Obama Outreach

Clearly there are flaws in the Obama Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Then again what law was ever perfect? President Obama is not receiving the bi-partisan support he had wanted.

If you watched any of the Sunday morning political talk shows the question of coming together for the good of the country was clearly kicked aside. The Republicans want to show that their opinion matters so they are taking a contrary position even if it is irresponsible. The Democrats have an overwhelming majority in the House and a near filibuster proof majority in the Senate. The President has taken the next step by going directly to the public. He sent me and everyone else on his email list an email entitled “What recovery means for you.”

Here is the body of that mail

The economic crisis is growing more serious every day, and the time for action has come.

Last week, the House of Representatives passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which will jumpstart our economy and put more than 3 million people back to work.

I hope to sign the recovery plan into law in the next few weeks. But I need your help to spread the word and build support.

It’s not enough for this bill to simply pass Congress. Americans need to know how it will affect their lives — they need to know that help is on the way and that this administration is investing in economic growth and stability.

Governor Tim Kaine has agreed to record a video outlining the recovery plan and answering questions about what it means for your community. You can submit your questions online and then invite your friends, family, and neighbors to watch the video with you at an Economic Recovery House Meeting.

Join thousands of people across the country by hosting or attending an Economic Recovery House Meeting this weekend.

The stakes are too high to allow partisan politics to get in the way.

That’s why I’ve consulted with Republicans as well as Democrats to put together a plan that will address the crisis we face.

I’ve also taken steps to ensure an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability. Once it’s passed, you will be able to see how every penny in this plan is being spent.

You can help restore confidence in our economy by making sure your friends, family, and neighbors understand how the recovery plan will impact your community.

Sign up to host or attend an Economic Recovery House Meeting and submit your question for the video now:

http://my.barackobama.com/recovery

Our ability to come together as a nation in difficult times has never been more important.

I know I can rely on your spirit and resolve as we lead our country to recovery.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

P.S. — If you can’t host or attend an Economic Recovery House Meeting, you can still submit your questions for Governor Kaine and then share the video with your friends and family this weekend. Learn more here:

http://my.barackobama.com/recovery

Paid for by Organizing for America, a project of the Democratic National Committee — 430 South Capitol Street SE, Washington, D.C. 20003. This communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

Highly respected economists on both the right and the left have stated that the government needs to implement a stimulus package very quickly. Representative Barney Frank, D-Mass., the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the bill was designed to help people who have been damaged in the economic meltdown as well as stimulate the economy. His words, “I never saw a tax cut fix a bridge. I never saw a tax cut give us more public transportation. The fact is, we need a mix.”

Republicans would do well to support this plan even if it’s not perfect. The alternative could easily mean another Great Depression.

California Government Incompetence

The California legislature is a failed institution. The LA Daily News says in today’s front page editorial that our Leaders fail to lead in crisis. The legislature has been deteriorating for at least the past 30 years. 1978 was the year that the “People’s Initiative to Limit Property Taxation”, known as Proposition 13, was voted into law. According to Wikipedia 64.8% of the voters gave a Yes vote to the proposal despite the fear mongering of elected officials that government services would be desimated. The legislature’s half hearted alternative to the proposition has not been forgotten. As a young family in our first home we saw our property taxes increase by 50% in one year. The savings and loan holding our mortgage raised our monthly payment into an impound account to pay the taxes by 100%. Of course we voted for that initiative. Our property taxes returned to their previous level the following year.

The power of one third of the legislature to determine the fate of this state’s fiscal condition was a well meaning but ill advised effort to control spending during the Great Depression. California has failed to balance its budget for at least four successive years. The public will feel the effect of this situation starting Monday, February 2, 2009 when public services are drastically reduced.

There really is only one way to change this situation. The state constitution needs to be revised. The Sacramento Bee reports that a Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) state wide survey indicates 54% of “believe that it is a “good idea” to change the two-thirds majority to a 55 percent majority.” I will gladly stand in front of Von’s and CVS to obtain the needed signatures.

