Obama's Speech: There's no room for 'Change'

"I feel Obama's speech has actually provided the smelling salts to his own intoxicating dream that has duped and stultified the nation for nearly a year."

I was surprised by Obama's speech today, simply because it was as if it wasn't his. Gone were the whimsical and idealistic rhetoric of change and hope. Try 'find' on Word and they'll appear fleetingly twice. In past speeches you would run out of note paper tallying down the times he mentioned 'change.'

In a 'radical' departure, he used the term 'change' somewhat 'conservatively' which I guess will sum up his presidential era.
For all his liberal or progressive heart, it will give way to his more pragmatic mind. The economy is in freefall, fighting in two dusty theatres of war and an arab-Israeli conflict ready to explode – he isn't going to actually change that much.

What I did however, pick up on from the speech, was that the West's problem is more psychological than people make out, forget economics for the moment, the Western world is mentally having doubts, and Obama on the face of it looks like the man who can restore that confidence.

However, going back to the speech, I felt the tone was dark and authoritative, and to sum extent grave in nature. The start of the speech threw me, as there were no heady and lofty notes of hope and of a new dawn, more a wake up call.

I think he has the power to tell American's what they don't want to hear, which wouldn't have come from a Bush presidency. This is best exemplified by this passage:

“Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.”

His attacks in the Bush administration were laser guided and clinically executed and were not cheap shots like David Cameron does with Gordon Brown:

“On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

If DC could get within a mile of this kind of utterance then we'd be looking at a new PM by now.

What I did like was the lack of race as an overarching issue for Obama, yes there's no denying the socio-political significance, but his race should really have nothing to do with it – so I'm glad he dealt with it in a warm and light-heart manner – no glaring references to Martin Luther King were welcome.

Unlike the BBC's coverage which was borderline sycophantic over the blackness of his skin – more to come on that issue!

Forget the question is Obama post-racial, as that answer clearly is no, but what I want to add is: Is Obama post-ideological? I feel this is in part true and will be a theme running though his presidency. Two examples point the way:

“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works...

“Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched.”

These comments have put to bed the left-right divide for years to come and put an outward lenses on things – I feel the 21st century struggle will be globalism not ideology of the past – Obama to his credit has the vision to see that.

The next part of the speech I was dumbfounded to hear him spill was this:

“Honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths.”

These surely are the words of a conservative?! When he said them, I really felt they jarred the speech. 'A return to these truths' aren't the progressive revolutionary words of a man people uphold as a nation changer.


All in all I felt Obama's speech has actually provided the smelling salts to his own intoxicating dream that has duped and stultified the nation for nearly a year.

I do actually agree with Will Smith, who the BBC habitually had on repeat in some quasi-homage to racial America, in that Obama is the embodiment of an idea that no man can take away from him.

Obama - the man, may fail after 4 years in office by changing little, but Obama – the idea, i.e. the notion that the US can turn on a six-pence and volte-face to energise its flagging stature, then no one can really argue with the potency of that man – Barak Hussein Obama II.

Brown stands over a VAT of waste...oh borrow borrow toil and trouble!

The Ghost of Reagan should haunt the hallway of Number 10 and the corridors of Parliament in a parody of the Scrooges' visitation in the hope Gordon is to be shocked out of his fatally damaging head strong charge of borrowing his way out of a recession.

I therefore strongly advocate a return to Reaganomics and a tight embrace of the Luffer Curve. Without going into a huge theoretical explanation I will briefly touch upon a general understanding of such terms. Reaganomincs was the notion that you could actually raise the tax revenue by cutting taxes. This appears at first glance paradoxical.

What doesn't however, is Luffer's Curve that posits that there is a certain point at which the incentive to work is destroyed as a result of too high a tax policy. The result of this mentality means people stop working as hard, produce less, innovate less, have less income to spend on goods and services and generally become miserable.

So by cutting tax, the incentive to earn more when people climb the pay ladder remains high; thus more taxes means a great disincentive to work more. Also if people feel taxes are fair they are less likely of finding ways of avoiding it, thus more inclined to pay it.

