Jobs were lost in virtually every sector: manufacturing, construction, and especially the service sector, which had been the sector that provided job strength over the last few years.

In summary, there is nothing to like about this report and it is likely to get worse. Estimates on unemployment rate range from 7% to 9% by the middle of 2009.

Read more here on how the “Economy Sheds Jobs.”

Goldman Sachs, which had the most accurate call on the employment report, is now calling for a -3.5% GDP for 4th qtr 2008 and a -2% for 1st qtr 2009.

Also: The market expects a .50 cut in the Fed Funds rate in December to an overall rate of .5%.

This call leads us to wonder whether we are going to move into a Japanese-style economy from the 1990s in which lending rates were literally 0 but savings were still very significant and borrowing anemic. Banks did not fully recognize losses. Inflation was not an issue given that borrowing needs were non-existent. This scenario is not the case here in the United States since our deficit borrowing will be enormous!!

Equity markets are expected to open flat to slightly higher this morning. Actually those markets opened up app 1% and got as high as 2.5% but have come back down to +1% after the GM earnings. (11:30 am).

Bonds are lower with rates up by app 8-10 basis points.

Commodities are mixed with early call on gold up 2-3% but copper is lower … again … oil also looks like it will open slightly lower but moved higher in sync with the overall market.

The auto situation continues to receive a lot of focus. The “cash burn” rate for Ford and GM is between 2-3bln a month.

The Big 3 are asking for 50bln in capital to address health care costs and liquidity … expect them to get it from Uncle Sam with Uncle Sam taking warrants in the companies … all that said, indications are that the auto companies will have layoffs and cost cuts wherever possible. Ford posted earnings of -$1.31 per share vs expectations of -.93. GM posted earnings (how is it that they are called earnings when in fact they are losses?!) of -$7.35 per share vs expectations of -$3.94. This GM situation is truly dire.

Read more here how “Ford Plans More Cuts.”

All the focus on bank lending really needs to focus on the ability of the banks and brokers to “sell” those loans (mortgages, auto loans, credit card loans, et al) to investors through the “securitization” process.

Investors are very cautious and have little appetite at current rates to buy these loans. Given that lack of demand, banks are not willing to lend. Ultimately rates for these products need to move higher to attract investors.

The idea that Freddie and Fannie will be the buyer of last resort for these mortgages is a movie that we have seen before and it has a very bad ending.

Read more here on how “JP Morgan’s Illiquid Assets Rise.”

Speaking of Fannie: Expect a RECORD loss when they post 3rd qtr earnings.
Another situation that bears watching is AIG … they are trying to sell divisions to repay Uncle Sam but are meeting with little demand currently or buyers are very cautious as they can’t get financing for the purchase.

With all of the government intervention currently and more intervention expected, it is not a stretch to say that as taxpayers we are all investors in the biggest multi-strategy hedge fund in the world. Problem is, I think that our “investment” may in many circumstances be like that roach motel. We can get it, but just how the heck do we get out …??

Last but not least … Warren Buffett purchased preferred stakes in Goldman Sachs at 125 with a 10% dividend and warrants to purchase more at 115 … Goldman closed yesterday at app 81 … yes down 35% from Buffett’s purchase … Buffett did the same trade with General Electric when GE was at 22.25 … GE closed yesterday at 18.3 … yes down app 20% … Warren is smart but he has the luxury of time and excess cash … those investments were made in late September.

I caution you from focusing too much on the day-to-day swings in the markets and continue to assess the trends in the economy. Bounces are temporary. Markets correct by price and time.

Granted we have had app a 40% correction in price, but we will likely now suffer from either more price corrections or a market that at best “treads water” thus a time correction.

We hope you had a Happy Friday!!

……..

Ed.’s Note: Our apologies for not posting this story on Friday. It was entirely the editor’s fault. LD wrote this by mid-day Friday. We will try to do better.

I am a firm believer in unions. But, for the love of God, their appetites make pigs look like Twiggy.

One night — I think it was on Nightline — I watched one of those sigh-it’s-sad-and-sober and it’s-the-end-of-an-American-way-of-life-sniffle stories about automotive workers being forced to take early retirement. One woman who was interviewed said that it would be a struggle for her to no longer make $60,000 a year as a janitor. A janitor? Who earns $60K? Excuse me? And she gets great health insurance, a pension, and lord only knows how many other perks?

And now President-elect Obama is spending his first days catering and pander-bearing to the labor unions and to the auto industry that is so poorly run it deserves to go out of business.

Then there are those Boeing machinists who just finished off yet another strike on November 1st because, by God, who can get by on this salary?

The average Machinist base wage for the past year was about $54,000, and with overtime about $65,000.

Look at that photo. Do those people look hungry to you? Or like they’ve been sleeping under bridges? One woman had some good ol’ C.S. (that common sense my parents always emphasized):

“I don’t think the strike ever should have happened,” said Sluys. “It’s a dangerous thing to do in this economy.”

No kidding. And now the Democrats and Obama want to end secret ballots in order to FORCE people — through intimidation (JUST LIKE IN THE CAUCUSES!) — to join the piggy unions?

Lots of people NEED unions.

There’s that receptionist at a medical office I go to. She gets minimum wage. I happened to see her working nights at a pizza parlor, and she was so embarrassed that I saw her that she hid in the kitchen until I left.

I felt so badly for her.

I’ve seen how the medical personnel at that office treat her — they’re bossy, condescending, demanding, and rude. They accost her verbally in FRONT of us patients. It’s awful. And for a lousy $8 an hour, so paltry she has to work a second job at night and then pray that no one sees her.

And there are millions of Americans like her.

$60,000 a year?

$54,000 a year?

