Today it is even more disconcerting, Obama's drilling moratorium may have been blocked by a judge today, but Secretary of Interior Salazar intends to announce a new one tomorrow. And the longer this "moratorium" lasts, the more likely we are to see the Oil Rigs in the gulf move down to Brazil where they are planning to drill for oil in seas twice as deep as the Deepwater Horizon site.
Why would the POTUS pay for a foreign country to drill for oil but object to his own country taking advantage of his own country's resources? And worse why would he fund the oil drilling of another country for it to "steal away" drilling resources from the Gulf sites? Payback.
Last August Ed Morrissey at Hot Air discovered that "coincidentally" just a few days before the announcement of the US Oil Exploration Aid, George Soros the presidential puppet-master, set himself up to make a lot more money from Brazilian Oil Exploration:
His New York-based hedge-fund firm, Soros Fund Management LLC, sold 22 million U.S.-listed common shares of Petrobras, as the Brazilian oil company is known, according to a filing today with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Soros bought 5.8 million of the company’s U.S.-traded preferred shares.NICE! Making money on the spread, and putting himself in a position to make more money from higher dividends just before all the big bucks "donation" from President Obama. Soros must be master of the deal or Obama is the master of the quid quo pro.
Soros is taking advantage of the spread between the two types of U.S.-listed Petrobras shares, said Luis Maizel, president of LM Capital Group LLC, which manages about $4 billion. The common shares were 21 percent more expensive than preferred today, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. …
Petrobras preferred shares have also a 10 percent additional dividend, said William Landers, a senior portfolio manager for Latin America at Blackrock Inc.
“Given that there will most likely never be a change in control in the company, I see no reason to pay a higher price for the common shares.” Brazil’s government controls Petrobras and has a majority stake of voting shares.
According to Front Page Magazine, this Petrobras deal was put in place by the President as a nice way to say thank you to Mr Soros.
Now it’s time for Soros to collect on his investment. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the Obama administration has committed up to $10 billion to Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras to finance oil exploration off of Brazil’s coast.
Yet Obama historically has opposed expanded oil drilling. This was not only a strategic decision, aimed at pleasing the environmental Left, but also a personal choice, since Obama sincerely believes that drilling is deeply destructive to the natural environment. Thus, as a Senator, Obama voted against permitting the U.S. to drill for oil and natural gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on the grounds that it would be a crime to despoil such “beautiful real estate.” Similarly, during last year’s presidential campaign, he warned of the “environmental consequences” of oil drilling, and insisted that “we cannot drill our way out of the problem.”
But apparently George Soros can. The president has elected to help another nation with the same type of drilling that he opposes so vehemently for this country, and the reason seems to be Soros’s $811-millon investment in Petrobras. The company just happens to be the largest holding in Soros’s investment fund. Soros’s connection to the company is no secret; he has been investing in Petrobras since 2007. A profitable venture, Petrobras has estimated recoverable reserves for the so-called Tupi oil field of between 5 and 8 billion barrels. With his billion-dollar loan, Obama has taken patronage politics to striking new level.
The Petrobras loan may be a windfall for Soros and Brazil, but it is a bad deal for the US. The administration is prepared to lend up to $10 billion to a foreign company to drill off its coast, when it could bring in $1.7 trillion in government revenue, as well as create thousands of new jobs, by allowing drilling off the coast of the United States.There is that Old Saying, Payback's a bitch. Obama's ten billion dollar gift to Petrobras along with the drilling moratorium designed to give the Brazil-based company partially owned by his good friend George Soros, proves that sometimes payback is not a bitch, its a wallet fatten-er.
....The oil deal stinks for other reasons, as well. For instance, there is the rank hypocrisy of Soros – an enthusiastic proponent of global warming theory and environmental liberalism – investing in the fossil fuels whose use he otherwise condemns – and doing so in part with the aid of taxpayer funds. For years, Soros has urged the adoption of a global carbon tax that would punish companies that contribute to global warming. But that didn’t prevent him from plowing money into Petrobras.
The cozy Soros-Obama alliance goes beyond favorable oil deals. It’s also playing a role in the health care debate. Huge demonstrations dedicated to enacting Obama’s universal health care are largely a Soros-financed operation. When tens of thousands of people rallied in the nation’s capital in support of Obama’s health care plan, the demonstrations were organized by Health Care for America Now! (HCAN), a new national grassroots movement of more than 1,000 organizations in 46 states encompassing 30 million people dedicated to winning health reform now.
The “grassroots” organization appears to be more like a gang of interconnected ultra-liberal pressure groups. Among the 21 members of its steering committee are such Soros-funded groups as ACORN, MoveOn.org, and the Center for American Progress (CAP), headed by Clinton former chief of staff John Podesta, who also has been a key adviser to Obama. Soros’s charity, the Open Society Institute, in 2007 gave CAP $1.75 million and approved added grants of $1.25 million.
Obama’s collusion with Soros and his agenda-driven squadrons is an unfortunate turn from an administration that entered office promising unprecedented transparency in the White House. Soros certainly did his share for Obama. Now, with his backing for a billion-dollar oil loan to a Brazilian company, the president has proven more generous to Soros than to the American voters who put him in office.
