By Don Klein
Are the Democrats really headed for a fall at this November’s midterm elections? At lot of pundits seem to think so, which makes anyone who thinks differently subject to heaps of ridicule.
I may be putting my crystal ball in mortal danger but I am going to tell you why I think Obama’s party will not only retain control of both houses of Congress, but could actually improve their numbers in one or both of them.
There are four reasons skeptics contend the Dems will falter this election:
1. The party in power traditionally loses seats in off-year elections.
2. The economy is bad, joblessness is rife and the public thinks a change in the Washington power grid will work wonders.
3. The Republicans have played a callous anti-Democratic routine from the first day of this administration thwarting many positive programs with their negative stance, especially in the Senate.
4. There is a not too subtle campaign on the part of his bottom feeding detractors to appeal to the lowest possible denominator to smear Obama with ugly racial innuendoes.
I have a slightly different take on these assumed undeniable political consequences. I think at least three of these four maxims are refutable.
To begin with, the economy is bad and lots of people are out of work but I doubt if the public is so simple-minded they hold Obama to blame for the fiasco. Everyone who votes this November was around during the 2001-2009 period when the country was handed over to the big money people.
It was during the Bush administration that Wall Street was given an unregulated hand in doing whatever it pleased to make a profit no matter what it cost the rest of us. They took the regulatory policeman off the beat during that time and, in doing so, induced the horrendous financial meltdown with which we are still suffering.
By the same token I doubt if the majority if Americans are satisfied with the disreputable behavior of the GOP in the Senate by threatening endless filibusters on every piece of corrective legislation offered. The Democratic majority was ineffective in overcoming the maneuver requiring 60 to pass anything in the Senate as long as every Republican stood shoulder-by-shoulder shaking their heads "No."
It is clear the Republicans, also known now as the "Party of No," wished to sabotage every measure designed to improve circumstances for ordinary people during this period of strife. Despite that the majority party passed a health care bill and put badly behaving Wall Street under stricter financial regulations.
With a few exceptions the Party of No put a crimp in numerous bills designed to help ordinary Americans while at the same time announced they are determined to keep alive the preposterous Bush tax cuts for the two percent of the wealthiest in the nation.
They blocked the extension of unemployment checks to those who have been out of work so long their payments had expired. They supported the Arizona immigration laws and even proposed rescinding that the 14th Amendment to the Constitutional guaranteeing citizenship to anyone born within American borders.
In those two acts alone they have antagonized two large blocs of American voters – the 25 million who either are out of work or are employed at reduced hours and the 40 million Latino population. They also ticked off that large number of first responders to the World Trade Center attacks by denying them necessary extended health coverage.
But the worst damage the Republicans have done, was to cannibalize its own. It used to be that the Democrats were such a rebellious assemblage of independent minded people that they ate their own. Now it is the GOP that seems determined to devour all Republicans who stand this side of Ivan the Terrible.
The vicious internal battle to purge all moderate Republicans (non Tea Party types) and at the same time to paint Obama as some kind of Black tyrant in charge of a "gangster" socialist government is bound to backfire. The best polls give the Tea Party bunch only 25 percent of the Republican mass. Obama’s national popularity will take care of the ugly smears. You cannot win elections with only a smidgen of your base behind you.
Also you cannot win elections by always being against something. You need a positive plan and most of all you need an acceptable leader. The GOP has neither, unless you consider Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck as standard bearers. We have yet to hear a single notable Republican reject any of the grotesque off-the-wall comments made by these two Right Wing gargoyles.
Finally the Dems can point with pride to the passage of the first Health Care bill in history, the avoidance of a serious depression by massive bailouts, the salvaging of the automobile industry and the enactment of legislation to control Wall Street from onerous behavior. All with little help from Republicans.
The Republicans by their deliberate action (or inaction) have made the first two years of the Obama Administration a one party show. They can claim no victories. They did nothing for the public. Anything positive that occurred was accomplished by Democrats.
With all this, the acclaimed political factor that the party in power always takes a hit during the first mid-term election is the only thing that stands in the way of a solid Democratic victory this year. But thanks to Republican intransigence on so many important issues, even that principle may go by the boards. We will see soon enough.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Too big to manage?
By Don Klein
In recent discourse we have heard lots about businesses that are too big to
fail. That was why the government charged in with billions of bailout funds
to help foundering enterprises on Wall Street and in Detroit. I am beginning
to wonder if the emphasis is in the wrong direction.
I get the impression there is a much worse problem. Could it be that this
country is too big to manage. It seems that America is too overblown in every
way and too diverse, for any administration to be supervised skillfully.
Take an objective look at the country. It stretches from the Atlantic to the
Pacific over a multitude of miles of mostly fertile land and is the home of 310 million people of diverse backgrounds and ethnicity. Russia has twice the land mass with half the population and a population density of 8.2 per square
kilometer. Canada has slightly more land than the US with merely ten percent
of the population .
Pacific over a multitude of miles of mostly fertile land and is the home of 310 million people of diverse backgrounds and ethnicity. Russia has twice the land mass with half the population and a population density of 8.2 per square
kilometer. Canada has slightly more land than the US with merely ten percent
of the population .
The US stands third among land masses on Earth with 9,629,091 square
kilometers and a population density of 31.6 per square kilometer. The
average population density for the entire world is 13.1. And it will worsen as
the US gets bigger, and we will because we have the largest expanding
population among the world’s industrialized countries.
kilometers and a population density of 31.6 per square kilometer. The
average population density for the entire world is 13.1. And it will worsen as
the US gets bigger, and we will because we have the largest expanding
population among the world’s industrialized countries.
