This isn't going to be MUCH of a defense of George W. Bush. He has the distinction of being the only Republican candidate for president I ever voted against. I think he was a man of limited ability, with few discernable accomplishments in life that weren't related to being politically and economically connected.
He campaigned dirty... I know this because John McCain's illegitimate black baby told me so. He had no qualms about besmirching the military service of a decorated war hero, like John Kerry, while soft-pedalling his own lack of service in combat.
He was fiscally liberal and socially conservative, whereas I'm fiscally conservative and socially liberal. He was, basically, everything I didn't want in a politician.
Those are his faults, which have been pounded on again and again by the press. However, he wasn't without some redeeming qualities, and in contrast to the Obama administration, those qualities stand out more starkly.
First, he took his job and took responsibility for it. The statistics show that 9/11 wasn't actually much of an economic calamity. In fact, it was just the low point of the internet bubble implosion. Bill Clinton had the advantage of having the bubble of his presidency implode just a few months after he got out of office. I don't remember the Bush administration, once, blaming the difficulties they faced on the previous administration.
The Obama Administration? A year later is still blaming the Bush Administration. If you're not man enough to take ownership of the job, you don't deserve the job. Bush was man enough. Obama isn't.
Second, he won wars. With the smallest fighting force in generations, Bush deposed a murderous dictator, and changed regime in a country that facilitated the terrorist attacks of 9/11. When the Democrats screamed that the surge wouldn't work, Bush plowed ahead, anyway, and brought Iraq under control. When Bush left office, Iraq and Afghanistan were both under control, only waiting for an end-game that would tie up the loose ends.
Obama has actually managed to put the victory in Afghanistan in peril. That was the war Obama thought was a JUSTIFIED war! Imagine if Iraq hadn't been brought so soundly under control.
There is nothing more disheartening to a combat troop than to be half a world away, with your life in peril, while those at home do all they can to undermine your success. Bush won wars. Obama was handed two theaters of operation that were under control and has lost control of one of them, with little progress in the other.
Third, Bush knew how to run the congress. When Bush wanted something, he put his machine in gear and got it. A completely unfunded Medicare prescription bill? Against almost everything the Republican party stands for? He got it. Any vote related to Afghanistan or Iraq? He got it.
Right now, people are rightly frustrated that the Democrats control both houses of congress and still can't get anything done. The Democrats are basically offerring that yeah, numerically they control both houses, but they can't get the disparate political interests within their party to agree on anything. Bottom line: Democrats can't lead and they can't get things done.
Some older members of the Democrat Party speak wistfully of the time in 1980 when Ronald Reagan came into town and rolled the Democrat congress. Obama is no Reagan. In fact, he's not even George W. Bush. He can't even get his own party in line.
Want further proof that Bush could manage politicians? When the current economic crisis hit, he called McCain and Obama into the Oval Office, briefed them and both of them left, determined to continue Bush's policies in regards to the crisis. Now, I disagree with the handling of the crisis since all we did was mortgage our kids' futures to provide bankers bonuses, but you can't deny: on this issue Bush controlled McCain, and he rolled Obama.
Fourth, Bush was brutalized in the press, but ignored it. He plowed ahead. Never complained, never explained. The Obama administration, despite a completely gaga-infatuated press that loves him dearly, goes beserk any time anybody criticizes anything.
I recently read a very well-informed opinion by an auto industry insider that spelled out how the cash for clunkers program actually cost the taxpayer about $24,000 for every additional new car that got sold.
http://www.edmunds.com/help/about/press/159446/article.html
The Obama administration's response? Attacked the the piece, directly.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/10/29/busy-covering-car-sales-mars-edmundscom-gets-it-wrong-again-cash-clunkers
I was astounded. These guys are so used to the press simply rolling over and giving Obama anything he wants, they lose their minds when actual investigative journalism takes place.
(As a final note on the topic, here is Edmonds rebuttal:
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/10/31/edmundscom-fires-back-at-white-house-cash-for-clunkers-slam/ )
Maybe not the same as Nixon's "Enemies List", but... well... along the same continuum.
Bush was able to accomplish all he accomplished in spite of an unfriendly press. Obama controls the media and can't tolerate dissention or analysis by the press.
