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March 21, 2013

THE ENTERPRISE--SPECIAL: Cyber-threats & THE CHINESE CONSPIRACY



LATEST ON ROADMAP TO PROFITABLE GROWTH…GO SEE THIS--AND IF YOU HAVE NOT YET BOUGHT YOUR COPIES, PLEASE DO SO ASAP!
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HISTORY
It was the year 2000 when I started investigating the threats from cyber-terrorism for a novel I was determined to write.  When I was half way through the novel--
THE SILENCE, the attack on 9/11 happened.  I wrote it into the book and kept on writing.  THE SILENCE was finished in 2001, and published shortly thereafter.  However a blizzard of 9/11 focused books and the recession caused it to "just sit there" with little interest or sales. 
During this period, I even wrote to the CIA, FBI, and NSA alerting them to the threat.  Since there had been no "traceable crime" the FBI had not interest.  The fact that viruses and worms of that era (Notably Code Red and NIMDA) had infected millions of computers was apparently not enough of a crime.  The CIA thanked me with a form email, and the NSA did not respond at all.  There were not "cyber-terrorism" agencies at that time , even though the president's staff member Richard Clarke had issued the strongest possible warnings.  A few years later, Clarke later wrote a fine non-fiction book, CyberWar, (after he left government service).
Then I got busy with boards, six of them, which culminated in the Chairmanship of World Kitchen as it emerged from Ch. 11, and was followed by a rash of family issues: Susan's illness, the birth of our last grandchild, moving from Tennessee to Ohio, and the concurrent death of five members of our immediate family in a short few years.  Obviously I was busy with matters other than writing.
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EIGHT YEARS LATER
When 2009-2010 rolled around, and cyber-threats had not slowed--they had increased dramatically, I dug out THE SILENCE. I had shelved it nearly a decade before, although anyone who wishes to read it, can still find it on amazon (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=stripbooks&field-keywords=the+silence+Mariotti).  I considered critical feedback from readers and friends.  They loved the story, but the book was too long.  In my attempt to make it a "literary" novel, I had bogged down the inherent "thriller" I intended it to be.  So, I rewrote it, retaining most of the story line, bringing the technology up to date.
That was exciting and scary at the same time.  The number and severity of cyber-attacks had grownimmensely.  I even included a time line from my 2000 era research up to the present as an appendix.
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 But, as the old movie title says, "that was then and this is now."  Thus far, no one has exactly pulled off what my book described, but that day may still come.  There have been a veritable blizzard of similar stories--books and a few movie partially describing cyber-attacks--since THE SILENCE, and my rewrite, THE CHINESE CONSPIRACY has received wonderful reviews (many of them posted on amazon with the book listing: http://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Conspiracy-John-Mariotti/dp/1450257895/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363191931&sr=1-1&keywords=The+chinese+conspiracy.
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FAST FORWARD TO THE CURRENT EVENTS
Finally, to update this special edition one need only Google Cyber-terrrorism or anything remotely like it and see the huge number of hits.  One of the best publications I read, which is ideal for busy people is THE WEEK magazine.  It is a superb compilation of all kinds of information.  I encourage readers to try it, and see if you get hooked on it as I have.  A recent issue summed up the cyber threat situation, and China's role in it quite well.  It is posted below.  China is not the only source of hacking and cyberthreats, to be sure.  Russia, the Ukraine, and even the USA are also major threats.  
Hacking is a global activity and the most frightening aspect of it is how easy it is to do and how hard it is to protect against.  Many of the best defensive systems are a single firewall, and little else.  Security lapses are frequent and all it takes is one. Personal computers are particularly vulnerable, and most of those are connected to some sort of business, which can transfer the "infection."  Flash drives can carry infections too, and those are everywhere, used for all kinds of purposes, business, government and personal.
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Someday, in some way, the story of THE CHINESE CONSPIRACY will happen.  That will be a terrible day indeed.  President Obama has attempted to stiffen the nation's defenses after Congress couldn't agree on legislation to do it (no surprise, they can't agree on anything).  Yet, all of the efforts are far more reactive than proactive.  What can you do?  Stiffen up your passwords, and quit using the obvious ones like birthdays, or other simple number sequences.  Keep your anti-virus up to date if on a PC, and keep you firewall turned on. Clean out your Cookies periodically.  And never answer "phishing" emails that might look a little legitimate but are somehow just not right.  Report them to the supposed sender, most of whom have fraud prevention groups. Banks and credit card agencies will not ask you to input vital information via email--don't fall of this. Don't give it out over the phone unless you initiate the call and know that the person and organization on the other end is legitimate.
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IF YOU WANT AN ENTERTAINING AND RELEVANT NOVEL…GET ONE NOW.
Now go do something while your email is still working, reach out of long lost friends, get in touch with loved ones, patch up family feuds, and tune-up your business, because tomorrow may be the day it all stops working.  
I apologize fro giving you so much extra reading below, but it you want to really know, and understand the threat, you will read it and pass IT ON.
JOHN
PS: For those of you who do not read the Wall Street Journal, here are three excellent stories that hammer home the nature and magnitude of the risks:

