PardonMyFrench

Dear UnitedHealthcare - Your 2016 Healthcare Plans in NJ Suck

I have been a customer of Oxford Health Insurance since 2001; yes for you math geniuses that's 15 years.  I first got Oxford Health Insurance when I joined what was then known as DLJdirect and kept it - I even used COBRA to keep it when the company formerly known as DLJdirect was purchased by e*Trade.  I remember sitting in a conference room with my fellow employees going over e*Trade's benefits and I was the only person that raised their hand when I asked about using COBRA to keep Oxford Health Insurance.  Why did I do that?  Well, because my wife Mary had breast cancer and the moment I switched over to e*Trade's health coverage, I'd be looking at thousands of dollars in deductibles almost immediately, so I kept Oxford.  In fact, I added Oxford as my LLC's health coverage and throughout Mary's battle with breast cancer, I never paid anything more than co-pays.  That's 10.5 years worth of cancer bills.  After Mary passed away, my small business plan was no longer allowed so I went with Oxford's platinum health coverage.  That includes when they were purchased by that awful company, UnitedHealthcare.

So, let's now skip to Obamacare and in full disclosure, as part of my work with political advertising, I've run tons of ads online against Obamacare.  I know a lot about Obamacare.  Yes - we all know by now that if you liked your healthcare plan, you definitely never kept it through the implementation of Obamacare.  However, it didn't bother me too much except for that part of being deceived in the marketing of Obamacare to the public. Yes - I get the good things about Obamacare; your kids can stay on your plans longer, there is marketplace for plans, and you can't be denied coverage for preexisting conditions.  However, rates have gone up, coverage has gone down, and deductibles kept going up.  That awful company UnitedHealthcare kept tinkering with the Oxford plans and up until recently they were still good; that is until this year when they sunk the Oxford brand and are trying to force migrate customers to UnitedHealthcare plans that truly suck.

At the beginning of October I got an unmarked white envelope that I happen to open up out of mere curiosity.  To my utter disappointment, it was a giant get lost letter. It's the kind of mailing that a marketing team is forced to mail out in the hopes that their customers throw it out and NEVER read it.  It's the kind of letter that a marketing team and their legal team puts their minds together to figure out how to make sure the vast majority of customer don't read it so the marketing team meets their retention goals for the year. It's the kind of letter that you get when you raise rates but don't want your customer to see while you blast these misleading ads that make you think that UnitedHealthcare isn't a company that's going to screw you over when in fact they are.  The rest of the letter was plain paper with black lettering without even the blue typeface of UniteHealthcare's logo.  It's just a plain screw off letter.

Page 1 (shown here) was definitely the start of the goodbye but their lawyers wrote it as an negative opt out which means IF YOU DO NOTHING THEY AUTOMATICALLY ENROLL YOU IN A CRAPPIER PLAN.  That's totally unfair and definitely a deal cut between the marketing, legal, and product teams to get people off of a legacy plan and force migrated over to a worse plan.  They even confuse people by giving you two dates you must be enrolled in - December 15 to take action and then December 31 if you want coverage with a new plan to start on January 1.  Again, written by a lawyer with input from marketing so to increase the chance of confusion.

Next up, this plan, if I somehow lost my mind and agreed to it, costs me $200 more per month and as you will see in a few lines, for far worse coverage.  It also neatly comes in $3.74 below  $1,600  - again probably a negotiated number to make it appear not as sucky as it really is.  The minimum $1,600 per month translates into $19K in cash per year from me which makes this letter even a larger screw you by the UnitedHealthcare vultures.  That's like 20x larger than a car payment - do you think you'd get a giant white ugly marketing piece from a car company when they try and get you to spend less than that per month?  Oh that cost includes the lovely processing of having to choose a PCP to get referrals (I technically know that's a bit whiny but this is about being charged more for less)

Next up is page 2 of the letter which is conveniently printed double sided - probably not to save money but in the hopes that the customer doesn't read the second page.  It has two lousy giant screw you points: 1) if you don't like your plan they suggest you go to the healthcare marketplace and find a new one AND 2) an 800# to call if you have questions.
 

First I called the 800#.  Guess what - they couldn't help me and transferred me.  So, the next transfer number couldn't help me either so I picked up my insurance card and called the number on the back.  That number explained to me that Oxford wasn't being offered in NJ and that UnitedHealthcare would handle my insurance but they werent prepared to take calls until open enrollment on November 1; that's right - the lousy marketing geniuses at this vulture of an insurance company, UnitedHealthcare, sent out a letter 30 days before they had phone support - that's another screw you. Oh and how about sending people to the marketplace to review competitive plans.  This is terrible terrible customer service and further proof UnitedHealthcare doesn't want your NJ business.

There are more lousy pages but the real kick in the NJ family jewels comes from this last page which shows my changes from the old plan to the new plan: deductibles going from $0 to $2,250, no co-insurance to 20%, increases of opt of pocket expenses and then additional increases across the board.  I don't believe there was a single item that improved.  Not one.  Just more money per month for worse coverage.

After 15 years, I expected more but UnitedHealthcare doesn't care.  You see all of those funny commercials which they are plowing big money into, but at the end of the day, they are not interested in being your healthcare provider.  UnitedHealthcare hopes that you don't notice the auto enrollment into a more expensive plan for worse coverage.  Oh and when you have any questions about the screw you letter you just received, there isn't anyone there to answer your questions - so your only option is to go to the Obamacare marketplace but that's not available until November 1. So you are stuck with piles of fire starter until then because if you forget about this letter, they will auto enroll you into a worse plan.  

The UnitedHealthcare vultures don't want your business - they don't want to help your health, all they are really interested in is making a buck.  True marketing vultures - do not use them. Avoid UnitedHealthcare in your open enrollment and pay attention to who you vote for in future elections - it's past time to fix what's going on in Obamacare.

PardonMyFrench, 

Eric

Hey Marketing Genius - Your Facebook Advertising Is Awful

To The Marketing Genius Running Bad Facebook Advertising:

I don't get it.  Your Facebook advertising is awful.  It's almost like you are 18 years old and just started reading a marketing 101 book. Or worse yet.  You are robbing your clients blind with high agency fees.

Yes, Google Advertising is hard.  It requires logical campaign design, optimization, and an understanding of search.  Perhaps you've given up with Google or your clients figured out you don't know anything.

Facebook isn't hard.  It's actually very intuitive and very easy to use.  Yes you can setup multiple campaigns and multiple ads.  You can use some bid management help, but at the end of the day, the platform is easy to microtarget people based on interest and demographics.  So there's no reason for the following lousy political ads....

Elizabeth Warren (Democrat for Senate from Massachusetts): I live in NJ.
 I'm a registered Republican.  Probably show up in the conservative bucket.  I don't susbcribe to multiple political accounts.  I should NOT be in your target.

Debbie Wasserman Schulz (Head of the DNC): Same as Elizabeth Warren targeting above. Just really bad ad targeting.

George Allen (Republican running for Senate in Virginia): The ad targeting was good.  I dont like the ad because it gave me the impression that his campaign is on life support...(snicker away)

Obama LGBT: Well the targeting is way off here.  Wrong political category (for the most part), wrong Presidential candidate,  and it is very easy to add in narrow interest targeting to find people in the LGBT target. However, not to be outdone, The Mitt Romney campaign (sorry) has the worst targeting

Now.  I'm not a facebook fan of Mitt Romney.  I was following him since 2008 but during the 2012 Primary I didn't want friends thinking I supported him, so I unliked him.  Plus, I found the posts not very informative.  They then hit me with a lot of ads which of course was the correct target.  That was fine but they stopped.

So now, I get served individual ads based on potential microtargets.  However, all of these microtargets are so easy to find, its inexcusable to not use them.  And, Facebook has matured so that just getting likes is not that compelling + it's not very helpful for your strategy if someone is in multiple micro targets or coalitions.

Romney Hispanic Target: Umm, I don't like Romney and I'm not Hispanic.   The Hispanic target is the ONLY broad match target under the Ethnics category.  CHECK THE BOX.

Women for Romney: Listen folks, Facebook was founded to help Zuckerberg get a date.  Use the gender targeting.  Try using something more than just a friend of mine liking the page for your targeting.

Young Americans for Mitt: I'm 45.  As young and immature as I like to be, I'm pretty sure 45 is not in the Young American target.  Use the age targeting.

So to summarize, I've been served ads meant for women, young voters, Hispanic voters, LGBT, and out of state liberal/progressive ads.  I can actually rationalize the Warren + Debbie Wasserman Schulz ads as testing into the active politics broad category but the rest of the lifestyle targeting by President Obama and especially Romney for President are just poor.  

I havent seen any more poorly targeted Obama ads but the Romney ads just keep coming.  It doesn't make any sense.  If you really want to build up facebook coalitions, why not try to put the correct demos in your coalition.  Sure maybe it costs you a little more money to add the demo, but doesn't that make the most sense to have the purest coalition as possible?  It's easy, try it.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

P.S. By the way, The Obama Campaign is still serving LGBT ads.  It's really a poor display of the lifestyle targeting available in Facebook and demonstrates that The Obama Campaign is not technologically savvy.

P.P.S Oh and not to be outdown by lousy facebook marketing, Romney is now targeting me with Hispanic versions of his ad.  Really, hit the ethnic targeting. Its there and available.

Reasons Why Obama's Attack Watch Site is Scary

On a YouTube Politics panel I was on, I was asked by the moderator, Google Account Executive Robert Saliterman, if I had any advice for President Obama's ad campaign.  I did and it turned out to be a little controversial.  I do admit that I was trying to add a little pizazz towards the end of the panel, but I really do believe my arguments are sound.  

Basically, I think that the President of the United States should not be running a site called "Attack Watch" where someone can go to report an attack, track "false" reports and facts, and read all sorts of Obama propaganda.  It was wrong when President Nixon had a list and it is wrong when President Obama makes a list (unless you are one of the media agencies, then it can be helpful 'Natch).

When challenged by my panelists during the panel and afterwards, I do believe that the President should not be running a site like this, especially with the data collection capabilities available in 2012.  Basically if you report someone or sign up for emails, President Obama can do the following with your data - personally identifiable and non PII data linked together.

When you visit Attack Watch take a look all the way at the bottom for the Privacy Policy Link. Then take a read through it.  If you don't have the time, here are the low-lights that prove my point, that the President should not have this data available to him....BTW - in case they change the policy, I copied and pasted these links on September 17, 2011 so they were LIVE when Attack Watch was launched.

• WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT: Such information may include personal information, such as your name, mailing address, email address, phone number, and credit card information. Personal and demographic information may also be collected if you provide such information in connection with creating a profile or group, leaving comments, posting blog comments or other content, sending an email or message to another user, or participating in any interactive forums or features on the Sites. In addition, from time to time we may collect demographic, contact or other personal information you provide in connection with your participation in surveys, contests, games, promotions, and other activities on the Sites.
• In addition, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) may require us to collect personal information from donors. For example, the FEC requires us to collect (and disclose) the name, mailing address, occupation, and employer of all individuals whose donations exceed $200 per calendar year.
• Passive Collection: When you use the Sites, some information is also automatically collected, such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address, your operating system, the browser type, the address of a referring web site, and your activity on our Sites. We treat this information as personal information if we combine it with or link it to any of the identifying information mentioned above.
• In some cases, third party vendors may collect personal information from you, such as your name and email address, on other web sites and provide this information to us, or OFA may collect personal information that you enter directly within an advertising unit. 
• We may share personal information as follows:  with vendors, consultants, and other service providers or volunteers who are engaged by or working with us and who need access to such information to carry out their work for us; with candidates, organizations, groups or causes that we believe have similar political viewpoints, principles or objectives;

Basically, what does this mean?  Simple.  President Obama can:

1. collect your web surfing behaviors on and off their sites
2. combine it with personal information like credit card, employment, phone number
3. use the combined data for anything it wants
4. and then provide that information to anyone it wants - that information can include the information you reported on a friend or neighbor  

Do you really think the President of the USA should have this information?  Do you really think the President of the USA should have a site to report neighbor and then combine this information?  I don't.  I might not be so scared if they didn't offer up that they could combine the PII with non-PII data, but they can according to their privacy policy.  

