Obama’s State of the Union Address – January 27, 2010
Last night on national networks president Barack Obama read his State of the Union speech. I am so fed up with politicians, including Mr. Obama that my wife and I decided to watch the Food Network channel on cable. At least one is able to polish cooking skill instead of getting irritated with a bunch of empty promises and lies delivered by career politicians that somehow believe that their statements and actions are good for the USA and most important sustainable. This is definitely not the case. We need to have accountability enforced to refrain these individuals.
Early this morning I checked the news and read a few articles regarding last night’s presidential speech. I kind of liked the structure of an article by USA Today (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/01/obamas-promises-verbatim/1). I am taking the bullet points from the speech and commenting on them.
Bank Fees. The only thing that will happen with this approach is that banks will pass them on to their Naive American consumers. This is just a cost of doing business. Bank fees, not a good idea.
A jobs bill. Unless you are planning on creating additional bureaucracy (such jobs are paid by tax payer moneys which are in a decline and do not produce desirable goods or services) that will keep on destroying the US economy how are such jobs going to be created? Are Naive Americans going to build roads and install green house equipment in business and homes for people that cannot afford it or is the government going to subsidize the purchase of Chinese equipment to offer low paying jobs to Naïve Americans? A jobs bill, not a good idea.
Job loans and tax incentives. Not sure from where the $30 billion which you are planning to use came in the first place. Given that the US economy is in shambles that money must have already been loaned to us. I guess delaying repayment would be OK if small businesses are the true recipients of the funds. In the history of America small businesses have always provide the source for innovation and growth that we have been accustomed to. The government should treat small businesses that have ideas, products and services that are desirable not only in America but also worldwide, as saviors and gods. Innovation and wealth does not come from large companies. It comes from acquisitions of small businesses by large ones. The Obama administration needs to provide huge amounts of funds in the form of grants, loans and tax incentives to create new and to help grow small businesses. That said I am not referring to small businesses that just sell goods manufactured in foreign countries (e.g., bike shop, car dealer, etc) or simple services (e.g., restaurants). Job loans and tax incentives might be the first good idea of the Obama administration, but do not hold your breath on the implementation.
New Wall Street regulations. The regulations that have been past are completely ineffective. What is needed are new, effective and simple laws that will put caps on what Wall Street is doing. For example, cap the total compensation of all executives to the same salary as the president of the USA. Bonuses must come from stock of stockholders approved by the board of directors and all stockholders. This way the pressure to perform will be there and bonuses will not be given to incapable executives. Most executives are business and accounting majors who have not an idea on how to develop and sell desirable goods and services. Get rid of them. New Wall Street regulations that way you have them, not a good idea.
Energy programs. I do not know if you or your staffs of advisors understand the energy issues in our country. The main energy issue is with oil and gas we purchase from other countries. For each Dollar we pay in energy to a foreign country we get back a few dimes with goods and services we export. This is why we have trillions of Dollars in our trade deficit. The electric car is the only proven, feasible and available technology, which will improve our economy in a foreseeable future. The issue is that major corporations hire lobbyist that have paid off and continue to pay off career politicians to kill such a great idea. Other sources (e.g., fuel cells, natural gas, etc) are extremely more expensive for the Naïve American but have huge benefits to car and oil companies. Your energy programs, not a good idea.
Education. Education is one of the pillars for the success of any country. That is what made the USA what was a few decades ago. Since the 1950’s education in our country is getting worse by the minute. The K-12 schools have turned into expensive day care organizations paid by taxpayers. The main issue is that this has been going on for so long that most Naïve Americans are not capable to understand what is going on. To pot it off we have unions which hire lobbyist to pay off career politicians. On the next level we have colleges that are teaching Naïve Americans skills that are not in demand in a high tech economy. The courses and degrees offered by most universities have been declining through the years. Just stop at campuses in universities and you will see that for the difficult degrees (i.e., science and engineering) enrollment has declined and most students are foreigners. Why would someone spend considerable time and effort to find that most well paying jobs are outside the US? A major overhaul in the education system in this country is needed. Nice buildings and better-paid incompetent teachers do not help produce better professionals. Education as you propose, not a good idea.
Healthcare. In the past few months Naive Americans have heard enough of your preposterous plan for healthcare reform. What we need is a system that is free for all Naive Americans. We need to get rid of healthcare insurance companies. We need to make accountable healthcare providers and companies (including drug manufacturers) to make sure they are properly compensated for their efforts but do not enrich themselves (high executive salaries and bonuses, high stock dividends) at the expense and suffering of Naive Americans. Simple and clean law could address healthcare reform in a very short period of time. Healthcare as you propose, not a good idea.
Debt and deficits. Freeze on government spending is a must. The problem is that national security spending is out of control. When you have a bomb proof truck that costs a million Dollars that can be disabled with a $10 Dollar explosive charge, simple math is against us. Wars only benefit the companies that make weapons and equipment used by the military. War does not produce benefits for the Naive American. War just brings pain. You are proposing to get a bipartisan fiscal commission of career politicians paid by lobbyist to address this issue. How could that work? Debt and deficits as you propose to address, a bad idea.
Government and election reform. This is not a simple task. You are proposing career politicians paid by lobbyist hired by well-funded special interest to address the issue. I am starting to think that my two-year-old grandson has better ideas than you do. The simple approach to this issue is to outlaw any and all political contributions. Outlaw lobbyist. Make accountable organizations, individuals and politicians for accepting bribes and punish them with ten years of mandatory prison for each offense. Problem solved. Your proposed Government and election reform, one more bad idea.
Disaster response. History has proven that the USA is not prepared for disaster response. Each time something happens we find more and more flaws. We need to come up with simple and relatively fool proof mechanism to prevent and if they do happen to aid Naïve Americans in stress. Before just throwing money it would be best to evaluate what we have today, eliminate issues and then come up with mechanisms to help us with nuclear and bio terrorism. That said I would like to bring up a simple idea that is used in good engineering. Go after the cause of the problem, not the side effects. For example, if the hard disk in your computer system is failing, do not start modifying the software to address the failing disk symptoms, change the disk. In the 1940’s the world (with perhaps two exceptions) loved the USA. Since then most countries dislike the US and many are just plain enemies. Today we cannot count with the fingers in our hands enough countries that are truly our friends. We all know the reasons for this. Instead of addressing them we declare wars that kill innocent people. Disaster response, as presented, not a good idea.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. This is a touchy and politically loaded issue. If you have served in the military you probably have a better opinion as I have. Our country at this point in time has so many long term serious issues that are rotting our society to its roots that issues with gay people is like saying that you are on your death bed and are discussing the color of your sheets. Bringing this topic us appears to be just a political maneuver to get support from lobbyists. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell a completely irrelevant issue at this point in time.
Immigration. Completely in agreement that our immigration system is broken. We need incentives for intellect to come to the USA to study, create small businesses and hopefully to integrate and make America their home for them and generations to come. That is more important that putting up a wall and spend resources patrolling the borders. If people and companies do not offer jobs to illegal aliens then the problem is solved once and for all. If the government does not provide a single benefit to illegal aliens then they will not want to be in the US. America needs to bring in the best of the world for them to integrate and make their lives here. Immigration a good idea but so far the implementation has been poor to say the least.
In conclusion Mr. Obama rehashed promises that were used in the presidential campaign but that have not become reality in over a year in office. What America needs are CHANGES to the core. If we do not do this we will continue to fall into the abyss.
