Deals for Votes or Good Times, Bad Times

We are now in the midst of a tumultuous election year. The biggest question many have is; who should get our vote? The problem is; what do the candidates stand for? The confusion is; how do we find out what they stand for? The reality is; we will not really know until the winner takes office.

Like many other elections each candidate is making Deals for Votes. Through this whole process, if you watch closely, one finds out that positions are softened or changed depending upon what the polls say. Backroom handshakes are made for support. Quiet lobby efforts are negotiated secretly in the dark enclosures of each candidate. What the American public is shown is only what each candidate wants us to know. You need to ask yourself, is the news media manipulating public opinion or it is the other way around and the candidates manipulating the media? The reality is, we may never know until it is to late.

When we look at the United States today we sae a country in turmoil. Business meltdowns, Real Estate quagmires, bank failures, mounting troop losses overseas, mounting debt by the U.S., job losses, it goes on and on and on. Yet, the leaders in this are supposedly the best of the best. Graduates from Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford........ It leads me to wonder; what do they teach in our hallowed halls of education? Certainly it does not teach common sense.

I roll over in my sleep and wake with a start with a nagging question in my head; do the leaders of our country truly know what they are doing or are they just shooting darts in the wind hoping they land in the right place?

In the last 25 years we have gone through good times, bad times, extremely bad times and extremely good times. But yet, we never seem to learn the lessons they present to us. I forget where I read it or who wrote it, "If you do not learn from your past failures you are doomed to repeat them in the future".

In the early 2000's we had a momentous reversal in the stock market that wiped out many. This reversal was bound to happen since the run up in the stock market was based on nothing but greed. When greed is your password to wealth sooner or later that greed turns to fear, and all is lost. But instead of learning from this failure, what do we do? We turn around and base the same principle to, greed and fear, the Real Estate market and we all know how that turned out.

My point in all of this is that our esteemed government and business leaders sat on their collective asses and watched it happen.

We are a society of short term thinkers. (What happened yesterday is of no concern to me). Businesses think of short term results to satisfy their share holders Government thinks of how many policies can they institute in their short political life spans to sponsor their own political initiatives. So nobody is thinking what the country will look like in 10, 15, 20, 25, years from now.

This by no means lets the citizenry of this great country off the hook. We also are short term thinkers. How many of us woke up at the age of 55 and realized we have done nothing for our retirement or our kids college education?

So what do the candidates stand for? What are their visions for the long term future? How are they going to accomplish their goals? And how do we hold them accountable?

I recently had the pleasure of speaking to a gentleman that told me he was voting for Obama two weeks later he told me he was voting for McCain. I was confused so I asked him what he was basing his decision on. And lo and behold he was basing his decisions on 5 minute soundbites put out by the campaigners.

My theory is; they will say anything to get the job if it means getting your vote!

Vote wisely and with as much knowledge that you can find!