 

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"The little book that could help save the US economy."
Author of the Award Winner: THE COMPLEXITY CRISIS, the exciting novel: THE CHINESE CONSPIRACY, and co-author of HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY: Leadership Lessons from the Obama Presidency   

John L. Mariotti, President & CEO, The Enterprise Group,  http://www.mariotti.net,   http://mariotti.blogs.com/my_weblog/

Posted at 12:21 PM in WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | | Comments (0)

Tags: Chinese, Cyberterroism, growth, hacking, malware, profitable, roadmap, Russia, threats

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March 10, 2013

THE ENTERPRISE--DREAMS AND PIPE (LINE) DREAMS


FIRST OF ALL A BIG THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO REPLIED, AND ENCOURAGED ME TO KEEP WRITING
And thanks for the comments about content and frequency, too.  Right now I am considering one of the suggestions I found particularly interesting:  To write a bi-weekly edition of THE ENTERPRISE regularly, and then when events or topics warrant it, insert a "Special Edition" in between the regular ones.  I will be thinking about more details of how to do this while I rework my address list, and send out one more request…for those folks who missed the first two.  

Please tell those friends and colleagues you know who read THE ENTERPRISE, that if they have not replied, they will be dropped off the list following the THIRD REQUEST which will be going out soon.  It will just stop appearing in their email in-boxes.
AS USUAL PEGGY NOONAN GETS IT RIGHT
This is an excerpt from her most recent column, and the entire column is posted at the end of this edition

"Barack Obama really is a study in contrasts, such as aloof and omnipresent. He's never fully present and he won't leave. He speaks constantly, endlessly, but always seems to be withholding his true thoughts and plans. He was the candidate of hope and change, of "Yes, we can," but the mood of his governance has been dire, full of warnings, threats, cliffs and ceilings, full of words like suffering and punishment and sacrifice.It's always the language of zero-sum, of hardship that must be evenly divided, of constriction and accusation.It's all so frozen, so stuck. Just when Americneeds a boost, some faith, a breakthrough.

Mr. Obama is making the same mistake he made four years ago. We are in a jobs crisis and he does not see it. He thinks he's in a wrestling match about taxing and spending, he thinks he's in a game with those dread Republicans. But the real question is whether the American people will be able to have jobs.Once they do, so much will follow—deficits go down a little as fewer need help, revenues go up as more pay taxes. Confidence and trust in the future will grow. People will be happier.

There's little sense he sees this. Dr. Doom talks about coming disaster when businessmen need the confidence to hire someone. He's missing the boat on the central crisis of his second term."

