Observations on US politics

Jobs Report by Presidential Tenure

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Short story is Cliinton wins, Obama comes in dead last.  Numbers are based on Bureau of labor statistics.  Click here to see report from George Mason U.

How Capitalism Lost its Shine , 2012

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Here is a great article about capitalism, and why today’s youth, and others, struggle with the significance of this. WSJ Journal Why Capitalism has an Image Problem

This is serious stuff to me. It is about what has made America great, and how that is being threatened now through over-regulation and govenrment crowding out (think health care).

I am convinced I need to read the Obama Health Care reform I am told it says that when you turn 85 you are no longer eligible for cancer teatement. That just can’t be true. First of all, there are many many 85+ year olds that are vibrant contributors to our businesses – we just can’t “dismiss” them or write them off. Secondly, if you are paying into a ‘system’ of sorts, should that system really be allowed to tell you that you cannat receive the same benefits as everyone else because of your age (or gender, or religion, or anything else???)???

I feel like we are in the Mad Hatter’s world – everything is upside down. Sense is being made of non-sensical utterances. It’s scary, and hard to watch something you love being cast-aside for the glamour of – of what? I am not really sure. Obama talks about spreading the wealth, but as Churchill has observed, that simply spreads the misery around.

Obama is, in my opinion, guilty of Crony capitalism. The ones at the top will protect each other, but the (single) layer below them will all be left to fend for themselvesss – and that is where the “misery” will be shared. Be careful what you wish for: spreading the wealth really means keeping the wealth to a few, and spreading the misery among the masses.

We are an exhausted nation

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It started a week ago, listening to Tim Conway Jr’s talk show – had to be Sept. 11th.  He took calls from people living off the government, and one thing he said really caught my attention.  He said “We are all tired.”  He went on to say something to the effect of: We work hard all day long doing too many jobs at once, we come home, grab a bite, see the kids, see the spouse, and drop into bed just to get up and start it all over again.  And it never stops.  We think nothing of calling or emailing colleagues at all hours – and they answer!  Because we can’t stop because we have too much work to do, but can’t hire anyone because no one can afford it.

I thought, “Man, that’s how I feel!”  and it was good to hear someone say it on the public airways.
I kept meaning to email him, or call his show, but never did.
Then Sunday, Sept. 29th, there was this:

First, there was Ben Stein on taxes on the Sunday Morning show asking the administration why he was being punished for earning 35 cents on the dollar.   Then, there was Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation, calling out Robert Gibbs for his “snarky response” to House Republican Leader John Boehner’s previous week’s carefully worded statement that he would reluctantly vote for just the lower and middle income tax cuts, if that was all he had in front of him.
Bob Schieffer said:

“Blame it on a long memory, but I can remember when the first move by a president like Lyndon Johnson or maybe a smart aide in the Eisenhower White House would not have been a snarky press release. 

I’m guessing LBJ would have been on the phone to Boehner in five minutes after seeing him on TV, saying something like, “If you’re serious, why don’t you come over here quietly and we’ll try to work out something good for both of us and the folks out there?”

Call me a romantic, but I believe that might have happened.

As we saw, no chance it could happen today.

And we’re right back to the partisan war. Too bad, really. “

I just about jumped out of my chair.  NOW we are going to get somewhere, I thought.  And we did.
True to form, along came Velma R. Hart at Obama’s “Investing in America” townhall.  She used the “E” word – exhausted.  She said she was an exhausted woman, and asked the President if this was “her new reality”.
Michelle Malkin’s column made reference to the Obama administration as being called the “let them eat cake” presidency.
So it’s not just me.  It is not the fact that I have been burdened with the passing of my father, who was also my business partner and very close friend.  I work very long hours, and I am tired.    There isn’t enough business to go around, and everyone is fighting for something.  With steel prices set to rise again, we are faced with a price increase, and Lord only knows what this will cause.
Sometimes I think Dad got out just in time.

Freebies – are we too broke for common sense?

