Prepping for the State of the Union address

By: Daniel J. Becker

With the state of the Union coming up and the current national attention having been drawn toward the question of the nation’s personality via reality mimicking Hollywood (God, that slap in the face hurt bad, assuming you felt it) I want to try to get us ready for the presentation by reminding people that drama can not be the end all and be all as motivation. We truly need to acknowledge the vastness between policy including policy statements and implementation and the living experience post policy.

Last year I posted my state of the union opinion based on real world small business experience.  Well, I can tell you, it’s not any better. I’ll get to that in the next post. Let’s just say, I got to experience the down side of the “stimulus” first hand. No, I’m not against stimulus, just poorly implemented stimulus.

In the mean time. There has been much discussion regarding the degree of leftyness of President Obama in the last 2 years. I asked in ’08: Obama, Is he or isn’t he….real?  In that post I drew on some statements President Obama made pre-election regarding policy positions. You should go read the comments. It’s kind of a “how wrong/correct were we” experience.

I want to focus on just one statement by President Obama from that post keeping in mind the concept of the “state of the union” address:

I will invest $150 billion over the next decade in renewable sources of energy to create five million new, green jobs – jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced; jobs building solar panels and wind turbines and fuel- efficient cars;…

Great policy idea. Stimulus, jobs, hits the climate change thing, gives purpose and a direction for say our education system. Kind of lefty on the leftyness scale. However, there has always been rumblings that I’ve read and thought regarding greening our economy and jiving that with globalization and outsourcing. Well, we got our answer. It’s not jiving. Or should I say, it’s jiving just fine considering our current economic industrial policy?

Solar Panels Jobs Go to China

BEIJING — Aided by at least $43 million in assistance from the government of Massachusetts and an innovative solar energy technology, Evergreen Solar emerged in the last three years as the third-largest maker of solar panels in the United States.

But now the company is closing its main American factory, laying off the 800 workers by the end of March and shifting production to a joint venture with a Chinese company in central China. Evergreen cited the much higher government support available in China.

Even though Evergreen opened its Devens plant, with all new equipment, only in 2008, it began talks with Chinese companies in early 2009. In September 2010, the company opened its factory in Wuhan, China, and will now rely on that operation

Let the excuses begin. In the end, the reality of the state of the union is that it’s not good in all aspects of it’s health. As I asked in “Is he or isn’t he…real”

If the change we wanted was not to be bull shitted anymore, and the one I’m listening to is talking “change” using lingo, presenting policy plans of what I want, was I wrong to think they were talking no more bull shit?
Which brings us back to reality mimicking Hollywood. It is not just the issue of violent rhetoric. No, no, noooooooooooo.

Do you know what happens to a person when they can never get a straight, a no hidden agenda answer from the one(s) they count on? They go nuts.