Tuesday, November 4, 2008

The nightmare is over

At 6:30 Pacific Time, they called Ohio for Obama, and that's all I need to see. There's no way McCain can get to 269 electoral votes, so I am calling the election for Obama.

When I look back at the last eight years, I find it hard to believe our country could have declined as it has. This didn't happen because we didn't work hard enough. It happened because we have had piss-poor leadership. Our banks were run by idiots. Our auto companies were run by idiots. Our airlines have been run by idiots. And most of all, our country has been run by an idiot for the past eight years.

Case in point is Elizabeth Dole. She was appointed to one important job after another, and never accomplished anything. Whether she ran the Red Cross, or she was Secretary of Transportation, she didn't know her elbow from her asshole. She even ran for president (briefly) and then dropped out, whining that she didn't have enough money. Somehow she got elected to the Senate, but then people in North Carolina used to elect Jesse Helms, too. Tonight, she was beaten badly by Kay Hagan, but not before her last desperate ploy of accusing Hagan of "godlessness." Senator Dole, good riddance. You won't be a senator much longer.

Our society promotes incompetent people to positions of authority in corporations and in government. How can bankers be stupid enough to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in worthless securities? Why is it that Toyota can make a profit by building cars in America, but our own auto industry needs another $25 billion bailout to avoid bankruptcy? Most ot all, how could 50+ million people have been stupid enough to vote for Bush, not just once, but twice?

I just went to see the Oliver Stone movie, W. The review said it presented a sympathetic view of him. I still can't understand what I was supposed to be sympathetic about. He was a drunken frat boy who quit or botched every job his father set up for him. When he was arrested for DUI, his father fixed it. When he got a girl pregnant, his father fixed that, too. Only Republicans can get away with that crap. As long as they say they're in favor of family values, it doesn't seem to matter what they've actually done.

Now we will finally have a president who earned his position in life based on merit. Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, didn't start life with every advantage possible. And while I'm on that subject, let me point out that Clinton started with nothing, came from a broken home, and made it all the way to the White House. He turned around a bankrupt economy, created 23 million jobs, and left a growing surplus in a country that was respected around the world. He would have gone down in history as a great president if he had kept his pants zipped.

It's Obama's turn now. I think of him as the Jackie Robinson of politics. It wasn't enough for Jackie Robinson to be a great player; he also had to have the temperament to let all of the insults and abuse roll off him. Obama is the same way; he has to be perfect. In the debates, McCain could snarl and glare all he wanted, and Obama just had to stand there and smile. Well, tonight Obama is going to be doing a lot of smiling.

On the one hand, Obama has a very small pair of shoes to fill, but on the other hand, Bush has left him an incredible mess to clean up. The budget deficit will be near $500 billion, and with the government spending needed to make up for the shortfalls in consumer spending and corporate investment, the following year's budget will be close to $1 trillion. The legacy of our foreign policy is Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, as well as two wars that Bush screwed up royally.

Fixing the economy is going to take a long time. The variable-rate mortgage resets will go on through at least 2011, so the housing market will be under pressure from foreclosures for some time to come. We will continue to see large budget deficits for several years to come, and the recent strength in the US dollar will be reversed. Now that the election is over, I expect the widespread government interference in the equity and commodity markets will be reduced, and resource stocks will resume their secular bull market.




1 comment:

Unknown said...

Agree up and down the line with your election night comments. I might reword one sentence:

As long as they say they're in favor of family values, it doesn't seem to matter what they've actually done.

to read: ... what they actually do since claiming "family values" virtually immunizes them for life.

I think this election has taken a lot of the wind out of the sails of the family values coalition. It'll be marginalized and here's to the President-elect. The most rabid anti-Obama types will never give him any quarter but I'd hope the bulk of those who crossed over for this election will shut off Rush and Sean Hannity or at least listen to them with a critical ear in the future and judge Obama on what he does and not blindly follow Hannity and Limbaugh on their campaign of "government in exile".

Look forward to your continuing comments on gold, silver, the FAA and the world here via the new blog. I wasn't able to log in to leave comments via the AOL version so looks like I can here on blogspot.

Dick in KC MO