He'd be fired at the end of this season...
Okay, that's the "quick and dirty" answer. Let me start by saying that this isn't terribly scientific. It's not deep like my examination of the "Buffett Rule" (http://loudmouthelephant.blogspot.com/2012/03/tax-rich-obama-class-warfarecampaign.html), or my rebuttal of the myth that teachers pay greater tax rates than Mitt Romney (http://loudmouthelephant.blogspot.com/2012/01/stopping-lefts-propaganda-with-truth.html), but instead it's a near-satirical, wholeheartedly relatable discussion involving the upcoming election (something we're all starting to hate), and football (something many of us love).
So, what if Barack Obama was the head coach of a football team? Since he currently lives in Washington DC, I would say that he is the coach of the Washington Redskins, but I want to stay away from smearing my wife's favorite team :). Instead, for this discussion, he is the head coach of the Washington, um... Governmentals? I've already stated that this isn't scientific, but I'm not obtuse, and I realize that our government is not a football team. The players and the fans don't elect the coach, for example. If the government does poorly, it can't simply relocate to another city. But all that aside, theories on work performance and personnel evaluation hold true. I move on...
The first step in determining if we should resign our coach to a four-year contract would obviously be answering the question, "how did he do?" Well, I think that for every season, as the coach of the Washington Governmentals, Barack Obama's record has been 4-12. In the NFL, he would certainly be let go. But how did I arrive at 4-12? For starters, I think it would be disingenuous to say he went 0-16. He did do some positive things (we can debate the cause and effect of these at another time), but under his watch, most of the improvements we as a country have observed have been minuscule at best. For example, President Obama touts the "creation of 4 million jobs" or "27 straight months of private sector job growth." This is where the "4" in "4-12" really comes in to play. Sure, we've seen 27 straight months of private sector job growth, but wouldn't one net new job be "job growth?" Sure, 4 million jobs have been created, and the unemployment rate has fallen from its peak of about 10%, but has it fallen quickly enough? Have we seen the returns in the employment situation that our head coach promised? Did the stimulus bring us below 7% unemployment by the end of 2010 as we were told it would? As I've said, all of these minor and under-performing "wins" are the "4" in "4-12." Barack Obama is the coach at the post game press conference telling the reporters that though we didn't make the playoffs this season, we won still 4 games... 4 years in a row.
How is this relevant? The head coach of a football team usually comes in with specific goals. Okay, fine... no new coach says, "we are going to win the Super Bowl in my first year." I cede that. But Obama didn't say that. He did give specific goals, however. Yes, coaching is a difficult job, and coaches are given a leash. But Obama's leash, for the most part, was self imposed. For NFL coaches, the leash is about four years in length, and for Barack Obama, it should be the same.
Now what about all the excuses Obama has made during his tenure? Let's start with the classic, "I inherited this mess" excuse. Sure, Obama hasn't said that verbatim, but you'd have to live under a rock to realize he and the liberal media play this card quite often. My response: have you ever seen a head coach claim, "well, the previous coach really messed this up?" No. A good coach and a good leader takes responsibility on his shoulders. He admits things like, "I didn't improve the team like I thought I would," or, "I'm the coach, and I'm running the show, and it's my fault we haven't improved like I had hoped. No, I didn't cause the history of losses, but I did promise to change our losing ways, and with regards to that, I've come up short." Countries, like football teams, can be hard to turn around. But a coach comes in to win. It's that simple. If a coach doesn't, regardless of the last guy's performance, if the new coach isn't winning, he's failing. Not a single coach looks back at their predecessor and blames his current shortcomings on the last guy.
What about all the blame Obama places on the Congress? Well, do you often hear a coach say, "it's not my fault; the offensive coordinator keeps messing up." I'm going to guess and say this never happens. The president should be working with his team (since he promised to unify the government), and unfortunately, it seems that all he does is try to absolve himself of his failures to fulfill the promises on which he got elected.
Don't forget the new blame target: Europe. Sheesh, now he is even getting into preemptive excuses. Check it out: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/08/obama-europe-turmoil-threatens-u-s-economy/. It's almost as if he is saying halfway through the fourth season, "okay, we have started 2-6... so when we finish 4-12 again, well, don't say I didn't tell you that we would play some tough games."
What about some of his minor accomplishments? He claims that without the stimulus, the economy would have dipped into a full-blown depression. That's an interesting one. I'm not so sure we have realized a proper reward for that investment. The stimulus, a massive government spending project, was a major boondoggle. Sure, again, we got some small victories out of it, but it appears the president has mortgaged off the future and traded away our draft picks for the sake of some minor wins in this season. Is this what it's about? Lots of debt now for a few extra jobs?
