Poor arugula-eating Obama; he was baffled during the Democratic Presidential campaign as to why midwest voters clung to their guns and Bibles allegedly against their own economic interests: after all, he was promising to cut taxes or issue checks for 95% of households while significantly increasing government outlays and programs and promising to reduce the deficit! (I will rephrase G.H.W. Bush and call this "radically voodoo economics".) How could they possibly prefer a politician with a proven record of accomplishments and bipartisan efforts, more extensive administrative or federal government experience, and expertise in defense and foreign policy? Ah, but during his Coakley rally, Barack Obama decided to ridicule Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott P. Brown's GMC truck, seeming to suggest Scott Brown's first post-election stop would be to drive his truck to George W. Bush's ranch for political advice and direction. (To be fair, Brown bought his truck before Obama decided to bail out and reorganize Government Motors.) Mocking Chevy truck owners? What's next? Is Obama going to insult Scott Brown's mom or her apple pie? A number of patriotic Americans love their trucks; as for Obama's driving analogy, Brown drives on the right side of the divider line, while Obama is on the left side of the road, arguing with oncoming traffic they are driving in the wrong direction.
I reviewed Obama's post-Brown election interview transcript with ABC's George Stephanopoulos
STEPHANOPOULOS: So you saw [the Scott Brown upset victory for the US Senate in Massachusetts] coming by then?
OBAMA: By that time, we did. And here's my assessment of not just the vote in Massachusetts, but the mood around the country.
The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office.
People are angry, and they're frustrated. Not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last [sic previous] eight years.
Watching Obama is like watching an inexperienced boxer fight; he's been trained against his old bad habits, like dropping his gloves and telegraphing his punches, but as soon as the more experienced boxer tags him, it's like the novice boxer forgets all his training, leaving gaps in his defense, and the other fighter puts him away. Obama keeps going back to the political stump speech he's been doing since 2007 (if not earlier).
Obama's attempt to co-opt Brown's victory is intentionally disingenuous. Obama knows that the primary issue that Massachusetts voters named was the partisan health care bill that the Democrats were trying to jam down the nation's throat; Scott Brown was openly running as senator #41 (i.e., to filibuster the corrupt health care bill, with its special interest deals), the progressive agenda and priorities and the spending. How does he explain Coakley's loss, despite his active support with a campaign appearance and commercial spots?
In a narrow sense, the President's remarks are correct; in 2008, people were tired of the bipartisan bickering, and they were worried about the economy. They wanted change in Washington--but it was not a change in ideology. The polls continue to show for every progressive or liberal, there are two Americans whom consider themselves conservative. Obama campaigned in the general campaign as a moderate, not as a progressive. I think what happened was when the Democrats suddenly discovered the American people, in the aftermath of an economic tsunami, had handed them super-majorities in both houses of Congress, and the progressive leadership probably realized that they would never have a better opportunity to permanently expand the government footprint.
Brown positioned himself, not as ideological but as a problem solver and an independent thinker. He is skeptical of Nanny State solutions which substitute for versus reform the private sector; he wants more of a pro-business growth perspective, more transparency and an emphasis on controlling the federal deficit.
Obama, however, is very much the conventional progressive; he's in a state of denial. He reads a mandate into a progressive agenda that doesn't exist. The American people are not stupid. The health care bill routinely rates below 40% public approval across a number of polls. They wonder how the federal government which can't even pay its own bills has the credibility to take on controlling costs in 16% of the economy. There are things they can agree with: the government should spread the costs of catastrophic health care, there should be more private-sector competition, there should be a bolstering of existing mechanisms (e.g., high risk pools) for high-risk people to obtain more affordable insurance, and people who purchase health insurance with after-tax dollars should have equal protection in terms of tax-advantaged savings.
Progressives love to talk about "educating" the people (meaning for others to capitulate to their talking points). We see Obama in that frame of mind; he seems to think is that the resistance isn't one of substance but of style. Never mind that Obama has already spoken or released statements over 400 times, many of them dealing with health care. It's not how he's saying it: it's what he's saying. Nobody is disagreeing with basic issues of affordable health care insurance for individuals and small businesses, viable alternatives for high-risk individuals, and catastrophic health costs.
The basic issue is how you achieve those goals. Conservatives believe that, for instance, expensive state mandates would not be sustainable if the Congress allowed interstate competition. They believe that health insurance today is a perversion of the concept of insurance, with many consumers having no vested interest in holding down the costs of their treatment, and an unwillingness by progressives to embrace medical malpractice tort reform raises defensive medicine costs and also impacts costs by adversely affecting the number of available physicians. Conservatives also believe that the current reform bill, by increasing the number of insured in an already inflationary system with limited availability of existing doctors and hospitals will not lower costs but raise them significantly.
