Tag: Obamanomics

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Garrett Blasts Treasury Secretary Jack Lew Over the Different set of rules for Government Officials for lavish Wall Street Pay Packages

Scott Garrett

September 23,2016

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, Rep. Scott Garrett, (NJ-05) Chairman of the subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises,  delivered the following opening remarks at Financial Services Committee hearing entitled, “The Annual Report of the Financial Stability Oversight Council” featuring Treasury Secretary Jack Lew:

Congressman Scott Garrett’s opening remarks as prepared for delivery:

Mr. Secretary, it’s great to see you again.  I understand you were a tough man to nail down to testify today – I guess I would be too if my job was defending FSOC

So we’re starting to get to that point in this Administration’s tenure where people inevitably start to talk about the “legacy” it will leave behind

Unfortunately, when it comes to FSOC, the Obama Administration’s legacy will be remembered as one of secrecy, obfuscation, and a continued refusal to answer questions or provide transparency to either Congress or the American public

Thankfully, it’s not just us in the legislative branch that have taken notice

The recent court decision invalidating the designation of MetLife is a reminder to all of us we live in a system governed by the rule of law and not the rule of bureaucrats. 

I hope the Treasury Secretary understands this as well, and I look forward to his answers before our Committee today.

Rep. Scott Garrett had a lively interaction with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew at yesterday’s Financial Services Committee oversight hearing. Garrett addressed Lew’s scandal ridden record at Citibank directly causing the layoff of over 50,000 employees requiring a taxpayer bailout.

When the dust settled, we learned that as usual there are a different set of rules and standards for high-ranking government officials–like Secretary Lew–when it comes to lavish Wall Street pay packages.

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TRUMP OPPOSES PRESIDENT OBAMA’S PLAN TO SURRENDER AMERICAN INTERNET CONTROL TO FOREIGN POWERS

-donald-trump-candidacy-speech-thridgewoodblog

September 22,2016

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, Presidential candidate Donald Trump opposes President Obama’s plan to cede control of the internet .

“Donald J. Trump is committed to preserving Internet freedom for the American people and citizens all over the world. The U.S. should not turn control of the Internet over to the United Nations and the international community. President Obama intends to do so on his own authority – just 10 days from now, on October 1st, unless Congress acts quickly to stop him. The Republicans in Congress are admirably leading a fight to save the Internet this week, and need all the help the American people can give them to be successful. Hillary Clinton’s Democrats are refusing to protect the American people by not protecting the Internet.

The U.S. created, developed and expanded the Internet across the globe. U.S. oversight has kept the Internet free and open without government censorship – a fundamental American value rooted in our Constitution’s Free Speech clause. Internet freedom is now at risk with the President’s intent to cede control to international interests, including countries like China and Russia, which have a long track record of trying to impose online censorship. Congress needs to act, or Internet freedom will be lost for good, since there will be no way to make it great again once it is lost.” – Stephen Miller, National Policy Director

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UN fears third leg of the global financial crisis, with epic debt defaults

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AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD

21 SEPTEMBER 2016 • 8:54PM

The third leg of the world’s intractable depression is yet to come. If trade economists at the United Nations are right, the next traumatic episode may entail the greatest debt jubilee in history.

It may also prove to be the definitive crisis of globalized capitalism, the demise of the liberal free-market orthodoxies promoted for almost forty years by the Bretton Woods institutions, the OECD, and the Davos fraternity.

“Alarm bells have been ringing over the explosion of corporate debt levels in emerging economies, which now exceed $25 trillion. Damaging deflationary spirals cannot be ruled out,” said the annual report of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

We know already that the poisonous side-effect of zero rates and quantitative easing in the US, Europe, and Japan was to flood developing nations with cheap credit, upsetting their internal chemistry and drawing them into a snare. What is less understood is just how destructive this has been.

