Category: Uncategorized

Occupy Wall Street: Part Deux

I thought it was hilarious when Warren Buffett, the guy who can blow his nose with 100 dollar bills, supported Barack Obama’s Let’s Eat the Rich 2012 Pre election Campaign.  It was a ringing endorsement from somebody who doesn’t need to care how much the taxman wants.  After all, he’s got a room full of lawyers to make sure Barack’s IRS boys don’t get it.  But for pee-your-pants funny, nothing beats George Soros coming on as the Daddy Warbucks spokesperson of the Occupy Wall Street movement.  If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d be wondering if he didn’t want to tear the system down just so he can buy Manhattan cheap and turn it into a private estate.  It’s always stand-up comedy time when the uber-rich start telling us peons how the real world works.  Quite frankly, when your other seven cars are limos, there’s a reality gap between you and the general population.   George might be talkin’ sympathy and solidarity, but I don’t think he’s going to be slingin’ his Armanis in Zuccoti Park any time soon.   Hell, even Roseanne, Sarandon and their celebrity cohorts clear off before dark, and Sean Penn hasn’t even shown up yet.  Word is he’s still saving puppies in Egypt.

Personally, I’m always suspicious when rich people start talking about effecting positive change with no visible return on their investment.  They didn’t learn to be rich people at the Mother Teresa School of Business Ethics, so when I can’t see their profits, I keep my hand on my wallet, just in case.  Buffett, Soros and their ilk are intimately connected to Wall Street, so when they endorse a movement that’s committed to tearing it down, I get worried that they’ve got something up their sleeves that isn’t a Rolex.  But let’s put these characters on the back burner for a minute.  We’ve got to keep an eye on them but…  For all the other capitalism-sucks-and-I-hate-everything crowd, here’s how capitalism actually works to effect positive change – and all without a bunch of gullibles wasting their time in New York, tapping their laptops to the tune of “We Shall Overcome.”

Half a world away from the high media lights of Occupy Wall Street, the streets of Paris, France are undergoing a fundamental change.  The city is building an infrastructure to accommodate a fleet of pay-as-you-drive electric cars.  Called Autolib’ and based on Paris’ successful Velib’ bicycle sharing system, the project is a partnership between the French government and the Bollore Group.  You can read more about it here, but in essence, it works like any car cooperative.  You pick up a car at one of the stations, go about your business, and when you’re done, you return it to a station and walk away.  And if that isn’t sweet enough for you, the cars are 100% electric so you haven’t dirtied your hands with ethical or unethical oil and you haven’t contributed to the chokehold humans are putting on our urban environment.  Plus it’s cheap: individually, it’s a lot less expensive than buying, outfitting, insuring and feeding even the smartest Smartcar for a year.  It sounds like a wonderful idea, but let me set the record straight: it’s all a capitalist plot.

The Bollore Group is a family-owned multibillion Euro company that’s been around for just about two hundred years.  They obviously have some smart folks in their planning department because somebody looked around and said something like, “Hey!  The days of sucking oil and belching smoke are coming to an end.  We need to change our modus operandi and cash in on the future, n’est ce pas?”  So in the true spirit of capitalism, they’ve invested 100 million Euros in the Autolib’ adventure which is a good product that people will buy into – and oh yeah, it might just change the urban landscape forever — for the better — but that’s beside the point.   The reason they’ve put their money where their minds are is to make a profit, pure and simple.  And here’s the rhetorical question: what’s wrong with that?  Autolib’ cars are going to move people around Paris, cheaply, easily and greenly.  Will anybody be harmed if the Bollore Group makes a busload of Euros doing it?  I doubt it.

The bottom line is it’s worth it to me (and a lot of other people) to pay for a quick, occasional rent-a-car.  It’s a great little idea in so many ways I’m not seeing a downside.  My world is getting clean, reliable, personal, inexpensive transportation that puts a big dent in the fossil fuel empire we all live in.  I’m paying less for it than for dinner and dancing once a month — and it can work in every city in the world.  Somehow, I find it hard to get angry at the corporate person who put this thing together.  If he or she or their families live in abject opulence for the rest of all eternity, it’s no skin off my nose.

So here’s my question: who has done more, in the last few months, for the future wellbeing of this fragile rock in space I live on, Vincent Bollore and his group of rabid capitalists or the Occupy Wall Street professional malcontents?  Never mind; I already know the answer.  The real problem is the folks down at Liberty Park (or whatever they’re calling it this week) are not part of the solution.  And as the movement spreads, they’re going to be an even bigger part of the problem.  If even half of those people wake up tomorrow morning and commit that same energy to effectively changing the world instead of wandering around rebaking pies in the sky, we could fix some of these problems.  But it’s not sexy to toil away at little ideas when you’ve already decided to repaint the big picture.  As far as I’m concerned, as a wise man once said quite differently: “The fault is not in the banks but in ourselves.”

