Obama's Back Baby!

I haven't spoken for so long I have missed some good stuff. My posts serve as an online diary for me, chronicling my world as I live it; my response to outside forces especially power (politics) and money (finance). What will I think of myself in 2011 without this context to slay my convictions?

So what did I miss? The State of the Union address where the President b-slapped the Democrats, the Republicans and the Supreme Court. Oh no he di'n't!

Then he followed up with a mid-America world tour just to drive the points home. I always liked that line (of many from The Smiths) "it was dark as I drove the point home..." If you know me, you know I digress frequently and often. After all, I am a trivial pursuit.

Anyhow, George Clooney engineered a Live-Aid lite concert to raise funds for Haiti and it was good.

The President again showed some b@lls by attending the House Republican retreat in Baltimore and answered their questions so well that Fox News had to cutaway. Oh no he di'n't!

Since the Democrats are running for the hills and healthcare seems all but dead despite the Democrat majority 59-41 in the Senate, the President now has to swing his own b@lls to the bully pulpit. He has been painting the Republicans as obstructionists and challenging them to come up with solutions.

Obama's Back Baby. I don't know if he'll keep it up but it is a start. But whatever happens, at least I got back my HGTV.

Health Care Reform: A Moral Imperative

"The time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action. Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on healthcare."

Tonight the President addressed a joint session of Congress to urge them to continue to seek solutions for healthcare reform in a bipartisan fashion. The President offered some ideas for what he would like to see in the reform package and indeed some of these items have already been agreed upon by both political parties. The following points are what I remember off the top of my head:

1. Those with pre-existing conditions will not be denied healthcare coverage.
2. Insurance companies cannot drop you when you become ill.
3. Employers will have to make contributions to a healthcare fund if they do not provide healthcare coverage to their workers.
4. There will be a health insurance exchange where individuals who do not have an employer-based plan can purchase affordable care from existing insurers. A self-supporting (through premiums) public insurer should be an available option on the exchange as a competitor to private insurers; more competition should foster greater affordability.
5. Medicare and Medicaid will remain unchanged but there will be a mandate to combat fraud and waste within the current systems.
6. Everyone will be required to sign up for some sort of plan to help reduce the frequency of emergency room visits for primary care which we all pay for in our current premiums.
7. There will be no coverage for illegal aliens (who primarily use the emergency room for primary care, hmm?)
8. There will be hardship allotments and tax credits for individuals and small businesses who demonstrate financial need to cover healthcare costs.
9. ...and more, I am sure.

Furthermore, the President addressed the scare tactics being used to quash the reform debate primarily propagated by Republicans and right-leaning individuals and groups. He declared the oft repeated propaganda that there will be government-sanctioned 'death panels' as an outright lie and that the whole idea of a government takeover of healthcare is pure fiction. Finally, the President threatened to "call out" anyone who continued to disseminate false information about healthcare reform.

Of course the biggest part of the healthcare initiative is cost. The President made it clear that he will only sign a bill that does not increase the deficit and that savings gained by reducing medicare and medicaid waste and fraud and employer contributions into the healthcare fund will be used to cover the estimated $900,000,000,000 tab over the next 10 years. In any case, the bill should include a provision that any savings that are not realized must be covered by reductions in spending elsewhere in the general budget.

Sadly, those Republicans who are hell-bent on defeating reform for the sake of defeating anything this President proposes sat in protest as the President delivered his speech. Some Republicans agreed with some of the talking points but most were resolute in not supporting the President, at least in public.

At the end of the day, the President called upon all of us to support healthcare reform as a moral imperative, and rightly so, and implored us to honor the spirit of Ted Kennedy by doing so.

De-Pressed Conference

President Obama staged his second prime-time press conference this evening. The purpose of which was to provide insight into the new $3,600,000,000,000 budget and to assure the American people that while the price is high, the intentions are noble. The two-pronged approach is geared to stabilize the economy and plant the foundation for future growth, by investing in renewable energy, infrastructure and education.

