Ok. . . This is terrifying.

[Townsend]

You can still send a message IN SPITE of what others say or think, that's the point.  As it is, he gives the impression to many that he's aloof and doesn't care about his public image.  He's not doing a very good job of relating to most Americans and it's not just the gun-hugging, Limpbaugh/Beck listening crowd who see this either.  It's a departure from the behavior of previous Presidents.  Either he's clueless or simply an iconoclast.  That's his prerogative, but it makes an attempt to be re-elected in 2012 much more difficult.  The mystery surrounding him in 2008 served him well, as he truly was a relatively new arrival to D.C. and I think the electorate wanted an outsider, amongst other things in their next President. 

Honestly, I don't care what religion he practices that's not my point anyhow.

If Obama did any of those things he'd be portrayed as a

1. ax wielding maniac
2. thug
3. poser
4. making fun of the handicapped
5. child molester
6. pervert
7. stereotyped

by Limbaugh/Beck and their followers

[we vs us]

You can still send a message IN SPITE of what others say or think, that's the point. 

If you were friends with the White House on Facebook, you'd see how many images he's churning out, as well as status updates.  Or maybe you linked to his Twitter account, or to his Flickr stream, not to mention the juggernaut that Whitehouse.gov has become.  Or maybe you've been watching CNN or MSNBC and seen some of the well-placed and occasionally beautiful images they show of him (beautiful as in excellently executed, not beautiful as in, "Obama, you're so dreeeeeamy!")  The New York Times, the Washington Post, the AP, etc, all publish excellent pics quite often.  So does Newsweek and Time. 

You also may have forgotten this:




So if we're talking image control and PR, it's there.  But that's also beside the point.  Because the people who believe he's Muslim (AND ALL THAT THAT ENTAILS, WINKWINK, NUDGENUDGE) don't believe these sources. 

[Conan71]

Hope is fading fast

[Gaspar]

Huh.  Well there's your problem right there.  You guys all think that image is simply related to Images.  Well you are right to an extent, but too often images portray underlying messages.

Take the Obama Hope mural above.  We've seen that exact same image with the far left stare plastered on buildings in the middle east, street banners in the old soviet union, china, or most recently in pre-liberation Iraq.   The players are different but the image structure is the same.  Strong vector drawing showing leader glancing off into the future.  Looking out over the problems of the present.

We've seen other foreign leaders and movements adopt logos/symbols throughout history.  Monikers for flags or armbands. Typical American campaign logos and imagery is abandon once the campaign is over.

Ok, I'm about to get blasphemous.  Obama is not a God.  He is not to be worshiped.  The policies are what is important.  The leadership is important. I'm sure he is a very nice person, but I could care less about Stallenesque images or new-age-pagan symbolics.  The "symbol" of the man and what he represents is only as good as the outcome it produces.

I do not want to drive down the street and see images of my dear leader.  I want to see commerce, and trade and images of my fellow Americans making money.  I want to see billboards with plumbers and evil banks. I want images of new cars, fancy restaurants, and a giant mouse saying "Come to Chucky Cheese".

The president's reliance on imagery of himself and the fact that more young people probably recognize the official Obama insignia more readily than the presidential seal bothers me a little.  I think it's starting to bother a lot of people.

[RecycleMichael]

I do not want to drive down the street and see images of my dear leader. 

You act as if Obama is putting up posters of himself in his spare time...

If other people are inspired by Obama and want to proudly show their support, they can. If you want to show your love for dollar bills, feel free to put up pictures of money on your walls.

Your inane attacks in this thread are silly.

[we vs us]

Huh.  Well there's your problem right there.  You guys all think that image is simply related to Images.  Well you are right to an extent, but too often images portray underlying messages.

Take the Obama Hope mural above.  We've seen that exact same image with the far left stare plastered on buildings in the middle east, street banners in the old soviet union, china, or most recently in pre-liberation Iraq.   The players are different but the image structure is the same.  Strong vector drawing showing leader glancing off into the future.  Looking out over the problems of the present.

We've seen other foreign leaders and movements adopt logos/symbols throughout history.  Monikers for flags or armbands. Typical American campaign logos and imagery is abandon once the campaign is over.

Ok, I'm about to get blasphemous.  Obama is not a God.  He is not to be worshiped.  The policies are what is important.  The leadership is important. I'm sure he is a very nice person, but I could care less about Stallenesque images or new-age-pagan symbolics.  The "symbol" of the man and what he represents is only as good as the outcome it produces.

