The Future of the Obama Presidency

[dteowner]

http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/08/quiz-who-said-it-democratic-leaders-or-communist-party-usa/

Let's hear some scores, people. I got 6 out of 11.

 

[dteowner]

Nobody took the test? Cowards!

An interesting article from one of my industry newsletters. I'd say it bodes well for the country but not necessarily for Barack.

Two recent surveys indicate that CEOs are more optimistic about an economic recovery and are willing to hire.

According to PricewaterhouseCoopers' Private Company Trendsetter Barometer , the majority of private company CEOs (51 percent) are confident in the U.S. economy for the first time since the second quarter of 2007.

For the first time since the second quarter of 2008, a majority (53 percent) plan additions to their work forces over the next 12 months, up six points from the prior quarter's 47 percent and up 22 points from 1Q09's 31 percent. Just 4 percent of respondents are planning to reduce staff over the next 12 months, down four points from the previous quarter and six points from the same period in 2009.

"It's encouraging to see that private companies are backing up their expectations for growth by investing in their work force," noted Esch. "The smaller companies in our sample are planning to hire relatively more employees than the larger companies. This could be the beginning of an upward trend in the labor markets."

On a global scale, nearly half of CEOs that responded to the latest NYSE Euronext Annual CEO report plan to expand their work forces through 2011, with small business seen as the biggest driver of job creation.

According to the report, job growth will occur more quickly outside the U.S. and Europe. The study found that chief executives in the U.S. and Europe do not expect a full jobs recovery until 2014 or later, while their counterparts elsewhere expect a full jobs recovery by the end of 2012.

More than six out of 10 CEOs in Asia and Latin America said they plan to expand their work forces, while only four in 10 European and U.S. CEOs plan an expansion.

Small business is viewed as a primary source of employment gains, while opinions vary on the impact of governments on new job creation. Three in four U.S. CEOs gave their government low ratings for efforts to create jobs, while only one in four outside of the U.S. and Europe did the same.

The reason I say Barack might not get much bounce out of it is the emphasis on small business. Small business doesn't "advertise" their hiring on the evening news like GM would, plus they don't hire 500 people at a time. Lower visibility means less boost for consumer confidence to pump up the economy and less political crowing opportunities for Obama.

 

[Zaleukos]

Screw Obama, good for the country should be enough for sane people no matter what It is also good for the world since the US still is the beating heart of the world economy. As an engineer in an extremely export-oriented country I am quite happy about potential trickle down of the US recovery

You are of course right that it wont help him much. Employment is by itself a lagging indicator of what's reported in the newsletter, and public perception of increased employment lags behind even further. My experience from our recoveries is that most people only notice better times when they see that their friends arent on the dole any longer.

This could have boosted BO if it had come a six months to a year earlier, but now the most he'll get out of it will be some abstract positive numbers, and in your polarised media climate half the population will dismiss any raw numbers if they come from the wrong source

 

[magerette]

I think we're at a turning point here with Obama—that may just be my own personal turning point, of course, but I seem to sense the sands of publc opinion shifting a bit. I think he's very very close to tanking with a wrong move, and his extremely parsed and brief address last night had the feel of a man walking a razor's edge. I really wonder how long he can go on with this crusade to own a non-committal, middle-of-the-road, deliberative moderation in all things. Gallop still shows him hovering at the 50% mark (http://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/Gallup-Daily-Obama-Job-Approval.aspx) but imo he's lost the left(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/15/obamas-oil-speech-panned_n_613711.html?ir=Politics,) he never had the right, and I'm not exactly sure you can build any real policy on pleasing the mushy middle.

The next few months will be crucial in how effective a president he can be—I think we can already give up on the 'transformational' thing, though.

Edit: Re: losing the left, Stewart has a really scathing clip here:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-15-2010/respect-my-authoritah

 

[Thrasher]

Yep, he needed to be Roosevelt not another Clinton…

The fact that he trusted the corrupt Bushie corporate lapdogs in the Office of Mines and Minerals speaks VOLUMES…

 

[dteowner]

http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/17/p...-voters-give-poorer-marks-to-obama-than-bush/

The Public Policy Polling survey showed 50 percent of state voters rated Bush’s performance in 2005 as better than Obama’s. Just 35 percent picked Obama.

The survey by PPP, a Democratic-owned firm,

I quoted the extra phrase just for Thrasher.

 

[magerette]

Sounds reasonable to me. Notice the DC doesn't mention this further point from the poll though:

While the poll results indicate a lot of unhappiness with the President, ultimately BP is getting the largest amount of blame from voters in the state. 53% of voters say they're angriest at the oil company to 29% who say their greatest unhappiness is with the federal government. And 78% say BP has the greatest responsibility for cleaning up the spill to only 11% who say that onus lays with the federal government.

linkie

 

[Thrasher]

@DTE

Hmm, now you're gleefully quoting public opinion polls? I thought all the Bush wackos said public opinion polls don't matter, as dictators shouldn't care and just do what they think is right.

But besides the point, there was NO federal agency for oil spill cleanup, yet people are willing to blame Obama. More stupidity from the right...

Yet, they are messed up enough to compare with Katrina when there WAS a federal agency set up for hurricane relief (Namely FEMA), that failed miserably after Bush gutted it and installed his favorite horse prancer as disaster circus ringleader...

 

[dteowner]

I'd agree with that stance, but I don't know that I'd call myself a Bush wacko.

