The truth is this is also the responsibility of the?CEO of our country.

And this past week both Obama and his designee in the Treasury (who used to be the head of the NY Fed) have done anything but.?

This country needs confidence – in the economy – in our leaders – in our politicians and particularly in our President and Secretary of Treasury.? They failed in the last few days.? All we heard from them was doom and gloom.? Forecasts of darker days ahead.? No promises of recovery.? No hope.? No reason to give any of us (except the wealthy) desire to spend — let alone hope.

Yechh . . . it was awful . . . like when my mother made me take one big (think shovel here) spoon of cod-liver oil every morning while growing up (in the cold Norwegian winter.??I hated it.? But you know what?? I grew to be 6′5″ and healthy.?? I have to think?that stinking oil (from the liver??) helped.

Hmmmmm.

We took our medicine this week.? And it wasn’t good.? The news was all bad.? 7.6% unemployment, consumer confidence very low (56.4 which was lower than in january for crying out loud), more bank failures, bickering in congress, the Presidents presumed cabinet falling apart with another Sec of Commerce dropping out etc.? our President really needs to be the ‘Cheerleader in Chief’ but he was much more of a ‘naysayer’ this week and that never helps.

Well it got what he wanted . . . a $800 bill stimulus package that won’t start having an impact for many months.? Was it worth it??

Time will tell.? Understand this though.? The lower the markets and the economy go the harder it will be to climb out.

But . . . and here comes my bold prediction . . . it won’t matter anyway at this time.? Times are changing.? There has been enough damage.? Confidence can’t really get much lower (remember there are still 90+ % of our workforce gainfully employed). The dark days have hurt? enough already.? Tomorrow the sun is going to shine.

Things (a lot of them) are going to get better?despite the?stimulus our leaders have given us.? It will all prove to be a big waste and add to what will be a $13 TRILLION deficit by 2010 (at least).

Prediction:??beginning next week the stock market will start upward and in a big way over the next weeks and months.? Pent up demand and optimism about the future will dominate.? It’s time to buy if you have any spare change (and some high flying stocks are trading at prices change will buy).? The dow at 10,000 by April.? 12,000 by late summer.? Even higher by the end of the year.? The NASDAQ at 2500 by year end (now that is bold).? Oil up to, in a big way — a double by late summer — say $65 to $70.? From there higher, unless we really do start a Manhattan project for oil independence (which was promised by Obama but i’m still waiting to hear a single world about it).

Prediction: by spring, say May or June, the economy will start to follow the up trending market.??New unemployment numbers will begin a steady decline (say under 400,000/moonth ?in June and under 300,000/month in September).? By fall confidence will be back and the world economy will follow.? GDP?will fall the first and second quarter (I say by a total of 4.5%) and turn positive after that.

None of this is the result of the stimulus (any impact it may . . . notice the may . . . have is at least 9 months away).? Some of the improvement?may be a result of Fed and Treasury action (we still don’t know what they will do but if they do it right they good times will get even better and faster).? Banks lending, auto companies?surviving, etc.? but it will happen.??I am counting on it.? I am confident.?

take hold . . . be bold . . . the time is right.??Our country has too many hardworking, honest and good people to let the few idiots and crooks have control our destiny.

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by the way, thanks to flickr’s epicharmus for the photo

Currently the problem that strikes me nearly as critical as the economy is the mid-east problem.? Fix that and a lot of other related problems would go away.? I mean, what are the extremist Islamic jehadists going to ‘go off’ on if the Palestinians and Israelis can be made, or encouraged, to live together in peace.?

That is the mantra Ahmadinejadiboob in Iran dwells on more than any other.? Sadly?there are a lot of his same ilk in the region.

The thing is that peace is possible.? It takes some effort.? Just ask the folk in Northern Ireland.

If people will? sit down and figure out solutions rather than lobbing bombs at each other think what might happen.?

Secretary of State Clinton and her able assistant (the former Pres.) should make that goal the ONLY thing they work on for the next few months (or even years).? The average Joe (even a few who are plumbers) in Gaza and in Israel want peace.? It seems only a few horribly misguided leaders (and followers) on both sides are so intransigent that they can’t see the damage that further conflict is doing to this and future generations.?

The U.S.?can help by giving economic aid so that education and jobs are available to counter the indifference (jealousy)?that the impressionable, uneducated, unemployed?young people in the region experience and that guides (forces) ?them into extremism.?

We must also insist that the wealthy Arab/Muslim nations step up to the plate and provide hope (jobs/education) for good people? who just want a ‘life’ for their families.??By the same token those who abuse the teachings of the Bible or the Q’uran must be punished by all governments and religious leaders until they ‘repent.?’

Peace is possible, if all direct parties and third parties join together to solve the problem.? That means political, economic and religious leaders must be forced to work together using persuasion, logic and the peaceful teachings most accept anyway.?

This isn’t rocket science, and we don’t need a Manhattan project to push it.? We do need leaders who will use Islamic, Christian and Jewish virtues to trump the falsehoods that hatred, mistrust and?perverted history have made all to common.? Change despair to hope.? Change the all to common view of an awful past to a promising future.

Prove you can do it Obama.? Set hillary and the attack-peace-dogs on the problem and?keeping pushing until it is done.?

The world would be different and?Many?of our other problems would go away at the same time.? ?

And by the way. . . . don’t forget the economy.??I have another neighbor who just lost his job.? Multitask, my man BHO.