Much of the money was wasted, skewed towards “highly cyclical and rent-based sectors of limited strategic importance for catching up,” it said.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/21/un-fears-third-leg-of-the-global-financial-crisis-with-epic-debt/

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State admits: Islamic State terrorists trying to pose as refugees

Chelsea bombing

By PETE KASPEROWICZ (@PETEKDCNEWS) • 9/21/16 8:41 AM

State Department spokesman John Kirby acknowledged Wednesday that Islamic State terrorists are trying to mingle with refugee populations overseas in the hopes of making it to the U.S. posing as a refugee.

“I wouldn’t debate the fact that there’s the potential for ISIS terrorists to try to insert themselves, and we see that in some of the refugee camps in Jordan and in Turkey, where they try to insert themselves into the population,” Kirby said on “Fox and Friends.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/state-isis-terrorists-try-to-pose-as-refugees/article/2602405

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Harvard Crushes The “Obama Recovery” Farce With 9 Simple Charts

Obama-Golf

by Tyler Durden
Sep 16, 2016 3:10 AM

A couple of months back we posted 9 charts that, at least in our minds, debunked the myth of the “Obama Recovery” despite suggestions from the administration that any such efforts were just a futile attempt at “peddling fiction” (our original post: “These Are The 9 Zero Hedge Charts Showing “Obama’s Recovery” That Angered The Washington Post”).

Turns out that Harvard likes to dabble in “fiction peddling” as well:

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-15/harvard-debunks-obama-recovery-farce

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Another N.J. insurance company drops out of Obamacare

Obamacare-SC

By Susan K. Livio | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on September 12, 2016 at 8:18 PM, updated September 13, 2016 at 8:38 AM

TRENTON — Faced with “a deteriorating financial condition,” another health insurance carrier is pulling out of New Jersey’s health exchange marketplace created under the Affordable Care Act, forcing 35,000 policy holders to find a new plan in 2017, the state’s top insurance official announced Monday night.

Health Republic Insurance of New Jersey will serve customers through the end of the year, state Department of Banking and Insurance Commissioner Richard Badolato said.

The state is working out a “rehabilitation” plan that preserves the carrier’s financial assets so medical providers will be reimbursed for the care they provide consumers for the remainder of the year, Badolato said in a statement late Monday.

“We will also be assisting individual consumers as they transition to a new plan during the open enrollment period this fall,” Badolato said. “Similarly, we will work with small employers as they seek replacement plans for their businesses.”

https://www.nj.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2016/09/another_nj_insurance_company_is_dropping_out_of_ob.html?ath=9c46bfc08d76232bb5a5e00eeaf0bfa2#cmpid=nsltr_stryheadline

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Toronto: Oliver Stone Unhappy with Obama and Says Surveillance “In the Hands of the Wrong President, It’s Very Dangerous”

big-brother-poster

“Obama has managed to put together the most intensive surveillance state in the history of the world,” the ‘Snowden’ director told THR while discussing his film at the Toronto Film Festival. “This is pretty frightening when you think about the implications.”

Oliver Stone warned against the dangers of global surveillance in a sit-down with The Hollywood Reporter at the Toronto Film Festival.

The Snowden director, speaking about his biopic of famous whistleblower Edward Snowden, spoke about the current state of the country’s surveillance system, which says has intensified under the Obama administration.

“I thought Obama, like everyone else, was going to be a reformer. He had criticized the surveillance prior,” Stone told THR. “Since 2013, I have to tell you it’s gotten a lot more serious because they’ve expanded the surveillance. It’s gotten better.”

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/snowden-director-oliver-stone-dangers-927334

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15 years later, Americans feel more vulnerable to terrorism

islamic Jihad gay night club

By Julian Hattem – 09/11/16 10:30 AM EDT

In the 15 years since planes crashed into the Twin Towers and Pentagon, the United States has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to beef up its domestic security, chased terrorists across two different continents and undertaken the longest war in its history.

Yet for all of its efforts, Americans today feel that they are as or more vulnerable to terrorism than ever.

According to a Pew survey released this week, fully 71 percent of the country says that terrorists’ ability to launch a major attack on the U.S. is as great or greater than it was 15 years ago. Forty percent of the public says the chances of a major attack are higher than they were around 9/11.

