What about a single 6 year term for POTUS?

I have had this thought many times over the years and have discussed it with a number of my friends in that time. Now I want to know what the WORLD thinks about it. 

              As the 2012 election draws near I find I am completely turned off by the thought of my president wasting his time on something as trivial as "campaigning" or as pointless as "debating." I find myself asking.. Did Al Qaida take time  off to watch the debates? Are Hamas and Hezbollah observing the elections with bated breath? Are the Chinese taking a break from trying to destroy our economy while we figure out that whole president thing?  Did the election influence Hurricane Sandy one iota?  The answer to all these questions of course is not just no but HELL NO!

           Simply put, there is WAY too much going on in the world that requires the attention of the POTUS for him to be engaged in this nonsense. I have always believed that it basically takes even the brightest presidents two years to figure out how to do that job. That means by the time the guy gets his legs under him, we get a good year out of him and he's off to the campaign trail. If he's a little slower it takes him closer to three years to figure the job out and we get nothing from him before he starts re-interviewing for the job.  Now I know he isn't campaigning 24x7 but he IS the president 24x7. Hence ANY time spent doing the former takes away from the latter. 

          That brings me to my proposal.. ONE six year term. And get out. Good or bad, thank you for your service, now go home.  If he did a great job, you find a way for him to advise the next guy. Be part of his transition team, cabinet, whatever. If he stunk it up, give him his gold watch, his secret service detail and his library and send him packing.

        If I apply this to presidents that I remember from my lifetime.. Here's what it would look like.. The first election I really remember was Nixon in '68. Nixon was a pretty good president. Without the '72 election there is no stain of Watergate on our country's history and Nixon, who got us out of Viet Nam and put the brakes on OPEC when they were about to spin out of control, could have focused on just being president until '74. In '74 I don't know if Carter was ready to make his run but let's say he was.. He's in office until '80 and if he DOES lead us into a period of 18% mortgages etc, he's gone..

 Enter Reagan.. whose first two years could only objectively be described as abysmal. But by year three he'd gotten things figured out and things went swimmingly after that. In '86 Bush I takes over.. Not as charismatic as Reagan he's unable to sustain the momentum of Reagan's programs and on top of that ends up with Gulf War I in his lap. Gas prices spiral out of control, the economy tanks. 

Enter Clinton in '92.. Again.. first two years a struggle.. but then four years of really good stuff.. A scandal here and there, impeachment, yadda yadda yadda, but al in all by any objective measure an effective presidency.. But outta there in '98 BEFORE things started to go south.. 

Enter Bush II.. Is there any doubt that if THIS guy is brought intel that Bin Ladin, the man responsible for the USS Cole, The first WTC bombing and the marine barracks attack can be taken out he says "Hell yeah!" No Bin Ladin.. no 9/11 and the multi-trillion dollar impact on our economy. No Gulf War II.. No excuse for Iraq II. Maybe Bush, being a little slower, takes three years to get it figured out, we still get 3 years of effective presidency and he's gone in '04. At that point  Obama is a first term senator.. So he's not in the picture there.. So in '04 you would have to conclude that Kerry probably beats McCain. Hard for me to imagine John Kerry being a great leader or anything.. but again applying the 2 year rule, by '07 I think he steadies the economy gets a handle on the mortgage mess, because he can do so without the distraction of the Gulf Wars that never happened. Of course by 2010 if the economy is stable, is America READY to turn to a black man as its savior? If a Democrat (Kerry) has led us for the last 6 years and things are not markedly better than they were when Bush II left office, do we suppose Romney would look better by comparison to an inexperienced senator from Illinois instead of an incumbent president?


Yeah.. that's a lotta dominoes aint it?  And I never even played Bones in college. But it's an interesting exercise. At least is is for me. What about you?

The Cheap Guy Volume 2. - GasBuddy

For those of you who don't have smart phones, you may stop reading now. Gasbuddy is an app that runs on smart phones which provides prices and location information for gas in and around your current location. Where I live, there is as much as a 40 cents per gallon spread between the lowest and highest prices. I drive a Suburban to work. It has a 42 gallon gas tank. I fill it up every other week. That 40 cent swing represents $16.80 per tankful saved. Multiplied by 26 that's $436.80 a year. More if I have to do extra driving and use more gas. That's basically 3 free tankfuls of of gas each year. $873 over the course of two years, which would basically buy me a new set of very good quality tires.

But most people don't drive SUVs with these gas prices. So let's examine a "typical" car scenario.

A standard mid-size car has about a 20 gallon gas tank. So that driver saves $8.00 per fill-up. Now because I drive a Suburban I don't drive as many miles as most people do. I do less than 10,000 miles a year. Most drivers will do close to double that. But let's use the old mark of 15,000 miles per year. If that car gets 25 mpg ( I know what the EPA ratings say but most of us know that in reality cars seldom get the mileage they put on those damn stickers.) that driver will burn through 600 gallons of gas in a year which means they save $240 a year. Over a 5 year span that's $1200. Again, if you are independently wealthy, this is no big deal to you. The rest of us like saving money.


How to get it: Go to your provider's app store/marketplace and search for gasbuddy. Download it and install it.

How it works: It's pretty simple, you launch the app, it asks if it can use location services, you answer yes and it comes back with a screen showing a list of the closest gas stations to your location complete with the most recently reported pricing. If you find that price to be inaccurate, there's an easy interface for you to update the current price. You can sort by price or distance. You can also tap on the station you want to go and get directions from your current location. You may also see a map of all the nearby stations. That way you can determine if it's much out of your way to go save that extra 5-10 cents per gallon or if you don't need gas right this second, you can plan to hit the absolute cheapest station when you're heading in that direction.

What it costs: My favorite price in the world.. Free!!

So go get this thing.

Happy New Year!! And Stay Cheap!!