Politics

I was struck by a comment  made by one of my favorite big brains, Thomas Friedman, in his column this week in the New York Times:

“I was traveling via Los Angeles International Airport — LAX — last week. Walking through its faded, cramped domestic terminal, I got the feeling of a place that once thought of itself as modern but has had one too many face-lifts and simply can’t hide the wrinkles anymore. In some ways, LAX is us.  We are the United States of Deferred Maintenance. China is the People’s Republic of Deferred Gratification.  They save, invest and build. We spend, borrow and patch.

And this contrast is playing out in the worst way — just slowly enough so the crisis never seems acute enough to take urgent action.  But, eventually, infrastructure, education and innovation policies matter.  Businesses prefer to invest with the Jetsons more than the Flintstones.”

You can find Friedman’s entire article here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/opinion/03friedman.html?ref=opinion

As usual, Friedman makes many compelling arguments in favor of innovation – of progressive thinking and planning.  And I can’t help but think about how his ideas stand in stark contrast to much of the hyper- right wing conservative agenda that for some reason prefers the status quo, or even moving backward, to a society that is constantly innovating.  I watched a recap last weekend of a recent conservative caucus, where a prominant speaker proudly announced “WE ARE NOT PROGRESSIVES, AND WE OPPOSE THE PROGRESSIVE AGENDA”. 

What does that mean?  If I were to translate Progressive versus Non-Progressive to the business world, it would lay out something like this:

Progressive Companies -

• Apple
• Google

Non-Progressive Companies -

• Chrysler
• Sears

If I had a financial advisor that recommended investing in Chrysler and Sears over Apple and Google I would immediately fire them, yet many people find some comfort in the idea of Non-Progress, living life like the Flintstones instead of the Jetsons.  Progress conquers disease, racism, and poverty.  It levels the economic playing field.  It improves our quality of life and spreads optimism.  What could be bad about that?

Imagine you make $50,000 a year, but your expenses are $55,000 a year. To make matters worse, you are hopelessly in debt, and the bills just keep piling up (hopefully you just need to imagine this and it’s not reality). What would you do? Well, most of us would immediately take action to cut expenses and/or make more money. But of course the government is not like most of us.

As I look out my office window I can see a beautiful three story stone building that fills the square block across the street.  Despite the fact that it is a historically-significant building that sits on one of the most valuable locations in Portland, and borders some of the highest priced developments in the history of the city, it has been vacant for almost ten years since the federal offices moved out.

A couple years ago I attempted to buy the building, but the Federal Government that owns it was not interested in talking. I know of at least three other major developers that also tried to buy the building, but due to government bureacracy they were unable to make any headway.  So it sits unoccupied, and instead of the government realizing several million dollars by selling the building, or even attempting to lease it out, they pay maintenance fees for a big empty building, while creating a bit of a blight in the neigborhood.  Even if the government was not open to selling or leasing the building at this point, the site is surrounded by a couple dozen open parking spots that would be in high demand in this neighborhood.

OK, I know that collecting $20,000 a year for parking, or even the millions of dollars the government could reap by selling the building certainly would not cure our budget crisis, but I can’t help but wonder how many other government buildings are sitting empty across the country.  Hundreds?  Maybe even thousands?

When an individual or a business is in financial trouble they initially look at their assets to see what they can sell to raise cash. Maybe they have a little garage sale. Of course, I don’t want the government to sell our National Parks or sell and lease back the White House, but I am willing to bet that a little ”garage sale” could raise a significant amount of cash and lower expenditures.

This year our governmental deficit is projected to be $1.56 trillion dollars – or perhaps more accurately stated with all the zeros in place – $1,560,000,000,000.  The deficit alone is almost 11% of our GDP.

A trillion is a pretty daunting number to comprehend, but here  is one way to put it into perspective.

A million seconds = 12 days.

A billion seconds = 31 years.

A trillion seconds = 31,688 years.

I was reminded how silly Americans have become as I boarded a flight to Philadelphia this morning. Since it was a Monday after a holiday weekend the security checkpoints were particularly busy; hundreds of people waiting in line as a crack troop of TSA specialists kept us all safe from shoe bombs and nitro disguised as Coke. Bad leadership, panic and misinformation make us do silly and often expensive things, and I am quite confident that someday we will look back on the ridiculous measures we have taken after 9/11 and shake our heads in disbelief.

The odds of an American being killed in a terrorist attack are roughly 1 in 5 million. You are 575 times more likely to commit suicide, yet you don’t see massive national programs to combat killing yourself. Our airports are not lined with free mental health clinics to counsel depressed travelers.

Since 9/11 over 100,000 Americans have been killed in alcohol-related traffic accidents, which is over 33 times the number of people killed in the terrorist attacks. Certainly there is a national effort to combat drunk driving, but we don’t make everyone that travels take a breathalyzer.