Kelley wrote recently with the sort of dilemma I get asked about all of the time: Is it better to invest or to prepay a mortgage? We’ve covered this topic in the distant past, but it’s time to review the debate for current readers. First, let’s look at Kelley’s e-mail:
My husband and I are on the right track. At age 25, our only debt lies in our home mortgage. We have the six-month emergency fund in place, I currently meet the 3% 401(k) match offered by my employer, and I started a Roth IRA for myself and my husband last year. I started each Roth IRA with $4,000.My financial advisor recommended for us to max out each of our Roth IRAs each year. My husband disagrees. He thinks paying off the house is a bigger priority. Starting this year, we’ve made an extra payment on our house each month. If we continue doing this, we can have our house paid off in nine years rather than 30 years. However, we can’t do both.
Currently we’ve decided to throw $1,000 into each Roth each year until the house is paid off. Is this the wise decision? Or is it better to put more toward the Roth IRA and less toward the house?
I understand either option is good because I’m saving money. I’m just curious of which route would be wiser.
Kelley’s right: Both of these options are good. This is like choosing between an apple and an orange. Both taste good, and they’re good for you &madsh; but is one better for you in the long run?
What the experts say
Three years ago, when we last covered this topic (holy cats! — where has the time gone?), I collected the following roundup of advice from personal-finance books:
- Ric Edleman (Ordinary People, Extraordinary Wealth): Never own your home outright. Instead, get a big 30-year mortgage and never pay it off — regardless of your age and income. “Every time you send an extra $100 to your mortgage company, you deny yourself the opportunity to invest that $100 somewhere else.”
- Suze Orman (The Laws of Money): Invest in the known before the unknown. Paying off your mortgage offers a guaranteed return on investment. “You cannot live in a tax return. You cannot live in a stock certificate. You live in your home.”
- Elizabeth Warren (All Your Worth): Save 20% of your income. Use 10% for retirement savings, 5% to accelerate your mortgage, and 5% to save for future dreams. “Paying off your home also does something many financial planners neglect to mention: It gives you freedom. Once that mortgage is gone, just imagine all the freedom in your wallet.”
- Dave Ramsey (The Total Money Makeover): Prepay your mortgage if you can, but only after you’ve saved an emergency fund, and only if you’re putting at least 15% of your income toward retirement. Don’t use a program designed by a broker; use your own self-discipline.
- Dominguez and Robin (Your Money or Your Life): “Pay off your mortgage as quickly as possible.” This book, too, was written when interest rates were higher. Also, the authors emphasize frugality over investing.
Financial authors don’t agree on this subject. Maybe the personal finance gurus writing for the web can clear things up?
- Liz Pulliam Weston at MSN Money: Don’t rush to pay off the mortgage. “You’ve got better things to do with your money, like saving for retirement, building an emergency cushion or even living it up a little.”
- Walter Updegrave at CNN Money: If you’ve funded your retirement, and if it will make you happy, then pay down the mortgage. Otherwise, it makes more sense to invest.
- Laura Rowley at Yahoo! Finance: Using very conservative figures, investing instead of prepaying the mortgage yields an extra $400 per year. If you feel compelled to pay down your mortgage, do it. But realize you’re paying a price to do so. (She offers more details at her blog, as well as tips on how to estimate the investment return you need to earn to make it worthwhile.)
- Bankrate: Pay down your mortgage if your investments would be conservative. Invest if you’re planning to do so for the long term.
- USA Today: It depends on your income, your monthly expenses, your risk tolerance, and your desire to own your home free and clear.
- Kiplinger’s: Invest unless you’re near retirement
- The Dollar Stretcher: Mathematically, it makes more sense to invest, but it all depends on your risk tolerance.
- My fellow pfbloggers at Bargaineering and Million Dollar Journey recommend that a person do a little of both: pay down the mortgage some and invest some. Free Money Finance says: “If you have the discipline to save/invest the money you would be using to pay off the mortgage, it’s likely that saving/investing is the better option. But if you’re more the “average” person out there managing your money, I still believe it’s a better option to pre-pay your mortgage.”
The Rowley article offers some interesting background to this debate:
Why do so many people choose to put extra money into a mortgage when other options would likely increase their wealth? “This is really remnant of Depression mentality that has persisted from generation to generation,” says [one expert]. At the time, most mortgages had one- to five-year terms, with a lump sum payment due at the end.“Any shock to income meant you couldn’t afford your payment — mortgages were much more susceptible to economic uncertainty,” [the expert says], and roughly one-quarter of Americans were unemployed during the Great Depression. “It’s fine to pay down your mortgage if it gives you peace of mind, but you should recognize what that peace of mind costs.”
If you’re facing a similar decision, you may find this calculator useful: prepaying your mortgage vs. investing.
The bottom line
My conclusion in 2007 (and the one I still hold today) is that unless your mortgage rate is very high, it makes more sense mathematically to invest your money. But most gurus agree that psychologically, you should do what works for you. If paying off your mortgage would take a weight off your shoulders, then pay off your mortgage. Sure, you might be losing a bit in the long-term, but you’re still making a smart choice. As I said earlier, it’s like choosing between an apple and an orange. One may be better for you, but they’re both good.
Ultimately, I kind of like the choice that Kelley and her husband have made. They’re prepaying their mortgage and putting some toward retirement. But enough of what I think. Kelley really wants to know what you think.
Which option is better? Should she and her husband be pumping as much as possible into their Roth IRAs? Or should they be paying down their mortgage as quickly as they can? Have you been faced with a similar dilemma in the past? What did you choose to do? And would you make the same choice again?
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