OBOF TYLMHM & MORE PART 63

 

 

WELCOME TO OPINIONS  BASED  ON FACTS (OBOF)

&

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (TYMHM)

YEAR THREE

 

	Published
OVERVIEW
OBOF & TYMHM PART 14	Dec  18, 2012
OBOF & TYMHM PART 15	Jan.  02, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 16	Jan.  08, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 16 EXTRA	Jan.  11, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 17	Jan.  15, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 18	Jan.  22, 2013
Gbtre  OBOF & TYMHM PART 19	Jan.  29, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 20	Feb.  05, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 21	Feb.  14, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 22	Feb.  20, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 23	Feb.  27, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 23 0SPECIAL	Mar.  06, 2013
saOBOF & TYMHM PART 24	`
OBOF & TYMHM PART 25	Mar.  12, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 25-EXTRA	Mar.  14, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 26	Mar.  19, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 27	Mar.  26, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 28	Apr.  02, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 29	Apr.  08, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 30	Apr.  17, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 31	Apr.  23, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 32	Apr.  30, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 33	May  07, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 34	May  18, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 35	May  21, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 36	May  30, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 37	June 05, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 38	June 11, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 39	June 18, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 40	June 25, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 41	July  02, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 42	July  09, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 43	July  16, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 44	July  23, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 45	July  30, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 46	Aug.  06, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 47	Aug.  14, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 48	Aug.  20, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 49	Aug.  27, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 50	Sept. 05, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 51	Sept. 11, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 52	Sept. 18, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 53	Sept. 26, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 54	Oct.  02, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 55	Oct.  09. 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART  56	Oct.  16, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 57	Oct.  23, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 58	Oct.  31, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 59	Nov.  07, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 60	Nov.  14, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 61	Nov.  20, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 62	Nov.  27, 2013
OBOF & TYMHM PART 63	Dec.  04, 20133

 

 

In this issue

 

1.  The Obama I've been waiting for.

2.  The true price of Holiday deaks,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Buoyed by Iran, Obama Pushes Summit with

Remaining Threat: Tea Party

 

 

 

Robert S. Becker

NationofChange / Op-Ed

Published: Sunday 1 December 2013

 

FROM FLOYD:

The following is a report about the greatest Press Briefing the President has ever interrupted.  His comments were something I have prayed for, for a long time.  It is what he should have done sooner, but it isn't to late yet.  I just hope he keeps on with this approach and speaking the truth.

BE SURE TO READ MY COMMENTS AT THE END.  THEY ARE IMPORTANT AS THEY RELATE TO THIS REPORT.

~

Riding his dramatic Iranian breakthrough, President Obama aims to re-ignite his faltering presidency with a Christmas miracle.  Interrupting the White House press briefing, Mr. Obama boldly challenged rightwing nullification, calling for “an urgent summit to resolve the most serious threat to American prosperity: Tea Party Republicans.”

With a determined look, Mr. Obama broke new ground, “The Tea Party may not have hidden nuclear centrifuges, but it’s teeming with spinning subterfuges.  My pledge to stop Iran from going nuclear expands to any organized force declaring a jihad against our functioning government, integrity or progress.  The last two years prove combatants can terrorize neighbors without having nukes. As I would challenge any sustained threat to the American people, I say: either we talk now or we talk later.”

Discarding the gentleman’s code that served him badly in his first term, the president got everyone’s attention with a forceful comparison of Tea Party shenanigans with Iranian duplicity: “At the end of the day, what is the great difference between calculated deception by Iran, remote, with limited power to injure us, vs. the calculated deception by homemade upstarts with far more leverage to do institutional damage? I can't help recalling the best thing that ever come out of John Kerry’s mouth, his ’04 campaign aside, ‘This is the crookedest, lyingest bunch I have ever seen.’  I'd like to think the Nobel Peace Prize obliges me not only to damp down foreign wars but internal wars against America, too.”

Fed up with declared GOP sabotage of his presidency, Mr. Obama’s new voice rippled on: “Time to admit frankly we’re all suffering from an undeclared House impeachment. Worse still, I was indicted and convicted without trial in the Senate. Look, having started to corral Iran’s nukes, time now to show that Tea Party gridlock hurts everyone. Just because ‘wild and crazy’ took over the ’12 GOP primary doesn’t give it permanent status to wage political warfare. I trust even the Tea Party can rejoin the ways of progress and civilization, even good will to all people, rich and poor alike." 

The Outrage of Murdoch Minor

In a flash, FOX News’ Murdoch Minor leapt his feet, incredulous that he lived to see any president calling Yankee patriots “outsiders,” let alone comparing them with “Iranian madmen.” Firmly, Mr. Obama said House radicals weren't “outsiders like alien beings, but their lack of compassion for a growing majority corrodes national unity. Just like Romney’s dismissal of the 47%, except now it’s 67%. The GOP obsession with negatives, cutting taxes and Food Stamps, demonizing human services, is bringing America down. Right now, I conclude anti-government nullifiers pose the greatest threat to the American way of life.”

