Another topic that President Obama is getting a pass on is the growing unpopularity of this stimulus package that he is continually trying to push though congress. All we hear is that the Republicans aren't cooperating, that they are not going along with the President's plea of “bi-partisanship.” If President Obama wants to work with the Republicans and be truly bi-partisan, he needs to scale back his desires of trillions of dollars of stimulus starting with trimming billions off the first 890 billion dollar package that congress is working on. I know that Republicans would be open to a lot smaller stimulus package if the dollars were smaller, the pork is eliminated and guaranteeing that the money will actually get funneled to the economy ASAP.

For all the heat Republicans got for constantly saying that Barack Obama isn't ready to become the next President of the United States and he has made poor decisions (Resco, Rev. Wright etc) it is coming to light that they might just be right. If he is making mistakes with an easy task like vetting out candidates and their tax issues, what is he going to do when it comes down to making serious decisions like how to deal with Iran and North Korea and their search for nuclear weapons.

It feels like we are witnessing a “Teflon president” where nothing will stick to him. Look at this list:

*Reverend Wright

*Tony Resco

*Governor Blagojevich conversations

*The birth certificate issue- never releasing an original certificate from Hawaii

*Promising to take public campaign financing and then backing out

*Tim Geithner, his Treasury secretary who forgot to pay his taxes for years

*Secretary of State Hilary Clinton who was never grilled about the source of millions of dollars of donations to President Clinton foundations

*Not a lot of questioning about putting TRILLIONS of stimulus dollars with little oversight.

*What are we going to do with the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay when it closes, their home country wants nothing to do with them.

*Joe Biden stating that we should expect more military casualties because of an increased presence in Afghanistan.

*Campaigning against wasteful spending, wanting to spend trillions of dollars to stimulate the economy. He is doing this by putting money into banks, the auto industry and the states in a veiled attempt at socialism.

We all know that if anyone of these happen to a conservative president or candidate would be raked over the coals until the cows come home.

I believe that the Obama honeymoon will last throughout his four years and if the opposition doesn't get their act together a total of eight years. Of course its easy to say now with Obama's high approval rating after his decisive victory in November. He has mezorized a large majority of Americans, who believes tat he can't do no wrong. It's almost cult like. I haven't seen this kind of buzz for a public figure since Ronald Reagan. In Reagan's case he didn't touch the hearts of America until well into his first term, then it grew to what it is today. The only issue that could derail Obama's popularity is if the economy stays stagnant for a prolong period of time, like two or three years, which is definitely in the realm of possibility. We live in an impatient society and a large segment of the population would like to see their retirement to at least get to the point where it was at its peak last year asap. The stock market, if lucky might get back ½ of their loss from its peak in four years. I believe that if the market doesn't get back to the previous high in four years, Obama he might have a battle for re-election in 2012. To diffuse this, the administration and Democratic leaders has already stated that the economy will take a long time to recover and we should be patient. The administration is already trying to hedge their bets and covering their butts if the economy is not running at full steam in 2-3 years.

I guess time will tell when Obama will do or say something that will rub people the wrong way and will be called out. Who will do this, the mainstream media, his fellow Democrats, the Republican minority who was their own identity issues to deal with? The answer is no. The only people that has questioned Obama's actions throughout the campaign and into his Presidency is talk radio which Obama dismisses as not speaking for mainstream Americans. The only group that might stand up against Obama is the Democratically controlled congress if he doesn't govern as as left as they want, and that's a scary thought.

I do put some of the blame on politicians of both sides. Every year leading up to an election, they promise us the moon, from better health care, better education, money for various programs bribing certain voting groups just to get elected. As humans, we all love free stuff, but most of us don't look at the big picture and the hidden costs that comes with it or who is really paying for it. We let our emotional side dictate, while it should be the rational side taking charge stepping back and questioning everything our government wants to do for us.