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INNOVATION IS NEVER DEAD
I can cite many examples of how the USA can continue to grow and prosper. I wrote about the paths to profitable growth in ROADMAP TO PROFITABLE GROWTH which you can now buy on http://www.amazon.com in either paperback or Kindle formats.  There are many other examples of markets that have been expanded by new and better--or more convenient--innovations.  Consider Bagged Lettuce:  chop up a $1 head of lettuce into enough to fill 3 bags that sell for $2.49 each…because you are "buying time and selling the convenience" for time stressed, busy people.  Consider Pandora charm bracelets, which have replace the old snarly, tangly, dangly (but cute) old style charm bracelets almost completely with a more convenient, yet equally diverse and much more "valuable" at least if the pricing is any guide.  
OPPORTUNITIES ARE LIMITLESS, BUT RESOURCES ARE LIMITED
There are many, many more such innovations.  The USA can find prosperous growth by following the principles in  ROADMAP TO PROFITABLE GROWTH  and finding unmet, and unrecognized needs (who knew we "needed" iPads?)  Billlion dollar markets are awaiting.  Buy the book, and give them away.  If you want a quantity, contact me for a hot introductory price!  
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Now here's the most unusual one I have seen or heard of in a long, long time.  (Just keep the terrorist cats away!)
http://live.wsj.com/video/bomb-sniffing-mice-could-replace-dogs/5FE53C39-05DF-4B41-AE01-DB1C9AB4FDA4.html?mod=djemTEW_h#!5FE53C39-05DF-4B41-AE01-DB1C9AB4FDA4
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ELECTRIC CARS
These are clever, innovative, high tech, and totally impractical based on today's level of development.  There are not enough charging stations and all they do is take power generated elsewhere and converted to electricity, and then make it seem cleaner.  It isn't.  It's just a matter of where the power conversion occurs:  locally in an internal combustion engine or regionally, in an electric power generation station fueled with coal, gas, water, solar, wind or whatever.  Just like the ethanol boondoggle, this is simply a question of what is the best, most economical overall approach.  (Ethanol, from corn, is actually wasteful to produce and use in place of gasoline.  Its energy content is lower, its pollution content higher, its effect on engines worse, and its total cost of production is also higher and gasoline.  Meanwhile it uses/wastes corn, which a valuable global food product.  The only ones ethanol benefits are those in the plains states, notably Iowa, who lobbied Congressional members to give them subsidies to make a profit, producing a fundamentally undesirable fuel.
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SOLAR ENERGY
This is the ultimate power source, but only if and when someone figures out how to covert it to usable forms, economically, and locally.  Not all places have equal solar energy density, so some places that have a lot of solar energy (Iike our SW deserts) are too far from users (population density). This is  very unlikely to change:  the mismatch between incident solar energy density and population density!  Then what? More subsidies?
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WIND ENERGY
The same goes for wind energy. It is not so clean.  It is disruptive to the environment, both physically and visually.  These huge wind turbines are dangerous is many way, some of which we barely understand.  Worse yet, all of the best places to put them are far away and lightly populated. Same as solar.  Where there's "clean energy" there are no people to use it.  Thus it must be "transported" with all the attendant losses, through a distribution system that is outdated, vulnerable and unsightly in its own way.  Wind, unlike solar is not worth the investment needed to make it a large source of power. 
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HYDROELECTRIC, GEOTHERMAL, etc.
Hydro electric power, whether provided by gravity causing water to flow or tides causing the ebb and flow is a viable power source, but requires vast structures to capture it.  Dams, turbines, etc. are needed, because like most sources of power, the laws of thermodynamics apply--the potential energy is only useful if it can be converted to a form that releases its energy more willingly and with less inefficiency and loss.  