I don't necessarily speak for all Americans here, but I'm getting tired of Obama scapegoating businesses and Republicans in defending his mediocre record over the past year. As a voter, I'm not interested in Obama's lack of due diligence and intellectual integrity in analyzing the issues underlying the economic tsunami. It's fairly easy to take populist shots at fat cat bankers (but notice that Obama doesn't attack fat cat professional athletes). [I'm waiting for some banker to have the chutzpah to step to the microphone and say, "Yeah, Mr. President. I made money last year, but you lost nearly $2T. Who had the better year?"] How about Obama giving us a lessons learned and policy alternatives for dealing with AIG, the auto makers (GM and Chrysler) or the GSE's (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac)?
Bernanke: A Reluctant Endorsement of Reappointment
To be honest, I want a Fed Reserve chairman whom is an inflation hawk and is willing to jawbone the President on irresponsible spending; however, I think it's highly unlikely that we could expect Obama to nominate someone from the Chicago School, and given an investment climate already saturated with uncertainty due to Obama's counterproductive spending and regulatory policies (including his misguided populist attacks on banks), a rejection of Bernanke would almost certainly extend last week's correction in the stock market. I am not confident that Bernanke anticipated the economic tsunami and addressed key issues of easy money and asset bubbles; I do give him credit for some innovative tactics (after already pushing interest rates to near zero) with respect to problematic mortgage-backed securities and stress tests. I would like to see more transparency of Federal Reserve activities and Bernanke's tackling issues of risk assessment and financial services transaction and balance sheet transparency.
I generally don't like to interfere with financial industry compensation practices, but I think the industry and companies should look at reforming "compensation bubble" industry practices before the politicians force upon them more Draconian measures. I think compensation structures should be flatter within organizations, with an emphasis more evenly distributed income, with explicit consideration of corporate risk analysis, more emphasis on evenly-distributed salary packages and deferred compensation with a staggered multi-year vesting schedule to encourage consideration of more long-term goals.
Obama's attempt to co-opt Brown's victory is intentionally disingenuous. Obama knows that the primary issue that Massachusetts voters named was the partisan health care bill that the Democrats were trying to jam down the nation's throat; Scott Brown was openly running as senator #41 (i.e., to filibuster the corrupt health care bill, with its special interest deals), the progressive agenda and priorities and the spending. How does he explain Coakley's loss, despite his active support with a campaign appearance and commercial spots?
In a narrow sense, the President's remarks are correct; in 2008, people were tired of the bipartisan bickering, and they were worried about the economy. They wanted change in Washington--but it was not a change in ideology. The polls continue to show for every progressive or liberal, there are two Americans whom consider themselves conservative. Obama campaigned in the general campaign as a moderate, not as a progressive. I think what happened was when the Democrats suddenly discovered the American people, in the aftermath of an economic tsunami, had handed them super-majorities in both houses of Congress, and the progressive leadership probably realized that they would never have a better opportunity to permanently expand the government footprint.
Brown positioned himself, not as ideological but as a problem solver and an independent thinker. He is skeptical of Nanny State solutions which substitute for versus reform the private sector; he wants more of a pro-business growth perspective, more transparency and an emphasis on controlling the federal deficit.
Obama, however, is very much the conventional progressive; he's in a state of denial. He reads a mandate into a progressive agenda that doesn't exist. The American people are not stupid. The health care bill routinely rates below 40% public approval across a number of polls. They wonder how the federal government which can't even pay its own bills has the credibility to take on controlling costs in 16% of the economy. There are things they can agree with: the government should spread the costs of catastrophic health care, there should be more private-sector competition, there should be a bolstering of existing mechanisms (e.g., high risk pools) for high-risk people to obtain more affordable insurance, and people who purchase health insurance with after-tax dollars should have equal protection in terms of tax-advantaged savings.
Progressives love to talk about "educating" the people (meaning for others to capitulate to their talking points). We see Obama in that frame of mind; he seems to think is that the resistance isn't one of substance but of style. Never mind that Obama has already spoken or released statements over 400 times, many of them dealing with health care. It's not how he's saying it: it's what he's saying. Nobody is disagreeing with basic issues of affordable health care insurance for individuals and small businesses, viable alternatives for high-risk individuals, and catastrophic health costs.