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Can you believe this?  Can we really debate the need for available drinking water?  For the full L.A. Times article, click here.

You just don’t imagine in our country in 2010 that there isn’t free water to drink while you are having a meal. But there isn’t,” said Kenneth Hecht, executive director of California Food Policy Advocates, an Oakland-based organization that supported the legislation. Leno’s Senate Bill 1413 requires schools by next July to make fresh drinking water available where students get their meals. The bill provides no funding, and districts can make the case that they cannot afford to comply.

But the solutions can be inexpensive, advocates say. In small schools, that can mean putting water pitchers and cups on lunch tables.

Montclair Elementary School in Oakland has a “hydration system,” basically a faucet that students use to fill their own bottles with cold drinking water, said George Manalo-LeClair, a parent at the school and senior director of legislation at California Food Policy Advocates.”

Seems simple enough, given buildings have potable water.  And when you think about the staff you are paying to manage drinking water, and the associated costs, think about the staff (and insurance)  to transport children to school, or feed children at school.  These services are what parents should be directly billed for –  everyone needs to step up and take responsibility for their own family’s daily expenses – food and transportation.  And if the family can help out by sending a thermos of water with that packed lunch, all the better.  

Water is a fundamental right for human preservation.  Ditch the other freebies – water is a legitimate one.  For more on this topic, click here.

Pension Reform, 1st Black President

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New find . . . .  http://reason.tv/video/show/jack-dean   an interview with the founder of pensiontsunami.com,  an aggregate news “publisher” for pension-related news.

Also, in yesterday’s WSJ (Aug, 27, 2010), we were told by the CA Accounting Board that 80 cents of every tax dollar goes to support CA employee compensation and benefits.  Something’s gotta give.  This is just one of the reasons why big government is a bad idea.  They can’t just “mind the store” . . . .  they steal from it, because no one cares enough to watch.  So if we are wondering where our sense of entitlement comes from, look no further than the system we have allowed to grow.  Like a weed, but deadly like a cancer.
Peter Berkowitz has a good column in the WSJ, too. I like the line that “Big government tends to crowd out self-government—producing sluggish, selfish and small-minded citizens, depriving individuals of opportunities to manage their private lives and discouraging them from cooperating with fellow citizens to govern their neighborhoods, towns, cities and states.”
Ain’t that the truth!
So back to the statement “no one cares enough to watch”.  While it appears that way, it is not true. A lot of people – both good and bad – care.  The bad ones care because they can benefit from public neglect, worming their self-interests into policy, so they try to propagate it (they do this by telling us partial truths about what they are doing).  The good ones care but are naively too busy working to pay 80 cents on their tax dollar for their neighbor’s retirement.
But now the evidence of the neglect is apparent, and its weight is crushing all of us.
There is one more thing I’d like to go on record with.  This has to do with the 1st black President, the 1st black actor, and actress to win the Academy Award’s Oscar for best actor/actress.
We know who the 1st black president of the US is, so let’s keep moving….
The first black actor to win the Oscar for best performance was Sidney Poitier.  His 1963 acceptance speech was dignified, simple – and as always, he was unassuming.  The first black female to win was Halle Barry.  Her 2002 acceptance speech was marked with uncontrolled emotion for “the faceless women of color who now have a chance because this door has been opened”, thanking the Academy for choosing her “to be this vessel”.
Halle Berry was a bit over the top, for me, but the point I wish to make is this:  I wish that in Obama that what we got was a Sidney Poitier, not a Halle Berry, for our first black President.   I would have liked to have seen General Colin Powell, or Thomas Sowell (see his archives here).  Or think about Nelson Mandela, and how he led.
How in the world did we manage to strike out with a guy like Obama?  This is one of the saddest aspects of our first black president – there were so many good to great choices, and we got a junior senator who doesn’t know better to withhold judgement until all the facts are in, to stay home and work than to continue to campaign, who doesn’t know that perceptions are people’s reality – stop flaunting vacations, wife’s vacations, etc, in such tough economic times.
I could go on but I don’t want to bore you.