Obama Frames His Economic Week: ‘We Made Enormous Progress’

President Obama today said that the report by pay czar Kenneth Feinberg, showing that firms paid out $1.6 billion in ill-advised, but not illegal, executive compensation, just underscores the need for reform and the financial reform bill he signed into law on Wednesday.
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Rahm Emmanuel thought of the compensation he received while on the board during a time of fiscal chicanery at Freddie Mac, and snickered into his hand.

I googled “out of touch” and a picture of Obama showed up.

The small business loans will sit in banks and vanish, and never be given out.
Bad bill, resulting in no benefits, in my view.

“So, taken together, we made enormous progress this week — on Wall Street reform, on making sure that we’re eliminating waste and abuse in government, and in providing immediate assistance to people who are out there looking for work,” Obama summarized.
“I hope we can now finish the job and pass the small business jobs plan without delay and without additional partisan wrangling,” the president said, adding that he hopes this is passed before the August recess.
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Obama just summarized in two paragraphs why his poll numbers have fallen through the basement. He was so consumed with healthcare, Wall Street, “waste and abuse” in government and unemployment compensation that he overlooked THE biggest area of anger in the country… JOBS. We all know that small businesses are the force behind hiring and retaining workers, but to do that they need some backup, some help. However, you’ll notice that Obama said “I hope we can now finish the job and pass the small business jobs plan…” Finish the job? That should have been the FIRST step on the agenda! The economy can’t grow without jobs, unemployment benefits wouldn’t be necessary if there were jobs (and the latest extension of benefits costing BILLIONS wouldn’t be needed), “stimulus” (LOL) wouldn’t have been necessary if small business help had been put first. Why is it he put EVERYTHING else first, and THEN jobs? Could it be, as I read in an article earlier today that his administration has business experience equaling 7%!!! The average administration had 30-40%. 7%… that’s less than the unemployment rate. 7% is the state tax in some areas. 7% is only 4% less than the approval rating for Congress. Makes me think that a non-business thinking staff = a non-business thinking approach.

“May God have mercy on their souls” said ding dong Alan Grayson. He was talking about the souls of Repubs who wouldn’t vote for the $34B unemployment entitlement, because it added to the deficit.
What God is he referring to?
I thought Obama was the Democrat’s God.

More speech reading.
America has tuned him out.

I don’t think Obama gives a rip what is in these 2,000 page bills he signs, or even if they succeed.
He just wants to make history.

“We made enormous economic progress this week”, and set race relations back a few decades.

Obama’s approval on economy drops to a new low in CNN poll.
Obama and Biden can brag all they want about Recovery Summer–it just makes them look foolish.
Businesses won’t hire and consumers won’t spend because they do not know what Obama will do next.
The tax man cometh. Obama lied.

I think we will know in about 6 or 9 months.. if the economy will grow (even at a slow pace).. the real sticking points are continued unemployment and lack of job growth, commercial mortgage backed real estate securities, foreclosures and short sales depressing home sales and construction. Fear of a double dip recession or depression.
The real culprit may be globalization and the demands of emerging market populations for goods, resources and services that we now claim for North America.

Stan,if most small business owners felt like green goddess we wouldn’t have had another 460,000 jobless this week.The tax situation next year makes it impossible for many small business owners to expand.All of those “wealthy” families who make $250,000 will have to deal with significant take-home pay drops;instead of investing in their businesses they will have to pay the bills.$250,000 may seem like a lot in rural Oregon; it isn’t in New York or D.C. or L.A.

Stan: “Emergency funding is outside of PayGo. Supporting the unemployed during the biggest economic collapse since the Great Depression is emergency funding.”
Hmmm, that phrase sounds just like something Tierra would say. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.
Senate Democrats would have had the votes to pass the funding bill BEFORE the 4th of July holiday had they paid for it (you know, almost THREE WEEKS AGO). So I guess it wasn’t that much of an emergency after all. Reckless deficit spending first, the unemployed second.

