Nationalize now

The United States should nationalize the banks receiving TARP funds now. Our goal should be to return the banks to financial health and sell them back to private owners as quickly as possible. Here is the rationale:

We already given many of them more money than they are worth; accepting anything less than complete ownership is less of a good deal than the government and its citizens could get by going straight to the stock market. That would be unacceptable to Warren Buffet, and there is no reason the taxpayers should accept it either. It’s been done before in the case of the savings & loans, and it has worked. There’s nothing “un-American” about it.

Upon nationalization, total compensation should be capped immediately for all employees at no more than $500,000 per year.

Many people (most of them bankers) argue that this would be counter-productive. “The most talented will flee. Who will be left to return the banks to health?” Or, “This is the time our economy most needs this talent,” they whine.

Well, let’s deconstruct those arguments. To where will they flee? There appears to be a limited number of jobs open in finance at the moment, but no doubt some will find alternatives, perhaps at a private bank or a partnership that has taken no government money, and at which losing financial strategies and phony profits are not rewarded.

But more importantly, why would anyone think for even one moment that the people who got us in this mess are the most likely people to get us out of it? “OK, Sabathia, you gave up 12 runs in the first inning, now by God, it’s your responsibility to go back out there and pitch a shut-out the rest of the way so we have a fighting chance to win this game!”

Others claim it’s un-American to limit what someone can earn, after all, C.C. Sabathia is making $20 million a year for throwing a baseball every few days. But that’s a bogus argument, too. The Yankees aren’t taking government funding, and the bankers can’t throw the cheese 100 mph. Athletes, actors and entrepreneurs deserve whatever they can get because they live or die by their personal performances, and they assume a massive amount of risk. When they get old, make mistakes, or just become unpopular, the millions disappear and they have to start looking for a spot on “Dancing with the Stars” – or worse, a real job.

There are also a couple of really good reasons to do this. For millions of Americans the current financial bailout looks like more of the same old business of the rich being taken care of at the expense of taxpaying, regular folk. (Perhaps because it’s true?) If we are all going to pull together to bring the country back to its former glory, everyone has to feel like they are getting a fair shake, and that no one – especially the rich and privileged – are getting a free ride.

The blame for this mess is so broad and diffused that there aren’t going to be any big trials; nobody is going to go to jail (other than the Madoff-types who are just common criminals writ large). But the country needs catharsis.

At least we can start by hacking away at the bloated, unreasonable compensation structure that has strangled accountability and meritocratic governance in American business for the past 30 years. Anyone who has ever worked in a Fortune 500 company and gotten to know a few of the actual people who cling to these positions knows these little Emperor-wannabees are mostly naked, and in some cases, eunuchs.

Seeing the management class, which has been a big winner in good times and a pretty-big winner in bad times, put on an equal footing with the working women and men of this country can only help promote the common good and democratic ideals.

Finally, the only people who really believe that there will be a shortage of talented people available to run these organizations for such chump-change are the people now making the stupid money. Less than 1% of the population earns more than $500k per year, and some of them are Chris Rock, Beyonce and Peyton Manning. There will be a deep bench to pick from and competent people will be lined up to do the hard work required.

Does anyone honestly think the new group could do a worse job than the lot in place now?

George Washington

It would be impossible to do justice to George Washington in 300 words, but today is his 277th birthday and it would be worse to let the day pass without note. It's an understatement to say he was a remarkable man, and yet he has always seemed to me to be seriously under-appreciated in the country he, more than anyone, founded.

He was reduced early on to a stereotype -- the little boy who cut down the cherry tree and could not tell a lie; then the adult who stood in row boats and wore wooden teeth. Even the spectacularly unglamorous Adams has had his day in the sun in recent years, while this physically impressive, morally righteous, courageous, charismatic leader remains the least dimensionalized of our founders. There should be a great movie made about him.

-------------------------------------------

I'll be traveling for a few days. Play nice everyone.

Obama so far

President Obama has been is office one month today. On the one hand it seems completely unfair to judge him after such a short time period. But on the other, let’s be honest, we judge everybody pretty much all the time – can’t help it – it’s what people do. Having posed the question, I shall answer it as well, based on three main areas.

