Earlier this week David Brooks, a moderate conservative columnist for the New York Times, wrote how the health care debate is about values, namely two specific ones: security versus vitality. He presented those values as mutually exclusive at worst and like a soft balloon at best when it comes to health care specifically and the country in general. I’ll take the soft balloon analogy just to give him the benefit of the doubt. In that analogy, if you squeeze one end, you enhance the other. In any case, he sets up the classic false dichotomy or dialectic between two goods when there truly isn’t any at all. The country does not face a choice between security and vitality.
The premises he operates from are conservative: people are essentially lazy and are motivated by fear or need; necessity is the mother of invention; providing security undermines vitality in the individual and in the country. The philosophy borrows from the first Newtonian law of physics: objects stay at rest unless a force acts upon them to overcome their inertia.
What conservatives seem to forget, including David Brooks, is that an awful lot of accomplishment that occurs is motivated by desire to accomplish, the satisfaction of accomplishment, and the need to create. All of those are best nurtured from a place of security where the essentials of life are provided for. In the world of conservatives, the starving artist always produces the best art.
For example, kids learn better when they have been provided breakfast. That’s been established as a fact, not a theory. Athletes perform better when the coach has made a decision that they are the starters. Entrepreneurs are more successful when they are fully capitalized, not when they are scrambling around looking for money.
I spent a part of my professional life coaching. The sport I loved most was rowing. What I observed over the nearly three decades I coached was that all boats went faster once I had determined the line-ups. In other words, once the oarsmen knew what seat they were occupying, the boat settled down and got faster. They became a team, pulling for each other and themselves, and the whole nearly always became greater than the sum of its parts. If I kept seat-racing well into the racing season (pitting one oarsman against another by having them switch seats from boat to boat and race over a fixed distance for time) both boats more often than not got slower rather than faster. The team psyche and commitment to each other was more important to outcome than whether or not I had actually assembled the individually strongest oarsmen in one boat. Chemistry seemed to transcend logic, and the chemistry came out of and produced the trust and commitment which teamwork becomes and is in a beautiful example of micro- evolution.
I would contend that providing health care for all Americans would produce a more vital and vibrant work force, a more focused managerial workforce, and a more vital, dynamic economy. Taking that one ball (health care) out of the juggling act for everyone would allow all of us to focus more on the love of work for the sake of accomplishment rather than choosing a company for employment because it has good health benefits. How many disgruntled workers are doing a job they hate only because it offers a good health care program? Is that any way to manage or motivate a work force? Talk about productivity. Have you ever seem a winning team that hates what it does but does it anyway for the money? I think not. If they don’t love the sport first and the money second, they don’t win.
Most of whatever has been accomplished or invented has been done so out of love, not need. If necessity is the mother of invention, the father is love of inventing (What a role reversal that is!). A certain amount of security is necessary for productivity to occur. Encouraging teamwork in the workplace can only enhance productivity, not detract from it. And people can feel a part of a team only if there is a certain amount of security in place: sinecure, no; but security, yes. The guy who invented Microsoft did so out of his parents’ garage; the guys who invented Google did so out of their dorm rooms at Stanford. They didn’t have to scrounge for their own health benefits or put food on their tables; they came from families with means. They had more than a basic sense of security.
And that brings me to dispel the still existent myth of the self-made man, the myth that conservatives will seemingly believe in as long as the last one is standing. Guess what: there is no such thing. Every man who ever made it big has a lot of folks to thank, like it or not. The myth of the self-made man is easily dismissed by John Donne’s famous line, “No man is an island” no matter how hard conservatives work to leave you “on your own.”
Security is the basis for vitality, and security is a social concept, not an individual one. We can only be secure in relation to others. Once that is established, we can then be full of vitality and energy because we have nothing vital to lose. We can go on offense rather than remain stuck in a defensive mode of thinking. In short, security provides the defense from which we can launch our offense. The Japanese figured that out a long time ago, and their factories are the model of efficiency, vitality, teamwork, and security. A new idea or improvement can come from anywhere in the workforce, not just from the top down.
Conservatives would do well to begin looking at what actually works, rather than rely on old aphorisms that have been handed down from generation to generation like the neighbor in Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” who won’t go behind the saying, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Friday, November 27, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Honor and Honesty
I once taught in the South at an old fashioned, southern gentleman’s prep school located just below the Mason-Dixon Line. The culture of the school was fiercely southern, I imagine, because it was located so close to “Yankeedom.” It was a long time ago, but as I watch the Republican remnants and their fellow travelers like Joe Liebermann rant and rave about the need to preserve free market capitalism in all its purity, I am reminded of some of my students from the southern landed gentry stock who challenged me whenever I confronted them about looking over on Beauregard’s or Hampton’s paper for an answer to a quiz question. Their response was inevitably, “Are you questioning my honor, sir?”
I would answer with, “I don’t know exactly what you mean by honor, but I am certainly questioning your honesty.” What I saw was a complete disconnect between honesty and honor. The latter was some abstract notion of reputation that must be defended at all costs, while the whole concept of actual honesty seemed lost on these young men. Fortunately I was never challenged to a duel during my three years of exile in that disturbing land, and finally I escaped back to New England.
I see the same disconnect in the southern Republican defense of free enterprise. They insist it should be defended at all costs no matter what. There is in them the same false chivalry I witnessed as a young teacher. Their notion of integrity is to defend principles no matter what, even if they have proven themselves to be worthy of questioning, as evidenced by the latest bubble and bust scenario acted out on Wall Street. Their sense of absolute integrity in defense of pure market economies as the only way to conduct business falls right in line with the history of the South as a whole: they were adamant about maintaining the institution of slavery in the face of its obvious immorality and growing economic disadvantages for the region; they were adamant about preserving Jim Crow; they were adamant about the idealization and paradoxical subservience of their white women; and now they are adamant about maintaining the deregulation of free markets at any cost. Everything becomes a last stand against the undermining of principle by Yankee liberalism and pragmatism.
