Post No. 118a: Article of Interest Regarding Pakistan and Its Nuclear Arsenal

In Post No. 118, we posed a number of questions about principles, pragmatism, and situational ethics regarding the relationship between the United States and Pakistan.

For all of you who perhaps had not really thought about the Pakistani issue, this morning's New York Times article regarding its nuclear arsenal should grab your attention.

Is this an example of unintended consequences, or something else?

To read the story, click here.

Post No. 108: Too Few Indians; Not Enough Chiefs

Something’s bothering us.

How in the heck did so many become experts on economic theory overnight, and declare themselves competent to expound on this tactic or that?

Not only are they economic experts; they can predict the future with certainty.

Lots of us have difficulty tracking a checking account balance.

We here at the Institute aren’t sure of much, other than tequila will make you stupid, vodka will make you delusional, and hanging out with more than one woman will make you broke.

And so with amazement, we have watched talk show hosts, pundits, and just regular folks like us, draw lines in the sand describing what happened, why it happened, and what is about to occur.

Where were these people before things started heading south? And why weren’t they running things?

We’ve operated businesses. Stuff’s tricky. We don’t pass judgment on others, especially those with larger /more complex operations.

One of the Logistician’s partners used to say that business people are happy if they get it right 51% of the time. 60% will make you wealthy.

And yet people with not even lemonade stand experience call others incompetent.

That’s not to mention those who’ve cornered the market on history and claim their view is historically accurate, while others are revisionist in nature, or worse yet, lies.

A symposium on the economy was recently held at George Washington University.

There were roughly 10-13 economists, journalists, former banking officials, and business professionals.

First, the group noted that over decades, our best and brightest were diverted or “distracted.”

Instead of pursing careers in science, bio-tech, and other technological areas, they spent time creating “innovative financial instruments,” and generated huge amounts of money, mostly for themselves, through leveraging.

Second, the question arose as to how the best and brightest from our top educational institutions managed to be at the center of this whole mess. This was not a collection of dullards.

Third, there was some sense that the captains of finance had little sense of social responsibility.

Fourth, no one attributed our economic situation as primarily due to one factor, a short period of time, one party, or one administration.

Even the least sophisticated amongst us should appreciate that:

1) The world hasn’t faced a similar economic crisis in our lifetime. There is no historical precedent. No one really knows precisely what to do;

2) This crisis seems to have been precipitated by an economic situation more or less defined by the availability of more capital than good deals;

3) There is no more “them” or “us.” We can’t get along without Chinese money and China can’t get along without the American market. We need a world wide coordinated effort… which is going to be difficult;

4) The economic policies of the last 8 (or 15, or 20, or 30) years got us to this point and did not produce the desired results;

5) When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging;

6) There is no drug as addictive or powerful as easy credit and the promise of instant wealth;

Finally, we’ll pass on something from a buddy who should know. The main reason why Tim Geithner is flailing in the wind is he can’t consult the Street and the Big Banks because there are horrendous conflicts of interest. Treasury is also inadequately staffed for this reason, along with the fact that few have the guts to take on a task of this magnitude.

Much of the wailing and brow beating can largely be attributed to a few who became very rich during the last decade exploiting easy credit and nonexistent regulation.

They became hooked on the most powerful drug extant.

The rest of this public viciousness is nothing but political finger pointing.

Hunter Thompson once observed of Washington: “In a closed society, where everyone is guilty, the only crime is in getting caught, and the only sin is stupidity.”

Mark Twain, 100 years earlier, noted: “Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.”

We elected this man on the promise of change. Lord knows our economy is in desperate need of something different.

We at the Institute of Applied Common Sense ask only that those both for, and against, this change “get with the program.” If you have a better idea, let’s hear it.

If not, let’s tamp down the fervor, and give a new approach a chance.

After all, the stuff we did before obviously didn’t work.

Except, perhaps for the benefit of a few.

Post 47a: If You’re Willing to Momentarily Laugh about Our Current Financial Crisis

We, here at the Institute for Applied Common Sense, generally try to avoid cynicism, since our ultimate goal is to encourage the development of innovative solutions to serious societal issues. We always assume that positive changes can be achieved. At the same time, we recognize the importance of entertaining views across the spectrum to stimulate thought and keep us on our toes. We further appreciate the role of wit and humor.