But the wise public speaker considers his audience. My legion (legion, I tell you!) of leftie readers enjoy a good poll (as to exactly where they enjoy their poles, I'm all for "Don't ask, don't tell") and value the information supplied by them, so I take special joy in using such a tool to be my vehicle of bad news. It's that little evil cherry on the sundae that brings a little tear to my eye and makes me proud to be an American.

 

[Thrasher]

LOL! Bush wackos was too fun a play on words to pass by, even if it wasn't completely applicable in this instance. I'll retract wacko and replace with whatever you deem appropriate.

 

[dteowner]

Oh, I'm perfectly fine with the wacko part. Just never was much of a Dubya fan (can't say I'm not a big fan of bush) after 9-11 wound down, even though he was far better than the alternatives (which says something about the alternatives, me thinks).

 

[Thrasher]

Duly noted. "Apologist" perhaps?

 

[magerette]

Latest NBC/WSJ poll numbers show a general malaise setting in on the Hopey-Changey thing.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37881749/ns/politics-white_house/

The oil spill on top of everything else has been something of a clarifier of the public's mood, and Obama hits his first upside down job approval ratings-45% to 48% disapproval, and even his favorable/unfavorable figures, which have stayed fairly steady, are down considerably from 52/35 in January to 45/40. Wrong direction for the country is back up to Bushie figures at 60%.

This is the worst news, though, I think, because it sums up whether a president is being at all effective or not in the view of the electorate:

His scores on other aspects of the presidency also have declined. In April 2009, 54 percent gave the president high marks for being able to handle a crisis; now it’s 40 percent.

In July 2009, 57 percent gave him high marks for being decisive and for his decision-making; now it’s 44 percent.

And also in July 2009, 61 percent gave him high marks for having strong leadership qualities; now it’s 49 percent.

I'm actually a bit surprised these figures aren't lower. I'm not happy it's working out like this, but I can't see how people can feel much differently right now. Only good news for the O is that Congress and the federal government are still hated more, with BP at the bottom of the barrel with an approval rating on par with Saddam Hussein's.

 

[Thrasher]

Yep, it'll continue to go down until he does something decisive and positive with universally recognized good results.

McCrystal getting a "you're fired" may barely help....

 

[dteowner]

http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/06/l...ed-on-uncertainty-created-by-obamas-policies/

Has the usual slant for a Caller article, but it's the quotes that I find most damning.

Seidenberg’s comments last month were a significant political moment. The Verizon CEO has been one of President Obama’s strongest allies in the business community, and as president of the 170-member Business Roundtable, he had tried to cooperate with the Obama administration on its trademark agenda items – health care, financial reform and energy legislation.

But, Seidenberg said he was “troubled” by Obama’s agenda, so much so that he had “reached a point where the negative effects of these policies are simply too significant to ignore.”

“We have to become an industrial powerhouse again but you don’t do this when government and entrepreneurs are not in synch,” [GE CEO and Obama supporter] Immelt was quoted as saying.

“And we also don’t like that their law involves a lot of discretion. It doesn’t say, ‘And the rules of bankruptcy are’ … The financial law basically sends the message: we have decided that they will take care of things, and the law gives them the discretion to do that as they see fit,” Shlaes said. “It moves us farther from common law to French-style prosecutorial law – we haul you in if we feel like it.”

If it's French and doesn't relate to a dinner table, it's not good.

The $30 billion measure has been held up, however, as Republicans have forced Democrats to pay for virtually every cent of new spending they authorize in recent weeks, bringing the upper chamber to a virtual standstill due to Democrats’ refusal to budge on certain measures.

I'm sure y'all will somehow try to spin it into obstruction, but I'm enjoying the extreme discomfort Pelosi-ov and Reid are getting from getting pinched between spending money and the dems' own BS campaign promise to pay-as-you-go.

 

[Thrasher]

Referencing another post from the right-wing "Daily Caller"? Run by Tucker Carlson, ex-Fox loser, and Neil Patel, former adviser to Darth Cheney. DTE, you should be ashamed of calling this political BS "news".

Frankly, corporations have been given too much latitude, allowing them to ship our jobs overseas and bankrupting our economy. I hope more spoiled CEO crybabies shed a few tears, otherwise, Obama isn't pushing hard enough.

 

[dteowner]

Perhaps you missed the part about "Has the usual slant for a Caller article"???

You've got to remember, kind sir, that a person such as I doesn't have anywhere near as many "friendly" options in the media as a leftie such as you. Hell, you automatically throw out any sources to the right of Chairman Mao and you've still got more choices than me...

 

[Thrasher]

How about just sticking to facts rather than other people's opinions?

 

[dteowner]

OK, try this one on for size.

FACT: The $30B spending bill cannot pass congress because the democrats cannot live up to their own "pay as you go" campaign soundbyte.

And yet, somehow you put that event in the GOP obstruction thread. So, would you say that the "facts" of political events are subject to a certain level of interpretation which requires ALL of us to deal in opinions and conjectures, or would you prefer to say you're talking out of your nether regions again?

 

[Thrasher]

What "pay as you go" campaign soundbyte? And more importantly, who cares? We've always got out of deficits by growing the economy, and inflation, not by any sort of pay as you go BS. So yes, obstructing the recovery for Republican political gains is not only obstructionist, but harmful to the country and the economy.