Governor Bobby Jindal, who is the governor of Louisiana, rebutted president Obama’s speech tonight. He is a rising star as many people say, but I think that his speech wasn’t what I thought it would be. I didn’t like how he tried to link hurricane Katrina to the inefficiency of the United States government. The government did not act as it should have during Katrina, but the government was still needed in aide and rebuilding the state. One thing I found interesting was when Gov. Jindal said the people who dealt with Katrina on their own (saving people with boats) did not need the government to intervene, people must take on more on their own without the governments help. What I found interesting about this is that this is exactly what happened with the housing market. People were getting sub prime loans without any government intervention and most of our current situation can be attributed to this failure. I do think that government should stay out of our way and I am honestly terrified with a lot of these new technologies we see in shows such as a history channel series known as 2050, but I will talk more about that in another post. When things get tough, it’s hard for things to get accomplished without the government. In history, the government was involved in every crisis. It is honestly who most of us turn to when there is a problem in the nation.
Gov. Jindal also criticized certain parts of Obama’s restructuring plan such as creating maglev trains. I personally think that the infrastructure in this country is out of date. There are nations out there who have many ways of travelling long distances. We rely primarily on planes and cars. I think the governor fails to realize that creating new infrastructure in this country will put a lot of men and women to work to not only construct this new infrastructure but also maintain and run it.
I really do like Jindal, he has done a lot for the state of Louisiana. I look forward to seeing him in the future and maybe even run for president, but I personally feel that there should be leaps in science and innovations in technology in order to move this country forward. I feel that this was hugely lacking in the last 8 years. What I don’t like about the republican party at this point is that I feel like they are living in the past. And as this country does get larger and larger, there is more that is required of the federal government. I agree with Gov. Jindal that the government should be limited, but in the event of a crisis and to develop infrastructure, the government is needed in my opinion.
Our country is between a rock and a hard place. Everything that we are experiencing as a nation does not seem promising. Unemployment is at an all time low. Some cities in this country has an unemployment rate of over 15 percent. The national average unemployment rate is at 7.6 percent. High school graduates aren’t able to get jobs. People are not buying American products or purchasing much of anything these days. There is an undeniable division in Washington among democrats and republicans. Obama seems to be going back on a number of promises that he made during his campaign. His administration seems to be dysfunctional because every week we have someone resigning.
My concern and question is this; what is this country coming to?! I have just read an article about Roland Burris, apparently he did have connections with Blago before he was nominated and now he’s being asked to resign. President Obama passed a stimulus bill that was completely opposite of being bipartisan. Republicans seem to be completely against the Obama administration. Democrats seem to be unwilling to work with republicans. The amount of dysfunctionality in this country is really astounding and heartbreaking. Even though there are many problems facing this country today, the only solutions that are being developed are from our president and no one else. People who don’t agree with our president should stand up and come up with something else and really come to a genuine compromise. Of course there is protocol that is followed in congress for passing legislation, but when republicans don’t want to come up with their own plan it’s hard to understand their problems. The democrats want to spend large sums of money that will be borrowed from other nations in order to bring us out of this crisis(it may or not work but we will have borrowed another trillion dollars regardless), but when they don’t want to hear what republicans have to say it causes a huge division in this country that is not fair to the citizens of this nation.
Obama has signed executive orders in reducing the amount of troops in Iraq and closing down Guantanamo, but he has no plan of how to do either.
What is this country coming to? It seems that these hard times are causing more division in this country rather than coming together and figure something out. All of these politicians should figure something out and forget about their popularity in their districts. People need to put aside their petty differences and figure things out in this country because I for one am really worried about our future. Will our children be able to say that they have led better lives than we have? The way things are going I can honestly say I don’t know.
Do you agree with President Obama’s 787 Billion Dollar Stimulus Plan?
The reason I am asking this is because I am reading a lot of articles that quote republican senators and congressmen saying they are not voting for this bill because their constituents do not approve of this bill. I want to see if what they say holds any water. Please vote.
Note that no personal information is asked or taken, your vote is strictly your own and anonymous.
If you vote NO, It would be great to hear What you don’t like about this plan. Not only for me, but for other people reading this as well.
