Afghanistan was Obama's war but he can't let it get in the way of campaigning. (See 1 below.)
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Challenging Fed policy. (See 2 and 2b below.)
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I finally finished Woodward's: "The Price of Politics."
Eventually, after weeks of give and take the 74 page "Budget Control Act of 2011" was passed . Obama got $2.4 trillion added to the debt ceiling immediately and it was to be offset by $1.2 trillion in spending cuts spread over a ten year period beginning in 2013 and which subsequent Congress' could ignore.
The second $1.2 trillion phase of cuts was to be determined by a nonpartisan group and in the event they could not come up with a solution by Nov. 23, 2011, sequester would occur taking half from an expanded definition of defense and the rest from various government transfer programs. This is where we are today.
Woodward concluded both Boehner and Obama failed in their responsibility and though their discussion of a grand bargain was probably sincere when they met resistance they did not stand their ground.
Woodruff ended by reminding the reader the monster federal debt and annual deficits are based on two problems: continued open ended spending and too little tax revenue.
Every time Boehner and Obama came close to an agreement Obama raised the issue of needing more spending and that is when Boehner finally walked away only to find Harry Reid had been corralled by Obama to support his demands. Obama won and the nation lost.
Any reasoning person understands we cannot buy our way out of the mess in which we find ourselves but we can start to grow our way out. To do so entails some permanent entitlement spending cuts in conjunction with passage of a simplified tax structure which would eliminate a host of special deduction goodies and then elimination of costly and counterproductive rules, regulations and red tape.
This is what Romney and Ryan intend to do but have not fleshed out the specifics. It cannot be accomplished without presidential leadership and this is where Woodruff feels Obama fails as a leader.
"The Price of Politics" is an interesting read. Woodruff has written a balanced expose of inside D.C. which we now know from Obama, is not the way to bring about change.
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Obama finally made his position clear - Israel and Netanyahu are just 'noise out there' which he will ignore because it is in America's best interest to do so.He feels an obligation to consult but that is about it.
Anyone who ever thought Obama would do anything to assist Israel should now have their answer.
(See 3 below.)
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Dick
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1) More than 1,000 American soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan in the last 27 months. This is more than the combined total of the nine years before. Thirty have died in August. The commander in chief is AWOL. Not a peep, although he ordered the White House flag flown at half-mast for the Sikhs that were killed. There is a deep disgust, a fury, growing in the ranks of the military against the indifferent incompetence of this president. It has taken on a dangerous tone. No one knows what to do about him, but the anger runs deep as the deaths continue with no strategic end in sight to the idiocy of this war. Obama has had 4 years to end this futile insanity, during which time he has vacationed, golfed, campaigned, and generally ignored the plight of our men and women in uniform. But, there is now a movement afoot in the armed services to launch a massive get out the vote drive against this president. Not just current active duty types, but the National Guard, Reserves, the retired, and all other prior service members. This is no small special interest group, but many millions of veterans who can have an enormous impact on the outcome of the November election if they all respond. The million military retirees in Florida alone could mean an overwhelming victory in that state if they all show up at the polls. It might not keep another one hundred U.S. troops from dying between now and November, but a turn out to vote by the military against this heart breaking lack of leadership can make a powerful statement that hastens a change to the indifference of this shallow little man who just lets our soldiers die.
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2)Wiedemer: Recession Unavoidable Despite QE3
By Forrest Jones and John Bachman
The Federal Reserve's attempt to stimulate the economy with a third round of quantitative easing will fail to prevent the country from sliding into a recession, says Robert Wiedemer, financial commentator and best-selling author of "Aftershock."
To spur recovery, the Fed has announced plans to buy $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities held by banks a month, a monetary policy tool known as quantitative easing.
The Fed added it would continue to sell its short-term Treasury holdings in the market and buy longer-term instruments simultaneously, with the aim of further pushing down interest rates across the economy.
These efforts combined will inject a total of $85 billion a month into the financial system, with the $40 billion from quantitative easing being freshly printed money, all designed to spur investing and hiring by pushing down interest rates — with a weaker dollar and higher stock prices serving as side effects.
Expect such unorthodox monetary policy tools to delay a decline by inflating stock prices, but not to prevent it.
"It’s designed to stave off disaster but, short term, most importantly it’s designed to just pump up the stock market. And guess what? It’s doing that," Wiedemer tells Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview.
Stocks are gaining on the news and could go higher, though fundamentally, the economy won't pick up the pace of its recovery.