People like that receptionist I know would be utterly THRILLED to get $30,000 a year.

Shame on those piggy union members.

And shame on the piggy Democrats pocketing all their campaign donations and making THEM the top priority instead of stimulating small businesses, and more.

::::::

P.S. Teacher’s unions need to go, like yesterday. They permit nasty battleaxes to stay on the job who are abusive — emotionally and verbally — to children, and have no business in the classroom. Then school district have to pay huge settlements to get rid of the worst. They dare not fire those who are merely horrible.

It’s dumb.

I’m tired.

So I’m just ranting.

You can rant too! It’s fun! It’s bracing!

OPEN THREAD!!!

“Hillary took to the floor of the Senate today to lay out her plan for halting the economic meltdown, and her Senate staff has the video of her speech up online. … [L]isten to what she’s got to say. She’s speaking about what needs to be done NOW to address the economic meltdown taking place up on Wall Street this week. She talks in detail for over 20 minutes and dammit, it just breaks my heart that someone this capable and brilliant isn’t headed to the White House this fall.”

COMPARE AND CONTRAST: Ricki Lieberman and Ann, a No Quarter reader, strongly suggest you compare the video that NancyA has posted below with, ahem, Barack Obama’s video on “solving our financial crisis.” Obama urges everyone to “watch the ad and share it with everyone you know.” Uh, Barack, I think we’ll be sharing Hillary’s video that NancyA put up below.

…………………………………………………………

NANCYA’s post: While Senators John McCain and Barack Obama were auditioning for who could best handle a national economic emergency, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton released the following statement from her office in Washington, DC. As usual Senator Clinton understands the dangers of this “once in a century” crisis. She calls it “the greatest market upheaval since the Great Depression”. She did the following:

…called for swift and strong action to stem the growing credit crisis on Wall Street. Assailing the Bush Administration for ignoring repeated warnings of the growing crisis and failing to provide adequate oversight of an increasingly complicated market, Senator Clinton offered a series of bold, specific proposals, including creating a new version of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) to restore confidence in the market, curbing the most damaging and manipulative trading practices, providing relief to homeowners facing foreclosure, and reasserting competent federal oversight.

She outlined several proposals. Here is a list of her proposals:

* Create a new entity to buy up and quarantine toxic mortgage securities that are dragging down the markets which would allow the markets to stabilize. Last spring Senator Clinton was among the first to call for a new entity modeled after the successful Depression-era Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) or the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) created after the Savings and Loan crisis.

In response, Senator Clinton outlined a series of proposals to address the crisis, a crisis she warned about during the primary:

* Place a temporary moratorium on the most abusive stock transactions, many of which involve the “short-selling” of stocks. Yesterday, Senator Clinton wrote to the Securities and Exchange Commission urging such a moratorium, saying it would provide breathing room for the markets to recover, for investors to make accurate assessments of companies and for regulators to assess what trading practices should be permanently banned.

* Convene an emergency economic summit to show the American people their government is working together. Bringing together leaders in the administration and Congress with lenders, consumer advocates, non profits, financial institutions, and all stakeholders will allow a coordinated response to the crisis.

* Aggressively pursue and encourage mortgage modifications. Senator Clinton has introduced legislation to remove barriers to mortgage modification and to encourage lenders to voluntarily work with borrowers to keep them current on payments and in their homes.

* Restore competent federal oversight of the increasingly complicated financial markets. The rapid evolution of the securities and banking industry overwhelmed the current regulatory framework, resulting in a “shadow banking system” that operates outside of oversight and without accountability.

* Require transparency and accountability on executive pay. Senator Clinton has proposed the Corporate Executive Compensation Accountability and Transparency Act to impose new transparency rules on executive pay, end the accounting techniques that hide compensation, and provide shareholders a say in executive compensation packages.

* Ensure the accountability of financial institutions borrowing money from the Federal Reserve’s new lending facilities. Taxpayers deserve to know that the companies they are bailing out are on the road to recovery and aren’t throwing more good money after bad.

Here is video of her remarks to the Senate yesterday:

The transcript of Senator Clinton’s remarks follows.

Senator Clinton: Thank You, Mr. President. We have seen the financial landscape in our country reshaped over night. The titans of Wall Street have been rendered insolvent or even bankrupt. These are firms that survived the Great Depression, World Wars, the attacks of September 11th, but were no match for a mounting credit crisis allowed to escalate in the shadows of our financial system. The Federal Government has taken over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Bear Stearns had to be rescued by J.P. Morgan Chase after the federal government guaranteed J.P. Morgan’s investment. And while they’re in talks to keep part of the company viable, Lehman Brothers has declared the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. Merrill Lynch has been purchased by Bank of America and the Federal Government has agreed to rescue AIG. This past Monday we saw the largest drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average since 9/11. Now even money market funds are affected. For only the second time in our history, one has been valued at less than 100 cents on the dollar. Alan Greenspan has called this a once-in-a-century event. In my state of New York, tens of thousands of hard-working employees have lost their jobs. And the livelihoods of tens of thousands more who depend on Wall Street’s economy are threatened as well.

New York City and New York State, already facing serious economic and fiscal challenges, will now be forced to contend with a battered Wall Street, the lifeblood of our state’s economy. And the sudden collapse of these firms and the government takeover of some have shaken our markets and buffeted the economy as a whole.

Many are now asking, What’s next?

I know that New Yorkers and Americans are deeply concerned and more than a little bewildered. As our markets have grown more complex and interconnected globally, so too have the crises that have emerged. And we are still sorting out the details.

One of the consequences of the secrecy and lack of oversight under the Bush Administration is that we do not know what we do not know. But it is important to recognize what we do know about what went wrong so that we can assess what needs to be done right now to make it right.