There are two examples making news that proves my point. First, on a national scale, all of the bailouts that are planned and Obama's promise of more taxpayer stimulus. Up until now I was a proponent of the government stepping in certain situations, because some companies are “too big to fail”. That if we let these businesses go under that it will cause a ripple effect in our economy making a small problem into a much larger one. Now that we have to bail out the banks, what next. Are we to bail out the auto industry, credit card companies, retailers, airlines, the housing market, insurance companies, financial services companies etc? The first problem with this is that we will be setting a bad precedent, where if we bailout one industry, what makes them more important than another that is going through the same crisis. Secondly, we don't know that these bailouts will work or are we just delaying the inevitable. If we bailout GM, who is hemorrhaging billions of dollars a month, the solution isn't giving them more money just to hemorrhage it, but we need to tackle what is causing the problem. We should let them go into bankruptcy to get them from underneath the legacy costs that is killing them. Thirdly, by giving them bailout loans to survive, are these companies learning a lesson or are we going to have the same problem when another general economic crisis arises. Before we give out dollar one, we need to look at what caused these companies to go to the brink of disaster and set up regulations and set terms of any bailout that the individual companies and industries have to adhere too.

Personally, I think that the only way the government should stimulate the economy except for monetary policy is government works projects. I am a constitutionalist, I believe that the federal government's primary job is national defense, general welfare of its citizens and INFRASTRUCTURE. We have thousands of bridges and miles and miles of road that is in desperate need of repair and this would be a good time to tackle them. All the money spent will go directly into the construction people's hands that will trickle down through the economy. We are a consumer driven economy.

The second example is a local story from Milwaukee, where the voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum giving them all sick days based on the amount they work. Who wouldn't vote for free sick days. We all know they will all be taken for legitimate reasons. (just a little bit of sarcasm) When voters are standing in the booths they have $$$ in their eyes not seeing how giving every worker in Milwaukee sick days will cripple a lot of businesses especially smaller ones that doesn't currently offer many benefits. Also, no one is saying who is going to pay to administer the enforcement of this rule.

While JFK wanted us to do something for our country, paying higher taxes to bail out mismanaged companies wasn't what he had in mind. Plus he didn't mean that we ask the country for free stuff. Also, we shouldn't be bailing out homeowners that bought houses they know they couldn't afford in the long run. Individuals and businesses need to take responsibility for their own actions and that the government needs to really look at all industries across the economy to find loopholes in regulations that caused this crisis.

Now if you read by earlier blogs, long before the primaries had produced Obama and McCain as the winners of their respective parties nomination, I had guaranteed a Republican win. I guess I am no Nostradamus but there were factors no one could have expected and others I analyzed wrong.

1)No one saw the economic meltdown of the housing,financial and overall stock market. Its true that people vote their pocketbook and with less money in their 401k's McCain never had a chance. Voters will blame the party in power.

2)Along the same lines, I under estimated the unpopularity of President Bush. The economic melt down and the war (which was never an issue because of the economy) had Bush's popularity rating hovering around 20%. McCain never distanced himself from him and Obama attacked him relentlessly for it. If McCain was smart he would have attacked the President and his non-conservative policies (domestic spending) and attacked Republicans as a whole. He had no problem doing this in 2000. If he really wanted to distanced himself from the administration, he would have votedagainst the bailout package. This would have differentiated himself from Obama and give the electorate a real choice on the economy. Overall, there were many mistakes his campaign had. Too many to list here.

Overall, this was an election that was a reflection on the economy and the popularity of the man in charge. I don't think that this is a shift towards the left as a nation, its all part of the cycle that both parties go though. I do see Republicans picking up seats two years from now making strides to regain power but it all depends on how successful Obama becomes.

I am not like the pundits in the mainstream media who are all acting like Chicken Little and the sky is falling because of all the issues surrounding the financial markets and the upcoming debate on bailing out financial institutions and homeowners. My first question is when watching the news accounts is, “what do these talking heads know about finance.” I have a B.B.A in Finance and Management from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, while most of these so called “reporters” went to east coast schools, receiving liberal arts degrees or journalism schools, while there, being indoctrinated with liberalism, knowing nothing on how the economy and the real world really works. We have heard several reasons why we are in this so called “crisis”, from crooked CEOs, Republican policies of deregulation,corporate greed etc. While I do believe there has been crooked CEOs when it comes to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and a little bit of corporate greed, its not the type of greed that is being reported by the mainstream media.

