Sunday, February 22, 2009

Obama Gives My Mom Headaches

Those who voted for Barack Obama to become president of the U.S. expect a savior; those who did not, view him as the national antagonist. My mother says he is a control freak that will lead this country into socialism. She complains this foresight is causing her to have headaches. Why can’t she see his good intentions?

Americans voted President Obama into office. The majority must agree with his intentions. We must agree with the means he is willing to use to make this a better country. We must agree that we have done a good job fucking things up and need someone in control who has the sight for recovery.

My mother mentions the GM bailout as an example. Obama allocated funds that would go to the company to save it from failing after having been in business all these years; however, the company would have to abide by certain stipulations. My mother says this is too much control for the government to have, that this kind of deliverance will smash capitalism. I disagree. Would it have been better to let the company fail causing millions of people to loose their job during a recession that is devastating our country?

Would it have been better for my friend to let my family go through hardship when he could have helped us through it? The bailout can be compared to some help we received recently. One of the cars in my household dyed. Without a second car we were unable to work as many hours, spent more money on gas because of trips back and forth to work and daycare, and had less time to spend with our child. My friend was kind enough to loan us just enough money to buy a good used car. We of course have to pay him back but we are able to make smaller payments than we would if we had borrowed from a financial institution.

In both situations money was given and had to be spent a certain way. In both situations much needed assistance was offered. The assistance made our lives less stressful and more fulfilling. The bailout meant millions of people still had jobs to make their lives less stressful.
Kevin, a writer of Leanleft.com, has the following to offer on the employment effects of the bailout:

Not only would that kill those companies, it would kill all of the suppliers who
depend on their business. And that would kill all of the companies that depend
on those suppliers, and so on and so on down the line. Anywhere from one to
three million people could lose their jobs from those effects. And that doesn’t
even include the effects from the loss of millions of pensions or the fact that
this would be the first major economic downturn with the new, draconian personal
bankruptcy laws in place. It would now be harder for unemployed people to get
back on their feet, increasing the economic damage.


So the government has the choice of pushing us further into recession or helping sustain employment for millions. They would sustain employment while making an effort to better other aspects of the business, such as energy usage.

So, what then? The government should mind their own business? In this case the bailouts are their own business. Kevin from Leanleft.com offers this example of how:


In addition to the savings in government outlays and increased tax revenues, a
properly constructed bailout could and even should be a long term benefit to the
country. First, any bailout would be an opportunity to force the Big Three to
finally address the reality of energy independence and global climate change.
That, and the breathing room to finish the management changes they have already
undertaken that promise to turn them into better competitors, should make the
Big Three much better job producers and tax sources in the years ahead. The last
auto bailout actually made the government money, and there is no reason to
believe that, eventually, this bailout could not do the same.

And so we see how this will benefit the government as well as the people of this country.

The bailout isn’t meant to last forever. Therefore, the government’s control over how GM operates will not last forever. Once the money is paid back the stipulations surrounding it are over and GM’s executives can go back to making the massively ridiculous salaries they are used to receiving.

Let us also not forget that GM does not have to take the government’s offer. They had a choice.

Let us also not forget that Obama cannot do this on his own. He takes more than one man to pass these notions.

Obama is performing what he thinks is the best kind of help he could offer people in trouble, and throwing in what he thinks is good for U.S., or even the world, as a whole.

It seems just the thing that someone with his track record for helping people would do. According to this article translated from Norwegian by the author of Raising Max & Evie, Obama, while still a Harvard student, had paid a luggage passage fee of $103 for a complete stranger. The stranger had been unaware of the fee and was quite upset. Her two suitcases had contained all of her belongings. This is not the act of a man whose intention or insight would lead the country he is responsible for to a system one notch below communism.

I am not saying that Obama is or will be the perfect president. I am saying I would like us to be able to see the mess we have made of this world and how, charged with the wellbeing of this country, Obama wants only the best for us.

7 comments:

  1. When I read your point about people who voted for him expect a savior, and I thought about an email I received earlier, "we've had one savior already, we just need a President." and it made me laugh. Because I know too many people who have said to me "this is our President, and he is going to do right by us." That is one among many reasons I did not vote for Obama. But, it has nothing to do with his race...I never vote for democrats only because my personal views on abortion and yes I know it is off topic from what you were writing about; and some people get pissed because that is the only reason I didn't vote for him. But it is what I believe in and he won even without my vote. I do however, agree that he is doing a lot for our country and he is doing it in the bests interests of our country. I guess I just wish he would stick to fixing the economy and leave abortion laws alone. But everyone has an opinion and no one wants to hear the other sides view and often gets pissed off (I know because I pissed quite a few people off on babycenter.com and I wasn't even being rude or anything).

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  2. My mom was very disturbed by the way women were swooning over Obama. I tried to tell my mom that was just those people being idiots. It's not Obama being too much to too many people. But because of past mistakes made by other leaders of this country (think pre- civil war) Obama is so many things to so many people. He has big shoes to fill, and no matter how hard some tried to do the right thing, they will always have strong critics. It may even be true that the harder one tries the more likely they are to be ridiculed.

    I voted for Obama and I don't expect a saviour. I don't think any one human could be a saviour to an entire country. We do have a lot of problems and it will take more than Obama to fix them...but it's somewhere to start.

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  3. I agree with you--that we need to protect people's jobs to avoid a large-scale unemployment game of dominoes--but also agree with scottadams that the UAW union needs to agree to lower salaries to more competitive levels. Layoffs are not a solution.

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  4. You are right. The harder someone tries; the more likely they are to get ridiculed. I do believe Obama has our countries best interests at heart (don't tell my dad that lol, he'd have my head on a stick). But I think it is a majority of Obama's followers that turn him off to me, and it may be a select few of idiots; but I saw a framed poster that said "Our Prophecy Has Been Filled" and goes on to show how the bible predicted a savior named Barack would come. It also showed Obama's face on Jesus' body. And I just feel the name "Obama" is being shoved down my throat; maybe it is because of my dislike of his views on abortion. I know that is sad that I can not like someone solely on one view, but that is a big one for me.

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  5. I say let the President do his job, lead the nation; he cannot do any worse than the last six or eight Presidents, that proceeded him. I would more concerned about Congress; many have been in office through several Presidents. They have caused many of our problems.

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  6. Bizzle - The posters and pictures you saw are ridiculous. My mother is also negatively impacted by the way that these "select few" are actin about Obama. It makes her view Obama negatively, but we have to remember that these things only show the stupidity of the people, not Obama. It's fine to not like someone's views the wa you do because those views are coming from him, not what others feel about him.

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  7. this is a topic that can easily go both ways. there are good reason for supporting the bailout and there are good reasons for not supporting it. i do think the comparison of the two situations was weak. a close friend that sees your struggle and a business empire that has misused its resources and pays the chairmen too much money are COMPLETLY different. if you are my friend and i feel your pain of course i wanna try and help, but in business where there is suppose to be pure competition and no government interferrence i dnt agree. everyones reign must end at sometime at that was prolly GM's time and time for someone else to step up who knows.

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