Under Obama the winners are investment bankers insurance companies and the military

[dkf]

Industrial complex. The losers are the unemployed and the young. I don't understand how we are supposed to turn that into a good showing in 2010.

Even the jobs saved went to people already enjoying benefits and a lifetime of job security as government employees.

I see no change. If I were a young person who had voted for the first time I would be pretty unhappy at what I got.

I got my job under George H W Bush. If I hadn't been able to find one under his watch I sure would remember that. We are in danger of leaving an impression for our young folk that we can't run economies properly. Obama may turn younger people against us if he doesn't make it obvious his top number one concern is jobs.

[FrenchieCat]

1. So Simple.

so Black/White

so lacking of any intelligent analysis.

with Cause and effect thrown in there for good measure.

Young people are smart.
Young people do analysis
Young people aren't into the simplistic
Black/White that require not thought.
Young people don't do cause and effect
where they peg the wrong cause to an actual effect.
Young people don't forget as easily, because they haven't lived as long,
so their reference point his not as vast.
they have'nt forgotten who was in office just one short year ago
and who caused the financial mess.
Young people approve of Obama by 70%.

Yours is just wishful thinking.

Proves that at DU,
folks are free to say any old thing....
just because they can; even if it's a bunch of shit.

[dkf]

2. I said from the start it should be about jobs before we started on healthcare.

I guess that simple bit of analysis lacks any thought right? Just you watch as it becomes the key to 2010. If it isn't the main issue I'll eat my words but if it is then i expect you to eat yours.

And politics is about the simple. It's the convoluted that doesnt get you anywhere.

[FrenchieCat]

5. Healthcare reforms will do more for the economy than you can imagine......

Obama can't just pull jobs out of his ass.....
The stimulus has been working all along, and it was the first thing
that he tackled, if you don't recall.

I know that at many University, tons of Grant money have been received
for research, since it is at university sites that much research is done.

Also, there will be a revamp in student loans and how they are doled out,
and so forth. Sorry he couldn't just snap his fingers and get her done! :eyes:


Latest from Washington

December 11, 2009

House passes bill overhauling financial regulations, which includes language requiring certification of private student loans by colleges. AASCU has signed-on to a letter supporting this provision.
http://www.congressweb.com/aascu/federalpolicyadvocacy.htm



Obama’s Higher Education Agenda May Lead to Expanded Federal Role
by Ronald Roach , December 21, 2009
Scholars, academic administrators and higher education policy officials have largely interpreted the administration's pronouncements, more than $100 billion in education stimulus funding and the community college-focused American Graduation Initiative, as markers of a significant shift in federal higher education policy and the making of a credible push for an expanded federal role in American higher education. It's also significant that the "Race to the Top" initiative, the administration's K-12 education reform effort, focuses on school districts getting more students prepared for college, experts note.

"The federal role has been traditionally to support economic access through need-based student aid, through loans and grants, and through some categorical programs. But it's not had a policy role, particularly around the agenda of (college) completion and increasing overall attainment," says Jane Wellman, executive director of the Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity, and Accountability.

"They're talking about more access, more degree completion. It's a tremendously important extension of where the federal government has been historically."
snip
One early test for the Obama administration will be whether it can persuade Congress to pass the Student Assistance and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA). Major funding for Obama proposals would be made available through SAFRA, which has passed the House and was pending before the Senate earlier this month. SAFRA includes $3 billion for a college access and completion fund along with $2.5 billion for community college facilities and $630 million in other grants to community colleges.

Other measures include $2.5 billion for minority-serving institutions and a $1,350 increase in the maximum Pell Grant over the next decade. To finance these investments, SAFRA would do away with bank-generated student loans in favor of less expensive, government-backed Direct Loans. Officials have estimated the federal government can save $9 billion annually by eliminating loan subsidies for private banks.

SAFRA's passage will be critical, but the administration's long-term success in higher education policy will depend on how well it builds a consensus with states on making college completion a high priority, Wellman says.
http://diverseeducation.com/article/13280/obama-s-higher-education-agenda-may-lead-to-expanded-federal-role.html


The bank-based federal student loan program that President Obama has proposed eliminating in the 2010 federal budget. Voices from both sides of the debate chimed in, with one clear theme emerging: in 2010, student loans are definitely going to change. The questions at this point are to what extent federal student lending will change and whether the banks currently involved in FFEL will still have a place in the new system.

The Obama administration proposes switching all federal Stafford and PLUS loans to the federal Direct Loans program, then using the savings from eliminating lender subsidies to increase Federal Pell Grants and make funding mandatory, while also greatly expanding the federal Perkins Loan program and spending more on college completion. Opponents of this plan, primarily consisting of FFEL lenders and representatives of schools that participate in FFEL, have suggested alternatives that would restructure student lending, but still leave a place for lenders to service the loans. Not one witness at the hearing advocated keeping the system as it is, though, and it seems that a shakeup in student lending is inevitable. Hopefully, this will result in more available financial aid for students. Inside Higher Ed has more information on the hearing.
http://blog.scholarships.com/tag/president-obama/

[dkf]

6. Well I'm in Hawaii. Supposedly we are In socialized medicine heaven already and

I don't see what it does for employment. In fact keeping someone under temporary status to deny them benefits makes them easier to cut. I've had to protect a colleagues job more than once myself.

[FrenchieCat]

8. I don't think that it is only about you.

If Health Care Reform Fails, America’s Innovation Gap Will Grow

...the United States is suffering from an innovation deficit.

