In a close vote, 205 – 228, the “bailout” bill was defeated.   Bush, Paulson, Pelosi and everyone else who was interviewed after the vote, still say we are in a crisis.   I guess the natural question is:   Now What?

First, let’s take a quick look at how the bill was defeated.

The defeat began with Nancy Pelosi giving one of the more partisan speeches I can remember hearing given by a Speaker in a situation where the Speaker knew the vote was close and really wanted the bill to pass.   Rather than fight for a common purpose, Nancy took her 2 minutes to point fingers at every Republican ever elected.   You really need to see it to believe just how insultingly partisan her comments were:

After experiencing Pelosi’s petulance and seeing that the Dem’s were only able to get 60% of their caucus to support the bill, I’m inclined to agree with Soren Dayton over at RedState.com. I too believe that Pelosi intended this bill to fail so that she could continue to scream Buuuuuuuuush for at least another week of the election season. Pelosi believes, incorrectly, that doing nothing will provide her Presidential candidate, plausible deniability and the same ability to cry Buuuuuuush/McCaaaaaaain up until the next debate.

Perhaps the first question is: Do we need to do anything? I think the answer to that, sadly, is yes. Here are just three stories of commercial financing ending or having terms attached that are a dramatic change:

– Catepillar (via the Chicago Tribune)
– State of Tennessee (via The Tennessean)
– McDonald’s (via the Chicago Tribune)

OK, something needs to be done, what?

In my perfect world, I would like to see the original Paulson bill come back. Strip out the pension support the mortgage term renegotiation and a few other ornaments from TARP and I would support it. That said, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

If Pelosi is at all interested in getting a bill done, an assumption we have to work with or the remainder of the discussion is moot, I’d be willing to bet that right now she has all kinds of piglets lined up waiting to be inserted in any bill she may bring back. As has been pointed out before, she has enough Democrat members that she doesn’t need any Republicans to pass a bill.

In order for Nancy to get her caucus to fully support the bill she would likely need to be even more draconian on the pay issues. She would also likely add the provision that sends earnings from the asset sales to ACORN and La Raza back in. Finally, I would expect to see some provision that would have direct help for homeowners who are facing foreclosure. While this may be Nancy’s druthers, I don’t see that a bill with those provisions would get through the Senate unless Wall-street had a dramatic, sustained meltdown. If a true panic sets in, all bets are off.

Another possibility is that nothing is done. I don’t think that’s going to happen because Nancy is not going to let the meltdown be hung around her neck even if she really believes it’s Buuuuuuush’s fault. No, she’s likely to do something.

The final option (assuming the Republicans can’t just rewrite the bill from scratch, and I don’t think there’s any possiblity of that) is to rebring essentially the same bill to the floor. There are two problems with this approach: First, there’s no chance that Pelosi would risk another shoot down unless she was absolutely sure the votes were there. Second, if the bill is the same, how do you get Republicans to change their vote when the public appears to be behind them and elections are getting even closer?

Here’s my plan:
First, we need to get someone to talk to the American people and communicate clearly the challenge we face. No more finger pointing, politicking or use of nebulous terms like “crisis!” If this is truly a crisis than explain it to us. We’re smarter than you think and we tend to band together across ideologies when we see a true National crisis in front of us (think 9/11). If you can’t put it into terms that the majority of Americans can understand, regardless of whether we agree with them, than you haven’t done your job as a National leader!

Second, the current group has lost all credibility! President Bush, Paulson, Pelosi, Reid, Frank, Dodd etc. all have personal skins to lose in this. Of them, the only one that I believe has personal integrity, but won’t allow himself to get into the gutter far enough to fight this out, is President Bush.

We’ve been told every couple of months for the past year that we have a “Crisis!” Housing, Bear Sterns, AIG, Lehman Brothers. We’re worn out from crisis’! Worse yet, each one that comes up is supposed to be “the act” that gets us past any further crisis. To date, that hasn’t happened.