With respect to education, the President referred to America's falling behind stating "countries like China and India will be running laps around our young people" which is true as far as my anecdotal evidence points. The fact that Americans do not realize that the playing field is globally level now and that our self-indulged young people will face serious competition in the future job market seems to be lost on them. Emphasis was also made that finding savings in the healthcare and defense sectors and repealing tax cuts back to Reagan-era levels for the top 1% of wage earners will help to offset new spending in other areas.

Most of this we have all heard in the last few weeks but it is always nice to see the President answer questions from the press; this is where his intelligence and thoughtfulness shine. He does know what he is talking about and perhaps this is the only consolation. What he proposes is costly and scary but as he points out and as I pointed out yesterday, there are lots of critics but no alternate solutions.

It was a sobering press conference as usual, times are tough, the solutions are difficult to comprehend and there is still a chance that it all might not work out the way we planned but something has to be done. Perhaps our expectations are too high? At the end of the day, Americans do need to believe that the fundamentals of the American economy are strong and that we will return to economic prominence and world dominance once we lick this crisis. I hope so but we have a long way to go, probably longer than we dare admit.

It is nice to see the President acknowledge that the gains of the last decade were artificially fueled so on the one hand he does get it but on the other hand his belief and optimism in America's future requires an audacity of hope that a culture mired in greed and deceit may not have the patience to muster.

The Bite is Worse than the Bark

I don't follow celebrities much but I was sad to hear that Natasha Richardson had died from what had appeared to be a minor head injury. I am a bit clumsy and I fall or bump into things all the time. If I had fallen as she did, I would have gotten up, dusted myself off and said I was OK too. You do this, especially when you are tough and strong-willed. We praise that. Alas, this is not the right decision all of the time.

Yet this is supposed to be the rallying cry for America 2009, the President said it in his inaugural address, "we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin again the work of remaking America." Of course, along with the chorus are the solos and the bridge - threatening to burden the song with too much histrionics, like the AIG outrage, the fear of releasing all those "terrorists" being held at Guantanamo Bay who were truly tortured as was confirmed today though we knew this all along but were afraid to challenge Bush and his deputy, Gonzales, and the Federal Reserve buying Treasury Bonds.

What, say you? How does the Central Bank of the United States purchase bonds issued by the Treasury of the United States? We are cannibalizing our own money supply. Where does the Federal Reserve "get" all of this money? They just decide to print more money? And what is all of this money tied to? Not much, it seems other than the value of the dollar in relation to all the other world currencies. The dollar went down today since we "watered down" our money supply. Isn't that what the Fed has been doing this whole time, when it reaches deep down into the printing press for those bailout funds it has been doling out left, right and center? Now we buy our own bonds with wet, freshly printed, money and this is supposed to help us, right? Where is China when you need them to buy our debt? Oh yeah, they are now big enough to kick our A's.

Today China said no to Coca-Cola in its bid to buy a large Chinese soft beverage maker. Serves us right, what goes around, comes around. Americans would have been screaminng if the Sears Tower was to become Wangchi Tower; Willis Tower? We hardly raised an eyebrow.

Presidential Address

President Barack Obama gave his first State of the Union style address before a joint session of Congress. The President told us "I get it," he knows that things are bad. I'm thinking this is the first time a President has used that phrase in a speech.

Anyhow, the President outlined an ambitious agenda, a very tall order for these times, fixing the economy, healthcare, education and investing in renewable energy, technology and entrepreneurship. He also praised the stimulus package, promised America that it would emerge greater and stronger and that it had to make some tough decisions if it wanted to be back on top. Why make such a long and difficult list? These type of lists always set one up to fail but hopefully President Obama will maneuver himself through this crisis and this list and come out on top having solved some of the many longstanding problems whose solutions continue to perplex and beseige America.

Given the economic crisis, I'm just hoping to survive the next couple of years, and hopefully end up better than or the same as I am now, just that I don't end up any worse. That's what I would expect from the President. Alas, he thinks he can get through the crisis and do everything else as well. Good Luck Mr. President. I'm on your side but I'm also fearful of your ambition. Great ambition sometimes can mimimize any achievements if the results end up being less than proposed and of course dreadfully highlights failures. After all, we certainly don't want to blame the black man for the failure of America even if it isn't his fault.