Dick Berkowitz, has written a booklet entitled:"A Conservative Capitalist Offers: Eleven Lessons and a Bonus Lesson for Raising America's Youth Born and Yet To Be Born" Half The Proceeds Go To "The Wounded Warrior Project!"
By Dick Berkowitz - Non Expert
Dick wrote this booklet because he believes a strong country must rest on a solid family unit and that Brokaw's "Greatest Generation" has morphed into "A Confused, Dependent and Compromised Generation."
He hopes this booklet will provide a guide to alter this trend.
You can now order a .pdf version from www.brokerberko.com/book that you can download and read on your computer, or print out if you want. Cost is $5.99
In several weeks the book will be available in soft cover format at a cost of $10.99.
Booklet illustrations were by his oldest granddaughter, Emma Darvick, who lives and works in New York.
Testimonials:
Dick, I read your book this weekend. I hardly know where to start. You did an excellent job of putting into one short book a compendium of the virtues which only a relatively short time ago all Americans believed. It’s a measure of how far we have fallen that many Americans, perhaps a majority of Americans, no longer believe in what we once considered truisms. I think your father would have agreed with every word, but the party he supported no longer has such beliefs.
I would like to buy multiple copies of your booklet..
You did a great job. I know your parents would have been proud and that your family today is proud.
Mike
You wrote a great book. The brevity is one of its strong points and I know it was hard to include that in and still keep it brief. Your father in haste once wrote an overly long letter to our client, then said in the last sentence, “I’m sorry I wrote such a long letter, but I didn’t have time to write a short one.”
"Dick, I indeed marvel at how much wisdom you have been able to share with so few words. Not too unlike the experience in reading the Bible. I feel that with each read of "A Conservative Capitalist Offers:…." one will gain additional knowledge and new insights…
Regards, Larry"
Dick ,
Your book is outstanding! Due to illness, I've been unable to read it in entirety until today .Your background is often very similar to mine (e.g. Halliburton's influence was very important in my life), and your thoughts reflect very closely the the teachings that I received from my parents and granddad. I will write a more detailed statement in the near future!
All the best,
Bob
Your book is outstanding! Due to illness, I've been unable to read it in entirety until today .Your background is often very similar to mine (e.g. Halliburton's influence was very important in my life), and your thoughts reflect very closely the the teachings that I received from my parents and granddad. I will write a more detailed statement in the near future!
All the best,
Bob
Regarding your booklet, I have begun to read it and look forward to finishing it this weekend. Congrats on getting it published and
on the great reviews. I know how much this booklet means to you and how important getting this message out to the public is.
P------
Dick attended Georgia Military Academy, in Atlanta, graduating in 1950. He attended The Wharton School of Commerce graduating in 1954, served both a stint in the Marine Corps Active reserves and The Army Finance Corps.
Upon completing his tour of service he enrolled in The University of Miami Law School (was an associate editor of The Law Review) graduated in 1960, moved to Atlanta and began his Wall Street career as a stock broker with Courts and Company and became a general partner in 1967. When Courts merged he opened an Atlanta Office for Burnham and Company in 1970 and when Drexel Burnham demised, in 1990, he took the institutional department , he created, to Oppenheimer going into semi-retirement in 2006 (he still manages money for some clients.).
Dick resides with his wife of 40 years - Lynn Rudikoff, At The Landings on Skidaway Island near Savannah.
He has three daughters from a former marriage, a son and daughter with Lynn and 7 grandchildren.
During his working career, Dick was a member of The Board of St John's College for nine years (The Great Books School) served on The President's Commission on White House Fellowships during the elder Bush's Administration, and served on the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Board among many other public activities.
After moving to Savannah in 2003, Dick, began The JEA Speaker Series, continues to serve on the Board of The State of Georgia's Museum (GMOA) located on the campus at Athens, is on the advisory board of Spine and Sport and The Skidaway Island Republican Club. Dick also serves on the investment committee board of the Savannah Jewish Federation.
He recently underwent a knee replacement in the hope that he can continue playing tennis.
Dick also posts to a web page (dick-meom.blogspot.com) on a daily basis focusing on The Middle East, politics and economics.
---
--
Last night I attended a fund raising dinner at which Daniel Pipes spoke I am an admirer of Pipes and often post his own commnent as as well as that of his organization. "Middle East Forum."