As I said, the current crop has lost all credibility. I believe that is a big reason why the bailout bill failed. The public says “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!” They want to know that the money that they are about to put up will actually be used for the purpose it is intended for and that the folks running it are not just mouthing “American Taxpayer” but actually working in the best interest of the American taxpayer!

To that end, I propose that we need a new leader for this effort! I propose that if Paulson really believes this to be the crisis he has been telling everyone it is, he should work with President Bush and Congress and get Mitt Romney to run the effort.

Putting Mitt in would serve two purposes. First, while he  did run  for President, Mitt is outside of the Washington establishment.   You won’t find anyone who has no political affiliation to handle the job  but Mitt should be close and seen by most folks as a strong problem solver with an excellent financial mind. If you ask most people, they would say he is known for saving the horribly mismanaged Utah Olympics and that would go a long way towards credibility. Second, if Paulson handles the program, he will be replaced when the next President is elected. This is a role that needs continuity and needs to stay apolitical if it is to be successful. Putting Mitt in now would satisfy both of those needs.

Perhaps the most important reason for Mitt to be involved is that it would give a reason for Republicans to change their vote. While they may still not like all aspects of the bill, if a cogent explanation for the need was provided (something Mitt could do better than anyone in Washington) so that the public understood the need for the plan, adding Mitt’s name would allow Representatives to tip toe down the middle with a line that sound like: “I don’t like this. However, the case has been made and it’s important that we try this. If anyone can return all the money and perhaps a profit to the American taxpayer it is Mitt Romney.”

There is no easy answer here. I believe the bill that was voted down today is now the best possible hope we have. If we can get it back and get a trusted and capable overseer, we could yet find a silver lining in this mess.

Revisions/extensions (6:54 am 9/30/2008, steveegg) – Cleaned up the formatting slightly.

I wish I had one of those flashy light thingys that Drudge has….maybe I can get Steve to get me one for Christmas!

Speaking of Christmas….

It was closing in on midnight as I was tearing into the sausage last night. I tried to give a bit of editorial but honestly had though through it well enough. Today is another day and I have now had a chance to drink some coffee and think through this mishmash of legislation.

One line from last night’s post popped out at me this morning:

Treasury is also to focus on purchases assets held by retirement plans

Huh?   I thought the purpose of this bill was to reflate capital in companies that are at the core of our lending. What have retirements funds got to do with that?

Sure, large pension funds invest in assets. Sure, they invest in debt backed securities. Some of them even do a small amount of direct lending. While there could be some, I’m not aware of any pension fund that lends directly to homeowners.

This provision, this single paragraph in the bill, is there to provide political cover for Democrats. They have inserted this provision to reflate numerous union pension funds. Merry Christmas pension funds!   This is a horrible provision!

If the purpose of this bill is to restart our lending and pension funds do little if any direct lending, why are we allowing any of these funds to be allocated to them? This will siphon some amount of funds and move them away from their primary target. Which brings me to my other concern with this bill.

This bill gives far too much latitude without even so much as guidelines to the folks who brought this disaster to us. They didn’t make good decisions in the past, why should we expect them to now?

I remain conflicted on this bill. I feel a little like the first person who received chemo for cancer felt:

Doctor: “You have cancer. We believe that the best way to cure it is to give you poison! We think we can poison you to the fine point where your body throws out. If we miss by just a little bit, well, you die.”

Patient: “Oh, OK.”

I’ve read the bill…all 110 pages.   You can to, it’s here!

While most of this has been reported, there are a few clarifications that are worth noting:

Trouble Assets Relief Bill – TARP

• Gives the Secretary of the Treasury the ability to Purchase or Insure these assets.   The combination of the amount purchased and the net amount, after premiums paid, can not exceed $700B
• Several times in the bill there are notations that TARP should act to maximize the taxpayer’s dollars…nice sentiment, we’ll see what happens.