green.goddess: “You are presuming everyone agrees that business experience somehow translates into the best politicians or that once elected, business people with “real world” experience will run government like a business.”
It’s not about running government like a business. But there are many parallels. It’s critical that Presidents be good governors because they operate the EXECUTIVE branch. Remember, the private sector FUNDS the public sector. For the private sector to be successful to provide the money needed to pay for the public sector, it’s critical that Presidents understand the complexities of successfully running a business and how tax and regulatory policies could impact the growth of businesses. If the public sector keeps growing while the private sector keeps shrinking, economic disaster is inevitable (see Greece).
Before coming to power, Obama had ZERO experience as a chief executive of anything and his legislative accomplishments were nearly non-existent. These were his “qualifications” for the most powerful occupation on the planet.
When Obama held a “jobs summit” soliciting ideas from national leaders to learn about ways to spur job creation, he didn’t invite Governor Rick Perry, whose state of Texas created more jobs than nearly all other states COMBINED in 2008. It doesn’t matter if you like Perry or not. He delivered results: jobs. Instead, Obama invited leaders who DON’T create jobs, like the AFL-CIO boss. It was all propaganda for the lemmings. It was never about creating jobs. It was about expanding government power, rewarding union leaders, and generating campaign money and votes.
Only the public sector has expanded since Obama took power, despite $2 TRILLION in spending. That’s no accident.
It doesn’t matter what he says. It’s what he does. Obama’s fiscal policies are seriously damaging the private sector. The record high jobless numbers prove it.
It’s very telling that the National Bureau of Economic Research is not ready to say that we’re out of the recession. If we don’t recover by December, we’ll officially be in a Depression. And Obama will own it.

Stan: “We’ve seen the halting of the MILLIONS of private sector jobs…”
Foolish comment, Tierra, er Stan.
Cops, firefighters, and teachers aren’t private sector jobs. They’re public sector union jobs. That’s pretty common knowledge.

“The tax situation next year makes it impossible for many small business owners to expand.All of those “wealthy” families who make $250,000 will have to deal with significant take-home pay drops;instead of investing in their businesses they will have to pay the bills”
You obviously don’t run a small business where its advantageous to pay yourself not much in the way of salary so you can continually invest your money back into the business.
Its also cheaper to pay taxes on business profits versus personal income.
If your business is doing well enough that you can pay yourself over $250K in salary, taxes are not that big a worry and you likely can afford and accountant to limit your liability as much as possible.
Obama earlier this week
“”Too often, the Republican leadership in the United States Senate chooses to filibuster our recovery and obstruct our progress. And that has very real consequences,” Obama said in his weekly radio address.
He said that in order to facilitate credit for small businesses, his administration had proposed eliminating capital gains taxes on their investments and establishing a fund for small lenders to help small businesses.”

Nephron | Jul 23, 2010 4:59:57 PM posted “instead of investing in their businesses they will have to pay the bills. $250,000 may seem like a lot in rural Oregon; it isn’t in New York or D.C. or L.A.”
LOL. Even in the Internet Bubble living in one of the most expensive places on the planet, “small businesses” in Silicon Valley were not earning their owners $250K – unless they eating up their initial investors. You may recall we are in a recession today – those fantasy IPOs are gone.
This idea that “small business” owners who earn $250K will be hammered by taxes is a myth spoon fed to Conservatives by the Koch brothers.
First, few small business owners today can afford to take a quarter million dollars out of their companies. Second, even IF the small business is having a roaring good year, owners can determine their own pay scale. If they don’t want to step into a new tax bracket, they simply pay themselves a bit less and spend the money instead on a tax deductible perk like leasing a new company car.
The big bucks are further upstream. According to the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis, the average salary for Wall Street employees is $392,000, compared with $63,875 for other workers in New York. Wall Street is not a “small business”, and apparently they are not “worried” either – in fact, according to the NYT our financial sector is HIRING again:
“Wall Street employment, executives, economists and headhunters say they expect the growth to pick up steam in the coming months….Wall Street typically hires in anticipation of the recovery, and there is a sense that the economy has bottomed out and is slowly improving.”

