184: Writing Off BO

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/12/are-we-writing-off-obama-too-soon-113509.html#.VIxkU8nnbqB

In the above link andy Kohut asks if BO is being written off too soon. HA!  Andy should ask all those Dems who have been booted out of office in the past four years.

183: In General, Not Exclusively

As I watch the current media circus surrounding Ferguson and NYC police issues, I am struck by my own stereotypical beliefs, based completely on my own personal observations and experiences.  Oftentimes I developed these beliefs against what I actually wanted to believe.  But direct personal experience always trumps fantasy.  The following statements are all preceded with the qualifier, "In general."  I am NOT saying "always" or "exclusively" or "absolutely." 

Car salesmen are liars.

Lawyers are arrogant.

Police are power hungry and insecure.

Black persons who have been beneficiaries of affirmative action are incompetent.

Politicians are self-serving and greedy.

Journalists report their own opinions, rather than facts.

Government bureaucrats are inefficient and incompetent.

Women in business make decisions based on emotions rather than logic.

182: Republicans For National Health Care

If a Republican with a national following, like Christie, or Jeb Bush, or Jindal, or Corker, or Walker - there are lots of them - came out in favor of national health care, he would walk away with the next presidential election.  Our health care system is so fouled up it cannot be fixed, except by amputation.  The first thing to do is to amputate all of the various insurance companies charging administrative fees and overhead in competing to provide the exact same services.  Whether you get your insurance through BCBS or Aetna or Cigna or United Health you get the same medical services from your doc or hospital.  Why have all these different entities and different systems for the same services?

Create a tax to pay for health care services, but structure the tax to incentivize taxpayers to be healthy.  The national health care agency would also reimburse docs and hospitals to incentivize them to cure patients, rather than treating them over and over for the same condition. 

A Republican who adopts this platform will be a winner.

181: Problems in Coloured Communities

BO says in justifying Ferguson looters, "communities of colour are not just making these problems up. "  Quote is from Economist. Does anyone in sycophant media ever challenge these inane statements?

180: Stupid Voters

Of course Jonathan Gruber, MIT dude and Obamacare architect, is correct when he refers to the "stupidity of the American voter" as a factor in how Obamacare was designed and passed into law.  How else can you explain the 30 and 40 year careers of so many politicians.  We keep electing persons who rob us blind, are grossly over-compensated, and are almost always unqualified to do anything other accept handouts.  For this they call themselves public "servants." HA!

179: 2014 Election Aftermath

As I write this I am listening to the BO press conference.  How pathetic this man truly is.  If ever there was a man over-matched by a job, BO is it.  He is whipped, finished, sapped.  And he knows it.  His arrogance is gone (thank God).  He is an empty suit.  He is irrelevant.  The country, and especially his own political party, have elected him, given him the benefit of the doubt, waited for him to perform, watched him miserably fail over six years, and now moved on.

178: GOP Congress

Katrina Vanden Huevel says a GOP Congress would be disastrous because women,  minorities,  and illegal aliens would not get everything they want. Need I say more?   Vote anti-incumbent.

177: Alert-National Media Finds BO Can't Manage

Almost six years into the BO fiasco, the national media has discovered that BO has no management skills. Did they actually think he would learn on the job?

176: James (Benedict Arnold) Bullard

Bullard, president of the St. Louis Fed, has been a prudent and reasonable voice on QE - until now.  The market has a hiccup for a couple of days and all of a sudden Bullard is the newest chicken little in the group of clowns known as the Fed Open Market Committee.  These jokers have really come to believe that they know what they're doing, and furthermore that they can predict the future.  The Fed is just another disastrous by-product of huge government run amok.

175: BO Disappointment

As more and more "distinguished scholars" weigh in with their admissions of BO's failed presidency, you have to wonder how these folks got credentialed

174: Hurray For Hank Greenberg

My hat is off to Hank Greenberg for having the guts and courage to force Paulson, Geithner, and Bernanke into a public forum to answer for their combined actions from 2007 onwards.  Hank may or may not win his lawsuit, and Larry, Moe and Curly (Hank Paulson, Ben, and Timmy) may or may not have properly or correctly gambled with the entire US Treasury and US economy, but at least the Three Stooges will have to appear in front of the public and answer the questions they evaded since their reckless actions.

The Stooges always justify their self-serving actions by saying that without their combined acts we would have had another Great Depression.  I doubt this very much.  But how could one ever know?  The Stooges acted before they needed to.  They panicked.  But what the hell, it wasn't their money.

