Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Obama's sound stands out more than his look

Much has been made about Barack Obama being the first person of color to get elected President.  To me, what has stood out more are his skills as an orator.  He's arguably the most charismatic speaker in the White House in my lifetime.  Believe me, I'm a fan of "The Great Communicator" Ronald Reagan, but Obama has a more youthful exuberance that the 70 year old Reagan just couldn't have.  Perhaps Obama's oratory skills shine due to the sharp contrast of his predecessor's skills - or lack thereof.

His last couple of speeches were more on the "doom and gloom" side, which was a little disappointing.  I'd been looking to see something more reminiscient of FDR's "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself".  I think we got that tonight.  Whether you agree or disagree with his position on things, I don't think you can deny that he comes across confident, inspiring, intelligent and in-touch with the situation.  The political debate comes in the policies put in place.

He seemed to "promise the world" on his set of initiatives, which sounded inspiring.  I think he got so good at campaigning, he doesn't want to stop.  Which is why we heard great rhetoric without specifics.  But he's smart enough to know the public is bored with specifics anyway, they just want a guy in charge who has some kind of vision he's working toward.  That's the essence of leadership.  It doesn't really matter what he promises anyway since you're ultimately judged on what you actually accomplish as President, not everything you promised.  

Can he accomplish all he promised?  Personally, I'm struggling with the math.  Not sure how you can increase government programs while simultaneously cut spending to go along with declining tax revenues from a contracting economy.  But that's for the political pundits on Fox and CNN to debate.  In times of crisis, action in any direction always wins out.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

New to Us, Doesn't Mean its New

As I watched President Obama pitch the Stimulus Bill to the country, I noticed he said we were in "unprecedented times."  That's when I realized he was more of a salesman at that moment, trying to get the country behind the bill.  I also learned that night that the Stimulus Bill wasn't Bill Clinton's nickname, as I originally thought. ;-)  So I decided to take the whole "unprecedented times" phrase and do some research and I found the following paragraph:

"The causes of the economic crisis lay far deeper than in the complex processes of banking or in the faults of Federal administration of the finances.  But, as a man suddenly ill prefers to find for his ailment some recent and obvious cause, and is not convinced that its origin lay in old and continued habits of life, so the greater part of the American people and of their leaders believe this extraordinary crisis to be the result of financial blunders of the President's administration.  They believe that the new president could with a few strokes of his pen repair, if he pleased, those blunders and restore commercial confidence and prosperity.  This crisis became, and remain, the subject of political and partisan differences which obscure its real phenomena and causes."

Sound like they're talking about today?  This was written in 1888 and they were discussing the "Panic of 1837" which, at the time, was the worst economic crisis to hit our country.  The sitting president was Andrew Jackson and the new president was Martin Van Buren.  What were the causes?  There was an increased level of available credit which allowed states to fund the building of canals through the use of state-issued bonds.  Credit restrictions were gradually loosened and the speculative fever created a bubble that burst in May of 1837.  The Panic was followed by a 5 year depression, with the failure of banks and record high unemployment levels.  Kinda eerie, isn't it?  The Panic of 1873 had a major Wall Street brokerage firm go under that created panic in the markets.  The Panic of 1907 required a monetary bailout of Wall Street banks to ensure liquidity in the marketplace.  Human nature, if nothing else, is consistent.

Here is the list of Panics, Depressions and severe Recessions in our "boom-bust" economic cycles:

Panic of 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893 and 1907 (the Federal Reserve was created after this one)
Great Depression - 1930 (lasted 12 yrs, followed by 4 yrs of WWII)
Severe Recession 1980 (milder recessions in 1958 & 1974)
Severe Recession 2008 (milder recessions in 1991 & 2001)

As you can see, the Panics were like clockwork.  Things got spread out once we started putting different things in place, but they'll never go away.  As far as the Stimulus Package that's getting all the hoopla right now.  It's just the new, New Deal - government funded projects to help ease some pressure until the markets can correct themselves.  Government can't get us out of it, they never have and never will.  They have to tell us they can, so to keep us convinced of their importance.  How do I know?  Because these are VERY precedented times.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Weather got you down?

So I'm checking the local weather on Channel 4's website to see how freakin' cold its getting tonight.  As I'm quickly ticked off at the minus sign in front of the number, I noticed that they have a box with the current weather of the North Pole (true story):

Temperature: - 35 degrees (ouch!)
Wind Chill: - 50 degrees (just so you know at -75 below your spit will freeze before it hits the ground)
Dew Point: - 40 degrees (wouldn't that be called the "frost" point at that temp?)
Humidity: 70% (its not already uncomfortable, it has to be humid and sticky too?)

And this was the best part..................

Sunrise: 11:59 pm
Sunset: 12:01 am

Yes, that's right folks - that's only TWO minutes of daylight.  And I thought we had short days.   And to make it worse, the two minutes of daylight are at midnight.  You can't even enjoy it.  Talk about depressing.  You'd think Santa would try to get out of town more than once a year.  Geesh!