Uncle Sam: Business Man

So the US (as well as the UK, Germany and other countries) is buying banks. And other financial businesses. And thousands of bad mortgages (translation: the homes themselves after the owners default). Plus billions in commercial paper. And we're making those dollars available to other countries on a "call in the next ten minutes" basis.

Welcome to Uncle Sam: The Mutual Fund.

There may indeed be very, very good reasons to do all of this. In fact, I know there are. Analyzing those reasons is not my purpose here, however.

From the 30,000 foot observation deck, where everything is plain as the nose on George Washington's Mt. Rushmore face, I see one big flaw with allowing the government to buy anything. They're lousy managers. They have no business sense. They've never been in the business of making a buck. Redistributing a buck, sure; raising a buck, check; wasting a buck, no doubt. And of course, the feds literally do MAKE bucks: the treasury department actually prints them. Earning them, though, is another matter.

There are a lot of very smart people in government. The fact that most of them are attorneys or economists aside, there is a lot of brain power occupying the seats of power. If IQs were dollars, we'd be settling our national debt with China tomorrow and throwing in a few spare billion just for the hell of it.

And we have alot of people in government who are good at knowing the national mood, cow towing to special interests, double talking, not saying what they mean, collecting money and getting voters to like them enough to stay in office. If grubbing for votes could be turned into capital -- well, capital that could be spent on something other than elections -- we could probably pay off Europe's collective national debt as well as our own.

But the guy who runs the successful family-run business in your city is not necessarily the smartest guy in the room, or the best educated. Successful bankers, God bless every last vice presidential one of them, lean more to being salesmen than academics. The best accountants might not know calculus but can add and subtract like no bodies business. A successful medical practice is usually due to the woman office manager with junior college credentials than the highly educated physicians performing the services.

Looked at another way, let's look where all the brain power has gotten us so far. That $700 billion bailout idea was so well thought out that our Einsteins in the House wouldn't vote for it until it was added to a $150 billion free-for-all package of pork. Put that under the heading of grubbing for votes.

And what about all those top level executives and investment hot shots who managed to steer their Wall Street firms straight into a wall. Those Ivy League educations didn't seem to do much good there, did they. Put that under what high IQ gets you.

So now all this government brain power will be owning the banks and insurance companies.

Can't wait.

Dan Quayle Redux?

Has anyone seen Dan Quayle lately? Did he, perhaps, shed that obnoxious wife, put on a dress and start living in Alaska?

Long Term Problems

The world is faced with an unusual number of problems that require long term solutions. But unfortunately, politics, one of the key sources for solutions, just plain does not work long term. And that spells trouble.

Global warming comes to mind first; this definitely won't be fixed overnight -- or even over the next couple decades.

The oil situation. Frankly I think the oil is drying up quicker than anyone realizes. No one knows what the Saudi oil reserves are except the Saudis, and its quite possible that they have much less on reserve than is commonly believed. There is new oil out there somewhere, no doubt about it, but the big reserves have already been found and are well on their way to being tapped out. Other than the oil shales in Canada, I think oil is in decline. And if oil dries up -- admittedly something not likely for a while but on the horizon -- then no amount of price increases will fill your tank.

If oil goes away there are at least two major problems. One is fuel, of course. The fact that so much of the world depends on oil as an energy source means things are going to grind to a halt in a hurry unless long-term plans are made for alternative sources to take over. The other problem is petroleum-based products, like plastics. We can find alternative energy sources; where are we going to find alternative materials to fill in for all the things currently made of oil-based plastics?

(There's a third problem, namely that contentiousness for an increasingly rare resource now in greater demand than ever is as likely to lead to international conflict as anything. And of course, to paraphrase from the movie "Syriana", two hundred years ago the Arab states were just sand, and when the oil runs out, that's what they're going to return to -- except that now those Arab states are under the influence of questionable demigods who might do who-knows-what when whatever source of prosperity runs out.)

The shift in world political dominance away from the US and Europe and towards India and China is also a long term problem. This is not to say that the US and Europe are going away, just that the stage that they are acting on is now getting crowded (think Marlon Brando and Cary Grant being added to thbe cast of a movie already starring Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne). Getting the balance to make all these actors get along is not going to be easy or fast.

We look to our governments to help sort out and find solutions to these problems. Science, religion, engineers all have their place, but politicians are the prime actors. Unfortunately, politicians have only a short time horizon and rarely seem to act on anything that will last longer than the next election cycle (if that). How can we expect these short-term blowhards to deal with problems whose solutions need to be measured in decades?

Not good, folks, not good.

Obama: The Anti-Christ

Not to get all hellfire and damnation on you, but I have long believed that Obama is the anti-Christ. He came out of no where. He is all things to all people. He may soon hold the most powerful office in the world. One can read into his intention to talk to the Iranians an interest in annihilating Israel.