What we have seen over the course of the last eight years is an administration that refused to recognize the threats lurking in our economy, no matter what lurked just beneath the surface or what problems were facing middle class families.

Now, we know that many CEO’s are paying lower tax rates than their receptionists. We know that President Bush and those who carry his mantle seek to lower those taxes even further. Middle class families have seen their wages decline even as the cost of living has skyrocketed. This administration has the worst job creation record in 70 years. Millions of families were locked into ballooning and unaffordable adjustable-rate loans as this administration stood by denying there was a crisis. Regulators and regulations designed to keep pace with the markets have been steadily chipped away by Washington Republicans even as companies experimented to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars in ever more complex and risky financial instruments.

Now, we were reassured that the risk was too diversified and investments too sophisticated to put our economy in jeopardy. Meanwhile, behind closed doors, the cracks were showing as the value of mortgage-based securities slipped day by day by day. And the President and his supporters in Congress repeatedly chanted – and still chant the mantra today – that the fundamentals of our economy are strong.

The administration waxed philosophical when middle class families started facing foreclosures at record levels. The administration and their allies derided my proposals over the last two years to offer assistance to troubled homeowners seeking refinancing as a bailout. They dismissed my concerns and the concerns of millions of Americans even as the storm clouds gathered. They said they didn’t believe the government should intervene and provide borrowers an affordable opportunity to avoid foreclosure. Even when I and others warned the Bush Administration repeatedly from the start of this crisis that decisive action was demanded immediately to help families stay in their homes, that that was the best way to stave off a deepening economic crisis, their only responses were predictions for a soft landing and that the crisis could be contained.

Well, as I traveled throughout our country, I could see that no soft landing was forthcoming.

Many families, hundreds and even thousands of miles from Wall Street, were having their lives turned upside-down by the home mortgage crisis, and the ripple effects being felt throughout the economy, as a consequence of the broken economic policies of the last eight years.

Unfortunately, the Bush Administration waited until this past summer to admit that massive housing relief was necessary. The administration finally supported in concept much of what I had proposed: mortgage modifications, freezes for unreasonable mortgage rate increases, and an expanded role for the Federal Housing authority.

But their response was half-hearted, without adequate resources or a commitment to enforcement. And so the home mortgage crisis slowly but surely eroded the value of risky debt instruments upon which Wall Street firms were depending. The house of houses of cards began to fall. My proposals, as well as those of others, were greeted as too much, too soon. Now we are forced to reckon with too little, too late.

When giant Wall Street firms revealed their dire straits and turned to this administration for the exact same help as we had sought for middle-class families — discounted loans, loan modifications and government-backed lending to weather the storm, Adam Smith was nowhere in sight.

Taxpayers have loaned these banks upwards of half a trillion dollars. And after years of laissez-faire policies for the middle class, the Bush Administration has acted on behalf of Wall Street with the largest and most significant federal interventions in the history of our modern financial system. The largest banks in the world can have closed-door meetings with the White House and the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department to discuss their bailout options, but millions of homeowners with mortgages worth more than their homes, or who are facing default and foreclosure, don’t have the same opportunity.

And this administration seems to be once again paralyzed.

Now, I represent both the workers and the homeowners and the investment firms. I wish we had taken action long before this for the sake of all of my constituents, but now we must have a concerted, focused effort. I don’t believe we can wait until the next president. I am extremely hopeful and optimistic that we will have a president who will work with us to resolve our economic challenges, but I don’t think we can wait.

However, I do believe we can avoid a deepening crisis. We can take steps right now to address the root causes of what is taking place in our economy to stem the tide of foreclosures and mortgage defaults and the aggregating consequences in the credit markets on Wall Street and throughout the global economy.

But we must cast aside the haphazard, half-hearted approach of this administration and bring every stakeholder to the table to seek out and implement the right solutions. We must be as vigilant on behalf of homeowners and middle class families as we are on behalf of Wall Street firms. We must chart a new course based on the facts at hand, not the ideology at work for eight long years. We’ve tried being reactive. It’s time now to be decisive.

No options should be off the fable, certainly not because they don’t fit into a narrow ideological prism that this administration abandoned — for some — at the first signs of trouble. Ideologues in Washington or in the market who thought that the only danger to the marketplace was the Federal Government are now going hat in hand to that same government seeking help to stay afloat.

So to those who suggest that the steps taken thus far are enough, let me be clear: we may need to take even more significant steps to avoid a self-sustaining cycle of depressed home prices and foreclosures with the consequent effects on the entire marketplace.

We’ve already pumped hundreds of billions of dollars of liquidity into the markets but we still cannot see the end of this crisis. The biggest problem now is that our entire financial market is anchored down by the mortgage securities that are untouchable. We’ve seen the banks and the financial institutions that had the largest exposures to these instruments among the first to fail. But now we’ve begun to see some of the mightiest institutions, even those making a profit, fall by the wayside, the market thrown into upheaval, and others the target of predatory short sellers.

The Federal Reserve has used virtually every arrow in its quiver, from rate cuts, opening its lending windows and in desperation has even created some new arrows through its new lending facilities. By some estimates, the Fed has put out more than a half a trillion dollars through discounted loans, bailouts and takeovers to stabilize the market and the economy. While necessary to prevent even deeper disaster, we’ve seen that the benefits of these actions have had limited effects.

This situation reminds me of that old fable, where people are standing by the side of a river and they keep seeing babies being rushed down the river in the current and they desperately reach out trying to save as many babies as possible. Day after day they’re reaching out. They get new tools, they build a bridge, they get a ladder, they’re constantly trying to get to those babies. They’re hoping that they can save as many, until finally somebody walks up and says, “Who’s throwing them in? Go upriver, find out what the real problem is and stop that!”

