The Obama followthrough

It’s now been one week since America elected Barack Hussein Obama its next president. I’ve withheld public judgment until now because I’ve been trying to regain control of my emotions. Had I spewed out what was on top of my mind last Tuesday night, I would be no better than the leftists that wrongly accuse the right of hatred and speak unfiltered from the heart.

Obama will definitely put liberal justices on the Supreme Court bench; therefore, America has moved schizophrenically moved from an all-liberal national government to an all-conservative one, to a moderate one with a conservative president, and now back to an all-liberal one. Though it was the likely scenario with George Bush’s approval rating at historically low numbers, I’m still disappointed in America. It put no check on the Democrats’ agenda. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid inquired about using some of the $700-billion financial industry bailout plan on the auto industry. That would be deceitful and against the law, but America has spoken.

Obama will be my president on January 20, 2009. I will not move to another country, nor hollowly threaten to do so – as many liberals did when Bush was re-elected in 2004. I will support him with a sharp tongue. Notable conservatives have moved on from the McCain campaign very quickly and pointed out that Obama has done nothing wrong as president yet. These same conservatives noted what a fine victory speech he gave last Tuesday night in Grant Park in Chicago. It was a nice, if dour, speech of the same variety he eloquently gave throughout his 21-month campaign.

Stop. Think about that for a minute. Our next president ran a nearly two-year presidential campaign when the country knew virtually nothing about the man – and it’s still learning quite a bit. Very impressive, and the fact that he is half black marks a pivotal moment in American history. That’s all I have to say about race. Obama had more to say, though. He told Americans that his opposition would try to scare them by pointing out that he was black and had a funny name. McCain scrupulously never mentioned Obama’s race, nor did he speak Obama’s middle name. I wonder if it was ever part of the Obama campaign’s goal to convince America it was still racist to guilt-trip it into voting for the black man on the ticket.

One of the major issues of this campaign was campaign reform. Obama agreed on virtually every reform policy John McCain backed, yet it was Obama who ran this unprecedented long and expensive campaign. He vowed to use public funds, but turned his back on that promise when he realized it would give away an advantage. He even bought a 30-minute primetime infomercial as a lead-in to the World Series! Although he socialistically espoused “spreading the wealth,” he would not share one penny with the McCain camp. These two presidential candidates had a golden opportunity to set precedents as to how to run a modern campaign. They both failed. McCain said all the right things. Obama agreed. Then Obama backed out, just like he did on the “anytime, anywhere” town hall meetings, and McCain followed suit to stay in the race. So instead of losing the election rather than his bearings, McCain lost both.

I think Obama ran a smart, but ruthless campaign. Despite the fact that as president he has done nothing right or wrong yet, there will be one of two outcomes. Either he will enact the socialist policies he advocated during his campaign, and American capitalists will resent his administration for it; or he will go back on many of his policies as he finds out they can’t feasibly be done. Either way, he will succeed, as I believe this country has shifted from center-right to center-left. The left will still want to keep likely Republican candidates Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, or Bobby Jindal out of the White House in 2012.

But all is fine in the Obama house at the moment, because he has the power. He has so much power that he is trying to impose his will upon the current administration by putting the blood of the auto industry bailout on Bush’s hands. America will be socialist come hell or high water. It doesn’t matter, though. To the prince, the end justifies the means.

Phil Gramm is right, but don't let anyone know it

The U.S. economy is down. Luxury sales are standing pat. Phil Gramm is telling us to shut our yaps. Obama is in the hen house, and McCain is loading both barrels.

Nothing seems to be as it appears these days. Up is down, down is up. And I’m looking for some duct tape to keep my head on straight. So let’s settle down and examine this rationally.

The “receding” economy has two major things working against it: the price of oil and the weak dollar. So when Texas Sen. Gramm says Americans complain too much, it might be worth a listen. True, he’s no deft politician, but he was an economics professor and knows a thing or two.

First, take oil. What causes oil prices to rise? Many factors. But in the simplest form: supply and demand. The supply is shortened by controls in the Middle East. It is shortened by laws against drilling in certain domestic areas. And it is shortened by usage. The demand is high because so many Americans use gasoline and use a lot of it. They use fuel-inefficient vehicles. Falling supply versus rising demand equals increased prices. Duh. So why do Americans look to the presidential nominees to remedy the situation?

Because by their very nature, they’re lazy and want things fixed for them. University of Chicago professors Cass Sunstein, law and political science, and Richard Thaler, behavioral science and economics, have constructed a book called “Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness.” It illustrates how people can be so lazy that simply by narrowing street lanes can get people to slow down, putting fruit at eye level in the cafeteria lines can get kids to eat healthier, and automatically enrolling employees in 401k plans can get them to invest wiser. Likewise, the presidential candidates are telling citizens how they’re going to get gas prices down.

The reality of the situation is new ways need to be utilized to get people to use less gas. It’s already happening. Chrysler announced Friday that it’s discontinuing auto leases because it’s not economically viable. Along with Ford and Chevy, the three major truck producers in the U.S. are hemorrhaging cash and fast. Ford announced Thursday that it lost over $8 million in the second quarter of 2008. The fact of the matter is that even if consumers wanted more cars and trucks that burn tons of gas it’s getting harder to get these vehicles.

It happened in Europe. Gas prices have been around the $4 mark and higher for quite a while. What did they do? Rode more trains, bikes, and Vespas. Gas is still high, but it’s not crippling them like Americans are allowing it to do. Maybe that’s a factor in why the Euro, pound and franc are all trouncing the U.S. dollar. Attitude.

Luxury sales, according to Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, are still holding their own in the U.S. despite a downward-leaning economy. Part of this is definitely due to the weak dollar. Europeans can get their money to go farther in the U.S., so high-ticket items are getting snatched up just fine by foreigners.

Maybe the fact that the Fed has tried to hold up companies like Bear Stearns, Fannie and Freddie have a lot to do with it all. It hasn’t let the economy naturally go through its cycle. Ben Bernacke has announced that the best course of action probably is to let these companies fail. And President Bush has echoed that notion. The investors will take the hit, yet, but it teaches them to more wisely allocate their money. It’s not a force or coercion. It’s a “nudge” in the right direction.

This all happened back in the 1970’s – stagnation as it was. The U.S. got out of that one just fine. Won the Cold War, business boomed in the 1980’s. The economy soared in the 1990’s. Now the U.S. is in the downward part of its economic cycle. It hasn’t even been down for a full quarter yet. This isn’t a “recession” yet, has Gramm has stated.

Gramm said a stupid thing. Not because what he said was stupid – it wasn’t, it was true. It was stupid because his pal, John McCain is trying to get elected president. Gramm is the symbol of McCain’s economic plan since McCain has plainly stated on many occasions that he’s not as educated on the economy as he should be.

We all need to take a chill pill and take this one up the back door for a piece. The U.S. economy goes down every once in a while. But it’s the fact that it goes up more often than down that makes it such a strong economy. Gramm is a smart man and should get a position of influence in the White House if McCain is elected in November. I only wish McCain had the gusto to stand up for a truth-speaker in the heat of the moment.