Obama Administration: All Hat–No Cattle?
That Texas expression can now be used to describe the folks that are striding across the American landscape posing as political leaders. They are obviously without capability to perform. The President certainly knows how to look presidential. He’s got the hat and the walk but it ends there. No cattle!
The substance is missing. He has a lot of programs. None of them seem to be doing the job as advertised. The Stimulus initiative is a joke and shows no signs of anything but an addition to the debt which is now 1.4 Trillion dollars. Housing construction starts continue to decline. There has been a trumpeting of the increase in sales of existing homes using the tax credits that are involved for first time buyers. Good for them but not good for home construction. No new construction jobs are created through the increase in sales of existing homes.
This administration is showing their low skill level in all the areas of job creation. This may be partially attributed to the fact that few of them ever had a real job in the private sector. Construction is the largest employment sector of the American economy. It does not receive the attention of an auto maker since most homes are built by small companies when compared to a General Motors or Chrysler. The Administration does not have a real clue as to how to aid these companies in creating employment in this, the largest employment sector in America.
The focus has been on finance which is of course important to builders. I don’t connect the restrictions on compensation to banking executives as a way to stimulate construction. It seems like a good idea but we need better examples of leadership in stimulating the construction industry. Financial abuses in the finance of housing has been a significant contributor to our problems. The people who build the houses had little to do with creating the sub – prime fiasco. Those hard working construction executives and the skilled craftsmen they employ are poised with hammers ready (really nail guns now) to start building. The Administration has shown little effort in finding real solutions in the area of job creation.
Heath Care, executive compensation, cap and trade and melting ice caps are important issue to be debated, but jobs are the issue that should be the focus of Obama and his minions.
Seven million four hundred thousand jobs have been lost. Nearly ten per cent of Americans are unemployed and the number keeps growing each month under Obama’s leadership. In a few short weeks it will be the one year anniversary of the President’s election. A short period after that will be the one year anniversary of his inauguration.
I don’t know what Bush is doing these days but I think when it comes to the improvement of economy Obama is mimicking his current activity and doing nothing useful. Bush is gone and his replacement is a cipher..
Cipher ? Check Webster’s first meaning
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Buck,
Excellent piece and excellent points.
I will take you a couple of steps further. First is that I use the stock market as a better indicator than new housing starts. There is a huge supply of existing houses that need to be purchased before we begin new construction. The stock market, however, takes hits all the time and for all the gains we have made, we slide right back down. Typically we would see the DJIA and S&P make stronger climbs in a recovery.
It is curious to me that when Bush was in office, the Democrats were fast to declare recession, long before there was one. Now that they are in power, they are fast to claim recovery when we are still declining in recession. It’s not just “All hat and no cattle”, but some folks out there are “spinnin’ yarns”.