However, the biggest positive that Reaganomics has to offer is that it stimulates economics growth. For instance, if individuals are allowed to keep more of their cash then they are more likely to spend it on goods and products, which will increase the economic livelihood of other people who produce these goods that will in-turn buy a different set of goods.

People wanting more goods, thanks to more money in their pocket, will results in businesses needing to hire more people to cope with demand. This demand may even lead to desiring after more goods to accompany their purchases. For example, a TV will require a DVD recorder, Sky TV, a games console etc.

Staying with Businesses, a cut in corporation tax would make generating even greater wealth more appealing. To do this you would need to design new products (as the demand for new goods is now there), thus requiring more innovative workers, or constructing more offices, therefore keeping the construction/plumbing/electrical etc. business alive.

In short – this is a prosperous circle and will help the British economy and her people get back on their feet again.

Therefore, how does cutting VAT do anything? This doesn't put money in people's pocket as Gordon Brown exclaims. People still have the same amount of money, i.e. not that much of it because we are too highly taxed. Morally, people need to see their bank balance at a higher figure each month to start spending, not be lured in by a price drop on the selves, when they can ill-afford to spend.

What needs to happen first is an Income Tax cut of biblical proportions. This does, literally, put more money back into peoples' pockets, this physical manifestation of cash in hand will make people mentally feel like they have money to spend and thus more likely to do so.

Secondly, by also cutting National Insurance – a tax on work in all but name, businesses can keep on workers or even expand their enterprise. This will keep tax revenue up to its current levels, despite my advocation of tax cuts.

With more people in work than before or by maintaining current workers who do pay tax in a job and off the dole, the actual amount of money generated will be higher, as more people are paying tax, rather than living on benefits, slurping up the Government's money on layabouts.

The public may even receive a culture shift and start to save more in these times. Thus thirdly, higher interest rates might also increase people to save and therefore put money back into banks, giving these banks greater funds to act as a stimulus and trade with one another again.

The confidence will be re-established via this culture of saving.

Instead of the Government giving banks money that they don't have, which will make us all in even more debt and weakening our purchasing power via the fall in sterling... (owing to our higher tariff to imported goods that we all enjoy.)

...We should therefore give more freely to banks our the extra money that has been granted to us by lower taxes, rather of always asking banks for loan after loan after loan.

Banks can then get back to the business of competing with one another by offering more seductive savers rates, thus accumulating wealth that they can then give to small and big business alike in the form of cheaper business loans to expand their enterprise, via hiring new workers or building new empires.

In light of this, how can Brown ask the banks to tighten their belts and not be reckless, in essence not lend to people who are unable to pay them back, then in the same near instance hold a gun to bankers heads and ask them to start lending again in a wanton fashion, which is exactly what got everyone into this mess.

Why should tax-payers lend their money to a government that can't tighten its own purse strings and has been exposed as a nation who isn't trusted by any other power to make good on their loans?

An individual wouldn't lend to someone who has a history of non-repayments or who is spend-thrift with their surplus, or for that matter their gold reserves at a wrong time. Individuals shouldn't do it so neither should Governments, especially one that has such a poor command of economic prudence.

If only Cameron had the gumption to say these things. We need a change of direction fast, if we are to avoid what the German Finance minster called 'Lemmings falling off a cliff mentality' duping ourselves into thinking Brown's fiscal stimulus is the right course to weather the economic tsunami.

Two Irish referendums don't make a EU right.

Ah! The ultimate tool of direct democracy – the referendum. Is the EU altruistically trying to set up a Greco-style polis so that member states can enjoy the fruits of direct and bottom up decision making? The blunt answer – NON!

We have reached a sad state of affairs when after fighting a War against two authoritarian regime in Europe, we resort to using what we fought in defense of (democracy) as a means to force people to think again.

When something is blatantly a wrong, the EU forces its member states, through legal bafflement and obfuscation, to except it or if that fails, dupe their inhabitants into saying its a positive thing and thus we do not require a direct democratic vote.

However, only when the decision goes against the EU, do these technocrats pray to a false idol posing as the Goddess of Liberty, asking to be showered with referendums and free-choice.

It's like Hitler having elections in Nazi Germany, when voters would walk into a booth knowing if they didn't put the right cross in the box then, they'd be asked to vote again; more often than not compelled by the butt of a rifle.

