I wrote the following letter to Jim Mateja, the Chicago Tribune’s car columnist and one of the foremost practitioners of his craft, in response to his correct contention that Ed Whitacre, whom the Obamacrats selected to be Chairman of the Board of the new GM, is no car guy. I thought my readers might like it:
6/28/09
Hi Jim,
You are absolutely right when you state that the new non-executive Chairman of GM, Ed Whitacre, is “another member of the non-car guys club.” (Letters, 6/28/09) Whitacre said himself, as J.S. of Bartlett pointed out, “I don’t know anything about cars.” However, as the former chairman and CEO first of SBC and then of AT&T after the merger of those two telecommunications giants, he knows plenty about sucking up to politicians. Sadly, this will be the most necessary and highly valued skill at GM, Chrysler, and probably scores or hundreds of our once great corporations as the brave new world of Ma Government unfolds.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
“RENDER UNTO CAESAR THE THINGS THAT ARE CAESAR’S, BUT RENDER UNTO GOD THE THINGS THAT ARE GOD’S”
6/28/09
The Chicago Tribune, in an article in today’s (i.e., Sunday, 6/28’s) paper entitled “Scandals strain GOP’s religious appeal,” reports that Brandt Waggoner, a 25 year old student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC, proclaimed:
“If we place our hope in a political party or a politician, we’ll be let down. My hope is in God, not in government.”
Rarely in recorded history have truer or more profound words been uttered. Mr. Waggoner is obviously wise beyond his tender years.
As my readers know, I am not an evangelical Christian, but I do have a great deal of sympathy, and empathy, for many, if not most, of their social and spiritual views. However, I am opposed to their political agenda, which I find far too heavy on government intervention and coercion. This opposition springs from the sentiment expressed in Mr. Waggoner’s comment.
Whenever I see people of faith, be it the Black minister on the South Side of my hometown ushering the latest Machine scoundrel to his pulpit or the evangelical preacher telling us the Democrats are the agents of godless Communism who will lead us straight to hell, I cringe. Not only is there no salvation in politics and politicians, but there are very few answers to earthly problems in politics and politicians. But there is always a meretricious politician who will say that he espouses one’s views on issues that properly have no place in politics in order to amass enough votes to start a career on the public payroll or to garner just enough votes to get him the latest taxpayer financed sinecure he craves.
Even more dangerous, perhaps, than the politician who pays lip service to one’s religious views is the politician, who, either because he is a true believer or because he feels he must honor at least one IOU, is the politician with the power to get some portion of one’s social agenda codified in law. Why? Because voters are fickle, and, come next election, they are just as likely to vote for the other party, the party who espouses social views one finds anathema. That party could be equally successful in codifying its social agenda.
God won’t let us down, but the politicians will. And in those very few instances in which they don’t let us down, we will, in all likelihood, end up wishing they had.
The Chicago Tribune, in an article in today’s (i.e., Sunday, 6/28’s) paper entitled “Scandals strain GOP’s religious appeal,” reports that Brandt Waggoner, a 25 year old student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC, proclaimed:
“If we place our hope in a political party or a politician, we’ll be let down. My hope is in God, not in government.”
Rarely in recorded history have truer or more profound words been uttered. Mr. Waggoner is obviously wise beyond his tender years.
As my readers know, I am not an evangelical Christian, but I do have a great deal of sympathy, and empathy, for many, if not most, of their social and spiritual views. However, I am opposed to their political agenda, which I find far too heavy on government intervention and coercion. This opposition springs from the sentiment expressed in Mr. Waggoner’s comment.
Whenever I see people of faith, be it the Black minister on the South Side of my hometown ushering the latest Machine scoundrel to his pulpit or the evangelical preacher telling us the Democrats are the agents of godless Communism who will lead us straight to hell, I cringe. Not only is there no salvation in politics and politicians, but there are very few answers to earthly problems in politics and politicians. But there is always a meretricious politician who will say that he espouses one’s views on issues that properly have no place in politics in order to amass enough votes to start a career on the public payroll or to garner just enough votes to get him the latest taxpayer financed sinecure he craves.
Even more dangerous, perhaps, than the politician who pays lip service to one’s religious views is the politician, who, either because he is a true believer or because he feels he must honor at least one IOU, is the politician with the power to get some portion of one’s social agenda codified in law. Why? Because voters are fickle, and, come next election, they are just as likely to vote for the other party, the party who espouses social views one finds anathema. That party could be equally successful in codifying its social agenda.
God won’t let us down, but the politicians will. And in those very few instances in which they don’t let us down, we will, in all likelihood, end up wishing they had.
Friday, June 26, 2009
“LET’S (NOT) LOOK AT THE RECORD”
6/26/09
The Chicago Sun-Times reports in today’s (i.e., 6/26/09’s) edition that
“The City Council is mapping plans to hire an independent analyst to comb through the $1 billion in private insurance policies being lined up by Chicago 2016 (the Mayor’s blue ribbon Olympic cheerleading squad composed largely of those who will clean up financially should Chicago have to endure the misfortune of hosting the Olympics) to shield taxpayers from any risk beyond the $500mm the Council has pledged.”
The paper goes on to report that
“Aldermen also plan to hire their own experts to verify Chicago 2016’s construction budget and the Olympic committee’s representation of surpluses generated by past Olympics to make certain ‘they’re not cooking the books,’ (Alderman Joe) Moore said.”
Leave aside for a moment the utter hilarity of the Council’s considering its steps to “insure” that “only” $500mm of taxpayer money be spent on the Olympics when the city is broke to be a mark of fiscal vigilance, and consider possible ulterior, as opposed to just idiotic, motives:
If you were the Mayor and a bunch of hangers-on and toadies who stand to get even richer if the Olympics come to our city, how would you get around the resistance of the less starry-eyed of our citizens who demand more than hype and hoopla and insist on such spoilsport, mundane items as hard numbers and signs that someone around here recognizes the very real and large downside of this modern version of the bread and circuses various entrenched leaders have used throughout history to mollify a besotted and increasingly clueless populace? Here’s an idea:
Get a bunch of lapdog alderman (Joe Moore does not fit this description, but Joe Moore is utterly incapable of getting anything through a City Council dominated by yes-men and stooges without the endorsement of the Mayor.) to demand a review of Olympic insurance and costs by “independent” experts. Make sure these “experts” don’t take this “independence” thing too far. Have these learned experts produce a report certifying the fiscal rectitude of this latest and most expensive of the Mayor’s boondoggles. Watch yet another barrier to the Olympics fall in the face of this latest smokescreen, greasing the way for yet another scheme to make certain favored people rich at the expense of the people who really make Chicago work.
It’s brilliant!
The Chicago Sun-Times reports in today’s (i.e., 6/26/09’s) edition that
“The City Council is mapping plans to hire an independent analyst to comb through the $1 billion in private insurance policies being lined up by Chicago 2016 (the Mayor’s blue ribbon Olympic cheerleading squad composed largely of those who will clean up financially should Chicago have to endure the misfortune of hosting the Olympics) to shield taxpayers from any risk beyond the $500mm the Council has pledged.”
The paper goes on to report that
“Aldermen also plan to hire their own experts to verify Chicago 2016’s construction budget and the Olympic committee’s representation of surpluses generated by past Olympics to make certain ‘they’re not cooking the books,’ (Alderman Joe) Moore said.”
Leave aside for a moment the utter hilarity of the Council’s considering its steps to “insure” that “only” $500mm of taxpayer money be spent on the Olympics when the city is broke to be a mark of fiscal vigilance, and consider possible ulterior, as opposed to just idiotic, motives:
If you were the Mayor and a bunch of hangers-on and toadies who stand to get even richer if the Olympics come to our city, how would you get around the resistance of the less starry-eyed of our citizens who demand more than hype and hoopla and insist on such spoilsport, mundane items as hard numbers and signs that someone around here recognizes the very real and large downside of this modern version of the bread and circuses various entrenched leaders have used throughout history to mollify a besotted and increasingly clueless populace? Here’s an idea:
Get a bunch of lapdog alderman (Joe Moore does not fit this description, but Joe Moore is utterly incapable of getting anything through a City Council dominated by yes-men and stooges without the endorsement of the Mayor.) to demand a review of Olympic insurance and costs by “independent” experts. Make sure these “experts” don’t take this “independence” thing too far. Have these learned experts produce a report certifying the fiscal rectitude of this latest and most expensive of the Mayor’s boondoggles. Watch yet another barrier to the Olympics fall in the face of this latest smokescreen, greasing the way for yet another scheme to make certain favored people rich at the expense of the people who really make Chicago work.
It’s brilliant!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
WHO’S THE FARRAHEST OF THEM ALL?
6/25/09
In today’s news, the Supreme Court hands down a rather important privacy ruling. Mohsen Razaie, one of the opposition candidates in Iran decides to concede and the mullahs continued their crackdown on dissent, which appears to be growing more successful in tamping down resistance to the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A scheduled Paris meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and chief U.S. Mideast diplomat George Mitchell is cancelled, apparently over the settlement issue. Congressman Darrell Issa does not back down from his contention that Fed Chairman Bernanke engaged in a coverup regarding the muscling of Ken Lewis to proceed with the ill-advised purchase of Merrill Lynch. And South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, in what a former Palmetto State GOP Chairman so aptly described as “the damndest thing I’d ever seen” provides more evidence of the childish narcissism and overriding solipsism that is endemic to almost all of our public servants but lately seems especially prevalent in the GOP.
So what is the lead story on today’s (i.e., Thursday, 6/25’s) CBS radio news at noon? The death of Farrah Fawcett.
I have never seen Ms. Fawcett act in anything; I’ve never seen an episode of “Charlie’s Angels” and did not see “The Burning Bed.” My life is doubtless richer for the time I did not squander on such moronic fare. I am perhaps the only male who attended college in the late ‘70s who did not have a picture of Ms. Fawcett on my dorm room wall, probably because I went to the University of Illinois, where most of the women were far better looking than the extremely comely Farrah Fawcett. (And you thought it was the relatively cheap tuition that made everyone want to go to the Big U!) So I know very little of Ms. Fawcett other than what she looked like, and, again, she was quite impressive in that area. All that having been said, she did, from what little I know, appear to be a good person and conducted an epic, brave, graceful, and dignified struggle with her cancer. She deserves our prayers and respect, as do her family and friends.
So this post is by no means an attack on Farrah Fawcett, but rather on a society that is obsessed with fluff and nearly completely oblivious to substance but continually insists on its utter greatness, as if such greatness were achieved through some form of osmosis, or through the waves emanating from a television set. The next time you hear some blowhard, completely ignorant of history, among other things, insist that America’s best days are ahead of it, just remember the kind of mental cotton candy the American people think is worthy of “lead story” status.
In today’s news, the Supreme Court hands down a rather important privacy ruling. Mohsen Razaie, one of the opposition candidates in Iran decides to concede and the mullahs continued their crackdown on dissent, which appears to be growing more successful in tamping down resistance to the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A scheduled Paris meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and chief U.S. Mideast diplomat George Mitchell is cancelled, apparently over the settlement issue. Congressman Darrell Issa does not back down from his contention that Fed Chairman Bernanke engaged in a coverup regarding the muscling of Ken Lewis to proceed with the ill-advised purchase of Merrill Lynch. And South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, in what a former Palmetto State GOP Chairman so aptly described as “the damndest thing I’d ever seen” provides more evidence of the childish narcissism and overriding solipsism that is endemic to almost all of our public servants but lately seems especially prevalent in the GOP.
So what is the lead story on today’s (i.e., Thursday, 6/25’s) CBS radio news at noon? The death of Farrah Fawcett.
I have never seen Ms. Fawcett act in anything; I’ve never seen an episode of “Charlie’s Angels” and did not see “The Burning Bed.” My life is doubtless richer for the time I did not squander on such moronic fare. I am perhaps the only male who attended college in the late ‘70s who did not have a picture of Ms. Fawcett on my dorm room wall, probably because I went to the University of Illinois, where most of the women were far better looking than the extremely comely Farrah Fawcett. (And you thought it was the relatively cheap tuition that made everyone want to go to the Big U!) So I know very little of Ms. Fawcett other than what she looked like, and, again, she was quite impressive in that area. All that having been said, she did, from what little I know, appear to be a good person and conducted an epic, brave, graceful, and dignified struggle with her cancer. She deserves our prayers and respect, as do her family and friends.
So this post is by no means an attack on Farrah Fawcett, but rather on a society that is obsessed with fluff and nearly completely oblivious to substance but continually insists on its utter greatness, as if such greatness were achieved through some form of osmosis, or through the waves emanating from a television set. The next time you hear some blowhard, completely ignorant of history, among other things, insist that America’s best days are ahead of it, just remember the kind of mental cotton candy the American people think is worthy of “lead story” status.
YOU CAN’T GET ANYTHING THAT YOU WANT AT DONATELLA’S RESTAURANT
6/25/09
The “Personal Journal” section of the Wall Street Journal, with its articles on such vital matters as grading spray tan salons, is always good for lots of laughs…and very little else. However, an article in this morning’s Personal Journal, “How to Eat Out Without Spending a Lot” was revelatory on a number of fronts.