I think it is one thing for a candidate to collect this type of marketing information.  However, it is not appropriate when your Government does.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

 

Obama Relaunches Campaign - Did You See His Online Ads?

So the political world was all in a tizzy because President Obama announced he was running for reelection.  I know what a surprise.  Of course, it launches all of the political campaigning spin including how the campaign is going to be different, built from the ground up without any big TV campaigns.  Of course you know they are coming - that's where he spent the vast majority last time around. 

Back in 2007/2008 he promised to be a different candidate rising above partisan politics and making all sort of campaign promises from staying within campaign finance laws, closing Gitmo, not going to war without Congressional approval, single payer health care, fixing the economy, letting the Bush tax cuts expire, and so on.  However, rising above partisan politics is what attracted people not normally involved in politics with that hope and change message.

Well, what I found very curious was how their initial online ad buy was very much partisan. In fact, so blatenly partisan that I was surprised and spent 15 minutes out of my busy day looking around for his ads.

Of course I found text ads on Google (can't let his buddy Eric Schmidt down) but that's not where the real money was spent.  I found giant take over ads (full page ads shown here) on Huffington Post, The Daily Kos, and Talking Points memo.  Pretty much the big 3 in the liberal news/blogger world.  Clearly Obama's target was his base but has it shrunk so much that they only wanted to target the liberal sites?  

I looked on CNN.  Nothing.  NY Times, LA Times, Politico, MSNBC, Washington Post, and even slid down the liberal news/blogger list and found nothing - nothing other than on those big 3. Could the President really have put a cap on his online ad budget at launch and only went with those 3 sites?  

And really, The Daily Kos?  Have you actually read the comments and blog posts made there?  Do you really think The Daily Kos attracts independents?  Has your base and budget shrunk so much that you had to make The Daily Kos a critical component for your reelection campaign.  Don't tell me you didn't need to advertise on CNN because you would have earned media - clearly those big 3 sites would be drooling over your campaign too.  At least with the NY Times you'd catch non-liberals reading the business or sports pages...

I'm a little surprised about how obviously partisan this ad buy was at launch.  It didn't even look to try to find people other than his base.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

P.S. I know this was very unscientfic and there may have been other buys I didn't see, maybe even hyperlocal ads

Obama Administration Mulling National Sales Tax - wcbstv.com

A taxing development surfaced on Wednesday. White House economic advisor Paul Volcker is calling for a new national sales tax -- a value added tax or "vat" -- to help close the deficit. But as CBS 2 HD found out area residents are saying "vat chance."

via wcbstv.com

PardonMyFrench - President Obama won't stop taxing us until we are all poor except for the really super rich. To everyone who voted for Obama, thanks for wrecking this country.  BTW - MIDDLE CLASS TAX INCREASE.  MIDDLE CLASS TAX INCREASE

Business Week's Obama Corporate Messaging Article - Not Reassuring

In the February 22 BusinessWeek edition, they profile President Obama's Corporate Messaging and shows Obama tries to defend whether he is anti-business or not.  After reading it twice myself, I've come to my own conclusion which is in the best case scenario, I can't figure out what Obama is trying to do and in the worst and most likely scenario, he is firmly anti-business.

• Obama blames part of his anti-business rhetoric on the banks of Wall Street which seems convenient around the current sentiment in the country, but I have yet to see any official marketing by these banks that are anti-Obama.
• Obama talks about restoring a balance between business, government, and employees and then specifically says "if businesses are making record profits but employees are seeing their wages flatline, the puts enormous strains on families.  It puts, I think, a dampening effect on consumers who help drive the economy.  We are going to be better off if everybody feels like they have a stake in growth." First, I don't know how you can read that and think it is anything but anti-business. Second, I don't know how you determine what's too much, which companies are doing it right, and how you penalize companies that you don't agree with.  That's too much red tape and too much Government intervention.
• When asked about bonuses for banks that are in the multi-millions he says "they are very savvy businessmen" which implies that Obama is ok with some companies paying out large bonuses and others he is not ok with and that worries me.  How does Obama determine who is good or bad?
• Obama then talks about baseball players who make more than $17 million and don't get to the World Series and he is shocked by that.  I'm shocked he said that because, look, these guys are entertainers and they get their money in an open market from owners who are willing to pay it. What's wrong with that?  The owners that pay that kind of money did it because they invested in their teams and have large TV contracts.

And that's enough from that article, but there are some interesting other tidbits in it including free trade and how to manipulate China (Obama has no chance to do anything with China).  The simple answer to is Obama anti-business, is yes.  The reasons for that are clear.  Obama believes the role of Government is to regulate which business win and which business fails, who is allowed to pay a lot of money, and who is not, which baseball players get millions and millions and which ones don't.

The facts are based on how Obama has tried to stimulate the economy and how Obama views income, profits are that the Government directs what happens and determines who gets to play correctly.  And, if that isn't anti-business I'm not sure how much worse it can get.  Read the article yourself and see if you disagree with me.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Brown's Victoria is a Referendum on President Obama

Scott Brown's Senate victory in very blue Massachusetts is a referendum on the very liberal policies of President Obama.  To spin it any other way is just plain old BS.  

Obama, Axelrod, Pelosi, and Schumer can try and rewrite this victory but the plain truth is that independents have woken up a regretted their vote for Obama as well as the 10% in moronic Republicans who voted for Obama in 2008.  

Yes they were dissatisfied with President Bush, but clearly any of that great hope and change feeling generated by candidate Obama has long since disappeared.  Trying to cram 2000 page health care reform and the unStimulus package doesn't work and the people don't view that as hope and change.

People have woken up and realized this wasn't what they voted for in November 2008 and they have buyer's remorse.  I always personally felt that the Gubernatorial victories were NOT referendums on Obama and DID NOT prove a Republican comeback, especially in NJ.  Corzine was well hated in this state and was doomed from the start but it really was a referendum on Corzine and not Obama.  

However, Brown's victory IS a referendum on Obama,  This is a state that other than Vermont is probably the bluest state in the USA and to lose this Senate seat and cause Obama to either a) move towards the center to get his crown jewel policies passed or b) to move further to the left and ram things through Congress with behind the door policy maneuvers.  These are anything but a different Washington.

It is morning again America.  Massachusetts  lost a Senate seat to a Republican about 1 year after Obama's election.  There is no other spin.  The country does not like the direction that the liberal left led by Obama is taking us in and has spoken loud and clear.  The midterms should be interesting as is Obama's spin on this election tomorrow morning.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

   

Difference Between Campaigning and Governing - Obama Style

I read this article today over at Politico called President Obama's Political Arm Under Fire and all I kept thinking well that's the difference between Campaigner Barack Obama and President Barack Obama.  Now before all you Obama fanboys jump all over me, this isn't meant to be a political attack.

I've spent a ton of time studying what my opponents did during the Presidential campaign.  I can tell you what worked for them as well what worked for us.  I spent some time after the election at Harvard with a unique group of professionals, students, and professors analyzing what happened during the campaign; plus, you can read my notes from David Plouffe's book.  Anyway, besides turning out to be a fundraising dynamo, Obama ultimately left his mark in campaigning history with his grass roots online organizing which was spearheaded by his message of hope and change.

Anyway, back to the article.  It is a reasonably fair analysis of the problems Organizing for America has been having and will continue to have into the near future.  OFA is really the management of Candidate Obama's email list post his election.  This list was supposed to be key to helping President Obama push his agenda through to the millions and millions of supporters, except, as the article points out, OFA is nowhere near as effective for the President's agenda.  Hmm, I wonder what happened?

When people joined the campaign they were enthralled by Candidate Obama's   message and charisma. They also got swept up by their community and saw and felt the online organizing.  And, through the online networking they felt connected to Candidate Obama.  Now, OFA is just an email list disconnected from the Presidency and the website looks and feels like what it is, a political tool. 

Notice the giant box on the right for the special election in Mass?  Candidate Obama might support the Democrat in a race, but would be more subtle about why and certainly would not allow to be perceived as a typical liberal Democrat blindly supporting the Democrat in the race.  OFA, no problem (BTW  - if you are a Republican please help out Scott Brown).

 Heck, maybe it is the overt political messages that has turned people off.  Maybe people like me if they want to connect with President Obama signed up for emails from the White House, RSS feeds from their blog posts, as well as updates via Facebook.  As proof the traffic on barackobama.com has plummeted and is probably around 2007 levels or less according to Alexa.  

Really, if you joined OFA you joined to be a part of something.  That was Candidate Obama and if you want to connect with Candidate Obama, you can easily do that through the President's contact tools.  If you want political directions, there are tons of groups out there to organize you.  If you want to support President Obama's goals, you don't need OFA to help you, you can just get information directly from The White House.  OFA definitely isn't continuing that Hope and Change message; to me, it looks like the type of politics that Candidate Obama campaigned against.  Basically, it appears until Obama's reelection campaign, OFA won't be as useful as it once was.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Obama tries to distance himself from the public option - Live Pulse - POLITICO.com

Now that the Senate has firmly rejected the public option, President Obama is trying his darnedest to distance himself from the controversial, and failed, proposal. But that may be harder than he thought.

via www.politico.com

PardonMyFrench - Once again Obama tries to switch his on truth around. Facts are - he did campaign for the public option, liberals thought he was going to do it, and now he is trying to change the truth around once again.  Obama ONLY cares about getting himself reelected and watches the polls religiously.  This is just more spin by a President who thinks that if he talks enough people will get confused.

Saving Your Tax Dollars, Bottom-Up | The White House

The President made clear early on that part of the way he intended to change the way Washington does business is by looking in every nook and cranny of government both for waste and abuse, and for ideas on how to root it out. Speaking in the Diplomatic room today, he had a chance to highlight both.   He was joined by Nancy Fichtner, the Veterans Affairs employee who won the SAVE Award contest for the most popular cost-saving idea from a federal employee. In addition to commending her after meeting with her in the Oval Office, he also announced progress on his order earlier this year for departments and agencies to identify billions in saving through contracting waste and abuse:

via www.whitehouse.gov

PardonMyFrench - Typical Obama. Our federal deficit stands at $1.3 trillion in January. So Obama dusts off his messaging playbook. Bash President Bush and then tout how he has a plan to save UP TO $40 billion a year. Notice UP TO. Also the tiny savings versus the Trillions (and climbing) we are in debt.

Back at AT&T one of my favorite VP Jack McMaster when cutting budget always said "focus on the big items" to get the dollars you need. Obama is focusing on the small items...

Obama lists financial rescue as 'most important thing' of his first year - washingtonpost.com

President Obama outlined Tuesday a first-year legislative record that he said rescued the economy and placed it on a path of long-term growth, even as he acknowledged that some unfinished items would probably be more difficult to achieve heading into a midterm election year.

via www.washingtonpost.com

PardonMyFrench - so he counts TARP as his most important thing? Perhaps it avoided disaster but banks are still not lending and have paid back TARP funds while fixing their balance sheets. We have 3 more years of this rhetoric

White House pushes cutting waste - More Obama Politics as Usual

President Barack Obama put a money-saving proposal from Nancy Fichtner of Loma, Colo., in the national spotlight Monday, giving the federal employee a SAVE Award for a proposal that would cut costs at veterans hospitals.

via www.politico.com

PardonMyFrench - this is just Obama Double Talk. While we waste trillions in a stimulus plan that is anything but a stimulus for creating jobs, he touts cutting some other government wasteful spending. Do you get how he does this? Stimulus (and even the two omnibus spending) is loaded with wasteful spending, but good for the economy. The old way of governing is bad and full of waste. Disgusting politics as usual at work with Obama

Still Waiting for Obama's Stimulus Plan in Union, NJ

Some of you know that I own an office building in Union NJ (BTW - if you want good, cheap office space 20 minutes out of NYC send me an email).  Union NJ besides being Artie Lange's hometown is a decent, middle class, blue collar town.  If there was a perfect town that Obama's so called Stimulus plan would help it would be Union NJ.  It is a very Democratic town - having a Democratic Mayor since 1973.  Union is split at the legislative district between Republican Leonard Lance (Lance's district goes way out to my exit off of Route 78 - a long 30 minutes from Union) and a Democrat.  Again the perfect town for a stimulus package supposedly targeted at small business, entrepreneurs, and the middle class.  And it is my ideal litmus test for Obama's Stimulus package.

