Obama Radio Address 1-10-09

Once again Obama is setting the stage for taking a bad economy, making it worse, and claiming success. 

Excerpt. 

We start this new year in the midst of an economic crisis unlike any we have seen in our lifetime. We learned yesterday that in the past month alone, we lost more than half a million jobs a total of nearly 2.6 million in the year

In 10 days we’ll officially be under Obama’s thumb, with his party also controlling both houses of Congress.  When these policies turn a crisis into a catastrophe, they’ll try to blame the Republicans, but it’s going to be all on them.  He claims economists from “across the spectrum” insist government must intervene, but these two economists must not be in Obama’s spectrum.  The two researchers from UCLA studied the Great Depression and determined FDR’s approach (whose lead Obama is following) actually made things worse.

Noticeably absent was any mention of the conflict in the Middle East–no mention of Iraq, no mention of the Israeli-Hamas conflict, nothing on foreign policy at all.

Weekly Radio Address 12-24-08

This weeks address was actually given on 12-24-08, called a Special Holiday Message by the Obama camp.  I’ll call it a Chistmas Eve Address.

Obama praises our troops and their families for their service to the country.  He actually says he and Michelle have them in their “prayers this Christmas.”

He follows this saying the spirit that will guide his administration is the philosophy “I am my brother’s keeper.”  This appears to reference the “spread the wealth” comment that caused him grief on the campaign trail.  His “common purpose” and “shared citizenship” do nothing to relieve the concerns we have of the libs’ new Golden Child marching us straight into Socialism.

We’ll soon find out what part of “the greatest country on Earth” he wants us to join with him “to change it.”  January 20 is rapidly approaching.

Obama Weekly Radio Address 12-20-08

As usual, preceded and followed by the shameless ad as Obama continues to seek financial gain from his position as POTUS-elect, here’s Obama’s radio address from last week.

This week, Obama stresses that government policy will return to science based policy, “especially when it’s inconvenient.” He announces his appointment of Dr. John Holdren as “Assitant to the President for Science and Technology.

What he doesn’t say, or at least doesn’t put into words, is we’re going to make a concerted effort to break any ties America may have with those pesky principles associated with the Judeo-Christian belief system. You see, that’s what the left really means when they try to convince you the right doesn’t support the advancement of science and technology.

The left attempts to ridicule opposition to stem cell research, human cloning, and global warming as the result of some right wing conspiracy to suppress knowledge, ignoring the fact that all of their theories on these issues are nothing more than conjecture and reactionary responses. They also refuse to acknowledge that unfettered access to capital to explore them poses real risk of results that would be as harmful as those they envision would be helpful.

Well, enough of that rant. Here’s your weekly radio address by President-elect Barack Hussein Obama.

Weekly Radio Address 12-13-08

In all the excitement last week with the Illinois Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich charged with trying to sell Obama’s vacated Senate seat, I missed the radio address this week.

Better late than never, here it is:

Not surprisingly, the President-elect never mentions his corrupt pal being arrested.  He pretty much rehashes what he’s been saying for weeks–let’s stay focused on the mortgage crisis.

No mention of the Big 3 bailout either.  His entire message boils down to you’re hurting and I’m the healer.  I have no idea how I’m going to heal you, but you can believe I’m going to heal.

Funny thing is he’s still not offering any specific details on HOW to fix the problem.  Once again he says he’s directed his team to develop a “bold plan” to remedy the situation.  Translation–he still doesn’t have a clue how to fix the problem.

He did announce his pick to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Shaun Donovan.  The President-elect claims Mr. Donovan will bring new ideas and solutions, but it seems he’s another Obama appointment with strong Washington ties.  He was the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multifamily Housing at HUD until 2001.

Mr. Donovan also worked as managing director of its FHA lending and affordable housing investments at Prudential Mortgage Capital Company until 2004, when he was appointed Commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development.  In other words, he was directly involved in creating the current mortgage crisis.

