1.) Obama’s jobs team gets green-washed — “President Barack Obama will name Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric Co.’s chief executive officer, to head his outside panel of economic advisers, replacing former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker,” reports Bloomberg News. “Immelt has sounded many of the administration’s themes: boosting jobs through U.S. exports, ensuring companies can compete with powers like China and India, and jumpstarting a clean-energy economy. Immelt wrote today that he and Obama ‘are committed’ to making the U.S. ‘the most competitive and innovating economy in the world.’” According to Bloomberg, “Immelt is among a group of executives — Boeing Co. CEO Jim McNerney; Motorola Solutions Inc. CEO Greg Brown, and Honeywell International Inc. Chairman David Cote — who have voiced support for Obama policies. The four serve on several of the president’s outside advisory boards”–and all four have made a killing on green jobs subsidies (more)
1.) White House reporters ask first truly tough questions in two years — Pres. Obama was inaugurated two years ago today, which means it only took the White House Press Corp members one year, 11 months, and 29 days to find their spines. “Could you explain to the American people how the United States could be so allied with a country that is known for treating its people so poorly, using censorship and force to oppress its people?” asked AP reporter Ben Feller. He then turned to China’s Hu Jintao and asked, “How do you justify China’s record and do you think that’s any of the business of the American people?” When a mixup with the translator prevented Hu from hearing Feller’s question, Bloomberg’s Hans Nichols used his turn to ask Feller’s question again. But no amount of tough questioning could force either Obama or Hu to answer honestly. And in front of God and everyone, the 2009 Nobel Prize winner claimed that the country which is keeping the 2010 Nobel Prize winner under house arrest has made “enormous progress” on human rights which has been “widely recognized in the world.” The ensuing cognitive dissonance threw the Washington Post for a spin. Both headlines appeared in this morning’s paper: “President Obama makes Hu Jintao look good on rights”; “Obama presses Chinese leader on rights.” (more)
1.) Incoming congress knows that water wears down the rock not by force, but with constant falling — “To prevent deficit reduction from being used as an excuse for tax hikes, Republicans are getting rid of the ‘Pay-As-You-Go’ rule and replacing it with a ‘Cut-As-You-Go’ rule,” reports The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward. “The rule will require that any legislation that seeks to increase mandatory spending (which is spending that once added to the federal budget recurs year after year and is thus permanent) cuts spending by a similar amount.” If successful, this would change the entire economy of the House. “As [Blunt] put it, ‘Let’s turn the activists for big government on each other, instead of letting them gang up on the taxpayer,’” said Majority Leader John Boehner. “Through this public discussion, we might end up finding out that neither program has a whole lot of merit in the first place.” Instead of trading horses, people will start shooting them. This means fewer horses to feed. (more)
1.) How the left astroturfed net neutrality into existence — Despite what you may have heard, yesterday’s net neutrality vote at the FCC wasn’t the result of millions of Americans or even tens of thousands of Americans waking up and saying, “I think I am going to suddenly care about this!” No, like most Washington success stories, yesterday’s enslavement of the Internet was made possible by a small group of people with a lot of money. “After McCain-Feingold passed, several of the foundations involved in the effort began shifting their attention to “media reform”—a movement to impose government controls on Internet companies somewhat related to the long-defunct “Fairness Doctrine” that used to regulate TV and radio companies,” writes the WSJ’s John Fund. Those outfits are Pew Charitable Trusts, Bill Moyers’s Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, the Joyce Foundation, George Soros’s Open Society Institute, the Ford Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, all of which have given money to left-wing froth factory Free Press. As a result of Free Press’s close ties to staffers for FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, net neutrality crusaders gamed the debate from the beginning: “Some of the same foundations that have spent years funding net neutrality advocacy research ended up funding the FCC-commissioned study that evaluated net neutrality research.” (more)
1.) Romney joins growing chorus of anti-something-something conservatives — The number of conservatives who are opposed to the tax cut deal is growing. On Monday, Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney joined radio host Hugh Hewitt, the Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer, and Senators Tom Coburn and Jim DeMint in opposing the bill on the grounds that “the temporary nature of the taxrate extension would limit the positive economic impact and correspondingly make the deficit worse,” writes The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward. Romney, like the others mentioned above, has also raised red flags about unfunded spending contained in the bill. Coincidentally, you could say the same thing about Romneycare. (more)
A majority of Americans feel that America has is “on the wrong track,” and that they are worse off than they were in 2008. (more)
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has been mentioned as a potential U.S. presidential candidate, said he doesn’t believe an independent can win. (more)
Starbucks Corp., the world’s biggest coffee chain, plans to more than double the rate at which it opens stores to an average of more than one a day as the global economy recovers. (more)
Ford Motor, the only one of the Detroit Big Three to avoid a government-supported bankruptcy, continued its rebound with third-quarter net income up 68%. Profit was driven by a bigger U.S. market share and buyers spending more loading up its cars and trucks with options. (more)
For the second time since he became chairman in 2006, Ben S. Bernanke is leading the Federal Reserve into uncharted monetary territory. (more)
Sales of U.S. existing homes rose in September by the most on record, a sign cheaper borrowing costs are helping stabilize an industry that’s battling the headwinds of foreclosures and joblessness. (more)
In an environment in which Democrats all over the country are fighting for their political survival, approval ratings are low and the party is at risk of losing its grip on Congress, two high-profile Democrats are thriving – Bill and Hillary Clinton. (more)
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday gave a mixed but decidedly negative review of President Obama’s economic policies, saying that the reason for joblessness is uncertainty in the private sector caused by government and that the president is uninterested in business. (more)
Mayor Bloomberg has lost his title as the wealthiest New Yorker, while Facebook upstart Mark Zuckerberg’s new wealth tripled to make him the fastest climber among the super rich, according to Forbes. (more)
Sales at U.S. retailers probably rose in August for a second consecutive month, easing concern the economy will stumble in the second half of the year, economists said before a report today. (more)
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended on Tuesday a Florida pastor’s right to burn copies of the Quran during a public demonstration on the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. (more)
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg took a shot at those criticizing the construction of a Muslim community center and mosque near Ground Zero on Tuesday, asking rhetorically whether a new mosque could ever be built near the property that once held the World Trade Center. (more)
Rising job losses and “unusual uncertainty” within the economy have prompted the Federal Reserve and other major financial institutions to slash growth projections for the rest of 2010, leaving Americans worried about the possibility of a dreaded “double-dip” recession. But it’s another “D” word that currently has investors spooked—deflation. (more)
Late Wednesday night, the New York Times dropped a bomb: According to unnamed sources, Google and Verizon–bitter opponents in the debate over net neutrality–had essentially abandoned their negotiations with the FCC in favor of working out a deal that would make both companies rich as hell while limiting Internet access for millions of consumers. (more)
Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s principal- strategies business, a group that makes bets with the firm’s own capital, plans to transform into a fund and raise outside money, a person with direct knowledge of the decision said. (more)