In a mere 40 years the United States Census Bureau projects the country’s
population will be 440 million, or a 46 percent increase over today. It appears
to be impossible to run the country today, how are we going to handle 130
million more residents?
population will be 440 million, or a 46 percent increase over today. It appears
to be impossible to run the country today, how are we going to handle 130
million more residents?
A growing population in a finite land area puts all kinds of strains on
government. People need water, food and space to live comfortably. We
already use a larger space footprint per person than any country in 2010, what
can we expect in another few decades?
government. People need water, food and space to live comfortably. We
already use a larger space footprint per person than any country in 2010, what
can we expect in another few decades?
Another problem, if you can call it that, is the tradition of freedom that exists
in America. The population may be derived from different backgrounds but
the ultimate goal of most people is doing what they want, where they want to do it and when they want to do it. How is that going to be possible when we will be falling all over each other in the not too distant future?
in America. The population may be derived from different backgrounds but
the ultimate goal of most people is doing what they want, where they want to do it and when they want to do it. How is that going to be possible when we will be falling all over each other in the not too distant future?
Twenty-five years ago I was in China departing a Hangchow to Shanghai
passenger train and stepped onto the platform of the busy station. All I could
see was an endless mass of Orientals streaming to the exits. I was with a
small group of Americans heading for our chartered bus and had to walk
against the flow of human traffic to get to our awaiting vehicle.
passenger train and stepped onto the platform of the busy station. All I could
see was an endless mass of Orientals streaming to the exits. I was with a
small group of Americans heading for our chartered bus and had to walk
against the flow of human traffic to get to our awaiting vehicle.
It is impossible to describe the feeling of smallness in that situation. The
crowd was hardly belligerent, just curious at the sight of us, as they
maneuvered by. The impact of the shear multitude in such a small area made
me feel intimidated. It was a dreamlike vision, even frightening to share such
a small space with so many others.
crowd was hardly belligerent, just curious at the sight of us, as they
maneuvered by. The impact of the shear multitude in such a small area made
me feel intimidated. It was a dreamlike vision, even frightening to share such
a small space with so many others.
The thought of that as the future of the United States, even on a smaller scale,
is enough to provoke nightmares. But that seems to be where the country is heading.
is enough to provoke nightmares. But that seems to be where the country is heading.
We don’t have enough roads, nor enough bridges and tunnels to traverse our waterways, there are times we don’t have enough water for all our needs, and who knows how long our food supplies will keep us all fat and happy.
There are forest fires that burn down homes, floods that wash away our
towns, hurricanes that damage our cities, tornadoes that level our villages. All
have a human element. The forest fires are often caused by careless campers,
floods are caused by the lack of trees cut down to make room for expanding
home sites and hurricanes and tornadoes wreak much of their damage
because population density results in the inability of people to escape their paths.
towns, hurricanes that damage our cities, tornadoes that level our villages. All
have a human element. The forest fires are often caused by careless campers,
floods are caused by the lack of trees cut down to make room for expanding
home sites and hurricanes and tornadoes wreak much of their damage
because population density results in the inability of people to escape their paths.
But the failure to manage the country lies in the inability to get things done in
Washington. It has become not a question of governance, but the challenge to govern at all. Gridlock in Washington is monstrous as the minority party
votes as one against anything the majority party sponsors.
Washington. It has become not a question of governance, but the challenge to govern at all. Gridlock in Washington is monstrous as the minority party
votes as one against anything the majority party sponsors.
Recent examples: The unemployed lose of extended benefits, the ailments of
first responders to 9/11 attacks go untreated. But there are worse signs of
mismanagement. Reportedly about 6,000 graves at Arlington National
Cemetery are misplaced, the Department of Defense routinely cannot find
billions of dollars of its budgeted funds, and there are times the government
cannot even deliver a letter in reasonable time and without great expense.
first responders to 9/11 attacks go untreated. But there are worse signs of
mismanagement. Reportedly about 6,000 graves at Arlington National
Cemetery are misplaced, the Department of Defense routinely cannot find
billions of dollars of its budgeted funds, and there are times the government
cannot even deliver a letter in reasonable time and without great expense.
We heard about wounded veterans not getting proper treatment at Walter
Reed Hospital, the icon of American military medical facilities, and we learn
that suicides among fighting forces are higher than ever and specialists in the
field blame the military for not recognizing the problem early enough and
treating the people in need.
Reed Hospital, the icon of American military medical facilities, and we learn
that suicides among fighting forces are higher than ever and specialists in the
field blame the military for not recognizing the problem early enough and
treating the people in need.
Then there is the two worst aspects of US government. One is the outlandish
corruption of officials. Every year there is another series of scandals
involving present and former congressmen and senators. Then we also have
the endless problem of protecting the country from illegal aliens entering
across our borders. We don’t seem to have the gumption to do anything about
it.
corruption of officials. Every year there is another series of scandals
involving present and former congressmen and senators. Then we also have
the endless problem of protecting the country from illegal aliens entering
across our borders. We don’t seem to have the gumption to do anything about
it.
They say they can save billions of dollars if they rid Medicare of its
inefficiency. The same is true of every government function. The military
wastes more money than any other agency because it gets more. There is
Social Security fraud and mismanagement, and other entitlements that could
be trimmed without reducing benefits, and education funds go astray, but
government thrives on waste and incompetence.
Is there another country with all these problems ? I don’t know , but I doubt
it. The problem is size and wealth. America is simply too big and getting
bigger every year, and too wealthy, even though it is a debtor nation.
inefficiency. The same is true of every government function. The military
wastes more money than any other agency because it gets more. There is
Social Security fraud and mismanagement, and other entitlements that could
be trimmed without reducing benefits, and education funds go astray, but
government thrives on waste and incompetence.
