Dear President Obama: It's the economy, stupid!

An open letter to President Obama:

Dear President Obama:

Back in 1992, then candidate Bill Clinton ran to the White House by telling us "It's the economy, stupid."

Well, Mr. Obama, he was right then and his sentiment is correct now. It's the economy you should be fixing.

In your nine-months in office, you have yet to do Thing One to help the failing economy that you claim to have inherited. You, sir, did not "inherit" these problems; you asked for them. You knew full well the state of the economy last fall and assured us that you were the person who could fix these problems. So far, you have not.

We now see consumer confidence at dangerously low-levels, with an increasing number of people believing the economy is in bad shape and shockingly low numbers of people thinking otherwise:

"Consumers' assessment of current conditions worsened in October. Those claiming business conditions are "bad" increased to 47.1 percent from 46.3 percent, while those claiming conditions are "good" decreased to 7.7 percent from 8.6 percent."

Business confidence is likewise flailing. The Wall Street Journal brings us an article today that codifies the dangerous state of business in our country under your "leadership:"

"But a health-care overhaul grinding through Congress could bring unknown new obligations to insure employees. Bush-era tax cuts are set to end next year, and their fate is unclear. Legislation aimed at tackling climate change might raise businesses' energy costs. Meanwhile, a bill aimed at increasing transportation spending is stalled.

Many companies say they have responded by freezing hiring, cutting benefits and delaying expansion plans."

Your "stimulus" plan that has all but petered out; your Liberal colleague's talk of additional "stimulus" that will likewise fail; your plans to stifle industry and the economy through the "cap and trade" plans to address a problem that doesn't exist; your designs to re-engineer a health care industry that few are complaining about; the massive spending that will inevitable lead to tax increases; your refusal to extend the "Bush tax cuts" that actually worked to stimulate the economy. All these pit-falls are freezing business, preventing them from hiring workers and keeping them shy towards spending the money that will help other companies hire.

It is time to scrap your grandiose visions and nirvana dreams of recasting this country, Mr. Obama, and time to find a way to reduce the rising unemployment rate, to create an environment where business will expand, to find a way to repair consumer confidence in this economy (and in your presidency).

However, the Consumer Reports Index, which tracks consumer financial and employment numbers to obtain an overall sense of consumer health, indicates that U.S. consumers are continuing to feel less secure about their financial situation. Recent government data supports this finding, as consumer credit and borrowing rates have been dropping sharply, spending and earning rates have been remaining almost flat while saving plummets, and the official unemployment rate (which only counts a fraction of the actual number of people out of work) has been creeping toward double digits.

You told us in August that giving people cash incentive to buy cars will help the economy as a whole. The oddly-titled Cash for Clunkers program resulted in a small positive blip that predictably leveled-out and even fell off as soon as the program ended.

I have a sense, through my limited economic understanding, my common-sense, and through historical perspective, that providing "cash incentive" through real tax cuts and a signigicant reduction in spending will be a far better panacea for the econony than record budget-deficits and increasing national debt.

Says Lynn Franco, Director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center:

Consumers' assessment of present-day conditions has grown less favorable, with labor market conditions playing a major role in this grimmer assessment. In fact, the Present Situation Index is now at its lowest reading in 26 years (Index 17.5, Feb. 1983). The short-term outlook has also grown more negative, as a greater proportion of consumers anticipate business and labor market conditions will worsen in the months ahead. Consumers also remain quite pessimistic about their future earnings, a sentiment that will likely constrain spending during the holidays.

With all due respect, Mr. Obama, it is time for you and your party to stop acting "stupidly," and make some serious and significant moves towards actually helping the economy before engaging in utopian plans of health-care access and climate change cessation.

Mr. President, it is the economy that needs fixing. It is far past time for you to get to work on it.

Lawrence Summers: "We Created 30,000 New Jobs with Stimulus" Whoopie!

National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers told CNBC Television that Barack Obama's $787 billion "stimulus" package has created 30,000 jobs so far.

President Barack Obama signed a US$787 billion stimulus package into law earlier this year, and Mr Summers said the first US$16 billion spent created more than 30,000 jobs.

Sixteen billion dollars spent results in ONLY 30,000 jobs, and the administration is bragging about it! This spending works out to more than a half-a-million dollars per job created! And it took more than six months to do it!

At that rate, the full $787 billion will gin up a whopping 1.5 million jobs! Who says that massive government spending won't pull a country out of recession.

Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed
persons has increased by 7.6 million to 15.1 million, and the unemployment
rate has doubled to 9.8 percent.

Well, thank goodness Obama spent that $16 billion we don't have. Otherwise, we would have had 15.1 million and 30,000 people unemployed.

How is Hope and Change working for you?