Pipes focused on Israel, the Palestinian issue, Iran, the future of radical Islamism the upcoming elections.
He began by pointing out that no one could have predicted the fact that Palestinian statehood had taken a back seat in terms of the current focus and he ticked off statistic after statistic to reveal the amazing success the tiny nation of Israel had achieved across a spectrum of indices, ie. art and music, technology, education.
He does believe Israel' military achievements and future demographics favor the state versus its regional enemies but over the long term Israel's position becomes more precarious as the prospect of an Iranian nuclear state becomes a reality.
Pipes does not believe Iran, if and when it achieves nuclear status can be trusted not to use their new found weapon and also pointed out the status it brings them in view of the fact they have no military presence, ie. outmoded air force, no army to speak of etc.
In terms of our own election Pipes believes there is a growing possibility, should Obama win, he will revert to his '08 attitude favoring Muslims, Palestinians and would take a more adverse position vis a vis Israel.
When it comes to radical Islamists and the spread of the Muslim Brotherhood, Pipes believes there area a sufficient number of moderate and liberal Islamists to challenge the spread of their influence but only time will tell how that evolves.
The audience was overwhelmingly Jewish and many came up to me arguing first, his selection was inappropriate in view of the thrust of the organization's purpose and second, being predominantly liberal, they challenged his conclusions and most particularly his favoring Romney.
I did not see it their way but acknowledge my respect for Pipes and my agreement with his reasoned analysis is diametrically opposed to their assessment.
My main takeaway was Pipes truly believes a nuclear Iran is a world game changer and even if an attack only delays its progress it must be undertaken. (See 1 below.)
---
Victor Davis Hanson on Obama's debate night and on bankrupt California. The game has changed. (See 2 and 2a below.)
---
Marc Faber has been more right than wrong. (See 3 below.)
---
America post Rev. Wright! (See 4 below.)
---
Another green project that failed - the press and media's circling of the wagons for Obama now has them looking a bit green around the edges! (See 5 below.)
---
This came to me from a very dear friend, a fellow memo reader and the most unlikeliest of sources. (See 6 below.)
---
First, we have the ABC ad depicting a young girl behind Romney looking down as he bends over and then we discover the moderator is hand picked. Biases like viruses are all over. (See 7 below.)
---
Dick
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1)Russia: Iran won't use nuclear weapon against Israel
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov tells Knesset Speaker Rivlin that given Israel's Arab and Muslim populations it is unlikely Iran would attack Israel
By Moran Azulay
"Thus far it has not been proven with certainty that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon," Lavrov said in Moscow. "Given Israel's demographic makeup which includes millions of Arabs and Muslims, the Islamic Republic will not attack Israel," he explained.
Rivlin said in response that Russia is the only country that can stop Iran's nuclear program without the use of sanctions.
Meanwhile, the Iranian terror threat is causing concern in the US. New York City's police commissioner said Wednesday that a potential retaliatory attack on New York City by Iran is an ongoing concern for the NYPD.
"We’ve been concerned about Iran for a while, and I think the history of those events throughout the world since January give us cause for concern," he said
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)
Obama's Game Changes
Usually after a presidential debate, both sides spin the results. But after the first face-off between President Obama and challenger Mitt Romney, Obama's exasperated handlers made no such effort. How could they when most opinion polls revealed that two-thirds of viewers thought Obama clearly lost?
2a)Bankrupt California
The Fed has said it plans to buy $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities from banks every month until the economy and labor market improve, a monetary policy tool known as quantitative easing (QE).
The announcement marks the third time the Fed has rolled out QE measures to jolt the economy since the 2008 financial crisis, with the first round seeing the Fed snap up $1.7 trillion in mortgage securities and the second round seeing the Fed buy $600 billion in Treasury securities held by banks.
Such policies weaken the dollar and pump up stock prices, and now that the Fed has ended the uncertainty by rolling out a third and open-ended round of QE3, expect stocks to fall amid a technical sell-off, especially since the European Central Bank (ECB) has announced similar measures.
“Basically, I think QE3, which I think is unlimited, and bond purchases by the ECB bailout of countries have been largely discounted by the market, and the markets have been weakening technically, so I believe that we may have here quite a serious setback,” Faber told CNBC.