Fifth, Bush had the good sense not to try and inflate his unearned accomplishments. Near as I can figure, his actual accomplishments in life were that his father got him into the Air National Guard and he got his pilot's license. He got legacy admission to Yale. He got into Harvard based on wealth and political connections. He used his family's money to run an unprofitable oil company. He used his family's money to buy the Texas Rangers. He was apparently, a competent governor of the State of Texas.
Of all those opportunities, he got in the door based on family connections and not because of merit. Yet, you never heard him mention anything about any of those things. Really, regardless of how he got those things, they're all pretty impressive. Fighter pilot. Yale / Harvard. Oil man. Baseball team owner. Governor.
Obama? Honestly, the way the guy wears his laurels is bordering on shameless. Bush may have gotten his leg-up in life the old-fashioned way, by buying it, but Obama came up during a time of the most eggregious uses of affirmative action. Obama is a Columbia / Harvard man. However, it's pretty clear that he was nothing but an underachieving pothead at Occidental college before being accepted as a transfer student to Columbia. That's a heck of a leg up in life.
Obama doesn't appear to have ever demonstrated any real professional success, but was given book deals as a law school student and as soon as he was elected to the state legislature, he was on speaking tours all over the country. America needed a poster boy, and Obama was it.
Even when he won the Nobel Peace prize, he and his followers shamelessly acted as though it was somehow based on merit. Months later, when he sent an additional 35,000 combat troops to Afghanistan, the irony escaped them.
Seems to me that both men got a lot of advantages in life that they didn't earn. One was based on wealth and political connection. The other was based on the color of his skin. Thing is, Bush never pretended that he earned the things he's gotten.
Sixth, Bush lowered taxes and that didn't contribute to the deficit. Yes, these insane Bush tax cuts that everybody complains about actualy INCREASED revenues. Throughout the Bush years, tax revenue kept pace with inflation. As a fiscal conservative, that's all I want tax revenues to do. It wasn't the tax cuts that caused the Bush deficits, it was profligate spending.
Obama has finally realized that small business is the key to full employment, yet his stated tax objectives will absolutely brutalize small business owners. You simply can't get people to put 100% of their financial and emotional well-being on the line if the only one who benefits is the government.
Bush understood: the money belongs to us. Obama thinks the money belongs to the government.
So, was Bush perfect? Good lord, no. I don't think he was a great president, or even a good one. However, he was, in many respects, a much, much better president than Obama is turning out to be.
I do feel that Obama is a much more intelligent man, but then, so was Jimmy Carter. I can only hope that Obama gets better as time goes along. So far, though, what I see is almost all the worst aspects of the Bush years. We're still bailing out the rich.
Under Obama we're rewarding the irresponsible at a far greater rate. Sorry, but we all have tight finances and things we want to buy. If you weren't smart enough to read or ask a few questions when you got your mortgage, or you treated your HELOC like a winning lottery ticket, you need to lose your house. The government shouldn't be rewarding your stupidity.
If you ran your car company so badly that you're going out of business, the union's pension and medical funds should be bailing you out, not the taxpayer who doesn't want your cars.
Yeah, this is change we can believe in. We're losing wars, now. Raising taxes. And yet still doing most of the bad stuff we did under Bush... like spending like there's no tomorrow.
There's time. Obama can get better and I think he will. So far, though, he'd have to improve to be as good as the man that many are considering the worst president since the Great Depression.
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Some Perspective on the Economy, by the Numbers...
I really do hate the current economic climate. No doubt, it's causing pain for a lot of us. For some, it's been an absolute disaster. Even those who have been relatively unscathed are afraid for their financial well-being like never before.
It's tempting, at a time like this, to want to throw the baby out with the bath water, declare that the United States is broken, and that we need to change everything from the ground up.
Unfortunately, the numbers don't bear that out. Don't get me wrong: we really do need to do some tinkering with the model, especially in regards to banking, insurance and health care reform.
Underneath it all, though, the greatness of America is still evident. So, let's not be too eager to tear down the things that could continue to keep us great through the 21st century and beyond.
Let's not lose track of the fact that China may have an astounding growth rate, but that in absolute terms, the US economy has grown more in the 21st century than the Chinese economy has grown in the last 3,000 years.
Literally, we created an entirely new economy, the size of China's entire economy, in less than 10 years right here in the US.
By this I mean, that the entire Chinese GDP is roughly 5 or 6 trillion dollars. (Depending on a lot of factors, and how you measure GDP and against what standard.)
Our economy has grown by about 5 or 6 trillion dollars since the turn of the century.
