Communication Advice For Republicans. You’re Blowing It! February 27, 2009
Posted by Bob Aronson in The economy.4 comments
As a semi-retired communication consultant I want to offer my critique of the conservative approach toward President Obama’s stimulus plan. I don’t pretend to think that the plan will solve all of our problems but at least it addresses them. So far conservatives have addressed big deficits and big government but have not even alluded to real people. I learned long ago that you never discuss problems unless you have solutions. Those who oppose the stimulus plan are excellent at discussing the problems it may create; they fail miserably in offering solutions.
While I support President Obama’s efforts I’m going to offer some advice to my conservative friends. Simply put, you’d better start sounding like you give a damn about the average American because right now you appear to care only about being disagreeable.
My personal philosophy is quite simple, “If communication is not your top priority all other priorities are at risk.” Conservatives within and without congress have totally failed to communicate that they care. Nothing proves it more than Rush Limbaugh’s statement that he “hopes President Obama fails.” The obvious inference, then, is that he favors politics over helping Americans overcome adversity. Where’s the Christianity in that statement Mr. Limbaugh? Your hubris is exceeded only by your bombastic thoughtlessness. Even some of your supporters think you’ve gone too far with that utterance.
Here’s where Rush and the loyal opposition to President Obama have gone wrong. The President talks about people losing their homes, conservatives discuss the national debt. He talks about a lack of health care access, they talk about budget deficits. He talks about families that are forced to go to food shelves, they talk about taxes. He talks about millions of lost jobs, they talk about big government.
The fact is when people are concerned about their own well being they simply don’t care about the difference between a billion and a trillion dollar deficit or big government. When people are faced with unemployment or have already lost their jobs they don’t care about taxes. Conservatives have totally ignored the prime tenet of effective, persuasive communication; talk about the audience and their needs — not about yourself and your beliefs.
Perception is ninety percent of reality. If people perceive that you care more about money than you do about them they will quit listening to you, worse yet they will probably turn against you.
The issue here is people, not money. Conservatives would do themselves some good to rethink how they articulate their opposition to the President’s plan. I’m not saying they have to agree with him, they shouldn’t if they feel they might compromise their principles, but if they don’t change their attitude they will come out the big losers in this battle.
So far, Republicans have come across as the party of “No!” Rarely do you hear any of them discuss human misery. Rather — they seem to think they can connect with the public by attacking spending and big government. What they should be doing is to offer some compassionate solutions rather than just saying no. Here is a short list of what people really care about:
- Loss of job and income
- Loss of investments
- Loss of retirement funds
- Feeding their families
- Paying their bills
- Keeping a roof over their heads
- Providing adequate health care for their families
- An adequate number of public safety people to protect them from the rise in crime that always comes with a faltering economy.
- Proper education for their children
Effective, persuasive communication dictates that you speak in terms that have a direct impact on your audience. When people are faced with losing their homes and their ability to feed their families they really don’t care about the national debt or deficit spending, they want solutions, not more problems.
I’ll probably get a lot of nasty email from conservatives but before you send it re-read what I wrote. It is very good advice, the same advice I would offer if I was being paid for it.
Also, please read and comment on my Organ Donation and Transplantation blogs on
http://bobsnewheart.wordpress.com . You can visit my Facebook site, Organ Transplant Patients, Friends and You at http://tinyurl.com/225cfh OR — my Facebook home page http://www.facebook.com/home.php
Keep Kids Home, Send Old Guys To Fight Wars!!!! February 22, 2009
Posted by Bob Aronson in World Views.1 comment so far
A friend of mine from Israel sent me the following post. At age 70 it sure makes sense to me. Enjoy
If you have comments about this blog, write them in the space provided below, or email them to me at jaxbob@gmail.com.
Also, please read and comment on my Organ Donation and Transplantation blogs on
http://bobsnewheart.wordpress.com . You can visit my Facebook site, Organ Transplant Patients, Friends and You at http://tinyurl.com/225cfh OR — my Facebook home page http://www.facebook.com/home.php
When’s The Last Time You Had A Salad? The Sorry State Of Our Health. February 17, 2009
Posted by Bob Aronson in Healthcare.6 comments
In the United States we spend more on healthcare per capita than any other nation on earth and no wonder – we are the most technologically advanced, have the very best professional people and can boast of the best facilities. Why then do we lag so far behind much of the world in terms of our national health? What’s wrong with this picture?
Our health care system is seriously broken and no amount of glue, patchwork fixes or insurance adjustments is going to repair it. We need a complete overhaul, one in which patients have access to affordable health care unencumbered by the scores of entities attempting to “manage” our care.
