About Politics

Nikole G asked:


How will Obama retain or attract people in a math or science profession to a teacher’s position within a public school?

Agnes

? asked:


How is the inauguration of Obama important to you?

thanks if you answer! :]

Debra

Money Morning asked:


By Don Miller

Contributing Writer

Money Morning

New home construction fell in November by the largest amount in a quarter-century, as builders slashed production while facing the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression.

However, a new blizzard of government money may be coming to your neighborhood, and it promises to be a true bailout for the masses, not just for those in foreclosure or real financial difficulty.

Tight credit and lending markets, rising foreclosures, and surging unemployment figures have homebuyers on the sidelines, pummeling the fortunes of homebuilders such as D.R. Horton Inc. (DHI), Pulte Homes Inc. (PHM) and Centex Corp. (CTX)

“It is going to be a very cold winter indeed for homebuilders,” Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist for forecasting firm MFR Inc., wrote in a note to clients Monday, MSNBC reported.

And the numbers are grim.

The U.S. Commerce Department yesterday (Tuesday) reported that housing starts, where construction has actually begun, fell 18.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 625,000 units from 771,000 units in October, much less than the 740,000 starts Wall Street analysts expected.

New building permits, predictive of future home construction, plummeted 15.6% to 616,000 units from 730,000 units in October. That was also way below analyst estimates of 700,000.

Housing starts were down 47% in November from the rate in November 2007 and permits were down 48.1%, the largest year-to-year drops since January 1991.

But on the bright side, any slump in new home construction could help U.S. housing market prices recover.

“The more we have less housing starts, the more we can shrink existing inventory,” Steven Goldman, market strategist at Weeden & Co. LP, told Reuters.

The news comes on the heels of a phalanx of trillion-dollar-government efforts and bailouts to banking and government agencies designed to shore up the housing industry. The economy has a variety of problems, but the housing industry is at the crux of any plan to return the U.S. economy to a healthy state.

Obama’s Housing Plan

Some economists are forecasting gross domestic product (GDP) to fall 8% for the current quarter, making the most drastic policy proposals increasingly palatable.

And the latest plan to emerge from the inner workings of President-elect Barack Obama’s recovery team is a stunner, sporting an astounding price tag of $3 trillion.

According to Bloomberg News, the so-called Hubbard-Mayer plan is being studied by Lawrence Summers, chairman-designate of the National Economic Council, and is already “on a fast track at the Treasury.”

The plan calls for reviving the faltering housing market by providing just about everybody access to a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with a 4.5% interest rate. That’s almost a full percentage point below the current national average rate of 5.47%. The plan might even be available to existing homeowners who want to refinance their mortgages.

The bottom line: If you have a mortgage, this plan would put extra money in your pocket.

Assume a homeowner currently has a $500,000, 30-year fixed rate mortgage at 6.1%, the average rate issued this year, lowering the interest rate to 4.5% would lower the monthly payment by about $500.

The thinking of the Obama team is that this plan might just be the magic bullet needed to turn the economy around. After all, if Joe Taxpayer’s monthly housing payment drops by $500, he might not be afraid to go out and purchase that new car he’s been eyeing.

The effects from millions of subsidized mortgages like these could dramatically increase the number of homebuyers and help stabilize or even push property values back up.

But the plan could be so expensive that the Treasury may try to limit it to new homebuyers, preventing homeowners who want to refinance from participating.

That, however, might be impossible to enforce. According to one scenario sketched out by experts, creative homeowners could simply draft a friend into an deal under which each would agree to buy the other’s house, grabbing the new 4.5% loan to do so. Then they could quit, claim the deed back, or rent them to each other for the same price.

This mortgage plan is radical, and might just be powerful enough to help turn this troubled economy around. And a $3 trillion bailout would have something for almost everyone.

To read more click here

Investment News



Jill

Dan Dimit asked:


Copyright (c) 2008 Dan Dimit

When it comes to Barack Obama’s new economic plan, there are positive and negative aspects. Some parts the plan should help us out as internet marketers. There are other parts that might hurt us. First, let’s start with the best news…we internet marketers are a resourceful bunch and we’ll probably make sure that everything goes well for our future no matter what.

That reminds me…before I go on, I will stick my opinion where it may or may not belong. Both candidates said “The American people are innocent victims of this financial disaster”…um, are you kidding me? I can’t think of a more dangerous thing to say. No one had guns to their heads when they signed those home loans! When American citizens completely stop taking responsibility for their own actions, as the candidates encouraged, then America loses its advantage as the superpower in the world. I know they were trying to win votes, but that’s just irresponsible.

My audience—internet marketers and entrepreneurs—will take care of themselves. They don’t WANT the government to take care of them. That’s how it should be and it’s that very attitude that makes them successful and independent to begin with. If everyone thought like and entrepreneur, we, er, the country wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.

Okay, back to economic policy. The most exciting thing for internet marketers in Obama’s new economic plan is the deployment of what politicians are calling Next-Generation Broadband. With this plan, Obama wants to bring broadband to every community in America. Overall, this should eventually bring the costs of broadband internet down across the nation. Also, the internet users that are still on dial-up will likely switch over to faster internet, meaning more chances for them to stay on your site instead of clicking away because your graphics are taking too long to load. This happens with flash sites. Overall, with this plan implemented, more of America should spend even more time online, meaning more chances for you to make a sale.