Literally, it took 3,000 years for the Chinese to grow as much as we've grown in the past 8 or 9 years.
Yes, their growth RATE is impressive, but the reality is that it's only impressive because their economy is transitioning from a medieval agrarian soceity to a modern industrial one. They're literally transitioning from beating the ground with sticks to stealing US intellectual property to build with CNC machines.
In the mean time, they have an abysmal record on human rights, and if not for the fact that they steal all the intellectual property they lay their eyes on, they wouldn't have an economy at all.
The US definition of "poverty" is such that, frankly, only a statistically insignificant number of Chinese people are not living in abject poverty by US standards.
Don't envy them. They can't enjoy double-digit growth rates forever. Once they're industrialized, they'll be subject to the same laws of economics that we are.
We had double-digit growth rates, too, when we transitioned to an industrially based economy, 100 years ago. Difference is, we pioneered that technology. China hasn't pioneered anything in a thousand years.
I wouldn't advise you to put too much of your betting money on China to dominate the US anytime soon. They have to prove they can do something other than steal US innovation and produce it with sweatshop labor ignoring all environmental impacts before I'll consider them a threat to the US.
Our unemployment rate is approaching 10%. Some of you who have travelled to Europe know what I'm going to say next. At our worst... as in "worst since the 1930s", our unemployment rate is basically approaching European unemployment during the best of all possible conditions.
France always has an unemployment rate of about 9.5%. Always. Germany and the UK do a little better with historical unemployment rates of about 7%. The US? Those types of unemployment rates are scandalous and indicative of an economy that's badly off-track.
Those, by the way, are comparisons against pretty much the best and brightest the world has to offer.
So, before we declare that the era of US exceptionalism is over, let's take a deep breath and remember that by almost all measures, the US is still an economic engine that's the envy of the world.
If we can avoid changing things too much, we can lead the world out of this recession and beyond.
It's tempting, at a time like this, to want to throw the baby out with the bath water, declare that the United States is broken, and that we need to change everything from the ground up.
Unfortunately, the numbers don't bear that out. Don't get me wrong: we really do need to do some tinkering with the model, especially in regards to banking, insurance and health care reform.
Underneath it all, though, the greatness of America is still evident. So, let's not be too eager to tear down the things that could continue to keep us great through the 21st century and beyond.
Let's not lose track of the fact that China may have an astounding growth rate, but that in absolute terms, the US economy has grown more in the 21st century than the Chinese economy has grown in the last 3,000 years.
Literally, we created an entirely new economy, the size of China's entire economy, in less than 10 years right here in the US.
By this I mean, that the entire Chinese GDP is roughly 5 or 6 trillion dollars. (Depending on a lot of factors, and how you measure GDP and against what standard.)
Our economy has grown by about 5 or 6 trillion dollars since the turn of the century.
Literally, it took 3,000 years for the Chinese to grow as much as we've grown in the past 8 or 9 years.
Yes, their growth RATE is impressive, but the reality is that it's only impressive because their economy is transitioning from a medieval agrarian soceity to a modern industrial one. They're literally transitioning from beating the ground with sticks to stealing US intellectual property to build with CNC machines.
In the mean time, they have an abysmal record on human rights, and if not for the fact that they steal all the intellectual property they lay their eyes on, they wouldn't have an economy at all.
The US definition of "poverty" is such that, frankly, only a statistically insignificant number of Chinese people are not living in abject poverty by US standards.
Don't envy them. They can't enjoy double-digit growth rates forever. Once they're industrialized, they'll be subject to the same laws of economics that we are.
We had double-digit growth rates, too, when we transitioned to an industrially based economy, 100 years ago. Difference is, we pioneered that technology. China hasn't pioneered anything in a thousand years.
I wouldn't advise you to put too much of your betting money on China to dominate the US anytime soon. They have to prove they can do something other than steal US innovation and produce it with sweatshop labor ignoring all environmental impacts before I'll consider them a threat to the US.
Our unemployment rate is approaching 10%. Some of you who have travelled to Europe know what I'm going to say next. At our worst... as in "worst since the 1930s", our unemployment rate is basically approaching European unemployment during the best of all possible conditions.
France always has an unemployment rate of about 9.5%. Always. Germany and the UK do a little better with historical unemployment rates of about 7%. The US? Those types of unemployment rates are scandalous and indicative of an economy that's badly off-track.