Obama has been president for less than a month and has already turned some heads, including an executive orders he signed to close Guantanamo. He has also signed an ethics order that everyone in his cabinet must adhere to. Although these look good on paper and from the uninformed points of view, but if we only scratch the surface we can find problems with both of these things that Obama has done. He has no formal plan as to where the inmates of Guantanamo will go once it is closed. He also has appointed a person in his cabinet that has ties to lobbyists. Something that goes against his ethics order for his administration.
Barack Obama is pushing for his economic plan everyday. Meeting with both republican and democratic congressional leaders as well as speaking directly to the public, in effect to get public support.
The underlying problem we are facing is cyclic, we have gone past the point of no return, and I believe that anything we do at this point will not do much to stimulate the economy. Obama’s plan calls for lower taxes and more government spending (create jobs). I believe that lower taxes during these times is a great idea, but it won’t be very effective in terms of spending the extra money. Your average family still wakes up in the morning and sees the job reports coming out every month. A couple of weeks ago we lost almost 100 thousand jobs in a week. Nobody is going to go out and spend money. The mentality of the nation is to conserve wealth, not grow it.
The spending portion of Obama’s plan is supposed to create more jobs as well as send people a “stimulus” check. Again, sending people a few hundred to thousand dollars will not do anything for the economy and most people will just pocket it, I know I will. Creating jobs right now is a great idea, but let us look at the jobs that would be created. Jobs related to infrastructure, as well as alternative energy. Obama says that there will be some 4 million jobs that will be created that will not be outsourced. My only problem with this is that what will these workers do after the infrastructure jobs are completed? I can see the energy related jobs being there for a very long time only because energy is constant.
The real problem here is that jobs are being outsourced here at home. High paying jobs are being outsourced to people from outside of this country. Microsoft is increasing the amount of foreign labor they are bringing into this country via H1B work visas. Countries, such as India, hate this visa because it causes their domestic workers to leave their country of origin in order to work abroad. This globalization is causing workers in this country to be less appealing to companies because workers abroad are willing to work for much less.
Globalization is a huge dilemma that this country is facing. There really is no precedent for what is happening here because the US economy is now so intertwined with other economies. Almost everything we purchase these days is made from China. There needs to be a balance between the two nations in a trade agreement. I am sure that if we were to go to China we would not find as many made in USA products as we find made in China products here in the United States. What it all comes down to is cheaper labor vs. fair labor. Capitalism will always align with cheap labor because it will increase a companies profit margin.
In the short term, there really is not much we can do at this point. No matter how much money we pour into banks and corporations, natural selection will weed out those companies that should no longer exist and smaller/newer companies will be created to take their places. The only thing we can do is ride it out. It will not be fun or pretty but overall it is what will happen. I believe the government will try and spend money in order to increase consumer confidence, but I do not think it will change the fundamentals of what is happening these days. We are in a transition period and the only thing we can do at this point is wait it out and see what emerges in the next year or two.
So here it is. We are less than one month away from having an African American president. During Obama’s entire campaign, he told us that he will bring about change. Obama has become an icon for change by giving much of this country hope for the potential this country has for everyone. So I suppose it is only fair to ask what change will we likely see…if any?
To see whether Obama is about change, let us take a look at his newly appointed inner cabinet. Many of the members that Obama chose to be around him are former Clinton advisors including Rahm Emanuel, Bill Richardson, and Paul Volcker.
In respect to the economy, Obama wants to increase taxes, create more regulation, as well as bailout failing businesses. I do not agree with any of those proposals. Raising taxes during an economic crisis is change, but in the wrong direction. More regulation is not needed. What is needed is a complete overhaul of the SEC. The SEC is the problem when it comes to “regulating the market.” Bailing out failing businesses is useless. The tarp money that was issued to the financials was originally stated, by Paulson, to buy out bad mortgage assets at a premium rate. A month after that was said he comes out and completely changes the tarp’s purpose. Also, these companies use the tarp money to basically pay the executives their bonuses and vacation day spa’s (AIG).
Obama is the first African American president and that is change. We will have to see what Obama does in his first 6 months in office to see whether or not real change is coming in this country. I have high hopes for this administration when it comes to the progression of alternative energy as well as the progression of science. Both of which I feel has been stunted in the last 8 years by the Bush administration.
