Chinese justice

According to Mao: The Untold Story, Mao Zedong was directly responsible for the deaths of more than 70 million Chinese. He once ordered 10,000 men buried alive. He sent his own brother out to be ambushed, and then refused to help him when he survived – allowing him to freeze to death in the mountains.

He was a real bastard, but if you believe the old saying, “that which does not kill you makes you stronger” you can only imagine how tough the Chinese people who survived may be.

Last week the Chinese government was planning to sell a state owned steel mill to private owners. (I can’t help but wonder if Goldman Sachs represented either party.). The workers demonstrated forcefully in anticipation of layoffs. The new owners sent the factory boss out to crack down, and the workers beat him to death. Beat him to death.

I’m not advocating violence, but it makes me wonder what it would take to stir an American mob to this level of political passion. Tonghua Iron & Steel was contemplating laying off 10% of their 30,000 workers. Tragic if you are in the 10%, but not that bad as these things go.

How do you think the Chinese would have dealt with Bernie Madoff if he’d been fleecing the Han rather than the Jew?

And what about Goldman Sachs? I still can’t believe there has been no meaningful public outcry in America against this organization. (I’m still surprised no one has killed O.J. either.)

To understand how deeply GS has its hooks into our economy, our government, and our pockets, I strongly recommend Matt Taibbi’s most recent piece in Rolling Stone, “The Great American Bubble Machine.”

Here’s the opening paragraph: “The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” So you know it’s balanced.

Once you read that you want to read Matt’s account of what happened to the financial markets last fall in, “The Big Takeover.”

After reading, either, let a lone both, you might find yourself daydreaming about a little Chinese justice for the Goldman crowd.

With friends like these…

President Obama would have been better off if the Republicans had been able to hold on to a few more seats. Unfortunately, instead of having a real enemy to fight he is stuck with a super majority of his own party; with friends like these, who needs enemies?

As always, David Brooks says it so much than me today, but I’ve been concerned from the very earliest days of this administration that Obama is just not tough enough for the job that needs to be done. I believe him to be a smart, sincere, pragmatic person, but he is a captive of a political party that isn’t any of those things, and he is letting them call the shots.

If you gave me 100-1 odds I would not bet five dollars that we’ll get a health care bill enacted that does a damn thing to curb the rise in health care costs. To do so would mean challenging the health care establishment like big pharma and insurance companies, and the gravy train they’ve been riding for 50 years. The Dems are not one bit more likely to do that than the Republicans were. In fact, the only difference between the two parties that I can see is for which business interest they principally whore.

The only hope is if the President stands up and says “enough!” and it doesn’t look to me like Obama is going to do it. The media is all a twitter over the Republican’s “stop Obama’s health care plan” initiative. Why? Who cares? The Republicans aren’t going to be a factor. They are just background noise. The bloated, blubbery, self-serving slab of pork the Democrats are creating has clogged most American’s arteries before it even gets out of the kitchen.

That pig is already dead. They may still force us to eat it, but they’ll pay for it in ’10.

Dear Commissioner Goodell:

Commissioner Roger Goodell

National Football League

280 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10017

Dear Commissioner Goodell:

I've had a belly-full of bad behavior by professional athletes, and I have no special love for Michael Vick nor any team for which he played. Furthermore, I think what he did to his dogs was despicable.

Never-the-less, I’m writing to urge you not to impose any additional penalties on him that would impede his ability to earn a living in his chosen profession. Mr. Vick has been punished by the proper authorities, and by any reasonable standard, punished harshly. The NFL has no moral authority to punish him further.

If, as suggested in this week's Sports Illustrated, you plan to make your decision based on whether or not he feels "deep remorse" for his deeds, I also request that you send me six numbers between 1 and 56 that I can play in next week’s Mega Millions drawing, as I could sure use your insight; my kid's birthdays just aren't bringing home the bacon. PETA's Ms. Newkirk, who wants to subject Vick to a brain scan to see if he is "capable of remorse," places her faith in neuroscience, but I’ll take good old-fashioned ESP any day.

Sometimes the best PR play is to just do the right thing. Let him play.

Go Browns.

Sincerely

d’blank

Why America is doomed

This is why I cant write about politics every day

Just read this New York Times story. Or don’t. It’ll make you ill. One of America’s biggest, bluest-chip companies, Aetna, sells health insurance to its fellow Americans, that covers room and board, but does not cover much of anything else. So you’re fine if you check in for a rest, but you are completely screwed if you actually need anything like an operation or medicine. So the people in this story go bankrupt because their worthless policy doesn’t cover the important things.