And let's not forget the Chicago (where Obama currently operates out of) Cubs are possibly heading for the world series this year -- talk about hell freezing over. (GO CUBBIES!)

Has anyone checked his head for 6's?

(I'm tongue in cheek, of course. On the other hand, on inauguration day I don't intend to be driving behind any of those cars with "In case of rapture this car will be empty" bumper stickers -- just in case.)

The Democratic Party seems to be intent on proving that too much democracy is, well, too much.

First there's the super delegates. When the primaries were in full swing no one seemed to know what the super delegates were to use as the basis for their decisions, with the result that they became whatever either candidate wanted them to be. With the primary season over, it still seems that no one knows exactly what the super delegates are supposed to do. Should they follow the lead of the actual voters? Should each super delegate use his/her own judgment? Would flipping a coin do?

Second there is Michigan and Florida. Everyone and their uncle saw this trainwreck coming: once the Dems announced that these two miscreant states were not going to be seated at the convention as punishment for moving up their primaries, you KNEW they would end up bolloxing everything up. And sure enough, it took a meeting of the Dems-in-charge to resolve the problem. Sort of. As with the super delegates, during the primaries Michigan and Florida became whatever the candidates wanted them to be. Of course, both candidates were left to their own devices in campaigning and even being on the ballots in those two states. Why in the world would two of the most populous and important states be completely taken off the map, primary-wise? Were the Dems-in-charge the only ones who knew they opening the door to enormous problems?

If the dems have suffered during this primary season they have only themselves to blame for it. Imagine that Florida and Michigan BOTH went for Hillary, as seems reasonably likely. Wouldn't that have made Hillary a stronger candidate later into the primary season? Wouldn't it have taken the "concede, Hillary" thing off the table? In the long weeks before the Pennsylvania primary Hillary became the runner up. What would have happened if she stayed the co-leader?

As for the super delegates, those have been dangled over our heads for months: at one time Hillary was supposedly going to take the lion's share, then it was Obama. Of course, while the outcome was in doubt and the candidates were still their to be sold, the super delegates themselves had little reason to make their selections known.

What a circus. Sort of reminds me of the 1972 George McGovern debacle, where it seemed like the dems were attempting to become all things to all people with the result that they became nothing to no one.

Internet Advertising

Is it just me, or does the whole new regime of ad-sponsored Internet sites sound like a house of cards waiting to collapse?

Sports Note

Football is perhaps the ultimate non-athlete sport. They split a football team between the skill players (quarterback, running back, wide receiver) and, well, everyone else. Let's face it: if you're a guard or tackle you're pretty much there because you're one helluva big hunk of meat. (I know, I know, its not that easy. But if I were a big hunk of meat I could learn the guard/tackle thing; if I were a talented blocker I'd be worthless UNLESS I were a big hunk of meat.)

Other sports seem to have taken notice. For example, there's Shaq. The guy can't do anything unless he's RIGHT UNDER THE BASKET. A ten foot shot? Might as well be from half court. Free throws? Forget it. Ball handling? Not unless you're talking about jumping straight up and throwing the ball five feet to the basket.

If you were Shaq-sized, you, too, could pretty much do what he does. Maybe not with his personality, such as it is. But with no prior basketball experience, if you suddenly became Shaqesque, you'd have 90% of his, er, talent.

Hockey for some time has had people who can barely skate. What do they do? They stroll around the rink and take out the other team's best players, slamming them into the boards, the ice, whatever. Hey, you see a 250 pound lug who's is barely in control of himself barrelling down on you you get out of the way. And maybe miss a pass or muff a shot in the process.

Baseball is full of lunks who can hardly field, can only throw in the general vicinity of whatever they're aiming at, and basically swing at anything thrown their way when they're at bat. Of course, when they connect they are as likely to hit a home run as a popup -- which is why they're there.

The point is, the thing that makes any of these sports so compelling is the skill it takes to play them well. That guard ball-handling like a magician, the forward who can pop that off-balance three pointer in from the other side of the court, the wide-receiver who reels in a one handed catch in traffic, the hockey player who stickhandles his way through the defense and can make the perfect pass to boot, the outfielder who can run down the line drive and then throw a pinpoint bullet to grab a runner leaning too far off base. Even the perfectly executed choreography of linemen pulling to throw a block at the precise right time to spring the running back. Knowing that these guys have one-of-a-kind skills is what makes the whole thing worth watching.

Please keep the Sports Center highlights, the monster dunks, the home runs, the hockey fights. Quit idolizing the guys who have no skills other than being freak-sized slabs of beef. Show me the guys who do those things that take skill, not size.