analyst
June 20, 2010

President Barack Obama waves as he exits Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., on Friday. (Cliff Owen/AP)

Thuggery is unattractive. Ineffective thuggery even more so. Which may be one reason so many Americans have been reacting negatively to the response of Barack Obama and his administration to BP's Gulf oil spill.

Take Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's remark that he would keep his "boot on the neck" of BP, which brings to mind George Orwell's definition of totalitarianism as "a boot stamping on a human face -- forever." Except that Salazar's boot hasn't gotten much in the way of results yet.

Or consider Obama's undoubtedly carefully considered statement to Matt Lauer that he was consulting with experts "so I know whose ass to kick." Attacking others is a standard campaign tactic when you're in political trouble, and certainly BP, which appears to have taken unwise shortcuts in the Gulf, is an attractive target.

But you don't always win arguments that way. The Obama White House gleefully took on Dick Cheney on the issue of terrorist interrogations. It turned out that more Americans agreed with Cheney's stand, despite his low poll numbers, than Obama's.

Then there is Obama's decision to impose a six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf. This penalizes companies with better safety records than BP's and will result in many advanced drilling rigs being sent to offshore oil fields abroad.

The justification offered was an Interior Department report supposedly "peer reviewed" by "experts identified by the National Academy of Engineering." But it turned out the drafts the experts saw didn't include any recommendation for a moratorium. Eight of the cited experts have said they oppose the moratorium as more economically devastating than the oil spill and "counterproductive" to safety.

This was blatant dishonesty by the administration, on an Orwellian scale. In defense of a policy that has all the earmarks of mindless panic, that penalizes firms and individuals guilty of no wrongdoing and that will worsen rather than improve our energy situation. Ineffective thuggery.

And what about the decision not to waive the Jones Act, which bars foreign-flag vessels from coming to the aid of the Gulf cleanup? The Bush administration promptly waived it after Katrina in 2005. The Obama administration hasn't and claims unconvincingly that, gee, there aren't really any foreign vessels that could help.

The more plausible explanation is that this is a sop to the maritime unions, part of the union movement that gave Obama and other Democrats $400 million in the 2008 campaign cycle. It's the Chicago way: Dance with the girl that brung ya.

Or the decision to deny Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's proposal to deploy barges to skim oil from the Gulf's surface. Can't do that until we see if they've got enough life preservers and fire equipment. That inspired blogger Rand Simberg to write a blog post he dated June 1, 1940: "The evacuation of British and French troops from the besieged French city of Dunkirk was halted today, over concerns that many of the private vessels that had been deployed for the task were unsafe for troop transport."

Finally, the $20 billion escrow fund that Obama pried out of the BP treasury at the White House when he talked for the first time, 57 days after the rig exploded, with BP Chairman Tony Hayward. It's pleasing to think that those injured by BP will be paid off speedily, but House Republican Joe Barton had a point, though an impolitic one, when he called this a "shakedown."

For there already are laws in place that insure that BP will be held responsible for damages and the company has said it will comply. So what we have is government transferring property from one party, an admittedly unattractive one, to others, not based on pre-existing laws but on decisions by one man, pay czar Kenneth Feinberg.

Feinberg gets good reviews from everyone. But the Constitution does not command "no person . . . shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law except by the decision of a person as wise and capable as Kenneth Feinberg." The Framers stopped at "due process of law."

Obama doesn't. "If he sees any impropriety in politicians ordering executives about, upstaging the courts and threatening confiscation, he has not said so," write the editors of the Economist, who then suggest that markets see Obama as "an American version of Vladimir Putin." Except that Putin is an effective thug.

[clover]

More twisted and distorted opinions from the far right.   There are too many points to dispute in that article to even begin......but just one point.........would you go out to sea in a boat without life preservers and fire extinguishers?  I doubt it.     

Keep carping.

[ragman]

More twisted and distorted opinions from the far right.   There are too many points to dispute in that article to even begin......but just one point.........would you go out to sea in a boat without life preservers and fire extinguishers?  I doubt it.     

Keep carping.

  I believe the Coast Guard issue was that they wouldn't let them leave port until they had an official inspection.  They probably had the required safety equipment but not the inspection.  In this case they should probably have supplied them with any gear necessary so they could get on with it. 

The point is that there is no urgency to this issue.  There is no one person in charge who is cutting through the red tape to get the job done.  The issue with the help from foreign vessels shows where this administrations priorities are.    (protect the union vote the hell with the pelicans, they don't vote)

[clover]

B#tching about the government is a popular pastime.  You are right though ragman.  There should just be one ogre in charge to bitch about.  Someone like Dick Cheney would be great....everyone hates him already. 

Then we could cry about government over reach.....or not enough over reach.  By the way.....the Iranians offered to come and help too

PS  From what I saw on the news the people cleanin da beach ain't in no union.....dat is unless you call Prince Hall a union