Sunday, July 31, 2011

Congress: Will They Save Us or Screw Us?


A couple of people have noticed that something is amiss in our government. It appears that there is this budget problem that could be a little troublesome for the economy, the country and even the public. I don’t know why everyone is worried; we have Congress on the job to deal with it. And who could be more capable than the members of Congress in dealing with it? After all, half the responsibility rests with Congress. It’s Congress that created the problem. Perhaps their concerns stems from the fact that it’s Congress that has not just refused to deal with the problem; but Congress has actively and knowingly sought to go out of their way to make the problem larger, more difficult and destructive to the American way of life. Now yes, it is true that Congress is not totally alone in being culpable for this egregious failure; the public has been woefully negligent in stepping up to our own responsibility for ignoring simple and basic fiscal reality. Well the chickens have come home to roost; and surprise, surprise the economic zero-sum game has turned up the pay your bills card. So now that the debt ceiling question has reached the point where even the politicians are forced to actually step forward and do their jobs.
Let’s assume for a moment that the members of Congress are at least smarter than their village idiots; although I think that that was their qualification for being elected so it is a stretch assumption. If Congress finds some half-assed, mediocre, weasel worded, unimaginative, kick-the-can down the road solution to extending the national debt-ceiling then the crisis will appear to be avoided. If Congress doesn’t find a way to raise the debt-ceiling then we didn’t even get the village idiots elected; and America will pay a far greater price then should have been required.
But at the end of the day, Congress will not have done three things that are critical to the future of America. Congress will not have solved the problem, Congress will not have understood the problem, and Congress will not have served the American people. And there is virtually no one in Congress who is even aware that this is the case. The TEA Party right-wing ideologies want to solve the problem by cutting spending, but no increases in taxes. The liberal left-wing ideologies want to cut spending and raise taxes on the wealthy and insure the entitlement programs are preserved. The unheard (or perhaps non-existent) moderates are well, unheard; presenting no vision or plan for how to move the country forward in a sane and reasonable manner.
The Republican and Democratic parties with their own internal supposed spectrum of moderate to right or left ideological views have misused the nomenclature of moderate, liberal, progressive, conservative, hawk, dove,  or centrist. Both parties are more alike than they advocate; they are both ‘know-nothing’ / ‘do nothing’ advertising campaigns. They both spend their time, energies, and resources in simply achieving and prolonging their tenures in office.
So will Congress save us or screw us? Congress will tell us that they saved us from the brink of the abyss and are now working on restoring America to a sound footing. But deep in your head and heart most of you know that you just got screwed again. They haven’t done anything to restore our economy, at best they have managed to keep it from a precipitous decent into a truly catastrophic economic quagmire; and have left the public, the economy and the nation lost in the wilderness of leaderless politicians. And not only will Congress have not lead, they will persist in hindering any progress toward solutions and establishing any momentum for achieving the American vision of a secure future with freedom and liberty for ourselves and our posterity.
It is time for those Americans who are independent of these two parties to recognize that they are the only force that can restore America, that they must not only value the American dream and principles; but that they must be the responsible and accountable voters for choosing those sent to Congress and the Presidency. It is time to stop the failed ideologies that have corrupted the Democratic and Republican parties from within and find individuals who are worthy of the offices that they seek.

Friday, July 22, 2011

How Obama Could Save America: A Three Step Plan

Since Congress cannot navigate the complexities of, well legislating by themselves; and they can’t competently negotiate legislation in concert with the President, they have remarkably exceeded the expectations of most Americans and demonstrated a higher level of ineptitude and stupidity than we have come to depend on from them. The national debt limit crisis seems to have illuminated sections of the vast and empty craniums in Congress that had gone heretofore not known to even exist. How can the American people keep finding such vacuous individuals to represent them? Alas, there appears to be an ample source of lesser minded, morally devoid and spiritually deprived souls to fill the office seeker ranks of the political parties. And the voters seem content with accepting these insipid and vapid choices. But let’s leave the dilemma of the voters’ psychotic and dysfunctional behavior for a later time.

The important question at this moment is: What should the Executive do in these times of pending economic disaster when confronted with the best and brightest talent provided by the Congressional leadership and backbench team? The answer is: Save America.

Now I am not being quixotic or flippant, I contend that there is a simple three step plan that the President should elect to use as a recovery campaign to return America to a solid footing. It’s unfortunate that he is constrained by the advice and input of generations of the tried and true political wonks that orchestrated the creation of the colossal governmental abomination which wrought the pending economic Armageddon. But that is not a valid or acceptable reason why the three step plan should not be put before the American people. And who knows maybe something will penetrate the extremely dense barriers to innovation and creativity that are the bulwark of our government.