I do not want to drive down the street and see images of my dear leader.  I want to see commerce, and trade and images of my fellow Americans making money.  I want to see billboards with plumbers and evil banks. I want images of new cars, fancy restaurants, and a giant mouse saying "Come to Chucky Cheese".

The president's reliance on imagery of himself and the fact that more young people probably recognize the official Obama insignia more readily than the presidential seal bothers me a little.  I think it's starting to bother a lot of people.

So which is it?  Has he lost control of his image or does he have complete, totalitarian control over it?

Or is it maybe you just don't like anything about him?

[nathanm]

The president's reliance on imagery of himself and the fact that more young people probably recognize the official Obama insignia more readily than the presidential seal bothers me a little.  I think it's starting to bother a lot of people.

What I got from your post is that it doesn't matter what he does, you're going to disapprove anyway.

You also have a strong misunderstanding of the left if you think anyone worships him as a God. Many are rightfully pissed off at how far from a leftist he his, yet you constantly condemn him for being some kind of iron-fisted Communist with some crazy cult of personality. It's rhetoric right out of the 1950s, and it's simply not accurate.

Also:


Yeah, that's not campaign imagery at all.

If you want what you claim to want (more economic activity, billboards of Chuck-e-cheese, etc.), you should stop being against another stimulus. If you look at GDP growth, you'll see that as the stimulus ramped up, growth increased. As the stimulus has ramped down, growth has decreased.

And personally? I'd rather not see giant billboards anywhere. They're an eyesore. I wish more cities and states were had strong regulations on them.

[Conan71]

You act as if Obama is putting up posters of himself in his spare time...

If other people are inspired by Obama and want to proudly show their support, they can. If you want to show your love for dollar bills, feel free to put up pictures of money on your walls.

Your inane attacks in this thread are silly.

It's that mentality which will doom the Obama Administration to one term.  This is precisely what President Obama's handlers are missing.  Instead of seeking to understand the real reasons why Americans are increasingly becoming dissatisfied with his leadership it's summarily dismissed as a partisan hatred of the man himself, racism, or simply red herrings and strawman attacks.

It's not.  People have very real reasons for disapproving of the job he's doing.  His leadership style is tepid, and to many he comes off as cool, stiff, aloof, and sometimes detached from the significance of a major event or crisis.  People want to go back to work and as they get frustrated with their job search this administration stays focused on idealistic agenda items which aren't helping those people find jobs. 

I don't feel inspired when I hear President Obama talk, I feel like I'm being lectured to.  The great leaders I've admired throughout my life, world leaders and those I've known through business or local politics, have been inspirational people who truly empathized and led by example.  I've admired Democrats as much as Republicans, blacks, Asians, Muslims, Hispanics, and white men and women alike.  At least for me, there's no pre-concieved bias I have against our President other than the very thin resume he brought to the job.

He has also apparently departed with the traditional Presidential message machine I grew up being used to.  I shouldn't have to be a fan of the White House Facebook page, follow him on Twitter, or go to whitehouse.gov to keep up with him.  Somehow, he just doesn't seem to be conveying the sort of images in a manner I relate to that I got from Presidents Nixon, Carter, Reagan, the Bushes, and Clinton.   

He's a dreamer and idealist, I admire him for that.  Unfortunately this is just not a period in U.S. history where that's an ideal leadership style.

[rwarn17588]

The notion that a president is totally in control of his image is preposterous. You're always going to have a certain segment of people -- no matter who's the commander-in-chief -- who will willingly stoop to any level ito try to take him down.

I remember people who insisted that Reagan was itching to press the missile-launch button and take us into nuclear war. I remember people who insisted that Clinton was doing murder-for-hire hits on people who stood in his way. All of this stuff flew in the face of abundant evidence. You're always going to have a fringe element who accept this stuff without skepticism.

And anyone who claims that these type of attacks are new are showing their ignorance of history. At the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, one wing displays newspaper accounts from the 1860s, stuff that makes the worst anti-Bush or anti-Obama screed look tame. Lincoln was outright accused of being part ape, part Negro, or mentally retarded. There even were thinly veiled insinuations that Lincoln was suffering from some sort of loathsome disease such as syphilis. And that just scratches the surface.