This product is marketed as a “limited benefit” policy. I haven’t seen an application, but no doubt the unpleasant details are in at least 8 point type and no farther than 10 pages from the front page.

Who do you suppose came up with this little innovation? Must have been an illegal alien, or maybe one of those homosexuals that wants to get married. Or maybe some small town, gun loving, church-goer. These are about the only people who make the news - -except when a celebrity croaks.

Surely the shameless cad wasn’t an upper middle class, polite, properly-dressed, good-school, regular-voter citizen? One of the people who never makes the news because they just have no pizzazz? Matt and Katie are too busy talking to bloggers who specializes in Michael Jackson pharmacology to dig into something this unsexy, un-American, exploitive and evil.

How to survive in business

The following are my rules for surviving in business. (Note that I did not say “succeeding,” which is an entirely different matter.) These rules may work more broadly, but by “business” I mean primarily large business, which is a particular species of employment, to which I’ve been subjected for 27 of the last 33 years.

I stole at least two of these from someplace long forgotten, and there isn’t much originality in the others either. This is certainly not a comprehensive list – just some things I’m fairly certain are true. I realize it’s kind of a pathetically short list after so many years in the workplace. Maybe you all have some suggestions for additions.

• If you wait to act until you are sure there is a problem, it is probably too late to do anything about it.


• High margin businesses are great, but they will hide a plethora of problems, give cover to a lot of specious expenses, and make mediocre managers look good.


• Most people’s biggest liability is their greatest strength taken too far.


• All things worth doing are not worth doing well. It’s better to act than to study. It is better to try five things quickly, even if it means making four mistakes, than to do one thing carefully. Three singles are better than one home run.


• Communication is everything. It is the mortar that holds the organization together.


• The hardest skill position to fill in any business is a good salesman.


• Enthusiasm is the most valuable quality to bring to the workplace.


• People work for many reasons. Money is only one of them, and it is rarely the number one reason.


• You manage things. You lead people.


• No one can do it alone. Success requires that everyone be a contributor. The most important thing you can do is hire the right people.


• Good ideas are a dime a dozen. Executing well is the key to success. (Inspiration without execution is hallucination.)


• Find something you do well, and then do more of it; e.g., if you are a good writer, find work where good writing is valued.


• It’s easier to apologize than to ask permission.


• Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, and then beat you with experience.


• Don't be irreplaceable - if you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.


• In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rental car.


• Never trust the bosses; this does not mean they are all evil – but that’s the way to bet.

Three things I like

I recommend “Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival,” by Norman Ollestad. It was a father’s day gift from my son, which coincidentally turned out to be a fascinating look at four generations of fathers and sons from one family, although the book is primarily about the author and his father, also named Norman.

Norman the elder was an extreme sports guy before the term existed. For Norman the younger’s first birthday in 1969, big Norm strapped the kid onto his back and took him out surfing off the Malibu beach where they lived.

The focal point of the story was a February 1979 airplane ride over the San Gabriel Mountains that went badly. The pilot, Big Norm, and his girlfriend were killed. Little Norm, then aged 11, had to hike down from over 8000 feet, in the dead of winter, to survive. It is an amazing tale, very well told, although I agree with the Times review, which found the cross-cutting format a bit annoying. Never-the-less, the cross-cutting to some of father and son’s adventures before the crash, especially their trip to Mexico, were almost as thrilling as the crash. This is a terrific, and very fast, read.

As popular as the blues are, it is difficult to hear new blues music. You won’t see the latest blues stars hosting SNL, or playing on the Plaza for the Today Show. So I was really happy to discover Murphy’s Saloon, a podcast available both online and via i-Tunes.

The host is Murphy. I don’t know much about him except that he is Chicago-based, and kind of a goofily, earnest, blues-nerd, who gets all the releases from labels like Alligator and Blind Pig early, and pulls together great cuts for the show. He intersperses them with artist info, a lame-joke-of-the-week, and shout-outs to fans around the globe. Any more talking would be too much, but Murphy grows on you and there is nothing at all wrong with his taste in music.

Finally, I really like David Brooks. He is smart, funny, well-informed, and opinionated without being partisan. These are all the things I wanted to be when I was writing about politics, but reading Brooks twice a week guaranteed me two days of feeling inadequate out of every seven.
Read what he had to say today about leaving health care reform to the Senate. I guarantee you that you will feel smarter after reading it, which is how I almost always feel after reading anything by him.