Have We Heard From Hillary?
In reading all the back and forth commentary on whether Caroline Kennedy should be seriously considered for the senate seat that Hillary will vacate if appointed as Head of State, it seems that Senator Clinton is silent on the matter. Now it’s not unusual for a senator vacating their seat to weigh in on potential replacements so one has to wonder what Hillary really thinks.
While Senator Clinton had to be disappointed at Caroline’s backing of Obama, can that be part of the silence? Or, perhaps it is just that Hillary isn’t going to back a woman without any iota of relevant experience despite the famous last name. Hillary is too savvy to get caught up in a silly game of political tit-for-tat.
In the end it’d the governor’s decision to make. Governor Paterson seems to be unimpressed with Caroline when caught with the retort, “How is she a front-runner?”
Obama Sets Job Goal Higher
After being briefed that the nation’s unemployment rate could increase to 9% today, it’s reported that President Elect Obama is now looking to create or save up to 3 million jobs. This is a half million more jobs than he had set as a goal last month and now 3 times what he pledged during his election run.
The number coincidently covers the expected number of future job losses now being forcast as the economy continues to wallow in what is now the worst recession in decades. While admirable to want to keep the nation employed, one has to wonder if these notions are a bit to simplistic. For one, it ignores the fact that the skills of the people now losing jobs may not come close to what is needed in the government manufactured ones. Moreover, the concept of bring major government projects aimed at increasing employment to actually getting folks employed quickly is unrealistic.
The unpleasent truth is more likely that we are going to struggle for another year or two before the economy begins to right itself.
Obama - The Unpleasent Side of Life at the Top
President Elect Barack Obama is now finding that life ‘at the top’ is tough and not always manageable with his considerable charisma and intellect. Last week the outrageous story of Illinois governor Rod R. Blagojevich was accused of trying to sell the Illinois Senate seat that Obama vacated with his presidential win. It didn’t take long before the media started to question what, if any, contact and/or participation Obama himself or his staff may have had with Blagojevich in the process.
Now it would seem that there would be some conversation by someone on Obama’s staff that could be entirely innocent but as Obama and his organization are learning the hard way, the stench often sticks to everyone.
What’s more interesting than this potential scandal for Blagojevich and anyone he may have included in his schemes (even the innocents) is that how Obama and his staff were so unprepared for handling the scandal. Now for any other president elect, this would have been unheard of. But in this writer’s opinion, Obama was largely untouched by anything unpleasent during the campaign. Aside from the brief rucus over his choice of church with it’s contraversial pastor, Obama was left alone. Kind of weird.
Case in point is the purchase of his family home and the entwined sale of part of the property to a questionable ally from a political perspective. While I won’t bother to recap all the details of the transaction here, suffice it to say that it had far more damage power than Senator McCain having to admit to ownership in 7 homes. McCain got slaughtered and Obama got nothing.
It was only a matter of time after Obama won the election that something would come up. This has nothing to do with Obama and his integrity but the reality of running a huge staff in which it’s impossible to know, much less direct every action of every person. And it has to do with the large number of news outlets and this country’s love of ‘dishing up the dirt’ on people.
Ironically Obama who ran on the premise of the best of America is now going to have to learn how to deal with the worst. As I stated at the top, LIfe at the top does have its unpleasent side.
Does This Sound Odd to You Too?
In a recent news article I read today on Reuters.com, the focus was on how we may go into a depression from the current recession. Now the premise of this argument was that the recent and significant fall of oil prices is a bad thing.
Are you kidding me?
A much needed easing of one of the principle expenditures in any individual’s budget is now a bad thing. Forget how the sky high prices were making us all cut back our driving and cut back on other discretionary expenditures, that supposedly is not as bad as getting this price break on gas.
The arguement is that “the swift fall in oil prices is now lowering the absolute level of consumer prices and bringing with it likely declines in nominal GDP over the next three quarters.”
Well isn’t that only a potential rollback of the steep incline we just saw during the first 3 quarters of this year? Moreover I say ‘potential’ because many companies absorbed the price increases for a period of time before they started to raise their prices. To say that they now will decrease prices is a bit of a stretch.
Of course if you bought the first arguement you could then buy the second which is that “Falling prices would cut demand and discourage employers from hiring.” But really if prices came down significantly that would incent consumers to, well, consume again. And there is a core demand in the economy that won’t be easily shut down.
With government bail outs for the financial industry and probable for the auto industry, two hard hit sectors are getting some relief. And with Obama’s likely proposals to spend on infrastructure and maybe a tax cut, the economy won’t pull out of the recession anytime soon but sure won’t sink into a depression.
Has the Money Gone Out of Trash?
OK this is not one of those subjects I tend to spend much time on but in watching the evening news I saw this short spot on how there isn’t the money there used to be in recycling. Kind of a bummer really when you think about it. Many of us need a bit of encouragement to ‘do the right thing’ - especialy businesses. If we can incent them to dispose of trash in an environmentally friendly manner, all the better.
If businesses go from making money by recycling to having to pay for pick up, one has to wonder if they’ll start to opt for just sending it to the landfill. That would be unfortunate. Regardless of what you believe about the cause of the worsening of our fagile balance here on Earth, we should all do the right thing to keep our planet not just good for our lifetime but good for the multitude of generations to come.