So what you're seeing, it ain't new.

[Conan71]

If you want what you claim to want (more economic activity, billboards of Chuck-e-cheese, etc.), you should stop being against another stimulus. If you look at GDP growth, you'll see that as the stimulus ramped up, growth increased. As the stimulus has ramped down, growth has decreased.

And personally? I'd rather not see giant billboards anywhere. They're an eyesore. I wish more cities and states were had strong regulations on them.

Wrong answer.  We don't need a stimulus to get the wheels rolling again.  Cash is out there, it's sitting idle.  People who run corporations and small business want inspiration and confidence that the worst is behind us and they will start spending money again.

[Conan71]

The notion that a president is totally in control of his image is preposterous. You're always going to have a certain segment of people -- no matter who's the commander-in-chief -- who will willingly stoop to any level ito try to take him down.

No it's not preposterous.  He can control the message which gets out to the public.  He cannot control how it is interpreted, ignored, or accepted.  Throwing his hands up and saying: "No matter what I do they won't believe it" is the wrong approach.  That's what I'm hearing from the Obama apologists on here anyhow.

[nathanm]

It's not.  People have very real reasons for disapproving of the job he's doing.  His leadership style is tepid, and to many he comes off as cool, stiff, aloof, and sometimes detached from the significance of a major event or crisis.  People want to go back to work and as they get frustrated with their job search this administration stays focused on idealistic agenda items which aren't helping those people find jobs.  

Good, then, that he's been one of the strongest champions in Washington for extended unemployment benefits.

There's some speculation that he's going to announce an economic program sometime in the next week. I hope so. Perhaps then people will notice that the Republicans (joined by a few Blue Dogs) are obstructing all attempts to do anything about the continued high unemployment. One of my bigger complaints about his administration is how it constantly does stuff behind the scenes, evaluating Congressional support before going public with their plans. They hear the threat of the filibuster and back off. This allows the Republicans to be obstructionist without being seen as such by most.

He should take a lesson from the standoff between Clinton and Gingrich that led to the repeated federal shutdowns. Gingrich was the one who came out looking like an obstructionist donkey. Perhaps he or someone else in the administration doesn't think it's appropriate for the President to get involved in legislative bickering, I don't know, but whatever the reason it's doing much more harm than any of the stuff you and Gaspar are whining about.

And Conan, if business won't spend their cash, all we can do, short of forcing them to do so, which I think none of us want, is spend it ourselves. Private sector spending won't increase magically. However, increasing demand through stimulus will create demand, thus enticing businesses to invest in themselves with the cash they have on hand. Keynesian economics works, no matter how much you want to stick your fingers in your ears and scream "I'M NOT LISTENING". It's like you refuse to accept historical fact. We're seeing a repeat of 1937.

[Townsend]

Good, then, that he's been one of the strongest champions in Washington for extended unemployment benefits.

There's some speculation that he's going to announce an economic program sometime in the next week. I hope so. Perhaps then people will notice that the Republicans (joined by a few Blue Dogs) are obstructing all attempts to do anything about the continued high unemployment. One of my bigger complaints about his administration is how it constantly does stuff behind the scenes, evaluating Congressional support before going public with their plans. They hear the threat of the filibuster and back off. This allows the Republicans to be obstructionist without being seen as such by most.

He should take a lesson from the standoff between Clinton and Gingrich that led to the repeated federal shutdowns. Gingrich was the one who came out looking like an obstructionist donkey. Perhaps he or someone else in the administration doesn't think it's appropriate for the President to get involved in legislative bickering, I don't know, but whatever the reason it's doing much more harm than any of the stuff you and Gaspar are whining about.

And Conan, if business won't spend their cash, all we can do, short of forcing them to do so, which I think none of us want, is spend it ourselves. Private sector spending won't increase magically. However, increasing demand through stimulus will create demand, thus enticing businesses to invest in themselves with the cash they have on hand. Keynesian economics works, no matter how much you want to stick your fingers in your ears and scream "I'M NOT LISTENING". It's like you refuse to accept historical fact. We're seeing a repeat of 1937.

On that note:

Obama calls on Congress to pass small business jobs bill, which has been blocked by top Republicans

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/03/obama-calls-for-improving-small-business-climate/

[Conan71]

Nathan, John Maynard Keynes never created a job nor ran a small business.  Economic theorists are no different than physicists like Steven Hawking.  They work in a world of theories which aren't infallible and are ever-changing. 