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NUCLEAR POWER IS BETTER, EVEN IF "RISKIER"
Small, localized  nuclear reactors could be built to safely power every major city, and located not far from the cities involved.  Why aren't they?  Because people read about Chernobyl (an exercise is Soviet era stupidity) and Three Mile Island (a genuine "whoops") and most recently the Japanese earthquake/tsunami and nuclear power plant disaster (and act of God to teach the arrogant Japanese nuke designers that they really aren't so smart after all.)  Still nuclear power is the best, non-fossil fuel for long term--and it has one problem--a big one, is the half-life of spent nuclear fuel, which is incredibly long.  it takes thousands of years for the radiation to decay down to safe levels.  That is an unavoidable problem.
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IS NUCLEAR WASTE A BIGGER THREAT THAN DIRTY COAL EMISSIONS?
The only "safe" way--if any way is truly safe--to discard spent fuel is to "bury them deep and remotely" in essence trying to sort of return them to the planet, and not poison the people.  And everyone now has the NIMBY philosophy:  Not In My Back Yard, about where to store spent nuclear fuel. There are still huge, largely unpopulated ares of the USA (Including Nevada--where Yucca Mountain storage facility was being developed, and is now stalled), areas of Wyoming, Montana and other Western states that are viable storage candidates. Transportation is a problem too, since, once again, where the power is needed doesn't match where some consequence of it must be developed or discarded.  This problem is unavoidable no matter which power source we use!
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FUNDAMENTALS OF THERMODYNAMICS
For those who never studied Thermodynamics, one of the basic laws is that the "ENTROPY" of the universe is constantly increasing; entropy is the inverse of AVAILABLE ENERGY, which therefore is constantly decreasing as we use it to do things and convert most of it to either useful actions or simply HEAT--which then serves to heat our environment, like it or not.
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KEYSTONE PIPELINE AND OTHER SUBTERFUGE
If ever Barack Obama gets his so-called superior intelligence to actually work in some productive fashion for Americans, he will release the restraints on such things as the Keystone Pipeline, to make Canadian oil sands production available to refineries in the USA, to enable vastly more offshore oil production including from the ANWR (Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge) and many more such initiatives.
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IDEALISM, IDEOLOGY AND IDIOCY
Why this long rant on energy?  BEcause America has a GROWTH PROBLEM which is being worsened by the ignorance of the people Americans elected to lead our country.  The fastest way to "fuel" this growth, (pun intended) is to turn loose the American Energy System to produce all it can and eliminate the need for OPEC oil, Venezuelan oil, and become a net energy exporter.  For those who don't recall, the GDP growth is calculated by the addition of the net or Exports and Imports.  Exporting a lot of oil would add GDP growth, but most of all it would create millions of jobs, and lower energy costs for US companies below those of their foreign competitors adding still more potential jobs.
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USE THE ROADMAP TO PROFITABLE GROWTH
If everyone reading this would simply buy 10, 20, 30, or 50 copies of the book and give them as gifts to all of the managers, executives, and owners of businesses they know, the multiplier effect would be huge. Even if you didn't want to contact me for a special price on the 25 and up quantities, the costs would be modest (25 books at full retail would cost $375…a far better use than supporting political campaigns in this non-election year.  Where else can you spend $375 and do a big favor for friends, relatives, customers, and suppliers alike.  The secrets to finding profitable growth in the USA no longer remain secret. They are in ROADMAP TO PROFITABLE GROWTH.  
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FINALLY, THANKS AGAIN TO THE SEVERAL HUNDRED PEOPLE WHO REPLIED THAT THEY WANT ME TO CONTINUE WITH THE ENTERPRISE.  I'LL TRY TO MAKE IT WORTH READING..AT LEAST 25-35 TIMES EACH YEAR, MAYBE MORE.
Best, John

