Category: On Language

EMPATHY

Understanding, sympathy, and compassion are all synonyms for empathy.  I feel your pain (said with emotion in my voice) and I bite my lip.  Bill Clinton was so good at doing it.  He really made you believe he meant every word.  This has nothing to do with anything else but connection with the other person’s life problems.  We all have some serious issues.  Some are truly sad situations.

The law deals with facts not emotion and certainly not feelings.  The U.S. Constitution is the basic law that governs our nation.  It is the one set of rules that guides our government.  It was written in 1787 and officially ratified in 1789.  There is no reference to empathy in the Constitution.  That document does provide rules for amendments and there have been 27 to date.  None of them are about feelings.  All of them define rules and regulations.

Now President Barack Obama says he wants to appoint a new Supreme Court justice that has empathy.  Is he suggesting that a new member of the court ought to decide cases based upon empathy for the pleader?  Does “feeling your pain” justify a different ruling than not sympathizing with someone’s dilemma? I find the idea of appointing someone to the Supreme Court based on their feelings not in accord with facts. 

Can the president appoint a liberal Supreme Court judge even if he or she has no empathy?  Absolutely!  Liberal interpretation can be made for many things in the 21st century without empathy.  Equal rights, gun control, abortion are all hot button issues that require recognition of the impact of the new technologies and greater appreciation of human behavior versus those of the 18th century.

To Big To Fail

Bill Moyers Journal had two experts on the economy and the laws that regulate it on this week’s program.  Michael Perino a scholar of Law and Securities Regulation and Simon Johnson, former Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund.

 

This one part of their discussion needs to be repeated here.

SIMON JOHNSON: I think the banks have control of the state, Bill. Not the state control of the bank. If the state had control of the banks, the banks wouldn’t be able to turn around and say, no on your Chrysler deal and no way on modifying the rules about mortgages and allowing bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages in bankruptcy. These are two hot issues this week. The banks are saying no to the government.

BILL MOYERS: Here are these people receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer money who are now raising fees on credit cards, who are resisting any more regulation of credit card interest rates, who are, you know, saying, “We’re going to get out of the game if you insist that we do something about executive compensation.” What is going there as you see it? Both of you.

SIMON JOHNSON: I think there’s an arrogance of power. They think they won, Bill.

BILL MOYERS: Even now–

SIMON JOHNSON: And actually they’re pretty confident they won…

BILL MOYERS: So, they’re not hearing any of this clamor? This rage? They’re not hearing this–

MICHAEL PERINO: I think they are hearing it. I don’t think it’s reached the level that it reached, anywhere the level it reached in that period that we’ve been talking about in the 1930’s. So, maybe it isn’t quite strong enough yet.

 

In this discussion was the talk about “to big to fail” and the attitude that the banks, investment houses, and auto manufacturers have held that belief.

 

Their view happens to coincide with mine.  We cannot allow companies to grow to the size that they must be protected by society. “To big to fail” is too big to exist.  

LEGACY

A legacy is an inheritance, a birthright, a bequest, or a heritage.  Some families have a heritage or tradition of participation in politics.  Some famous families have participated in the entertainment industry for many generations.  My family’s legacy is the belief in higher education.  Whatever the legacy, it is a word that is synonymous with something positive.  This word has become the victim of our government’s use of positive words to whitewash negative situations or laws.  “Toxic assets” are now “legacy assets.”

 

Doublespeak (sometimes called doubletalk) is language constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning.  The U.S. government has become expert at covering up its actions with positive terminology.  The Patriot Act implies that it is a set of laws designed to protect patriotic Americans.  “Down sizing, right sizing and reduction in force” are corporate America’s positive spin when there are layoffs.

 

The term “toxic assets” was also a poor choice of words. Toxic implies those banks assets are poisonous, deadly, lethal, noxious, contaminated, or venomous.  Perhaps that may be true if applied to the banks’ balance sheets.   The truth is that those “toxic assets” do have value but the banks lent money inappropriately and now need to defend their behavior.  “Legacy assets” sounds so much better and implies they were inherited from some past evil doer.

CONSEQUENCES

I just read a column by Thomas Sowell about the consequences of one’s actions.  “It is amazing how fast people learn when they are not insulated from the consequences of their decisions.”  Mr. Sowell’s comment reminded me of a boss who frequently commented on the consequences of the decisions we make in life.  Also the decisions you made for the company that were not in its best interest.   