Is there another country with all these problems ? I don’t know , but I doubt
it. The problem is size and wealth. America is simply too big and getting
bigger every year, and too wealthy, even though it is a debtor nation.
They used to say New York city was too big the manage. That’s peanuts
compared to the nation. Places with the largest population are the hardest to run. Think of California’s money problems. Maybe we should not worry about that and just amble along in our incompetence.
compared to the nation. Places with the largest population are the hardest to run. Think of California’s money problems. Maybe we should not worry about that and just amble along in our incompetence.
I was fortunate to live through the Golden Years of America – from World
War II through the end of the 20th century. I am glad I will not be around to
see what’s in store for the people the next half century.
War II through the end of the 20th century. I am glad I will not be around to
see what’s in store for the people the next half century.
Monday, July 26, 2010
When the White House acts badly
by Don Klein
The Shirley Sherrod case is a perfect example of what happens when society becomes politically truculent. Somebody ends up tripping over his own feet. Nobody escaped this incident with clean skirts. But there were two kinds of disgrace citations to be awarded to those involved.
On one side we had the predictable underhanded troublemakers and on the other side we had the botched up stupidity of the do-gooders. I am not sure which is more harmful to the country in the long run.
I cannot image a single mentally sound person being surprised to learn that Fox News broadcast a phony, abridged video designed to discredit the NAACP and the Obama Administration. That’s their bread and butter. Their mother's milk. Lying and distorting news which defames their most favorite designated scapegoat is as natural to Fox as bananas are to monkeys.
Does anyone expect honest reporting and fair handling of news from a corporation whose owner is Rupert Murdoch, the Australian news mogul who makes his money selling trash wherever possible? His London tabloid, The Sun, for example, carries a daily page of naked young women to boost circulation and sadly tons of Brits plunk down their hard-earned moolah for this version of the "news."
He ruined the once liberal New York Post and now is on the way to infusing the erstwhile Wall Street Journal with his kind of questionable "journalism." When Murdoch is finished with it, the WSJ will be less than a shadow of its former self, much to the sorrow of all journalists and readers.
So there is no great surprise to learn that his television news network would sink to its lowest and portray in edited tape a decent government employee as a racist, especially since the record showed she was just the opposite. That’s the way Fox plays the news – hit someone below the belt, watch the confusion it creates and run for cover when the facts finally come out.
Then we have the other side of the controversy. It was more damaging, and to me very disheartening, the way Sherrod was treated by her superiors in the Obama Administration. Without a question, without a review of the phony tape, without even a second thought, she was asked to resign. They couldn’t even wait for her to get to her office. She was forced to fall on her sword on the side of the road while enroute to her destination.
Now let’s be clear. If a federal employee was found stealing paper clips and reams of stationery they would be hauled up before superiors and asked to explain their actions. Sherrod, a mid-level specialist in the Department of Agriculture, was denied that routine procedure expected by all employees. She was booted onto the sidewalk like an unruly drunk thrown out of a saloon.
Why? Allegedly because they expected Glenn Beck to feature her story on that evening’s broadcast on Fox. Her bosses wanted to get ahead of the story. So there was no time for her side to be told, nor was there time to review the entire video which exonerated her from any wrongdoing.
Slam dunk. She was out on her ear with not so much as a howdy do. That was worse than anything Fox did or Beck could have done (Beck did not mention the story that night). The Secretary of Agriculture violated this woman’s employment rights by dismissing her without a hearing on grounds that proved to be erroneous.
Shame. Is that what we should expect from our government? It is said she was asked to resign on the insistence of the White House. If that is true we need some house cleaning there. We have a bunch a nervous Nellies more concerned about what Beck might say than being fair with a longtime employee.
I never cared much for the people who surround Obama and provide him with advice. I often wonder if they were the ones who managed from behind the scenes the attempt to get bipartisan support for the Health Care bill by watering down its provisions. I wonder how much influence these people had in convincing Obama to accept a nearly toothless Financial Reform bill.
I will never forgive these opportunists on the Obama team for unjustly branding Bill Clinton a racist during the 2008 primary campaign. I know politics is rough and hard, but I viewed Obama as principled leader, a man who sought the higher plain of political participation.
But someone in his office gave the agriculture people reason to believe that Sherrod had to be jettisoned to avoid further conflict with Fox commentators. What crap. What cowardice. Loyalty requires that you stand up for you people and get the whole story before acting like jittery mice approaching a cheese-laden mousetrap.
I would hope that Obama, a decent man with honorable goals, will find out who pushed for Sherrod’s resignation and take that aide to the woodshed for a sound spanking. This incident did more harm to the Obama gang than anything they’ve done previously. This is not the act of an upfront, straight forward administration we thought we elected almost two years ago.
Obama should get rid of his overprotected adjutants (or at least reject their advice) and start being a pacesetter. As a Constitutional scholar he knows when a person’s rights have been violated. To have his administration guilty of such antics is a letdown to all his supporters.
The Shirley Sherrod case is a perfect example of what happens when society becomes politically truculent. Somebody ends up tripping over his own feet. Nobody escaped this incident with clean skirts. But there were two kinds of disgrace citations to be awarded to those involved.
On one side we had the predictable underhanded troublemakers and on the other side we had the botched up stupidity of the do-gooders. I am not sure which is more harmful to the country in the long run.
I cannot image a single mentally sound person being surprised to learn that Fox News broadcast a phony, abridged video designed to discredit the NAACP and the Obama Administration. That’s their bread and butter. Their mother's milk. Lying and distorting news which defames their most favorite designated scapegoat is as natural to Fox as bananas are to monkeys.