Monetary policy is not what global economies and markets need right now, according to Faber.
Fiscal reforms that cut spending and pay down debts, often politically unpopular moves, would bring more lasting reform.
“We need less policies, not more policies,” Faber said.
“I would love to see everywhere in the world, certainly in the Western world, government expenditures and government bureaucrats cut by minimum 50 percent,” Faber added.
“That would turn me very bullish.”
While the first two rounds of QE were announced with a set of amount of assets to be purchased, this third round will go on until the Fed feels the labor market and the broader economy have improved.
A Reuters poll of economists finds the Fed will likely spend $600 billion before it feels the economy and labor market can stand on their own, though some experts felt the Fed won't target a specific unemployment rate or other metric.
"The Fed is not targeting a certain level of unemployment rate. Given that QE3 is tied to their prospects for the labor market, they will stop the program when they forecast sustainable and substantial improvement in the labor market," said Lewis Alexander, chief U.S. economist at Nomura Securities International in New York, according to Reuters.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4)
I thought of my fellow Californian Energy Secretary Steven Chu last week, when I paid $4.89 a gallon in Gilroy for regular gas — and had to wait in line to get it. The customers were in near revolt, but I wondered against what and whom. I mentioned to one exasperated motorist that there are estimated to be over 20 billion barrels of oil a few miles away, in newly found reserves off the California coast. He thought I was from Mars.
California may face the nation’s largest budget deficit at $16 billion. It may struggle with the nation’s second-highest unemployment rate at 10.6 percent. It will soon vote whether to levy the nation’s highest income and sales taxes, as if to encourage others to join the 2,000-plus high earners who are leaving the state each week. The new taxes will be our way of saying, “Good riddance.” And if California is home to one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients and the largest number of illegal aliens, it is nonetheless apparently happy and thus solidly for Obama, by a +24 percent margin in the latest Field poll. The unemployment rate in my hometown is 16 percent, the per capita income is $16,000 — and I haven’t seen a Romney sticker yet.
Shortly before taking office, Secretary Chu, remember, quipped that he would like to see American gas prices rise to European levels — presumably $9 or $10 a gallon — to discourage driving and thereby lower our carbon footprint. If $50 for half a fill-up is any indication, California is over halfway toward achieving Chu’s dream. If green bicycles are the ultimate aim of our central-planning regulators, then they are making headway. I’ve never seen so many new rural bike riders, though most of them out here in the San Joaquin Valley have a bad habit of riding on the wrong side of the road.
A refinery fire, a power outage, a uniquely Californian gasoline formula, years of regulating refineries into stasis — all that has finally caught up with the state, as prices soar at the pump. Yet what perplexes about California in extremis is the liberal ability for our state government simply to ignore its own regulations, which it has been using to paralyze businesses for years. For example, a panicked Governor Brown just asked the state air-resources board to suspend the law that requires gas stations to sell our special summer fuel formula through the month of October. The state asserted that a one-time suspension would increase supplies and yet not materially affect our air quality — which begs the question: Why, if that is true, would such a regulation have been passed in the first place?
California has the nation’s highest gas taxes and fuel prices, and the tightest supplies — and reputedly one of the worst-maintained infrastructures, with out-of-date, overcrowded, and poorly maintained freeways. When I head home each week from Palo Alto, I feel like an Odysseus fighting modern-day Lotus Eaters, Cyclopes, and Laestrygonians to reach Ithaka, wondering what obstacle will sidetrack me this trip — huge potholes, entire sections of the freeway reduced to one lane, or various poorly marked detours? If the nation’s highest gas taxes give us all that, what might the lowest bring?
Although the state is facing a $16 billion annual budgetary shortfall, Governor Brown is determined to press ahead with high-speed rail — estimated to cost eventually over $200 billion. Such is his zeal that he intends to override the environmental lawsuits that usually stymie private projects for years. The line is scheduled to pass a few miles from my farm, its first link connecting Fresno and Corcoran, home to the state prison that houses Charles Manson.
Yet a money-losing Amtrak line already connects Fresno and Corcoran. I often ride my bike near the tracks and notice the half-empty cars that zoom by. Most farmers here are perplexed about why the state would wish to borrow billions and destroy thousands of acres of prime farm land to duplicate this little-traveled link. Support for high-speed rail is strongest in the San Francisco Bay Area, but there is no support for beginning the project where the noise and dirty reality might be too close to home for green utopians.