Even The Economist, probably the best weekly news magazine in the world and a defender of market economies, sees the need for some kind of regulation by governments in the wake of the unregulated market debacle, but the southern Republicans will stick to principle and frame issues in terms of Thomas Paine-like absolutes, although they would not cite Paine because he was a nominal Yankee.*
The southern Republican is not the last vestige of a culture that simply will not die. NASCAR is another. Born of whiskey-running, revenuer escaping outlaws, Today’s NASCAR is the epitome of the institutionalization of red-neck southern values, and it has grown to the point that it has become mainstream American entertainment. The vast majority of its contestants are white as are most of its viewers. It celebrates a modern version of the single combat warrior of old who lives outside the law, risks his life, and maneuvers through obstacles (other drivers) to attain victory. Although there are rules and regulations governing among other aspects the size of engines and the horsepower, the spirit of single combat in that individual contestants duel it out for huge cash prizes is preserved. Fatalities do occur from time to time, so the liberties they take can result in death. The illusion, at least, of unregulated, all-out-aggression and individually heroic life-risk is preserved.
The reality, however, is that NASCAR is regulated. It is not a place where anyone can bring any kind of car to the track and do anything he wants. There are rules, restrictions, and constant revisions as technology and safety issues evolve. If the quintessential modern southern sport has rules, why can’t Wall Street? Is it just another disconnect that sport should have rules but real life should not? Maybe it’s just confusion between freedom and license that the South never sorted out except in NASCAR. Real freedom is not doing whatever you want until you get caught and then retreating into self-righteous indignation when confronted or blowing blue smoke out your exhaust pipe to escape the revenuers.
One of the definitions of integrity, in fact the first, is honesty. But then again, the southern mind has always been able to compartmentalize in ways that astound, such as the disconnect I witnessed long ago, between honor and honesty. It appears that the modern southern Republican mind’s focus on principle is so strong that it is blinded from honesty in any real sense.
*Actually, he lived in Philadelphia for a rather short period of time and then New Rochelle, New York, although he spent a good deal of his life abroad and was born in England.
I would answer with, “I don’t know exactly what you mean by honor, but I am certainly questioning your honesty.” What I saw was a complete disconnect between honesty and honor. The latter was some abstract notion of reputation that must be defended at all costs, while the whole concept of actual honesty seemed lost on these young men. Fortunately I was never challenged to a duel during my three years of exile in that disturbing land, and finally I escaped back to New England.
I see the same disconnect in the southern Republican defense of free enterprise. They insist it should be defended at all costs no matter what. There is in them the same false chivalry I witnessed as a young teacher. Their notion of integrity is to defend principles no matter what, even if they have proven themselves to be worthy of questioning, as evidenced by the latest bubble and bust scenario acted out on Wall Street. Their sense of absolute integrity in defense of pure market economies as the only way to conduct business falls right in line with the history of the South as a whole: they were adamant about maintaining the institution of slavery in the face of its obvious immorality and growing economic disadvantages for the region; they were adamant about preserving Jim Crow; they were adamant about the idealization and paradoxical subservience of their white women; and now they are adamant about maintaining the deregulation of free markets at any cost. Everything becomes a last stand against the undermining of principle by Yankee liberalism and pragmatism.
Even The Economist, probably the best weekly news magazine in the world and a defender of market economies, sees the need for some kind of regulation by governments in the wake of the unregulated market debacle, but the southern Republicans will stick to principle and frame issues in terms of Thomas Paine-like absolutes, although they would not cite Paine because he was a nominal Yankee.*
The southern Republican is not the last vestige of a culture that simply will not die. NASCAR is another. Born of whiskey-running, revenuer escaping outlaws, Today’s NASCAR is the epitome of the institutionalization of red-neck southern values, and it has grown to the point that it has become mainstream American entertainment. The vast majority of its contestants are white as are most of its viewers. It celebrates a modern version of the single combat warrior of old who lives outside the law, risks his life, and maneuvers through obstacles (other drivers) to attain victory. Although there are rules and regulations governing among other aspects the size of engines and the horsepower, the spirit of single combat in that individual contestants duel it out for huge cash prizes is preserved. Fatalities do occur from time to time, so the liberties they take can result in death. The illusion, at least, of unregulated, all-out-aggression and individually heroic life-risk is preserved.
The reality, however, is that NASCAR is regulated. It is not a place where anyone can bring any kind of car to the track and do anything he wants. There are rules, restrictions, and constant revisions as technology and safety issues evolve. If the quintessential modern southern sport has rules, why can’t Wall Street? Is it just another disconnect that sport should have rules but real life should not? Maybe it’s just confusion between freedom and license that the South never sorted out except in NASCAR. Real freedom is not doing whatever you want until you get caught and then retreating into self-righteous indignation when confronted or blowing blue smoke out your exhaust pipe to escape the revenuers.
One of the definitions of integrity, in fact the first, is honesty. But then again, the southern mind has always been able to compartmentalize in ways that astound, such as the disconnect I witnessed long ago, between honor and honesty. It appears that the modern southern Republican mind’s focus on principle is so strong that it is blinded from honesty in any real sense.
*Actually, he lived in Philadelphia for a rather short period of time and then New Rochelle, New York, although he spent a good deal of his life abroad and was born in England.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Manifest Destiny 2009
The shooting at Fort Hood is beginning to look like another story in the long history of manifest destiny narratives. What they all have in common is that some kind of god told a person (or a people) that he should listen to the voice in his head (presumably the voice of God) and do what it says. Whether it is a voice telling Israelis to keep building their houses on occupied Palestinian lands, or Christian settlers usurping Indian lands in the settling of the American West, or Islamic Jihadists detonating suicide bombs, or right-wing Christians killing abortion doctors, they all have the voice of God as their navigator or inspiration.
Most of the time throughout history the voice of God has been benign. Most believers in God have used that voice to tell them to be good or to do good works. The problem is, as soon as a person decides that voice in his head is the voice of God, all bets are off as to what head voice messages are assigned to God and what are not. God’s voice is hard to distinguish from whatever other voices exist in the head. You can assign God to the deep voices or to the little bird-type voices. The problem remains: how can you tell for certain which messages are God’s and which are not?
