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By Cassandra Effect, July 2, 2009 6:05 am

So much to talk about in Dear Leader’s “online town hall meeting on healthcare” Wednesday in Annadale, so I will break it into several posts.

For starters, how about a 75 minute long town hall with only 7 questions – all of whom were PRE SELECTED and SCREENED. 

Beyond the usual cattle call of sad sack stories, one of the “questioners” was a man named Jason Rosenbaum who said he was with a group called Health Care for America NOW! 

Their stated purpose:

“Our government’s responsibility is to guarantee quality affordable health care for everyone in America and it must play a central role in regulating, financing, and providing health coverage by establishing…”

Somehow I did not ever notice the health care guarantee in the Constitution, only a guarantee of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Jason is a left wing writer and webmaster of the seminal.com which claims to be an independent blog, but if you look at their “Required Reading” you will find some pretty wackadoodle left wing notions presented under the usual guises of “common sense.”

What an amazing coincidence that he was called on – what an incredibly lucky fellow – what were the odds?

Their “Coalition” consists ENTIRELY of left wing organizations like ACORN, Moveon.org, and what appears to be every union in the country.

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By Cassandra Effect, June 28, 2009 9:01 am

 The Obama administration has issued a White Paper providing the reasons they feel the need to create significant federal reform of financial markets.

 You will have to have PERMISSION to get alternate, non-vanilla loan products!

Quoting directly from the paper – bold is my emphasis

 “The CFPA should be authorized to use a variety of measures to help ensure alternative mortgages were obtained only by consumers who understood the risks and could manage them. For example, the CFPA could impose a strong warning label on all alternative products; require providers to have applicants fill out financial experience questionnaires; or require providers to obtain the applicant’s written “opt-in” to such products.”

 Besides the truly wonkish boring stuff around financial rules and regulations on a corporate and even international level, there are significant portions of these proposed rules which get right into your very own financial FREEDOM.

 The Obama administration is proposing the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) to provide oversight to “protect” consumers of financial products (i.e. Credit cards, mortgage loans, etc.  The paper blames everyone except for consumers themselves for the financial choices they make. The plan will take control of what and how the market offers you financial products.  It all starts off sounding very nice.

 1) The CFPA will require all disclosures to be reasonable, balanced and clear.  Well that sounds good – maybe you won’t need a magnifying glass to read your paperwork anymore.

 2) The CFPA will create “plain vanilla” products which will be REQUIRED to be offered.  Hmm.. well, ok, I guess that’s ok, but why is the government telling companies what to sell people?

 3) Under the bullet line of “Fairness,” The CFPA will be able to restrict product terms and practices “if the benefits outweigh the costs.”    Are you seeing the socialist language yet – the use of the word fairness was the first clue, but this language would permit the Government to ORDER financial firms to offer terms that may not be in the LENDERS best interest – what “costs” do YOU think the government will be thinking about here?  Social costs perhaps?  Maybe?  You think?

 4) Lastly, this new agency will seek to ensure “underserved consumers and communities have access to prudent financial services, lending, and investment.”

 Why do you think a market may be “underserved” and what would be “fair” terms to very low income people with poor credit records.  I fully expect the cost of credit to rise for all as a result of firms being forced into offering similar terms to all comers, regardless of credit worthiness.  And, wait for it…..better terms for those underserved consumers out of a sense of fairness – it’s the only logical conclusion of this notion.

 A Wall Street Journal Article states that the increase in plain vanilla options will reduce bank profits.  It is natural to expect that the costs of borrowing for plan vanilla products will go up so that the banks can return to their prior levels of profitability.   It also says people don’t understand compound interest.   

Maybe if the government spent more time providing school kids with a solid financial education in public school this whole mess could be avoided?