California schools rate among the nation’s lowest in math and English, but our shrinking numbers of teachers are among the country’s highest paid. One-third of the nation’s welfare recipients live in California, and 8 out of the last 11 million people added to the California population are enrolled in Medicaid, but we are also the most generous state in sending remittances to foreign countries — we contribute a third to a half of the estimated $50 billion that leaves the U.S. each year for Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. It is puzzling in the small towns of the San Joaquin Valley to see both federal and state medical centers and nearby offices that specialize in cash transfers to Mexico. But no one seems to see any disconnect between the public need for free health care and the private desire to send money to Mexico.
California has built the nation’s largest prison system, but there is no room left in either state or county facilities for an increasing number of dangerous felons. The same day last week that I emptied my wallet for gas, my 15-hp ag irrigation pump simply quit during the night. Nocturnal copper-wire thieves had come into the vineyard and yanked out the electrical conduit. That’s the third theft of pump wire I’ve had this year — and it costs $1,500 each time to repair the damage. I’m told that Mexican national gangs go down to Los Angeles with their stolen copper to sell it to mobile recyclers. No one calls the sheriff any more. Instead, we swap stories about protective wire cages, spikes, cameras, lights, and booby traps. Barack Obama once thundered, “Rich people are all for nonviolence. . . . They don’t want people taking their stuff.” I plead guilty to his writ, at least for a while longer. But I don’t agree that copper conduit is mere “stuff” or that stealing it counts as social protest or that the thieves are necessarily poor.
The criminals have a sophisticated modus operandi, with lookouts who drive around and report by cell phone when the coast is clear — green-lighting comrade thieves who in a matter of minutes ride into the farm alleyways on bicycles, cut and pull the wire, and pedal out with little noise and no headlights. Two nights ago, when I returned to my farmhouse, an odd couple was sitting in a car — each one on a cell phone — next to my mailbox. They claimed they did not speak English, but after some harsh words they left — surprised and angry that I had dared to ask them to leave my property.
It’s a veritable war these days in rural central California — as copper-wire thieves, gangs, drug lords, and fencers run amuck in a bankrupt state that can no longer afford to keep its felons incarcerated. President Obama soars with talk of amnesty and the DREAM Act. But if we are going to waive federal statutes for each illegal alien who we feel may some day become a neurosurgeon or an experimental chemist, can’t we at least enforce the law against those not in school and up to no good in the here and now, like the two sitting in my driveway phoning directions for local thieves to yank out copper wire?
Open borders, redistributionist socialism, therapeutic and politicized public schools, and public-employee unions finally are proving a match even for Apple, Google, Facebook, the Napa Valley wine industry, Central Valley agribusiness, Hollywood, Cal Tech, Stanford, and Berkeley. In California, it is a day-by-day war between what nature and past generations have so generously bequeathed and what our bunch has so voraciously consumed.
On any given day, beautiful weather, the Pacific Coast, and the majestic Sierra Nevada are trumped by released felons, $5-a-gallon gas, and a 1970 infrastructure crumbling beneath a crowded 2012 state.
There are many lessons from California. One is that the vision of the present administration is already here — and it simply does not work.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3)Marc Faber: Markets Setting Themselves Up for ‘Serious Setback’
Markets have already priced in Federal Reserve stimulus measures and are now due for a sell-off, said economist Marc Faber, publisher of The Gloom Boom & Doom report.
The Fed has said it plans to buy $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities from banks every month until the economy and labor market improve, a monetary policy tool known as quantitative easing (QE).
The announcement marks the third time the Fed has rolled out QE measures to jolt the economy since the 2008 financial crisis, with the first round seeing the Fed snap up $1.7 trillion in mortgage securities and the second round seeing the Fed buy $600 billion in Treasury securities held by banks.
Such policies weaken the dollar and pump up stock prices, and now that the Fed has ended the uncertainty by rolling out a third and open-ended round of QE3, expect stocks to fall amid a technical sell-off, especially since the European Central Bank (ECB) has announced similar measures.