A casual ride through town shows the beautiful center of town filled with empty shops.  In fact, right across the street on Stuyvesant Avenue from my favorite pork store, Lutz's there is nearly an entire row of vacant stores.  These stores have been vacant for most of the past year.  Sadly there is always parking in the town lots and this was never the case.  The town center is very quiet and while it definitely isn't as fancy as Westfield's center or Red Bank's center, it has good middle class stores, bakeries, book stores, etc. Unfortunately, I can't remember the last time I stood in line for any of them.

My own office building has been about 1/3 vacant for the last year.  It is primarily a dental office building, but I have a few other small businesses in there.  It is the perfect place to start a business  - free public parking, our own parking lot, on Morris Avenue, 1 block from the Center. and cheap rates.  My first new renter starts in January and that was someone who was subleasing some space.  I also have a very strong lead from another dentist which would be my first real new renter in over 18 months.

And that's why the lack of new jobs created by Obama gets me angry.  Yes back to the stimulus which Obama and Biden promised would create jobs.  The stimulus which Obama said the do nothing model would result in high unemployment, yet unemployment has continued to skyrocket.  Obama's lack of stimulus plan has only resulted in increasing government spending.  Sure, some liberals (including Biden and Obama) will tell you that job loss has stopped and while that is true, the Stimulus has failed to create new jobs which is why unemployment remains high.  

I typed in Union NJ's main zipcode (07083) into Recovery.org and you know what I found?  $12.7 million in Obama Stimulus package money and 7 DAMN JOBS CREATED.  7 FRIGGIN JOBS. That's  $1.8 million per job!!!!

How long does the USA have to wait for real job growth?  When is this President going to help real businesses hire people instead of throwing on top of us more risky plans like ObamaCare, Cap and Trade, TARP, etc.  When will the President and his economic advisers going to realize that by giving big businesses money (TARP), they will fix their balance sheets first so they create wealth for themselves and their stockholders rather than hire more people.  When is the President going to understand as one of my tenants said the other day "I've never been hired by a poor person to paint their office" and that instead of taking antagonistic postures to business he should be working harder?

Right now Obama's Stimulus Plan has been anything but a stimulus.  In fact, if Viagra stimulated this little, it could have only been marketed by snake oil salesman and late night infomercials.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

I Love The Far Left Screaming At Obama

Sorry about the lack of posts but between the Jewish Holiday, travelling to DC, and just getting hammered with work, I haven't been able to stay up to date.  Anyway, I love the far left screaming at President Obama for two huge issues - The War in Afghanistan and Health Care Reform.  Why? Pretty simple actually. Obama won a lot of fickle grips to get elected President.  Using stats from the book How Barack Obama Won:

• 44% of the country is considered moderate and Obama won 60% of them
• 33% of the country is considered conservative and Obama won a shocking 20% of them
• 18% of the country was aged between 18-29 and Obama won 66% of them
• 11% of the country was a new voter and Obama won 69% of them

Historically, new voters stick with their initial vote but (just a hunch), the 2008 election was so engaging and so new media focused, that I believe we reached a turning point and you can't assume old models. The youth voters can be very fickle and either stay home because the movement isn't what they thought it was or their information sources now start writing differently. The youth is digitally connected and use Facebook, Google, Blogs, and mobile, so what do you think they'll see when the Left's Digital Warlords start attacking the anointed one?

Those moderates (if you are one, don't take offense) don't have solid digital political homes.  What kind of information do you think they'll find online now?  Conservatives who won't give Obama any advantage and the Left hammering him on the Afghanistan War and Health Care.

First on Afghanistan.  I think Obama did the right thing by boosting troop levels.  As Obama said on the campaign trail, the war there is urgent and he believed we took our eye off of it in favor of Iraq.  He campaigned on it, gave great speeches and debate answers but now fortunately for the GOP, he is tied directly to the war there.  This drives the Left crazy because they supported President Obama under the assumption that he was anti-war (really anti-Iraq war); he telegraphed his desires in the War, but I guess Code Pink and the rest of them ignored it as an empty campaign promise.  Now his favorite puppy in Congress Nancy Pelosi says that Obama will have to rally the votes in the House without her help.

Now onto the Health Care debate in the Senate.  You probably already know that the Public Option is dead in the Senate and that includes the lowering of the age qualification for Medicare.  So this sends the super Loony Left led by Keith Olbermann into a fit because the only way to get a Health Care reform bill passed in the Senate is to do what these nutjobs like Olbermann don't want which is meaningful reform without a Public Option.  Olbermouth joins Governor Dean (not someone I agree with, but someone I respect), Daily Kos founder, and Huffington Post (another person I usually dont agree with but respect) as a chorus of Left Leaders who want the current bill killed.  Even President Obama's own Obama For America email list is having big trouble with the public option going away.  Why?  Because they aren't getting what they want, and they believed that Obama the Campaigner was in favor of a Single Payer Option.

When your supporters turn on you on major policy moves in this Digital World, it leaves a nice digital footprint for eternity.  Even Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe knows that this in-fighting isn't good because he knows that Obama is losing support from the middle (already lost it for those crazy conservatives that voted for him) and if he can't rely on the Loony Left from increasing support and pushing out content, Obama has problems.  The more pragmatic moves that President Obama makes that piss of the Left, is good news for moderates who regret their vote and Republicans.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

White House Job Charts - Facts Are Pesky Things When Published in Your Own Charts

via www.heritage.org

PardonMyFrench - Now for everyone that blames we Republicans for twisting the truth, these are the White House's own numbers of where unemployment would stand with and without the Obama Stimulus Package.  This Chart will be how Obama will be judged in 2010 and then in 2012 (though 2012 is a long way away).  Funny how facts are stubborn things when published by your own economics team

My Notes from David Plouffe's Book Part 3 - Was it All Due to Obama and Rospars?

I finished David Plouffe's book a few days ago and whether you think it was due to some left over bitterness of McCain's campaign or not, the book really fades at the end.  As opposed to the Primary Season, Plouffe seems to rush through the last 70 pages of the book and becomes quite cynical.  

The biggest take aways I have from those last 70 pages are that Obama raised a TON of cash and this allowed his campaign to put states into play that Democrats would historically avoid and Obama's Digital Team of 90 people led by Joe Rospars continued to work their magic in email, attack videos (Keating 7), and online grassroots organizing.  So this really started me to ask myself, how much of the win was due to Obama as a candidate and Rospars as an internet guru and less about your every day tactics of running a campaign? Anyway.....

1. Plouffe talks about how important Sarah Palin's nomination was for fund raising and volunteering for Obama.  However, as I wrote a while back, Palin was very important to McCain's campaign when it came to energizing the conservative base and delivering donations.  No matter what you think, Palin was not one of the top 3 reasons McCain lost to Obama.
2. Plouffe talked about McCain ignoring Virginia until the last minute and quite frankly I think he hammers the campaign too much.  Did we lose VA?  Yes.  However, we were outgunned when it came to money and enthusiasm, so I'm sure (I wasn't part of any discussion, but I did hear some things) the executive staff thought that if we lost Virginia, we likely lost the election anyway.
3. Page 326 is the most eye opening page in the entire book.  This is where Plouffe recounts raising $150 million in September; they added 2.3 million supporters bringing their digital contact list to 11 million (in September) and he recounts how their internet advertising brought in several dollars almost immediately (I talked about McCain raising $4 for every $1 spent, but for most months it was higher than that in search).  They raised a whopping $100 million online. Plouffe then writes this line which sums up 2 out of the top 4 reasons McCain lost "Almost all campaigns never have enough money or people to do what they'd like....Not this campaign. It's like fantasy camp for political operatives."
4. And that's pretty much how the campaign ended for McCain.  With money pouring in Obama could advertise (and advertise a lot) wherever he wanted, opening up states that Democrats historically ignored.  Coupled with Rospars online grassroots organizing, online advertising, and use of YouTube and Facebook, Obama was able to expand the field by putting tools at people's disposal that make it easy for volunteers to organize.
5. The last top 2 reasons we lost occurs around September 15 which was the economy blowing up. This was our final nail in the coffin as no Republican could be competitive with President Bush's approval rating and the economy going south.  Plouffe pointed out how Senator McCain said "the fundamentals of our economy remain strong" and while that definitely hurt, it really didn't matter by then.  The damage was done.
6. Plouffe also points out some "tricks" the campaign tried including Joe The Plumber as well as the suspension of the campaign.  I didn't view either of these as being tricks, especially Joe The Plumber because the wealth distribution strategy of Obama is being played out today.  The real reason why Joe Plumber didn't resonate more is that early voting had kicked in and a significant amount of people already casted their votes.  It just didn't happen earlier enough in the campaign, but it was hardly a trick.
7. Finally, on to Bill Ayers.  We (as part of the RNC) ran tons of ads online on Obama's association. The RNC built a mock Facebook page called Barack Book (Cyrus Krohn's idea) and we spent millions in advertising dollars driving to that page.  We also ran dollars highlighting ACORN.  I personally built the search campaigns around these sites and Ayers, ACORN, and other future czars and questionable associations were featured.  We still lost.  Don't tell me we didn't talk enough about this.  The facts are, enough people didn't care or didn't want to believe the association - unfortunately a lot of them do now.

That's it on Plouffe's book.  Call me bitter or not, but the end of the book felt rushed and a little cynical.  I personally believe that Obama was the perfect candidate and they had a great Digital team led by Joe Rospars that made a lot of great moves at the right time.  Without all of that money, all of the great use of Digital, an economy that imploded. and an unpopular President Bush, perhaps McCain had a chance. Unfortunately, reading Plouffe's book proved to me that without a miracle, the match was over by the middle of September.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Obama lays out job-creation ideas - washingtonpost.com

President Obama outlined a response to the nation's intensifying job crisis Tuesday that encourages businesses to hire new workers by easing the flow of credit and implementing a series of tax cuts, but leaves important details -- including the cost of the plan -- to be hashed out by Congress.

via www.washingtonpost.com

PardonMyFrench - it will be interesting to see what kind of jobs package gets approved in Congress.  Notice the comment towards the end regarding a strong Public Sector.  There are a long of strong Liberals-Progressives who think Public Sector is the way to get out of a recession - that translates into more Government jobs given out by favors, pork, etc while helping Big Labor,  These factions are trying to get larger and larger pieces of your tax dollars, but this doesn't help the private sector job creation where real wealth is created.

Finally, the cash for caulkers plan is probably a tactical blunder by Obama.  It is almost laughable in its name and shows he is disconnected from "main street",  I'll take that "caulker" money and do it myself.

The Associated Press: Dems agree to drop gov't-run insurance option

The 54-45 vote over abortion took place as Democrats, in daylong private talks in the Capitol, appeared ready to scuttle plans for a government-run insurance option that liberals have long sought..

via www.google.com

PardonMyFrench - Didn't President Obama say in the Joe Wilson "You Lie" Healthcare Speech that "no federal funds will be used for abortion"?  Yes he did say that.  So the question before you is, if Obama was telling the truth, then why are Senators voting on abortion amendments to their current Healthcare bill?  Is anyone else out there worried about what President Obama says in a nice speech versus what actually becomes reality.

Defense Secretary Gates: Withdrawal date just a start - - POLITICO.com

President Obama’s national security team Sunday downplayed the July 2011 withdrawal date for U.S. troops from Afghanistan, depicting it as only the beginning of a draw-down.

The new 18-month plan to insert more combat troops and then start taking them out of the country, outlined by President Obama in his speech last week at West Point, may mean only a few American forces leaving Afghanistan by that date, officials said.

via www.politico.com

PardonMyFrench - now while I'm taking a different approach than other Republicans who shout "that's a surrender date" I think the approach he is taking is a sound one.  I for one believe that date is a litmus test and could change.  I think Republicans should be talking up Obama's war EVEN more - he campaigned on it and clearly supports the efforts.  It will drive a wedge with the peaceniks who helped get Obama into office in the first place and perhaps it takes Obama out of his comfort zone.  More non-liberal moves like this will create an angry base...

My Notes from David Plouffe's Book - The Audacity to Win Part 2

My second summary of President Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe's Book The Audacity to Win. Here's a link to Part 1.  Oh and as a quick reminder, I'm Connell Donatelli Inc's Chief Internet Strategist and directed Senator McCain's Online Advertising going back to his Straight Talk America PAC right through to the end of the General Election.  I was mostly located in NJ but did spend some time in the Virginia offices so my comments are from my cheap seats in NJ.  If you want a good recap visit this link called 2008 Election Recount.