A Fourth World Nation at America’s Door

Forty five years ago I went on a tour of Mexico City, Taxco, and Acapulco. I had a wonderful time. All three places were filled with interesting things to see and taste. An acquaintance from Mexico City says those days are gone now. It’s not safe to visit there anymore. The killing of a French tourist at the airport confirms her words.

A favorite place for sightseeing, when visiting San Diego, was Tijuana, Mexico. San Diego has a wonderful light rail trolley system that includes a ride to the Mexican border. You can board the trolley at the Old Town station and ride to the border gate for $2.50. It’s a bargain when you consider there is free parking at the Old Town station. At the border you walk over the boulevard on a pedestrian ramp, through a revolving metal gate and you are in Mexico. An easy 10 minute walk takes you to the main street of Tijuana. We don’t go there now. Many friends have also stopped visiting.

The Los Angeles Times has had too many stories of people being held up, kidnapped, and murdered in Mexico. The perpetrators are gangs. It is not just Tijuana, it is all of Mexico. A couple from Southern California liked motor homing to Rosarito Beach and San Felipe on the Gulf of California. After being held captive and being beaten they finally obtained their release. They have told their story on Los Angeles television. Check tours to Mexico and you will find there are none to Mexico City because the crime against tourists is too high.

Here is a quotation from the U.S, State Department about crime in Mexico

“CRIME: Crime in Mexico continues at high levels, and it is often violent, especially in Mexico City, Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, Monterrey, Acapulco, and the state of Sinaloa. Other metropolitan areas have lower, but still serious, levels of crime. Low apprehension and conviction rates of criminals contribute to Mexico’s high crime rate. U.S. citizen victims of crime in Mexico are encouraged to report the incident to the nearest police headquarters and to the nearest U.S. consular office.”

How different is Mexico from Somalia where the United States failed to bring any kind of peace? Remember “Blackhawk Down?” Somalia has no organized government. Mexico does. Somalia is the home of pirates that attack on both land and sea. Mexico has drug cartels that kill each other and anyone else who gets in their way. As reported in the Los Angeles Times the U.S. Joint Forces Command recommended that Mexico be monitored alongside Pakistan as a “weak and failing” state that could crumble swiftly under relentless assault by violent drug cartels.

February 3, 2009

The latest news is the unfortunate killing of three people outside of Cancun, Mexico.

An Alternate Career – Call It Plan B

My parents were correct when they pushed me to obtain a college degree. The fact that I was a graduate did enable me to stay employed all of my life. One day as I drove to a vendor, I heard Rush Limbaugh talking about having a job that could not be out sourced. He pointed out that service jobs would always be needed and they would require someone to visit a home or a business to be completed. There is always a need for plumbers, electricians and other services. I took his observation to heart and found something to do that requires my services on site. I am a notary public and prepare legal documents for my clients.

Just today I found this article posted on Careerbuilder.com.

By Rachel Zupek, CareerBuilder.com writer

In a perfect world, we’d all earn more money than we’d know what to do with. But, in such tough economic times, we have to be realistic.

The truth is, while earning an abundance of money would be ideal, those earning the average national income or even slightly above it, should consider themselves lucky.

It’s hard to feel lucky, however, when than the national mean average salary is $42,504 per year, according to the National Compensation Survey. It might not seem like much, but these days, it’s more than enough — or at least it has to be.

That’s why we’ve compiled a list of jobs that pay around the average, in the $40,000 range. If you can’t find a job earning enough to keep you comfortable for the rest of your life, at least you might find something to keep you comfortable for the time being.

Here are 10 jobs in various trades that earn around or more than the national average, and the industries with the highest levels of employment for each profession — aka, the places with the most jobs.*

1. Graphic designers design or create graphic layouts for books, magazines, newspapers, Web sites and other commercial or promotional needs.**

Qualifications: A bachelor’s or an associate degree

Industries with most job openings: Specialized in design services, publisher of newspaper, book, periodical and directory publishers, advertising

Salary: $40,000/year*BLS.
** Job descriptions provided by CBSalary.com and the BLS.

2. Precision instrument repairers fix and maintain watches, cameras, musical instruments, medical equipment and other precision instruments.

Qualifications: A high school diploma, in some cases post-secondary education.

