A commercial from the 1950s...

What do you think now!

Christmas at Arlington Cemetary

Arlington National

These wreaths - some 5,000 - are donated by the Worcester Wreath Company of Harrington, Maine. The owner, Merrill Worcester, not only provides the wreaths, but covers the trucking expense as well. He has done this since 1992. In addition, in most years, groups of Maine school kids combine an educational trip to Washington D.C. with this event to help out!

Plus or Minus!!!

J.P. Morgan Global Wealth Management recently published the following information:

Cabinet Appointees with Private Sector Experience:
T. Roosevelt 36%
Taft 39
Wilson 51
Harding 48
Coolidge 47
Hoover 40
F. Roosevelt 50
Truman 50
Eisenhower 58
Kennedy 28
Johnson 45
Nixon 53
Ford 43
Carter 31
Reagan 56
Bush I 52
Clinton 36
Bush II 53
Obama 8

This table shows that Obama has appointed dramatically far fewer cabinet level heads who have had private sector experience than any other president dating back to 1900.

One view: Obama sees very little value in utilizing business talent - even as the government controls large stakes in financial firms like Citigroup and AIG and auto companies like GM and Chrysler, as government agencies mushroom in size and more "agency type" governemnt entities are proposed, and his administration seeks to promote private sector hiring.

Another view: Obama believes that governemnt experience leads to compentency and experience serving the public is beneficial so he sought those type of people.

Guess how Main street and Wall Street interprets this....