The Official Obama Scorecard Thread

[strategy 4]

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[strategy 4]

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[85suited 0]

I'm honestly relieved that they shifted away from the joker.per usual, two groups who pride themselves on being unbiased disagree:http://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/Gallup-D...b-Approval.aspx

Rasmussen has never used the Joker - I copied the chart from someone who put the joker photo on itRasmussen had Bush rated very low as well Are you saying Rasmussen is Biased?

[strategy 4]

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[brvheart 1,759]

I feel like this might be a better polling service than any of these clowns we look at:http://www.intrade.com/

That is shocking what that site lets you bet on. Is that real?

[vbnautilus 48]

It's not exactly a bet, it's a prediction market. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_marketYou are buying assets whose final value is tied to the occurrence of an event. The actual price is determined by the market itself, which is why they make decent predictions.

[Sal Paradise 57]

gallup says 51% job approval, rasmussen says 46% strongly disapprove. seems to me like someone has to be wrong, no? I would expect either a much smaller job approval or far fewer strong disapproves.maybe I'm just missing something.

rasmussen has "strongly" in there while gallup doesn't, and I'd imagine that changes the numbers a good notch. I can see them being that different.

The actual price is determined by the market itself, which is why they make decent predictions.

wait wait wait... are you saying that the open market is a good way to make decisions on pricing??? you're taking crazy pills!

[strategy 4]

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[Sal Paradise 57]

margin of error +/- 75% obv

[Balloon guy 158]

You guys hear about that statistician who drowned in a lake with an average depth of only 4 feet?

[gobears 0]

Obama has listened and decided NOT to hold his state of the union during the premiere of Lost.+100

[Sal Paradise 57]

Obama has listened and decided NOT to hold his state of the union during the premiere of Lost.+100

hahahahaha, that could be the best thing a president has done in the past 50 years.

[Balloon guy 158]

-1Obama is becoming

I guess he is becoming the Democrat's Nixon.Without first being a good president I mean.The gist of what this guy says is : White House sources believe the intelligence community's failure to stop the plot "might have been intentional and not accidental." Further, "the information was in some way deliberately withheld from some higher or broader authority to make someone look bad," leaving little doubt that the victim of this new, vast right-wing conspiracy was Obama.Earlier, fellow Obama sock-puppet Richard Wolffe reported that White House officials said the intelligence debacle was the result of "a failure by individuals who maybe had an alternative agenda."

[Jeepster80125 0]

Does anyone have any opinions on whether or not obama will excape his presidency without having to deal with this? Or will this be another legacy of his?http://reason.com/archives/2009/01/12/the-next-catastrophe