Step 1. The President should exercise his executive power via executive orders directing various government agencies to curtail the rapidity with which they are expending their authorized budgets. In essence, the President will cut government spending by simply slowing it down. The execution of these orders will necessitate find unique approaches and solutions that will apply to and work for different departments, agencies and organizations. But slowing government spending which is an Executive Branch function is under his authority, so he can affect the change without requesting Congress to do anything. And since Congress doesn’t do anything useful anyway, this won’t interfere with their normal activities.

Step 2. The President must explain to the American public, and the world, why he has taken these actions. It is imperative that he makes it clear that he has only taken these steps because Congress has utterly failed to step up to the challenges confronting the nation, refused to deliver on their promises of “making the hard choices” in service to America, and dishonored their Constitutional oath to fulfill their responsibilities defined by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution. The President must convince the public that they need to look to Congress when it cannot deliver an affordable budget, explicitly approve or reject an authorization of the national debt limit, and establish a fair tax system. The American people then need to understand that it is up to them to find representatives who can deliver on these responsibilities. This is not a question of political party; it is an issue of sending people to Congress who can do their job.

Step 3. The last step is the most crucial, and thus the hardest to accomplish and to understand. The President needs to establish some select commissions to prepare strategies and plans to restructure the methods and operational procedures to be used to manage and improve the execution and administration of governmental agencies and programs. One aspect that makes this difficult is that the individuals that you need to perform these tasks are neither typical of political and policy advisors, nor found among governmental, lobbyist or special interest groups; and they are likely to view popular political ideologies as narrow-minded and shortsighted. A second aspect that may be an insurmountable hurdle is that even though they could develop superior and more efficient approaches to deliver the government’s functions, Congress would be required to eventually accept their plans and more pointedly to restrain themselves from creating their own required plans for implementing government policies.
Three steps to save America. They are not easy steps. They would not be popular steps initially, but would gain recognized value with time. And they would require the acceptance of political leaders that they are not qualified to achieve the goals and objectives that they set for the country. They may be qualified to represent the American people’s interests, desires and aspirations; but being the CEO’s of government doesn’t mean you can do the work of government, only that they can set the direction and vision of government.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Hard Choices: American Intelligence Test #11

Beware America! We are approaching the precipice of economic disaster. The nation is about to fail to have an adequate amount of money to pay its bills and obligations. Our political leadership has been unable to find a way to make the hard choices necessary to prevent the damaging consequences to inaction. These are the same politicians who vigorously campaigned and then blusteringly declared to any open microphone, visible camera or public forum that they were here to make the hard choices that the people of America sent them to Congress to make. With such illustrious personages representing the American people, one has to wonder why they have been unable – no incapable and inadequate to the task of setting the government on a rational and reasonable path to fiscal responsibility. The answer is of course simple, but first the obligatory questions; the opportunity to partake in an exhibition of societal competence.
While scoring your answers is a personal assessment responsibility, my answers are provided as a counter-point for your consideration. As always a willingness to deceive yourself, as to the correctness of your answers or beliefs, is a measure of actual intelligence demonstrated. To paraphrase Lincoln:

Some of us can fool ourselves all of the time, and all of us can fool ourselves some of the time, but all of us can not fool ourselves all of the time.
And we begin.

Q-1:   Who is responsible for ensuring the US has an adequate budget to handle its obligations?
A.      Executive (President)  
B. Electorate (voters)  
C. House of Reps.  
D. Senate    
E. OMB (Office of Management & Budget)

Context:  Before you choose to blame someone, it is reasonable to know if they’re responsible.

Q-2:  What do we require of our elected officials’ decisions in representing us?
A.      Adherence to political ideology and party position
B.      Holding to campaign promises or pledges
C.      His judgment even in opposition to your opinion
D.      Nothing
E.       Consideration of how his/her constituency alone is effected

Q-3:  When confronted with an impasse on an issue, what is the hard choice?
A.      Hold their ground and remain unyielding
B.      Seek an acceptable compromise among other parties that serves the public’s interests
C.      Present an innovative solution that addresses the problem better than the intractable alternatives
D.      Agree to some delaying tactic that avoids a hard choice
E.       Do something stupid and claim victory

Context: Don’t consider what our politicians actually do, think Founding Fathers’ judgment or what an intelligent person would do.

Q-4:   What caused the economic dilemma that confronts the nation?
A.      Democrats excessive spending
B.      Republicans excessive tax cuts and credits
C.      Partisan political intransigence
D.      American public’s irrational expectations
E.       All parties failure to understand the problem


Q-5: The media’s role in the national debt crisis and the debt-ceiling has been:
A.      Fair and balanced
B.      Insightful and informative
C.      Hacked and pedestrian
D.      Irrelevant and pathetic
E.       Up to the standards of the American public
F.       Wasn’t aware the media covered this

Context: Your assessment should be an aggregation of and inclusive of as many media sources as you experience.