MORE LIES!
If Obama, Holder, and the Dems would put half as much effort into fighting the terrorists and illegal immigrants as they do attacking the State of Arizona, then maybe they’d finish the damn fence and stop playing politics.
But I won’t hold my breath. After all, Obama bows to our enemies and shuns our allies. It falls perfectly in line with his creed of attacking his own citizens.
If it’s not with a law suit, it’s with destroying our liberties and freedoms with his government by fiat.
Obama just doesn’t like people to point out he doesn’t know what he is doing — due to lack of experience. Obama is too stuck on campaigning. He needs to start doing his job.

“I think all the doomsayers will be quite impressed when he wraps up his first four year term, even more impressed at the end of eight years.”
LOL! Eight years? There’s a good chance he’ll be forced to resign before his first term is up.

Ryan C: “You obviously don’t run a small business where its advantageous to pay yourself not much in the way of salary so you can continually invest your money back into the business. Its also cheaper to pay taxes on business profits versus personal income.”
What on earth are you talking about? It’s obvious YOU’VE never run a business or even understand taxes. A business profit increases your taxable income (increasing regular income tax and Self-Employment Tax). The Self-Employment Tax is 15.3% of your net profit (double what an employee pays). Unless you have another source of income or you dip into savings, you have to pay yourself a salary or you’ll starve.

We need to protect Americans from the burdens of greed on society.
We have a government that cares again. Thank you all who made it happen!
Banking reforms.
HealthCare reforms:
Nuclear arms agreements:
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act:
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act:
Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act:
Children’s Health Insurance Reauthor-ization Act:
Weapons System Acquisition Reform Act:
Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act:
Student loan reform:
The Republican Party has been reduced to a propaganda machine owned by foreigners. If all you care about is making people vote against their own interests, then all you need to do is proliferate falsehoods and confusion. Republicans don’t have to stand for anything.
Conservatives lost and the American people won. Keep on truckin Democrats.

“they will always vote for those that promise the most largesse (spread that wealth around)”
Because in Righty World there is absolutely no sense in having the wealthy pay their fair share of the debt….in fact it’s OK to run up lots of debt by giving them big tax cuts. There is nothing unethical about the middle-class protecting itself in the voting booth from further Republican predation.

I’ll say a prayer for you tonight ApostasyUSA.
I’ll pray you get blessed with enlightenment.

There is a gusher of oil washing ashore in the gulf, a gusher of illegal immigration washing ashore in our border states, a gusher of public debt washing over the economy…
The American people cry out for leadership… but there is none…
The Congress continues to spend out of control…
The President issues fatwas out of control…
The Supreme court ignores the Constitution in favor of feelings and foreign law…
Can general unrest be far behind?

“Maybe in Lefty World they will fix the inequities and everyone pays 15% of their income.”
Amen to that! And let’s move tax day to the first Monday in November or election day to April 16th!

We should let the Bush tax cuts expire and go back to Clinton era tax rates when we were eventually running surplussed instead of deficits.
Posted by: Skip | Jul 23, 2010 11:54:25 PM
Wasn’t that under a Republican house and senate? That is the real key… things went well with Clinton only after the Republicans took control of both houses… things went badly under Bush only after the Democrats took control of both houses… things will go well under Obama after the Republicans take control of both houses… It’s the Congress… not the White House….

“things went badly under Bush only after the Democrats took control of both houses”
If the Democrats were ruining things so much why did Bush, Palin, McCain, the RNC and the rest of the Republicans insist the economy was strong almost right up until the election when the investment banks started to collapse? Were they that stupid or were they just lying? Why would they cover for the Democrats like that? Only the right-wing fringe peddles this nonsense, most Americans realize the economy during the Bush administration with both houses controlled by Republicans was a sham which collapsed regardless of what the Democrats did.

“There’s a good chance he’ll be forced to resign before his first term is up.”
Next time half the dosage.

“A business profit increases your taxable income (increasing regular income tax and Self-Employment Tax). The Self-Employment Tax is 15.3% of your net profit (double what an employee pays).”
Which is why you should incorporate and pay yourself a salary.
Are you really making the argument that you should not pursue profits because you may have to pay taxes on them?

It’s working out so well with the stimulus and all the other monies that have been added to the deficit that it has saved or made so many jobs that we have more people on unemployment and longer than all previous records, now that is a democratic success line,so much- that we’re gonna do it again. And it’s still George Bush’s fault.