Does anyone expect honest reporting and fair handling of news from a corporation whose owner is Rupert Murdoch, the Australian news mogul who makes his money selling trash wherever possible? His London tabloid, The Sun, for example, carries a daily page of naked young women to boost circulation and sadly tons of Brits plunk down their hard-earned moolah for this version of the "news."
He ruined the once liberal New York Post and now is on the way to infusing the erstwhile Wall Street Journal with his kind of questionable "journalism." When Murdoch is finished with it, the WSJ will be less than a shadow of its former self, much to the sorrow of all journalists and readers.
So there is no great surprise to learn that his television news network would sink to its lowest and portray in edited tape a decent government employee as a racist, especially since the record showed she was just the opposite. That’s the way Fox plays the news – hit someone below the belt, watch the confusion it creates and run for cover when the facts finally come out.
Then we have the other side of the controversy. It was more damaging, and to me very disheartening, the way Sherrod was treated by her superiors in the Obama Administration. Without a question, without a review of the phony tape, without even a second thought, she was asked to resign. They couldn’t even wait for her to get to her office. She was forced to fall on her sword on the side of the road while enroute to her destination.
Now let’s be clear. If a federal employee was found stealing paper clips and reams of stationery they would be hauled up before superiors and asked to explain their actions. Sherrod, a mid-level specialist in the Department of Agriculture, was denied that routine procedure expected by all employees. She was booted onto the sidewalk like an unruly drunk thrown out of a saloon.
Why? Allegedly because they expected Glenn Beck to feature her story on that evening’s broadcast on Fox. Her bosses wanted to get ahead of the story. So there was no time for her side to be told, nor was there time to review the entire video which exonerated her from any wrongdoing.
Slam dunk. She was out on her ear with not so much as a howdy do. That was worse than anything Fox did or Beck could have done (Beck did not mention the story that night). The Secretary of Agriculture violated this woman’s employment rights by dismissing her without a hearing on grounds that proved to be erroneous.
Shame. Is that what we should expect from our government? It is said she was asked to resign on the insistence of the White House. If that is true we need some house cleaning there. We have a bunch a nervous Nellies more concerned about what Beck might say than being fair with a longtime employee.
I never cared much for the people who surround Obama and provide him with advice. I often wonder if they were the ones who managed from behind the scenes the attempt to get bipartisan support for the Health Care bill by watering down its provisions. I wonder how much influence these people had in convincing Obama to accept a nearly toothless Financial Reform bill.
I will never forgive these opportunists on the Obama team for unjustly branding Bill Clinton a racist during the 2008 primary campaign. I know politics is rough and hard, but I viewed Obama as principled leader, a man who sought the higher plain of political participation.
But someone in his office gave the agriculture people reason to believe that Sherrod had to be jettisoned to avoid further conflict with Fox commentators. What crap. What cowardice. Loyalty requires that you stand up for you people and get the whole story before acting like jittery mice approaching a cheese-laden mousetrap.
I would hope that Obama, a decent man with honorable goals, will find out who pushed for Sherrod’s resignation and take that aide to the woodshed for a sound spanking. This incident did more harm to the Obama gang than anything they’ve done previously. This is not the act of an upfront, straight forward administration we thought we elected almost two years ago.
Obama should get rid of his overprotected adjutants (or at least reject their advice) and start being a pacesetter. As a Constitutional scholar he knows when a person’s rights have been violated. To have his administration guilty of such antics is a letdown to all his supporters.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The trouble with bigness
By Don Klein
It’s a big world. At this moment there are some 6,855,726,713 people living on Earth, give a few million more every week or two. Soon there will be 7 billion people. By time my eight-year-old granddaughter is eligible to vote the world population will be well on its way to 8 billion souls.
That’s a lot of people. The world is mired in population growth and will only get worse as the years pass. The question is will we be able to survive as a species? The earth has it’s limits, but human growth apparently has none. How much population growth can we expect on a finite globe?
I consign answers to these and other questions to people a lot younger than me who will have to endure the future. This is a subject for those who think in scores of years, who do not measure the future in single years or at most in a decade, like me.
There is one thing I can talk about, however. A big world requires everything about it to be big. Selling a million records is no longer the phenomena it once was. A high school dropout can "write a song" after lunch, record it the next day and a few weeks later be a millionaire because it has caught on with just small segment of the population while millions of others are not even familiar with the performer’s name.
When you have a country like the United States with 310 million population and sell a million of anything you have appealed to one-third of one percent of the available market. In other words if you have a product that only a tiny fraction of the public buys–- a record, a Tee shirt, a picture frame, a widget –- you could be a millionaire these days.
Extend that throughout the world with its 6.8 billion people and you realize what bigness is. This means in order to compete worldwide you must be a heavy hitter. In sports it means the National Football League has to show its mettle in Europe and Asia looking for new markets. Major League baseball recruits from Latin America, Asia and even Australia for players to appeal to foreign audiences. It explains why all of a sudden the World Cup became so popular in a country like ours that once confined soccer to a minor slot in high school and college sports.
In business, bigness is even more important. Although there are still a healthy smattering of small businesses, the super market has wiped out the Ma and Pa corner grocery. There are giant restaurant chains supporting both table cloth sit-down restaurants and fast food emporia.
Huge agricultural combines control the food industry in the US and elsewhere. Household retailers have gotten so big that even onetime monster enterprises like Montgomery Ward cannot compete anymore and the American auto industry is down to a mere three manufacturers-going-on-two as Chrysler struggles in its death throes.
Insurance companies are larger and stronger than ever, oil companies make billions by the minute and medical and pharmaceutical services are so wealthy that most doctors can turn away new patients and drug companies have profits equal to the gross national product of many nations.
