Ramanisblog

Category: Obama

  • Barack Obama declares Bank Reforms.

    Under fancy names like Financial Derivatives etc, Banks have strayed away from the their basic business , that is keeping public money safe and invest only in sound stocks and near nil risk lending with adequate collateral.
    Indulging in Proprietary Trading in essential commodities like online Trading commodities, not only pushes up the price of essentials because of speculative trading, also risks Banks investments in this sector.
    Very good move by Obama,no doubt he will be unpopular and be targeted by corporation lobbyis    ts.

    Barack Obama declared war on Wall Street last night as he unveiled a sweeping series of measures aimed at checking the behaviour of banks and clamping down on risky deals.

    The proposals, regarded as the biggest regulatory crackdown on banks since the 1930s, would limit the size of institutions and bar them from the most cavalier trading practices. Mr Obama hopes that the move will reset his flagging presidency.

    “We should no longer allow banks to stray too far from their central mission of serving their customers,” he said. “My resolve to reform the system is only strengthened when I see record profits at some of the very firms claiming that they cannot lend more to small business, cannot keep credit card rates low and cannot refund taxpayers for the bailout. If these folks want a fight, it’s a fight I’m ready to have. Never again will the American taxpayer be held hostage by a bank that is too big to fail.”

    Flanked by his economic advisers, he said that Wall Street banks must: halt “proprietary trading”, where banks risk huge sums predicting the outcome of future moves in the price of commodities such as oil; operate more cautiously and have more available funds; not become too large by limiting the amount of ordinary banking business they can undertake.
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6997741.ece

  • Shock defeat forces Obama to rethink healthcare reforms

    Obama must not read too much into the election,what he has attempted to do during his Presidency is admirable, whether it be on domestic front or inter national arena.Statesmen look for the welfare of the people not public adulation alone.
    Story:
    A humbled Barack Obama admitted personal mistakes in allowing a sense of “remoteness and detachment” to develop around his administration after a shock Republican victory in a former ultra-safe Democratic stronghold left his political strategy, including his cherished healthcare reforms, in jeopardy.
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/20/massachusetts-election-barack-obama

  • Obama-A Review.

    He is strengthening bonds with democracies like India.
    His spontaneous rushing of help including forces to quell disturbances in their hour of need , to Haiti-excellent.
    On economy, stimulus package seems to start ed paying dividends.He is also ensuring that benefits of Economy must be distributed by forcing large financial institutions to lend to small companies.
    He had chastised fat cats of bail out products for their greed in taking bonuses.
    He has been reticent enough to admit that Home land Security has loused up and is attempting to integrate Intelligence agencies.
    Well. on a scale of TEN, he scores SEVEN.
    We’re back on television on Wednesday to discuss Barack Obama’s first year in office. We’re live on BBC World News at 1530GMT. If you’d like to send us a video (of 60 seconds or under) with your first year report for the President, please email it to this address. We’ll do our best to use any many as we can. Here’s the BBC’s assessment.
    http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/your-first-year-report-for-pres-obama/#comment-195907

  • Obama faces growing to-do list in 2010

    Top of the list are.
    Economy
    Health care
    Unemployment
    Terrorism
    Homeland Security.
    Foreign policy
    These are not necessarily in the order of priority. All these have to be tackled simultaneously.
    On the economic front expenses, especially conspicuous consumption has to be curbed, Deficit financing to be reduced. Small and medium businesses have to be given priority in credit. Corporations that deal with non infrastructural products need to be discouraged. Off shore employment has to be reduced by offering tax concessions and subsidies. Import of oil must be less. Agriculture is to be accorded priority. Protective import is needed. Banks must be encouraged to lend to small businesses and individuals(for essential purchases)Extra tax must be levied on use of credit card. Savings must be given incentive by higher interest rates.
    Health Care .Instead of going ahead with a new Agency to handle Health care, which will duplicate the work being already carried out, the existing Agencies must be made to coordinate better.
    On terrorism. Visa regulations must be tightened especially from suspect countries. Granting of bail for those arrested for terrorist activity must be dispensed with. Suspected ethnic communities must be under vigorous scanner.
    Fighting terrorism in alien land is not advisable. Better leave it to the Countries concerned and tighten Homeland Security.
    On Foreign policy keep China under check, challenge North Korea, develop cordial relations with Russia and India. Leave Pakistan and Afghanistan to their fate and protect US interest by working closely with India and Russia and Japan.
    EU must be left alone as they are charting their own course.
    In short concentrate more on the domestic front.

