Whoops

Posted on February 9, 2008 | Leave a comment

Saturday, February 9, 2008

A mistake, according to Dictionary.com, is “an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc.”

In retrospect, when Senator Clinton cast her famous vote to allow the use of military force in Iraq, she made a mistake.  The question is, was it a mistake based on poor judgment as Senator Obama would have us believe, or insufficient information, which is her counter argument?  Should she, or any of the others who voted for the resolution, have anticipated exactly what President Bush and his cohorts intended to do with that authority – or that the Administration had misunderstood, to put it politely, the extent of the threat to our national security?  I don’t know.  Certainly the first kind of mistake is more relevant for the prospect of a Hillary Clinton Presidency than the latter.

What I do know is that nothing is as simple as Senator Obama would like us to believe.  I don’t know what Senator Clinton was thinking, but I do know that Senator Obama had the luxury of offering simple platitudes on foreign policy from his vantage point on the sidelines.  (Senator Obama was an Illinois state Senator on October 10, 2002 when Senator Clinton delivered her speech on the floor of the US Senate to explain her support of the President’s request.)  Is he the psychic candidate?  Did he really foresee where this Iraq mess would end up, or did he just get lucky?  Under what circumstances would he expect the same vote from Senator Clinton where he, Barack Obama, the one in The White House asking for Senate approval?

Senator Clinton’s October speech began with the words, “Today we are asked whether to give the President of the United States authority to use force in Iraq should diplomatic efforts fail to dismantle Saddam Hussein’s chemical and biological weapons and his nuclear program.”  At the time, lots of people – perhaps state Senator Obama, as well – were convinced that the threat of weapons of mass destruction was real.  Just how big a mistake was she making?  Why shouldn’t she have believed President Bush?

I understand that Senator Obama believes in negotiating and compromise as a preferable alternative to military action.  Who doesn’t?  In fact, the resolution authorized force only if negotiations were to fail.  Wouldn’t Senator Obama have made basically the same speech had he been in Senator Clinton’s position?

Barack Obama likes to question Hillary Clinton’s judgment.  The question for Maryland Democrats on Tuesday is do they want to nominate an armchair, Monday morning quarterback, or the real deal?

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Posted in Barack Obama, Election, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, Politics

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Margin of Error

Posted on February 9, 2008 | Leave a comment

Saturday, February 9, 2008

It’s Saturday, less than a week after Super Tuesday.  There are Democratic caucuses this weekend which haven’t happened yet, three primaries next week, and two really major ones, in Texas and Ohio, in the first week of March.  The race for the Democratic nominee for President is razor close and far from over.  MSNBC, the cable news channel, is reporting a poll that shows Senator Obama several points ahead of Senator McCain, were they to run against each other, but Senator Clinton even with McCain.  Is there anyone reading this who believes the news of this poll won’t influence some undecided Democratic voters to support Barack Obama, fearing loss of the Presidency to the Republican candidate?  Well, suppose this poll is wrong?  Suppose it doesn’t accurately represent the mindset of the electorate today, let alone ten months from now which in politics is forever.  What we’ve done, to no small extent, is turn over the election of the Democratic nominee to the news media which report these polls.

It’s election season, and polls are everywhere on the regular television and cable news, and in the papers and magazines.  I’m used to it, but I’ve been wondering lately:  What’s the media doing in the business of reporting voter preferences?  Brace yourself.  This is going to be more of an academic piece than I usually write.)

We know why the candidates take polls.  However questionable, polls help the candidates plan and test the effectiveness of their campaigns.  The candidates know the polls can be flawed and misleading, but they take them anyway because they are an important tool, not the only tool by any means, but an important source of information they are desperate to know.  The better they can understand voter reaction to their candidacy, and to the competition, the more effectively they can craft their message and election strategy.  It’s market research.

Journalists are supposed to bring us the news, to tell us what’s happening, without bias and as thoroughly as their particular medium will allow.  As a free society, we believe that a better informed electorate will make more intelligent choices among the people who aspire to run our government, and the programs we will demand and support.  Unfortunately, while polling is certainly a science – an amalgam of applied math (statistics) and the social sciences – it’s an imperfect one.

Think about it for a moment, about how hard it is to poll any electorate – even about something so apparently straightforward as “If the election were held today, for which candidate would you vote?”  If only it were just that simple.  Are the people you survey likely voters?  How committed are they to whatever opinions they express?  How volatile is their thinking, and what precisely could make them change their minds?  Are they representative of all the people who will be voting, or have you inadvertently overlooked some key element of the electorate?  What questions have you mis-phrased or omitted that might have suggested a different interpretation of your subjects’ intentions?  Are they confused or purposing telling you one thing while they’re thinking another?  “Would I have a problem voting for a woman or African American for President?  Of course not.  Don’t be ridiculous.”  In fact, survey researchers are trained not to believe everything they hear, to use control questions to test the accuracy and veracity of their subjects’ responses.

