Now is Not the Time for Profits!

income= normal profit which is what is needed to cover all of a business' costs like.....employee wages.
profit= economic profit which is the money which is made above the normal profit.

another way to look at is
income=gross income
profit=net income

a company can make zero economic profit and stay in business.( costs to replace equipment and the like would be covered in the normal profit) It fairly obvious that when obama says profit he means economic profit which is in lay terms profit and even than in honest person will read in between the lines and understand that he is not against all economic profit because that is what is used to fund R&D but is in fact against the increasing of the economic profit at the expense of the economy as a whole and the expense of the average american.

 

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This is not a statement against profits. Obama has made many business friendly comments and most recently appointed a Republican to be Commerce Secretary. He was commenting about profiteering...taking unreasonable bonus money. He is asking people to do what is right for the country.

 

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Like GM? Obama's statement was linking the lack of profits we are currently experiencing with the bail-out and bonuses. Bonuses seem inappropriate to pay out because that is the taxpayer money. That is all he meant.

Evidently, corporations do not operate in their best interests when unregulated. They go for short term profits and huge personal bonuses to the detriment of long term stability and sustainability.

In a perfect world, they would be making high profits and paying for all those things. Now isn't that time. Not because the Democrats don't want them to succeed, but because of the recession. The recession arguably caused by Republican economic policies.

It should be, but they just aren't making profits, people aren't spending, they are scared for the future.

I have now found Obams full statement, and in Context:

OBAMA: At a time when most of these institutions were teetering on collapse and they are asking for taxpayers to help sustain them, and when taxpayers find themselves in the difficult position that if they don't provide help that the entire system could come down on top of our heads, that is the height of irresponsibility. It is shameful. There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses. Now is not that time.

Where are these profits? THEY AREN'T MAKING PROFITS BECAUSE THEY CANNOT PRESENTLY DO SO!

How much of a drain on the economy would it be if millions of people had to go on unemployment and welfare? The bet is that short term help prevent these businesses from failing, so that people will still have a job in the future.

I don't think that's true. Investments now may pay off later. Unless you don't think there will be any banking or auto industry in the future.

I think most taxpayers demanded immediate action, not the laissez-faire inaction that has characterized the last 8 years.

 

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spidergoat you can spin Obamas statement all you want but that is not what Obama said or meant.

OBAMA:

If Obama had stopped with the Statement:

At a time when most of these institutions were teetering on collapse and they are asking for taxpayers to help sustain them, and when taxpayers find themselves in the difficult position that if they don't provide help that the entire system could come down on top of our heads, that is the height of irresponsibility. There will be time for them to get bonuses. Now is not that time.

But Obama also said:

It is shameful. There will be time for them to make profits,...and finished the sentence with....Now is not that time.

IYes, the Tax Payer want action, but logical action, not a Pork Barreled Hog Greased Vote Bought, Partesan payoff bill.

The Tax Payer is smart enough to see that the present bail out bill will do no good, they also see that over half the bill is for government projects and programs that will have no effect on the current recession.

Most of the moneys don't even come into play untill 2010 or later, only 5% of the moneys were for road and bridge infrastructure?

The other point is that the Tax Payer is alread paying to much taxes, and they are not ready to pay more for a plan that doesn't make sense to them, pay more money so fat cats like those in congress can cheat on their taxes?

Not on your Life Mr.Magoo, we are seeing just how contientious the Senate and Congress is about paying their fair share of Taxes,

Timothy Geithner:

4 years of back taxes, and He gets off with no intrest or penalities?

Could you or I get away with the same, or be allowed to pay up with no interest or penalities?

How about:

Nancy Killefer ?

Tom Daschle ?

They only paid up after they were nominated, and they knew that they owed those taxes and cheated all the way.

I think the reason Killefer, and Daschle, with drew was the Tax Payers were on the phones to Congress and in a really pissed off mood.

The Democrats don't even want to believe their own CBO report that says thta the money will not be on line quick enough to do any good on the job unemployment sector.

 

yes lets all bow down to ye of little intellect who implies that despite being ye of little intellect unlike those who best him in the intellect department he and he alone knows what other people think and mean.

