Captain Freed from Pirates (But Are We Satisfied with the Outcome?)

The Obama Administration took the cool, calculated approach to freeing Capt. Richard Phillips of the Maersk-Alabama. This wasn't Jack Bauer. Or Mission Impossible. No shock and awe.

But look at the outcome:

• The ship reached its destination with the entire crew, less their captain
• The captain was freed unharmed
• No ransom was paid
• The pirates: 1 captured, 3 dead

Clearly the score is US 1, Pirates 0.

But somehow I suspect that many are not satisfied about the military approach. No going in with guns blazing. No retaliatory bombing of suspected pirate holdouts in Somalia. Rather, the military tried negotiations and then, when the opportunity presented itself, took out the 3 pirates simply and efficiently with just 3 shots.

I, for one, prefer the "think first, act deliberately" approach rather than the "act first -- just do something" approach.

But will the American public be satisfied with military success with a limited expenditure of adrenaline?

We're Going Up?

Just after I blogged about the economy going down, what happens? It goes up! Ah, the joy of being a pessimist!.

(Being an engineer, I get paid to think about what might go wrong, so being a pessimist is a occupational hazard!)

MSNBC proclaimed today: "Dow ends at almost 2-month high." Quoting that byline: "The stock market rally continued Thursday, driving the Dow Jones industrials above the 8,000 mark for the first time since February and to its highest close in nearly two months."

Maybe I can put that Bruce Springsteen song on hold for a while.

We're Going Down, Down, Down, Down

Bruce Springsteen sang "I'm going down, down, down, down. I'm going down, down, down, down. I'm going down, down, down, down."

This downfall in the economy hasn't been a real "crash" like the stock market crash of October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday.

Instead we keep going down, down, down, down. (Then we take a break.) Then we resume going down, down, down, down. (Then another break.) Then, we keep going down, down, down, down.

And the worst part is that no one knows how to stop the fall. No one knows where we're going or when we will hit the bottom. Not the President, not the Secretary of the Treasury, not stock brokers or financial advisors.

But in an almost surreal way, we're not panicing. Maybe it's the air conditioning and sealed windows, but we never had business men jumping from office buildings like in '29. We don't have former stock brokers selling apples or pencils on the street. It's bad on paper, but our life goes on. Yeah, we're not retiring at 65, and we cut back on things, but life goes on.

So for now, we're going down, down, down, down; we're going down, down, down, down; we're going down, down, down, down.

Bush Administration Memos Shown to Support the Repression of Rights

As reported by the AP and NPR (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101360891), the Obama Administration has released many anti-terrorism memos from the Bush Administration. As the report states:

"The conclusion, reiterated in page after page of documents, was that the president had broad authority to set aside constitutional rights.

"Fourth Amendment protections against unwarranted search and seizure, for instance, did not apply in the United States as long as the president was combating terrorism, the Justice Department said in an Oct. 23, 2001, memo.

"'First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully,' Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo wrote, adding later: 'The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.'
(source: "Obama Releases Secret Bush Anti-Terrorism Memos," by The Associated Press)

In a related statement, the Obama Administration also spoke out against the use of waterboarding and requiring a return to complying with the Army Field Manual for interviewing suspected terrorists.

I, for one, hope this is the change we've been looking for -- the return to constitutional rights and the rule of law!

To Stimulate or Not to Stimulate?

To Stimulate or Not to Stimulate?

That is the question for Republican governors. Whether they should be a populist and spread out the manna from DC, or to take a stand, no matter how politically ill-advised, and refuse these tainted funds.

Now, neither I nor the President and his advisors, nor most economists have any real idea of how to get the economy out of this nose dive. How low will it go? But, the President has chosen action over inaction.

When unemployment hits 10% and multitudes of the former middle class have lost their homes, woe to any governor who “stood her/his ground” and refused the stimulus funding.

Even our former Gov. of Mass. Michael Dukakis, a man didn’t know how to say no to federal aid, once refused federal highway funding for low priority improvements (as a transportation engineer, I agreed it wasn’t something that was not really needed). But, he had to quickly make a 180 and agree to taking the funds.

I don’t know if the stimulus will do anything long-term for the economy.

But I’ll bet that governors who refuse the stimulus will have a short political life, especially with double-digit unemployment!

The Stimulus: Is It Pork?

One of the recent criticisms of the Stimulus (particularly from Republicans) is that it is full of pork.

Anytime the government spends, there is a high probability that pet projects or programs (a.k.a, “pork”) will be included. And when the biggest spending bill ever works its way through Congress, there’s no way it can survive without picking up some pork along the way. Granted, no “earmarks” were allowed, but there are other ways to get pork in a bill.

I think it was Tip O'Neil who said "One person's pork is another person's bacon" or something similar. (Apologies to those who keep Kosher.)

Does the Stimulus Bill contain pork? I say: “Tell me something new!”

The real question is: To Stimulate or Not To Stimulate.

To be continued………….

President Speaks in Coherent, Complete Sentences

For the first time in 8 years, we heard a President respond to press questions in coherent, complete sentences. Now, that's change we can believe in!

That said, the tone of the press conference was somber. There is no end in sight to the economic downturn with the stock market headed down and unemployment rising.

The answers were long, though generally well thought-out. No funny sound bites. No fodder for SNL or Leno or Letterman. In some ways, almost boring.

As I've said before in this blog (see Sept. 2008 posts), our leaders don't really understand the economic downturn or what will work to reverse the trend. This applies to Pres. Obama.

While I don't pretend to understand it either, I do know we have but 2 choices:

1. do nothing, or
2. try to spend our way out.

Some conservatives prefer a tax cut. But the total value of a tax cut will not be realized in the economy as some portion will go to savings or debt reduction.

Spending, paticularly on infrastructure can have a factor of 1.4 or so in terms of economic benefits. First, the money employes people in infrastructure construction. Then, materials for this construction a purchased (trickling back to suppliers, manufacturers and delivery companies). Then, with ample work, the construction workers will be more likely to buy consumer goods. All in all there is a trickle impact through the economy. Finally, the improved infrastructure has an overall positive impact on commerse, be it do to better roads, more reliable utilities, or ending a load restriction on a bridge that cause truck traffic to detour.

While we clearly have an intellegent leader, our economic future remains uncertain.