It is in this spirit that we submit for your consideration the Con Man’s Blog of Jack Payne. The following is an excerpt from his September 26, 2008 post, entitled:

Legal Scam? – Con Artists’/Politicians’ Ace in the Hole: Create Controversy

Generating 2 Strongly Opposing Sides is Key to a Good Legal Scam Employed by Con Artists and Politicians Everywhere

“It’s said that the hand that turns the knob opens the door.

If you be the con artist / politician, you know that to succeed in selling a legal scam, several steps are essential – steps necessary to just getting to the door, before you can even hope to open it.

As it’s said: Never wrestle a pig; you’ll both get dirty, and the pig likes it. Take the easy way.

You must hatch a problem so that you can organize a group of people to step in with the “solution.” You must then employ the Us and Them technique so that your group of suckers can be manipulated, with strong emotion, to become the “void-filler” in this legal scam. Tell them your powers can only be used for good. At no time overlook the potency of collective stupidity….”

It only gets better. Check it out: http://www.legalthriller.blogspot.com/2008/09/legal-scam-con-artists-politicians-ace.html



I

Post No. 44: At What Price Dumbing Down?

© The Institute for Applied Common Sense

One of the somewhat overlooked ironies of this campaign year is that a black man, who was born outside of this country and the product of a broken home, and who managed to beat the odds and become a reasonably well educated public servant after attending two Ivy League institutions, is currently being framed as an “elitist” in our society.

That this should occur should cause us all to pause.

Last spring I managed to get myself involved is scoring reading and writing competencies for some of the prospective graduates of one of our state institutions.

The state wide results just came in reflecting an, on average, 2% decrease in reading comprehension, and a 17% increase in writing communication.

Not surprisingly, the schools that scored worst are challenging the test.

Even less surprisingly, I will be spending the last half of October explaining my scoring.

My guess is that this anomaly can be explained by the Internet.

Computers have got kids writing, seriously, earlier than ever before in history... but to paraphrase Mr. Gossage (http://adage.com/century/people023.html), they write about what interests them.

If we continue to dumb down and politically correct our text books, year after year, to revise the content to match whatever we consider to be the prevailing political winds... we shouldn't be surprised if our children choose to read that which seems to be of more immediate, personal, value.

And the more we chose to force our teachers to keep to the politically correct curriculum of the day, the less opportunity these mostly right headed people will have to inspire and challenge their students...absent which we are well and truly screwed.

Advertising is not a bad example of what has gone wrong with our culture.

There is nothing more expensive in the marketing business than a failed campaign. But agency holding companies have gotten into bed with client purchasing departments, often offering to provide their services for free, and earned back their 20 - 30% margins by eliminating the people who actually do the work... not to mention any semblance of a training program

The result is often a single ad that offends nobody world wide... mostly because it is so innocuous nobody world wide notices it...supported by intergalactic media buys.... The Olympics come to mind...that cost nothing to negotiate... can be promoted as being available at some fictional discount only because of the agency's "massive media clout," and get bought on the discount rather than their effectiveness.

All of which we do under the umbrella of branding...and we ought to be ashamed of ourselves.

This is not the way people buy stuff.

Jim Jordan [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jordan_(publicist)], a giant in the marketing field, once said. "It's not creative unless it sells."

Bill Bernbach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bernbach), also a giant, said, "It won't sell unless it's creative."

They were both right.

The problem is the people who now run their agencies got their jobs by buying things cheap... and that's what they talk to the client about when they sit down for their quarterly "state of the account dinners."

Unfortunately, expressing any of the above in front of current agency and client management can produce chronic underemployment.

More unfortunately, if somebody doesn't stand up pretty quick, we are on our way to becoming a supplier of natural resources to countries that have mastered the art of adding value.

In the immortal words of Jimmy Williams, "When you stop taking pride in what you make, you have hitched your star to a wagon."

Which I believe is Mr. Friedman's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Friedman) point as well, in his discussion of innovation, global competition, and the future position of the United States. (http://theviewfromoutsidemytinywindow.blogspot.com/2008/09/post-no-41b-television-worth-viewing.html.)

At the end of the day, it really is all about creativity and innovation…. It’s what ultimately sells.

Always has, always will.

© The Institute for Applied Common Sense

Post No. 41b: Television Worth Viewing

Charlie Rose on PBS: A conversation with Thomas Friedman

http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2008/09/09/1/a-conversation-with-thomas-l-friedman

No matter what you may think of Thomas Friedman’s politics or positions, he raises some very significant points about innovation, global competition, and the future position of the United States, about which we should all be thinking. Friedman discusses his new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How It Can Renew America )http://books.google.com/books?id=FMCxKQAACAAJ&dq=%22hot,+flat+and+crowded%22&ei=0VDHSOm9JpLkywS_q9DkAw.)

