Sunday, September 28, 2008

Copied musings

I am far from understanding where we are, how we got here and what we should do about the Wall St. mess. On one hand if the Govt. can buy up these failing companies for pennies on the dollar and gain equity, turn them around and possibly make some money - then it sounds like a plan. On the other hand I heard this in answer to the question - "Where will the $700 billion come from? Answer - the feds will just print more money." That doesn't seem like a good idea especially when apparently the folks holding the bag on a bunch of bad loans are actually China and some other foreign countries who have been investing in our economy. If I put my money in risky investments and they do poorly, woe is me. But I guess if you are big enough and you do the same ... Sort of like heads you win and tails you win.

And I found this in poking around on the web today:

BONO ON THE BAILOUT.

"It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases."

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Life imitates spam?

this is a forward of a forward so I have no idea who to credit or acknowledge but read and weep or laugh - depending on where your money is at the moment:

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 700 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you. I am working with Mr. Phil Gramm, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transaction is 100% safe. This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance.

My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred. Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commissionfor this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully,

Minister of Treasury Paulson

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

diversity

Atlanta used to represent the old south perhaps as much or more than maybe any other southern city. I'm in Atlanta and have noticed one striking thing - and maybe it is only striking because I live in lily-white-bread Springfield. I happen to also be listening to Tom Friedman's audio book - The World Is Flat.

I rode on an elevator today with 5 guys from India who all work locally for Sun Trust which I guess is a big southern bank. At the hotel check-in I met a young lady from Germany, then a young man from Malaysia then another young lady from Germany during my repeated trips to get my room.

At lunch at Chick-Fil-A, I sat next to a woman from China.

Lots of accents and skins of different colors and this is not New York or LA - this is Atlanta.

I guess the melting pot is alive and well.

We don't see much of this in Springburg.

One final note - had dinner at the Hard Rock cafe because I may be the only person who has never been to one. I was also surprised that I was not part of the older crowd there. Most of the people were older than me. And I don't think it was anyone's birthday party. Final thought - they played videos on screens all over the room - most of which were old. We're talking Metalllica, Elvis (Yes, Elvis!) and plenty of other old looking videos. I have no idea why.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

You don't see that everyday!

Nothing profound here but living in the country like we do provides the occasional odd sight. I took my two littlest ones to a park today in our county seat of Greenfield. I did an interview with a family from there last week and they mentioned they had a really nice park in town. So the kids wanted to check it out today - we did. Nice park - lots of green space, walking trail etc. and two tennis courts. And here's the odd siting:

Two boys and a man were playing tennis. The man, probably about 40 or so wore jeans, tennis shoes and a big cowboy hat. I've been playing tennis since I was 10 and much of that in Texas where cowboy hats are part of the uniform but I've never seen anyone play tennis in a cowboy hat. To top it off, he wasn't too bad. Had pretty decent serve and could cover the court well.

Only in our little part of rural America!

Friday, September 5, 2008

Who's paying for what?

Over the last two weeks I've overdosed on the two conventions although I really didn't watch much of either. I probably spent more time listening or watching people talk about them. And one thing kept annoying me to no end.

Seems like the conventions were NOT held respectively in Denver and St. Paul but rather at Invesco field (for the last evening of the DNC) and the Xcel Energy Center.

I understand naming rights - companies fork over major money to get their name plastered all over the plaster. But is there some protocol that says you can't simply tell people where an event is taking place without giving a plug? How come almost everyone I heard never simply said "Here in Denver at the DNC" or "I'm in St. Paul right now ..."

I found this which at least says I'm not the only one who might like the old names. Reminds me of the dust-up I heard about re: Wrigley Field in Chicago since they may lose the rights to keep calling it that if someone else wants to pay more.

For me somehow that is different. In my lifetime at least Wrigley has always been Wrigley - the home of the Cubs. But these new stadiums that cost more than the GNP of most countries, don't deserve the status and respect of an institution like Wrigley. You'd never say simply the Cubs versus the Giants in Chicago - you have to say Wrigley because it matters.

But no one cares where the conventions meet - it should be enough to say the City and leave it at that. My two cents for today which won't by me the naming rights for anywhere!

Thursday, September 4, 2008

The Best Man for the Job

in this case just may be a woman. I watched - as did probably millions of others - Sarah Palin's first major speech last night. I think she did pretty well but I'm already concerned with something and have even had discussions with co-workers about it this morning. And that is what her role should really be.

