On the brink?

In less than a year, many of the pillars of the American economy have crumbled. It feels a bit like 2001, but much worse. When the tech bubble burst, you felt kind of dumb for having believed in it at all. "Pets.com? Web Van? Who could have ever thought those companies would succeed?"

This is much different. Many of the titans of the American system have either vanished or been drastically altered- AIG, GM, Citibank, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, etc. When Enron and WorldCom imploded, it was a question of how those rotten companies avoided detection. Now, people are questioning whether or not the entire system might collapse.

One thing that must change is how we reward people in the finance industry. Finance companies should be devoted to raising capital and then providing it to companies that can utilize the capital for expansion. Financiers should be compensated in a way that matches is commensurate with their success in allocating capital. Frankly, I'm not sure what the heck we have been rewarding in recent years.

Is the system rotten? Have we done enough to fix it?

20th Congressional too close to call- so what?

The special election in New York's 20th Congressional District is too close to call. This is a stunning repudiation of President Obama. No, wait, a stunning repudiation of RNC Chairman Michael Steele. OK, no one knows what it means. But why let that stop us?

The 20th is a Republican district that now Senator Kirsten Gillibrand won in 2006. It sounds like we will be waiting for weeks, if not months, to find out who won. At least now Al Franken will have someone to keep him company.

GM CEO Rick Wagoner asked to resign

"GM CEO Rick Wagoner announced his resignation early Monday -- the latest change for the troubled automaker. White House and GM sources had told CNN Sunday that Wagoner would resign as part of the federal government's bailout strategy for the troubled automaker. "On Friday I was in Washington for a meeting with Administration officials. In the course of that meeting, they requested that I 'step aside' as CEO of GM, and so I have," Wagoner said in a statement posted to the GM Web site."

No matter how bad you have things at your job, I'm willing to bet you have never been asked by the President of the United States to step aside from your current position for the good of the economy and the country. It's always good to keep some perspective. One of the common questions on government job applications and background investigations is something like "were you ever fired or asked to leave any previous jobs?" I'm guessing "by the President himself" isn't the preferred answer to that.

I like that the government is starting to demand some actual accountability from the auto industry, and that the car manufacturers will need to prove they are viable long term to continue to get taxpayer financial assistance. As much as I love my Camry Hybrid, there is no reason in 2009 that somebody should have to buy a Honda or Toyota - rather than an American car - if they want a fuel efficient vehicle. Hopefully, Detroit will use this opportunity to once again put America at the forefront of the auto industry. The proposed Chevy Volt is a step in the right direction.

The crisis of credit visualized

An excellent 10 minute summary of just what happened to cause the current economic and credit problems. Kind of a "credit crisis for dummies" .....


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

The politicization of the Supreme Court

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Friday that John Roberts misled the Senate during his confirmation hearings by pretending to be a moderate — and that the United States is now “stuck” with him as chief justice."

If Reid really believed that, then he is an idiot. There was never anything "moderate" about John Roberts. He was a Bush appointee who had clerked for Rehnquist, worked in the Reagan administration, and was on the steering committee for the conservative Federalist society. Maybe because he had a friendly demeanor and was a decent looking guy he was assumed to be "moderate"? Most liberals would have been shocked if he had turned out to be anything but conservative, and most conservatives would have been outraged.

And the reality is there is nothing wrong with that, at least in my opinion. Bush was a conservative President, and since he actually won in 2004 (contrasted with his 2000 "victory") he earned the right to appoint Supreme Court Justices. A good portion of modern day Presidential campaigns center around the types of liberal or conservative judges that will be selected depending on which party wins. Voters know that everything from the right to choose, to environmental laws, to health and safety legislation will all be impacted by the courts. It's part of the calculus now in who you vote for for President.

Yet appointees for the high court still have to parade in front of the Senate and pretend that their whole judicial and academic history didn't really mean anything, that they have no real opinions on the major legal issues of the day, and they will be judicial moderates (whatever that means) when they are confirmed to the bench. Why go through the charade? Why not just accept that liberal Presidents will appoint liberal judges and conservative Presidents will appoint conservative judges? Isn't that how democracy is supposed to work?

The man who survived both Hiroshima and Nagasaki

This guy is either the luckiest guy in the world or the unluckiest - I still can't decide. He was in Hiroshima on business the day the A-bomb was dropped. He survived it, then went home two days later to Nagasaki - the day before that city was hit with the other A-bomb. And he is still alive today, at age 93. Amazing.

You have to think this guy just rolls his eyes when other people are telling stories about how bad they had things. I mean no matter how cool your story is, he can always top it. I'd love to know where he went next after that 3 day stretch. And how many times he heard "No, that's OK Tsutomu - you just go on without me, I'm going stay here."

