By: Joshua Gamen
We already knew President Obama had polished speaking skills, now he’s got jokes too. I must admit that I really liked some of the points made by President Obama in his State of the Union address to the nation. I liked how he was optimistic and talked about the positives of our future. I was frustrated however to see him ignore huge issues and appear to say exactly what the masses want to hear, despite his actions in office.
I did not like how the President began the speech by talking about how great the recovery is in the first 5 minutes, stating that Corporate profits are up as well as Wall Street’s with the Dow Jones. He failed to mention unemployment is still crucifying us and the dollar is becoming worthless, or that millions of Americans are still losing their homes to the banks..
It frustrates me that politicians think they are economists. Sometimes it frustrates me that economists think they are economists tho too(Hah). In relation to the deficit(the governments budgets which currently spends more than it takes in.), President Obama talked about the cuts they would make for hundreds of billions of dollars. He failed to touch on the fact that we are a few months away from hitting the federal debt ceiling(the limit in which the government has reached it’s limit on how much it can borrow to spend, which can only be raised by an act of Congress.) The truth of the matter is, when we hit that debt ceiling later this spring, only one of two things can happen, and neither is good. Either Congress can deny raising the debt ceiling, which will cause America to default on it’s loans and cause a global crisis which would devestate trade and employment, or they can raise the debt ceiling, which would allow for the printing presses to ramp up even more and devalue the dollar further in order for the government to pay their debt with monopoly money. The latter would also devalue American’s savings, checking, and retirement accounts, not to mention make your pay check buy you less. Quite the catch 22 here, but no, it wasn’t touched on tonight, not important enough for the “state of the union” I guess..
Another thing that wasn’t touched on, was the fact that medicare and medicaid are broke. The President did say that he was open to all suggestions on ways to make the current health care bill more affordable, but God forbid him from telling the American people that the government funds for medicare and medicaid don’t have any money, and are simply a ponzi scheme in which the current costs are paid by new taxes to cover the fact that there is no money in the funds. Nope, he just said that he is going to continue to push “free” health care for everyone. After all, what does it matter that the current government funded health programs don’t have any more money, they can just print more anyways. Nobody will notice that is just causes our money to be worth less and less, and the cost of living to go up and up..
In relation to finance, the President said everything that everyone wants to hear. The problem is however, he speaks in fairy tales. He didn’t mention that the dollar is falling like never before, that paychecks are thinner than ever, that unemployment is still crippling the production of our nation, that China is crushing us with production and exports, that the world is no longer buying our biggest product(debt), that China is trying to make their currency(the Yuan) the reserve currency of the World. No…none of that was mentioned.
All Mr. Obama did was pushed for new government spending on infrastructure projects, education, and scientific research while calling for deep cuts in other parts of the nation’s budget.
The President spoke about how we need to “level the playing field,” by not extending the tax breaks to the top 2% of the population in terms of income.(The group that is responsible for creating the most jobs in our country by the way, and are responsibly for majority of donations and charities that exist in our nation..) He said that it doesn’t make any sense that people who have accountants and attorneys can get away with not paying taxes, while the rest of the people get stuck with the bill. This translates in my book to, “bye bye middle class.” The President was put in office by the richest men in the world, he surely is not going to make them pay more taxes, hell, they benefit from taxes, especially the biggest tax of all(inflation). The way to level the playing field is not by stopping tax cuts to the top 2% in income, the way to level the playing field would be to extend tax cuts to the bottom 98% in terms of income. Make it so that the middle and poor class pay the same amount of taxes as the true rich.(Who account for less than 1/10 of 1% of the world’s population..)
I agree completely with President Obama on the fact that we need more good teachers in our country. I agree with him that our teachers are our “future makers” of our nation as well. However, I don’t understand that he can acknowledge how important teachers and education are, but leave out anything to do with financial literacy not being taught in our schools. Maybe if we taught about the difference between as asset and a liability in the classroom, or cash flow and capital gains, then we would not have these MASSIVE spending deficits in our country…just a thought.. My financial mentor Robert Kiyosaki put it this way, “It’s my belief that the countries that prosper in the future will be those that properly educate their people about money and investing. If the US desires to be competitive, it must teach its children how to be financially intelligent and to stop living by the old rules of money.”
The President mentioned that we will be bringing home our troops from Iraq this year. Neat, didn’t he say he would be bringing them home as soon as he took office?? Let’s face it, the troops are not over there to preserve democracy or freedom for Iraqi’s, they are there because that land is rich in oil.
What I got out of the speech the most was this, “Government, both sides, Democrats and Republicans, we need to work together to continue to take care of the country. The people need us, we have the answers to everything, but only if we work together.”
I’m sorry, I’m just not much for big government. It seems to me that any government that tries to do to much, doesn’t do anything enough correctly.
What I would have liked to see addressed(which I’m not surprised at all that they weren’t) are the following issues: unemployment, unfunded liabilities(such as medicare, medicaid, and social security), inflation, and financial education.
I will continue to stay educated financially, so that regardless of what the government does with the tax laws or to our currency, I am sheltered and secure financially, as is my family. I urge others to do the same. What I beg of you however, is that you do not simply listen to the President, or anyone else for that matter, but that you also WATCH their actions. If you want to stay REAL, follow the government’s ACTIONS, not their WORDS.
PS: We all saw you in the audience with that stick up your ass Nancy Pelosi, and I personally wanted to backhand you more than ever.
Joshua Gamen's Blog 