The article relates a number of tips from Donatella Arpaia, ironically the co-owner of a number of tony restaurants in New York City, on saving money when one is eating out. Two such suggestions were not, to no one’s surprise, eat at places like Sawa's Old Warsaw or Wonderburger and use coupons prodigiously. Instead, Ms. Arpaia advises refraining from ordering desert or bottled waters. Ordering desert in a restaurant has never occurred to me, unless it’s included in the price of the meal or I am at Culver’s, and ordering bottled water is perhaps the most absurd thing I had ever heard until finishing this article (Keep reading.), especially in a place like New York or Chicago where the tap water is outstanding. Can you imagine sitting down with your grandmother, if she were still alive, and telling her that you pay for water? She would reply that you had completely lost your mind and that, had she known such witless progeny were to be the result, she would have stayed in the old country rather than endure the travails of the boat ride over and the less flowery aspects of the immigrant experience.
Next, Ms. Arpaia advises cutting back on tips from her former customary 25% to “15% to 20%,” depending on the level of service. So Ms. Arpaia is advising Wall Street types, whose bonuses you, the taxpayer, have assured will continue at brobdingnagian levels, to save money by stiffing people who normally work very hard for relatively, or absolutely, little money and who are doubtless going through hard times of their own, difficulties that had much of their origin in the malicious machinations of those who are now saving money by stiffing them.
Even these absurdities could not prepare me for the sage advice contained in the last sentence of this article. Ms. Arpaia says that the adage “Never go to the grocery store hungry” applies to eating out. She says “I never go to a restaurant hungry.” She never goes to a restaurant hungry? Is there some kind of parallel universe out there of which I am not aware? Why does one go to a restaurant if one is not hungry? If one is looking to save money, perhaps one ought to consider staying home rather than going to a restaurant if one is not hungry.
Then another thought occurred to me. Could it be that many readers of the Wall Street Journal find the admonition “Never go to a restaurant hungry” a sage one? If that is the case, perhaps our current worldwide financial difficulties have their origin not in falling home prices or the profligate use of credit, but rather in our nation’s financial system’s being in the hands of those who think it thrifty, indeed wise, to “never go to a restaurant hungry.”
The “Personal Journal” section of the Wall Street Journal, with its articles on such vital matters as grading spray tan salons, is always good for lots of laughs…and very little else. However, an article in this morning’s Personal Journal, “How to Eat Out Without Spending a Lot” was revelatory on a number of fronts.
The article relates a number of tips from Donatella Arpaia, ironically the co-owner of a number of tony restaurants in New York City, on saving money when one is eating out. Two such suggestions were not, to no one’s surprise, eat at places like Sawa's Old Warsaw or Wonderburger and use coupons prodigiously. Instead, Ms. Arpaia advises refraining from ordering desert or bottled waters. Ordering desert in a restaurant has never occurred to me, unless it’s included in the price of the meal or I am at Culver’s, and ordering bottled water is perhaps the most absurd thing I had ever heard until finishing this article (Keep reading.), especially in a place like New York or Chicago where the tap water is outstanding. Can you imagine sitting down with your grandmother, if she were still alive, and telling her that you pay for water? She would reply that you had completely lost your mind and that, had she known such witless progeny were to be the result, she would have stayed in the old country rather than endure the travails of the boat ride over and the less flowery aspects of the immigrant experience.
Next, Ms. Arpaia advises cutting back on tips from her former customary 25% to “15% to 20%,” depending on the level of service. So Ms. Arpaia is advising Wall Street types, whose bonuses you, the taxpayer, have assured will continue at brobdingnagian levels, to save money by stiffing people who normally work very hard for relatively, or absolutely, little money and who are doubtless going through hard times of their own, difficulties that had much of their origin in the malicious machinations of those who are now saving money by stiffing them.
Even these absurdities could not prepare me for the sage advice contained in the last sentence of this article. Ms. Arpaia says that the adage “Never go to the grocery store hungry” applies to eating out. She says “I never go to a restaurant hungry.” She never goes to a restaurant hungry? Is there some kind of parallel universe out there of which I am not aware? Why does one go to a restaurant if one is not hungry? If one is looking to save money, perhaps one ought to consider staying home rather than going to a restaurant if one is not hungry.
Then another thought occurred to me. Could it be that many readers of the Wall Street Journal find the admonition “Never go to a restaurant hungry” a sage one? If that is the case, perhaps our current worldwide financial difficulties have their origin not in falling home prices or the profligate use of credit, but rather in our nation’s financial system’s being in the hands of those who think it thrifty, indeed wise, to “never go to a restaurant hungry.”
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
“LAST NIGHT I WENT TO SLEEP IN DETROIT CITY…”
6/24/09
A representative of something called the Kauffman Foundation appeared this morning on CNBC to expound on plans the Foundation has for reviving Detroit (the city, not the industry). Those plans involved plenty of futuristic endeavors dripping with that esoteric, politically correct fragrance that often emanates from plans derived by people with a big sense of purpose but little of their own skin in the game; the representative talked about biotech, wind turbines, and such, arguing, for example, that the manufacture of wind turbines is not all that different from the manufacture of certain automobile components. There was very little talk of what could be done right now, in a concrete way, to help a city in desperate need of help. What the woman from the Kauffman Foundation had to say resonated with me on a number of levels.
I lived in the Detroit area in 1982-83, a time in which the Big 3 were faced with an unprecedented, at that time, crisis. Just as is the case today, foundations, public officials, and other self-styled omniscient do-gooders were developing grandiose plans to diversify the Detroit economy, and those plans involved things like, mirabile dictu, health care, wind and solar energy, etc., industries that were in the even more distant future than they are today. One got the distinct impression that all this was a sort of charade, and one can understand why. Even though times were hard in the early ‘80s, there was a chance that things would blow over and the auto industry would return to its halcyon days. If that were the case, why would anyone want to diversify away from the car business? Detroit, a city and an area that has long been one of my favorites, full of kind, considerate, fun-loving people who appreciate hard work, a good time, family, faith, and tradition, had and has gotten used to hosting one of the most lucrative industries in the world. The auto industry, when it works, or worked, has a number of features that make it very attractive, the greatest of which is its ability to generate enormous amounts of spondulicks and to spread that wealth to everyone involved, from auto execs to entrepreneurial suppliers to the local financial community to the guy without a college education working on the line. When the industry is, or was, good, it is very, very good. That was why, back when I lived there, Detroit led the country in percentage of owner occupied housing. That, combined with being situated in a breathtakingly beautiful geographic region teeming with venues for water and other outdoor sports, everyone seemed to own a boat in Detroit, and many people had a “place up north.” The auto industry’s ability to make people from all walks of life well off attracted people from all over the world seeking their piece of the American Dream and thus led to one of the most diverse and interesting populations in the country. A trip up and down the radio dial provided audible evidence of the attractiveness of the industry, featuring everything from classical music to jazz to (of course) Motown to country to polka to an enormous concentration of holy-roller preacher types. As a one time boxing fan, I was always amazed at the number of big fights have historically taken place in Detroit in either the old Cobo Hall or Briggs Stadium. Once I realized and saw the enormous power the car industry had to put blue collar people in a position in which they had money to spend on things like title fights, I suddenly understood why, say, Jake LaMotta and Joe Louis spent so much time plying their trade in Detroit. So when things got bad, diversification might have looked like a good idea, and people talked about it, but, in reality, they were just waiting for the automotive good times to roll again. And they always did…until now.
We are seeing the consequences of this inability to act today, but who can blame the people of Detroit for wanting to hold onto a very good thing, especially when the alternatives look, and looked, more appropriate for a Jetsons episode than for the real world the consequences of which its residents are suffering? Pretending at solutions while hoping answers to one’s problems will arise spontaneously is a very human tendency. How many people spend their time beating themselves up over the past or making grandiose plans for a future that will unfold only when certain all but impossible conditions arise? Why do we (and, boy, do I mean that “we” literally!) do this? Because torturing ourselves over stupid, thoughtless, or even despicable things we did a long time ago and making plans that have very little chance of ever having to be put into place is a LOT easier than actually doing something to address our current problems or right rightable wrongs. Even though dwelling on the past or fantasizing about a never to be future are very human proclivities, they are worse than a waste of time; they are counterproductive because they take time and effort away from the hard work and thought necessary to do one’s part in alleviating life’s current obstacles and problems.
It is understandable that Detroit has remain stuck on the auto industry, especially when that industry has been so good to the former fort at the chokepoint on the passage to the upper Great Lakes and the alternatives presented for diversification come from people who are clearly more familiar with navel gazing on other people’s dimes than with actually solving problems and generating wealth. We’d all rather hope that wonderful things with which we have grown comfortable will return, that the good times will roll again. But overcoming this tendency to glance lovingly at the closed door rather than to look for a realistic open door is part of human growth and development and is essential to our survival, not only as going human concerns but also as geographic regions.
A representative of something called the Kauffman Foundation appeared this morning on CNBC to expound on plans the Foundation has for reviving Detroit (the city, not the industry). Those plans involved plenty of futuristic endeavors dripping with that esoteric, politically correct fragrance that often emanates from plans derived by people with a big sense of purpose but little of their own skin in the game; the representative talked about biotech, wind turbines, and such, arguing, for example, that the manufacture of wind turbines is not all that different from the manufacture of certain automobile components. There was very little talk of what could be done right now, in a concrete way, to help a city in desperate need of help. What the woman from the Kauffman Foundation had to say resonated with me on a number of levels.
I lived in the Detroit area in 1982-83, a time in which the Big 3 were faced with an unprecedented, at that time, crisis. Just as is the case today, foundations, public officials, and other self-styled omniscient do-gooders were developing grandiose plans to diversify the Detroit economy, and those plans involved things like, mirabile dictu, health care, wind and solar energy, etc., industries that were in the even more distant future than they are today. One got the distinct impression that all this was a sort of charade, and one can understand why. Even though times were hard in the early ‘80s, there was a chance that things would blow over and the auto industry would return to its halcyon days. If that were the case, why would anyone want to diversify away from the car business? Detroit, a city and an area that has long been one of my favorites, full of kind, considerate, fun-loving people who appreciate hard work, a good time, family, faith, and tradition, had and has gotten used to hosting one of the most lucrative industries in the world. The auto industry, when it works, or worked, has a number of features that make it very attractive, the greatest of which is its ability to generate enormous amounts of spondulicks and to spread that wealth to everyone involved, from auto execs to entrepreneurial suppliers to the local financial community to the guy without a college education working on the line. When the industry is, or was, good, it is very, very good. That was why, back when I lived there, Detroit led the country in percentage of owner occupied housing. That, combined with being situated in a breathtakingly beautiful geographic region teeming with venues for water and other outdoor sports, everyone seemed to own a boat in Detroit, and many people had a “place up north.” The auto industry’s ability to make people from all walks of life well off attracted people from all over the world seeking their piece of the American Dream and thus led to one of the most diverse and interesting populations in the country. A trip up and down the radio dial provided audible evidence of the attractiveness of the industry, featuring everything from classical music to jazz to (of course) Motown to country to polka to an enormous concentration of holy-roller preacher types. As a one time boxing fan, I was always amazed at the number of big fights have historically taken place in Detroit in either the old Cobo Hall or Briggs Stadium. Once I realized and saw the enormous power the car industry had to put blue collar people in a position in which they had money to spend on things like title fights, I suddenly understood why, say, Jake LaMotta and Joe Louis spent so much time plying their trade in Detroit. So when things got bad, diversification might have looked like a good idea, and people talked about it, but, in reality, they were just waiting for the automotive good times to roll again. And they always did…until now.
We are seeing the consequences of this inability to act today, but who can blame the people of Detroit for wanting to hold onto a very good thing, especially when the alternatives look, and looked, more appropriate for a Jetsons episode than for the real world the consequences of which its residents are suffering? Pretending at solutions while hoping answers to one’s problems will arise spontaneously is a very human tendency. How many people spend their time beating themselves up over the past or making grandiose plans for a future that will unfold only when certain all but impossible conditions arise? Why do we (and, boy, do I mean that “we” literally!) do this? Because torturing ourselves over stupid, thoughtless, or even despicable things we did a long time ago and making plans that have very little chance of ever having to be put into place is a LOT easier than actually doing something to address our current problems or right rightable wrongs. Even though dwelling on the past or fantasizing about a never to be future are very human proclivities, they are worse than a waste of time; they are counterproductive because they take time and effort away from the hard work and thought necessary to do one’s part in alleviating life’s current obstacles and problems.
It is understandable that Detroit has remain stuck on the auto industry, especially when that industry has been so good to the former fort at the chokepoint on the passage to the upper Great Lakes and the alternatives presented for diversification come from people who are clearly more familiar with navel gazing on other people’s dimes than with actually solving problems and generating wealth. We’d all rather hope that wonderful things with which we have grown comfortable will return, that the good times will roll again. But overcoming this tendency to glance lovingly at the closed door rather than to look for a realistic open door is part of human growth and development and is essential to our survival, not only as going human concerns but also as geographic regions.