The safer course is to assume that all voices in your head are of your own making, not anyone else’s, especially a god’s, and to question every voice you hear no matter what. Relinquishing authority to someone else, especially an invisible voice, is kind of dangerous. It leaves you open to the possibility of believing a message to kill someone is a good thing.
That’s why we would be a whole lot better off if we question authority, especially if that authority comes to us in the form of a voice or in the form of an authority who is telling us to do something our reason or the law tells us is quite wrong.
Therefore, it is probably better to listen to the narratives that are life-affirming and respectful of others rather than those that are not. That way, we won’t end up thinking God told us to do something or start believing homicide is better than suicide because at least we are thinking of others when we kill them.
As soon as we turn our lives over to the care of God, we have relinquished some responsibility for governing our own lives. That is why I have a hard time understanding why conservatives advocate taking more responsibility for ourselves and yet also stand behind the notion of a God whose voice can surely be mistaken or invented as an excuse to take the law into ones’ own hands.
I would rather leave out trying to tell which voices in my head are God’s or someone else’s and assume they are all just voices in my head. That way, I will not empower some voices more than others and will remain skeptical of them all.
However, in American culture we have the triple-edged sword of freedom of religion, the right to bear arms, and freedom of speech. In other words, we are free to believe anything we think and free to purchase a gun to act on those beliefs without regard to consequences until after the action has occurred, unless we have previously sent enough verbal signals in advance to call attention to our intentions. Unless those verbal signals are confronted, it is often too late to prevent the consequences. Such is the dilemma of freedom of speech, of religion, of the right to bear arms.
In the case of the Fort Hood shooter, the verbal signals were there. Apparently the supply of Army counselors was so small in relation to the demand that the screening process was made loose enough to keep the supply of counselors greater than was safely advisable. Sending a devout Muslim with extremist sympathies to Afghanistan was the straw that broke the back of what was left of the shooter’s sanity because it put him in a psychological double bind: he was going to have to hear the confessions of American soldiers who would be apparently killing his own religious brethren. He could not imagine withstanding that personal torture. Belief in absolutes trumps mundane duty to one’s profession when the two conflict.
The respect America gives to freedom of religion, the right to bear arms, and freedom of speech will continue to be ingredients readily available to produce a “bomb” ready to go off almost anywhere in America, even at a military installation. That’s the price we pay for those freedoms, and this Fort Hood narrative is just one more in the pantheon of sad narratives that are a part of the on-going American story. And we hear them in one form or another when the body count is large or valued enough or the perpetrators initially seem unlikely (an American soldier shooting other soldiers on an Army base).
Maybe we need more counselors for all of us, especially those of us who are prone to view the world in terms of absolutes and those of us who have trouble identifying the voices in our heads. But that would mean universal mental health care coverage, and we can’t even get to universal physical health care without diluting compromise. You’re still on your own there, but you can have all the guns you want without a prescription.
Most of the time throughout history the voice of God has been benign. Most believers in God have used that voice to tell them to be good or to do good works. The problem is, as soon as a person decides that voice in his head is the voice of God, all bets are off as to what head voice messages are assigned to God and what are not. God’s voice is hard to distinguish from whatever other voices exist in the head. You can assign God to the deep voices or to the little bird-type voices. The problem remains: how can you tell for certain which messages are God’s and which are not?
The safer course is to assume that all voices in your head are of your own making, not anyone else’s, especially a god’s, and to question every voice you hear no matter what. Relinquishing authority to someone else, especially an invisible voice, is kind of dangerous. It leaves you open to the possibility of believing a message to kill someone is a good thing.
That’s why we would be a whole lot better off if we question authority, especially if that authority comes to us in the form of a voice or in the form of an authority who is telling us to do something our reason or the law tells us is quite wrong.
Therefore, it is probably better to listen to the narratives that are life-affirming and respectful of others rather than those that are not. That way, we won’t end up thinking God told us to do something or start believing homicide is better than suicide because at least we are thinking of others when we kill them.
As soon as we turn our lives over to the care of God, we have relinquished some responsibility for governing our own lives. That is why I have a hard time understanding why conservatives advocate taking more responsibility for ourselves and yet also stand behind the notion of a God whose voice can surely be mistaken or invented as an excuse to take the law into ones’ own hands.
I would rather leave out trying to tell which voices in my head are God’s or someone else’s and assume they are all just voices in my head. That way, I will not empower some voices more than others and will remain skeptical of them all.
However, in American culture we have the triple-edged sword of freedom of religion, the right to bear arms, and freedom of speech. In other words, we are free to believe anything we think and free to purchase a gun to act on those beliefs without regard to consequences until after the action has occurred, unless we have previously sent enough verbal signals in advance to call attention to our intentions. Unless those verbal signals are confronted, it is often too late to prevent the consequences. Such is the dilemma of freedom of speech, of religion, of the right to bear arms.
In the case of the Fort Hood shooter, the verbal signals were there. Apparently the supply of Army counselors was so small in relation to the demand that the screening process was made loose enough to keep the supply of counselors greater than was safely advisable. Sending a devout Muslim with extremist sympathies to Afghanistan was the straw that broke the back of what was left of the shooter’s sanity because it put him in a psychological double bind: he was going to have to hear the confessions of American soldiers who would be apparently killing his own religious brethren. He could not imagine withstanding that personal torture. Belief in absolutes trumps mundane duty to one’s profession when the two conflict.
The respect America gives to freedom of religion, the right to bear arms, and freedom of speech will continue to be ingredients readily available to produce a “bomb” ready to go off almost anywhere in America, even at a military installation. That’s the price we pay for those freedoms, and this Fort Hood narrative is just one more in the pantheon of sad narratives that are a part of the on-going American story. And we hear them in one form or another when the body count is large or valued enough or the perpetrators initially seem unlikely (an American soldier shooting other soldiers on an Army base).