 

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"The little book that could help save the US economy."
Author of the Award Winner: THE COMPLEXITY CRISIS, the exciting novel: THE CHINESE CONSPIRACY, and co-author of HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY: Leadership Lessons from the Obama Presidency   

John L. Mariotti, President & CEO, The Enterprise Group,  http://www.mariotti.net,   http://mariotti.blogs.com/my_weblog/

Posted at 12:27 PM in WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | | Comments (0)

Tags: Congress, debt, deficit, economy, energy, government, Growth, jobs, Obama, profitable

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March 03, 2013

THE ENTERPRISE--THE ENTERPRISE--PLANS GONE AWRY--OR NO PLANS AT ALL


SEQUESTER--A FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP BACKFIRES
Neither Barack Obama nor his staff imagined that they would propose the initiative that started the spending cuts so badly needed to rein in the US deficit.  They were sure that Congress would never let the sequester happen.  Ironically, few of the cataclysmic consequences threatened by the Obama administration or the president NEEDS to happen. They will only happen if the way the president and his administration implement the cuts causes them to happen--and even then they are wildly exaggerated.
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DOES OBAMA THINK AMERICANS ARE STUPID OR JUST EASILY DECEIVED?

The only explanation for the draconian, exaggerated messages being delivered by President Obama and his cabinet is that he thinks the American people are stupid—or at least easily deceived or bullied.   Consider this:  the dreaded sequester that is supposed to end life in the USA as we know it, amounts to maybe a two percent cut in government spending.  In fact, compared to last year, it is virtually no spending cut!  However, you’ll never hear this kind of explanation from Barack Obama and his White House henchmen. Instead you heard from Transportation Secretary LaHood that 5000 Air Traffic Controllers will need to be furloughed.  Since there are about 25,000 such positions involved, how does a 2% cut in funding turn into the need for 20% of the staff to be furloughed, and  Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano’s claim that 5000 border agents would need to be sidelined, which, out of a 20,000 person force, amounts to a 25% cut in staff (due to a 2% cut in funding?).

Since a majority of Americans bought his plea for four more years—“Forward” to a continuation of low economic growth, high deficits and government giveaways—maybe they are getting what they wanted.  If that were the case, they any cuts would be bad news for them. Here’s the fallacy.  Government spending has grown over 30% in the past five years.  Thanks to base-line budgeting, Federal spending increased over last year enough that the sequester cuts would barely effect most departments compared to their 2012 spending levels.  But the country still operated in 2012—in fact with the Obama administration in charge—so what’s the big furor.  

Nobody in the Obama media gang tells you these facts.  The Pentagon projected that the budget for FY 2013 (at the time, two years out) would be $571 billion. Compared with that figure, the sum Panetta settles for ($525 billion) is $45 billion less. But last year’s actual FY 2012 budget was $531 billion. And compared with this figure, the proposal for FY 2013 is a cut of just $6 billion, or 1 percent. Can Defense keep us safe with just over $500 billion?  I hope so, since it has done so in recent years.  But this time it will be “devastating” according to outgoing Secretary of Defense Panetta. Why?  Because he “wanted” $571 billion!

 

To believe this furor, Americans must ignore the fact that any manager with half a brain could manage through a slight spending cut, but because this is the Federal government involved, logic and common sense goes out the window.  Too often the government leadership acts as if it only uses half a brain, doing the inexplicable across many departments to keep its wasteful bureaucracy growing. Such nonsensical actions serve to prove that the cataclysmic results promised could only happen “with intent to harm Americans”—and so they could be blamed on the GOP—and not the president. Here’s the issue:  Barack Obama wants NO spending cuts.  He wants MORE taxes so he can spend more money, and run up still larger deficits.

 

When there was an impasse over the budget ceiling, he had Jack Lew (the newly appointed Treasury secretary) propose the sequester, with the idea that it would be so distasteful to the GOP because of mandated Defense Dept. cuts, that they would cave in and accept Obama’s wishes.  Now, after a time-lapse of a less than a year, Obama’s revisionist amnesia claims the GOP House created the sequester amidst plans to destroy the country, leave children, the poor and underprivileged without welfare, and force terrible hardships on Americans.  

Author Bob Woodward, who chronicled the dysfunctional debt ceiling debate in his book The Price of Politics, has already gone on the record that Barack Obama’s White House staff was the originator of the sequester.  It makes all of us fearful of what kind of retribution the White House might use against those who merely point out factual inaccuracies and distortions. The Obama administration’s positions and statements to the public are “scare-tactics” and  “hogwash”—carefully crafted lies that can be sold to the gullible America people by Barack Obama.   

 

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SLOW JOB GROWTH IS A SYMPTOM OF A GROWTH PROBLEM IN OUR ECONOMY

In new economy, jobs lag behind recovery -- By Jim Tankersley THE WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON — There are two kinds of middle-class Americans struggling today. Some can’t find work or can’t work as many hours as they’d like. Others are full-time workers who can’t seem to get ahead.