The numbers have actually increased since August 2002, less than a year after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Then, a Pew poll found that just 61 percent of the public thought the chances of a similar attack were the same or greater than on Sept. 11. Twenty-two percent thought the odds had increased.

Despite the public’s concern, Islamic extremists have failed to carry out a major coordinated attack on U.S. soil since 2001.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/295207-15-years-later-americans-feel-more-vulnerable-to-terrorism

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This Labor Day, let’s acknowledge why our job-creation machine is broken

mike_rowe_dirty_jobs

Published: Sept 2, 2016 2:38 p.m. ET

It’s Labor Day weekend, and despite unemployment under 5% and nearly 15 million private-sector jobs created since February 2010, nobody’s celebrating.

Workforce participation is stuck near historic lows, six million people are part-timers but want to work full time, and wage growth remains subdued.

Both presidential candidates have talked a good game about jobs and the economy, but neither addresses the real problem. The U.S. job-creation machine—once the envy of the world—is broken, because American corporations cannot create steady, well-paying jobs here in the USA while also providing maximal returns to their investors, who are really in charge.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-investors-are-to-blame-for-labors-woes-2016-09-02?link=sfmw_tw

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Obamacare Insurance Markets on Verge of Collapse

obamacare_theridgewoodblog

by WARNER TODD HUSTON
3 Sep 2016

Citing the financial unsustainability of Obamacare, both the insured and insurers are fleeing Obamacare in increasing numbers, leaving President Obama’s takeover of the nation’s healthcare system on the verge of collapse.

The administration has claimed Obamacare — officially designated the Affordable Care Act — to be a great success, insisting that 20 million previously uninsured Americans now have insurance. But according to a report at The Guardian, that “success” comes at the expense of all the features that were supposed to make the law sustainable.

President Obama and his cohorts imagined that since Obamacare was to be compulsory, millions of healthy young Americans would immediately sign up, and the massive influx of cash paid into the system as insurance premiums would help pay for the higher costs in care doled out to older, sicker enrollees.

https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/03/obamacare-insurance-markets-on-verge-of-collapse/

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Obamacare rate hikes rattle consumers, could threaten enrollment

obamacare_theridgewoodblog

Jayne O’Donnell and Tony Leys, USA TODAY Network8:46 p.m. EDT September 1, 2016

Many of next year’s premium rate increases on theAffordable Care Act exchanges threaten to surpass the high and wildly fluctuating rates that characterized the individual insurance market before the health law took effect, interviews with insurance regulators and records show.

With dramatic drops in insurance company participation on the exchanges for some states, decreased competition and other factors are leading to often jarring rate hikes. Some of the states that are facing what are likely among the biggest increases this year — Tennessee, Arizona and North Carolina — were among those the Urban Institutereported in May had the biggest increases last year.

“The reality is, it’s all very justified, unfortunately,” Iowa insurance commissioner Nick Gerhart said Thursday of the premium increases he approved this week of 19% to 43% for about 70,000 Iowans who buy their own policies.

Gerhart warned consumers in a rate hearing in July that if he rejected insurers’ proposed premium increases for 2017, the carriers would likely decline to sell policies in the state. No carriers made an explicit threat to leave Iowa, but the implication was clear, he says: “It gives you less room to maneuver.” Iowa law, he said, requires him to judge proposed premium increases on whether experts find them to be justified by carriers’ projected costs

As other state insurance commissioners gradually sign off on insurers’ rate requests — which should all be decided within a month — many consumers are learning what’s in store for 2017.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/09/01/obamacare-rate-hikes-rattle-consumers-could-threaten-enrollment/89664628/

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Obama Administration gave the Iranian regime secret loopholes to keep Iran compliant with last year’s nuclear deal

middle-east-shouts-death-to-america

September 2,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ,  Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05) issued the following statement after the Institute for Science and International Security released a report today that the Obama Administration gave the Iranian regime secret loopholes to keep Iran compliant with last year’s nuclear deal. The report states that Iran did not limit their nuclear stocks and facilities by Implementation Day in direct violation of the parameters set by the P5+1 nuclear deal.

