Ganesh Harinath

It is understandable that politicians must speak in platitudes at times, in order to get their points across without committing to future plans of action, or binding themselves in an implied consensual agreement with their audience. That being said, this fact annoys me. Granted, I am in a unique position at this stage in my life, so there are some things that I want to hear; and there are some things that I need to hear. As our new President gets adjusted, learns the intricacies he will need to master to do his job efficiently, and begins to shape his policies, it is my hope that he will begin to make more direct statements that will help those attentively listening understand his action plan.

In the spirit of keeping informed, I’ve reproduced a speech from President Obama, below. I’ve only included excerpts; the speech, in its entirety, can still be found on the Wall Street Journal website.

The speech was sourced from WSJ.com, from an article dated January 8, 2009.

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We start 2009 in the midst of a crisis unlike any we have seen in our lifetime – a crisis that has only deepened over the last few weeks. Nearly two million jobs have now been lost, and on Friday we are likely to learn that we lost more jobs last year than at any time since World War II. Just in the past year, another 2.8 million Americans who want and need full-time work have had to settle for part-time jobs. Manufacturing has hit a twenty-eight year low. Many businesses cannot borrow or make payroll. Many families cannot pay their bills or their mortgage. Many workers are watching their life savings disappear. And many, many Americans are both anxious and uncertain of what the future will hold.

Starting on a high note is over-rated, I suppose.

I don’t believe it’s too late to change course, but it will be if we don’t take dramatic action as soon as possible.

This is all subjunctive, but I appreciate the optimism here.

This crisis did not happen solely by some accident of history or normal turn of the business cycle, and we won’t get out of it by simply waiting for a better day to come, or relying on the worn-out dogmas of the past. We arrived at this point due to an era of profound irresponsibility that stretched from corporate boardrooms to the halls of power in Washington, DC. For years, too many Wall Street executives made imprudent…

I truncated this paragraph because we’ve all heard it before. The statement’s got a lot of validity, but here is where I differ slightly with our President. As greedy and pointed as the actions of analysts in the financial industry may have been, they would not have been possible without the ignorance of the average investor/buyer. This is not a remediation of their onus, but rather a simple truth – in this instance, it seems that one truly was born every minute. If you accept a dollar from me with the explicit possibility that I will charge you twice as much interest next year as I am charging you now, and you know you cannot afford to pay me at the current rate [let alone at the higher rate], you probably shouldn’t be borrowing money from me. This is essentially what the ARM is/was, and the average home-buyer either abrogated this fact, or chose not to question from whence the manna came.

Now, the very fact that this crisis is largely of our own making means that it is not beyond our ability to solve. Our problems are rooted in past mistakes, not our capacity for future greatness. It will take time, perhaps many years, but we can rebuild that lost trust and confidence. We can restore opportunity and prosperity.

Again, truncated – but we have also heard this. The optimism is great, and I am hoping he will elucidate as we continue.

That is why I have moved quickly to work with my economic team and leaders of both parties on an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that will immediately jumpstart job creation and long-term growth.

Dude, that’s awesome. Tell me more about this plan.

It’s a plan that represents not just new policy, but a whole new approach to meeting our most urgent challenges. For if we hope to end this crisis, we must end the culture of anything goes that helped create it – and this change must begin in Washington. It is time to trade old habits for a new spirit of responsibility.

Go on.

There is no doubt that the cost of this plan will be considerable. It will certainly add to the budget deficit in the short-term. But equally certain are the consequences of doing too little or nothing at all, for that will lead to an even greater deficit of jobs, incomes, and confidence in our economy.

As a marketer, I can fully appreciate a delayed ROI.

Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy – where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs which leads to even less spending; where an inability to lend and borrow stops growth and leads to even less credit…

I’m intrigued to hear about the notion of increased government from a liberal. But, I’m willing to flesh out the argument to see if it bears fruit.

That is why we need to act boldly and act now to reverse these cycles… That work begins with this plan – a plan I am confident will save or create at least three million jobs over the next few years. It is not just another public works program. It’s a plan that recognizes both the paradox and the promise of this moment – the fact that there are millions of Americans trying to find work, even as, all around the country, there is so much work to be done. That’s why we’ll invest in priorities like energy and education; health care and a new infrastructure that are necessary to keep us strong and competitive in the 21st century. That’s why the overwhelming majority of the jobs created will be in the private sector, while our plan will save the public sector jobs of teachers, cops, firefighters and others who provide vital services.

Where’s the beef? I thought we were talking about a plan just a second ago…

To finally spark the creation of a clean energy economy, we will double the production of alternative energy in the next three years. We will modernize more than 75% of federal buildings and improve the energy efficiency of two million American homes, saving consumers and taxpayers billions on our energy bills. In the process, we will put Americans to work in new jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced – jobs building solar panels and wind turbines; constructing fuel-efficient cars and buildings; and developing the new energy technologies that will lead to even more jobs, more savings, and a cleaner, safer planet in the bargain.