Maybe we need more counselors for all of us, especially those of us who are prone to view the world in terms of absolutes and those of us who have trouble identifying the voices in our heads. But that would mean universal mental health care coverage, and we can’t even get to universal physical health care without diluting compromise. You’re still on your own there, but you can have all the guns you want without a prescription.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Grace
The word grace has had religious connotations for centuries. Religion has presented it essentially in two forms: something earned from or something freely given by a god. In either case, the human being on the receiving end of supposed divine grace was better off than those who were not. Grace was seen as a blessing, an advantage, or a desirable elite status.
I would contend that we would be a lot better off if we simply recognized the concept of grace as a desirable human characteristic and sought to maximize its existence among us. After all, it is we who gave our gods the capacity to bestow it in the first place so why not own it ourselves to produce as much of it as we can. Of all the shortages we can see around us today (jobs, money, happiness, civility) grace is the least present of all.
But just what is this humanistic grace of which I speak? And what is it not? When we think of it at all, it is usually in the form of an adjective: graceful. The dancers who appear on So You Think You Can Dance are often viewed as graceful in their movement even when they are dancing a very rigorous tango or salsa. But the program itself is not at all graceful in that it emphasizes judgment and competition as the measure of success, thus producing a pair of winners and a host of losers. There is little grace in the outcome. There is also no grace in the name of the program which throws down a gauntlet-like challenge and dares you to prove that you can do what you think you can. It’s no encouraging set of words like The Little Engine That Could.
When I was coming of age in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, American Bandstand captivated a whole generation of teenagers who admired the dancing skills of the cast members who were never put in the position of becoming winners or losers. They were all winners much the same way the Mouseketeers were on the Mickey Mouse Club created by Walt Disney. The viewing audiences in both cases were given a variety of personalities to admire and even emulate. The dancing was good, but as a viewer I never felt the need to see a showdown in order to determine who the best dancer was on either program. Must everything be reduced to winners and losers? Was not the grace of it the fact that they were dancing?
Discourse has suffered the same fate of late as dance. Diatribe has replaced dialogue as the means of communication. The win-at-all-cost monologue championed by self-appointed and self-righteous talk show hosts whose might- (following) makes-right attitude has replaced the measured, nuanced rhetoric of well-mannered and thoughtful pursuers of truth like Walter Lippmann and William F. Buckley. Blind certitude is asserted in the face of complexity with a vehemence that precludes any humility or doubt. It is about winning, the truth already having been established. The idea of being graceful is brushed aside as a sign of weakness.
A friend once remarked that if we, as human beings, were completely uninhibited, we would sing to each other rather than talk. Life would be a combination of opera and ballet. It would be about the grace of it all, not the meanness. It would be about bringing out the best in each other in everyday life, which would mean bringing out the grace each of us has inherent in us as human beings. Grace, by my definition, goes beyond mere civility or generosity or art. It is the combination of all human qualities that produce goodness in all its forms and facets. It is the combination of qualities that help us harmonize with our habitats and sing the song of life. It is about singing rather than bickering; dancing rather than trudging; skipping rather than plodding. It is about painting ourselves out of corners rather than into them, and being the am and drinking the tea in team.
The Puritans thought they knew what grace was and believed that you either had it or you didn’t. They had located it in their god, personified it (he) and then doled it out to the select few whose crops did not fail or ships did not sink. We’re still seeing the remnants of that legacy in those who tell us that because they are materially successful or know (for certain) how that happens, that they are the elect who must convey their wisdom to their hopeful followers. Ultimately it is self-serving rationalization, not true grace.
The question is not “So you think you can dance?” The question is will you.
I would contend that we would be a lot better off if we simply recognized the concept of grace as a desirable human characteristic and sought to maximize its existence among us. After all, it is we who gave our gods the capacity to bestow it in the first place so why not own it ourselves to produce as much of it as we can. Of all the shortages we can see around us today (jobs, money, happiness, civility) grace is the least present of all.
But just what is this humanistic grace of which I speak? And what is it not? When we think of it at all, it is usually in the form of an adjective: graceful. The dancers who appear on So You Think You Can Dance are often viewed as graceful in their movement even when they are dancing a very rigorous tango or salsa. But the program itself is not at all graceful in that it emphasizes judgment and competition as the measure of success, thus producing a pair of winners and a host of losers. There is little grace in the outcome. There is also no grace in the name of the program which throws down a gauntlet-like challenge and dares you to prove that you can do what you think you can. It’s no encouraging set of words like The Little Engine That Could.
When I was coming of age in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, American Bandstand captivated a whole generation of teenagers who admired the dancing skills of the cast members who were never put in the position of becoming winners or losers. They were all winners much the same way the Mouseketeers were on the Mickey Mouse Club created by Walt Disney. The viewing audiences in both cases were given a variety of personalities to admire and even emulate. The dancing was good, but as a viewer I never felt the need to see a showdown in order to determine who the best dancer was on either program. Must everything be reduced to winners and losers? Was not the grace of it the fact that they were dancing?
Discourse has suffered the same fate of late as dance. Diatribe has replaced dialogue as the means of communication. The win-at-all-cost monologue championed by self-appointed and self-righteous talk show hosts whose might- (following) makes-right attitude has replaced the measured, nuanced rhetoric of well-mannered and thoughtful pursuers of truth like Walter Lippmann and William F. Buckley. Blind certitude is asserted in the face of complexity with a vehemence that precludes any humility or doubt. It is about winning, the truth already having been established. The idea of being graceful is brushed aside as a sign of weakness.
A friend once remarked that if we, as human beings, were completely uninhibited, we would sing to each other rather than talk. Life would be a combination of opera and ballet. It would be about the grace of it all, not the meanness. It would be about bringing out the best in each other in everyday life, which would mean bringing out the grace each of us has inherent in us as human beings. Grace, by my definition, goes beyond mere civility or generosity or art. It is the combination of all human qualities that produce goodness in all its forms and facets. It is the combination of qualities that help us harmonize with our habitats and sing the song of life. It is about singing rather than bickering; dancing rather than trudging; skipping rather than plodding. It is about painting ourselves out of corners rather than into them, and being the am and drinking the tea in team.
