President Obama delivered his address to Congress a week ago yesterday.  How nerve-wracking must it be to be a black man standing up in front of America's elite telling white people:

'They're going to be some changes around here?' 

There still has to be butterflies running through his stomach as he gets to the podium.  If not his stomach, then at least his family's collective stomach.  Obama seemed to struggle a couple of times with his voice early in this speech.



I'm not calling for any response here.  I'm just making an observation because it seems the 'first-black-President-effect' has already worn off and almost become trite even though two years ago Time magazine wrote a headline questioning Obama's "black"-ness.  President Barack Obama crosses these barriers—that now seem trite—with a commander's stride.  He controls the lectern as if it's his natural place in the world.  His confidence makes it okay for him to be where confidence alone wouldn't have gotten him fifty years ago.  First, let's move beyond President Obama's rhetoric and dwell a bit in audience participation.

Can we please stop all the g*d d*mn clapping already? 

It's like America is run by a congress of monkeys smacking their hands and showing their teeth.  The incessant applause seems barely above flinging feces on the evolutionary scale.  The audience at these gatherings seem only satisfied to wait for their turn to be part of the show.  By and large, at this event, Democrats search for every opportunity to stand up and visibly show their support while those pledging allegiance to the Grand Old Party sit on their hands and hope someone notices how dissatisfied they are.  The same thing was done with W and Clinton before him: it is not something unique to Obama's Administration. 

It was annoying with Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush and it's still annoying now.  Stop it!  You look like g*dd*mned, slack-jawed idiots clapping every two minutes.  NOBODY says anything worthy of applause every two minutes!  Applause every two minutes takes away from what's being said.  After a while, the applause means nothing.  Whatever happened to just clapping when he first takes the lectern and then clapping again when he's finished? 

That's one more round of applause than your kids generally deserve performing their annual Christmas play!!!

In his address to Congress, President Obama focused on three key issues: education, health-care and energy.  Throughout the speech, he spoke a fine line defining the relationship between rich and poor in America.  This is the stuff revolutions are made of and President Obama attacked class struggle in America head on without openly attempting to stir unrest.  In this regard, President Obama's address dwells in a long, unspoken condition among the people of the United States of America.

President Obama: "Short term gains were prized over long term prosperity."

That sentence does a lot of work.  In this one sentence, President Obama addresses the downfall of the U.S. economy and the citizens of the United States of America.  Since when is a home an investment?  Isn't a home supposed to provide a sense of security?  A home is a place to retire when the chaos of the world gets to be too much.  Old sayings sometimes have a habit of breaking away from the cliche:

"A man's home is his castle." 

Yes, it's sexist; however, that statement doesn't speak to future returns on an investment.  That old saying doesn't require a federally mandated disclaimer.  The home should represent more than the largest investment return most Americans will ever make in their lives, because now it's not even that.  The home should be a safe haven, but seeking "short term gains" turned the home into something to be 'flipped.'  The home became something to drive derivatives that nobody understood until it was too late and then those derivatives became illiquid assets that nobody wanted anything more to do with after the amphetamines wore off. 

Does illiquid mean the home is worthless now?

"Long term prosperity" suggests the home is a place where you can retire if you have no other place to go.  With a home, you'll always have someplace to go.  Get the bank off your home's title and you've accomplished something of value regardless of market value. 

Before proceeding any further with Obama's speech, it's helpful to remember: there're all kinds of ways to talk about America's class struggle.



President Obama conceptualized improving America's class struggle as: investing in areas like energy, health care and education while bringing the deficit down.  He also said, "Flow of credit is the life blood of our economy."  Credit is this huge double-edged sword, but he's right. 

Without credit, poor people have a much harder time getting out of poverty.  If gold is the flavor of the year, the people with gold hoard it so there isn't much to spread around to everyone else.  Credit doesn't work that way!

Credit is a balance sheet and most balance sheets seem to have the capacity to go on forever (although Excel will actually stop you at 67,000 rows.)  The primary problem with credit being spread around is someone will eventually want to see the final tally sheet.  Then they want to compare that tally sheet to real stuff in the world. 

The double edge of credit is that it exposes money as make believe. 

Confidence gets shaken in credit markets because the credit, in and of itself, means virtually nothing.  Which then begins to raise questions about money: is it really just an arbitrary sign of value?

President Obama: "We cannot afford to govern out of anger."

We live in an age of nationalization (which is just a code-word for socialism,) President Obama lists some of America's past socialist programs we now take for granted but about which we still feel good.  He listed at least three: the G.I. Bill, Public Education and the federally-funded interstate highway system. 

President Obama: "We must be that nation again." 

Obama peppered his speech with challenges like JFK's famous challenge to reach the moon.  Will seeking a cure for cancer be for Obama the same as JFK's call to reach the moon? 

President Obama also uses the word "reform" repeatedly.  It is quickly becoming the metaphor of the year.  There has to be a better word than "reform," but this is one of those dicey areas.  Reform suggests a restructuring of what currently exists.  Doesn't some of what currently exists just need to be done away with though? 

Governor Mike Huckabee talked about getting rid of the IRS in the Republican primary debates in 2007.



Congressman Ron Paul talked about abolishing the U.S. Federal Reserve as well as the Security & Exchange Commission.



How do you talk about dismantling established parts of the federal government without sounding radical or revolutionary?  It is a difficult task. 

A topic for another time, because President Obama, during his address to Congress, really distinguished himself from the last 8 years of W's speeches.  President Obama asked for Americans to make commitments to be better parents and better people.  By linking national prosperity to individual education, Barack Obama created an achievable goal for the nation to strive together and still individually the way most of us like. 

Achievable goals are a centerpiece of corporate business leadership training.

Obama asked Americans to commit to making their own worlds better through higher education while W asked Americans to: shop, buy homes and 'oh yeah...heh, heh...911!'