With all this the world is out of balance because as bigness continues, there is the sad plight of the ordinary guy. He still struggles at a pathetic level to keep all these mammoth institutions healthy.
In order to deal with unabated bigness man created big government and that perhaps is the worst disappointment of all. Big government usually means plodding government. Services are slow to begin and sadly, once having begun, it is virtually impossible to stop even when no longer needed. Village and town councils are much more efficient, if less flush.
Presidents and Cabinet secretaries "make" policy but lower level government workers decide "how" those policies are implemented. And few ever like what they are doing. The bigness of government easily allows for irresponsibility. So many people have their hands in the pot while policy is cooking no one can be blamed when things go wrong. This is the government workers paradise, their insurance policy.
You can always find a retired doctor who loves to talk about his work, or a retired butcher or bus driver, or accountant, or even journalists. But I have never met a retired government worker who had anything good to say about his/her years of service. They all have horror stories to talk about.
There is little incentive when you have a job which provides you with incremental salary boosts, offers you promotions whether you deserve it or not, and where you are protected by concrete civil service rules even when you fail to live up to the lowest of standards.
That explains I suppose the failures of the Minerals Management Services of the Department of Interior, on whose shoulders rests a large part of the blame for the BP spill. It also explains the failure of the Securities and Exchange Commission in not monitoring Wall Street manipulators prior to the financial meltdown in 2008 and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack for the mortgage scandal.
Government regulators just didn’t do their jobs despite the importance we attach to their work and despite being well paid. In the end, no one was punished for failing to do what they were supposed to do, unlike private industry.
There is no responsibility in government. There are just benefits hidden behind the myriad of employee rules and thousands of ambiguous regulations.
That’s the evil of big government. But unlike Ronald Reagan’s maxim to the contrary, enforced regulations are necessary. As we get bigger, government laxity could become even worse until we start dismissing people for failing to do what they are paid to do.
It will not solve all our problems but it certainly will help.
It’s a big world. At this moment there are some 6,855,726,713 people living on Earth, give a few million more every week or two. Soon there will be 7 billion people. By time my eight-year-old granddaughter is eligible to vote the world population will be well on its way to 8 billion souls.
That’s a lot of people. The world is mired in population growth and will only get worse as the years pass. The question is will we be able to survive as a species? The earth has it’s limits, but human growth apparently has none. How much population growth can we expect on a finite globe?
I consign answers to these and other questions to people a lot younger than me who will have to endure the future. This is a subject for those who think in scores of years, who do not measure the future in single years or at most in a decade, like me.
There is one thing I can talk about, however. A big world requires everything about it to be big. Selling a million records is no longer the phenomena it once was. A high school dropout can "write a song" after lunch, record it the next day and a few weeks later be a millionaire because it has caught on with just small segment of the population while millions of others are not even familiar with the performer’s name.
When you have a country like the United States with 310 million population and sell a million of anything you have appealed to one-third of one percent of the available market. In other words if you have a product that only a tiny fraction of the public buys–- a record, a Tee shirt, a picture frame, a widget –- you could be a millionaire these days.
Extend that throughout the world with its 6.8 billion people and you realize what bigness is. This means in order to compete worldwide you must be a heavy hitter. In sports it means the National Football League has to show its mettle in Europe and Asia looking for new markets. Major League baseball recruits from Latin America, Asia and even Australia for players to appeal to foreign audiences. It explains why all of a sudden the World Cup became so popular in a country like ours that once confined soccer to a minor slot in high school and college sports.
In business, bigness is even more important. Although there are still a healthy smattering of small businesses, the super market has wiped out the Ma and Pa corner grocery. There are giant restaurant chains supporting both table cloth sit-down restaurants and fast food emporia.
Huge agricultural combines control the food industry in the US and elsewhere. Household retailers have gotten so big that even onetime monster enterprises like Montgomery Ward cannot compete anymore and the American auto industry is down to a mere three manufacturers-going-on-two as Chrysler struggles in its death throes.
Insurance companies are larger and stronger than ever, oil companies make billions by the minute and medical and pharmaceutical services are so wealthy that most doctors can turn away new patients and drug companies have profits equal to the gross national product of many nations.
With all this the world is out of balance because as bigness continues, there is the sad plight of the ordinary guy. He still struggles at a pathetic level to keep all these mammoth institutions healthy.
In order to deal with unabated bigness man created big government and that perhaps is the worst disappointment of all. Big government usually means plodding government. Services are slow to begin and sadly, once having begun, it is virtually impossible to stop even when no longer needed. Village and town councils are much more efficient, if less flush.
Presidents and Cabinet secretaries "make" policy but lower level government workers decide "how" those policies are implemented. And few ever like what they are doing. The bigness of government easily allows for irresponsibility. So many people have their hands in the pot while policy is cooking no one can be blamed when things go wrong. This is the government workers paradise, their insurance policy.
You can always find a retired doctor who loves to talk about his work, or a retired butcher or bus driver, or accountant, or even journalists. But I have never met a retired government worker who had anything good to say about his/her years of service. They all have horror stories to talk about.
There is little incentive when you have a job which provides you with incremental salary boosts, offers you promotions whether you deserve it or not, and where you are protected by concrete civil service rules even when you fail to live up to the lowest of standards.
That explains I suppose the failures of the Minerals Management Services of the Department of Interior, on whose shoulders rests a large part of the blame for the BP spill. It also explains the failure of the Securities and Exchange Commission in not monitoring Wall Street manipulators prior to the financial meltdown in 2008 and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack for the mortgage scandal.
Government regulators just didn’t do their jobs despite the importance we attach to their work and despite being well paid. In the end, no one was punished for failing to do what they were supposed to do, unlike private industry.