The Team: By-and-large he has appointed high quality people and he did it very quickly compared to previous administrations, but I remain disappointed that Geithner and Daschle made it through the ethical screen. But, hey, it’s Washington. Grade: B

The Plan. The economic recovery legislation could end up an A or an F; only time will tell. He deserves credit for getting it done quickly, but way too much control was given to the Pelosi-Reid crowd, and it smells to me more like a pork barrel than a focused economic tool. (Does anyone think a mag-lev train running between Disneyland and Las Vegas is critical economic priority?) It’s an enormous amount of money, but I fear it isn’t enough, or the right kind of stuff, to really make a difference. I also believe the big banks should be nationalized and dozens of senior people should be fired. The mortgage relief plan is hard to like. As Dennis Miller said on Leno last night, “We gotta help the helpless, but the clueless – I don’t give a rat’s ass about.” I hope with all my heart I’m wrong on this package, but…Grade: D.

Politics. Here again, I’ve been disappointed. He should have been tougher on Congress and on the bankers. Our problems were caused by too many people to make it possible to ever point an accurate finger of blame. But it would do a lot for the general morale to fire a few millionaire business-criminals and to publically humiliate a few political hacks. A little demagoguery isn’t so bad if it is used strategically.

Obama has also spent too much effort scaring the public in an effort to build support for his economic plans. Given the state of things I don’t believe many needed it; they know things are bad. We need the President to be the guy who inspires us to believe we can overcome these problems and be great again. Grade: C-

Overall: C- , but this student shows promise and there is a long way to go before school lets out.
Let’s hear your grade, but please, no “Incompletes.” If you aren’t willing to stick your neck out just go watch TV.

You could not make this up

[From the New York Times, Wednesday, February 18, 2009]

Upstate Man Charged With Beheading His Estranged Wife

A man who founded a Muslim-American television station to help fight Muslim stereotypes is to appear on Wednesday in a suburban Buffalo court on charges that he decapitated his wife last week.

[full story here]

The First Heroes

I’m reading a book called The First Heroes, which is about the Doolittle raid on Japan in the early months of WWII. I’ve know the basic story since I was a kid, but like any good book, the real soul of the story is contained in the details, and The First Heroes delivers.

Here’s the basic story. In April 1942, eighty men, all volunteers, flew 16 B-25’s off of the USS Hornet over 650 miles of Pacific Ocean to successfully bomb Tokyo and a few other Japanese cities. It was the first American victory of any kind, coming four months after Pearle Harbor and a string of Japanese military successes against us.

All the men were told they were volunteering for an exceptionally dangerous mission, and were given several opportunities to back out as they learned more details. None did. Very briefly, here is what they had to deal with.

First of all, no one had every taken off from an aircraft carrier in a B-25 (or anything remotely like it) until these guys did it in the middle of a raging storm, from a deck less that half as long as the normal runway length used by that plane.

The storm produced 60 foot swells. As each plane took off the deck was aimed downhill, so that the pilots stared directly into the ocean as they gained speed. But the Navy deck crewed planned each launch precisely so that half way down the deck it began to pitch up by 30º and reached its peak as each bomber got to the end, thus aiding lift. All 16 launched successfully.

Unfortunately, the Navy task force had been detected and they launched several hundred miles earlier than called for in the original plan. This was a big problem for several reasons. They were supposed to fly to Japan, and then continue another 600 miles to free China (as opposed to the much closer Japanese occupied China). The pilots knew before leaving the carrier that it was problematic that they would have enough fuel to make it; the extra distance dictated by the early launch meant that they would almost certainly have to ditch in occupied China, or into the sea. They all took off anyway.

The original plan called for arriving over Tokyo at dawn, but the new schedule put them there at high noon, with no fighter escort, and with half their normal defensive weapons removed to make room for extra fuel tanks. (They did put broomsticks in the ball turrets to simulate machine gun barrels.)

It was perfect weather over Japan. Every plane dropped its bombs and most hit their target. The Japanese were taken completely by surprise, and while there was heavy antiaircraft fire and Zeros rose to meet the B-25’s, somehow none were shot down.

Then they had a bit of luck when the winds shifted in their favor, which gave them renewed hope that they could reach free China. But instead of having a radio beacon to home in on (confusion over the International dateline had it turned off) they continued to rely on dead-reckoning via the stars and their homemade, hand drawn maps. Their trip was more like those made by 16th century explorers than by modern navigators.

So on they flew for more than 12 hours to the China coast, then south to avoid occupied territory, until their fuel began to run out. Unfortunately, the early take off change brought them to this point of their flight in the middle of the night, and in the midst of another major storm.
Of the 16 bombers, one landed safely, wheels-down in Russia. That’s a whole other story. Three essentially crash-landed on beaches or just off shore. Because of the heavy cloud cover, the other 12 planes could find no safe landing options and took the only option open to them – they jumped out.