The traditional assumption is that the VP goes on the attack against the opposing Pres. candidate. Where did that concept come from in the first place? Doesn't make sense to me. If it did then we should have Joe Biden debate McCain and Obama debate Palin.

I've been to a couple of seminars with management guru John Maxwell and one thing he says that goes against the conventional wisdom is that we often focus on our weakness and work really hard to try to make it better/faster/stronger. He goes the other way. Example - you may be an average runner but not really fast. And you have to run a triathlon or something so you spend all this time training to run faster. You might even improve your time but how much? At at what expense? What if you get injured? And what about the other two events? Have you cut back on training for them? Maxwell advises to focus on your strengths. Work to make them even better and stronger.

Now back to Palin. Does she have foreign policy experience? She will need some briefings to make sure she knows how to pronounce the names of the world leaders but does she need to know - RIGHT NOW - how to solve the problems between Israel and its neighbors? She ought to know there are problems still brewing in Georgia and with Russia and that the capital is not Athens but rather Tbilisi. But beyond that no one expects her to come up with the Nobel winning solution for these and many other large problems.

Right now her job is to help McCain get elected. And I think the GOP and others will waste a valuable resource if the focus is on her being attack dog against Obama. She can't talk much about experience even if on paper she might actually have more. That will backfire or at best waste time. She needs to stay away from the "I will fight the lobbyists," line since she has her own track record on this.

What can she do? Everyone agrees she can energize the conservatives in the way McCain couldn't or won't. She may be able to connect with independent women and even some democratic women. But I don't think she does that buy attacking Obama. I think she does that by saying and showing that she is a woman, a mother, a person with a career and family to juggle. She's not obviously rich. I think she can identify and relate to many many women. Not card-carrying members of NOW or NARAL (or whatever they call themselves these days) but the average woman out there trying to make ends meet, struggling with her kids, balancing a checkbook in the line at Wal-Mart to make sure there is enough.

Hillary was shrill. Palin is comfortable.

I hope they don't put her out on the stump trying to explain every little detail about McCain's health care plan and why it will finally solve all our problems while Obama's won't. Just let her talk about how she cares about health care and she will be an advocate in the White House for those who struggle with high costs and no insurance and possibly no access to proper medical care. Just relate to people and tell them we will work on it and that she will make this a priority. Don't try to solve it all now. I think one mistake all politicians make is telling us exactly how they will fix this or that when in reality even the President can only do so much.

I guess bottom line I hate to see her get spoiled. I'm afraid all the handlers will tell her exactly what to say, when and where and how to say it. If McCain truly picked her as a kindred spirit then leave her alone. She'll probably make some mistakes and say some things wrong. But let her speak as herself on things she knows about.

Find out what her strengths really are, what issues she really cares about and focus on those.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

the Veep-stakes

Of course the news for the next few days will be dominated by Mrs. Palin's disclosure of her pregnant daughter. I'm not going to talk here about that and whether it does or should have made any difference in McCain's choice.

The main topic is the idea that the VP is one-heartbeat away from the Presidency.

Is she ready to take over the country? Of course not.

But listening to Imus interview Tom Friedman today I was struck by a couple of comments:

One had to do with Biden. If in one or more primary races for the Democratic nod in years past, he has never mustered enough votes to continue, should we take that into consideration as to what most people wanted - especially Democrats since they were the only ones voting? I mean if a majority of Democrats never felt like he should be President, should the rest of the country now accept or assume he will be OK?

Of course not - that's not how it works.

Biden brings a lot to the ticket and he fills in some blanks. Does America want him as their President too? I doubt it. (At least 18 million of them wanted - and may STILL want Hillary!) This is all political.

The second comment was about Presidential decision making. The main thing we want in a President is for him/her to be surrounded by people who are very smart and wise and experienced. The test, according to Mr. Friedman, is what does the President do when those experts disagree.

I honestly don't know much about Palin yet - I know more about her teenage daughter so what does that say about the media's infatuation with scandal?

I still take Palin for exactly what she is and what the decision was. McCain desperately needed a nudge that Ridge, Pawlenty or no one else was going to give. Lieberman would have alienated too many party faithful. He could have gone with Carla Fiorina, former HP chair if he wanted to shake things up too but they would have really torn her up over her tenure at HP!

Is Palin the absolute best person for this job? Probably not. But is she good enough and does she bring something to the campaign? Of course.

This stage is about winning an election - not running the country. It's also about 2012. I have no doubts that should Obama lose, he will not run again. But I am certain Hillary will. And the GOP has to be looking at 2012 even if McCain won't promise to run for only one term.