The Baumgarten Report

Let’s put this financial mess into a little perspective.

After all, when you go to the doctor and his diagnosis is a life-threatening one, you need to hear the truth. Right between the eyes. Then you can consider your options. But sugar coating things doesn’t help very much.

People who have lost their jobs and those who may be next aren’t going to find it very easy finding new ones.

Those who have looked down their noses at the “lazy poor people” who should just go out and get a job better hope that the job-cutting axe doesn’t fall on them. But if it does, it will change their perspective on life real quickly.

Yesterday, during News Talk Online on Paltalk.com, I mentioned that some people are supplementing their nutrition with cat food. I was accused of taking that line out of some socialist playbook. But the sad truth is, there are people in the United States, my fellow Americans, who actually are buying pet food for human consumption.

The New York Daily News today reports about a man from New York state who worked in a mine. He was laid off, but was recruited by a Montana mining company to re-locate there for a job. So, not wanting to be one of those “lazy poor people” he packed up and drove 2,000 miles and reported for work.

His first day on the job finished, he returned to his new home, only to get a message on his cellphone. He was being laid off again.

Take Sam Gallup’s experience. Put it in your mind. Now increase it by one million. Or two million. Or three million.

Imagine the drain on our economy if, say, General Motors folds. And one, two or three million people, GM employees, suppliers, the people who transport the vehicles, the folks who work at the car dealerships – you get the idea – find themselves out of work.

Not only will they be out of work, but like Gallup, they will find it difficult to get other jobs.

There is good reason the Dow keeps nose diving on word that Congress is reticent to approve a GM bailout package. It’s ture that unlike the Wall Street bailout there must be actual oversight. A way to ensure that improvements and efficiencies are made to make it more likely that, as with the Chrysler bailout decades ago, there will be a return on the taxpayer’s investment. But letting GM fail is lunacy. It’s the proverbial cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s self.

The CEOs of the Big Three are correct when they say if one falls so may the other two. The auto manufacturers share suppliers. If GM were to close shop, so too will some of their suppliers. Making it impossible for Ford and Chrysler to keep their lines running.

Imagine the ripple effect in the economy. Imagine the increasing numbers of people, whose jobs are not even remotely related to the auto industry, who will be getting pink slips.

Now, imagine looking in the mirror in the morning and seeing Sam Gallup’s face staring back at you. Just imagine.

Spillar

You’re a teenager or young adult who finds herself in the unfortunate position of being pregnant and unwed. You go to a pregnancy counseling center for help. Only to find that you’re in an anti-abortion clinic that encourages you to keep the baby.

Federal dollars fund these centers. But should they? And will funding, under a pro-choice Obama administration, continue?

Joining us on News Talk Online on Tuesday November 18 to discuss this issue will be Katherine Spillar and Nicolette Tomaszewski.

Spillar, executive editor of Ms Magazine has been overseeing coverage of anti-abortion groups that target women’s reproductive health clinics such as Planned Parenthood. She is also executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation where she has coordinated field operations in three statewide campaigns for women’s rights.

Tomaszewski is a woman who was pressured by a a local crisis pregnancy center in Tennessee where she was warned of horrible side effects of abortion by a volunteer who, she says, was not a medical professional. She says she was also told that, if she were to have an abortion, she likely would suffer side effects because the physicians employed in abortion clinics were from the “bottom of the barrel.” She was not actually pregnant when she went in for counseling, but wanted to experience for herself the treatment she would receive after a pregnant friend, looking for an abortion, told her she was discouraged when she went to the clinic.

Spillar says many crisis pregnancy centers, like this one near Tomaszewski’s college campus, masquerade as women’s health clinics often luring young women by offering free pregnancy tests. In reality, an FMF study reported on by Ms concludes that the vast majority of CPCs are not medical facilities.

To talk to Spillar and Tomaszewski on at 5 PM Tuesday November 18 CLICK HERE. There is no charge.

Paltalk is the largest multimedia interactive program on the Internet with more than 4 million unique users.

News Talk Online is also syndicated by CRN Digital Talk Radio to an additional 12 million households.

Path to prosperity?

Layoffs continue across the United States and many people suddenly out-of-work are wondering how they will provide for themselves and their families.

Author Paul Facella believes an entry-level position in a low-paying job, such as working at a McDonald’s, can actually lead people back to a life of financial solvency.