While generally saying they are to be non discriminatory, there are areas where the bill says Treasury should consider uniquely:

• Treasury is instructed to consider the financial health of the institution they buy assets from.   If the asset purchase will not help the financial viability of the entity, Treasury is “instructed” to put that institution at the bottom of their purchase list.
• On the other hand, the Treasury is to look favorably on institutions that have less than $1B, were adequately capitalized as of 6/30/08 and served low or moderate income populations…..isn’t that part of what go us into this problem?
• Treasury is also to focus on purchases assets held by retirement plans

The Board of TARP includes: Chair of the FED, the Secretary of the FED, Director of the Federal Home Finance Agency, Chairman of the SEC, Secretary of HUD…none of these people seemed to have forseen this problem.   Are they the best folks to have giving oversight to this?   I’ve heard Mitt Romney’s name proffered to handle this thing.   Wouldn’t it be best to have some folks that are outside of those who created or allowed the problem to direct the resolution?

All revenues recouped go to the General Fund for reduction of Debt – This is a big issue!   How do you suppose the Dems will glom onto this and play games like have been done with Social Security?

The “Golden Parachute prohibition” does not apply to existing contracts and only applies as long as TARP owns securities or debt of the particular institution as a part of the asset purchase

As has been reported, TARP gets $250B now, $100B after the President sends a report to Congress and the remaining $350 after a second Presidential certification.   The final amount does not need Congress’ consent but Congress may vote to block it.

The bill does require TARP to receive warrants for non voting shares or Senior Debt of each company it buys assets from.   The bill leaves up to the Secretary for the Treasury to determine what price the warrants will be or what amount of debt.   The bill does not have a provision for how or when the warrants or debt would be extinguished.   There ought to be a provision that requires sale or forfeiture of the warrants within a certain period after the debt is cleared.   We don’t want the Federal Government being stockholders of any publicly traded stocks for an extended time.

Any gain (Ha!) or loss from the sale of preferred stock of Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae will be allowed to be recognized as an ordinary loss (no gains here) for financial institutions as long as they were purchased prior to 9/6 2008.   Typically, if they were held over a year, these loses would be capital and limited to certain limitations.   This is a nicety, I don’t know that it means much to these institutions.

The institutions that have assets purchased from them will not be able to deduct more than $500K of executive compensation.   This only applies to institutions that have at least $300M purchased from them and applies until TARP terminates which would be 2011 at the latest.

A few thoughts:

This program should not cost the taxpayers anywhere near $700B.   If Paulson and company do their job properly, this should cost no more than administrative costs and may return positive money to the treasury.

I can’t seem to find a provision that says TARP needs to do something with the warrants by a certain date.   Typically, warrants have an expiration date so perhaps that is part of the negotiating.   I’m nervous that the Secretary of the Treasury gets to negotiate all of the warrants or debt received.   When you get to negotiate not only the amount you will pay for the debt but the amount someone will pay you to take it, well, that sounds a whole lot like loan sharking to me!

I like the continued references to focusing on managing for the taxpayer.   Unfortunately, this is a governmental agency that they are asking to do it.   Can anyone name me one governmental agency that is careful with taxpayer money?

I’m sure there will be more clarification coming.

I wrote last week that McCain’s gambit of suspending his campaign made the events of this weekend something like the gunfight at the campaign corral. It was going to be a high stakes gamble that would put the possibility of McCain’s election in the balance. It’s 7:30 PM and the House leaders have just had a brief news conference. Based on what it appears now will be passed, I’d say that as the smoke clears, McCain wins.

Remember that when McCain suspended his campaing last week, many people believed he did it as a political stunt. Blame John McCain for that as not doing a good job of communicating what he walked into. According to Bloomberg.com Lindsey Graham is quoted as saying:

“The fact is the House Republicans were not in the mix at all” until McCain arrived at the talks, said Graham, a South Carolina Republican. McCain “was decisive in regards to the House being involved.”

Tonight during the press conference, John Boehner, House Minority leader said:

they would have run over me like a freight train

While Nancy Pelosi calls House Republicans “unpatriotic” for missing a meeting, It turns out that they weren’t invited to it!

OK, so McCain was involved. Now the question is whether his attendance made any difference? To that, I’d have to say yes.

