Tuesday, January 31, 2012

OUR MISLEADING PRESIDENT

I was going to write a further review of the Presidents State of the Union Message. As I continued to read the speech, finding it so full of rhetoric and appeal to emotion, I came across a hugely misleading, out of context statement by the President. His comments are an attempt to make a laughing stock of the capacity of the average American to think for himself.

He spoke about how the CEO of Master Lock told him it made good business sense to bring jobs back home to America. He states that his unionized plant in Milwaukee was running at full capacity. Sadly, these are facts:

1. MASTER LOCK SENT JOBS OFFSHORE IN 1999 PUTTING AN ESTIMATED THIRTEEN HUNDRED UNITED AUTOWORKERS OUT OF WORK.

2. IN 2011, MASTER LOCK ANNOUNCED THAT 36 JOBS WERE BEING RETURNED FROM CHINA TO A PLANT THAT WOULD NOW EMPLOY LESS THAN 400 WORKERS.

3. MASTER LOCK SAID IT WOULD CONTINUE TO WORK WITH THREE CHINESE FACTORIES AND ABOUT 25 CHINESE SUPPLIERS AND WITH MEXICAN WORKERS NEAR THE ARIZONA BORDER DOING LABOR INTENSIVE WORK.

How absurd to use a small company that belonged to a tobacco company as an example. I can't believe that we will accept such flimsy contextually dishonest information from this President. He is good with words, but he almost never good with truth.

Friday, January 27, 2012

BLOG OF THE DAY..

President Obama referred to the GI Bill of Rights in the State of the Union speech. This highly partisan President did not make it clear as to certain facts about the origin of the bill.

1. Harry W. Colmery, the former REPUBLICAN National Committee Chairman wrote the first draft of the GI Bill of Rights.

2. Elizabeth Rogers, REPUBLICAN of Massachusetts is considered by many the "Mother of the GI Bill."

Isn't it interesting how the President presented this subject as if it was a democratic party achievement only?

Information primarily by Wikipedia.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

COULD PRESIDENT OBAMA EVER MEET A PAYROLL?

When I read Obama's State of the Union message I remain flabbergasted by the flowering concepts and the total lack of ideas. Obama makes the statement that for the first time in nine years there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. He makes this statement as if its some type of accomplishment, but it's nine years later and time for this to end...anybody would know that.

He talks about the death of Osama Bin Laden while Egypt,Yemen, Syria and parts of Africa continue in total disarray. He speaks out of context as to reality. He compares the financial institutional problems to our American Armed forces, as if dying in combat can possibly belong in the same sentence as the housing crisis. He states that our Armed Forces are not consumed with personal ambition. Nothing could be further than the truth since many of our Armed Forces desire growth, opportunity and higher rank. He makes it sound as if the only ones that focus on the mission at hand are the Armed Forces. Words, not truth. He has never served in the Armed Forces and probably knows very little about the highly structured disciplined regime of the "enlisted man".

He talks about leading the world in education and offers no suggestion as to how to take our people out of the fields of poverty and low paying jobs in so many industries in this country. He speaks of an America that attracts high tech industry and high paying jobs with no specific ideas.

He wants to be in control of our own energy. Great! So why brag about pulling our forces out of the Middle East and complaining about the tax depletion allowances granted by Congress to incentivize the exploration of oil.

What in the world does his Grandfather being in Patton's Army have to do with the GI Bill. The GI Bill did not come into existence because his Grandfather was in Patton's Army. When World War II came the Germans were certainly way ahead in the quality of their Armed Forces equipment.

His family may have been optimistic people but before WWII the unemployment rate was approaching 20%. Whether you like it or not it was the War that brought the unemployment rate down.

Poverty stricken blacks and whites did not understand they were part of "something larger". They knew nothing of contributing to a story of success. Many were even children of the "dust bowl". They were struggling to survive.

The idea of raising a family, owning a home, going to college and putting a little away for retirement was the early attempt to raise one's standard of living. He is right when he says there is a shrinking number of people doing well not a growing number of people.

To imply that most Americans don't get a fair shot and that some groups of people don't do their fair share and that most don't play by the rules is again just words and if put to the test for facts, would be totally bogus. In general, you can't compare the SAT results of a first generation immigrant from South America to a family that has been through several generations in America.

I'm only on page two of the speech. I could keep going on since Obama's thinking on almost every part of this speech is analytically incorrect. I don't want to bore you anymore today.

Friday, January 6, 2012

ISSUES FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION...

It's well known that our democracy is some kind of mixture of everything. In today's world the Internet has given a venue where millions of us, (including me), have been provided with a forum for words, words, words. The words have become a cover up for solving the critical issues of our time. We have been able to function under the protective umbrella of the words "well at least we are better than any other system", even if those systems are failing on a multitude of levels.

An article in a renowned northeastern newspaper stated that there has been a significant increase in the tax auditing of the so called well to do. I'm not in favor of the tax cheats and certainly have no objection to a comprehensive and fair auditing of anyone.

Unfortunately the "left wing liberal elite" do not call auditing successful people profiling. The plain fact is that auditing any group, compared to any other group, is plain old profiling.

Lets assume you had two children, one stood on their own two feet and did whatever a kid was expected to do in acceptable terms. The other was a recalcitrant, lazy bully. The parents, cowering in fear of the bullying child, turns on the other child out of fear of antagonizing the negative one. Somehow this is backwards. Obama's mantra was change. What many of us assumed was he meant change in facing the real issues. That would have meant auditing rich and poor equally.

Almost in a reflection of desperation of these thoughts there has been a recent increase in the number of doctors filing for bankruptcy. You vote, predicable...yes or no. Two thousand pages of Obamacare...how many people in this country knows what it says? Profiling under the guise of auditing and a health care program that's losing our doctors are both examples of government behavior where the election is more important than doing the job right.

As I said before, labor's lack of flexibility has destroyed major American industries. Now the mighty "Union of Government", will over time, eat away at the underpinnings of people's desire to excel. Along with this we are now seeing the beginnings of a decline in our military establishment which will just be another industry driven to retreat by the misplaced but "feel good" attitude of our populist politics even when the results are negative. Declining relative military strength, along with declining relative economic strength, are the historical prescription for long term relative standards of living weakness.
 

Shepard Osherow. All Rights Reserved