RHetoric

Now that a year has passed since the stimulus act became law, it's worth considering it's impact.  Many of our clients are selling into the government, healthcare, and education markets - and the impact has been significant.

On the one hand, our clients that sell to government agencies and education saw sales hold steady during the recession.  However there is new fear that the stimulus has mostly been spent and things will fall off a cliff in the year to come as massive holes open up in municipal budgets.

In healthcare, our clients saw a huge stall in 2009 as the promise of stimulus caused IT buyers to pause and wait for rules to be issued over what is or isn't covered by stimulus money.  However there is new optimism that money is starting to flow and the impact will hit in 2010.

Our client Onvia tracks this data down to the penny and told Fox Business News today that just 25% of the stimulus project money actually left Washington in 2009, yet the majority of it will reach the private sector this year.  Onvia also says that nearly half of all GDP is government spending - this is an astounding figure that may indicate anyone who ignores the government market is shelving half of their business development opportunity.

We'd love to hear from you if the stimulus has impacted your business, for better or worse.

Thank God for Pete Peterson. Actually, thank God for the fact that he is shaving a billion off of his personal net worth to give back to the country that helped him earn it. How? By bankrolling “I.O.U.S.A.” This film is an attempt to jar the American public into reversing our nation’s crash course with an economic meltdown, the signs of which we are beginning to witness today.

With $53 trillion in U.S. debt and future obligations, growing by nearly $2 billion a day, much of which is owed foreign governments, our current path is simply unsustainable, according to the experts in the film. And what do our politicans running for office have to say about it? Nothing. Meanwhile your family’s share of this problem is $455,000 and climbing. Will you ever have to make good on it?

Of course - either in the form of severely higher taxes, severely lower government guarantees for Social Security and healthcare, or tragically lower standards of living for our children and their children as they struggle to pay for our excesses.

I’m not sure how far this message will reach in an era where the electorate seems so desperate for change they seem happy to vote for anyone other than the current president. And while this film takes a respectfully non-partisan tone, the message is clear: there is a leadership deficit in this nation, and the next president will have to shed all fears of losing a second term in order to take the politically brave positions that will be needed to save us from ourselves.

The film was broadcast live in theaters across the country for one night only - the theater I attended was packed with people ready to leap from their seats and storm the Congress - so I estimate the initial screening attracted several thousand viewers. A good number indeed, but not sufficient to turn the political tide. Which begs the question, what next?

We might look to the last film of this nature, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, which had a lot more buzz and if I recall had a pretty good run in the theaters. It’s a crying shame that I.O.U.S.A. wasn’t set up for this kind of run from the get go, because our runaway deficit makes global warming feel like a mild case of sunburn.

In the live Q&A broadcast immediately after the film, Peterson did reference a campaign that would tap the reaches of the Internet. However as of August 14, he was still seeking a firm that could help get it done. I hope he can find one quickly, because there will be thousands of citizens ready to amplify the message, if given the right tools.

In fact my only immediate disappointment in the film’s power was that the call to action was limited to what you can do for yourself - namely, be a better saver and vote for candidates who share your concern. This was an opportunity lost, as I sensed the film created a highly motivated grassroots audience ready to emerge from the theater and start spreading the word - but were not sure how just how to go about it.

Alas, I am relegated to posting the word on my blog, which will be read by all of 10 people. But, hey, that represents $1.6 million of this problem, so it’s a start.

As for Pete Peterson, we need 100 more like him. His new foundation needs to be inundated with big checks from his fellow Wall Street financiers and others in his generation who have done well for themselves within the comforts and security of America’s borders. If the ingenuity and generosity of Peterson were magnified 100 times and focused on this issue, every political candidate in America would take up the cause and the effects would last for generations.