California Politicians are Failures

The state legislature has approved a budget that signs off on the idea that incompetence is acceptable. The result of the new budget is that our sales tax and vehicle property tax will be one of the highest in the nation. What makes this situation even more horrifying is that the state will still have to borrow money to balance its budget.

It is obvious that state government needs to be reorganized. It is very inefficient. The ability to legislate the changes needed for reorganization of the bureaucracy ought to be everyone’s criteria for electing all of the legislature and the state wide officers.

The silence from members of the legislature tells me that there is no will now to change anything. Recalls are not the answer. Newly elected people are the way to go. Forget party affiliation.

Fire the Corporate CEOs

Corporate America has failed. (Which managers or economists were standing up to say America is going in the wrong direction?) The proof is the decline of the economy of the entire world. It is a decline that was started by America’s leading corporations. This decline did not start in 2008. It started decades ago when U.S. manufacturers decided that they did not need to respond to Japan’s companies who had determined to define their products as the quality alternative.

The astonishing rise of quality products in Japan was the result of William Edwards Deming, an American, whose quality control ideas were largely ignored by the United States manufacturing community until the 1990s. The consequence of Japan’s pursuit of quality products resulted in the success of Toyota, Honda, Canon, Panasonic, and a plethora of other quality conscious companies throughout the Far East and southern Asia.

Our nation went from being a creditor country to a debtor. To counteract the decline of America’s manufacturing supremacy our government, in conjunction with the finance industry, determined that easy credit was the tool of choice to promote capitalism. It is a philosophy that has worked well for at least 30 years. Both government and business told Americans to just keep buying everything and everything will be OK. The idea was that every kind of investment will continue to grow in value forever as long as we all keep spending.

A simple proof of this philosophy occurred after the 9-11 attack in New York City. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, lowered interest rates (2.5% to 1.75%). President George W. Bush told everyone to keep buying everything.

Where were the managers of our corporations as all of this was happening? They were making millions of dollars for themselves. Bernie Madoff and others like him bought into the idea that the value of everything would never go down. The idea was It’s a never ending pyramid scheme! CNBC documents the philosophy on it’s program House of Cards. This program tells the frightening reality. An unapologetic, unremorseful Alan Greenspan drove me wild.

US
Saturday, February 14th 7p | 10p ET
Sunday, February 15th 9p ET
Monday, February 16th 8p | 12a ET
Sunday, March 1st Midnight ET
Sunday, March 15th 9p ET

ASIA
Monday, February 16th 8p | 11P SIN/HK
Tuesday, February 17th 4a SIN/HK

Australia
Monday, February 16th 10p AEDT
Tuesday, February 17th 2a | 7a AEDT

Now we are in the ditch. I do not know all the answers. Clearly our smartest people do not know the answers either. For starters I suggest we fire all the top managers in all the companies that are asking for federal bail outs. “Yes we can” and we should.

The British Select America’s Best Leaders

When I say, “the Queen” most people know that I am talking about Queen Elizabeth of England (the United Kingdom). America’s ties to England have really existed ever since the colonization of America. The exception being that period from the Revolution until The War of 1812 was settled. THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND THE UNITED STATES. By William Archibald Dunning, a Columbia University professor, was a book published in 1914 that marveled at the fact that despite many “bickerings, Americans and Britons had remained continuously at peace for 100 years.” Today we are nearing 200 years. This was brought to my attention by a New York Times on-line archive piece.

It is interesting to find that English fascination with America is as strong as America’s fascination with England. AOL’s list of the ten best and worst presidents is a replication of The Times of London’s listing on their web site from October 31, 2008. It came as no surprise to me that President George W. Bush made the list of the worst ten. That President Jimmy Carter did not make the list of the ten worst did surprise me. President Andrew Johnson succeeded Abraham Lincoln, was a southerner who did not further the civil rights of the newly freed slaves, and was worthy of being on the list of the ten worst presidents. The C-SPAN survey did put Andrew Johnson in his well earned 42nd place.

I certainly hope Barack Obama is one of the 10 best. His goals are so high and the world so troubled that I am guessing he will only serve one term. My family says it’s too early to predict his performance. I hope I am wrong.

