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Why Biden thinks the Chinese Communists are “not bad folks” and “not competition for us.” “Biden Gets China,” headlined the January 2, 2012 report in The Atlantic. As author Steve Clemons explained, “Vice President Joe Biden will take the lead on the administrations next phase China policy.” This marked a shift to a “strategy of engagement with Biden at the top,” that allows the US to deal with China’s likely next president from a Vice President to a Vice President/Next President status -- and to continue both the Departments of State’s and Treasury’s ongoing engagement with other designated key Chinese...

The incoming House Oversight and Government Reform chairman on Sunday tried to clarify his recent remarks to Rush Limbaugh where he called President Obama "one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times." ... "When you hand out $1 trillion in TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) just before this president came in, most of it unspent, $1 trillion nearly in stimulus, that this president asked for, plus this huge expansion in health care and government, it has a corrupting effect," Issa said on CNN's "State of the Union." Although TARP – the program passed in 2008 intended to strengthen the...

Former government officials Tony Blinken, Michele Flournoy & Lloyd Austin may run Biden’s national security agencies — their firm is telling investors it expects to profit off ties to those officials. Two former government officials who may now run President-elect Joe Biden’s national security team have been partners at a private equity firm now promising investors big profits off government business because of its ties to those officials, according to government documents reviewed by The Daily Poster. Pine Island Capital Partners lists former Under Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy and retired General Lloyd Austin as a partner in the firm,...

New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez interceded on behalf of an Ecuadorian woman who was banned from traveling to the U.S. because of allegations she had engaged in visa fraud. The woman, Estafania Isaias, is the daughter of a fugitive from Ecuador convicted in absentia for bank fraud and whose relatives in Florida made significant campaign donations to the New Jersey Democrat's 2012 campaign and the Democratic Party. Current and former U.S. government officials tell NBC 4 New York that Estefania Isaias was barred from traveling to the U.S. in 2007 because she allegedly lied on visa applications to bring immigrant...

A familiar face from a past economic disaster could be on the verge of profiting off the current Silicon Valley Bank calamity. SVB, taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation at the request of California regulators, is arguably the second-biggest bank failure of its kind in America — but that clearly doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to capitalize off of its collapse. According to a report from Bloomberg, the managers of the investment banking arm of Silicon Valley Bank, SVB Securities, are seeking a “management buyout of the business.” They are reportedly looking to expedite a deal because regulators...

As is now well known, Barack Obama’s new Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, told a Wall Street Journal conference last week that, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” He added, his eye on the worsening financial environment, that “This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before.” President-elect Obama appears to be taking the crisis strategy to heart. Announcing his economic team yesterday, Mr. Obama spoke of an economic crisis of “historic proportions” that requires immediate response: “If we do not act swiftly and boldly, most experts believe we...

The gut-wrenching slide of the 2008 stock market crash is unforgettable for those caught in it. In the six weeks from the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy on Sep. 17, the stock market lost over 40 percent of its value. A quarter of trading days had plunges of 4 percent or more. Investors saw life’s savings dissipate. Traders saw a year’s work and bonus compensation vaporize. The Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury, which had been scrambling to cope with the developing financial crisis, accelerated their efforts to a frenetic pace, developing program after program to stem the panic. A chart of the...

November 2, 2008 To: Senator Obama From: Transition Economic Team Subject: Participation in G20 Meeting Under pressure from President Sarkozy and some other European leaders, President Bush has called the leaders of the G20 countries to Washington for a meeting on November 15 to discuss the international financial crisis. There has been speculation that the President-elect will be invited, though the White House official who informed the campaign of Bush’s intention to convene the meeting did not say such an invitation would be extended. Because an invitation, should one be forthcoming, would presumably be made soon after the election, we...

Some really weird things are happening in the financial world right now. If you go back to 2008, there was lots of turmoil bubbling just underneath the surface during the months leading up to the great stock market crash in the second half of that year. When Lehman Brothers finally did collapse, it was a total shock to most of the planet, but we later learned that their problems had been growing for a long time. I believe that we are in a similar period right now, and the second half of this year promises to be quite chaotic. Apparently,...

Subprime Scandal: We've long suspected the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission wasn't honest in examining events before the meltdown. But an ex-commissioner says the probe was actually a full-blown political cover-up. In a just-released book, former FCIC member Peter Wallison says that a Democratic Congress worked with the commission's Democratic chairman to whitewash the government's central role in the mortgage debacle. The conspiracy helped protect some of the Democrats' biggest stars from scrutiny and accountability while helping justify the biggest government takeover of the financial sector since the New Deal. Wallison's sobering, trenchantly written "Hidden in Plain Sight: What Really Caused...

NBC-owned television stations in cities across the nation just teamed up with a nonprofit “journalism” group funded by a billionaire husband and wife team who not only spent millions campaigning for President Obama but also topped donor lists to groups like ACORN and MoveOn.org. The nonprofit, ProPublica, will contribute to the news operations of all NBC owned-and-operated stations, including those in such cities as Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia, the network announced Monday. The NBC affiliates will get early access to investigative reports from ProPublica, which describes itself as an “independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public...

Bicycles instead of cars? Dense apartment clusters instead of single homes? Community rituals instead of churches? "Human rights" instead of religious freedom? The UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) which met June 3-14 [1996]in Istanbul, painted an alarming picture of the 21st century community. The American ways-free speech, individualism, travel, and Christianity-are out. A new set of economic, environmental, and social guidelines are in. Citizenship, democracy, and education have been redefined. Handpicked civil leaders will implement UN "laws", bypassing state and national representatives to work directly with the UN. And politically correct "tolerance"-meaning "the rejection of dogmatism and absolutism"...

In a few weeks, Congress will likely enact the largest fiscal stimulus legislation in history. Surprisingly, the whole idea of such a stimulus is much more controversial among A-list economists than I would have expected, given the depth and breadth of the economic malaise. Although the debate is rather technical, it's important to try to understand it because much is at stake.Eighty years ago, the conventional view among economists was that government had nothing to do with business cycles--it neither caused them nor was there anything it could do about them. They were like the weather; you just coped...