I know that this situation has been going on for a few months now and some of you are probably wondering why I am writing about this now, “hindsight is 20/20” but this isn't the case when it comes to my analysis. I am not a reactionary, I like to process the information and filter out what is true and what is liberal propaganda. My analysis is as follows. The investment community, especially the stock market runs on two things; larger than average growth and beating analyst's projections. If neither of these things happens for a particular company, there stock isn't “sexy” and doesn't appreciate the way management would like. I equate it to the story of “The Tortoise and the Hare. The “hare” being the sexy stocks, securities that everyone wants to own and there price shoots up and investors making a quick albeit risky buck. These are company's with high rate of growth especially in industries that are mature, where growth is hard to come by. We are not talking about Google, who's maturity hasn't been reached yet but the Enrons and WorldComs of the world, where management would do anything (legal and illegal) to keep their share price growing. The Tortoises are the Proctor and Gambles who's growth is slow but steady and they eventually will win the race, just ask my dad who is enjoying a nice retirement on P&G stock while the employees at Enron have to start over. Taking this example to the mature financial services sector, the housing market was slowing down and the banks and other financial institution are under pressure from their shareholders and partners to keep their growth going at the rate they have been enjoying, started taking on riskier loans. They were giving out sub-prime loans to people to buy homes and capital needs that they couldn't afford under normal economic conditions. They banks knew that in the long term a lot of these people couldn't ever pay them back but they were looking at the short term and will handle this problem in the future. Well the future is NOW.. They need to show their shareholders and partners that they are growing the company and they are earning their large salaries. To make more loans (because they need to keep the loan to cash ratio set by Federal and State regulators),they would sell off these loans to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and they would bundle these loans up and sell them as securities in the open market. This circle kept on going and going until.... guess what, the housing market bubble burst and the underlying assets of these loans are not worth as much as they once were. This along with an increasing rate of defaults put the banks in a precarious position that we are now in.

This problem didn't affect banks and other financial institution that didn't get in this business of risky loans but it did hurt banks like Citi, AIG, Lehman, Merrill Lynch, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae that did practice making and buying up risky loans. Now the banks and people who bought homes and properties they couldn't afford, expect the federal government to bail them out. Shame on the banks and shame on these Americans, its greed on both sides. While I disagree in principal with the bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, it had to be done because of the massive amount of loans they own and them being quasi-governmental agencies. What I don't want to see is the government get into bailing out these companies and individuals because of their greed. There are thousands of banks and millions of Americans who lived within their means and now have to pay for stupidity with taxpayer dollars. Instead of being shortsighted all the time like we have been with immigration, Social Security, Medicare etc we need to have the foresight to see these problem before they become too big to handle. The only politician I have read about speaking out years ago has been John McCain, who had the foresight, but was rebuffed from the likes of Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and Barack Obama who were in the pocket of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. What ever happen to corporate and governmental responsibility to keep the markets running smoothly. Where was Bernake, Paulson (who has a lot of private sector experience) and others? They were all caught up with the sexiness of growth or being political and the need to get elected or keep their government job. Obama shouldn't say a word about this situation because of all the dollars he accepted from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and having their former CEOs as financial policy advisors. Instead of bailing out people and business out of situations they should have known better not to get into, we should be looking at the rules so this wouldn't ever happen again.

I don't think the economy is as bad as the pundits in the media says it is, but we do need some tough love. We do need to strengthen the dollar to reduce oil prices and the way we do it is by raising interest rates and taking money out of the economy, politically a non-winner. We might go into a recession next year, but we are overdue for one (if you look at economic history they happen around every ten years) and it should be mild. Right now I can't stand is the contempt from the media to those out there ,like John McCain who says the economy isn't bad who are they to judge the economy. NBC, CNN,ABC,CBS, New York Times must have opened up a MBA program when we weren't looking.

As if I need anything else to complain about what goes on in Washington, especially when it comes to the establishment and the Democratic party. As you all know, I am not a man who minces his words but this time around I need to be especially blunt and honest analyzing these antics. In the last 48 hours there have been two acts of cowardliness by Democratic leaders. The first happened Friday when speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi shut down the House of Representatives, shutting off microphones, CSPAN cameras and turning off the lights. This was a preemptive strike of not wanting to hold a vote on a energy bill that would allow new drilling to curb our dependence of foreign oil. She is under a lot of pressure from Republicans and even a few members of her own party to bring this bill to a vote on the floor. She knows that if it was presented, it would pass because there would be enough sane Democrats out there that would vote with Republicans . New drilling is supported by a two to one margin by Americans, according to numerous polls. Nancy Pelosi couldn't have this happen. In her eyes, its a no win situation for the Democratic party. A no vote on the record would jeopardize the electability of Democratic congressmen based on the hottest election topic in 2008 A yes vote would enable the bill to pass and be signed by President Bush, giving Bush and the Republicans a much needed victory in the eyes of Americans. A yes vote would also clash with their supporters; Big Environment. Democratic candidates wouldn't ever go against this core Democratic group (they bow to the green shrine everyday, just ask Al Gore). Hey, Big Environment has deep pockets and a loud voice and would make sure than any Democrat that votes against their wishes, pay in November. This would make congress a little more equally divided in a election year that all pundits expected a increase by the Democratic party. So instead of doing the work of the American people that they are supposed to represent, they pull a cowardly prank like this. Why don't you Nancy, grow a pair and actually do something important that would cross party lines. This is just another reason why congress has even a smaller approval rating than President Bush.

