Obama confidence men

There is a new book about Obama reign in the white house called confidence men. It really paints a bad picture of what has happened in Obama's first term.

First I was a big supporter of Obama but got disillusioned after his appointments especially the economic team. In my experience its your team that is the key to your performance and if you have to deal in big picture thinking you need your team to be able to handle the details and get things done.

For me the key was Rahm as I didn't like his influence on Obama but understood the need for him to get into power. I am also sure a lot of the choices for people were because of bad advice from Rahm


From the book the problems so far has been

• Larry Summers hijacked the administration's economic policy and the White House let him
  Summers lost 3.5 billion of Harvard money in betting on derivatives, enough said
  
• The whole economic team knew the stimulus was doomed to fail and let it go
  One biggest problems I have with Obama is how he worries about GOP positions who just want to see him fail. Stimulus should have been more
  
• Paul Krugman was the voice inside Obama's head
  I follow Milton Friedman and Martin Armstrong and the reality for Krugman is looking at his batting record which is not good. So Obama is taking economic opinions from bad advisers and using an unreliable econominist as a sounding board. Not good.
  
• Tim Geithner went behind everybody's back to save the banks
  Geithner just main priorities seems to whatever Goldman wants. So huge conflict of interests to whats best for USA compared to whats best for international companies 
  
• The White House has a SERIOUS women problem
  White house was run by economic advisors which are used to be in male environment so expect there to be problems. One of best women advisers is Elizabeth Warren but she is not there anymore. I can tell that Michelle is a significant partner to Obama so don't think the problem is with Obama.
  
• It took Obama seven months to realize he needed to fire Rahm
  I am guessing Rahm is a close friend so just showing loyalty to him, my issue is he shouldn't have been chosen in the beginning
  
• Obama allowed himself to be pushed around by his subordinates Summers and Geithner in particular and drawn into long policy debates instead of focusing on policy questions.
  The biggest problem with having really smart people in your team and you believe in best arguments in getting solidifying your views is that your views will change to the best arguments. I have seen this happen so many times in Politics. Biggest issue is if you are going to select people that are smarter then you in particular subjects then make sure that the person has similar beliefs to you
  
  
  The Reality is that Obama has got rid of a lot of his bad economic advisors. During the last week is first time I am starting to believe in Obama again in terms of him identifying that we are in a class war and starting to take necessary action against TPTB. Since the beginning of this blog my main worries have been the environment and the Israel/Palestinian conflict and in the last five years its also been the world economy

This is my advice for Obama. 

• Print a lot of money and use it mainly on new Green Jobs
• Regulate the Shadow Economy 
• Regulate interest rates for Loans and credit card debts to less then one percent
• Focus on USA shareholders not International Companies Shareholders
• Remove any person that has dual citizenship working for Government 
• Default on overseas debt if need be or get them to accept a significant haircut.
• Reduce the power of overseas lobby groups
• Significant Taxes on Lobby Groups
• Policies that offer significant financial benefits for people to be less selfish and more compassionate to their fellow neighbors
• Policies that offer significant financial benefits to working as a community to solve problems
• Policies that offer significant financial benefits for being honest and severe financial consequences for people who are found to be not. Including activities portrayed in media
• Significant taxes for corporations that send costs/profits overseas.
• Keep the MIC strong as that is key to being able to do the above

The biggest issue facing USA is Israel and until this is solved the above will be meaningless. In my opinion Israel has lost its moral compass and is not acting like a good neighbor in a sustainable world. So you will need to convince them to change their ways and accept a two state solution. As their path currently on a path that is destructive for all of us. As the economy trying to feed the MIC to be able to defend Israel is eating up all the worlds resources.

You have started with a positive move in terms of fairness in the Financial confidence for common people and the next step should be accepting Palestine as member of the UN.