Scandals before he even takes office and his long-touted change consists of Cabinet appointments with strong Washington ties.  Repeatedly telling us his team is working on a plan, but offering no concrete details of what it will consist of. 

Is this really what voters thought they were getting when they elected this guy?

Weekly Radio Address 12-6-08

It’s time once again for President-elect Obama’s weekly radio address. So here it is.

After the recent announcement that over 500,000 jobs were lost in November, the economy is once again the focus of this address. This time though, he stresses the point that his economic team will develop a plan that will help main street and Wall Street. That’s the first time I’ve heard that. He’s always slammed Wall Street before this. You know, help the poor screw the rich (what he considers rich.)

You’ll also hear a broad overview of his plan for the recovery. If he’s successful in getting it implemented, it’s going to make Roosevelt’s New Deal look puny. He plans on dumping tons of money to fix roads and schools, upgrading federal buildings to make them more energy efficient, get broadband access to everyone, and put more computers in the schools. Whew! That’s a lot to accomplish.

I have one question. Where’s the money coming from? Look out ladies and gentlemen, it has to come from somewhere.

I was wrong, I have another question. How is he going to stem the tide of illegal aliens coming into the country so that American citizens get all these jobs?

Weekly Radio Addresss 11-29-2008

The President-elect gives a special Thanksgiving message and once again turns his attention to the economic crisis. Finally, he seems to be getting it when he states that recovery will come because of the hard work and dedication of Americans.

Weekly Radio Address 11-22-08

It appears the President-elect’s radio addresses will continue to be posted to YouTube. Here’s this week’s address.

 

The address is primarily a rehash of his Emergency Economic Plan laid out in his Blueprint for Change. I previously analyzed the plan in this post. However, the campaigning Obama has evolved into the soon-to-be-in-office Obama. Gone is the Obama who, if elected, would immediately turn the tide and repair our diseased economy. Welcome to the elected Obama who now says we’re going to feel more pain, things will get worse before they get better. Well, at least we now know he is facing the reality of the situation.

He goes on to say that he’s already directed his economic advisers to come up with a plan to create 2.5 million jobs by January 2011. In his Blueprint for Change, he states he already has a plan to save 1 million jobs that might soon be lost and he states he already has a plan to create another 7 million jobs over the next 10 years. That was the if-you-elect-me-I-will Obama. The soon-to-be-in-office Obama now says details of the plan will be worked out in the next few weeks.

This sounds so Roosevelt-esque. I’ve said it before though, and I’ll say it again, Roosevelt’s New Deal didn’t get us out of the Great Depression. It did put people to work and boost morale, but real economic recovery didn’t begin until WWII. Take a look at this chart.

Click to view larger image.

The market peaked in October 1929 and didn’t reach that peak again until November 1954. That’s during a time when people took whatever job they could find. Our economy is in for a long hard road I’m afraid, and New Deal style programs aren’t going to solve the problem.

It remains to be seen if Americans today will take a job “rebuilding our crumbling roads, schools, and bridges” after they’ve lost their jobs in air conditioned work spaces. Most people who’ve tried to hire folks from the unemployment office to work manual labor can tell you things are different today. I’ve tried and been told “it’s not worth it.” For this program to really work, there will have to be an ultimatum–take the job or no check! The options will have to be work or starve.

The President-elect refers to schools that are failing our children. I teach in the schools and I can tell you there are teachers who are failing our children, but the problem is much deeper than that. I won’t make excuses for bad teachers and administrators, but I will say that many good teachers are driven from the schools by apathetic children and uncooperative, unmotivated parents.

If you haven’t been in a high school lately, take a walk through and look at the shape your local school is in. If you see graffiti or property destroyed, guess who is causing the destruction. The students, because so many of them have no respect for themselves, authority, or anything else. Now, guess where that attitude comes from. The parents, who have become so accustomed to government handouts that they don’t respect themselves or anyone else. I’m all for ensuring teachers are doing their jobs, but if you want to really fix the problem with schools you’re going to have to change the culture of the students, and their parents. That’s not going to happen with more government handouts.