    CNN) — President Obama enters 2010 facing many of the problems he vowed to confront during his first year, along with a handful of new responsibilities.
    The president returned Monday from a Hawaiian vacation intended to provide some down time, but with the Christmas Day terror incident, there was little time for rest and relaxation. While on vacation, he tacked on an overhaul of the intelligence community to his already-full agenda.
    Obama met Monday with Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan. He also scheduled a Tuesday meeting with his national security team to discuss how to plug holes in aviation security.
    Republicans have blasted the administration’s handling of the failed attack, with former Vice President Dick Cheney accusing the president of pretending the nation is not at war.
    Brennan, who advises the president on counterterrorism issues, all but called Cheney a liar this weekend.
    Video: Too much on Obama’s plate? Video: Kean: Christmas attack like 9/11 Video: Senators spar over Obama pick
    RELATED TOPICS
    Barack Obama
    Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
    Terrorism
    “Either the vice president is willfully mischaracterizing this president’s position, both in terms of language he uses and the actions he’s taken, or he’s ignorant of the facts,” he said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
    But there are troubling new questions for the administration, such as the president’s plan to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That plan includes sending some detainees back to Yemen, a place that’s become a haven for former Gitmo prisoners.
    The White House believes it was in Yemen that terrorists plotted with Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day.
    Republican Sen. Jim DeMint said he worries the country is losing its focus on security.
    “[Obama’s] been completely distracted by other things … and he is not focused on building security and intelligence apparatus of our country,” the South Carolina senator said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
    The Bush administration made a “huge mistake” by sending Yemenis from Guantanamo back, DeMint said. “We can’t make that mistake again. So it’s not just about this administration. It’s about losing our focus on security. And I’m afraid politics and political correctness has become front and center of this debate.”
    Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill disagreed with DeMint, saying she thinks Obama has “focused like a laser on how to keep this country safe.” The Missouri senator pointed to Obama’s commitment to Afghanistan as evidence he is “building up our intelligence community, not diminishing it.”
    Former 9/11 Commission chairman Thomas Kean said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that domestic concerns like the economy and health care have been a distraction from the threat of terrorism.
    “They weren’t giving this enough attention,” Kean said. “It’s understandable, it’s not acceptable.”
    But Kean said he now thinks that the threat has the administration’s attention: “The president now is saying the right things, and I believe he’ll do the right thing.”
    Despite the criticism, the White House insists it wants to finish the job in the war against al Qaeda.
    As Obama juggles his other priorities, such as health care, economic reform and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Sen. Daniel Inouye, a close ally, says he’s trying to do too much.
    “I think he has done exceedingly well, although as one who has been there for 50 years now, he is pushing himself too hard,” said Inouye, D-Hawaii.
    Inouye, who’s served in the Senate with 10 presidents, said he reminded Obama months ago that the campaign is over.
    In some ways, the first year resembled a campaign, with the president barnstorming the country to sell the largest economic recovery and health care plans in history.
    Last April, Obama acknowledged the weight of the tasks before him.
    “I’d love if these problems were coming at us one at a time instead of five or six at a time. It’s more than most Congresses and most presidents have to deal with in a lifetime. But we have been called to govern in extraordinary times,” he said.
    The president entered office with widespread approval, and while his ratings have dropped, there’s something to be said for striking while the iron is hot.
    “He came in with sky-high approval ratings, and if he was going to get anything done, it was going to happen this year,” said Mark Preston, CNN’s political editor.
    Inouye said 2010 will be about resetting priorities.
    “The second year will be one where the first year will have to be clarified,” he said.