The Puritans thought they knew what grace was and believed that you either had it or you didn’t. They had located it in their god, personified it (he) and then doled it out to the select few whose crops did not fail or ships did not sink. We’re still seeing the remnants of that legacy in those who tell us that because they are materially successful or know (for certain) how that happens, that they are the elect who must convey their wisdom to their hopeful followers. Ultimately it is self-serving rationalization, not true grace.
The question is not “So you think you can dance?” The question is will you.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Who Are the “Best People”?
Bank of America and Citigroup, two of the large Wall Street firms that received TARP money are balking at Compensation Czar Kenneth Feinberg’s policy announcement that halves the compensation packages for the top twenty-five executives in each company. AIG is another that faces the same scheme. In fact, there are seven companies that fall under the new compensation limits. These seven are protesting that they will lose their “best people” to competitors who are not held to the same new standards because the competition have either paid back the TARP money or never required any in the first place and therefore are free to pay whatever compensation they like.
This raises an important set of questions: Does the market place set compensation in any sensible way? What is meant by “best people”? Were the exorbitant pay packages that the so-called “best people” received last year justifiable even though their decisions brought the world economy to its knees? Are the present “best people” the same kind of “best people” who ruined the economy or are they a new kind of “best people”? Does the compensation structure these companies want to retain set the world economy up for another disaster?
If the average CEO makes astronomically more than the janitor who cleans his office, is that sensible or is it simply greedy? What makes that CEO that much more valuable than the janitor? If the CEO steers the corporation to greater profit and long-term stability, then perhaps his high pay package is justifiable. However, when he steers the corporation into bankruptcy and affects the economy far beyond his corporate realm, should he not receive at least a substantial pay cut until he brings the corporation back on course? I would think so.
I spent my career as an educator. Many former students of mine went on to work on Wall Street, and they did very well, but they were not the brightest students I ever taught. They were good people with strong ethics and a powerful sense of responsibility. They learned sportsmanship on the playing fields. They went to good colleges, earned B’s and C’s, played a good game of golf or tennis, and kept their integrity safe. They were not MIT whiz kids or star Harvard Business School grads: they were just “good people,” but not the kind of “good people” these TARP-takers are fearful of losing. No, those whiz kids know how to make money at any cost, faster than you can sneeze. And the amounts they are able to compile are nothing to sneeze at, in the short run.
So to answer the first and second questions, I would have to say that the market place will never set sensible compensation. The compensation on Wall Street is based on pure greed, not any rational criteria. The so-called “good people” who demand the exorbitant salaries and bonuses are completely self-serving, unlike educators and other public servants who are truly better people because they are willing to sacrifice a high salary for a greater good. Would a higher salary attract a better caliber of teacher? Maybe it would. However, I doubt offering a six-figure salary would attract the kind of caring good people who are effective, in part, because they care about their students. The same could be said of police, fire-fighters, etc. They are not attracted to the job solely because of the money. A six-figure salary the Masters of the Universe on Wall Street consider pocket change. To argue that Wall Street demands are rational or reasonable is ludicrous. It is another example that the market place is not a place where reason resides. These exorbitant salaries are completely irrational and unjustifiable in any real sense. In the realm of imagined demand in relation to a spurious notion of limited supply of so called “good people” is the realm of nonsense. Wall Street has lost its moral compass completely when it comes to defining “goodness.” If what they mean as “good” are the knuckle-heads who got us into this mess to begin with, then they need a course in basic logic and another in basic ethics. Good at making short-term money at the expense of long-term financial well-being on Main Street is not a very good “good.”
When financial institutions are interested in making money without any concern for the greater good, they do not serve the economy. They are not really investment banks except in a completely self-serving sense, and a short term self-serving sense at that. To argue that they’ll lose “good people” if their compensation is reduced suggests that regulation has a long way to go before Wall Street begins to serve Main Street, a principle which would benefit our nation as a whole. I would argue that investment that creates jobs and produces goods that can be sold abroad would be a noble goal of Wall Street. But it seems that most of the so-called “good people” on Wall Street are only interested in concocting the next scheme to dupe investors into investing in that next “too-good-to-be-true” financial smoke and mirrors product.
Basing Wall Street compensation on reduction in domestic unemployment rates would be a good trigger and incentive for Wall Street to invest in America. It just might get them to lend money again. Let’s start by setting the trigger at 6 percent. When unemployment drops to 6 percent, the Masters of the Universe get their cookies.
As David Brooks points out in one of his NYT columns, the Obama administration is creating incentives for governors to compete for federal grants by showing real reform, not just lip-service. Why not make those who created the economic disaster reform as well and be made to compete for their bonuses based on indices other than pure, short-term profit. One index would be unemployment rates which are directly tied to how well Main Street is doing. Main Street’s success is dependent on Wall Street’s investment in real productivity, not in shell games.
The larger question is whether or not Wall Street is capable of doing good as well as doing well. And are they capable of thinking long-term or are they merely focused on short-term profit and to hell with the long run. If the quintessence of capitalism remains that selfish and shortsighted, the whole system is in dire jeopardy. Whatever happened to the “good people” I used to teach who maintain their integrity at any cost? Were they left behind by the whiz kids, the “rabbits”? I hope Aesop is still right and that the tortoise will again cross the finish line first, and the ants will survive the winter while the grasshoppers die. In short, Wall Street has to stop thinking its only purpose is to make quick money. If we all thought that way, there would be no common good. There would be no good, period. It’s long past the time that Wall Street take on its proportional share of looking after the common good. After all, it is the purse strings of the economy and has a major responsibility to actually care about the society it exists to serve. When it started thinking that society existed to serve it, that’s when it got into trouble.
Meanwhile, will someone please explain to me the difference between these so-called “good people” on Wall Street and Ponzi schemers? We need to reincarnate William James to write a new book called The Varieties of Ponzi Experience. Or maybe we simply come up with categories like “soft Ponzi” and “hard-core Ponzi” parallel to the concepts of soft porn and hard-core porn. Or we could have Wall Street and Stonewall Street. Whatever the case, let’s replace the so-called “Good People” with the real thing.