 

There is a consequence to everything we do.  You go shopping and the consequence is you have to pay the clerk for our purchase.  If you are going to school and you fail to study, there is the possibility you will not receive a passing grade.  When you buy a car with a down payment and fail to make the monthly payments it is likely that the car will be repossessed.

 

Thousands of Americans bought homes they could not afford.  They managed to do this because the banks granted the loans without considering the borrower’s ability to repay the mortgages.  Talk about consequences.  Everyone is now suffering from those bad decisions.  People are losing their homes and banks are holding thousands of mortgages that will never be repaid by the borrowers.

 

President Barack Obama campaigned on a platform of change and now he is implementing the changes he promised.  Many people are upset, especially Republicans, about the things the president proposes to do.  A majority voted for him so now that majority must live with the consequence of that election.  A majority also elected George W. Bush president and we had to live with the consequence of that vote.

 

The decision to repeal the Glass Steagall Act is now being debated as the root cause of the current recession.  I believe that the repeal resulted in the unintended consequences that have brought the world to the brink of depression.

 

HYPOCRISY

In a society that is too much about “me”, double standards abound.  Thanks to a variety of medical breakthroughs many people who lived through “the great depression” are still alive today.  They did go on to success.  It’s not that those successful seniors have forgotten their beginnings.  They simply do not want to accept the idea that many others have not been so fortunate.

 

Then there are those who were fortunate enough to have the skills and talent to rise above the rest of us.  Many of them have earned extraordinary amounts of money.  This group of people is small but seems to be clueless about the fact that they are so lucky.

 

An example of the clueless is Carly Fiorina, a former Hewlett-Packard chief executive left that company with a severance package worth an estimated $21 million to $42 million.  Including her severance, she was paid nearly $180 million during her five-year tenure at Hewlett-Packard.

 

Fiorina bucked the populist tide against lavish corporate salaries by denouncing President Obama’s effort to cap annual pay at $500,000 for leaders of banks taking federal bailout money.

 

Now this is the hypocrisy (double standard).  After she was forced out of Hewlett-Packard, shareholders sued, claiming that the board of directors should have let shareholders decide her severance.  The Los Angeles Times quotes her as saying, “When somebody makes $40 million a year for failure, we cannot defend that.  On the other hand, I believe the solution should be, every  should be put up for shareholder vote each and every year. Let the shareholders decide.” 

Ethical Behavior

Perhaps the title should be “ethics” rather than ethical behavior.  For our new president it all started with his Inaugural address when he said, “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.” Wow, that was just one part of a speech that sounded the intent to live up to the goals set by our founding fathers.  

Barack Obama established standards of conduct just yesterday. He banned any member of his administration from accepting any lobbying job while the administration is still in power. He banned any member of his administration from accepting any gifts at all from lobbyists. He banned all administration appointees from being able to work on policy issues that could affect their former bosses or clients for a minimum of two years.  After issuing this very ambitious regulation Mr. Obama chose William J. Lynn III to be deputy secretary of defense.  The problem is that Mr. Lynn’s was employed as a lobbyist for a defense contractor this past year.  Boston Globe reporter Bryan Bender reported a waiver would be made for Lynn.

Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner said Wednesday he was careless in failing to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes earlier this decade but declared “I have paid what I owed” and apologized to Congress.  The explanation was that it “was an honest mistake.”  Mr. Geithner told a Senate hearing committee that he “takes full responsibility.”

After all the claims of transparency by the president and signing various executive orders in a public manner he quietly without press presence signed an order allowing federal money to go to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information.

There is no doubt that Mr. Obama seems to want to be an ethical person.  The problem is he is also a political person.  The result is he will not be the “mightier than thou” person that we dreamed about.  He can still be successful but there will be many enemies.

What is an “honest mistake”?

Timothy Geithner, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to run the Treasury Department, neglected to pay self employment taxes for three years but according to Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus “These errors were not intentional; they were honest mistakes.” If you or I claimed we made “honest mistakes” would we be so quickly forgiven?

