HUBRIS

Talk show hosts on both radio and television suffer with a condition called hubris.  The definition is “exaggerated pride or self-confidence.” 

Lou Dobbs quit his job on CNN to pursue “new opportunities.”  He seems like Mr. Bluster to me (remember Howdy Doody).  Chris Matthews on MSNBC has the bad habit of not letting his guests speak after asking them a question.  Why does he bother having guests when he believes he knows all the answers?  Sean Hannity speaks with authority on all subjects.  He rarely has guests who will offer any opinion that differs with his pre-conceived ideas. 

Most of the radio talk show hosts are no better than these three.  A special comment about Mark Levin is appropriate.  He is always angry at the world and tells everyone listening that he knows all and any one who disagrees with him is a fool or a “left wing liberal.”

There have been others that suffered with hubris.  George W. Bush comes to mind as the president who never made a mistake.  Al Gore’s views on global warning appear to have taken on a life of their own.

Some well known entertainers are also suffering from hubris.  Some of the deceased entertainers as well.  The names Jay Leno, David Letterman, and Frank Sinatra come to mind.

Clearly Bernie Madoff, Maurice ‘”Hank” Greenberg former the former CEO of AIG, and General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner are just three of the many “titans” of business that suffered with this same disease.

The solution?  Come to my house and you will learn how “average people” live.  Stand in line at the EDD and you will know the meaning of unemployment.  Ride a bus or subway in any city and watch the people riding in that vehicle.

Negative Nabobs Live On

The President and the Democratic Party find themselves in a “no win” position in the world of politics now.  The party of “no” is growing more extreme every day.  The Republican Party has become the party of “negative nabobs.”

A little history is appropriate here.  

-It was President George W. Bush’s Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, who rushed his proposal to give $700 Billion to the financial industry without any strings because it was believed that the nation was about to come to a grinding halt.                                                                                                                                                                                                                     -It was President George W. Bush who formulated the Bush Doctrine of preemptive military strikes that took the country into Iraq and neglected the situation in Afghanistan.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           -It was the Bush administration that ignored the warnings about the Katrina hurricane.

Now, just 10 months after entering office president Barack Obama is supposed to have solved all of America’s problems.  Look at what has happened.

-3.5% GDP growth is artificial.  It’s all the result of government programs.  Are those the programs that the GOP said would not work?  Isn’t the point of the programs to stimulate the economy?                                                                                                                                                                                                   -Medical costs are rising at about 10% annually.  The cost of insurance and care is taking at least 15% of American earnings.  Obama proposes a Federally run insurance plan and the GOP says no but offers no alternatives.                                                                                                                                -The war in Afghanistan is going badly and the president is considering a new strategy.  The former VP, Dick Cheney, calls the president’s evaluation “dithering” and the GOP faithful applaud.                                                                                                                                                                                                       -Swine Flu vaccine has been quickly developed and the news media is scornful of medical lab care in assuring a quality product is produced.                                                                                                             -Improved relations with nations that have historically been our allies and reduced tensions with other nations has been a hallmark of Obama’s presidency.  It is scorned by the GOP.  Their answer is let’s fight.   Rush Limbaugh hopes the “president fails.”  

Unfortunately Democrats are not willing to grant Republican successes.  It’s the negativity of the minority party that ought to be condemned.  It is rarely about what is good for America.  The last time we all came together was the week after 9-11.  We all need to ignore the nabobs of negativism.

DEPLORABLE

President Barack Obama calls the shooting of a Michigan anti-abortion activist “deplorable.”  That is not a word that everyone understands.  If anything it is too mild a word to use when discussing a murder.  That is the word Mr. Obama is quoted as using in an AP report.

Words like Appalling, Unacceptable, and Shocking are more appropriate to an act of violence.  The problem is the president’s use of words like “deplorable.”  Afraid to upset anyone and everyone he chooses his words so carefully that he does not impart what he really means.  How could he not have used the words  Unpardonable or Unforgivable to describe his feelings?  He should have said, “The killing of anyone is appalling and shocking.”

The answer is obvious.  Our president is afraid he will alienate part of the electorate.  That is the reason he carefully chooses his words in his speeches about health care, the Afghanistan War, or any other topic.  Mr. Obama is first and foremost a politician.  He obviously understands the value of diplomacy.  In this instance he does not want to alienate anyone in the abortion debate so he used this mediocre word that does not connote the seriousness of the actions of an accused killer.

In his campaign for president Barack Obama used the words “change you can believe in” and “the time for change is now.”  That was great use of rhetoric speech.  He just never defined his vision of change.  A majority of Americans bought his pitch.  The results are awful and that is the same as deplorable.

