Money, Money, Money

According to the Washington Times, Larry Summers is resigning as the administrations' National Economic Council head. He will be the 3rd of Obama's original top 4 financial people to "bail out" (pun intended) in the last 8 weeks, leaving only Tax-cheat Timothy Geithner. Peter Orszag, the Office of Management and Budget director left in late July, and Christina Romer, head of the Council of Economic Advisors left a couple of weeks ago. Ironically, the liberal left is cheering the departure of Larry Summers; they felt he wasn't radical enough to be in this adminiistration. He tried to scale down the Wall Street take-over, tried to block "net neutrality" the internet take-over, and urged a pro-business position. The progressives thought he was under-mining them from the inside. He must have felt like a cold war American agent planted inside communist Russia.  Speculation from Bloomberg is that Summers' replacement will be a corporate executive, not a political appointment. Let's face it, everybody Obama places in a position is a political appointment. Named as a possible successor is G.E.  CEO Jeffrey Immelt; you know, he who is one of Obama's top contributors, who will benefit heavily from energy reform, and who got an exemption from the sanctions against Iran so G.E. is still doing business there. Myself, I wouldn't be surprised if Andy Stern isn't moved into Summers' vacated office. One of Mr. Summers duties is to oversee the $814 billion  (that's what it came to, not the $787 billion we were told) economic stimulus bill, a lot of which is going to benefit the union (SEIU) that Andy Stern headed for many years before being appointed to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

Speaking of that $814 billion Stimulus Bill, according to wikipedia, which has a breakdown of it, the amount designated for Infrastructure (highways, railways, and airports) is $105.3 billion. The Wall Street Journal reported on Fox News last night that of the amount in the Stimulus Bill allocated for Infrastructure, only about 1/3 of it has been spent at this point; and of the $8 bill from the Stimulus Bill Infrastructure allocation that was specified for the railway system, only 7% of that has been spent. Oh, but the administration has been quickly spending millions for the SIGNS touting what they are doing, if not doing much of the actual work. Yet, it was widely reported earlier this month (I got it from Washington Examiner 9/9/10)  that Obama is asking for another Stimulus package of $50 million; to overhaul America's transportation networks, specifically highways and bridges, railway systems, and airport runways. Since so little of the original Stimulus has been used, why is he coming at us with his hand out again? Could it be that the 50% of the entire original Stimulus that hasn't been spent yet, that is planned for spending in 2011 and 2012, is being held back to be used as "entitlements" to garner votes for Obama's re-election in 2012? According to wikipedia, 45% of the entire original Stimulus Bill is set aside for federal social programs and federal spending programs. That makes a pretty hefty campaign chest, funded by us taxpayers.

Speaking of transportation; lets look back at the government take-over of Government Motors. Almost as if we were already a socialist country, the administration took over Government Motors; gave over 30% of it to the United Auto Workers union, sold a small portion to Canada and kept 61% for itself. It nationalized a company from the public sector, fired the man running it, put a government appointee in place, and screwed the preferred stock investors, giving them 5 cents on the $1 for their investments. Many of those investors were retired teachers, firefighters and police officers who saw their retirement investments evaporate. Last month, the government took the 1st step toward unloading it's 61% ownership of Government Motors; it applied for an IPO (Initial Public Offering). Bloomberg.com reported yesterday that the main potential buyer of that 61% of Government Motors is SAIC, the largest auto-maker in China. If that happens, we will have witnessed a major redistribution of wealth from America, where the average annual income is around $40,000, to China, where the average annual income is $3,000.  Going full circle, the administration will have taken an American company out of the hands of our public sector, nationalized it (and you thought that only happened in socialist or communist countries like Venezuela or Cuba; look again, America) and seized majority ownership of it, then effectively transferred ownership of it to a communist foreign country.
Financial reform enacted under this administration now gives it the discretion to decide when any company is "too big to fail", and seize it. Even the left wing rag, the Huffington Post admits "Financial Reform doesn't end "too big to fail" 6/3/10.  America, you'd better wake up. The theft and over-spending looks non-ending.