Occupy… Something… What? I Dunno

Are you making New Year’s resolutions this year? Three years ago was the last time I did so. I worked hard at it too. I created three categories – Healthy, Wealthy and Wise – and made two resolutions in each. It was a serious endeavor. (No one who knows me would be surprised. I have been told I am too serious since I was in the second grade.) It took me two years to achieve them all. I am still tired from the effort.

Despite my exhaustion, I feel compelled to have another go at it. This time, I’ll keep it simple. My resolution is to Occupy something. I am not sure what just yet. But I will do it. I will Occupy something.

Many serious commentators have made Occupy their Word of the Year. Indeed, Ben Zimmer who heads the Word of the Year effort at the American Dialectic Society told NPR that Occupy leads this year’s voting (although he admitted his personal favorite is Humblebrag).

Occupy has several meanings, of course. I don’t mean that I will Occupy something in the conventional sense. If I Occupy my Lazy Boy recliner, that won’t count. It’s doubtful I could Occupy it any more next year than I did this year anyway. Taking up residence somewhere else doesn’t count either. I could plop myself in a first class airline seat on my way to the capitals of Europe or Occupy a suite at the Four Seasons; but, that wouldn’t capture the essence of the resolution either.

Nor, do I mean Occupy in the military sense. The US military Occupied Iraq for eight plus years. It’s not what I mean.

Occupying my time with something would not require much resolution either. I already occupy my time writing this blog and reading about this and that.

The real resolution to Occupy something requires that I embrace and idea or concept and immerse myself in it. The folks who Occupied Wall Street made a serious commitment to an idea. They physically and visibly took up residence in a downtown NY park. Their idea – and their attitude – were picked up throughout the western world and went viral (that phrase – went viral – must have been the word of the year sometime in the past).

In my professional career, I have found that for change to be effective in any institutional setting there must be a physical and visible manifestation of it. If the CEO wants a realignment of functions to be effective, he should move people’s offices around. Preferably this should happen during the work day so that everyone can see it.

I have a good friend and colleague, Larry Litowitz, who, as CEO of a manufacturing company, moved his desk to the factory floor to make sure everyone knew he was serious about getting in touch with his workforce and the need to improve equipment and safety.

That’s how you Occupy something!

So, I must decide. What will I Occupy? Maybe you can help. Any suggestions?

Say It Ain't So...

Brooklyn Dodgers center
fielder Duke Snider

When I was a kid – I mean a very young kid, grade school age – I was a baseball fan. No one talked about football. The NFL wasn’t a big deal. If you were a football fan you watched the college game. Michigan vs. Michigan State, USC vs. UCLA, Florida vs. Florida State, etc.


But, I grew up in NY where there were no big deal football teams. But there were three – that’s right – three major league baseball teams. The team you rooted for largely depended on what borough you were born in. I was born in Brooklyn and grew up on Long Island so I was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. It would be more accurate to say I was consumed with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

I remember how devastated I felt when I learned that my beloved Dodgers were moving to L.A. I had never considered the possibility. How could the BROOKLYN Dodgers move to California? It was unheard of.

Of course, it wasn’t unheard of. Just four years earlier the Braves moved from Boston to Milwaukee and the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore to become the Orioles. But, I was too young to have that perspective.

At around the same time, the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first unmanned satellite into outer space. All the grown-ups around me were in a state of shock. Not me, I was surprised that this was the first. After all, I had been watching Flash Gordon and Captain Video soar through space on TV for years.

Five years later, when JFK was assassinated, I was shocked (like the rest of the nation). However, by then, I had some historical perspective. I knew that three other presidents had been assassinated while in office so, in a way, I was less shocked. I had gained that perspective by then.

The fall of the Berlin Wall

With age, comes wisdom, right? At least that’s the common belief. Yet, there have been other world events that I never saw coming. Indeed, much like when the Dodgers announced their impending departure from NY, I had never considered the possibility that the Cold War would end in my lifetime and that I would see the Berlin Wall come down.

I also never considered the possibility that I would see terrorists fly commercial airplanes into the World Trade Center. Nor, did think I would live to see an African American President of the United States. (Even the President’s mother-in-law said as much.)

It strikes me that these events are coming along at a faster pace than when I was a kid. About once a decade, I think. Does that mean that my inability to foresee them undermines the premise that wisdom comes with age? What perspective am I lacking?