Electorate polling involves highly subjective questions, the answers to which are understandably open to interpretation.  Even the most skilled pollsters can be mistaken – let alone the journalists whose knowledge of the survey process is limited and second hand, at best.  (When was the last time you saw the actual pollster discussing the results of his surveys on television?)  It’s no secret that polls are inaccurate and sometimes outright incorrect.  The media knows this, but uses them anyway – because they attract viewers?  No wait, maybe that’s unfair.  Polls are, after all, data which purport to describe how a campaign is going, and are arguably newsworthy from that point of view.  The problem is that journalists – not commentators, but the ones who claim to be reporting the news – are supposed to tell us what’s actually happening.  They’re supposed to be giving us facts, the tested validity of which meets some minimum standards.  Reporting the results of pre-election polling, by its very nature and the imperfect science on which it is based, goes too far by blurring the distinction between factual reporting and speculation.  It’s basically fortune telling by men and women in suits.

Accurate reporting is a responsibility which reputable journalists take seriously, which is why they’re so careful to verify what they tell us.  Admirable, to be sure, but would they present other important information based on no more certainty than the reliability of, let’s say, the polling the preceded the recent New Hampshire primary?  Yes, the media were apologetic after the primary, not just for the polls they commissioned and reported, but also for all the interpretation, extrapolation and conclusions they offered ahead of the primary – with what impact on the votes their viewers would cast?  The apology was fleeting, and apparently of no particular consequence.

Some newscasters seem to think it’s okay to show us polls as long as they point out that there is a margin of error, that is, that the findings they are showing us are correct within a handful of percentage points either way.  Even if the people watching are paying attention, and adjust their conclusions accordingly, which I doubt, they’re missing the point.  “Margin of error” simply refers to how representative a sample may be of the population it represents.  It’s only an average concept.  It doesn’t mean that the population from which the sample was selected is the right one, or that the questions asked were well designed, or interpreted properly, or that the findings of the poll today will be relevant tomorrow when the actual polls open.  In many of these cases, the undecided voter block alone is large enough to change the outcome of the election, even if the pre-election polls are dead on, which they’re not.

Warning us about the margin of error is just avoiding the question.  Are the legitimate media applying the same rigorous journalistic standards to the polls they present, as they do when they vet the other information they report?

The polls may tell us what the electorate is currently thinking, but let’s be honest.  The primary reason pollsters ask voters who they support before an election is to predict the results.  Since when are journalists supposed to be in the business of predicting anything?  Their job is to tell us what is happening, what they know for sure, and let us draw our own conclusions.

It wasn’t that long ago that the television networks were reporting exit polls before the precinct doors shut locally, and election returns from one state before the polls closed in other time zones.  Maybe it’s time they reconsidered their policy of reporting polls for the same reasons.

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Posted in Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Media, Politics, Polls

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The Better Bet

Posted on February 7, 2008 | Leave a comment

Thursday, February 7, 2008

The Maryland primary is coming up next week, and I’m looking forward to voting for Barack Obama – eight years from now, maybe.  For now, I consider him a prototype, a Beta Test Candidate complete with all the newest bells and whistles, but very much a work in progress.  So cool, to be sure, but am I willing to risk the consequences of the inevitable glitches of his inexperience and naiveté?  No.  Senator Clinton isn’t the perfect candidate either, but her professional maturity and practical experience make her Presidency the better bet.

For precisely the same reasons, I believe she has a greater chance of beating McCain.  Oratory, no matter how inspirational, gets old quickly.  It won’t be enough to win, and certainly isn’t enough to govern.  Senator Clinton, because she is the more substantive, albeit less eloquent of the two, will be more effective against the advantage of McCain’s seniority.  Remember, all those people cheering at the Obama rallies aren’t the only ones who’ll be voting.

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“I Like Ike”

Posted on January 28, 2008 | Leave a comment

Monday, January 28, 2008
(That’s “Ike” as in “Eisenhower,” not “Mike” as in “Huckabee” who uses a similar slogan for his campaign.)

If my memory serves me correctly, and I’m not sure it does, my introduction to politics came about when I was 9 years old.  Eisenhower was running for President for the second time he would be elected.  He never made it to Annapolis, the town where I grew up, but some notable Maryland Republicans and other Ike supporters staged a parade to promote his candidacy.  My father, who I found out later was very interested in politics and would eventually run for office, twice – once for County Commissioner, and then later for Mayor – had managed to get us in the front row of the crowd lining both sides of the street.  Holding my father’s hand, I watched them coming up West Street in their motorcade.

I was interested, but didn’t get it yet.  I understood that there was a Presidential election, and that my father and so many others who had served under his command held Eisenhower in high regard.  I suspect Eisenhower is why my father became a Republican after the war.  And there they came, but while my father was watching at the officials that were waving, caught up in the hoopla of the moment, I was looking around, thinking about other stuff the way kids do.  Most of all I remember the buttons.  Someone walking along with the motorcade was throwing small “I Like Ike” buttons at the people, my father and me included.  “This is all wrong,” I remember saying to myself, picking a couple of them up off the street with my one free hand.  “These pins on the back could hurt someone.”  And that’s what I was thinking when the bigshots in motorcade drove by, waving, so it seemed, directly at me.  I was, after all, the cute little kid in the front row with the big eyes and curly hair.  I stared back, a small reflexive smirk on my face, and bent over to pick up another pin.

Eight years later I was in Baltimore, at the Lord Baltimore Hotel during the Maryland Republican Party Convention which my father was attending.  My Dad had gotten us great seats along the railing in the balcony of this large room, on the right side of the podium, in perfect position to see the speaker.  We were there to see William Scranton, the Governor of Pennsylvania, announce his candidacy for President of the United States.  The room was full and noisy when Governor Scranton took his place behind the microphone, putting a stack of pages on the stand in front of him. The crowd had barely quieted down when he began his speech.