Friday musings

What will Arnold do after he leaves office?

What's Bush up to these days?

Did Quinn Snyder watch the Missouri game last night?

Did you know he's coaching in the NBA Developmental League? I had to look that up.

Will the Dems pull out the special election in NY?

Does Hillary like being Secretary of State?

Skip 2012, who is the Dem front runner in 2016?

Has the economy bottomed out?

If we've gone from Debbie Gibson to Britney in 20 years, what will pop stars be like in 2025?

How about you? What's on your mind?

The President gets around

The NY Times has an interesting article about how the Obamas are much more out and about than any of their recent predecessors. Bush was very much a homebody and liked to go to bed really early, but even compared the Clintons, the Obamas are very active on the social scene.

I imagine one of the most difficult things about being President is that you become so insulated. Think back to Nixon and LBJ- the longer they were in office, the more paranoid and detached from reality they became. Back in 1992, George H. W. Bush was viewed as being very out-of-touch. His campaign visit to a grocery store just reinforced that notion and it is part of why he lost the election.

It certainly helps a politician if he or she is viewed as being someone that voters can relate to. One of the reasons that Bush "won" two national elections is because he was viewed as more likeable than Bush or Kerry- the magical concept that he was a guy you could share a beer with.

I'm curious to see if Obama continues to get out and about later in his term. Can't imagine that the Secret Service is a huge fan of this, but let's hope that Obama continues to break out of the White House fishbowl.

Protesting Obama at Notre Dame

President Obama will be giving the commencement speech at Notre Dame and some folks are all riled up about it. For example, the Chicago Tribune quotes this young lady:

"In many ways, the president does not have a whole lot in line with the mission of this university, especially in terms of its Catholicism," said Mary Daly, president of the campus Right to Life club. "People look to this university as a leading example of American Catholicism."

Perhaps Mary's parents can ask for a refund of her tuition. I'd be pretty upset if I'd spent 100k on my kid's education and they displayed such an intolerant, sheltered view. The whole point of college is exposure to new ideas.

I felt the same way when Bush went to schools to speak. I disagreed vehemently with his policies, but I agreed he had a right to speak and felt that the President of the United States should be treated with respect.

Thoughts? Should universities only invite non-controversial speakers for commencement? And how many of those are there? Even Bill Cosby is controversial now!

Social media

One of the big stories of 2008 was the convergence of politics and social media- blogs, Facebook, Twitter, texting, etc. Barack Obama was the biggest adopter of these new tools and they were part of his success. The MyBO network was the central hub for his volunteers to connect with one another. Even though there were some technical glitches, his announcement of Joe Biden via text garnered a ton of publicity and cell phone numbers.

Politicians are trying to recreate the Obama magic in the next election cycle. The biggest question is: How much of Obama's success was because of social media and how much of social media's success was because of Obama? Will politicians who lack Obama's rhetorical gifts be able to inspire people to organize online?

Fast Company has a really interesting article about Chris Hughes- he has the dual distinction of being one of the founders of Facebook and being an integral part of Obama's online operation. One snippet:

It was Hughes's instinct for satisfying Facebook's users, ironically, that would lead him beyond the site. In the fall of 2006, as midterm elections approached, Facebook took the then bold step of allowing political candidates to set up modified profile pages, well before celebrities and products could have fan pages of their own. When a freshman senator from Illinois came knocking, it was Hughes who provided the customer service. Barack Obama wasn't a midterm candidate, but he wanted a Facebook profile anyway. The approach came in an email from Reggie Love, Obama's now famous body man. "I liked the Facebook idea," says Jim Brayton, then the senator's Internet director, "but Reggie really got it immediately." After Love set up the profile, Brayton says, they realized its potential for an Obama presidential campaign. "We quickly wanted to be able to do more with it. Chris got it right away."

Another example of the growing importance of technology in campaign's is visible in my own Congressional district. Ellen Tauscher will be stepping down to take a job in the State Department. The presumed favorite to replace her is State Senator Mark DeSaulnier. The only other person on the Dem side that I know for sure is running is Adriel Hampton.

I'd never heard of Adriel until a couple of days ago, but he is pretty well-known in some of the progressive politics circles. From what I can tell, he seems like a Twitter fanatic: http://twitter.com/adrielhampton

If Twitter and Ning are going to be the cornerstones of his campaign, I'm curious to see how effective his campaign can be. He's a huge underdog to Sen. DeSaulnier so he will need something to be a game changer. From what I've seen, his Twitter posts primarily consist of asking for cash and publicity- we'll have to see if he uses it to flesh out his platform.