After a spell of writer's block and a short vacation, Duffy is back at again. Let's listen in as he opines on Obama, the federal deficit and fraud and waste in government spending......
Duffy is of the opinion at President Obama should now acknowledge that he "owns" all the problems he inherited when he came into office. To continue to blame Bush and the Republicans for all his problems 10 months after he was inaugurated is to put it mildly, annoying and repetitious. The American people elected Mr. Obama to fix the problems, which by the way, had been building over the past 20 years since even before the Clinton administration. Enough already! Bush's war, Iraq, is going a lot better than Obama's war, Afghanistan. The bailout funds are creating their own problems by getting out too slowly and the American people are starting to realize that 787 billion of "stimulus" funds and certainly not improving the lives of most Americans as The Great Recession continues to grind on. This economy is yours Mr. Obama, along with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Duffy, for one, sure as hell doesn't want to hear anymore about "the problems we have to deal with from Bush" talk. Dude, we elected you to fix the problems!
Two weeks ago it was announced that the 2008 fiscal year Federal deficit was 1.42 trillion dollars. That's "trillion" folks, as in 1,000 billions. This was 2 1/2 times greater than 2007 which also set a new record and as a percentage of GDP was the second highest on record since 1943 when the U.S. was in a little thing called WWII. For the average person, these numbers are meaningless. A $1,000 bill would get Duffy's attention but a trillion dollars? Duffy can't even comprehend that number. But what it does mean for all you 30 somethings that I hope are reading this, is that two things are almost guaranteed to happen sooner rather than later. One, your taxes are going up. Way up. (and we're not even counting universal health care) and two, your standard of living will probably stay the same or even decline in the years ahead as the cost of money, for everything, is going to increase substantially as interest rates rise to pay for all the new bonds the federal government will have to issue to pay for all this debt. Duffy is very leery with the Democrats in charge that serious efforts will be made to reduce the deficit in the years ahead, even though, in one of the few good things that Clinton did as president, was work with Republican to cut spending, raise taxes and reduce the yearly deficit to the extent that this country had surpluses for 3 years in the late 90's. 1.42 trillion. That's a HUGE number that will have serious consequences for this country in the years ahead. Liberal Democrats seem to care less.
Duffy recently read some articles about all the fraud and waste being discovered in various federal stimulus programs. You think? Who would have guessed? When "free" money (i.e. tax payer's money) is being thrown out in such programs as "Cash for Clunkers" and the $8,000 tax credit for new home buyers, you can bet that lots and lots of people are scheming to get at those dollars. The rule of thumb is that about 10% of funds are lost to fraud and waste in any government program. So that's 78.7 billion of taxpayer money obtained through fraudulent means if the stimulus funds are all spent. I'm sure that 78 billion will be spent on something to aid the economy it's just the wrong people will be spending it. Like flies around honey, any federal program that dispenses money to "help the citizens", a portion will be siphoned off to fraudsters and crooks. Count on it. The arrests and trials will start soon.
The World Series starts soon. Yankees and Phillies. Will the rest of the world care? Until next time.....
Monday, October 26, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Cash for Clunkers, Health Care & more on Obama
This week Duffy decided to comment on three topics of interest. As a postscript to the Cash for Clunkers program, the September auto sales figures are out. They show a 5% decline for Ford, 42% for GM and a whopping 45% for Chrysler, just what Duffy predicted would happen. Chrysler just fired two top executives and the top sales executive for GM resigned yesterday. Rats jumping (or being thrown) off a sinking ship? Time will tell. Duffy is somewhat of an automotive buff and feels that Ford has the best selection of vehicles of the Big 3 with Chrysler the worst. Duffy expects that within a year 10 billion in taxpayer money will be flushed when Chrysler declares bankruptcy, this time for good. I doubt if Obama will try to save the company again. Duffy recently drove a Ford Fusion for 10 days while on vacation and was highly impressed with the car. Looked great, rode well and got about 33 mpg overall! Check it out. Meanwhile GM is too big to fail and it might not be until 2015 or ever for the taxpayers (you) to get your $50 billion back.
Duffy has been following the health care debate closely and doesn't like what he sees. A mishmash of compromise, consensus and confusion that will achieve little towards universal health care and cost the middle class billions in tax increases. The bill refuses to touch tort reform which is a big cost driver and will impose severe cost reductions on Medicare which will change the program for the worse and impact on seniors, in spite of what Obama says. Duffy would like for the whole thing to go away and to start over next year but the Democrats and Obama are determined to get a bill, any bill, no matter bad it is, passed. If passed your taxes will go up next year, count on it! And to require every American to have health insurance or else that person is fined by the government is, in Duffy's opinion, unconstitutional as hell and will be quickly taken to the courts.
