Obama State of the Union

[c1ue]

Looks like more of the same - although Obama's promises are not notably reliable:

1) FIRE on the rise again: more mortgage subsidies
2) Loss making, cost increasing solar and wind apparently to continue their subsidies
3) War on Terror to continue unabated

Some small rays of light: talk about infrastructure rebuilding. Unfortunately it is coupled with public/private talk - while this might be good, this might also be an excuse to sell off public assets to become private toll roads.

What do you think?

[vinoveri]

Re: Obama State of the Union

Looks like more of the same - although Obama's promises are not notably reliable:

1) FIRE on the rise again: more mortgage subsidies
2) Loss making, cost increasing solar and wind apparently to continue their subsidies
3) War on Terror to continue unabated

Some small rays of light: talk about infrastructure rebuilding. Unfortunately it is coupled with public/private talk - while this might be good, this might also be an excuse to sell off public assets to become private toll roads.

What do you think?

Sorry, didn't watch it (nor the repubs). I've lost any belief in the "good faith/will" of most of our political class and so view any speeches as simply political platforms to assuage the public, and in this case no substance and more lies. Frankly, I'm not smart enough to parse through the lies and BS to figure out what they are really saying so just ignore and watch actual legislation/regulation/enforcement instead which tells the story.

[wayiwalk]

Re: Obama State of the Union

I'm in the same boat - a non-watcher. Used to tune in to these, but I no longer can justify wasting my time watching these spectacles.

[lektrode]

Re: Obama State of the Union

I'm in the same boat - a non-watcher. Used to tune in to these, but I no longer can justify wasting my time watching these spectacles.

+1
just more made for TV drivel...

personally i prefer to read the reaction by the chattering class - as this provides one with perspective from which to understand whats going on (why i like to hang out here) - i also think its better to ignore what the polical class says and watch what they actually do - like this piece at wsj.com today, just for instance:

• Updated February 12, 2013, 7:39 p.m. ET

From the Citi to the Caymans

Jack Lew rehabilitates what Obama once called a notorious 'tax scam.'


No matter how Jack Lew performs at his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, his nomination to be Treasury Secretary has already produced one big winner: the Cayman Islands. The Caribbean low-tax haven is getting a political rehabilitation thanks to Mr. Lew's participation in a Cayman-based fund he invested in while working at Citigroup C -0.06% from 2006-2008.
For years Democrats have denounced the Caymans, which has no corporate income tax, as a refuge for tax cheats. In 2012 President Obama ripped Mitt Romney for investments based there. But now an Obama spokesman suggests that Mr. Lew's Caymans investment, a Citigroup fund he chose to invest in, was a model of transparency and says that "Jack Lew paid all of his taxes and reported all of the income, gains and losses from the investment on his tax returns."

Wednesday's hearing might even restore the good name of Ugland House, a small Caymans building that Democrats made famous as the legal home to thousands of businesses and investment partnerships—including Mr. Lew's. Mr. Obama has called Ugland an "outrage" and a "tax scam." Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, who will preside over the Lew festivities, devoted an entire hearing to Ugland House in 2008 and said that businesses maintain legal residences there for reasons that "have a lot to do with tax evasion." Tax evasion is a felony.

One might therefore expect that the appointment of an investor in an Ugland-based fund to oversee the IRS would cause Mr. Baucus to blow a gasket.

But on Monday the Montana Democrat expressed his hope that Mr. Lew would be "quickly confirmed."
Sounds like Ugland and its virtual residents are now off the political hook, as Democrats acknowledge that U.S. investors like Mr. Lew are paying the U.S. taxes they owe. That may be true, but it does raise a practical question. If U.S. investors owe taxes on their Caymans investments, then why did this fund for employees at Mr. Lew's New York-based Citigroup need to be located there?

Citigroup declines to answer. It's possible the Caymans was chosen to help Citi's foreign executives avoid taxes in their home countries. But it's also possible the legal structure helped American Citibankers avoid some tax exposure, too.
Enlarge Image


Reuters

Treasury Secretary nominee Jack Lew

Our legal sources say that venture-capital funds like Mr. Lew's will often use a Caymans vehicle so that any non-U.S. investments will more easily avoid being characterized as "controlled foreign corporations" (CFCs). If a venture fund owns more than 50% of a CFC, then U.S. investors might have to report as income some of the CFC's income, even if it hadn't been distributed to the fund or its investors.

