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What if we had a system that placed all winners and leaders as people who had mostly come in second place?  After all, there are very successful sports teams and players who are moneyed and who are known better for placing more than the occasional infrequent title won by others.  Politics in the U.S., however, only deals with money in part, and success in any administration here is not solely dependent upon wealth; probably a good thing as otherwise we'd have kings and queens instead of national elections.  Most people know that despite the consistency of some second place finishers, our nation, like many free nations in any election chooses its leaders based upon the plebiscite in which (barring the revolutionary ideas and rules controlling votes through the electoral college that occasionally have reversed popular votes in the past) the person receiving the most votes becomes chief of state.  In other words, no one really remembers who finished second in many U.S. national elections, despite the importance of this for the administrative process. 

 

The power of the presidential election as we know it is one candidate can win the office of chief of state without (1) having raised the most campaign money, and (2) appealing and pandering to special interests and power interests within our region.  It is true that the Republicans toward the end of the campaign this year had raised more money, and that Obama as victor of the presidential campaign contest in all appearances was re - elected without having become beholden to industrial interests, Hollywood, financial and commercial interests and the general business community that has sat the sidelines in the post election talks about what we have to expect going forward for the next four years.  The thing that clinched the election for the president was indeed his good showing in the second and third debates, and his campaign rhetoric in the last days before election day; and his being supported by the Clintons who still carry the mantle of an outstanding Democratic presidency during the 1990's from at least the standpoint of macroeconomic growth.  Even the Carter policies of the 1970's have found a home in the Obama presidency in the way of policies of 'priming the pump' to bring back jobs, the level of federal spending, foreign policy and other areas that matter to all of us.

 

Ohio, Michigan Wisconsin, and then Pennsylvania, …  Even Nevada mattered yesterday as I heard a local news show on the U.S. West Coast broadcast a piece on the importance of Nevada and its four cities (where most people in the state reside,) of which Reno and Las Vegas, and the broadcast was considerably and interestingly detailed.  The U.S. Democrats, apparently in this election contest, had their own super - statistician, maybe even a virtual one, parsing, slicing and dicing those numbers with respect to undecided, uncommitted, and other voters in select areas.  This undoubtedly contributed to their campaign efforts and paid electoral dividends in the end. 

 

Remember that Mr. Romney, though everyone might not remember him forever, waged a fierce campaign, and he was classically and characteristically Republican in his showing in all three debates and his approach to people in the campaign arena.  The Democratic party is the party of urbanity, sophistication, pro - choice, …, and people watching our country at this point have to come to terms with the issue about whether the Obama administration will become now more aggressive with respect to its public policy agenda in additionally affirming its identity and greater influence on the world stage.  People like me seriously doubt that the Obamas can now be accused of populism or using the office of the presidency for liberal  or more progressive social agendas as the talk in most areas analysing the current president's policies is quite moderate in nature, and the country's conservatives are more powerful now than they were in the 2008 presidential election, having made the national election a closer contest this year.  The chief executive now also has to answer apparently to a Republican - controlled Congress and to his conservative constituents as well if he is to chalk up additional political wins to his scorecard, and in his victory speeches he has pledged to reach out to everyone to make the political process work better  under his supervision. 

 

That Mr. Romney as a Republican candidate suffered for being identified as powered by moneyed interests who are out - of - touch was an old party line that has been around for at least a few elections and one that some conservative candidates have refuted on their way to national wins.  We as a country are apparently also benefiting from more liberal policies as the recent employment figures indicate and economic predictions for the immediate future are much better, issues around the "China Challenge" appear to be within the realm of being resolved some time soon, we have a vice - president who is influential and moderately conservative despite his party affiliation, and the high - profile government departments have also found reprise and renewal with the gifts that have been earned in the latest national election itself.  Despite that a good number of people do not necessarily like the classic political patterns characterised by the Democrats at this point, and indeed more voters this year expressed a desire for dealing directly with the twin deficits and the size of government, this president and his high officials do have a chance to reify certain opportunities including further resolving difficulties in the Middle East, petrol politics, financial and fiscal reform, further progress in addressing the chaos of foreign policy, defense preparedness, national security, immigration (as pledged), to name a few, and more.  The national papers in the next few days should examine all these and some others that were in the headlines during the campaign and that need to be summarized and talked about.  This president as re - elected has established his own identity and that of his liberal constituents upon the institution of the office of our American chief executive, and the tone of it is optimistic and hopeful to mention the least.  People like me wonder what Tony Blair would have to say about this. 

 

 

After Hearing about The Romney Economic Policy.

