FFM

Obama better stop running for President and be President. Financial reform is a good example. The President should be pushing hard to break up the oligopoly that is not allowing the free market to do its thing. We no longer have a free market in the banking industry. We have a market controlled by a handful of banks that dictate the course of the industry. We still have banks that are too big to fail that are controlling congress by their campaign contributions.

David Brooks of the New York Times advocated that Democrats implement what Obama ran on during the 2008 campaign – change and thinking long term. America is concerned that we are in decline. It is less that we are in decline and more that the rest of thee world has caught up. At the end of World War II, we were the last country standing. As everyone else was cleaning up the ruble, we were moving ahead. If we are to compete in this new world, we must think long-term; both as a nation and as individuals. Government can assist in this planning and implantation process and government must do everything it can to unleash American ingenuity. We must free our free markets. Virtually everyone who claims to be conservative says he is pro-capitalism and for free markets. Most state free markets are stifled because of over regulation. I agree, we should prudently curtail over regulation that causes inefficiencies. However, government regulation needs to better protect are basic freedom; inclu

Our nation is in the equivalent of war and the two political parties must pull together as in a war and address the problems. We must remove any politician, republican or democrat, who refuses to be part of the solution. The citizen of this country must diligently exercise his obligation and remove from office anyone who is obstructing solving our serious problems. Here is what we need to do. The President must lead and inform the people of the problem and offer a plan as to what we must do to put our nation in order. He must be honest and specific. He must have a discussion with the people often, for the subject is complex. Instead of a speech, it needs to be an ongoing Dialog.

Race relations have not gone backwards since electing Obama President. Instead, we have discovered that we have not progressed as far as we pretended. I am very proud to live in a country that was able to elect a black president in 2008 while the majority of the population was white. We came a long way and God Bless America. It is also wrong to say Obama's popularity has declined because of his race. It has declined because of the economic mess that he inherited and because he has done poorly in bringing about change promised.

Sometimes it is necessary to rise above our national leaders. We need not be afraid to amend the constitution. The Founding Fathers knew what they wrote in 1776 would not be entirely applicable in the twenty-first century. The first thing that needs amending is political contribution laws. Corporations and unions cannot vote. Why should they have the right to buy votes of our politicians?

George W. Bush will go down as one of the worst Presidents in our history. Obama will go down as a mediocre president unless things change quickly. Obama inherited a messed up economy and initially had the intelligence to keep experienced Wall Street types in place to guide him through the immediate crisis of the meltdown that could have easily turned into a depression. His vision to save GM was also correct for it would have caused massive additional job losses throughout the entire auto industry.

Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay $550 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission, one of the largest penalties ever paid by a Wall Street firm, to settle charges of securities fraud linked to mortgage investments. This is on the same day that the Obama administration is rejoicing over the passing of their financial reform bill. Once again we have proven that if you have big bucks you can buy politicians with campaign contributions and buy yourself out of the consequences of breaking the law. We need campaign reform and the break-up of the oligopolies that are controlling many of the markets that we pretend our free. Government is suppose to protect our freedom; this includes free markets. http://fixcongressfirst.org/

The problem with its passage is that our representatives will say "another problem solved". The fact is that the core issue is still unresolved. We have a major industry, banking, controlled by an oligopoly of big banks. This oligopoly, along with others, control our representitives by campaign contributions. In other words our politicans are bought off. This will not change until the following: Anti-trust laws are enforced to make our "free markets" truly free. Our government becomes an honest umpire to see to it that every business in the marketplace is playing by the rules and not choking the free market. A law is passed outlawing contributions by corporations and unions. They cannot vote and therefore they should not be able to buy votes.  It might take the Tea Party to make this happen. I have yet heard from any politican who has stated they will not accept campaign contributions from corporations or unions. Many of them are taking the talk. None of them

This is why reform is needed. The Congrssional Ethics Committee is investigating whether members of Congress were influenced by campaign contributions from financial services oligopolies when they voted on financial reform . We need to act. http://fixcongressfirst.org/

This is a response to a recent opinion posted in the New York Times about the U.A.W . If the U.A.W. truly wants to help the middle class of this country they will join, perhaps even lead, in the battle to free our economic markets from the oligopolies that have been created and taken control of so many of our industries including auto, airlines, healthcare, financial services and others. There is truth in your comments; however, the middle class was affected by other developments as well. First, A significant reason for the growth in the middle class beginning in the ‘50’s of the last century was the fact that this country was the last one standing after World War 11. The rest of the world was destroyed. There was no global competition and as a result this country grew and prospered.

The Obama administration needs to become more pro markets and less concerned about being pro big business.. When markets are free, they produce what the consumer wants at the highest quality possible at the lowest price. Presently, many of our markets are not doing this. The reason is many of our markets are not free. Instead, they are controlled by a few, very large, organizations that formed oligopolies; a market situation in which each of a few producers affects but does not control the market. These large oligopolies in turn are looking out for their rational self-interest, which is to keep the oligopoly alive and have it prosper. In a free market, it is in the rational self-interest of the producing corporations to provide the consumer the best possible products at the lowest possible price. In this manner, the corporation maximizes its profits because it is meeting the needs of its customers. As a member of an Oligopoly, a company has less concern about keeping costs down bec