Obama is a huge failure on foreign affairs

After reading the text of Obama's speech to the UN today I am convinced he is incompetent as a world leader. His views are naive and myopic and seems to have a complete lack of historical knowledge in terms of national interests and diplomacy. This is what I see as his biggest flaw in logic (excerpt from his UN speech):

The choice is ours. We can be remembered as a generation that chose to drag the arguments of the 20th century into the 21st; that put off hard choices, refused to look ahead, and failed to keep pace because we defined ourselves by what we were against instead of what we were for. Or, we can be a generation that chooses to see the shoreline beyond the rough waters ahead; that comes together to serve the common interests of human beings, and finally gives meaning to the promise embedded in the name given to this institution: the United Nations.

Common intersts of human beings?

I find this quite condescending that he can determine what mine, your, or anyone else's interests are. Just because he thinks something is important doesn't mean anyone else does. For example, Obama calls for the equal rights for women - is this a "common interest" of everyone? Nope. There are millions, maybe billions of people, let alone governments, who don't believe in equal rights for women. I do, but I don't pretend that everyone else does. (Hell, the US never passed the Equal Rights Amendment.)

And this:

Yet I also know that this body is made up of sovereign states. And sadly, but not surprisingly, this body has often become a forum for sowing discord instead of forging common ground; a venue for playing politics and exploiting grievances rather than solving problems.

The logical flaw is this: nations don't have "common interests," they have "national interests." There is a huge difference! Nations can have similar interests or mutual interests, but they are not common. Nations don't function that way.

This guy explains it well:

For an administration whose officials regularly boast of having what they call “the best brand in the world,” there is what Stephen Sestanovich calls growing “frustration with what other countries are prepared to contribute to advancing supposedly common interests.” Personal relations are important, said Mr. Sestanovich, a former Clinton administration ambassador with ties to the current team, but national interests still dominate. “That’s what American presidents generally discover,” he said.

http://thepage.time.com/remarks-obama-at-the-u-n-genereal-assembly/

I don't believe that Obama or his Administration will ever figure that out. Certainly not after reading the UN speech.

http://thepage.time.com/remarks-obama-at-the-u-n-genereal-assembly/

Then we get to Obama's "four pillars" - nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, the pursuit of peace, combating climate change, and increasing economic development and opportunity.

Again, quite condescending and myopic. These might be important to him, but not to many other countries (or even many of the people in the US).

Suppose you are the leader of Tonga, a small, poor island nation in the Pacific. Which of the four pillars would be your priorities? Nuclear weapons? Hardly. Pursuit of peace? Irrelevent, really to a small island off by itself. Climate change? That's a joke right? Economic development? Sort of, but not in the same context that Obama talked about in his speech. So Obama wants to work cooperatively with the nations of the world to "solve problems" - yet he doesn't seem to see that each nation has their own unique set interests, agendas, priorities, and problems.

So Obama says he's not naive, yet that is exactly how he comes across. And weak. And ignorant. And condescending. Who is he to lecture the world on their behavior?

And on his speech blurb about devloping countries needing to root out corruption please visit this blog post:

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1461-President-Obama,-Hypocrite-In-Chief.html

Mergers and acquisitions at 15 year low

I guess companies are hunkering down and are very risk averse. I would have thought that with the downturn that there would be quite a bit of consolidation. Not happening. Maybe companies can't get the loans for mergers/acquisitions? Maybe they are purely in survival mode? Interesting though.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/32594269

Learn to be a serf

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2009/08/fed-official-real-us-unemployment-rate.html

No inflation for now

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/08/misguided-worries-about-inflation.html

More on how the US has become a banana republic

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice

From this confluence of campaign finance, personal connections, and ideology there flowed, in just the past decade, a river of deregulatory policies that is, in hindsight, astonishing:
• insistence on free movement of capital across borders;
• the repeal of Depression-era regulations separating commercial and investment banking;
• a congressional ban on the regulation of credit-default swaps;
• major increases in the amount of leverage allowed to investment banks;
• a light (dare I say invisible?) hand at the Securities and Exchange Commission in its regulatory enforcement;
• an international agreement to allow banks to measure their own riskiness;
• and an intentional failure to update regulations so as to keep up with the tremendous pace of financial innovation.

GDP decline is getting worse, not better

2nd Quarter GDP numbers are absolutely horrid. Governments (city, state, federal) are spending money they don't have to prop it up. Absolutely terrible numbers.

http://market-ticker.org/archives/1276-GDP-Uuuuggghhhh.html

The end of the end of the recession

From Zero Hedge (and he didn't mention much about the disaster of the Commercial Real Estate market, or that the S&P 500 is trading at an overall P/E of 140, or several other trouble areas):

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/The%20End%20Of%20The%20End%20Of%20The%20Recession.pdf

A couple of corrections needed for the above slide show.

Not to just pick on the MSM reporting. I was sent (by several readers) a housing analysis yesterday. It was some sort of weird mash up between the excellent David Rosenberg and some blogger. The charts are great, but the analysis is sometimes inaccurate. The "research" made comments like this for the NAHB HMI: “Sales outlook is stuck at 26, and anything under 50 is a contraction”. Not correct. The NAHB index is a sentiment indicator and doesn’t indicate contraction. Any number under 50 indicates more builders view sales as poor than good. See this chart - the index moves with new home sales and housing starts. And another example: "Architectural billings Index slipped five points last month to 37.7 - a sign residential construction is just bouncing along bottom". The ABI is primarily for non-residential construction.

I'm not trying to pick on or embarrass any particular publication or blogger. But it helps to know your sources. And I could be wrong about prices; we will know when the October and November data is released (a six month wait!)


http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/07/few-comments-on-housing-reports.html