 

I give up. Obviously Obama doesn't want companies to make profits, and doesn't want America to get out of it's recession. I heard he is just going to end the custom of having money, collect it all and just burn it or melt it down to sell for scrap.

 

Yes, grasshopper, we know the legend that your are in your own mind, but you are inferring what Obama said, Obama has not clarified the statement, so I would take it that He meant what he said.

Yes, you wan to say I inferred His meaning, but your are inferring something that is not part of Obamas statement, you are the one inferring what Obama said, I am making direct quotes of Obama.

This is not the first time the Government has tried to control the profits of companies, Carter tried to do so in the late 70tys, it is called price controls, the government set the price of the produce to control profit in the name of controlling inflation, (and guess what that is on the way, now that the Government has just added a trillion new printed dollars to the money supply, and are going to add to that another trillion with this bail out plan) and you saw just how well that worked for Carter, 21% interests, 13.5% inflation, and 7% unemployment.


Now let look at something else that Obama is trying to foist on the Tax Payer, this Idea that we are in the worst economy since the Great Depression.

This is the state of the economy as of 2008

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/129762.html

We haven't even reached the numbers of the Carter years, let alone the Numbers of the Great Depression:

Now this is what the Great Depression looked like:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression

Effects of depression in the United States[46]:

13 million people became unemployed. In 1932, 34 million people belonged to families with no regular full-time wage earner.[47]

Industrial production fell by nearly 45% between the years 1929 and 1932.

Homebuilding dropped by 80% between the years 1929 and 1932.

In the 1920s, the banking system in the U.S. was about $50 billion, which was about 50% of GDP.[48]

From the years 1929 to 1932, about 5,000 banks went out of business.
By 1933, 11,000 of the US' 25,000 banks had failed.[49]

Between 1929 and 1933, U.S. GDP fell around 30%, the stock market lost almost 90% of its value.[50]

In 1929, the unemployment rate averaged 3%.[51]
In 1933, 25% of all workers and 37% of all nonfarm workers were unemployed.[52]

In Cleveland, Ohio, the unemployment rate was 60%; in Toledo, Ohio, 80%.[47]

One Soviet trading corporation in New York averaged 350 applications a day from Americans seeking jobs in the Soviet Union.[53]

Over one million families lost their farms between 1930 and 1934.[47]
Corporate profits had dropped from $10 billion three years ago to $1billion in 1932.[47]

Between 1929 and 1932 the income of the average American family was reduced by 40%.[54]

Nine million savings accounts had been wiped out between 1930 and 1933.[47]

273,000 families had been evicted from their homes in 1932.[47]
There were two million homeless people migrating around the country.[47]

One Arkansas man walked 900 miles looking for work.[47]

Over 60% of Americans were categorized as poor by the federal government in 1933.[47]

In the last prosperous year (1929), there were 279,678 immigrants recorded, but in 1933 only 23,068 came to the U.S.[55][56]

In the early 1930s, more people emigrated from the United States than immigrated to it.[57]

New York social workers reported that 25% of all schoolchildren were malnourished. In the mining counties of West Virginia, Illinois, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania, the proportion of malnourished children was perhaps as high as 90%.[47]

Many people became ill with diseases such as tuberculosis (TB).[47]

The 1930 U.S. Census determined the U.S. population to be 122,775,046. About 40% of the population was under 20 years.[58]

47.^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7655472.stm

48.^ a b c d e f g h i j k Overproduction of Goods, Unequal Distribution of Wealth, High Unemployment, and Massive Poverty, From: President’s Economic Council

49.^ Q&A: Lessons from the Great Depression, By Barbara Kiviat, TIME, January 6, 2009

50.^ About the Great Depression

51.^ The Great Depression: The sequel, By Andrew Leonard, salon.com, April 2, 2008

52.^ Economic Recovery in the Great Depression, Frank G. Steindl, Oklahoma State University

53.^ Great Depression, The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics

54.^ A reign of rural terror, a world away, U.S. News, June 22, 2003

55.^ American History - 1930-1939

56.^ Persons Obtaining Legal Permanent Resident Status in the United States of America, Source: US Department of Homeland Security

57.^ The Facts Behind the Current Controversy Over Immigration, by Allan L. Damon, American Heritage Magazine, December 1981

58.^ A Great Depression?, by Steve H. Hanke, Cato Institute

59.^ 1931 U.S Census Report Contains 1930 Census results

I would say that Obama doesn't know what He is talking about.