173: Presidents In My Lifetime

The presidents in my lifetime are: Truman, Ike, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush the Elder, Clinton, Bush the Younger, BO.  The first four I was too young to judge personally, although I have studied them all through biographies.  The last nine I have personally observed in adulthood, and also studied through books.  In my view only two of them were excellent presidents - Truman and Reagan.  Bush the Elder, Ford and Ike all meant well, and rank in the above average range.  Carter, Clinton, Bush the Younger, and BO were (in order) psychological, societal, intellectual, and pathological disasters.  Johnson wanted to be great, but was too damn resentful.  Nixon was, and remains, a true enigma.

When I examine the leaders chosen in our democracy, I wonder if we might not be better off with a little less of it.

172: BO Embarrassed

It really seems as though BO is embarrassed to be an American. Or even ashamed. After all he has received from this great country, that's pitiful.

170: Duh! Blacks Support BO

A Washington post reporter informs us that BO is still supported by most blacks. Thank God for the Washington Post

171: Obama Supporters

It's an astounding testament to the political and economic ignorance of the American electorate that only now, six years into the Obama debacle, are the BO fans starting to see him for what he is- a man with almost no executive skills or experience, and totally over matched by his global peers.

169: Kareem

I have recently read several very thoughtful, cogent, and insightful articles by Kareem Abdul-Jabar. I wish he had been our first black president.

168: laziness

I feel like I've accomplished very little the last few weeks. Am I just getting old, or depressed or what?

167: Cantor And Term Limits

Stunning.  Shocking.  Seismic.  This is what the talking heads in Washington and New York are saying.  OK, so a big-time politician lost his meal ticket.  Boo hoo.  One guy will have to go back to work for a living, but the electorate gets a chance at having a real representative.  Just imagine how much better Congress would be if we had a complete turnover of ALL members every few years. Although I suspect that Cantor will immediately begin looking for another government welfare paycheck, the whole spectacle speaks to me about how fantastic it would be to see an end to the career politician in Washington.  Term limits, that's the only answer.

166: BO's Non-American Father

We all suffer because BO did not have an American father.  As I thought about D-Day last weekend, and watched different observances, I realized that there is no way in hell that BO can sense any connection with huge chunks of American history.  There is simply no male figure in his life who could pass these memories and values on to him.  In my own life, I remember:  at age 6 or 7 looking at pictures of the aircraft carrier my father was on in WW II which had just been hit by a kamikaze; as an adolescent wearing different remnants of my father's navy uniform; as a pre-teen going to Sink The Bismark with my father; as an adult, going to Saving Private Ryan with my father; and in his nineties, my Dad often reflected on the tremendous loss of life that occurred in both of the world wars, and given the then current state of affairs in the world, wondered if that loss had been worthwhile.

BO had none of this.  I would guess that many of his inner circle have a similar dearth of connections because, after all, we usually seek out similar types.

My advice to younger voters:  When you're voting for a president of our country, think about what the person you're voting for has learned from his or her parents.

165: BO, Bergdahl, and Failure

Two words sum up BO and his frat boy inner circle - arrogance and incompetence.  They obviously believe that they are intellectually and morally superior to the general population of the country, and if you disagree with them (here's the arrogance part), then that's just proof that you are stupid, because they never consider the possibility that they are wrong.  However, it's difficult to dispute that BO is any the worse for wear after imposing his executive incompetence on our nation for six years.  It's our country that suffers.  As long as the voters in this country continue to watch the talking heads (of any political persuasion)and accept their pablum as wisdom, personalities like BO will continue to enchant the masses.

The bottom line on Bergdahl:  He is a kid, like all kids, who made some stupid decisions and did some stupid things.  Unfortunately for him and his Army brothers, Bergdahl's stupid acts resulted in tremendous harm for himself and others.  He can and and should and will be forgiven.  The Commander and Chief of the United States is not a kid.  He is supposed to be an adult sworn to uphold the laws and Constitution of the U.S.  He is not supposed to take Bergdahl's stupid acts and calculate how to use those acts for political gain and personal recognition.  But this is what happens when voters elect someone who is different (i.e. black) and "cool," instead of someone who is experienced and competent.