“Basically, I think QE3, which I think is unlimited, and bond purchases by the ECB bailout of countries have been largely discounted by the market, and the markets have been weakening technically, so I believe that we may have here quite a serious setback,” Faber told CNBC.
Monetary policy is not what global economies and markets need right now, according to Faber.
Fiscal reforms that cut spending and pay down debts, often politically unpopular moves, would bring more lasting reform.
“We need less policies, not more policies,” Faber said.
“I would love to see everywhere in the world, certainly in the Western world, government expenditures and government bureaucrats cut by minimum 50 percent,” Faber added.
“That would turn me very bullish.”
While the first two rounds of QE were announced with a set of amount of assets to be purchased, this third round will go on until the Fed feels the labor market and the broader economy have improved.
A Reuters poll of economists finds the Fed will likely spend $600 billion before it feels the economy and labor market can stand on their own, though some experts felt the Fed won't target a specific unemployment rate or other metric.
"The Fed is not targeting a certain level of unemployment rate. Given that QE3 is tied to their prospects for the labor market, they will stop the program when they forecast sustainable and substantial improvement in the labor market," said Lewis Alexander, chief U.S. economist at Nomura Securities International in New York, according to Reuters.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4)
So This Is What "God D*mn America" Looks Like
By Stella Paul
Four years ago, our media overlords assured us that President Empty Chair was really Candidate Empty Pew -- a parishioner who sat for 20 years in Reverend Jeremiah Wright's nutty, hate-mongering church and never heard a single word.
"God bless America? No, no, no! God d*mn America!" thundered Reverend Wright, and just in case you missed the delicate subtleties of his Black Liberation Theology, he helpfully noted that 9/11 was "America's chickens" "coming home to roost."
Well, America's chickens are surely roosting overtime now. Surveying the wreckage of the country formerly known as the leader of the free world, you may be forgiven for suspecting that Obama did indeed overhear a sermon or two during his loyal decades in Wright's Trinity Church. Wright preached against "middle-classness," and hey, Obama's certainly taken care of that! In fact, even master debater Joe Biden admits that the middle class has been "buried" in the last four years.
Did you know that Reverend Wright lovingly published Hamas editorials in his church's newsletter? There, ladies and gentlemen, is Obama's foreign policy in a nutshell. As for the Lifetime Achievement Award that Wright bestowed upon Louis Farrakhan, I fully expect that in a second Obama term, we'll all be graced with Secretary of State Farrakhan. And if that won't pass congressional muster, Obama can simply appoint Farrakhan our czar.
Never mind The Audacity of Hope, the book title that Obama swiped from a Reverend Wright sermon. Let's spotlight the audacity of the media for de-materializing the screeching elephant in the national room that was Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
Now, thanks to reporter Jerome Corsi and Hillbuzz.org founder Kevin DuJan, we learn that Reverend Wright may possibly have played an even more central role in Obama's fraud-filled life: arranging Obama's marriage to Michelle Robinson as a convenient cover for some of Obama's less savory "lifestyle choices." (By the way, I've got a zippy new hobby of collecting Democratic shammarriages. I'm a busy, busy girl.)
As for the wedding ring that Michelle slipped on Obama's finger during the heartwarming marriage ceremony performed by Reverend Wright, it turns out that it's inscribed with these all-American words: "There is no God but Allah." Brilliant sleuthing by filmmaker Joel Gilbert has decoded the elaborate Arabic scrawls on the gold ring that Obama has been photographed wearing for more than 30 years, ever since his bachelor days at Occidental College. And yes, this is the ring that our commander-in-chief now wears in the White House.
If you've been following the story so far, America is now cursed with a "president" who's steeped in America-hating theology, who is locked into a sham marriage to cover up his alleged dangerous and highly blackmail-able personal proclivities, and who slyly pledges his eternal loyalty to Allah.
But wait, there's more! As our affirmative action pharaoh loses the respect of the American people, he's brazenly funding his campaign with millions of untraceable dollars from America's enemies. Only 2% of Obama's huge $181-million September haul is traceable, and much of it may be coming from Obama.com, a website owned by Robert Roche, an American citizen living in China with close business ties to the Chinese government. Obama.com redirects you to Obama's official campaign website, where you can donate without entering your credit card security code, making illegal foreign donations so delightfully simple.