HUBRIS

From Wikpedia ,“In its modern usage, hubris denotes overconfident pride and arrogance; it is often associated with a lack of humility, not always with the lack of knowledge. An accusation of hubris often implies that suffering or punishment will follow…”

This word is used to describe persons of power who thought they could do what ever they wanted without facing consequences but in the end they did experience a humiliating punishment.  Politicians are the most common people to be defined as suffering hubris.  Some corporate heads have faced the same fate.

The most well known political names suffering hubris are former President Bill Clinton, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, Nevada Senator John Ensign, and today South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford.  There are so many others that the names would probably fill a page.  Cheating, lying, adultery, etc. is not limited to one political party.  Furthermore this kind of behavior is not new.  Past presidents John F. Kennedy, Eisenhower, FDR, and Andrew Jackson are all known to have had sexual dalliances.

Richard Wagoner, the former General Motors CEO, is the best example of a corporate head who thought he could do no wrong.  Merrill Lynch’s Stan O’Neal, Fannie Mae’s Franklin Raines all left there positions in disgrace.  After three weeks of mounting criticism of his $140 million compensation package, Richard A. Grasso, the chairman and chief executive of the New York Stock Exchange, resigned. 

What we learn from this is that occasionally that even the misbehaving mighty can fall.  They just can’t see it coming. 

EMPATHY

Understanding, sympathy, and compassion are all synonyms for empathy.  I feel your pain (said with emotion in my voice) and I bite my lip.  Bill Clinton was so good at doing it.  He really made you believe he meant every word.  This has nothing to do with anything else but connection with the other person’s life problems.  We all have some serious issues.  Some are truly sad situations.

The law deals with facts not emotion and certainly not feelings.  The U.S. Constitution is the basic law that governs our nation.  It is the one set of rules that guides our government.  It was written in 1787 and officially ratified in 1789.  There is no reference to empathy in the Constitution.  That document does provide rules for amendments and there have been 27 to date.  None of them are about feelings.  All of them define rules and regulations.

Now President Barack Obama says he wants to appoint a new Supreme Court justice that has empathy.  Is he suggesting that a new member of the court ought to decide cases based upon empathy for the pleader?  Does “feeling your pain” justify a different ruling than not sympathizing with someone’s dilemma? I find the idea of appointing someone to the Supreme Court based on their feelings not in accord with facts. 

Can the president appoint a liberal Supreme Court judge even if he or she has no empathy?  Absolutely!  Liberal interpretation can be made for many things in the 21^st century without empathy.  Equal rights, gun control, abortion are all hot button issues that require recognition of the impact of the new technologies and greater appreciation of human behavior versus those of the 18^th century.

To Big To Fail

Bill Moyers Journal had two experts on the economy and the laws that regulate it on this week’s program.  Michael Perino a scholar of Law and Securities Regulation and Simon Johnson, former Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund.

 

This one part of their discussion needs to be repeated here.

SIMON JOHNSON: I think the banks have control of the state, Bill. Not the state control of the bank. If the state had control of the banks, the banks wouldn’t be able to turn around and say, no on your Chrysler deal and no way on modifying the rules about mortgages and allowing bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages in bankruptcy. These are two hot issues this week. The banks are saying no to the government.

BILL MOYERS: Here are these people receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer money who are now raising fees on credit cards, who are resisting any more regulation of credit card interest rates, who are, you know, saying, “We’re going to get out of the game if you insist that we do something about executive compensation.” What is going there as you see it? Both of you.

SIMON JOHNSON: I think there’s an arrogance of power. They think they won, Bill.

BILL MOYERS: Even now–

SIMON JOHNSON: And actually they’re pretty confident they won…

BILL MOYERS: So, they’re not hearing any of this clamor? This rage? They’re not hearing this–

MICHAEL PERINO: I think they are hearing it. I don’t think it’s reached the level that it reached, anywhere the level it reached in that period that we’ve been talking about in the 1930’s. So, maybe it isn’t quite strong enough yet.

 

In this discussion was the talk about “to big to fail” and the attitude that the banks, investment houses, and auto manufacturers have held that belief.

 

Their view happens to coincide with mine.  We cannot allow companies to grow to the size that they must be protected by society. “To big to fail” is too big to exist.  

LEGACY

A legacy is an inheritance, a birthright, a bequest, or a heritage.  Some families have a heritage or tradition of participation in politics.  Some famous families have participated in the entertainment industry for many generations.  My family’s legacy is the belief in higher education.  Whatever the legacy, it is a word that is synonymous with something positive.  This word has become the victim of our government’s use of positive words to whitewash negative situations or laws.  “Toxic assets” are now “legacy assets.”

