Saudi billionaire eyes new links with News Corp.

Rupert Murdoch and Saudi prince discuss expanding alliance. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal already owns 5.7% of News Corp.

Source

Obama Shatters Spending Record for First-Year Presidents

The federal government spent $3.5 trillion during President Obama’s first year in office. This far exceeds the spending for any other first-year president.

President Obama has shattered the budget record for first-year presidents — spending nearly double what his predecessor did when he came into office and far exceeding the first-year tabs for any other U.S. president in history.

In fiscal 2009 the federal government spent $3.52 trillion — $2.8 trillion in 2000 dollars, which sets a benchmark for comparison. That fiscal year covered the last three-and-a-half months of George W. Bush’s term and the first eight-and-a-half months of Obama’s.

That price tag came with a $1.4 trillion deficit, nearly $1 trillion more than last year. The overall budget was about a half-trillion more than Bush’s for 2008, his final full fiscal year in office.

That’s a big increase. But compared with other presidents’ first years in office, Obama is running circles around them.

Bush spent $1.8 trillion in 2001, according to government budget figures that have been adjusted for inflation based on 2000 dollars. Using the same formula, former President Bill Clinton spent $1.6 trillion in 1993.

The last president to clock in under $1 trillion was Gerald Ford, who logged a $982 billion budget in 1975. Post-war Dwight Eisenhower even brought Uncle Sam’s tab down to $556 billion in his first year, 1953.

Obama’s first-year budget, adjusted for inflation, is about five times that. His 2009 budget is also close to 21 percent of that for Clinton’s eight years in office — Clinton’s spending added up to $13.5 trillion over his two full terms. Bush spent $16.8 trillion from 2001-2008.

Depression and/or Revolution

On the Fox Business channel, a CEO named Gerald Celente is predicting a revolution. Says that we are going into a depression greater than the Great Depression. This guy knows what he is talking about – he is the “world’s #1 trend forecaster.”

Robin Hood in Reverse

The UAW is lobbying Congress for a $25 billion bailout of the big three automakers (Chrysler, GM, and Ford). But it is worthwhile to note that Congress would be transferring billions of dollars from taxpayers (who on average cost their employers $25 an hour) to those who cost their employers over $75 an hour. In comparison, employees for Japanese automakers pay out only $40 an hour on average.

(click image for Heritage article)

The big three automakers say they can’t make a profit by producing cars in the United States, while Japanese automakers are doing well in the U.S.. We are a free market, and that means freedom to succeed and freedom to fail. The UAW wants to reward bad economic decisions with our money.

The big three need to be restructured by bankruptcy. This will force the labor contracts to be restructured, but the UAW has said that they will not make concessions that would benefit the auto industry.

The CVC's increasing price tag

The recently opened Capital Visitor Center was proposed in the early 1990′s, and was turned down by (real) Republicans because the $71million price tag was too much. The CVC was approved after 1998 due to security concerns (why not put in the ‘virtual’ fence Congress wants on our border).

The CVC went from being turned down at $71 million to $100 million… $265 million… $373.5 million… now the price tag we are stuck with: $621 million.

Solutions for the economy

From Newt Gingrich:

http://newt.org/tabid/102/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/3764/Default.aspx

Step One: Replace Secretary Paulson

A plan that relies on the former chairman of Goldman Sachs presiding over disbursing hundreds of billions of dollars to Wall Street is a terrible concept and inevitably will lead to crony capitalism and the appearance of – if not the actual existence of – corruption.

The American people understand this and they don’t trust the Paulson plan. Congress should never have been faced with this as its only option to solve the financial crisis. Congress never should have been confronted with this bill. And one man, above all others, is responsible.

That man is Henry Paulson, who may have been a great deal maker for Goldman Sachs, but has been an utter failure during this economic crisis.

It’s time – passed time, in fact – for President Bush to fire Secretary Paulson.

President Bush should replace Paulson immediately with someone more capable of forging a deal that the American people can trust. Secretary Paulson’s Deputy at Treasury is Robert Kimmitt. He does not have the Wall Street background that made Secretary Paulson so difficult to trust as a negotiating partner and should be much more open to alternatives because he has less invested in the “Paulson” plan.

Kimmitt need not go through the actual confirmation process to immediately take over negotiating with Congress. The sooner Paulson is replaced as the chief negotiator for the administration, the sooner we will have a deal the American people can support.

Step Two: Suspend the Mark-to-Market Accounting Rule

The second thing our leaders should do immediately is simple and uncontroversial: Suspend the “mark-to-market” accounting rule that is exacerbating this crisis.

Under this artificial rule, the value of assets of banks moves up and down with economic conditions, regardless of their underlying worth. So in a time of economic crisis – such as the current subprime mortgage crisis – the value of bank assets gets caught in a downward spiral, causing investor panic and a drying up of credit.

In 2004, the European Central Bank issued this now eerily prescient opinion of the mark-to-market rule:

“With a real estate crisis or a stock market crash… [a bank] under [mark-to-market] accounting might aggravate the effects of the shock. Banks may be encouraged to react by panic selling and tightening lending standards, thus contributing to a further deepening of the crisis.”

$700 billion bailout figure made up

From Forbes.com:

… some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

A “really large number?” I can’t believe it! It’s unbelievable how flippant they are about spending billions of our dollars, regardless of whether it will work or not.

Consumer confidence at all-time low

Consumer confidence is at the lowest level since they began keeping statistics 41 years ago.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/28/news/economy/consumer_confidence/