Next President Will Take Office The Day After Election Day
The next president won't really take office on November 5, but it sure may seem that way.
That's the only conclusion you can come to when you assess President Bush's performance this morning as he tried and failed yet again to calm the markets and reassure everyone that everything will be okay. A combination of poor communications skills, an extreme lack of credibility, the lowest approval rating of his presidency, and several failed previous attempts to keep things calm meant that, at best, the president had no impact.
But it actually may have been worse. I spent the day with a number of senior Wall Street types and they were all saying that the president's remarks not only may not have helped, but may have made things worse. Several said that they wished he would stop making statements altogether.
Combine this president's inability to lead on the current economic crisis with:
- A Treasury secretary who also has limited communications skills
- A Treasury secretary whose motives are increasingly being questioned because of his past associations with Wall Street
- A Secretary of Commerce, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, and OMB director that have been largely or completely missing in action
- A Federal Reserve Board chairman who prefers to fly below the radar screen, and
- A Securities and Exchange Commission chairman who has no public persona
What you get under these circumstances is no credible leadership on the credit and stock market crises at a time when the country desperately needs and seems to want it.
It's very likely that at this point in its last year in office, no one in the Bush administration, including the president himself, will be able to claim this leadership position and take control. If it ever existed at all, that opprtunity passed a long time ago.
And even if they were in town, House and Senate leaders on this issue don't have the national credentials to act.
That leaves only one person: whoever is elected president on November 4.
Unlike the situation in almost all previous elections, the country is likely to look to the president-elect for guidance and reasurance almost immediately after the results have been announced. Even though he won't fromally take over for about 10 weeks, the president-election likely will have to get involved in economic policy discussions instantly. His choice for Treasury secretary, who will need to be announced very quickly, will be seen almost immediately as the "go to" person for the new president on this issue. The president-elect simply won't have a choice. Getting involved will be too good of an opportunity to pass up and not getting involved will look like an abdication.
It will be a little like what happens in the U.K., where the newly elected prime minister moves into 10 Downing Street and starts work the day after the election. Except that the current president will still be in office.
Then we're really in trouble
'That leaves only one person: whoever is elected president on November 4.'
Neither Obama nor McCain have a clue about economics and finance. Neither remotely as qualified as Harvard MBA, CEO G.W. Bush to grasp the issues.
Obama was a copy editor at a business newsletter for a couple of years after Columbia. He apparently didn't like that work.
McCain could at least take advice from his business exec wife.
Are you kidding
Obama not as qualified as Bush on economic matters? Where have you been living the past 8 years - Mars? First, GWB is captive to his right-wing ideology. Second, he's about as stubborn and self-delusional as they come. These traits have rendered him incapable of correcting the mistakes he has made which contributed to this crisis. McCain is a self-admitted economic dunce.
Obama is smart as a whip and far more ideologically balanced than either McCain or Bush. Lastly, remember it was Wall Street finance "masters of the universe," who were too clever by half, who got us in this mess with their high leverage CDOs, etc. in the first place. Even they didn’t truly appreciate the risk they were taking.
Obama'll do just fine. Let's just hope his roll continues into November.
Are you for real. Do you
Are you for real. Do you have your head burried in Obama's sand box?! There is a depression coming and Obama's not a magician. Who's fault is the economic crisis really?! = Nixon's. Our dollar since then, has had no inherant value and made crazy credit possible. It's also Al Gore's fault because I heard that he invented the internet and made day trading possible, leading to huge stock market swings.
Not Gore
The volatility has been terrible in the markets since the removal of uptick rule a little over a year ago. Pull up a daily chart showing spreads for the past few years and you'll see an enormous change after removal of uptick rule.
So that would be the SEC and namely, Christopher Cox who caused the volatility.
They also turned a blind eye to illegal naked shorting.
Obama has more potential
to attract the brain trust needed to address the crisis. Buffet is already on his team.
McCain has the legacy of Keating 5, where he essentially abetted criminals within the banking system. He also has Gramm as his economic advisor, a former housing/mortgage lobbyist for UBS, who said that the current recession is "mental" and that America is a "Nation of Whiners". Not exactly compelling reasons to back McCain, who is also facing a backlash from within his party right now (bailout vote, support of a mortgage buyout plan). Apparently he isn't espousing conservative free-market beliefs.
Obama doesn't have to deal with these battles within his own party . . . he'd have more latitude to deal with the crisis at hand, IMO, without messy political constraints.
Buffet bought GE - oops. I
Buffet bought GE - oops. I don't think he is in the position to offer good financial advice in this market.
Buffet
is a value investor. He's investing with a long time horizon -- 10 to 20 years. The daily swings are not his concern . . . and he has made a heap of money with value investing so I wouldn't question his wisdom. Berkshire Hathaway investors have reaped huge profits from his strategy.
Jonathan Alter, in his book
Jonathan Alter, in his book "The Defining Moment", describes how FDR was fairly hands-off on the ever deteriorating economy and financial fixes, during the Hoover-FDR transition. FDR was harshly criticized by Hoover for FDR's inaction.
Different folks and different times, but of some relevance.
