After agreements were made in Congress for the new financial reform bill, Obama is now proposing a new bank tax. This will affect finanical companies with more than $50 billion and hedge funds with more than $10 billion. In his weekly address Obama said that this was to make sure than taxpayers got back every dime from the bailouts they handed out in 2008 and 2009. The tax is projected to generate roughly $90 billion in revenues over its 10 year life span.

Considering that TARP, which was the main bailout bill cost taxpayers $700 billion, I don’t see how $90 billion is going to get us “every dime” back. It seems to me there are a lot of dimes still out there. Moreover, most financial institutions have already paid back they’re TARP bailouts, with interest. Why tax them now for bailouts? Why not tax GM or Chrysler, the institutions that still are borrowing TARP funds?

Also, why is he targeting hedge funds if the purpose is to repay the taxpayers from bailouts? Name one hedge fund that got TARP money specifically? It doesn’t exist. This is typical misdirection by Obama.

The new financial reform bill is the second time barack has pulled this trick. He makes a bill 2,000 pages long, no one reads it, no one knows whats in it, and demands a vote. Once independent Americans take a look and see whats in the bill they are horrified and flood Congress with calls not to vote for it. Obama presses on anyway and all sorts of back rooom deals are cut and strong arm tactics used.

I sincerely hope that this bill doesn’t make it through Congress. Though I haven’t read it, it no doubt will contain sweeping new powers for the government to come in and take over operations and companies with vague pretenses. A “power grab” as drudge has on his website.

Barney Frank was the main arcitecht of the bill. The same one that forced all these subprime loans to be made which destroyed fannie mae and freddie mac. Why anyone would turn the reins of financial reform over to him is beyond me. He hasn’t been right on anything financial or otherwise in his entire career.

There are a lot of people that talk about abolishing the Federal Reserve System, especially on the right. It appears to be a fanciful idea, mainly because the Fed is a very well established part of our economy. It is also one of the more misunderstood parts of our government because of its shadowy nature.

Most people don’t even know that it exists. They see it on our paper currency and don’t realize what it means. The Federal Reserve System is made up of 12 banks scattered across the country. It is the United States central bank. It was made this way because the US public did not want a central bank, and this was the politicians way of hiding that fact.

It is also technically a private bank. This is because the constitution forbids this emittance of bills of credit (Article I Section 10). Very clever. The federal reserve creates for an average America a very serious problem. Inflation.

The Federal Reserve bank buys bonds from the US Treasury. The money is printed out of thin air. Just like the money we have earned through hard work, the federal reserve creates out of nothing. This significantly reduces the value of our hard work. Therein lies the problem. Our hard work is made to be worth less than it was the day before. Another way of saying that is inflation.

This creates a very real problem. Over the course of say 10 years with a modest 3% inflation compounded, our money has lost over a third of its value! Its simple math. How can someone retire with that much of their wealth being lost? They can’t, at least not without investing their money.

When you invest your money, your hoping to make money. In either case, your risking what you have saved in order to keep up with inflation. That risk can be very real. You are trusting someone else with your hard earned dollars to make you money, and he or she gets a fee. Ask anyone invested be Bernard Madoff if that isn’t a real risk.

The point of all of this is, if we didnt have a federal reserve and instead had a stable curreny, we wouldn’t have this problem. Some people would invest their money but some would also be able to keep their money in very safe cash or cash equivalents and not care that they’re making zero interest. Unfortunately that isn’t an option in today’s world, no matter where you have your money.

It seems that criticizing Obama is a firing offense in the military. Despite numerous apologies, McCrystal was replaced by David Petreaus to lead the Afgan war.

Obama had nothing but glowing words for Petreaus, which is very interesting considering the dressing down he gave him while he was still a US Senator. Below is a youtube video of Obama questioning Petraeus in a Senate hearing, he does praise him initially, but then goes right in and says he’s wasting his time there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIUej6VJzII

Brearucratic ignorance has come to define Obama’s handling of the Gulf oil spill. He seems to be so ineffectual as a leader that he cannot get anything accomplished. Let BP cap the well, they alone know how to do that. The government’s job is to cleap up and prevent damage if possible.

