How do you satirize a minority president?

Although Barak Obama is bi-racial I suggest here that being bi-racial is more of a minority than many other minorities. With that said, through time and memorial, presidents have been satirized by having their physical attributes comically emphasized or having their words transitioned into double meanings. This has always allowed the American people to take a less serious view and a more relaxed view of the office of President. I believe, along with several other measures of reasonable tolorance, the practice of political satire against the President has come to an end.

Miracle on the Hudson...Now What

Interesting how much time and attention the media spends on keeping negative stories alive.  If the Miracle on the Hudson was more like a disaster the media would be all over it.  I am not saying that there was not a lot of coverage but the story has not had the same legs as other negative stories.  My assertion is that the reason why it has not had the "legs" is because the media is not propping it up.  Instead they are delving into the pasts and family lives of the crash victims from the flight into buffalo.  They are centering their stories around pilot error and talking with surviving spouses and children.  Why are they not doing pieces of the survivors of the the Hudson Miracle?

Disturbing!

Do you feel like a coward?

I think that there is a portion of the population obsessed with race to the degree that they seek out racisim everywhere. I never truly believed the race debate would be politicised within this administration. Furthermore I do not believe now is the time to label Americans "cowards" no matter what the reason. Talk about shock and awe, I am shocked and awed at the fact that these high level individuals have such a disdain for what America is.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/mitchell/2009/02/attorney_general_eric_holders.html

The Financial Times is reporting a fair view of the impending situation

America is ready to toughen up and pull up our collective boot straps but it seems as though the current administration thinks we need to be patted on the head and told everything is okay. Here is a piece from the Financial Times and it looks at both what we are doing and what we would and have told other countries to do in similar situations.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9ebea1b8-f794-11dd-81f7-000077b07658.html

Food for thought on the differences

Here is an interesting though I had in relation to the two distinct sides of the stimulus package as presented by the media.

The main stream networks are targeting the investment of the stimulus package. Investments such as infra- structure, government programs etc...

The opposing media perspective is that in order to pay for the stimulus you and I, essentially the bank of the tax payer, will have to fund this long term with interest. Moreover part of the package is an increase of up to 3% on business payroll taxes. Even at one percent that would devastate the capital economy.

If you're a 1099 worker and you pay quarterly taxes, you pay a portion of it to state & federal payroll taxes which is then allocated across the spectrum from workers comp to unemployment etc. Funny though if you lose your wages most 1099 claims for unemployment are denied even though you paid your taxes to have them. (personal experience)

Now on an average scale if you have a large company with 30,000 employees making an average of $30,000 each a year that is a payroll of 900,000,000 .00. What do you think my board of directors is going to do if you raise my payroll taxes 1%? (9 mil) RIF (reduction in force) the transferable jobs over seas...2% (18 mil)RIF the jobs and real estate, manufacturing etc overseas.. 3%? (27 mil)Look for a buyer who will combine efficiencies and maybe retain 5 to 10,000 employees. Now apply that to small business and big business like GE, Siemens, Alcoa etc...

Bottom line from last night is this. Mr. President, How are you going to measure whether this is working? "I will measure by saving or creating 4 million jobs" Which is it and how do you measure whether or not you have saved a job?

President Obama is a smart man and capable President but I think he is being bulldozed by Congress and unfortunately is hanging his Presidency and legacy on a Hail Mary pass that from what I can surmise he probably wouldn't throw willingly.

Getting ready for the biggest sale ever! almost 1 trillion!

I will be interested to see how the media covers the Obama address related to the proposed stimulus.

I fully expect it to be long on rhetoric and short on details.

I think part of the plan should allow Americans to cut a check to the governmen't each month instead of the confiscatory approach now in place.

What would this achieve one might ask? The answer is simple: When people have to spend anywhere from 18 to 38 percent of their earnings (those who earn enough to pay taxes) for government operations they will start taking a harder look at what they are getting for their money.

Hold on to your hats and glasses people, we're in for a bumpy ride!

Would be interesting to see the details, you know...where the "devil" is

Yesterday it was announced that any of the banks taking government money will need to limit exec. pay to 500K. This is a reasonable proposition but in practice will most likely result in what is know as an operating environment. An operating environment is similar to a non profit but what actually happens in an operating environment is the company gets bigger and bigger but returns nothing to the market. For example if I ran a non profit charity and made 1Mil. in collections and have a charter to distribute 40% to charity then I have 60% (600K) to run my operation (salaries, expenses, fixed costs etc.) As my non profit gets bigger 2Mil. sure the 40% figure goes to 800K but my operation, which may not have gotten any bigger, is now collecting 1.2Mil to allocate as noted above.

What does all this mean???

It means this: Executives will take the 500K and have an unlimited expense budget which they will use to "Operate" the business and every other aspect of their lives. They won't buy big houses they will lease them, they won't buy a jet they will lease it. The company can decide what they will allow the Exec. to expense...Groceries? sure it really doesent matter what they actuall expense what matters is that their accountants sort through what can be written off to uncle sam (us) and what the company has to absorb.

So the Exec. keeps and banks every dime of his 500K and his expenses for FY 09 were 12 million of which the company wrote off 2 million and absorbed the other 10 million.

Funny though the company only made 12.5 million...so what's coming back to us?

We all know the answer to that one.

Media is praying on the weak

I am not sure we all agree on this one but I have several friends, contacts, colleagues and clients that do agree...The media is making the current instability in the economic situation into an unstable emotional response from the public.

People make decisions based on emotion and justify their decisions with logic...that we know is human nature. Until now we would get our logical justifications from multiple sources we considered credible. Primarily the sources we choose are the easiest ones to source and what's easier than having the media come to you to tell you what to think about?

Here I present something I learned: Think of the idea of a "trim tab" a trim tab is the small rudder inside the larger rudder which allows large ships (cruise liners, freighters, QEII etc...) to begin the task of turning the rudder. In life we need to be trim tabbing for the future that is to say making the right small moves that will transgress into larger moves that are positive for our collective future.

If we continue to let the media paralyze us with fear pretty soon even our trim tab will seize and we will be heading right toward the iceberg. The media may be licking their chops for that moment but when no one can buy the products from the advertisers they will be reduced to handing out mimeo-graph news stories or worse yet, type-set news papers which no one will pay for anyway.

Why so much interest in siliencing differing opinions

I find it interesting that although the majority of the media consider themselves moderate and yet promote a liberal agenda are interested in silencing talk radio and/or fox news. I consider this a dangerous situation. Any time the minority (right wing labeled talk radio or fox news) has to suffer the tyranny of the majority: CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, Most major Hollywood studios etc...these is a crussing of dissenting ideas and speaking out become punishable. I know both sides of the political establishment feels the same way but only when they are not in power: see link




http://www.thelandofthefree.net/conservativeopinion/2008/11/11/the-right-to-disagree/