As of this post, I'm about 70 pages from the end and right up to the point where Plouffe talks about McCain picking Sarah Palin as his running mate.   Here's some interesting points/comments on the book....

1. With about a month to go before Iowa, Clinton's Chief Strategist Mark Penn commented that Obama's supporters looked like Facebook which I found shockingly odd.  Early on, these social networks like YouTube and Facebook were the best place to go for cheap advertising and communications and that comment showed how out of touch the Clintons were to the 2008 election.  We (McCain Camp) did pay attention to Facebook & YouTube and put out a ton of videos.  Our biggest issue with Facebook was that we didn't raise a ton of money, so that put it lower on the priority list.  Quite frankly, our candidate didn't really resonate until around the General Election in Facebook.
2. Obama wins Iowa and Plouffe writes about the win on page 137 which is about 1/3 of the book.  If this doesn't prove to you how important it is for a challenger campaign nothing will.  Plouffe talks about how important the internet was for getting out their message.  And contrary to what you know, the internet was extremely important to the McCain campaign especially after the implosion in the summer.  Throughout the summer and fall, right up until December 2007 the internet was the only way we advertised our message - either via search, display, and/or web videos.  By the time we finished a close 4th in Iowa (Huckabee wins it) we had figured out how important the search traffic was leading up to Primary votes.  100,000s of people turned to the internet the few days before Primary day and since Iowa, we ran mini state search & display campaigns to take advantage of the opportunity.
3. New Hampshire and the month of January proved to be a great and a difficult month.  Obama raised $35 million yet (I believe) they relaxed just a bit after reading Plouffe's account and lost New Hampshire to Clinton.  They then "lose" Nevada on the 19th but received more delegates and that's when the Obama campaign figured out that the way Democrats divided up the delegates meant that a) losing can get you a ton of delegates if done correctly and b) you had to win by a lot to put a distance in the delegate counts.  They proved how to win big in South Carolina.  Now New Hampshire to us was do or die and we put everything into it that we had.  As I recall I was running stand alone state advertising in New Hampshire as early as the summer 2008.  We of course won New Hampshire and besides Clinton showing some human side to her, I believe a lot of Independents voted for McCain because he needed it more than Obama.  We followed with losses in Michigan and Nevada only to come roaring back with our own wins in South Carolina and Florida. Our Florida win proved our online marketing prowess once again when overnight the entire Connell Donatelli team created new Crist endorsement ads on a Friday night and flipped out all of our ads across Florida in our Florida Surge tactic.  Finally, to put fund raising in perspective, we had a great month bringing in about $12.7 million, about 2/3 less than Obama.
4. Across those early states, it was clear to me after reading Plouffe's book that we were already in trouble for the General Election, yet didn't know it and didn't care about it in January 2008.  Obama had already out raised us $140 million to $55 million and had 35 million more individual small donations than we did.  We would end up losing all of those early states with the exception of South Carolina.
5. Plouffe goes through a lot of details on how they handled the problems with Reverend Wright.  You can read for yourself how the process unfolded including Obama's speech on racism in this country.  I think they handled the entire problem in the best possible manner - in fact, so well that they took this issue off the table for the General Election.  I firmly believe that McCain did the right thing by NOT bringing up Wright during the GE.  It didn't help Hillary in PA and certainly wouldn't help us - we lost because the wrong track/right track numbers were 70/30, President Bush, the economy and the huge differences in money.  Bringing up Reverend Wright in the General Election wouldn't have solved those problems - in fact, I even ran negative keywords to insure our ads didn't show on his name.
6. Finally, on page 236 Plouffe rips on a newly developed, yet shortly lived campaign slogan the communications group developed for McCain which was "A Leader We Can Believe In".  I remember spending some time researching the organic search results on this set of words and while McCain eventually owned this phrase, when I originally looked at it, it had Obama's website listed in the #1 spot.  Personally, I thought the slogan was a bad idea, but nobody asked for my opinion on it, just what I thought the search results looked liked.

Well, as of this post, I'm almost done with the book.  Next post should just about do it...

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

My Notes from David Plouffe's Book - The Audacity to Win Part 1

You long time readers know that as part of Connell Donatelli I had a 3rd row seat to Senator McCain's Presidential run starting from online marketing his Straight Talk America PAC, through the Primaries including the summer 2007 blowup, and through the General Election.  I was lucky to be part of a small group that made it all the way through.

That's why I was quite interested to read David Plouffe's book The Audacity to Win as he chronicles his management of President Obama's campaign from beginning to end.   I got the book from Amazon about a week ago along with Chuck Todd's How Barack Obama Won (a book that looks at polling data state by state) which provides a helpful companion by looking at the end numbers.  I'm about a third through the book, but here's some of my notes....

1. Right from the very beginning they focused on Iowa - in fact I'm on page 103 and I'm still reading about Iowa. The reason was simple, using polling data they realized that Clinton was strong elsewhere and needed to show strong results out of the gate.  This was different from my experience with the McCain campaign and while I wasn't there day to day so I could have missed something, I didn't hear much about Iowa until Rick Davis came back to the campaign in the summer of 2007 and then all we heard was early states...
2. Speaking (really writing) about where I was located, Plouffe insisted early on that everyone be headquartered in Chicago to ease communications.  When I read that, I felt lucky and sad at the same time.  Lucky that I could work out of NJ for most of the time, but sad because I know I missed a lot.  Knowing what I know now, if you want to make significant contributions in a Presidential campaign you need to move especially during the General if you get that far.
3. At Obama's first two campaign stops he had over 10K people show up.  10K in Iowa at an event about a year before the caucus?  There was no mention of a MeetUp tactic (like Dean's campaign) and those kind of numbers we would have killed for.  In fact, we used to run Google Ads to drive people to signup for McCain's events prior to Palin's selection (didn't need that tactic anymore once she showed up).  So for every bitter Republican that complains about our campaign, I can't think of a single Primary candidate that could bring 10K people to an event in Iowa 1 year before the caucus. Think about how that enthusiasm for Obama lasted into the General Election.
4. The internet operations led by Joe Rospars reported directly into Plouffe showing how important it was to them.  According to the book, funny enough at the time, the internet operations took heat for not raising enough money in the beginning. Also early on they asked for people to just signup on their website to get involved with the campaign.  That was way different from my experience because right from day 1 the Search operations was geared towards raising money, which we did at an awesome rate of $4 in donations for every $1 we spent.  We had plenty of plans for growing emails but time and time again we were asked to raise money.
5. Very early on, the Obama online store for clothing and items was a huge success.  We didn't have that luxury until probably the summer of 2008.  Again this gave them a leg up on us a long time before the General Election - people showing support that early on...

Anyway that's it for now.  I'll have more later

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Fight The Smears versus The Birthers

(Just a fair warning  - I AM NOT A BIRTHER)

The other day while working on an online advertising campaign for one of our clients I came across the following text ad from FightTheSmears.com.  It's obviously an ad trying to debunk the theories that President Obama is not a US citizen.  However, I found this ad interesting on a number of fronts...

1. It is September 2009 which is almost a full three years before President Obama's reelection.
2. I found another ad in Google's Content Targeting network which suggests either a tactic to massively expand out the campaign and/or garner dirt cheat impressions.  Notice I wrote impressions and not clicks.  Text ads in Google's Content Network woefully under-perform and I always recommend to not waste your time with them.
3. They are also running paid search ads to intercept people looking for this information, but what I find very fascinating is that the Google Search Trends on this topic is slowing down and appears to be limited to a few states in the South and West.
4. The actual text ad I grabbed was an in-text video overlay on top of a YouTube video about a California Small Business Owner ripping into her Congressmen at a Town Hall Meeting on Obama Care.  It takes a little more effort to put this ad inro your AdWords system so clearly this is something they wanted to do.

Is the Obama Administration really that concerned about the birther theories that they will run ads almost 3 years before a massive amount of people will care again?  If you ran the trends back to fall 2008 you'll see that the peak was really October 2008 which of course was right before the election.  However, they are spending time, energy, and money to really blast this message out via Google's Content Network and YouTube.  The in-text video overlay clearly shows that they are ok with a very loose targeting and even though it is really out of context (ObamaCare versus Obama's Birth Certificate) they are getting an impression view of the message.  

Then again there is always the flip side that could be happening.  That's is since the Trends are slowing and it appears that most of the significant traffic is from the South and West, wouldn't they be better off just leaving this alone?  Aren't they potentially fueling the fire by keeping this alive and being defensive?  Heck even risking that the impressions that are being served will leave the reverse message in the viewers mind since the ad isn't really in the right context?

BTW  -  just to drive you readers crazy, is it possible that Obama is ok with the wrong message? Perhaps they think that by keeping it out there that they are making the extreme right side of the Republican base seem a little crazier than normal.  Perhaps by responding in this matter they can keep the issue alive, driving a wedge between potential independent voters who may not want to be associated with birthers?

Unless Obama has data for my last theory, at this point I'd recommend shutting this campaign down.  It really makes them look defensive on an issue that has lost steam.  Then again, I wouldn't be surprised that they have polling data to support my last theory.  At any rate, it is clear that the Obama Administration will be a never ending campaign and unlike past administrations the next election will always be front and center.  That's certainly a change from the past.  

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Debunking The Myths in Obama's Health Care Quiz

I just received another email from The White House trying to debunk the myths regarding health reform and once again Obama is way over promising the benefits to Health Care Reform found in the House version of the bill being debated.  I took the quiz and my results are shown below.   What bothers me the most once again is Obama is stretching the truth on what I will receive.  The two areas that bother me the most are the points surrounding keeping your current plan and small business' receiving credits to offset the costs.  Obama is not telling the full truth because there are NO GUARANTEES that you will keep your current plan and NO GUARANTEES that small business will receive a credit.

1.  Obama White House Myth #1:Reform will allow you to keep the coverage you have if you want to.  As I wrote in my first post titled "Dear David Axelrod Check Your Facts Before You Spin About Keeping Your Health Insurance" it simply isn't a promise that the House Bill backs up.  Your current health care can be grandfathered for 5 years provided it makes ZERO changes to terms, conditions, and payouts which is frankly unlikely.  And, what happens after year 5?  Your health plan must be part of the exchange otherwise you can't keep it.  My question to you is - do you think the Obama administration is being less than truthful by promising you WILL be ALLOWED to KEEP you coverage?
2. Obama White House Myth #2: Reform will offer tax credits and assistance to families, and to small businessesso they can offer competitive, affordable rates to their employee. As I wrote in my second post titled  Dear David Axelrod I Checked Your Facts on Small Business and You're Wrong Again.  While it is true there are some credits that will be made available to small businesses in the House Health Care Bill it is too convuluted and too risky to over promise these credits; in fact, I believe that these small businesses would rather take a penalty and not offer health insurance.  Any employee including the owners that make $80K or more per year will be excluded for any credit plus the credits are lowered by the amount of payroll above $20K per year for the company.  So, how much credit do you really think a small business will be receiving?

Anyway, it really disturbs me the length Obama will go to sell this reform on the American public.  When he was elected he promised a new way of non-partisan governing.  Unfortunately we are getting a classic Liberal President who will stop at nothing to shield the full truth from the public in order to sell what he thinks is the right course of action.

Don't think for a second that Obama isn't aware of the language in the bill.  He knows as does the rest of the staff.  They are betting that they can sell this to the uninformed public.  

Don't believe me? Read the bill yourself.  Here's the link.  

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Dear David Axelrod - I Checked Your Facts on Small Business and You're Wrong Again

So I've been spending some time reading the Health Reform Bill currently getting trashed in congress via Open Congress and I'm fired up again due to the marketing by the Obama Administration.  The latest is the propaganda they are spreading on making insurance affordable for small business.  When I read the bill, I see the ability to take advantage of credits, but it is NOT absolute as Axelrod and the rest of the administration would have you believe.  Here's an excerpt from the now infamous SPAM mailing by the Obama Administration with David Axelrod's signature on it...