Industries with most job openings: Professional and and supplies merchant wholesalers; electronic and precision equipment repair and maintenance; electronics and appliance stores.

Salary: $41,498/year

3. Medical and public health social workers offer patients and families psychosocial support to help cope with chronic, acute or terminal illnesses. They can also suggest caregivers, and counsel and educate the patient on his or her illness.

Qualifications: A bachelor’s degree, sometimes an advanced degree; state licensure.

Industries with most job openings: General medical and surgical hospitals, individual and family services, home health-care services.

$43,056/year

Salary:

4. Kindergarten teachers (except special education) teach young children basic science, music, art and literature, and encourage physical, mental and social development.

Qualifications: A bachelor’s degree from a teacher education program and a state teaching license.

Industries with most job openings: Elementary and secondary schools; child day-care services; individual and family services.

Salary: $43,394/year

5. Plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters put together, install and fix pipelines or pipe systems that carry water, steam, air and other liquids or gases.

Qualifications: Training in career and technical schools and community colleges, apprenticeships and on-the-job training.

Industries with most job openings: Building equipment contractors; nonresidential building construction; utility system construction.

Salary: $44,866/year

6. Dietitians and nutritionists plan diet requirements and determine nutritional needs for clients; manage meal programs and oversee meal preparation.

Qualifications: A bachelor’s degree and state licensure, certification or registration.

Industries with most job openings: General medical and surgical hospitals; nursing-care facilities; outpatient care centers.
$45,001/year

Salary:

7. Reporters and correspondents report and convey facts about newsworthy events to an audience via newspaper, magazine, radio, television or Internet.

Qualifications: A bachelor’s degree in journalism or mass communications is preferred, but some other majors are OK; internships are preferred.

Industries with most job openings: Newspaper, periodical, book and directory publishers; radio and television broadcasting; other information services.

Salary: $45,115/year

8. Bailiffs maintain the order and security in a courtroom and escorts jury members outside the courtroom to prohibit interaction with the public.

Qualifications: They vary by employer, but most require a high school diploma or equivalent, and some also require some college education or full-time work experience.

Industries with most job openings: Local government.

Salary: $47,502/year

9. Respiratory therapists administer respiratory care and life support to patients with breathing problems and other cardiopulmonary disorders, under the supervision of a physician.

Qualifications: An associate degree is the minimum educational requirement, but a bachelor’s or master’s degree may be important for advancement; state licensure.

Industries with most job openings: General medical and surgical hospitals; specialty hospitals (except mental or substance abuse); nursing-care facilities.

Salary: $48,033/year

10. Architectural and civil drafters prepare detailed drawings of architectural and structural features of buildings used in civil engineering projects like highways, bridges and public works.

Qualifications: Employers prefer applicants who have completed post-secondary school training in drafting, which is offered by technical institutes, community colleges and some four-year colleges and universities.

Industries with most job openings: Architectural, engineering and related services; residential building construction; nonresidential building construction.

Salary: $49,429/year

* Salary data according to the most recent National Compensation

Survey, December 2006 – January 2008, provided by the

Rachel Zupek is a writer and blogger for CareerBuilder.com. She researches and writes about job search strategy, career management, hiring trends and workplace issues.

More Restrictions of Trade

I wrote about Competition is Dying in America! on August 31, 2008. The merger of two multi-billion dollar companies is just another example of corporations gone wild.

No.1 drugmaker Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) is buying No. 12 Wyeth (NYSE: WYE) for $68 billion. Along with this buyout will be the elimination of an estimated 20,000 jobs and a reduction in competition.

Wyeth is a profitable company that saw its net income essentally flat between 2007 and 2008. The company has nine groups of products including Advil and Centrum. Pfizer has experienced a 90% drop in income. It is the maker of Viagra and Detrol.

So exactly how does this merger improve Pfizer’s situation? It doesn’t. The merger does not cure its Lipitor revenue losses and it does not put more new drugs into the pipe line according to industry experts.

There is no doubt about the elimination of jobs and reduced competition. The Business Pundit says, “Now you can buy your Advil, Centrum multivitamins, Preparation H, condoms, Lipitor, and Viagra from Pfizer. I can see their new logo now: We have the whole body covered.” I ask what happened to anti trust and monopoly laws?

