Romney and Bain-Some Thoughts

I've been watching the Romney/Bain Capital situation for a long while, wondering how it will play out. I've been convinced, since day one, that the story is not about Mitt Romney's wealth or envy or anything like that, but let me share a few words about that matter before I address what really matters.

Governor Romney was enormously successful as a financier. Good on him! I don't envy him and, frankly, am quite happy that my life does not involves the burdens attendant to making and having a financial fortune. My only quarrel about all that money relates to the several comments Governor Romney and his wife have shared about starting out with nothing, struggling, etc. For example, there's Ann Romney's comment that when she and her husband were in school those were not easy years, despite the fact that they lived on money invested by George Romney in his company, American Motors. Then there's Governor Romney's comment about being unemployed now, a statement that sits very poorly with people who don't work because there are no available jobs.

Governor Romney started out with a huge leg up in life. His affluent family exposed him to a lifestyle that prepared him for becoming successful. He got the best education money can buy, and the opportunity to develop networks that are only available to the chosen few who attend the most elite educational institutions in the world. Good for him that he used these opportunities to the max, but could there be in all of this just a touch of humility? Maybe a nod to the fact that being born in America, in these times, might have played some role in his success? Yes, he's a big success, but how would he have done if he was born African-American and poor, or if he was trying to get going in Peru or Niger. (Please forgive me if Governor Romney has been humble in public. If he has, his comments are surely not easy to fine!) As an aside on this issue, here are links--text and video--to Michael Lewis' Baccalaureate remarks at the 2012 Princeton University graduation. They're relevant:  http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S33/87/54K53/ and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiQ_T5C3hIM&list=UUcBYSgQTxc126-lj_gdrO8Q&index=1&feature=plcp. 

Now, about the whole Bain thing. Governor Romney chose his message for the campaign. He could be telling voters he was a successful governor in Massachusetts, but he rarely mentions that part of his life. He could be focusing on his education, but he likes to slam Harvard. No, he asks us to pick him because he was a successful businessman. Well, fine! He invited inquiries into his career--maybe he thought he'd be able to just tell people he's a rich, successful businessman and leave it at that--and people have taken a peek.

When people found stuff about the business career that was not so popular, like outsourcing (or offshoring, which is what Governor Romney calls it), Governor Romney denied any involvement with the activities, claiming he was gone by then. Easily, Governor Romney could have defended his actions by reminding people that he answered to investors then, and that his actions were lawful, blah, blah, blah. Instead, however, he chose the "wasn't me" defense.

So why does this all matter. Well, I think we're in "it's not the act, it's the coverup" territory. Governor Romney dealt with residency issues in 2002, when he decided he wanted to become the Governor of Massachusetts and faced a residency challenge. His testimony suggested involvement with Bain between 1999 and 2002, and his words were offered to support his ties with Massachusetts.

Then there's the matter of the Securities and Exchange Commission filings, which identify Governor Romney, between 1999 and 2002, as the Chief Executive Officer, Chairman of the Board and sole shareholder of Bain. Documents that are filed with the SEC matter, a fact that should not be lost on a man who graduated from the Harvard Law School and the Harvard Business School, and who wants to be the boss of our country.

Finally, the reports I hear indicate that Governor Romney received wages between 1999 and 2002. If he did, did Bain deduct those payments as ordinary and reasonable business expenses. If so, and if no services were provided--the story we get today--that's an issue. (I know nothing about Bain's corporate structure, but if Bain was a corporation it could not lawfully pay an employee for services if no services were rendered.)

Romney supporters may find my nits unimportant. And in the grand scheme, they may not matter. Certainly false documents get filed all the time, and it looks like whatever may have been false was inaccurate and not false for some illegal purpose. For me, though, the nits say plenty about character. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) may have summed things up best the other day when he observed that "it's really American to avoid paying taxes, legally." Admittedly, Senator Graham was making a point, to wit:  the tax code is really complicated, and it should be made simpler. Fine, but do we really want our President to be just like us? Not me, thank you very much. I want him or her to be a leader in all ways. Can't we ask for conduct that rises above the minimum threshold set forth in the tax code? Can't we expect a really wealthy man who's been running for President for six years to give up some of the sketchy deductions? Is there anyone who would fault the man if he told the trustee of his blind trust--a man who is, by the way, one of his closest friends, and a man who, for reasons unknown, managed to invest in a fund run by one of the Romneys' sons--to get every fricking dollar invested onshore, right here in America? And can't we, finally, ask the man who wants to lead us to take responsibility for a company he clearly owned, whether or not he was there on a daily basis?