The real problem has always been the way our home mortgage system got totally out of whack with new kinds of instruments that were sold many times over with very little regard to the realities of life, human nature, and the inevitable ups and downs in the economy, with the results that until we reach in and fix the home mortgage crisis, we can bail out everybody from here till kingdom come, we will not get a handle on this economic crisis.

So here’s what I believe we should do.

First, in light of historic bank failures, even with the largest federal intervention in the history of the mortgage market, we need a government entity, a modern-day Homeowners Loan Corporation, referred to as HOLC — H-O-L-C — or we need to build on the Resolution Trust Corporation created to help deal with the Savings and Loan Crisis.

Now, I personally believe and was among the very first to suggest that a HOLC, a Homeowners Loan Corporation, could be a preferable way of unfreezing and beginning to fix our struggling mortgage market. Some of my colleagues and many other respected economists and government officials have called for the creation of an entity like the Resolution Trust Corporation, which was created after the Savings and Loan crisis to liquidate in an orderly way the virtually worthless assets that the failed S&L’s held.

Just yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, Paul Volker, and Eugene Ludwig and Nicholas Brady made such a proposal. They said a HOLC, an RTC, we’ve got to come up with an entity that will assume these debts and burdens and begin to work our way out.

Last spring when I called for a modern version of the HOLC, that’s the Depression-era entity that bought up old mortgages and issued new, more affordable ones in their stead, most people did not pay much attention. But I think it’s important to note that by the time the HOLC closed its books, that agency had turned a small profit and helped over a million people keep their homes. And this was 70 years ago. Our population has grown dramatically. So, obviously, if we did it right, we would be able to save a lot of homes. And I think if it is administered correctly it could be actually a net expenditure or even winner for the federal government.

Now, with the FHA reforms that I have long championed adopted this summer in our Omnibus Housing Bill, the FHA could be already a modern Homeownership Lender Corporation. But we need to look to new ways to revive and if necessary create a new market for mortgage securities based on sound accounting, transparent recordkeeping and responsible lending.

A new government entity like the HOLC with a focus on attacking the source of the problem can serve the purpose of clearing a lot of those toxic mortgage securities from the market. We know there will not be any semblance of a normal or orderly marketplace until we have found a way to resolve these mortgage securities that are metastasizing in the bottom of our markets. By taking this paper out of the market and quarantining it in this new entity we will be able to give the market breathing room to recover. We will also be able to set the stage for an orderly sale of these securities and in turn allow some of them to recover and actually regain some of their value. Perhaps just as importantly, not only would our financial markets stabilize but so would our housing markets.

This is an extraordinary measure but it is not without precedent. This is the greatest market upheaval since the Great Depression. We are, indeed, in a crisis, and in times of crisis there are opportunities for leadership. Congress could show the American people that leadership working with the President by embracing this bold proposal.

Second, I’m calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission to take immediate action to address the abusive and manipulative short-selling practices that are rattling the markets, threatening firms and jobs and sending shockwaves across the broader economy. I commend the SEC for yesterday tightening rules against manipulative short-selling. The SEC’s rulings are a positive step in curbing the heightened volatility casting uncertainty on domestic markets and financial institutions. However, the Commission did not go far enough.

As a Senator from New York, I have a special duty to represent the workers of the financial services industry and to try with all my might to retain New York City as the financial capital of the world. The abuses that have disrupted the markets today will impact the lives of so many far beyond New York.

So I think it’s necessary for the SEC to take steps similar to the emergency rule it imposed this past July when the Commission concluded that there now exists a substantial threat of sudden and excessive fluctuations of security prices generally, and disruption in the functioning of the securities markets that could threaten fair and orderly markets.

Conditions now pose a greater threat than they did in July, and several of the institutions that the Commission sought to insulate from abuse do not even exist or certainly not in the in the same form that they did two months ago.

So we need to stay a step ahead, not a step behind. So I urge the Commission, as I expressed yesterday in a letter to Chairman Cox, to move toward a temporary moratorium on all of the abusive and manipulative short-sale practices associated with substantial financial firms like those the Commission identified in July. A temporary moratorium would allow the marketplace to take a step back, take a deep breath, and it would allow the Commission and other regulators to identify and weed out the sources of these abusive transactions.

Moreover the Commission should give close consideration to the many calls for the immediate restoration of the uptick rule, whose repeal has been linked to the recent market volatility and proliferation. I know there are technical problems in terms of moving toward digitized trading but we ought to be able to figure out how to handle those.

Third, I’m calling on President Bush to convene an economic summit right now that brings together leaders in the administration, the Congress, with lenders, consumer advocates, nonprofits, financial institutions and all the stakeholders. Such a summit, I believe, would restore confidence, demonstrate that the entire country is focused on solving the problem we face.

Fourth, I want to propose, once again, that we aggressively pursue and encourage mortgage modifications. I’ve introduced such legislation. I believe it’s important. Ten million homeowners are under water today carrying more than $2 trillion in mortgage debt. That is a huge anchor on our markets and economy. Modification, done right, is a strategy that serves lenders and borrowers as well as the broader markets.

Fifth, it is clear that for too long the rapid evolution of the securities and banking industry overwhelmed our regulatory framework resulting in an entire shadow banking system that operated outside of oversight and without accountability. It’s not enough just to shift responsibility or move lines on a flowchart. We need a new regulatory framework. We’ve been living off of the one from the Great Depression. Now is the time to create a new framework.