Duffy woke up this morning to see that Obama won the Nobel Peace prize. Duffy is curious as he doesn't see any peace breaking out anywhere but the left leaning liberals of the Nobel Committee evidently felt that Obama's emphasis on "engagement", "talking" and "extending the hand of America" to one's enemies apparently shows great promise and potential. Duffy remembers when Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace prize and look how looney he's gotten in his old age. Duffy accordingly takes this with a grain of salt. But this prize will certainly be one more thing to inflate Mr. Obama's self-esteem.
Finally, Duffy believes the best philosophy he has ever heard is simply the Golden Rule, "treat others as you would like to be treated yourself." A corollary is this rule, "put yourself in the other guy's shoes." Duffy has tried to keep those principles in mind his whole adult life and if you do the same, believe me, it will help you a lot, both in business and personal relations. Some of Duffy's greatest deals in business were made when he "put himself in the other guy's shoes". Joint understanding often leads to the best solutions.
Have a great weekend!
Friday, October 2, 2009
"Change" now and "Hope" for the best
Duffy has been watching our new president for nine months now and even though he still wonders "how did this guy get elected president?" nevertheless he is our president until 2012 or longer. So, a few comments: First of all, Duffy personally likes Obama. He knows how to give a speech. He is smart. He is charismatic and has supreme self-confidence. He has a beautiful wife and two lovely children. He appears to be devoted to his family and seems to be a an upright guy. He is not an narcissist like the last Democratic president, who was in Duffy's opinion, a sociopathic liar and a all around sleazebag. That said however:
Obama ran as the "Not Bush". Duffy didn't vote for Obama but he wasn't terribly upset when he won. Maybe a new face, new change was in order after eight years of the Republicans. Duffy suspects that Obama and the Democrats think they were elected to make sweeping changes while in fact, the people just wanted Bush out of there! After McCain torpedoed any chance of winning by picking Sarah Palin, the Democrats probably could have run a kumquat for president and won. A lot of people liked Obama. They liked Bush less. And McCain took himself out of the running with his pick of Palin and the collapsing economy.
Duffy still believes this country is fundamentally right of center and conservative. Obama made a big mistake right out of the box by deferring his entire legislative package to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Pelosi is the most left-wing ultra liberal partisan Speaker of the House in history and Reid is a political hack owned by the unions and not respected by anybody. Obama's experience, such as it is, consisted on less than three years as a U.S. Senator where his legislative accomplishments consisted of....nothing. The man really is still a neophyte to Washington. Only now does he realize that he needs to get personally involved in the legislative process. Duffy thinks that most of Congress, including most of the Senate and many in the House, including not a few Democrats, have no fear of Obama. He is not a head-cracker like Lyndon Johnson. Obama fundamentally doesn't appear to want to get into the middle of the process and "get dirty". Duffy doubts if Obama ever played football or rugby.
Obama needs to quit apologizing whenever he makes a trip overseas. The U.S. has little to apologize for and the American people are getting tired of it. Obama's "new openness" in foreign policy is in Duffy's opinion naive at best and silly at worse. The dictators and bad guys don't care if Obama is "open" with them or not. They take it as a sign of weakness and no amount of talking to Iran, North Korea or even Israel is going to change their ways. Words followed by action is a lot more effective than words and then more words. Hilary Clinton is probably the "toughest" person in the administration and Duffy suspects that most foreign governments don't respect her very much either. Talking and talking will buy you some time but won't change any minds. Obama's self-importance and belief in his own ability isn't going to get him far in foreign affairs.
Duffy has noticed that Obama is somewhat thin skinned. He doesn't take criticism easily and seems to overreact to perceived push backs from people who aren't impressed with his arguments. This could be a self-damaging flaw that manifests itself later in his administration. Moreover, Obama needs to realize that if something he says in Peoria is the opposite of what he said in Portland the day before, the press and public are going to call him on it.