The Next CatastropheThink Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were a politicized financial disaster? Just wait until pension funds implode.Funds worth trillions of dollars start to plummet in value. Political pressure to be “socially responsible” distorts the market decisions of government-related enterprises, leading to risky investments. Investors who once considered their retirements safely protectedwake up to a sinking feeling of uncertainty and gloom.Sound like the great mortgage-fueled financial crisis of 2008? Sure. But it also describes a calamity likely to hit as soon as 2009. State, local, and private pension plans covering millions of government employees and union workers with “defined benefit” accounts are teetering on the brink of implosion, victims of both a sinking stock market and investment strategies influenced by political considerations.From January to October 2008, defined benefit funds—those promising a predetermined amount of retirement money to the payee—averaged losses of 26 percent, according to Northern Trust Investment Risk and Analytical Services, making it the worst year on record for corporate and public pension funds. The largest public pension fund in the United States, the California Public Employees Retirement Security System (CalPERS), lost a staggering 20 percent of its value in just three months last year. In May 2008, Vallejo, California, became the largest city in the state ever to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, thanks largely to unmanageable pension obligations. The situation in San Diego looks worryingly similar. And corporations with defined benefit plans are seeking relief in Washington as part of a bailout season that shows no sign of slowing down.If the stock market remains in a funk for even a few more months, corporations that oversee union pension funds and state and municipal leaders responsible for public retirement pools may be faced with difficult choices. First on the docket might be postponing cost-of-living increases and reducing health care coverage for retirees. Over the longer term, benefits for new employees will have to be shaved and everyone is likely to see an increase in personal payroll contributions. Corporations will have to resort to more cost cutting and layoffs of their own just to guarantee the solvency of their pension funds. And things could go from bad to terrible if the managers of those funds do not quickly revise their investment practices.During melting markets, all pension funds come under siege. If you’re covered by a “defined contribution” plan, contributions are invested, usually by your employer and usually in the stock market, and the returns are credited to the employee’s account. Your retirement savings grow if the market rises or, as is the case now, bleed when it crashes. You carry the risk on your shoulders.The risk shifts to the employer under “defined benefit” plans, in which future outlays are guaranteed. That seemed like a great idea for business as recently as 2007, when the market was rising and the pension funds of America’s 500 largest companies held a surplus of $60 billion. Now they’re at a deficit of $200 billion, with fund assets dropping like a lodestone.The Pension Protection Act of 2006 requires that companies keep the accounts fully funded over time, meaning that they have to have enough money to pay all of their retirees should they decide to withdraw their funds. Yet more than 200 of the 500 big-company plans are nowhere close to meeting that standard, and those dire numbers are increasing.Companies with defined-benefit pensions may soon find themselves choosing between making payroll or pumping money into their pension plans. If companies are forced to make up the shortfall out of their assets, which seems likely, that would send profits tumbling even more, further destabilizing the stock market. And even with a cash infusion, many businesses might still have to freeze or even cut benefits.Both the corporations and the pensioners are victims of a market meltdown whose depth and duration almost no one predicted. Yet the investment performances of their corporate pension funds, while dismal, are holding up better than the returns of many public and union defined benefit plans. Those funds are facing their own reckoning, but in this case a lot of the pain is self-created and exacerbated by politics.Social Investing ShenanigansThere is about $3.5 trillion sloshing through the U.S. retirement system, scattered across more than 2,600 public pension funds and federal retirement accounts. Another $1 trillion or so covers union workers at corporate jobs in which the union has key management control of the fund. These public and union-based defined benefit plans cover 27 million people and represent more than 30 percent of the $15 trillion dollars held in U.S. retirement accounts.Traditionally, public investments and union-based corporate pension funds were managed according to strict fiduciary principles designed to protect workers and taxpayers. For the most part they invested in safe government securities, such as bonds or U.S. Treasury bills. Professional managers oversaw the funds with little political interference.But during the last 30 years, state pension funds began playing the market, putting their money into riskier and riskier securities—first stocks, corporate bonds, and foreign investments, then real estate, private equity firms, and hedge funds. Concurrently, baby boomers whose politics were forged in the 1960s and ’70s began using those pension funds to advance their social visions. Investments designed for the long-term welfare of retirees began to evolve into a political hammer. Some good occasionally came from the effort, as when companies were pushed to become more accountable in their practices. But advocacy groups often used their clout to direct money into pet social projects with dubious fiduciary prospects. Sometimes the money went to the very companies and financial instruments that, in the wake of the market meltdown, are now widely derided.Many union funds and larger state pension plans screen stocks and investment opportunities based on what are known as “socially responsible investing,” or SRI, principles. Instead of focusing solely on maximizing value, fund managers have used the economic clout of concentrated stock holdings to make a statement by divesting from companies that don’t make it through certain “sin screens.” These included companies involved with weapons, nuclear energy, tobacco, alcohol, natural resources, and genetic modifications on agriculture, many of which did well over the past decade. Stocks of public companies deemed to have poor records on labor, environmental issues, women’s rights, and gay rights are also frequently screened out, as are corporations that do business with regimes that activists consider unsavory. In some cases, investments have been withheld altogether from some of the markets expected to best weather the current financial storm, including China and India, because of perceived transgressions.Socially responsible investing now claims a market of more than $2 trillion, according to the Social Investment Forum, the trade group for social investors. There are dozens of mutual funds and investment advisory companies that incorporate ideological screens. Most of them are liberal, although there are now a few conservative funds and some based on religious principles, such as Islamic law. Activist treasurers and pension fund managers in numerous states and municipalities, most notably in California, New York, and Connecticut, have incorporated social screens into their investment strategies.Cont'd at link...

[hblask 1]

Does anyone have any opinions on whether or not obama will excape his presidency without having to deal with this? Or will this be another legacy of his?http://reason.com/archives/2009/01/12/the-next-catastrophe

I didn't read the article again now, but I read it when it came out. If I recall, it's mostly a state-level problem, especially for CA. It will definitely bleed to the federal level as people in state governments and over-exteneded-but-politically-connected corporations start coming around with their hand out. I'm not sure it's on the level of Freddie and Fannie, but yeah, this could get ugly.

[Naked_Cowboy 0]

While the problem is not directly a federal problem, the precident set by obama in taking over GM that the government can change the priority of claims of secured creditors was very much the opposite of helping. A primary investor group in things like secured corporate debt and the highest rated corporate bonds are institutional investors like retirement plans and local and state governments who are looking for a low risk / low return investment.