164: The Sterling Flap

So another octogenarian has expressed his true racial insensitivity, or as some would say, prejudice.  Without MSNBC, how would we ever possibly deal with rascals like Mr. Sterling?  The same way we deal with racism and prejudice in the rest of our daily lives.  We all encounter the inevitable and sometimes crude likes, dislikes, racial biases, cultural differences, and prejudices of our fellow humans on a more or less constant basis.  We form relationships based on our acceptance or rejection of what other persons think or believe.  The talking heads on TV would somehow have us believe that NBA players, who are the equivalent on an individual basis multi-million dollar per year businesses, are being irreparably harmed by accepting their millions from an owner who says and does foolish and impolitic things.  Certainly most, if not all, of the Clipper players were aware of Sterling's conduct long before this instant flap surfaced.  I suspect there are many other players with other NBA teams who are aware of just such conduct from other owners.  Maybe we should end all this nonsense and form a National Cultural Law Enforcement Agency and put everyone in jail who says something stupid.  Who would be left to run the prisons?

163: Signs Of A Market Top

This morning I watched an ad for the IBEW on CNBC.  I called a long term IBEW member who runs a large commercial electrical contracting company.  I asked him what possible benefit could accrue to IBEW members from advertising on CNBC.  My friend answered:  "Absolutely none."  It turns out that there is a special assessment against employers who are forced to pay into a fund for activities like these bizarre ads. 

I also have seen more and more advertising for trade associations, especially realtors. 

My non-scientific analysis and conclusion is that when organization start making idiotic expenditures like this, it is generally a sign that the stupid money is coming back into markets of all types.  Advertising markets, stock markets, real estate markets.  The suckers always come in at the end and get fleeced.

162: MOT, MSI - RIP

I told you so.  Look at my blog posts from 2007 on Motorola.  It has taken a little while, but carved up and sold off is what I predicted and that is exactly what has happened.  What an American management case study in tragic incompetence.  My personal experience with MOT started in the 1990s when MOT was at its zenith.  The company had obviously been built on integrity, hard work, great products, and good management.  Somewhere along the way, management must have decided that its excrement didn't stink.  But stink it did and beginning in the late 90s MOT began its long, excruciating decline. 

Probably a good investment strategy right now would be to find out where the key MOT execs from 1990 to 2010 are today, and then short the hell out of those companies.

161: Gotta Love That Putin Guy

I can't imagine any real American who doesn't have a grudging respect for Vlad Putin.  What a wild and crazy guy.  He sizes up the geopolitical landscape, sees a stunningly weak and inept opposite number in BO, and makes his move - successfully.  He does all of this on the heels of hosting the Olympic games, another feather which BO sought, and lost.  It reminds me of the Celebrity Boxing match between Tonya Harding and Paula Jones.  Vlad is wailing on BO, and BO is just running away with his gloves in back of his head.  Real Americans should respect Vlad, and be very ashamed of BO.

160: Why I Don't Contribute To Public TV or Radio

I have never contributed, at least directly, to public TV or radio, and I probably never will.  The reasons I don't give, are the same reasons I don't give to NBC or Fox, or any other broadcaster - they get plenty of dough from other sources, and even the so-called "public" stations get the lion's share of their money from corporate, government or large trust targets.  Even if I was tempted someday to give something to a local public station, the pledge drives they conduct are so disingenuous and obnoxious that any urge to give is quelled.

159: MLK And His Day

I have nothing against Martin Luther King.  I have read significant amounts of history related to him and his work.  I don't know why any rational person would argue or take issue with his philosophy of non-violent demonstration in pursuit of a cause.  I just don't know why the country needs to take a day off for him.  If we followed the logic that gives us MLK Day, we would never work.  How many others are as deserving or more deserving that King?  What about Jonas Salk, Edgar Allen Poe, Clara Barton?  There are probably a hundred arguably deserving individuals.  We used to celebrate George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, but now they are lumped in with Hoover, Nixon and Clinton for "President's Day."

Here's my problem with the whole issue of race in America:  As far as I can tell, no one in my family tree going back to before they arrive in North America ever owned a slave or participated in or benefited from the economics of slavery.  Yet radical blacks and MSNBC thinks I somehow owe something to atone for injustices done to blacks in America.  This doesn't seem right to me, and I'm sure it doesn't seem right to millions of other Americans in the same position as me. 

I propose that we change MLK Day to "A Person You Look Up To Day."  There will surely be certain individuals who draw a crowd of admirers, and they will get more attention.  That's fine.  But all Americans will have the opportunity to honor someone they choose.  Make it a federal and state holiday, everybody gets a day off, and no one gets his nose out of joint.