Integrated Man

Pull the Plug; Walk Away

Concerted Procrastination is an accepted and well worn decision-making practice among senior executives in all venues -- government, business, NPOs.  The theory is that, if you can wait long enough, difficult problems will resolve themselves when all options have been reduced to the worst one by default.  Then the 'decision' is inevitable, and often unarguable.

I,too, though not a senior executive by any means, have practiced it on occasion, most recently in relation to forming my personal opinion on the efficacy of the Government assisting the US auto industry to a soft landing.

Capitalist Papers 5 - Information Please -- Reconsidering the 'Efficient Market' Hypothesis

One of the myths of capitalism is the "Efficient Market" Hypothesis.  It confers upon The Market an all-knowing wisdom of the herd that divines at any point in time the best valuation of a security based on two fallacious assumptions:

-    that a broadly based market assumes a broadly based correct assessment of value, based on...

-    ...reliable information that is broadly available to all at the same time.

Capitalist Papers 4 - Eulogy for the Consumer - TEOTWAWKI

W got it half right in his photo op with the finance chiefs of the G7 on 10/11 when he said: "That which affects Wall Street affects Main Street as well."

The other side of that coin is: "That which affects Main Street affects Wall Street as well."  The Capitalist Catechism recognizes this in theory ("The customer comes first") but Capitalism's most ardent acolytes appear to have lost sight of this verity, ensconced in their gated communities or C-suites elevated above the street-level din.

The truth of these two statements can be found in the events leading up to the current crash in the price of oil.  Let's review:

Shock and Awe, The Sequel

Shock and Awe, Baby.  Shock and Awe.

It looks and feels a lot different when you're near the blast zone: your home, your job, your family.

I've been anticipating this moment since 1995, and yet now that it's here, I'm somewhat surprised by its timing and ferocity.  It's not like we couldn't see it coming.  We've been warned for years.

I cite 1995 as a point in time when we were staggering out of the financial wreckage of the Reagan years, and surveying the future.  My expectation was not of an immediate and universal implosion, but a long, steady slide into third world status, aided and abetted by serial failures in leadership.

Approximately one year ago, I attended a presentation of the Fiscal Wake-up Tour, conducted by David Walker, then Comptroller General of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and a complement of economic policy wonks from institutions as diverse as The Heritage Foundation and the Brookings Institution.  They came to the University of Hartford to present a consensus view of our economic future if current policies and leadership did not change.  They painted a bleak picture, but one that was still some time in the future, though its seeds were already firmly planted and germinating. 

Capitalist Papers 3 - The Cost / Benefit of Trust

"Trust, but Verify."  Only the Great Communicator could have perpetrated this philosophical oxymoron with impunity.

If you truly trust, then there is no need to verify.  And if you need to verify, then there is obviously a dearth of trust.

From an accountant's point of view, trust is more than a philosophical issue.  It often comes down to dollars and cents.  That's not a crude take on a philosophical virtue.  It's a direct read on current reality.

Capitalist Papers 2 - Corpocracy and Agency

Capitalism has been a vehicle for vastly improving and advancing the human condition.  But no system is perfect, and Capitalism's flaws are becoming progressively more apparent. While it is unlikely to collapse as dramatically as Soviet styled Communism, neither is it likely to survive in its current mode. 

However, before I delve deeper into this subject, perhaps it would be useful to separate Capitalism from some of its philosophical underpinnings that are as vital to a democracy as to a Capitalist paradigm of economic enterprise.

Georgia on My Mind

Cast a stone into the water and watch the ripples spread.  Russia's incursion into Georgia is such an event. Georgia just got stoned, and we will feel the ripples.  It is not just Georgia that is profoundly affected by this event.  It's not even the Ukraine, and Belorussia, and Finland, and Estonia and Lithuania, and Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, and all the other 'stans which are the remnants of the old Soviet empire. It's not even Poland which just signed a treaty to allow us to deploy anti ballistic missiles on its soil, and received a threat of nuclear attack from the Russian high command in response.

Capitalist Papers 1 - Random Reflections on the Decline of Capitalism

This quote from the Wall Street Journal of 2008, April 3:
   

"BEIJING -- China's business establishment poses a bigger obstacle to the country's financial-sector reform agenda than the global market upheaval, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Thursday.

Mr. Paulson also called on the Chinese government to ease access to clean technology and confront the "daunting" task of improving energy consumption and the environment. 

I think that reform never moves in a straight line, and I think the biggest threat to more reform in China is the strong domestic industry that doesn't want competition," Mr. Paulson told reporters traveling with him on a two-day trip to Beijing."
        "Paulson Says Chinese Big Business Threatens Reform Agenda"

My first reaction was to conclude that Secretary Paulson had redefined the lower depths of chutzpah.  My more charitable side allowed that he must have been suffering from jet lag, and thought he was still in New York.

Inconvenient Truths, Asymmetric Response and Unintended Consequences

I have often thought that the most valuable contribution of Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, was its title.  Although it spoke specifically to Climate Change and our unwillingness to face its multifaceted implications, there are many inconvenient truths in our lives, and our unwillingness to address them directly accounts for many of the problems we face. 

Take Iraq for example. 

Binary Thinking

Show me an issue that is framed in terms of two options: A or B, black or white, blue or red, left or right,...
...and, nine times out of ten, I'll show you a dysfunctional dialog.  There is almost always a third choice, if not a fourth, fifth, sixth..., simply because:

1.   rarely does one person or side have all the answers to any issue; and

2.   if they did, rarely would society embrace it.

Yet we persist in couching issues in this context, and we persist in pursuing seriously flawed policies, if we survive gridlock.