That’s the premise of Facella’s book, Everything I Know About Business I Learned at McDonald’s. Facella will join me on Monday December 15 to discuss his concept of individual bottom up economics on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com.

Facella’s book is, in large measure, based on his own experiences. He first walked into a Mickey D’s as an employee, working behind the counter, when he was 16-years-old. He says in his book that McDonald’s has produced more millionaires from within its ranks than any company in history.

Facella’s 34-year career saw him promoted to counterman to grill cook to regional vice president. The book explores, with interviews from entry-level employees to founder Ray Kroc how a fast food restaurant’s corporate culture encourages workers to succeed in business.

He parlayed the lessons learned at McDonald’s to now operate a successful New York consulting firm.

He believes the concepts he learned at McDonald’s can be applied to any business enterprise.

To talk to Facella on at 5 PM December 15 CLICK HERE. There is no charge.

Paltalk is the largest multimedia interactive program on the Internet with more than 4 million unique users.

News Talk Online is also syndicated by CRN Digital Talk Radio to an additional 12 million households.
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Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/iirraa/235471342/

New scanners at airports which permit security officers to virtually strip search passengers are raising concerns among many in the flying public.

Budgettravel.com senior editor Sean O’Neill was my guest on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com to discuss the scanners. He says they were put into place as an alternative to patting down passengers in several airports because tests have shown that TSA personnel have missed contraband during those one-on-one searches.

Some people find both the pat-downs and the scanners intrusive, including a Muslim woman who called the show who believed both to be affront to the modesty dictated by her religion.

Murphy

Of all the problems, domestic and foreign, that face President-elect Obama, none is more perennially critical than the quest for peace in the Middle East.

Joining us to talk about the prospects for a solution to that quagmire on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com Monday November 10 will be former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy.

Murphy spent 34 years as a career foreign service officer. After service in the U.S. Army he joined the foreign service of the State Department and from 1955-68 served in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

In 1971, President Nixon nominated him as ambassador to Mauritania and in 1974 he became ambassador to Syria. He then served as ambassador to the Philippines and Saudi Arabia. From 1983-1989 he served as assistant secretary of state under President Reagan. During that period he was. particularly active in the Israeli-Arab peace process.

Murphy has received the president’s Distinguished Service Award three times and the State Department’s Superior Honor Award twice. In 1985 he was named career ambassador, a title held by only five officers serving at any given time.

Retiring from government service in 1989, Murphy joined the Council on Foreign Relations in New York as senior fellow for the Middle East and has continued to visit that region several times a year.

Murphy is a frequent commentator for NPR, CNN, BBC and FOX News. He has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, The International Herald Tribune and the Christian Science Monitor. He is a trustee of the American University of Beirut, on the Board of the Near East Foundation and former chairman of the Middle East Institute in Washington.

To talk to Murphy at 5 PM New York time Monday November 10 CLICK HERE. There is no charge.

Paltalk is the largest multimedia interactive program on the Internet with more than 4 million unique users.

News Talk Online is also syndicated by CRN Digital Talk Radio to an additional 12 million households.

In this era of fractured partisan politics it was heartening to hear a Republican and a Democratic strategist agree over why the John McCain presidential campaign failed.

Democrat Hank Sheinkopf and Republican Steve Goldberg both believe McCain lacked a simple, direct message to present to the American people. While Barack Obama was clear, concise and consistent.

Both agree that McCain allowed the party to dictate how he conducted himself and that hurt him in the long run. The race, Goldberg suggests, might have been closer had McCain been permitted to be himself.

The two were my guests today on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com.

Goldberg says McCain failed to define himself. Sheinkopf said Obama told the truth to the American people, while McCain, he believes, “didn’t want to tell the truth.”

Veracity, they agreed, is what a voting public, dissatisfied with the current administration and even more discontented over the performance of Congress, sought.

Both believe Obama faces immense obstacles. But both believe that and failing he has in delivering promises can be attributed for a long time to the state of the nation when President Bush left office.

All he has to do, says Sheinkopf, is be successful in several key areas to be considered an effective president.

The Hamas terror group believes the election of Barack Obama is an “historic victory” for the world and an opportunity to change U.S. foreign policy toward engagement with America’s foes.

Ahmed Yousef, Hamas’ chief political adviser in the Gaza Strip, made those comments in an interview with World Net Daily’s Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein.

