Posted by Mr. Reich on March 13, 2009
Article Title: Paul Volcker to Barack Obama
Former Fed Chair Paul Volcker is briefing President Obama today on how well the stimulus package is doing. I have no inside knowledge of what he's saying, but if I were Volcker (and I'm not -- he's almost two feet taller than I am), I'd say the following:
Mr. President, it's way too early to know exactly what the stimulus is doing because the money is barely out the door, but I've got to tell you I'm worried as hell. Unemployment is at 8 percent, and underemployment is over 14 percent of the workforce. The economy is shrinking much faster than it was when you put the stimulus together. It will be more than a trillion dollars short of its full capacity this year, and I have every reason to believe the same next. State governments alone are hundreds of billions in the hole, creating a huge drag. So your $787 billion over two years, only two-thirds of which is direct spending, isn't going to get us nearly far enough. I'd strongly recommend you make ready a second stimulus, about the same size, and get it enacted as soon as possible, with the proviso that it will be implemented if and when unemplyment hits 8.5 percent or underemployment reaches 15 percent.
Oh, and by the way, Mr. President. You may not want to hear this, but your Treasury Secretary is making things worse. His dithering on what to do about Wall Street, and his incapacity to speak clearly to the Street and to the public about what needs to be done, is spooking everyone. Why doesn't he just put the irrevocably insolvent banks into receivership under the FDIC, sell off their assets, protect depositors, and reimburse taxpayers with whatever remains? Let the rest of the banks fend for themselves -- working out their bad loans with their creditors. As to AIG, well, that's a complete basketcase. Put it out of its suffering. Take it over, sell its assets, protect policy holders (you'll need to create a big co-insurance plan with every other major insurer in the world), then get out.
Want a cigar?
CALIFSTARHEART'S RESPONSE
Is it not amazing that we heard nothing but doom and gloom for weeks from the B. Hussein Obama administration (and I use the word administration lightly) and within a few days this week, all is supposed to be just fine?
I think that Mr. B. Hussein Obama is running scared and has barely a clue of what he is doing.....He is a deer in the headlights dressed in his daddy's suit. Without his ever-loving telepromter, his hand-picked Marxist cabinet and Chicago mob hacks to prop him up each day, he would be totally lost in the wilderness of his own level of incompetence.
He may eventually need to limit his future pre-selected utterances to pontificating like a big-time Chicago preacher man. Oh well, nobody's perfect I have heard.
Those who continue to remain hypnotized under his strange spell might actually awaken one day with a jolt of shear mortal fear that gosh, golly, gee, maybe he only knows how to be a community organizer after all.
He could quit the job if those two conniving socialist puppeteers, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid did not keep pulling his strings with their cunning, corrupt manipulations. Heaven help us all. This nightmare is like seeing the country burn to the ground right before our very eyes........
*** Califstarheart ***
Mr. President, it's way too early to know exactly what the stimulus is doing because the money is barely out the door, but I've got to tell you I'm worried as hell. Unemployment is at 8 percent, and underemployment is over 14 percent of the workforce. The economy is shrinking much faster than it was when you put the stimulus together. It will be more than a trillion dollars short of its full capacity this year, and I have every reason to believe the same next. State governments alone are hundreds of billions in the hole, creating a huge drag. So your $787 billion over two years, only two-thirds of which is direct spending, isn't going to get us nearly far enough. I'd strongly recommend you make ready a second stimulus, about the same size, and get it enacted as soon as possible, with the proviso that it will be implemented if and when unemplyment hits 8.5 percent or underemployment reaches 15 percent.
Oh, and by the way, Mr. President. You may not want to hear this, but your Treasury Secretary is making things worse. His dithering on what to do about Wall Street, and his incapacity to speak clearly to the Street and to the public about what needs to be done, is spooking everyone. Why doesn't he just put the irrevocably insolvent banks into receivership under the FDIC, sell off their assets, protect depositors, and reimburse taxpayers with whatever remains? Let the rest of the banks fend for themselves -- working out their bad loans with their creditors. As to AIG, well, that's a complete basketcase. Put it out of its suffering. Take it over, sell its assets, protect policy holders (you'll need to create a big co-insurance plan with every other major insurer in the world), then get out.
Want a cigar?
CALIFSTARHEART'S RESPONSE
Is it not amazing that we heard nothing but doom and gloom for weeks from the B. Hussein Obama administration (and I use the word administration lightly) and within a few days this week, all is supposed to be just fine?
I think that Mr. B. Hussein Obama is running scared and has barely a clue of what he is doing.....He is a deer in the headlights dressed in his daddy's suit. Without his ever-loving telepromter, his hand-picked Marxist cabinet and Chicago mob hacks to prop him up each day, he would be totally lost in the wilderness of his own level of incompetence.
He may eventually need to limit his future pre-selected utterances to pontificating like a big-time Chicago preacher man. Oh well, nobody's perfect I have heard.
Those who continue to remain hypnotized under his strange spell might actually awaken one day with a jolt of shear mortal fear that gosh, golly, gee, maybe he only knows how to be a community organizer after all.
He could quit the job if those two conniving socialist puppeteers, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid did not keep pulling his strings with their cunning, corrupt manipulations. Heaven help us all. This nightmare is like seeing the country burn to the ground right before our very eyes........
*** Califstarheart ***
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Police acting on a tip found seven bodies partially buried in the desert on the outskirts of the Mexican border city of 
HERE IS WHAT WE HAVE BEEN WARNING ABOUT! THIS VIDEO FROM A CNN BROADCAST TELLS THE HORRIBLE STORY. COME ON FOLKS, WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED TO READ, SEE AND HEAR, UNTIL YOU ARE SUFFICIENTLY MOVED TO TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION AND DEMAND THAT YOUR POLITICIANS MILITARIZE OUR BORDERS AND THE INLAND SECTIONS OF OUR BORDER STATES.
ANIMATED HISTORY OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION QUICKIE-STYLE.....
TAKE A LOOK AT THESE VIDEO CLIPS AND JOIN IN THE GREATEST TEA PARTY IN THE NATION!
FOR TWENTY YEARS, WE HAVE HAD HUGE CONCERNS ABOUT OUR SOUTHERN BORDER SECURITY.