Friday: The True Nature of Capitalism

Optimists Like to Vote: Even in Saudi Arabia

One of the cool things about being an optimist is even dumb stuff looks good.  Events and ideas that you know aren’t worth much are still shiny bright when you see them through rose-coloured glasses.  I know full well, like every optimist, I have a disconnect between heart and head, but I can’t help it.  Sometimes, despite all the real-world evidence, I just sit back, give a bad impression of The Fonz and think, “Okay, we’re not doomed after all.”

Last weekend, amid the groaning pains of a childish world that refuses to have an adult conversation with itself, there was a minor event that made my cup runneth over like foam on a latte.  I know it’s all just frothing air, bubbling out of a glass of steam-shot milk, but it looks good to me, and I like it.

On Sunday, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia came tottering out (nobody even knows how old this guy is – 86? 87? 101?) and announced that women in the kingdom have been given the right to vote.  Whoa!  Cover me with mustard and call me a hotdog: I didn’t see this one coming!  But there’s more – and hold on to your keffiyehs, boys: not only can women vote but they can also stand as candidates in the municipal elections.  At this point, there was no stopping his Majesty, and he went on to say that women could now also be appointed to the Shura Council, that special group that advises the king.  Talk about rocking the Casbah!  However, before feminists all over North America grab their intellectual burkas and head for Riyadh a la Kate Millett in the Iranian Spring of ’79, the king had some unspoken caveats.

First of all, women will get to vote in the next election, not the one that’s coming up on Thursday.  Thursday’s affair is still stag.  This is possibly to insure that the ladies have time to acquaint themselves with the issues.  It should be noted that Saudi elections are not held as regularly as we’re used to.  This particular one was supposed to take place two years ago but didn’t – oh, well.  The one before that was in 2005, and the one before that was somewhere around 1962 (but nobody’s really sure because no records were kept.)  Either way, if the next election is held and if it’s on time, in 2015, Saudi women will get to vote … perhaps….

Unfortunately, in his statement, the king made no provision for the electorate actually getting to the ballot box, and unless it’s going to be an on-line e-vote, that could be a problem.  Odd as it might seem, Saudi women aren’t allowed out of the house.  To be fair, that’s not strictly true, but there are enough restrictions that if dad, spouse or even older brother doesn’t think it’s a good idea, the girls aren’t going anywhere.  The question is not can Saudi women vote as much as will Saudi women be allowed to vote.  The reality is, come Election Day, democracy is going to depend a lot more on whether Omar and Ahmed give their approval rather than any royal fiat.

This brings us to the other half of what King Abdullah didn’t say.  Saudi Arabia can have elections every Thursday from now until the oil runs out, but it’s not going to make all that much difference to the kingdom.   The operative word here is kingdom: Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy.  Voting there is kinda like emailing your congressman; it’s a wonderful idea, but it doesn’t actually do any good.  Power — absolute power — rests with King Abdullah and his family.  That’s how he could stroll over to the microphone yesterday and simply say: “Okay, ladies!  Get your bums to the polls.”  Again, to be fair, I’m sure he talked it over with his advisors, a prince or two and maybe he even asked a couple of his wives their opinions.  However, in the end, Abdullah can do and say as he pleases.  He can give cypress trees and pomegranate bushes the vote if he wants to.  It’s not like anybody is going to question his authority.  In the Arab peninsula, if Abdullah sneezes, the whole country gets a cold.  It’s the law — regardless of who votes, who gets elected or who thinks it’s a sham.

So how come I’m optimistic about a less-than-meaningless gesture in a kingdom so feudal it makes the Dark Ages look enlightened?  Because it’s cool!  It’s yet another step into the Arab Spring.  Up until a couple of years ago, most people didn’t even know the Saudis had women.  They thought they were like leprechauns – mythical creatures that were good for the tourists but nobody had actually ever seen one.  These days you can download pictures of Saudi chicks driving cars — strictly illegal in the magical kingdom.  Just as an aside: don’t you think it’s brilliantly ironic that these not-so-petty little criminals are driving in burkas so they can’t be readily identified?

The point is my head realizes that King Abdullah’s pronouncement is a sop to keep Hillary Clinton and the Europeans off his back, but my heart knows everything has to start somewhere.  My heart sees “beyond the picture, through the picture” and says, “For once, then, something.”

And I’m glad for the women of Riyadh.  Heyyyy!!

The Sky is Falling: Let’s Eat the Rich!

