THE ENTERPRISE--SHOWING WHAT WORKS, AND WHAT DOESN'T, AND WHY
DON'T EXPECT A ROBUST JOBS-BASED RECOVERY WITH OBAMA IN OFFICE
The president is simply clueless about how to create such a recovery. Worse yet, the Republicans who should know how are involved in intra-murals amongst their own party. What a tragedy this is. Add to this the Fed's continued stream of huge QE bond purchases propping up a moribund economy, and ironically, this guarantees NO robust recovery! Fed capital infusions make things look better than they are, which is just what Obama wants. These $85 billion, very-low-interest-rate infusions in a constant stream also squeeze private capital out of markets, assuring that the growth that occurs from the private sector will remain slow and spotty.
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CONSUMERS UNDERSTAND THIS ON SOME INTUITIVE LEVEL AND LACK CONFIDENCE IN THE GOVERNMENT
So the will be cautious in spending. Of course there will be a Christmas uptick, but it will be lower and less sustained than it should be, or could be. Consumers lack confidence period. And they should. No one has shown leadership in which they can believe. Why should they take any risks? Obamacare is coming, and nobody really knows how it will work and what it will disrupt--not really--and during the next two years, there will be more unpleasant surprises than good news.
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THE SYRIAN INCIDENT MAY WORK OUT, BUT NO THANKS TO OBAMA'S WAFFLING LACK OF LEADERSHIP
My recent post in TheBrennerBrief.com opened with this cartoon…Charlie Brown lying on his back as Lucy, once again this year, pulls the football away as he goes to kick it. It just ran again last week on Sunday.
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DO YOU REALLY THINK IRAN IS SERIOUS ABOUT ITS SUDDEN CONCILIATORY GESTURES
I wish I did, but I am skeptical At least Ahmadinejad is gone, and he was a problem. His successor, Hassan Rouhani, is a much smarter and more skilled negotiator. He knows that antagonizing the USA is not in Iran's best interests. By making peaceful sounding overtures, he buys time for the Iranian nuclear program to proceed--and assuming the clueless Obama team goes along with him--he probably gets some relief from sanctions. This is good for the Iranian people, who have suffered the brunt of the sanction pain. It's hard to imagine how its good for the USA except it postpone any serious military action. Any American who trusts our naive, narcissistic president to suddenly finds some backbone and a foreign policy, will likely be sadly disappointed.
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THE BEST THING OBAMA COULD DO IS AGREE TO DELAY MORE OF OBAMACARE
There is no chance of "defunding it," not with a Democratic Senate majority, and even if the Senate were to flip to the GOP, the odds on repealing Obamacare would be minuscule, since it takes 67 Senate votes to over-ride a presidential veto. However, delaying parts of Obamacare to level the playing field a bit more, would be a "grand gesture" by the president—just the sort of thing he would feel good about doing. IF he doesn't the parade of companies dumping their plans on "Exchanges" will continue to grow and grow and grow. IBM has dumped its retirees, TimeWarner is dumping still more, as is Sears Holdings. Walgreens is joining in the dump. So is Darden restaurants, even though it could dodge some of the pain by moving still more workers to 29 hour weeks. Watch the list grow!
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MEANWHILE, MANUFACTURING ISN'T THE ONLY PLACE TECHNOLOGY CAN REPLACE PEOPLE
Chili's restaurants are installing computer touch screens into its tables, allowing diners to peruse menus, place order and pay bills. Ziosk, the vendor has had this technology for some time, and Applebee's has been testing it. Chili's claims that its goal is not to reduce wait staff, but rather to increase sales and consumer involvement. Sure! But if the wait staff doesn't need to present a menu, take an order or collect the bill, it's only logical that it will take fewer people--even though they still must deliver the food, clear the dishes and keep the beverages refilled.
If the folks who want McDonalds to pay them $12.50 vs. $7.50, get ready for keypads to enter your order and in the drive thru lane, a cash/credit card machine to collect (like most parking lots use now). The technology all exists. All it needs is the economic stimulus to put it into place!