The second cowardly act by a leading Democrat isn't as bad as what Nancy Pelosi did, but it shows what kind of candidate and man Barack Obama is and what kind of president he will be. Just today I heard a news story that Barack Obama will only participate in the three scheduled presidential debates with John McCain instead of participating in several town hall meetings alongside McCain across the country. This would have been the modern day version of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. I like town hall meetings better than the standard debates because the questions come unscripted from Americans instead of the same old questions that pundits ask. (There might be one town hall style debate in the three scheduled, but I wouldn't necessarily depend on the questions being unscripted or scanned prior to the event. ) I find it cowardly that a man who speaks about change, not being a Washington insider and like to change the way Washington works, would back out out of these town hall meetings, an idea he initially interested in doing with McCain. What is he afraid of? It has become more evident week by week, we see incidents where Obama has a problem speaking off the cuff. He is just fine if he has a teleprompter in front of him, but when it comes to improvising, he needs a lot of practice. In a town hall format, he wouldn't be able just to give the same old answer, most of the time has nothing to do with the question asked, like he would be able to do with a panel of political pundits. He's afraid that this would make him look bad and give McCain an advantage. Its all about playing defense with politics not offensive, it not winning a campaign but not losing one. While most of McCain campaign stops have been town hall meetings as of late, we still see few mistakes from McCain and in my opinion still looks a little bit too stiff talking in this environment. This isn't the first time Obama has done things that went against what he has said in the past. Public financing comes to mind. Early in his campaign he said he would accept public financing of his campaign like John McCain but that was before he got his hands on a windfall of fund raising that has crushed every Democratic records and easily beats McCain's effort. Instead of limiting his spending which would be a Washington outsider thing to do, he has bypassed public financing which gives him a limitless amount of money to spend. He is the first presidential candidate to do this. What ever happened to McCain-Feingold, that was embraced by the left to keep money out of politics. Hmmmm. Barack.

I just can't believe what Democrats can get away with and I know that the media won't hold their feet to the fire, so its up to talk radio, Fox news and the blogosphere to spread this news to the masses. I hope that America wakes up to the fact that the Democratic party doesn't speak for the common man trying to fill his pickup truck with $4.00 a gallon gas but to special interests that they rail against every election cycle. Its the same old Washington politics and I am getting sick of it.

With energy and food prices on the rise and showing no signs of going down (at least to a point where we are used to), where are all the advocates of the poor and minorities who are being hit by this the hardest. On a grand scale they are silent, no Michael Moore (who would just blame big oil), Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton or any prominent Democrats, who would rather pander to their environmental wacko supporters than a huge majority of the electorate They would rather talk about technology that doesn't exist today, or very short sighted solutions like taking oil from the strategic reserves or having a gas tax holiday. Its always about the demand for oil not the supply. Hey, oil prices went down $10 a barrel on just the announcement of President Bush lifting the Federal ban on offshore drilling which still doesn't even get us a step closer to drilling. What would happen to oil prices if we ever laid out a plan with a timetable on increasing our domestic production of oil while finding ways to conserve our energy. Hey, I am all for hybrid cars and finding alternate sources of energy ,but they are not practical on a grand scale at this time. We should be opening up HUNDREDS of nuclear and coal fired plants, shut down all natural gas powered plants (natural gas should only be used for home heating), while creating more fuel efficient practical cars, trucks and SUVs. Just the mere announcement of a plan (which would only take a year if congress ever gets their head out of their a**) would bring down oil prices under $100. While we may never see gas prices of .99 or even 1.99 we would knock it down to $2.25 or so.

