Snapler

March 4, 2010

Systemic Denial

I spent the morning Wednesday at the Time Warner building in New York City, participating in a conference sponsored by the Roosevelt (as in FDR) Institute titled "Make Markets Be Markets." I don't often -- ok, ever -- have the time anymore to go to conferences that I'm not speaking at. But the significance of this subject, and the prominence of the speakers, were too much for me to resist. And so at the crack of dawn, I scrambled to a 6 AM shuttle to make the 8 AM meeting in Midtown.

Everyone recognizes that our nation is in a financial mess. Too few see that this mess is not simply the ordinary downs of a regular business cycle. The American financial system walked the American economy off a cliff. Large players took catastrophic risk. There were allowed to take this risk because of a series of fundamental regulatory mistakes; they were encouraged to take it by the implicit, sometimes explicit promise, that failure would be bailed out. The gamble was obvious and it worked. The suckers were us. They got the upside. We got the bill.

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January 28, 2010

Scowling Justice, Smiling Justice

Perhaps Justice Alito should just have stayed home. There's precedent, after all.

In January 1937, only a month before launching his plan to pack the Court, Franklin Roosevelt arrived in the House chamber to deliver the State of the Union address and found, to his surprise, that not a single justice had come to hear him speak. FDR suspected that someone had shown the nine men an advance copy of the speech--in part a lecture to the Court to stop blocking the New Deal--and that they had stayed away out of sheer spite. Disappointed, Roosevelt chided the Court anyway, accusing it of using the Constitution "as a device for prevention of action" instead of an "instrument of progress." But the justices' slight stayed on his mind. More than a week later, as he wrote a friend, he took some satisfaction in hearing that they had "at least read the remarks which pertained to them. I hope so!"

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January 25, 2010

Political and Business Leaders Embrace ‘YouTube Chats’

"YouTube chats," the younger brother of FDR's "Fireside chats," have transformed the way politicians and business leaders connect with young voters and consumers. A YouTube chat is an informal video of a leader addressing the camera from a desk or chair. The video is then posted online as a way of directly communicating with constituents, clients, or employees. In the past year, such clips have increasingly influenced company morale, volunteer support, and campaign messages. The videos are often causal in tone, capturing the personality of the leader in addition to conveying important messages.

Obama emerged as the early champion of the YouTube chat during his 2008 campaign. His campaign uploaded almost 2,000 videos, which were viewed more than 140 million times on YouTube. He posted five times as many videos as McCain, and it may have made a huge difference in allowing Obama to better resonate with young voters. Not only did he announce his decision to form an exploratory committee on his personal YouTube Channel, he continues to utilize the form as president by filming a "Weekly Address" lasting 3 to 10 minutes and then posting the video on YouTube.com/whitehouse. These video chats have an advantage over live statements to television networks because the president can better control their production and message. His staffers edit or reshoot the video if necessary for appropriate tone and more effective delivery. Obama is as comfortable with YouTube chats as John Kennedy was with televised debates.

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January 22, 2010

Time for Obama to Really Act Like FDR

President Obama never encouraged the media concocted, ad man's fantasy land, comparison of him to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He didn't discourage the comparison either. He was flattered by it. But with the Massachusetts vote debacle smacking him in the face, his only hope for rebound is to really act like FDR.

FDR knew he was in a political life and death, take no prisoners war with his political enemies-- the GOP, ultra conservative Democrats, Wall Street, the big bankers and big manufacturers. He repeatedly lambasted them as obstructionists and economic royalists. Obama is in the same war. They make absolutely no effort to mask their loath of his policies and presidency, and have made it clear they will stop at nothing to bounce him from office. This was before Scott Brown's win. They'll be even more bellicose, intransigent and war like against him and his agenda now.

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November 25, 2009

7 Things You Didn’t Know About Thanksgiving

Filed under: News, Original Content — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — Alex Leo @ 10:39 pm
Thanksgiving is upon us and while we all know and love the traditions, what about the history left out of the mix? Did you know that FDR tried to move Thanksgiving and that this beloved holiday gave birth to the TV dinner? Check out these fun facts and more below!