"Stunned into silence" captures the impact on hardened journalists. One staunch liberal had to be helped back onto his chair, slack-jawed. A voice in the back broke the silence, “but, Mr. President, why now? Isn’t this gridlock beyond solution?” “Well,” Mr. Obama declared, “if we can make peace with fearsome Iran, why not fearsome Republicans? Just like corporations, my friend, they are people too, and many still have souls. If we can break bread with hostile religious ideologues, why not hostile political ideologues breathing down our necks? I admit an epiphany that we have nothing to lose by challenging this stalemate with a summit to get America back on track.”

The president conceded he was first shaken, then inspired by Pope Francis’ outspoken indictment against the “tyranny of unfettered capitalism.” “You don’t have to be Catholic to be moved by stark reality. What president wants to leave an America more plagued by what Francis called ‘an economy of exclusion’ than when he took office? I honor leaders immune from impeachment or re-election backlash who speak truth to power. Because this pontiff speaks with good will and conviction, like the Dalai Lama, let the future not indict us for refusing to confront the worst of crony capitalism before more people and more resources are lost. Three years to go and not much to lose.” Then, the president turned, refused more questions, and bounded away, chuckling, according to unconfirmed reports.

P.S. Nod to Andy Borowitz and other political satirists.

 

FROM FLOYD:

 

Yes, I, also, was taken in.  I was jumping with joy.  I almost couldn't believe what that last P. S. said.  I thought that finally the President was going to get busy and tell it as it is.  But alas, it was not to be.  The best words that ever came out of the President's mouth, weren't his at all.  Just Satire.  Oh well, it was good while it lasted.  I wish the President would read this and proceed down this road.

 

The writers should be complimented alright.  They did a good job, as far as satire goes.

~~~

The True Price of Great Holiday Deals

 

Robert Reich

NationofChange / Op-Ed

Published: Wednesday 4 December 2013

 

The most important website last weekend and in weeks to come — on which the hopes and fears of countless Americans are focused (and the President’s poll-ratings depend) – is not HealthCare.gov. It’s Amazon.com.

Even if and when HealthCare.gov works perfectly, relatively few Americans will be affected by it. Only 5 percent of us are in the private health-insurance market to begin with. But almost half of Americans are now shopping for great holiday deals online, and many will be profoundly affected — not because they get great deals, but because their jobs and incomes are at stake.    

Online retailing is the future. Amazon is the main online shopping portal this holiday season but traditional retailers are moving online as fast as they can. Online sales are already up 20 percent over last year, and the pace will only accelerate. Target and many other bricks-and-mortar outlets plan to spend more on technology next year than on building and upgrading new stores.

Americans are getting great deals online, and they like the convenience. But there’s a hidden price. With the growth of online retailing, fewer Americans will have jobs in bricks-and-mortar retail stores.

Amazon announced last summer it would add 5,000 new jobs to the 20,000 it already has. But not even 25,000 Amazon jobs come near to replacing the hundreds of thousands of retail jobs Amazon has already wiped out, and the hundreds of thousands more it will eliminate in the future. 

To put this in some perspective you need to know that retail jobs have been the fastest growing of all job categories since the recession ended in 2009. But given the rapid growth of online retailing, that trend can’t possibly last. What will Americans do when online sales take over?

 

Add to this the fact that most of what’s being sold this holiday season – online and off-line —  is no longer made by Americans. Vast shipping containers of gadgets, garments, and other goodies are fabricated or assembled or sewed together in Asia for the American market.  

Online retailers are facilitating this move by having these goods shipped directly from Asian factories to distribution centers in America and then to our homes, without ever having to go to an American retail store or even a wholesaler. This means even lower prices and better deals. But it also means fewer jobs and lower pay for many Americans.

Some manufacturing is coming back to America, to be sure, but not the assembly-line jobs that used to be the core of manufacturing employment. Computerized machine tools and robots are doing an increasing portion of the work — which is why many companies can afford to bring their factories back here.

Get it? Technology and globalization are driving the good deals American consumers are getting this holiday season. But the same forces are keeping wages down, and are even on the verge of eliminating many of the low-wage retail and related service jobs many Americans now need to make ends meet.

To put it another way, American consumers getting great shopping deals are also American workers on the losing end of those same deals.

The biggest reason holiday shopping is especially frenzied this season is so many Americans are already stretched to the breaking point that they’re more desperate than ever for bargains. Sixty-five percent of today’s shoppers are living paycheck-to-paycheck. That’s up from 61 percent last year, according to consumer research by Booz and Company.

Median household income in America continues to drop, adjusted for inflation, because low-wage jobs are the major ones available. Lower-wage occupations accounted for only 21 percent of job losses during the Great Recession. They’ve accounted for 58 percent of all job growth since then.

The President’s dropping poll-ratings are only partly due to the bumbling roll-out of the Affordable Care Act. The computer glitches at HealthCare.gov aren’t the most important reason why Americans are grumpy this holiday season. The bigger problem is the economy remains lousy for most people.

Technology and globalization are taking over more and more American jobs. There’s no easy fix for this, and it’s hardly the President’s fault. But the sobering reality is the United States has no national strategy for creating more good jobs in America. Until we do, more and more Americans will be chasing great deals that come largely at their own expense.

~~~