THE KID IS ALRIGHT
6/24/09
A very smart friend and relative (indeed “another of my protégés who has lapped me about a thousand times on the road race of life,”) asked me what I thought of Illinois Comptroller and fellow former 19th Warder Dan Hynes. I thought my reply sufficiently informative and entertaining to merit a post:
6/24/09
A little story, which isn’t especially revelatory…
When I was working on the junk desk at First Chicago, one of the Hynes kids, who was in the First Scholars Program, worked with us on one of his rotations, crunching numbers, getting coffee, running downstairs to get us Swedish fish, etc. So when Dan Hynes ran for comptroller a few years later, I called Anthony Melchiorre (who did the same thing with much more aplomb but had since moved to NY and was, at the time, trading junk bonds at a big Wall Street firm, either DLJ or Paine Webber at that time, on his way to running what is now a multi-billion dollar hedge fund…another of my protégés who has lapped me about a thousand times on the road race of life, but that is another issue) and asked if that was the same Hynes who used to get us coffee who was now on the verge of becoming Comptroller. (Anthony kept in touch with his fellow First Scholars.) He replied that, no, that was not the same Hynes who used to get his coffee, but, rather, his little brother. Hmm…The musings of a frustrated old man can indeed be entertaining.
But seriously, though, folks, what do I think of Dan Hynes? He has done a respectable job, though I don’t know how to properly evaluate the job of Comptroller of the State of Illinois. He lost to Barack Obama in the primary for U.S. Senate despite heavy Machine backing, but no disgrace in that. He is politically ambitious and would like to move up. Though his father’s (former Assessor and 19th Ward Committeeman Tom Hynes) influence has waned considerably with age, the younger Hynes still has the backing of the still formidable 19th Ward organization, even though he no longer lives there, I think.
So Dan Hynes has done a competent job and has kept his shoulder pretty much to the wheel, as far as I can tell, despite his ambition for a bigger job. He, of course, would not be anywhere near where he is now were it not for his last name, but if we’re going to fault people for that in this state, we have to fault a long list of people, including almost all of his potential opponents in whatever race he might enter. So I don’t have anything bad to say about the guy. Everything said in this paragraph about him, by the way, I could say about Lisa Madigan. They seem to be running on a parallel track, but with Lisa a bit (but not as much as one would think from casual observation) ahead on that track.
One item of concern that has nothing to do with him personally: I wonder if his ambitions will be thwarted and/or he will be overshadowed, by the smarter, more impressive, and even more politically ambitious Tom Dart, who currently is Cook County sheriff (following in the footsteps of his mentor Mike Sheahan). How many people can even the 19th Ward sponsor?
For background, and I don’t know whether this serves to enhance or detract from my credibility on this issue, I’ve never met Tom Dart, Dan Hynes, or Lisa Madigan. I knew Tom Hynes to say hello and always found him a pretty good guy despite his foolish, almost oafish, run for mayor in 1987. Such political dropped balls were very uncharacteristic of this very skilled ward committeeman. I knew Mike Sheahan a little better than I knew Hynes; he used to go to Sacred Heart (along with his brother Skinny (Jim)) once in awhile and I’d run into him there at post-Mass coffee on the first weekend of the month. And I probably knew Skinny better than I knew either (though not very well) from running into him around the neighborhood before we defected.
A very smart friend and relative (indeed “another of my protégés who has lapped me about a thousand times on the road race of life,”) asked me what I thought of Illinois Comptroller and fellow former 19th Warder Dan Hynes. I thought my reply sufficiently informative and entertaining to merit a post:
6/24/09
A little story, which isn’t especially revelatory…
When I was working on the junk desk at First Chicago, one of the Hynes kids, who was in the First Scholars Program, worked with us on one of his rotations, crunching numbers, getting coffee, running downstairs to get us Swedish fish, etc. So when Dan Hynes ran for comptroller a few years later, I called Anthony Melchiorre (who did the same thing with much more aplomb but had since moved to NY and was, at the time, trading junk bonds at a big Wall Street firm, either DLJ or Paine Webber at that time, on his way to running what is now a multi-billion dollar hedge fund…another of my protégés who has lapped me about a thousand times on the road race of life, but that is another issue) and asked if that was the same Hynes who used to get us coffee who was now on the verge of becoming Comptroller. (Anthony kept in touch with his fellow First Scholars.) He replied that, no, that was not the same Hynes who used to get his coffee, but, rather, his little brother. Hmm…The musings of a frustrated old man can indeed be entertaining.
But seriously, though, folks, what do I think of Dan Hynes? He has done a respectable job, though I don’t know how to properly evaluate the job of Comptroller of the State of Illinois. He lost to Barack Obama in the primary for U.S. Senate despite heavy Machine backing, but no disgrace in that. He is politically ambitious and would like to move up. Though his father’s (former Assessor and 19th Ward Committeeman Tom Hynes) influence has waned considerably with age, the younger Hynes still has the backing of the still formidable 19th Ward organization, even though he no longer lives there, I think.
So Dan Hynes has done a competent job and has kept his shoulder pretty much to the wheel, as far as I can tell, despite his ambition for a bigger job. He, of course, would not be anywhere near where he is now were it not for his last name, but if we’re going to fault people for that in this state, we have to fault a long list of people, including almost all of his potential opponents in whatever race he might enter. So I don’t have anything bad to say about the guy. Everything said in this paragraph about him, by the way, I could say about Lisa Madigan. They seem to be running on a parallel track, but with Lisa a bit (but not as much as one would think from casual observation) ahead on that track.
One item of concern that has nothing to do with him personally: I wonder if his ambitions will be thwarted and/or he will be overshadowed, by the smarter, more impressive, and even more politically ambitious Tom Dart, who currently is Cook County sheriff (following in the footsteps of his mentor Mike Sheahan). How many people can even the 19th Ward sponsor?
For background, and I don’t know whether this serves to enhance or detract from my credibility on this issue, I’ve never met Tom Dart, Dan Hynes, or Lisa Madigan. I knew Tom Hynes to say hello and always found him a pretty good guy despite his foolish, almost oafish, run for mayor in 1987. Such political dropped balls were very uncharacteristic of this very skilled ward committeeman. I knew Mike Sheahan a little better than I knew Hynes; he used to go to Sacred Heart (along with his brother Skinny (Jim)) once in awhile and I’d run into him there at post-Mass coffee on the first weekend of the month. And I probably knew Skinny better than I knew either (though not very well) from running into him around the neighborhood before we defected.
Monday, June 22, 2009
MORE REALISM DISGUISED AS CYNICISM
6/22/09
I sent the following letter today to one of my favorite columnists, Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times:
Hi Neil,
At first, I didn’t understand “Today’s Chuckle,” to wit:
“The government is us—we are the government, you and I.”
Theodore Roosevelt
After all, isn’t that the deal in a self-governing democratic republic, such as ours purports to be? The people elect those who govern them, and thus the government represents, and serves at the pleasure of, the people. That’s a fact, not a joke, right?
Then I got it. That description of government as being “us…you and I” may have been true back in TR’s day, when the populace, though having spent fewer years in school than today’s electorate, was better educated in a genuine sense, better read, and more conversant with the public issues they faced. However, the notion that the people are the government in 21st century America is preposterous. Today, our typical “representative” in government is the charlatan indulging his particular brand of childish narcissism who could raise enough money, from those seeking a more favorable place at the public trough, to hire the spinmeister who is more effective than the other guy’s spinmeister at influencing an apathetic, lazy, insouciant, largely ignorant populace. In most cases, the losing mountebank learns his lesson and raises more money for the next election (The office itself is unimportant.) so that he can get a greater share of a bewildered and clueless electorate, thus ensconcing himself in his lifelong sinecure from which he can feed his oversized ego and flaunt his undersized intellect.
Looking at it another way, maybe the joke indeed isn’t funny, but is merely the truth. While the government may not be “us…you and I” or most of your readers, it is indeed the people who elected it: the people who are too busy watching addle-brained prime time TV and, if they make the effort to pick up a paper, read the celeb section to that they can more effectively follow every development in the vacuous lives of air-headed celebrities. As Mencken said, the American people get the government they deserve…and they get it good.
Ever wonder why my wife thinks you and I were separated at birth?
Thanks, Neil. Keep up the good work.
I sent the following letter today to one of my favorite columnists, Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times:
Hi Neil,
At first, I didn’t understand “Today’s Chuckle,” to wit:
“The government is us—we are the government, you and I.”
Theodore Roosevelt
After all, isn’t that the deal in a self-governing democratic republic, such as ours purports to be? The people elect those who govern them, and thus the government represents, and serves at the pleasure of, the people. That’s a fact, not a joke, right?
Then I got it. That description of government as being “us…you and I” may have been true back in TR’s day, when the populace, though having spent fewer years in school than today’s electorate, was better educated in a genuine sense, better read, and more conversant with the public issues they faced. However, the notion that the people are the government in 21st century America is preposterous. Today, our typical “representative” in government is the charlatan indulging his particular brand of childish narcissism who could raise enough money, from those seeking a more favorable place at the public trough, to hire the spinmeister who is more effective than the other guy’s spinmeister at influencing an apathetic, lazy, insouciant, largely ignorant populace. In most cases, the losing mountebank learns his lesson and raises more money for the next election (The office itself is unimportant.) so that he can get a greater share of a bewildered and clueless electorate, thus ensconcing himself in his lifelong sinecure from which he can feed his oversized ego and flaunt his undersized intellect.
Looking at it another way, maybe the joke indeed isn’t funny, but is merely the truth. While the government may not be “us…you and I” or most of your readers, it is indeed the people who elected it: the people who are too busy watching addle-brained prime time TV and, if they make the effort to pick up a paper, read the celeb section to that they can more effectively follow every development in the vacuous lives of air-headed celebrities. As Mencken said, the American people get the government they deserve…and they get it good.
Ever wonder why my wife thinks you and I were separated at birth?
Thanks, Neil. Keep up the good work.
Friday, June 19, 2009
TRILLIONS FOR EXPANSION AND INTERVENTION, NOT A DIME FOR DEFENSE
6/19/09
In the wake of reports that Dear Leader Kim Jong Il is preparing us an Independence Day surprise, in the form of a missile launch in the direction and vicinity of Hawaii, and that we are moving ground to air missile defenses and floating radar into position just in case the pudgy little dictator defies all odds, and history, and somehow succeeds in lighting this candle, Major General Robert G.F. Lee, adjutant general in charge of Hawaii’s Army and Air National Guard, felt compelled to state that the U.S. military “certainly has enough assets to protect the state of Hawaii.”
I certainly hope so. With all the money our wise overlords in Washington spend on “defense” that we have “enough assets to protect the state of Hawaii.”
This reminds me of the morning of 9/11/01, when, after the first plane was flown into the World Trade Center, the Air Force had a hard time scrambling F-16s and getting them into position to defend New York and Washington. But can you blame our public servants and their defense wunderkind hangers-on? After all, we are only talking about our nation’s capital, the financial center of the universe and our largest city, and our 50th, and perhaps most beautiful, state. These aren’t really important places, like Kuwait City, Baghdad, or Kabul.
In the wake of reports that Dear Leader Kim Jong Il is preparing us an Independence Day surprise, in the form of a missile launch in the direction and vicinity of Hawaii, and that we are moving ground to air missile defenses and floating radar into position just in case the pudgy little dictator defies all odds, and history, and somehow succeeds in lighting this candle, Major General Robert G.F. Lee, adjutant general in charge of Hawaii’s Army and Air National Guard, felt compelled to state that the U.S. military “certainly has enough assets to protect the state of Hawaii.”
I certainly hope so. With all the money our wise overlords in Washington spend on “defense” that we have “enough assets to protect the state of Hawaii.”
This reminds me of the morning of 9/11/01, when, after the first plane was flown into the World Trade Center, the Air Force had a hard time scrambling F-16s and getting them into position to defend New York and Washington. But can you blame our public servants and their defense wunderkind hangers-on? After all, we are only talking about our nation’s capital, the financial center of the universe and our largest city, and our 50th, and perhaps most beautiful, state. These aren’t really important places, like Kuwait City, Baghdad, or Kabul.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
HE-MAN WOMEN HATERS CLUB?
6/17/09
So GOP senators are in high dudgeon regarding Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s membership in something called the Belizean Grove, a group, society, or club of professionals that excludes men from its membership. We are supposed to somehow believe that the party of small government, conservative values, and individual freedom and responsibility is somehow appalled at the notion that citizens of this once great nation should have the freedom to join whatever types of clubs they want, even if those clubs define their exclusivity by the types of people to whom they deny membership.
One would have to be as disingenuous as the spinmeisters coaching these paragons of probity in the upper house to believe that these poltroons are offended at Ms. Sotomayor’s membership in an exclusive club. What is really going on is an infantile game of tit for tat: We’ll show those guardians of political correctness who effectively destroyed the old men’s clubs that once were a ubiquitous feature in our society, and to which many of us, and our Democratic colleagues, belonged. If we can’t have our men’s clubs any more, then, damn it, they can’t have women’s clubs.
To the extent that these GOPers believe anything, they probably agree with those of us who believe that, in a free society, people ought to be able to join any club they want, even if that club excludes women, men, whites, blacks, gays, straights, Muslims, Jews, Protestants, Catholics, or Irish. If these self-professed champions of limited government and quaint old traditions like freedom of association were to stand up and declare these beliefs, they would certainly win the admiration, and votes, of a sizable chunk of the populace and, even if they didn’t, they would enjoy the satisfaction that comes from standing on principle regardless of price. But to do so would require that these cowering weather vanes act like adults rather than narcissistic children, and to do so would deny their very nature; if they weren’t fundamentally narcissistic children, they wouldn’t have pursued the profession of politics.