From what I have been observing and the people Obama is surrounding himself with, I feel that this administration can be named Clinton 3.0. Hopefully Obama will take the reigns on many of these issues and really do something new. Or hopefully these Clintonites will have something new to offer in this day and age. Ultimately it all comes down to hope, and I hope our president-elect keeps to his word and things change.
Barack Obama is the president elect. For the next four years, he will be our president. His election is not only a great step for African American’s, but it is a huge step for all minorities.
Listening to Obama’s speech last night, I thought it was strong and affirmative. When Obama was declared president elect, people around my neighborhood lit up fireworks and went to the streets in celebration.
Obama changed the entire election map. He won some of the reddest states including Virginia and Indiana.
McCain graciously stepped down. Except he obviously was not happy with how everything turned out. How can he be? I believe his downfall was his erratic behavior with how he handled the economic crisis as well as his pick of Sarah Palin. It undermined his message of experience over judgement. Palin was a great way to energize the base, but she turned away many independents (including me). I was open to a McCain presidency and I feel that if he had chosen Mitt Romney the ticket would have held much more credibility over the economic crisis. He did not do that and he chose Palin instead. I was open to her at first because I knew nothing about her, but as I learned more about her and watched her interactions I was deeply discouraged from accepting the ticket.
In retrospect, Obama ran a more efficient stable campaign. McCain had a huge hurdle to get over (Bush) and he did well given the circumstances (5 million vote difference in the popular vote). Obama is now our President Elect. McCain graciously stepped aside. Palin? you can be assured she will be back in four years this time, on top of the ticket.
It came out this morning that Barack Obama’s aunt may be an illegal immigrant. To everyone that wants to make an issue out of this hurray. I do not see how this has any relevancy to the election.
The aunt in question is from Kenya, the birthplace of Obama’s father. Obama has never been close to that side of his family. He only saw his father once. In recent years, Obama has gone to Kenya on two occasions to visit the country and meet his family there for the first time.
There are people that are saying that Obama and his campaign have something to do with getting her into the country. The Obama campaign has come out and repudiated these allegations. Obama is not stupid, people may disagree with him but the man is not dumb. He would not jeopardize his campaign in order to aide a distant relative of his, someone he barely knows.
I do not see this affecting the campaign or even being relevant to the election because she didn’t hurt anyone. She is not a bad person. She just doesn’t want to leave the country and go back to Kenya. I mean if you had to pick between any two countries you would want to stay here as well. It’s a no brainer.
This information was released basically on the eve of the general election. I suppose it is a bit odd given the timing of all of this. There are suspicions out there saying that Obama’s aunts name was leaked purposely to sway the election by either the Bush administration and/or the McCain camp. Nobody knows if there was any involvement by either, but it is possible. Of all the illegal immigrants names to be leaked, it is the relative of the democratic presidential candidate a couple days before the election. It does seem suspicious, but given the behavior of the Bush administration the last eight years, I wouldn’t hold it against them.
The Obama campaign just released their 30 minute infomercial. I must say in my opinion it was a success. The way it was filmed and presented was very inspirational, something Obama has been known for. He showed struggling families and how he would help them and improve their situation. For me personally, I don’t think I learned anything new about Obama.
Notice he did not say anything about McCain in the commercial.
My own opinion is that this was a very effective infomercial, probably one of the few that I have ever watched. I think the Obama campaign did a good thing. I don’t think it was over-kill or was too much. It was informative, well presented, and stuck to the issues.
Senator Barack Obama is going to run a 30 minute informercial tonight at 8pm. He has bought airtime on NBC, Fox, CBS, BET, Univision, MSNBC, and TV one. Each station is estimated to cost him a million dollars for the 30 minute spot. I am assuming Fox is charging the most because the World Series is pushed back a half hour to allow Obama to have his infomercial.
Obama is up in all the polls, up double digits in Pennsylvania but only up 4 to 6 points in Ohio and Florida. In my opinion the race will come down to these 3 states.
Do you think Obama’s infomercial is a smart move and will make a difference, or is it too much and will not make much of a difference?
Bill Griffeth is familiar to anyone who has watched CNBC. He is one of our long time anchors on "Power Lunch" and a steady star in the business news galaxy.
What do you do when you are pontificating about the national employment picture, self-importantly describing economic cycles and "jobless recoveries," and the person you are talking to informs you that they just got laid off?
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