[Pot Odds RAC 23]

New Tax "Fees" on Banks to repay TARP Loanshttp://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/13/oba...fees/index.htmlSo now the Banks that were successful need to repay the loans for the Banks the ones that weren't successful. I am so sick and tired of politicians (and the stinking media) hiding behind words like "Revenue" or "Fees" as the Democrats raise our TAXES. I guess that the pledge of no taxes to pay for this stuff was a lie.But hey, it is only a tax fee on the big bad corporations. It is free money. At least the consumers and public don't have to pay for that stuff.

[nutzbuster 7]

Well now isn't this just great....lol. (regarding the pension issue)I plan on jumping into a State pensions swamp in July. Looks like good timing.They tell me our "Constitutionally protected" state fund cannot be raided for any reason. But Arizona is the next California and I fear there is a very real possibility that we will not be able to pay our dues and may indeed soon be broke. (Thanks to that **** Janet Naplolitano, who spent hundreds of millions in surplus cash into socially unsustainable programs while her horrid ass was here as governor) . The result is our desperate current legislature is licking their chops to get at this pile of cash and trying to find a way out.That said, Arizona has taken a more conservative approach to investing that money and the fund is fairly healthy ...for now. But as layoffs continue statewide and fewer people pay into the fund, and as more and more folks are now jumping out of the workforce and into the pension program (raises hand)...it will only get more difficult to maintain that pool of cash down the road. I do know that payroll Fund contributions are going up 1% for next year.But the program is funded from sooooo many different sources. Almost all the cities, counties, school distrcts, police, fire, etc. pay into this thing. THey would basically all have to go broke and dissapear off the map for the money to completely stop feeding the system, not a likely scenario obv. I am confident that the State will recover at some point, the unemployment situation will ease and the fund will be ok (currently in the billions in assets ), but for the short term...I am a little nervous, contrary to the officials claims that all is fine.And that is the main reason I am taking the early retirement option and getting locked into this thing. I see them changing the criteria to make mandatory minimum retirement age 55 or 60, increase contributions (already happening), reduce benefits, etc. I also know the Fed issued a ruling 2 years ago that bumped up the minimum age to 55, but for some reason it deferred to 2011. I want to get into the system as soon as I can, before any of that shit happens...

[akoff 0]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/13/oba...fees/index.htmlSo now the Banks that were successful need to repay the loans for the Banks the ones that weren't successful. I am so sick and tired of politicians (and the stinking media) hiding behind words like "Revenue" or "Fees" as the Democrats raise our TAXES. I guess that the pledge of no taxes to pay for this stuff was a lie.

you seemed to be surprised by this....why? how?....you didn't see this coming? LOL

[85suited 0]

you seemed to be surprised by this....why? how?....you didn't see this coming? LOL

I believed Obama when he said he would not tax hard working american families

[akoff 0]

I believed Obama when he said he would not tax hard working american families

That is funny...you are too much. Kinda like being surprised when a rock from the BB 4 bets shove preflop and shows AA...jeez didn't see that coming.

[85suited 0]

That is funny...you are too much. Kinda like being surprised when a rock from the BB 4 bets shove preflop and shows AA...jeez didn't see that coming.

Rocks play tight?

[Naked_Cowboy 0]

- 5 for not having a clue for forcing non banks to become banks and bank holding companies (happenned last year)- 5 for now being blaming those banks - which aren't set up as banks for all intents and purposes - for doing things that you don't think banks should do- 5 for thinking that you own every ****ing financial institution in america because you forced them to take money they didn't need and already gave back to you.- 5 for not understanding that major private equity and real estate transactions simply do not and cannot happen without a major stable presence organizing and usually backing them. If the institutions can't invest alongside all of the investors you bring together, the investors have no confidence that it's a good thing to invest in. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...id=aGwoMdcKbVFk

The proposals, to be added to an overhaul of regulations being considered by Congress, would prohibit banks from running proprietary trading operations solely for their own profit and sponsoring hedge funds and private equity funds. He also proposes expanding a 10 percent market-share cap on deposits to include other liabilities such as non-deposit funding to restrict growth and consolidation.

Since i do the accounting for the bolded, this obviously affects me pretty strongly but this just shows such a complete lack of understanding of how finance works it's mind blowing.

[85suited 0]

LOL at the greatest orator ever to grace the presidency using his binky to talk to a grade school

[Pot Odds RAC 23]

LOL at the greatest orator ever to grace the presidency using his binky to talk to a grade school

Awesome.