President Obama took his act on the road today, hosting a Town Hall style (read: continuous campaign) event in Ohio. In this carefully managed bit of Kabuki, the President debuted his new Al Gore like populism, this time in the guise of going after the greedy Fatcats on Wall Street--specifically the banks who were "bailed out" by TARP, and who now have the temerity to pay their people bonuses while the rest of us are "hurting".
I like Barack Obama personally--or at least I think I'd like him. What I like about him is his intellect, his wide ranging mind. I disagree mightily with his politics, but I like him. I can tell you though, if he decides that this dip into Huey Long populism is his new schtick, I'll be unrestrained in my attacks. This is beneath him.
The FACTS are that the banks are paying back what was lent them, with interest. The American people are MAKING MONEY off of many of the TARP loans. Go ahead, Mr. President--get Congress to pass special taxes on investment transactions--yeah, that's it. Hit the Fatcats where they live! What was that? You mean the investment firms are likely to raise their fees to pass the tax along to the customer? You mean my 401K might become more expensive to administer because the President wants to screw the Fatcats? Why am I getting screwed? HOPE AND CHANGE!
Republican populism will target big government--Democratic populism will target big business. This is a race to the bottom.
Friday, January 22, 2010
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I really think that his advisers are sitting around drinking coffee and say "let's try this!" One year in and the plans are just so JV. When are they going to grow up and devise a real plan that is not an ECON 101 class project?
The rot has set in. They'll start turning on each other soon.
And next time he tries one of these gigs, he really needs better plants in the audience.
I did some fact checking on Lorain County Community College (LCCC). This is the school where the President claimed during his town hall that workers spent 12 hours a day for 6 months attending re-training classes. (and then spent an additional 8 hours a day working day jobs to pay the bills).
I had to check the facts to see what drove these LCCC "Super Students."
This is from the curriculum for 1 semester of Automation Engineering Technology Career Guide (representative of what is offered in the curriculum guide, and within scope of the aforementioned workers job re-training):
Robotics and Automated Manufacturing: 3 credit hrs
Introduction to Computer Aided Drafting: 2 credit hrs
Industrial Blueprint Reading: 2 credit hrs
Electrical Circuits I: 3 credit hrs
Technical Mathematics I: 4 credit hrs
College 101: 1 credit hr
Technical Problem Solving: 3 credit hrs
Total of 18 credit hours.
Sounds like a heavy course load, though "College 101" probably involved a lot of beer drinking to earn the single credit hour.
How are credit hours defined by the school? Checking the FAQ section from the school's course guide: What is a credit hour and how many do I need?
To be a full-time student, you must carry 12 credit hours. This usually means taking four or five courses.
So, to stretch the four or five courses into a 12-hour day, you'd have to have individual class length be between 2 to 3 hours, 5 days a week. I don't know any institution of higher learning that puts that kind of load on students on a daily basis, 12 hours a day, for 6 months.
But those are the facts the President cited in his town hall meeting. Kind of hard to believe.
You'd think with that kind of academic work going on, someone would earn a Nobel.
"Obama's populist assault on the world of high finance, coupled with China's tightened lending, has left Wall Street in a state of uncertainty. Is this the way to grow jobs? Think about this. All the new regulations PrezBO proposed yesterday ... tell me how they're going to grow our economy and create jobs? The only jobs created by Obama's new regulations are government jobs --- government regulatory jobs." Neal Boortz
http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/index.html
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