are giving Santorum a bump in Iowa at just the right time (if we had 2-3 weeks we could discuss Santorum backing Specter over Toomey in 04?, which cost Santorum his PA Senate seat in 2006
Romney needs Santorum in Iowa real bad…if Newt or Rick Perry get their ticket punched in Iowa, Romney’s dead. Why is Romney pulling for Santorum ?If Santorum were to win the Iowa Caucus on January 3rd, he gets his ticket punched out of Iowa

and better cozy than antagonistic. If there are other means of raisng capital I’m all ears.

What I am focused on is how Romney can use his business experience and relationship with Wall Street to build a bridge between the business class and average Americans. Can he utilize the lessons he learned about the free market in a way that can put the middle class back to work and whether a president Romney can be both an advocate for business as well as a protector of average Americans who have been abused by the corrupt business practices of a few Wall Street bad apples.

more government regulations and bailouts that benefit Romney’s cronies on Wall Street.

This is the same question about Bush, Cheney and Big Oil.

The question, right or wrong, is does knowledge of how Wall St works help or hurt the President when making decisions about how to improve our nation’s financial position?

The same question can be asked of an oil man. Does knowledge about how energy is produced help or hurt the president in his decision making about how to produce energy?

The simple question comes down to any matter for the president. Will a ignorant novice make better or worse decisions about an industry that someone who actually has knowledge of an industry?

The correct question is to ask if the president, or president to be have the integrity to not abuse his position and knowledge for personal gain? That is the correct question.

I fully agree with this:

The problem is that Romney worked for a private equity firm that leveraged investor money — oftentimes from Wall Street banks, but also from other sources — and not for a financial services company that specialized in creating exotic derivatives of questionable integrity. Private equity firms were not a main cause of the economic crisis and also were not in need of bailouts,

http://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2011/12/19/i-dont-think-anybody-gets-confused-that-bain-capital-is-part-of-that-whole-wall-street-structure/

America has been raped by Wall Street. The TBTF have conned our elected and appointed out of trillions to the grave detriment of the American Public.

You cannot serve the monster felons of Wall Street and small business at the same time.

America desperately needs small business to come back. That will never happen as long as the we continue to bailout the criminal elite of Wall Street.

The TBTF are clearly insolvent. Their trillions in derivative bets, MBS and ttheir other fraudulent schemes cannot and will not be covered any way you look at it. Continuing to fund this Wall Street black hole through the T Bill for Euro swaps, QE 3,4,5 etc, ZIRP and all the rest of machinations of the Bernank and Geithner will only dig the hole deeper.

We are quickly approaching the financial abyss; it’s time to clean up this rotten mess before it sinks us all. Romney will never in a million years take down these felons and clean up Wall Street.

But I have an even greater issue with Romney. Last week in an interview with the WSJ, Romney came out for some sort of VAT.

The VAT is one of the holiest of grails for the Left. With a VAT, Big Government would have a reliable revenue source to significantly increase the size of government even far beyond the disgusting bloat Obama has saddled us with. The rent seeking Progressive/Corporatist alliance of the TBTF, the unions, the bureaucracy, the Greens, the Academics and the Welfare cheats could increase their market share of the economy to an almost unassailable position where pay to play corruption rules the day, even down to the smallest endeavor. A VAT would likely mean an end to American Free Enterprise as we know it.

And true to form, Romney wants a VAT. A VAT that could destroy American Free Enterprise. Think about that for a moment. Why?

As he did in Massachuetts, He wants to lead America far to the Left, to a place the Democrats could only dream of. It’s been obvious for along time that the RINO wing of the Republican party prefers fashionable Progressive positions to real conservative ones. With Romney in office, the Progressive Rino wing would have cover to vote with the Democrats, to forge a new “bi-partisan” alliance to “show we can govern” and enslave American into a Progressive serfdom. With Romney in office, a Rino/Democrat alliance would have the votes and the power to take the country far to the left . Conservatives would he powerless to stop it.

Right now Obama is a spent force. He could never get a VAT passed. The Progressive/Corporatist alliances best hope for a corrupt pay to play stranglehold on America is Romney. That is why Romney is far more dangerous to the American Dream than Obama.

of the type of campaign Obama is likely to run. I know Obama gets money from Wall STreet, but he will get a pass. Obama is positioning himself to run against Romney and has fashioned to show him as Wall Street and a part of the 1 %. It does not matter if the same can be said of him, it will not matter. Romney is a target, and will not win in November. I can vote for anyone else, other than Ron Paul. Rick, Rick, Michelle, Jon or Newt. I prefer Newt.

most of the credit for the 2008 meltdown. Unfortunately Bush and “Wall Street” got most of the blame, but it was really attributable to excees government regulation in the form of the Community Reinvestment Act.

Originally enacted in 1977 by Jimmy Carter to outlaw the practice of “redlining” the CRA gradually grew and forced banks and mortgage brokers to relax lending standards in order to comply with CRA lending requirements. Practices such as no money down, no income verification, etc were employed in order to lend to minorities and low income applicants that otherwise would not be qualified.

Most financial institutions thought they were buying safe mortgages. Rather than learning from these mistakes, it seem that most people are now content to blame “Wall Street”, “greedy bankers” etc.

Back in the campaign of ’08, I cringed when John Mc Cain blamed Wall Street. Then I believed that the problem stemmed almost totally from the CRA. But upon further investigation, I have been forced to change my mind.

The problem did indeed start with the CRA. During the Clinton Administration the Boston Fed forced banks to significantly relax lending standards in poor areas to their detriment in conformance with the ideas of the CRA. However, there appears to have been a quid pro quo. It appears the TBTF struck a deal with the Devil.

In exchange for essentially funding what became a unsustainable multi- trillion dollar welfare mortgage program for the poor, the Big Banks got the elimination of Glass-Steagall, a policy of self policing of banking regulation and most importantly in the wake of the Basel II accords, an almost total elimination of banking reserve standards.

The lessons of the Great Depression and the S&L Crisis had been completely forgotten.

With the ability to do investment banking, unlimited leverage, and lax banking regulation enforcement, the TBTF were able to create the most massive Ponzi scheme in history that is still continuing , without any fear of prosecution or losses.

“Capitalize the profits, Socialize the losses” became the mantra and we the taxpayers were the ultimate mark. Because it was believed that the Fed would always bail them out, the TBTF took incredibly risky but also unbelievably lucrative bets, and for a long time the con worked. The top four TBTF have sold over 242 Trillion in derivatives. Just imagine the fees alone on that swindle. Much of that, in collusion with Fannie and Freddie had at least the illusion of full faith and credit of the United States of America behind it. Because there was little chance of prosecution, the TBTF would knowingly create these in reality junk rated MBS, market them as AAA and then short them in complete violation of the law. Those who want to defend the TBTF had better think really hard about all the smaller banks, corporations and individuals defrauded in this massive scheme. And that doesn’t even address the millions who have been ruined by the resultant Depression. This is without question the biggest bank heist in the history of the world ( and there is nothing anywhere close) and it was an inside job from the git go.

But hey he’s the next in line so GOP voters will fall in line for him and lead him to slaughter. Frankly I’ll be happy when Romney loses in 2012 and then maybe after selecting two milquetoast moderates we will learn by 2016 to nominate a conservative.