Author: Eliot Lear

“Republican Moderates to Blame” – Now THAT Was Predictable

The rats are out of the ship, now that Senator McCain has lost.  Although they are on all sides of the spectrum, here is an article from CNN that demonstrates just how fast the Family Research Council has started complaining that moderates are to blame, and that Republicans should shift right.  While anyone’s 20/20 hindsight is less than interesting, as we discussed prior to McCain’s loss, his problem was that he tried to advance two separate strategies and alienated both of his bases.  John McCain did not simply run a moderate race.

Arguably, however, the reckoning will go the other way: President Bush’s administration is about as unpopular AND as far to the right as one could possibly get in America, and John McCain could not run farther from it.  As proof, where was President Bush the last month of the campaign?  Answer: he was hiding, keeping a low profile, as we previously discussed.  Elizabeth Dole, a conservative, lost her seat in the Senate, and Virginia has gone blue.

The fight for the soul of the Republican party is on.  Whether they will remain right wing conservative will very much depend not only on how the electorate views the McCain loss, but how President Obama and the economy fares in the first two years.

United Starts Charging for Upgrades

Some time ago we discussed a potential market for business class upgrades.  Now comes news from United Airlines that they will start charging a variable price for upgrades, ranging from 0 to $500, depending on where you are going, and what class in which you book your travel.  This will be in addition to miles (although 1/3 less than before). A number of my colleagues are grousing about this, but not me.  For one thing, the actual likelihood of an upgrade for other than the top elite has been reducing over time.  While we don’t know what the downturn holds, it was a rare situation when one could find a free seat in either business or first class.  This is particularly true on A320 aircraft, where there are only 8 first class seats.  That says that somehow or another, United was leaving either money or miles on the table.  These days, money is far more interesting to United, and so the charge was to be expected.  The variable nature of the charge leaves United with room to experiment, so that they can still fill seats and make money in the process.  After all, they have to find a new equilibrium.

As for me personally, as I live in Switzerland, and Swiss already charges for upgrades that I can get, this will allow me an opportunity to take advantage of Swiss more without feeling as though I am losing (more) money.  And so right now it seems like a win/win.  It does pose a question for others, particularly companies that have been relying on their employees’ largesse for transatlantic upgrades.  In a downturn, it is unlikely employees will make a big stink.  Wait until the upturn, however…

WSJ: Wah Wah Wah, Blah Blah Blah

Today’s Wall Street Journal is running quite a number of doom and gloom stories, simply because Democrats are strengthened through the election of Barack Obama and an increased number in the Senate and the House.  Remarkably this sounds an awful lot like the same sorts of stories they ran when Bill Clinton was elected.  And with his financial team that consisted of Former Senator Lloyd Benson and Robert Rubin, he was able to work collaboratively with the Federal Reserve AND Congress to produce both incredible growth and a balanced budget, results that have been reversed over the eight years by primarily a Republican president and a Republican Congress.

And so I have to ask:  why is it that the Journal thinks so highly of Republicans and their anti-regulation agenda?

Obama Wins: Another Barrier Broken

In 1861 a group of rogue states went to war with the Union based on the election of Abraham Lincoln, a man who believed that slavery was wrong.  Some argue that it all boiled down to economics, as in “who will tend our fields, if not slaves?”  Whatever the case may be, it wasn’t until 1865 and over 600,000 deaths later that the war was won by the north.  Days after the end of the war, Lincoln lost his life, and racism raged in the United States for one hundred years or more.

Yesterday America elected another man from the Land of Lincoln, Barack Obama, to put another nail in the coffin of America’s tragec era.  While it would take great effort for him to be as awful as his predecessor, it will take even greater effort for him to get us out of all of the messes that have been left for him.  We live in a divided country, as Mr. McCain received approximately 47% of the vote.  One can hope that of that 47% only a small handful were racists.

We have a huge ballooning deficit that will cripple our ability to address great problems of the day.  We have troops at war in two – four countries, depending on how you count, and we have an economy that is in a recession that many experts believe will last from three to five years.  If it lasts even three years, President-elect Obama will have great difficulty being re-elected.  In the process of fixing all of the above, he might be able to deal with education, healthcare, and national infrastructure.

One thing he has already done has been to shatter the image that a black person cannot lead the country.  Maybe next time it will be a hispanic or jewish woman.  One could only imagine the day when our president is a muslim.