John McCain regains his soul.

I start this post again with the concession that I am not American and I do not have a vote, but being a witness (albeit via the internet) to one of the most important Presidential races, perhaps in history, I feel compelled to add my two cents worth to the discussion that has and will ensue on the blogosphere. It seems apt that I begin with a concession because what I hope to write about is not how proud Americans should be for both electing what seems to be a worthy leader and for participating in the democratic process but about the manner in which a war hero conceded defeat to a man who out spoke, out debated and out advertised him.

On the day after the results I am now watching the speech by John McCain again as he concedes defeat and I am impressed by his performance. I also wonder why it is only after he lost the race that he pulls out such a tear jerking and moving speech. He was gracious, he was humble and most of all he was deeply patriotic. He pledged support for Obama that, unlike Bill Clinton at the DNC, did not leave any doubt that his one and only allegiance was to the good ole US of A.

So why could we scarcely see this during his campaign? I have my theories.

At the beginning of the campaign, John McCain was Mr. Straight Talk. He was a man of action. A man who suffered for his country and comrades. He was the Maverick. He was the man who reached across the aisle to reach compromise when required to find solutions for the benefit of the nation and yesterday when he spoke of importance of electing the the first Afro-American President he was genuine. During the course of campaign, this image was blurred because during this long journey, John McCain was replaced by the party machine. Months before the vote, I commented on twitter that I felt that McCain no longer believed in his campaign but in hindsight it was not so much that he no longer believed the campaign but that the campaign was no longer his. 

To start off with, the selection of Sarah Palin as a running mate was the first sign that he was being rail roaded. For someone who is so close to the center to choose someone so close to the right was obviously a decision made by a strategist looking at voter profiles and not for the benefit of the country. Unfortunately it was transparent in its incongruousness and obvious to the American voters. These strategists tried to position the two as a team of Mavericks so much that having that word uttered from Palins mouth became a joke that even the very restrained Joe Biden could not resist shooting down in the VP debate. You will notice that after that debate the word Maverick was hardly ever used.

McCain was always going to be a man who's actions spoke louder than words for two reasons. Due to his long political history he firstly had a great deal more action to speak of than the relatively inexperienced Obama but secondly there was no way he could complete with an orator as eloquent as Barack. This man of action was to be the man who was blind to party lines and just got the job done. He tried to portray this image by suspending his campaign to work on the "rescue" package, a stunt that cost him dearly as the party machinery did not take into consideration that his knowledge of the financial system was inadequate and that it would be seen by the increasingly intelligent voter population that it was indeed a stunt. Apart from this failed attempt to be the action man, the entire campaign failed to further illustrate that he was a man of action simply because at no time did he attack the administration for their failings in the past eight years, he did not do anything more than give lip service about being disliked by people in his own party. After the selection of Sarah Palin, John McCain became a bullhorn for special interest and Washington power brokers that scripted every word he uttered. In fact towards the end of the race Palin had the right idea when she turned on her own strategist. Unfortunately Palin didn't have the foresight to use that to the advantage of the campaign, but if had McCain fired his team mid-race to run a race that was his own, the outcome, although may not have been different, would probably not be the massacre that ensued on November 4th. It would have further illustrated that this American hero would not stand for something that he did not truly believe.

Perhaps it is because of the underdog mentality that living in Australia for so many years gives to a person but I am glad that after his political advisers jumped ship, the real John McCain was able to show us the man he is and the man who should have fought the strategists during the campaign in his concession speech.

Congratulation to America for their choice. Congratulation Senator McCain for reclaiming your soul.

Don't Vote

This is like one of the cleverest video's I've seen. My fear is that the sarcasm might be lost on some. You know who you are...

UPDATE: the Sequel

Debate Number One

This is the full 96 minute video broken into 11 Youtube videos, for those who have time.

And if it doesn't play try here or here

Which Presidential Candidate is Better for Non-Americans?

