Recession? What Recession?

On Monday, I planned for a day of yard work. The weather was supposed to be nice so I figured it would be a good day to move a few shrubs I planted a few years ago and hated how they looked as they got bigger. After I dug the 2 shrubs out and replanted them – it took less than 45 minutes – I decided to head over to the local Lowes store to check out what I could put in their place. It was before 10 AM, and usually on a Monday the stores are somewhat empty, even considering my hometown is one of the largest retail cities in the state of Ohio.

Well, I was in for quite a shock, because the Lowes garden area was packed - packed! – with people. Not only that, my ride down the city’s main drag to get there was also clogged with traffic, more so like it is at noon on a Saturday. I blew threw the store and saw nothing I liked, well, at least nothing worth standing in line for a long time to buy it. So I hopped onto the freeway and headed to the nearest garden center in the adjoining city, and found that at 10:15 they were also packed - packed! – with people. (Doesn’t anybody work anymore?) I made my purchase (two very nice large golden thread cyprus) and stood in line for about 15 minutes. I found myself wondering, if this is what this place looked like on a Monday, it must have been a zoo on the weekend.

On the way back home, I stopped at the local Wal-Mart, and one would have thought it was the day after Thanksgiving. The lot was jammed with cars, and again I had to stand in line for a while to make my purchase. On the way home, the main drag was even more crowded than when I was first driving it at 10 AM, and as I glanced over to the parking lots at the local Kmart and other stores in the area, they appeared to all be filled with cars.

Clearly, there is no recession in my hometown. People still seem to be very willing to spend money, whether they have it or not.

Granted, my one experience is not necessarily what it is like everywhere else. News of a community much like my own that is about 25 miles away just got word that their local Chrysler plant is closing. This will deal a severe blow to that city for sure. So while I may bemoan the traffic, the crowds, and standing in line, I realize that I am very fortunate to live in a city that can still draw big crowds to shop and spend money, along with a large business corridor to help bring in jobs and more tax dollars. What has happened to cities that are very dependent on one industry for support will hopefully teach others that they can’t put all their eggs in one basket. It seems clear that the decline of the auto industry will continue to affect other cities across the country until they find their way to economic stability. In the meantime, I will be thankful that I live somewhere where people still seem to have money to spend.



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Rush Limbaugh: Put a Sock in It!

I try not to watch Fox (Faux) News. But I was "forced" to do so on early Sunday morning in order to get an update of the news. By the way, don’t watch Fox for news because you really don’t get news. I didn’t watch the show too long, because they were too busy lathering high praise on Rush Limbaugh, and deciding what they wanted to deep fry on the show. Of course, that was after they lathered a lot of praise on themselves, with Clayton Morris , one of the weekend morning hosts, being one of the most self centered people on television. He can’t seem to go one minute without bringing the focus back on himself. He wanted to deep fry his tie, and he must have mentioned this 10 times in one half hour. I don't recall getting any news.

But I digress.

On Saturday, Rush gave a speech at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) and put out a rallying call to his fellow Republicans. If I heard correctly, the speech was supposed to last about 20 minutes, but Rush went on for 90 minutes. (That’s the definition of a blowhard in my dictionary.) I listened to part of the coverage of Rush’s speech and all I heard were the rantings of a bitter man whose party lost the big prize in the presidential election. He’s so upset about it that he seems to want the president to fail. He denied this, though, and in his speech, Rush addressed this issue by saying, "This notion that I want the president to fail, this shows you the problem we've got. This is nothing more than common sense and to not be able to say it? Why in the world do I want what we just described: rampant government growth, wealth that is not being created yet is being spent? What is in this, what is possibly in this that any of us want to succeed? Did the Democrats want the war of Iraq to fail? Well, They certainly did. And they not only wanted the war in Iraq to fail they proclaimed it a failure.... They hoped George Bush failed. So what is so strange about being honest and saying I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation?"