In conclusion, I am well aware of the fact that Governor Romney is the not the first guy whose investments have presented issues. (I'm buried in the four-volume Lyndon Johnson series by Robert Caro--second time around, and a fabulous bio--and Governor Romney looks like a saint compared to LBJ.) These are difficult times, however, and we have every right to expect the most from our leaders. As bad as the last five years have been, when we've been under the sway of Wall Streeters with their "anything goes" mentality, I fear it'll be much worse if we hand the keys to the country over to a man like Mitt Romney. 

ROAD TRIP!

Later this summer my daughter and I will be driving to school--her school, my and Jane's alma mater--for her sophomore year. It's daddy/daughter time, and my chance for the road trip I've always wanted but never taken the time for!

Our route takes us from Tucson to the Grand Canyon and, then, to Winslow AZ. In Winslow we'll be eating at the Turquoise Room at La Posada Hotel. We'll also take a moment to "take it easy, standin' on a corner in Winslow Arizona," although I'm sure there will be no girl "in a flatbed Ford, slowin' down to take a look at me." (BTW, bricks can be purchased for placement at Second and Kinsley in Winslow. We'll be looking for ours when we get there.)

The next morning we'll drive from Winslow to Pueblo CO, by way of Albuquerque and Santa Fe NM. No specific eating or sleeping plans.

Day three has us driving to the Mr. Rushmore SD area. Again, no specific plans.

Day four will find us looking at the Presidents and, then, traveling east to Sioux Falls SD. No plans, and maybe you are detecting a theme. Stay tuned!!!

Day five should be easy. Sioux Falls to Minneapolis MN, where my little sister lives. No plans, but no need for plans either. I'll be eating Walleye, and nothing else is set. (In fact, I'm not sure I've told my sister we're coming.)

Day six of the "out" part of the trip is really short. We drive from Minneapolis to Rockford IL, where my other sister lives.

Days seven and eight have us buying stuff and getting Cate settled in. Lots of heavy lifting, I'm sure. Think about every movie you've seen, where the student arrives and the goofy dad stumbles around under a load of boxes; I be him!

Monday morning--day nine--starts the solo journey. I will have five-six days to drive a minimum of 1692.88 miles, door to door. I plan to drive more southerly, but am very flexible.

So ... about the stay tuned! Cate's program involves photos--she's a very fine photographer--and I want to find safe, clean beds at night, good food all day and a very dry, very cold martini at the end of the day. I have lots of web-based blogs about eating, but we're not hitting culinary hot spots (other than the Turquoise Room on our first night out), and I haven't found especially great sources for places to see, spots to avoid, etc. So, my friends, I'd really appreciate any suggestions, recommendations, insights, etc. If our plans are bad in some respect or another, please offer a better idea, as we are committed to nothing other than getting to Rockford in no more than seven days, passing through Minneapolis and, pretty certainly, seeing the Grand Canyon. (I moved to Arizona at age four and was first at the Grand Canyon on my honeymoon at age 30. Cate, a native Arizonan, has never been.)

Thanks in advance.

You Can't Go Home Again

Our daughter Cate matriculated at Beloit College, a fine, small liberal arts college in Beloit, Wisconsin. Beloit--the town, and the college within it--is located along the Wisconsin/Illinois border about 95 miles northwest of downtown Chicago. That Cate enrolled at Beloit College is totally fitting, as she would not be alive if Jane and I had not both been Beloit College students who happened to meet in the fall of 1977, as I was wrapping up my 3-1/2 years at Beloit and Jane was starting hers. (It did take us almost nine years to connect up for real, but that's another story!)