And the auto bailouts? That's simple. His solution: ignore all business sense and bankruptcy laws to give ownership to the players and some foreign nationals.
Don't forget about Solyndra, either. That's like buying lead cleats for the players. A lot of money was spent, no one got anywhere, and it pretty much ruined the way we look at spending. And the recent leaks? I think there is a comparison to the New Orleans Saint's "bountygate" somewhere. Of course, a lot of this is satirical, but it's a fun way to look at the President's performance.
I know it sounds like a simple rant, but no matter how many times the President misplaces blame, or how many "evolutions" he undergoes, there is one thing that stands out: his record. Simply put: it's bad. He said if he didn't turn the economy around in three years, he would be a one term president. The results are simply not there. He doesn't deserve another term. And quite frankly, Mr. President, I wish being a one-term president was the one promise you planned on sticking to.
What do you think? What win/loss record would you give the President? What analogies would you make to pro sports?
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Ok fine. Not 0-16.
ReplyDelete1-15 :-D
I would never have hired him.
ReplyDeleteIf you did a Background check and I mean a Full Background check and you found what we have found about POTUS he never would have been hired by most. They just don't hire someone without finding out about his past and what he has done to make him a Good Candidate.
What School did he go too, how where his grades, did he show up,did he get into trouble are just a few ? that need to be found out. Can he be the Best Coach that we have on the list, does he know the rules and will he follow them even if he doesn't agree?
No matter what the Team Name is,here in America Sports have always been very Partiotic and we salute the Flag of Freedom. Would he?
Could he run the team and it's arms of workers to make it Right and Balanced. Would he be able to make the hard decisions to change players positions or fire those who do not do their job. Not just switch them up.
In the End he would be the Last man Standing on a Field of Shame with all the Blame. In the End People would be ashamed to have hired him. Tons of People would lose their Jobs and their Faith in the leader they had chosen. The Trickle down affect would be bad and the Economy around the Team would fall.
A Coach is there to make the Team Good and Profitable, when the team plays good money is made. If the Coach can't Coach then everyone loses.
If you know anything about sports and see all the Profits,Jobs and Faith that would be lost with a Bad Coach you know what I am talking about.
In the End you should have done the Full Background check and thanked your lucky stars that you did not hire that guy who never did a thing in his life to Truly help anyone!
Thanks for the Opportunity to voice my thoughts lol
Ok it's me lol I mite have figured it out
DeleteUnder this metaphor, I'd not only entertain replacing the coach but also some of (if not most of) the players. Which in this case, would be Congress.
ReplyDeleteFunny enough, while Obama certainly doesn't have the best approval ratings in presidential history, he doesn't have anywhere close to the worst. But Congress, on the other hand, is in the range of the lowest approval ratings ever.
Continuing with your metaphor, if you have players that are among the worst-rated in history, how much can you honestly expect the coach to improve the team? Even if the coach ends up lackluster as well (which I’m not arguing against), it would be a bit disingenuous to place the blame completely on their shoulders.
While the coach does share responsibility in improving the players on the team, unfortunately that's where the metaphorical tie ends. The president does not hold any influence over Congress or the laws they pass beyond pure campaigning, as such is our checks & balances system. But it’s not his job or responsibility to foster comradery or compromise among the legislative body.
I think that this ends up as far more strong of a metaphorical argument for replacing the players (Congress), than the coach (President). Though, I can see it applying both ways in at least some sense.
I like this analogy. I do agree that congress is a big problem, but they are the coaching staff. GMs, assistant coaches, or something like that. The players are the economy. The president, congress and all the people with power make moves that are supposed to make the players (the economy) better. More workouts, more drills, and all that. Say the head coach/president pushed his assistants (WRs coach, OLine coach, Dline coach) if the head coach made a team move (the equivalent of signing the assistant coaches/congress' opinions in to law) that there were to be 3 workouts instead of one, and he expected the players (the economy) to improve from it, and instead they declined because they were too tired or something, that would have been a bad move on his part. So yes, RKen, I do agree that congress needs to be held accountable, but I think they are not the players.
DeleteI didn't think of the metaphor that way Mn4Rick; I can certainly see your point in that. Makes sense.
DeleteHey everyone! I hope it's a good Tuesday for all.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see some debate on this. It's more of a "silly" way to look at it. As I said, it's not scientific, and it's just my surface opinions. Obviously, I don't think the President should be reelected, and I wanted to express my view in this way. As far as who is what position, economy as players versus coaches, or any of that, it's really cool to see some polite debate on it. I don't have an agreement or disagreement on it. I'm just glad we are able to talk, stick up for our views, and be civil at the same time. RKen and Mn 4 Rick, it's always great to hear your thoughts. I tended to side with both of you lol.