He seemed ordinary, surprisingly so, until he started talking.  What happened next was nothing short of stunning.  I had never heard, let alone been that close to anyone who could deliver a speech like this.  In no time at all, Scranton began tearing into the audience, one round of applause starting before the one before it had subsided, louder and louder in response to every come-on and well turned phrase.  This was no campus audience.  These were Republican men in suits, my father among them, on their feet with excitement.  And I was mesmerized, by his energy and perfect timing, but most of all by the way he was himself caught up in the moment, taking page after page of his widely spaced text and throwing it onto the carpet behind him.  Not just turning the pages, but throwing them away as if that one thought and those words had no particular or durable meaning.

Scranton would lose the nomination to Goldwater, but it didn’t make any difference.  It was the drama in the room that I would always remember.  It had been 12 years since I held my father’s hand while Eisenhower drove by.  This time, I got it.  That fall I would leave for college while some of my fellow high school graduates would go off to fight in what would become the unpopular war of the time.  We would have our causes, our rallies and rousing speeches promising hope and a new direction that were the stuff for which the 60s would be remembered.  Now, in retrospect, what did all that passion really accomplish?

Politics is a lot about emotion.  I know that.  It’s unavoidable, and important.  We need to like the people we’re voting for and, if we’re lucky, to be inspired by them.  Unfortunately, it’s arguable whether or not likeable, inspiring people can manage their way out of a paper bag, let alone run our federal government, develop and implement effective social and economic programs, while maintaining our national security, not to mention world peace.  Our current President, for example, was elected largely because people liked him, or liked his more intelligent, more cable opponents less.  Is there nothing his two terms in office have taught us about how to choose a President?

One of the current candidates, the least experienced among the major players in both parties, is a particularly moving speaker, and very likable.  In fact, I’m seriously considering voting for him – eight years from now.  Perhaps, by then, he’ll have something more tangible to offer us than stirring rhetoric.  If he wants my vote now, he’s going to have to show me something more tangible.  I understand the power of his intensity and the allure of his passion, but is there anything more to it?  Other than the promise of a new direction, other than the feel-good speeches, we need to ask ourselves, what specifically does any candidate have to offer?  Other than the hype, what makes us think this person can effectively manage routine and crisis government situations?  You can’t really think that he or she is going to talk his way out of every problem, or create and implement meaningful government policy because of his skills as an orator?

I want to feel good about the President I elect, and I’m as dissatisfied as the next guy with our government’s performance.  I, too, am desperate to believe that we can go in a new direction, almost to the point of not asking what, precisely, that means or how we’ll get there.  Almost, but the overwhelming feeling of déjà vu keeps bringing me back to reality.  Suppose, for example, that you are seriously ill, and need major surgery.  Which doctor do you want operating on you?  The freshman resident with minimal experience, but the wonderful, feel good bedside manner, or the course, no-nonsense professional who is more highly skilled?  How is picking a President any different, particularly in light of what we all have at stake?  Assuming we can’t have both, which skill set is more important?  Inspirational speaking, or experienced management?  On which doctor would you bet your life?  On which candidate would you bet your country?

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Stemming the Tide

Posted on January 19, 2008 | Leave a comment

Saturday, January 19, 2008

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece called “Birthright,” also published here on WordFeeder.  In it, I made the point that many illegal Mexican immigrants, by virtue of their initiative, their motivation, their work ethic and commitment to the fundamental principles of our country, may well deserve to be here.  Whatever the circumstances of their coming, I argued that they have earned their right to be citizens of these United States, and that we should welcome them and the contribution they and their successors will make.

That having been said, I understand the problems which the continuing flow of illegal immigrants into the country present to the local communities which are affected, and to the individual American workers whose jobs may be threatened.  At the time, when I wrote “Birthright,” I said I didn’t have a solution to the immigration problem.  Well, that wasn’t quite true.  I do, but just wasn’t ready to talk about it.

Instead of trying to stop Mexican people from crossing the border illegally, let’s take away their primary reason for wanting to leave their native country – and help the US economy in the process.  Let’s learn from what motivates these people, and leverage their circumstances and work ethic to our advantage in a mutually beneficial way.  It will take a while, but the fix will be permanent, and of great benefit to US business and our workforce if it’s done right.

Why are they coming?  To find work, to make enough money to take care of their families, and improve the quality of their lives, because living here is better than living there.  Instead of spending billions of our tax dollars to keep illegal Mexican immigrants out of the country, and to deal with them once they’ve come here, let’s use those same dollars, in cooperation with corporate America and the Mexican government, to build the economy of Mexico – starting with highly concentrated efforts in those communities and regions which are disproportionately high sources of illegal immigrants.

Just to be clear, I’m not talking about foreign aid.  Not even close.  I don’t even like the concept of foreign aid, except in times of extreme national emergencies when assistance can’t wait for economic development.  What I’m talking about is spending our tax dollars to encourage our nation’s companies – of whatever size and in whatever businesses make sense – to set up shop in Mexico, create jobs and income, to provide services essential to native development of the Mexican economy, generate foreign trade for the US economy, and ship the profit dollars they make back to the United States.