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CEOS ARE DISCOURAGED BY THE GOVERNMENT'S DYSFUNCTIONAL BEHAVIOR
When CEOs are discouraged or lack confidence in the government and its probable actions, they simply pull back on spending, investment and risk. These are not dummies. They know that Washington is anti-business already, so what might they expect next. More, tighter regulations, or punitive actions by agencies such as the IRS?
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VOTING IN MEXICO--WITH YOUR ID--OF COURSE…BUT NOT IN THE USA!
SOMETIMES A CARTOON SHOWS THE FOOLISHNESS BETTER THAN WORDS
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MANUFACTURING'S RECOVERY IS POSITIVE, BUT WITH FEWER JOBS, MORE TECHNOLOGY
Jobs are coming back to the USA. A combination of technology and China's rising wages and shortage of skilled labor are once again making the USA a competitive source for many products. However, the returning jobs are not likely to be as numerous as the departing jobs were. Increased productivity, which makes products more competitive, require fewer people to make similar quantities of products. Also, the kind of jobs that are coming back are different than those that left--requiring different and higher skill and knowledge levels. The challenge for companies—and workers—is to measure up to the needs of the 21st century manufacturing environment.
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CAPACITY UTILIZATION IS STILL DROPPING, NOT GROWING
FROM KIPLINGER REPORTS:
"Note this worrisome trend in this agonizingly slow economy: Industrial capacity is growing faster than use. Manufacturing output is up, helping to keep GDP on a rising path. But businesses’ ability to produce is growing even more swiftly. While businesses aren’t inclined to invest heavily in new plants and equipment, what they are spending is targeted at machinery that boosts productivity.
So capacity utilization has dropped in recent months. Now 77.6%, it’s three-tenths of a percentage point below a year ago, six-tenths of a point less than it was just last March and an unhealthy 2.6 percentage points under the 40-year average. Well up from a dismal recession low of 66.9%, though. With slack in the economy increasing rather than diminishing, it’s tough to get the momentum in job growth needed to crank up the economic engine to a healthy running speed.
A capacity utilization rate of 80% or a bit higher is seen as desirable…high enough to spur growth, low enough not to spark inflation. Odds are the key ratio won’t reach the 80% mark for many more months. Meanwhile, businesses continue to let their profits pile up. From Jan. through March, corporations’ cash holdings rose by $46 billion, to nearly $1.8 trillion"
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GRIN OR GRIMACE: OBAMA-BASHING DOESN'T HELP, BUT REALLY--HE'S EARNED IT
Perspectives on changing people and finding work…. A doctor from France says: "In France , the medicine is so advanced that we cut off a man's testicles; we put them into another man, and in 6 ...weeks he is looking for work." A German doctor comments quietly : "That's nothing, in Germany we take part of the brain out of a person; we put it into another person head, and in 4 weeks he is looking for work." A Russian doctor says boasting :"That's nothing either. In Russia we take out half of the heart from a person; we put it into another person's chest, and in 2 weeks he is looking for work."
A US doctor laughs and answers loudly and immediately: "That's nothing my colleagues, you are way behind us….in the USA , about 8 years ago, we grabbed a person from Kenya with no brains, no heart, and no balls….and we made him into President of the United States, and now……. the whole damn country is looking for work.
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CAN THE FRACTURED, DIVIDED GOP EVER WIN THE WHITE HOUSE AGAIN?
(CAN THE GOP CONTENDERS ALL BE WORSE THAN BARACK OBAMA WAS—OR HILLARY CLINTON WILL BE—OR DOES THAT EVEN MATTER ANYMORE?)
Can the GOP (ever) win the White House again? That’s the question that must be “top of mind” for everyone who is fed up with Barack Obama’s poor performance as president and his failing big-government ideologies. Ignore that the next chance to do so is three years away. Forget that the candidates are unknown. Ignore that the GOP is horribly divided on its own ideological positions. None of those issues will matter, whoever the candidate might be, if the GOP doesn’t play catch up with the Democrat Get Out The Vote (GOTV) campaign methods and systems do their magic again.
