Its no secret to the readers of this blog, I am a big Obama fan and have been for a while. Obviously I am not alone, the country loves him and now the world at large is giving him his due credits. His every move gets watched, his every action gets analyzed and replayed on national TV. Tough position to be in, but for the most part he has done it right, and I like to point out to some of his recent actions which has caught my attention ( as brought to me by the likes of huffingtonpost.com ,nytimes.com, cnn.com,latimes.com and so on).

1) His recent speech in Cairo to the Muslims of the world- beyond the obvious attempt at placating the Muslims ( “Maleekum Salaam”, the word “holy Kuran” not that common from US presidents), the speech was great on substance as well- he talked about Israel Palestine peace efforts, rising fundamentalism and woman’s right. Tough subjects to handle but its a good start and he has shown dexterity, maturity and guts in dealing with them. What remains to be seen is how the Muslim world reciprocates, although initial response is encouraging. Here’s what Deepak Chopra thought about the speech and the challenges ahead.

2) Obamas speech to Notre Dame where he made the famous call to service, for the graduating students and I quote verbatim “When you serve, it doesn’t just improve your community; it makes you part of your community. It breaks down walls. It fosters cooperation. And when that happens – when people set aside their difference to work in common effort towards a common good; when they struggle together, and sacrifice together, and learn from one another — all things are possible”

3) Actually even before he made this call to service as President, back in 2007 he had this powerful speech on serving the nation. Some startling statistics in his speech- 1 out of 12 American works for non-profit sector and 115 non-profits are launched every day.

4) Probably inspired by Obama’s call to service speech(s) , recently a criagslist like website was launched by progressive forces in public-private partnership ( Google, Adobe, Youtube, Craigslist Foundation). This is really amazing and I am so excited about the potential it holds. Hopefully a new chapter in volunteerism will begin and the site will match those willing to offer service to those who badly need it and have no where to turn to.

5) President Obama was greeted by anti-abortion protesters when he showed up for commencement speech to the Notre Dame graduating class of 2009. He handled that pretty well too , a balancing act where he had to acknowledge pro-life groups as well as liberal view points like a woman’s right to choose. He talked about seeking common grounds and for the opposing groups to see each others perspective and respect it, a conciliator-in-chief!

6)If you thought I liked everything Obama does, you be surprised, I have my shares of complains too:-) We had a monster of deficit already from Bush’s legacy, add to that the TARP, auto bailouts, stimulus plan and we have a perfect storm in the making. When will we ever get to paying them back? Most of this deficit is being financed by foreigners, Americans already are deep in debt with very low savings rate. China holds around .76 trillion dollars worth of US treasury, Japan holds around .69 trillion dollars ( source US treasury), that means US is at the mercy of these nations to keep holding its treasury bonds. If and when they decide to sell US treasury ( fed up with this unsustainable deficit), be a nightmare, interest rates will shoot up ( they have already doubled from 2% to around 4% on 10 year bonds in the last three months, reflecting those concerns) and whatever little disposable income US consumer is left with, will vanish into servicing loan and mortgage payments. A financial tsunami is in the making, get the details here from the most recent and most authoritative study done so far by Professor Alan Auerbach and William Gale of University of California, Berkeley.

That’s it for now, been a busy two weeks for me, tired of frequent traveling to client sites Will pen down some more thoughts in other areas- the recent Air France crash and the implication for maintenance industry, Killing of the Abortion Doctor ( Dr Tiller) , the Sarah Palin controversy with David Letterman- lots of stuff, keep watching this space!

>
Its no secret to the readers of this blog, I am a big Obama fan and have been for a while. Obviously I am not alone, the country loves him and now the world at large is giving him his due credits. His every move gets watched, his every action gets analyzed and replayed on national TV. Tough position to be in, but for the most part he has done it right, and I like to point out to some of his recent actions which has caught my attention ( as brought to me by the likes of huffingtonpost.com ,nytimes.com, cnn.com,latimes.com and so on).

1) His recent speech in Cairo to the Muslims of the world- beyond the obvious attempt at placating the Muslims ( “Maleekum Salaam”, the word “holy Kuran” not that common from US presidents), the speech was great on substance as well- he talked about Israel Palestine peace efforts, rising fundamentalism and woman’s right. Tough subjects to handle but its a good start and he has shown dexterity, maturity and guts in dealing with them. What remains to be seen is how the Muslim world reciprocates, although initial response is encouraging. Here’s what Deepak Chopra thought about the speech and the challenges ahead.

2) Obamas speech to Notre Dame where he made the famous call to service, for the graduating students and I quote verbatim “When you serve, it doesn’t just improve your community; it makes you part of your community. It breaks down walls. It fosters cooperation. And when that happens – when people set aside their difference to work in common effort towards a common good; when they struggle together, and sacrifice together, and learn from one another — all things are possible”

3) Actually even before he made this call to service as President, back in 2007 he had this powerful speech on serving the nation. Some startling statistics in his speech- 1 out of 12 American works for non-profit sector and 115 non-profits are launched every day.

4) Probably inspired by Obama’s call to service speech(s) , recently a criagslist like website was launched by progressive forces in public-private partnership ( Google, Adobe, Youtube, Craigslist Foundation). This is really amazing and I am so excited about the potential it holds. Hopefully a new chapter in volunteerism will begin and the site will match those willing to offer service to those who badly need it and have no where to turn to.

5) President Obama was greeted by anti-abortion protesters when he showed up for commencement speech to the Notre Dame graduating class of 2009. He handled that pretty well too , a balancing act where he had to acknowledge pro-life groups as well as liberal view points like a woman’s right to choose. He talked about seeking common grounds and for the opposing groups to see each others perspective and respect it, a conciliator-in-chief!

6)If you thought I liked everything Obama does, you be surprised, I have my shares of complains too:-) We had a monster of deficit already from Bush’s legacy, add to that the TARP, auto bailouts, stimulus plan and we have a perfect storm in the making. When will we ever get to paying them back? Most of this deficit is being financed by foreigners, Americans already are deep in debt with very low savings rate. China holds around .76 trillion dollars worth of US treasury, Japan holds around .69 trillion dollars ( source US treasury), that means US is at the mercy of these nations to keep holding its treasury bonds. If and when they decide to sell US treasury ( fed up with this unsustainable deficit), be a nightmare, interest rates will shoot up ( they have already doubled from 2% to around 4% on 10 year bonds in the last three months, reflecting those concerns) and whatever little disposable income US consumer is left with, will vanish into servicing loan and mortgage payments. A financial tsunami is in the making, get the details here from the most recent and most authoritative study done so far by Professor Alan Auerbach and William Gale of University of California, Berkeley.

That’s it for now, been a busy two weeks for me, tired of frequent traveling to client sites Will pen down some more thoughts in other areas- the recent Air France crash and the implication for maintenance industry, Killing of the Abortion Doctor ( Dr Tiller) , the Sarah Palin controversy with David Letterman- lots of stuff, keep watching this space!