And I’m not talking about some piecemeal, now and then effort by our government, and privately by selected corporations who are moving production (and US workers’ jobs) south of the border to save money.  What I’m suggesting is a widespread, coordinated effort through which US businesses produce and sell both US-made and locally manufactured products and services by and for Mexicans – most definitely not for the purpose of producing what we already make here, but less expensively there, although there are circumstances under which that might make sense.

In the process of reducing the influx of illegal immigrants, we’ll be generating additional employment for Americans here and there.  And we’ll be doing something else even more profound.  We will have begun, in earnest, the long overdue task of accelerating the development of the Mexican economy to make that country a more lucrative trading partner, increasing their demand for United States goods and services.

The Europeans have their Union.  It’s high time we join with Canada and Mexico to form our own Union of North American Economies, and then eventually reach out to recruit qualified democracies in Central and South America.  (Don’t you think it’s time China got up in the morning and worried more about what we were doing, economically speaking, rather than the other way around?)  But let’s not get distracted.

Will using economic development – by American firms in Mexico – to reduce immigration take time?  Sure, although starting by making investments in local Mexican companies already in place might help.  But then sealing the border will take time, too.  More importantly, it’ll do nothing to change the circumstances that created the flow of illegals, and nothing which will have any significant, long-term beneficial impact on the US economy.  No question about it, the problem of continuing illegal immigration from our neighbor nation to the south is serious, and something we have to stop as soon as possible.  So why not choose a solution that addresses its underlying causes, while making a substantial, enduring contribution to our own economy?

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Posted in Economic Development, Illegal Immigration, Mexico

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Mincemeat

Posted on January 19, 2008 | Leave a comment

Saturday, January 19, 2008

For those of you who may not already know, “mincemeat” doesn’t have any beef, pork or other animal products in it.  (It’s sort of like “Grape Nuts.”  No grapes.  No nuts.  What’s up with that?)  Mincemeat is a pie filling made from fruit.  My mother used to make me a mincemeat pie now and then when I was a kid, but I can’t remember what it tasted like, and now I’m not supposed to eat desserts.  To tell you the truth, the few times I’m going to eat dessert despite my doctor’s advice, I’m not going to waste them on mincemeat.

“Mincemeat” is also a condition.  It’s what really good players or teams in any sport or profession make out of their less capable and less well prepared opponents.

I haven’t decided who I’m supporting for President.  Not yet, but one of the Democratic candidates likes to talk about how he’s going to change the way our government operates through a process which involves a great deal of compromise.  He’s apparently a very sensitive person, unquestionably very bright and a really excellent speaker, who is confident, perhaps to a fault, in his ability to bring divergent views together.  He believes in the power of compromise, and in his effectiveness as an instrument and center of convergence.  Admirable, and interesting, but I’m worried.

I’ve been compromising with my wife for a few decades now, and have more or less perfected the art.  What I’ve learned is that compromise usually means one of two things.  Either one or the other party gets his or her way, period.  The other person gets nothing, except maybe credit toward the outcome of a future decision of lesser importance to the other party.  Or, a choice is made which neither of us is really crazy about – which is why we don’t do that anymore.

In business, my experience has been only slightly different.  Sometimes, for example, you have a dispute over, let’s say, the number of a given item to order.  One of you wants to order more, the other less, and you agree on some amount that you both find acceptable.  Unfortunately, that’s not how it works when it comes to something really important.  In government, I’m talking about the kind of decision that affects people’s lives.

You work hard to figure out what you believe to be the best way to do something, to provide universal health care, for example, to solve the problem of illegal immigration, diminish the threat of terrorism, or resolve some urgent international crisis.  There are so many things, large and small, local, national and foreign that we need to accomplish.  Other people who count disagree with you, and then one two things is going to happen.  Either you agree to a true comprise, a middle ground that produces an inferior program, or you make deals to get your way now at the expense of giving someone else his way later – even if it’s not in the best interests of the people.  Usually it’s both.  Comprise tends to have two effects:  on the people who make the compromise, and then separately on the people who are supposed to benefit from the program, the quality and power of which has been compromised by the first group.  You modify the program and make special arrangements, concessions you regretted when you made them.  In no time at all you’ve made so many deals you need staff to keep track of who owes who what.  Is this the politics of change?  What it is, is the traditional, business as usual way to accomplish what passes for progress in our nation’s and state capitals.

If an executive, or anyone for that matter, has a really good idea, something that’s been carefully crafted for all the right reasons, he or she either needs to sell it, meaning convince others to support it, or make it happen by virtue of his or her authority.  Compromise may be part of that process, but it can’t be allowed to erode the effectiveness or correctness of our programs.

An inexperienced President, particularly one who goes into the job believing in the power of compromise, is going to be up against some serious, highly skilled players, and desperate to get things done, to live up to all those campaign promises and his own self-image as doer and master of change.  I smell mincemeat pie baking in the oven, and suspect that the professional politicians, business interests, and foreign governments will be having more than their fair shares of dessert, at our expense.