“To recap the perks given to Iran by the Obama Administration since signing the nuclear deal, Iran has been given sanctions relief, a financial windfall, ransom money, less oversight, and freedom to test ballistic missiles. Now, according to today’s report, we can add secret loopholes to that list. It’s as if the president is going out of his way to keep the American people in the dark about the details of this dangerous deal.”

“It’s obvious from this report that the Obama Administration thought it was more important to keep a politically expedient deadline than to ensure terrorists never develop nuclear weapons. The world will undoubtedly be a more dangerous place if the Iranian regime builds a nuclear arsenal, and I will continue to fight against this terrible deal to ensure the safety and security of the United States and its allies.”

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Reader here is some more sobering news for Ridgewood

for sale Ridgewood_Real_Estate_theRodgewopodblog

file photo by Boyd Loving

The economic argument above is all I needed to counter your complete fantasy of $1MM houses being in great demand, but let me also comment on the rest.

2. The 40 years that you claim to have been in Ridgewood for happened to be the 40 years when the financial sector exploded in size, and NYC being the financial center benefited tremendously. Additionally, home ownership steadily increased to an all time high in 2004. Unless you have not read the news for 8 year now – all of that is GONE. That is history. Finance is rapidly shrinking, homeownership is at lower than it has ever been since 1984. This despite mortgage rate being lower than it has been in forever.

3. Those ‘arbitrary rankings’ are what new homeonwers make their decision based on. And who will I believe – what multiple magazines claim or what you claim? And how is it that school districts like Short Hills, West Windsor and Tenafly are unaffected by the randomness of those surveys?

4. If taxes were already ‘high’ shouldn’t they stop rising then? What is the logic of already ‘high’ taxes going even higher – for no additional services whatsoever?

5. For a vast majority of people without money to burn, it is a rational decision based on their own income and costs vs. quality of services. I just pointed out that the equation is very unfavorable right now when it comes to Ridgewood.

6. The long view is that the state of NJ is bankrupt given how horribly underfunded its pensions are. Militant union will not let their benefits be haircut. So you are looking at combination of significantly higher taxes, fewer services and constant disruptions from striking unions. Math is math. The bill will come due – the can can only be kicked down just so much further down the road!

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U.S. Held Cash Until Iran Freed Prisoners

john-kerry-has-been-pushing-for-air-strikes-in-syria

Exchange was tightly scripted and specifically timed to the prisoner release

By
JAY SOLOMON and

CAROL E. LEE
Updated Aug. 17, 2016 7:37 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON—New details of the $400 million U.S. payment to Iran earlier this year depict a tightly scripted exchange specifically timed to the release of several American prisoners held in Iran.

The picture emerged from accounts of U.S. officials and others briefed on the operation: U.S. officials wouldn’t let Iranians take control of the money until a Swiss Air Force plane carrying three freed Americans departed from Tehran on Jan. 17. Once that happened, an Iranian cargo plane was allowed to bring the cash home from a Geneva airport that day.

President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials have said the payment didn’t amount to ransom, because the U.S. owed the money to Iran as part of a longstanding dispute linked to a failed arms deal from the 1970s. U.S. officials have said that the prisoner release and cash transfer took place through two separate diplomatic channels.

But the handling of the payment and its connection to the Americans’ release have raised questions among lawmakers and administration critics.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-held-cash-until-iran-freed-prisoners-1471469256

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Productivity declines for third straight quarter

Pokémon Go

Published: Aug 9, 2016 9:52 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Productivity, a sore spot for the U.S. economy over the past few years, has now declined in three straight quarters, according to data released Tuesday.

Productivity in the second quarter unexpectedly fell 0.5%, well below expectations,the Labor Department said. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had forecast a 0.3% gain in productivity in the quarter.

Productivity is down 0.4% from a year earlier, the first year-over-year decline since the second quarter of 2013.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/productivity-declines-for-third-straight-quarter-2016-08-09