Among all the crewmen in those planes, only Colonel Doolittle had every parachuted before, and he broke both ankles upon landing. But as the giants Billys (as they called the B-25’s) began to cough, sputter and lose altitude, the crews put on the chutes and jumped into the black void. They had no idea what was below them – river, ocean, mountain, Japanese army camp? They just jumped.

I’m having a hard time getting these images out of my head. For one thing, they keep raising uncomfortable questions like, “would I have ever had the courage to do what these men, whose average age was probably around 24, did?”

For another, I can’t help but to contrast the selflessness and bravery of these average Americans, who were the first heroes of the War, with the character displayed by the business and political leadership of our country these days. How did things change so much, and can we ever return to those values?

Dear David Axelrod

Mailed: February 13, 2009

Mr. David Axelrod
Senior Presidential Advisor
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. Axelrod:

It has been very discouraging to see the administration so badly out-sold these past few weeks in the battle over the stimulus bill.

Your team focused on the message that it was important to do something, which was a little like telling consumers that it is important to brush their teeth. They may know it’s the right thing to do, but they have to be convinced that your brand is the best for them.

Meanwhile, the Republicans dropped easily understood, sensational, nuggets ridiculing plans to buy condoms, sod and other silly line items funded in the bill.

In my humble opinion you should have been selling the benefits of the big items in the bill; for example, the power grid, or the computerization of medical records. I try to follow this stuff closely, and while I accept that these are good things, I certainly couldn’t explain the cost/benefit relationships of them, or extol their virtues in a very detailed, persuasive manner to someone else.

Conversations with many well-educated people have convinced me that the country’s understanding of these issues is very superficial in general -- but people want to know more.

So I am writing to offer a modest suggestion: Take those two issues, identify the benefits they will bring to society (number of jobs created, money saved in the future, new capabilities, etc.), and put those benefits into plain, everyday language the average American can understand. Give those bullet points to a good PowerPoint creator, add some engaging graphics, and then send the finished product as a self-running file via email to everyone on your considerable address list.

It would be on more than 50% of all Americans’ computers in a matter of hours. Heck, people will send all manner of silliness to everyone they know. With the country in such desperate shape people would welcome the chance to help inform their friends, families and neighbors of ways to dig ourselves out of this economic hole we are all in, if the tool were simple, engaging, and non-partisan.

You guys were brilliant at this sort of viral messaging during the campaign. In fact, it was one of the big reasons I voted for President Obama. Solving the huge problems the country faces is going to require new social coalitions, and great communications. The motivated, grassroots organization you built was so impressive I felt this could make the difference between success and failure.

I know it’s early, but these skills seems to have abandoned you since taking office, but now they are needed more critically than ever. Even the best of ideas have to be sold.

Yesterday was the birthday of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. Many people believe they were selling two of the most powerful ideas ever articulated by man, and yet 200 years later they still have to be sold.

I wish you the best of luck.

Sincerely,

d'blank

The Greatest American

Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address Saturday, March 4, 1865

Weeks of wet weather preceding Lincoln's second inauguration had caused Pennsylvania Avenue to become a sea of mud and standing water. Thousands of spectators stood in thick mud at the Capitol grounds to hear the President. As he stood on the East Portico to take the executive oath, the completed Capitol dome over the President's head was a physical reminder of the resolve of his Administration throughout the years of civil war. Chief Justice Salmon Chase administered the oath of office. In little more than a month, the President would be assassinated.

Fellow-Countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

One man's pork...

One man’s pork is another man’s infrastructure redevelopment program. The President was good last night. One of the things I like best about him is his patience. He handled the lack of bipartisan support issue very well by pointing out that it will require a long-term effort, and that we have just started the journey.

I’d still only give him a “C” on selling the stimulus plan. He was overly focused on convincing people that a stimulus plan is necessary (which I believe most people are willing to accept, even if they aren’t really sure), rather than selling the benefits of this particular plan.

I’ve come to believe that we need to act, and that it has to be big. And while I’d prefer that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid be prohibited from having any input at all, that isn’t how the system works. As the President has said, “Of course this is a spending bill. What else do you think a stimulus is?” Pretty much any spending will stimulate something. The bill won’t be anybody’s idea of perfection. In fact, the fact that so many people are taking shots at it gives me a little hope that it might be the right plan.

Now let’s see what’s in store for Wall Street. Geithner talks in a few minutes. Tomorrow the CEOs of the big banks appear before Congress. Read Ross Sorkins’ recommended questions for a good laugh (or cry).

Obama press conference tonight @ 8:00

I have nothing more to say until I hear what the President has to say tonight. I'm hoping for a more effective sales job on the stimulus package. Everything I've seen and heard so far has been long on platitude and short on specifics; for example, his most recent Weekly Address.