In Tuesday’s State of the Union and its response, there wasn’t much for either group — at least when it comes to their biggest problem.

Both speeches talked about the need for faster economic growth. Once, that would have been enough. But not today.

In the past three recoveries from recession, US growth has not produced anywhere close to the job and income gains that previous generations of workers enjoyed. A point of increased growth today simply delivers fewer jobs across the economy and less money in the pockets of middle-class families than an identical point of growth produced in the 40 years after the Second World War.

From 1948 through 1982, recessions and recoveries followed a tight pattern. Growth plunged in the downturn, then spiked quickly. When growth returned, so did job creation.

You can see those patterns in comparisons of job creation and growth rates across post-World War II recoveries. Starting in 1949 and continuing for more than 30 years, once the economy started to grow after a recession, major job creation usually followed within about a year.

At the height of those recoveries, every 1 percentage point of economic growth typically spurred about 0.6 percentage points of job growth. You could call that number the “job intensity” of growth.

The pattern began to break down in the 1992 recovery, which began under President George H. W. Bush. It took about three years — instead of one — for job creation to ramp up. Even then, the “job intensity” of that recovery barely topped 0.4 percent.

The next two recoveries were even worse. Three-and-a-half years into the recovery that began in 2001 under President George W. Bush, job intensity was stuck under 0.2 percent. The Obama recovery is now up to an intensity of 0.3 percent, or about half the historical average.

Economists are still trying to sort out what broke those historical links between growth and jobs/incomes. Robert Shapiro, an economist who advised President Bill Clinton on the campaign trail and in the White House, traces the change to increased global competition.

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UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES REVISITED.
President Obama has initiated a number of things that will come back to "bite him" or worse yet, to "bite us--the American people."  In case you didn't see my piece on this in THEBRENNERBRIEF.com, I am attaching the text of it here, followed by yet another person who believes this is the case.

Unintended Consequences of Obama’s Plans Cripple the Middle Class  

 I’ll start by giving our president the benefit of the doubt—that he is actually hoping to make America a better place with his plans, his policies, his ideology and his actions. BUT, before I go too far down that road, I must question what his idea of “a better place” means, and how it actually works out in practice.  I fear the answer is either “not so good” or “terrible!”

 A few weeks ago I wrote about the sub-30-hour week, and how it will change the working life of millions of Americans. As thousands of employers hold employees below 30 hours to avoid Obamacare’s costs and red tape, there are a several unintended consequences of Obamacare that President Obama may have overlooked.

 Sub-30-Hour Workweek—More Jobs, Less Pay

The first unintended consequence is that instead of helping the middle class, this will hurt them.  Everyone whose 40-hour week becomes a sub-30-hour week, will take a de-facto 25% cut in pay. Sure, more people will be hired to make up for the hours of work lost, but they too will only earn about 70% of the old “full time pay.”  And that was not too lucrative a job to begin with.

 The second unintended consequence is that all of those people will be dumped from employer paid health care into the state exchanges or whatever Federal replacement plan develops as more and more states opt out of the exchanges under Obamacare.  This will shift cost from the employer to the government—further increasing the Federal deficit.

 The third unintended consequence is that American middle-class workers now must replace the lost 25-30% of pay (due to the sub-30-hour work week). These folks all need to find another (second) job with all the difficulty that involves—finding a second job is tough enough, then balancing two job schedules with personal life is harder yet. There are more unintended consequences, but those three are bad enough.

 Instead of helping the middle class, the unintended consequences of the president’s plan has hurt them.