What’s next, I wonder. The only prospective disaster I can see coming is the possibility of a dollar collapse because our government can’t get its act together. But, I have gone on and on about that in these pages; so, I won’t drag you through it again.

But, I have some questions. My favorite, of course, is WHO WILL LEAD? Who will solve this morass in DC? And, can they do so in time?

But, I wonder if you can help me? What are things that have happened in your life that you never contemplated could happen? Can you foresee the next big one?

If you can, please share it with me? It’s obvious that I don’t know what’s next.

It's a Vegetable!

The blogosphere loves catchy headlines. Since publishing a blog titled Greed is Still Good and two follow-ups that continued the theme, the Google statistics for this blog show readership quadrupling.


Among the many responses I received, one stood out as unique and piqued my interest. A Belgian reader advocated that technocrats do a better job than democratically elected politicians and the free market at ensuring prosperity for the public. Here’s what he said, in part:

“When dealing with corporate matters, look for the best CEOs. When dealing with agricultural matters, look for the most successful farmers. When dealing with exact science, look in academe for the most respected scientists. When dealing with matters of justice, look for the most respected judges.

“Basically, you look for experts wherever they can be found. Competent technocrats are most likely to be found among those who get the best results or achieve most respect in their respective fields of expertise.”

I challenged him to provide examples of where this works. He responded that it does so in the democracies of northern and western Europe.

This exchange took place a few days before the prime ministers of both Greece and Italy were replaced by technocrats.

When I hear the word, technocrat, I think of a bureaucrat – a government employee whose dogged adherence to some arcane set of rules yields an unreasoned result. But, technocrats don’t comply with policies. They are the experts who make policies.

The argument in favor of technocrats – and, indeed, the European example – is that well-crafted technocracies overcome the inequalities of opportunity that result from unbridled capitalism. Europe has embraced technocracy, perhaps because of its history of class-ridden societies. As a result, Western Europe has better childhood health results and better public education systems than the United States. A recently published study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) observed that economic mobility from the bottom is more difficult in the US than most countries of Western Europe.

Naturally, programs that produce these results come with a price tag. Sweden, for example, has the second highest tax revenue as a percent of GDP in Europe at around 48% (more than double the US percentage). They balance their budget, provide extensive health and welfare benefits and run a capitalist economy. Their high tax rates are part of the social contract that the citizens have made with their government.

Many pundits in this country have suggested that the Euro debt crisis demonstrates the failure of European social democracies. That model of governing is unsustainable, they say. But, the Euro crisis is not the result of social democracies. It’s the result of debt. Unsustainable debt is the result of long term, structural budget deficits. Some western European countries – France, Belgium, Italy, Spain – run large deficits and are facing difficult choices. Others, like Sweden, do not.

Americans shouldn’t be casting dispersions on Europe simply because they seem to have hit the wall a few years before we are projected to. Indeed, running a balanced budget is a statement of national character. National character that we apparently lack.

But, neither is the Swedish example proof of the superiority of technocracies. Wasn’t it a group of technocrats who dreamed up the Euro in the first place. The concept of a currency not backed up by a central bank is flawed by definition.

The American model is driven by economic freedom. Property rights, free trade, minimal government regulation, low taxes and freedom to fail are central to our superior economic growth over the last two centuries. The success of that model is best exemplified by the 1990’s when low taxes and a balanced budget were at the root of our economic success.

Clearly, not everyone in this country embraces these principles of economic freedom. There are some obvious flaws to a system that rewards Lady Gaga more than it rewards its teachers. But our nation was founded on the right to pursue happiness. And, Americans do not believe it is the responsibility of government to ensure it. If asked, Americans would express admiration for the Swedish model; but, they would not sacrifice their standard of living – their second car, their McMansions -- to achieve it.

The US has its technocracies. We have technocrats at the helm of the FCC, the FTC, the FEC and, of course, the most important technocracy of all, the Federal Reserve Board. But, on a larger scale, Americans reject the idea. Remember when healthcare reform was to include a panel of experts to examine the high cost of care during the last year of life? “DEATH PANELS!” screamed the opposition.

On the other hand, I would like to meet the technocrat who pointed out that, calorie for calorie, tomato paste has the same nutritional value as an apple. Under one proposal, the National School Lunch Program could credit a serving of pizza as a vegetable. Now, that’s my kind of technocrat.

Greedy or Simply Needy?

