Little Brother is Running Things Now

The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun.

-- George Orwell, British author

Boy, did this guy get it wrong! (Other than the part about the earth and the sun) Those of us who grew up in the 50's, 60's or 70's read Orwell's famous novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, with fascination. It was intended as an attack on totalitarian regimes and was a cautionary tale. However, its depiction of post-WW III life was often taken as commentary on modern society.

And, we can find ample evidence of its ironies everywhere. We need go further than Jon Stewart's or Steven Colbert's nightly TV shows for a catalogue of the day’s "Doublethink" and "Newspeak". Many of the invented terms from the novel were adopted in popular speech. Indeed, the term Orwellian is often used to describe subjugation by the "Thought Police". Moreover, Orwell's home city of London is intensely surveilled by cameras in every public place. Big Brother is, indeed, watching us.

However, Orwell's core theme -- that technology would permit the state to control the actions of its citizens -- has proven to be the opposite of our current condition.

Technology -- specifically, the Internet -- has enabled the masses to effect leadership from the grassroots level. Examples abound.

CEO's for Cities is a web-based community of people driving change in urban environments. Their bottoms up approach has achieved results in Portland, OR, Chicago, IL and New York. So far.

Maryland based Kapston Corporation, a marketing company, has started a non-profit Internet initiative to support green business.

Cancer.im has as its mission "to empower every cancer patient regardless of their ability to pay, with the ability to research their disease and assist in finding, organizing and managing their own cancer support network".

Last June, Think Social, a NY based non-profit, hosted a one day conference the goal of which was to “explore how social & mobile media are empowering corporate citizenship to create social & environmental change.

None of these efforts rely upon support from taxpayer dollars. There is no hierarchy imposing control of the process. The success of each is based upon the initiative of its participants. The technology enables their success rather than hindering it.

Can you think of any examples of LEADERSHIP emanating from the Internet? If so, I would like to hear from you. Please scroll down to post your comments.

Who's Steering the Boat?

Help one another for we are all in the same boat.


Chinese Proverb



In 1405, Chinese Admiral Zheng began the first of seven voyages of exploration and conquest in the western Pacific and South Seas. Eighty-seven years later, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. He had to “pitch” his idea to Queen Isabella who granted him enough money to build four ships to cross the ocean on a westerly route to India. Admiral Zheng had a fleet of over 300 ships and a crew totaling 28,000. Columbus had a crew of about 150 on all four ships.

The largest of Columbus’ ships was about 100 feet long. Zheng’s longest ship was over 400 feet, slightly smaller than a modern US Navy frigate. It functioned like a small city, carried an Army, horses and provided relative luxury. Columbus Spartan ships provided an atmosphere that led to near mutiny.

Never heard of Admiral Zheng? Well, maybe that’s because the new emperor decided the venture was too expensive to continue in 1433. He decreed that anyone who built a ship with more than two masts would be executed. Just as Europe was beginning to expand its influence through colonization of North and South America, Africa and Australia; the Chinese shut out the rest of the world.

British economist, Angus Maddison, estimated that in the mid-14th Century, GDP per capita in Europe and China were about the same – around $600 in today’s dollars. Over the next six centuries (to about 1950), China’s GDP per capita remained about the same. During the same period, Western Europe increased by 600 percent. Such is the impact of free trade, liberal institutions and openness to innovation. China, by remaining closed to the rest of the world, missed the industrial revolution and failed to grow. Even today, the majority of Chinese live in poverty.

The U.S. has engaged the nations of the world in international trade to our benefit and theirs. While we continue to lead the world in pharmaceuticals, technology, food production and financial services, Europe and the developing world have benefited from U.S. consumers purchasing everything from Japanese electronics to French wine to Italian shoes.

President Obama’s trip to Asia has been widely covered by the press. There was lots of discussion about the weaker dollar, Chinese currency manipulation, quantitative easing, etc. I suggest you do not let all the noise detract from the President’s core message: The world’s exporting nations cannot continue to rely upon US consumer spending to support their economies.

This is not a blog about economics. However, I would like to offer an arithmetic lesson. GDP is the sum of government and consumer spending plus private investment plus net exports. So, if you live in a net exporting country (Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Korea), your GDP can grow with less government and consumer spending than a net importing country (the US and the rest of Europe). Got that? Exports good!  Imports bad!

So, when the President mentions “global imbalances” that’s what he is talking about. We have been “imbalanced” on this score for about 30 years.