Obama says he wants cooperation between Democrats and Republicans. In the past, bipartisanship generally means the minority party succumbs to the will of the majority. Call me a cynic, but I don’t think that’s going to be one of Obama’s changes.

Brace yourselves ladies and gentleman for a long, hard road on the economic front. We the people have overspent to get ourselves into this mess, buying things we couldn’t afford and over-leveraging ourselves to a point that demands a swift kick to the backside. Our political leaders should have seen it coming, and most probably did, but they looked the other way because their only concern was getting re-elected. How we survive this mess, and if we survive it is up to us. Obama can’t save us, no politician can. He’s bracing us for this now that the election is over.

“It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

I do believe that.

Weekly Radio Address

It appears this will be a weekly occurrence, President-elect Obama’s weekly radio address has been posted on YouTube. I’ll post them all here under the topic heading, “Radio Address.” Here’s the video:

Our President-elect began by praising President Bush for initiating a meeting of the G-20 nations’ leaders to address the ever-growing global economic crisis. I don’t know what they’re going to accomplish. I’m going to hazard a guess that there will be a lot of finger-pointing and laying of blame. Most of those fingers will likely be pointed at the U.S., laying the blame on our country.

This is one pill the Democrats have always had a hard time swallowing–when you’re the most powerful nation on the face the Earth, the majority of the rest of the world is going to hate you. How many times have we heard them say we need to restore our world standing, make the world like us again? Ultimately, I expect these leaders to devise a plan to spend a lot more money on a lot more government programs and come away without really accomplishing a thing.

I was completely surprised to hear Obama say one thing though, Americans are going to have to sacrifice as we work ourselves out of this crisis. That said, I think his definition of sacrifice is different than mine. In my opinion, that sacrifice will involve driving older cars, living in smaller homes, eating out less, giving up luxury items like boats and other toys, not going on vacation, buying off-brand groceries and clothes, etc. I have all ideas his definition is to pay more taxes.

In fact, he rehashes part of his plan to work through this crisis that will require massive increases in government spending. His ideas sound similar to FDR‘s work programs of the Great Depression. The difference between then and now is the work ethic of the American people. In FDR’s time, we didn’t have the entitlement programs that encourage people not to work. It was either work or starve.

One thing I hear mentioned over and over is a plan to create jobs by rebuilding our transportation system. In my experience, there are a lot of people in this country who would rather sit at home, watch Oprah and draw a government check than work on a road construction crew. It’s hard, hot, and physical work.

He states that we’ve neglected rebuilding this infrastructure for far too long, but haven’t we all been inconvenienced by road construction on busy freeways? I’m just not buying this idea that we haven’t been addressing the problem of crumbing roads. I know in my state we’ve seen plenty of road construction that seemingly never ends.

I hope he can inspire the American people to truly make the sacrifices that will be required to not only survive this crisis, but to emerge from it with the same can-do spirit that our elders had. That spirit involved not only a willingness to work and achieve, but a desire to do so. In my opinion, that’s what we’ve lacked in this country for a long time. We have far too many people too willing to accept a hand-out instead of accepting a job. I’m afraid that spirit will never return as long as there’s a government check in the mailbox.

Another problem we’ll have to address if he implements this New Deal style program is the illegal alien situation. What good is it going to do American workers if the majority of these jobs go to illegals? And, if he implements it on anything close to the scale he’s indicating, we’re likely to see an increase in the number of illegals flooding our country in response. If this occurs, the problem will be compounded, not resolved.

I fear his recovery plan is flawed. Let’s not forget that Roosevelt’s measures didn’t end the Great Depression. In fact, the only thing they accomplished in the short term was to improve Americans’ morale. What finally pulled us out of the Depression was WWII and our role in the subsequent rebuilding of Europe and Japan. Hopefully it won’t take that to get us out of this mess.

Well, he’s going to get his chance. Let’s see what he can do.