Transition Issue
Yes. Obama must engage immediately on November 5th. If Bush knows what's good for the country he'll ask Obama to move in right away and take a prominent leadership role.
Obama should be assembling his brain trust (cabinet) NOW, and introducing them to the American public, not after November 5. He has to hit the ground running, immediately.
In a crisis the rules have to change, and if Bush wants to redeem his legacy he'll begin work to make the rapid transition NOW.
I don't think there's any question about who will win this election. There's never been a doubt for me. The mind set transition was evident in the 2006 cycle to those who worked campaigns at the grass roots level. The Democratic party had learned from earlier mistakes -- they now knew how to innoculate against the negative campaigning, lies and distortions which had become de rigueur in Republican campaigns, and they were using technology much more effectively than the Republicans. And McCain's campaign is a series of tactical errors (yesterday's Troopergate news on Palin, and feeble attempt to distract the public by calling Obama a terrorist -- this is so lame it's hard to believe it isn't fiction) is so distressing -- we deserve better than this from a major party. The fracture within the party itself is clearly evident -- McCain is now fighting segments of his own party, as seen in Lakeville yesterday -- the ones who think Obama is an Arab or terrorist or whatever. People in his own party actually believe this stuff . . . of course until now the McCain campaign did nothing to stop those lies and gross distortions and allowed third party proxies to propagate them.
But now we're in a crisis. No time for playing the lying and distortion games. People who are losing their jobs and homes have zero tolerance for the Rovian plays and faux character assassination. McCain suddenly gets it, but too late.
Obama is not a do-er. He's
Obama is not a do-er. He's a blamer. He won't want to get involved b/c he will have to accept responsibility for any negative developments. He will prefer to continue to attack Bush in order to boost up his popular support.
Yep, no one better than W
I'm not certain what's scarier, Stan's need to lie:
"A Securities and Exchange Commission chairman who has no public persona"
or
Roland Patrick's self-delusion that "Neither [candidate is] remotely as qualified as Harvard MBA, CEO G.W. Bush to grasp the issues."
I'll vote for Stan, since he should know better than to lie about whether Christopher Cox has a "public persona," since it was that public persona that got him the job in the first place.
Meanwhile, W learned from his time running companies into the ground that the only way to avoid doing that is to have the government subsidize all you purchases. And he's following that, with Hank "Yes, I'm making GS richer, so what?" Paulson as his wingman.
It's amazing that after 8
It's amazing that after 8 years of GWB some people still think he is a great guy. Big difference between running a company and a country. Just ask legendary CEO Jack Welch, who supports McCain "because he'll keep the unions in check." Jeez. Also, if you want to convince me that "MBA CEO Bush" was ever qualified to be President in the first place you'll have to provide me with a summary of all the SEC filings and annual reports of all the companies where he was ever an executive or director, and explain what it was he did that helped each company improve its financial performance. Because that's how MBAs and CEOs do it - the ones who aren't hired as window dressing because of their political or social connections.
Bush ran his businesses into the ground
"Big difference between running a company and a country."
And he couldn't do either one without over leveraging and then screwing the investors. Look up his failed business ventures -- Arbusto oil and Harken.
Putting lipstick on the pig isn't anything new with the Republican party. He will likely go down as the worst president ever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbusto_Energy
He could, provided that we
He could, provided that we don't have another terrorist attack after Obama takes office. Then, Bush will have been seen as having truely done something to protect us from the terrorists while Obama will appear a failure. In that case, Obama could become the worst in history.
You can fool all the Angry Bears some of the time...
And some of the Angry Bears all of the time...and those are pretty good odds.
A few months as a failed copy editor on a business newsletter are believed to be better preparation to understand the economic crisis than having an MBA, having been a CEO, and having made millions turning a mom and pop baseball franchise into a play-off contender.
Obama took a $100,000 advance to write his autobiography, and failed to meet his deadline. Then he got $40,000 more to pay a ghost writer to do it for him. Though, if you think having experience directing money to radical leftist educationalists will save the economy, the Big O is your man.
Well it helps to be a Bush
Thanks to his Dad and family connections Bush secured his share of the Texas rangers with less than 2% equity position, by borrowing 500K.
Lucky for him and his family's political clout, they go the city of Arlington to build a new ballpark, on the backs of the local taxpayers, through a sales tax increase. The city also authorized the seizure of the land through eminent domain.
Bush then received $15 million from the sale of the then enhanced value team.
Thats a great return on a 500K investment (30 times equity stake), thanks to his connections and family power.
Bush is an expert at leveraging other people's money . . . like the taxpayers, for his own personal gain.
So yeah, MBA CEO Bush was a "good businessman". Thanks, but no thanks to another George Bush. I'll take the Harvard Law Review editor, with people like Buffet and Soros in his brain trust, and who doesn't screw over the taxpayers for his own gain.
Forgot the citation for W Bush and Texas Rangers
You can read about it here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Rangers_(baseball)
Bush
Anyone read history books? Bush will go down as a great president. No president, I repeat no president has ever been popular during a time of war. We are at war people, suck it up and make some sacrifices. We all had a part to play leading up to our current economical situation.