That means sand berms to precent oil from washing ashore. I have heard the lefts agruements against building the berms. They are based solely on conspiracy theories or junk science. The only reason they oppose them is to defend Obama, and that is dangerous to the people that live in the gulf. These berms mean saving them from real destruction, real loss of wildlife.

This latest case is a great example. According to Ace of Spades : “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department says that the current location of the dredging could change the salinity of the water and do other things to kill off wildlife. So they want the dredging site moved another two miles offshore.”

Under the best conditions, this will take weeks. Meanwhile thousands of barrels of oil will do a lot more than change the salinity of the water. I always find articles like this so hard to believe. How can anyone be so stupid?

The meeting between the General and Obama is over, yet we have not heard any word on if he’s going to be fired. McCrystal under fire for the Rolling Stone magazine article that was very critical of key figures in Obama’s regime. The met for approximately a half hour according to the AP. Also according to the AP, McCrystal did not attend the Afganistan strategy session at the White House.

That he did not attend the strategy session is not good news for him keeping his job. Since he is the commander on the ground, one would expect his input. Still there has been no official word. Obama probably doesn’t have a replacement lined up that he likes, and therefore doesn’t want to announce that he is firing him.

The truth is, if he doesn’t fire him, he will look incredibly weak and stupid. If he does fire him, he is losing a general that was very well liked by the Afgan president Karzai. I fear that Obama’s ego is more important to him than having a sucessful outcome in Afganistan, but time will tell.

This new one over remarks he made which ended up in a Rolling Stone article. I really dont have an answer as to why the Rolling Stone Magazine is writing articles about him, but thats a different matter.

My favorite part was when one of McChrystal’s aides called Obama’s National Security Advisor a “clown”. The troubling part is, he definately is a clown. So are all the other figures in his White House. They sit around all day and have meetings and think they’ve accomplished something. They are wrapped up in their own self importance that they can’t see past themselves.

It will be interesting to see if he gets fired. I have a feeling if he does, he won’t go away, rather he will be a thorn in Obama’s side in media outlets for a long time to come. I really like this guy for some reason.

In what seems to be a trial ballon story (put out a rumor and see how it goes) the White House is blasting reports that Rahm Emanuel is leaving the regime. Of course they are. It looks terrible for them.

The stock market has been on a recent uptick. It has been going on since June 7th. The market had a terrbile May, losing all of the ground it gained over the year. Then in the first week of June it went into negative territory. It hit bottom June 7th and hasn’t stopped rising since. These would be the major us stock indexes, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500.

The real question I have is why. Why is the stock market rising amid such poor economic data? I have not been a part of the stock market since early this year. I don’t like the way the market it moving. There doesn’t seem to be a reason why it is going up. The markets went down in March because of problems in Europe. Now with the problems unresolved, the market continues to rise.

I follow Jim Cramer, he seems to think that most of it is because of high frequency trading hedge funds. I’m not so sure. I think it may play a role, but those funds are too small to have that big of a difference in entire stock market. I believe there will be a general decline in the market. It has to go down. I’m not betting short, I’m staying in fixed income.

This was the point of an article published in the Telegraph late last night, or early morning in England. It seems Obama’s boys aren’t getting along that well. Rahm is frustrated by the idealistically left wing lunatics that currently occupy Barack’s inner circle of advisors. That’s scary. Rahm is too middle of the road for Obama’s real agenda.

This presents a lot of problems for the Obama Regime. First is that his number one operative is leaving. Rahm had a lot of influence in congress. Bottom line is that all of Obama’s legislative acheivements (like health care) would not have happened without him. There really isn’t a good replacement for him, not yet at least. Obama will flounder without him, mark my words. His legislative agenda will be taken over by his idealistic core group and nothing will get pushed through. The will refuse to compromise, and by extension, refuse to get anything passed.

The second, and perhaps more important problem is that it shows that Obama’s regime is falling apart. Obama cannot handle an executive position. He doesn’t have the experience. He is making mistakes, and can hardly be blamed, he is making them for the first time. An experienced exec made these kind of mistakes when he was in a far less public position. Rahm Emanuel represented the most veteran part of Obama’s gang.

His departure will be devastating for Obama. He was probably the key executive. The kind of executive you tie into the company so that he will never leave.