FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS

Focus groups and breakout sessions remind me of teacher in-service meetings. Did the Administration ever really listen to and follow the suggestions of the teachers in the trenches or were these merely attempts to placate the natives?

Perhaps Mr. Obama should spend less time acting as a Community Organizer leading Focus Groups and as the candidate who is still campaigning. Perhaps he should follow his supporter Warren Buffett's suggestion:"FOCUS his time and efforts in the Oval Office on the three main problems in our society. In the words of Warren Buffett, the three main problems are the economy, the economy, and the economy."

Yes, our financial system is in disarray, and it is not the result of the last eight years although they compounded the already growing problem. Go back to the Jimmy Carter administration when he pushed for and then signed into law the Community Reinvestment Act giving local community organizers the power to force local banks to create more affordable housing through low cost loans and mortgages with minimum downpayments. During the William Jefferson Clinton years, the Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) pressured Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to shift their loan and mortgage policies to no downpayment for homes and no proof of income. Then someone of genius (or sheer stupidity) came up with the incredible idea that these housing loans and mortgages should be broken into parts and bundled for sell to different mortgage lenders who in turn sold them to brokerage firms such as Merrill Lynch who in turn sold them on the market. We now know these bundled mortgages as TOXIC ASSETS.

Wait, there's more.

In 1999, yes, under a Republican controlled Congress some Republican members of Congress worked with Mr. Clinton's Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin to push through Congress a piece of legislation calling for the Repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act passed in 1933, which prohibited commercial banks from collaborating with full-service brokerage firms or participating in investment banking activities. In other words, banks were to be banks and not investment companies. With the repeal of this legislation, banks were free to become investment companies.

Wait, there's still more.

During the Clinton years, there was plenty of activity at the White House. Advisers such as Robert Rubin (now a terminated Citibank official), Rahm (Rambo) Emanuel (current White House Chief of Staff who coined the expression on December 7, 2008 "Never waste a crisis.") and HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo (now Attorney General of the State of New York) orchestrated a plan to expand affordable housing in order to increase political appeal to minority groups. The plan was to promote the expansion of low cost housing mortgages by requiring Freddie and Fannie to increase the percentage of loans every year. If Freddie and Fannie met the new quotas, the directors of Freddie and Fannie would receive hefty bonuses.

During the Bush II administration, attempts to bring investigations into Freddie and Fannie’s policies and actions were met with stiff resistance by a few Republicans but largely stonewalled by Chris Dodd in the Senate and Barney Frank in the House. When the Democrats gained control of the Congress in 2004, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank lavished praise on the role of Freddie and Fannie in the expansion of affordable housing. Meanwhile, the Housing Crisis was bubbling over but ignored by Congress and its oversight constitutional obligation.

In 1993 ACORN, the Chicago based community organizer group, filed a lawsuit against Citibank because they did not participate in these low cost mortgage loans. ACORN wanted Citibank to drop the requirement that individuals would have to provide proof of income in order to get a mortgage. The attorney representing ACORN in this lawsuit was Barack H. Obama.

Not done yet.

We would not be forthright if we failed to raise questions about unethical behavior in the market over the last 25-30 years. Have individual stock brokers pocketed money entrusted to them by investors? Yes. Have brokerage firms and other businesses paid their executives exorbitant salaries and lavished them with astronomical bonuses? Yes. Have government regulators failed to properly examine and track the activities of employees in banking and brokerage firms? Yes. Should those who abused the trust of the investors be investigated, prosecuted, and punished? ABSOLUTELY.

Mr. Obama’s election on November 4, 2008 was indeed an historic election. The media and his adoring public were thrilled when Mr. Obama made daily appearances issuing White House like press conferences and issuing policy statements about the dire economy. In fact, the media and Obama staffers referred to Mr. Obama as Co-President. The President-elect repeatedly stated that the economy was his major focus. In fact, on more than one occasion, Mr. Obama stated that fixing the economy would be his number one goal on DAY ONE, and he would hit the ground running by immediately dealing with the Housing and Financial Crisis on his first day in the White House. To date, Mr. Obama has not stepped up with a plan to deal with the Housing and Financial Crisis, and the market keeps waiting.

For over four months, Mr. Obama- with the blessings of the media and his adoring public- has been acting as President. The contention that Mr. Obama should not be criticized because he has only been in office a month is intellectually disingenuous.

Mr. Obama, instead of dealing with the Housing and Financial Crisis, you have offered many social welfare plans, environmental policies, healthcare reforms,and yes, tax increases you want enacted. If the economy continues to slide into an abyss while you focus on other issues, there will no longer be a tax base to support these massive spending plans. Printing more and more money will be as inflationary as Germany’s Weimar Republic faced.

Wall Street IS main street. Two-thirds of America’s Middle Class has some form of their hard earned money invested in pension funds, mutual funds, 401ks, 403bs, 529s, and / or IRAs. What happens on Wall Street every day does matter, and it casts a vote every day at 4 PM on how it perceives the direction this nation is headed. Every day you delay in addressing the economic crisis, hard working Americans are losing their hard earned wealth.

You seem to view the Middle Class as your enemy because they have invested money and accumulated wealth. Wealth is not bad, Mr. Obama. Wealth is the accumulation of one’s assets such as savings accounts, inheritance, property, profit from your earnings, retirement funds, education funds, and investments for starting a business. Wealth is the profit people worked for without depending on a government handout. Wealth includes the funds people use to donate to their favorite charities and causes because they choose to donate, not because it is legislated as you have proposed in the current budget. When the wealth of the Middle Class is depleted, who will donate to charities? Who will donate to their churches? Who will donate to non-profit organizations that depend on donations?

Our nation was founded by a group of people who wanted a nation where citizens were rewarded for their hard work, for their efforts to succeed, and with the opportunity to create businesses and jobs. If the market continues to be ignored by your administration, our nation will be imperiled.

Our nation is about justice and helping the downtrodden, but right now it appears your administration is willing to sit back and hurt those who have worked hard to achieve some degree of prosperity. You seem to be at War with Prosperity.

Middle Class Americans are the workers who make this nation’s economy one of the best in the entire world. Middle Class Americans are the small business owners who create jobs. Middle Class Americans are finding their backs against the wall. You need Middle Class Americans, and the nation needs Middle Class Americans working and creating jobs. "America needs everyone with a stake in the economy fighting on the same team and not against each other."

The beauty of this democratic republic is that when the election is over, the President represents all the Americans, even those who did not support them. We want to support a President who has the interest of all Americans in mind. Mr. Obama, you chose to run for this office, and you won. You cannot govern effectively if you continue to conduct yourself as if the election campaign is still going on.

Another outstanding feature of a democratic republic, Mr. Obama, is that there is always loyal opposition who not only has the right but the obligation to question, challenge, and offer alternate suggestions to proposals they view is not in the best interest of the nation so that a consensus can be reached. Maligning and impugning the loyal opposition is politics as usual which you campaigned against.

Mr. Obama, read the book, The Art of War. There’s some pragmatic advice offered by the author. “Make sure your enemy has an exit because they fight like lions when their backs are against the wall.”

Middle Class Americans are starting to feel their backs are against the wall.