Carl Icahn: Obama "Would Be A Terrible President"

Bloomberg:

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn said Barack Obama would be a ``terrible'' U.S. president whose election would bring higher interest rates and a loss of international confidence in the dollar.

``I don't normally get involved in politics, but this time I am,'' Icahn told an investors conference in New York last night. ``I don't think Obama really understands economics.''

The Illinois senator is the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. Obama has 1,962 delegates, according to an Associated Press tally, putting him 64 delegates shy of the 2,026 needed to clinch the nomination.

``I personally think he would be a terrible president,'' Icahn, 72, said. Obama would probably go on a ``huge spending spree'' that ``the country can't afford right now.''

Read the whole story: Bloomberg

Comments

[2cntswrth]

The days of the billionaires getting obscenely richer at the tremedous detriment to everyone else are being threatened by Obama. Make no mistake about it.

[pennst1143]

hm raise your hand if you started with nothing and turned your understanding of the economy into $14 billion... i thought not

[JiminNC]

Now raise your hand if you did it legally ... responsibly ... ethically ... I thought not.

[ErnestineBass]

ROFL!!! Excellent point, JiminNC.

[HotATL]

Hello everybody,

This is a little off the subject but I love you guys. I don’t read the Huffington Post because of the articles. I read the Huffington Post for the comments. I was fired back in 2003 because I disagreed with my manager about the Iraq war. He was for the war and I was against attacking any country that didn’t attack us first. He said that I disrespected him during the disagreement. But I didn’t. It seem that everyone in my office with college degrees were Republicans. So, since I didn’t have a college degree I thought that maybe I just didn’t understand what was good for America.

That’s why I love you guys. You are obviously college-educated people. And guess what? I agree with almost everything people like: amanda85, chni07, Pioneerking, Incredulous, and Birdman said. Thank you,

[ErnestineBass]

WELCOME!!!

You're among friends here, HotATL.

[evekendall]

Don't underestimate yourself. A college degree does not necessarily make a person smart.

[Irons]

If they weren't regulated, many of today's CEOs would have kids chained to textile machines like in the good old days.

[bossmechanic]

So what's the problem? It instills discipline. Teachs them the value of a dollar.

[ErnestineBass]

YOU ARE SO BUSTED, dumb@ss!!!

You posted earlier that all the "high-paying" (?) non-union automotive manufacturing jobs in the south were thanks to Repuke governors...BULLSH!T!!!

www.donsiegelman.org/pages/aboutdon.htmln.html

Read it and weep, bozomechanic.

[MeDonut]

As so many comments have pointed out, the reasons Icahn gives for being anti-Obama are so vacuous, so transparently non-sensical, that it's almost funny.

Also, there's an edge to his criticism of Obama. He's not saying "Obama isn't my guy" or "I have my doubts about Obama." Rather he's saying "I know Obama will be a disaster. The sky will fall if Obama becomes president." It just doesn't make sense.

I wonder if Icahn has other reasons that he doesn't want to talk about. Icahn is Jewish (Google "Icahn Jewish") and there seems to be a large amount of anti-Obama vitriol coming out of that ethnic group. Some questions for bloggers:

1. Is this part of an organized Jews against Obama campaign? I'm starting to believe there is one.

2. Even if not, why do so many influential Jews hate Obama? What are Jewish people so afraid of?

I confess to having my share of racist, sexist, and generally intolerant attitudes but I'm no anti-semite, and I'm not the only observer who sees a pattern. In fact., it's been acknowledged widely in papers (see NY times, Haaretz, Jerusalem Post) but there never seems to be a reason given.

What's the deal?

[evekendall]

"Icahn, 72, said. Obama would probably go on a ``huge spending spree'' that ``the country can't afford right now.''

It sounds like Icahn hasn't read a newspaper in at least five years. Bushco is spending 12 billion dollars per month in Iraq with no end in sight. In fact, Bushco has run up the largest debt in the history of the United States of America and mortgaged our future to the Chinese.

[KBAR]

The last 2 budgets started in Gen. Pelosi's House. Go bitch to her.

[evekendall]

Anything, ANYTHING, that has passed the Congress during the last eight years has been either instigated by or signed off on by George W. Bush.