There are a couple of other parts of Obama’s economic plan that could turn into positives depending on your market niche. Part of the Obama plan is to issue an emergency energy rebate for $1,000. This rebate is said to be a type of “down payment” for Obama’s long-term plan to give middle-class families at least $1,000 per year in tax savings. I’m sure you have heard this statistic: The personal savings rate here in the United States is the lowest that it has been since the Great Depression. We’ve turned into a society of instant gratification. As much as we would love many Americans to put this extra $1,000 towards savings or debt, I believe most everyone will continue to spend this extra income on whatever they want. So that means there’s an extra $1,000 each year that families could use to make even more online purchases.

Another positive in Obama’s plan is the tax relief for small businesses and start-up companies. Obama wants to eliminate all capital gains taxes for these businesses in order to encourage the creation of more jobs. Since we work online, most of us don’t owe capital gains taxes, but some of us might. A better positive for most all internet marketers is the proposed “Making Work Pay” tax credit which promises a $500 credit to almost every worker in America, which looks like it will include self-employed small business owners.

O.K., now for the negative aspects of Obama’s plan: All through the debates you have heard Obama say that nobody making less than $250,000 per year will see a tax increase. He has even been quoted saying that these people should all see a tax cut. Well, what if you are making more than $250,000 per year? What kind of tax increases will this mean? Not all of us internet marketers are making $250,000 per year, but the ones that have turned the internet into a career rather than just a side job or hobby usually do pretty well. The sad thing is that we usually worked daunting schedules for years in order to enjoy a little of this “getting ahead”. Now this group of superachievers is being targeted as a cash machine. Obama has said on camera “It’s time for folks who make over $250K to pay their fair share”. It makes me want to throw up.

What a relief it gives us to look at history and see that no politician has ever kept all of his or her promises.

Now, there is one last part of Obama’s plan that I see as a potential negative for internet marketers. He wants to “simplify tax filings for middle class Americans.” With this plan, Obama wants to make it so that millions of Americans can get their taxes done in less than five minute. They want to have the IRS use the info it gets from employers and the banks in order to give taxpayers the option of simple pre-filled tax forms that they can simply verify, sign, and return. As internet marketers, we know that there are a lot of tax benefits that come from being self-employed. Some of us work very hard in order to find as many tax deductions that we can. And others pay CPAs big money in order to find even bigger deductions.

If middle class Americans are given the option of getting pre-filled tax forms, I believe a huge majority of them will take it out of laziness, and a large number of these Americans will miss out on tons of legal tax breaks that they could receive for their families. Obama says that this plan can save Americans up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees. But I sit here and think to myself about how much some people save when they do have professionals file their taxes. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I think that this could be construed as a perfect plan for the government to issue a lot less refund checks to American citizens. And my main point of negative for this part of Obama’s plan is less money for middle class American to spend at your site.

So, what will Obama’s economic plan do overall for your business? Well, I believe there are chances to see spikes in sales, but the truth is that we see spikes in sales all the time, anyway. It seems to me that there are really less positives than negatives with Obama’s plan. But I think that most of our sales will stay around the same during the Obama regime.

As long as there is a small percentage of entrepreneurs in America, the economy will be fine in the long run and we will figure out for ourselves how to thrive in the short run, in a good or a bad economic climate. Real business minds always rise above the zeitgeist.



Oscar

mark_tidman asked:


I read where Obama will allow for no medical treatment for a baby who survives a botched abortion. In other words, despite the abortionists best attempts to kill an unborn citizen, the baby does not die. Yet Obama would deny the surviving baby ANY medical treatment. He’d rather set the baby aside on a closet shelf and let it die.

George

jitternhbug asked:


I completely understand the relevance of Obama being of Kenyan decent, but why the emphasis on being black? He is just as much a white man.

Erica

Brent Vanderstelt asked:


Hawaii — The beachfront estate that will serve as the holiday-season headquarters for President-elect Barack Obama and his entourage should offer all the comforts of home—and then some.

Workers on Saturday were busily preparing the property for the future president, his family and a group of friends from Chicago in advance of Obama’s arrival in Hawaii during what was Saturday evening on the U.S. mainland.

Nestled along a white-sand beach rated among the best in the world and with a view of a lush mountain range, the home they are believed to be vacationing in has a stone privacy fence.

So what does the President of the ages know that many other travelers’ may not know? Obama, the Blackberry toting President elect and his family understand the advantages of renting a vacation home as opposed to staying a hotel.

Advantages of Vacation Rental Home

Most private vacation rental homes offer considerably more space than you will find in the typical hotel room often at a reduced cost. Now, families can vacation together and still have “room to breathe.

Private homes offer excellent flexibility. Unlike a typical hotel room, most private vacation rentals include kitchen facilities. You don’t have to eat out for every meal (but of course you can if you want too!).

Vacation rental homes often contain many personal & convenience items that will increase the comfort of the guest.

Many vacation homes are used frequently by their owners and as such, they are not like the typical “sterile” environment found in hotels and other “vacation establishments”. No one gives a property more attention than its owner!

Homeowners and rental agents are often able to provide you with tips and hints that only the locals know. This can make a huge difference in the enjoyment of your trip.

Many of the homes listed on Your Travel Buddy Vacation Rentals and other rental sites are offered DIRECTLY from the OWNERS - Rent direct from the owners and save.

Renting a private vacation home offers the affordability, exceptional value, and personal attention that you deserve.

“Having a President that understands the value of and uses the vacation rental industry will certainly be a boom for our industry” said Brent Vanderstelt, owner of Your Travel Buddy Vacation Rentals, (a free vacation rental directory) and Your Travel Buddy, (an online travel booking search engine).



Joseph