Can this supra-state really hold its supposed people in such contempt like this? Britons must be baffled by Ireland receiving not just one, but two referendums – a triumph of democracy you cry? I find it impossible to trust an entity that only allows voting when thing don't go their way.

Democracy shouldn't be used as a final device that acts in a subservient manner to the Cause, whatever that may be. It is like the EU talks to us like children : We allow you democracy when you get it wrong, so you can learn from your mistake and get it right the next time.

Coupled with the imperial posturing of Sarkozy, chasing after the ghost of token Bonaparte-ism, is certainly a distinct concern. His inability to sit politically still for more than 3 minutes in European affairs, bossing nations around like an EU President-elect, should send shock waves running with the democratic world, who elected him – France and who else?

When the people have spoken, their voice shouldn't fall on deaf Euro-ears. Yes, Europe is a rapidly aging population, but there's no need to ask it's children to speak up and answer again. Perhaps the EU suffers from another age-related ailment – memory loss, although no will always mean no.

A National Government in times of crisis, Gordon?

If Gordon Brown keeps referring to this Financial Crisis as a global one that needs the efforts of every nation to come a universal solution. This blog feels that Gordon wants to be the Churchill of out times – a national leader in times of crisis.

But he would be good to remember that although Churchill was a Tory, he presided and ruled in a national government – a collection of all parties striving for the greater good.

Perhaps if Gordon could stop being so drugged up on his Socialist obsession with Power and ultimate rule, the idea of a national government to free us form this crisis isn't a bad idea.

Vince Cable and George Osborne would make fine additions to an economic cabinet to deal with this enemy. Though the controlling Gordon wouldn't dream of this power-share knowing that Churchill lost the election after the war. So much for non-partisan politics.

Time is up on the Brown Solution

Gordon Brown's constant mention that the whole world is in his hands is an outright lie. Take the evidence of the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, speaking earlier this week.

She feels that Brown's remedy of throwing cheap money at the economy to boost it, which I might add is borrowed money, is exactly the same act as what got us here in the first place – a debt ridden society.

Ms. Merkel states: "I am deeply concerned about whether we are now reinforcing this trend through measures being adopted in the US and elsewhere and whether we could find ourselves in five years facing the exact same crisis."

The difference in her rhetoric can be traced back to the way Germany built a large surplus in times of plenty, something that slipped Gordon's mind as he was to busy fantasising over the end of 'boom and busts.' Hence we now have Gordon lunging around calling for a fiscal stimulus.

She believes that this course of action is nothing more than short term solutions of stimulating the economy rather than overhauling huge global problems in the way we borrow and save. Her chief economic advisor echoes her sentiments:

“How good is a policy package if it has to be changed every other week? How good is it for confidence? The latest British decisions on VAT and income tax, for instance, are inconsistent. Better to wait a bit longer and put forward more durable solutions,"

These type of aggressive utterances should be what Cameron and Osborne should be mounting as a direct attack on Gordon. They must shatter the lie that all other nations are following his economic ways and furthermore, that these nations ever followed him in the first place by allowing one's nation to borrow disproportionately against its surplus.

Cameron needs to pick up this sceptre laid down by Chancellor Merkel, that conveyed the doubts people had over using fiscal brute force to reverse the current economic cycle. Merkel adds: “Our goal is not to try and overcome the crisis, but to build a bridge so that we at least can start recovering in 2010.”

So the 'do nothing' rhetoric Brown is trying to pin on Cameron could actually be embraced by the Tories, by using Merkel's political significance, as a reason to work for a long term solution to the current economic woes, not supermarket give-away sales in the form of tax-holidays that will no doubt have to be paid for later down the line.

Labour has a moral claim to answer for with its duplicity in the Financial Crisis.

Many commentators have branded the pre-budget report the death knell of the New Labour Project, but this blog takes a different view believing that Britain itself, including its Government, has gone absent without leave.

The economic dimension for the current crisis is starkly obvious, but the moral rudiments are scarcely muttered. We have a Government that bought up cheap credit and thus went on a credit binge, this was echoed by the banking sector that gave everyone under the sun access to credit.

My argument is this pseudo-morality claim to end boom and bust encouraged normal citizens to follow suit to borrow and subsequently get into copious amounts of debt.