I lived in Denver for a few years, back in the 1980s. It was a great experience for a guy who grew up in NY and I wouldn’t mind going back someday. I worked in a national credit card business at the time so the local economy didn’t affect me too much. Others weren’t so lucky.


Colorado is a boom or bust state. In the 80s, it boomed early on high oil prices. It went bust later on the collapse of oil prices. Big Oil closed all their Denver operations when it became economically infeasible to explore for oil in the Rockies. The contractors, most of whom were geologists and engineers went bust along with them. Many left town leaving a declining real estate market and failed regional banks and S&L’s behind.

Sound familiar? It was a microcosm of our national banking crisis. The difference? The banks weren’t too big to fail. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) spent about $900B to take over failing banks (an amount which they later recovered by raising rates on its member banks), the banks’ shareholders lost all of their stock, none of the executives walked away with multi-million dollar severance packages and no one occupied Denver.

Too bad it didn’t work that way in the financial crisis of 2008.

Last week, the press reported on an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study that concluded that the wealth gap between young and old is growing. The report went further in concluding that economic mobility from lower to upper income strata was more evident in Canada and many European countries than it is in the US.

Naturally, this information is used as fuel for those sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street movement (OWS). I wonder how many of those who reported on the OECD study actually read it (which you can do by clicking HERE).

What the report actually said was that upward mobility was primarily a function of parental influence on education starting in early childhood and extending through college. The gap between young and old, rich and poor is the result of how well educated you are.

To quote directly from the report: “Parental or socio-economic background influences descendants’ educational, earnings and wage outcomes in practically all countries for which evidence is available.”

Many pundits have speculated that the fervor behind OWS will peter out when the weather turns too cold to camp out in city parks. Even if that happens, the underlying problem – young adults who have worked hard and played by the rules can’t find jobs – will not vanish with the first snow. However, over time something must change.

Here’s my prediction: in the absence of jobs, many will start businesses. Yes, comrades, they will become capitalists. They will go from being needy to being greedy. As one pundit put it, their Plan B will become Plan A. And, there’s an app for that. "Start Your Own Business" will set you back $.99 in the iTunes store.

I have sat in on many presentations on how the Internet – Google, Facebook, Retargeter.com, Tumblr.com, YouTube, etc. – are changing the way business is done. When they are over, the middle aged listeners in the audience usually remark that they don’t get it. If I were 25 today, I would see those folks as too fat, dumb and happy to stand up to the competition I can offer.

Those too sluggish to adapt to the new world will end up like the last buggy whip manufacturers. We live in a world where $600 can buy a disk drive that would store all of the world’s music, where 5 billion mobile phones are in use and 30 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook every month (according to the McKinsey Global Institute).

Creative entrepreneurs have figured out how to use technology to destroy old business models in healthcare, music, journalism, libraries, education, travel, supply chain management and the credit card industry – among others. Just as the transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy caused economic disruption – lost incomes among those whose skills weren’t adaptable – the transition to a global information/Internet based economy is doing the same right now.

And, just as the OECD study concluded, education is critical to making the adjustment.

What if you’re not an A student and can’t figure out how to disrupt an old business model? Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams wrote of his experience creating new businesses for himself while in college in an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal last April. Titled "How to Get a Real Education", he outlined the real world skills required to make a business work – any business. Not just those that are disruptive.

Free market capitalism has been the basis for American prosperity since our nation’s founding. Successful business people act in their own self-interest. It doesn’t result from greed; it results from need. That one man’s success can cause another man’s failure is part of the natural order. Those who seek to change it must consider that our prosperity will suffer.

Back in Denver, one enterprising geologist opened a micro-brew pub in an old industrial part of town called LoDo (Lower Downtown). Wynkoop Brewery became a popular restaurant in a bad part of town. His Plan B became Plan A.

Today that successful entrepreneur is governor of Colorado.

From Deadly Sin to Virtue

Ma'at

I had more responses to last week’s blog posting, Greed is Still Good, than any since I skewered Reverend Jones last September (Is That What Jesus Would Do? Really? ). I was pleased that the responses were thoughtful and articulate. While the core of my argument was about the economic theory known as the Law of Creative Destruction, most of the responses were a reaction to the headline. Apparently mentioning one of the seven deadly sins is a great way to get a response.