So GOP senators are in high dudgeon regarding Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s membership in something called the Belizean Grove, a group, society, or club of professionals that excludes men from its membership. We are supposed to somehow believe that the party of small government, conservative values, and individual freedom and responsibility is somehow appalled at the notion that citizens of this once great nation should have the freedom to join whatever types of clubs they want, even if those clubs define their exclusivity by the types of people to whom they deny membership.
One would have to be as disingenuous as the spinmeisters coaching these paragons of probity in the upper house to believe that these poltroons are offended at Ms. Sotomayor’s membership in an exclusive club. What is really going on is an infantile game of tit for tat: We’ll show those guardians of political correctness who effectively destroyed the old men’s clubs that once were a ubiquitous feature in our society, and to which many of us, and our Democratic colleagues, belonged. If we can’t have our men’s clubs any more, then, damn it, they can’t have women’s clubs.
To the extent that these GOPers believe anything, they probably agree with those of us who believe that, in a free society, people ought to be able to join any club they want, even if that club excludes women, men, whites, blacks, gays, straights, Muslims, Jews, Protestants, Catholics, or Irish. If these self-professed champions of limited government and quaint old traditions like freedom of association were to stand up and declare these beliefs, they would certainly win the admiration, and votes, of a sizable chunk of the populace and, even if they didn’t, they would enjoy the satisfaction that comes from standing on principle regardless of price. But to do so would require that these cowering weather vanes act like adults rather than narcissistic children, and to do so would deny their very nature; if they weren’t fundamentally narcissistic children, they wouldn’t have pursued the profession of politics.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
THAT’S NOT MY FAULT…THAT’S NOT MY FAULT…THAT’S NOT MY FAULT
6/16/09
This morning’s (i.e., Tuesday, 6/16/09’s) Wall Street Journal featured a compelling first page story of New Frontier Bank, a small to mid-sized ($2 billion in assets at its peak) community bank in Greeley, CO that was closed by the FDIC on 4/10/09, leaving many borrowers, and much of Greeley and the surrounding area, in the lurch. New Frontier’s story, if it is unique at all, is unique only in its starkness and the concentration of its effects. The failure of a community banks can, needless to say, be devastating for the geographic locale it serves.
There is some debate about whether New Frontier failed due to “faith in the community” or due to shoddy lending practices and risky funding practices. The statistics tend to indicate the latter. New Frontier routinely had a 95% to 105% loan to deposit ratio vs. a national average among FDIC insured institutions of 85%. 35% of New Frontier’s loan portfolio was delinquent at the end of this year’s first quarter, just before the FDIC seizure. The average for other Colorado state chartered banks is 4%. 70% of Greeley’s deposits were brokered deposits. It appears that while Larry Seastrom, New Frontier’s founder and CEO, may have had the heart of George Bailey, he had the banking skills of Uncle Billy, or maybe Ken Lewis.
The interesting segment of the article on New Frontier’s demise was not, however, the reasons for its demise but the reactions of one of its customers, Ms. Tina Gasner, an accountant who took out a $260,000 loan from New Frontier to start MeMe’s Brick Oven Pizza. The business is failing; 16 of its 26 employees have been laid off and Ms. Gasner is behind on the business and personal loans she took out from New Frontier. At last count, ten other banks have refused to refinance her loan.
So who does Ms. Gasner blame? The economy? No. Her skill as a business person? No. Local tastes? No. The quality of her product? No. She blames New Frontier Bank. As Ms. Gasner put it:
“I’m an accountant. I’m not stupid. But you’re in a place of trust when you approach a bank, when they’re saying ‘This is a good plan, you’ll make a profit.’ That’s why I went forward.”
Leave aside for a moment whether this was a good loan; it clearly wasn’t. Just note what Ms. Gasner is saying: She went forward with her plan because the bank said it was a good plan. Do you suppose she went to the bank and said “Hey, fellas, do you think this is a good plan? I was kind of wondering about that. If you think it’s a good plan and you’ll give me $260 grand, I’ll go ahead with it. But if you don’t think so, then I guess I’ll go back to my accounting job.” If that was her approach, we can come to three conclusions:
1. New Frontier was an even more slipshod bank than we thought; who makes loans to such an insouciant borrower?
2. No wonder Ms. Gasner can’t get her loans refinanced.
3. Ms. Gasner ought to appear in entrepreneurship classes (“Entrepreneurship classes”? Sounds like a contradiction in terms, but that is grist for another post.) as an example of the attitudes incompatible with small business ownership.
It is safe to assume, however, that Ms. Gasner, like most potential small business owners, went into the bank exuding optimism, telling her loan officer what a great idea MeMe’s was and that she surely deserved the loan for this surefire opportunity. If that was not her approach, and her fervent belief, she had no business being an entrepreneur. One wonders what her reaction would have been had she been refused the loan. Further, one of the faults she find with the bank was that it took as collateral equipment she was leasing. (New Frontier denies this.) One also wonders how strongly she objected to such haphazard, and probably illegal, lending practice when the bank was assembling the loan package.
To hear Ms. Gasner tell it now, she is arguing that it’s not her fault that her business failed; it was the fault of the bank that was stupid enough to lend her the money.
Just how unique do you think Ms. Gasner is?
This morning’s (i.e., Tuesday, 6/16/09’s) Wall Street Journal featured a compelling first page story of New Frontier Bank, a small to mid-sized ($2 billion in assets at its peak) community bank in Greeley, CO that was closed by the FDIC on 4/10/09, leaving many borrowers, and much of Greeley and the surrounding area, in the lurch. New Frontier’s story, if it is unique at all, is unique only in its starkness and the concentration of its effects. The failure of a community banks can, needless to say, be devastating for the geographic locale it serves.
There is some debate about whether New Frontier failed due to “faith in the community” or due to shoddy lending practices and risky funding practices. The statistics tend to indicate the latter. New Frontier routinely had a 95% to 105% loan to deposit ratio vs. a national average among FDIC insured institutions of 85%. 35% of New Frontier’s loan portfolio was delinquent at the end of this year’s first quarter, just before the FDIC seizure. The average for other Colorado state chartered banks is 4%. 70% of Greeley’s deposits were brokered deposits. It appears that while Larry Seastrom, New Frontier’s founder and CEO, may have had the heart of George Bailey, he had the banking skills of Uncle Billy, or maybe Ken Lewis.
The interesting segment of the article on New Frontier’s demise was not, however, the reasons for its demise but the reactions of one of its customers, Ms. Tina Gasner, an accountant who took out a $260,000 loan from New Frontier to start MeMe’s Brick Oven Pizza. The business is failing; 16 of its 26 employees have been laid off and Ms. Gasner is behind on the business and personal loans she took out from New Frontier. At last count, ten other banks have refused to refinance her loan.
So who does Ms. Gasner blame? The economy? No. Her skill as a business person? No. Local tastes? No. The quality of her product? No. She blames New Frontier Bank. As Ms. Gasner put it:
“I’m an accountant. I’m not stupid. But you’re in a place of trust when you approach a bank, when they’re saying ‘This is a good plan, you’ll make a profit.’ That’s why I went forward.”
Leave aside for a moment whether this was a good loan; it clearly wasn’t. Just note what Ms. Gasner is saying: She went forward with her plan because the bank said it was a good plan. Do you suppose she went to the bank and said “Hey, fellas, do you think this is a good plan? I was kind of wondering about that. If you think it’s a good plan and you’ll give me $260 grand, I’ll go ahead with it. But if you don’t think so, then I guess I’ll go back to my accounting job.” If that was her approach, we can come to three conclusions:
1. New Frontier was an even more slipshod bank than we thought; who makes loans to such an insouciant borrower?
2. No wonder Ms. Gasner can’t get her loans refinanced.
3. Ms. Gasner ought to appear in entrepreneurship classes (“Entrepreneurship classes”? Sounds like a contradiction in terms, but that is grist for another post.) as an example of the attitudes incompatible with small business ownership.
It is safe to assume, however, that Ms. Gasner, like most potential small business owners, went into the bank exuding optimism, telling her loan officer what a great idea MeMe’s was and that she surely deserved the loan for this surefire opportunity. If that was not her approach, and her fervent belief, she had no business being an entrepreneur. One wonders what her reaction would have been had she been refused the loan. Further, one of the faults she find with the bank was that it took as collateral equipment she was leasing. (New Frontier denies this.) One also wonders how strongly she objected to such haphazard, and probably illegal, lending practice when the bank was assembling the loan package.
To hear Ms. Gasner tell it now, she is arguing that it’s not her fault that her business failed; it was the fault of the bank that was stupid enough to lend her the money.
Just how unique do you think Ms. Gasner is?
THE ONLY KIND OF FREEDOM YOU’RE ENTITLED TO IS THE FREEDOM WE’LL LET YOU HAVE
6/16/09
In his “Capital Journal” piece in today’s (i.e., Tuesday, 6/16/09’s) Wall Street Journal, Gerald Seib argues that the Obama administration has “little choice” but to deal with Iran as if the current unrest in the wake of last weekend’s election will result in no fundamental change in modern Persia. One of the reasons he advances for this contention is that
“…it was less than a decade ago that many people thought they saw a similar start to an uprising against the clerical establishment led by young intellectuals…..early in the presidency of George W. Bush, top U.S. officials were intrigued by the possibility that some kind of regime change might unfold. It didn’t.”
True enough. But Mr. Seib conveniently leaves out perhaps the major reason why “some kind of a regime change” didn’t take place: Mr. Bush’s reckless and senseless invasion of Iraq, supported ceaselessly and breathlessly by Mr. Seib’s paper, gave the mullahs in Iran a rallying point, the common enemy every dictatorial regime needs in order to make its people forget the problems largely imposed on them by the regime and concentrate on the whipping boy that is just about to make things far worse if the people don’t rally behind their current tormentors.
Mr. Seib also is wrong in arguing that Mr. Obama has “little choice” in this manner. The President currently has plans to ramp up the war in Afghanistan, noble in its original purpose but so badly botched by the aforementioned Mr. Bush that the only logical course for the United States now is as rapid an exit as possible. If Mr. Obama continues on this course, which will result, if it has not already done so, in Afghanistan becoming “Obama’s War,” he will give the mullahs yet another rallying point for the Iranian population: The Great Satan has us surrounded and has shown no compunction about using military force to take whatever it wants. You’d better get support us or we’ll be next.
As hard as it is for the editorial page staff of the Wall Street Journal to understand this, the whole world does not see the United States as a benevolent force wishing to spread freedom, democracy, sweetness, and light to the world’s benighted masses, especially after the havoc we have wreaked on Iraq and Afghanistan.
In his “Capital Journal” piece in today’s (i.e., Tuesday, 6/16/09’s) Wall Street Journal, Gerald Seib argues that the Obama administration has “little choice” but to deal with Iran as if the current unrest in the wake of last weekend’s election will result in no fundamental change in modern Persia. One of the reasons he advances for this contention is that
“…it was less than a decade ago that many people thought they saw a similar start to an uprising against the clerical establishment led by young intellectuals…..early in the presidency of George W. Bush, top U.S. officials were intrigued by the possibility that some kind of regime change might unfold. It didn’t.”
True enough. But Mr. Seib conveniently leaves out perhaps the major reason why “some kind of a regime change” didn’t take place: Mr. Bush’s reckless and senseless invasion of Iraq, supported ceaselessly and breathlessly by Mr. Seib’s paper, gave the mullahs in Iran a rallying point, the common enemy every dictatorial regime needs in order to make its people forget the problems largely imposed on them by the regime and concentrate on the whipping boy that is just about to make things far worse if the people don’t rally behind their current tormentors.
Mr. Seib also is wrong in arguing that Mr. Obama has “little choice” in this manner. The President currently has plans to ramp up the war in Afghanistan, noble in its original purpose but so badly botched by the aforementioned Mr. Bush that the only logical course for the United States now is as rapid an exit as possible. If Mr. Obama continues on this course, which will result, if it has not already done so, in Afghanistan becoming “Obama’s War,” he will give the mullahs yet another rallying point for the Iranian population: The Great Satan has us surrounded and has shown no compunction about using military force to take whatever it wants. You’d better get support us or we’ll be next.
As hard as it is for the editorial page staff of the Wall Street Journal to understand this, the whole world does not see the United States as a benevolent force wishing to spread freedom, democracy, sweetness, and light to the world’s benighted masses, especially after the havoc we have wreaked on Iraq and Afghanistan.