According to the new book SuperFreakonomics Americans take their shoes off in airports approximately 560 million times a year, all because of a guy named Richard Reid who tried to light up his Nikes.

We simply can’t afford, nor should we be forced to endure, ridiculous and expensive programs designed to make us feel better but accomplish little else. Terrorists can wear their exploding moon boots into movie theatres and kill just as many people as they would on a plane.

Here’s a bold move for our politicians. Fire the TSAs – and hire more teachers. The smarter we are, the less we will have to worry about terrorism.

If America wants a good guideline on how we should be developing our economic base we need look no further than the example set by Apple Computer. In this otherwise dismal economy the company is enjoying record growth, and the stock topped $200 per share today. While we often worry about the Chinese takeover of the American economy, Apple goes to China to sell their hit iPhone. Apple’s success is not only the story of a great company developing innovative products that people really want, but also an indicator of how the American economy should develop.

While it is certainly legitimate to worry about “shipping jobs overseas” and staying competitive in the new world economy, we also need to think about the kind of jobs we want to maintain in our own country. The profit generated from an iPhone is a good example of what we should strive for. The primary profits when an iPhone is sold are divided between three countries; Korea, China, and The United States. At the low end of the totem pole is China. Chinese workers assemble the product, and their low-paid laborers receive a few dollars per phone. Samsung in Korea manufacturers the screen, and they receive approximately $15 per phone for this crucial piece of the device. And the rest of the profits all come back to the United States, where the product was conceived, designed, and marketed.

In these times of high unemployment we certainly need and want jobs, but I want the jobs Apple generates in the United States to expand, as opposed to the ones they generate in China or Korea. Intellectual capital and marketing expertise are much more valuable than a huge cheap workforce, and unfortunately there will always be an emerging economy ready and willing to work cheaper. China and Korea are primarily building their economy on their ability to act as a cost-effective factory to manufacture what we create and market. We are the best in the world at innovating, and our goal should be to continue to conceive, design, and market the world’s most innovative and needed products. It’s OK if the rest of the world builds the alternative energy devices designed in the US that help solve global warming. Our economy can still be robust if the world’s best autos and fashions and appliances are all developed here but manufactured abroad. The demand for innovation is so great that we should be able to support our entire population with a core group of “big brains” and “savvy marketers”.

But this vision requires a commitment to a few core beliefs that for some reason America is now hesitant to commit to. If we are going to be the smartest, most creative and innovative people in the world, we need to be the best educated. We need to embrace intellectual curiousity and foster creativity. But right now we are going in the opposite direction. As covered in this blog earlier, we are now turning out the first generation of Americans less educated than the last. As a result of our economic crisis, teachers are being fired, schools are lowering their standards, and fewer students can afford college. It is a recipe for disaster and a road to becoming a second-tier nation. Instead of regarding our educational system as sacred and protecting it at any cost, we quickly discard it as something we just can’t afford anymore.

We are in a bizarre period when intelligence is often ridiculed by a very vocal crowd that believes science is a theory, and would prefer to focus the national discourse on conservative religious issues, the antics of ratings-hungry talk show hosts, and the latest reality television stars.

We need visionary politicians that understand the absolute necessity of building a population that grows continually more enlightened and intelligent, instead of leaders that pander to any group that will donate to their campaign funds.

The Obama administration is currently backing a bill to give $250 to every Social Security recipient, since this is the first year retirees won’t get a cost of living increase. Two hundred and fifty bucks is not going to change anyone’s life – but in total it represents $13 billion dollars. $13 billion dollars pumped into our education system could change a lot of young lives and would represent a big investment in the country’s future.

Imagine if instead of invading Iraq we had pumped up our national education system and funded innovation. Why do we have people marching on Washington and into town halls complaining about healthcare, but there is little public outrage over our crumbling education standards and a population growing increasingly stupid?

Instead of putting governmental support behind failing companies with outdated products and/or Weasel management, lets pour some cash into our education system and new technology start-ups that will continue to keep us on the cutting edge.

It is certainly no accident that The Silicon Valley – the heartland of America’s technological and economic dominance over the last two decades – is just around the corner from Stanford University. Stanford graduates started Google, H-P, Cisco, Yahoo, and Sun Microsystems, just to name a few. The correlation between a smart population and economic prosperity and security in undeniable, and much easier to justify then pumping cash into dodgy financial institutions.

America needs more Apple Computers, Hewlett-Packards, and Googles, and the only way to keep building companies like this is if we have a culture that values education, intelligence, and innovation.

As reported in various news outlets, blogs, and even The Daily Show, freshman Senator Al Franken just had his first big win in the Senate, passing a bill that would punish government contractors  who “restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court”. 