Six, I proposed the Corporate Executive Compensation Accountability and Transparency Act to impose new transparency rules on executive pay and the accounting techniques, the high compensation, and provide shareholders a say in executive compensation packages.

Finally, and seventh, I’m proposing that we require any financial institutions borrowing money from the Federal Reserve’s new lending facilities to open their books and ensure accountability and transparency to identify unsound practices. These banks and other entities have tapped the Fed’s new lending windows levels for over $300 billion in capital. They’ve shifted a lot of that risk onto the backs of our taxpayers. These are unprecedented interventions and we should make sure that these companies aren’t using taxpayer dollars to subsidize golden parachutes or risky investments, throwing your good money after bad. If we’re bailing you out we deserve to know exactly your liabilities. And you have to be part of this new regulatory framework.

This crisis has not abated. It’s time for us to start acting like Americans again. There isn’t anything we can’t solve once we put our minds to it. For that we need leadership. I know that our leader, Senator Reid, has said that the Senate will remain in pro forma session. We are ready to work with the administration, to work with the other stakeholders to change course and end the failed economic policies and failure of regulatory oversight that brought us to this point.

Now there’s much more, Madam President, that we need to do. Individuals have to take responsibility. We know that. But in this dynamic environment we must work together to stabilize the market, tackle the root causes that have festered too long, and restore confidence in our economy.

We’ll weather this storm but let’s do it sooner instead of later. Let’s try to save as many boats in the water right now instead of cleaning up the wreckage on the banks. I believe we can do that, and I thank you, Madam President, for your attention, and I hope that we’ll be able to start seeing action very soon. Thank you, and I yield the floor.

After watching the video of her remarks and reading the transcript, I sit here wondering why she isn’t our Democratic presidential candidate. And I remember the sadness and hole in my heart that I felt when I returned home from Montana and knew I would not see her as our candidate or our president this year.

The title tells the story:

Then blogger J. Justin Wilson reveals the depressing details:

I just got off the AFL-CIO’s kick-off conference call with Obama. What a tragedy of errors.

First of all, Sen. Obama was about 40 minutes late to the show. You can image how fantastic 40 minutes of Muzak went over. Finally, John Sweeney introduced Obama.

Next …

After rattling off nearly the exact same speech he delivered a few months ago to the AFL-CIO (see above [video]), Obama proceeded to hang up. Click. Just like that.

Someone at the AFL-CIO muttered something like “is that it?” and then we went back to hold music.

A lady came back on and made an excuse, saying Obama’s line was cut off and that he would come back on the call. Minutes pass, and then she came back on and said that Obama had left the building. …

Go to “Stood Up and Hung Up” to view a video and to listen to the actual phone call.

Oh well. I completely understand.

It is such an annoyance to have to talk to those “typical” little people.

:::::

P.S. Originally I described the blog as “pro-labor.” That is not entirely true. However, the facts of the event — backed up with an AUDIO — remain true.

However, shortly, we will reveal additional details about the membership of the Chicago-headquartered billionaire Crown family on the board of directors of Northern Trust, which granted the Obamas their advantageous loan. Crown family members have been major donors to Obama’s campaigns, and serve on his elite fundraisers group for his presidential campaign.

Among the most disturbing stories of Obama’s many efforts to give political and legislative advantages to the Crown family’s holdings, Senate candidate Barack Obama promised Illinois’ Maytag workers he’d work to protect their jobs — and took campaign donations from the beleagured workers — but then met with Lester Crown, on the board of directors of Maytag, to take his campaign donations. Crown later told the press that Obama never raised the workers’ fate with him. The machinists lost their jobs to Maytag’s Mexican plant. From my story, “Machinists’ Union TELLS It Like It Is ,” quoting a must-read article at TradingMarkets.com, “Obama’s fundraising, rhetoric collide: Union says senator did little to save jobs“:

Obama had a special connection to Maytag: Lester Crown, one of the company’s directors and biggest investors whose family, records show, has raised tens of thousands of dollars for Obama’s campaigns since 2003. But Crown says Obama never raised the fate of the Galesburg plant with him, …

These are the ties that bind:

Barack Obama plays the “populist” routine in his campaign speeches, but he delivers to his billionaire benefactors, not the common working stiffs who are losing their jobs and their homes.

Now for a quick round-up of bloggers’ reports on the Obamas’ “sweetheart” home mortgage from Northern Trust, on whose board a billionaire member of the Crown family sits:

Hot Air blog:

Barack Obama’s home loan has more questionable aspects than just the Tony Rezko connections, according to the Washington Post. After ten years as a prominent Chicago politician and in his first year in the Senate, Obama got a $1.32 million loan below market rates without paying the normal extra fees — a rate which saved him $300 per month on his mortgage. Obama managed to do this despite the extraordinarily large mortgage and his lack of history with the lender:

The couple wanted to step up from their $415,000 condo. They chose a house with six bedrooms, four fireplaces, a four-car garage and 5 1/2 baths, including a double steam shower and a marble powder room. It had a wine cellar, a music room, a library, a solarium, beveled glass doors and a granite-floored kitchen.

The Obamas had no prior relationship with Northern Trust when they applied for the loan. They received an oral commitment on Feb. 4, 2005, and locked in the rate of 5.625 percent, the campaign said. On that date, HSH data show, the average rate in Chicago for a 30-year fixed-rate jumbo loan with no points was about 5.94 percent. [...]

Thus far, no evidence has arisen that the Obamas took advantage of a “Friends of Angelo” program, as Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad did with Countrywide. However, the difference in rates — especially for such a large mortgage — gives the appearance of a political favor, at the very least. Combined with the Tony Rezko’s financial involvement in the deal, at a time when Rezko had little income other than that from a shady Iraqi financier and fraudster, and it looks as though people in Chicago really wanted to see the Obamas move into that house.