To build an economy that can lead this future, we will begin to rebuild America. Yes, we’ll put people to work repairing crumbling roads, bridges, and schools by eliminating the backlog of well-planned, worthy and needed infrastructure projects. But we’ll also do more to retrofit America for a global economy. That means updating the way we get our electricity by starting to build a new smart grid that will save us money, protect our power sources from blackout or attack, and deliver clean, alternative forms of energy…

Again, I don’t know how I or my peers will benefit from these changes.

Finally, this recovery and reinvestment plan will provide immediate relief to states, workers, and families who are bearing the brunt of this recession. To get people spending again, 95% of working families will receive a $1,000 tax cut – the first stage of a middle-class tax cut that I promised during the campaign and will include in our next budget. To help Americans who have lost their jobs and can’t find new ones, we’ll continue the bipartisan extensions of unemployment insurance and health care coverage to help them through this crisis.

So if I am not married, I will not get any tax cuts? If I help support my family, but do not have a wife, I guess I’m out of luck..?

I understand that some might be skeptical of this plan.

[Raises hand.]

Our government has already spent a good deal of money, but we haven’t yet seen that translate into more jobs or higher incomes or renewed confidence in our economy. That’s why the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan won’t just throw money at our problems – we’ll invest in what works.

Frankly, I do like the bold name of the plan; it’s better than calling it a bail-out, or a hail-mary. Ostensibly, it is both.

Instead of politicians doling out money behind a veil of secrecy, decisions about where we invest will be made transparently, and informed by independent experts wherever possible. Every American will be able to hold Washington accountable for these decisions by going online to see how and where their tax dollars are being spent. And as I announced yesterday, we will launch an unprecedented effort to eliminate unwise and unnecessary spending that has never been more unaffordable for our nation and our children’s future than it is right now.

As a self-proclaimed technocrat, I think this makes a lot of sense. And as a business person with public finance experience, I like the idea of accountability. I have concerns, though, that this will actually happen. Time will tell.

We have to make tough choices and smart investments today so that as the economy recovers, the deficit starts to come down. We cannot have a solid recovery if our people and our businesses don’t have confidence that we’re getting our fiscal house in order. That’s why our goal is not to create a slew of new government programs, but a foundation for long-term economic growth.

I agree that we have to make smarter investments. Part of that should be educating the average investor so we can prevent something like this from happening again.

No longer can we allow Wall Street wrongdoers to slip through regulatory cracks. No longer can we allow special interests to put their thumbs on the economic scales. No longer can we allow the unscrupulous lending and borrowing that leads only to destructive cycles of bubble and bust.

We have the SEC and SOx; rather than create new bodies, we should just learn to maximize the potential of the ones we have. Why go buy a new car when you can just give your old one a paint job. Let’s not go nuts, here, guys; system refresh isn’t always the answer.

It is time to set a new course for this economy, and that change must begin now. We should have an open and honest discussion about this recovery plan in the days ahead, but I urge Congress to move as quickly as possible on behalf of the American people. For every day we wait or point fingers or drag our feet, more Americans will lose their jobs. More families will lose their savings. More dreams will be deferred and denied. And our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.

This is the truest part of the entire speech, and I couldn’t agree more.

That is not the country I know, and it is not a future I will accept as President of the United States.

I appreciate the spirit of this statement, but I dislike it, proper; read it a few times, and I think you’ll see what I mean.

It will not come easy or happen overnight, and it is altogether likely that things may get worse before they get better.

Oh, more good news.

I know the scale of this plan is unprecedented, but so is the severity of our situation.

Desperate times…

We have already tried the wait-and-see approach to our problems, and it is the same approach that helped lead us to this day of reckoning.

Libertarians, eat your hearts out.

That is why the time has come to build a 21st century economy in which hard work and responsibility are once again rewarded.

Has anyone ever worked a government job? Or anyone have a friend who does? This statement made me laugh.

That’s why I’m calling on all Americans – Democrats and Republicans – to put good ideas ahead of the old ideological battles; a sense of common purpose above the same narrow partisanship; and insist that the first question each of us asks isn’t “What’s good for me?” but “What’s good for the country my children will inherit?”

Very JFK of you, Barack. I hope it works better, this time around.

More than any program or policy, it is this spirit that will enable us to confront this challenge with the same spirit that has led previous generations to face down war, depression, and fear itself.

I guess spirit is really all we have to go on at this point, given that no clear action plan has been laid out in this speech, or since. I am frustrated by the lack of determined, direct statements; which brings us back to where we started. I sincerely hope, for all our sakes, that Obama has the skills [and advisors] to get us out of this quagmire.

Thank you, God Bless You, and may God Bless America.