Rush forgets the key fact that President Obama inherited the economic mess that we are in today. He hasn’t even been in office for 60 days. It was the Bush administration that let the economy spin out of control, and the Bush administration that began the bank bailouts. Now with banks even teetering further, taking other industries and jobs with it, there really aren’t any easy choices to make. In Rush’s case, I didn’t hear him offer any alternative plan, and as far as I know, he doesn’t have one except to say that he doesn’t think Obama’s is the right one. Personally, I have some minor issues with the stimulus plan, but I also know that something needs to be done to jump-start the economy, and fast. I don’t profess to be an expert in economics, so at some point I have to have some trust in our leadership that they have a general idea of what they are doing.

If the Republican Party is trying to re-invent itself in order to capture more voters in the next presidential election, people like Rush Limbaugh aren’t the ones to do it. He may very well appeal to a subset of conservatives, but the Limbaugh-style rhetoric isn’t what voters responded to in the last presidential election. Somehow, I think that many Republican leaders also wish that Rush would just zip it for a while. Rush is perfectly free to say what he wants – but he has to remember one thing – the American people are free to tune him right out.




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Government Employees Aren’t Sacred Cows

A headline on the front page of today’s USA Today says ”Benefits neglected for civil retirees.” It goes on to say that “State and local governments have set aside virtually no money to pay $1 trillion or more in medical benefits for retired civil servants, a USA TODAY survey found. With bills coming due as Baby Boomers start to retire, states, cities, school districts and other governments may be forced to raise taxes, cut benefits or both — a task made especially difficult in an economic downturn.”

This should not be a surprise. With the economy facing the hardest times it has in years, a person would be naive if they didn’t think it would only affect the “private” sector. I entered the workforce in 1973, when there was a mild recession going on, and I was lucky to get a job. I was also lucky that same company sold products that were viewed as being somewhat recession-proof. In fact, the company managed to do very well in that economic downturn, and many downturns to follow. Our “retirement” plan was called profit sharing, where the company would annually throw a pittance to the employees who were vested in the progam, to be held in an account that could not be touched until they retired. (This eventually turned int0 our 401-k program, where the employee was responsible for his or her own contributions to their retirement program.)

I also worked at that same company during the years where companies tried to maximize their profits, so any time there was any “softness” in the economy, jobs were cut in order to make the profit goals. We took the approach that there were no “sacred cows” and that in order to make the business as lean and mean as possible, there wasn’t any one job, person, product, or function that didn’t deserve scrutiny. It seemed year after year, while many public and privately held companies continued to get leaner and leaner by job and compensation cuts, that out city, state, and Federal government agencies got fatter and fatter and their benefits more out of touch with most non-government companie.

Now, during this severe recession, there is no safe place for anyone to hide. With the taxpayer footing the bill for a much needed bank bailout and a stimulus package, it can’t be expected that the taxpayers will have unlimited deep pockets. Something has to give. While auto workers – current and retired – are going to have to take a hit in their jobs, pensions, and medical benefits to get government relief, the government should also take a look at itself and see if its own compensation practices are out of line with the norm. Personally, I think the autoworker’s pensions and benefits are very rich, and I also think the governments are just as rich. I no more want to use my hard earned and dutifully paid tax dollars to go to bloated union pensions as much as I want them to go to bloated government agencies and their pensions and benefits.

So while I can certainly feel sorry for anyone who is suffering job loss or loss of income as part of this economic downturn, I don’t think our government agencies should be immune from also facing the same challenges and associated cost reductions that currenly face non-government entities. This may be the perfect time for our government agencies to cut out the bloat and save the taxpayers some money. I voted for Barack Obama because I wanted change, and getting rid of waste in the Federal government expenses could be the first place to start. There are no sacred cows.



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A headline on the front page of today’s USA Today says ”Benefits neglected for civil retirees.” It goes on to say that “State and local governments have set aside virtually no money to pay $1 trillion or more in medical benefits for retired civil servants, a USA TODAY survey found. With bills coming due as Baby Boomers start to retire, states, cities, school districts and other governments may be forced to raise taxes, cut benefits or both — a task made especially difficult in an economic downturn.”

