Monday, January 19, 2009
An Introduction and an Inaugural Posting
By Al Portner
Here’s hoping this inaugural entry to a new web log marks the beginning of a long conversation. This week our government is transformed. A new administration takes office. It is my hope that the new President, his advisors, and the new Congress live up to the huge challenges placed squarely in front of them.
Observers from many points on the political spectrum have commented that President Obama’s plate is full. I would argue the multitude of issues now facing our country tumbles over the sides of the plate. The man doesn’t need a plate; he needs a tremendous bowl with high sides to hold all the issues, but then again it is only in the face of great crisis that great progress can be made.
Perhaps a little introduction is in order. I’m Al Portner, a recently retired daily newspaper editor and publisher, who lives in the Washington D.C. area. Writing several columns each week is a habit I have tried to break without success and which you (as reader) are about to become either beneficiary or victim depending on your point of view.
My goal in beginning this journal is to enunciate some of the issues facing us today and to offer possible solutions without regard to political point of view. Not everyone will agree with someone from the heartland of America like me, but I’m used to that. (Following is a tip for all newspaper publishers out there. Never drop a comic strip from your newspaper. It is the quickest way to make sure your readers hate you.)
President Obama has said that he wants to hear from us… you and me. He needs opinions from outside that bubble that he and his family are moving into called “The White House.” Your comments to the issues discussed on this web log are your unofficial way of sending your message right to the top.
I have confidence that it will shortly be discovered and our good thoughts will be added to the federal mix-master and hopefully come out the other side of the grinder as part of a gold nugget that helps better our national lot.
Check back frequently and we’ll see where this new conversation takes us.
Your thoughts on this and any other previous postings are always welcome.
Proprietor of The Assignment Desk, LLC is Al Portner, a former daily newspaper editor and publisher, who has operated newspapers in seven states from Maryland on the east to Hawaii on the west. The Assignment Desk, LLC, is an editorial services consortium with over 200 affiliate writers, photographers, and designers. Portner is also the author of hundreds of articles and the forthcoming non-fiction book “Mark Twain and the Tale of Grant’s Memoir.” He can be reached at alanportner@theassignmentdesk.net. The Assignment Desk URL address is http://www.theassignmentdesk.net/.
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I am watching the inauguration with great hope and some trepidation (having lived through the tragedies of the loss of the two Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King). As a primary care physician, I am most interested in seeing the healthcare system reformed. Americans have the mistaken belief that our system today is the best in the world. It may once have been, but today it is ridiculously fragmented with perverse incentives. At this pint, everyone is a fault: doctors, patients, insurance companies, government. We need serious change.
ReplyDeleteWhile trade deficits and offshore manufacturing are eye catching, they are only symptoms of what the real problem is. The problem with the economy seems pretty clear. All of the money in it is loaned. When the money to be loaned is created, the money to pay the interest not only isn't created, it can't be. The only way to pay the interest is to keep generating growth and creating and borrowing more money. The resulting inflation causes the economic benefits to outweigh the uncertainties of offshore manufacturing.
ReplyDeleteWhen a natural slowdown or relatively minor hiccup like the sub-prime mortgage crisis occurs and the amount of interest being paid is too high, in the absence of growth, the cash needed to generate commerce is rapidly stripped by interest payments. With the largest economy in the world and the amounts of money that must be borrowed to support it plus pay interest on previous loans, this is most likely to show up in the U.S. first. The money flowing out of the country in the form of deficits that we were trapped into, only adds to the problem.
Of course, countries whose economy is largely supported by trade surpluses are going to suffer quickly. In countries like China where they have held onto surpluses, they have the ability to recover quickly, but in the U.S. we are going to see much more pain before we see any gains. Many banks, companies, and debts are going to have to disappear. More borrowing to support a stimulus is only going to delay or prolong the problem.
This system of introducing money into the economy by borrowing it insures that you must grow or die. It is bizarre that a country would borrow its own currency from a private bank and pay interest on it.
To add to the above two comments, I'd like to share the URL to a guest post on my blog today from a person who has been an embedded journalist in Afghanistan. Here's Andrew Lubin's open letter to President Obama today:
ReplyDeletehttp://mrslieutenant.blogspot.com/2009/01/open-letter-to-president-obama.html