Well I am back from visiting my new grandson and things are pretty much back to normal. The election is over and yet there is still all this sniping by the opposition party against a president elect who hasn't even had a chance to be president yet. Give it a rest guys. I was surprised to see that he is going to appoint some republicans to top positions and this made me quite happy. Apparently the signs indicate that he is really going to try and help people. I hope this is what happens. I see that Al-Qaeda is really worried about him. I can understand this, since if he pulls the world leaders together and calms some of the hate against us in the world, then the terrorists might lose some recruits and maybe even become outlaws everywhere. Right now they are sort of heroes in some of the Muslim countries, but that could change. What it looks like they are trying to do is get Obama to make some foolhardy statements to ratchet up the hate again, but I think that he is too smart for this.

The American auto companies are looking for cash to tide them over. They say that if they don't get billions then they may not last the year. There is a lot of sentiment out there for letting them all go into bankruptcy. I can understand that feeling after seeing them put out inferior cars for years and also watching companies like General Motors firing employees as they neared retirement age so that they wouldn't have to pay them a pension. President elect Obama wants to bail them out, but he wants there to be conditions, so that they will become more productive and make a better product. The truth is that their product has improved and in some cases it is as good as the foreign cars. It is also true that there is still some inferior product out there. I would like to interject my thoughts here. I have been a firm believer that if there was a universal governmental hospitalization plan for everyone in this country, it would help the auto makers tremendously by relieving them of this cost which they are always screaming about. Other countries help their auto companies in this area and help in product development and we should too, or we will be at a big cost disadvantage. It was one thing to produce cars when there wasn't much competition, but it is different now, we need every advantage we can get. Let's not forget that we are probably talking about a few million jobs here. As far as labor costs go, the UAW has accepted pay cuts with some being up to 50%, so no matter what politicians say about the workers, they certainly are trying to do their part. Another thing I believe is that all the car companies should divest themselves of all business that are non auto related and use that money to help themselves. An example of what I am talking about is GM owning part of GMAC the finance company and Ford owing the Ford Motor Credit Company.

What about that 700 billion dollars we had in a fund to bail out financial institutions where everyone agreed to allocate the money when they were told it would be used to buy bad mortgages? It seems that the money now is not going to be used for that at all. Henry Paulson was too closely connected to Wall Street to have been appointed to money czar. He worked for years for Goldman Sachs, one of the companies that got us into the money mess. He is estimated to be worth over 700 million dollars himself. Essentially he was given the power to disburse this money anyway he wants, so he said one thing to get the money and then did another after he got it. Again we had another political ploy to get everybody to vote for the bailout. The only reason that some lawmakers voted for this bailout was to help the people that are losing their homes and now they will not get any help. I don't want to get into political differences here, I just want to show that this is a deliberate about face on where some of the money is going. Do I believe that everyone that is in trouble with their mortgage should be bailed out? Of course I don't. I do believe that if someone was working and had a good record of payments and then lost their job and can no longer afford to pay for a high mortgage, or got hurt and can't work, that they should get help. Why not, if we can bail out big companies after they took tremendous financial risks?

We are seeing a lot of former Clinton people being appointed to office and some people are screaming that this is not change as President elect Obama had promised. They seem to miss the point, these people are going to carry out Obama's policies and that is why they are being put into these positions. Policy comes from the top down, not from the middle or bottom up. As far as appointing people from the other side of the isle, this is taking a chance that they might say or do something to hurt the presidency, but it is not likely. While they will be loyal to their party, it is hoped that they will be even more loyal to their country and the president. Obama has stated that there will be at least one republican in his cabinet and there could be more. He wants people that know what they are doing and who have promised to carry out his policies.

Senator Joe Lieberman could have paid a heavy penalty for supporting McCain and not Obama. Instead, even though most democrats wanted to remove him from his seat as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Obama let him retain his seat. Lieberman, an independent, was part of the democratic caucus and voted with them. The democrats felt that he was a turncoat and that he went for McCain because he felt that Obama could never win and wanted to be on the side of the power and that he was nothing more than an opportunist. He received a slap on the wrist and lost a minor committee seat because he had to be punished to appease some very powerful democratic leaders since the president elect was allowing him to keep his important seat. Well one thing is for sure, this guy must have had to eat a lot of crow and he now knows that he better tow the line or else he is history as far as all important senate committees go and as far as a future election goes. This also goes a long way to show what the Obama policy will be, or does it? Lieberman could be one of the senators that allows the democrats to get 60 votes in the senate and thus defeat any attempt at a filibuster by the minority party, maybe keeping him happy and obligated was good politics?.

Iran is a country that really hates the U.S. The hate is historical. We supported the Shah who was a tyrant and set up a police state and that country never forgave us for it. They equate George Bush Jr. with Satan. Looking at things in this context, it was very surprising to see that the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had sent a letter to President elect Obama congratulating him on winning the election. This is almost unheard of. The very fact that the letter was sent has upset some people in this country. I look at it as a very tiny crack in relations. Maybe talks can now begin as Obama has proposed for all countries? One has to remember how tricky talks would be. Iran is a country with a president, but is run by the Supreme Leader, according to its constitution. The president is number 2 in the chain of command. The Supreme Leader of Iran is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a religious leader and he stated in February that God will reprimand Iranians if they give up nuclear activity. I guess you can see the problem that this gives the new incoming administration.

When I returned from my trip I was surprised that so much was going on, on the political front. Hillary Clinton being offered Secretary of State and her husband Bill actually agreeing to let two oversight authorities review all his financial dealings really surprised me. Just the fact that Hillary Clinton would be appointed after such a bitter primary was surprising, but even more surprising was the fact of how she threw herself into Obama's camp after she lost the primary and went around the country pushing for his election. The next four years are going to be very interesting.