Friday, June 12, 2009
“WE DON’T WANT NOBODY NOBODY SENT”
6/12/09
The latest political scandal in the Second City involves Richard II’s nephew, Bob Vanecko, the oldest of the grandchildren of Richard I. It seems that several years ago Mr. Vanecko entered into a real estate investment partnership with mayoral pal, and former Obama boss, Allison Davis. This partnership, DV Urban Realty, has been entrusted with the investment of $68mm of assets from various city pension funds with hedge fund type pricing; i.e., a management fee north of 100 basis points and a share of the profits, presumably 20% or thereabouts. Further, the city has leased a large piece of industrial property owned by DV at rents that seem suspiciously high. Despite that apparent sweetheart deal, DV has, overall, lost a pile of spondulicks for the pensioners, but Vanecko and Davis are still entitled to the management fees, $2.7mm so far and $8mm over the life of the eight year deal. It’s hard to fault DV for losing money in this real estate market, but, obviously, it is not DV’s investment performance that has the feds barking at its door. A few days ago, Mr. Vanecko severed his relationship with DV in the wake of federal scrutiny of the pension contracts.
The presumption by many seems to be that Mayor Daley somehow directed the pension board members to allocate some of the funds’ assets to DV. The Mayor vigorously denies any involvement with DV’s getting the pension business and has further stated that, as far back as 2007, he advised his nephew to end “the business relationship (It’s not clear whether he meant the relationship with DV and Davis or the business DV was doing with the city pension funds.) immediately” because, as Daley said, “Perception is everything.” Vanecko ignored his advice, according to the Mayor.
Given the way power is concentrated and wielded in Chicago, it is by no means outlandish to presume that the Mayor exercised some influence to direct city money to his nephew and his longtime friend. However, I don’t think that’s a correct presumption for several reasons.
First, if the Mayor wanted his nephew to get city business, he wouldn’t have to make phone calls or call people into his inner sanctum on the Fifth Floor of City Hall. Everyone on those pension boards had to know that Vanecko was the Mayor’s nephew and, given the way things have worked in this city since at least the time of Big Bill Thompson (1919-1923 and 1927-1931), and probably longer, that knowledge influenced the board members’ decision making process. You can almost see and hear the perhaps sub rosa discussions: “Hey, this kid’s the Mayor’s nephew, ya know, and we all know Allison, don’t we?” Wink, wink. All of a sudden, young Mr. Vanecko is the Warren Buffet of Chicago real estate.
Second, the Mayor is, contrary to the assumption of many of his critics, no fool, and with all the federal heat surrounding local government around here, it would be the height of idiocy for the Mayor to be directly interfering in the direction of city business, at least city business of this magnitude. The Mayor simply wouldn’t expose himself to federal scrutiny for the sake of anyone, even a member of the tight Daley clan, especially when he wouldn’t have to do so in order for the deliberations of the pension boards to have a favorable outcome for Messrs. Vanecko and Davis.
But what if one believes the Mayor’s story that he didn’t want the pension business to go to his nephew, if only for appearance’s sake? Wouldn’t he want to make these wishes clear to the pension boards? One has to ask why the Mayor would subject himself to federal scrutiny to make sure his nephew DIDN’T get the business if he wouldn’t take that risk to insure that he DID get the business. That is, if Vanecko, and Davis’s, getting the business would impart the appearance of possibly felonious finagling, why actually engage in the feared finagling in order to avoid the appearance of such finagling?
This whole thing doesn’t smell very good, and may not turn out so well for Mr. Vanecko and possibly for Mr. Davis, but one has to doubt that the Mayor is so obtuse as to have this somehow reach him.
The latest political scandal in the Second City involves Richard II’s nephew, Bob Vanecko, the oldest of the grandchildren of Richard I. It seems that several years ago Mr. Vanecko entered into a real estate investment partnership with mayoral pal, and former Obama boss, Allison Davis. This partnership, DV Urban Realty, has been entrusted with the investment of $68mm of assets from various city pension funds with hedge fund type pricing; i.e., a management fee north of 100 basis points and a share of the profits, presumably 20% or thereabouts. Further, the city has leased a large piece of industrial property owned by DV at rents that seem suspiciously high. Despite that apparent sweetheart deal, DV has, overall, lost a pile of spondulicks for the pensioners, but Vanecko and Davis are still entitled to the management fees, $2.7mm so far and $8mm over the life of the eight year deal. It’s hard to fault DV for losing money in this real estate market, but, obviously, it is not DV’s investment performance that has the feds barking at its door. A few days ago, Mr. Vanecko severed his relationship with DV in the wake of federal scrutiny of the pension contracts.
The presumption by many seems to be that Mayor Daley somehow directed the pension board members to allocate some of the funds’ assets to DV. The Mayor vigorously denies any involvement with DV’s getting the pension business and has further stated that, as far back as 2007, he advised his nephew to end “the business relationship (It’s not clear whether he meant the relationship with DV and Davis or the business DV was doing with the city pension funds.) immediately” because, as Daley said, “Perception is everything.” Vanecko ignored his advice, according to the Mayor.
Given the way power is concentrated and wielded in Chicago, it is by no means outlandish to presume that the Mayor exercised some influence to direct city money to his nephew and his longtime friend. However, I don’t think that’s a correct presumption for several reasons.
First, if the Mayor wanted his nephew to get city business, he wouldn’t have to make phone calls or call people into his inner sanctum on the Fifth Floor of City Hall. Everyone on those pension boards had to know that Vanecko was the Mayor’s nephew and, given the way things have worked in this city since at least the time of Big Bill Thompson (1919-1923 and 1927-1931), and probably longer, that knowledge influenced the board members’ decision making process. You can almost see and hear the perhaps sub rosa discussions: “Hey, this kid’s the Mayor’s nephew, ya know, and we all know Allison, don’t we?” Wink, wink. All of a sudden, young Mr. Vanecko is the Warren Buffet of Chicago real estate.
Second, the Mayor is, contrary to the assumption of many of his critics, no fool, and with all the federal heat surrounding local government around here, it would be the height of idiocy for the Mayor to be directly interfering in the direction of city business, at least city business of this magnitude. The Mayor simply wouldn’t expose himself to federal scrutiny for the sake of anyone, even a member of the tight Daley clan, especially when he wouldn’t have to do so in order for the deliberations of the pension boards to have a favorable outcome for Messrs. Vanecko and Davis.
But what if one believes the Mayor’s story that he didn’t want the pension business to go to his nephew, if only for appearance’s sake? Wouldn’t he want to make these wishes clear to the pension boards? One has to ask why the Mayor would subject himself to federal scrutiny to make sure his nephew DIDN’T get the business if he wouldn’t take that risk to insure that he DID get the business. That is, if Vanecko, and Davis’s, getting the business would impart the appearance of possibly felonious finagling, why actually engage in the feared finagling in order to avoid the appearance of such finagling?
This whole thing doesn’t smell very good, and may not turn out so well for Mr. Vanecko and possibly for Mr. Davis, but one has to doubt that the Mayor is so obtuse as to have this somehow reach him.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
“WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO SUCH A LOWLY STATE?”
6/10/09
This morning’s Chicago Sun-Times reports that Laura Mueller-Soppart, a 2009 graduate of Walter Payton College Prep, one of our fair city’s finest magnet high schools, will forgo attending her “dream school,” Georgetown University, for financial reasons. While Georgetown turned out to be quite miserly in its offer of financial assistance, Boston’s Northeastern University offered Ms. Mueller-Soppart a “nearly full ride,” according to the paper. While she decries the whole situation as “so incredibly unfair,” she will, quite wisely, attend Northeastern. As one who has always been interested in the murky process of college admissions (See my 6/8/09 post “WE ARE LOYAL TO YOU, ILLINOIS…”), and who is growing especially interested as my children approach college, the story of Ms. Mueller-Soppart immediately attracted my attention.
Just how unfair is it to have to accept a “nearly full ride” to one of the premier universities in a town characterized by its fulsome assortment of outstanding institutions of higher learning? At least she didn’t have to bear the ignominy that so many of her classmates will have to endure: attending a (horrors!) state university. If a full ride to a place like Northeastern is unfair, I, and most of my readers, can only ask the Almighty visit such unfairness upon my offspring. But to the extent that one can argue that such a cruel fate is indeed unfair, Ms. Mueller-Soppart has learned a valuable lesson: Life is often unfair and we just have to adapt.
More important, though, one is heartened by the good sense that Ms. Mueller-Soppart has displayed. Unlike most kids her age, and, indeed, most latter day Americans, she did not, figuratively or literally, roll on the floor, kick and scream, stamp her feet and then go off and blow the $200,000 on her first choice because it was “so worth it.” It is encouraging to learn that there are at least some young people, or even some people, capable of making rational decisions. Given Ms. Mueller-Soppart apparently strong academic background and abundant good sense, she will do well at Northeastern and emerge delighted with her social/academic/extracurricular experience there, like most people who had to “settle” for their second or third choices of matriculation venues. She will also emerge, as she so astutely discerned when she asked herself
“Do I go $200,000 in the hole because so many told me Georgetown was indispensable, or do I take the full ride?”
either entirely or nearly debt free. And, given the wonderful experience she will undoubtedly have at Northeastern, she will also learn that very few things in life, including Georgetown (or Harvard, Yale, or any of the other U of Is of the east) are indispensable.
But all the news is not good news for Ms. Mueller-Soppart. One of the reasons that Georgetown was so attractive to her was that it would, according to the Sun-Times, “put her at the center of the political universe.” Apparently, then, one of her aspirations is a big policy-making job in government. Unfortunately, few people with the manifest common sense and solid judgment of young Laura Mueller-Soppart have much of a future in the upper echelons of government; she would be horribly out of place on that island of ingénues. Thus, she may have to seek honest, and potentially far more lucrative, employment in the private sector, perhaps even in the real world of entrepreneurial endeavors. She shouldn’t fear, however; she will, in all likelihood, end up delighted with that similarly cruel fate.
This morning’s Chicago Sun-Times reports that Laura Mueller-Soppart, a 2009 graduate of Walter Payton College Prep, one of our fair city’s finest magnet high schools, will forgo attending her “dream school,” Georgetown University, for financial reasons. While Georgetown turned out to be quite miserly in its offer of financial assistance, Boston’s Northeastern University offered Ms. Mueller-Soppart a “nearly full ride,” according to the paper. While she decries the whole situation as “so incredibly unfair,” she will, quite wisely, attend Northeastern. As one who has always been interested in the murky process of college admissions (See my 6/8/09 post “WE ARE LOYAL TO YOU, ILLINOIS…”), and who is growing especially interested as my children approach college, the story of Ms. Mueller-Soppart immediately attracted my attention.
Just how unfair is it to have to accept a “nearly full ride” to one of the premier universities in a town characterized by its fulsome assortment of outstanding institutions of higher learning? At least she didn’t have to bear the ignominy that so many of her classmates will have to endure: attending a (horrors!) state university. If a full ride to a place like Northeastern is unfair, I, and most of my readers, can only ask the Almighty visit such unfairness upon my offspring. But to the extent that one can argue that such a cruel fate is indeed unfair, Ms. Mueller-Soppart has learned a valuable lesson: Life is often unfair and we just have to adapt.
More important, though, one is heartened by the good sense that Ms. Mueller-Soppart has displayed. Unlike most kids her age, and, indeed, most latter day Americans, she did not, figuratively or literally, roll on the floor, kick and scream, stamp her feet and then go off and blow the $200,000 on her first choice because it was “so worth it.” It is encouraging to learn that there are at least some young people, or even some people, capable of making rational decisions. Given Ms. Mueller-Soppart apparently strong academic background and abundant good sense, she will do well at Northeastern and emerge delighted with her social/academic/extracurricular experience there, like most people who had to “settle” for their second or third choices of matriculation venues. She will also emerge, as she so astutely discerned when she asked herself
“Do I go $200,000 in the hole because so many told me Georgetown was indispensable, or do I take the full ride?”
either entirely or nearly debt free. And, given the wonderful experience she will undoubtedly have at Northeastern, she will also learn that very few things in life, including Georgetown (or Harvard, Yale, or any of the other U of Is of the east) are indispensable.
But all the news is not good news for Ms. Mueller-Soppart. One of the reasons that Georgetown was so attractive to her was that it would, according to the Sun-Times, “put her at the center of the political universe.” Apparently, then, one of her aspirations is a big policy-making job in government. Unfortunately, few people with the manifest common sense and solid judgment of young Laura Mueller-Soppart have much of a future in the upper echelons of government; she would be horribly out of place on that island of ingénues. Thus, she may have to seek honest, and potentially far more lucrative, employment in the private sector, perhaps even in the real world of entrepreneurial endeavors. She shouldn’t fear, however; she will, in all likelihood, end up delighted with that similarly cruel fate.
Monday, June 8, 2009
“TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WELL…”
6/8/09
Over the weekend, my 16 year old daughter and 10 year old son were watching a rerun of “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Outta’ Hear” on MTV. Yes, apparently Americans don’t get enough cotton candy (arsenic, really) for the mind on the networks on prime time; they feel compelled to continue the copious doses of mental anesthesia during their weekend afternoons. (How much time do people have on their hands, anyway?) And, yes, my kids shouldn’t be watching such headrot, but why make it the forbidden fruit? They’re bright enough to pick this stuff out for the intellectual intestinal detritus that it is.
After watching an episode of this drivel, apparently an episode rerun from very recently, my son told me:
“Daddy, these celebs are idiots. One asked the governor’s wife why her husband was going to jail. Everyone knows that, Daddy.”