Beloit was not my home or Jane's before we arrived there. I was Tucson-raised, while Jane was born in Tennessee and attended high school in Virginia. Nevertheless, college provides a home for students, especially those who "go away." For me, for the better part of four years, Beloit was home. I did my laundry (when I did it at all) at a laundromat on Portland Ave. I drank my cocktails at the Golden Cove, where we all tried to see if we could leave, after paying, without Ben the bartender/owner saying goodbye. (We always failed; he was simply too observant!) I did my chilling outside in the winter, and when I say "chilling" I mean the cold kind. In the summer I helped fill with water and drop from a dorm roof the empty plastic bags that used to contain the milk you'd serve yourself from the stainless steel boxes. (We called the "droppings" unit displays, and for the "why" on that one you'd have to contact a  Basic Elmo! Never mind, as before you know it you'll be all into dropping toilets from fire escapes, etc.) I did my picketing--grapes were definitely NOT IN in the mid-1970s--in front of Salamone's, one of the local grocery stores.) And I ate my pizza at a small place that shall go nameless, down the street from Salamone's. Great pies with a very puffy crust. Eight slices, which always created an issue with three of us sharing. And so on. Yes, "so on" does include attending classes, learning stuff, making friends, etc.

I'd been back to Beloit a few times since 1977. I've also "kept up" over the years. I was my class agent, signing lots of letters, wondering why the class of 1978 gives markedly less than the classes of 1977 and 1979, and almost all of the other classes, too. (I also always listened politely to the fund development person explain why a generational shift that caught those people born mostly between late 1955 and 1956 caused a level of thriftiness not seen before or after, all the while knowing the lack of giving involved the identity of the asker.) I attended some reunions, and popped over to the campus once or twice while I was visiting my sister, who lives about 15 miles south of Beloit. Nevertheless, I missed plenty. (More accurately, plenty has occurred in the six or so years since we last visited.)

An amazing new science building sits on what used to be "the back way" down to the dirty, smelly river, which is not dirty or smelly any longer. The student union is located in a building that was closed and locked when we attended and the old student union barely makes the map. (Ask someone about the Smith Building and when it stopped being the union and you get dumb stares.) Athletic facilities are new, newer and in one instance not yet finished. (No reason, any longer, for the coin toss winner in football games to consider avoiding having to run uphill in the second half, as the field is now flat.)

When I arrived in Chicago in 1974 Mayor Richard J. Daley was the mayor. A bus met arriving Beloit students at O'Hare (which Mayor Daley called O'Hara). When we last visited in 2005, the Mayor was Richard M. Daley. (I don't know what he called the airport.) The mayor thing is significant because, in Chicago, signage identifying the mayor was always a big deal, although Mayor Rahm Emanuel must be preoccupied with the deficits Richie Daley left for him, as the signs have not been repainted.

The first day at Beloit College for me did not include my parents, who stayed behind in Tucson. Frankly, if anyone's parents showed up, the event has been lost to the ages. That said, I can't imagine anyone being uncool enough to let his/her parents be seen in 1974.

Now, there are parental events, just for the 'rents. Had we stayed home, our daughter would have likely been branded as "unwanted" or worse. The attending 'rents all look younger than our parents looked when we started college although our parents were almost a decade and a half younger than Jane and I are now.

As for Beloit the town, there is the clean river. Salamone's is long gone, and downtown has a store called Bushel & Peck's, a grocery store and cafe that sells locally grown organic produce. (The only thing worth picketing now is Governor Walker and, as for him, one hopes the recall election will soon turn him into a bad memory!) And, alas, the pizza joint must have new owners, because the crusts taste like cardboard and the pizza maker must have graduated from the "more cheese is always better" school!

What you have read so far was written in August 2011, days after Cate started her first semester. Now, with the chance for this piece to sit idly--and for Cate to be anything but idle--for the last eight months or so, I am delighted about how Cate is progressing and amazed by the pace of a full life. I also wish I could be a college freshman today!!! Alas, the title says it all ... !

Reflections and “Epiphanies” From the Social Venture Partners International Winter Conference in Scottsdale

From my life as a member of a venture philanthropy partnership--Social Venture Partners of Greater Tucson--here's a piece I posted early today. For more information about SVPGT, go to www.svpgt.org, "like" SVPGT on Facebook or contact me.