There is no responsibility in government. There are just benefits hidden behind the myriad of employee rules and thousands of ambiguous regulations.
That’s the evil of big government. But unlike Ronald Reagan’s maxim to the contrary, enforced regulations are necessary. As we get bigger, government laxity could become even worse until we start dismissing people for failing to do what they are paid to do.
It will not solve all our problems but it certainly will help.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Finally, a butt-kicking leader
By Don Klein
Gen. Stanley McChrystal is out, fired by the president. Finally Obama acted with alacrity, and was never more presidential. That’s the way most Americans want their presidents to behave. There was no extended deliberative period. No drawn-out consideration of the facts.
McChrystal showed a terrible lack of judgment in allowing his aides to demean and mock one of the most crucial American credos – civilian control of the military – and paid the awful price. And they ridiculed not in the confines of the locker room but in the presence of a magazine reporter. What kind of judgment is that?
The stupidity of the situation brought into question the experienced general’s judgment and he had to go. That was the easy choice for Obama. Military men learn in early training that the civilians are in charge. That’s why in the centuries since 1776 there never was a junta taking over Washington.
What is admirable about this unfortunate situation is that Obama acted like a leader. He didn’t hesitate. He took charge immediately and made the change. And what is more outstanding was the brilliance of his choice of a successor in a circumstance that otherwise set Obama up for another round of political sniping from the Right.
The president chose Gen. David Petraeus, the most celebrated military man in current times to head up the Afghanistan conflict. By doing that he accomplished two important goals. 1. He put a man in charge who was a totally familiar with the war and is as well versed in the Middle East as anyone in government, and 2. he silenced the ready-to-pounce Republican jabberwockies who love all CEOs, whether corporate or military, and hate Democratic presidential authority.
This is what Obama supporters have been seeking from the president for almost a year and a half now. Action. Presidential action. Not just another extensive cerebral approach to a national crisis. More about Afghanistan later.
One has to think that the president has suddenly discovered the clout of the White House. Without any legal authority to do so, Obama twisted the arms of BP brass recently and got them to put $20 billion into an escrow account to pay for the losses to Gulf citizens as a result of the oil spill.
This was so effective that the Republicans in Congress were so flabbergasted that all they could do was cry foul. A Texas Republican apologized to the BP boss who was testifying before the House energy committee claiming the company was victim of a “shakedown.” He never mentioned any concern for the real victims of the oil spill along the coast, Americans who previously were labeled by the BP chairman as “small people.”
And, finally, it appears that Obama has won an uncharacteristically classic battle in Congress to establish a long list of regulations to bring the financial community under control. After it is enacted the question will be how enthusiastically will it be enforced? Given the history of federal bureaucracy my guess it not very vigorously.
Nevertheless, Obama deserves much credit. Things are beginning to look better for him and he seems to beginning to feel his oats by finally using the power that comes with the Oval Office. But none of these accomplishments will do much good for the Democrats this fall unless there is a sharp upturn in the economy and jobs.
Personally I’d like to see action designed to discourage out-sourcing. Whatever benefits are accrued to American businesses that go foreign there should by an equal monetary penalty to wipe out corporate profits at the expense of US workers’ jobs. I don’t think we will see anything in this department this year despite Obama’s campaign promises on this subject.
Back to Afghanistan. One of the factors that became very evident in the exchange of command from McChrystal to Petraeus was the president’s recommitment to the Afghan War. I think we need a further refinement of our role in that part of the world. What we are doing now is not succeeding and what we plan to do later is even more precarious.
Just how far are we willing to go in that God-forsaken patch of bleak terrain? It might be cruel to say this but I don’t care a hoot whether Afghan girls get an elementary education when our commitment to that nation constrains the rights of American girls to benefit from their birthright.
I am tired of reading the casualty lists as too many American youths sacrifice their lives for an ungrateful nation which embraces our enemy and refuses to fight for themselves. I don’t like spending billions on a country whose president is dealing with our enemy behind our backs. The same goes for Pakistan.
I don’t know why we are fighting the Taliban in the first place. That is an Afghan problem, not ours. We should get back to battling al Qaeda, our real enemy. Worst of all, Obama’s apparent commitment to the current policy in that part of the world reminds me a lot of the George W. Bush fiasco.
I wish Obama would reverse direction. We have more problems of our own than in most of my lifetime and let’s work on those solutions not the on Afghanistan’s. I like Vice President Biden’s views on the war. Go after al Qaeda with all the power we have and if Pakistan and Afghanistan fail to support us fully, withdraw our support of their governments. We should stop being their patsy, their unrequited sugar daddy.
Now that Obama finally found his muscle and started kicking butt these last few weeks, he still has plenty of other butts to kick. You found the formula, Mr. President, now get to work down the line.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal is out, fired by the president. Finally Obama acted with alacrity, and was never more presidential. That’s the way most Americans want their presidents to behave. There was no extended deliberative period. No drawn-out consideration of the facts.
McChrystal showed a terrible lack of judgment in allowing his aides to demean and mock one of the most crucial American credos – civilian control of the military – and paid the awful price. And they ridiculed not in the confines of the locker room but in the presence of a magazine reporter. What kind of judgment is that?
The stupidity of the situation brought into question the experienced general’s judgment and he had to go. That was the easy choice for Obama. Military men learn in early training that the civilians are in charge. That’s why in the centuries since 1776 there never was a junta taking over Washington.
What is admirable about this unfortunate situation is that Obama acted like a leader. He didn’t hesitate. He took charge immediately and made the change. And what is more outstanding was the brilliance of his choice of a successor in a circumstance that otherwise set Obama up for another round of political sniping from the Right.