How blessed is our dear Reverend Jeremiah Wright! His fondest, hate-filled dreams are all coming true. Yes, Obama repudiated Wright in his hysterically acclaimed speech on race (which is now taught to America's schoolkids) and tried to bribe him to shut up by sending emissaries with $150,000 offers. Nevertheless, Wright has lived to rejoice in the racist, murderous, devilishly wicked Amerikkkan nation being brought to its knees by his most famous disciple.
How low has America sunk? Mort Zuckerman recently harvested some economic indicators that should gladden the heart of any America-hater. Twenty-five million Americans lack full-time work; the percentage of unemployed Americans out of work for more than a year has skyrocketed to over 30%; labor force participation has collapsed to a post-World War II low; and the typical American family's income has dropped to 1995 levels. According to Zuckerman:
The real unemployment rate is 15 percent, measured by what is called U-6, which includes people who are working part-time on an involuntary basis. We have 4.7 million fewer jobs than the peak reached at the end of 2007. And indeed much of the improvement in jobs has been through dubious "seasonal" adjustments, such as the July seasonal bump of 377,000 jobs-the largest such adjustment for July in the past 10 years. The labor participation rate has dropped to a 30-year low, and if not for that development, the unemployment rate would be much higher.
The statistic that really pierces my heart is the collapse of the American birth rate to historic lows. Mr. Hope and Change has so demoralized the country that we're not even bothering to reproduce anymore; like Europe, we're trudging through today, having given up on tomorrow.
Maybe that's because we can't afford to indulge in babies -- not with a GDP growth rate that's lower than that of Pakistan and Cuba. If America is cursed with a second Obama term, by 2016 the whole country will be swimming to Cuba to escape.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5)Media's Obama Narrative Collides with Reality
By Rosslyn Smith
It's been a week since a 90-minute debate shifted the narrative of the 2012 election. I had been trying to think if there was a comparable example of when a live television event had had such a profound effect upon what had been a widely accepted truth. When I read Toby Harnden's report of how Obama stepped off of the Denver stage believing he had won, it dawned on me.
According to Harden:
In an extraordinary insight into the events leading up to the 90 minute showdown which changed the face of the election, a Democrat close to the Obama campaign today reveals that the President also did not take his debate preparation seriously, ignored the advice of senior aides and ignored one-liners that had been prepared to wound Romney.The Democrat said that Obama's inner circle was dismayed at the 'disaster' and that he believed the central problem was that the President was so disdainful of Romney that he didn't believe he needed to engage with him.
Had I witnessed such an equally profound and erroneous disdain before? Yes, in the American media's obsession with the strength of Saddam Hussein's army in 1990 and their utter disdain for the competence and integrity of the American military, particularly its senior command structure. In his post-combat press briefing, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf singlehandedly demolished a decades-old media and Hollywood narrative that senior military commanders were uniformly knuckle-dragging dolts and martinets. Ever since that briefing, the American media has tended to be respectful of the intelligence of members of our military -- not because their antipathy has necessarily lessened, but because they realized that their audience would no longer accept their characterization.
Last Wednesday can be seen as the moment when two of the narratives currently beloved by the American media gave way to reality. The first narrative was that Barack Obama is a man of exceptional intelligence and political skill. Obama is an entirely mediocre politician whose only exceptional skill has been the ability to make gullible liberals feel virtuous by finding him to be such an outstanding fellow. The second narrative was that successful businesspeople are uniformly greedy and cruel misers with narrow interests, pedestrian minds, suspect motives and limited leadership skills -- unless, of course, they support the progressive agenda, at which time they all become wise visionaries.
The facts had always suggested something quite different abut Romney. His charity and civic-mindedness are well-known to all who look at him without blinders. Over his very successful career as a consultant, Mitt Romney was often faced with situations in which he had to marshal facts to convince clients that short-term sacrifices would pay off with long-term gains. As a venture capitalist, he probably also had to squelch a great many fools in order to turn companies around, for it is close to axiomatic that leaders of failing companies have overestimated their own management and leadership skills while antagonizing talented underlings. The shrinks even have a fancy phrase for it: the Dunning-Kruger effect.