Northern Trust has helped out Barack Obama in other ways … their employees have donated $71,000 to Obama’s campaigns. When Obama rejected public financing, were these donations the kind that he insisted represented the moral equivalent of the system he championed until he found that he could outraise and outspend his opponents?

Obama has spent plenty of time castigating credit lenders in this campaign for their capricious practices and bad management. He has rung the populist bell. …

The Swamp, Chicago Tribune’s blog — which generally downplays the importance of the WaPo story:

[C]oming as it does after all the disclosures of the erstwhile Friends of Angelo program at Countrywide Financial which apparently benefited some members of Congress and at least one former member of the Obama campaign team, James Johnson, who headed up Obama’s vice presidential selection process until stepping down because of the scandalette, this story about Obama’s mortgage is certainly worth knowing about.

Redstate.com blog:

Obama, caught off-guard about Johnson’s sweetheart Countrywide deals, initially tried to defend his vice presidential talent scout. But, Obama threw Johnson, under the bus, just a few days after Johnson’s Countrywide sweetheart deals came to light.

Obama is spinning his sweetheart mortgage deal as the lender competing for Obama’s business:

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said the rate was adjusted to account for a competing offer from another lender and other factors.

[. . .]

The Obama campaign called the rate “consistent with Northern Trust policies, and it reflected the base rate set for that period discounted to address the competition for the account and other opportunities, such as personal financial services, that the relationship would bring to Northern Trust.”

It’s those “other factors” and “other opportunities” that worry me. Those “factors” and “opportunities” could be anything, including special access to a grateful U.S. Senator or a President.

Presidents, and U.S. Senators, need to avoid the appearance of impropriety. As with Obama’s relationship with the crook, Antoin Rezko, Obama’s judgment once again failed both Obama and America.

“I have always opposed NAFTA.”

“I don’t think NAFTA has been good for America - and I never have.”

“Ten years after NAFTA passed, Senator Clinton said it was good for America. … Well, I don’t think NAFTA has been good for America - and I never have.” –Senator Barack Obama in Toledo, Ohio on February 24, 2008

Now in an interview with Fortune magazine out on Monday June 23, 2008, the very junior Senator from Illinois wants us to believe that was just rhetoric. He really didn’t mean what he said.

“Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified,” –Senator Barack Obama in a Fortune magazine interview to be published Monday June 23, 2008

Never mind the heat of battle rhetoric, how about the more reflective printed word?

In his own flyer, Obama is quoted as saying that “one million jobs have been lost because of NAFTA, including nearly 50,000 jobs here in Ohio.” But those figures come from an anti-NAFTA source, the Economic Policy Institute written by Robert Schott. Other economists have criticized that report’s methodology and its conclusions as having overstated the impact of NAFTA, rather they point to a lax enforcement of regulations that have permitted an exodus of American manufacturing jobs and primarily to China, Korea and other East Asian countries not to Mexico or Canada. Other economic studies have concluded the trade deal resulted in much smaller job losses or even a small net gain. Here’s what the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has to say on NAFTA’s effects on American jobs:

NAFTA’s net effect on jobs in the United States has been minuscule, given the size of the U.S. economy and the importance of other trading partners.

The best models to date suggest that NAFTA has caused either no net change in employment or a very small net gain of jobs.

And that’s now after seven years of the Bush Administration failing to enforce regulations that shed American jobs. Under President Clinton, it was a far different story. Here’s Professor of Economics Brad Delong (an Obama supporter, I might add) of the University of California at Berkeley writing in July 2000:

It is time to conclude that NAFTA–the North American Free Trade Agreement–is a success.

His article largely is about the impact of NAFTA on Mexico but he finds that economic benefits accrued to all members of the trade pact. However, he does note the following:

Far from shrinking, employment in autos and auto parts in America has grown by more than twenty percent since the beginning of NAFTA. Far from falling, hourly earnings of U.S. automotive workers have risen since the beginning of NAFTA.

Even as recently as February 2008, just about the time Obama was making his comments in Toledo on how he had always opposed NAFTA, Professor Delong was writing that NAFTA was not the cause of Ohio’s woes.

And, of course, if we go back to his Senate campaign of 2004, Obama said this:

“The United States benefits enormously from exports under the WTO and NAFTA.” quoted in an article by Ron Ingram, Obama, Keyes Court Farmers, Decatur Herald & Review, on September 9, 2004. Source: Lexis/Nexis.

So he was for it before he was against before he was for it. Sound familiar? And so much for the “I never have” part of his argument.

And one more point, I may not remember what I had for lunch earlier this week, but I do remember what I have said over the years, maybe because I have core convictions and that is just it with Senator Obama, he has no core convictions. It’s always what is politically expedient for him at the time.

More on this topic and perhaps others once the full interview is out. He can excuse his “rhetoric” as a slip of the tongue but the printed word is a little harder to dismiss.

_________

From my blog, By The Fault.

UPDATE: Here’s a rumor I just heard. “The Obama people are handing out official Democratic party literature with Obama stickers stuck inside telling people that the democratic party has endorsed Obama.” (I’ve heard numerous similar reports during elections in other states, so this does not surprise me. I hope it’s not true, but it’s from a good source and it’s known behavior by Obamabots.)

HERE IS HRC’s LEGAL HOTLINE: 877-472-9460
______________________________

Hillary Will Stand Up for Your Jobs, Your Future

INDIANAPOLIS, IN- Hoosiers for Hillary today launched a new 30-second television ad emphasizing that Hillary will fight to turn the economy around and create new jobs across Indiana. …

The ad features footage of Hillary speaking to Hoosiers at a “Solutions for the American Economy” town hall at Ben Davis High School in Indianapolis on March 29. Throughout her campaign in the Hoosier State, Hillary has proposed real solutions to the economic challenges that Hoosiers are facing and made the case that she is the jobs and economy candidate for Indiana.