Q-X (Special/Bonus):  Which options provide the best solutions to the national debt?
A.      Cut the federal budget
B.      Raise taxes
C.      Cut taxes
D.      Reorganize all government programs and operations based on delivery of value
E.       Curtail Congress’s involvement in implementation of federal programs

Your ordeal is over, and I suspect that you are confident in your answers. While likely of no value, my answers are:
1:  C  [See users-manual]

2:  C  [a Founding Father’s principle]

3:  C  [unfortunately requires intelligence, so B is a back-up for the ill-equipped]
4:  E  [the problem is not the debt ceiling nor government spending (budget); and no one group is to blame]

5:  E  [If the right questions aren’t pursued the answers are of no value]
X- Bonus:  D  [E is a poor second, and A,B,C are all just necessary levers and not solutions]

While the individuals in Congress are the showcase morons that we identify with such problems, and they are truly extremely culpable for a significant level of responsibility; in reality the absolute responsibility rests with the American people. Your representatives were only able to be as damaging and useless as they are because you chose them. The physics of politics and government are no less cause and effect driven than the law of gravity. Obviously a large mass of ignorance attracts other ignorance.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Potential Energy and Independent Power

The obvious and evident failure of the Democratic and Republican parties to recognize their responsibility to represent their constituencies, not their special interest campaign backers or their core party ideologies, but the American citizens within their respective political districts has been showcased in the current national debt ceiling debacle on display for the last six-plus months. Now I enjoy watching the ineptitude and stupidity of our political leaders as much as anyone, but I am getting tired of having to increasingly pay more and more for the consequences of their collective incompetence. Consider a recent statement that indicated that ‘no solution that put the burden of new taxes upon those who cannot afford them, will be tolerated’. Unless I missed something, isn’t there a logical inconsistency somewhere in this statement when the proposals for ‘new revenues’ are targeted on high-income (wealthy) individuals? Can you really be wealthy, and not be able to afford a tax increase, that is still less than historic levels? Well, the statement does play well in the media; I suppose it doesn’t matter that it’s demonstrates an idiotic premise. I would have recommended staying with one of the other fallacious statements that doesn’t look so stupid when a simple question is raised.
 And don’t be fooled by either side that throughout the entire ranting exercises (I cannot in good conscience even allude to their debating the issue) of each partisan mob that they understand or even attempted to inform anyone about how and what you will pay under their varied and respective proposals. Whether it’s the extreme right-wing Republicans or extreme left-wing Democratic, these tunnel-visioned party fanatics have deluded themselves and they hope fooled most other Americans that their approaches would address the nations fiscal problems.
The conventional wisdom (what a misused concept for the political wonks who spew their sage detritus about the workings of our elected partisan automaton) is that the Republicans and Democrats will be unable (I think incapable and inadequate are more apropos) to reach a compromise agreement on dealing with raising the debt ceiling and coming to grips with government spending and revenues. So rather than a carpe diem moment, the great and grand political leadership of America are kicking the can down the road in hopes of perpetuating more self-centered, self-serving campaign sound-bites to keep the addle-pated core , well addled and foaming at the mouth.
What recourse for America is there? The answer is that you have to look at the physic of the political reality. The Republican and Democratic parties are only in control because the true power brokers in America are not focused or organized. Elections are determined by the nation’s independent voters. Voters who cannot bring themselves to aligning themselves with either party because those parties are ideologically, intellectually and ethically bankrupt. Independents are the potential power in America. Their choices represent the energy that can power the movement of our governmental and societal systems to productive and responsible solutions.
The challenge for Independents is create an independent communications medium to provide a lens through which their energy can be focused and brought to bear on the issues and choices that need to be made. It is in this context that future topics will be presented on sowing the seeds of political innovation for raising a crop of American leadership that is not stunted and deformed by the inbreeding of the lesser of bad choices, and improper culling of the evolutionary viable members of the herd.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Not All Self-Interest Is Equal

Some American concepts are far more complex than the casual observer would expect. The American confidence in the free market is such a concept. It entwines elements of capitalism, freedom, democracy and self-interest in a complex fabric that has woven the most formidable economic power ever achieved to date. And we Americans tend to believe that we are guaranteed to remain in the forefront of economic powers because it is our rightful place in the world. But our economy, our market system and our societal framework did not achieve its success simply because of these structural elements. It has at times been more and less capitalistic than others, it hasn’t always been free in the same way that is it free today, and it isn’t always a democratic operation. So it shouldn’t be surprising that the principle of self-interest hasn’t always been a constant in the marketplace, the economy or our society.
Recognizing and grappling with this complexity is part of the challenge that America must confront to be successful in the competitive global arena. In that regard it is incumbent upon us to know and understand the difference between: Self-Interest and Enlightened Self-Interest.

