DO YOU WONDER WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT? READ THIS, AND THEN YOU MIGHT RECONSIDER YOUR OPINION--OR NOT?
MY FORBES POST LAST WEEK DREW LOTS OF COMMENTARY--POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE--BUT MORE POSITIVE
IOWA DEBATE "RESULTS"--ONE PERSON'S OPINION (MINE)
1. Mitt Romney--Still the best, the "adult in the room," who laid out seven steps in his first answer that were better than any of the others. Showing more "fire" which is what he needs to do. A good line about "not willing to eat Obama's dog food."
Rick Perry--absent--still to be evaluated, but now a declared candidate;
The others--should save their money and time. They have no chance.
2. Newt Gingrich--probably unelectable but the crowd favorite as he laid it onto the media--still one of the smartest guys in the room. It would be nice to find him a role--but at his age, what?
3. Jon Huntsman--calm, controlled, mature, used a "less is more" answering style
4. Michelle Bachman--(won "straw poll" today) sometimes feisty, sometimes calm/cool, sometimes charming, probably still not electable, but VP potential depending on who tops the ticket
5. Ron Paul-- (second in straw poll) alternately brilliantly wise and ludicrously extreme--no chance but will add useful "meat" to the platform
6. (3 way tie) Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, who griped about not enough air time, but had plenty for what he had to say (good tussle with Paul about Iran) and Tim Pawlenty--
Cain just didn't have enough to add beyond what he's said before; Pawlenty had a real argument with Bachman and he came out losing face, but he had the best comedy line--"if anyone can show me a written plan of Obama's I'll come over and cook them dinner--or mow their lawn--but Mitt, only up to one acre."
John Bolton is talking about getting in but why? Does he want a shot at a VP spot? There are a couple of other "candidates," but when I can't even remember their names--count them out.
Bright spots for the future: Marco Rubio--the bright new face, but not running; Paul Ryan--the knowledgeable numbers guy but not running; Chris Christie--the NJ tough guy, but not running
REMEMBER IOWAN ARE NOT CLOSE TO "MAINSTREAM AMERICA"--MUCH MORE CONSERVATIVE, RELIGIOUS, AND TRADITIONAL
2011 Federal Budget Deal--Underwhelming!
Federal Budget: $3,820,000,000,000 (3.82 Trillion)
Income: $2,170,000,000,000 (2.17 Trillion)
New Debt: $1,650,000,000,000 (1.65 Trillion)
Amount Cut: $38,500,000,000 (38.5 Billion) about 1% of the total budget.
Harry Reid is calling this a historic amount. The President said it is a historic deal. John Boehner simply said, Weve come to an agreement.
Lets Put This In Perspective. It helps me to think about these numbers in terms that I can relate to.
Lets remove nine zeroes from those numbers and pretend this is a monthly household budget for the fictitious Jones family.
Amount the Jones`s family spent this month: $3,820 ($45,000/yr.) (or, if you prefer, $7,640--$90,000/yr.)
Total income for the Jones`s family this month: $2,170 ($25,000/yr.) (or, if you prefer, $4340--$50,000/yr.)
Amount of new debt added to the credit card this month: $1,650 (or if you prefer $3,300)
Outstanding balance on the credit card: $14,271 (This represents our national debt). (or if you prefer, $28,542)
So last week, the Joness sat down at the kitchen table and agreed to cut $38 (or if you prefer, $76) from their monthly budget.
A historic amount!
R U Impressed?
Me neither!!!!
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US PRODUCTIVITY DROPS--NOT A GOOD THING!
The stalled recovery has cut deeply into the productivity of U.S. companies.
Productivity, measured as output per hour of work, fell at a 0.3% annual rate in the second quarter from the first quarter, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. Revised figures showed that productivity fell 0.6% in the first quarter, down from an earlier reported gain of 1.8%.
"We're producing less with more workers," said IHS Global Insight economist Patrick Newport. "That's not a good thing."
Productivity is a staple of economic growth. If workers aren't producing more and better goods and services, then over time the economy can grow no faster than the labor force does, leaving wages stagnant. For productivity to contract when the economy is weak and when policymakers have scant inclination or ability to boost growth is especially unsettling, Mr. Newport said.
The one positive he saw in the report was that it may indicate businesses have streamlined so much they "may be working their existing work forces too hard." That could be good for the job market, because if demand picks up, companies may have to hire to meet it.
The problem is that amid a rising risk of the economy re-entering recession, companies are becoming less certain that the demand will be there. Moreover, climbing labor costs are giving businesses another reason to hold back on hiring. The Labor Department said unit labor costs rose at a 2.2% annual rate in the second quarter. That followed a 4.8% increase in the first three months of 2011.
WHY DO WE HAVE A JOBS PROBLEM IN AMERICA--HOW ABOUT THIS FOR A START
Regulation Nation: The Obama administration proposed 229 new rules in July and finalized another 379. Sen. John Barrasso says that 31 days of regulatory excess will cost the economy $9.5 billion. The madness must stop. Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican, issued his regulations memo last week. If he's on the mark, federal red tape will add as much as $114 billion in new costs to the economy a year — no small hit. With this in mind, Republicans are planning to make a hard run at regulatory reform next month when they will reportedly press the Reins Act. Reins stands for "regulations from the executive in need of scrutiny." It would require congressional approval of all regulations that have an expected yearly economic impact of more than $100 million. Opponents argue that it would, in the words of Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein, "make regulating virtually impossible." Yes, and that's exactly the point.