Two thoughts and one emotion (PRIDE!!!) welled up as soon as those words left my son’s lips. First, this kid is a real chip off the old block with amazing powers of discernment; what a kid! Second, this was a time to relate a profound lesson to my son, to wit:
“Mark, now you’ve learned that celebrities are not celebrities because they are smart. They are celebrities because other people are stupid.”
At the expense of breaking my arm patting myself on the back, I thought that lesson I imparted to my young son was profound enough to post on the Insightful Pontificator. You might want to share it with your offspring.
Over the weekend, my 16 year old daughter and 10 year old son were watching a rerun of “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Outta’ Hear” on MTV. Yes, apparently Americans don’t get enough cotton candy (arsenic, really) for the mind on the networks on prime time; they feel compelled to continue the copious doses of mental anesthesia during their weekend afternoons. (How much time do people have on their hands, anyway?) And, yes, my kids shouldn’t be watching such headrot, but why make it the forbidden fruit? They’re bright enough to pick this stuff out for the intellectual intestinal detritus that it is.
After watching an episode of this drivel, apparently an episode rerun from very recently, my son told me:
“Daddy, these celebs are idiots. One asked the governor’s wife why her husband was going to jail. Everyone knows that, Daddy.”
Two thoughts and one emotion (PRIDE!!!) welled up as soon as those words left my son’s lips. First, this kid is a real chip off the old block with amazing powers of discernment; what a kid! Second, this was a time to relate a profound lesson to my son, to wit:
“Mark, now you’ve learned that celebrities are not celebrities because they are smart. They are celebrities because other people are stupid.”
At the expense of breaking my arm patting myself on the back, I thought that lesson I imparted to my young son was profound enough to post on the Insightful Pontificator. You might want to share it with your offspring.
ROGER ON THAT MISSION TO SATURN
6/8/09
According to the German Economy Ministry, venerable German carmaker and soon to be ex-GM division Opel will not enter the U.S. market after being taken over by Canadian parts (very broadly construed) maker Magna. I say “Not so fast.”
Now that Roger Penske, uber-entrepreneur of the type who made this country great, has taken over Saturn, the entire game has changed for overseas car makers wishing to enter the U.S. market. According to the terms of the purchase of Saturn by Penske Auto Group (“PAG”), Penske will take over the Saturn name, dealerships, and parts distribution operations but will take over no manufacturing operations. GM will supply Saturn with cars for the next two years, but then Saturn will become a distribution arm for other manufacturers, clearly primarily, if not exclusively, foreign automakers who want to enter the U.S. market. Reportedly, Mr. Penske has either entered into or soon will enter into an agreement with Renault with the aim of distributing cars made by Samsung, a Korean manufacturer that Renault controls, by Renault, and possibly by Nissan. No reports indicate that the Renault/Saturn deal is an exclusive one, and one doubts that the astute Mr. Penske would risk putting all his chips on one number, especially so questionable a number, at least for the U.S., as Renault. He will be looking for other products to distribute. While various Chinese manufacturers (There are scores of them.) are the most talked about candidates, Opel is the most logical. The very good Saturn Aura already rides on the same platform as Opel mid-sized sedans (along with the Saab 9-3, the Pontiac G-6, and the Chevy Malibu) and the admittedly so-so Saturn Astra is merely a rebadged, and not even renamed, Opel Astra. In fact, not that long ago, GM execs, including Bob Lutz, were considering making Saturn little more than a distribution arm for slightly tweaked Opel products so that Saturn, still looking for a mission after twenty years in business, could become GM’s latest “import fighter.” The compromise finally reached resulted in the Saturn of today, a confused agglomeration of rebadged GM domestic vehicles and rebadged Opels. The “import fighter” mission was doomed from the start, as my readers were apprised when that mission was first proposed, by the lack of manual transmissions in all but two Saturn products, and then only in a few variations thereon. How does one fight “imports” when one lacks one of the most salient features of the “imports” one is trying to fight? Import fighter indeed. But that is another issue.
Despite confusion regarding what Saturn really is, no one can accuse it of not being a valuable franchise because of the goodwill it has developed among its retail customers. Saturn dealers actually treat people like human beings, unlike an increasing number of car dealers who treat their customers as gormless marks ready for plucking. (I should relate the story of the dealer that my brother and I visited a few weeks ago. Our salesman, who had difficulty both recalling the names of his products and forming an English word, let alone an English sentence (and not because he was from Poland, Mexico, or Pakistan; he simply never seemed to have learned his native language), told us that the federal government would write us a “simulus” check for $6,000 if we bought one of his (Korean and Japanese manufactured) cars that night. But that whole story, and there is plenty more to it, will perhaps become grist for another post. For now, the Quinn Brothers can only conclude that they must look quite stupid.) While this may, in many cases, be a safe assumption, common courtesy and business sense dictates verification before one assumes one’s customer is an idiot. At any rate, Saturn has a stellar reputation for customer service and a very loyal band of customers.
With Penske in charge of Saturn, the game of selling cars in the United States has changed. In the past, entering this market required building an expensive and hard to dismantle distribution network, developing a reputation, etc. Most foreign manufacturers decided it wasn’t worth the effort, especially considering the cut-throat nature of the U.S. market and the meddlesome tendencies of the U.S. government. Now, a manufacturer who might want to break into this market with only one or two products, perhaps even with limited potential volume, has access to a distribution channel that has already done the heavy lifting and to the knowledge of one of this country’s great car guys and businessmen. There will be the hurdle of being able to produce something Roger Penske will sell, and, given his reputation and strong desire to maintain it, this hurdle may be insurmountable for many manufacturers, but certainly not for all of them. There is plenty of great product overseas that could sell, albeit perhaps in limited volume, here. Some might even be brought over here, mirabile dictu, with the transmissions the Almighty intended for them; we can only hope! The Saturn network could make such products profitable here.
With Roger Penske in charge of Saturn, lots of overseas manufacturers, including Opel, have to be reassessing their absence from the U.S. market, even if they deny such aspirations for public consumption. This could make the car business interesting despite the anticipated strident efforts of the U.S. government to make car manufacturing and marketing about as much fun as providing, say, electric power.
According to the German Economy Ministry, venerable German carmaker and soon to be ex-GM division Opel will not enter the U.S. market after being taken over by Canadian parts (very broadly construed) maker Magna. I say “Not so fast.”
Now that Roger Penske, uber-entrepreneur of the type who made this country great, has taken over Saturn, the entire game has changed for overseas car makers wishing to enter the U.S. market. According to the terms of the purchase of Saturn by Penske Auto Group (“PAG”), Penske will take over the Saturn name, dealerships, and parts distribution operations but will take over no manufacturing operations. GM will supply Saturn with cars for the next two years, but then Saturn will become a distribution arm for other manufacturers, clearly primarily, if not exclusively, foreign automakers who want to enter the U.S. market. Reportedly, Mr. Penske has either entered into or soon will enter into an agreement with Renault with the aim of distributing cars made by Samsung, a Korean manufacturer that Renault controls, by Renault, and possibly by Nissan. No reports indicate that the Renault/Saturn deal is an exclusive one, and one doubts that the astute Mr. Penske would risk putting all his chips on one number, especially so questionable a number, at least for the U.S., as Renault. He will be looking for other products to distribute. While various Chinese manufacturers (There are scores of them.) are the most talked about candidates, Opel is the most logical. The very good Saturn Aura already rides on the same platform as Opel mid-sized sedans (along with the Saab 9-3, the Pontiac G-6, and the Chevy Malibu) and the admittedly so-so Saturn Astra is merely a rebadged, and not even renamed, Opel Astra. In fact, not that long ago, GM execs, including Bob Lutz, were considering making Saturn little more than a distribution arm for slightly tweaked Opel products so that Saturn, still looking for a mission after twenty years in business, could become GM’s latest “import fighter.” The compromise finally reached resulted in the Saturn of today, a confused agglomeration of rebadged GM domestic vehicles and rebadged Opels. The “import fighter” mission was doomed from the start, as my readers were apprised when that mission was first proposed, by the lack of manual transmissions in all but two Saturn products, and then only in a few variations thereon. How does one fight “imports” when one lacks one of the most salient features of the “imports” one is trying to fight? Import fighter indeed. But that is another issue.
Despite confusion regarding what Saturn really is, no one can accuse it of not being a valuable franchise because of the goodwill it has developed among its retail customers. Saturn dealers actually treat people like human beings, unlike an increasing number of car dealers who treat their customers as gormless marks ready for plucking. (I should relate the story of the dealer that my brother and I visited a few weeks ago. Our salesman, who had difficulty both recalling the names of his products and forming an English word, let alone an English sentence (and not because he was from Poland, Mexico, or Pakistan; he simply never seemed to have learned his native language), told us that the federal government would write us a “simulus” check for $6,000 if we bought one of his (Korean and Japanese manufactured) cars that night. But that whole story, and there is plenty more to it, will perhaps become grist for another post. For now, the Quinn Brothers can only conclude that they must look quite stupid.) While this may, in many cases, be a safe assumption, common courtesy and business sense dictates verification before one assumes one’s customer is an idiot. At any rate, Saturn has a stellar reputation for customer service and a very loyal band of customers.
With Penske in charge of Saturn, the game of selling cars in the United States has changed. In the past, entering this market required building an expensive and hard to dismantle distribution network, developing a reputation, etc. Most foreign manufacturers decided it wasn’t worth the effort, especially considering the cut-throat nature of the U.S. market and the meddlesome tendencies of the U.S. government. Now, a manufacturer who might want to break into this market with only one or two products, perhaps even with limited potential volume, has access to a distribution channel that has already done the heavy lifting and to the knowledge of one of this country’s great car guys and businessmen. There will be the hurdle of being able to produce something Roger Penske will sell, and, given his reputation and strong desire to maintain it, this hurdle may be insurmountable for many manufacturers, but certainly not for all of them. There is plenty of great product overseas that could sell, albeit perhaps in limited volume, here. Some might even be brought over here, mirabile dictu, with the transmissions the Almighty intended for them; we can only hope! The Saturn network could make such products profitable here.
With Roger Penske in charge of Saturn, lots of overseas manufacturers, including Opel, have to be reassessing their absence from the U.S. market, even if they deny such aspirations for public consumption. This could make the car business interesting despite the anticipated strident efforts of the U.S. government to make car manufacturing and marketing about as much fun as providing, say, electric power.
“WE ARE LOYAL TO YOU, ILLINOIS…”
6/9/09
State Representative Mike Boland, a Democrat from East Moline, IL, has asked Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan to hold legislative hearings on the “clout list” scandal at the University of Illinois, the system in which candidates for admission to my alma mater gained favorable treatment through (surprise!) political connections. In Illinois?! I’m shocked…shocked! Mr. Boland has also demanded that U of I President B. Joseph White and trustees who meddled in the admission process resign. The bloviating Mr. Boland says of Dr. White and the assorted trustees:
“They were trusted to protect our university. In my eyes, they failed in that regard and they should resign.”
Mr. Boland, by jumping on his soapbox in this case, joins a long list of blowhards who jump on any issue to get their names in the paper, get the attention of an apathetic electorate, and thus perhaps improve their chances of reelection by a an electorate that more and more comes to resemble Sponge Bob’s pal Patrick when it enters the voting booth, to wit “Hey, I know this guy’s name; I think I’ll vote for him.” Mr. Boland addresses none of the problems afflicting the U of I, which is at least as much my university as it is his; I don’t know if Mr. Boland is an alumnus and, even if he is, I’d be willing to compare the size of the checks I personally write to the U of I Foundation to those he personally writes, i.e., from his own account, not from public funds. Note that he calls for the resignation of none of the state legislators and other public servants who pushed “their” candidates for admission. Mr. Boland says these legislators must answer to the voters in the next election and thus will presumably have to answer for their actions that way. Thus, he bravely assumes that the highly informed and intensely interested electorate will take enough time away from “Three Men and a Boy,” “Marooned” (or whatever the latest idiotic cotton candy for the mind TV shows top the current popularity charts), and other such compelling prime time endeavors to pick up a newspaper and will endure the backbreaking mental task of remembering this scandal when legislative elections roll around in 2010. How will our brave legislators be able to face such demanding taskmasters?
Maybe the trustees should resign. I don’t know much about this particular crop of notables, but, traditionally, the post of U of I trustee is akin to the post of Professional Wrestling Commissioner of the State of Illinois (a post a friend of my dad actually held in the 1960s): a reward for loyally performing the function of political toady for many years or for a contribution strategically made, demanding little and conferring much in the way of prestige, perks, and incidental emoluments. A less circumspect observer than the Insightful Pontificator would refer to most such trustees, at least historically, as political hacks. They probably felt that bowing to pressure from the people who rewarded them their sinecures was part of their job description, or at least the price of keeping their posts. However, they should have known better, and probably should be forced to resign in order to be replaced by other hangers-on and wannabes with similar motivations and goals. This will, of course, accomplish much.
