Let them Fail!!

I have found myself most disturbed by the actions of the previous administration and the continuation of those policies by the current one. Granted, that the Obama administration is at least making a reasonable attempt to apply some accountability to the “bailout” process, nonetheless something has been eating at my gut as I watch this spectacle unfold.

I finally figured out what that was. Let them fail! That’s right. Let GM, Chrysler and the banking giants collapse or choose bankruptcy protection to restructure themselves. By allowing the government to intervene in the natural process of capitalistic evolution, we are destroying the real opportunity for economic recovery that is being presented here.

In order to function properly, capitalism needs to mirror Darwinism. The survival of the fittest is required for capitalism (and therefore the economy) to flourish and grow. The Obama administration is suffering under the same delusion that led to Bush’s destruction of the economy. “What’s good for GM is good for America!” The reality is that if you want to create jobs and energize economic growth we are focused on the wrong business sector. Large corporations in this country have been the worst at putting people to work over the past 30 years. During that time period, the number of workers employed by those companies has steadily declined. Our job growth (which was most evident under the Clinton administration) comes from the small business sector. This sector has been crushed by the unbreakable stranglehold placed as barriers to market entry by the dominance of the large corporations in this country. Innovation and technological breakthroughs do not come from big business. The sheer size of these corporations stifles innovation and creativity because their workers spend all their time playing corporate politics to survive.

Let GM and Chrysler fail and there will be 20 new car companies setup to fill the void. Let Citibank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo go under and there will be a rush to setup new banking institutions to grab those customers. There hasn’t been a new car manufacturer in this country in over 60 years. That’s not because nobody wants to do it. It’s because nobody has the capital to compete with the big automakers’ distribution and manufacturing capabilities. With the big guys out of the picture, the dealers will be falling all over themselves to sign up with a new company that will provide them innovative products.

In order for capitalism to function properly, there needs to be great rewards for success and equally harsh consequences for failure. The government’s interference in the process has taken the downside away which is what has encouraged the big guys to take extreme risks, continue producing inferior products and think that they won’t be held accountable for their actions. We need to get back to basics.

The Obama economic team unfortunately doesn’t have the knowledge or experience to recognize this reality. Geithner may be a bright guy, but as President of a Federal Reserve Bank he was part of the problem that got us here in the first place. The actions he is taking smack of conventional thinking for an unconventional problem. Take the $350 billion that is earmarked as the second phase of the financial sector bailout and reduce it to $100 billion. Take the $100 billion and put it in a small business lending pool and use that as seed money for innovative startup companies. The financial services companies have already said that their plan is to continue cutting costs (translation, getting rid of employees). That is not stimulative activity. Small businesses will hire new employees and reinvigorate the entrepreneurial spirit which has made America an economic force to be reckoned with. Today GM declared that it would need $30 billion and will layoff 47,000 employees to go along with the money. That is not stimulative and that is not job growth.

Liquidate the large banks, use those funds to cover the FDIC costs to make customer’s whole and if anything is left after that, then payoff the creditors. Cost to the taxpayer, $0.

Whose Gonna Raise Your Taxes? Check this Out

As we all know there has been a great deal of rhetoric circulating about whose gonna be raising your taxes if they get elected. The guys at this website have done an amazing job of helping you figure it out for yourself. Follow this link: http://www.electiontaxes.com/.

Financial Rewards

So here we are watching the federal government take $700 billion of our dollars and use it to bail out companies who because of incompetence, greed and mismanagement are about to fail. So much for the Bush/McCain doctrine of markets free from government regulation and interference. Remember that if Bush/McCain had their way, our social security funds would have been partially privatized and wiped out had they been invested in these “safe” growth oriented institutions.

I’m not saying that this solution is wrong or is not required. I will say however that it shouldn't be a blank check with no strings attached. Not only should the taxpayers have a chance to see a profitable return on their investment it should be time for new rules.

First, the executives of these failed(ing) organizations must be required to repay any bonuses they received during the past three years since it is obvious by the condition of their companies that they didn’t deserve that money, based on their company performance.

Second, we need to place lending restrictions on all of these organizations so that loans meet a minimum underwriting requirement before they get issued.

And finally, it should be illegal for any company in the financial sector to participate with or spend any funds on lobbying activities.

Now’s the time to impose these regulations since we have the most leverage at this moment while they are at the door with their hands out!

Email from some Alaskans regarding Palin....

Psssst...pass it on!

[The] Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was to be held outside on the lawn in front of the Loussac Library in midtown Anchorage . Home made signs were encouraged, and the idea was to make a statement that Sarah Palin does not speak for all Alaska women, or men. I had no idea what to expect.

The rally was organized by a small group of women, talking over coffee. It made me wonder what other things have started with small groups of women talking over coffee. It's probably an impressive list. These women hatched the plan, printed up flyers, posted them around town, and sent notices to local media outlets. One of those media outlets was KBYR radio, home of Eddie Burke, a long-time uber-conservative Anchorage talk show host. Turns out that Eddie Burke not only announced the rally, but called the people who planned to attend the rally 'a bunch of socialist baby-killing maggots,' and read the home phone numbers of the organizers aloud over the air, urging listeners to call and tell them what they thought. The women, of course, received some nasty, harassing and threatening messages.

I felt a bit apprehensive. I'd been disappointed before by the turnout at other rallies. Basically, in Anchorage , if you can get 25 people to show up at an event, it's a success. So, I thought to myself, if we can actually get 100 people there that aren't sent by Eddie Burke, we'll be doing good. A real statement will have been made. I confess, I still had a mental image of 15 demonstrators surrounded by hundreds of menacing 'socialist baby-killing maggot' haters.