[F]or a given skill, incompetent people will:
- tend to overestimate their own level of skill;
- fail to recognize genuine skill in others;
- fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy;
- recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they are exposed to training for that skill
The interesting thing about Dunning-Kruger is that the research suggests that recognition of one's own incompetence does not necessarily lead to measurable improvement in skill. Clueless or self-aware, the idiot often tends to remain an idiot.
When you consider all the incompetent executives that Romney helped ushered out of the way for the good of the enterprise during his career, is it at all surprising that he completely had his way with Obama?
I suspect at this point that the real question is whether the media itself can learn. In 1991 they quickly abandoned a narrative of hapless military leadership after millions had witnessed General Schwarzkopf's briefing. Will last week's narrative-busting debate cause a similar revision? Will the media finally see Obama as a pedestrian politician of undersized skills and Mitt Romney as an exceptional problem-solver?
Or are the media so in love with their own narrative that it is now close to impossible for reality to intrude?
As I read some of the more hysterical reactions, I suspect that the media itself has a profound Dunning-Kruger effect problem of its own. It is sad to think the best we can expect is that a few members will become aware of how hapless they sound, even as they continue to deliver the same old Obama-praising claptrap disguised as news.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6)-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7)
Manure : In the 16th and 17th centuries, everything had to be
transported by ship and it was also before the invention of commercial fertilizers, so large shipments of manure were quite common.
It was shipped dry, because in dry form it weighed a lot less than
when wet, but once water (at sea) hit it, not only did it become
heavier, but the process of fermentation began again, of which a by
product is methane gas of course. As the stuff was stored below decks> in bundles you can see what could (and did) happen.> Methane began to build up below decks and the first time someone came
below at night with a lantern, BOOOOM!
Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was determined
just what was happening
After that, the bundles of manure were always stamped with the
instruction ' Stow high in transit ' on them, which meant for the
sailors to stow it high enough off the lower decks so that any water
that came into the hold would not touch this volatile cargo and start
the production of methane.
Thus evolved the term ' S.H.I.T ' , (Stow High In Transit) which has
come down through the centuries and is in use to this very day.
You probably did not know the true history of this word.
Neither did I.
I had always thought it was a golf term.
Obama's Ohio Silver Lining
No more complacency as his rattled campaign redoubles its effort.
AP PHOTO/CHARLES DHARAPAK
President Obama walks on the South Lawn of the White House on Tuesday after returning from campaigning in Ohio and California.
Rattled, dismayed, and shaken, President Obama's national campaign is divided into two camps: impassive warhorses and anxiety-ridden newbies.
The battle-scarred operatives have been doing nonstop psychic triage since the first presidential debate, calming nerves and reassuring the shaken that campaigns have their ups and downs.
"This is the first time in this entire campaign some of the new people have seen a bad run," said a senior Obama strategist. "The veterans are telling them they need to ride it out."
That became a bit easier around noon on Wednesday when the first patch of internal polls came back from key swing states. They revealed that Obama was not in free fall, as some feared, but that his support has returned to where it was in July and August.
"Voters haven't switched from us to him," the strategist said, referring to GOP nominee Mitt Romney. "But they are giving him a second look. They are thinking about him again. The question is, can he [Romney] close the deal."
That was supposed to be Obama's task at the first debate, one he clearly fumbled. Internal Obama swing-state polling now confirms this harsh reality: The president's lackluster performance cost him all of the advantages he built up through the Democratic National Convention and via Romney's now-infamous dismissal of the "47 percent" of the country that he said in a closed-door fundraiser would never vote for him.
In other words, in 90 minutes, Obama flushed a month's worth of convention and 47-percent bounce.
"We were in the lead, but that's all washed away," the president's strategist said. "Now it's up to us to make the case again against him. Most undecideds are making a choice about him, not the president."
Other Obama officials contend the race is still the president's to lose.
"We have all sorts of metric beyond polls," a senior administration official said, referring to fine-grain voter-contact databases and analytics the campaign uses to track supporter concentration, sentiments, enthusiasm, and turnout intensity in battleground states. "We still have substantial on-the-ground advantages. Romney was probably at an artificial low before the debate and we were at an artificial high. Right now, what we're dealing with is the emotive side of our party."
Internal Obama polling data show that all swing states have tightened up and that Romney is within the margin of error in Colorado, Florida, and Virginia. In Ohio, the gap has closed from what was an 8 to 10 point Obama lead to just outside the margin of error. It's now a dogfight across the swing-state battlefield and any sense of pre-debate complacency that some Obama hands feared was creeping into both turnout and fundraising has vanished.