 Tax The Rich, Slows Growth

The president has insistently made increasing taxes on the “rich” a centerpiece of his economic plans. He now has the power and leverage to do that. Then what?  That money collected in taxes on the wealthy will be spent (or wasted) in Washington.  That leaves less money to be invested—and investments are what lead to new jobs and economic growth. The government creates no new wealth.  All new wealth is created in the private sector and the government simply takes part of that wealth and redistributes it

 Capital gains taxes will also increase, which slows the velocity of money moving through the economy. Instead of selling a profitable investment and finding a new one, investors hold the ones they have longer, to avoid the higher capital gains taxes.  Both result in less tax revenue. Slowing the velocity of money moving through the economy results in less tax revenue for the government.  So do higher capital gains taxes.  This unintended consequence is exactly the opposite of why the taxes were increased.  Watch it happen

 Next, economic growth will slow further, as will job creation, leading to less revenue from growth, still lower tax revenue and bigger deficits (instead of smaller ones).

 The next Obama plan that will backfire is that the (unrealizable) projections on new tax revenue (discussed above) will be spent, but not materialize, thus adding to the deficit. This will threaten yet another downgrade in America’s debt rating.

 The Wall Street Effect

The final unintended consequence is that the combined effects of these misguided policies eventually reverberate through the economy and impact Wall Street.  Stocks have been climbing due to companies saving money and gaining sales outside the USA.  Those two sources of earnings are about used up.  Savings have been wrung out of most companies and further ones will cause new layoffs—another unintended consequence of these flawed plans.

 Sales outside the USA are slowing now (Europe’s recession, China’s slowdown), such that half of the largest 40 US companies have publicly stated plans to curtail capital spending in 2013.  Lower capital investment translates into fewer jobs.

 Are you getting the theme here?  Everything being done by the president and his administration to rejuvenate the economy and help the middle class is likely to have just the opposite effect.  Of course neither he nor his staff want to hear this.  We’ll all have to just wait, watch it unfold, then listen for excuses and finger of blame being pointed everywhere but where it belongs.

 Unintended consequences are scary when the decision makers simply don’t understand what caused them.  And that is the way it is as we enter 2013!  Welcome to slow growth/no growth America in the New Year.

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FOR MORE, READ THE ATTACHED PIECE.  (THAT'S PLENTY TO THINK ABOUT FOR THIS WEEK)
BEST, JOHN
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President Obama has set in motion forces that he can't handle

Neil Snyder, February 18, 2013

Barack Obama is a terrible president. That's obvious to everyone who isn't chronically ignorant or incurably liberal.  By "liberal" I don't mean the classic definition of the word which has to do with being open-minded and objective. I mean the modern version of liberal: self-centered, emotional, illogical, and void of reason. Unfortunately, in 2012 ignoramuses and liberals represented the majority of those who voted. I'm not worried about offending them with my harsh words. My very existence offends them, and so does yours if you don't buy into their worldview.

From economic policy to energy policy to environmental policy to foreign affairs to national security to border security to you name it, the president failed the test, but we re-elected him anyway. Obama's misadventures in the Oval Office are becoming the stuff of legend. Benghazi and Fast and Furious are two of his more high profile blunders, but they aren't the only ones. If George W. Bush had committed just one of those offenses, the mainstream media would have demanded his head on a platter, but they gave Obama a free pass. The nation as a whole became complicit in the president's shenanigans because we didn't demand that he be held accountable.

President Obama has done one thing superbly well: he has demonstrated skill par excellence on a national scale as a community organizer. He is second to none when it comes to inciting, agitating, race baiting, stoking fears, and motivating the masses. If you discount voter fraud, more than anything else, those skills got him re-elected. But like a snowball gathering momentum as it rolls down a hill, the forces that he has unleashed will be impossible to stop without pain and suffering.

For example, Occupy Wall Street's demands for social justice dovetailed perfectly with the president's fairness campaign. Was that coincidence or was it by design?  The answer should be obvious, but whatever the case may be, the OWS crowd eventually ran amuck in cities across the fruited plain until government officials finally took action to shut them down. 

That's the way it is with unruly mobs. Once agitators get them started, you never know what will happen. But we do know this: President Obama is their champion, and they are still among us waiting in the wings for another opportunity to vent their frustrations. Will the next version of OWS be more malevolent than the first? Only time will tell, but I wouldn't rule it out.