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Common Cents

Posted on January 18, 2008 | Leave a comment

Friday, January 18, 2008

Once again our government, and candidates for President, have decided to give millions of Americans money in the hopes of heading off a recession which may be, no one’s sure, coming soon to a community near yours.  The idea is that lowering interest rates – which is up to the Federal Reserve – and increasing consumer spending are the cure for any problem with our economy.  The Fed, which is an independent entity, is doing its job.  All the President and Congress can do is give the people money.  Not incidentally, this is a politically popular idea.  You and I will spend it, retailers will order replacement inventory and hire more employees, and distributors and manufacturers will follow suit as the effects of increased consumer spending ripple throughout the economy.  At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

Personally, I think there may be other reasons why we have recessions, factors other than the cost of money and available cash in our personal and corporate pockets which affect families and businesses.  But let’s just assume, for the sake of discussion, that President Bush, Congress and the candidates are right, and that it’s all about consumer spending.

The problem is that different people tend to do different things with extra money depending upon their specific circumstances.  Generally speaking, the more money and “stuff” people already have, the less likely they are to spend a few more dollars the government gives them.  Sure, we normal people could always use some new clothes, a couple of days off with our wife or husband, a new washer and dryer, you name it.  Practical or frivolous, we can always find something to buy with found money, but with different immediate and longer term effects on our local and national economies depending upon precisely how we spend it.  And then there are the credit card balances we ought to pay down, and the savings accounts that we’ve been ignoring lately.

The thing is, even if we did run out and buy things, it’s not at all clear how significant the impact on the economy might be, how quickly and to what extent our nation’s companies would order more, increase production, and hire back the unemployed.  These things take time, and what we want is a quick fix.  At best, what the President is considering will be a brief, miniscule poke at a huge economic beast, barely noticeable and quite probably without any discernable effect.  The economy will recover on its own, with the President taking full credit.

I have an idea.  Who among us is most likely to spend every extra dollar at their disposal, and do it immediately?  The unemployed, of course.  Give them jobs, and watch what happens.  The simple, and less expensive solution, is to give companies, large and small, a financial incentive to increase their total work force, preferably by hiring people who have been unemployed for some minimum time, and who have exhausted their savings and perhaps their unemployment benefits also.  Give new jobs to families who are most likely to spend every dollar they make.

The form of the incentive could be anything financial, but I like giving them credit, for a limited number of months, for the employer and employee withholding taxes their new hires will generate.  Think about the efficiency of what I’m suggesting.  We’re putting income into the hands of people who need it most, and are most likely to spend it.  The taxes we’re crediting back to the employer were income the government wasn’t getting anyway when those new hires were unemployed.  (By comparison, giving everyone money which is the current plan is just going to increase our budget deficit by billions of dollars – plus interest.  Don’t forget the interest.)  In many cases we’ll be saving the unemployment benefits we’re currently paying these new hires.  And these newly employed will be producing ongoing income to spend in the economy month in and month out, not just some one time, lump sum.

Easier said than done?  Of course.  Are you kidding?  I’m naturally lazy, and always underestimate the difficulty of everything.  Otherwise, I’m not sure I’d ever attempt to do anything if I really knew how hard it would be.  And I’m not alone.  Put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, for example?  Underestimation is one of our nation’s most endearing personality traits.  Will a program to encourage the hiring of the unemployed work?  It depends upon how easily our companies can rationalize putting on additional staff.  Could be we’ll need to give them a greater incentive than just a tax credit, but isn’t at least worth thinking about?

Is it really a good idea concentrating so many billions of dollars by giving some of the unemployed jobs, rather than spreading it around?  The fact is, for the same total dollars we give away, we get a greater, more immediate impact on the economy by giving it to families with the greatest need and highest propensity to spend.  Think about it.  Suppose the entire work force consists of 1,000 people, 50 of which (5%) are unemployed, and that we have $1 million dollars to spend – an average of $1,000 per worker.  Which approach is more likely to have the greatest and most immediate impact on consumer spending?  Giving everyone $1,000, or giving the 50 families who are unemployed $20,000 each (by reimbursing their employers) – not all at once, of course, but over several months as on-the-job income?  Too much?  Save some money.  Give them only $10,000 over time by subsidizing the wages and salaries they earn.  The program will cost us less, and accomplish more.

Does it make our President’s and government officials’ brains hurt to think about it?  I think we can figure it out.  If not our current government, not known for its creativity and initiative, maybe the next one we elect in the fall.

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Posted in Economic Policy, Economy, Government

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Chump Change

Posted on January 4, 2008 | Leave a comment

Friday, January 4, 2008

Times change, more so in some aspects of our lives than others.

In the few decades I’ve been around, the pace of technological advance has been nothing short of phenomenal.  It’s been bold and profound, exciting and sometimes scary, all at once, each breakthrough building upon the one before it at an accelerating pace, one discovery in one field leading to another in another with a remarkable synergy among traditional and emerging disciplines.  Very cool, and what a rush.

Most days, I wear jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt to work in my office.  My father wore a suit.  (Actually, I’m not sure, but I think he may have slept in one, and my mother in her house dress.)  There you go.  Is this a great country, or what?

Social change, by comparison, takes time, and usually seems faster in retrospect than during the times when it was actually occurring.  Unquestionably, we’ve come a long, long way in just a couple of hundred years, and in my lifetime for that matter, changing our behavior and attitudes in profound and enduring ways while we struggle to keep up with the accelerating pace of our lives.  The progress we’ve made is impressive.  It’s not easy preserving the best of what we are while living up to our potential as individuals and as a people, without fully understanding what’s happening to us along the way.