We can not simply continue to sit around, argue amongst ourselves, and think that terrorists are around every corner, while the world passes us by. This is a big picture discussion. We need to come up with solutions, and Friedman at least suggests some for our consideration.

Check your local listings. On the East Coast, it aired at 11:30 am on Tuesday, September 9, 2008.

Post No. 39b: And So You Thought That America Only Had to Worry About China's Ability to Make Things

Article of Interest from the New York Times:

August 31, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Postcard From South China

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Guangzhou, China

I had the pleasure the other day of visiting the delightfully named Zhuhai Guohua Wonderful Wind Power Exploitation Co. in Zhuhai, on the southern coast of China. It’s a good news/bad news story.

The good news was that the Chinese engineers showed me their control room, which has a giant glass window that looks out onto their 21 wind turbines that crown the peaks of a nearby mountain. “How nice,” I thought. “China’s really starting to go green.”

But as my eye drifted just to the left of that mountain, I saw Macau, with its rising skyline of casino skyscrapers. The Venetian Hotel in Macau alone has some 870 gaming tables and 3,400 slot machines. So, I did a quick calculation and figured that those 21 wind turbines together might power the Venetian’s army of one-armed bandits for a few hours of green gambling.

That dichotomy runs through a lot of what is going on here in Guangdong Province, where 30 years ago China began its economic opening. You’re starting to see the emergence of Chinese clean-tech companies — I also visited a solar panel start-up — and real environmental awareness among officials and students. But the momentum of this region’s growth, the sheer land-of-the-giants scale of the buildings, makes the renewable energy here literally a drop in the bucket.

As a result, there is a dawning awareness that if China is to break its own addiction to oil, it will take a much more fundamental shift from the growth model that powered its first 30 years.

That model was based on two linked ideas: 1) energy was inexhaustible, inexpensive and benign; and 2) China could count on raising its living standards by forever being the world’s low-cost manufacturing workshop, based on cheap energy.

In recent years, though, fossil-fuel energy has become expensive, exhaustible and toxic, and rising wages — to some extent because of rising environmental considerations and social security requirements — have meant that the workshops of southern China are no longer the low-cost producers in Asia. Vietnam and Western China now beckon.

The only way forward, say officials, is for China to gradually develop a cleaner, knowledge-based, service/finance economy. It has to move from “made in China” to “designed in China” to “imagined in China.”

In short, the economy here has to become greener and smarter. (Sound familiar?)

In 1992, China’s coastal economic powerhouses hit a similar wall when they found they could not grow further without the government loosening travel restrictions to attract workers from all over China. So, more personal freedom to move around China was unleashed then. Now, these same provinces need to allow more “mind movement” to get to the next level.

The problem for the ruling Communist Party is this: China can’t have a greener society without empowering citizens to become watchdogs and allowing them to sue local businesses and governments that pollute, and it can’t have a more knowledge-intensive innovation society without a freer flow of information and experimentation.

What surprised me is how much the party is thinking about all this. I actually came here at the invitation of Wang Yang, the Communist Party secretary, i.e. the boss of Guangdong Province. He had read one of my books on globalization in Chinese.

Wang is also a member of the Politburo in Beijing and is considered one of the most innovative thinkers in China’s leadership today. He has been given room to experiment and has begun advocating something he calls “mind liberation” — primarily an effort to change the culture of his bureaucracy and open it up to new ways of thinking. Right now he is focused on trying to shift dirty, low-wage manufacturing out of Guangzhou to the countryside, where jobs are still scarce.

And he is trying to attract clean industries and services to the city. His goal, he said, was a more “low-carbon economy.”

“Please put it in your column that Party Secretary Wang Yang welcomes [Western] clean energy technology companies to come to Guangdong Province and use it as a laboratory to develop their products,” he told me. “We will be most willing to participate in the innovation and provide the services they need.”

So my postcard from Guangzhou would read like this: “Dear Mom and Dad, this place is so much more interesting than it looks from abroad. I met wind and solar companies eager for Western investment and Chinese college students who were organizing a boycott of an Indonesian paper company for despoiling their forest. An ‘Institute of Civil Society’ has quietly opened at the local Sun Yat-sen University. The Communist Party is trying to break the old mold without breaking its hold. It’s quite a drama. Can’t wait to come back next summer and see how they’re doing ...”