The Issues, No. 58 - Now's Our Chance

Election Day is next Tuesday, November 4th. It is our chance to let our politicians, particularly those in Washington, know just what we think of the job they have been doing. It's our chance to give all 435 Congressmen, 35 Senators, and the Republican administration their report cards.

For many of us it will be a time when we want them to know we are very disappointed in Congress and what it has done. We have two wars going on, a collapse of the mortgage market, and the resulting collapse of the financial industry all of which Congress is, at least, partially responsible for. So for those of us that feel Congress has let us down, next Tuesday is an opportune time for us to "throw the bums out" and vote for everyone who is challenging an incumbent. Of course, if you are satisfied with what your people in congress have done, you should vote for them.

For many of us it will be the time when we can say we are not happy with the way President Bush and his Republican administration led the country. So we can vote for Barack Obama and throw the Republicans out of the Executive Branch of the government. And, of course, if we are satisfied with what President Bush and his Republican administration has done, we should vote for John McCain.

The most important thing is that next Tuesday we vote. Maybe the most important responsibility we have as American citizens is to vote. It is our one opportunity every time there is an election to let the politicians who are up for election know what we think of their performance and our opportunity to get rid of those that aren't cutting it and replace them with those that might cut it. So, if you pass that opportunity up, you really have no business complaining about what you get. If you vote, at least you'll be able to say, "I tried". So, don't blow it! Get out there next Tuesday and vote.

The Issues, No. 57 - Why Obama Makes Sense

Election day is one week from today and I've been thinking a lot lately about which candidate will be the most effective President. I know I already said I will vote for Obama after the Republicans picked Palin as McCain's running mate, and I meant it. When I said it, however, I wasn't really convinced that Obama would be any more effective than McCain as our President.

My recent thought process tells me that, for a number of reasons, Obama will be more effective. First, with the country generally fed up with the Bush administration and it's Republican policies, I have to believe that, after the election, the majority in both houses of Congress will continue to be Democrat. A Democrat majority in Congress will obviously be more sympathetic to a President from the same party and therefore, change will be easier.

Second, I think Obama is more in tune with every day America. He hasn't been tainted yet by a career in Washington but he knows how it works and he knows what the American people would like to see changed. I think his positions on "pork" and lobbyists are more believable than McCain's only because McCain has been there long enough to do something about those issues and hasn't. So, I think an Obama administration will do more to try and get Washington working for all Americans than would a McCain administration.

There are other reasons too, why I believe Obama will be more effective but the last one I want to talk about is the man. I think Obama may be one of those people who, like JFK, has a magnetic quality about him that by its very nature commands respect and inspires others to rise to higher levels. And I think because of this, and the reasons discussed above, he will be the most effective President. And that's why Obama makes sense!

The Issues, No. 56 - Socialism in America

I find it somewhat amusing that the Republicans are calling Barack Obama a socialist. I think this notion came from his discussion with “Joe the Plumber” where Mr. Obama told Joe something like an increased tax on small businesses that earn over $250K would help to spread the wealth around.

I say, “So what! And who cares!” I doubt if the people who are making the accusation really understand what Mr. Obama was trying to say and/or understand what socialism is. And, if he is socialist in some of his thinking, what’s wrong with that? Weren’t a number of the programs created under FDR to get the country back on its feet during the Great Depression socialistic? Haven’t some of those programs, like our Social Security System, continued to exist as major parts of our economy?

Our country is currently experiencing a severe financial crisis. Our government is spending huge amounts of money to help our failing corporations to get back on their feet and the government, in return, has told some of those corporations it wants a piece of their ownership. That is socialistic because the government will now have some say in what these corporations do and how they do it, but it makes a whole lot of sense for the government to want something in return for its investment. And, don’t forget; the government is the people and so we the people who are spending money to bail these failed companies out are, for a change, going to get something for our investment.

I don’t think it’s so bad to have a socialistic type of approach to solving some of our country’s problems, particularly when the problems are as severe as the current financial crisis. I don’t think it is such a bad idea to increase the taxes of the wealthiest people if it will help the people who are hardest hit by the financial crisis and are struggling to keep their heads above water. And finally, I don’t necessarily think socialism is bad. Great Britain has, at times, had Democratic Socialism as has Germany and those countries have not done so badly, nor have their people. Out of control capitalism, which got us into our financial crisis and Communism which is kind of an extreme branch of socialism, are both less desirable than the socialism we have and are using now to help us recover financially.

What's Going On?

The stock market is taking another plunge today, apparently because of poor quarterly earnings reports from a number of companies, which one would expect in normal circumstances but I'm not sure these are normal circumstances. Because of the financial crisis, the government has put in place, at least huge amounts of money, and even some plans that are already operating, to fix the problem. So, I can't understand what's going on. I guess we just don't trust the government and even though it appears the crisis will be resolved, we still are acting out of irrational fear. Or are we?

This may be a total stretch of the imagination, but is it possible there is some hanky panky going on that is causing the financial crisis to continually worsen? Is the stock market being manipulated by political forces that may, for instance, want to help ensure that the Republicans don't win the presidency after eight years of President Bush and his policies that led to the collapse of the financial markets? Is the mostly liberal media fueling the fear and mistrust that is causing the market to continue to decline, hoping somehow to convince people to blame the financial crisis on the Republicans and vote Democratic?