The motto of the college I attended was “Ever changing, yet eternally the same.”  It was a good college, and a great time to be a student high on the excitement of political and social events which would affect forever how I think about myself and our country.  There was an unpopular war, and a political movement of historic proportions and impact which grew out of the fears, frustration and exuberance of my generation.  And I met my wife on that campus, without question the best single thing that’s ever happened to me.  It was a time, and I was of an age, when the prospect of change was a sure thing.

This piece isn’t an endorsement of any particular candidate.  It’s a commentary on the abuse of a word.  They can talk about it all they want, but no one, however well meaning or determined, is going to bring about any fundamental change in the way our government works during the time he or she is in office.   I don’t want change, I want progress.  I want a smart, efficient universal health care program, for example.  Maybe you do, maybe you don’t, but that’s not the point.  I want to get it done, or not, and to stop talking about it.  I want to get over the feeling that what we’re paying for our government amounts to tipping a waiter for just being there.  I want to feel like I’m getting my money’s worth for the taxes I’m paying.  The more our candidates promise change, the less I think they understand the meaning of the term.  More to the point, it’s not even what I want.  It’s off point, and I’m tired of their rhetoric.

I seldom go out to the movies any more.  My wife and I are busy, and there’s plenty to watch on TV while we do stuff around the house.  When I do go, I want it to count.  A few months ago, I’m sitting in the back of the theater while my wife reads the credits like she’s related to the caterer and can’t wait to see his name on the big screen.  Two rows in front of me, another man sitting next to his wife rises to his feet, looks down at her and says exactly what I’m thinking.  “Well, that’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back.”  That’s pretty much how I feel about Presidential campaigns.

Could the candidates please stop promising change, set a limited number of objectives for their Presidency that they might actually be able to accomplish, and explain precisely how and over what period of time they’re going to do it?  I don’t want change from my government.  We, the people, will take care of that.  He or she isn’t going to be the “Leader of the Free World.”  We are – provided, of course, that we prove worthy of the title.  The President is our employee.  I don’t want a President who changes anything.  I want results from an intelligent, savvy, professional manager, through a realistic agenda within the context of the current bureaucracy.  If only there was someone like Michael Bloomberg running for office.  (Did I say that out loud?)

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Posted in Barack Obama, Election, Hillary Clinton, Politics

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I Married A Post-It

Posted on December 30, 2007 | Leave a comment

Sunday, December 30, 2007

My wife is constantly reminding me of things.  About what night she goes to her Pilates class, so I don’t worry if I try to call and she doesn’t pick up.  Or about the family reunion with relatives on her side I’ve mostly never met that’s in three months, like I need to stop now and get dressed.  I act annoyed when she does it, when she reminds, but the fact is, if she didn’t, I wouldn’t remember.

There are notes everywhere, “Do Not Eat,” for example, on every tasty item in the refrigerator.  Why not save a tree and just label the things I can eat?  When I do the dishes, I can’t see the woods out back because of the “stickies” on the window panes over the sink.  Even the toiletries in my medicine cabinet and in our bathroom closet have homemade inventory control labels on them for me to remind her to buy more when I use the last one we have in stock.  Ingenious, certainly, although more than a bit annoying, but then it’s the persistent verbal reminders that really drive me crazy.  How many times can she remind me not to lock the inside garage door behind her which I think I did once, four years ago?  My wife – the love of my life, no kidding – is a human Post-It.

It’s a sign of the times.  Whether we use Post-Its, PDAs, Day-Timers, or calendars on our personal computers, we’ve become a people who can’t keep track of our lives without help.  More to the point, we’ve got more to do than we can possibly get done.  More e-mail and voice mail than we can answer.  More paperwork at the office and at home than we can do.  Is it my imagination, or are our households becoming small, micro-businesses requiring more and more time to run?  Don’t believe me?  Try arguing a doctor’s bill with your medical insurance company.  No wonder Internet shopping is becoming so popular.  Who has time to go anywhere?  And the more time you spend on-line at work, the less you get done there, the longer the hours you work, and the more you need to shop on-line.  What a mess.

When was the last time you went to bed having accomplished everything that came in that day for you to do – not to mention what was left over from the day before?  When was the last time you could honestly say to yourself, “Finally, I’m all caught up.”?  As far back as you can remember, have you ever taken a day off, especially in the middle of the week, without the feeling that you were two days behind when you went back to work?  For that matter, when was the last time you took a day off and didn’t use at least part of it to catch up on personal business?  When was the last time you actually took a day off, a worry-free, no chores, no e-mail, no calls, honest to goodness break?  …I thought so.  Me neither.

Let’s do the math together.  The day is still 24 hours long.  Scientists who study these things tell us that Americans are getting too little sleep, less sleep now than the generations before us.  We have, in other words, actually increased the amount of awake time we have do stuff – and yet we’re still running behind.  The simple conclusion is that something has happened to give us more to do than our parents.  A lot more.  What could that be?  What’s different about these times, than those times?