"The market will likely try to surge towards a record high in the Dow, you know, 14,100, and it may go a bit beyond that. So we may see this run for a while," says Wiedemer, a managing director of Absolute Investment Management, an investment-advisory firm for individuals with more than $200 million under management.
Still, monetary policy can only set conditions that encourage investing and growth, though fiscal uncertainty at home as well as uncertainty surrounding the European debt crisis will keep businesses from expanding and hiring at home regardless of how low borrowing costs might be.
"We’re going to be dragged down by the world economy. Our manufacturing — which has certainly been a driver of our economy the last couple of years — it’s going to slow down. It already is slowing down heavily due to lower exports abroad," Wiedemer said.
"So we’ve got a number of problems with the world economy and we’ve got a few of our own here. So a recession is coming, not necessarily in the next few months but it is coming and no, there’s an easy way to avoid it."
Furthermore, quantitative easing won't even carry out it its primary purpose of creating jobs provided businesses remain concerned over the country's fiscal fate.
"I don’t think we’re going to see much impact from this on unemployment or hiring. That’s more of a cover for the Fed for wanting to pump up the stock market. It will pump up the stock market," Wiedemer said.
"It won’t do much for hiring. In fact, you could likely see hiring continue to go down. A number of leading economic indicators are indicating we are heading towards a recession. That’s certainly not going to be good for hiring."
The European debt crisis has raged on for over two years now, while in the United States, tax cuts are set to expire at the end of this year at the same time automatic cuts to government spending kick in, a combination known as a fiscal cliff that could send the country sliding into recession next year if left unchecked by Congress.
Businesses have remained reluctant to expand and hire due to the fiscal cliff, especially since they don't know how much taxes they might be paying next year.
Lawmakers have been reluctant to address tax and spending issues in an election year, though some have suggested they might convene early in 2013 after November's elections and deal with the problem on a retroactive basis.
In the end, however, they'll come to a solution that will likely involve raising the country's borrowing limit and spend their way out, punting tough decisions to narrow deficits and pay down debts.
"I never lose sleep at night worrying about whether Congress will find a way to borrow more money. They will figure it out. They will borrow more money," Wiedemer said.
"It’s easy for Congress to kick the can down the road a few months and they’ll be able to do that but, ultimately, they’ll be able to borrow the money."
In the meantime, Fed stimulus measures will send stocks rising, and investors should look to equities markets for opportunities albeit cautiously, keeping in mind the Fed-fueled rally won't last.
Dividend stocks have performed well over the last year as their yields outpace those in fixed-income investments, many of which are offering yields that don't even keep pace with inflation figures, thanks to low interest rates.
Still, some dividend stocks aren't offering as much yield, such as electric utilities, though other dividend stocks offer nice returns.
"We’ll probably take some off of the table and shift out for some pharmaceuticals, maybe an oil company. Chevron pays a good dividend, so there’s a number of options out there that might be better plays right now for dividends than the old utility stocks," Wiedemer said.
"Although, I’d probably keep a couple of them, but I’d probably look at moving into some other ones. Pharmaceuticals or maybe an oil."
2a) Marc Faber: Federal Reserve Policies Will ‘Destroy the World
By Forrest Jones
Loose monetary policies pushed through by the Federal Reserve as well as at other central banks will literally "destroy the world" by sending the global economy swelling, bursting and then tanking, said Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom Boom & Doom Report.
The Fed recently announced plans to stimulate the U.S. economy by purchasing $40 billion a month in mortgage-backed securities from banks, a monetary policy tool known as quantitative easing that pumps liquidity into the economy in a way that pushes down interest rates to encourage investing and hiring.
Critics say the tool basically prints money out of thin air and also plants the seeds for mounting inflationary pressures down the road.
The policy measure also weakens the dollar while sending stock prices higher, but once the sugar high ends, expect markets and the economy to pop since all that liquidity won’t help the average American and fuel the underlying demand for goods and services that the economy lacks.
“The fallacy of monetary policy in the U.S. is to believe that this money will go to the man on the street. It won’t. It goes to the Mayfair economy of the well-to-do people and boosts asset prices of Warhols … .Very happy. Very good for the Fed. Congratulations, Mr. Bernanke. I’m happy,” Faber told Bloomberg TV.
“My asset values go up but as a responsible citizen I have to say the monetary policies of the U.S. will destroy the world.”
The United States isn’t alone when it comes to expansionary monetary policies.