Whatever it is that is causing the problem just doesn't make any sense. The pieces are in place to correct the problems, including plenty of money. All I can conclude is that something(s) that may be politically motivated or something I just don't understand is continuing to drive the stock market down. It will be very interesting to see what happens after the November 4 elections.

The Issues, No. 55 - Extremism and the 2008 Presidential Race

I'm in Naples, Florida this week visiting my Mom and my sister. Naples is a bastion for mostly wealthy conservative retired business people who have come here principally from the mid-west. So, the area has been, as one would expect, basically Republican in its leanings. Shortly before I arrived, the local newspaper, "The Naples Daily News", announced, much to the chagrin of many of its subscribers, that it was endorsing Barack Obama for president.

Ever since, the newspaper, which prints lots of letters to the editor every day, has been flooded with and has printed a number of particularly venomous letters that express very extreme feelings about Mr. Obama, the Democratic Party, and "The Naples Daily News". People have indicated they are cancelling their subscriptions to the paper, which has betrayed them and our democracy by supporting a socialist who is intent on destroying America. They have talked about Mr. Obama's background and his associations with terrorists and Reverend Wright. In other words, they have totally trashed Mr. Obama and everything he has ever done or everyone he has ever touched or spoken with or listened to. One would think he is the devil who, if given the chance, will destroy us all. I personally find all of this amusing on one hand but frightening on the other.

I can't believe that wealthy, educated, successful American people, or any people in America for that matter, can have such extreme feelings about anything, let alone one of the two candidates for President of the United States. Barack Obama loves the United States just as much as John McCain. He just has a different view about what needs to be fixed and how to fix it. You don't have to like him or the approach he wants to take to fix things, but you are not too bright if you think because he believes differently than John McCain that he is a bad person. And, obviously, the same thing is true for those who think ill of John McCain.

If both candidates believed the same thing and had the same approach to everything, there wouldn't be any point in having two people running for President. And, isn't it a great thing about our democratic society that we can have people disagreeing with one another, at the highest levels of our society, without one of them being shot or sent off to a prison camp somewhere for reeducation? So, come on Naples, Florida, and the rest of you political extremists everywhere,
get over yourselves and recognize that whoever is elected is going to do their best for the country, even if what they do is different from the way you would like to see it done. And, if you still feel so strongly about something, run for political office yourself.

Impatience, Greed, and Fear and the Financial Crisis

Yesterday afternoon as I was sitting in the waiting room of a doctor's office, I picked up a March 2008 issue of Forbes magazine. While going through it I came across an article (I can't remember the author) that made a positive case for impatience and greed. Today, before I entered the blogosphere, I found an article, from the New York Times on my computer's home page written by Warren Buffet about when to be greedy and when to be fearful.

In the Forbes article the author said that both impatience and greed are, by themselves, good to the degree that, without them in society, there would be little progress. Impatience to have something better drives innovation and drives us to take actions that might improve our lives. Greed is what drives us to take actions that will benefit us financially. In other words, if we were to simply maintain the status quo we would never see never see any improvements in our lives.

Unfortunately, as we have seen in the recent months, unchecked impatience and greed worked poorly together to cause our current financial crises. People who were impatient to have a better home, took on loans they could not repay and the greed of the lending institutions that made all of those bad loans simply got out of hand and the bottom fell out of the financial market. When that happened, and it's continuing today, fear set in among many investors and they sold their stocks which further depressed the financial markets.

Warren Buffet said today he is now buying stock because he said, "A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. And most certainly, fear is now widespread, gripping even seasoned investors." So, he says he is using other peoples' fears to his advantage because he can now buy stocks at a bargain because fear has driven the prices down. And, he says, "Fears regarding the long-term prosperity of the nation's many sound companies make no sense. Most major companies will be setting new profit records 5, 10 and 20 years from now." So, to Warren Buffet greed, at least in the circumstances he has described, is a good thing.

I think the important thing to be gained here is that controlled impatience and greed are motivators that move us forward and are good for society. Fear, on the other hand, is unhealthy for the fearful, and, in the case of the current financial crisis, has magnified to the point where it is unhealthy for all of us. And I think what Warren Buffet is really telling us is that it's not rational for us to be fearful, that the markets will come back, and that our fear will only contribute to the wealth of others, like him, who will take advantage of it.

The Issues, No. 54 - Tax Breaks for Businesses

Particularly with the current financial crisis, in large part caused by corporate greed, it is difficult for most of us to agree that businesses should be provided with tax breaks. I think we all are afraid that any tax breaks we give, particularly to large corporations, will only benefit the corporate executives whose outrageous salaries and golden parachutes are already way out of sight and out of control.

I personally believe that we, as a nation, need to provide tax breaks for our businesses, primarily because our businesses are our employers and our innovators. As our employers, businesses can afford to hire and pay the wages and salaries of more people if they don't have to pay as much taxes. Innovation leads to new business opportunities that lead to new and more employment opportunities and less taxes, again, could mean a company could spend more money on innovation.

Hopefully, with the combination of the collapse of our economy and the government bailout that will help them get back on their feet again, our corporations will reform many of the current practices that caused the economy to collapse, either through their own efforts or through new government regulation and oversight. Once we have businesses again working responsibly, I believe they should be given tax breaks only because those tax breaks will benefit us all in that they will help tremendously to stimulate our economy.