But should President White resign for bowing to pressure, if indeed he did, from people who control his ever tightening budget and are incessantly, but especially at budget time, making demands to “do me this favor”? Yes, he should have said “No!”, but this is Illinois and President White has responsibility for maintaining the academic reputation of one of the finest universities in the world on what is rapidly becoming a shoestring. To ask President White to resign as a result of the “clout list” scandal, while effectively exonerating the politicians who are constantly trying to muscle him, is a classic case of (and do I hate to use these words!) blaming the victim. (Paying Ron Zook a million a year, though…now that’s another matter.) But perhaps the worst, and most hypocritical, aspect of Mr. Boland’s plan, however, is that, if Speaker Madigan abets Mr. Boland’s grandstanding and holds the hearings Mr. Boland is demanding, those who were doing the muscling will be sitting in judgment of those whom they muscled. Only in Illinois…and maybe North Korea.
State Representative Mike Boland, a Democrat from East Moline, IL, has asked Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan to hold legislative hearings on the “clout list” scandal at the University of Illinois, the system in which candidates for admission to my alma mater gained favorable treatment through (surprise!) political connections. In Illinois?! I’m shocked…shocked! Mr. Boland has also demanded that U of I President B. Joseph White and trustees who meddled in the admission process resign. The bloviating Mr. Boland says of Dr. White and the assorted trustees:
“They were trusted to protect our university. In my eyes, they failed in that regard and they should resign.”
Mr. Boland, by jumping on his soapbox in this case, joins a long list of blowhards who jump on any issue to get their names in the paper, get the attention of an apathetic electorate, and thus perhaps improve their chances of reelection by a an electorate that more and more comes to resemble Sponge Bob’s pal Patrick when it enters the voting booth, to wit “Hey, I know this guy’s name; I think I’ll vote for him.” Mr. Boland addresses none of the problems afflicting the U of I, which is at least as much my university as it is his; I don’t know if Mr. Boland is an alumnus and, even if he is, I’d be willing to compare the size of the checks I personally write to the U of I Foundation to those he personally writes, i.e., from his own account, not from public funds. Note that he calls for the resignation of none of the state legislators and other public servants who pushed “their” candidates for admission. Mr. Boland says these legislators must answer to the voters in the next election and thus will presumably have to answer for their actions that way. Thus, he bravely assumes that the highly informed and intensely interested electorate will take enough time away from “Three Men and a Boy,” “Marooned” (or whatever the latest idiotic cotton candy for the mind TV shows top the current popularity charts), and other such compelling prime time endeavors to pick up a newspaper and will endure the backbreaking mental task of remembering this scandal when legislative elections roll around in 2010. How will our brave legislators be able to face such demanding taskmasters?
Maybe the trustees should resign. I don’t know much about this particular crop of notables, but, traditionally, the post of U of I trustee is akin to the post of Professional Wrestling Commissioner of the State of Illinois (a post a friend of my dad actually held in the 1960s): a reward for loyally performing the function of political toady for many years or for a contribution strategically made, demanding little and conferring much in the way of prestige, perks, and incidental emoluments. A less circumspect observer than the Insightful Pontificator would refer to most such trustees, at least historically, as political hacks. They probably felt that bowing to pressure from the people who rewarded them their sinecures was part of their job description, or at least the price of keeping their posts. However, they should have known better, and probably should be forced to resign in order to be replaced by other hangers-on and wannabes with similar motivations and goals. This will, of course, accomplish much.
But should President White resign for bowing to pressure, if indeed he did, from people who control his ever tightening budget and are incessantly, but especially at budget time, making demands to “do me this favor”? Yes, he should have said “No!”, but this is Illinois and President White has responsibility for maintaining the academic reputation of one of the finest universities in the world on what is rapidly becoming a shoestring. To ask President White to resign as a result of the “clout list” scandal, while effectively exonerating the politicians who are constantly trying to muscle him, is a classic case of (and do I hate to use these words!) blaming the victim. (Paying Ron Zook a million a year, though…now that’s another matter.) But perhaps the worst, and most hypocritical, aspect of Mr. Boland’s plan, however, is that, if Speaker Madigan abets Mr. Boland’s grandstanding and holds the hearings Mr. Boland is demanding, those who were doing the muscling will be sitting in judgment of those whom they muscled. Only in Illinois…and maybe North Korea.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
A TALE OF TWO MORE COUNTRIES
6/4/09
This morning’s Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Najib Abdul Razak, who is both prime minister and finance minister of Asian Tiger Malaysia, has been discussing with Chinese authorities the possibility of conducting trade between these two countries in the Chinese yuan and in the Malaysian ringgit rather than in the dollar, currently the currency in which Malaysian-Chinese, and most world, trade is transacted. These two Far Eastern economic giants are considering this titanic move because both Mr. Najib and his Chinese colleagues are concerned about the debasement of our currency that constitutes the Bush/Obama financial/dollar policy. As Mr. Najib put it:
“What worries us is that the (U.S. budget) deficit is being financed by printing more money. That is what is happening. The Treasury of the United States is printing more notes.”
Mr. Najib is either factually wrong in that last sentence or is very cleverly pointing out that he knows who is really in charge of monetary policy of the United States. I’m betting on the latter. (Perhaps Mr. Najib has been speaking with Angela Merkel; see yesterday’s post “A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES.”) But even if the former is true, the substance of his comment is absolutely correct: we are turbocharging our printing presses over here to the detriment of a lot of parties, perhaps especially to those long a lot of debt denominated in dollars, like the Malaysians and the Chinese.
American “experts” (Presumably, we are talking about experts in monetary and currency policy, not experts in the latest lurid, or just outright inane, exploits of the stars of, say, “Sex in the City,” “Desperate Housewives,” or “American Idol,” generally the type of expertise normally associated with present day Americans.) dismiss the notion of a serious threat to the dollar’s position as the global benchmark for trade. These experts point out that, right now, it is difficult to trade yuan outside of China. This is true, but please note the words “right now,” especially the word “right.”
Three thoughts come to mind:
First, the attitude displayed by the aforementioned American “experts” reminds me of a story my neighbor recently told me. This story is sufficiently long lived and popular that most of you have probably heard it in some form or another, especially if you have attended business school, or even taken a business class, in the last, oh, thirty years or so. It is sometimes dismissed as apocryphal, but it is not.
It seems that my neighbor’s dad was working at one of the Big 3 car companies back in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. At that time, visitors from Japan would occasionally visit automobile assembly and other manufacturing plants of the Big 3. These visitors would act like the stereotypical Japanese, taking endless pictures and asking many, and very good, questions. The guys working at the plants, both on the line and in the offices, were, out of earshot, dismissive, if not outright derisive, toward their visitors. They were Japanese, foreigners, after all. What did they know? They made junky cars and would never catch up to us in manufacturing capability. We all know the rest of the story, and the currency “experts” are taking the same attitude toward challenges to the dollar that those car guys of yore took toward challenges to our car industry.
Second, the U.S. Treasury and the Fed ought to thank the good Lord each night for the emergence of the euro. Given the post-war German attitude toward monetary policy, and the recent comments of Chancellor Angela Merkel and monetary authorities in Germany (Again, see yesterday’s post “A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES.”), the dollar might have a very serious challenger for international currency benchmark if the deutschemark were still alive today. (Yes, I know, I know; Germany is too small, it’s too socialistic, it’s too dependent on us for defense. The euro might “some day” be a serious competitor, but the deutschemark never stood a chance…just like that goofy sounding company, what’s its name? TYE OH DUH, or something strange like that.) However, this competitor’s having left the building does not mean a new, potentially stronger, challenger will not arise, and do so very soon.
Third, while the Pontificator was not designed, and was never intended, to make specific investment recommendations, I have liked gold for a while now, as I have liked oil. (See my 6/3/09 post, “…UP FROM THE GROUND COME A BUBBLIN’ CRUDE…”, written when USO was at $27.96; USO is $37.69 as I write this.) I seem to like gold more every day, and especially on those days when Obsequious Ben Bernanke and/or Preppy Timmy Geithner opine on financial/monetary policy, and most especially when those “experts’” thoughts are easily contrasted with roughly contemporaneous ruminations from adults like Ms. Merkel or Mr. Najib. I have been manifesting this enthusiasm for gold by buying the ETF symbol GLD and relatively long (as late as January, 2010 and looking to go out longer) call options thereon. I manifest my continuing enthusiasm for oil by buying call options on the ETF symbol USO; buying USO itself results in having to delay filing one’s taxes, and potential tax complications, while one waits for a K-1 from USO, since USO is technically a limited partnership. No such problem exists for GLD.
Current prices:
GLD $96.10
USO $37.69
This morning’s Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Najib Abdul Razak, who is both prime minister and finance minister of Asian Tiger Malaysia, has been discussing with Chinese authorities the possibility of conducting trade between these two countries in the Chinese yuan and in the Malaysian ringgit rather than in the dollar, currently the currency in which Malaysian-Chinese, and most world, trade is transacted. These two Far Eastern economic giants are considering this titanic move because both Mr. Najib and his Chinese colleagues are concerned about the debasement of our currency that constitutes the Bush/Obama financial/dollar policy. As Mr. Najib put it:
“What worries us is that the (U.S. budget) deficit is being financed by printing more money. That is what is happening. The Treasury of the United States is printing more notes.”
Mr. Najib is either factually wrong in that last sentence or is very cleverly pointing out that he knows who is really in charge of monetary policy of the United States. I’m betting on the latter. (Perhaps Mr. Najib has been speaking with Angela Merkel; see yesterday’s post “A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES.”) But even if the former is true, the substance of his comment is absolutely correct: we are turbocharging our printing presses over here to the detriment of a lot of parties, perhaps especially to those long a lot of debt denominated in dollars, like the Malaysians and the Chinese.
American “experts” (Presumably, we are talking about experts in monetary and currency policy, not experts in the latest lurid, or just outright inane, exploits of the stars of, say, “Sex in the City,” “Desperate Housewives,” or “American Idol,” generally the type of expertise normally associated with present day Americans.) dismiss the notion of a serious threat to the dollar’s position as the global benchmark for trade. These experts point out that, right now, it is difficult to trade yuan outside of China. This is true, but please note the words “right now,” especially the word “right.”
Three thoughts come to mind:
First, the attitude displayed by the aforementioned American “experts” reminds me of a story my neighbor recently told me. This story is sufficiently long lived and popular that most of you have probably heard it in some form or another, especially if you have attended business school, or even taken a business class, in the last, oh, thirty years or so. It is sometimes dismissed as apocryphal, but it is not.
It seems that my neighbor’s dad was working at one of the Big 3 car companies back in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. At that time, visitors from Japan would occasionally visit automobile assembly and other manufacturing plants of the Big 3. These visitors would act like the stereotypical Japanese, taking endless pictures and asking many, and very good, questions. The guys working at the plants, both on the line and in the offices, were, out of earshot, dismissive, if not outright derisive, toward their visitors. They were Japanese, foreigners, after all. What did they know? They made junky cars and would never catch up to us in manufacturing capability. We all know the rest of the story, and the currency “experts” are taking the same attitude toward challenges to the dollar that those car guys of yore took toward challenges to our car industry.
Second, the U.S. Treasury and the Fed ought to thank the good Lord each night for the emergence of the euro. Given the post-war German attitude toward monetary policy, and the recent comments of Chancellor Angela Merkel and monetary authorities in Germany (Again, see yesterday’s post “A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES.”), the dollar might have a very serious challenger for international currency benchmark if the deutschemark were still alive today. (Yes, I know, I know; Germany is too small, it’s too socialistic, it’s too dependent on us for defense. The euro might “some day” be a serious competitor, but the deutschemark never stood a chance…just like that goofy sounding company, what’s its name? TYE OH DUH, or something strange like that.) However, this competitor’s having left the building does not mean a new, potentially stronger, challenger will not arise, and do so very soon.
Third, while the Pontificator was not designed, and was never intended, to make specific investment recommendations, I have liked gold for a while now, as I have liked oil. (See my 6/3/09 post, “…UP FROM THE GROUND COME A BUBBLIN’ CRUDE…”, written when USO was at $27.96; USO is $37.69 as I write this.) I seem to like gold more every day, and especially on those days when Obsequious Ben Bernanke and/or Preppy Timmy Geithner opine on financial/monetary policy, and most especially when those “experts’” thoughts are easily contrasted with roughly contemporaneous ruminations from adults like Ms. Merkel or Mr. Najib. I have been manifesting this enthusiasm for gold by buying the ETF symbol GLD and relatively long (as late as January, 2010 and looking to go out longer) call options thereon. I manifest my continuing enthusiasm for oil by buying call options on the ETF symbol USO; buying USO itself results in having to delay filing one’s taxes, and potential tax complications, while one waits for a K-1 from USO, since USO is technically a limited partnership. No such problem exists for GLD.
Current prices:
GLD $96.10
USO $37.69
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES
6/3/09
Obsequious Ben Bernanke, appearing today before the House Budget Committee, has let loose with two whoppers of brobdingnagian proportions. First, Mr. Bernanke stated that the Fed “will not monetize” the federal budget deficit. In what world can that can be a true statement? The Fed is buying government securities at a clip not seen in our country’s history. The Fed is buying long term treasuries, apparently in an attempt, so far utterly failing, to flatten the yield curve, for the first time in years and with a degree of enthusiasm that makes the woman on the Progessive.com insurance commercials look like the picture of insouciance. By very definition, the Fed is monetizing the deficit, and doing it to a heretofore unwitnessed degree.