As President, Hillary will fight for “your jobs, your health care, your futures.” The spot, titled “Jobs,” will air throughout Indiana.

To watch the ad, click here:

Following is a script for the ad.

Jobs
:30

Hillary Clinton: I think this election, particularly here in Indiana is about jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs.

Announcer: She’s ready to turn our economy around, stop tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas, fix unfair trade deals, stand up to China, create five million new jobs.

Hillary Clinton: The next president has to begin putting the American people first. Your jobs, your health care, your futures.

I’m Hillary Clinton and I approved this message.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

TEXT RE UPDATE #2:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 22, 2008

Contact: Press Office, 703-875-1271
press@hillaryclinton.com

Statement from Hillary Clinton on Equal Pay Day

“Equal Pay Day, the day that women’s wages catch up with our male counterparts from the previous year, reminds us that while Americans have made great strides towards equality, we still face important challenges.

“Even forty years after the Equal Pay Act was signed into law, women only receive .77 cents for every dollar men earn, and the gap is significantly more for women of color. In Pennsylvania, women who work full time earn 74.8 percent of what men earn. In Indiana, its 72.6, and in North Carolina women earn 79.7 to each dollar earned by men. On average, families forfeit $4,000 a year because women don’t receive equal pay for equal work. I am a proud sponsor of the Paycheck Fairness Act, which will toughen penalties in enforcing the provisions of the Equal Pay Act and help realize the promise of pay equity.

“There are heroines standing up for equal pay for equal work. Lilly Ledbetter, whose years of pay discrimination were upheld by the Supreme Court because she did not file a lawsuit before she had evidence of the discrimination, inspired me and my colleagues to introduce legislation to ensure that cases like hers are decided on the merits not on technicalities.

“As the voters in Pennsylvania go to the polls today, the wage gap is a stark reminder of what is at stake in this election. As President, I will continue to work for pay equity because it’s not a woman’s issue, it is a fairness issue and it is a family issue.”

###

In this just-released ad, Hillary argues for protecting American jobs that directly impact our nation’s defense — rather than outsourcing to the Chinese:

Hoosiers for Hillary today launched a new 30-second television ad highlighting Hillary’s plans to protect American defense manufacturing jobs from being sent overseas. The ad features former employees of Magnaquench who lost their jobs along with more than 200 Hoosiers when the company closed its Indiana plant and shipped production of high-performance magnets used for the U.S. military’s “smart bombs” to China.

As President, Hillary will fight to keep the nation’s defense jobs here at home, because “American workers should build America’s defense.” The spot, titled “Closed,” will air throughout Indiana.

And here is the script:

Hillary Clinton: Right here over 200 Hoosiers built parts that guided our military’s smart bombs to their targets.

They were good jobs, but now, they’re gone to China.

And now America’s defense relies on Chinese spare parts.

George Bush could have stopped it, but he didn’t.

As your president, I will fight to keep good jobs here, and to turn this economy around.

I’m Hillary Clinton and I approve this message because American workers should build America’s defense.

Right on, sister.

::::::::::::::::::::

P.S. I don’t like the idea of the Chinese making components in the prescription drugs I take. I want AMERICAN WORKERS to make my vital prescriptions.

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep on saying — it’s still the economy stupid. So the big-shots are actually starting to use the R word — it’s not news to a lot of folks back home in Michigan. They’ve been neck-deep in the R word for the last year or more. Homes in foreclosure where even the banks can’t sell them. Folks out of work. We thought of moving home a couple years ago so our kids would be closer to my folks and the rest of the family, but we knew there was no way my husband could find work. No one’s fixing up homes when they can barely make the mortgage payment. It’s not a pretty picture and it’s only going to get worse.

Sad thing is, everyone’s saying there’s no way they could have forecasted this messed up economy. Take a look at what they had to say in the New York Times…

Part Two of Jim Cramer’s interview of Hillary Clinton:

Unemployment Rising

Friday’s awful news of 80,000 lost jobs in March surprised economic forecasters, who had not expected such a severe contraction. But it’s safe to say that it did not surprise most Americans. Just days before the report, a poll taken by this paper and CBS News showed that a stunning 81 percent of Americans believe the nation is on the wrong track. That’s the highest percentage since the poll began asking about the country’s direction in the early 1990s. Two in three respondents said they believed the economy was in a recession.

The March employment report leaves virtually no doubt they are right. The job contraction last month was on top of large losses in January and February. Not since the 1950s has job growth contracted for three months straight without recession. The question is whether lawmakers in Washington will catch up to where the people are in time to help in a meaningful way.

snip

Even for those who escape layoffs, a deteriorating labor market (unemployment spiked from 4.8 percent in February to 5.1 percent in March) means slower wage growth. When new inflation data is released next week, March is expected to become the sixth month in a row in which wage growth has not outpaced inflation. The likely result is more defaults by people who otherwise would have been able to keep paying their mortgages.

snip

Rising unemployment will worsen all of the expected problems of a downturn — from waning consumer spending, to foreclosures, to rising demand for government-paid health care, food stamps and unemployment benefits.

They close by calling on Congress to take swift and bold action. Hillary’s been calling for such action for over a year — I can’t imagine her frustration at seeing her collegues do so little too late for millions of American families.

Well here’s what she had to say about the jobs report yesterday…

Hillary Clinton Statement On March Jobs Report

Today’s news that unemployment jumped to 5.1% in March and that our economy lost jobs for the third straight month adds to the mounting evidence that our economy is spiraling downward, and that hardworking families are paying the price.