"Reform will benefit small business - not burden it: It’s a myth that health insurance reform will hurt small businesses. To the contrary, reform will ease the burdens on small businesses, provide tax credits to help them pay for employee coverage and help level the playing field with big firms who pay much less to cover their employees on average."

And here's the propaganda found on the White House Reality Check site

 The plans have a tax credit for small businesses to help them provide health insurance for their workers, to reward them for doing the right thing by their employees. 

So logically the small business owner would think that they are definitely going to get a credit as a reward for doing the right thing.  Right?  No reasons NOT to support this right?  Well as usual the Obama administration plays around with words and sells way too much with something as sensitive as health care.  Here's what the bill actually says regarding the small business credit..

SEC. 45R. SMALL BUSINESS EMPLOYEE HEALTH COVERAGE CREDIT

‘(a) In General- For purposes of section 38, in the case of a qualified small employer, the small business employee health coverage credit determined under this section for the taxable year is an amount equal to the applicable percentage of the qualified employee health coverage expenses of such employer for such taxable year. ‘(b) Applicable Percentage-‘(1) IN GENERAL- For purposes of this section, the applicable percentage is 50 percent. ‘(2) PHASEOUT BASED ON AVERAGE COMPENSATION OF EMPLOYEES- In the case of an employer whose average annual employee compensation for the taxable year exceeds $20,000, the percentage specified in paragraph (1) shall be reduced by a number of percentage points which bears the same ratio to 50 as such excess bears to $20,000.‘(c) Limitations-‘(1) PHASEOUT BASED ON EMPLOYER SIZE- In the case of an employer who employs more than 10 qualified employees during the taxable year, the credit determined under subsection (a) shall be reduced by an amount which bears the same ratio to the amount of such credit (determined without regard to this paragraph and after the application of the other provisions of this section) as--(A) the excess of--‘(i) the number of qualified employees employed by the employer during the taxable year, over (ii) 10, bears to‘(B) 15.‘(2) CREDIT NOT ALLOWED WITH RESPECT TO CERTAIN HIGHLY COMPENSATED EMPLOYEES- No credit shall be allowed under subsection (a) with respect to qualified employee health coverage expenses paid or incurred with respect to any employee for any taxable year if the aggregate compensation paid by the employer to such employee during such taxable year exceeds $80,000.

Ok, now I can't quite figure out all of this jargon but here's what I do understand and why the Obama Administration is WRONG for promoting this in absolute terms because there are quite a number caveats on the credit:

1. You receive NO CREDIT for an employee that makes more than $80K per year.  That's not so good in a bunch of states like say New Jersey. This exception also means that the owners of these businesses are also counted as employees, so probably you are NOT going to SEE ANY CREDIT for your own health insurance.
2. The credit gets phased out by some percentage if your TOTAL company payroll is greater than $20K which means the only way to get the full 50% credit is if your entire payroll is less than $20K. Wow that's generous.
3. Finally the credit is also reduced by some percentage if you employ more than 10 but less than 15 employees.

Seriously people does this sound like the Obama Administration should be marketing the small business health credit in the manner in which it does?  Right off the bat all of your HIGHLY PAID EMPLOYEES INCLUDING THE OWNERS WHO MAKE $80K OR MORE ARE EXCLUDED.  Then if you have other employees, you've probably already busted the $20K payroll threshold so any credit you make on anyone making less than $80K will be reduced.

I think the Obama Administration should be ashamed of themselves for marketing the small business credit in this manner.  It is definitely not an ABSOLUTE credit and probably at the end of the day small businesses will be better off paying the fine and pushing employees to the public option rather than providing the benefits with these potential credits.

Am I wrong?  Let me know.

Eric

Dear David Axelrod - Check Your Facts Before You Spin About Keeping Your Health Insurance

Dear David Axelrod,

Like a lot of Americans today I received your email today regarding health reform. As usual the propaganda you and the rest of the Obama administration send out requires a deep understanding of what exactly you are saying.  The first 8 reforms that you list are 8 that a majority of Americans would agree with (me included), but what prompted me to write this letter to you was this section about keeping your own health insurance if that's what you desire:

You can keep your own insurance.  It’s myth that reform will force you out of your current insurance plan or force you to change doctors. To the contrary, reform will expand your choices, not eliminate them. 

Mr. Axelrod, that's simply not an accurate picture or description of what's in the current version of House Bill # 3200 America's Affordable Health Choice Act of 2009.  When you write it WILL NOT ELIMINATE THEM OR YOU CAN KEEP YOUR OWN INSURANCE those are simply too absolute descriptions that do not currently describe the language in the bill.  So I'm very confused as to why you would describe something in this manner when the bill contains the following language:

• Your plan can be grandfathered as long as the insurer does not change ANY terms & conditions including benefits and cost sharing.  That simply seems to be an impossibility over time, but at the onset of this plan it is probably technically accurate.  
• There is a grace period of 5 years.  After 5 years what happens????
• Any insurance that is not grandfathered must then qualify for the exchange. I think this part is added to close any possible loopholes in writing a bill, but then again who knows?

I reprinted the exact language below.  As an American with concerns on health insurance (if you personally knew me instead of the hello you gave me as this year's AAPC you'd understand what I mean), I find it shameful at the absolutes you and the rest of Obama administration put around keeping your current insurance.

Why wouldn't you simply say "you can can your current insurance for the first 5 years as long as there is no change to ANY terms including benefits and cost sharing"?  Isn't that the more accurate description? Wouldn't that be fairer to average Americans trying to understand this bill.

Perhaps you as an adviser to President Obama believes that is an avenue you don't want to go down because it isn't a good sound bite for marketing Health Care Reform.   I think it is horribly wrong to market Health Care Reform in this manner.

If I'm wrong in interpreting this current bill, please let me know.  I may not be part of the Administration but I have a degree in Engineering from Rutgers as well as a MBA from Rutgers, so I'm pretty sure I have the intellect to interpret words like grandfathered and grace period.  However, once again if I'm wrong, I'm happy to correct this post.  I'd really like to know your thoughts.

PardonMyFrench and thanks,

Eric

P.S. Mr Axelrod, you'll notice I didn't give the tougher argument but the one I believe in which is after a public option is introduced it will be too hard for private companies to compete or worse, businesses will gladly pay the $750 per employee fine to drop offering health care coverage and force everyone to the public option.

-----------------------COPY OF THE BILL REGARDING GRANDFATHERED PLANS

Grandfathered Health Insurance Coverage Defined- Subject to the succeeding provisions of this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable coverage under this division, the term ‘grandfathered health insurance coverage’ means individual health insurance coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the first day of Y1 if the following conditions are met:

(1) LIMITATION ON NEW ENROLLMENT

(A) IN GENERAL- Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of Y1.CommentsClose CommentsPermalink

(B) DEPENDENT COVERAGE PERMITTED- Subparagraph (A) shall not affect the subsequent enrollment of a dependent of an individual who is covered as of such first day

(2) LIMITATION ON CHANGES IN TERMS OR CONDITIONS- Subject to paragraph (3) and except as required by law, the issuer does not change any of its terms or conditions, including benefits and cost-sharing, from those in effect as of the day before the first day of Y1.

IN GENERAL- The Commissioner shall establish a grace period whereby, for plan years beginning after the end of the 5-year period beginning with Y1, an employment-based health plan in operation as of the day before the first day of Y1 must meet the same requirements as apply to a qualified health benefits plan under section 101, including the essential benefit package requirement under section 121

TRANSITIONAL TREATMENT AS ACCEPTABLE COVERAGE- During the grace period specified in paragraph (1)(A), an employment-based health plan that is described in such paragraph shall be treated as acceptable coverage under this division.

(1) IN GENERAL- Individual health insurance coverage that is not grandfathered health insurance coverage under subsection (a) may only be offered on or after the first day of Y1 as an Exchange-participating health benefits plan.

Jason Calacanis' Case vs Apple Foretells Case vs President Obama

I read Jason's post-email regarding his case against Apple in 5 Parts and before I go through my thoughts quickly, all I kept thinking about is, is this the type of long term buyer's remorse a lot of Independents will have when it comes to their Obama vote?  Jason's rant for the most part is a lot of buyer's remorse and changed expectations from someone who has spent a ton of money and time engrossed with Apple's products as well as competitor's products,  So, I can't help but think is President Obama the Steve Jobs of Presidents?  Let's take a look at Jason's 5 points, my thoughts on his Apple points, and why it reminds me of President Obama.

1. Destroying MP3 through anti-competitive prices - Basically Jason rants, since Apple doesn't allow other MP3 players to hook into iTunes they are uncompetitive.  Jason wrote this classic line which reminds me of President Bush-President Obama; imagine if President Bush had asked people to report "fishy" emails to the White House like President Obama did?  Where is the outrage from main street media: 

   Why, then, does Steve Jobs get a pass?Steve Jobs gets a pass because we are all enabling him to be a jerk. We buy the products and we say nothing when our rights are stripped away. We’ve been seduced by Steve Jobs: he lifts another shiny object over his head with a new eco-friendly feature and we all melt like screaming schoolgirls at Shea Stadium in ‘65.

2. Monopolistic practices in telecommunications -  Basically the argument that the iPhone only works on AT&T's network and while I personally don't like that, I don't think this is anti-competitive.   Now this isn't an easy to stretch to Obama, but what reminds me of Obama is the logic that a few people in Washington know more than the people out in the real world.  That's basically the logic around Obama's spending plan which has NOT don't anything to stimulate job growth and is in fact, woefully behind their own forecasts.  Even when a seemingly good # comes out which is then debunked, they still tell you our way is working great.  You try and tell them no, that's not right and you're called unAmerican.
3. Draconian App Store Policies - Basically every application has to be approved by Apple.  I don't have any problem with that because well it is their store and there are ways around this, but he does make a good argument.  Again it reminds me of Obamacare and the mandated use of exchanges to only allow health insurance plans that conform to Government minimum requirements (as of right now your current health plan can be grandfathered until a change is made)
4. Being a Horrible Hypocrite by banning other browsers - Jason is 100% correct here and Apple should allow other browsers to be used.  He wrote this paragraph which again reminds me of Obama's no vote against Justice Roberts but when Republicans voted against Sotomayer they get ridiculed - i.e. Obama being a hypocrite when it comes to a supreme court confirmation.  Apple was more than willing to pile on after Microsoft’s disasterous inclusion of Internet Explorer with Windows. In fact, what Apple is doing is 100x worse than what Microsoft did. You see, Microsoft simply included their browser in Windows, still allowing other browsers to be installed. In Apple’s case, they are not only bundling their browser with the iPhone, but they are BLOCKING other browsers from being installed.
5. Blocking the Google Voice Application - same as #3 above but he does write this which reminds me of President Obama deciding which businesses and industries are too big to fail and instead of letting the free market decide he extends plans like cash for clunkers.  Let people have three or four phone services coming in to their iPhones and perhaps charge a modest licensing fee for those types of service. Or, just simply stop being jerks and let the free market decide how to use the data services they’ve BOUGHT AND PAID FOR. That’s the joke of this: you’re paying for the data services that Apple is blocking. You pay for the bandwidth and Apple doesn’t let you use it because, you know, they know better than you how you should consume your data minutes.

Anyway, I thought whether you agreed with it or not, Jason's post was very insightful.  I personally found it very foretelling of the buyer's remorse Independent voters may have if all of these Washington knows best programs don't do what is advertised.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Obama, Pelosi and The Marketing of Your Health Care Reform

I get a morning briefing every day from RedState and one of the links today was about a paragraph in a White House blog post about reporting misinformation on health care reform.  Put aside the scary notion of not qualifying what misinformation means which was the point of the RedState post, I went a read the White House blog post and watched two videos.  Now before I come to some conclusions here are four points that worry me and what I find interesting about President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Health Care Reform.

1. Obama clearly stating I believe in 2003 that he is a proponent of a Single Payer Health Care Plan.
2. Candidate Obama denied he was for Single Payer Health Care Plan unless it was from scratch, which he knows is/was an impossibility
3. White House video of a questions and answers with President Obama on the public option with the public option not being a "must have"
4. HuffingtonPost article with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying that she does not have the votes to pass health care reform without a public option. (I linked to HuffPo article because HuffPo is friendly towards the left)

Ok so here's what has me worried.  President Obama is a proponent of a Single Payer option but he knows he can't get it.  The public option is the next best thing.  Passing health care reform without a public option won't happen according to Nancy Pelosi because the liberal votes on the Democratic side of the House won't agree to a proposal without it.   And, that's what's so fascinating and so scary about this situation.

