The Bankers and those on Wall Street are pretty damn smart arent they? They own everyone in Washington DC.

NFLTrends · Feb 27, 2014

Wall Street has invested over $5,000,000,000 Dollars the past 2 elections buying out Washington. With a vast majority of companies/persons investing in BOTH candidates.

Why is that?? Why would you donate to both candidates??

They are also smart... they figured out that voter turnout was low, black voters, and the young voters were not turning out. They needed someone to electrify those voters, someone who would make the masses "blind" per se, of what was really happening to this country. While those who pull the strings, continue to do what they have been doing.

So they thought "Lets get a young, non-white, hip, candidate to get the masses behind him.

They found Barak Obama....

What has "Changed" since Obama was in office? (Change was the slogan wasn't it?)

Lets get Wall Street and Lobbyists out of Washington. (Nope, they are still there, in fact, there are more now!)

Lets make the Government transparent. (Nope, its even more secretive with meetings then before)

Lets get the Government out of debt. (Ummmm, it still rising at a fast pace)

Lets get all the pork and unnecessary spending out of bills. (Its still there, and going to people who donated to campaigns)

The middle and poor need to be better off. (The middle class and poor are failing even more... yet the rich keep getting richer)

All bills will be made available for the public before being voted on. (nope, they are still sneaking in bills past midnight when people are sleeping)

I can go on, and on, and on, and on......

But who will the bankers put up as a puppet for the election in 2016?? They used the "non-white, young, hip, electrifying" approach already. What kind of candidate will they push on us? Im curious? They stuck us with Bush... They stuck us with Obama, and I am sure the American public will vote for who they tell us to vote for again.

Money runs Washington, and money tells us who to vote for. Yet we keep falling for it over and over again. So, whats it going to take to break this cycle and get people to actually look at what they are voting for?

Ricboff · Feb 27, 2014

and...let right and left blame each other. Wait, that was a given, no? China/USA agreement opened the floodgates for jobs to be sent abroad, ramp those EPS. Who was yelling , 'fuck, what happens to us if we outsource? What about our workforce'? No protectionism. Reap what you sow.

keep printing. And get govt to hire people.

WHO HAS THE BALLS to slap stiff tariffs on imported China goods?

NFLTrends · Feb 27, 2014

The "MONEY" trend with Big Business and Bankers continues to rule Washington and even the First Lady....

While her husband’s signature health care law goes up in flames, first lady Michelle Obama is reveling in the success of her East Wing pet project, the “Let’s Move” initiative. But ignore the do-gooder dressing. Mrs. Obama doesn’t care about your children. What we have here is a textbook case of Washington influence peddling, which the Obamas so vigorously condemned a long time ago and far away.

On Wednesday, Mrs. Obama announced an agreement by the Sesame Workshop and the Produce Marketing Association (PMA) to join her nonprofit Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) in a two-year agreement to help promote fresh fruit and vegetable consumption to kids. Among the corporate interests Mrs. Obama has wooed to her cause: Wal-Mart, Nike, Reebok, Nickelodeon, Walt Disney and the administration’s former Public Enemy No. 1, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Politico.com notes that trade groups including the American Beverage Association, the International Bottled Water Association, the Food Marketing Institute, the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the National Restaurant Association are all working with the first lady behind closed doors.

Her related initiative “Drink Up” is supported by the American Beverage Association, water filter companies BRITA and SOMA, and bottled water brands Aquafina, BEVERLY HILLS 9OH2O, DASANI, EVIAN Natural Spring Water, Hint, Voss, WAT-AAH!, Nestle Waters North America’s Arrowhead, Deer Park, Ice Mountain, Nestle Pure Life, Ozarka, Poland Spring and Zephyrhills. Joining her for the rollout of that initiative: Hollywood actress Eva Longoria, who gets paid to promote sugary soda pop Pepsi when she’s not standing by Michelle Obama telling the rest of us to drink more healthy water.

Mrs. Obama’s nonprofit reportedly has assets of $4.5 million. It doesn’t have to disclose its donors. So much for the “most transparent administration ever.” Even left-wing watchdogs are irked. “This is a classic case of the game of influence peddling by lobbying associations,” Craig Holman, who works for the liberal watchdog group Public Citizen, told Politico.com. “Lobbyists and corporations with business pending before the federal government invest in such charitable causes as a means to buy access and favor from the White House.”

In 2008, candidate Obama preached: “We need a president who will look out for the interests of hardworking families, not just their big campaign donors and corporate allies.” In 2013, first lady Michelle Obama is busy signing up as many corporate allies as she can.

As I’ve reported previously, Mrs. Obama has profited handsomely from the very same processed food industry she now demonizes. In June 2005, a few months after her husband was elected to the U.S. Senate, Mrs. Obama was named to the corporate Board of Directors of TreeHouse Foods, Inc.