Perhaps we can attribute even an iota of truth to Mr. Bernanke’s denial of monetizing the government’s debt by concentrating on tense, as in the Fed will not monetize the deficit, not that it has not monetized the deficit. For this attribution to be valid, however, one would have to conclude that Mr. Bernanke has been taking English lessons from Bill Clinton or is signaling a sudden policy change. The former is highly unlikely; Bernanke isn’t cool enough to hang out with Mr. Clinton, though one suspects he would like to be, hence forth the moniker I have attached to Obsequious Ben. The latter, while we can always hope, is even more unlikely.
The second of Mr. Bernanke’s failed sockdolagers is that the Fed was “involved very unwillingly” in the bailouts that have characterized the Bush/Obama administration’s approach to “capitalism” and “free markets.” Unwillingly? The Fed’s balance sheet has expanded by a factor of greater than three over the last year due to the too numerous to tally bailouts in which it has involved itself and the attendant and aforementioned monetizing of the deficit. “Unwillingly?” How does Mr. Bernanke behave when engaging in an activity willingly?
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, yesterday saw German Chancellor Angela Merkel engaging in a very unGermanic activity: criticizing central banks. In a speech in Berlin, Mrs. Merkel asserted:
“I view with great skepticism the powers of the Fed, for example, and also how, within Europe, the Bank of England has carved out its own small line. (As something of a wordsmith, I admire the subtle backhandedness of that dig at the BOE.--MQ) We must return together to an independent (Emphasis MQ’s) central bank policy and to a policy of reason, otherwise we will be in exactly the same situation in ten years’ time.”
Lest you think Ms. Merkel’s comments were merely an instance of Germany’s historic xenophobia once again rearing its head, she also said that the ECB “bowed somewhat to international pressure” when it decided to buy $85 billion in corporate bonds, a step even the Fed has yet to take if one narrowly construes the definition of “corporate bonds.”
On May 12, Jurgen Stark, a German citizen on the ECB council, started this round of Teutonic criticism of the current state of central banking, warning that loose monetary policy of the type we are now seeing has helped build asset bubbles in the past.
Two observations are merited. First, while it is surprising that it is the Germans who are criticizing the central banks, the direction, if you will, of their criticism is not at all surprising. The Germans have some, in the great tides of history, relatively recent experience with the type of monetary policy Ben Bernanke, with the full complicity and encouragement of the Bush/Obama administration, has been conducting in the United States. So while it is a surprise that Germans, and German politicians, are criticizing world central banks, it is not at all unexpected that they would be criticizing the banks for being so loose.
Second, while our Fed seems to be spending half its time figuring out ways to put a supercharger on the printing press and the other half kowtowing to the political demands of the laughingly financially and economically obtuse solons on the Hill and in the Bush/Obama administration, the German chancellor and monetary authorities are urging more restrained monetary growth and a return to central bank independence. We import a lot of labor in our once great nation; perhaps we ought to consider importing some leadership.
Obsequious Ben Bernanke, appearing today before the House Budget Committee, has let loose with two whoppers of brobdingnagian proportions. First, Mr. Bernanke stated that the Fed “will not monetize” the federal budget deficit. In what world can that can be a true statement? The Fed is buying government securities at a clip not seen in our country’s history. The Fed is buying long term treasuries, apparently in an attempt, so far utterly failing, to flatten the yield curve, for the first time in years and with a degree of enthusiasm that makes the woman on the Progessive.com insurance commercials look like the picture of insouciance. By very definition, the Fed is monetizing the deficit, and doing it to a heretofore unwitnessed degree.
Perhaps we can attribute even an iota of truth to Mr. Bernanke’s denial of monetizing the government’s debt by concentrating on tense, as in the Fed will not monetize the deficit, not that it has not monetized the deficit. For this attribution to be valid, however, one would have to conclude that Mr. Bernanke has been taking English lessons from Bill Clinton or is signaling a sudden policy change. The former is highly unlikely; Bernanke isn’t cool enough to hang out with Mr. Clinton, though one suspects he would like to be, hence forth the moniker I have attached to Obsequious Ben. The latter, while we can always hope, is even more unlikely.
The second of Mr. Bernanke’s failed sockdolagers is that the Fed was “involved very unwillingly” in the bailouts that have characterized the Bush/Obama administration’s approach to “capitalism” and “free markets.” Unwillingly? The Fed’s balance sheet has expanded by a factor of greater than three over the last year due to the too numerous to tally bailouts in which it has involved itself and the attendant and aforementioned monetizing of the deficit. “Unwillingly?” How does Mr. Bernanke behave when engaging in an activity willingly?
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, yesterday saw German Chancellor Angela Merkel engaging in a very unGermanic activity: criticizing central banks. In a speech in Berlin, Mrs. Merkel asserted:
“I view with great skepticism the powers of the Fed, for example, and also how, within Europe, the Bank of England has carved out its own small line. (As something of a wordsmith, I admire the subtle backhandedness of that dig at the BOE.--MQ) We must return together to an independent (Emphasis MQ’s) central bank policy and to a policy of reason, otherwise we will be in exactly the same situation in ten years’ time.”
Lest you think Ms. Merkel’s comments were merely an instance of Germany’s historic xenophobia once again rearing its head, she also said that the ECB “bowed somewhat to international pressure” when it decided to buy $85 billion in corporate bonds, a step even the Fed has yet to take if one narrowly construes the definition of “corporate bonds.”
On May 12, Jurgen Stark, a German citizen on the ECB council, started this round of Teutonic criticism of the current state of central banking, warning that loose monetary policy of the type we are now seeing has helped build asset bubbles in the past.
Two observations are merited. First, while it is surprising that it is the Germans who are criticizing the central banks, the direction, if you will, of their criticism is not at all surprising. The Germans have some, in the great tides of history, relatively recent experience with the type of monetary policy Ben Bernanke, with the full complicity and encouragement of the Bush/Obama administration, has been conducting in the United States. So while it is a surprise that Germans, and German politicians, are criticizing world central banks, it is not at all unexpected that they would be criticizing the banks for being so loose.
Second, while our Fed seems to be spending half its time figuring out ways to put a supercharger on the printing press and the other half kowtowing to the political demands of the laughingly financially and economically obtuse solons on the Hill and in the Bush/Obama administration, the German chancellor and monetary authorities are urging more restrained monetary growth and a return to central bank independence. We import a lot of labor in our once great nation; perhaps we ought to consider importing some leadership.
Monday, June 1, 2009
“I’M A LUMBERJACK AND I’M OKAY…”
6/1/09
Today’s Chicago Sun-Times reports that a Mr. Willie Whitaker of the 11200 block of Lothair Avenue in the beautiful (too weak a word, I know) Morgan Park neighborhood on the south side of Chicago has, in the Chicago vernacular, pulled a Mr. T. Mr. Whitaker has cut down 15 trees on his property. One was at least 175 years old, judging from the rings on the stumps. Many, if not most, were of similar vintage. Mr. Whitaker’s backyard, which slopes toward the legendary Longwood Drive, was a point of pride and admiration in the neighborhood long before Mr. Whitaker lived there, as at least one reader of the Insightful Pontificator, who grew up on Mr. Whitaker’s block, can especially attest.
As one neighbor pointed out, “It’s such a shocking thing. It took 100 years for some of these trees to grow, and now they’re gone in ten minutes.” When confronted by reporters, Mr. Whitaker said “They’re my trees. They didn’t pay for the trees. My trees are going to be cut.” This statement was made, one must point out, after the trees had been cut.
Most people would describe Mr. Whitaker’s actions as obnoxious, and I, having grown up about a mile, as the crow flies, from what another neighbor described as that small forest in Mr. Whitaker’s backyard, a forest rendered especially unusual by its being situated in the city of Chicago on private property, would agree. Some would describe Mr. Whitaker’s Paul Bunyan imitation as tragic, but that is probably too strong a word, given the many genuinely ghastly tragedies being perpetrated every day throughout our troubled world. And, after all, as Mr. Whitaker points out, those are his trees.
Hmm…
Undoubtedly I am taking liberties here because I know nothing about Mr. Whitaker’s finances. But what if those are Mr. Whitaker’s trees in name only, and/or won’t be his trees much longer? Isn’t it possible that, given the state of the economy and the rampant loose lending that has had its way with the real estate market over the last several years, Mr. Whitaker might end up owning that house only for a very short time, that the house may very well end up in the hands of his lender in relatively short order? While his cutting down his trees would be offensive enough, both to the neighbors and to the environment, wouldn’t that travesty be compounded if it turns out that they were Mr. Whitaker trees for only a figurative heartbeat?
Or…
Another possibility comes to mind. What if Mr. Whitaker conducted this hideous stunt because the property would no longer be his? When some people learn that their property is about to go through foreclosure, they trash the place by committing all manner of unseemly, even dyspeptic, damage to the property, some of which is not appropriate for a family blog. But most of those sophomoric, albeit costly, high jinks are short lived, of little long term consequence. But cutting down trees that were on the property long before the woodsman wannabe lived there and would have been there long after he was forgotten, thereby eliminating a key selling point of the property? That would really stick it in the lenders’ collective eyes, and would give the figurative finger to all those neighbors who could actually afford their homes and genuinely enjoy living in the neighborhood, at least partially because of their proximity to such a wonderful patch of forest.
Again, I am probably overstepping here; for all I know, Mr. Whitaker could be an eccentric billionaire who simply hates forests and prefers the stark beauty of a chewed up lawn littered with stumps to the lush greenery of small private forest and, as a hobby, buys up properties to further his vision of bucolic beauty. Or he could simply suffer from allergies, as Mr. T. claimed when he performed his eponymous, and similar, dastardly deed in Lake Forest. Perhaps Mr. Whitaker’s action was perfectly innocent and is no reflection on either Mr. Whitaker’s character, neighborliness, or financial situation. But this one hits close to home, which makes it easier to imagine some rather nefarious motivations.
Today’s Chicago Sun-Times reports that a Mr. Willie Whitaker of the 11200 block of Lothair Avenue in the beautiful (too weak a word, I know) Morgan Park neighborhood on the south side of Chicago has, in the Chicago vernacular, pulled a Mr. T. Mr. Whitaker has cut down 15 trees on his property. One was at least 175 years old, judging from the rings on the stumps. Many, if not most, were of similar vintage. Mr. Whitaker’s backyard, which slopes toward the legendary Longwood Drive, was a point of pride and admiration in the neighborhood long before Mr. Whitaker lived there, as at least one reader of the Insightful Pontificator, who grew up on Mr. Whitaker’s block, can especially attest.
As one neighbor pointed out, “It’s such a shocking thing. It took 100 years for some of these trees to grow, and now they’re gone in ten minutes.” When confronted by reporters, Mr. Whitaker said “They’re my trees. They didn’t pay for the trees. My trees are going to be cut.” This statement was made, one must point out, after the trees had been cut.
Most people would describe Mr. Whitaker’s actions as obnoxious, and I, having grown up about a mile, as the crow flies, from what another neighbor described as that small forest in Mr. Whitaker’s backyard, a forest rendered especially unusual by its being situated in the city of Chicago on private property, would agree. Some would describe Mr. Whitaker’s Paul Bunyan imitation as tragic, but that is probably too strong a word, given the many genuinely ghastly tragedies being perpetrated every day throughout our troubled world. And, after all, as Mr. Whitaker points out, those are his trees.
Hmm…
Undoubtedly I am taking liberties here because I know nothing about Mr. Whitaker’s finances. But what if those are Mr. Whitaker’s trees in name only, and/or won’t be his trees much longer? Isn’t it possible that, given the state of the economy and the rampant loose lending that has had its way with the real estate market over the last several years, Mr. Whitaker might end up owning that house only for a very short time, that the house may very well end up in the hands of his lender in relatively short order? While his cutting down his trees would be offensive enough, both to the neighbors and to the environment, wouldn’t that travesty be compounded if it turns out that they were Mr. Whitaker trees for only a figurative heartbeat?
Or…
Another possibility comes to mind. What if Mr. Whitaker conducted this hideous stunt because the property would no longer be his? When some people learn that their property is about to go through foreclosure, they trash the place by committing all manner of unseemly, even dyspeptic, damage to the property, some of which is not appropriate for a family blog. But most of those sophomoric, albeit costly, high jinks are short lived, of little long term consequence. But cutting down trees that were on the property long before the woodsman wannabe lived there and would have been there long after he was forgotten, thereby eliminating a key selling point of the property? That would really stick it in the lenders’ collective eyes, and would give the figurative finger to all those neighbors who could actually afford their homes and genuinely enjoy living in the neighborhood, at least partially because of their proximity to such a wonderful patch of forest.
Again, I am probably overstepping here; for all I know, Mr. Whitaker could be an eccentric billionaire who simply hates forests and prefers the stark beauty of a chewed up lawn littered with stumps to the lush greenery of small private forest and, as a hobby, buys up properties to further his vision of bucolic beauty. Or he could simply suffer from allergies, as Mr. T. claimed when he performed his eponymous, and similar, dastardly deed in Lake Forest. Perhaps Mr. Whitaker’s action was perfectly innocent and is no reflection on either Mr. Whitaker’s character, neighborliness, or financial situation. But this one hits close to home, which makes it easier to imagine some rather nefarious motivations.
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