Unlike Australia, voting in the USA is not compulsory. Candidates therefore have a greater challenge because not only do they have to convince people to vote for them but they actually have to convince people to vote. I am actually a little surprised that I have not read any commentary about the Democratic Party's long road to choosing Obama over Clinton in the mainstream press from the perspective that it is actually a strategy, by the Party, to get people to register to vote. It is essentially an extremely expensive way to building an opt-in mailing list. (Actually this leads to the question of what percentage of people don't vote in the US and what effect does that have on the outcome. I guess that's an issue for another article because it actually requires research.)

US Citizens therefore have the right to influence who will be their President in the next four years but also have the right not exercise that right. So what issues will convince a US Citizen to vote? Based on no research whatsoever I have compiled a list of reasons why Americans will come out to vote.
1. Celebrity Encouragement (Because Oprah told me to..)
2. Because my parents have always voted so I have been taught that I should vote
3. Because my parents have always voted and because I am going through a rebellious stage I will vote for the opposing party
4. Because I am still related to an institution of higher learning, am in my twenties and still believe I can make a difference.
5. Because I am a member of a Union, the Military or I am a public servant and my future salary depends on who the next administration is
6. Because I am a badge wearing, banner carrying member of one of the Parties
7. Because I have a crush on one of the candidates.

Given that one of these reasons have convinced you to leave your couch to go to the polling booth? What are the issues that determine whom you vote for? Based on the same amount of research I did for the first list, here are what I think are the hot issues.

1. Which candidate will give me something for nothing? (Healthcare, Welfare, Jobs, Contracts, Payrises)
2. Which candidate is a better public speaker?
3. Which candidate will tax me less?
4. Which candidate is Oprah voting for?
5. Which candidate will make things cheaper?
6. Which candidate is more like me?

I know this list seems quite basic, however my point is that in the short term the things that will attract most voters is handouts and popularity. Both of which will be coming from the Obama Camp. Add to that the number of new Democratic voters recruited during the primaries and McCain has an uphill battle to sell a economic plan that is all about making the Government smaller. While McCain is selling lower taxes, Obama will be selling better health care, better schools and alternative energy, and although it makes more sense to vote for someone who will tax you less, all the issues that Obama will be selling are hot button issues. It seems that the Inconvenient Al Gore and Sicko Michael Moore have been campaigning already for a democratic win.

From the outside looking in (for non-Americans), the prospect of a McCain win will mean that the US economic recovery will be a lot slower but it will be based on strong market fundamentals of improved efficiency and innovation. Unemployment will not improve dramatically but in the long run America will be more globally competitive. Under an Obama government, it seems that trade barriers will go up in a high tax environment and a fat public sector will mean an artificially created recovery. Whether this will actually improve standards of living for average Americans is debatable because usually increased barriers to trade creates an inflationary effect, but at least more Americans will have jobs. It will also mean that in the long term, the US will make a lousy trading partner and will probably run into budget deficit problems late in the first term (as opposed to going deeper into the trade deficit under McCain).

In my mind I think that policywize McCain has the better long term package for non-Americans if you take his green & innovation stance seriously. It provides a good trading partner that will continue to import but will also continue to be the leader in technological and high value products. Domestically though, the unemployment rate will not improve for older blue collar Americans but at least the Government won't be taxing so much of the salary they're not getting. Problem is his record of endorsing Bush 95% of the time will continue to haunt him for this entire campaign plus he sounds like a pedophile when he snickers after saying "That's not Change we can believe in!". It's actually a pretty good tag line for his campaign and might have worked if he didn't come across as a dirty old man when delivering it.

On the other side of the coin, higher tax is the only real down side to the Obama proposition. This might actually be something Americans would be happy to pay if they get affordable health care, schools are actually staffed by qualified teachers and if the defense forces actually focuses on defense rather than offense in return. If this is the case, then Obama is a sure thing.