A question I would probe, after further thought on the topic of Solyndra:
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that we are not at least equally if not more upset over the $70 billion in oil subsidies we give away (as opposed to a loan) every year (as opposed to a one-time loss)? A factor of over 100 times greater the amount of money we lost on Solyndra, so long as we only count one year of subsidies.
Looking past the differences in semantics, the reality is that they're both tax dollars lost towards energy solutions that neither recipient necessarily requires to function on its own. Particularly the case for oil as the industry is incredibly profitable by itself; while anything involving new technology/innovation is more risky/difficult to fund.
I understand pinpointing the failure of the company itself as a bad investment choice, which is perfectly expected and fair. But when it comes to the topic of being inflamed from the specific loss of tax dollars, I don't understand the major differentiation here.
RKen, first off your "subsidies" are ordinary tax deductions that EVERY manufacturing business takes. Second off, do you really want to pay more at the pump? Is $3.57 per gallon not enough for you?
DeleteOil companies operate on an 8% to 10% profit margin. They are going to continue to maintain that margin. Tax them more, they pass those costs on along to us. You know, the same way those $20 Million salaries get passed on along to us at the pump.
In addition to the first $0.184 per gallon of gas, the Federal government also gets about 40% of the oil companies profits. Why can't the federal government just learn to live within their means?
The government did not take any money from taxpayers and give to big oil. They did however take my (and other 53 percenters)tax money and GIVE it to 0bama's buddies at Solyndra. See the difference?
$70 billion? The most I've heard is $21 B per year.
DeleteThis says 4: http://www.the9billion.com/2012/02/28/us-pays-4b-in-oil-subsides-yearly-despite-record-oil-company-profits/
This says 21: http://reason.com/blog/2011/05/16/oil-industry-subsidies-21-bill
Other facts: "Big Oil" has a profit margin of 8.9% That is incredibly low compared to many other industries:
Tech (Like Apple and Google) ~ 25%
Automotive ~ 17%
To invest $100B to make $8.9 billion (roughly) is very risky, and leaves little room for error. You have to look at profit percentages. $8.9B seems like a lot. But it's not. And it's certainly small compared to industry standards.
For Solyndra, it's the fact that this is a company that got a special deal by backing, sending money to, and supporting Obama. Obama used the federal government to send money its way, and it failed. This is far different from subsidies for oil and natural gas. (which also heavily favors Obama, btw).
My mistake on the oil subsidy number, I did fudge that up. I quoted the total fossil fuel subsidies (oil, natural gas, coal, etc) and not the specific oil one (which is the $4 bil).
Delete32slim32: I realize that by ending subsidies, the cost would be passed along to the consumer in gas prices, but isn’t this how it is supposed to be under conservative ideology? The people who use the resource the most pay the most for the cost of it, rather than subsidizing the cost across the entire population regardless of use?
Not everyone uses gas as much as everyone else (some even use next to none); the amounts vary quite a lot. Why is this any more OK to subsidize than anything else?
Most conservatives would argue that they shouldn’t have to be mandated into paying for other people’s services, so why is this an exception?
Anon: Yeah, I messed up on my quote. I actually meant fossil fuels as a whole for the $70b figure:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies
http://transitionvoice.com/2011/02/gop-cut-food-aid-but-keep-oil-subsidies/
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0309/Budget-hawks-Does-US-need-to-give-gas-and-oil-companies-41-billion-a-year
Regarding profit margins, I’m aware of their significance but they vary greatly between different industries. The industry is more comparable to a grocery store than Apple, as far as the ultimate bottom line goes. Margins for ‘essential’, non-unique, in-elastic goods in a competitive and saturated market will by basic economic theory carry very low profit margins… Which is completely different from an iPhone.
That said, Walmart has a current profit margin of 3.3%.
As far as the other details, again I perfectly understand the criticization of how the investment in Solyndra turned out. My trouble is in why, from a pure tax-dollars-lost standpoint, this is any less egregious than continued waste on subsidies for other areas of energy that very clearly don't need it.
RKen, you do realize that practically everything you buy (groceries, clothes, boat, car, sporting goods, etc)was transported at some point. Possibly by two or three different modes of transportation (rail, truck, air, etc). With that being said, everyone uses gas/diesel to one degree or another. Heck, even if you bought something direct from the manufacturer they still had their raw materials shipped to them, thereby using fuel. Believe it or not, those fuel costs are passed on to the consumer too.