This should not be a surprise. With the economy facing the hardest times it has in years, a person would be naive if they didn’t think it would only affect the “private” sector. I entered the workforce in 1973, when there was a mild recession going on, and I was lucky to get a job. I was also lucky that same company sold products that were viewed as being somewhat recession-proof. In fact, the company managed to do very well in that economic downturn, and many downturns to follow. Our “retirement” was profit sharing, where the company would annual throw a pittance to the employees who were vested, held in an account that could not be touched until they retired. (This eventually turned int0 our 401-k program, where the employee was responsible for his or her own contributions to their retirement program.)

I also worked at that same company during those same years where companies tried to maximize their profits, so any time there was any “softness” in the economy, jobs were cut in order to make the profit goals. We took the approach that there were no “sacred cows” and that in order to make the business as lean and mean as possible, there wasn’t any one job, person, product, or function that didn’t deserve scrutiny. (I was lucky to survive many cutbacks and was there 28 years until I decided I’d had enough of the cut-cut-cut mentality and one incompetent boss. But I digress.) It seemed year after year, while many public and privately held companies continued to get leaner and leaner by job and compensation cuts, that out city, state, and Federal government agencies got fatter and fatter.

Now, during this severe recession, there is no safe place for anyone to hide. With the taxpayer footing the bill for a much needed bank bailout and a stimulus package, it can’t be expected that the taxpayers will have unlimited deep pockets. Something has to give. While auto workers – current and retired – are going to have to take a hit in their jobs, pensions, and medical benefits to get government relief, the government should also take a look at itself and see if its own compensation practices are out of line with the norm. Personally, I think the autoworker’s pensions and benefits are very rich, and I also think the governments are just as rich. I no more want to use my hard earned and dutifully paid tax dollars to go to bloated union pensions as much as I want them to go to bloated government agencies.

So while I can certainly feel sorry for anyone who is suffering job loss or loss of income as part of this economic downturn, I don’t think our government agencies should be immune from also facing the same challenges and associated cost reductions. This may be the perfect time for our government agencies to cut out the bloat and save the taxpayers some money. I voted for Barack Obama because I wanted change, and getting rid of waste in the Federal government expenses could be the first place to start. There are no sacred cows.



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John McCain Gambles With American Ecomony, and Loses

CNN is reporting that “The House's failure to pass a $700 billion bailout package Monday not only held back billions for Wall Street, but also was a major blow to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign."

No kidding.

If you recall, John McCain announced last week that he was suspending his campaign to go to Washington DC to help negotiate a solution to the economic crisis. The only truth in that statement was that he went to Washington DC.

He didn’t really suspend his campaign. His ads continued to show in print, on television, and on the Internet for his campaign. He also sat out most of the delicate negotiations on the sidelines in his campaign office, although he did meet with the president along with others, including Barack Obama who was also invited to the meting and who didn’t have to suspend his campaign to attend.

McCain also wanted the debate postponed, but we all know it didn’t happen the way John wanted.

Despite McCain’s efforts, whatever those really were, 133 House Republicans voted against the bailout. The stock market reaction was swift, with an immediately dive, later finishing at the end of the trading day with the largest point drop in history of 777 points.

But McCain’s response to the matter was to blame Barack Obama for the failure, saying that Obama just wanted to "phone it in" .

According to the same CNN article , “Terry Jeffries, a Republican strategist and CNN contributor, also said McCain may have hurt himself among conservatives by losing sight of his party's free-market principles…."I think that John McCain failed to lead," Jeffries said. "He should be right there pushing the principles, and the conservatives in the House are doing that right now."

John McCain gambled not only with his campaign, but also with the fragile economy on which the American people depend. If he wanted to gamble with his campaign, that’s fine with me. But his actions only appeared to interject a political tone into an economic issue, and McCain’s efforts seemed to have a negative effect and may have actually hindered the resolution.

I can’t pass judgment on the “bail out” bill itself. I know that something must be done to bring confidence back to the country’s banking system. I hope that our elected officials begin to put their own politics aside and try to work out a solution quickly. But I hope that John McCain steers clear of any of the negotiations, since it’s clear his kind of help is not what the country needs.

Barack Obama We Can’t Afford to Gamble



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