Just read in the paper that the air in our wonderful state of Utah is the worst in the nation, and the worst air is right here in the Wasatch Front.? How awful.??We have smog that you could cut with a knife and spread like peanur butter.??Yechhhhh what an image.

To get a break from this?I went golfing yesterday.? Yeah,?I know, sounds stupid.? My wife thinks so and so do my parents and my kids.? But the important thing is that iI don’t?think so.?? Drove to the only course that is open within a 150 mile radius at this time of year (and rarely that). . . wingpointe at the Salt Lake International airport (don’t laugh . . . there are actually a few flights to Canada and so it really is an international airport).? Teed off at one o’clock, when the temperature was 33 degrees farhenheit with wind 15 mph out of the north.? There was still so much snow on the ground that?I lost three golf balls when?I hit them in the snow and they just disappeared.? And?I mean to tell you that these were not just good shots they were great – plus?I lost the balls which is something?I can ill afford to do (not in the monetary sense – think score here).?

Then, there were the greens.? Most were okay, well some were okay, but a bunch were so covered with snow you couldn’t really putt without a snowplow.? One green’s hole and?flag were solid? ice and so the best you could expect was to roll you ball over the frozen hole and count it as a made putt even though the ball didn’t stop.? Fun stuff.? By the fourth hole the temperature?was down to 32 and?I had four layers of clothes on and that wasn’t enough.? The wind was the worst?part of it.??Made a few pars, no birdies (who would’a thunk pars were even possible in the conditions) and a few others? (which on the scorecard?show up as double bogeys?but only because?I can’t stand to put down?anything higher when my fingers are frozen to the pencil).

So, what does this have to do with the bull, as in the market bull (not the kind of bull your broker gives you every time he (or she) calls to tell you that your account needs more cash so he can lose it as well)??

Here’s the deal.

I?had a couple of shots that I simply ‘chunked’.? You may not be intimately familiar with?that term in the sporting sense but?I can tell you that iIam and so is every other golfer who tries to play with not one but two gloves on. . . . (or with a hitch in the backswing)?.???The?’chunk’ . . . a shot that is?made by?swinging the?club with great power but not great finesse.? The ball is hit by just a tiny part of the club and slams into the ground inches from the tee and then rolls about the length of a club before it feebly stops within reach.? Oh, my gosh!!? Its flat out embarassing?– particularly when you are playing?from the blue tees (the one further from the hole and intended for the big boys) with guys who all have complete sets of Taylor Made clubs and custom winter golf outfits.

Back to the title.??I hit two?’chunkers’ yesterday and on the second one?I had this image of giving up golf and trying something less challenging, like badmiton or perhaps nuclear engineering, or running for Congress without a millionaires backing.?

Dang those ‘chunks’.??Sucks when?you try to do something and it just doesn’t turn out the way you?expect.

Hence the bull.?

Our new President wants to get a stimulus plan passed (and by the way so do I? and?about 300 million other Americans).? Problem is Congress is notoriously slow to act . . . they have other?things on their mind. Imporant things such as decorating their offices or framing their pictures from the inauguration.?THe?important stuff that keeps them from doing what they are paid to do.? Obama wants the stimulus immediately and so Congress has agreed to shorten vacations and start?thinking about voting on it in a month or so (guess that is immediate to those knuckleheads).

But assuming congress decides to actually work there are two problems.

First the stimulus coud be a ‘chunk’ . . . kinda like the one Bush pushed through last spring.? The one where $168billion was?doled out to citizens who filed taxes with the intent that they would spend it and stimulate the economy.? The one that didn’t work because you and? I saved the money or paid off bills and didn’t spend it like we were supposed to.??Bush’s advisors said it would work because the brains at treasury said so.? It was supposed to work because if you put $168 billion into people’s hands and if they spend it? . . . then that thing economists call ‘the multiplier’ kicks in and pretty soon that $168 becomes $4-500 billion.? Cool stuff when it works. Didn’t.? Nada.? Zip.? ‘Chunk’!

Second the stimulus needs to work fast (the $168 billion not only didn’t work fast it didn’t work at all).?Fast means weeks or a few months unless you are a politician and then it means?years.? We can’t afford another ‘chunk’ on the coming stimulus.

Whatever amount of our money the government finally decides to pass out needs to be spent so that it does three things (in order of importance):

??? 1 — increase jobs significantly and fast,

??? 2 — improve confidence of the consumer (make ‘em feel like their jobs and salaries are going to be there in a year or two so that they will spend, spend spend),

??? 3 –?(i’ve added this?one as a result of the?$168 billion fiasco) spend our money in such a way that it gets into the hands of people or?businesses that will pump it back into jobs, tvs, vacations . . . .

So Obama and Congress.? Its up to you.? Are you going to?give us the bull back . . . or just more bull#%@& ?

I wish?I had some real hope but these guys don’t play?together well when the?good of the nation is involved (not historically anyway)?and besides they really don’t have to worry about their jobs? so why should they go the extra mile?? Work on the weekend?? You gotta be kidding me!

#%@& (crap)!? I’m going out to practice my?swing so that when the rain stops I can go out into the cold and hit a few more golf balls.? My extra effort?will hopefully mean?I won’t hit more ‘chunks’.?

Sure wish our leaders?would make the same?kind of extra effort for the good of our economy.? Assess, think, debate, agree.

and fast!

Important point.? Send me some stimulus $$ and I PROMISE I will spend it–fast!? Just give me a second chance.

And fast!

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thanks to michiwurm for the flikr photo.