The latest bill has had the following positive changes:

• Funds that were to be siphoned to ACORN and La Raza have been stripped from the bill.
• The provision that allowed judges to reset mortgage terms has been stripped
• If the “work out” (no longer called a bail out) costs taxpayers money after 5 years, Congress has an affirmative responsibility to present a plan to recoup the cost.
• There will be an insurance program available as part of the program.

In comparison to what was inkled to us on Thursday, as Barney Frank and Chris Dodd frantically tried to head off McCain’s appearance in Washington, this bill has more accountability and doesn’t throw all vestiges of free market economics into the abyss.

While I’m far from happy about having to do this at all, I’ve concluded over the weekend that something needs to be done and the pure insurance option that the House Republicans were offering had too many shortcomings to effectively change the trajectory in any short order.

Had John McCain not arrived when he did, we would have had a 100% socialist, Big Government “solution” provided. Admittedly, this may only be 92% socialist, Big Government. Under the circumstances, I’d say that was an important 8%.

With the American public as anti “bail out” as the poles have suggested, the House Republicans have a good story to tell about how they, and only they, fought at all for the Taxpayer. If the Republicans point out McCain’s intervention and the changes made, I think the American public will see once again, who was a Leader and who merely tried to manage through a situation.

Here is the plan being offered by the House Republicans.   From Politico.com:

* Rather than providing taxpayer funded purchases of frozen mortgage assets, we should adopt a mortgage insurance approach to solve the problem.

* Currently the federal government insures approximately half of all mortgage backed securities. (MBS) We can insure the rest of current outstanding MBS; however, rather than taxpayers funding insurance, the holders of these assets should pay for it. Treasury Department can design a system to charge premiums to the holders of MBS to fully finance this insurance.

* Have Private Capital Injection to the Financial Markets, Not Tax Dollars. Instead of injecting taxpayer capital into the market to produce liquidity, private capital can be drawn into the market by removing regulatory and tax barriers that are currently blocking private capital formation. Too much private capital is sitting on the sidelines during this crisis.

* Temporary tax relief provisions can help companies free up capital to maintain operations, create jobs, and lend to one another. In addition, we should allow for a temporary suspension of dividend payments by financial institutions and other regulatory measures to address the problems surrounding private capital liquidity.  

*Immediate Transparency, Oversight, and Market Reform. Require participating firms to disclose to Treasury the value of their mortgage assets on their books, the value of any private bids within the last year for such assets, and their last audit report.

* Wall Street Executives should not benefit from taxpayer funding. Call on the SEC to review the performance of the Credit Rating Agencies and their ability to accurately reflect the risks of these failed investment securities.  

*Create a blue ribbon panel with representatives of Treasury, SEC, and the Fed to make recommendations to Congress for reforms of the financial sector by January 1, 2009.

My gut reaction:

Insurance – OK but what are the rates and do the companies have the cash to pay for the insurance? Liquidity has been a huge issue so how does making them pay more $ help that problem?

Private Capital – Yeah, motherhood, apple pie, “God bless America!” Capital isn’t coming into these markets until they see opportunity. You can’t just say “do it” and expect seriously spooked investors to hop back in.

Tax relief – I don’t get this one at all. These companies are writing off these loans and creating significant tax losses. I can’t imagine that many of them will have much net income that this even matters.

Transparency – Amen

Executives not benefiting – Amen

Blue Ribbon Panel – haven’t seen one yet that really helped but OK

My gut is that while this probably protects the taxpayer more, I don’t know that it would provide the enema that these markets seem to need.

Your thoughts?

Revisions/extensions (4:15 pm 9/26/2008, steveegg) – There’s a couple of bullet points not mentioned by Politico in the release from Paul Ryan, my Congresscritter and main sponsor of the House Republican plan:

– Limit Federal Exposure for High Risk Loans: Mandate that the GSEs no longer
securitize any unsound mortgages

– Call on the SEC to audit reports of failed companies to ensure that the financial
standing of these troubled companies was accurately portrayed.

