Obama: America's Road to Serfdom

I found the following section (bold-faced paragraphs below) of Marnie Delano's PumaTruthisGold piece on blogspot to be fascinating. The goal of the Obama administration, in case you haven't noticed, is to throw the American economy -- along with the political system -- into chaos. The redistribution of wealth is, of course, generally from McCain voters to . . . Obama voters, and from the most productive to . . . the least productive.

To that end, a major emphasis on fear/panic (driven by a constant drumbeat of words such as crisis, catastrophe, and cataclysm) is a key element. Marnie focuses on Robert Rubin, a key architect of the collapse of Citigroup, and Robert Orszag, a protege of Rubin's and Obama's head of the Office of Management and Budget:

[Note] . . . Christopher Bollyn's work on Obama’s new budget director Peter R. Orszag.Oddly, Orszag’s background has received virtually no attention in the media. At this critical moment, however, it would be foolish to ignore the troubling background of Obama’s budget director, which deserves to be looked at very carefully.

Orszag, for example, could start by explaining exactly what happened to the Icelandic economy. Orszag was, after all, the founder and president of the economic consultancy firm which advised the Central Bank of Iceland - before it went bankrupt. How did Icelandic banks become so indebted? Ask Peter Orszag.

Orszag is an economist who served six years in the Clinton administration (1993-8) under Robert E. Rubin, the former treasury secretary who recently resigned from his senior position at the woefully mismanaged and nearly bankrupt Citigroup. The fact that Orszag was a protégé of the now disgraced Rubin certainly does not bode well for the Obama administration.

Rubin strongly opposed the regulation of derivatives when such regulation was proposed in 1997. Credit derivatives of mortgage-backed securities were the key reason for the recent failure of a number of large financial institutions, including AIG and Citigroup.

In 1999, Rubin joined Citigroup as a board member and a participant "in strategic managerial and operational matters of the Company.” The Wall Street Journal noted that Citigroup shareholders suffered losses of more than 70 percent since Rubin joined the firm and that he encouraged changes that led the firm to the brink of collapse.

In December 2008, investors filed a lawsuit contending that Citigroup executives, including Rubin, sold shares at inflated prices while concealing the firm’s risks.

(Note: Today, the U.S. government's share of Citibank grew from 8% to 36%. No comments yet from Robert Rubin.)

Sneak Peek at Tomorrow's Column: "But What Do You Really Think About Obama, Steve?"

Obama's Administration is more like fascism than Communism. The big bloated corporation remain, but now they're run by your friendly overseer from the government -- not by the Board of Directors or the CEO.

Ancient Robert Byrd questioned why all these guys -- the various czars and advisers -- were being named to powerful positions that didn't require Senate confirmation and oversight.

Because they don't want any oversight. They're Obama's version of the Mafia leg-breakers. They are responsible to no one but Emperor Bozo ("Don Barack" and "Don Rahm")

The main thing that bothers me is the fact that they don't have anyone who has a clue about terrorism, or any idea about how to prevent another 9/11. I don't think sending around bags of cash is going to impress al Qaeda. Putting Panetta at the head of the CIA is like making Richard Simmons commissioner of major league baseball. They excluded anybody who had any post 9/11-experience.

Somebody on my Facebook wall was singing Obama's praises, a young guy, and a friend of mine wrote, "I hope you're ready to spend your entire life in a soup line."

Okay, Obama's way to solve the housing crisis is to cut the mortgage interest deduction for houses. I give up. The only good thing is that a lot of big contributors to Democratic congresspeople are going to start howling soon -- housing construction people and the like.

Obama's way to create jobs is to do away with E-verification that keeps illegals from getting the jobs. I give up again.

One big construction project in Pittsburgh that's way over budget (up in the $600 million category) wants another $160 stimulus payment. Gov. Rendell calld THE WHOLE PROJECT "a tragic mistake." (I'm laughing.) Your stimulus money in action.

This is worse than we thought, and we didn't expect much to begin with.