Despite zero experience, the food-processing company put her on its audit and nominating and corporate governance committees. For her on-the-job training and the privilege of putting her name and face on their literature, the company forked over $45,000 in 2005 and $51,200 in 2006 to Mrs. Obama — as well as 7,500 TreeHouse stock options worth more than $72,000 for each year. TreeHouse, a leading supplier to Wal-Mart, sells cheese sauces, Cremora non-dairy creamer, instant soup, puddings and powdered soft drink mixes, and pickles for McDonald’s. Eat as she says, not as she deals.

Mrs. Obama has moved on from TreeHouse to much fatter “partnerships.” The alliances between big business and big government, marketed as a public service “for the children,” have been a bonanza for the first crony. They scratch her back, her clout and popularity increase, and she’ll have a cornucopia of board of director slots to choose from after her hubby’s term is up. Make no mistake: Michelle’s fruits and vegetables are served on a heaping platter of progressive hypocrisy.

carlspackler · Feb 27, 2014

I think the word you are looking for is corpocracy and it is nothing new.

Ricboff · Feb 27, 2014

carl spackler said:
I think the word you are looking for is corpocracy and it is nothing new.

and for the 'extremist' the word is treasonous. Let's not kid ourselves, here r intelligent people electing to turn a blind eye. IF there's a hell/heaven, they will rot....gives me peace, forgive me,

NFLTrends · Feb 27, 2014

Bush started in the Texas oil business, after Yale University and Harvard Business School. Wealthy family friends and others invested millions with him, but with poor results. A 1985 disclosure shows Bush's track record: Investors got back only 45 cents on the dollar, but few complained.

Investors also got tax deductions averaging more than 80 cents on every dollar invested. Those early Bush ventures were mainly tax shelters.

When his father was president, there were suspicions that the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain tried to enrich the younger Bush. Bahrain granted an exclusive drilling contract to Harken Energy Corporation, in which the younger Bush held stock. But he says he opposed the deal.

Bush spokesperson Karen Hughes says, "He felt the company just was not large enough, that it was outside the scope of their experience." And the deal turned out to be a loser, abandoned after two expensive dry holes.

In 1990 Bush unloaded most of his Harken shares for $835,000 about two months before Harken announced a big loss. That triggered an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into possible insider trading by Bush, but the SEC took no action.

A look at Harken's stock price may show why: Bush sold for $4 a share. Harken stock did dip to $2.38 the day after the bad earnings were released, but four days later bounced right back to $4 a share, exactly what Bush had been paid.

And the stock kept rising: Bush attorney Robert Jordan said, "A year later, in fact, the value had doubled to $8 a share."

So Bush could have done much better if he had waited.

Bush did not make his fortune in the oil fields. He made it at a major-league ball park heavily subsidized by taxpayers.

Bush takes credit for conceiving The Ballpark at Arlington, home of the Texas Rangers baseball team, which he bought in 1989 with a wealthy group of investors. Among them: billionaire Richard Rainwater of Fort Worth.

Bush invested just over $600,000, but Arlington taxpayers invested a lot more.

"It was $135 million worth of sales tax money," said attorney Glenn Sodd. "The city donated a good bit of land to the project. They got a sales tax exemption on all the items that were purchased for the stadium. We have a property tax in Texas and they were given as part of the deal a property tax exemption." A total of at least $200 million, according to Sodd.

And there's more: Sodd sued the Rangers on behalf of two families whose property was seized for stadium parking. A jury found they were paid about one-seventh of what the land was worth.

But the Rangers defend the deal.

"Basically, what we think we did was to create a model public-private partnership in which both sides came out ahead," said Bush partner and Rangers President Tom Schieffer.

Bush declined to be interviewed, but Schieffer says taxpayers got their money's worth.

"That's what we have always said in this process: 'If this wasn't good for Arlington, don't do it.' And that's the way we took it to the voters," Schieffer said. "We said, 'This is going to be good for the Rangers, no question about it. This is going to be good for us. But if it's not going to be good for you, don't do it.'"

The team threatened to move, and Arlington taxpayers voted in a half-cent increase in the sales tax. The vote was 2-to-1.

The new, subsidized stadium turned out to be a great deal for Bush. He was the most visible partner, and the publicity helped launch him into the governorship in 1994. And when the team was sold last year Bush's share came to at least $14.9 million with perhaps another $1 million or $2 million still to come.

Jim Runzheimer is one Arlington resident who opposed the deal.

"He put $600,000 into this project and he did a little bit better than Hillary Clinton," Runzheimer said. "She only made ... $100,000 or $200,000, from her dealing in commodities. Gov. Bush has made $15 million."

Fans love the stadium. And the team has flourished financially.

"Looking at it from the perspective of a businessman, this was an awfully sweet deal for the business," said Sodd. "Looking at it as a public official, we think it's lousy policy to use government money to subsidize billionaires in the pursuit of their business interests."

So Bush the businessman did prosper. But not by his bootstraps -- with help from wealthy friends and taxpayer subsidies.

SheriffJoe · Feb 27, 2014

Ricboff said:
and for the 'extremist' the word is treasonous. Let's not kid ourselves, here r intelligent people electing to turn a blind eye. IF there's a hell/heaven, they will rot....gives me peace, forgive me,

From your keyboard to God's ears :103631605