“Seriously, just look at the record”
Sorry but I find it difficult to take any of your posts seriously. Right-wingers make a full time job of cherry-picking data and statistical samples, making disproportionate representations, exaggerations, coincidence and fabricating cause and effect. Freddie and Fannie were adversely effected by the collapse of the housing market because they are involved in a large part of the housing market. In fact it would be entertaining to see you devise a model where they could have possibly escaped unscathed. The risky policies which precipitated the crisis originated in the private sector.

Debt soars, the abyss looms
It’s all spent, nothing left
Hot summer ahead

Freddie and Fannie were adversely effected by the collapse of the housing market because they are involved in a large part of the housing market. In fact it would be entertaining to see you devise a model where they could have possibly escaped unscathed…
Posted by: Skip | Jul 24, 2010 1:03:00 AM
Their policies caused the downfall of the housing market…
How about a model where they insured only loans made for sound financial purposes instead of loans made for political reasons… loans made to people when it was understood from the start that those loans could never be repaid…
The policies of Freddie and Fannie were Utopian Democrat policies… loans for everyone… spread the wealth around… and then the big fall… and a bigger fall coming where the Dollar itself will be absolutely worthless… Maybe you will open your eyes then… and start to take things seriously…

“The policies of Freddie and Fannie were Utopian Democrat policies… loans for everyone..”
Just more unsubstantiated baloney. Sub-prime mortgages for everybody must have been a Republican idea….Freddie and Fannie didn’t hold most of them.

Are you trying to tell me you think corporations wouldn’t like more Republican style tax cuts and deregulation? Isn’t that exactly what Republicans incessantly tout as the answer to all our problems?

I agree with the President that progress is being made. Lost in the discussion of the Wall Street regulation of FinReg bill was that, whatever its shortcomings, it will limit excessive speculation in agriculture.
“This landmark bill is a first step toward preventing the excessive speculation by big Wall Street banks that has created enormous price volatility in agriculture and energy markets,” said IATP commodities expert Steve Suppan. “This is an important win for farmers and rural communities whose economic futures are so tightly linked to agriculture and energy.” (source, IATP, Think Forward)
Also, to weigh in on some of the small business discussion, the hiring indexes for small businesses are continuing to make moderate gains (employment among the smallest businesses—those with fewer than 20 employees—continues to pick up according to a wide range of sources, making the experiences relayed by some commenters a bit dubious) and I read recently that according to a recent survey by Harris Institute, one third of all small businesses with fewer than 500 employees intend to hire during the latter part of 2010.
There’s net new hiring, more hours are being given to hourly workers and monthly compensation per employee continues to rise.
Of course, the bad news is that so many people are still unemployed that 3% growth will not be enough to take a big bite of the unemployment rate, despite persistent job gains.
According to the Harris Interactive/Career Builder survey, more than one-quarter (26 percent) of workers who were laid off in the last six months and have not found jobs said they are considering starting their own business instead of finding a new job.

“We should let the Bush tax cuts expire and go back to Clinton era tax rates when we were eventually running surplussed instead of deficits.” – Skip
You talk like someone who doesn’t have money, doesn’t understand how it works in our economy and doesn’t have any hope of becoming financially enlightened.
The Clinton surplus had little to do with the tax rates. They were the result of the Dot Com Bubble which was just as real as the recent Housing Bubble. Clinton was just lucky that he was president while the bubble was expanding, that’s it.
btw, I see you are afraid to comment on your recent Lefty World idea of an across the board fair tax on everyone of 15%.
“why did (all the politicians Dem and Repub) insist the economy was strong almost right up until the election when the investment banks started to collapse?” – Skip
They were following the same spin playbook that Obama is working from each and everyday.
Next question, please!
“Freddie and Fannie were adversely effected by the collapse of the housing market because they are involved in a large part of the housing market. In fact it would be entertaining to see you devise a model where they could have possibly escaped unscathed…” – Skip
Glad to be able to entertain you Skip, this is an easy one.
The model would be, don’t be involved in any housing loans that had less than a 10% down payment on them. B I N G O ! Fannie and Freddie stay viable.