• Nobody likes listening to Pelosi.  She is ground zero for partisan politics.
• The American Public historically gives low marks to the House. However,
• People still like President Obama, but
• Obama knows that he doesn't have the votes without a Public Option so he can use smooth words to say - it isn't a must-have for the Administration and he can also use smooth words that say - well if the private sector can't compete with the public version well, isn't that the free market at work?
• President Obama gives great news conferences but Pelosi is his attack person.  Basically a good cop-bad cop tactic on health care reform.

I don't believe a private sector company can compete with a massively funded public option.  Private sector companies have share holders and profit/loss statements while the public option has Congressmen who need to please roughly 51% of their voters and are devoid of profit and loss responsibilities; plus, the Government can keep funding them more and more with a single vote or change the rules to benefit the public option.

To me - this is as simple as FedEx & UPS versus the US Postal Service for home mail delivery (not packages and next day air).  If FedEx and UPS could actually deliver letters (ie mail) to your home, the US Postal Service would have been finished a long time ago.  However, we keep the USPS in business by allowing them to increase the cost of mail and by NOT allowing the private sector to deliver mail into your home. (BTW - here's the language about the USPS monopoly via the Wikipedia link above - FedEx and United Parcel Service (UPS) directly compete with USPS express mail and package delivery services, making nationwide deliveries of urgent letters and packages. Due to the postal monopoly, they are not allowed to deliver non-urgent letters and may not use U.S. Mail boxes at residential and commercial destinations)

Once the public option is in force, any rules can be set to force any real private sector companies out of business.   That's what worries me about the Health Exchanges.  This really is the march to Single Payer

President Obama is smooth and gives reasonable sounding, view graph deep answers that makes you sound like an idiot if you don't agree (hence the misinformation paragraph on their website - see below).  He knows he doesn't have the votes in the House, but he lets the House leadership do his dirty work while he appears to be pragmatic. Fascinating and scary at the same time.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

-------------White House Blog-------------

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care.  These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation.  Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to [email protected].

Obama's Hypocrisy On Display in Corzine's Email Campaign

On Friday I received an email from Barack Obama supporting Jon Corzine for Governor.  Now while this email probably doesn't come as much as a surprise to you, I was a little disappointed (OK a lot) by the contents.  In fact, this part of the email really was disappointing...

In trying times, Jon is a fighter for the middle class. He created a strong economic recovery plan designed to retain and attract business, instituted major reforms to ease unfair property tax burdens across the state, and made critical investments in schools and transportation infrastructure that will leave New Jersey stronger and more competitive in the years to come.

Really President Obama?  Those points in red are something Corzine did for the state?  Let's take a look at some facts shall we?

1. Hmm well if he attracted and retained business then why is our unemployment the highest in 20 years?What plan did he enact and when?  If he actually did something when did this "Wall St Wiz" analyze the trends?   
2. Heck, October 2007 is when we started this upward climb; he's had more time than you President Obama to enact something if he actually saw this economic nightmare coming.  Facts are HE DID NOT.
3. Oh - and how about NJ's Business climate which you are saying he has helped with this recovery plan?  According to The Tax Foundation NJ is ranked DEAD LAST as a business friendly state.  Hmm I'm sure this horrendous business climate is helping the middle class as you suggests he did.
4. Well how did The Tax Foundation rank NJ DEAD LAST?  Try these stunning statistics Mr. President:  NJ ranks 39th is corporate tax rate, 48th in individual tax rate, 41st in sales tax rate, and 50th in property tax rank.  I'm sure all those taxes are helping the middle class right Mr. President?
5. NJ also ranks highest in local-state tax burden.
6. Oh and that property tax relief you mentioned, sure it got better but it still sucks.  That quote on your part reminds me of a Lewis Black joke when he spoke about Gov. Bill Clinton promoting the increase in AR school rankings from 50th to 48th.  "I took AR from shitty, shitty, shitty, to stinky, farty, smelly". 

What bothers me so much President Obama is that you campaigned on Hope and Change.  A new style of politics and an end to partisan fights.  You inspired a lot of people (I was NOT one of them), but when you come to NJ to campaign for your friend the horrible Corzine, all you are doing is entering into partisan politics and providing more of the same politics that you campaigned against in 2008.

Your words can't spin the bad NJ climate.  Your speeches and rallies can't fool the cynical NJ voter.  Even the folks in Newark, Hudson County, Camden County, etc that supported your election know a do nothing, tax and spend liberal when they see one - especially after 4 years of lousy leadership. 

You want to support your friend.  Great.  Go for it.  Talk about needing a friend in NJ to help your liberal wealth distribution policies.  Just please leave the spins and lies behind in DC.  Corzine needs to go.  Candidate Barack Obama wouldn't have lent his name to such an email devoid of Hope and Change.

Hope and Change in NJ starts with Dumping Corzine.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Obama Car Jacks Consumer Choice

This post is dedicated to my good friend Chip B. whom I got into a big discussion about a month back on this very subject.

This is a picture of my brand new car.  We bought it in the middle of March and it is our third car,  The gas mileage on it sucks.  Right now we are averaging 19 miles to the gallon, but for all you tree huggers out there - we've only filled the tank up once. 

I love driving this car.  It is so much fun that I've never run so many errands in my life. In case you are wondering - it is a 4 seat, Toyota Solara Sports Convertible with an in your face bright red paint job.  Mary and I loved this car so much that we took a ride in March when it was 44 degrees outside - yes we had our winter coats on.

Anyway back to my post dedicated to Chip.  A month back late night at his house we got into a big discussion on fuel efficient cars.  My argument went like this...

• Only tree huggers want these small crappy fuel efficient cars; the vast majority of consumers don't want them.
• The car companies can't manufacturer these tree hugger match boxes efficiently
• Without Government intervention these cars are more expensive to buy when compared to similar match box crappy oil burners.
• The Government will have to use tax dollars to bring these cars down in price - again using the wealth distribution process.
• When the US Companies (exception is Ford) blew themselves up, the Obama Administration used this opportunity to swoop in and save these companies to put other tree hugging loons in control to build the cars that not enough people want unless you're in the Obama Administration or your last name is Pelosi.
• If car companies built powerful, beautifully designed cars that people wanted and they were fuel efficient  - that would be a win.  However, the only way today to get fuel efficient cars is to build them no bigger than a shopping cart.

Now on May 19th, Obama introduced new fuel efficiency standards.  As a goal I think they are good ones - I believe the timing is terrible. I also think standardizing them nationally is good too.  I don't agree with tax subsidizing them.  I don't agree with increasing costs of car manufacturing.  I don't agree with forcing consumers to buy crappy little cars because that's what the Government wants.  If car manufactures can build cars like my new one above and make it fuel efficient - than great but that ain't happening by 2016. 

For my friend Chip, here are links to Wall Street Journal articles backing up my argument.  This standard is nothing but bad news for consumers - unless you were planning on buying these crappy cars anyway...

Obama Says New Car-Fuel Rules Generate Certainty - A good summary of this leftist agenda item with this great line that proves my point about how the Obama Administration now controls these American Car companies so they can do their bidding "But the rules also will raise the cost of manufacturing new vehicles at a time when the auto industry is struggling, and Chrysler LLC is in bankruptcy, where it may soon be joined by General Motors Corp. Still, car makers have signaled support for the new standards,

Obama Would Support Auto Incentives for Consumers - This article includes a few tire busting nails like these all based on wealth distribution and ignoring true consumer needs:

1. We fought for the $7,500 tax credit for the purchase of advanced technology vehicles in the Recovery Act," the official said, and "our administration remains committed to policies to help bring the costs down" for consumers.
2. The administration estimates fuel-economy regulations will add $1,300 on average to the price of new cars by 2016, but President Barack Obama on Tuesday said fuel savings would offset those costs for the typical motorist in three years
3. If prices are $4 per gallon, I think the math is pretty straightforward for consumers," said Dave McCurdy, president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a Washington-based trade group that participated in the negotiations that led to the fuel economy agreement. "If we don't have prices like that, government is going to have to provide more incentives to help overcome the upfront cost differential of this new technology

Obama's Official Remarks -  It includes of course well written lines that slip by the average voter like this one "If you buy a car, your investment in a more fuel-efficient vehicle as a result of this standard will pay off in just three years" - yeah?  At what price per gallon and how many miles driven?

Anyway these new guidelines are so filled with bad agenda items that you should have woken up and dug a little deeper before you voted this guy into office.  Sure, it sounded good cheering for change in the fall when he painted great pictures of fuel efficient SUVs and Sports Car, but that's not what you are getting here.  You are getting shopping carts with engines, more expensive cars, and wealth distribution so folks can purchase cars that nobody wants right now.  Thanks (yes I'm bitter in this post).

PardonMy "Low Carbon Footprint" French,

Eric

It's About Creating Jobs Not About Saving Jobs

*****BTW - NY Times has an article this morning on White House Forecasts NO Job Growth Until 2010*****

I'm still very upset about this saving jobs metric that President Obama based his entire trillion dollar budget/stimulus plan on.  This is my third post on this and I got fired up on the "save job" metric this morning when I read this article in USA Today called White House Defends 3.5M Job Forecast.  My first post was called AT&T Lessons for Obama on Saving Jobs and a second post called Are You Sure You Understand How Obama's Plan Will Save Jobs?  The USA Today article shows the smoke and mirrors that the Obama administration is using/used to sell the "save job" metric (my comments in bold):

• 3.5 million create or save job forecast is based on a relatively conservative rule of thumb (I'm sure the forecast mechanism is conservative, the create a job metric you are forecasting is a bogus metric)
• Many Republicans have criticized the administration's projections as untrustworthy and politically motivated.(They key is not to attack how they made the projections, but attack the actual type of number they are trying to forecast)
• The figure of 3.5 million jobs saved or created, the report says, is the difference between the projected number of jobs during the last three months of 2010 with the stimulus and the projected number of jobs without if there had been no stimulus plan (You see the create "job metric" is the variable derived from two forecasted numbers one of which you can't ever accurately measure)
• The report also offers a new measure of the stimulus law's economic effects: 6.8 million additional job-years between the signing of the legislation and the end of 2012. A job-year represents one job held for one year. (Obama adds a new number that sounds huge to confuse people and have idiots argue over a new number that is derived from another bad number - saved jobs)
• The administration's practice of discussing jobs saved as well as created is "a very clever device for providing future political cover," The 'jobs saved' part was a way for them to say, 'The economy is still shrinking, but it would have shrunk faster but for the good things that we did.' (What I've been writing all along).

I worked at AT&T for 10 years and 4 years in an internet measurement, analysis group that was part of Bell Labs for a while.   At AT&T the retention game was trying to estimate who was likely to leave (a saved job) in order to get retention funding.  Winback was easier to measure because you actually so the customer return to AT&T (a created job).  SAVED CUSTOMERS WERE DERIVED NUMBERS AND EVEN BELL LABS COULDN'T ACCURATELY FORECAST THAT.  WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THE GOVERNMENT CAN FORECAST A SAVED JOB?

Obama can not forecast A SAVED JOB because you'll never know what would have happened if we didn't spend money to help the economy.  It is a completely derived, fictitious number that was undoubtedly created using proven statistical techniques, but at the end of the day, we will never know how many jobs we would have lost.

This is the only talking point that matters for Republicans.  This is the smoking gun for the Obama administration.  The news will continue to report actual job lost or actual job created (still losing jobs and the Federal Reserve said it may hit as high as 10% and remain high for years).  This is how we should market ourselves and attack the administration in 2010.  Actual jobs created or not, actual spending, and how the administration sold the created jobs number as a way of passing the stimulus plan. Any other talking points that don't involve jobs and unemployment will fall flat on the masses of people and doom Republicans in 2010.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Obama via FDA Crushing Pharma Internet Advertising

Yes, I know I'm a a week late on this post, but then again I'm not totally aimed at the Pharmaceutical Advertising market since my Dad died last June.  Dad used to always talk with me about direct to consumer advertising especially when it came to internet advertising for these products.  Yes I know my sweet spot is in politics, telecommunications, and finance marketing, but I always held a soft spot because of Dad's interest.  That's why I found this article so interesting in Business Week.