Even before the financial crisis, the decade that will end later this month was on pace to have the slowest economic growth of any since before World War II. The No. 1 reason, I’d argue, was our innovation deficit.

For most of this decade, the rate at which companies eliminated jobs was actually lower than in the 1990s (despite the stories you sometimes hear about the United States having entered a new era of economic instability). The problem was that companies weren’t creating enough new jobs. The rate at which existing companies added jobs declined 14 percent from the end of the 1990s to 2007, according to the Labor Department. The rate at which start-up companies created jobs fell even more: 24 percent.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/business/economy/16leonhardt.html?_r=1


America's Innovators Call for Health Care Reform to Unlock Jobs of the Future
Posted by Aneesh Chopra on December 20, 2009 at 01:15 PM EST
To emerge from the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression, we are depending on entrepreneurs and start-ups -- young and small businesses -- to do what they have historically done for the United States: fuel economic growth by creating a disproportionate share of the new jobs we need. As President Obama's Chief Technology Officer, I devote much of my energy to creating a fertile environment for high-technology start-ups in areas like information technology, clean energy, biotech, transportation, manufacturing, and robotics.

To get a better understanding of their needs and concerns, I've met with entrepreneurs, CEOs, and venture capitalists from Silicon Valley to Chicago to Virginia. And I've gotten one message repeatedly: The high cost of health insurance is inhibiting our growth. We can't afford to provide the same health benefits as larger companies -- or, in the case of many new start-ups, any health benefits at all. Due to the burden of health insurance, we can't hire the people we need to grow. There's even a term for this: "Job lock."

In other words, America's innovators -- those who are creating the jobs of the future -- are being held back by our health insurance system. They find it hard to launch, hard to hire top talent, hard to expand, and hard to compete internationally. The reasons are clear: Premiums have more than doubled in the last decade. Small businesses pay 18% more for coverage than their larger counterparts, and their premium rates can rise precipitously depending on the health of the workforce. Rather than spend their money to create a new product, hire new workers, or pay higher wages, start-ups and small businesses have to finance increasingly expensive health benefits.

This dynamic -- the negative effect of our health insurance system on innovation -- was captured earlier this week in a New York Times piece, "If Health Care Reform Fails, America's Innovation Gap Will Grow." And America's entrepreneurs agree.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/12/18/industries-future-weigh-need-health-reform

[dkf]

9. We've already got the coverage.

I'm telling you it doesn't do much to contain costs. Our insurers just got approval to raise our rates 10% and 15% next year. A subsidized family plan costs $600 a month, and I think that is 70% paid by the company with us still having to pay 20% of the costs with a $600 deductable and $20 per visit. Crazy.

[FrenchieCat]

10. It's hard to discuss things with you,

because I don't know who this "we" is that you are talking about. I don't have an employer; I am self employed. What are you talkling about? This isn't about just you...., and there a plenty of folks that will be covered that couldn't afford it at all before. Plenty will have to pay barely anything, and they will get coverage...before, they just went to the County Hospital when they got really super sick.

Anyways, hard to debate you, cause you're just saying stuff that you have memorized or something. :shrug:

Bye!

[dkf]

12. I'm talking about the oh so awesome Hawaii Health Insurance Laws

Almost universal coverage doesn't do much to contain costs. Premiums are still really expensive. And you may not have to pay much for the insurance, but that doesn't mean you won't pay much in copays.

And I'm speaking from experience, not from memorizing anything other than my own costs and those I've seen first hand.

[mkultra]

3. blah blah blah EVERYONE FUCKIGN PANIC!!

[HughMoran]

4. Yeah, we haven't heard this generic screed before

Anybody can post the usual 'capitalist bad' lines, but it doesn't mean anything to most people.

[WT Fuheck]

7. K&R

[ClassWarrior]

11. Under any President in a country this rich, the winners are investment bankers...

...insurance companies and the military industrial complex. At least we have one who can possibly be convinced to make some fixes if we can quit whining that we don't have a pony yet long enough to generate the political will.

NGU.

[dkf]

13. Let's see it then.

Year one is done, 3 more to see where things lie.

[ClassWarrior]

15. You didn't read what I wrote. It's up to US. We can't just kick back and "see where things lie."

NGU.

[wuvuj]

14. Read this ** Why Democrats Run from Real Change **

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/144918/why_democrats_run_from_real_change


Forty-five percent of the Democratic base now says they aren't going to vote in 2010 or are thinking of not voting. This is a direct result of Democrats in Congress and the Presidency doing things the base disagrees with or not doing things the base wants to see done. It appears politically stupid to act as they have, and yet, they did. So why?

Elected Democrats at the Federal level are members of the national elite. If they weren't a member when they were elected, they are quickly brought into the fold. They are surrounded by lobbyists, other members and staffers who were lobbyists, as a rule. They learn they need to raise immense amounts of money in the off years when normal people aren't giving, and that the only way to raise that money is for corporate interests and rich people to write them. They also receive the benefits of elite status, very quickly. It's not an accident that the every Senator except Bernie Sanders is wealthy.

Whatever Americans think, whether they support a public option or single payer; whether they're for or against Iraq or Afghanistan; whether they agree with bailing out banks or not, elite consensus is much much narrower than American public opinion. It starts at the center right and heads over to reactionary (repeal the entire progressive movement and the New Deal, taking America back to the 1890s).

[Greyhound]

16. Depending on the parasites to get rid of the parasites.

That's why, barring some miraculous awakening, the solutions will never come from DC.

It's also why the 'D' team cheerleading squad is terrified.

[dkf]

17. Yes. This is the potential problem especially for young people who aren't

Automatic voters.