According to NASA and the Federal Reserve, the sky actually is falling.  Apparently, UARS, a weather satellite that ran of gas in 2005, has slipped its leash and is about to come home — at about a million miles an hour.   NASA is pulling a Napolitano, though.  (“We don’t know where.  We don’t know when.  But something terrible is going to happen.”) They haven’t told anybody when this five tonne ET is going to come sailing in – or more importantly, where.  Actually, they don’t know.  It is kind of important, though; especially since NASA says around 500 kilos of it is going to make it to the crash site.  I, for one, would kinda like to know when to duck.  The betting boys in Vegas aren’t talking, but according to NASA itself, there’s only a 1 in 3,200 chance of me getting brained by extraterrestrial debris, so that’s somewhat reassuring.

One the other hand, the Federal Reserve isn’t even giving odds on my financial well being anymore.  Their boldest reassurance so far amounts to “significant downside risks.”  Let me translate: we’re screwed.

In the next few years, the odds of any of us not being touched by this world-wide economic debacle are zero.  Our best plan of action is to get our personal financial house in order and hope the stupid wears off our political leaders before it’s too late.  While I’ll grant you the enormity of our collective debt didn’t just show up last Wednesday, it’s the responsibility of those who govern us now to start killing alligators – we can drain the swamp another time.  The problem is the leaders of our time remain blind to the economic realities that face us.  Not only that, but their Win-Win-Everybody-Gets-A-Rainbow political philosophy is seriously getting in the road.   I’m not sure what Fantasy Island Merkel, Papandreou, Obama and the others have checked into, but they better start thinking about coming back to the real world while the planes are still flying.  Sunshine and lollipops aren’t going to do us much good when all the airlines are bankrupt.  I hate to keep harping on it, but the delusionary air circulating in the halls of power has convinced most of the politicos that this economic crisis is the same in kind as every other one we’ve faced since the Arabs turned off the gas in 1973.  Guess again!  It’s not!

To be perfectly blunt; this time we’re broke.  The United States, the UK and Europe haven’t got the price of a Big Mac among them; forget fries and a beverage.  We are so far in debt even the guy at Sham Wow wants cash.  Here are the numbers: the United States, 13.9 trillion dollars; the EU, 13.7 trillion; Britain, 8.9 trillion.  That’s how much we owe!  And everybody knows it.  There isn’t a money person on this planet right now — from Madame Lagarde at the IMF all the way down to Ron the teller at Rubberboot Savings and Loan — who doesn’t understand we are facing a financial Armageddon.  They’ve been yapping about it for a couple of years now.  Yet — and here’s the sharp stick to the eyeball — not one world leader is willing to publically admit it or, more importantly, do something about it.  The best we get out of our fearful leaders is some old same old, borrow, tax and spend stimulus package.  The latest incarnation is “Let’s eat the rich!”

Here’s some arithmetic (It’s not even math.)  According to Forbes, there are 10.5 million millionaires in America.  If Obama taxed (took) each one of them an extra one million dollars (which, by the way, would wipe a lot of them out) he’d get only 10.5 billion dollars.  Likewise, there are 412 billionaires kicking around.  If Obama extra-taxed them a billion dollars each and added that to the original scam, he’d still only have 422.5 billion dollars.  Everything being equal (and if the accumulating compound interest stopped this very second) it would still take America well over 30 years to pay off their current IOUs.   Meanwhile, over in the European forest, Merkel, Sarkozy and Cameron don’t have near as many millionaires to sic their tax men on.  So, it would take them even longer to get out of the poorhouse.  Plus, there’s no guarantee what these financial Einsteins are going to do with the money after they collect it.   It might never see the debt.  It might end up buying muffins at a Justice Department Conference – perhaps with coffee and a nice piece of fruit.  Quite frankly, the track record so far isn’t all that good.

There’s only one way to get out of this money pit we’ve dug for ourselves.  Quit spending so damn much!  We need to stop the dollar haemorrhage immediately.   It’s no secret that government – any government – wastes enough money to keep a small planet going.  It has to stop.  This means deep and drastic cuts to the vast majority of government programs.  There will be weeping and wailing and threats for the next election.  After all, it’s very difficult to convince people they can no longer have the things they think they’re entitled to.  But we have to do it.

Unfortunately, our leaders have been taking the easy way out on this for years, that’s how we got in this mess.  Now, instead of judicious trimming, we’re going to have to cut to the bone just to come out about even, and nobody’s going to like it.  However, for every day we delay, the cuts are just going to get deeper.  There’s no quick fix, folks; I don’t care what the politicos think they can get away with.

Like it or not, the financial sky is falling, and the chances of you getting hit are 100%.  Believe me: it’s better to go outside and get it over with than spend the next ten years being pelted to death by little pieces.