There is an old adage about seminars:  Learn one thing and you’ve gotten your money’s worth! I attended the Social Venture Partners Turn Up the Heat: Next-Level Strategies for SVP Winter Conference in Scottsdale on April 16-17. I went to two programs, learned two big things and got a great reminder about the value of Social Venture Partners. Oh, and there was an EPIPHANY! Pretty good value!!!

First, I attended a dinner focused on collective impact. Several presenters related collective impact experiences in their communities. The issues on which these communities focused varied, although most of them worked on education. The players were different, community by community, and the processes also differed. One strand, however, was evident throughout:  Successful endeavors require a substantial amount of time, talent and treasure, and a total devotion to measurable outcomes.

Can we “do” collective impact in Tucson? The Community Foundation for Southern Arizona is, already! As for “can we,” if the “we” is Social Venture Partners, I think the answer is “not right now,” for we lack the capital and other resources that are necessary to be successful. Can we use our social capital to help make things happen in our community? Absolutely, and I hope and expect that we’ll be discussing this issue in the coming months.

Second, I attended The Art and Science of Fund Development, a full-day program about fund development issues. The big takeaway:  Words really matter!  Framing the way in which we communicate about Social Venture Partners—about why we do what we do, and how what we do matters—drives our level of success in broadening our support base. Of course, the message that words matter is not new, but the presentations about how we share our stories allowed me to see the issue from new perspectives. I deal with words every day from 8 to 5. I know they matter greatly. (Sometimes I tell people I am a technical writer whose forum happens to be the courts). Now I also know I need to give to my SVP life the same attention to words that I give them in my work life.

I also had an epiphany about the fund development side of Social Venture Partners of Greater Tucson. There are epiphanies, though, and then there are EPIPHANIES! I had a few epiphanies during the session, and the EPIPHANY on the drive home from Scottsdale. The EPIPHANY:  We own Social Venture Partners of Greater Tucson. We own this partnership, all of us, in the same way in which we own real estate, stocks and bonds, businesses, and other assets. We have made an investment, and now we are responsible for it. What that means, and how it translates into action, requires more thought and plenty of conversation. For now, I’m thinking about it and I hope and expect that it will be part of our conversation in the coming months.

Of course, spending time with Partners always adds value to my life. The SVP network includes a really fine bunch of dedicated, interesting people. Being with them is truly pleasurable!

My Big Takeaway From Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson is a great biography about a fascinating man. Much of the press about the book focuses on bad behavior, and I suppose no one should expect more. I know I wanted to assume Steve Jobs was a nice fellow, and I suspect I had plenty of company. In fact, the evidence suggests that, at best, Mr. Jobs could be charming when he felt like it, and that feeling like being charming consumed a very small part of many days. The media likes contra-stories, of course, so this is a lollapalooza!

So what's the real takeaway? The Apple Marketing Philosphy, a one page lesson plan for successful marketing, written by Mike Markkula. Mr. Markkula, an Apple angel investor and executive who is a big-time Silicon Valley success, provided major assistance to Apple in its formative years. The Philosophy--I haven't been able to locate it, so I'm basing my comments on quotes from the biography and web sources--is comprised of three points:  empathizing with customer needs; focusing on only key matters; and imputing core aspects of products within packaging. Put even more simply, put customer needs first (which means, of course, understanding your customers at a very deep level), focus on meeting those needs and make sure your customers know what you're doing in every possible way. If these core values are present, and you have some ability (and plenty of luck), success will come.

Translatable lessons? Absolutely! I don't suppose any healthy individual can be as focused as Mr. Jobs was, but I know I can improve my ability to understand my customers and their needs--I call them clients, and they're buying services, but so what--and that I can package what I do in ways that help people better appreciate the services they are obtaining. New goal for the new year!!!  

NOTICE: IF YOU’RE A CONVENTIONAL THINKER, DON'T READ THIS POST! I REALLY MEAN IT!