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Mr. Glen Hubbard, obviously a Ph.D., was on the television today at CNN in the role of Mr. Romney’s chief economic advisor or spokesman at this point.  Several salient issues arose during his talk with the blogger / commentator Mr. Zakaria including the deficit and insurance woes that have been badgering candidates for a long time, including Mr. Obama, the current U.S. president.  Mr. Hubbard, in speaking about the budget issues delivered an excellent essay on the difficulties of carrying on as the society with the most civic, political and other freedoms anywhere, and his presentation appeared to be a kind of “you don’t get something for nothing” type trial balloon.  Sometimes indeed in the process of electing officials, the voters can be handed, and for various reasons, nothing for something, in which case there is much negative clamouring and scandal.  It does appear from his spokesman the Romney campaign wants to work out its promises to the American people without being unrealistic.  These were some of the issues Mr. Hubbard fielded this morning, and without claiming to analyze whatsoever the process of lightening the budget load, his explanation turned on revenue collection or spending reductions.  Depending upon what the people want, the candidate appears to be listening to how people want to approach austerity measures:  Through “cutbacks,” “budget controls,” “constraints,” and the like, or “new revenue,” and / or revenue collection.  The actual plan might be a combination of both, which would do something to eliminate widespread use of loopholes and weak points in both budgeting and tax policy.  The substance of the interview consisted of Mr. Hubbard presenting this, but not necessarily presenting anything beyond overall policy definitions, and the viewer was left with likes or dislikes as the case might be, along with policy and party choice as well. 

There is another issue, and that is unless any budgetary policy or tax policy is successful, mostly as a surprise or some overriding spontaneity, what will the U.S. populace do given the risk to public finances upon even at first the examination of policies as successes or failures?  There’s no answer to this, and while in the olden days, one Republican president instituted wage and price controls to accomplish monetary and fiscal goals alike, and this under a policy that was publicly unfavourable, it does appear such unusual approaches to the budget and trade, and the federal revenue issue, need be considered.  The wage and price controls were a palliative, but woke up a lot of people to attention about where the public finances of the U.S. were headed at the time.  By this writing, the author can not mention the advantage of budgetary controls over tax reform, nor vice versa, though these are not exclusive and maybe some policy – maker could determine some arithmetic identity without the present and ubiquitous gallows humour on these topics, and that would give any federal administration some hope of having an actual fiscal / monetary goal to accomplish apart from the abysmal picture some economists paint of public affairs and money these days.  That any such goal would be attainable in terms of federal finances will remain to be seen, and there are many pessimists about the current, related metrics as recorded, not to mention the prospective ones.  Austerity measures were mentioned in the talk on television today, and all forbid the U.S. having a reaction to austerity policies, either formally at election time or in the street, if they are indeed needed at this time.

Another topic at the talk with Fareed Zakaria was national health insurance and the compulsory provisions of this policy concerning coverage, and for which the president is being sued by the Catholic Church given certain provisions.  People like me know that the actual insurance problem as it is approached by policy – makers is quite intractable as there is only so much insurance that can go around.  People believe that their insurance is a kind of financial instrument at times and treat health insurance exploitatively as such on many occasions, and this is a sin.  Health insurance has to be paid for, unfortunately for everyone, and this financial issue and the role of health care in the U.S. economy really make such issues the subject of extreme opinions and educated and technical debates and discussions alike.  The idea of the Massachusetts health care system was discussed as portable to the entire country, and Mr. Hubbard suggested it is not – indeed the demographics (an important health care parameter, even determinative of actuarial and other aspects of insurance plans) of a state like Massachusetts are obviously dissimilar to those of West Virginia or Florida; and one can not bolt a standard from a Massachusetts public health plan onto California or Idaho, either.  This is what makes solutions to such issues incredibly difficult and the subject of adversities, including economic and social ones, business and cultural, etc.  One idea that has not been greatly discussed, at least not publicly, is a national public health system as an auxiliary to private care with pay – as – you – go and / or insurance coverage itself with a deductible or co – payment.  Such a system could be self – financing and profitable for the government and would stratify, equalize and reduce the financial burden of any federal system.  MediCare for older U.S. citizens is an example of such a system as weighted towards federal oversight, though any new system might be a health care / maintenance auxiliary to private insurance concerns.  By this writing, the author is surprised this was not discussed with regard to either the Massachusetts plan or the required health insurance as currently promoted by the president.  Without sounding litigious, Catholics because they have values accruing to very technical issues about women’s rights, women’s right to choose and decide, and abortion itself, and other issues that would be addressed by an umbrella federal health plan, do have, and I mention informally here, an argument with the law.  Catholic bishops and perhaps even the pope would do well to provide some decisive guidance here, and as of yet I have heard none.  Also, and as an endnote, neither Zakaria nor Hubbard brought up any economics argument or policy about what to do with trade.  This probably means both parties are in agreement about some policy as already implemented and will not contest each other on these grounds so far (maybe both main presidential candidates admire and accept the current status quo on trade and will just discuss this secondarily in any debate.)  The trade issue as examined by anyone at this point has to do with long – term labour productivity and benefits and the level they are at today.  Developed and developing economies that apparently have more productive labour forces also have less history in them on contests for higher wages and management changes in the modern sense.  This is why the so – called productivity statistics could be questioned – other countries are less in – touch with modernity than the U.S. is at this point (hush,) and any focusing on the labour market only in economic policies in Western economies causes things like prices, interest rates, bank and other rates, including growth rates and productivity measures themselves to first gather and then integrate improper bias that skews and could ruin business – this would be uncalled – for under the circumstances.

Please pardon typhographical errors.  THS