I'd like to see him pick one thing and go into it in some detail. What is the new electrical grid they keep talking about? Why is it good, and how many jobs will it create? And don't be afraid to throw a couple of charts up there. If we heard more about the really meaty things we'd be less likely to be distracted and angered by the parochial pork-barrel stuff that Congress added.

Obambi

BHO has got to get tougher. It’s time to Cowboy-up and kick some bootie; there’s no time to even take names. He’s just been too nice.

The TGIF party for the Republicans a couple weeks ago was a good try, in the spirit of bipartisanship and all. Much good it did him, but it was smart to try. He went the extra mile.
And it was good to hear him get a little froggie with the GOP yesterday. They don’t need to be reminded that he won the election, but the American people probably do. I don’t really understand it, but Democrats, regardless of who they are or how big they won, seem to be always on the defensive. The Republican brand may only represent the way 40% or fewer of Americans affiliate themselves, but they always act like winners – as if they know they are the smartest and their ideas are the best. Democratic politicians are always explaining subtleties and apologizing.

So now we have a pretty bad stimulus bill that is bad because the old-school Congressional Dems loaded it up with local pork that won’t stimulate anything except reelection contributions from the home front. Then in a wimpy and unsuccessful attempt to appease the GOP, they layered in some more of the kind of tax-cuts Obama ran against. I don’t know if they are a good idea or a bad one, but everyone knows he doesn’t want them and that they are being forced on him, making him look weaker still.

Now the always-defensive Dems really have something to feel defensive about, but being members of Congress they are sociopathicly unable to actually fix it. Giving the appearance of a repair job in the joint committee is the best they are going to be able to do.

It is the Democratic Congressional leadership the President needs to invite -- not to cocktails in Williamsburg -- but to the nearest woodshed for a good, old-fashioned, south-side-of-Chicago, ass whoopin’.

He needs to do it so they’ll fix the bill, and to make everyone remember who won the election and who is in charge. It’s up to him, and only he can do it. Because no one in this country, regardless of political point-of-view, will be lead by Bambi. We prefer to be lead by the Duke or Dirty Harry.

1,000,000,000,000

The size of the new economic recovery plan is approaching one trillion dollars. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m having a hard time getting my head around this number. I often work with seven-figure numbers, and occasionally even eight; but that’s about it. A trillion is 13 digits.

I heard a trillion explain this way today:

One million seconds equals 11 ½ days

One billion seconds equals 32 years

One trillion seconds equals 32,000 years

Yiikes.

Tom Daschle, public servant

Tom’s “public” was Leo Hindery, the New York media rich guy who paid him a million a year, plus providing the now famous car and driver, in exchange for what appear to be some very ill-defined duties.

Of course he wasn’t lobbying, which would have required him to register as such, which would have brought certain vocational restrictions, included barring him from the Obama cabinet per BHO’s self-imposed ban on that particular strain of doxy.

Ah, but a lobbyist by any other name is not a lobbyist in the parlance of our government. It turns out that anyone can “engage in lobbying activities on behalf of a client” so long as said activities do not constitute more than 20% of one’s activities on behalf of that client. TD was the only one tracking his hours, so I guess it worked out OK for him.

I make a tab less than TD, but my employer supplies me with a few perks that sweeten the job a little. Despite never having served as the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, I am, however, fully aware that these perks trigger tax obligations. And my professional tax advisor reminds me just in case it slips my mind. But if it could happen to Charlie Rangel and Tim Geithner, I guess it could happen to Tommy D., too. He would have been a little more believable if he’d paid up in June when the “error” was discovered rather than waiting until he’d been nominated for the H&HS gig.

Ever since the news of his tax problems broke we’ve been hearing about what a popular guy he is on the Hill. I’m just wondering how much of his popularity stems from the $66,000+ he and his wife gave to various Senate, House and Presidential candidates last year. (Including, ironically, Charlie Rangel.) Full rundown here. Well, I’m sure those contributions will play no role in the confirmation vote.

Finally, don’t you love how Tommy quickly labeled his failure to pay his income taxes a “stupid mistake”? This is has become the de rigor response for all manner of political chicanery. I call it the Harrison Ford response, for the advice he gave the President (Donald Moffat) while playing Jack Ryan in Clear and Present Danger. The basic idea is you self-label yourself something terrible, but survivable (stupid), before your critics or the press can label you something worse and less survivable (e.g., thief, tax-cheat, influence peddler).

So somebody please tell me, why is it so important that Tom Daschle be the Secretary of H&HS that we are expected to overlook this pretty thievery which saps the morale of the country and dishonors genuine public service?