Internationally, Obama will probably piss some trading partners off (probably China the most) and become much more inward looking to protect the domestic economy from the evils of cheap labor. In the long term however, as countries like China and India become less labor intensive and really start to invest in their universities and higher learning, there is a chance that large technological gap between the US and the rest of the world will narrow as commercial incentive to invest in innovation becomes less attractive relative to protected non-technical industries. (this has already happened with the post WWII Japan).

It's still a little too early to call it but I get the feeling US will actually have it's first Afro-Caucasian-Mixed-Indonesian-educated-President simply because the American middle class will get a sweeter short term deal from Obama than McCain. I anxiously watch for history to be made...or not.

The Economics of the US Presidential Election

With Hilary R. Clinton's support of Barack Obama's nomination as the Democratic Nominee for Presidential Candidate, we are now at a stage where we can include John McCain in the discussion. At the beginning of the Democratic Primaries I made a prediction. It was not one based on an in-depth understanding of American Politics. It was one based on observation of human nature. I predicted that If Clinton did not win the nomination, Obama would win and if Obama won, then McCain would be the next President. I predicted that Clinton would not be Obama's running mate simply because she had no desire to be second in charge. She'd done that job already as the First Lady. I also thought that America was not ready for their first black President but since then the media has convinced me that the public has gotten over that issue already.

Having listened to all three speeches at the conclusion of the Primary race, the one thing that differentiates McCain and Obama is the Economics behind the content of their speech. If you filter out the subtle (and not so subtle) attacks at each other you hear quite clearly that from an economic standpoint they are very clearly on opposite sides of the fence. Obama's speech is about fixing the thing that George W. has messed up. Excluding the Iraq war everything else is about Government intervention. Healthcare, education, barriers to trade to protect American industries and supporting the middle class. His message is clearly lets do all the things that we have not done right in the last eight years. McCain on the other hand takes a different approach. He looks back and says, we tried these things, it didn't work so lets let the American people decide for themselves. Or alternatively stated, let's not intervene, let innovation thrive through necessity and let American ingenuity find better ways to doing things that foreign manufacturers are doing manually due to lower running costs. Let's not put up barriers to trade because inevitably, America is part of a global economy and they need to find their competitive advantage.

This really is not surprising that Obama takes a Keynesian economic stance in his policies while McCain takes a more Laissez Faire approach. If you take two of the most respected economists in recent history and match them to which administrations they advised you will see that there is a clear distinction between the economic policy outcomes of electing a Democratic as opposed to a Republican President.

John Kenneth Galbraith was a student of John Maynard Keynes in that he believed in Government intervention was the way to control things like inflation, economic downturn and to create greater equality in the distribution of wealth. He we born in 1908 and died in 2006. During his life the last President of the United States of America that he served was Bill Clinton and has in the past also served Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. All Democatic Presidents.

The other economist I'd like to draw your attention to is Milton Friedman. Friedman was born in 1912 and also died in 2006. He saw much of the same America that Galbraith saw and up until the 1950's was also a supporter of Keynesian interventionism but it was toward the latter part of his life that he began to support Adam Smith's "invisible hand" and advise towards a free market fiscal and monetary policies. In 1976 he won the Nobel Prize for Economics. Friedman advised Ronald Reagan during the 80's but also the other conservative union buster Margaret Thatcher.

So who will be the next POTUS? My prediction might be a bit shaky now. The US is just now coming out of a Recession, the middle class have been hit the hardest and Obama is the best political orator I have seen for a long time. If I were to assume that American voters were voting for America then McCain would still be the winner simply because I believe that a protectionist/ interventionist Government inevitably leads to a weaker nation. Unfortunately democracy dictates that it is one vote per person and not one vote per dollar and the votes that will benefit the most in the short to medium term is middle class ones. The same votes that Obama will be selling job creation, better education and cheaper healthcare to. All things that a McCain cannot offer if he is to remain true to his free market roots.

It's going to be an interesting race this year. Pass the popcorn please.