President Barack Obama’s Convention Speech

14 Responses to President Barack Obama’s Convention Speech

1. Tina says:

   Friday, September 7, 2012 at 11:47 am

   I love how Michael Goodwin, New York Post, characterizes the tenor of the Democrat Convention:

   http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/dems_dear_leader_plotting_our_grim_pVDCn1fPDfZStmi0fSrjNP

   The system is rigged. America is unjust. Opportunity is dead. You didnt build that.

   Dammit, wheres mine?

   Oh, and Republicans are the people who rigged the system. Theyre trying to take away your rights to vote, to health care, to education, to housing. They hate women, gays and immigrants. They dont pay their fair share and theyre un-American.

   Barack Obama lights candles, Mitt Romney spreads darkness, and Osama bin Laden is dead.

   There, I saved you the time of watching the Democratic convention. For three grating days, demands for more government spending were coupled with sweeping character assassinations of Romney. The GOP is not just wrong; it is immoral.

   Dont agree? Youre not patriotic.

   It turns out that the party that left God out of its platform has a religious zeal for its leader. We believe in Barack Obama, Sen. John Kerry thundered, to uproarious applause.

   Folks, weve entered Dear Leader territory.

   It was obvious to a lot of us in 2008.
2. Jim says:

   Friday, September 7, 2012 at 1:39 pm

   The employment situation isn’t good. However the US was loosing 760,000 when Obama became president. So any positive number is, well positive.

   http://www.politifact.com/new-hampshire/statements/2012/jun/01/joe-biden/joe-biden-says-35-million-jobs-lost-during-bush-ad/

   We could be doing much better, except the Republicans have blocked the jobs bill.

   “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said that over the last decade, U.S. companies have moved almost 2.5 million jobs abroad, “often to countries where they can hire workers for half the price.” He said another 21 million U.S. workers could see their jobs outsourced.

   A coalition of U.S. business groups, including the Business Roundtable, National Association of Manufacturers and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, called on Thursday for the bill’s defeat, saying it would have the “unintended consequence” of making it harder for companies to compete in world markets.”

   So another words, Who cares about the American workers, what they care about is what is good for the big corporations.

   http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/19/us-usa-congress-jobs-idUSBRE86I1LJ20120719
3. Post Scripts says:

   Friday, September 7, 2012 at 1:56 pm

   Jim this is true, things were much worse. But, we can’t always claim every little sign of recovery is due to presidential policies. Believe it or not, sometimes businesses heal up on their own without any help from government. The economy is a force unto itself, government can mess it up, or on more rare occasions, government can help a bit, but on the grand scale of things the economy is it’s own master. That’s the way its always been, but it won’t stop politicians from trying to take credit or assign blame.
4. Peggy says:

   Friday, September 7, 2012 at 8:09 pm

   His speeches here are better.

   Case Closed: If Moderate Voters See This Video, Its Over for Obama

   This is a stunning thirteen minute video that shows Obama in his own words, with commentary from mostly mainstream media sources. If this video goes viral and reaches moderate and independent voters, it would be a big blow to the Obama re-election bid.
   Like I said in the title, if an undecided voter sees this, its over for Obama.

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8R5GvwUFU8&feature=player_embedded
5. Jim says:

   Friday, September 7, 2012 at 8:37 pm

   Smart businesses will find a way to make it through a tough economy, some will even find a way to prosper.
   Jobs are created by consumer (or government) demand for a good or service. When the nation is prosperous, then there is a greater demand for a lot of things. Right now much less so.
   Another part of the current unemployment problem is the reduction in government workers. When cities, states and the federal government cut spending, that usually means that they cut jobs.
6. Peggy says:

   Saturday, September 8, 2012 at 7:47 am

   Article in a Prague newspaper

   Some people have the vocabulary to sum up things in a way that you can quickly understand them. This quote came from the Czech Republic . Someone over there has it figured out. It was translated into English from an article in the Prague newspaper Prager Zeitungon.

   “The danger to America is not Barack Obama, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, ‘merely a fool’. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made him their President.”

   http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2559666/posts
7. Peggy says:

   Saturday, September 8, 2012 at 8:12 am

   Steelworker Featured at DNC Didnt Work for Bain Capital:

   “ABC News breaks a story that one of the three featured speakers supposedly deprived of a job by Bain Capital is just a union negotiator who never worked for a Bain-financed company. The Democrat Party deliberately misrepresented steel union negotiator David Foster as someone who worked under the Romney-controlled Bain Capital.”

   Full story and video here:
   http://www.ijreview.com/2012/09/15151-steelworker-featured-at-dnc-didnt-work-for-bain-capital/
8. Post Scripts says:

   Saturday, September 8, 2012 at 3:06 pm

   what a bunch liars…too bad they seem feel it’s okay to do this stuff in order to win..by ANY means.
9. Tina says:

   Saturday, September 8, 2012 at 9:49 pm

   Regarding jobs and outsourcing:

   http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/04/not-a-jobless-recovery-but-a-i-jobloss-i-recovery/38994/

   According to economists the Bush the recession ended in June 2009:

   Experts believe the economy moved from negative to positive growth in June 2009. But instead of acting like a 9-month old recovery, it’s behaving more like a 9-month old baby: crawling slowly and occasionally falling over things rather than standing up and moving forward on solid footing. Since [June 2009] the American economy has seen a net deterioration in employment by about 900,000 workers. The performance is by far the worst nine-month stretch following a recession of any post-war downturn (see chart). The last time the American unemployment rate rose above 10%, during the recession of 1981-82, the economy added between 1m and 2.5m jobs in the first nine months of recovery.

   http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/07/do-math-mr-obama-your-excuses-about-jobs-have-run-out/#ixzz25wIBUI50

   Former President Bill Clinton made the argument Wednesday night: No president, no president — not me, not any of my predecessors — no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years.

   But Clinton is wrong.

   Democrats may not want to hear it, but Reagan faced an unemployment rate as high as 10.8% and was able to drive it down below 8 percent within 14 months. By contrast, unemployment under Obama peaked at 10.0%, eight months after his stimulus was passed, and after another 33 months it is still above 8%.

   Remember back in March 2009, just five weeks after the stimulus was signed into law, President Obama was already declaring: Were beginning to see signs of progress. By May, Obama told Americans: the program was already seeing results. In September, Vice President Joe Biden announced: In my wildest dreams, I never thought [the stimulus] would work this well. But unemployment just kept on increasing. By April 2010, Obama administration announced the summer of 2010 would become known as the Summer of Recovery.

   Needless to say, we arent now close to the 6% unemployment rate that the Obama administration was predicting after the stimulus passed. And four more jobs programs were passed after the stimulus during Obamas first two years in office, and positive results were promised each time. Yet, instead, this has been the worst recovery on record.

   And outsourcing:

   Not all jobs that American companies create overseas are jobs that have been taken away from Americans. Wall Mart, McDonalds, and Burger King, for instance, open stores all over the world and hire local people to run them. There’s a Forbes article that puts this subject, that has been highly politicized, into perspective:

   http://www.forbes.com/sites/merrillmatthews/2012/07/20/companies-outsource-because-thats-where-the-sales-are/

   Frankly, it isnt entirely clear what the critics of outsourcing, or off-shoring, want to stop. An Obama ad says Mitt Romney supports tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas, and accuses Romney of supporting outsourcing while Obama believes in insourcing.

   But Wal-Mart is opening stores all over the world and hiring people to man them. The Wall Street Journal reports the company added 100,000 employees outside of the U.S. last year. How is the company supposed to staff its stores unless it hires nationals who live there and speak the language? Should Wal-Mart be forced to pay higher taxes, which is what the president wants, for growing and competing overseas?

   We used to praise that type of competitive spirit and success used to.

   Or take International Paper. The Journal reports that the 114-year-old company is also growing much faster outside the U.S. than at home. Between 2008 and 2011, sales in the U.S. and Europe remained about the same, while sales in Asia more than doubled, to $1.8 billion.
   To add insult to injury in Obamas view, International Paper is cutting U.S. jobs and closing factories while expanding overseas. But is that because the company is engaged in some type of corporate tax dodge, as Obama likes to pretend? Uh, no, it seems that Americans are using less paper as they transition to a digital economy, while there is a growing demand for paper in developing countries.

   Should International Paper stay land-locked or insourced, to use the presidents term to avoid the extra taxes and accusations of being unpatriotic?

   Yes, some U.S. companies produce their products overseas in order to take advantage of lower labor costs i.e., comparative advantage. But that means U.S. consumers get cheaper prices. Youll notice no one complained when gasoline prices recently fell, even though much of that oil is produced overseas. The public was elated because lower gas prices means more money left over to spend on other wants and needs. Well, the exact same reasoning applies to manufactured goods, raw materials and other products and services that U.S. consumers buy for less because of lower foreign costs.

   Of course, some off-shoring efforts have not worked as well as others. U.S. customers often get frustrated when they are connected to a call-center person whose English is barely understandable. And that negative customer experience has forced some companies to reevaluate their off-shoring strategy.

   In addition, Washington needs to understand that some off-shoring is a justifiable response to the quickly escalating number of government regulations, especially under the Obama administration, and the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world.

   But instead of reducing regulations and creating a tax structure that rewards U.S. companies efforts to grow and enter new markets, most Democrats anti-outsourcing demagoguery only demonizes and punishes them.

   http://www.forbes.com/sites/danikenson/2012/07/11/outsourcing-for-dummies-including-the-willfully-ignorant/

   if low wages and lax standards were the real draw, then U.S. investment outflows wouldnt be so heavily concentrated in rich countries. According to statistics published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, 75 percent of the $4.1 trillion stock of U.S. direct investment abroad at the end of 2011 was in Europe, Canada, Japan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Korea, and Hong Kong (i.e., rich countries). In contrast, only 1.3 percent of total U.S. foreign direct investment stock is in China.

   Likewise, if wages and lax standards were magnets for investment, we wouldnt see the vast sums of foreign direct investment in the United States that we do, and the United States wouldnt be the worlds most prolific manufacturing nation. At the end of 2010, foreign direct investment in the United States totaled over $2.3 trillion, one third of which was invested in U.S. manufacturing facilities. As the president and his critics (including candidate Romney) drone on about the ravages of shipping jobs overseas, they should take a moment to note that 5.3 million Americans work for U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies (jobs outsourced from other countries). And they should note that Europes Airbus announced last week that it is making a $600 million investment in a 1000-worker aircraft assembly plant in Mobile, Alabama, just down the road from the $5 billion, 1800-worker steel production facility belonging to Germanys Thyssen-Krupp, which is located within a few hours drive of a dozen mostly foreign nameplate auto producers, who employ tens of thousands more U.S. workers and generate economic activity supporting thousands more. These investments, jobs, and related activity are the products of foreign companies outsourcing.

   Here’s some information about American manufacturing:

   http://www.nam.org/Statistics-And-Data/Facts-About-Manufacturing/Landing.aspx

   The United States is the world’s largest manufacturing economy, producing 21 percent of global manufactured products. China is second at 15 percent and Japan is third at 12 percent.\

   U.S. manufacturing produces $1.7 trillion of value each year, or 11.7 percent of U.S. GDP. For every $1.00 spent in manufacturing, another $1.35 is added to the economy.

   Manufacturing supports an estimated 17 million jobs in the U.S.about one in six private sector jobs. 3 Nearly 12 million Americans (or 9 percent of the workforce) are employed directly in manufacturing.

   In 2010, the average U.S. manufacturing worker earned $77,186 annually, including pay and benefits. The average worker in all industries earned $56,436 annually.

   U.S. manufacturers are the most productive workers in the worldfar surpassing the worker productivity of any other major manufacturing economy, leading to higher wages and living standards.

   U.S. manufacturers perform two-thirds of all private sector R&D in the nation, driving more innovation than any other sector.

   Taken alone, U.S. Manufacturing would be the 9th largest economy in the world.
10. Peggy says:

    Saturday, September 8, 2012 at 11:51 pm

    Tina: “Experts believe the economy moved from negative to positive growth in June 2009.”

    Wouldnt this be the results of the decisions made under the Bush administration, being it was less then 6 months after his term ended? And wouldnt the spiraling downfall for the last 3 years and 3 months, since June 2009, be the result of the Obama administration?

    What changed after June 2009? Could it be the shutting down of the oil rigs in the gulf and all the lost jobs? (Is Obama still charged with contempt of court for refusing to follow the court order and open those gulf rigs?) How about all of those coal mines shut down in the northern and southern states. Then there was the pipeline that didnt happen. And remember all of those car dealerships that were told to close during the GM bailout, even though many of them were earning profits?

    Im sure there are a lot more excellent examples to list, but its late and Im tired. You get the idea.

    It just doesnt add up for me. Obama and his minions want to blame Bush for the problems we have today instead of being responsible for the decisions they made since June 2009 when they were taking credit for the recession ending.
11. Tina says:

    Sunday, September 9, 2012 at 10:19 am

    Peggy: “And wouldnt the spiraling downfall for the last 3 years and 3 months, since June 2009, be the result of the Obama administration?

    You can bet that if the presidents were reversed Democrats and their media laop dogs would be saying so…LOL!

    If Obama had done something to support business, instead of spending money and punishing business we would have see a strong recovery. Instead he opted to give piles of cash to special interest groups and individual donors (Solyndra), handcuff various energy sectors oil & coal, and push healthcare down our throats. Government spending temporarily saved some government jobs but it did nothing for the overall economy…passing another expensive entitlement with all of the piled on regulations. The EPA has turned into nurse Ratchet under this guy.

    Not one of Obama’s advisers is a businessman. He initiated the jobs council but didn’t meet with them for six months and here’s the ultimate kicker…

    http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/jobs-panel-outsourced-jobs/2012/09/06/id/451023

    several members of the presidents jobs-creation council manage or advise companies that import cheaper goods from overseas instead of buying American, U.S. trade records show.

    Import records from the U.S. Commerce Department show that the companies affiliated with the 23 active and 3 ex-officio members of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness imported 12,366 shipments from China alone during the 18 months since they began advising the White House in January 2011.

    The shipments totaled more than 20 billion pounds in weight, according to a review of the records by the Washington Guardian…Among the companies cited in the report were chemical giant DuPont, Boeing and the Hyatt hotel chain.

    Read more on Newsmax.com: Report: Members of Obama’s Job Panel Outsourced Jobs to China
    Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama’s Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

    The economy is global now. Outsourcing will not end no matter who is president.

    Other countries also build products to be sold in America. Japanese cars are made here for instance.

    http://www.investorplace.com/2011/06/foreign-firms-may-drive-u-s-auto-job-growth/

    For the past few months, the auto industry has been seen as a key driver of job growth and economic recovery. After all, Ford (NYSE:F), General Motors (NYSE:GM) and Chrysler have added thousands of jobs and are investing billions of dollars in their facilities.

    But in the wake of a nearly 4% decline in U.S. auto sales last month and an unexpected slump in the manufacturing sector, investors this week have been running for cover in advance of Fridays jobs report. That news injects a note of caution into bullish predictions of U.S. automakers rebounding fortunes.

    As even the Obama administration admitted this week, only 115,000 of the 400,000 U.S. auto industry jobs lost in the 2007-08 recession have been restored. That raises questions about whether the Detroit Three need to further streamline their operations to grow jobs and increase earnings.

    Those numbers also raise questions about whether the U.S. operations of foreign manufacturers might be better positioned than those legacy automakers to drive U.S. job growth in the sector. One key reason: the distinction between an American car and a foreign car has blurred as companies like Toyota (NYSE:TM), Honda (NYSE:HMC), Nissan, Hyundai, Volkswagen and BMW have expanded their U.S. manufacturing plants and added jobs.

    Foreign-owned auto companies have invested $44 billion into their U.S. operations, accounting for 80,000 direct vehicle-manufacturing jobs and an additional 500,000 dealer and supplier jobs, according to the trade group Global Automakers. Their 300 U.S. facilities also account for nearly half of all vehicles built in the U.S.

    The take away point about this is that the issue has been politicized by Democrats and outsourcing means nothing IF our own economy is strong and people can find good paying jobs. Obama is not about America having a strong economy…he is about redistributing wealth…taking from those that have to give to those he thinks worthy (Solyndra, unions) and getting as many of us dependent on government as possible for power.

    All this country needs is a business friendly administration and the people will begin to drive the economy again…Mitt Romney is all about the people having opportunity.
12. Peggy says:

    Sunday, September 9, 2012 at 6:43 pm

    Tina, The list of stupid things Obama and his administration have done is long. The latest and most outrageous being he hasnt met with his own jobs council since last January. I thought jobs was finally at the top of the list of problems to address, since ObamaCare was passed. Does he really believe he didnt need to meet with them since hes never in his life developed a business plan or ever worked for a private sector business that is the foundation of our economy and recovery? Sorry, rhetorical question. He either believes he knows everything already or he wrote them off because they werent saying what he wanted to hear.

    The Stimulus money was a one time only shot in the arm. We all know, and now he even admits there were NO shovel ready jobs. Hard to believe how anyone in his position didnt think about who and how all of those public service jobs like teacher, police and firefighter salaries were going to continue after the Stimulus money ran out. It cost us billions to just kick the can down the road and we still dont have enough public sector jobs to fund those necessary private sector service jobs.

    This administration pumped up GM sales by being their biggest customer in July and just like the Stimulus money what happens when the money ran out. They just kicked the can further down the road because we had to borrow the money from China to pay for those cars and trucks. Dumb moves just keep getting dumber.

    China and the pirates of Beijing have circumvented the WTO tariff laws by increasing the value of the yuan by 30 percent against the dollar since 2005, and 6 percent in the past year. Past presidents and Obama have refused to address our problem with China and get them to revalue the yuan to its true value.

    The Senate passed a bill in 2011, cracking down on Chinas currency manipulations, but it was Boehner who didnt support it and Obama who said he wouldnt sign it that declared it dead on arrival. Theyre afraid because China holds our purse strings and of a trade war.

    China is depending on us for 6 percent of their economy while we depend on them for only 1 percent. So, who is control? We are.

    Romney in an interview on 10/21/2011 with Dick Morris appears to grasp the need to stand up to China. They are threatening a trade war? Their exports to us are up here, Romeney said raising his right arm high in the air. And ours to them are down here, as he lowered his left hand. You want a trade war? Bring it on?

    The WTO would get the case if the Senate bill passes, and the IMF has strong rules against currency manipulation. The WTO would be expected to enforce the IMF rules. As Morris says, Its a game of chicken to see who will blink.

    If Obama is not removed, America as weve know it is gone. He will bring it down to even out the worlds economy by distributing our resources to other countries as hes done for the past four years.

    I once thought we could save our country if we got control of both houses of Congress, but after Obamas resent statement of threatening to go around Congress to get what he wanted and with Holder as AJ this country is doomed if Romney doesn’t win too.

    I even have major concerns for what he will do if he doesnt win. He could inflict major damage between Nov.7th and Romenys inauguration in January.
13. Peggy says:

    Sunday, September 9, 2012 at 8:12 pm

    “public sector jobs to fund those necessary private sector service jobs”

    Oops, reverse that.
14. Tina says:

    Sunday, September 9, 2012 at 8:37 pm

    I’ve learned a few things about China recently. They have spent a lot building their military (like the old USSR did) They have been unloading their US treasury notes and their economy is really slowing down. The reasons are intriguing: Economic weakness in the U.S. and Europe; A falloff in domestic demand; Inflation worries; Housing and banking are a mess; A corrupt political system. Read about it here:

    http://theweek.com/article/index/227924/5-reasons-chinas-economy-is-slowing-down

    http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/02/17/what-happens-when-china-stops-buying-our-debt-/

    China has indeed been a prolific buyer of U.S. debt over the past decade…But those numbers have topped out, and actually dropped, in the last few months: (chart)

    At this rate, Japan will likely reclaim its status as the largest foreign owner of Treasuries sometime this year. As of December, China owned $1.1 trillion of Treasuries, next to Japan’s $1.04 trillion.

    What’s behind China’s pullback? The nation is deeply secretive about its financial dealings, so no one knows. But it’s likely that after scrapping its currency peg to the dollar in 2010, China no longer has the incentive to hold a “price be damned” approach to buying Treasuries.

    Remember when students in China laughed at Geitner for telling them investment in US treasuries were safe? I wonder how loud they will laugh if Romney ties the dollar to gold?

    He recently said we’ve been “played like a fiddle”

    http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/1013/Why-China-trade-war-bill-is-tying-House-Republicans-in-knots/%28page%29/2

    I also learned recently that most of US debt is held by the fed…this is from Nov 2011:

    http://cnsnews.com/news/article/fed-now-largest-owner-us-gov-t-debt-surpassing-china

    (CNSNews.com) – At the close of business on Tuesday, the debt of the federal government exceeded $15 trillion for the first time–with the largest single owner of the publicly held portion of that debt being the Federal Reserve.

    Over the past year, as the Federal Reserve massively increased its holdings of U.S. Treasury securities and entities in China marginally decreased theirs, the Fed surpassed the Chinese as the top owner of publicly held U.S. government debt.

    In its latest monthly report, the Federal Reserve said that as of Sept. 28, it owned $1.665 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities. That was more than double the $812 billion in U.S. Treasury securities the Fed said it owned as of Sept. 29, 2010.

    Meanwhile, as of the end of this September, entities in mainland China owned $1.1483 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities, according to data published today by the U.S. Treasury Department. That was down slightly from the $1.1519 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities the Chinese owned as of the end of September 2010, according to the same Treasury Department report.

    Romney’s plan to put us on a gold standard is an interesting proposition…read about it in Forbes:

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2012/09/05/gold-standard-is-coming/

    Gold wont be a sizzling issue this fall. The economy, entitlements and, possibly, war in the Middle East will dominate headlines. But the yellow metal will be a hot topic in the next 24 months. The commission is going to take on an importance that will astound todays political punditry, besotted as they are with stale Keynesian quackeries about money, taxes and spending.

    Why? Events economic and political. The ever deepening financial crisis around the world will force the new Romney-Ryan Administration to considerand quickly, toodramatic measures to deal with the disaster.

    The Obama/Bernanke Federal Reserve has been an abysmal failure. No major countrys central bank has been so destructive since the Fed in the 1970s;prior to that, nearly a century ago, it was Germanys central bank, which created a hyperinflation that helped set up an environment for the Nazi revolution.

    Unlike other central bank catastrophes this one, so far, is of a slow-motion variety, which is disguising the immensity of the harm being done.

    For the first time in our history our credit markets have been rendered incapable of providing sufficient capital for small- and medium-size businesses, while starving startups and would-be startups of the wherewithal to grow to their full potential….This point is critical: The Feds forced suppression of organic interest rates has made the pricing of credit impossible to figure. And guess what? If you cant determine the real prices of products and services, you get lessor noneof them. Its Soviet-style economics…Under a properly functioning gold standard the Feds penchant for rigging interest rates would be sharply curbed, if not eliminated.

    I love Steve Forbes. He explains the complexities so that I can understand them.

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