I am at a loss in trying to explain how Blue Cross and Blue Shield, United Health Care and all the others are helping to improve access and lower the cost of our care. Insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, high tech medical equipment manufacturers are all making money, yet we as a nation are getting sicker.
The December 1, 2008 issue of Time Magazine the article “The Sorry State of American Health” http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1860289_1860561_1860562,00.html
tells a grim story of just how bad things are in the United States. To quote from the article: “If you’re like 67% of Americans, you’re currently overweight or obese. If you’re like 27%, your blood pressure is too high. If you’re like a whopping 96% of the population, you may not be able to recall the last time you had a salad, since you’re one of the hundreds of millions of Americans who rarely eat enough vegetables. And what you do eat, you don’t burn off — assuming you’re like the 40% of us who get no exercise. Most troubling of all, if you’re like any parent of any child anywhere in the world, you may be passing your health habits to your children, which explains why experts fear that this generation of American kids may be the first ever to have a shorter life span than their parents do.”
I don’t know if that paragraph upsets you but it should. Can you believe that 96% of Americans can’t remember the last time they had a salad? Maybe because I had a heart transplant eighteen months ago I’m more health conscious than most but these are alarming numbers and if you don’t care enough about your own health for heaven’s sake what about your kids?
Here’s more — Time makes it clear that “The biggest problem with the U.S. health-care system is that it has long been designed to respond to illness rather than prevent it.”
Now some scary, I mean really scary data. “In 2005, the most recent year for which data are available, about 7 babies out of every 1,000 live births in the U.S. died before their first birthday. That rate represents a 2% reduction in deaths from the year before, which continues the steady improvement seen throughout the 20th century. But globally, it still places us 29th in the world, behind Cuba and Singapore and on a par with Poland and Slovakia.” 29th in infant mortality? Behind Slovakia? Even worse, there are about forty five million Americans who are uninsured and whose only access to care is through their hospital emergency room — and guess who pays for that?
Quoting further from Time, “Between 1980 and 2004, the prevalence of obesity in the U.S. doubled among adults, surging to 72 million, or one-third of people ages 20 and older. Worse, the percentage of overweight or obese kids rose to 17%. If all those numbers could be cut by even a third, the ripple effect would in turn slash rates of hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, joint damage and more, not to mention the myriad costs associated with fighting these illnesses.”
I have but two suggestions for readers of this blog. 1) If you care about yourself and your family, think about adopting a healthier life style, think about getting some preventive care. Think about living! 2) If you care about the future of your family and the rest of America, start putting pressure on your elected representatives to do something about this sorry state of affairs.
If you have comments about this blog, write them in the space provided below, or email them to me at jaxbob@gmail.com.
Also, please read and comment on my Organ Donation and Transplantation blogs on
http://bobsnewheart.wordpress.com . You can visit my Facebook site, Organ Transplant Patients, Friends and You at http://tinyurl.com/225cfh OR — my Facebook home page http://www.facebook.com/home.php
Billions for Bulls–t Not a Dime For You! February 15, 2009
Posted by Bob Aronson in The economy.2 comments
While President Obama and Congress struggle with exactly what the new stimulus plan will accomplish no one seems to be looking at wasteful spending, especially the very vocal Republican minority which loudly complains of too much spending but ignores the waste they created when they held both houses of congress and the presidency. According to a 2005 report by the Heritage Foundation http://www.heritage.org/research/budget/bg1840.cfm we could save scores of billions of dollars if we eliminated really unnecessary spending. Want some examples?
Unreconciled transactions totaled $24.5 billion in 2003. The government knows that $25 billion was spent by someone, somewhere, on something, but auditors do not know who spent it, where it was spent, or on what it was spent. The unreconciled $25 billion could have funded the entire Department of Justice for an entire year.
Over one recent 18-month period, Air Force and Navy personnel used government-funded credit cards to charge at least $102,400 for admission to entertainment events, $48,250 for gambling, $69,300 for cruises, and $73,950 for exotic dance clubs and prostitutes.
Medicare wastes more money than any other federal program, For example, Medicare pays as much as eight times what other federal agencies pay for the same drugs and medical supplies. The evidence showed that Medicare paid an average of more than double what the VA paid for the same items. The largest difference was for saline solution, with Medicare paying $8.26 per liter compared to the $1.02 paid by the VA
In 2000, Medicare’s payments for 24 leading drugs were $1.9 billion higher than they would have been under the prices paid by the VA or other federal agencies. The reason, Congress hamstrung Medicare by forcing them to pay whatever price pharma companies wanted. By law Medicare, unlike the VA, is not allowed to negotiate for the lowest possible price. Thank you President Bush.