This raises an important set of questions: Does the market place set compensation in any sensible way? What is meant by “best people”? Were the exorbitant pay packages that the so-called “best people” received last year justifiable even though their decisions brought the world economy to its knees? Are the present “best people” the same kind of “best people” who ruined the economy or are they a new kind of “best people”? Does the compensation structure these companies want to retain set the world economy up for another disaster?
If the average CEO makes astronomically more than the janitor who cleans his office, is that sensible or is it simply greedy? What makes that CEO that much more valuable than the janitor? If the CEO steers the corporation to greater profit and long-term stability, then perhaps his high pay package is justifiable. However, when he steers the corporation into bankruptcy and affects the economy far beyond his corporate realm, should he not receive at least a substantial pay cut until he brings the corporation back on course? I would think so.
I spent my career as an educator. Many former students of mine went on to work on Wall Street, and they did very well, but they were not the brightest students I ever taught. They were good people with strong ethics and a powerful sense of responsibility. They learned sportsmanship on the playing fields. They went to good colleges, earned B’s and C’s, played a good game of golf or tennis, and kept their integrity safe. They were not MIT whiz kids or star Harvard Business School grads: they were just “good people,” but not the kind of “good people” these TARP-takers are fearful of losing. No, those whiz kids know how to make money at any cost, faster than you can sneeze. And the amounts they are able to compile are nothing to sneeze at, in the short run.
So to answer the first and second questions, I would have to say that the market place will never set sensible compensation. The compensation on Wall Street is based on pure greed, not any rational criteria. The so-called “good people” who demand the exorbitant salaries and bonuses are completely self-serving, unlike educators and other public servants who are truly better people because they are willing to sacrifice a high salary for a greater good. Would a higher salary attract a better caliber of teacher? Maybe it would. However, I doubt offering a six-figure salary would attract the kind of caring good people who are effective, in part, because they care about their students. The same could be said of police, fire-fighters, etc. They are not attracted to the job solely because of the money. A six-figure salary the Masters of the Universe on Wall Street consider pocket change. To argue that Wall Street demands are rational or reasonable is ludicrous. It is another example that the market place is not a place where reason resides. These exorbitant salaries are completely irrational and unjustifiable in any real sense. In the realm of imagined demand in relation to a spurious notion of limited supply of so called “good people” is the realm of nonsense. Wall Street has lost its moral compass completely when it comes to defining “goodness.” If what they mean as “good” are the knuckle-heads who got us into this mess to begin with, then they need a course in basic logic and another in basic ethics. Good at making short-term money at the expense of long-term financial well-being on Main Street is not a very good “good.”
When financial institutions are interested in making money without any concern for the greater good, they do not serve the economy. They are not really investment banks except in a completely self-serving sense, and a short term self-serving sense at that. To argue that they’ll lose “good people” if their compensation is reduced suggests that regulation has a long way to go before Wall Street begins to serve Main Street, a principle which would benefit our nation as a whole. I would argue that investment that creates jobs and produces goods that can be sold abroad would be a noble goal of Wall Street. But it seems that most of the so-called “good people” on Wall Street are only interested in concocting the next scheme to dupe investors into investing in that next “too-good-to-be-true” financial smoke and mirrors product.
Basing Wall Street compensation on reduction in domestic unemployment rates would be a good trigger and incentive for Wall Street to invest in America. It just might get them to lend money again. Let’s start by setting the trigger at 6 percent. When unemployment drops to 6 percent, the Masters of the Universe get their cookies.
As David Brooks points out in one of his NYT columns, the Obama administration is creating incentives for governors to compete for federal grants by showing real reform, not just lip-service. Why not make those who created the economic disaster reform as well and be made to compete for their bonuses based on indices other than pure, short-term profit. One index would be unemployment rates which are directly tied to how well Main Street is doing. Main Street’s success is dependent on Wall Street’s investment in real productivity, not in shell games.
The larger question is whether or not Wall Street is capable of doing good as well as doing well. And are they capable of thinking long-term or are they merely focused on short-term profit and to hell with the long run. If the quintessence of capitalism remains that selfish and shortsighted, the whole system is in dire jeopardy. Whatever happened to the “good people” I used to teach who maintain their integrity at any cost? Were they left behind by the whiz kids, the “rabbits”? I hope Aesop is still right and that the tortoise will again cross the finish line first, and the ants will survive the winter while the grasshoppers die. In short, Wall Street has to stop thinking its only purpose is to make quick money. If we all thought that way, there would be no common good. There would be no good, period. It’s long past the time that Wall Street take on its proportional share of looking after the common good. After all, it is the purse strings of the economy and has a major responsibility to actually care about the society it exists to serve. When it started thinking that society existed to serve it, that’s when it got into trouble.
Meanwhile, will someone please explain to me the difference between these so-called “good people” on Wall Street and Ponzi schemers? We need to reincarnate William James to write a new book called The Varieties of Ponzi Experience. Or maybe we simply come up with categories like “soft Ponzi” and “hard-core Ponzi” parallel to the concepts of soft porn and hard-core porn. Or we could have Wall Street and Stonewall Street. Whatever the case, let’s replace the so-called “Good People” with the real thing.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Greed Your Creed or Good for the Hood?
The debate between the left and the right is boiling down to the usual suspects: greed versus the common good. Does a person’s right to get rich take precedence over another person’s right to survive? That’s the question about rights that all debates between liberals and conservatives ultimately boil down to. It is the maple syrup that’s left from all the sap that comes oozing from the trunks of both conservative and liberal family trees.
Folks bent on becoming rich seldom notice or care about the poor or even the middle class. They are too busy buying companies and hedging their bets to bother with society’s losers. And the losers are society’s losers, not theirs. There is no ownership among the masters of the universe concerning the unintended consequences of their wealth. Their ownership is about stuff. They are not their brother’s keeper. No time for that until perhaps they have arrived in their own mind at the point of satiety when they can then join the noblesse oblige, if they so choose.