Now you might be suprised that such a bill is even necessary.  First of all, what kind of company would stop their employees from taking action if they are sexually assaulted?  Actually, the bill is a result of actions by Halliburton, after they attempted to cover up the abduction, drugging, and gang rape of one of their employees.  Dick Cheney’s old company has some very unusual personel policies! 

Perhaps more importantly, why would any sane Senator vote against a bill that essentially tells companies that if they want to do business with the government they can’t support rape?  Well, there were lots of excuses for that one.  A few felt we were picking on poor old Haliburton, or that we would force people out of arbitration and into the courts (personally I think rapists should have to go to court). But just in case you were wondering how your Senator feels about rape, here is a list of the thirty that voted against the amendment and feel doing business with companies that support rape is OK:

• Alexander (R-TN)
• Barrasso (R-WY)
• Bond (R-MO)
• Brownback (R-KS)
• Bunning (R-KY)
• Burr (R-NC)
• Chambliss (R-GA)
• Coburn (R-OK)
• Cochran (R-MS)
• Corker (R-TN)
• Cornyn (R-TX)
• Crapo (R-ID)
• DeMint (R-SC)
• Ensign (R-NV)
• Enzi (R-WY)
• Graham (R-SC)
• Gregg (R-NH)
• Inhofe (R-OK)
• Isakson (R-GA)
• Johanns (R-NE)
• Kyl (R-AZ)
• McCain (R-AZ)
• McConnell (R-KY)
• Risch (R-ID)
• Roberts (R-KS)
• Sessions (R-AL)
• Shelby (R-AL)
• Thune (R-SD)
• Vitter (R-LA)
• Wicker (R-MS)

Not to be unpatriotic, but America has been looking particularly stupid lately. Perhaps it is due to our non-stop diet of faux-news, or too much mercury in our diets, but as a society we are so angry and misinformed that we are missing some of the really important developments that are occurring around us. Here is one fact that I think we should all be really concerned about –

For the first time in the history of the United States we are producing a generation that is less educated than the last generation.

Well, perhaps we are becoming more stupid, and we are passing the stupidity down to future generations. From an educational perspective, including the percentage of our population that graduates from college, we have been slipping, and we are now a tier-two country. Our fear of taxes and big government has caused a shift away from funding towards education. American society is simply unwilling to pay to educate our population. This has dire consequences for the future of the United States. Educated populations build successful, healthy, affluent societies. America has traditionally led the world with great educational institutions, and core values that stressed the importance of education. We have a great history of ancestors that worked hard to make sure their children were better educated than they were. We should all fear a future where education is no longer valued.

Ah, the Scots. I used to think they were a fine people, sort of “Irish Light”. Big jovial folks that shared my love of fly fishing, kilts and freckled women. But that all changed for me last week when they released the mass murderer responsible for killing dozens of Americans. Convicted Lokerbie bomber Abdel Bassett al-Megrahi received a heroes welcome in Libya after brain-dead bureacrats in Scotland sent him home on humanitarian grounds.

While American politicians (and most of the sane world) have condemned the Scottish actions, I have been suprised to see that the American public has been fairly subdued in their reaction.  After all, we were the people that went on a protacted anti-French rage for a year when they dared disagree with George Bush (hmm, they seemed to know something we didn’t)!  To maintain our patriotism,  we went months drinking only Californian and Italian wines, and had to order our Big Macs with Freedom Fries. 

So what to do about Scotland that really does deserve some retribution? Well, perhaps the problem is there is much less of Scotland infused in our culture.  Year ago I had already given up eating the primary Scottish culinary export – Haggis. (For the few of you that don’t occassionally enjoy a big plate of Haggis – it is a hearty dish containing the liver, heart, and lungs from a sheep, robustly blended with onion, oatmeal, salt, suet and spices. It resembles a stuffed intestine. A perfect dish for a Sunday brunch with cannibals.)

I am more than willing to give up going to Scottish movies, but I can’t really name one.  And I will pledge not to buy any Scottish cars. But somehow that is still not enough.

Wait a minute, there is one thing Scottish many of us enjoy – Scotch – perhaps the most important thing to ever come out of Scotland. The tasty, smoky booze that has provided me so much entertainment (and many horrible hangovers) over the years.  I suggest that effective immediately all of America boycott Scotch!  And in it’s place I have a recommendation.  Drink Tyrconnell Single Malt Irish Whiskey.  The Irish have been making Tyrconnell since 1762, so they have really perfected the formula.  And who knows more about drinking than the Irish! Just as smooth and full of flavor as the best Scotch single malt, but produced by the lovely and lyrical Irish who don’t coddle baby murderers!

