Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Austerity Obama Style


King Juan Carlos, Michelle and Sasha Obama

The timing of this lavish European vacation could not have come at a worse moment, when unemployment in America stands at 10 percent, and large numbers of Americans are fighting to survive financially in the wake of the global economic downturn. It sends a message of indifference, even contempt, for the millions of Americans who are struggling just to feed their families on a daily basis and pay the mortgage, while the size of the national debt balloons to Greek-style proportions. -- Nile Gardiner
Are you dreading your personal financial situation? Are you making all of the sacrifices that President Obama and Vice President Biden are calling for but you still feel like you need to get away and clear your head from all of the pressures of no money and possible insolvency? Don’t fret we all have to face hard times together. As president, Barry Hussein Soetoro told us we all have to have some skin in the game.

Michelle Obama and daughter Sasha returned from Spain on Sunday, a vacation at a lavish hotel on the Mediterranean coast that triggered her first controversy since becoming first lady. I'm told she made the trip because she promised one of her closest friends, a longtime Chicago pal who just lost her father, she would spend time with her.—Lynn Sweet (source)
(see 1:02min video)




But you want to take a trip to Spain to take Spanish lessons. Too audacious? What about taking some friends to Spain, you know, to help a fellow grieving friend mourn the recent death of a family member.

Does that still sound somewhat pretentious, well that’s because you don’t think like the president and his wife. To them, in the middle of the greatest depression since the great depression, going on vacation is not out of the question. But not just a vacation, no a 5day $300,000 fully staffed, secret serviced, air force two, 40 person “entouraged” jaunt to Spain and the island of Majorca.

In fact, Michelle Obama will have enjoyed not one, not two but eight vacations by the end of this summer. These include a trip to Los Angeles in June, a visit to the Florida’s oil-hit Gulf Coast next weekend and a ten-day trip to Martha’s Vineyard later this month according to the United Kingdom Online News source, the Mail Online. (source)

According to another U.K. News organization the Telegraph Michele Obama is vacationing lavishly in Europe while the rest of us who have skin in the game, to borrow a term from president Soetoro, are suffering the jobless recovery of the Soetoro administration.

The timing of this lavish European vacation could not have come at a worse moment, when unemployment in America stands at 10 percent, and large numbers of Americans are fighting to survive financially in the wake of the global economic downturn. It sends a message of indifference, even contempt, for the millions of Americans who are struggling just to feed their families on a daily basis and pay the mortgage, while the size of the national debt balloons to Greek-style proportions.-- Nile Gardiner (source)
(see 1:10min)




So while the rest of us who have skin in the game tighten our belts the president and his wife live it up in the White House as if they are King and Queen of America.