The rationale for laissez-faire greed has always been the trickle-down theory or the bubble up one as in “a rising tide lifts all boats.” Never mind that your rowboat leaks and his yacht’s wake could swamp you any second. In theory, both trickle-down and bubble-up are logical. The trouble is they don’t take into account the reality most folks face, especially when the economy goes south but even when it is booming, according to the usual tools of measurement like GDP. Trickle- down, in particular, reminds me of rain over a high desert: most of it never hits the ground. There is plenty of rain falling, but most of it evaporates. Therefore, trickles and bubbles end up being mere blind rationales for continued greed.
The liberals, on the other hand, are all about the common good, in theory. However, there seem to be as many rich folks among the liberals as among conservatives these days. These so called “limo- liberals” talk a good game about the common good but they benefit as much from their investments in good times as do the cutthroat Wall Street conservatives. Theirs is a consumer-oriented philosophy that sees an LED TV in every living room, the updated version of “a chicken in every pot.” Their measure of economic success is the employment rate and the differential between rich and poor, not GDP. In theory they look at how the middle class and the poor are faring and judge the economy on the basis of unemployment rate, size of the middle class, and rate of improvement in standard of living for the average American. Instead of trusting trickle-down or bubble-up, liberals try to assess the actual well-being of the average person and judge the economy accordingly.
What neither liberal nor conservative seems to get about our economy is that we no longer make things in America. Our economy is based on the service industry, particularly on financial services, not manufacturing. If we are to ever restore low unemployment rates in America, we need to retool our industry and redirect our financial institutions toward investment in domestic industry. In short, we need to become a producer of goods and not merely a consumer culture. We also need to replace corporate America as we now know it with real competition among smaller scale companies that actually improve energy efficiency, foster sustainable living, and promote health and well-being.
One way to accomplish this is to tie Wall Street bonuses to the lowering of the unemployment rate. That way, investors will be encouraged to invest in companies that need a domestic labor force, that actually make things and contribute to the growth of GDP.
Another is for the federal government to create incentives for industries that we actually need and to remove subsidies for those we don’t. A pure market economy is directed by appetite, not need. That kind of economy will always go to the candy or fast food drive-thru before it eats its vegetables. It is unhealthy for the country and for the individual citizen. We have heard the stories from GM about how they listened to consumers and decided to build more big pick-ups and SUVs because “that’s what the American consumer wanted.” That’s nonsense. The American consumer has little capacity for long-term thinking, as evidenced by the consumer credit debt it has amassed of late and the size of the houses it has purchased but could ill afford. The government has to set the country’s priorities the way it has done so in time of world war using the tool of incentives directed toward the common good, not common taste.
Finally, conservatives and liberals alike need to put aside their theories and measurements and face facts. Our country is going to die a slow death at best if we don’t stop bickering over philosophy and start getting very pragmatic about how to generate a renewed and vibrant economy. Going back to the same old ways will not work. Otherwise, the directed economy of China will blow past us like a NASCAR champion while we continue to lose speed around the world economic track in our gas-guzzling, cumbersome pick-up or SUV.
Folks bent on becoming rich seldom notice or care about the poor or even the middle class. They are too busy buying companies and hedging their bets to bother with society’s losers. And the losers are society’s losers, not theirs. There is no ownership among the masters of the universe concerning the unintended consequences of their wealth. Their ownership is about stuff. They are not their brother’s keeper. No time for that until perhaps they have arrived in their own mind at the point of satiety when they can then join the noblesse oblige, if they so choose.
The rationale for laissez-faire greed has always been the trickle-down theory or the bubble up one as in “a rising tide lifts all boats.” Never mind that your rowboat leaks and his yacht’s wake could swamp you any second. In theory, both trickle-down and bubble-up are logical. The trouble is they don’t take into account the reality most folks face, especially when the economy goes south but even when it is booming, according to the usual tools of measurement like GDP. Trickle- down, in particular, reminds me of rain over a high desert: most of it never hits the ground. There is plenty of rain falling, but most of it evaporates. Therefore, trickles and bubbles end up being mere blind rationales for continued greed.
The liberals, on the other hand, are all about the common good, in theory. However, there seem to be as many rich folks among the liberals as among conservatives these days. These so called “limo- liberals” talk a good game about the common good but they benefit as much from their investments in good times as do the cutthroat Wall Street conservatives. Theirs is a consumer-oriented philosophy that sees an LED TV in every living room, the updated version of “a chicken in every pot.” Their measure of economic success is the employment rate and the differential between rich and poor, not GDP. In theory they look at how the middle class and the poor are faring and judge the economy on the basis of unemployment rate, size of the middle class, and rate of improvement in standard of living for the average American. Instead of trusting trickle-down or bubble-up, liberals try to assess the actual well-being of the average person and judge the economy accordingly.
What neither liberal nor conservative seems to get about our economy is that we no longer make things in America. Our economy is based on the service industry, particularly on financial services, not manufacturing. If we are to ever restore low unemployment rates in America, we need to retool our industry and redirect our financial institutions toward investment in domestic industry. In short, we need to become a producer of goods and not merely a consumer culture. We also need to replace corporate America as we now know it with real competition among smaller scale companies that actually improve energy efficiency, foster sustainable living, and promote health and well-being.
One way to accomplish this is to tie Wall Street bonuses to the lowering of the unemployment rate. That way, investors will be encouraged to invest in companies that need a domestic labor force, that actually make things and contribute to the growth of GDP.
Another is for the federal government to create incentives for industries that we actually need and to remove subsidies for those we don’t. A pure market economy is directed by appetite, not need. That kind of economy will always go to the candy or fast food drive-thru before it eats its vegetables. It is unhealthy for the country and for the individual citizen. We have heard the stories from GM about how they listened to consumers and decided to build more big pick-ups and SUVs because “that’s what the American consumer wanted.” That’s nonsense. The American consumer has little capacity for long-term thinking, as evidenced by the consumer credit debt it has amassed of late and the size of the houses it has purchased but could ill afford. The government has to set the country’s priorities the way it has done so in time of world war using the tool of incentives directed toward the common good, not common taste.
Finally, conservatives and liberals alike need to put aside their theories and measurements and face facts. Our country is going to die a slow death at best if we don’t stop bickering over philosophy and start getting very pragmatic about how to generate a renewed and vibrant economy. Going back to the same old ways will not work. Otherwise, the directed economy of China will blow past us like a NASCAR champion while we continue to lose speed around the world economic track in our gas-guzzling, cumbersome pick-up or SUV.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
What If There Were No Republicans?