"The debate, obviously, is a turning point," said Ohio state Sen. Eric Kearney, chairman of Obama's statewide campaign. "It's been a healthy exercise in how to regain enthusiasm and momentum. There is now a renewed spirit to pull the oar."
Kearney said that Ohio Democrats took Obama's debate performance as an invitation to rescue the campaign by showing up in larger numbers at phone banks and campaign headquarters across the state.
"The question I hear everywhere is 'What more can we do?' " Kearney said.
Asked if he was surprised by Obama's debate performance—panned widely and lampooned by Saturday Night Live—Kearney demurred.
"I'll skip that one," he said. He did say the sense of urgency among Obama supporters in reaction to the debate belly flop might "be a good thing."
"Everybody's fully engaged now," Kearney said.
As for Obama's prospects in Ohio, Kearney said he always doubted polls showing Romney trailing by as many as 10 points. "I don't believe anyone who worked this race day-to-day here believed the president had that big of a lead," he added.
Obama devoted a lot of time this week to fundraising in California, the last multi-stop fundraising swing of the campaign. Officials said the time was well-spent financially and the official designation of the Cesar Chavez monument was a significant story in Spanish-language media across the country even though it garnered scant mainstream notice.
As for debate prep, all efforts are as they were—just ratcheted up a notch.
"No one blames the president's performance on [Sen.] John Kerry or the debate prep itself," the administration official said.
Obama said he was too "polite" with Romney the first time.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said the "stakes are tremendously high" for the second debate.
But top officials said there was no master plan to inject uncertainty into the race to snap volunteers and donors out of a the-race-is-already-won mentality.
"We didn't plan this, but if we can find more energy on the ground, like in Ohio, and remind people how close this is going to be we will extract those gains," the senior administration official said. "But we won't deserve very much credit."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7)
ABC News scrambles to downplay Obama’s attendance at VP debate moderator’s wedding
By Josh Peterson
President Barack Obama was a guest at the 1991 wedding of ABC senior foreign correspondent and vice presidential debate moderator Martha Raddatz, The Daily Caller has learned. Obama and groom Julius Genachowski, whom Obama would later tap to head the Federal Communications Commission, were Harvard Law School classmates at the time and members of the Harvard Law Review.
After TheDC made preliminary inquiries Monday to confirm Obama’s attendance at the wedding, ABC leaked a pre-emptive statement to news outlets including Politico and The Daily Beast Tuesday, revealing what may have been internal network pressure felt just days before Raddatz was scheduled to moderate the one and only vice-presidential debate Thursday night.
Both Politico and The Daily Beast jumped to ABC and Raddatz’s defense. The Huffington Post, a liberal news outlet, joined them shortly thereafter, while calling “unusual” ABC’s attempt to kill the story before it gained wide circulation.
Genachowski — called “Jay” at the time of his wedding, sources told TheDC — and Raddatz would go on to have a son together before their divorce in 1997. They have both since remarried to other people.
A source who attended the 1991 wedding told TheDC that Obama was also a guest there, and remembered that a man by the name of “Barry Obama” was among the guests dancing at the reception. (RELATED: Marital, personal ties link Obama administration to Commission on Presidential Debates)
In August, The Daily Caller first connected Genachowski, an Obama appointee, to Raddatz following her selection as the vice presidential debate moderator by the left-leaning Commission on Presidential Debates. That debate, between Congressman Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden, will take place Thursday night at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky.
Carol Platt Liebau, a political commentator who was a Harvard Law Review colleague of Genachowski and Obama, wrote that “despite being a year below both men on the Review and not close personal friends with either of them,” she remembered Genachowski and Raddatz’s relationship as “quite public” during those days, and that “Raddatz visited Boston frequently.”
Genachowski’s friendship with Obama would continue through the campaign trail in 2008 and into the White House: He aggressively fundraised for Obama in 2008 as a campaign bundler, and served on the presidential transition team before winning his appointment to chair the FCC.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/10/abc-news-scrambles-to-cover-up-barack-obamas-attendance-at-vp-debate-moderators-wedding/#ixzz290dVlQmD
No comments:
Post a Comment