Give GM the money

I know, I know. It’s bad economic policy and probably un-American too, but we can’t let General Motors go under; at least not right now.

I know all the reasons why not, and if we weren’t already in the middle of an economic shit-storm unlike anything else in our lifetimes, I’d be arguing to let them go through Chapter 11 and emerge in a trimmed-down form more befitting the 21st Century. But we are in a terrible economic crisis, and it makes no sense to allow another 200,000 people to be added to the jobless – not to mention tens of thousands more from GM’s supplier companies, who employ as many as three million.

Whatever we lend them now we won’t be spending on unemployment checks, food stamps, job retraining, the support of a bankrupt city of Detroit, etc. I am also persuaded that a viable automotive industry is vital to the national defense.

This money should not be lent without significant strings attached that include management and labor give-backs. But it must be given lest we dig this hole even deeper. Now is not the time to worry about the deficit – we need to keep bailing this boat hard.

Happy Birthday Chuck

I don't care what anyone says, I've always liked Prince Charles, and today is his 60th birthday. He is an accomplished pilot, polo player and organic farmer. He is largely considered to be eccentric because of his long-held beliefs in green topics, which have now become mainstream. He raises tens of millions of pounds every year for the Prince's Trust which serves disadvantaged youth, and he makes over 600 appearances per year on behalf of the crown.

Just imagine being born and raised for only one purpose in life and getting to be 60 without having a chance to do that one thing. It must be hard. I won't go into the whole Dianna/Camilla thing as it is too emotional an issue.

Finally, check out that coat. Not everyone could look good in something like that. I wish I had one.

Pigs at the trough

The market is down big again today, and I’m sitting here waiting to hear how many of my friends will be among the 600 people losing their jobs at Time this week. I know a few of the names already; they are young family men with a couple of kids who will now be out of work, cast-off from an industry that is contracting, sitting at home in a house they can’t afford and can’t sell, with depleted savings and little chance of finding a decent job in the near term.

Their fate is due primarily to the failures of the company’s management to adjust to changes in the market that have taken place over nearly a decade. Senior management has rewarded themselves with new, more powerful jobs and contracts.

Meanwhile, the government is pumping tens of billions more into AIG and the other weak sisters of Wall Street like they were force feeding ducks to make a cash pâté. In gratitude, the recipients sit on the dough rather than taking the risk of making loans to either businesses or consumers. That was some deal Paulson and Congress cut.

Fannie Mae reported a $29 billion loss today, wiping out all of their previously reported profits for the decade.

American Express is turning itself into a bank holding company so that it can find a place at the Federal feeding trough, because, God knows, they deserve some of that money, too, after lowering their decades-long conservative standards the past few years to grab some of the easy money in substandard credit.

The GM, Ford and Chrysler managements are threatening the loss of tens of thousands more jobs if they don’t get their share of the pork – billions more. They ended free health care for their white collar retirees this week and would do the same in a heartbeat for the union retirees if there weren’t contracts in place to prevent them. We spent most of the last 25-30 years blaming the unions for the auto industry’s problems, but every time there was a choice to be made management made the wrong one: wrong vehicles, wrong styling, too many brands, bad union contracts, and on and on.

The leaders of these companies made millions in undeserved bonuses, wrote books, became statesmen and retired to Arizona to play some golf. The people they led lost their jobs and their homes.

No plutocrat actually exploded like the Python man above, but they were all just so many pigs at the trough. Shame on them.

Barack the conservative

Barack Obama is going to surprise a lot of people by being more conservative than expected. And by “conservative” I mean both in the sense of cautious as well as ideologically. As David Brook’s quoted Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center in his column this morning, “This was an election where the middle asserted itself. There was “no sign” of a “movement to the left.” Brook’s expect Obama to govern that way and makes a persuasive case.

The Rahm Emanuel pick is a good first sign. I remembered and reread a Fortune article from September 2006 in which Democratic strategist Paul Begala, who described Emanuel's aggressive style as a "cross between a hemorrhoid and a toothache." But the point of the article was more that Emanuel is both smart and pragmatic and he knows how things work at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

A funny quote is attributed to Bill Clinton just after the ’92 election, in which after being asked how he felt, he was reported to have said, “like a dog that finally caught the pickup truck he’d been chasing.” That may have contributed to his waiting until just a week or so before taking office to pick his WH staff, which turned out to be the wrong people. Obama did this first and picked pros.

Did you know Obama is considered to be a pretty good poker player? If you did it was despite his campaign staff’s strenuous efforts to keep it under wraps until after the election. It’s not a bad skill for a President to have.

How much interest is there in the election? By noon on Wednesday you couldn’t find a copy of the New York Times anywhere for love nor money. Copies are for sale on eBay starting at $40 and going up from there. Time magazine is out today. They normally put out office copies for employees first thing in the morning, but there were none today and they have gone back to press to print an additional 200,000 copies. I think a lot of people are starting their own family time capsules.

Here’s a quote I heard the other day, apropos of nothing special: “Experience is the name that everyone gives to their mistakes.” Oscar Wilde.

Counting the days

It has felt to me for some time like the White House had been taken over by a band of corrupt, stupid, frat boys bent on sacking the Treasury and rubbing everyone’s nose in it for fun. Well, we can count the days now until they are gone. They could do a lot more damage in the two and a half months they have left, but frat-boy-cheerleader-in-chief seems inclined to keep a low profile and just slink out of town. Good riddance.

If nothing else, it will be great to have a President who can stand up and make a speech like the one President-elect Obama made last night in Chicago. It was genuinely inspiring, and I think we’re going to need lots of inspiration in the coming years. At least we won’t have to cringe with embarrassment every time our nation’s leader opens his mouth to speak. No one will “misunderestimate” Obama.

At the risk of being schmaltzy, this really only could happen in America and I feel a lot of pride in my country this morning for showing the world we have not forgotten our ideals.

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Kaz wins the “prize of marginal value” with the closest guess to Obama’s Electoral College total of 338. Kaz had the highest guess in the pack at 344. rsb was second at 319. jb was last, guessing McCain with 275. I’ll report later this week on the prize once I figure out what it is.

It feels like...

...the whole world is holding its collective breath today.

The worst person in the world

I should have called this post “Ben Aflac is actually a really good actor.” His Keith Olbermann take off last night on SNL was brilliant – revealing him as the pompous, self-righteous, tool that he is. I saw Olbermann walking down 49th Street, near the GE Building, recently, and had to restrain myself from greeting him with a hearty “hello douche bag” as we passed, which was my strong inclination.

I’m happy to report that he looks much worse in person than on TV. He’s kind of short, at least compared to what I had expected, and really soft looking. He has one of those gushy, wide rear ends. In fact he looked really soft all over -- what my high school football coaches used to call “a real cake-eater.” Plus, he was wearing his studio makeup – lipstick, rouge, the whole schmegeggie. (Or maybe I’m giving him too much credit – maybe it was his everyday street makeup.) In any event it made the whole package truly frightening.

Speaking of SNL, I thought John McCain was funny and personable; everything he hasn’t been on the campaign trail. But did anyone else detect a hint of surrender in the opening bit? I was surprised McCain went along with the part where Tina Fey did her little aside, pitching the “Palin 2012” tee-shirts. It seemed a little too close to the reality of the situation to me. I would have thought he have balked at including it.

[Happy Birthday Charly!]