 

Doublespeak (sometimes called doubletalk) is language constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning.  The U.S. government has become expert at covering up its actions with positive terminology.  The Patriot Act implies that it is a set of laws designed to protect patriotic Americans.  “Down sizing, right sizing and reduction in force” are corporate America’s positive spin when there are layoffs.

 

The term “toxic assets” was also a poor choice of words. Toxic implies those banks assets are poisonous, deadly, lethal, noxious, contaminated, or venomous.  Perhaps that may be true if applied to the banks’ balance sheets.   The truth is that those “toxic assets” do have value but the banks lent money inappropriately and now need to defend their behavior.  “Legacy assets” sounds so much better and implies they were inherited from some past evil doer.

CONSEQUENCES

I just read a column by Thomas Sowell about the consequences of one’s actions.  “It is amazing how fast people learn when they are not insulated from the consequences of their decisions.”  Mr. Sowell’s comment reminded me of a boss who frequently commented on the consequences of the decisions we make in life.  Also the decisions you made for the company that were not in its best interest.   

 

There is a consequence to everything we do.  You go shopping and the consequence is you have to pay the clerk for our purchase.  If you are going to school and you fail to study, there is the possibility you will not receive a passing grade.  When you buy a car with a down payment and fail to make the monthly payments it is likely that the car will be repossessed.

 

Thousands of Americans bought homes they could not afford.  They managed to do this because the banks granted the loans without considering the borrower’s ability to repay the mortgages.  Talk about consequences.  Everyone is now suffering from those bad decisions.  People are losing their homes and banks are holding thousands of mortgages that will never be repaid by the borrowers.

 

President Barack Obama campaigned on a platform of change and now he is implementing the changes he promised.  Many people are upset, especially Republicans, about the things the president proposes to do.  A majority voted for him so now that majority must live with the consequence of that election.  A majority also elected George W. Bush president and we had to live with the consequence of that vote.

 

The decision to repeal the Glass Steagall Act is now being debated as the root cause of the current recession.  I believe that the repeal resulted in the unintended consequences that have brought the world to the brink of depression.

 

HYPOCRISY

In a society that is too much about “me”, double standards abound.  Thanks to a variety of medical breakthroughs many people who lived through “the great depression” are still alive today.  They did go on to success.  It’s not that those successful seniors have forgotten their beginnings.  They simply do not want to accept the idea that many others have not been so fortunate.

 

Then there are those who were fortunate enough to have the skills and talent to rise above the rest of us.  Many of them have earned extraordinary amounts of money.  This group of people is small but seems to be clueless about the fact that they are so lucky.

 

An example of the clueless is Carly Fiorina, a former Hewlett-Packard chief executive left that company with a severance package worth an estimated $21 million to $42 million.  Including her severance, she was paid nearly $180 million during her five-year tenure at Hewlett-Packard.

 

Fiorina bucked the populist tide against lavish corporate salaries by denouncing President Obama’s effort to cap annual pay at $500,000 for leaders of banks taking federal bailout money.

 

Now this is the hypocrisy (double standard).  After she was forced out of Hewlett-Packard, shareholders sued, claiming that the board of directors should have let shareholders decide her severance.  The Los Angeles Times quotes her as saying, “When somebody makes $40 million a year for failure, we cannot defend that.  On the other hand, I believe the solution should be, every  should be put up for shareholder vote each and every year. Let the shareholders decide.” 

Ethical Behavior

Perhaps the title should be “ethics” rather than ethical behavior.  For our new president it all started with his Inaugural address when he said, “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.” Wow, that was just one part of a speech that sounded the intent to live up to the goals set by our founding fathers.  

Barack Obama established standards of conduct just yesterday. He banned any member of his administration from accepting any lobbying job while the administration is still in power. He banned any member of his administration from accepting any gifts at all from lobbyists. He banned all administration appointees from being able to work on policy issues that could affect their former bosses or clients for a minimum of two years.  After issuing this very ambitious regulation Mr. Obama chose William J. Lynn III to be deputy secretary of defense.  The problem is that Mr. Lynn’s was employed as a lobbyist for a defense contractor this past year.  Boston Globe reporter Bryan Bender reported a waiver would be made for Lynn.

Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner said Wednesday he was careless in failing to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes earlier this decade but declared “I have paid what I owed” and apologized to Congress.  The explanation was that it “was an honest mistake.”  Mr. Geithner told a Senate hearing committee that he “takes full responsibility.”

After all the claims of transparency by the president and signing various executive orders in a public manner he quietly without press presence signed an order allowing federal money to go to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information.

There is no doubt that Mr. Obama seems to want to be an ethical person.  The problem is he is also a political person.  The result is he will not be the “mightier than thou” person that we dreamed about.  He can still be successful but there will be many enemies.