Integrated Man

The Republican Stealth Ticket

Call me crazy, but I have to believe that the Republican Party is only half as dumb as it looks, based on the current crop of personalities masking as Presidential candidates.  If you take them at face value, they all share the characteristic of ego at some multiple of native intellect. None seem to have a credible chance of beating Obama in the general election, even with historic trends portending an incumbent defeat.  At this moment, Obama's chief strength is the relative weakness of his opponents, most of whom will arrive at the convention DOA.

So what if...

The Republican Party's Vision of America's Future

As an auditor, I learned early that when a perceived situation seems utterly crazy when judged by expected criteria, it is often because the subject is operating on otherwise rational, but non-standard, assumptions or objectives. Stated more simply, ' crazy ' is a relative judgment.

I have struggled for the past two years to find a rational comprehension of the Republican vision of America's future. I have concluded that the term ' rational '  should be removed from the criteria. That leaves the perception of Republican strategy as a condition best described as ' fog of war ' rather than a coherent statement of policy goals.

So, what is the Republican Party's vision of America's future?

Afghanistan.

Onward

20111123

 

 

 

Desperately Seeking Hillary

They yearn for Hillary.

" What would Hillary have done ? "

" If only Hillary had won,...."

" Hillary would have..."

Who are 'they'?  Democrats, of course.  And, interestingly, some Republicans.

But she didn't win.  Get over it, and tip-toe back into reality.

And, to help you with that painful exercise, let's take " If only Hillary "  out for a test drive and see where we wind up.

Warren Buffett's Last Mission

Dear Mr. Buffett

You don't know me from Adam. I'm utterly inconsequential in the scheme of things.  So I hope you'll forgive my audacity in proposing one last mission in the public interest before you depart this existence. 

I am emboldened by your prior efforts to encourage your peer group to pledge their wealth to the public good, and more recently to call attention to yourself as a justification for the nation to call upon the rich to carry their fair share of the tax burden.   But there is one more mission in which your unique position and skills at unadorned truth-telling might yet have critical impact.   Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to inspire the business and investment titans of the US economy to get off their fear or apathy and earn their money by taking risks on the US economic revival.  Only you can do this.  No one else in the business community has your stature and ethical capital; and beyond the business community the President and Chairman of the Fed are a distant second and third.

Libya, The War Powers Act, and the Rule of Law

One of America's glaring hypocrisies is to lecture the world on the 'Rule of Law' as we contrive infinite stratagems to bypass, bend, fold or mutilate it, if we do not just outright ignore it.  Libya and the War Powers Act is an excellent case in point.  The only humor in this is that the Administration's contention that the US is not engaged in hostilities is more absurd than Anthony Weiner's assertion that he could not positively affirm the identity of his personal 'real estate' in a photo that he took.

Beware the Avatar!

The following interesting piece happened across my screen this morning, courtesy of Forbes.com newsletter: "Should Artificial Intelligences be Granted Civil Rights?"  

At first thought, this seemed the logical extension of the Supreme Court's illogical extension of campaign funding privileges to corporations.  The next stop will be voting rights. And then came a whole flood of equally preposterous possibilities that spawn in the toxic political/cultural/social environment that provides our off-cable reality shows.

Capitalist Papers 7: CPR for the US Economy

"Business hates uncertainty", so observed Wilbur Ross on CNBC, 2010/08/31.  A true statement. One rendered specifically in explaining why so many capitalists are sitting on piles of cash while the U.S. economy is prostrate and employment stagnant. 

The irony of the statement is in its juxtaposition against the oft stated assertion by many US executives that their excessive salaries just compensation for their 'risk-taking', even though those risks are rarely taken with their personal capital.

This brings us to the conundrum of the US economy and the way forward. To be Japan or not to be Japan; that is one of the many questions being raised. Do we wait for the capitalist system that so magnificently got us to where we are today to lift us to the promised prosperity that we can no longer take for granted?  Or do we look to a demonized government that failed so miserably to protect the public's interest to jump-start the economic beast at the public's long term expense?

Swiftboating Climate Change

The assassins are about.  They're gunning for the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, and their weapon of choice is a 60 megabyte down-loadable file, courtesy of Murdock's Wall Street Journal, of hacked correspondence from the server of the University of East Anglia. Correspondence goes back thirteen years. 

I have not read any of the items, nor do I intend to.  The news stories reveal little of surprise or interest. It's not news that universities have in their midst high-strung personalities whose egos too often overwhelm their intelligence and professionalism, not unlike business and government. Nor is it surprising that researcher's might be tempted to cleanse the data of those pesky little anomalies that introduce niggling little doubts about their pet hypothesis, not unlike business and government.  Nor is it surprising that Climate Change True Believers would want to exclude Deniers from the debate, much as Deniers have wanted squelch advocates.  None of this is news, and none of it required an electronic breaking and entering to reveal known and knowable flaws in the debate. But one senses the fit and feel of another Swift-boat assault on the truth by the forces of ignorance and deceit, with the Birthers, the Tea-Partiers and the Palinista's bringing up the rear.  The timing of this so close to the beginning of the UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen is more than suspect.

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.