It's a good thing I wasn't tailgating when I saw the crowd in front of the library or I would have ended up in somebody's trunk. When I got there, about 20 minutes early, the line of sign wavers stretched the full length of the library grounds, along the edge of the road, 6 or 7 people deep! I could hardly find a place to park. I nabbed one of the last spots in the library lot, and as I got out of the car and started walking, people seemed to join in from every direction, carrying signs.

Never, have I seen anything like it in my 17 and a half years living in Anchorage. The organizers had someone walk the rally with a counter, and they clicked off well over 1400 people (not including the 90 counter-demonstrators). This was the biggest political rally ever, in the history of the state. I was absolutely stunned. The second most amazing thing is how many people honked and gave the thumbs up as they drove by. And even those that didn't honk looked wide-eyed and awe-struck at the huge crowd that was growing by the minute.This just doesn't happen here.

Then, the infamous Eddie Burke showed up. He tried to talk to the media, and was instantly surrounded by a group of 20 people who started shouting O-BA-MA so loud he couldn't be heard. Then passing cars started honking in a rhythmic pattern of 3, like the Obama chant, while the crowd cheered, hooted and waved their signs high.

So, if you've been doing the math… Yes. The Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was significantly bigger than Palin's rally that got all the national media coverage! So take heart, sit back, and enjoy the photo gallery. Feel free to spread the pictures around to anyone who needs to know that Sarah Palin most definitely does not speak for all Alaskans. The citizens of Alaska , who know her best, have things to say.

Welcome to Uncommon Sense

I first used this title for a series of letters I had written which were published in a local newspaper. They were in response to a number of editorials call "Common Sense" which in my mind were neither common nor sensible. In fact they were primarily aimed at stopping the construction of a new high school. Fortunately sane minds prevailed in the end and that school is now a wonderful addition to our communities and a great center of learning for our kids.

So what really prompted me to resurrect "Uncommon Sense"? For the past few weeks we have not been able to turn on a TV without being bombarded by talking heads, pollsters, unending commercials with some guy chasing a green animated geco around and enough sound bites from the candidates to make us all numb as to what is actually being said. It seemed like the right time to try to cut through the noise and take a calmer look at what is happening in our political process (and the country in general for that matter).

I'm about to turn 55 next week. I got a card from my sister welcoming me to middle age. She never was that good at math since there is no way in hell I am going to be hanging around at 110. But like many of the "boomers" my views of the world and the state of our nation have changed somewhat with age. The problem is that we don't quite fit anywhere politically.

We've grown into fiscal conservatives who are environmentally aware. We don't want the government interfering in our private lives but a lack of government oversight has created our current economic crises. We believe in human rights and freedom but reject the idea that it is our job to impose those beliefs on the world. We believe in democracy but only a third of us actually exercise our right to vote. We want to have our cake and eat it too as we watch our country prosecute two wars at $12 billion a month but we don't want to have our taxes increased to pay for it.

So now we are less than two months away from selecting the next President. It's time to cut through the noise and find the substance. The first question to ask is are we better off than we were 8 years ago? Oh, I know there's a bunch of you yelling that Bush isn't running for office. Or is he? John McCain, like it or not has voted with Bush more than 90% of the time. We are only kidding ourselves if we think that a McCain presidency would be any different. In all my years in and around politics, I have never seen the influence of large corporations and lobbyists more prevalent than they are now. Hopefully as we've gotten older we realize that what's good for Exxon/Mobil is not necessarily what's good for America. So I think that the answer to this question is no. Unemployment is up over 6%, banking failures, investment house failures, government bailouts of the largest mortgage and insurance companies in the country, over 4,000 soldiers dead, no weapons of mass destruction anywhere, the budget deficit the largest in history, gasoline at $4 a gallon (a 400% increase from when Bush took office), Osama bin Laden still out there laughing at us. I don't think that anybody believes that this is where the country should be going.

The second question is a hard reality to deal with. The actuarial tables will tell you that John McCain has a 30% chance of actually making it through his first term. That means there is a 70% probability that Sarah Palin will become the President should McCain get elected. As I said before, most of us boomers are middle of the road. Palin is anything but. She represents the most extreme right of the republican party. She's scrambling to get to the middle but her history, albeit brief pretty much let's you know where she stands. She's tried to ban books from the Wasilla library, wasted millions of tax dollars on pork like the bridge to nowhere (which she supported until there was a national outcry), probably abused her office in firing the Public Safety Commissioner for not firing her ex-brother-in-law (but worse than that has now used her influence to try and shut down the investigation), claims to support special needs kids but cut almost all of the funding for the Special Olympics in Alaska. Finally, she thinks she can handle Russia because you can see it from an island in Alaska. This is one scary candidate.

So all this makes it sound like the choice is easy. Far from it. First and foremost, we need to recognize that change is scary. Most of us don't deal well with change. We get a comfort level and don't like to see it upset. Obama is far from the ideal choice either. He is less experienced than we would like (though it will be interesting to finally have a President who is younger than me). Like it or not, race is also a factor here. Are we as a nation ready to elect a black man as President? Let's face it, with all of the problems we have which are obviously the direct result of a failed republican Presidency, John Kerry, Al Gore or Hillary Clinton would have a huge lead in the polls going into the final days of this election cycle. Instead, we find many voters struggling to find reasons not to vote for Obama. Once all of those reasons are exhausted, race is the unspoken one that remains. Well you know what. Here's our chance to show that we've evolved as a species and as a nation. This country has lost it's energy and purpose and it will take a young, fresh face to inspire us to greatness once again. It happens in cycles. JFK brought that type of energy to us after a rather uninspiring 8 years of Eisenhower. Bill Clinton brought that type of energy to us after an uninspiring 4 years of Bush 1. After 8 years of wandering aimlessly with Bush 2, Obama brings that chemistry to the table. Are we going to be smart enough to embrace it?