Those, by the way, are comparisons against pretty much the best and brightest the world has to offer.
So, before we declare that the era of US exceptionalism is over, let's take a deep breath and remember that by almost all measures, the US is still an economic engine that's the envy of the world.
If we can avoid changing things too much, we can lead the world out of this recession and beyond.
September Perspective on Small Business
We just finished up one of our worst months in ages. Not that surprising, really. We're at ground-zero of the current economic fiasco. At least we have the werewithall to ride the storm a little longer. We also got some work last week that should keep us busy for a while. All in all, things are not where I'd like them to be, but we should be able to limp along until our busy season hits. (Usually in the December time-frame.)
I am 2 months shy of renewing my franchise license. I opened my doors on the last day of January 2005, but I actually purchased my license in October 2004.
5 years of self-employment has been an adventure. I have only one regret about going into business for myself: I should have done it years earlier. I am better off in every conceivable way now that I am self-employed. (Granted, you might want to ask me my opinion a year from now if the busy season doesn't deliver.)
Even though things have been slow, I haven't laid anybody off, yet. We've had to fire people for reasons unrelated to the economy. (Both of them simply stopped showing up for work.) We went through a few weeks were there was, literally, no work for anybody to do.
I treated it as business as usual. I have expectations of my employees: that they'll show up on time and they will work once they're here. However, I feel I have obligations to them in return. For instance, that I won't send them home early (and thus cut their weekly pay for a few hours) just because we're slow.
We made work for them to do in the warehouse. We had them finish the upstairs offices that have been in-progress for more than a year, now. We had them organize the equipment and implement a few visual management systems I've wanted for a while, now.
We also sent people off for some much-needed out of town training and certifications. I'll probably send off a few more folks in the coming months.
Now, we're busy, thank goodness. I can't say that I will never lay off a worker. Who knows what the future brings. We went 2 weeks without any work, which is one thing. I can dip into my personal savings to keep the place afloat. However, there are limits to my resources. If the slowdown had lasted 3 months, I would have had little choice but to let people go.
That is a last resort for me, though. To me, that's a complete game-changer. From that point forward, how can I blame an employee who feels that my company has shown no loyalty to them? How can I take the moral high ground when an employee slacks?
I also feel that I have an obligation during this economic downturn. Even if I didn't make a penny, I want to employ people. The jobs I have may offer modest pay, but for the workers who take them, that pay is the difference between a dignified, modest standard of living, and poverty. These people worked for me when times were good for me. I want to do all I can to make sure they keep their jobs when times are bad for me.
Underneath it all, I'm optimistic. I'm doing all I can to expand our marketing reach. I'm ready to commit full-force to some initiatives my franchisor is launching that should allow us to continue to grow despite the economic conditions in our corner of the world.
We've grown every year during our 5 years in business. I don't see why this year can't be the same. We took a hard shot by crappy August results, but we still stand an outside shot at a million in sales this calendar year.
The biggest challenge facing us is that we're transitioning from being a smallish business to having to implement the same systems and controls that large businesses do.
In the past, we could get away with relying on the fact that either I, or my operations manager, Mike, knew what to do in a given situation. That works when you have 2 trucks and 4 employees.
Right now, we have 5 production trucks and enough people to staff all of them. I can't be 5 places at once, and neither can Mike. Which means adding some supervisory capacity, but also means training the people all the more thoroughly so they can operate with minimal supervision.
Training and the HR function are becoming more and more critical to our success. There's just no way you can run a $5 million dollar business with the same management structure that worked as a $500,000 business. So, our days without an HR and Training administrator of some sort are severely numbered.
The one thing that I wasn't ready for with small business is how much the business environment changes every year. The restoration industry has changed dramatically even since I first got in to it. We constantly have to change and improve our way of doing things in order to stay one step ahead of the competition.
Every company has the same thing to deal with: improve or die, but the pace of change in small business is staggerring. Entire markets disappear virtually overnight.
5 years ago, a printing business was a viable business opportunity. However, in the past 5 years, half the printers I used to know are out of business. Half of the remaining ones are trying to sell.
I try to remind myself whenever I get frustrated that we have to implement a new system or procedure or respond to a new market challenge, that the alternative is to have a business that essentially remains unchanged from year to year: like printing.
The keys to small business, or to business in general, never really change from year to year. Treat employees well. Treat customers well. Provide quality goods and services at prices customers are willing to pay. Respond to market changes. Look for opportunties to grow.