Well, for one thing, more of us live in large, sprawling metropolitan areas nowadays than we did a generation or two or three ago.  It takes more time to get places than it used to.  I live in the suburbs between Baltimore and Washington.  The other day, my wife grabs her coat on her way out the door to the garage.  (I stand up to lock the door behind her.)  “I’m just running up to the Giant,” she tells me at such speed the tone of her voice has a Doppler Effect.  “Back in 5 minutes, tops.”  It was only a figure of speech.  (For those of you from someplace else, “Giant” is chain of grocery stores around here, and the one in our village center.  It’s maybe a quarter of mile from our house.)  In fact, door to door it’s 10 or more minutes just getting there.  It takes three or four minutes getting in the car, out of the garage, assuming she takes the time to put the door up first, and on her way up the street.

Get there, find what she needs – assuming they’re not out of it so she has to go to another grocery store – wait while the person in front of her in the self-checkout line bags his groceries that have piled up and over the end of the conveyor belt, check out, get to the car, return the grocery cart (rather than roll it into another car or leave it to take up a space of its own), drive back and get in the house.  Five minutes, even figuratively speaking?  I don’t think so.  When I was little kid growing up in Annapolis, my mother would take me with her when she did her once a week shopping at the A&P.  She in her house dress, me in charge of reaching up to push the cart as best I could.  It was a job I took very seriously.  It was a very different time, with a slower, less pressured pace.

It didn’t take as long for most of our parents to get to work, or to run out and grab a quick lunch.  There were fewer people, and less time wasted waiting in traffic or in line.  And there were fewer two income households, which meant that many women were working at home, taking care of that component of their personal or family business their daughters and granddaughters now have to do in addition to a full day on the job somewhere else.  That’s all part of it, but I don’t think that’s all there is to it.

I think there may also be negative consequences, a counter-productivity from the very technology we’ve created to save ourselves time.  I wonder if it actually saves time, or just emboldens us to take on more work, creating the illusion that we can do more in the same amount of time, which turns out not to be true.  It’s gotten to the point that I’m spending a significant amount of my time just managing my schedule, time I’d prefer to be using to actually do the things I’m scheduling.

It takes me more time, for example, to go through my inbox than it does to respond to the few e-mail in there that are really important.  Periodically, of course, I force myself to respond to the e-mail I get as it comes in, rather than letting it pile up like paper mail used to in the in-basket I no longer have on the corner my desk.  So what happens?  What happens is that, while I’m responding to all these e-mail and taking calls on my cell phone rather than letting them roll into voice mail, I’m not getting anything else done – or what I am getting done, I’m not doing as well as I could.  I’ve got less paper to deal with, sure, but way more information.

And it’s not just the volume of it all, it’s also the way it pokes at us, disrupting our concentration.  In a way, it reminds me of when my children were little and would keep interrupting me when I’d be trying to work at home – except that I really like my kids, still do, and felt that talking to them, and seeing the ideas flash in their eyes, were the highlights of my day.  E-mail and my cell phone are a different story.  New technology aside, it still takes time, uninterrupted thinking, to figure out complicated things and to be creative.

Some of us, I’m not one of them but I get it, like to have music playing in the background while they work.  Personally, I prefer the sound of things happening, the honk, honk, beep, beep of the city, so to speak, outside my window, the noise of stuff going on in and around my office and home.  But that’s all at a distance.  How much thinking can anyone wearing earphones really do with his favorite group live on stage in the middle of his head?  As a patient, you might not mind your doctor having music playing in the operating room, but how would feel about him listening to his iPod with your life hanging in the balance?  Too dramatic?  Ever turn on your car radio or talk on the cell phone on your way to or from work, arrive safely, but without being able to remember the trip?  It’s all too distracting, too up close and invasive.

No question about it, we’re suffering from over-communication, from too much information coming at us from too many sources.  Did you know that my new cell phone holds 500 contacts?  Heaven forbid any significant number of them would want to call me.  I only know 18 people, 18 people I’d want to talk to more than think about something else, or actually pay attention to what I’m doing – 19 before my cat, Scooter, died.  (I think I need to get another cat, but there’s no replacing “The Scoot.”)  The other 482 can wait until I get to my office, or send me an e-mail.

I’m not sure, but I think our new technology may have taken a wrong turn, or maybe we need to learn to relate to it differently.  Note to wife:  “Honey, would you please remind me to…  To, uh…  Sorry, I’ll think of it in minute.  I had it before I stopped to write that last paragraph.  …Honey?  Where are you?!”  Nuts, there’s never a Post-It around when you need one.

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Posted in Family, Life, Marriage

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The Importance of Dirt for American Foreign Policy

Posted on December 29, 2007 | Leave a comment

Saturday, December 29, 2007

I’m not sure exactly what’s happening in Iraq.  The level of violence is down from what it was a few months ago, which is good.  Down maybe, but far from over.  I can’t tell whether or not things are really getting better, in spite of our being there or because of it, or if the bad guys are laying low for a while, maybe until after we elect a new President, hoping we’ll declare victory and pull out.  All I know is that Iraq is not the first time, and won’t be the last that our country chooses to engage in long-term military action for reasons of national security, and to help oppressed people in other countries.  (Shame on us were we to undertake such drastic measures for any other purposes.)

Without commenting on whether or not we should be in Iraq, or anywhere else for that matter, I’d like to make an observation that may help our foreign policy be more effective, and much less costly, both financially and in terms of the life on all sides that may be lost in the process.  For the record, it’s not just about lives disrupted, or military and civilian casualties.  It’s also about the rippling effects upon families, friends and communities to which the people most directly affected would have contributed in their own unique and special ways.  Life is more than a statistic on the 6 o’clock news.

