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The attached news brief from Reuters says it all - one in 7+ Americans is receiving food stamps. The USDA expects an average enrollment in 2010 of 40.5 million people.
http://www.forexyard.com/en/ne...
The BLS is reporting the U6 unemployment rate at 16.5% - more than 25 million Americans unemployed or underemployed.
When viewed through the lens of tightening credit markets and skyrocketing health insurance premiums, it's hard to see where job growth occurs. To be polite, the president's $5K tax credit for job creation is grossly inadequate for creating any meaningful employment. There's simply no demand.
Our country is in desperate need of re-structuring priorities - from health care to energy policy, from agricultural policies to education reform. People resist change until the pain of doing nothing outweighs the pain of change. For this message to resonate with people, we need leaders who speak to our feelings and help us see the importance of change.
What we have is an incredibly smart president who believes in thinking and analyzing solutions to problems. While this might resonate with thinking Americans, it's simply not enough - we need a majority. People resist the change because the incremental rewards do not justify the immediate pain - this is a phenomena that is very well understood in the world of change. Perhaps all this talk of bipartisan solutions has been the foundation that major change will be built on...but I am doubtful. The president has a history of being a conservative and cautious politician. WYSIWYG.
The time is now for a massive change to the system, and it will only work if we provide the emotional, spiritual, and psychological underpinnings for the change - see and feel the change. Here, the rewards are massive and justify the pain of the change - imagine a diet and exercise program that produces immediate physical and emotional results - much more apt to be successful.
Obama, the candidate, understood this much better than Obama, the president.