Our trading partners complain that the Fed’s policy will weaken the U.S. dollar making their exports less competitive. While the weaker dollar will, over the long term, increase our total exports, it will also be painful for U.S. consumers. Commodities – primarily food and fuel – will increase in price. Other impacts are less well understood. The Fed’s program has never been tried before; so, there are bound to be some unintended consequences.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, we are going through our own balancing act. Households have become net savers again. Burned by the recession and scared to death of losing our homes and livelihoods, we are paying off credit card debt and saving for retirement. That reversal has benefits for individuals, families and the financial stability of our economy. But, it does little to pull us out of the doldrums.

The final – and biggest – balancing act is the responsibility of government. Will the new Congress get our house in order? Will the President tack to the middle? Who knows? The President’s commission chartered to balance the budget has some ideas. Some very painful ideas. The pundits pronounced their plan dead on arrival. But no serious economist or budget expert thinks we can get on track without lots of pain. The politicians all promise to balance the budget, reduce taxes and leave entitlements alone all while we are fighting two wars overseas. But, it simply can’t be done.

So, the long and short of it is that we are in for a lot of pain. Higher taxes, reduced entitlements, reduction or elimination of popular government programs, lower defense spending and on and on.

But, you knew all that, right? Why am I telling you this? Well, it’s because there’s something missing.

Politicians warn that our profligate spending will result in a massive debt burden for our children and grandchildren. But, no one has laid out a vision of the future for the generations that succeed us. Why go through all the pain if we can’t see a better world on the other side of this crisis? Someone (gee, maybe a President) needs to provide us a believable picture of what life in the United States of America will be like in 2030 or 2040.

Moreover, we need more than a vision, we need a plan. To be competitive in the global economy, we need better educated children, less reliance on foreign energy, investment in R&D and a business environment that encourages innovation.

How do we get there? What are the key elements? What’s the plan? How much will it cost? Where will we get the money?

Or, to put it another way, WHO WILL LEAD?

The Rise of the Comedians

        “Should Jon Stewart Have Called the President ‘Dude’?”

                       
                    Question posed by WSJ.com, the website of the Wall Street Journal

It was extraordinary. With only six days left till the mid-term elections, the President of the United States, POTUS to his friends, appeared live on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. The “Fake News” program has risen in the ranks of media to this lofty position. And, Stewart did, indeed, call the President “dude”. Personally, I think “His Dudeness” would have been more appropriate. But, that title was taken by the Big Lebowski and I would hate to have the image of Jeff Bridges in his boxers and robe in my head when thinking of the President.

But, the grand finale of his week of live TV in DC was not his chat with the President; it was the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” held on the Washington Mall on Saturday. The event was also broadcast live on the Comedy Channel. It was mostly music and typical Comedy Channel stuff – a few laugh out loud jokes interspersed with a few hundred not funny jokes. But, Stewart had a serious intent as well. Not wanting to take sides in the culture war, he went after the press.

“The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic.”

That was one of the LOL moments. It’s funnier when you hear it than when you read it.

That 200,000 people showed up is not just a measure of Stewart’s impact as a comedian but rather a measure of how he has become an arbiter of, well, sanity.

It wasn’t always this way. Mark Twain is often given credit for being America’s first “humorist”. He had a way with a one liner. But, his comments were not personal in nature. In a sense, his lines were simply proverbs with a barb. Proverbs have been around for centuries. “A fool and his money are soon parted” was written by Thomas Tusser in the 16th Century.

In the century before Twain, Ben Franklin was prolific in the same form:

“Well done is better than well said.”

So, while Twain added politics to the form, he didn’t change the form itself:

“Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.”

Even Will Rogers, who sounds funnier to our more modern ears, didn’t really get personal:

“A fool and his money are soon elected.”

It wasn’t until after WW II that things started to turn personal. Here’s Bob Hope:

“I don’t know what people have against Jimmy Carter. He’s done nothing.”

More contemporary is Jay Leno:

“According to New York publishers, Bill Clinton will get more money for his book than Hillary Clinton got for hers. Well, duh. At least his book has some sex in it.”

But, Stewart has taken the form to a whole new level. His event, in some part, might have been called a “Rally from the Back of the Classroom”. All that was missing was the spitballs. However, the underlying thrust was quite serious. The country has serious problems and the numbskulls in government enabled by the media are not addressing those problems.

“Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers or real bigots and Juan Williams… is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate…”

Post event, Stewart and his partner in crime, Steven Colbert, denied any intent besides pure entertainment. Smart move! If they had expressed a grander goal, they would no doubt be excoriated for their ambition. The better tactic is to sit back and let the message sink in. We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore. But, to maintain our own sanity, we know you have to laugh or you’d cry.

In a sense, Stewart has become a LEADER. By filling an obvious void, he has demonstrated that there is an appetite for something other than the insanity that our political parties – or the Tea Party – offer us. He has shown us an opportunity. Who will step into the breach? Or to put it another way, WHO WILL LEAD?