I haven’t seen the specifics of the tax and regulatory relief, but I strongly suspect that relief will extend beyond the financial sector. Additional cash would allow companies to rely less on the non-existent credit market to function.

Revisions/extensions (4:15 pm 9/26/2008, shoebox)   – One thing I haven’t seen in any of the information being debated is an elimination or a set aside of the requirement to “mark to market.”   As I understand the issue, the “liquidity crunch” is being largely caused by two issues 1. banks are afraid that lending to another institution could leave them exposed as the perception is that any institution could file bankruptcy at any time, therefore, no inter institution loans.   2.   the bankruptcy scenario is being created because the institutions have insufficient capital as they continue to write down loans each time someone else has a fire sale.   The point being that much of this problem is not a liquidity issue in the sense of their not being enough money floating around but liquidity in the sense that they cannot lend anymore because the the capital they have remaining is already “pledged” for their existing loans

As more and more information becomes available about the meeting yesterday at the White House and the Republican revolt against the bailout plan, it is more and more obvious that political gamesmanship is what has occurred during his week and not any kind of “successful negotiations!”

It first appeared that John McCain’s announcement to come to Washington had caused the Democrats and Republicans to find a compromise.   I thought that’s what had happened when Chris Dodd announced about noon yesterday that an agreement in principle had been reached.

It appeared then, that the White House meeting would be nothing more than a bunch of handshaking and self congratulations amongst the Washington political leadership from both sides.

Instead, according to various articles, Republicans announced that they were not supportive of the amended proposal and argued for a different plan.

How do I know that the entire negotiation was just a political manuevering?   This quote from an article by the “News Agency Who Shall Not be Named:”

The Massachusetts Democrat said leading Democrats on Capitol Hill were shocked by the level of divisiveness that surfaced at Thursday’s extraordinary White House meeting, leaving six days of intensive efforts to agree on a bailout plan in tatters only hours after key congressional players of both parties had declared they were in accord on the outlines of a $700 billion bill.

(emphasis mine)
How do you negotiate one of the largest, market impacting deals ever, announce you have a “deal in principle” and then get “shocked by the level of divisiveness?”

Simple, the “negotiated” plan was never negotiated. As the Dems have done time after time, they decided what they wanted to do, found a couple of invertebrate Republicans to pick off to perform ventriloquist acts with and announced “an agreement in principle” that never, ever was agreed to.

The Dems are now grousing that without Republican support, they won’t pass the bailout bill! Why not? If they’re so sure that what they’re doing is the right thing, do it! They have the votes in both chambers and the support of the President. Nothing prevents them from passing their bill immediately!
Nothing that is except for a complete lack of leadership and spine. The Democrats are great at sniping and Monday morning quarterbacking but don’t have the courage of their own convictions when real leadership is required!

We haven’t dragged this out for a while but it seems appropriate. This is a video that describes what the Dems believe leadership to be:

It’s time for some leadership. The public has not been convinced that a bailout needs to occur. Someone needs to chart a course of action and convince both Congress and the American People that it is the right thing to do. If John McCain and Barack Obama want to be the next President, now is the time for them to show their ability to lead. I’m still convinced that this is the gunfight at the OK campaign.

Americans are hungry for leadership on this issue.  Will we find  any leaders, anywhere, in Washington?

All parents of multiple children have to deal with sibling relationships from time to time.   When I was growing up, because I was the oldest, sibling relationship management for my Dad usually amounted to,

“You’re older and should know better so leave your sister alone!”

While you could technically use that solution with twins (Thing 1 is 10 minutes older than Thing 2) it really only works when you have a sibling who is/should be more physically, mentally or emotionally developed.  

When working with our twins, Mrs. Shoe and I use a different sibling management technique.   When Thing 1 and Thing 2 get into one of their bickering contests and we get to a point where an end doesn’t seem imminent, Mrs. Shoe or I will intercede with,

“Listen, you have a choice.   You can solve this issue yourselves or I can step in.   If I step in, I will guarantee you that neither of you will be happy with the solution.”

