Things to be thankful for

Merchants are slashing prices, making deals, in the hope that they can get shoppers to buy and not just look this holiday season. Good luck with that. While I'm sure they'll make more sales than they would have otherwise, it feels like people are battening down the hatches for the storm, even those who still have healthy salaries coming in.

Despite the Fed loosening the credit market, making credit available again, the government is finding consumers do not necessarily want more debt and that "households and lenders may not respond much because of the wealth destruction from plunging property and stock values." Count us as one of those people. Our IRA, 401k and children's college funds were hammered this year. It is like we didn't put any money in at all the last few years. Now maybe those portfolios will come back, but maybe they won't, at least in time for our eldest to go to college in less than 10 years. So, while continuing to add to the college fund, in the hope I'm buying at the bottom, I'm also sticking a little extra cash into savings (our emergency fund) in preparation to add that to the college funds once we're sure things have stabilized.

At the moment we're fine as we've always tried to live within our means (emergencies like the furnace dying in winter notwithstanding). However, we know too many people who have been laid off, sometimes both the husband and the wife, and see that it could happen to us. We're not to going to spend what we don't have to. The 9 year old car, which needs a little work, still runs fine. Same for the non flat screen 32 inch TV.

We'll still do some shopping as we're in a house and there is always a project that needs doing, but anything optional is being delayed. And if I see a good deal on a car, and/or decide it is not worth it to fix an aging car, I might pounce sooner rather than later. Base case scenario, we go on a nice shopping and investing spree in a year or two.

Again, we are fortunate. We are not the working poor. Things could be much worse. My wife works for the state (NJ). Many of the people she supervises are lower level employees who make around $30k per year, the working poor. Originally, the last payday for the month was to be today. However, since the state offices are now open the day after Thanksgiving, payday is Friday. Yesterday, as I read a story about 30 million Americans (about 10% of the population), will be getting food stamps soon, she told me that several of the employees had to cancel their plans for tomorrow as they don't have enough money to buy a turkey tonight. Somehow, not shopping till we drop the next few weeks doesn't feel so bad.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Next on Capitol Hill Blues

Before the GOP gets all upset about a President Obama having a almost filibuster proof majority in the Senate, they should take solace in the fact that the Democrats may not be marching in step with him. The fundamental problem Obama faces within his party is this: He was not their top choice for the job. The Democratic Party's top brass wanted Hillary, not Obama. Though Obama will bring many new Senators with him to Congress, Senators who rode in on his coat tails, he will still have to deal with the entrenched group of insiders who were already there and like the DNC power structure as is. If they do so, this could be bad news ... for this out of touch group.

Washington insiders are out of touch with the rest of American, particularly those insulated from day to day activities of the real world. A lot of people hated Hillary for many reasons, some of them good. A lot of Reagan Democrats may have looked at Hillary and McCain, decided they were pretty similar and chose McCain as the better choice.

DNC chief Howard Dean had the grass roots idea right, if not too early, in '04. This was a season where more people wanted something to look forward to than for mommy or grandpa to protect them. Replace Dean with a more stable candidate like Obama and you get a win. Now we'll see whether Obama can turn things around.

What will be interesting is not if the GOP goes the grassroots round in '12 or '16, but who their supporters will be as they've made the conservative intellectuals feel unwelcome.

What next?

While I'm happy to see Sarah Palin head back to Alaska I am not happy about the bashing the Republican party has taken. Instead, I'm hopeful that this lost will lead to their day of reckoning a little sooner so they can rebuild the GOP (or a new party) as a true conservative party that will not pander to the religious loonies on the right, spend like there is no tomorrow but leave the bill until tomorrow and focus on making the majority of Americans poorer while making sure those with the right connections succeed (I'm not optimistic about the later).