The president chose Gen. David Petraeus, the most celebrated military man in current times to head up the Afghanistan conflict. By doing that he accomplished two important goals. 1. He put a man in charge who was a totally familiar with the war and is as well versed in the Middle East as anyone in government, and 2. he silenced the ready-to-pounce Republican jabberwockies who love all CEOs, whether corporate or military, and hate Democratic presidential authority.
This is what Obama supporters have been seeking from the president for almost a year and a half now. Action. Presidential action. Not just another extensive cerebral approach to a national crisis. More about Afghanistan later.
One has to think that the president has suddenly discovered the clout of the White House. Without any legal authority to do so, Obama twisted the arms of BP brass recently and got them to put $20 billion into an escrow account to pay for the losses to Gulf citizens as a result of the oil spill.
This was so effective that the Republicans in Congress were so flabbergasted that all they could do was cry foul. A Texas Republican apologized to the BP boss who was testifying before the House energy committee claiming the company was victim of a “shakedown.” He never mentioned any concern for the real victims of the oil spill along the coast, Americans who previously were labeled by the BP chairman as “small people.”
And, finally, it appears that Obama has won an uncharacteristically classic battle in Congress to establish a long list of regulations to bring the financial community under control. After it is enacted the question will be how enthusiastically will it be enforced? Given the history of federal bureaucracy my guess it not very vigorously.
Nevertheless, Obama deserves much credit. Things are beginning to look better for him and he seems to beginning to feel his oats by finally using the power that comes with the Oval Office. But none of these accomplishments will do much good for the Democrats this fall unless there is a sharp upturn in the economy and jobs.
Personally I’d like to see action designed to discourage out-sourcing. Whatever benefits are accrued to American businesses that go foreign there should by an equal monetary penalty to wipe out corporate profits at the expense of US workers’ jobs. I don’t think we will see anything in this department this year despite Obama’s campaign promises on this subject.
Back to Afghanistan. One of the factors that became very evident in the exchange of command from McChrystal to Petraeus was the president’s recommitment to the Afghan War. I think we need a further refinement of our role in that part of the world. What we are doing now is not succeeding and what we plan to do later is even more precarious.
Just how far are we willing to go in that God-forsaken patch of bleak terrain? It might be cruel to say this but I don’t care a hoot whether Afghan girls get an elementary education when our commitment to that nation constrains the rights of American girls to benefit from their birthright.
I am tired of reading the casualty lists as too many American youths sacrifice their lives for an ungrateful nation which embraces our enemy and refuses to fight for themselves. I don’t like spending billions on a country whose president is dealing with our enemy behind our backs. The same goes for Pakistan.
I don’t know why we are fighting the Taliban in the first place. That is an Afghan problem, not ours. We should get back to battling al Qaeda, our real enemy. Worst of all, Obama’s apparent commitment to the current policy in that part of the world reminds me a lot of the George W. Bush fiasco.
I wish Obama would reverse direction. We have more problems of our own than in most of my lifetime and let’s work on those solutions not the on Afghanistan’s. I like Vice President Biden’s views on the war. Go after al Qaeda with all the power we have and if Pakistan and Afghanistan fail to support us fully, withdraw our support of their governments. We should stop being their patsy, their unrequited sugar daddy.
Now that Obama finally found his muscle and started kicking butt these last few weeks, he still has plenty of other butts to kick. You found the formula, Mr. President, now get to work down the line.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Poetry yes, prose no
By Don Klein
It is beginning to have the feel of 1979 when Iranian students stormed the US embassy in Tehran. The incident was so badly handled by then President Jimmy Carter that he was swept out of office more than a year later.
Is Barack Obama unconsciously replicating those days of Carter ennui? Is he reminding us of how incapable he is in finding a solution, or at least a plan of action, to a situation grass roots Americans refuse to live with? Is he toying with the possibility of becoming known as a leader paralyzed and overwhelmed by events?
Will the offshore oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico be his hostage crisis? Will Obama’s "Waterloo" not be the failure of his political programs as predicted by some Republican senators, but rather an unexpected and uncontrollable oil spill? These are legitimate questions that will be answered relatively soon.
In case you forgotten 52 American embassy workers were held hostage for 444 days by Iranian extremists after they stormed the US compound in Tehran in 1979. The reason for their behavior is unimportant since their action was clearly a violation of the most sacred doctrine of international law – an embassy in a foreign land is the property of the nation it represents and is protected from intrusion by the local government.
The Iran government spit on this reverent international agreement and Carter fumbled like a schoolboy trying to explain to a strict teacher why he played hooky for most of time until everyone was freed after he left office more than a year later. He even aborted a desert helicopter rescue after a accident which left eight American servicemen dead and shied away from any other action.
Today with the oil spill still dominating the headlines and with the public impatient for presidential action which does not seem to be coming, insiders have to be worrying about Obama’s leadership image. Here we have 11 American dead when the oil rig went up and we are well into nine weeks of failure in stemming the flow of oil into the gulf.
And like Carter more than three decades ago, Obama doesn’t seem to have a clue as to what to do next to relieve the pain of those injured by the spill. There are those defenders of the president who ask, "what else can he do?" as if he has done anything significant so far.
There are lots for him to consider if he was bold and proactive. He could ask all the major oil suppliers who make billions selling gasoline to Americans to assemble emptied tankers at the sight and a start sucking up the accumulated spill. His apologists say this is expensive and will not work. But it did work in previous spills elsewhere and the expense will not be greater than the damage caused by the oil reaching into shorelines.
Besides the expense will be BP’s not the taxpayer’s.
I am sure there are other strategies that could be used. Anything is better than nothing, which is pretty much what is being done now. But Obama is proving the old Mario Cuomo adage that campaigns are poetry while governing is prose.