I participated as a poll watcher in the ill-fated Romney campaign's Project Orca! It was the germ of a good idea, but not even close to what Obama & the Democrats used. And then it crashed on the late afternoon of Election Day. I truly doubt that the huge amount of effort... and data collected.... ever were really used for getting out more GOP voters!
IF the GOP ever wishes to be truly competitive in presidential elections, it must at least "catch up" with where the Democrat's approaches and use of social media efforts and their coordinated use to Get Out The Vote, were in 2012. Given his performance there was no way Barack Obama should have been reelected--except for this vital part of his campaign!
Studying the immense margins gained in heavily Democratic cities, it’s evident that "Romney, the person" did not lose, per se. Yes, he had his share of bad advice and gaffes. Yes, the too-many debates, with too many fringe candidates, run by biased liberal moderators, were also damaging. He also suffered from some of the McCain like "I'm not going to attack this guy and call him out on his lies," syndrome. Thus Obama skated by lying all the way.
However, in the end, on election day, the Obama/Democratic "machine" won it for him, by finding every possible voter in the Obama-rich cities—heavily concentrating on minorities, but also reaching out to young women, naïve youth, etc. and getting them and all their friends out to vote for Obama. These were the aggregation of constituencies that Obama’s policies appeal to. Almost all the blacks, who liked the Obama welfare themes. A big majority of Hispanics who feared the inept Romney message on his and the GOP’s attitude toward them and the millions of illegal (also heavily Hispanic) immigrants in America (non-voters for the most part).
Worst of all, the entire GOP, and its (and Romney's) campaign--and subsequent Get Out The Vote efforts--were woefully inadequate—deplorable might be a better term—or non-existent. The GOP turnout actually dropped in a year when it should have grown! The party was still using generation-old campaign tactics of phone banks (leaving mostly voicemails, which are summarily deleted), yard signs and conventional advertising. Rallies drew crowds, but mostly those already in the Romney camp.
Even when there was a desire to help expand or change this process, there was no one to even talk to about it. The old-fashioned party/campaign staff was in control and doing it their old ways. Simply finding a phone number or email address of anyone in a position of influence in the campaign was near impossible. All they wanted was volunteers to staff phone banks, an effort that reeks of the last century, not this one. And thus the GOP plowed ahead, insular and insulated from the folly of their ways, turning the prospect of victory into a demoralizing defeat.
Unless those problems are "fixed"—and fast—winning the White House back in 2016 is very unlikely--and that is a very bad prospect indeed. Not only would this kind of 21st century effort support presidential candidates, it also creates the so-called "coattails" that carry many other state and Congressional candidates to victory! But that presumes such an effort exists within the GOP “bag of tricks.” IT DOESN’T!
Can the Republicans of 2014-2016 even figure out how to speak to a huge natural constituency that they have alienated or ignored: HIspanic Americans. Hispanics have a strong work ethic, they are proud and productive, sensible and frugal; they have strong family values and want to get ahead in life here in the USA based on what they do, and how they do it. Those qualities make them natural Republicans--NOT Democrats. Now it remains for the leadership of the GOP to begin to realize this, and speak to American Hispanics with the respect and deep commitment they deserve.
Please share this article with everyone you know who is interested and/or involved in campaign politics, because that's where it all starts. Then the party must find and hire the IT and build the local GOTV organizations to really play catch up! Three years is barely enough time for such a Herculean task.
The pivotal question is, within a party so divided between Tea Party conservatives and core GOP moderates, WHO WILL LEAD THIS EFFORT? Not the candidate(s) since that person would only be known mid-year of the election year. The effort must start NOW! Might the Republican National Committee be a good place to start? This is an organization searching for a reason to exist and raise its own funding. Here is the reason. (Reince Preibus, are you out there? Are you reading this kind of message and taking it to heart?
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