That is the threat that John McCain brought to Washington today!

As I surmised yesterday, McCain was in fact, asked to come and help with the bail out bill. According to an interview with Bob Schieffer, McCain was invited by Paulson to help wrangle a solution because Republicans were balking at the Democrat’s proposal.

As an aside, but to make sure  the nattering nabobs didn’t miss this; McCain went to Washington NOT as a POLTICAL STUNT but because he believed it was important for him to be there and that he could make a difference!

What’s this got to do with sibling relational management?   Well first, after McCain essentially said,

“Don’t make me come in there!”

The first thing that happened was that Harry Reid denied that  McCain needed to be involved! Then, about noon today, Chris Dodd dashed out and announced that they had an agreement in principle! Wow! that’s amazing when just yesterday morning only 4 Senate Republicans were willing to vote for the bill!

So what happened? It seems there’s only two choices. Either the Republicans caved or Democrats backed off of some of their more egregious demands. We’ll know which, more likely how much of both, happened later. My guess is that neither would have happened had John McCain not announced that he was suspending his campaign to work on the issue.

With McCain’s reputation for find bipartisan solutions coupled with the intense scrutiny that the negotiations were going to get because McCain had suspended his campaign to join, there was a message sent to both the Democrats and the Republicans. The message was:

“Listen, you have a choice. You can solve this issue yourselves or I can step in. If I step in, I will guarantee you that neither of you will be happy with the solution.”

Sometimes you need an adult to manage childlike petulance.

John McCain just announced that he will be suspending his campaign to return to Washington and participate in the bailout negotiations.   He has requested that Obama to the same and join him.

In his statement McCain said:

"America this week faces an historic crisis in our financial system. We must pass legislation to address this crisis. If we do not, credit will dry up, with devastating consequences for our economy. People will no longer be able to buy homes and their life savings will be at stake. Businesses will not have enough money to pay their employees. If we do not act, ever corner of our country will be impacted. We cannot allow this to happen."

McCain has also requested that the debate, scheduled for Friday evening, be delayed until the negotiations are complete.

As of this writing, 2:55 PM, Obama has yet to officially respond.

If Obama chooses not follow McCain, this will be fodder for McCain ads during the remainder of the elections. Can you imagine the ads showing on Obama was more concerned about his campaign, election and himself than he was about the American people?

Whether Obama follows McCain or not this is a “High Noon” move. In the old Western movie genre, you almost didn’t need to watch the 2 hours of movie prior to the “High Noon” event as long as you just saw that part of the Western. After the “High Noon” event of the old Westerns, you knew who the winners, the losers, the living and the dying or dead were. I believe the same will be so of this “High Noon” event.

McCain’s suspension will be viewed either as a political stunt or an “America First” move. McCain will be viewed as either more partisan or a uniter. McCain will either further invigorate the Republican base or again, poke them in the eye. McCain’s choice to personally participate in the debate may well be the factor on which he either is or isn’t the winner of the November election.

We all know that Obama will pander his way through this event regardless of how he chooses to respond.

The problem for McCain is that I don’t know how, now that he has personally inserted himself in the debate, he can appear to be both a uniter and a holder of conservative values.

It’s High Noon at the campaign corral. We’ll have to wait until the smoke clears to see who wins and who looses.

Update 3:50 PM.   Barck Obama has declined to suspend his campaign and says “the debate is on.”   In one of the weirdest quotes of the campaign Obama says he told Reid and Pelosi “If you need me, call me.”   Perhaps the fact that Reid and Pelosi haven’t picked up the bat phone says more about what help they think Obama could provide than it does about the seriousness of the situation?

I hope McCain has been practicing his quick draw.   The bullets will be coming fast and furious until this thing is decided!

Joe Biden has finally regained some national media attention.   Yeah, but not for good reasons.