Ah Politicians…. why do you keep disappointing us? Just when we think you are smart and have our best interests at heart, you do something really stupid and selfish.

Case in point…. the Congressman from my district, Brian Baird, a politician I voted for and have always admired, is now under fire for a fact finding trip he and ten members of Congress took to investigate global warming. The group visited a research site in The South Pole, then made a stop at the Great Barrier Reef to do a little diving. Then they took a number of side trips around Australia, probably to see if global warming was having an impact on the quality of Australian beer.  Baird is an experienced diver, and he personally took three dives to check out the coral beds.  And the tab to the taxpayers – somewhere north of $500,000.

Of course, that’s $500,000 for ten people, so the trip only cost about $50,000 per person.  Now that might not sound like much of a bargain to the many Americans who opted for a “staycation” this year, because they only had a budget of $50 for the entire family.  But Baird defends the expense, saying “I know not all congressional travel is justified.  As for this trip I feel the knowledge we gained was absolutely essential”.  Does that knowledge include how to throw a shrimp on the barbi from forty feet while dancing the limbo with a Mai Tai in your left hand?

The money issue aside, the ten high flyers took a private government jet for the escapade.  There is something inately wrong about flying around the world in a private jet to look into the dangers of global warming.  It’s kind of like injecting yourself with heroin to investigate the drug problem.  Congressman Baird, next time please call me when you want to see some signs of global warming.  I would be happy to take you and your friends on a hike into the Washington Cascades and show you what is happening in your own district.  I won’t charge you, and afterwards you can even take a swim in my pond.  Feel free to bring your scuba gear!

I don’t want to be one of those bloggers that spreads awful unfounded rumours, but there is a very disturbing and persistant story floating around.  According to many potentially credible sources, Rush Limbaugh is dating a goat.  And by goat I’m not using a derogatory term for a cast member from The Golden Girls, but actual braying livestock.

Rush was seen last week cruising a Miami suburb in a white Escalade; a large white goat happily riding shotgun next to him.  A toll booth attendant that wanted to remain anonymous reported the following. “Rush pulled up to pay the toll, and when I looked over he was feeding a head of lettuce to the goat.  Then he leaned over with a piece of tomato sticking out of his mouth, and fed it to the goat like a lover sharing a piece of candy. Then he gave the goat a little kiss.  Most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”   

At the Ritz Carlton in New York a maid reported seeing Limbaugh check into a suite with a large portable dog kennel in tow.  When she cleaned the room the next day she noticed the sheets were covered with coarse white hair and one of the pillows had been chewed.  “I didn’t think it was strange at the time, since a lot of bald guys have hairy backs and they tend to shed and chew at night”, she said, “but when I heard he was dating a goat it all seemed to make sense.”

Limbaugh reportedly became a goat lover a couple years ago while still addicted addicted to prescription drugs.  While under the influence of Oxicotin and fortified wine he called an escort service to order some companionship, but in his deranged state accidentally called a goat breeding operation.

Lance Rollins, Chairman of NAMGLA (North American Man Goat Love Association) says he isn’t suprised.  “I know that people find it strange and maybe a little perverse, but until you have actually spent a little time with a goat you can’t imagine what terrific and sensuous companions they are. You can’t believe what a good goat will do. I hope Rush will come forward and help bring man / goat love societal acceptance.”

Not everyone is as accepting of Limbaugh’s new companion.  Ester Bell, head of the KCSPA (Kansas City Society For The Protection of Animals), said she and her group plan to protest next month when Limbaugh is in town addressing the annual convention for KAWT  (Keep America White and Tight). “I don’t care how famous he is.  He has no right to date farm animals”, said Bell.

Of course, all this is simply conjecture, as there has been no official acknowledgement from Rush that he is actually dating a goat.  But on a recent show Lou Dobbs summed it all up. “I’ve been following the Limbaugh Goat Dating controversy.  I know Rush, and I don’t believe that he would actually date a goat.  But Rush also has not provided any proof that he is not in a relationship with an animal.  I think he owes that to America.” Despite the fact that Dobbs does not think Limbaugh is dating a goat, he continues to feature guests on his show that claim first hand knowledge of the relationship.

The Limbaugh Goat Love Triangle has deflected attention from the last rampant web controversy which coincidentally included Limbaugh and Dobbs.  Both commentators joined other conservatives in spreading the unfounded rumour that President Obama was not born in the USA, and was actually some long-term Muslim “Manchurian Candidate” plant  designed to ultimately overthrow America.  Despite the fact that there is substantial evidence to conclusively prove the President was born in the US, they continued to propagate the rumour to boost ratings.

Though I am no supporter of Limbaugh, even I find it hard to believe he is in a relationship with a goat.  But one has to wonder, why won’t he prove he isn’t?