Speaking of income, Senators may also want to ask about the last paycheck Mr. Lew received from Citigroup. On January 15, 2009, after Citi had received taxpayer bailouts of $45 billion in cash, and hundreds of billions more in loans and guarantees, Mr. Lew received a payment of $944,518. As he was about to join the Obama Administration, he received this sum for "salary, payout for vested restricted stock, discretionary cash compensation for work performed in 2008," according to a disclosure report he signed in 2010.

Thus some—perhaps most—of this money was a bonus for Mr. Lew's work in 2008. Did Mr. Lew feel guilty signing the back of a bonus check of almost $1 million underwritten by middle-class American taxpayers?

Mr. Lew's supporters say he didn't know much about the mortgage bets that sank Citigroup because he oversaw things like human resources and technology. But a 2008 Citigroup organization chart provided by a Senate aide says that as chief operating officer of Citigroup's Alternative Investments division, Mr. Lew also oversaw boxes labeled "Finance," "Illiquid Operations" and "Liquid Operations." Perhaps Mr. Lew can illuminate the meaning of these terms, but they sound a lot like the business of funding this mortgage-investment unit that failed in spectacular fashion.

If Jack Lew was seeking loans for this Citi division without a clue what the loans were funding, he might qualify as Wall Street's most reckless banker of 2008. And if he did have a clue and either dismissed the risks or kept silent about them, what is he doing as the President's nominee to run the Treasury? Meanwhile, readers may want to check out Ugland House. If the IRS objects, Max Baucus has your back.

A version of this article appeared February 13, 2013, on page A14 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: From the Citi to the Caymans.

is there any question - ANY QUESTION AT ALL NOW - that the big NY banks are democrat-run/covered-by organizations?

i mean its really simple, from my uneducated/simple/somewhat rednecked POV: if 'big oil' had just run the economy
into the ditch - NOT ONCE, BUT TWICE in the period of 10years (1998-2008) ???

THE HEADLINES IN THE NEWSPAPERS WOULD BE
6 INCHES TALL EVERY DAY SINCE

but when its THE northeastern liberal/democrats Favorite Industry - as evidenced by the patterns of their campaign contributions - we get near silence from the lamestream media, while they distract us with near non-stop coverage of gun control, gay marriage and other 'social issues'

and - just for instance - its interesting to note that not only did the ENRON scammers go to jail, but so didnt a bunch of the scammers from the savings and loan crisis over 2 decades ago - meanwhile, after the big NY investment banks SCREWED THE REST OF US TO THE TUNE OF TRILLIONS - what do/did we get out of the beltway - and the most liberal-left administration since the 1960s?

nothing, zip, zilch NADA BAYBEE from the dept of 'justice' and comments from the whitehouse like
"from 40000feet nothing looks illegal...." ?????

the liberal-run lamestream media's silence, doublestandard and hypocrisy is D E A F E N I N G

[don]

Re: Obama State of the Union

As a nation we have again been taken in, the political schmaltz of liberal rhetoric wedded to a previous four-year record of; a) the militarization and financialization of American capitalism; b) an all-out campaign of aggression via armed drones for targeted assassination squarely in the realm of war crimes; c) a pattern of deregulation which mocks his plea for a rising middle class . . . in sum, a con man up to his old tricks, meanwhile conducting business-as-usual . . . .

Wall Street has sense enough not to appear gleeful. Defense contractors, health insurers, Big Pharma, ditto. The rosy report on putting the hard times behind us flatly contradicts a reality of human suffering in America, if anyone cared to look.

Norman Pollack

[lektrode]

Re: Obama State of the Union

.... in sum, a con man up to his old tricks, meanwhile conducting business-as-usual . . . .

..... The rosy report on putting the hard times behind us flatly contradicts a reality of human suffering in America, if anyone cared to look.

and the lamestream media all cheers him on!

[GRG55]

Re: Obama State of the Union

Looks like more of the same - although Obama's promises are not notably reliable:

1) FIRE on the rise again: more mortgage subsidies
2) Loss making, cost increasing solar and wind apparently to continue their subsidies
3) War on Terror to continue unabated

Some small rays of light: talk about infrastructure rebuilding. Unfortunately it is coupled with public/private talk - while this might be good, this might also be an excuse to sell off public assets to become private toll roads.