Of all the responses, most interesting to me was a comment from the Mensa group on Linked In by Richard Irwin. Here it is:

“There is no point in having wealth and power if it is just to serve our own ego. Wealth should be spent so others benefit from it, not hoarded, for that is miserly. Power should be used to serve others, not ourselves, as true happiness is not achieved through the domination of others. Equally, poverty is of no benefit to the individual or the society they find themselves in.

“We now need to look at sustainability and balance and learn to rebuild the diversity of the world we inhabit. The ancient Egyptians had a concept they called Ma’at which was the presence of truth, order, balance and justice in the world. I believe that after a century or more of world conflicts and unrestricted exploitation, that the concept of bringing Ma’at back into the world through the deeds we undertake in our lives is a valuable one.”

I must confess that I had never heard of Ma’at who, as it turns out, was an ancient Egyptian goddess representing the concept that Mr. Irwin describes.

In reading about Ma’at, I found myself thinking of Practical Wisdom, the principle defined by Aristotle. The result of the application of Practical Wisdom is a virtuous society. Two great books, published in the last year, examine Aristotle’s thinking in the context of modern society. The first is "Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?" by Harvard professor, Michael J. Mandel and the other is "Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing" by Swarthmore professors, Barry Schwartz and Ken Sharpe. Schwartz gave a great lecture on the topic last November which can be found on TED.com by clicking HERE.

The critical element of Practical Wisdom in its application to how our society works is the flexibility to bend the rules -- to use judgment to structure the best outcome for society and its inhabitants. Schwartz compares it to Jazz improvisation. The notes are on the page but the musicians play a variation that results in beautiful music. My interpretation is that he is talking about the difference between rules and principles (a construct first pointed out to me by a colleague).

Aristotle

In American society, our response to people and institutions that are unprincipled is to create rules to govern their behavior. But Schwartz points out that doesn’t work. Hence we have laws like No Child Left Behind that leaves children behind and Dodd-Frank Financial Reform that doesn’t reform the financial system.

On the topic of bankers – that target of the OWS crowd – Schwartz points out the bankers are smart people and “like water, they will find the cracks in any set of rules”. What we need, posits Schwartz, is the moral will to do the right thing and the skill to figure out what that is. In other words, we need principles.

He further points out that rules (or regulations in government parlance) “create people who only respond to incentives”. If you reward teachers for their students achieving higher test scores, that’s all they will teach. If you reward doctors for doing too many medical procedures, they will perform too many medical procedures.

Great thinkers like the college professors who have written on this topic make a material contribution to our society by creating a construct for our institutional leaders – commercial, religious or government -- to absorb and adapt to a practical application. But for most of us there is a simpler way to look at it.

It’s not what you do but how you do it. There is nothing inherently wrong with being a lawyer; however, lawyers who put their own interest ahead of their clients are unethical. There is nothing wrong with being a doctor; however, prescribing too many procedures so you can make your next boat payment is unethical.

Examples abound… Journalists who bend the truth to create a headline that will please their editor… legislators who are guided by special interests that make donations to their campaigns… Auto mechanics that convince you to make repairs you don’t need. And so on.

During the years before the financial crisis, Goldman Sachs sold Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) to their customers while their proprietary trading desk was “shorting” those same securities through the purchase of Credit Default Swaps (CDS’s). They made money while their customers lost a bundle. Unethical? Definitely. This is a simple principle anyone can grasp.

Illegal? Maybe. We’re still sorting that out. Legal is about the rules while ethics is about principle.

Is investment banking in and of itself unethical? In practice, investment bankers arrange for capital financing to enable entrepreneurs and corporations to invest in business growth spurring demand for goods and services and creating jobs. Is that unethical? I think not.

Wall Street – the financial services industry – provides a valuable service that enables the prosperity of American society. That investment bankers can make millions while doing so is neither illegal nor unethical. The OWS crowd may take issue with that. Despite the lack of a coherent platform, one clear message from these protests is that our system lacks social justice.

Perhaps we can find some guidance in Ma’at. Consider this from the Tour Egypt website:

“Ethics" is an issue of human will and human permission. It is a function of the human world of duality. What is "ethical" for one group is sin for another. But Ma'at, the reality that made all groups what they are is transcendent of ethics, just as a rock or a flower is amoral, a-ethical, without "truth or falsehood." How can a flower be "false" or "ethical?" It just is. How can the universe be "ethical or moral, right or wrong"? It simply is. That is Ma'at.”