OWS types aren't alone. In the United States today, large and growing numbers of people believe that their mere existence is their contribution to society. They think that those of us who have worked hard all of our lives owe them a living, and not just a living, but a very good living.  The takers among us are easy pickings for a man with exceptional community organizing skills, and as I said, the forces that the president has unleashed will prove to be impossible to control.  If they explode, there will be hell to pay. 

Common sense is totally absent in their world. For instance, who would dare to suggest that the 1% who paid almost 40% of federal income taxes in 2010 should pay more because it's "fair" even though about 50% of our fellow citizens paid no federal income tax?  The answer: Barack Obama and his merry band of malcontents. If George Orwell were alive today, he would be scratching his head and thinking about a mind-bending plot for another novel. 

Takers have no misgivings about attaching themselves permanently to the government tit, and they feel no guilt or shame as they scream for more. Obama knows them and their predilections all too well, and he takes advantage of every opportunity to stoke the fires that burn within them.  The president's mother and his grandparents should have taught him the basics -- things like if you play with matches, you will get burned -- because the fire that he's igniting can easily turn into an inferno.  If it does, all of us will pay a very high price.

In due course, simple mathematics will dictate that we can't afford to keep able bodied men and women on the dole. Our current debt and deficit situation is so dire that something has got to give.  Judging by a recent Gallup poll, most Americans agree with me, but metaphorically speaking, it may take a swift kick in a sensitive area to wake up our elected officials in Washington. Be that as it may, the day is rapidly approaching when no one can ignore our fiscal quagmire because the combination of Medicare, Social Security, and defense spending plus interest on the debt and paying freeloaders threatens to sink this nation.

Reneging on our national debt is out of the question since global pandemonium would ensue.  Obamacare may help to reduce healthcare costs, but when evidence mounts that those "death panels" that we have heard so much about are real and that we are saving money by medicating patients and allowing them to pass away peacefully rather than treating their maladies, people will be hopping mad. Many of them will take to the streets to vent their anger.  If you think that it can't happen here, you haven't been paying attention.

Social Security is a special breed of cat because it involves seniors, a powerful voting block, and it is regarded as a national promise that we must not break. Besides, people actually paid in to Social Security as did their employers so it's an annuity -- and not a very good one at that.  Any politician who thinks that he can safely tamper with Social Security isn't playing with a full deck of cards. Even so, we can't solve our debt and deficit problems unless we make adjustments in Social Security and Medicare. It's the quintessential Catch 22.

Similarly, we need to cut defense spending without jeopardizing our national security, but defense reductions translate into job cuts and that creates another set of problems. No matter what we do, people will not be happy with the outcome, and many of them will vent their frustration in the voting booth and possibly on the streets.

This is the point: a perfect storm is brewing. I think we're heading for a chaotic and violent period in this country the likes of which no one alive today has ever witnessed.  If I'm right, conditions will be ideal for criminals to ply their craft, and President Obama is pushing for gun control at precisely the wrong moment. 

I believe that what I have described is realistic and unfortunately inevitable, and that brings me back to my back to the president.  He has set in motion forces that he can't handle, and all of us are going to suffer the consequences so get ready for a wild ride.

Neil Snyder is the Ralph A. Beeton Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia.  His blog, SnyderTalk.com, is posted daily. Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/02/president_obama_has_set_in_motion_forces_that_he_cant_handle.html#ixzz2LHyg7tyF 

 

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"The little book that could help save the US economy."
Author of the Award Winner: THE COMPLEXITY CRISIS, the exciting novel: THE CHINESE CONSPIRACY, and co-author of HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY: Leadership Lessons from the Obama Presidency   

John L. Mariotti, President & CEO, The Enterprise Group,  http://www.mariotti.net,   http://mariotti.blogs.com/my_weblog/

Posted at 10:40 PM in WEEKLY NEWSLETTER | | Comments (0)

Tags: Congress, deficit, jobs, Obama, sequester, spending cuts, unemployment

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