  • Obama presses security overhaul, Nigerian indicted

    One must remember the enormous odds the intel.Agencies face when fighting a faceless enemy.While there face is unknown to the Agencies, terrorists know all the moves of the Establishment, thanks to media.However, ego clashes of Heads of Agencies and mis/non communication could have been avoided.Central Nodal Agency,Homeland Security should have coordinated better.
    Obama need not have lowered their morale in public for political expediency.

    U.S. President Barack Obama is “not patient” and is demanding immediate changes in airline security, the top U.S. military officer said on Wednesday, as a grand jury indicted a Nigerian man for trying to blow up a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day.

    Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there was concern that potential extremists could be inspired by the bombing attempt blamed on 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

    Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has claimed responsibility for the attempt, one of the most serious U.S. security breaches and intelligence breakdowns since the September 11 attacks.

    “Certainly there is the concern that this would bring more, generate more support from young males who might be on the fence about what to do with their lives,” Mullen said.

    A grand jury in Michigan indicted Abdulmutallab on six counts, including attempted murder of the other 289 passengers and crew on board the plane, and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. He faces life in prison, if convicted.

    The bomb, which Abdulmutallab has told investigators was given to him by al Qaeda in Yemen, contained the highly explosive ingredients Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate, or PETN, and Triacetone Triperoxide, or TATP, the indictment said.

    U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder held out the possibility of others being charged, saying, “Anyone we find responsible for this alleged attack will be brought to justice using every tool — military or judicial — available to our government.”

    Jitters have gripped the U.S. travel industry in the aftermath of the bombing attempt. In the latest security scare, an unruly passenger on a Hawaii-bound airliner on Wednesday prompted the pilot to return the plane to Portland, Oregon, escorted by two military fighter jets.

    Obama called the Detroit incident a potentially disastrous “screw-up” by the intelligence community during a two-hour meeting with his national security team on Tuesday.

    “The president — he’s not patient about this at all. These changes have to be made immediately,” Mullen told university students at a seminar in Washington.

    Obama will address the issue again in a public statement on Thursday, when the White House will release a review that will make recommendations on plugging holes in security, including changes in passenger screening and terrorism watch lists.

    “The review will simply identify and make recommendations as to what was lacking and what needs to be strengthened,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, adding it would be “comprehensive.”

    INTELLIGENCE SHARING

    U.S. spy agencies and the State Department had information about Abdulmutallab but they never pieced it together to put him on a no-fly list. Instead, passengers and crew subdued the Nigerian bomb suspect as he tried to detonate the device.

    Mullen said part of the problem was intelligence sharing and filtering through the extraordinary amount of data collected by U.S. spy agencies.

    “It does have to do with sharing information and it does have to do with huge bureaucracies. And we collect an extraordinary amount of data,” Mullen said.

    Obama has been lambasted by Republicans who accuse his Democratic administration of being weak on terrorism and unable to fix intelligence gaps that have lingered since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States involving hijacked planes.

    Senior Republican lawmakers on Wednesday called on Obama to take more concrete steps to improve security and challenged the decision to try Abdulmutallab in federal court.

    “All jihadist attackers should be charged as enemy combatants, taken into military custody, interrogated for vital intelligence, and tried in military courts under the laws of armed conflict,” they said in a letter to Obama.

    Since the Christmas bombing attempt, there has been finger- pointing within the U.S. intelligence community, including at the National Counterterrorism Center, created in 2004 to serve as the main repository for counterterrorism intelligence.

    Asked whether people might lose their jobs over the incident, Gibbs said, “I don’t know what the final outcome in terms of hiring and firing will be.”

    “This is a failure that touches across the full waterfront of our intelligence agencies,” he said.

    Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell did not rule out the possibility the review could affect the Defense Department, but added he did not see any readily apparent failings “within this department as to how we should have responded.”

    “As for what this department in particular will do differently, I think that is something that is yet to be determined,” Morrell told reporters.
    http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60342S20100106?feedType=nl&feedName=usmorningdigest