A complete discussion of competition law is in Wikipedia. A summary of U.S. anti-trust three elements as follows:

prohibiting agreements or practices that restrict free trading and competition between business entities. This includes in particular the repression of cartels.
banning abusive behaviour by a firm dominating a market, or anti-competitive practices that tend to lead to such a dominant position. Practices controlled in this way may include predatory pricing, tying, price gouging, refusal to deal, and many others.
supervising the mergers and acquisitions of large corporations, including some joint ventures. Transactions that are considered to threaten the competitive process can be prohibited altogether, or approved subject to “remedies” such as an obligation to divest part of the merged business or to offer licences or access to facilities to enable other businesses to continue competing.

I doubt the Obama administration will limit these kinds of mergers. Lobbyists still hold sway over government. The media (newspapers, radio and television) ought to shine a beacon on these activities.

March 9, 2009

Update: more of the same M&A nonsense continue unabated. This link to another web site supports my views

You Murder You Die!

If Americans were serious about stopping the killings reported on the 6 o’clock news we would have already put laws into place that tell everyone “we mean business.” Swiftly carrying out the death penalty every single time would deliver the message.

The arguments about the use of the death penalty will never go away. Those who view the penalty as inappropriate for a moral and just society continue to offer the same worn out words that have always been used.

Hugo Adam Bedau in his excellent on-line article The Case Against The Death Penalty sums up all the arguments. “The American Civil Liberties Union holds that the death penalty inherently violates the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment and the guarantee of due process of law and the equal protection of the laws.” Bedau goes on to question the idea that the death penalty is not a deterrent, that there is an inherent unfairness because the penalty has been applied to Black people more often than White people, inevitability of errors, and offers contention of barbarity and retribution.

The problem with all these arguments is that most of those standing for those views have not been part of the devastated families that have lost family members to violence. It’s a loss of life that cannot ever be forgotten. Gangster killings are the most painful because they result in the loss of totally innocent lives. 4-year-old Roberto Lopez Jr. was shot and killed near his Los Angeles home in what police believe was gang violence. These are not just events that happen in Los Angeles. The husband of U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York was killed in the 1993 Long Island Rail Road shooting massacre. The killer was Colin Ferguson. He was sentenced to 200 years in prison, on February 17, 1995. The death penalty was established in New York State following the massacre.

Clearly I can kill in California without fear of actually being put to death. That is the problem with the death penalty. The process of actually going into a gas chamber takes a life time and many people have died of natural causes while awaiting the actual penalty. ACLU’s web site tells us why the death penalty has failed to deter murder.

My view is if you premeditate a murder the penalty is death. The only exceptions are self defense or the murderer is insane. The determination of appeals should not take 20 years.

Ethical Behavior

Perhaps the title should be “ethics” rather than ethical behavior. For our new president it all started with his Inaugural address when he said, “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.” Wow, that was just one part of a speech that sounded the intent to live up to the goals set by our founding fathers.

Barack Obama established standards of conduct just yesterday. He banned any member of his administration from accepting any lobbying job while the administration is still in power. He banned any member of his administration from accepting any gifts at all from lobbyists. He banned all administration appointees from being able to work on policy issues that could affect their former bosses or clients for a minimum of two years. After issuing this very ambitious regulation Mr. Obama chose William J. Lynn III to be deputy secretary of defense. The problem is that Mr. Lynn’s was employed as a lobbyist for a defense contractor this past year. Boston Globe reporter Bryan Bender reported a waiver would be made for Lynn.

Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner said Wednesday he was careless in failing to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes earlier this decade but declared “I have paid what I owed” and apologized to Congress. The explanation was that it “was an honest mistake.” Mr. Geithner told a Senate hearing committee that he “takes full responsibility.”

After all the claims of transparency by the president and signing various executive orders in a public manner he quietly without press presence signed an order allowing federal money to go to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information.

There is no doubt that Mr. Obama seems to want to be an ethical person. The problem is he is also a political person. The result is he will not be the “mightier than thou” person that we dreamed about. He can still be successful but there will be many enemies.