Is Chairman Mao in the White House

On last night's program, Fox News' Glenn Beck aired a stunning video of interim White House Communications Director Anita Dunn seeming to praise Mao Tse Tung (Zedong), the first Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party.

Dunn called Chairman Mao one of her two favorite political philosophers (along with Mother Theresa, oddly enough). During a speech to a group of high school kids in June 2009, she offered advice based on the teachings of Mao:

...(this) tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers - Mao Tse Tung and Mother Teresa, ... the two people that I turn to most...

...In 1947, when Mao Tse Tung was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over, Chiang Kai-Shek and the nationalist Chinese held the cities, they had the army. They had the air force. They had everything on their side, and people said how can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this? Against all the odds against you, and Mao Tse Tung said, you know, you fight your war, and I’ll fight mine, and think about that for a second.”

According to a well-sourced quote from Wikipedia, Mao's policies and political purges from 1949-1975 are widely believed to have caused the deaths of tens of millions of people. Mao also extensively used forced starvation and re-education camps to control and punish his people.

Think about that for a second, Ms. Dunn.

Do we really want someone this close to the President of the United States to worship a murderous, Communist dictator? I know I don't.

As peace activist John Lennon sang:

But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow...

Amen, Mr. Lennon.

Did Obama's Speech Blow the Chicago 2016 Olympic Bid?

The International Olympic Committee just voted the city of Chicago out of the running to host the 2016 Olympics.

President Obama, depsite his words to the contrary just two weeks ago, flew over to Copenhagen to make a final pitch for his city.

Could it be that Obama's speech was the spoiler? Or, was Chi-town never really in the running?

In his speech, which ran over 1,100 words, Obama said "I" more than 20 times. However, when it came to convinving the IOC that Chicago could handle the massive impact of the games, he could only muster two sentences that are short on convincing rhetoric:

It's a city that works -- from its first World's Fair more than a century ago to the World Cup we hosted in the nineties, we know how to put on big events. And scores of visitors and spectators will tell you that we do it well.

Obama's evidence that the Chicago area can create an appropriate environment for the Olympics is how well the city ran the World's Fair in 1893 and the World's Cup in 1994?

Not one word on the city's ability to build the infrastructure needed for the games. Not one word on the abiltiy to pay for the games. Not one word that would convince anybody in his right mind that Chicago could hold the 2016 Olympics.

Instead, Obama spun stories of his childhood and sang about the diversity of his hometown.

Chicago is a place where we strive to celebrate what makes us different just as we celebrate what we have in common. It's a place where our unity is on colorful display at so many festivals and parades, and especially sporting events, where perfect strangers become fast friends just because they're wearing the same jersey.

What?

So I've come here today to urge you to choose Chicago for the same reason I chose Chicago nearly 25 years ago -- the reason I fell in love with the city I still call home...

You see, growing up, my family moved around a lot. I was born in Hawaii. I lived in Indonesia for a time. I never really had roots in any one place or culture or ethnic group. And then I came to Chicago.

Ahhh. That is a nice story, but no reason to site an event that hosts thousands of athletes and hundreds of thousands of spectators from around the world.

Chicago is a city where the practical and the inspirational exist in harmony; where visionaries who made no small plans rebuilt after a great fire and taught the world to reach new heights.

That Great Chicago Fire was in 1871. Why would this convince the IOC that the city can make "no small plans" nearly 150 years after?

But, this is Barack Obama; as such, he couldn't get by without a reference to inherited problems.

...the United States of America has a responsibility...to forge new partnerships with the nations and the peoples of the world.

And we all know who broke down those partnerships, don't we?

In the end, it was just another Obama speech; full of flowers and flourish, but completely absent any substance. And in the end, Obama loses again.

Thank goodness.

Will Obama Actually Pass Health Care Reform as an Earmark on a TARP Bill??

According to the Heritage Foundation, Obama and the Democrats plan to pass the health care overhaul as an "earmark" on an un-related piece of legislation: "... the entire health care reform effort will be included as an amendment to a ...TARP bill (on limiting executive pay) that has been collecting dust in the Senate for months."

I know what you are thinking: But haven't republicans ever done the same thing?

Certainly, it is a common trick on Capitol Hill to slip items into other legislation to ensure passage. It is a slimy trick that I thought Obama was going to rise above.

The outrage here is that the health care "reform" affects every single person in the United States.

I should think that something that will touch the lives in as basic and personal way as health care and health coverage would not be shuffled under the rug and slipped through without an actual vote on the issue.

Especially when every poll shows 60-70% of Americans are opposed to the plan they are trying to sneak through.

So much for change in Washington; so much for openness and transparency; so much for medical care in the U.S. if this thing actually passes.