In the past week Biden has gained national media attention because he:

• Crossed Obama saying he didn’t support the AIG bailout when Obama did.
• Said the ad accusing McCain of not using a computer because he was “too old” when it fact it is because of his torture injuries should “never have been run.”
• Claimed FDR went on television to provide leadership to the American people after the Great Stock Market Crash of 1929.
• Said that Hillary Clinton probably was a better pick to be Obama’s VP than he was.

Poor Joe has become the comic relief in a campaign that has become more bitter and more personal each day.   I guess being the court jester is OK as long as your boss laughs along!

Not so much!

Tuesday, on the “Today” show regarding Biden’s AIG comment  Obama said:  

“I think that, in that situation, I think Joe should have waited as well.”

Ouch!   That’s going to leave a mark!

Remember waaaaay back in March in the middle of the primaries how Barack stood by Jeremiah Wright.   How he tried to explain his relationship by saying he didn’t need to agree with Wright on all issues.   That Wright had a unique perspective that validated his comments?

For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years," Obama said. "That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table.

Yeah, well that lasted about six weeks until Obama threw Wright under the bus saying:

If Reverend Wright thinks that’s political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn’t know me very well and based on his remarks yesterday, I may not know him as well as I thought either.

It took Obama six weeks to move his relationship with Wright from ardent supporter to speed bump. Six weeks during a time when events were moving much less slowly than they are now with slightly more than 40 days to the election and key debates just around the corner. How long before we hear Obama say:

If Joe Biden thinks that’s political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn’t know me very well and based on his remarks yesterday, I may not know him as well as I thought either.

Remember the cartoon made into a movie “George of the Jungle?” Every time George grabbed a vine to swing through the jungle, you knew we was going to slam smack into a tree. Biden’s become so regular at providing gaffes or taking a position opposite Obama’s that every time he makes a public appearance we now expect him to slam into a tree!

Joe, Joe
Joe of the campaign,
Smooth as he can be.
(Ahhhhhhhh)
Watch out for that tree.

While this is a Wisconsin based blog, I know we have a number of regular readers who don’t believe the Green Bay Packers are the greatest football team only; yup, we’ve got Minnesotans!

I want to send out my finest Minnesota Nice welcome to our newest residents.

“How’s it goin’!”

I’d also like to give you a few pointers so that you’re able to fit in a bit easier.

• Unless you’re talking to someone from “The Range” (no, that’s not a cook top), it’s not pronounced “Minn a sooo ta.”   It’s pronounced “Min ah sew ta.”
• The “Twin Cities” are not:   Fargo/Morehead, Duluth/Superior or Whapeton/Breckenridge.   They are Minneapolis and St. Paul.
• St. Paul, not Minneapolis, is the State Capital.   It is also where the RNC national convention was hosted.
• While our baseball team is called the “Twins” they do not play in both Minneapolis and St. Paul.   Their stadium is in Minneapolis.
• Speaking of which, the  stadium where the Twins and the Vikings play is not the “Hubert Humphrey Metrodome,” it’s “The Dome” or, if  you’ve been here long enough, “The Hump.”
• Yes, we do have over 10,000 lakes.    Yes, they do freeze over in the winter and we do drive on them.
• Our state bird is the Loon which will allow you at least one kindred spirit in Minnesota.
• Hot dishes and Jello are two of the major food groups.   The other three are beer, anything grilled and anything deep fried and served on a stick.
• We do have four seasons; Winter, still Winter, just past Winter and almost Winter.   None of them are defined by the direction that you can smell the odors from the river.

Who am I providing this help to?   Just some of the Obama folks who got to leave North Dakota before they got struck by the  first blizzard of the year!

Welcome to Minnesota!

P.S.   I forgot to tell you that we’re mostly Scandinavians and Germans.   So what?   Well, you’ll find that it means that we avoid confrontation and we have a high percentage of passive/aggressives.   Again, so what?   Well, we’ll tell you anything we think you want to hear….to your face, and grouse about you and your cause to no end when you leave.   If you think you can count on someone to vote for Obama just because they tell you on the phone or face to face that they will vote for Obama?   Well, all I can say is Uff Da!