 

spidergoat, like pj, your are inferring what Obama meant, a meaning that is not in the Words He spoke or in the way they were spoken.

Obama want the companies to make profits controlled by the Government, if your take Obamas all mighty government dollar, you will make profits only when the Might Obama Government tells you that you can, that is what was in the Quote by Obama.

A fancy way of saying price control, but it will have the same result as in the Carter years.

Now stop spinning and read Obamas words and look at the intent of the legislation that He is proposing.

 

That's right, it's conditional. If you take government money, you cannot spend on extravagences until it's paid back. It's in the companies interest to make as much of a profit as possible in order to repay the taxpayers. Can you explain how executive bonuses increase profits in any immediate sense?

 

the use of unstated qualifiers is fairly common. Just because me and spider are capable of picking up the unstated excessive and your not doesn't mean we are doing anything wrong. Being able to pick up on such things happens to be a sign of intelligence which is probably why the smart right wingers here aren't backing you here.

typical buffalo make an accusation against someone than do the same thing your self except on a more egregious scale. nothing in that quote implies that unless you make some perfect wild ass assumptions.

please refrain from making shit up. no one is talking about price control except you.

only one spinning here is you.


yes buffalo I'm a legend in my own for calling you out on saying that you know what people mean and others don't. Please do us all a favor and if your going to continue posting such idiocy DON'T

 

Is was using Google to search for a text version that had the sentence that preceded circulated quote and your post was the first that I found. Thanks for finding it. Conservatives have been running wild claiming the snippet is proof of Obama's socialism.

Does anybody even care about truth anymore? Is the spin competition so much more important than truth?

 

Buffalo Roam quoted it first, and it still didn't clear anything up for him. You know what they say, you can lead a Buffalo to water...

 

:roflmao:

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Actually it didn't claer up anything for you, you are still spinning it to what you want it to mean.

 

It is perfectly clear that Obama was talking about failed Wall Street management firms using taxpayer money to stay afloat using taxpayer money to give themselves bonuses that they probably don't deserve.

I don't think you advocate socialism to keep the Wall Street executives in the lifestyles to which they have become accustomed. Why do you want to believe Obama is a Boogeyman and a anticapitalist socialist? Whoever is filling your head have no regard for honesty. And you choose to believe those people. Look what they did to Obama's quote and try to learn from it so that you can become a better citizen who is part of the sollution rather than part of the problem.

For this democracy to work efficiently we need honest debate. I don't know how we can get there. It seems that humans are dishonest animals.


The White House, Oval Office
January 29, 2009

THE PRESIDENT: Well, it’s good to see you guys. I just had a terrific conversation with my Secretary of the Treasury, the Vice President, as well as the rest of our economic team, about the steps that we need to move forward on — not only on the economic recovery and reinvestment package, but also on making sure that we begin the process of regulating Wall Street so that we can improve the flow of credit, banks start lending again, so that businesses can reopen, and that we can create more jobs — but also to make sure that we never find ourselves in the kind of crisis that we’re in again, that we’ve seen over the last several months.

And Secretary Geithner is hard at work on this process. We expect that even as the reinvestment and recovery package moves forward — as I said, that’s only one leg of the stool, and that these other legs of the stool will be rolled out systematically in the coming weeks so that the American people will have a clear sense of a comprehensive strategy designed to put people back to work, reopen businesses and credit flowing again.

One point I want to make is that all of us are going to have responsibilities to get this economy moving again. And when I saw an article today indicating that Wall Street bankers had given themselves $20 billion worth of bonuses — the same amount of bonuses as they gave themselves in 2004 — at a time when most of these institutions were teetering on collapse and they are asking for taxpayers to help sustain them, and when taxpayers find themselves in the difficult position that if they don’t provide help that the entire system could come down on top of our heads — that is the height of irresponsibility. It is shameful.