Most of all: when you're no longer up to the challenge of doing those things, it's time to get out.
I don't feel like it's time for me to get out, just yet. We're still growing, which means I'm still excited and engaged. The past 5 years were everything I had hoped they would be and more. I hope to make the next 5 years even better.
I am 2 months shy of renewing my franchise license. I opened my doors on the last day of January 2005, but I actually purchased my license in October 2004.
5 years of self-employment has been an adventure. I have only one regret about going into business for myself: I should have done it years earlier. I am better off in every conceivable way now that I am self-employed. (Granted, you might want to ask me my opinion a year from now if the busy season doesn't deliver.)
Even though things have been slow, I haven't laid anybody off, yet. We've had to fire people for reasons unrelated to the economy. (Both of them simply stopped showing up for work.) We went through a few weeks were there was, literally, no work for anybody to do.
I treated it as business as usual. I have expectations of my employees: that they'll show up on time and they will work once they're here. However, I feel I have obligations to them in return. For instance, that I won't send them home early (and thus cut their weekly pay for a few hours) just because we're slow.
We made work for them to do in the warehouse. We had them finish the upstairs offices that have been in-progress for more than a year, now. We had them organize the equipment and implement a few visual management systems I've wanted for a while, now.
We also sent people off for some much-needed out of town training and certifications. I'll probably send off a few more folks in the coming months.
Now, we're busy, thank goodness. I can't say that I will never lay off a worker. Who knows what the future brings. We went 2 weeks without any work, which is one thing. I can dip into my personal savings to keep the place afloat. However, there are limits to my resources. If the slowdown had lasted 3 months, I would have had little choice but to let people go.
That is a last resort for me, though. To me, that's a complete game-changer. From that point forward, how can I blame an employee who feels that my company has shown no loyalty to them? How can I take the moral high ground when an employee slacks?
I also feel that I have an obligation during this economic downturn. Even if I didn't make a penny, I want to employ people. The jobs I have may offer modest pay, but for the workers who take them, that pay is the difference between a dignified, modest standard of living, and poverty. These people worked for me when times were good for me. I want to do all I can to make sure they keep their jobs when times are bad for me.
Underneath it all, I'm optimistic. I'm doing all I can to expand our marketing reach. I'm ready to commit full-force to some initiatives my franchisor is launching that should allow us to continue to grow despite the economic conditions in our corner of the world.
We've grown every year during our 5 years in business. I don't see why this year can't be the same. We took a hard shot by crappy August results, but we still stand an outside shot at a million in sales this calendar year.
The biggest challenge facing us is that we're transitioning from being a smallish business to having to implement the same systems and controls that large businesses do.
In the past, we could get away with relying on the fact that either I, or my operations manager, Mike, knew what to do in a given situation. That works when you have 2 trucks and 4 employees.
Right now, we have 5 production trucks and enough people to staff all of them. I can't be 5 places at once, and neither can Mike. Which means adding some supervisory capacity, but also means training the people all the more thoroughly so they can operate with minimal supervision.
Training and the HR function are becoming more and more critical to our success. There's just no way you can run a $5 million dollar business with the same management structure that worked as a $500,000 business. So, our days without an HR and Training administrator of some sort are severely numbered.
The one thing that I wasn't ready for with small business is how much the business environment changes every year. The restoration industry has changed dramatically even since I first got in to it. We constantly have to change and improve our way of doing things in order to stay one step ahead of the competition.
Every company has the same thing to deal with: improve or die, but the pace of change in small business is staggerring. Entire markets disappear virtually overnight.
5 years ago, a printing business was a viable business opportunity. However, in the past 5 years, half the printers I used to know are out of business. Half of the remaining ones are trying to sell.
I try to remind myself whenever I get frustrated that we have to implement a new system or procedure or respond to a new market challenge, that the alternative is to have a business that essentially remains unchanged from year to year: like printing.
The keys to small business, or to business in general, never really change from year to year. Treat employees well. Treat customers well. Provide quality goods and services at prices customers are willing to pay. Respond to market changes. Look for opportunties to grow.
Most of all: when you're no longer up to the challenge of doing those things, it's time to get out.
I don't feel like it's time for me to get out, just yet. We're still growing, which means I'm still excited and engaged. The past 5 years were everything I had hoped they would be and more. I hope to make the next 5 years even better.
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