The genesis of this particular idea goes way back to when I was a kid.  It was the moment when I first began thinking seriously about the importance of dirt.  I remember staying up past my bedtime one night, flashlight in hand, reading the original Dracula, by Bram Stoker.  The story, as I remember, was told in the form of letters written to his fiancé by Jonathan Harker, a young attorney who traveled on business to meet with the Count in Transylvania.  At some point in their relationship, there came a time when Dracula moved to London – presumably because there were more, better tasting people there.  I remember that it wasn’t a question of riding coach (literally) or first class.  No, he was shipped there in a coffin filled with soil from his native land.  Somehow I got the point, although it most certainly wasn’t the one Mr. Stoker had intended to make.  “Wow,” I whispered to myself, “This guy’s dirt is so important to him, he not only takes it with him, he sleeps in it.”  It was a concept that was weird and enlightening, both at the same time.

Decades later when my father died, I wondered if my mother, who was born in Annapolis where they had lived together for most of the 42 years they were married, would ever move to Florida, wherever, or even to nearby Virginia where I lived at the time, to be closer to my family.  The answer was, “No.”  My mother would never leave the soil where she was raised.  Other people, sure, but not my mother, and I understood that, too.  I am, after all, my mother’s son.  As for me, I like Maryland.  I like the way it has seasons, but that none of them is too severe.  I like the look of the place, and the sound of people who live here.  My dirt is nice, quality dirt that makes me feel comfortable – and I have everything to lose, and nothing much to gain from making a mess of it.

I’ve often wondered if that was the problem when the Watts riots occurred, and asked myself at the time, “Do people with quality dirt ever trash and burn their own homes and businesses?”

Have you ever noticed, when they show footage from Iraq, how the buildings in the background are rubble, and how desolate the place looks?  Ever wonder how these people get by given the way their economy has been decimated by years of civil strife and warfare?  Could it be that people living in these circumstances are more likely to foment anger and even violence against each other and foreigners?  I think so.  I think the higher quality your dirt, literally and figuratively speaking, the more you have to lose and the less likely you are to put it at risk whatever your personal politics.

The implications of this simple observation are that maybe we should be spending our time and money, and far fewer of our lives, helping these people to build their economies.  I’m not talking just lip service here.  Far from it.  What I’m suggesting is a major change in the way in which we relate to some of the countries that represent a long-term threat to our country and its allies.

Start with the basic utilities we’ve promised but largely failed to deliver in Iraq, give them the agricultural technology and skills to feed their families, and the plants and equipment necessary to produce, for themselves, the everyday stuff of life.  Let’s help them develop the employment and income these people so desperately need.  Better to build than to destroy, and let the seeds of capitalism grow, on their own, into the democracy and civility which are our best hope for national security.

How would we do all this?  Certainly not by giving the governments of Iraq and other countries money we can’t control and which would likely be misdirected.  No.  I recommend that we do it through our private sector, under the protection of our military if necessary, and it will be – but let protecting our business projects, largely manned and managed by the people we are helping, be our military’s primary objective.

Just to be clear, I’m not talking about using large government contractors, or even about private sector projects funded by our government.  Nor is this about oil.  Enough about oil already.  I don’t want to use our economy to develop and take control of the wealth of another country.  The other country isn’t ours for the taking, period.  What it is, this other country, is a market.  This is about American businesses – large, medium and small, from all sectors of our economy – spending their own money to help people in another country for all the usual self-serving reasons for which our businesses do anything.

All I want our government to do is offer American businesses:  Support through inter-governmental channels to enable private company investments in the foreign country.  Tax and other financial incentives, such as subsidized interest rates and loan guarantees, to make those investments – to give them the higher gross yields they’ll need to make from operations under admittedly difficult circumstances.  And highly focused military support, if necessary, to protect our business personnel when they are in-country, and the industrial and commercial projects they develop.  And then I want our government to leave well enough alone, and let business happen, private, non-government business — as long as our technologies are limited to those that won’t come back and bite us in the tush.  Otherwise, let the free market do what it does best.  Without a doubt, we need our military for self-defense, but it is by no means our only, or even most potent weapon in every situation, particularly when there is a long-term problem which brute force is not likely to resolve, and where aggressive military action may be counterproductive.

Give our companies tax and other financial incentives to build someone else’s economy, and to grow ours in the process – not government contractors, but the same large and smaller companies which provide the services, farm the land, and produce the products we consume every day here in the United States.  Use the power of our economy to generate jobs, income and profits here, by going into the business of helping people over there.  Let’s see if we can help these people improve their own dirt, and leave it to them to make the political and social changes necessary to preserve and continue to improve the quality of their lives.

Isn’t it better to train people to do productive, income producing work in their own economies, instead of having someone else train them to be terrorists?  Isn’t it smarter to give them a reason to work with us, rather than an excuse and the spare time to listen to those who would blame us for all the problems they’re having?

Do we do all this because we’re nice people?  Sure, but there are selfish reasons, too, in the benefits that would accrue to our own economy, the money and lives we would save, the potential for reduced threats to our national security, and for the enhanced standing in the community of nations we would deserve.  It’s one thing to ask other countries to join with us in combat, quite another to ask that they help themselves by joint venturing our investments in the people of a struggling nation.

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Government, Iraq

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