President Obama refuses to return the campaign contributions from Bain Capital, and he spent an intimate evening in the black heart of evil, Wall Street, with millionaire investors of the private equity firm Blackstone.
President Obama last night spent time at the Park Avenue apartment of Blackstone Group (BX) president Tony James, to press the Wall Street flesh and collect $35,800 per plate. It came just hours after his campaign launched its first formal attack on Mitt Romney's record running Bain Capital -- a private equity firm not terribly dissimilar from Blackstone. Talk about awkward! (CNN)Blatant hypocrisy aside (politics runs on BS and hypocrisy, so we shouldn't be shocked by it), Marc Thiessen points out that Obama has a scandalous Public Equity Problem:
Since taking office, Obama has invested billions of taxpayer dollars in private businesses, including as part of his stimulus spending bill. Many of those investments have turned out to be unmitigated disasters — leaving in their wake bankruptcies, layoffs, criminal investigations and taxpayers on the hook for billions. (WaPo)The author goes on to total up the billions in failed government investments, all on the backs of We The Taxpayers. Were these merit-based loans, as the president says, or were they political payoffs?
But as Hoover Institution scholar Peter Schweizer reported in his book, “Throw Them All Out,” fully 71 percent of the Obama Energy Department’s grants and loans went to “individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party.” Collectively, these Obama cronies raised $457,834 for his campaign, and they were in turn approved for grants or loans of nearly $11.35 billion.
Obama said this week it’s not the president’s job “to make a lot of money for investors.” Well, he sure seems to have made a lot of (taxpayer) money for investors in his political machine. (WaPo)
23 comments:
Whoa, Blackstone Group, the carried interest champs. Chuck Schumer (D - Kapital pimp) must have arranged the meet up.
Obama vs. Romney. One result, your ass is owned.
Isn't freedom wonderful? We get to vote.
Oh just a point of order.
The sooner you understand the difference between socialism and state Kapitalism the more effective your articles will be.
Somehow this just cant make the news now can it?
Save the lectures, Ducky. I know the difference. "Socialism" makes a better headline.
"Horrible! Horrible! Most horrible!"
~ Wm. Shakespeare
Submitted by FreeThinke
Isn't it wonderful that we have this Socialist ass kisser Ducky around all of the Republican blogs to teach us right from wrong!
$457,834 in exchange for $11.35 billion. Do those guys know where to invest or what?
Bunkerville's right...even MORE egregious than Obama and his pals' actions is that our media's hiding it all. PRAVDA...who would have ever imagined?
By the way, a cousin of mine is a headhunter on Wall Street, does really well...I was surprised to hear her say that most of the bigwigs are liberal Democrats. From Obama, his news media, etc., one always gets the impression that Wall Street's nothing but Republicans on the prowl for profit and to hurt others. She says they're predominantly Obama fans.
SF..your information here is fascinating..WOULD that all Americans could ever learn the truth.
"The sooner you understand the difference between socialism and state Kapitalism the more effective your articles will be."
Friedrich Engels argument is the best definition on so called 'state capitalism', and that would be the final stage of capitalism consisting of ownership and management of large scale production and communication by the bourgeois state.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm
"Obama invested billions of taxpayer dollars."
I would say he "wasted" "used" and "buried" taxpayer dollars on failed investments.
Obama will never admit his faults or that everything that he wasted our money on blew up in his face.
Facts cannot be refuted.
Such as...? (besides Solyndra).
Go Read The Article
Read te article? Seems like a big FAIL to me (not that Obama isn't a pimp like Romney).
It describes a number of failed efforts without the successful projects which should be presented to draw a balanced conclusion. For instance the solar company that was started with government funds and halved the thickness of solar panel materials and with it the cost.
The WAPO article is the equivalent of declaring all Romney's kapital ventures to be squeeze and burn. Not accurate and not sufficient to draw an accurate conclusion.
I have no idea what "socialism" has to do with any of this.
We the People, through our elected officials, "invest," "spend," "disperse," "contract" in all sorts of things. Between the military and Medicare, well, there's most of our contracting (investing, spending) right there.
But there's all sorts of investing beyond that. Some of it works well - is efficient and positive - and some of it not so much.
The only question should be in what we invest.
JMJ
"We the People, through our elected officials, "invest," "spend," "disperse," "contract" in all sorts of things."
And that's the problem. The government is a horribly inept allocator of capital.
The government is necessary yo finance long startup/low initial profit efforts and to maintain the commons.
That's Braudel not Hayek but the Austrians weren't the only ones with cred although you seem to need convincing.
Maintain the commons, yes. Finance startups, no.
@ "The government is necessary to finance long startup/low initial profit efforts"
Yet they are political decisions not necessarily rational ones.
They are a form of political largesse and are made largely independently and perhaps ignorantly of the technological readiness level of whatever they are throwing money at. Surest way to lose your shirt, or in this case someone else's shirt.
The more important question is what methodology is used to determine the allocation of funding, and why is the government throwing money at private startups and corporations?
If the money needs to be allocated to research, why is the government not handing the funding to one of the 16 non-profit federally funded research and development centers (FFRDC) sponsored by the Department of Energy?
Oh, yeah that's right, FFRDCs are restricted under the federal law by which they are organized from competing in the marketplace or more importantly, rewarding their political sponsors with campaign contributions. No payback, I guess.
"necessary to finance long startup/low initial profit efforts"
Gee, that sure sounds like the role of an FFRDC "unique nonprofit entities sponsored and funded by the U.S. government to meet some special long-term research or development need".
I guess the benefit of FFRDCs is the downside in this case "The benefit of the FFRDC is that there is no profit motive or conflict of interest, and the FFRDC can therefore function as an independent, trusted advisor and honest broker. The FFRDC is answerable only to the government customer and has no vested interest in particular technologies or solutions."
I don't have a problem with government funded research, I have a problem with, "fully 71 percent of the Obama Energy Department’s grants and loans went to individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party.”
Nuff said?
JMJ: "The only question should be in what we invest."
As a government? Nothing not directly related to, and necessary for, defense and I'm grudging at having to concede that.
If Joe Blow wants to build a better mousetrap he can damn well do it with his own dime.
So, Vib, no roads, sewers, research, schools, hospitals, parks, libraries, etc etc etc? No? Only the military sector, huh?
Ya' know, there are lot's of fun juntas running Third World hell holes out there! Have you considered expatriating?
JMJ
@JMJ
I have no objections to infrastructure, though most of the items on your list are more properly the business of state and local governments anyway. The problem comes when government starts paying for R@D and giving hand outs to companies like Solyndra.
Want to build that better mousetrap? Find your own investors, build the factory, on your own, do your own product development, and then sell your finished product to the government. Having the Feds subsidize you 'in advance' just screws your competitors.
Life as a Prime Exponent of Critical Theory
The Autobiography of Bombardo Canardo, the Auntie Maim of the Internet
~ FreeThinke
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