I’ve wondered for years why 9/11 had to be such a big deal for Americans and America.  About 3000 people died as a direct result of the attacks and the rescue  efforts; reports actually vary with respect to actual numbers.  That number represents about one person killed for every 100,000 residents of the United  States.  In  Israel, a country that is plenty familiar with terrorism and its impact on daily life, a similar kill rate only requires the deaths of about 64 people.  [In nine of the 20 years spanning the ‘90s and the aughts, more than 64 Israelis lost their lives as a result of terrorist attacks, albeit not on one day.]  In Iraq the number is about 233.  According to Iraq Body Count, between 2005 and 2007, there were an average of 60+ violent deaths in Iraq every day, the equivalent of more than 720 Americans dying violent deaths every day.

In America, by the way, about 40,000 people die in motor vehicle-related incidents annually, a number that represents one of every 7500 people.  Firearms play a role in about 30,000 deaths per year, or one death for every 10,000 people, and half of those are from suicides.  About 25 times as many people die in the United States every year from drowning and boating-related accidents as the number of people who died on September 11, 2001.

So, what happened?  Why was a horrific terrorist attack so significant for our nation.  First, al Qaeda used planes.  People have a thing about plane crashes.  They’re very upsetting!  We accept a horrendous number of deaths from preventable causes–car crashes, shootings and drownings, for example–but, when one or two hundred people die in a plane crash, the impact on our collective psyche is huge.  We recall these crashes and they take on a noteworthiness that simply isn’t present when we’re focused on the myriad ways in which people die.

I have a theory on plane crashes.  I think they’re a big deal because human beings haven’t fully accepted the notion of flight.  Yes, most of us walk onto planes without giving much thought to crashes.  I don’t think, however, that we understand what keeps the planes in the sky; I know I don’t.  I know physics explains flight, but for me the whole deal is really an act of faith:  Smart people build these machines, they work on almost every occasion and I need or want to go somewhere.  Without an understanding of the mechanisms that keep these metal birds moving forward, however, when one of them falls out of the sky I know I am, at once, horrified and not the least bit surprised.

The other issue associated with flight is a lack of control.  We’re very controlling creatures, used to being in charge of stuff, whether that stuff is our automobiles, our children, the people we supervise at work, etc.  Yet, sitting in seat 20E, in a long, hollow metal tube that is suspended in the atmosphere, eight miles high, stuck between two large people, not able to turn on my phone, not able to grab a hunk of cheese from the refrigerator and not able to use the facilities–that “stay in your seat” light is on–it should surprise no one that I don’t believe I control anything!  The lack of control creates anxiety and, with it, fear.

Second, there’s the matter of the targets and, in particular, the World Trade Center. Americans experienced the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, but this building was not a familiar site like the Twin Towers.  Yes, Americans were saddened by the event, but the impact did not seem greater than many other tragic situations.  Watching familiar landmarks fall, however, was exceptional.  (I know, I know, the number of deaths in Oklahoma City was less by a factor of almost 20, and that was surely another factor, but I still think the nature of the targets played a significant role.)

Third, Timothy McVey was one of us.  White.  American.  A soldier.  Yes, he went wrong, way wrong, and that is certainly a scary proposition, but he also valued life enough that he tried to get away.  An awful man, but someone we can relate to.  On the other hand, 9/11 involved this crowd from the Middle East, dark-skinned men from far away who pray to a different God and die for their cause.  After 9/11 Osama Bin Laden told a reporter: “We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the big difference between us.”  Strange and much, much scarier!