It’s time the President and John McCain recognize the r-word: reality. Our economy is in serious trouble and unless we act swiftly we could be sliding into a deep and painful recession.

When Wall Street faced crisis, we saw swiftly and creative action and a $30 billion lifeline for Bear Stearns. Today’s jobs report confirms that it’s time to take equally aggressive action to help American families struggling in our bearish economy.

For more than a year I have been like Paulette Revere, calling for action to keep the problems from our housing market from spilling over into our economy. After a year of denial and half-measures it is time for this Administration to put ideology aside and get serious about stemming this crisis. Perhaps this jobs report will also help John McCain recognize that doing nothing is not an economic strategy in times of urgent need.

While I support the legislative approach that Senator Dodd and Congressman Frank are taking to help restructure mortgages and keep millions of families in their homes, today’s news of serious continued weakness in our labor markets reinforces that we need to be ready to go further. I believe we must stand ready for the government to purchase at risk mortgages. We also need a second stimulus of at least $30 billion to help states and localities fight the foreclosure crisis in their communities.

When Hillary talks about feeling like she’s been Paulette Revere she’s not kidding. Here’s a speech she gave on the sub-prime mortgage crisis in mid-March of last year…

As usual, Hillary’s ahead of the pack when it comes to understanding the problems of this nation, and (as usual) she’s got plans to help the people who’re hurting.

READ more about Hillary’s plans for strengthening the middle class

In the lead-up to Bush’s final State of the Union speech, Hillary spoke about the state of our broken economy, Bush’s neglegence, and what needs to happen NOW to fix what he broke…

After seven years of inattention, neglect and denial, this Monday night, President Bush may well actually discuss the serious economic problems we face. And it’s about time.

You know, we didn’t hear from him when the typical family incomes dropped $1,000 over the past seven years — $2,600 for African American families. As health care premiums nearly doubled, gas prices more than doubled, and college costs here in South Carolina rose 124% since 2000, the fastest increase in America.

We didn’t hear from him as more than two million foreclosure notices went out — 11,000 properties right here in South Carolina are in some stage of foreclosure. That’s 11,000 families that are facing the potential loss of the American dream.

snip

The presidency matters more now than ever. We need a president who will run the government and manage the economy. American people don’t hire a President to talk about our problems but to solve them, to set a vision for the future, and then to roll up our sleeves and get about fulfilling it.

It’s time for a President who believes that leading an economic comeback is a fulltime, hands-on job. Who renews our commitment to a strong and prosperous middle class and brings business, labor and government together to restore America’s competitiveness in a fast changing world. A president who has a vision for a twenty-first century economy based on shared prosperity. Where we measure our success not by the wealth at the very top but by how broadly wealth is shared.

She goes on to talk about some of the things she’s do immediately…

90-day moratorium on foreclosures.
Freeze variable rates for 5 years.
Green Collar jobs.

Then there are the long-term solutions…

During the 1950s and 60s which many of us look back at with great appreciation because the economy worked so well, for so long, for so many, we had a much higher percentage of our workforce unionized. Now it is much lower. We need to make sure people can organize and bargain for good wages and safe working conditions.

We need to be sure that we restore fairness to the economy by restoring fairness to the tax code. Right now, some of the people I represent in New York City, Wall Street investment managers, making $50 million a year pay just 15% on their earnings — while a teacher making $50,000 pays 25%. I don’t think that’s right and I’ve been calling to raise the taxes on those people at the top.

As corporate profits have skyrocketed, the percentage of taxes paid by corporations has fallen. We have richly rewarded people and I am all in favor of incentivizing people to do well. That is part of what America stands for. But it isn’t right that the wealthy and the well-connected have gotten so many more benefits than the middle class and working people have.

We need to extend middle class tax cuts, including the child tax credit, marriage penalty relief. We need to reform the Alternative Minimum Tax to ensure it doesn’t hit middle class families with higher tax rates. It was never supposed to do that. We need to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and raise the minimum wage to ensure that work pays for all Americans. No one who works full time should live in poverty. If you’re working full time you shouldn’t be in poverty.

We need to give people the tools and support they need to succeed in today’s complex economy. That starts with recommitting ourselves to making college affordable for our young people. That’s especially important here in South Carolina, the average student debt upon graduation is $20,000. So you start in a big hole before you ever go to work on the first day. And you know what’s happened which is really troubling to me–America’s higher education system which was the envy of the world, we had an open system, the highest percentage of young people who went to get degrees, but now from Japan to South Korea to Canada and Ireland, other countries are educating their young people at a higher rate than here in America. The reason for that is the cost has exploded. It is more expensive today than it was thirty years ago to send a child to college.

That’s why I’ve outlined a comprehensive plan to open the doors of college to young people. It includes a new $3,500 college tax credit that will cover more than 50% of the typical cost of public colleges and universities or the full cost of tuition and fees for community colleges.

I also want to increase the size of Pell Grants, something that former Secretary Riley mentioned. I want to strengthen community colleges, invest $500 million to support innovative, on-the-job training and apprenticeship programs for those who don’t go to college.

We also have to ensure that every American has quality, affordable health care. Here in South Carolina alone, 672,000 people are uninsured. I want to ask you– how many of you know someone here in South Carolina who is uninsured? How many of you know somebody who may have insurance but it just doesn’t pay for what the doctor or the hospital says you need?

Right to organize.
Reforming the tax code.
Tax cuts for working folks.
Making college affordable.
Universal health care.
Preparing for retirement.

Guys it all comes back to strengthening our economy and Hillary gets that like nobody else.