[americahappens]

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[walk0nwalls]

Somehow I'm not particularly inclined to listen to ANYTHING the billionaire says about where the economy should be going.

[edva]

Icahn, kiss my ass. The only economics Obama doesn't understand is the kind we have suffered under to enrich greedy bastards like you. TIME FOR A CHANGE.

[papla]

you are a terrible man and you look terrible too ICAHN

[bas1311]

Does he mean a huge spending spree like a war we can't pay for? Because that ship sailed.

[ErnestineBass]

Sailed, struck a reality reef and sank.

[SanityNowPlease]

icahn: obama's election "would bring...a loss of international confidence in the dollar...and probably go on a ``huge spending spree'' that ``the country can't afford right now.''"

you mean, like what is happening now?

icahn, you are an idiot. a billionaire idiot. i hope obama taxes the hell out of you.

[iBgood]

He doesn't want to vote for a 46 year old whipper snapper.

[guriboy]

Icahn was fine with Obama until Barack kept popping wheelies on his bike in Ichans dirveway, and kept running through Mrs. Ichans flower beds. Icahn wants Obama to get off his lawn.

[ChicagoBob]

!

After WWII business was fairly well regulated and unions forced the creation of a huge middle class.

America became to most wealthy, and the most powerful, country in the history of the planet because of this.

Then came Regan and the dismantling of all that made us what we were began. All in the name of "open" markets.

What we got was an attack on the middle class, the unions and thus the workers, a mass exodus of jobs, a lower standard of living for our children, the contempt of the world community, and a massive debt. (I know, this is a very short list.)

Ichan and others of his ilk are most likely terrified that Obama might want to restore some of the rules and principles that made us great in the first place, that he might want to level the playing field a bit.

But Ichan is right about us not being able to afford too much. Most of what we have and a lot of what we don't is being blown up in Iraq, or transfered to Saudi coffers and the profits of big oil.

Be afraid, Ichan. Be very afraid. You may soon be without a president willing to roll over for you.

!

[bossmechanic]

So you believe your hero is going to restore unions? In case you haven/t noticed, there are a billion people in china and india that with work for a year to get a week of US union wage. If you were a businessman(company) providing jobs, wouldn't you insist on a labor force that is competitive? Maybe/kinda/possibly a good idea to not mandate exhorbatant wages and have a job here stateside.

[marko77]

"Maybe/kinda/possibly a good idea to not mandate exhorbatant wages and have a job here stateside." by bossmechanic


Boss - yeah, great idea!! Let's all work for 75 cents a day like slave wage workers in China and India. Meanwhile the CEOs and Investors become millionaires and billionaires. No thanks!!! That shit needs to be checked at the door - yesterday!!

[ErnestineBass]

Sorry, bub, but any so-called "American businessman" who sells out his countrymen in the name of easy profits no longer has the right to call himself an American.

He's just another @sswipe businessman. And you, bossmechanic, are an appeaser.

[saltpeter]

Or maybe, BOSS, you start mandating that foreign trading partners start holding up basic wage, safety, and environmental standards or refuse to do business with them. Or, perhaps, you yourself should get paid less just so we can keep up with the exploitative tactics of China. There's no logic in that. Everytime the very wealthy try to outrun labor costs, the masses catch up with them and start demanding there share of the pie. Pretty soon multinational corporations fond of exploting workers will run out of workers to exploit. Hopefully by then, we will find a race of space aliens who know how to make tennis shoes for cheap.

[kasinca]

And how has all that worked out for Americans, there Spanky? Oh yes we can change.

[evekendall]

"Maybe/kinda/possibly a good idea to not mandate exhorbatant wages and have a job here stateside."

Yeah, that $8 per hour ($320 GROSS per week) pay is exhorbitant, isn't it? More like modern day slavery.

[ChristianEcon.com]

Icahn, get a job.

[KBAR]

Carl!
Give Christian a JOB!

[kasinca]

Most of us you are speaking to have jobs, probably better than yours. That doesn't matter though the rethugs have butchered the economy for several years now. Many have had to change but the college educated who overwhelmingly support the change that Obama will bring, have jobs. We know crooks and failures when we see them. The republicans have always failed at governing because they tell you up front...they hate government! All they want to do is steal the public coffers for their own self interest and they lie to the little guy who will believe their bs. What is your excuse?