Is This Banking In 2010?

I just saw a Wells Fargo commercial that made me think. I've only seen it one time, so there might be some misinterpretation and some incorrect paraphrasing, but I'm pretty sure I heard what I heard.

There is a guy and his girlfriend in their home, and the guy wants to restore an old motorcycle from his dad. He says something like "It's my dream to restore it", the girlfriend says, "It's my dream for him to finish it". Ok, her line was pretty funny, it made me laugh. Based on the visuals, it looks like the motorcycle is in their house/apartment, so it's certainly an eyesore and an obstacle, for her, us guys can work our way around such arrangements.

Then the banker at Wells Fargo chimes in. She says she showed this guy how to save money to be able to invest in restoring this motorcycle. The guy then comes back and says something like "they take some of my money and set it aside for me". Uh, wait, what?

I'm not sure which is more pitiful; the bank advertising that as part of their services they will take your money and set it aside for you, or the fact that people can't somehow go to the bank and say "I'd like to open a savings account please". Most banks allow for online banking which would allow you to transfer whatever you'd like from your checking account to your savings account. One bank who's commercials I have seen, I want to say it's Bank of America, allows you to set up automatic transfers from checking to saving, so that once a week or once a month (you decide how often) the bank will transfer the money for you.

Ok, so what am I missing here? Fire away.

David Cameron becomes youngest Prime Minister in almost 200 years

David Cameron has become the youngest British Prime Minister in almost 200 years after Gordon Brown resigned as premier, bringing to an end 13 years of Labour rule.

Daily Telegraph story here.

Yes, Prime Minister

The events that took place today in London were nothing short of remarkable. If you were able to watch any of the proceedings during our 1pm-3pm hours (CST), you know what I'm talking about.

During that time, Gordon Brown resigned as Prime Minister, he then left 10 Downing Street to head to Buckingham Palace where he gave the Queen his resignation. Then, within minutes, David Cameron went to Buckingham Palace where the Queen asked him to form a government, he agreed, and with that a new Prime Minister made his way to Downing Street to get to work.

Upon arriving to 10 Downing Street, Cameron gave this speech, with no notes and no teleprompter.

The dynamics of the election last week and some of what led to the changes today, will be stuff of history. We'll be reading about it for years to come I'm sure. One of the people who had led Obama's campaign in 2008, Anita Dunn, was a key player in Cameron's campaign. It's no coincidence that "change" was part of the Conservative Party logo and message this year.

As I touched on before and will write more about later, the Cameron campaign was a conservative model that we should look at following parts of here in the United States going into 2010. From the "contract with young people", to their "contract for jobs", to their "quality of life manifesto", I think the Conservative Party put forth one positive proposal after another and they earned the trust of the people of Britain (yes there is a hung parliament, but the number of seats that changed hands was overwhelming).

One thing we must understand, and learn to live with, it that in those proposals, people may not have agreed with the Conservative Party 100% on each idea in each proposal. However, the party itself was bold enough to say "here is where we stand, where does the other side stand?". I think when you make the choices that clear, people will always follow the logical options and the ones based on the most common sense

Conservative Offense Must Be Keeping Gordon Brown Awake At Night

As I reported yesterday, Conservative Party candidate for Prime Minister, David Cameron, introduced what is known as "A contract between the Conservative Party and you".

Obviously, I was impressed. Then, I woke up this morning to see that the Conservative Party has now introduced a "contract for jobs". In my opinion, this contract is full of common sense solutions. One of the highlights was this:

"introduce Work for Yourself, a new scheme to help unemployed would-be entrepreneurs start their own business by giving them access to a business mentor and start-up loans."

I happen to think this overall concept is great, it's something we should have been doing here since the beginning of the internet boom. I do wonder about the word "scheme" though. Maybe overseas that word carries a different connotation, but here, that word sounds under-handed and negative.

The election is four days away. The Conservatives are on serious offense right now. I almost can't wait until the 10pm and 11pm hours here in the States for the new articles to start hitting the British websites in their early morning hours. You have to assume Gordon Brown wants to respond, which would mean Cameron is controlling the debate. I suspect we'll have four more days of full throttle offense from Cameron and the Conservatives on their way to victory on Thursday.

Britons Adopt "Contract" Theme

On Thursday afternoon I tuned it to watch the third and final Prime Minister debate from across the pond, you can watch the entire debate here. As mentioned here before, this is the first time these debates have ever been televised. One bit of irony for me was the way Gordon Brown mirrored Richard Nixon. Not necessarily the Richard Nixon from the first ever televised Presidential debates in 1960, but the later Nixon on the 1968 and 1972 campaigns. So the "television thing" is something we Americans could claim as our idea, now adopted by the Britons some 50 years later.