DeleteIn fact do you even know what those tax deductions are or are you just parroting talking points? Are these tax deductions exclusively for big oil?
If you buy anything at all it is in your best interest for fuel to be cheaper whether you can figure it out or not. Those big trucks hauling nearly everything you buy get 6 & 7 miles per gallon. Diesel fuel is more expensive than gasoline and taxed at higher rate per gallon than gasoline by the feds-- 24.4 cents per gallon (cpg) for diesel vs. 18.4 cpg for gas. Truthfully, we would all be better off (assuming one doesn't live entirely off the land) if they switched the rates and made diesel 18.4 cpg and gas 24.4 cpg. We would feel it slightly more at the pump but the cost of everything we buy should be reduced. Who wouldn't like a lower grocery bill every week?
Have you ever seen the Milton Friedman video about the making of a pencil? Watch that video then think about fuel consumption just in making a pencil. Heck, I am gonna have to go watch it again now.
Have a great evening, RKen.
I'm a little confused on your point here slim32.
DeleteAre you saying that because we all use it in some way, the government should help pay for it? And/or that it would be better if the government even subsidized it more? What's the limit on how much they should be involved/subsidizing? I didn't think you were for that kind of spending.
But, even so, despite how deep gas prices tie into the prices of everything the fact remains that different people have different levels of consumption.
And isn't the same argument made by Democrats for Healthcare? That some way or another, everyone needs and is effected by healthcare costs somehow, and that it would be best if the government helped normalize and spread these costs out in involving tax-dollars. It seems you're making the basis of that argument now, only for oil (or energy) subsidies.
You have a good evening too. I'll see if I can find that video, thanks.
Good afternoon all.
ReplyDeleteGreat article LME. I really like the analogy. In the NFL, 0bama would not even have a fourth season; perhaps not even a third season.
RKen, in addition to all the ad nauseum crap we hear about what 0bama inherited he also inherited a Democrat House and filibuster proof Senate. The Stimulus bill passed without a single vote from a Republican. While he did lose his filibuster proof Senate with the passing of Sens. Kennedy and Robert "Sheets" (as in the white ones he wore while in the klan)Byrd, he still maintained a large majority in the Senate. Getting past a filibuster still wasn't that hard for them if they just greased the palms of Sens. Snowe (R-ME), Collins (R-ME) and/or Brown (R-MA).
0bama had a pretty good team for his purposes for his "first two seasons". So I
I do tend to agree with you though RKen; I believe a lot of personnel changes will be made in November. We have already seen Republicans lose in primaries (i.e Dick Lugar a six term Senator--36 years and others too), so they are going to be replaced. A lot of Senators are retiring rather than face another election cycle. I believe that a sleeping giant has been awakened and boy is he p!$$ed.
That Tea Party has been busy behind the scenes apparently. Hey yeah, speaking of which, who are the Occupy Wall Street candidates? Are they still active in politics or are they done now that their little reality TV show gig is over? Anyone know?
I'd just like to elaborate further on the filibuster-proof supermajority, in that it only lasted for 14 weeks. You correctly pointed out the special election, which many seem to be unaware of.
DeleteBut Ted Kennedy made only a handful of appearances in Congress after Obama was sworn in, and otherwise was housebound with illness until his passing in August. Paul Kirk did replace him Sept 24th, bringing the super-majority back, but that was only 14 weeks before the special election in Mass that brought in Scott Brown.
4 of those weeks were also in winter recess. So the filibuster-proof majority only existed for 10 weeks in total. Certainly still time to do something, but I think that the duration and amount that could've been accomplished in that time tends to be exaggerated quite a bit.
$70 billion? The most I've heard is $21 B per year.
ReplyDeleteThis says 4: http://www.the9billion.com/2012/02/28/us-pays-4b-in-oil-subsides-yearly-despite-record-oil-company-profits/
This says 21: http://reason.com/blog/2011/05/16/oil-industry-subsidies-21-bill
Other facts: "Big Oil" has a profit margin of 8.9% That is incredibly low compared to many other industries:
Tech (Like Apple and Google) ~ 25%
Automotive ~ 17%
To invest $100B to make $8.9 billion (roughly) is very risky, and leaves little room for error. You have to look at profit percentages. $8.9B seems like a lot. But it's not. And it's certainly small compared to industry standards.
For Solyndra, it's the fact that this is a company that got a special deal by backing, sending money to, and supporting Obama. Obama used the federal government to send money its way, and it failed. This is far different from subsidies for oil and natural gas. (which also heavily favors Obama, btw).