I GUESS I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO TOOK A VERBAL SHOT AT OBAMA THIS WEEK.
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Is Obama Smart? A Case Study In Stupid Is As Stupid Does. by Bret Stephens The Wall Street Journal, 8.9.11
The aircraft was large, modern and considered among the world's safest. But that night it was flying straight into a huge thunderstorm. Turbulence was extreme, and airspeed indicators may not have been functioning properly. Worse, the pilots were incompetent. As the plane threatened to stall they panicked by pointing the nose up, losing speed when they ought to have done the opposite. It was all over in minutes
Was this the fate of Flight 447, the Air France jet that plunged mysteriously into the Atlantic a couple of years ago? Could be. What I'm talking about here is the Obama presidency.
When it comes to piloting, Barack Obama seems to think he's the political equivalent of Charles Lindbergh, Chuck Yeager and—in a "Fly Me to the Moon" sort of way—Nat King Cole rolled into one. "I think I'm a better speech writer than my speech writers," he reportedly told an aide in 2008. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm . . . a better political director than my political director."
On another occasion—at the 2004 Democratic convention—Mr. Obama explained to a Chicago Tribune reporter that "I'm LeBron, baby. I can play at this level. I got game.
Of course, it's tempting to be immodest when your admirers are so immodest about you. How many times have we heard it said that Mr. Obama is the smartest president ever? Even when he's criticized, his failures are usually chalked up to his supposed brilliance. Liberals say he's too cerebral for the Beltway rough-and-tumble; conservatives often seem to think his blunders, foreign and domestic, are all part of a cunning scheme to turn the U.S. into a combination of Finland, Cuba and Saudi Arabia.
I don't buy it. I just think the president isn't very bright.
Socrates taught that wisdom begins in the recognition of how little we know. Mr. Obama is perpetually intent on telling us how much he knows. Aristotle wrote that the type of intelligence most needed in politics is prudence, which in turn requires experience. Mr. Obama came to office with no experience. Plutarch warned that flattery "makes itself an obstacle and pestilence to great houses and great affairs." Today's White House, more so than any in memory, is stuffed with flatterers.
Much is made of the president's rhetorical gifts. This is the sort of thing that can be credited only by people who think that a command of English syntax is a mark of great intellectual distinction. Can anyone recall a memorable phrase from one of Mr. Obama's big speeches that didn't amount to cliché? As for the small speeches, such as the one we were kept waiting 50 minutes for yesterday, we get Triple-A bromides about America remaining a "Triple-A country." Which, when it comes to long-term sovereign debt, is precisely what we no longer are under Mr. Obama.
Then there is Mr. Obama as political tactician. He makes predictions that prove false. He makes promises he cannot honor. He raises expectations he cannot meet. He reneges on commitments made in private. He surrenders positions staked in public. He is absent from issues in which he has a duty to be involved. He is overbearing when he ought to be absent. At the height of the financial panic of 1907, Teddy Roosevelt, who had done much to bring the panic about by inveighing against big business, at least had the good sense to stick to his bear hunt and let J.P. Morgan sort things out. Not so this president, who puts a new twist on an old put-down: Every time he opens his mouth, he subtracts from the sum total of financial capital.
Then there's his habit of never trimming his sails, much less tacking to the prevailing wind. When Bill Clinton got hammered on health care, he reverted to centrist course and passed welfare reform. When it looked like the Iraq war was going to be lost, George Bush fired Don Rumsfeld and ordered the surge.
Mr. Obama, by contrast, appears to consider himself immune from error. Perhaps this explains why he has now doubled down on Heckuva Job Geithner. It also explains his insulting and politically inept habit of suggesting—whether the issue is health care, or Arab-Israeli peace, or change we can believe in at some point in God's good time—that the fault always lies in the failure of his audiences to listen attentively. It doesn't. In politics, a failure of communication is always the fault of the communicator.
Much of the media has spent the past decade obsessing about the malapropisms of George W. Bush, the ignorance of Sarah Palin, and perhaps soon the stupidity of Rick Perry. Nothing is so typical of middling minds than to harp on the intellectual deficiencies of the slightly less smart and considerably more successful.
But it takes actual smarts to understand that glibness and self-belief are not sufficient proof of genuine intelligence. Stupid is as stupid does, said the great philosopher Forrest Gump. The presidency of Barack Obama is a case study in stupid does.
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NOW YOU'RE TALKING--WHEN YOU CAN IDENTIFY THEM, FIGHT BACK
After the hacking gang Anonymous took credit for defacing Syria's Ministry of Defense website, a Syrian group today retaliated by posting gruesome photos on
Anonymous' embryonic social network.
http://cwonline.computerworld.com/t/7482426/886955522/525040/0/
PRESIDENTIAL PROPHECIES--OBAMA ON THE DEBT CEILING
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