The GOP needs to clean house and get the conservative movement back to their base. They used to be the party of small government and business, doing what they thought was best for the country as a whole. Better, they had the ability to debate with the Democrats to show voters why their ideas were correct. Though you may have disagreed with their conclusions, their opinions were generally well thought out and informed-- a good example would be dissenting US Supreme Court opinions where a justice(s) demonstrates how he or she came up with a differentconclusion than the majority based on a different philosophy . Now they seem to argue on fear: the other side will raise taxes (ignoring that they raised the debt so much with their drunken spending that any candidate will have little choice), he hangs out with terrorists, he is a Muslim etc, without the facts to back up their allegations.

They've chased away the best and the brightest in an elite intellectual purge, seeming to prefer the ignorant masses. I'm not saying the educated don't make mistakes: John Kennedy's best and brightest leading us into Vietnam being a prime example. However, there are two sides to every argument and I prefer a well thought out opinion over a "it feels right" approach. Poorly defined, bitter vitriol, complete with name calling, can not compare to a full debate on the issues, though it does make for a better sound bite.

There is nothing wrong with representing the blue collar, unprofessional Americans who live and move in a different world than professionals with different concerns. However, that can't succeed on the world stage. The GOP lost the election in part by scaring away voters, even the Joe 6 Packs, with a woefully inept Sarah Palin. The political qualities that make for a good Governor of a small (in population) rural state such as Alaska do not necessarily transfer well to the national stage. Yet, that could have been overcome with a crash course on current positions. The public would understand that the Governor of Alaska, while well versed in problems facing Alaska, would not be up to date on national issues. However the Governor seemed incapable of adjusting. More scary, the faithful kept lowering the bar, trying to convince Americans that the under study to a 72 year old POW cancer surviving President doesn't need to be smart. Americans, scared at what could happen, refused to support the ticket and McCain lost in a year where it would have been hard for the GOP to win anyway. Yet the GOP thinks the solution for 2012 is to not only go ultra conservative but to pick more empty shells to run for office and to manipulate. The well educated, with informed and reasoned opinions on domestic and foreign affairs need not apply. Meritocracy has no place in the new GOP.

Presidents such as Abe Lincoln or T.Roosevelt would not be welcomed today as they were intellectuals who were somewhat progressive for their day. Nixon would have been impeached not because of Watergate, but because he dared to talk to communist China. Reagan would never be able to have drinks with Tip O'Neil because O'Neil was the Democratic speaker of the house. The party that was less than thrilled with Senator McCain because he wasn't socially conservative enough for them deserves what they get. The sad thing is that blue collar workers, who they profess to love, the college educated professionals and the white collar, but perhaps not educated, middle class in the service industry have many things in common. Yet the GOP has chased away the college educated who could lead the next generation and, frankly, has not treated the white collar middle class that well either so they could focus on the fears of a few who do not like the way the world is changing.

The party seems to have embraced a policy that the more uneducated you are, the more qualified you are to lead the nation. By that logic Andy Taylor is as qualified to be the Supreme Court's chief justice as John Roberts. There is appeal and there is the ability to lead the nation. Just because you are successfully running your small computer business does not mean you have the skills to immediately be the second in command at IBM, yet that is what the GOP expected the Kool Aid drinkers to accept. 8 years of go by your guts and not weigh the consequences of alternate options has left this country in a horrible mess. It is one thing for your local leaders to be a Joe 6 pack, it is another for the national leaders.

As to Palin herself, not only was she unqualified at the moment, but she seemed to show a lack of intellectual curiosity. You don't need to have a Harvard or Yale degree to be intelligent. Heck, you do not even need to go to college, I've known many incredibly intelligent people over the years who did not go to college. I've also known plenty of college graduates who I thought were idiots. However, even those without a formal education stayed up on current events and could question what was being said.