Fourth, we’re more than a little bit spoiled.  We haven’t had a war on our shores since the Civil War, which ended 136 years before September 11.  Terrorism affected the rest of the globe, including the major capitals of the world’s democracies, long before it reached New York City, Washington, D.C. and the empty field in Pennsylvania.  For example, and by way of example only (as there are many, many more incidents not reported here, and what has happened in Israel is not mentioned), London had IRA bombings and shootings, along with Islamist bombings on December 26, 1983 and July 26, 1994.  Bombings in the Buenos Aires Jewish community killed 29 (and injured hundreds more) on March 17, 1992 and killed another 85 (and injured hundreds more) on July 18, 1994.  Almost 1000 people were killed and injured in a series of car bombings in Mumbai on March 12, 1993.  Ignoring the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 (which simply did not get our attention), most Americans have never experienced an attack on our shores.  Even Pearl Harbor was different.  The Naval facility was thousands of miles from the United States, in a territory that many Americans had to find on a map.  And, of course, almost all of those who died were sailors, people trained to be in harm’s way, as opposed to the brokers at Cantor Fitzgerald who woke up every morning in New Jersey, prepared to do battle only with the commuter trains and the bond and equity markets.  [On December 7, 1941, 2350 Americans lost their lives.  Sixty eight were civilians.  On September 11, 2001, Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 employees.]

Finally, we had an administration in 2001 that was predisposed to make 9/11 a big deal! In a post-9/11, pre-Iraq war conversation on February 22, 2003 in Crawford, Texas, between President George W. Bush and Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar and others, there was the following exchange:

    Aznar:  The only thing that worries me about you is your optimism.

    Bush:  I am an optimist, because I believe that I'm right.  I'm at peace with myself.  It's up to us to face a serious threat to peace.

The public does not remember well the fact that the Bush presidency was foundering in the summer of 2001, locked into a battle over stem cell research.  President Bush had promised to oppose any federal funding for stem cell research, a position championed by anti-abortion conservatives.  During the summer of 2001 the President said the federal funding issue would be resolved during his August 2001 vacation.  The decision–to permit funding, but only as to 60 existing lines–was announced in a televised speech on August 9, 2001.  On August 10, Counselor to the President Karen Hughes told an interviewer:

    Several people told [the President], ‘This may be the most important decision of your presidency,’ or, ‘This is one of the most important decisions you will make.  This has more ramifications than almost anything else you will do as president.’ A number of people made that point to him.  

By the way, it was during this vacation that President Bush received the August 6, 2001 President’s Daily Brief, mentioning that Osama Bin Laden was determined to attack the United States.  His immediate response was to tell the briefer:  “All right.  You've covered your ass, now.”

“Big” (and helpful to the President’s goals) was important to the Administration, and viewing an event through the “it’s big” prism will surely make it nothing less than epochal.  President Bush had campaigned on a promise that his economic plans would not depend on the use of Social Security income to fund governmental operations.  He even promised to establish a contingency fund for the purpose of protecting Social Security.  For decades the government used Social Security receipts–the 12.4% of a portion of wages that you and your employer send the government–to fund deficits and had the Social Security Administration issue debt instruments that the government would have to repay in later years.  In fact, when in President Clinton’s last two years in office the government ran surpluses critics argued that those surpluses still depended on the general fund using some Social Security income.

By the summer of 2001, barely eight months into the Bush presidency, tax cuts and a poor economy forced the Bush Administration to consider using Social Security income for general purposes.  The President rejiggered his promise, adding as special conditions for using Social Security income a recession, war or national emergency.  By the fall, with the recession, the war in Afghanistan and 9/11, he told Mitch Daniels, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, that “he’d hit the trifecta” and, tastelessly and for the purpose of getting laughs, he later used the line to entertain Republican party big-wigs during fundraisers.

There are also many reports, not seriously disputed, that as soon after the 9/11 attacks as the evening of September 11, the Vice President and others were focused on attacking Iraq, despite the absence of any evidence that Iraq was involved with the attacks.  Again, the attacks served several purposes and, because they did, the Administration has no reason to downplay their significance.

The administration also saw a situation that lent itself to the goal of increasing the power of the President.  Vice President Cheney had long focused on the need for an Imperial Presidency–my words, not his–after so much power was allegedly lost as a result of Watergate, the CIA scandals in the 1970s and other mishaps occurring between the Nixon and Clinton Administrations.  In The Terror Presidency Professor Jack Goldsmith observed, about the President, the Vice President and the lawyers who advised them, that

    [t]hey shared a commitment to expanding presidential power that they had long been anxious to implement.  It is not right to say, as some have done, that these men took advantage of the 9/11 attacks to implement a radical pro-President agenda.  But their unusual conception of presidential prerogative influenced everything they did to meet the post-9/11 threat.