Now, the guy at the top of the ballot for the Conservative Party, David Cameron, has proposed a "contract" to 3.5 million independent voters. He went through many of the same rituals that Newt Gingrich and the Republicans did in 1994, such as signing a giant version of the contract in front of a crowd. The "contract" also includes a suggestion to the voters that if the promises are not met, they are to "vote us out" in five years.

A good report on this new development can be found here:

The contract sets out 16 different pledges – five to change politics, five to change the economy and six to change society.

They include controlling immigration, cutting the pay of Government ministers and raising standards in schools.

The two-page document – entitled “A contract between the Conservative Party and you” – is also used to rebuff Labour allegations that Mr Cameron is secretly planning to remove some benefits, including the winter fuel allowance and other state perks for pensioners.

The contract can be found here in full.

If you haven't paid attention to this process overseas, it's worth looking at because I think the Conservative Party is doing many things we would do well adopting here in the lead up to 2010 and 2012. In that final debate, in a somewhat heated moment where the candidates are actually afforded more dialogue than ours are afforded, there was this great comment spoken by David Cameron:

"But do I want to cut taxes on all businesses, particularly small businesses to get the economy moving? You're damn right I do."

If you go to the CSPAN feed of the debate and advance to 35:54, you'll see the comments in full. We don't hear candidates talk like that here.

We've heard the saying that "life mirrors art", well in this case, countries are mirroring countries through their political systems. With the expected results this week in Britain, where the Conservative Party is now poised to lead for the first time since 1997, we might do well to remember what worked and what didn't, and see if we can do some mirroring of our own. Elections like these, and the recent elections in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia show that when we intelligently and passionately take our message to the voters, we win elections.

King: Election winner will be out of power for a generation

In my obsession with the British elections next week, the headline really jumped out at me.

“I saw the Governor of the Bank of England last week when I was in London and he told me whoever wins this election will be out of power for a whole generation because of how tough the fiscal austerity will have to be.”

The column continued:

However, leaving this inconsistencies aside, the comments do seem plausible: King has said repeatedly that the Government will need to impose far more ambitious cuts on the deficit than it currently plans. The comments ought to stand as a reminder that although the focus of the election has switched away to bigotgate, and the economic focus worldwide to the eurozone malaise, Britain faces a decade of hurt in the wake of its decade of debt.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies spelt it out earlier this week in typically frank terms. Labour and the LibDem plans imply the biggest squeeze on public services since the 1970s, when the IMF was in town. The Tory plans imply the biggest set of cuts since records began in 1948.

The Republican party faces the same danger in both 2010 and 2012. With Obama still in office and until he is out of office, there are going to be continual fractures to our system. Our side needs to be ready and be upfront about our solutions and our plans. I've written about 1992, 1994 and 1996 before. I will continue to say that we must be bold and we must be realistic. We must have a conversation with the American people.

The damage that Obama is inflicting, including the sense of entitlements, is not going to go away easily. Hard decisions are going to have to be made. If we start having the conversations now, we will not only prepare people for the realities of tough decisions and real life in what is America, but we will start to get people to understand, to work with us and to advocate on our behalf within their circles of influence.

As Ronald Reagan said in 1975: "Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pastels, but bold colors, which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?"

Let's start presenting our bold colors now. As I mentioned here before, Congressman Paul Ryan's Roadmap For America's Future is a great place to start. I love the British and I love watching Question Time. But, I don't want to be like our friends from across the pond in 2013 when a Republican President is sworn in to office.

Tim Aker for Aveley

My old friend from the Draft Newt '08 Campaign, is running for a local office next week just outside of London in a community called Aveley. Listen to him speak, then think about Newt Gingrich, and you'll understand why we worked so well together.



Tim has a great grasp on the concept that guided Draft Newt '08, "Ideas Today, Solutions Tomorrow". He is putting forth real plans, real solutions, and leaving it to the voters to decide. I wonder if we should do that in the states...

While I may not agree with the party Tim has aligned himself with, when the Conservative party seems to be headed in the right direction, one source said that Tim is bringing the UKIP party back to the mainstream, he has been called "the future of his party" and he has given it "added credibility".

Keep up the good work Tim, win or lose, you've done great good for our cause. After the election, let's have a virtual drink at the bar, the Newcastle Brown Ale is on me.