THE ENTERPRISE
WHEN THE COMEDIANS MAKE MORE SENSE THAN THE POLITICIANS
Let's start this week with some comedy. I watched Dennis Miller's Vegas act at Caesar's, filmed last January. He made more sense than most of our political leaders and gave a more clear and insightful review of things than nearly all of our leading (so called) newscasters. Maybe we're missing something. Robin Williams is starring in a new movie, Man of the Year in which a comedian makes fun of politicians and is convinced/decides to run for President--and gets elected. I haven't seen the movie, but one (old) line from the trailers is frighteningly apt: "Polticians are like dirty diapers; they need to be changed regularly and for the same reason." A lot will be come November.
THROWING THE BABY OUT WITH THE BATH WATER
We have some good political leaders. We have a lot more that are not so good. The problem is the goods ones are running for their lives, after running in danger of being thrown out with the bath water of a failed Congress, a failed (for now) Presidency..and yet, if you gave me a chance to choose between George Bush and John Kerry knowing what I know now, I'd still reject Kerry and choose Bush. However, expect Bush to get "real" about Iraq in the next 3 months, no matter how badly the elections go for his party. He sees that a change in direction is needed, and has assigned the analysis to a couple of bipartisan old pros (Baker and Hamilton) . They'll tell him what he should do, and he'll have the reason to do it. It won't happen before the elections. But it will happen sooner rather than later. (You read it here.)
IF YOU DIDN'T HEAR, THINGS ARE NOT SO BAD IN THE ECONOMY
But then why does everybody seem to think things are bad? Because good news is no draw, so the media focuses on the bad news. Recent studies by impartial agencies proved that negative news was given 3-4 times as much air time as positive and the winner, CBS, led with 80% negative. Ahh, Katie, how can you smile when things are so bad?
HOW BAD IS IT?
1) The Dow just topped 12,000 for the week. Earnings reports are mostly up.
2) Inflation has slowed; that bogeyman the Fed has been holding at bay has wilted with the price of oil. Drive speculators out of the oil pricing and viola' it's back from the stratosphere.
3) The deficit is now half what it was expected to be and dropping. But that will only be temporary if the Dems win both Houses of Congress. They'll stomp all the tax relief programs that have fueled revenues, and then watch the deficit grow again, because they can't rein in spending enough. Too much of it's in their favorite entitlement programs.
--Why, they might even be able to cause their own little recession in late 2007.
4) But meanwhile, the collapse of housing sort of, well, quit collapsing. Once again, drive out the speculators, and poof!... the market comes back to a sensible level...not a boom, but not a bust either.
BUT WHAT ABOUT OUR JOBS?
5) Employment, those jobs that Benedict Arnold CEOs were exporting keep popping up all over. So much so that the Dept. of Labor keeps having to make massive "corrections" in their reported job creation numbers--like 800,000 jobs it somehow failed to count so far in 2006 (A 40% error rate, that's all). See, DOL only gets reports from large employers, and they aren't adding many jobs. They're hiring contractors--small employers--and those jobs only show up later in the "household gains"--causing massive errors upon which all kinds of people over-react and make dumb decisions.
NOW I'VE GOT THAT OUT OF MY SYSTEM
Here's what's up.
JOBS GO UNFILLED--News flash: there are millions of baby boomers that will be leaving the work force (if they can afford to) over the next decade. The result: shortages of skills, loss of legacy knowledge and a massive disruption in the work force. Smart companies will find ways to use flex time and part time employment to help the boomers work their way in transition to retirement over a period of years. Shorter work days, more freedom of the hours, telecommuting, and more will do it.
ENERGY INDEPENDENCE IS POSSIBLE--IN A DECADE--Ethanol is not the answer--it's only a small part of it. It takes almost as much energy to make ethanol as it does gas. The energy is just used differently. And If the entire State of Iowa's corn crop (one of the US leading corn states) were used to make ethanol, it would create feed shortages worse than the fuel shortages it solved. Save energy using known technology. **Drill in the Gulf (new deep deposits), **drill in the ANWr (there's so little wildlife up there, who are we kidding?), **Use lightweight materials, aerodynamic vehicles, low rolling friction tires on both cars and trucks, **ban or tax the gas guzzling behemoths (those monster SUVs) out of existence, **install compact fluorescent light bulbs everywhere, and there are more than that. And BAN the purchase and use of oil from countries like Iran that thumb their nose at US!
STOP GIVING THE BASTARDS OUR MONEY
Cut off all economic and other aid to "renegade nuclear countries" (Iran & North Korea for starters..others will get the message), and to others who refuse to act responsibly. Quit bribing them. Bribes don't work. Divert that money to a) Energy Independence, b) Borders, Ports and Homeland Security,(with a sensible, realistic immigration policy) c) Reducing the Deficit but NOT cutting Defense spending, and if there's any left after funding those three biggies, use it to take a shot at bringing our Health Care System's Information Technology into the 21st century so we can track what's really wrong.
NOBODY'S LISTENING--THE SYSTEM'S BROKEN
But WAIT A MINUTE! We can't do all that. Someone won't like it and they'll run to the bleeding heart media and stage demonstrations and make a big fuss. That's why our politicans don't have read debates or run real issues based campaigns any more--NOBODY'S LISTENING. The ads are all smear campaigns. We're all sick of them. If one participant in a debate tries to make a real issue or answer the question posed honestly (I saw Mike Dewine try last night--it was futile), the other one (in this case Sherrod Brown, but whoever) goes off on a pre-programmed sequence of attack points designed to stick in the minds of anyone who happens to tune in by mistake. When Brown was asked a question, he didn't even give a moment of what he said to address any aspect of the question. He just launched into attack tirage number 2, and then number 3.
So, after my own tirade, if you are still reading, WHAT IN THE HELL CAN WE DO?
VOTE...no matter what, or whom you choose. Ideally, do some research about what the various candidates really stand for and which one would be best. When all else fails, choose the one whose party affiliation most likely matches what you believe. It is the only recourse we have, and all those little "one votes," add up.
NOTE: In some cases, the best candidates will lose, anyway. In Ohio, the candidate who is best qualified to be governor is Ken Blackwell, the Secretary of State, who is a smart, honest (and black) Republican, (but the fact that he's black is incidental because even Jessie Jackson wouldn't support him--that's endorsement enough in my book). Blackwell will lose to a "neuter", because the Republicans in Ohio, MISLED by Gov. Bob Taft (candidate for the worst governor in a major state, perhaps ever--his 8% approval rate confirms that) and a bunch of crooks and thieves have poisoned the well. Senator Mike DeWine's connection to President Bush--even though he's opposed Bush multiple times--could also sink his Senate candidacy.
BACK TO BASICS
When a business is broken, to fix it, you usually need to strip it back to basics. That is what will happen to the USA over the next 2 years. it won't be pretty, but it is necessary. Once that is done, you start putting it back together, one piece at a time. That will be George Bush's successor's job. Choosing that leader is our real top priority.. I'm already doing my homework. It's not too soon for you to do yours. Then we need to all become ACTIVISTS.
Charles Dickens opened A Tale of Two Cities with the words, IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES, IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES... but few people recall how that paragraph ends: IT WAS A TIME NOT UNLIKE ALL OTHER TIMES.
Best, John
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