And part of what we’re going to need is for folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint and show some discipline and show some sense of responsibility. The American people understand that we’ve got a big hole that we’ve got to dig ourselves out of — but they don’t like the idea that people are digging a bigger hole even as they’re being asked to fill it up.

And so we’re going to be having conversations as this process moves forward directly with these folks on Wall Street to underscore that they have to start acting in a more responsible fashion if we are to together get this economy rolling again. There will be time for them to make profits, and there will be time for them to get bonuses — now is not that time. And that’s a message that I intend to send directly to them, I expect Secretary Geithner to send to them — and Secretary Geithner already had to pull back one institution that had gone forward with a multimillion dollar jet plane purchase at the same time as they’re receiving TARP money. We shouldn’t have to do that because they should know better. And we will continue to send that message loud and clear.

Having said that, I am confident that with the recovery package moving through the House and through the Senate, with the excellent work that’s already been done by Secretary Geithner in consultation with Larry Summers and Paul Volcker and other individuals, that we are going to be able to set up a regulatory framework that rights the ship and that gets us moving again. And I know the American people are eager to get moving again — they want to work. They are serious about their responsibilities; I am, too, in this White House and I hope that the folks on Wall Street are going to be thinking in the same way.

The Above is from http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cach... Secretary Geithner"&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us

full text full quote context . Words for google's spider because the real quote is hard to find in the rapidly grow sea of misquotes.

Maybe the use of the word "profit" created a problem. "Profit" belongs to the stockholders. Bonuses go to management. But management in todays large corporations often seem to put their own interests above the interests of their stockholders.
Obama may have spent so much time around corporate managers that he has adopted their mindset that profits go to the managers.

 

nirakar,

Then why didn't the statement end at, there will be a time to make bonus's.

Profits are essential to recovery, Profit money is either reinvested or spent by the Investors, profits create the flow of money in the economy, and that flow is being restricted by Government policy.

With out profits there is no money to reinvest in the economy, there is no money to make loans, that is the problem today, the flow of money because there are no profits, and banks and business are sitting on their reserves.

 

I think "profits" was a poor choice of words. I know I can't use the best words when I talk. Bush certainly couldn't. A good lawyer will write precisely but you can't expect them to speak precisely. I don't know anybody precise enough to not make statements that would not look like something other than what they are intended to mean if taken out of context. That is why context is important.

Who is them? If you go back and look at the context you can figure out who them is. "Them" is "folks on Wall Street who are asking for help". Should the folks on Wall Street or the stockholders they represent be getting profits now? If we Tax Payers give these firms enough money the begging firms could have profits now but would that be right? I personally the we tax payers are already being too generous. The stockholders of these firms deserve to lose their money because they failed to supervise management and management seriously screwed up.

We voters and taxpayers would let these firms go bankrupt if we were not afraid of the harm that a chaotic collapse of some of our largest financial institutions could do to our economy.

What government policy are you referring to and what does this policy have to do with the Obama quote?

The above is true but it has nothing to do with the Obama quote. Businesses in general need to make profits. Aside from a handful of whacky unrepentant communists everybody agrees with that. The question is are profits for failed corporations being kept alive by life support in the form of gifts from the taxpayers essential to recovery? And Obama says these failed firms can have profits later presumably after they are no longer on taxpayer funded life support.

A pathetic poor person might not like the price that pawnbrokers give them for the stuff they bought with their credit cards. The Wall Street firms might not like the price the free market is willing to pay for their mortgage backed securities. Liquidity problems are a bitch. Liquidity problems don't entitle anybody to taxpayer funded bailouts.

Obama's quote is not anti-business; his quote is anti-socialism for highly paid screw ups. Read the whole text again and see if you can't see that?

 

nirakar

Your interpreting Obamas statement, into what you want it to be, not what he said.

 

He was linking the idea of profits and bonuses. By taking the word profit out of context and linking it to "now is not the time", you have created a new meaning that was not present in the original statement.

 

I guess this is futile but, no I have not interpreted Obama's statement into something that it is not (or at least not nearly as much as you ), you have interpreted Obama's statement into what you want it to be. Read his whole statement again.

I am curious whether you really believe what your are saying or are just propagandizing for your political faction.