Putting it all together, Medicare reform could save taxpayers and program beneficiaries $20 billion to $30 billion annually without reducing benefits. That would be enough to fund a $3,000 refundable health care tax credit for nearly 10 million uninsured low-income households.
And then there are redundancies, where several organizations exist to do the same thing. More examples from the Heritage Foundation Report:
- 342 economic development programs;
- 75 programs funding international education, cultural, and training exchange activities;
- 50 homeless assistance programs;
- 40 separate employment and training programs;
- 3 agencies providing aid to the former Soviet republics;
Instead of grandstanding in their feigned righteous indignation over spending in the stimulous plan, I suggest Republicans look within and correct, in a bipartisan manner, the godawful mess they created. If we eliminated the wasteful spending can you imagine how many jobs could be created, how many families could be provided with health insurance, how many people could be fed and how many students could be educated?
Please comment here or email your thoughts to me at jaxbob@gmail.com
Also, please read and comment on my Organ Donation and Transplantation blogs on
http://bobsnewheart.wordpress.com . You can visit my Facebook site, Organ Transplant Patients, Friends and You at http://tinyurl.com/225cfh OR — my Facebook home page http://www.facebook.com/home.php
New York Execs Can’t Live on $500K a Year. Can You? February 8, 2009
Posted by Bob Aronson in Executive Pay and Mismanagement.1 comment so far
A recent New York Times column headlined, “You Try to Live on $500,000 in This Town” made the case that President Obama’s limit of a half million a year for executives whose firms took federal money, was a hardship. The column by David Pogue, which sounded tongue-in-cheek, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/fashion/08halfmill.html?em attempted to justify $30,000 a year for women’s charity ball gowns, $45,000 a year for a nanny, $32,000 a year per student for private school and, of course, the need for men to wear Brooks Brothers or other exclusive clothiers suits. Additionally he pointed out that many of these people took two vacations a year at $16,000 per vacation. The premise is that an executive, successful or not — must keep up appearances.
I can’t believe the arrogance that would cause some executives to complain about hardships when millions are out of work and therefore without healthcare, people are losing their homes and bankruptcy claims are reaching record proportions. Poor executives — only making $500,000 a year. Let us take up a collection so we can help them pay for their Mercedes’, vacations and ballroom clothing.
Let me quote from the Pogue column:
“Not every bank executive has school-age children, but for those who do, offspring can be expensive. In addition to paying tuition, “You’re not going to get through private school without tutoring a kid,” said Sandy Bass, the editor of Private School Insider, a newsletter that covers private schools in the New York City area. One hour of tutoring once a week is $125. “That’s the low end,” she said. “The higher end is 150, 175.” SAT tutors are about $250 an hour. Total cost for 30 weeks of regular tutoring: $3,750.
Two children in private school: $64,000.
Nanny: $45,000.
Ms. Bass, whose husband is an accountant with many high-end clients, said she spends about $425 every 10 days on groceries for her family. Annual cost: about $15,000.
More? Restaurants. Dry cleaning. Each Brooks Brothers suit costs about $1,000. If you run a bank, you can’t look like a slob.
The total costs here, which do not include a lot of things, like kennels for the dog when the family is away, summer camp, spas and other grooming for the human members of the family, donations to charity, and frozen hot chocolates at Serendipity, are $790,750, which would require about a $1.6-million salary to compensate for taxes. Give or take a few score thousand of dollars.”
The point seems to be that a New York City executive must make at least $1.6 million a year just to survive – just to survive. I don’t begrudge high salaries for top executives who make billions for their company, and therefore provide employment for thousands; obviously successful people should be rewarded. Where I draw the line, and so does President Obama, is paying outrageously high salaries to executives who have led their organizations into near bankruptcy and then go hat in hand to the government asking for money to cover their poor judgment and mismanagement. These people have caused a near depression not only in the United States, but for the whole world. Frankly, I think they should be forced to live like the people they put out of work. Try that on for size Wall Street!
Well, reader, what do you think? Please comment or send me an email at jaxbob.gmail.com.
Also, please read and comment on my Organ Donation and Transplantation blogs on
http://bobsnewheart.wordpress.com . You can visit my Facebook site, Organ Transplant Patients, Friends and You at http://tinyurl.com/225cfh OR — my Facebook home page http://www.facebook.com/home.php
Bob Aronson