In this week's Business Week they have an article called Pharma Flees The Net. (I couldn't find it online so that's why I didn't link to it.)  Anyway, the article wrote that on April 3 (really April 2) the FDA sent a letter warning 14 of the world's biggest drug companies that their internet ads MUST INCLUDE WARNINGS about risks.  Here's a link to all 2009 warnings and here's a link to one company's letter and a copy of the screen shots that the FDA included.

And what happened?  Poof.  For the most part internet advertising for big Pharma DISAPPEARED; that's right they are gone especially for black box warning products.  I didn't check every search term, but for the dozen I looked for they were gone.  Sure, display ads might be repurposed (at least the bigger banner units) to include warnings, if you can squeeze them in given a reasonable font size and ad specs, but a search ad or a 468x60 is dead without more guidance. (for a more detailed post see this article from ClickZ)

That's right folks.  The tech President Obama via the FDA virtually eliminated an internet advertising mechanism for the Pharma industry.  Of course this hurts Google and Yahoo, plus some of my brothers and sisters in the internet advertising world who relied on Pharma as an industry.  I really wondered what Eric Schmidt thinks of this as an Obama adviser?

Writing of Eric, I also wonder how many agency veterans, digital consultants, search experts etc supported President Obama during the election and are now regretting that vote?  Sure he wowed you with his marketing prowess, beautiful speeches, hope filled messages, and social networking expertise, but did you ever take a look into his policies?  Did you ever think for a second how this would impact the way you earn a living?

Maybe you took your eye off the ball and were excited for your middle class tax cut.  However, you could have just lost a big chunk of your income statement if you relied on big Pharma advertising dollars. 

I saw plenty of internet advertising veterans line up behind Obama during the campaign season; I even got flamed by a few of them for harmless comments because passions ran high.  However, with more regulation comes more change.  You voted for change.  How does that change look on your income statement now?

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Are You Sure You Understand How Obama's Plan Will Save Jobs?

A few weeks back I wrote a post called AT&T Lessons for Obama on Saving Jobs where I tried to understand how the Obama administration will save a job.  How will that saved job be measured? 

Sure the other day when he was at an event in Ohio where they were adding 25 new policemen to their role, you can count those folks.  However at a macro level, how do you measure saving millions of jobs? 

I still don't get it and an Associated Press article from over the weekend called Analysis: Obama's Ambitious Plans Raise Questions other people are starting to ask the same question.  Here's a quote from Montana Democrat Senator Max Baucus:

"You created a situation where you cannot be wrong," the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Montana Democrat Max Baucus, told Geithner last week.

"If the economy loses 2 million jobs over the next few years, you can say yes, but it would've lost 5.5 million jobs. If we create a million jobs, you can say, well, it would have lost 2.5 million jobs," Baucus said. "You've given yourself complete leverage where you cannot be wrong, because you can take any scenario and make yourself look correct."

That's right Obama's plan could still lose jobs (or written another way unemployment rates continue to rise) yet Obama can celebrate hitting their goal by saving 3 million jobs.  How those saved jobs gets measured at this point is anyone's guess.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Citigroup's Stock Price Proves What The Market Thinks of Obama's Plan

OK, let's make this a really easy stock lesson for you and why the market forces think President Obama's bank and housing plan is the wrong path for the USA.  Before that, a little background on me.  I spent 5 years as a Managing Director at a brokerage firm called Harrisdirect/CSFBdirect/DLJdirect.  I obtained my Series 7 license and was well on my way to a Series 24 when E*trade acquired the  company.

Citigroup traded yesterday between 98 cents and $1.11 and closed at $1.02.  If you bought it at $1.02 that translated into a 2.70% dividend yield.   On March 9 almost 1.9 billion shares were traded and on that day Citigroup lost $1 in share price or almost 40% in its value.

Why are those numbers important?  Well you watch volume to see if the change in stock price is significant,  So the market significantly thinks that the future potential of Citigroup is, umm horrible.  But, wait a second.  Isn't the administration propping up Citigroup with tax revenue to keep it afloat?  Yes.  Doesn't that mean Citigroup is too big to fail?  Yes.  And, doesn't that dividend yield help?  A little.

What this means is that the stock market thinks that owning Citigroup, even when it is too big to fail and receiving money from we taxpayers, is not a worthy investment.  And since Obama is feeding them money, the market believes that Obama's banking and housing plan IS NOT WORTH INVESTING IN.  They believe that the future is bleak for a Government run business.

Should you watch the stock market day to day?  Probably not.  I can't because if you try to, you realize that sometimes it doesn't make a lot of sense.  However, when a stock gets pounded like this and you know the Government has deemed it too big to fail (fail  = stock price of $0) so you'd think there is little risk, but based on Obama's plan there is LITTLE UPSIDE FOR YOU in owning this stock. 

Written another way, there is little UPSIDE IN OBAMA'S BANKING AND HOUSING PLAN.  P.S. HT to @redstate.  The stock market has dropped 20% since Obama took office, officially making this The Obama Bear Market.  Hard to argue with those stats, Obama voters.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

AT&T Lessons for Obama on Saving Jobs

I worked for the old and better AT&T for 10 years and it was on retention marketing. Those years were during the the great winback wars with MCI and Sprint where a new customer could get $100 or more for switching back.

You remember those days? You had to stay for 6 months and then you could start the process again. People would complain that as a long time customer they couldn't get a check or at least a good offer. Well here's why and why I wonder how Obama will measure saves - saved jobs that is.

The reason a new customer got $100 is because all of their revenue was new and the business case worked as long as they stayed for 6 months or so. Winback = new job created by Obama's spendulus plan. On the retention side you never knew who would leave AT&T so you applied our customer leave rate and came up with a number of potential people who would leave.  This number was then multiplied by a save rate (% of people who would stay because of an offer) and this number was who we saved.  Think saves as jobs saved by Obama's spendulus plan.

So the reason winback got better offers was because their entire new revenue was put up against the cost of the offer.  Retention offers were much worse because you could only apply the full cost of the offer against a smaller % of the people that received it.  Measuring winbacks = easy count, measuring saves = derived number with a lot of assumptions.

So I ask you, how is the Obama Administration going to measure a saved job?  The stated goal of the spendulus plan is to save or create 3 to 4 million jobs.  See for yourself the language used state by state in the details supplied by the White House.  Now if Obama's plan creates 3+ million jobs that's awesome and easy to measure.  You take the private sector employment number when Obama took office and see when you get 3+ million jobs and then you're in.  Easy.

However, what happens if it doesn't grow jobs?  Then how do you measure saving a job?  Is that saving one from going overseas?  How do you know a job will leave?  How do you know a job will go away?  If all of those PHDs at Bells Labs couldn't figure out who is likely to leave a telecommunications company does anyone really think the Government can figure out which jobs will leave?

I really wonder how the Obama administration will measure a saved job?  What does Obama mean when he markets his spending plan and says the goal is to create or save jobs?  Anyone answer for me?  I'd like to know because some other people are starting to ask what it means to save a job.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

AT&T Lessons for Obama on Saving Jobs

I worked for the old and better AT&T for 10 years and it was on retention marketing. These years were in the great winback wars with MCI and Sprint where a new customer could get $100 for switching back. You remember those days? You had to stay for 6 months and then you could start the process again. People would complain that as a long time customer how come they couldn't get a check or at least a good offer. Well here's why and why I wonder how obama will measure a saved job.

The reason a new customer got $100 is because all of their revenue was new and the business case worked as long as they stayed for 6 months or so. Winback = created job. On the retention side you never knew who would leave AT&T so you applied our customer leave rate and came up with a number of

Do You Understand Obama's Spending Plan Part 5 - The Progressive Caucus Letter

A quick post because this really fired me up when I read this post from Open Congress called Pressure from All Sides.  They printed part of a letter addressed to Nancy Pelosi from the Progressive Caucus which are the 71 most liberal members of Congress and this is what has me so fired up about Obama's Spending Plan:

Congress Daily ($):

“Simply put, the Senate-passed version will not address the urgent fiscal, social, and educational needs of this country,” the letter said. “In fact, we fear that we may only get one bite at this apple. Therefore, we must take this opportunity to act boldly now.”

House Democratic leaders continue to bristle at the Senate compromise. Over the weekend, Pelosi raised concerns about the cut to the state fiscal stabilization fund.

Sources in a closed-door Democratic leadership meeting Monday evening said that members remain generally angry about the cuts.

Wait a minute.  You mean the 71 most liberal leaders are NOT VIEWING the "STIMULUS" plan as a way to stimulate the economy but as a way to address urgent social and educational needs? That's where all of the pork and crazy, non-economic stimulating items are coming from.

That's what Obama's isn't telling you.  This bill is not an URGENT STIMULUS BILL ONLY.  The Democrats that control Congress view it as a way to address social and educational needs of the country.  Why isn't President Obama telling the full truth about his spending plan?

This is why the spending plan isn't bi-partisan.  It is because the Democrats and the President just don't want it as a way to fix the economy they want it as a way to fix other non-economic "problems" that they think we are lacking and they will use your tax dollars to do it, but tell you "IT WILL BE CATASTROPHIC" if the bill doesn't get passed.  SHAMEFUL.   Even you President Obama supporters will find this impossible to deny.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Do You Really Understand Obama's Spending Plan Part 4?

OK - we're nearing the end and President Obama just doesn't get that there are almost 40% of Americans against his spending plan.  Why?  Well perhaps that like 60% of the spending doesn't kick in until year 2 (from Fox News this morning).  Maybe it's because there are billions upon billions of pure pork in the spending bill that won't help our economy (remember when we grilled US Automakers over a few billions).  Obama says the time for talk is over and it is time for action.  Republicans are nitpicking the bill.  That Republicans want to use the failed policies of the past 8 years (completely untrue).  President Bush didn't push for a cut in payroll taxes.  A cut in payroll tax will allow you to keep more money in your check and allow Corporations to hire more - so says NJ CEO Steve Forbes.

President Obama hasn't made the switch from a talented campaigner to a talented governing President.  Watch this video from the AP.  Does this look like someone who is trying to work with Republicans?  Does it look like someone who is bringing Change or someone who is relying on the Same partisan politics of the past? 

This isn't what you voted for.  It is time for talented people to start to build a YouTube problem for President Obama.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Building a YouTube Problem for Obama

I keep reading about how Obama's honeymoon is over or about how long until the press digs into President Obama.  I say who cares about main stream media. 

I think a smart person like Justin Germany (@justingermany) should create a video series in YouTube called "Obama's YouTube Problem" that compares Obama's campaign promises (words) with his current deeds (his actions).  It will be an eyeopener and with enough material will be damaging to his administration and re-election efforts.  Several examples are already available within the first 30 days..

First it started with the bad vetting process Team Obama did on several of the cabinet nominees (see Daschle and Richardson).  Of course President Obama says that their vetting process is fine, but either it is broken or they are arrogant to think that tax cheats and former Governors under ethics investigations can pass a Senate confirmation.  So much for bringing change to Washington.

Next up it was his campaign promise to keep lobbyists away from his administration.  Of course they make exceptions when it is convenient, but that wasn't his campaign promise.  He didn't promise to hire the least amount in the history of politics, he promised to keep them away.  So like he did on taking matching campaign funds, he breaks his word.

Finally, this whole Obama Spending Plan is turning into an absolute nightmare for President Obama and unfortunately the rest of us.  This is a pork infested plan that wastes billions of dollars on such crappy projects like:

• $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion.
• $850 million for Amtrak.
• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into "green" buildings.
• $650 million for the digital television converter box coupon program.

Remember when we dragged the auto industry executives to grill them over billions in loans they wanted?  Well now, President Obama says that we are wasting precious time on haggling over what amounts to 1% of the bill (really closer to 2% but what's a few billions).  It wasn't good enough for Obama to have a supply-side versus demand-side economic argument (spending versus tax cuts) but he had to get in bed with the Liberals in the House who shut out Republicans ruining his bipartisan campaign promise. 

In the Senate where the Liberals don't have a majority he starts to get nasty and irrational, threatening Republicans and using scare tactics.  Today Obama basically said "The time for talk is over and the time for action is now" and then sent his surrogate Claire McCaskill to proclaim "If we do nothing we will lose millions of jobs". 