In spite of all his flaws Duffy thinks there may be hope for Mr. Obama the rest of his administration. A few things he needs to do: 1) Tell Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid that he is calling the shots from now on with legislation. 2) Enough of Bush bashing. Obama is president now and the people don't want to hear anymore about "fixing Bush's problems". 3) Tell the truth. A tax is a tax, not a "fee". The people know the difference. 4) Obama doesn't need to give a speech every day. Be on every talk show. Be on Letterman. That only demeans the office of the presidency and after a while people start tuning you out. 5) Quit apologizing every time you go over seas. Enough is enough and most people don't like their president apologizing to tinpot dictators. 6) Make decisions. Grow a backbone. Be a president, not just act like one. 7) Make a decision about Afghanistan and stick with it. Indecision and ineptness about Vietnam ruined Lyndon Johnson. 8) Fix the economy first. Health care and the environment can wait. Take some time and work with the Republicans to get it right. Finally, 9) A lot of the people elected you because they were sick of Bush, not because they especially liked you. You need to understand that the U.S. is still a conservative country. Even though Clinton was a scumbag he was smart enough to switch back to a middle of the road legislative program and did work with Republicans to get things done to get reelected. Duffy hates to say this, but be more like Clinton and less like Pelosi and you may get something accomplished in the next three years.
Obama ran as the "Not Bush". Duffy didn't vote for Obama but he wasn't terribly upset when he won. Maybe a new face, new change was in order after eight years of the Republicans. Duffy suspects that Obama and the Democrats think they were elected to make sweeping changes while in fact, the people just wanted Bush out of there! After McCain torpedoed any chance of winning by picking Sarah Palin, the Democrats probably could have run a kumquat for president and won. A lot of people liked Obama. They liked Bush less. And McCain took himself out of the running with his pick of Palin and the collapsing economy.
Duffy still believes this country is fundamentally right of center and conservative. Obama made a big mistake right out of the box by deferring his entire legislative package to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Pelosi is the most left-wing ultra liberal partisan Speaker of the House in history and Reid is a political hack owned by the unions and not respected by anybody. Obama's experience, such as it is, consisted on less than three years as a U.S. Senator where his legislative accomplishments consisted of....nothing. The man really is still a neophyte to Washington. Only now does he realize that he needs to get personally involved in the legislative process. Duffy thinks that most of Congress, including most of the Senate and many in the House, including not a few Democrats, have no fear of Obama. He is not a head-cracker like Lyndon Johnson. Obama fundamentally doesn't appear to want to get into the middle of the process and "get dirty". Duffy doubts if Obama ever played football or rugby.
Obama needs to quit apologizing whenever he makes a trip overseas. The U.S. has little to apologize for and the American people are getting tired of it. Obama's "new openness" in foreign policy is in Duffy's opinion naive at best and silly at worse. The dictators and bad guys don't care if Obama is "open" with them or not. They take it as a sign of weakness and no amount of talking to Iran, North Korea or even Israel is going to change their ways. Words followed by action is a lot more effective than words and then more words. Hilary Clinton is probably the "toughest" person in the administration and Duffy suspects that most foreign governments don't respect her very much either. Talking and talking will buy you some time but won't change any minds. Obama's self-importance and belief in his own ability isn't going to get him far in foreign affairs.
Duffy has noticed that Obama is somewhat thin skinned. He doesn't take criticism easily and seems to overreact to perceived push backs from people who aren't impressed with his arguments. This could be a self-damaging flaw that manifests itself later in his administration. Moreover, Obama needs to realize that if something he says in Peoria is the opposite of what he said in Portland the day before, the press and public are going to call him on it.
In spite of all his flaws Duffy thinks there may be hope for Mr. Obama the rest of his administration. A few things he needs to do: 1) Tell Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid that he is calling the shots from now on with legislation. 2) Enough of Bush bashing. Obama is president now and the people don't want to hear anymore about "fixing Bush's problems". 3) Tell the truth. A tax is a tax, not a "fee". The people know the difference. 4) Obama doesn't need to give a speech every day. Be on every talk show. Be on Letterman. That only demeans the office of the presidency and after a while people start tuning you out. 5) Quit apologizing every time you go over seas. Enough is enough and most people don't like their president apologizing to tinpot dictators. 6) Make decisions. Grow a backbone. Be a president, not just act like one. 7) Make a decision about Afghanistan and stick with it. Indecision and ineptness about Vietnam ruined Lyndon Johnson. 8) Fix the economy first. Health care and the environment can wait. Take some time and work with the Republicans to get it right. Finally, 9) A lot of the people elected you because they were sick of Bush, not because they especially liked you. You need to understand that the U.S. is still a conservative country. Even though Clinton was a scumbag he was smart enough to switch back to a middle of the road legislative program and did work with Republicans to get things done to get reelected. Duffy hates to say this, but be more like Clinton and less like Pelosi and you may get something accomplished in the next three years.
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