I do not want the man or woman running our country to be the one I most want to hang out with, I want the one who has the ability to do the best job, whether they went to Columbia University, Queens College or Newark High School. Palin, who could barely be bothered to read briefing papers before her debate, was not that person. I may not agree with John Roberts, Pat Buchanan, Sam Alito or Newt Gingrich, but their positions are generally well thought out. They could properly frame an argument with a well balanced position. However, if they were starting their careers today, I wonder if they would be welcomed in the GOP of today? Perhaps, or perhaps they would be chased away because they are intellectual elitists.

All of us, liberal, conservative, moderate whatever are stronger when both sides can frame an intellectual argument to try to convince us of their points. We need people from all sides of the political spectrum with intellectual curiosity, analytical talents, and problem-solving skills typical of intensely intelligent people to be our leaders. Anything less is inadequate. Disdain for the intellectual, creative thinking base is not a good thing. If we think two party rule is bad, wait until we have one party rule.

The promised land

Growing up in a Jewish household in the 1970s and 1980s, I heard a lot about Israel's 1967 6 Day War. Many Jews expected a second holocaust with Israel being wiped off the face of the earth when the war started. Instead, Israel not only defended herself but was able to push back her enemies and take back East Jerusalem (leading to today's geopolitical problems, but that is another issue). In the decades before the war, Jews could look, but not touch the Western Wall of the old temple, one of Judiaism's holiest cites. Now they could. I have heard stories of the emotion of the day when Israel took over East Jerusalem, the tears of joy and happiness but never quite understood it. That is until yesterday.

Yesterday, the first day after Barack Obama was elected as the 44th President of the United States, and the nation's first African American President, the news was filled with stories from older African Americans happy to finally reach the reach the promised land. After years, decades, centuries, many African Americans see the election of one of their own by the white majority as a sign that they have finally made it to main stream America. They see a leader they can point their children to. Instead of being like the thug on the corner, they can be like the man in the White House.

More interestingly, I found similarities to the story of Exodus from the Bible in this election. Just as the Jews wandered around for 40 years so have the African Americans. It has been 40 years since civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated. As he said the day before he died, "And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land." Like Moses having to let Joshua lead the Jews into their promised land after their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, Barack has led Martin's to theirs. Hearing the stories of many who lived in segregation or were part of the civil rights movement express their joy in living to a day they never expected in their lifetimes reminded me of the stories I heard from my parents' generation about Israel.

Though President-elect Obama's election is just a symbol, it is a strong symbol of hope that fulfills a dream. However this symbol shouldn't take away from the hard work that needs to be done, he does provide hope, which is something that, hopefully, community leaders will be able to build upon. But I'm not here to rain on their parade. I'm here to enjoy their celebration and hope that we all will be celebrating with them as Americans unifying behind our new President.

The shallowest generation.

I have just read a fascinating article about how the baby boomers are going to go down as the shallowest generation. The premise was that the baby boomers have spent the last 25 years charging us into debt while refusing to invest in tomorrow. Now that the debt party is over, we're living the hangover now that we need to live within our means.

We have done worse then refuse to live within our means for the last few decades, we have sold our souls to lowest bidders for the almighty corporate bottom line. Profit is great, but if concentrated into too few hands it does society as a whole little good. How is it in the average American's best interest to be doomed to work for low wages so investors can make huge profit and the larger corporations squash any competitor. We have outsourced almost everything meaningful, both blue collar and white collar, to our competitors. If it can be made cheaply elsewhere, out it goes. Great if the freed money is being used to invest in something else, not so great if its just going into someone's stock portfolio to sit and increase a profit that will not be invested in our country, except to pay the minimal wages of the household help.

We've refuse to properly invest in our schools and infrastructure. What will this cost us later? We continue to argue over bailing out large companies while average Americans are losing their homes, even though they have some equity in them, simply because they can't refinance their current mortgages to a lower interest rate, even though that means the difference between them keeping their homes or causing their towns to lose another taxpayer as they are forced to leave.

The average hard working blue collar guy is finding his (or her) options getting worse every day. It won't be long until their white collar friends join them. And oh won't we have fun then?