Yousef, speaking to Klein by cell phone from Gaza, said Hamas is drafting a letter of congratulations to be sent tomorrow directly to Obama. He disclosed the current draft of the letter praises the president-elect as “another John F. Kennedy, or great Roosevelt.”

“We want to be one of the first to congratulate him,” Yousef said. “This is an historic day, a turning point. I think this is the very first time in history that one country’s election concerned everyone everywhere all over world,” said Yousef.

“Everybody is looking forward to Obama’s change, for a change in the U.S. policy, particularly in the Israeli-Palestinian equation, which is the mother of all conflicts.” Yousef told Klein he believes an Obama administration will be more willing to engage in dialogue with Hamas.

Today on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com, Elizabeth Bagley, who served as special assistant to Ambassador Sol Linowitz for the Camp David Accords, said she believed Obama would make as one of his first priorities re-engaging in peace talks in the Middle East.

Obama has named as chief of staff Congressman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), who was born in Israel and whose father was a member of the Irgun.

Once again, the Catholic vote proved to be representative of how the rest of the nation voted in the presidential election.

Fifty-four percent of voting Catholics cast their ballots for Barack Obama.

Elizabeth Bagley, who was responsible for getting out the Catholic vote for Obama, says, around the world, people are celebrating his election. Because they feel he represents a return to diplomacy by the United States.

Bagley, who served in the diplomatic corps in both the Clinton and Carter administrations, believes the Bush administration repeatedly squandered opportunities to diplomatically solve some of the most serious problems of the world. A former U.S. ambassador to Portugal, Bailey, during an appearance on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com, said Clinton left office having brought the Israelis and the Palestinians close to resolution. Yet the Bush administration refused to build on those efforts, against the wishes of Secretary of State Colin Powell.

She believes one of Obama’s first orders of business will be to attempt to help broker a lasting peace in the Middle East. She also believes Obama will try to initiate diplomatic efforts with Iran.

Bagley

An official of the Barack Obama campaign will be my guest on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com Wednesday November 5 at 5 PM New York time.

Elizabeth Frawley Bagley will discuss how the campaign was so successful in resonating with voters and what President-elect Obama now faces as he looks forward to at least four years in the White House.

Bagley was senior advisor to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright from 1997-2001. Prior to this appointment, she served as the U.S. ambassador to Portugal from 1994-1997.

An attorney specializing in trade and international law, Bagley was adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University in Washington until January 1993. She served as diplomatic liaison for the Clinton-Gore Presidential campaign. She was the State Department’s congressional liaison officer during the Carter administration and served as special assistant to Ambassador Sol Linowitz for the Camp David Accords.

To talk to Bagley on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com at 5 PM New York time Wednesday November 5 CLICK HERE. There is no charge.

Paltalk is the largest multimedia interactive program on the Internet with more than 4 million unique users.

News Talk Online is also syndicated by CRN Digital Talk Radio to an additional 12 million households.

Sheinkopf

Two political strategists, one a Republican, the other a Democrat, will be my guests on News Talk Online on Thursday November 6 to analyze the presidential election and take a look at what the two parties must do now moving forward.

Democrat Hank Sheinkopf makes a return engagement to the show. Sheinkopf has been a political, public affairs and governmental relations consultant for nearly 30 years. He has worked on political campaigns and issue campaigns in four continents, 10 foreign nations, in addition to more than 600 domestic political and issue campaigns in 46 American states.

Sheinkopf was a member of President Clinton’s re-election media team producing ads for the only Democratic president re-elected since FDR.

Joining Sheinkopf will be Steve Goldberg, who pioneered some of the most successful consumer outreach and voter contact strategies employed today by candidates across the country.

Goldberg was recruited by Lee Atwater to work on President Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign in 1984. Following his involvement in Reagan’s landslide victory in 1984, Goldberg was asked to join then Vice President George H. W. Bush’s campaign for the presidency in 1988. He helped devise and implement Bush’s comeback victory in the New Hampshire primary, the contest that is credited with securing his party’s nomination.

During 1988’s general election contest, Steve became the architect of a controversial direct-marketing telecommunications program which proved to be the largest voter contact program ever performed in the history of U.S. politics.

To talk to Goldberg and Sheinkopf at 5 PM New York time Thursday November 5 CLICK HERE. There is no charge.

Paltalk is the largest multimedia interactive program on the Internet with more than 4 million unique users.

News Talk Online is also syndicated by CRN Digital Talk Radio to an additional 12 million households.