 

Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative is most likely a very worthwhile cause. If your company or country was giving money to this charity and the secretary of state is Mr. Clinton’s wife wouldn’t you be looking for a favor?  No! No! says Mrs. Clinton, those contributions will not effect my behavior.  Is this a believable scenario?

 

The Eric Holder hearing should be interesting.  He is the man who recommended the Marc Rich pardon to President Bill Clinton.  Based upon the televised hearings the Republicans are not willing to stand up to these utterly phony hearings.  

 

Barack Obama’s appointments will probably all receive “consent.”  What happened to “change you can believe in?”  Well it was an “honest mistake” or perhaps we all had the “audacity” to believe things would be different.

Earmarks, Pork, and Infrastructure

So what’s the difference between Earmarks, Pork, and Infrastructure?  It’s all about allocating specific money to specific projects.  Along the way the accomplishment of the project might be defined in such a way that only one specific company can do the work.

 

One man’s Pork is another man’s Infrastructure project.  Is that Pork an Earmark?  Earmarkwatch.org has identified more than 3,000 projects that they believe are Pork.  Daniel Engber of Slate.com offered his definition but not everyone would agree.  After all, a $500,000 grant to the Teapot Museum in Sparta, N.C. might be viewed by some as a perfectly legitimate way to spend taxpayer money.

 

Here is one of 10 most outrageous earmarks according to Time Magazine. 

Another product of the pork-stuffed economic bailout bill, this earmark slipped into the Senate version of the legislation renews an expired rebate against excise taxes charged on rum imported from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands until the end of 2009. The provision was mocked during a subsequent debate in the House by Democrat Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, saying, “So we got tax breaks for rum. You’ve got it right. R-U-M.” But it still passed — and the criticism that followed in the media fired up lobbyists from Bacardi and Captain Morgan, the two most popular rum brands in the U.S., who said they aren’t seeing any of this money. The $192 million in tax cuts mostly go to the two territories to help them build up their economies and, in theory, keep them from needing larger financial handouts from the mainland. But then again, this practice isn’t new. For decades, Congress has been giving the two territories this precise tax cut. And if it hadn’t been part of this controversial bailout this time around, it might have once again gone unnoticed.

 

Senator Hillary Clinton and fellow New York Senator Charles Schumer requested a million bucks to put towards a museum project in their state, backed by a major Democratic Party contributor, commemorating the 1969 Woodstock music festival.  This proposal failed.  Some people of New York State probably thought this was a reasonable use of taxpayer’s money.  A “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska or a “subway to the sea” in Los Angeles could be earmarks for worthwhile projects. 

 

 

I personally think that subway is important and believe it to be a very worthwhile Infrastructure project.  I hope President Obama agrees.

Ponzi Scheme

“In a Ponzi scheme, not all investors lose. The first investors gain much. Those who manage to get out in time retain their investments and some of their gains.”
TAMAR FRANKEL, a law professor at Boston University, on the Madoff scandal.

 

A ponzi scheme has also been called a pyramid scheme.  In fact the first item I see when Googling the words ponzi scheme are “pyramid scheme.” The most prevalent that I am familiar with are the multi-level marketing businesses.  Those entering at the top floor convince their friends to buy in to the sales plan. They buy “sales kits” that are filled with product.  Those friends then sell their friends to buy in to the sales plan.  This process goes on and on.  Each person receives a commission for everyone in his network that sells participation.  The problem is that there is very little selling of product outside of the group who keep buying into the sales plan.  Eventually these schemes run out of friends.  Those people at or near the bottom earn relatively little but those at the top of the pyramid have “earned” significant commissions.

 

It has been suggested that Bernard Madoff really did not hold investments that earned 10-12% per year.  I personally do not believe that those kinds of earning are possible on a continuing basis.  Mr. Madoff is accused of paying his clients that return from new money that was invested in his firm.  The scheme worked well as long as redemptions were low and more investors were added to the list of clients.  Declining stock values brought a wave of redemptions that his company was unable to fulfill.  The SIPC and the Securities and Exchange Commission obviously did not monitor the Madoff investment company.  This will likely cost the government significant money.

 

 

“There’s a sucker born every minute” is an expression that was attributed to P. T. Barnum.  Whether he did use those words I do not know.  ‘A fool and his money are soon parted ‘is an idiom from an unknown source that is probably the definition of someone that falls for a ponzi scheme.