The moral compass, to use a Brownite phrase, was placed next to a magnet and from henceforth became utterly distorted in a positive social direction. People, including Labour, felt it had a moral right to spend money on things, to fitter money away and it was a sign of a bad citizen if one was a poor consumer in essence a saver.

This all came crashing down hence our current predicament, however it is the supposed 'solution' that Labour are putting forward that has me lost for words. How can anyone justify spending their way out of recession, both in Government and in public consumption habits?

Surely our culture of debt has gotten us into this hole in the first place? People are in debt, coupled with house prices plummeting and food and energy prices climbing, the public are on no position mentally or physically to start spending.

The same goes for Labour, if they have no money, because they didn't save in times of plenty, borrowing more will surely just rack up a larger debt we can't pay off.

The blame-game on the banks is equally a futile endeavour, people have slagged them off because they lent to people who couldn't pay them back, now in a complete volte face the banks are not lending to anyone, included themselves, to which people are demanding their heads.

Banks have been polarised by fear, from lending recklessly to recklessly not lending at all.

In addition, Labour are treating its supposed voters the working class with total contempt with its policy on VAT. Labour have spoken about getting people to open there wallets and who better to do that than the working classes! It was this solution to boost economic growth that has led to this current crisis.

To get poorer people in society to purchase goods they don't need, especially now they are in debt, caused by this deranged morality to borrow, is an outrage to helping poorer people everywhere. For Labour to think, 'they' (the working class) don't have the faculties to save and not to spend recklessly is abominable. What good is a cut in VAT to stimulate growth if you have no job in which is earn a wage?

This is why the Conservatives have to weave a thread that unites, firstly their successful campaign to pin Britain's 'broken society' narrative onto Labour's time in government, with the economic crisis.

In essence, Britain has become financially corrupt because of her moral debasement in the art of prudence and thrift, caused by Gordon Brown's 11 year legacy borrowing and not saving, which should be written on his tombstone.

If Cameron can successfully make this socio-economic argument for Britain's broken society
clear in people's minds then he has a huge opportunity to hang Labour with it. In short, the attack should read:

'Brown isn't at all economically strong, because he has morally weakened our societal sense of proper economic conduct thus we have entered into a broken society' – to which the Conservatives exist to only fix what is truly broken, this is Cameron's calling I hope to God he answers it.

The BBC is now 'hideously black'

The BBC's post coverage of the US elections was totally unprofessional and utterly biased. I watched the news every hour only to be greeted by Huw Edwards exclaiming that Barak Obama is the 1st black President of the United States.

The amount of times the word black was mentioned was astonishing; perhaps it makes up for all the times they have barred its presenters from using the term when discussing a murder case or violent crime, in case they 'appeared' racist for even mentioning a vague description of the criminal.

It was as if all other terminology went out the window - he was 'black' and nothing else mattered! What astounds me is that the once labelled 'hideously white' institution was bending over backwards to accommodate this notion ahead of all other attributes. Obama has spent this whole campaign not even mentioning race, yet the BBC is still stumbling around in the murky rhetoric that white and black alike wanted to avoid.

The BBC made little reference to the fact that that he is in fact mixed-race and that it would have been more appropriate to run with a narrative that spoke of Obama's mixed cultural and biological make-up transforming race relations. This unique and modern synergy being the ties that could bind America into a post-racial nation. His story spans 3 continents - Africa, Asia and of course the US (Hawaii and the continental US) His story is a migrant story, it is an American story.

Obama's aim has been to transcend the black-white divide, as he may never feel comfortable as one or the other. For example, not fitting in during his stay in Indonesia as he looked too 'dark skinned,' flip that over to his stay in Chicago where the black population viewed him with suspicion as too 'white' in nature, too intellectual and too foreign to understand their plight. In his books he has made it clear he decided to anchor himself to America after years of living a nomadic life.

None of this made in into the BBC's version of events, preferring to highlight skin deep actualities over the man's substance. It flies in the face of Martin Luther King's icon statement:

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. "

If only the BBC has the gumption to not tip-toe around racial issues, to not opt for tokenism as they usually default to, but to appoint BBC staffers by the content of their character.