Self-interest is the term that you will usually hear. It is one of the forces that drives the efficiency and competitiveness of the marketplace. People, groups, companies, states, countries, and multi-national are all considered to work better and receive greater results when they operate under the principle of self-interest. Much of the free enterprise system stems from this mode of operation. A free market doesn’t guarantee that you will succeed; in fact, it is generally indifferent to your success or failure. The free market only assures you that in a level playing-field market that the better, more cost efficient and need fulfilling products and services will win out over their lesser competitors. But self-interest also can drive actions and behaviors that are anathema to the benefits expected of the free market operating in a democratic society.

Self-interest can represent a selective provision place in the law that thwarts a fair and open competition. Self-interest can lead to corruption and abuse that erodes and rots the power of a free market. And in one of its most devious incarnations self-interest can lead individuals, groups, and entities to seek local and/or near term benefits that are actually destructive to those that sought the benefits as well as those that were disadvantaged originally.

The problem with thinking that self-interest is an American principle that has produced the benefits that our economy and society have achieved is that it has produced some of the worst conditions in America also. There is nothing inherently wrong or misguided about self-interest, rather you have to understand that it does not guarantee a positive outcome for you, for others or for anyone.

America is best served when the principle of self-interest is an “enlightened self-interest”. This requires that decisions and policies are examined in terms of the self-interests that are involved. And you have to understand what the self-interests are, and whether they are reasonable, rationale and prudent interests to be served. For example, the America economy benefits enormously when the middle-class (and the lower-class) incomes grow. The reason is that a robust consumer economy increases the flow of money in the nation’s economy, it increases the private sector’s opportunities to grow, and provides for more profits.  The wealth of the country expands the most when it expands for all members of the society. Otherwise, the simplest way to a sound economy would be to place all the wealth in one individual/corporation, which we in America know is just stupid.
What issue confronting America today, illustrates the difference between self-interest and enlightened self-interest? You might as well ask: What issue doesn’t? If you don’t see it yet, one of the biggest is the national budget and its little sister the debt ceiling. And there doesn’t appear to be any comprehension on the part of Congress that understanding the issue is an important part of addressing the country’s problems.

Monday, July 11, 2011

The US Budget: Three Errors Americans Keep Making

America and Americans are desperately seeking solutions to their economic woes. As is typical of our citizenry, they persist in looking for the quick, the easy and the effortless fix. Doesn’t matter whether they are Republicans, Democrats, Independents, or any of the lesser marginalized cults. They seize upon the particular orthodoxy, beliefs and tenets of their political theology to answer all issues, questions and problems. It doesn’t matter if their partisan faith is irrelevant, flawed or useless; their personal political beliefs provide them with an internal comfort that all will work out fine because they believe that they are in the right. From this unfounded confidence in their ideology, Americans guide their political judgments and decisions; and thus predictably we get the inevitable consequences from ill-informed, ill-intended and ill-defined legislative and administrative efforts. What is wrong with the political decisions that Americans are making?

Well, we don’t have the space to go into everything that the electorate is doing wrong, but we can at least identify three mistakes that they make over and over and over.

One: Many voters, particularly those aligned with a formal party, are sufficiently moronic to believe the political rhetoric and theater that is played out in the media, meetings and campaigns. Instead of engaging in any assessment and analysis of what the country’s needs and interests are, what the society’s needs and interests are, and what the people’s needs and interests are. They abandoned their responsibility to their countrymen/women agreed to in the country’s contract. Instead they believe the words and speeches of their partisan leadership without asking whether there is any substance to the text. Failure one is not noticing that the same answer, the same sound-bites, the same posturing stances on principles cannot be an informed, intelligent and appropriate solution to any issue brought into the public forum. If you don’t question and demand an explanation that makes sense and informs you then you just aren’t trying.

Two: When a politician is elected, you can choose to trust them or not. This one is really easy. If you trust them, then you must never have met a politician before. You must never have read or heard about what politicians do, or who politicians cozy up to. In short, you cannot trust a politician. So mistake number two is that voters put their preference into a special category of honest, different from the rest.

Three: Politicians can fix our problems. The simplest way to clarify your error on this one is to ask: “What problem have you ever actually seen politicians fix?” They follow, they don’t lead. They are not informed or intelligent enough to solve problems. This is why their legislative and administrative efforts always define how something is to be done or solved. That is not a solution, it is a dictate. It only says: “This is how I want it to be”, and has nothing to do with dealing with the physics of government and society. So mistake three is voters accept the premise that politicians have the ability to solve the country’s problems. They accept this without any evidence that politicians have any understanding of what the underlying conditions of the problem are, nor possess any notion of what actions can influence the situation to produce the results that are desired.
Is it any wonder that politicians have spent the last two plus years failing to do anything to correct the American economy? They talk about cutting budgets or taxing the wealthy. These of course are not solutions to the problem, and more importantly, they just talk about what is to be done. They do nothing. The definition of Congress: They do nothing