It’s a common misunderstanding to believe that the terms “Manager” and “Leader” are interchangeable.   This is especially true in business settings where it is common to refer to the “Manager” of a group as the “Leader” of that group.

Of course to understand “Manager” one must understand “manage.”   A  dictionary definition of “Manage” is:

to handle, direct, govern, or control in action or use.

Which supports this common definition of “Manager”

a person who controls and manipulates resources and expenditures

And while that looks similar to the dictionary definition of “Leader”:

a guiding or directing head, as of an army, movement, or political group.

There are significant differences. To say it another way, Managers can be Leaders but not all Managers are Leaders. To take it one step further, some Leaders are not Managers at all. Peter Drucker, one of the foremost experts on organizational management and leadership describes them best as:

leadership is doing the right things; management is doing things right.

After the personalities, the policies and ideologies, this Presidential election comes down to a simple choice: Do we want a Manager or a Leader?

Let’s look at how the candidates have handled just 4 quick examples.
(more…)

I’ve spent a significant portion of my career in the wireless industry. Like many technology based, fast growing industries, we thought ours was very unique and difficult to understand for people from the “outside.” Because of that, the industry was very incestuous, not in the ‘Desperate Housewives” kind of way but in the “you hire and rehire the people you know kind of way.” Nearly every job that opened that was a “move up” role was filled by people who were already employed by the company.

“Hiring from within” became part of our company culture. The good part about that is that we were able to keep some very talented people motivated and challenged as they got progressively more challenging roles. The downside of the “hire from within” culture is that a few people took that as an “assumed.” They assumed that because they applied for the job they would get versus an outside applicant, just because they were an “insider.” Another downside was that we had some people who would hire into the company at an entry level and immediately begin positioning themselves for a promotion and not paying attention to the job they had been hired for. I had more than one conversation with people who either worked for me or were interviewing for a role with me where I told them that while they may be really capable people, they weren’t going to get the promotion because they hadn’t paid attention at their current role and were doing a poor job at it. While “hiring up” was part of our culture, you only got “hired up” if you were doing a great job in your current role.

Barack Obama was sworn into the US Senate on January 4, 2005. He announced his candidacy for President on January 17, 2007. Between the date he was sworn into the Senate and the date he announced an exploratory committee he spent 143 days working in the Senate (that’s less than 7 months of actual work for the mathematically challenged.)

Barack Obama has been attempting to hang the current economic challenges around McCain’s neck. His attacks have gotten louder and more personal throughout the past 7 days. Obama has been talking broadly about what he would do to fix the economic issues but has not provided any specifics to his plan. In some articles, the Obama campaign was quoted as saying they were “working on a plan” that Obama would unveil soon.

This morning as even more unprecedented “fixes” are being implemented into the financial system Barack Obama said

Given the gravity of this situation, and based on conversations I have had with both Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke, I have asked my economic team to refrain from presenting a more detailed blue-print of how an immediate plan might be structured until the Treasury and the Federal Reserve have had an opportunity to present their proposal.”

Really? You’re going to wait until other plans are out and then second guess them? Wow! That’s leadership! Wouldn’t a real leader be sitting down at this critical juncture saying “I’ll show you mine, you show me yours and we’ll see what the best answer, or combination of answers might be?”

Barack Obama is just like the wireless people who were busier looking for promotions than doing there current jobs. Just as in wireless, where we told people that the weren’t going to get the new job because they were doing a cruddy job in their current role, we need to tell Obama,

“NO. Maybe you’ll get a shot when you show us you can do your current job well. If that doesn’t suit you, your other choice is to find another company that will hire you.”

In wireless, most of our situations where that exact conversation occurred the people were smart enough to go back, focus on their job, show that they were capable and focused and usually got hired for the next promotion. Once in a while, the person thought the work for which they were hired was beneath them. They didn’t change their ways. They groused and became poison to the point where they became poison to the team. Ultimately, they were fired.

Which of those two experiences do you think Barack Obama will have?