So, knowing what we now know, how could this horrific event ever be something less than what it became?  We’ll never know, but it’s not an exercise in futility to consider a world in which the events of 9/11 were handled differently.  What if our leaders started by, first, acknowledging just how lucky our country had been, having avoided the terrorists who had attacked most of the civilized world for so many years? What if our leaders adopted a slogan first put forward in 1939 in England, and told us to “Keep Calm and Carry On”?  What if, quietly, our leaders put into place programs to protect us and left the baggage–using the 9/11 attack to boost the Republican party’s electoral prospects and the power of the Presidency as an institution–behind?  What if, instead of making the central focus of our lives the clash between good and evil, our leaders had focused our nation on making itself energy independent and ready to meet the economic challenges of a new century? [As an aside, and without attributing bad or dishonest motives–for all of my harsh talk about certain political leaders, I believe they generally act in a manner consistent with their perception of what will best serve our nation–can anyone imagine President Bush and Vice President Cheney, oil men for many years,  appreciating how reducing our dependence on oil might benefit the country.  Ya, ya, I know all about the foreign oil thing, which goes like “if we produced more, we wouldn’t need Muslim oil.” In global markets, however, oil is fungible, which means any producer, anywhere, will sell to the buyer who pays the highest price and any buyer, anywhere, buys at the cheapest available price.  So, “drill, baby drill” may lower prices–more supply does that–but it does not determine from whom we buy our oil or, without our quickly finding and developing vast quantities of oil, allow us to stop buying from anyone.  Furthermore, without a carbon tax to reduce usage, any price reduction would simply increase usage, as energy use increases when the unit cost drops, and decreases when the unit cost increases.  Bottom line, a national “drill, baby drill” policy simply allows our nation to depend on oil for more years and, when available quantities decrease, makes us more dependent on foreign oil and less able to transition to alternative energy products.]

If we adopted a strategy that said “one incident can’t defeat us or change us,” might we not be stronger today.  Certainly, no one can ignore the pain and suffering associated with the sudden loss of husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters.  But, when we let a bunch of “dead-enders” control our national policy, we do not serve our own interests!  Frankly, and simply, we’re better than all that!

Job Creators, Taxes and Regulatory Reform = Poppycock

Lately we've been treated to lectures about job creators, the people who will get us out of the fix we're in by creating the millions of jobs we need to employ the millions of people who aren't working.  Republicans claim, as necessary elements for job creation, lower taxes and the elimination of regulations that limit business activity.  Right or wrong, or as Stephen Colbert poses the question, Yahweh or No Way?

No way, in a big way!  No one WANTS to pay higher taxes, and no one WANTS to be told he or she cannot do this or that!!!  So it's easy to come up with arguments for lowering taxes and eliminating regulations.  And yes, it's certainly true that the tax code is very complicated and fundamentally irrational, and that governmental regulations and the way in which they sometimes get enforced often seem nonsensical.  Frustrating, yes, but interfering with the hiring or workers, and responsible for much or all of the current employment crisis? 

Here's the point:  I have represented business owners for 30 years, and have been a "job creator"--yes, attorneys do employ people*--for most of those years.  I have never, not once, seen anyone make an employment decision based on tax rates or governmental regulations.  To hire or not hire depends on one thing only, to wit:  Does the customer base demand enough goods or services to warrant the expense associated with hiring someone?  Nothing much more to it than that, and I've never once heard a client or one of my partners say, "We could hire Joe or Jane, but that 28% marginal tax rate is a killer," or "Gee, if the Arizona Supreme Court would just lighten up the disciplining of lawyers [I work in a highly regulated industry] we could hire some more people."  Simply, no one makes these statements.

Claiming lower taxes and less regulation equals more jobs serves the desires of those who make the claims, but there is no basis for thinking lower taxes or fewer regulations will produce more customers, and it's "more customers" that matter when it comes to hiring decisions.  So, poppycock and No Way!!!

*I was in a meeting several years ago, and a rather arrogant man asked me what I could possibly know about making a payroll.  I guess he knew very little about the legal services industry!