Imagine if we woke up tomorrow and there were no Republicans. I am not suggesting that they be rounded up and eliminated or put on boats and sent back to Europe, where most of their ancestors came from. I mean that tomorrow the whole concept of conservatism and Republicanism just disappeared, just for the next few years, just for the remainder of Obama’s first term.
What would Democrats do? What would Obama do? My guess is that the first thing that would happen is we would withdraw from Afghanistan and stop trying to look tough in the eyes of conservatives who would not be around to condemn the Democrats for being soft on terrorism. I believe we are in Afghanistan because the Democrats felt shamed into being somewhere other than in Iraq in order to keep in check Republican and independent hawks who see the active demonstration of military strength as a litmus test for the presence of political testosterone or toughness.
The second thing that would happen is the tip-toeing through the minefield of private option preservation in health care insurance would stop, and an actual single-payer program would be developed that would serve to cut health care costs astronomically and boost economic recovery substantially in the long run. American companies would finally be able to compete with their foreign counterparts and would be encouraged to stay home and hire Americans rather than seek cheaper off-shore manufacturing sites.
The third thing to occur would be the re-establishment of anti-trust laws and the break- up of large “too big to fail” corporations and banks. No longer would the Democrats have to fear the loss of Wall Street support for their candidates. Caveats would be put on bonuses for bankers and CEOs that would tie any bonuses not only to actual value creation but to unemployment figures. Bonuses would not be granted until national unemployment dropped below say five percent. That way, investors would keep in mind that their investments had to create jobs or they would not be getting big bonuses.
The fourth thing that would happen in spite of some Democrats from coal-digging states is the country would shift from coal and oil as the primary energy sources to wind, sun and natural gas, assuming that the latter can be carefully extracted without harming water and air. No longer would the current oil and coal lobbies have enough power to control congress by playing one party against the other.
The fifth event would be the complete overhaul of American education. No longer would the Democrats have to bow to the will of teachers unions. They could embark on real educational reform including a longer school year, smaller schools, better teacher-student ratios, more rigorous standards, and more freedom to get it right.
The last benefit I will mention is the Democrats would have to take responsibility for balancing the budget starting now. They could no longer blame the past administration or the current obstructionists for preventing them from doing what is right for their grandchildren’s sake. After all, it is Republicans who often say about future generations: “They’ll figure it out. Meanwhile, let’s make some money, lower taxes, and cut programs” (that Republicans never benefit from or don’t need because they are rich). The bleeding heart liberals, of course, actually care about others and don’t want to leave a legacy of burdensome debt for their grandchildren to go “figure out.” Liberals by definition are other-directed, not “you’re on your own” rugged individualists. At the same time, they will be solely responsible for their programs and budgets, knowing they will be held solely accountable and that the Republicans would be available again in 2012 if the Democrats don’t follow through.
These are among the many benefits of not having any Republicans around for the next few years. I am not suggesting that they disappear permanently, as the Whig party did in the nineteenth century, although I am sorely tempted to conjure up a bumper sticker to that effect. In fact, I can see the bumper sticker now: REPUBLICAN: Gone with the WHIG!
What would Democrats do? What would Obama do? My guess is that the first thing that would happen is we would withdraw from Afghanistan and stop trying to look tough in the eyes of conservatives who would not be around to condemn the Democrats for being soft on terrorism. I believe we are in Afghanistan because the Democrats felt shamed into being somewhere other than in Iraq in order to keep in check Republican and independent hawks who see the active demonstration of military strength as a litmus test for the presence of political testosterone or toughness.
The second thing that would happen is the tip-toeing through the minefield of private option preservation in health care insurance would stop, and an actual single-payer program would be developed that would serve to cut health care costs astronomically and boost economic recovery substantially in the long run. American companies would finally be able to compete with their foreign counterparts and would be encouraged to stay home and hire Americans rather than seek cheaper off-shore manufacturing sites.
The third thing to occur would be the re-establishment of anti-trust laws and the break- up of large “too big to fail” corporations and banks. No longer would the Democrats have to fear the loss of Wall Street support for their candidates. Caveats would be put on bonuses for bankers and CEOs that would tie any bonuses not only to actual value creation but to unemployment figures. Bonuses would not be granted until national unemployment dropped below say five percent. That way, investors would keep in mind that their investments had to create jobs or they would not be getting big bonuses.
The fourth thing that would happen in spite of some Democrats from coal-digging states is the country would shift from coal and oil as the primary energy sources to wind, sun and natural gas, assuming that the latter can be carefully extracted without harming water and air. No longer would the current oil and coal lobbies have enough power to control congress by playing one party against the other.
The fifth event would be the complete overhaul of American education. No longer would the Democrats have to bow to the will of teachers unions. They could embark on real educational reform including a longer school year, smaller schools, better teacher-student ratios, more rigorous standards, and more freedom to get it right.
The last benefit I will mention is the Democrats would have to take responsibility for balancing the budget starting now. They could no longer blame the past administration or the current obstructionists for preventing them from doing what is right for their grandchildren’s sake. After all, it is Republicans who often say about future generations: “They’ll figure it out. Meanwhile, let’s make some money, lower taxes, and cut programs” (that Republicans never benefit from or don’t need because they are rich). The bleeding heart liberals, of course, actually care about others and don’t want to leave a legacy of burdensome debt for their grandchildren to go “figure out.” Liberals by definition are other-directed, not “you’re on your own” rugged individualists. At the same time, they will be solely responsible for their programs and budgets, knowing they will be held solely accountable and that the Republicans would be available again in 2012 if the Democrats don’t follow through.
These are among the many benefits of not having any Republicans around for the next few years. I am not suggesting that they disappear permanently, as the Whig party did in the nineteenth century, although I am sorely tempted to conjure up a bumper sticker to that effect. In fact, I can see the bumper sticker now: REPUBLICAN: Gone with the WHIG!
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