The basic issue is how you achieve those goals. Conservatives believe that, for instance, expensive state mandates would not be sustainable if the Congress allowed interstate competition. They believe that health insurance today is a perversion of the concept of insurance, with many consumers having no vested interest in holding down the costs of their treatment, and an unwillingness by progressives to embrace medical malpractice tort reform raises defensive medicine costs and also impacts costs by adversely affecting the number of available physicians. Conservatives also believe that the current reform bill, by increasing the number of insured in an already inflationary system with limited availability of existing doctors and hospitals will not lower costs but raise them significantly.
I don't necessarily speak for all Americans here, but I'm getting tired of Obama scapegoating businesses and Republicans in defending his mediocre record over the past year. As a voter, I'm not interested in Obama's lack of due diligence and intellectual integrity in analyzing the issues underlying the economic tsunami. It's fairly easy to take populist shots at fat cat bankers (but notice that Obama doesn't attack fat cat professional athletes). [I'm waiting for some banker to have the chutzpah to step to the microphone and say, "Yeah, Mr. President. I made money last year, but you lost nearly $2T. Who had the better year?"] How about Obama giving us a lessons learned and policy alternatives for dealing with AIG, the auto makers (GM and Chrysler) or the GSE's (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac)?
Bernanke: A Reluctant Endorsement of Reappointment
To be honest, I want a Fed Reserve chairman whom is an inflation hawk and is willing to jawbone the President on irresponsible spending; however, I think it's highly unlikely that we could expect Obama to nominate someone from the Chicago School, and given an investment climate already saturated with uncertainty due to Obama's counterproductive spending and regulatory policies (including his misguided populist attacks on banks), a rejection of Bernanke would almost certainly extend last week's correction in the stock market. I am not confident that Bernanke anticipated the economic tsunami and addressed key issues of easy money and asset bubbles; I do give him credit for some innovative tactics (after already pushing interest rates to near zero) with respect to problematic mortgage-backed securities and stress tests. I would like to see more transparency of Federal Reserve activities and Bernanke's tackling issues of risk assessment and financial services transaction and balance sheet transparency.
I generally don't like to interfere with financial industry compensation practices, but I think the industry and companies should look at reforming "compensation bubble" industry practices before the politicians force upon them more Draconian measures. I think compensation structures should be flatter within organizations, with an emphasis more evenly distributed income, with explicit consideration of corporate risk analysis, more emphasis on evenly-distributed salary packages and deferred compensation with a staggered multi-year vesting schedule to encourage consideration of more long-term goals.
Catholic Relief Services Haiti Update
Despite enormous logistical challenges, one week after the devastating earthquake CRS staff has unloaded 120 containers (2100 metric tons) of vegetable oil and grains from the U.S. government onto the only operating wharf in Port-au-Prince. We are in the process right now of arranging for secure transport to our warehouse, where it will be distributed to the growing number of camps.
CRS has been asked by the United Nations to lead the response at one of the first formally organized camps, located at a golf course, where as many as 50,000 people are sleeping every night. CRS has arranged to supply the camp with water, food, and plastic sheeting for shelter, which continue to be trucked in from CRS warehouses in the neighboring Dominican Republic, where volunteers are working continuously to keep additional relief supplies coming.
CRS has formed six medical teams to provide health care at shelters and area hospitals and CRS teams have already distributed medical supplies and drugs. In addition, Project C.U.R.E. has donated 3000 pounds of additional medical supplies that are en route.
Three operating rooms at St. Francois de Sales Hospital—which withstood the quake — are now running, and surgeries are being performed on the most critically injured patients. Food, water and medical supplies have also been provided to the hospital. An AIDSRelief site, this is one of Haiti's oldest hospitals and one that CRS helped build. Its mission is to provide free care and treatment for the poor.
CRS is extremely grateful for the outpouring of support we have received in response to this calamity. But we can't stress enough how significant the damage is and how many of our brothers and sisters are affected. We are asking you to please support our efforts to help the millions of earthquake victims in Haiti. Your help is urgently needed. Please donate now.
Hope for Haiti Now
Last Friday night, there was a live nationally-telecast telethon, hosted by actor George Clooney, with proceeds going to Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, Oxfam America, Partners in Health, Red Cross, UNICEF, United Nations World Food Programme and Yele Haiti Foundation. A number of prominent pop singers and musicians were featured, including Mary J. Blige, Bruce Springsteen, U2's Bono, Stevie Wonder, Madonna, Beyoncé, and others. You can download a 20-track album for $7.99 (alternately, individual song performances can also be downloaded at a nominal cost) or the TV special for $2.99 from Apple.com iTunes or Amazon.com MP3. For more information, check the MTV Networks.
Political Cartoon
John Deering wonders just how long are Obama's coattails....
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Ringo Hit: "Photograph"
I continue my Beatles retrospective by featuring my favorite of drummer Ringo Starr's post-Beatles hits.