President Obama has no idea what the economy will do and doesn't want debate on the bill.  This is how we ended up with TARP which President Obama voted for without much debate because it was something we had to do and do quickly.  So, diplomacy is good with the Iranians but a few days of diplomacy with Republicans members of the Senate is a waste?

It is time to fight back and that's just a start.  Obama's Achilles heel is the Change promises he made that unfortunately for him, he needs to rely on the non-change agents currently sitting in Congress to deliver on them.   There will not be the right Change in Washington and we might as well start building the proof now.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Obama Can't Deliver A Single GOP Vote On His Spending Plan

Yes you read the title correctly.  President Obama could not convince a single Republican in the House of Representative to vote for his pork infested, wasted spending, lack of job creating plan.  But President Obama promised to bring a new era to Washington politics.  Wrong.  He failed.  He failed spectacularly.

And do you know why he failed?  Because the Liberal Democrats who wrote the bill REFUSED to listen to their President (or perhaps that was the plan from the very beginning) and didn't even fake an attempt to make it bi-partisan.  Read the interview with Republican Eric Cantor - President Obama met with the Republicans and listened but the Democrats that controlled the bill refused any Republican input. 

Perhaps things were a little more sinister.  Perhaps President Obama was just for show.  You know shake a few hands, smile, try to make it appear that he reached out, but perhaps he had no intention of using his mandate to press the Democrats in the House to get Republican support.

Now for you kids keeping score at home it is now onto the Senate where their bill can actually get defeated because the Democrats don't have an overwhelming majority.  They can't ram things down our throats like President Obama and his House Democrat friends just did.

You know it is a lot harder to get the 178 Republicans to vote together in the house than it will be in the Senate.  Perhaps if Congress tried spending the money earlier to actually impact our economy or put through more tax cuts which Obama claimed he wanted, they might have an easier time.

Right, Change came to Washington.  This isn't Change it is More of the Same.

By the way, here are some quotes via TheHill.com.  This basically says "Obama extended his hand to anyone who will work with him" but Speaker Pelosi who is drawing criticism for not working with the GOP, "went through proper procedures".  Right, that sounds like Obama wants Change in Washington.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Do You Really Understand Obama's Spending Plan Part 2

Hey people.  You need to wake up and write your Congressmen before this crappy spending, non-stimulating bill gets passed.  As you start digging into this, you will quickly realize that the liberals in Congress are going to spend your money with no care in the world whether it stimulates the economy in the short term.  Need more proof.....

This Week Transcript with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (low lights below)

• Let's talk about what's in the package, then. I know you don't agree completely with the Congressional Budget Office, this estimate, assessment. PELOSI: Well, they're going to reassess it. STEPHANOPOULOS: They're going to look at it. But what they've shown so far is that only about 40 percent of the discretionary spending, including the highway spending in the bill, is going to be spent right away in the next year and a half.

• STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus? PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.  STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

So, Pelosi's and Obama's spending bill according to the Congressional Budget Office won't be spent in the next year and a half.  That means it WON'T HELP THE ECONOMY in the short term.  Great.  That's some stimulus package.  Also, Pelosi is including family planning costs like contraception in the package.  This ISN'T CHANGE IT IS MORE OF THE SAME garbage from congress.

Finally, found in the spending bill is $26 Billion for No Child Left Behind and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.  Plus $15 Billion to encourage teaching reforms.  This is in addition to more Pell Grants.  While you might think these are good expenditures, they will not stimulate the economy. Oh wait one more thing.  Only 3% of this spending bill is going to infrastructure.  So much for how the liberal media is promoting this bill.

Republican or Democrat it doesn't matter.  Obama supporter or not, it doesn't matter.  If you care about jobs and the economy you'll write your congressmen to tell them this is a spending bill and not a stimulus package. 

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

President Obama's Inauguration A Historic Moment

Well President Obama was sworn in as President and you long time readers are probably wondering how I'm feeling.  The answer is I'm OK.

No I'm not bitter.  No I'm not sitting around wondering what if.  Look I worked extremely hard to elect John McCain President for the past three years and it didn't come out the way I wanted it.  If Senator McCain had lost during the Primary Season it would have been far more devastating for me.  However, I cherish every moment that I worked on the campaign.

I'm a big fan of history and especially Presidents Lincoln and Washington so this moment of electing our first black President is not lost on me.  President Obama also ran a marvelous campaign and as a marketer there are a ton of lessons to learn whether you are in politics or not.  I also believe the era of Republicans versus Democrats or Liberals versus Conservatives is at an end.  I'm not sure parties are dead (HT to Patrick Henry), but this bitterness is over.  This moment is a proud moment for all Americans.

I am still concerned with President Obama's policies.  I'm a Republican because I believe in a small Government, lower taxes, and personal freedoms.  Some of Obama's policies worry me.  However, that doesn't mean I'm cheering for him to fail.  I don't want my friends and family having tough times paying their bills and earning a living.  I want them to have as much of a chance at succeeding and this economic environment is the worst I've seen since the 70s so it will be hard(I was only a little kid back then).  I want President Obama to do as much good as possible for the country, but just enough to miss getting re-elected.

Congratulations.  It is a new era in America.  Once I'm back from offsite meeetings I will watch his speech which my wife recorded for me. 

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

More Money "Change" By Obama

Not happy this morning.  Not happy with of course the crappy New York Times, but what did I expect?  Watching Fox News this morning...

• Tim Geithner Barack Obama's nominee for Treasury Secretary owed $30K - $50K in back taxes.  According to the New York Times Caucus blog he wrote out a check for $43K to cover this.  $43K?  This alone should make Obama remove him as Treasury Secretary.  You DON'T FORGET TO PAY $43K IN TAXES.
• Michelle Malkin tips off that Geithner also received refunds for taxes he didn't pay.
• The Treasury Secretary does this: The Secretary of the Treasury is the principal economic advisor to the President and plays a critical role in policy-making by bringing an economic and government financial policy perspective to issues facing the government. The Secretary is responsible for formulating and recommending domestic and international financial, economic, and tax policy, participating in the formulation of broad fiscal policies that have general significance for the economy, and managing the public debt. The Secretary oversees the activities of the Department in carrying out its major law enforcement responsibilities; in serving as the financial agent for the United States Government; and in manufacturing coins and currency. 
• Michelle Malkin is correct.  He needs to go and if you don't think so, you'll believe anything.
• Obama's inauguration committee is receiving BOATLOADS OF MONEY from banking-wall st executives.  Of course they claim no influence, but you can decide for yourself why banking executives want to shell out major money - TRY GETTING PART 2 OF TARP APPROVED.  Here's a link to a spreadsheet which you can sort and filter by employer.
• Of course the New York Times doesn't report this but reports that typical liberal poster children (Soros) gets top billing and they don't mention the financial donations because they know it would be damaging to Obama.

Banking executive donations to Obama.  A Treasury Secretary nominee who failed to pay $40K+ in taxes.  At least there is transparency from team Obama that a schmuck like me can sort and sum data.  Yep, that's the kind of Change we need.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Who Is President-Elect Obama to His Liberal Voters?

I found this post very interesting. Democrats.com  (aka Aggressive Progressive or written another way - Aggressive Liberals) blogger Bob Fertik gave an update regarding the #1 citizen sponsored question on Change.org regarding having Obama appoint a special prosecutor to investigate war crimes supposedly conducted by the Bush Administration.  Now I don't agree that the Bush Administration should be investigated - I just think it is a liberal plot, but what is very interesting is how Obama responds to this question as Bob points out.  You see, I don't believe people knew enough about candidate Obama.

People loved the marketing and the smoothness in debates.  Voters found him inspirational and the movement caught on to the point where it was cool to be part of the campaign.  He promised Change but what kind of change?  Obama was a rock star candidate who really didn't need a rock star to help fill stadiums; he could do it on his own.  His policies?  People were a little more confused or tuned that part at.

Sure he promoted a middle class tax cut, but will you really see the one you voted for?  My Uncle Gary told me he would get the tax cut funded by cutting back on troops in Iraq.  Do you think that is happening?  Where does he stand on marriage?  Israel? Wiretapping?  Do you really know what his policies are? Look, I worked for the McCain campaign, but candidate Barack Obama is someone I'd never vote for because I didn't know what I was voting for other than change.  At least with Senator McCain I knew what I was getting.

Anyway the Citizen Powered candidate has a problem.  You see he was many things to many different people and now has the capacity for a spectacular disappointment.  When the mob gets in control and delivers an election for you and then you don't return the favor you have a problem.  The mob will get disappointed. That's Option #1 on Bob's list and now it is getting national media attention.

I also read today, somewhere online, that Obama is now backing away from closing Guantanamo Bay. Wasn't that one of his promises to the liberal world within the first 100 days?  I guess I'm not the only one who is waiting for the backlash that will occur, but that effectiveness will really be determined by what happens with the economy.

Who is President Obama?  Besides being inspirational and a brilliant marketer, we will find out who he is.  And unless the economy rebounds and he doesn't disappoint the citizens who powered his election, he'll have a hard time governing.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Obama's Economic Recovery = 600K New Government Jobs?

Catching up after being in Disney for the past week celebrating the end to one of the crappiest years in recent memory and I read and watched Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment plan.  And while I want to give him a chance there are just a few things that make me very skeptical. 

• We must demand vigorous oversight and strict accountability for achieving results. Hmm like the TARP bill he voted for?
• create three million new jobs, more than eighty percent of them in the private sector. 3 million * 20% = 600,000 public sector jobs.  That's just more politics of the same.
• we must restore fiscal responsibility and make the tough choices so that as the economy recovers, the deficit starts to come down. Hiring 600K new Government employees will kill our chances at ever digging out of this spending mess.  How will you get rid of them.

Tax cuts are a good idea and so is providing relief to businesses who we hope will not just pocket the money but actually add jobs (see TARP and Bank of America as the primary example of how this didn't happen).  However, adding 600K people to Government payrolls will kill our chances going forward.  The rest of these plans while HUGE are temporary expenditures, hiring people and putting them on payroll will cause HUGE problems for the future.   

OK, so you want to fixing crumbling bridges, roads, and school.  I get that.  That spurs contractors, banks, and etc.  You want to invest in green technology.  Check, get that too (BTW - I'm hoping for bigger tax credits so I can update my building in Union, NJ).  600K Government jobs - HORRIBLE IDEA.  Just visit NJ for a perfect bad example. Oh, I forgot, you like our Governor.

Sorry Obama, you won't get credit for meeting your 3 million new job goal by sticking it to the taxpayer.  That's just more politics of the same and offers no CHANGE.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Obama, Emails, and Blagojevich

Let me see if I get this right.  According to Politico Barack Obama is pledging to disclose contacts between his staff and Blagojevich but is stopping short of releasing email communications.  You mean the Tech President thinks that we can be fooled with promising full disclosure but those communications on The Internet thingie or a Blackberry aren't being released. That's just not good enough for someone who promised you voters Change. 

Want more Change?  How about hiding behind a technicality?  When asked about this according to Politico

Asked if the team would voluntarily release the records, the spokeswoman, Stephanie Cutter, was non-committal. “Let's wait and see what we put out after our internal review,” she told Politico. “I don’t even know if there’s any correspondence to be had, so one step at a time.”

Again, that's just not good enough President-elect Obama when you say things like this...

President-elect Barack Obama said Thursday morning that he is “confident” no one representing him took part in any pay-to-play dealings with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich over filling Obama’s U.S. Senate seat, and pledged to release details of contacts between his team and the governor’s office in the next few days. “I have never spoken to the governor on this subject. I am confident that no representatives of mine would have any part of any deals related to this seat. I think the materials released by the U.S. attorney reflect that fact,” Obama said at a Chicago news conference. “I’ve asked my team to gather the facts of any contacts with the governor’s office about this vacancy so that we can share them with you over the next few days.”

Detailed contacts include text and email communications and we shouldn't care whether there is a loophole or not regarding them.  That also includes Tweets and blog comments by your team.

Personally I doubt that President-Elect had any doings with trying to sell his seat.  However, who knows what a rogue team member could have texted or instant messaged.  We should have all communications released - not just the ones that are legally required.

Change is hard.  Releasing email communications are not.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric