Barak Obama

The woman standing in the midst of the scandal, is 36 years old, Vera Baker. According to the tabloid, she has raised millions in campaign contributions for Obama when he was running for the US Senate, in 2004 and they grew close ever since. While Vera Baker insists that nothing has happened between them, the Enquirer claims it has got two “incriminating” pieces of evidence- a video that proves that the two spent the night together and an anonymous limousine driver claiming he drove Vera to a secret hotel rendezvous with the President.

The limo driver says he drove Baker “from a friend’s home in the DC area to the Hotel George where I learned later that Obama would be spending the night”. The driver also recalled “to the best of my knowledge she did not have a room at the hotel and she was not staying there so I thought that it was a bit odd”. He drove them around the city and finally he claims that around “10:30 pm, I drove them to the hotel and they went in together! My services for the evening were done”, and in addition “there was absolutely no indication she was going to leave the hotel that night”. They also claim the driver has been paid off to remain silent about that night.

Moreover, the Enquirer claims “on-site hotel surveillance video camera footage could provide indisputable evidence. Investigators are working to obtain the tape”. “If the tape surfaces, it will explode the scandal”, they conclude. The paper says the driver’s “testimony” was independently corroborated by investigators and that they now believe that the couple spent the night together there, in spite of the fact that they didn’t see the tape at all. The paper also says political activists who oppose Obama are offering $1 million for information confirming the affair.

As aforementioned, the National Enquirer previously exposed John Edwards’ scandal who cheated on his wife with Rielle Hunter. At the time people thought he got intentionally smeared, but look how that turned out. But, you are right, there is a difference between him (a second tier candidate running for presidency) and an actual President in office. Finally, we suggest not to believe the Obama tale, at least not without any real evidence. However, don’t think something like this can’t happen just because it is the President, remember, for a short while, American also gave Bill Clinton the benefit of the doubt.
Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game

The US senate had approved with a majority of 70 vs. 30 that Ben Bernanke will continue to he’s second terms as the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Bernanke got Barak Obama’s support for the nomination after Obama claimed the Bernanke’s policy helped the US to minimize the damages of the global financial crisis.

Although Obama declared that he supports Bernanke’s nomination few months ago, the objection of republican senators had put a question mark over Obama’s ability the pass the nomination.

For more about this story.

Ailon.

Ben Bernanke will get enough votes in the sent to get the second term in the chairman position – said David Axelrod, one of President Obama’s top advisors

“The president is confident that the chairman’s appointment will be approved“ Said Axelrod. At the weekend president Obama contacted the Democratic Party leadership to confirm that Barnanke will receive the required votes for his appointment, an indication for the growing concern in the government about Bernanke’s weakened position.

On his way to a second term?

The uncertainty about Bernanke’s re appointment was worsened this weekend, after two democratic senators had announce that they object his appointing, which caused a sharpest falls in US stock market for the last 10 months. Bernanke critics, which object his second term, claims that the Federal Reserve Bank had failed to prevent the worst financial crisis since 1929 and that the bailout that was handed to the banks came on the cost of US tax payers.

Ailon.

The CEO Game.

Like Obama, the European Union is stuck with a high unemployment rate.

For the first time since the Euro currency was launched in 1999, the unemployment rate among the 16 countries which are members of the EU and use the common currency has reached 10%. EuroStat, the Statistical Office of the European Union, had published last week the data which shows that the unemployment rate had risen in 0.1% from October, and is now standing on the highest level since August 1998, an 8% increase compared to 2008 at the time.

As mentioned above, Spain is suffering from the highest rate of unemployment at 19.4%, while Holland is proud to have only 3.9%, the lowest rate. This inequality re-raised the claims that the common Euro currency is of more beneficent to some countries than to others.

The unemployment rate of 27 EU members which don’t use the Euro like Britain and Sweden had also risen in November by 0.1% to 9.5%. Through out the entire Euro bloc you can find countries who are suffering from the recession such as Spain, Greece, Cyprus. In addition, many economies are rapidly shrinking for instance in Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Romania and even in the United Kingdom.

Altogether in November, 22.9 million of people where unemployed in the European Union, 15.7 million out of them are from the Euro bloc. The EuroStat had also published data showing on a 0.4% growth in the Euro bloc’s economy in the third quarter of 2008, due to Germany and a 0.3% growth in the entire European Union. A reason to be optimistic? We aren’t so sure…

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

COP15: African Disaster?

Many developing countries feel that the agreements made, were achieved without them and have announced that they object the draft and plan to block the road to a final consent. Sudan’s representative stirred up a storm when saying a despicable yet concerning remark: “solution is based on the same very values, in our opinion, that channeled six million people in Europe into furnaces”. Obama replied: “If we would have waited for a full obligatory consent we wouldn’t have made any progress at all”.

Even though, the document that Obama agreed upon with the primary leading countries is considered a turning point, it encountered strong and blunt criticism in the conference. It now looks like a true agreement is a bit farfetched. Half of the criticism is coming as mentioned above, from the poor and developing countries, who claim that the document isn’t ambitious enough and doesn’t include any specified rates to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Moreover, they claim the treaty isn’t legally binding and doesn’t provide any promise to assist them with dealing with the climate change, when all along they are the ones who will suffer first from it. They are saying that if the rich and developed countries don’t agree to significantly decrease the emissions, the agreement won’t help stop and prevent global warming at all. According to them, the draft’s suggested action- to lay under a 2 degrees rise in temperatures, is just not enough. They fear that goal is too low, and would condemn to death.

This sort of criticism was already made by Tuvalu, an archipelago country that might sink in the ocean when sea levels rise, but the Sudanese representative was the harshest. He, Lumumba Stanislaus Di-aping, claimed that COP15 agreement will bring a “holocaust” to Africa. He claimed that the results of this type of treaty will be fatal: more floods, more droughts, more avalanches and finally the rise of sea levels. He criticized Obama for choosing to form a discriminatory agreement and doing it “intimately”, instead of a wide forum that included more countries.

The different delegations are now holding marathon discussions concerning the draft. The question that now remains is whether to adopt the draft agreement or to reject it- which means to lock the conference with no agreement at all.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

Britain’s Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has called today all members of the G20 to place taxes on bank transactions worldwide. The revenue, according to him will go to fund social and environmental causes like fighting world poverty and dealing with climate changes.

Brown: Time to Tax the Banks

Brown made this announcement at the stage of the G20 summit which was held today in Scotland, two months after the Pittsburgh Summit in September. The G20 countries represent 90% of the world’s wealth, 80% of its trade, and approximately two thirds of the world population.

Brown’s words symbolize a change in Britain’s approach, which up till now opposed putting a “Tobin Tax” on foreign currency bank deals. The tax which is named after 1981 Nobel Prize winner for Economics, Professor James Tobin of Yale University, is intended to put a penalty on short-term speculation in currencies and in the same time raise funding for meaningful social projects. Nevertheless, the opposition both in the US and in Britain at the time has caused the idea to be put in the back of one’s mind.

“I think we all share a basic interest in trying to make sure we build a system where taxpayers aren’t exposed in the future and where the financiers are bearing the consequences of their mistakes – that they are responsible for the risks they take” he said. “We proposed in the United States a way to achieve that, by making sure that if … the government is exposed to any risk of loss, that we recoup that loss by assessing a fee on the liabilities of banks” he then added. He continued to justify his plan by saying that “it’s fair to the tax payer and it doesn’t put us in the position where retail investors and pension funds are the ones bearing the burdens of that cost”.

Brown went on to tackle obstacles in the way: “I do not in any way underestimate the enormous and difficult practical and technical issues that will need to be overcome that a globally cohesive system requires and raises”. He pointed out that any tax that will be decided on (if at all), should be worldwide and related to all the financial centers of the world- US, the European Union, Asia, the Middle East and Switzerland. Some G20 officials claimed that the tax that Brown referred to could be wider than a Tobin tax, and might include all financial transactions or even banks’ profits. Yet, the tax is supposed to be on a low level of 0.005% – only a tenth of the original Tobin Tax, when the profits will help prevent future crises in the banking sector.

Gordon Brown’s suggestion is expected to fuel rage among British economists and critics. Chairman of the FSA (Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries), Adair Turner, has already suggested the idea of a Tobin Tax in August and encountered severe criticism in London. Still, British charity organization Oxfam has blessed Brown for his idea- “The tax on the banks, might be a big step in the road to destroying the banks’ greed”. “The G20 is responsible to act. The money raised can really effect the day to day course of regular people”, an Oxfam official added. Among the fans of the Tobin Tax, you can find French President, Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor, Angela Merkel who already tried to promote the idea in the Pittsburgh Summit. According to them, this kind of taxing will shrink the banks’ profits and by doing so decrease the bonuses which banks can hand out to veteran bankers.

Some G20 members, had already began taxing on their own, like Brazil which putted a tax on foreign investments in stocks and debentures, keeping in mind funding their 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. Experts proclaim a Tobin tax in the rate of 0.05% (the original Tobin Tax), can yield up to 700 billion dollars yearly almost equal to the entire financial bailout package introduced by Obama’s administration. In conclusion I must say, that it’s only a shame that Tobin who passed out in 2002, missed out on all the action and the publicity.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

Glenn Beck: Leading The War

One of the main (rational) complaints regarding the Obama administration’s behavior in this “war” is that it refused to acknowledge bias in other networks. I don’t think that the bias in any other network comes close to the propaganda, hate-mongering, racism, and anti-Americanism (yes, undermining the administration in every way possible while relying on aforementioned propaganda, racism, and very little fact is anti-American) going on at Fox. Who cares if MSNBC is left leaning? Has it gone to any of the extremes that Fox revels in? Has any other network compared anyone to a Nazi recently? Fox news has become enamored with comparing Obama to Hitler, which is not only downright ignorant, but extremely offensive not only to all Jews, but all those who have suffered and whose families suffered through genocide. “We are really truly stepping beyond socialism and starting to look at fascism”, says Glenn Beck. Or take the recent comparisons to Stalin’s suppression of the media during the Cold War. Really, socialized healthcare is comparable to purging millions of your own citizens? Let’s not forget that Beck has also compared President Jimmy Carter’s suggestion that Representative Joe Wilson’s comments might be racism a tactic akin to suicide bombing, or Beck’s comparison of progressives to tyrants and slave owners.

No other news source has such a blatant, extremist, and offensive bias. This is because Fox isn’t behaving like a news source of any kind. Whether or not Glenn Beck is actually part of Fox’s “news” programming, Fox gives him a platform to spew such hate (and inaccuracies). The Obama administration was completely justified in deciding to stop legitimizing it as a “traditional news organization”. After all, Obama pays no attention to my TV network! The White House always gets to choose what media outlets to respond to. A news organization loses that privilege when it stops functioning as one.

When CNN starts comparing those Republicans that don’t want to extend healthcare to every American to the officials who turned a boatload of Jews away at the US border only to be sent back to their deaths in concentration camps in Germany, you’ll hear me complain. Or if MSNBC starts comparing those conservatives who deny gay marriage to the US representatives who decided that slaves were property and only amounted to three-fifths of a person, you’ll hear me complain about that as well. But until then, as other media outlets continue to show normal political leanings and Fox continues to irresponsibly spread hate, I support the “war”, and perhaps am a little sad it ended. Way to defend the integrity of the press, Obama administration. I am behind you.

Tamar.

The CEO Game.

Still Got a Long Way

Only a couple of days after US administration publicly announced that the “recession is over“, Barak Obama seems to be lowering expectations and claims there are indicators of improvement but America still “got a long way to go”. On his speech today (Monday) at the White House Obama was joined by members of his Economic Recovery Advisory Board and by Paul Volcker, one of his chief financial advisers and former chairman of the Federal Reserve. Obama said that the US has came a long way since January, when he stepped into office, when at that time US was “losing 700,000 jobs per month” and “there was fear of another Great Depression”. “We have pulled the economy back from the brink” said Obama.

Obama referred to last week’s out of the blue announcement and said it was “good news” to hear about the US GDP growing once again. He also said that there are signs starting (and starting only) of “stabilization and, indeed, some improvement” in US and Global economy. Nevertheless, he carefully added that the administration is obligated to take on further steps to support the job market and decrease the national debt. “Actions that we took swiftly through the Recovery Act helped to stem what could have been a disastrous situation for the economy” he commented gladly and added that the actions have produced some positive improvement, all while comparing the situation today to what was at the time Bush closed up shop.

“But the reason we’re here today is because we just are not where we need to be yet” he then changed direction. “We are still seeing production levels that are significantly below peak levels and most distressing is the fact that job growth continues to lag” he added. Obama continued by saying there is no reason why the administration should not be able to create more workplaces as needed and even create the continuous economic growth everybody is expecting. Yet, probably again with the lessons of the sudden weird-like announcement last week by the Ministry of Commerce, he backed himself up by saying that many job losses are expected within the upcoming weeks and months.

In conclusion, President Obama put it best in his speech- “We’ve got a long way to go“. Given the severity of the job losses, more than 7 million jobs since the start of the recession in December 2007 and the unemployment rate which had risen to 9.8% last month, even with the 787 billion dollars worth financial bailout package, he is absolutely correct, and it’s going to require him to lead some innovative action to overcome this deficit and maybe finally prove his administration.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

Is The Recession Over?

“The recession in the United States had ended and it happened earlier that what was expected” announced the US Ministry of Commerce on Thursday. The announcement said that the US GDP number was up 3.5% in the third quarter (annual) and that this rise was possible due to the billions invested by president Obama in the economic bailout package that was intended to rescue the market and the financial institutes.

The message also claimed that the other reasons who led to the growth and the re-awakening of the market were the rise in consumption in the private sector, multiple chunky investments in real estate in general and in housing in particular. The ministry also claimed that the government’s continuing encouragement to buy and houses and cars was also an influencing factor.

Nevertheless, the many unemployed US citizens will still have to wait. The job seekers will have to hold their grudge for a little while longer, since the change will only come within a couple of months according to the commerce office. Currently, the unemployment rate is doing just the opposite of decreasing; in fact it hit its peak: 9.8% against 7.6% in January- the month when Bush relinquished command and Obama was sworn in and took on his position.

President Obama took charge when the American economy was in a crisis so big that many claimed it was the “worst crisis America has seen since the 30’s“. In short, if the growth will continue in 2010 and whether more workplaces will be created, it could be Obama’s biggest achievement (a one that he needs) since stepping into office and beginning his actions to improve the economy. Here is something to think about, if I had to rename the title I would call it “Goodbye Recession, Bonjour depression“, the reasons why will be discussed on the next time.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.