What do you think?

The inspirational "change" speech thing was getting stale I suppose.

Thankfully they are only going to subsidize "cost effective technologies" this time around. And I'll bet ya'll can't wait to drive up to the pump at your local filling station and choose the gasoline made only from "responsibly produced oil" from those subsidy generating Federal Lands, like the environmentally benign deep water Gulf of Mexico. Until you "shift your car or truck off oil" that is...

White House wants Congress to create $2 billion green energy fund

Feb 13 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is asking Congress to create a green energy fund seeded with $2 billion in fees paid to the government by oil and gas producers for using federal lands, the White House said on Wednesday in a memo detailing a plan announced in Obama's State of the Union address.

"This $2 billion investment will support research into a range of cost-effective technologies - like advanced vehicles that run on electricity, homegrown biofuels, and domestically produced natural gas - will be funded by revenue generated from federal oil and gas development," according to a White House outline of the initiative.

The program's aim would be "shifting our cars and trucks off oil," the memo said, while also saying that the United States would continue to rely on "responsibly produced oil and natural gas."...

[don]

Re: Obama State of the Union

$2 Billion is a fair amount of green . . . around here, anyway

[LorenS]

Re: Obama State of the Union

I didn't watch it either.

Those of us who are young enough to make a difference need to find a way to repair what's left of our country. If we don't the 20 -30 somethings will have no future. It's really that bad.

We need tax reform - we need trade reform - we need financial reform.

Of course when I say reform the democrats hear "more stupid laws" and the republicans hear "more stupid laws" and what I really meant was to get rid of the stupid laws, replace them with simple and easy to understand laws and get rid of all the corruption that prevents them from being followed and enforced. Rules work best when they are voluntarily followed. Enforcement should be a small effort.

At some point you have to ask yourself, why are these people so dishonest it takes a huge police establishment to keep them in line. This is what keeps me wondering -

"I is it really Washington that's the problem?"

[GRG55]

Re: Obama State of the Union

$2 Billion is a fair amount of green . . . around here, anyway

Well, to quote the late Senator Everett Dirksen "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money."...

[don]

Re: Obama State of the Union

Well, to quote the late Senator Everett Dirksen "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money."...

Strictly old school, GR. Now it's trillions . . .

[GRG55]

Re: Obama State of the Union

Strictly old school, GR. Now it's trillions . . .

LOL. Well, Senator Everett Dirksen said something about that too! Although, as you note, the "billions" should be replaced with "trillions" (and the "thousands" with "millions".

"We are becoming so accustomed to millions and billions of dollars that "thousands" has almost passed out of the dictionary."

[BadJuju]

Re: Obama State of the Union

[don]

Re: Obama State of the Union

LOL. Well, Senator Everett Dirksen said something about that too! Although, as you note, the "billions" should be replaced with "trillions" (and the "thousands" with "millions".

"We are becoming so accustomed to millions and billions of dollars that "thousands" has almost passed out of the dictionary."

and so goes the penny for us peons . . .

[dcarrigg]

Re: Obama State of the Union

You are probably right. But we need a new name. Reform is just another word for screw the middle class. Every time I hear it it's like nails on a chalk board. "Reform" never means grandma will have a couple extra bucks for drugs this year. If it did, they'd call it a "benefit" or an "entitlement."

"Benefits" are money for the poor. "Entitlements" are money for the middle class. "Reforms" are money for the rich.

Paying attention to language can make politics much easier to understand.

I also find it helpful to replace the phrase "the economy" with "the volcano" to see if a business news article is completely full of dung before I even have to read it. It works like this:

"How to Find Out What You're Really Worth to the Volcano."
"Fixing the Volcano Must Be Obama's Top Priority."
"45% Approve Obama's Handling of the Volcano."
"Politics Slows the Volcano Wants to Be Strong."
"What's the Best Way to Stimulate the Volcano?"
"Private Sector Wants the Volcano to Be Strong."
"6 Questions about the Volcano"
"The Volcano is Hurt by Deficit Cuts."
"The Ugly Truth about the Volcano"
"State Senators to Discuss the Volcano at Conference."