Other big central banks are pushing through their own policies, as well.
“The Europeans will print money. The Chinese will print money. Everybody will print money and the purchasing power of paper money will go down,” Faber said.
Such policies should send investors opting for stocks over bonds.
“I don’t like bonds. I don’t particularly like equities, but I think equities are a better space to be in than bonds,” Faber added.
Other high profile investors have criticized the Fed’s policies as well.
“The dollar will go down in value and inflation will start rearing its ugly head,” billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump told CNBC.
Meanwhile, quantitative easing will do little to jolt the one area of the economy that threw the country into recession and continues to dampen recovery — housing.
Interest rates are already low as it is, and the Fed’s liquidity injections won’t spark the demand the sector and the broader economy need to see.
“Mortgage rates are already very low,” Trump said.
“But the banks aren’t lending. So it doesn’t make any difference.”
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3)Obama snubs Netanyahu on Iran: My decisions - only what’s right for America
US President Barack Obama said Sunday night, Sept. 23 on CBS “60 Minutes” that he understands and agrees with Netanyahu’s insistence that Iran not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons as this would threaten both countries, the world in general and kick off an arms race. But he then added: "When it comes to our national security decisions – any pressure that I feel is simply to do what's right for the American people. And I am going to block out – any noise that's out there."
Obama went on to say: “Now I feel an obligation - not pressure but obligation - to make sure that we’re in close consultation with the Israelis on these issues because it affects them deeply.”
So, consultation? yes; cooperation? forget it. His comments removed the last hopes Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak may have entertained of cooperation with the US for curtailing Iran’s nuclear designs by military force.
The US president was crystal clear: By saying he will be ruled solely by American security interests, he showed them that they too were being left to be guided by Israel’s security interests. So forget about red lines for America, he was telling Netanyahu.
His blunt verging-on-contemptuous dismissal of Israel’s concerns as “noise out there” was not much different from the way Iran’s leaders referred to the Jewish state.
Their threats against Israel have different dimensions: On the one hand, they say that if Israel is even thinking of attacking Iran, it will be destroyed in a preemptive attack. On the other, Israel has neither the military capability nor the courage to strike Iran.
Asked on CNN Sunday whether he feared a war with Israel was imminent, Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: "The Zionists are very much, very adventuresome… They seek to fabricate new opportunities for themselves and their adventurous behaviors."
Obama’ “noises” are Ahmadinejad’s “fabrications.”
The Iranian president had no need to explain how Iran would react, because the answer was broadcast ahead of his arrival in New York to address the UN General Assembly Thursday, by Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Revolutionary Guards missile section.
The general said Sunday: Should Israel and Iran engage militarily, "nothing is predictable... and it will turn into World War III" Addressing Iran’s Arab-language network, he said, "In circumstances in which they (the Israelis) have prepared everything for an attack, it is possible that we will make a pre-emptive attack. Any Israeli strike would be presumed to be authorized by the US. Therefore, “we will definitely attackUS bases in Bahrain, Qatar and Afghanistan."Tehran was therefore pulling against Obama by tying American and Israeli security interests into an inextricable bundle.
Jerusalem sources report that Netanyahu is now seriously considering calling off his trip to New York for a speech to the UN General Assembly scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 27. He realizes that by challenging US policy from the UN platform, he would lay himself open to criticism for gratuitous provocation of the president and interference in America’s election campaign weeks before a presidential election.
Obama’s Republican challenger Mitt Romney, in a separate CBS interview, attacked Obama’s reference to Israel’s legitimate concerns about a nuclear Iran as “noise out there,” calling it “just the latest evidence of his chronic disregard for the security of our closest ally in the Middle East.”
Earlier, Romney termed the president’s decision not to meet Netanyahu as sending a message throughout the Middle East “that we distance ourselves from our friends.”
Obama's snub and the wrangling with Washington has reduced Netanyahu’s options to start standing alone and making his own decisions.
Obama’s latest words underline this. The prime minister can no longer avoid his most fateful decision and one that is critical to Israel’s survival: to attack Iran and disrupt its nuclear program or live with an anti-Semitic nuclear Iran dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state and a threat to world stability.
For two weeks, the Israeli prime minister has dodged and ducked around the White House message. Instead, he has kept on bombarding Washington with high-powered messengers. They all came back with the same tidings: the US President is not only fed up with Israeli pressure but more determined than evade any military engagement with Iran.
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