Greed is the Problem

What in tarnation is a board member to do with all of those “new fangled” securities that are so goldang hard to understand? That is the essence of Jack Welch’s Welch Way column in BusinessWeek posted on January 14, 2009.

The wealthy of America don’t get it! The rest of us are fed up! It’s not just the people on Wall Street. It’s the economists, the managers of the big corporations, the people who manage our government entities and everyone else that have “life styles of the rich and famous.” All of them have taken advantage of the free enterprise system but few have participated in making America and the world a better place.

The eight CEOs of the largest banks and investment houses in the country looked totally foolish at a televised House committee hearing today. These were the leaders of Wells Fargo & Co., Morgan Stanley, The Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., JP Morgan Chase & Co., State Street Corp. and the Bank of New York Mellon. None of them were apologetic about receiving outrageously high pay as their banks were losing money. Despite claiming to be experts in their field none could explain how they had been unable to see the credit crises they had created.

Jack Welch defended corporate CEOs and boards in his BusinessWeek column How Much Blame Do Boards Deserve? contending, “Unfortunately, even boards with sound judgment didn’t stand much of a chance against the newfangled financial instruments that sparked this crisis.” He writes in this column “board members are only at a company “one or two days a month and are composed of individuals who also hold demanding full-time jobs.” He says Shareholder activists expect too much from board members. So why do so many board members receive pay of $100,000 or more per year?

The Peanut Corporation of America was reported to have knowingly shipped contaminated food. The owners and managers refused to testify to a congressional committee and sight their rights under the 5^th amendment of the Constitution. They take the position that it only cost nine deaths and sickened 600 people. From an Associated Press report, “The company’s internal records show it “was more concerned with its bottom line than the safety of its customers,” said committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.”

The real issue is the wealthy protecting their fifedoms. Neither stock holders, employees, nor government have any control over their behavior. The irreconcilable excuses of executives in finance, auto manufacturing, and other industries will ultimately result in more government control. However their power will not diminish significantly and they will continue to be spearate from mainstream America. This is all the result of the laissez-faire philosophy laid out by President Ronald Reagan when he said “government is the problem.” That president was wrong. Greed is the problem.

Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin

___What is there about the month of February?

Superstitious people could believe that February 12 has some significance to God or some other super natural force. On or about this date some of the most famous and significant people were born. If they were not born precisely on this date they were born a few days before or later. The two most famous are Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. Both of them were born on this date.

George Washington was born on February 22. Ronald Reagan was born on February 6. Sarah Palin on February 11. Thomas Edison on February 11. Jack Benny on February 14. Susan B. Anthony on February 15. Nicolas Copernicus was born on February 19. Ansel Adams was on February 20. Edward (Ted) Kennedy and Chopin were born on February 22. George Fredric Handel, composer of “Messiah” in 1841, was born on February 23. John Steinbeck and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow were both born on February 27.

Abraham Lincoln personified the evolution of man that Charles Darwin theorized. Of course Darwin’s “Origin of Species” was about the physical evolution of life but I believe it can also be applied to the evolution of mankind. The Magna Carta (The Great Charter) originally signed in 1215 is considered to be the beginning of the evolution of man’s rights in an ever developing world.

Only three of the original clauses in Magna Carta are still law. One defends the freedom and rights of the English church, another confirms the liberties and customs of London and other towns, but the third is the most famous:

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled . nor will we proceed with force against him . except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land. To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.

This statement of principle, buried deep in Magna Carta, was given no particular prominence in 1215, but its intrinsic adaptability has allowed succeeding generations to reinterpret it for their own purposes and this has ensured its longevity. In the fourteenth century Parliament saw it as guaranteeing trial by jury. Sir Edward Coke interpreted it as a declaration of individual liberty in his conflict with the early Stuart kings and it has resonant echoes in the American Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation is part of America’s evolution starting with the Declaration of Independence that has brought the country to elect its first Black president. The whole world should be enthused by the 200^th birthday of Abraham Lincoln and ought to believe that all societies can aspire to the same ideals.