I agree, we can make a change by increasing our own discretionary spending.  I'm simply choosing not to at the moment as my income is pretty far off right now from the last two years but shows signs it will increase in the next two quarters.  I still will be saving more than usual for a variety of reasons: for one, I can't predict what three or four quarters ahead will look like, next year I will have two kids in college (thank God for only one year of dual tuition), and I'm moving out of my acqusition years into seriously socking back more for retirement years.

Quoting Townsend's article, I'm hearing good things in this speech.  He's not blaming Bush, he's highlighting things I like to hear: more private sector jobs being created, the rise in U/E numbers is more people going off gov't payroll, the best is yet to come.  Kudos, Mr. President.

One troubling issue I see with this bill is the notion of borrowing our way to prosperity.  I'm not comfortable with doubling what business owners can borrow mainly because that's what people were doing with mortgages.  I need to read the contents of the bill to see what the major issue with the GOP.  If it's another sausage-packed pig, the Democrats are just as much to blame if it can't get moving forward.  One bill, one intent, no bullshit like throwing a wedge issue in there like breast cancer research funds or mental health benefits for veterans.

From Townsend:

"He directly accused Republicans of blocking the $55 billion legislation package. Senate Democrats are hoping to OK the package and get it to the president's desk well before November's midterm elections.

Among the provisions in the bill are loan enhancements that would double what small business owners can borrow to expand their companies, as well as billions in tax-cut extensions.

"It is paid for," the president said. "It will not add one dime to our deficit."

Obama said it took years to create the country's economic problems, and it will take years to right them.

He said, however, that he wants "all Americans to remind themselves there are better days ahead" and that the United States remains the world leader in innovation, discovery and entrepreneurship.

"There's no quick fix for the worst recession since the Great Depression," he said.

There are signs the economy is improving, though. He said August saw 67,000 private sector jobs created, while official July numbers indicated 107,000 private sector jobs were created.

In contrast, the latest unemployment numbers show joblessness rose from 9.5 percent to 9.6 percent last month, and the economy lost 54,000 jobs overall. The job loss was attributed to the decline in temporary Census Bureau positions.

To "break the back of this recession," Obama said, more steps are needed, including the small business legislation, extending tax cuts for the middle class and directing investments to areas where job-creation potential is the highest.

[nathanm]

Nathan, John Maynard Keynes never created a job nor ran a small business.  Economic theorists are no different than physicists like Steven Hawking.  They work in a world of theories which aren't infallible and are ever-changing. 

...

One troubling issue I see with this bill is the notion of borrowing our way to prosperity.  I'm not comfortable with doubling what business owners can borrow mainly because that's what people were doing with mortgages.  I need to read the contents of the bill to see what the major issue with the GOP.  If it's another sausage-packed pig, the Democrats are just as much to blame if it can't get moving forward.  One bill, one intent, no bullshit like throwing a wedge issue in there like breast cancer research funds or mental health benefits for veterans.

Conan, most businesspeople have no concept of economic theory. Economic theories are testable and have been tested. Do you really think that listening to economists when you want to know about the economy is a bad idea? What you wrote is the equivalent of saying that gravity is just a theory, despite it having a strong effect on our daily lives.

Responsible borrowing isn't an issue. Businesses need money to expand, and banks aren't giving much of it out. Let's use Gaspar's 3 Guys products as an example. He previously posted that they are unable to put product in all the Reasor's stores because it would require about $50,000 to produce enough product, which they do not have. Given that it market tested so well, it seems like it would be reasonable to borrow the $50,000 and jump start sales. The extra sales would likely more than outweigh any interest paid.

Part of the problem in real estate is the constantly repeated mantra that "they're not making any more of it" to bolster the idea that real estate prices will always increase. Obviously, that's not a correct conclusion, as has been shown many times throughout history. When people disassociate from reality, it causes problems. Debt isn't really the issue. Alan Greenspan once called the phenomenon "irrational exuberance," and this is one of the most free marketeer people walking the earth. Even he recognizes that sometimes the market gets it wrong because its participants aren't acting rationally.

Combine that with the misaligned incentives that still exist in the mortgage market and the inability of most organizations to look beyond next quarter and it's quite clear how we got the real estate market we did.