Some years ago Cuomo, the former governor of New York and a brilliant wordsmith in his own right, said in a speech, "In fact, if our candidates campaign in poetry instead of good hard specifics, and win, they may wind up governing… in vain." Could he have been predicting the fate of Obama?
Most people who listened to the president speaking from the Oval Office Tuesday were not very impressed. He spoke like an oncologist describing how he plans to remove a cancerous growth from a patient’s nose. I heard more passion from an auto mechanic explaining how he will adjust my car’s faulty alternator.
Obama came into prominence as the twenty-first century’s version of Franklin D. Roosevelt or a reincarnation of Jack Kennedy. He had the style, the language and the swath of greatness, but the challenges of the time seem to be too much for him. At least so far. Maybe he will surprise us soon and give us all the confidence that was generated by the great presidents of the past.
When FDR was at his height I was a teenager. I was 15 years old when he died and I cried when I watched the newsreels (there was no consumer television then). They say it was a different time then, and maybe it was, but a great leader brings out the emotions in people.
What made Roosevelt the beloved man he was? His eloquence did not match Obama, but he had something today’s president seems to lack. He was inspirational with his upbeat attitude and expressed confidence in the future. So was Kennedy, even though he achieved less.
But Obama is an enigma. No matter how much I root for him to succeed and to inspire a downcast nation he appears to have lost the knack. His words promised us a great deal during the presidential campaigns and to many he appeared to be that proverbial knight on the white charger.
The problem is that his style has not matched his pre-election words. He is riding a pony not a stallion. The weight of the high office he holds seems to have worn him down. The energy is sapped. Hopefully he is not turning into a latter day Carter.
The question remains, however, has he made Cuomo’s bywords his axiom?
It is beginning to have the feel of 1979 when Iranian students stormed the US embassy in Tehran. The incident was so badly handled by then President Jimmy Carter that he was swept out of office more than a year later.
Is Barack Obama unconsciously replicating those days of Carter ennui? Is he reminding us of how incapable he is in finding a solution, or at least a plan of action, to a situation grass roots Americans refuse to live with? Is he toying with the possibility of becoming known as a leader paralyzed and overwhelmed by events?
Will the offshore oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico be his hostage crisis? Will Obama’s "Waterloo" not be the failure of his political programs as predicted by some Republican senators, but rather an unexpected and uncontrollable oil spill? These are legitimate questions that will be answered relatively soon.
In case you forgotten 52 American embassy workers were held hostage for 444 days by Iranian extremists after they stormed the US compound in Tehran in 1979. The reason for their behavior is unimportant since their action was clearly a violation of the most sacred doctrine of international law – an embassy in a foreign land is the property of the nation it represents and is protected from intrusion by the local government.
The Iran government spit on this reverent international agreement and Carter fumbled like a schoolboy trying to explain to a strict teacher why he played hooky for most of time until everyone was freed after he left office more than a year later. He even aborted a desert helicopter rescue after a accident which left eight American servicemen dead and shied away from any other action.
Today with the oil spill still dominating the headlines and with the public impatient for presidential action which does not seem to be coming, insiders have to be worrying about Obama’s leadership image. Here we have 11 American dead when the oil rig went up and we are well into nine weeks of failure in stemming the flow of oil into the gulf.
And like Carter more than three decades ago, Obama doesn’t seem to have a clue as to what to do next to relieve the pain of those injured by the spill. There are those defenders of the president who ask, "what else can he do?" as if he has done anything significant so far.
There are lots for him to consider if he was bold and proactive. He could ask all the major oil suppliers who make billions selling gasoline to Americans to assemble emptied tankers at the sight and a start sucking up the accumulated spill. His apologists say this is expensive and will not work. But it did work in previous spills elsewhere and the expense will not be greater than the damage caused by the oil reaching into shorelines.
Besides the expense will be BP’s not the taxpayer’s.
I am sure there are other strategies that could be used. Anything is better than nothing, which is pretty much what is being done now. But Obama is proving the old Mario Cuomo adage that campaigns are poetry while governing is prose.
Some years ago Cuomo, the former governor of New York and a brilliant wordsmith in his own right, said in a speech, "In fact, if our candidates campaign in poetry instead of good hard specifics, and win, they may wind up governing… in vain." Could he have been predicting the fate of Obama?
Most people who listened to the president speaking from the Oval Office Tuesday were not very impressed. He spoke like an oncologist describing how he plans to remove a cancerous growth from a patient’s nose. I heard more passion from an auto mechanic explaining how he will adjust my car’s faulty alternator.
Obama came into prominence as the twenty-first century’s version of Franklin D. Roosevelt or a reincarnation of Jack Kennedy. He had the style, the language and the swath of greatness, but the challenges of the time seem to be too much for him. At least so far. Maybe he will surprise us soon and give us all the confidence that was generated by the great presidents of the past.
When FDR was at his height I was a teenager. I was 15 years old when he died and I cried when I watched the newsreels (there was no consumer television then). They say it was a different time then, and maybe it was, but a great leader brings out the emotions in people.
What made Roosevelt the beloved man he was? His eloquence did not match Obama, but he had something today’s president seems to lack. He was inspirational with his upbeat attitude and expressed confidence in the future. So was Kennedy, even though he achieved less.
But Obama is an enigma. No matter how much I root for him to succeed and to inspire a downcast nation he appears to have lost the knack. His words promised us a great deal during the presidential campaigns and to many he appeared to be that proverbial knight on the white charger.
The problem is that his style has not matched his pre-election words. He is riding a pony not a stallion. The weight of the high office he holds seems to have worn him down. The energy is sapped. Hopefully he is not turning into a latter day Carter.
The question remains, however, has he made Cuomo’s bywords his axiom?
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