So, it seems like the Democratic led congress has abandoned one of their constituencies and sided with the environmentalists, risking their political future. As I said before, there are certain groups Democrats will never cross; the elderly, environmentalists, trial lawyers and teachers. I hate to say it, the poor and minorities don't go out in droves to vote, still falling for the same rhetoric year after year from the Democratic party. They claim that they are the only ones looking out for them while the Republicans only look out for the rich, which couldn't be further from the truth. It is safe to assume that the Democrats in congress are safe and probably will pick up seats in both houses this election year because of the unpopularity of President Bush, but in 2010 and beyond, it will be a crap shoot. If energy prices continue to rise or even stays the same, the election of 2010 could be a very interesting election especially if Obama wins the Presidency. If this happens the Democrats would have no one else to blame, but themselves. Democrats have made this bed and will have to live in it if they continue to side with a small minority of hard core environmentalists who fight every new power plant in this country, than the people who don't have a voice in Washington. We could see a mass exodus from the Democratic party comparable to the likes of southerners becoming Reagan Democrats when the Democratic party became too far left on social causes for their taste.

How are the Democrats will handle this situation? Again they will try to curb Demand and will probably will try to raise the minimum wage a few dollars an hour (which surprises me that no one has written a bill on this). Anyone who has an ounce on economic knowledge (not one Democratic congressman on capital hill that I know of) knows that business will just raise prices when faced with higher labor costs. All of this will raise the price of goods and services for all of us to help a few that are making the minimum wage. Employees that make more than the minimum wage won't get a wage increase, so their buying power decreases. This would hurt the economy no help it.

Again, this issue might not be a major problem for the Democrats this election but in two years I am going to pull up a chair, crack open a beer and see all of this unfold in front of my eyes. Man this is great.

While this is a political oriented blog, I also like to talk about major stories in the news about American culture. In America, sports is a major part of our daily life, there are dozens of channel across the country that covers an individual sport or sports in general 24 hours a day. I like to talk about the on going soap opera that is Brett Favre vs the Green Bay Packers, more specifically General Manager Ted Thompson. This back and forth banter in the media is far from being finished and will probably go on until the start of the season and beyond. I equate this to a pro football version game of chicken. We have competing egos at work here and we are waiting on who will blink first. On one side Ted Thompson, he holds all the cards in this situation. Favre is under contract for three years and he did file papers to retire with the NFL, which still makes him property of the Packers. Thompson is under no obligation to play, release or trade him. Farve wasn't never his guy, he inherited him and waited out four seasons until Farve finally retired. He knew he couldn't push out Favre until Favre was ready to leave the game, not saying that Thompson didn't help the process move a little quicker. Favre's retirement allows Thompson to play his first round draft pick Aaron Rogers. Also, he can't have players dictating his decisions, even it is one of the greatest players of all time. No player can be bigger than the team and the league. The problem Thompson will run into is the backlash from the Packer faithful, who thinks Favre is a better option now at 38 years old than a younger Aaron Rogers and will run Thompson out of town if Rogers falls flat on his face and the Packers aren't successful. Thompson will have a PR nightmare on his hands. He is in a no win situation.

On the other hand we have Brett Favre, one of the most successful quarterbacks in the history of the NFL. He is one of the few active players can do what he is playing now. Most fans and the media will let him get away with him retiring and then wanting to come back as if nothing has changed. When he was making his retirement speech I knew he wasn't finished playing, knowing that he will have the itch to come back because he has been one of the most competitive players on the field for the last 18 years and football is the only thing he knows. What else will he do with all of this time on his hands, there is only so much lawn to mow on in Louisiana. I just thought it would be after a year at home with the wife and kids. He claims that he was pressured to make his decision before the draft so the Packers can plan for the future, which is probably true because the packers did draft two capable quarterbacks. Favre should have called their bluff. What could the packers have done if he didn't make his decision at that time, fine him (money had never been an issue with Brett), release him (I think that's what he has wanted all this time) or bench him (McCarthy and Thompson would have been run out of town). Farve has the right to ask for reinstatement but he has to realize that the Packers doesn't have to grant his wishes to play or be released, so he can find another team to latch on to.

So now what, who will blink, will it be Thompson to cave to Favre's wishes to play for the Packers or release him to a team that can come back and play the Packers in the playoffs, or will it be Favre, who would have to back with this tail between his legs to come back to the Packers as a backup(which was offered) or fight for the starting job, or give up his desire to play football again. As a self-proclaimed Packer hater, I don't have a horse in this race but I am interested on how this will play out.