Greed Is Still Good

True confession: I used to work at Goldman Sachs. Yup, the evil empire, the scourge of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protesters. So, I have a bias.


So many pundits, editorials and reporters have made the obvious observations about this now national (or maybe global) movement that I find it difficult to add any new thoughts. They are righteous… they are wrongheaded… they should be marching on Washington…. Maybe they just want jobs… Or, maybe they just want to get laid. (Well, this last observation is mine. But then I am old enough to remember the anti-war demonstrations of the 60s.)

I’m in the camp that thinks they should be marching on Washington. But where specifically? The White House? The Capitol? The Fed? The Department of Treasury? Too complicated. Let’s just occupy Wall Street.

Another obvious observation: they have worked hard and played by the rules and feel screwed by the system. They need jobs.

But, here’s the problem. The jobs aren’t coming back and it has nothing to do with Wall Street. It has to do with technology and the Internet in particular.

Have you been to an airport lately? If you have, you probably checked in to your flight at a kiosk which spit out a boarding pass and directed you to your gate. Remember how many people it used to take to check you in? Do you think those people are getting their jobs back?

This is just one of the examples of “The Second Economy” identified by the McKinsey Quarterly (you can get a free copy by clicking HERE and creating a login). The Internet has disrupted a lot of old methods of doing business. Thousands, if not millions, of jobs have vanished by way of the use of RFID technology, websites that have replaced travel agents, retail stores, schools and data centers. Yes, even Info Tech professionals have been affected. Our data is moving to “the Cloud”. We don’t know where it is and, apparently, we don’t care.

What server holds your Facebook page and all your photos? Don’t know? Neither do I.

Speaking of Jobs, lots of comment about the adoration among the OWS of the recently departed billionaire, Steve Jobs. It’s easy to focus on the contradiction. After all, Apple wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for junk bonds, hedge funds, IPOs, secondary offerings, derivatives and the like.

I find it more interesting to look at Apple as a microcosm of the global economy. Think of it this way. Apple creates the product – the design, the engineering, the operating system, etc. The products, the iPod, iPhone or iPad, are manufactured primarily by Foxconn in China. In the industrial economy that started to vanish from these shores about 20 years ago, the manufacturer would be a very valuable company in stock market terms. Yet, Apple is the most valuable (or second most valuable behind Exxon Mobil) company in the world. Not Hon Hai, parent company of Foxconn, which has over 400,000 employees worldwide.

I don’t think the OWS protesters are focused on Steve Jobs the billionaire or on Apple, the company. They are just turned on – like the rest of us – by all the power that the iPhone places in the palm or our hands.

Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko

Which brings me to Gordon Gekko and the “Greed is Good” speech from the movie Wall Street. In context, the famous Gekko speech was an interpretation of Schumpeter’s Law of Creative Destruction. Here is what Gekko said, in part:

“The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.”

Here’s a quick overview of Schumpeter’s law cribbed from Wikipedia: “In Schumpeter's vision of capitalism, innovative entry by entrepreneurs was the force that sustained long-term economic growth, even as it destroyed the value of established companies and laborers that enjoyed some degree of monopoly power derived from previous technological, organizational, regulatory, and economic paradigms. Schumpeter also elaborated the concept, making it central to his economic theory.”

It wouldn’t make a very good movie script, would it?

But, whether you prefer Gekko’s version of it or Schumpeter’s, the fact is that email destroyed the Post Office, Netflix destroyed Blockbuster and the guys who invented that airport kiosk destroyed all those airport jobs. And, all of us are willing participants.

Oh, and by the way, if you have an iPhone, you can even skip the airport kiosk. How’s that for power in the palm of your hands?

So, here’s the real problem. To replicate the success of Apple Computer and Steve Jobs, we need to train more engineers and designers. And, we aren’t? According to a Kaufman Foundation study, more than half the students in technical masters programs are foreign. And, now they don’t have to stay here to find jobs in their field. They can go back to China, India, Korea or South Africa to find meaningful work.

So, maybe the protesters should be marching on the Department of Education.

What do you think?

All My Children... And a Few More

Joe and his cousin Anna

I just returned from NY where we celebrated my brother-in-law Joe’s 80th birthday (yes, he’s much older than we are). What a great party! My wife’s family is full of energy and the party drew distant relatives from far and wide. Rhode Island, Toronto and, of course, Florida. There was no music or dancing at this party. The music could not have been heard over all the laughter.


Like any Italian family, the more of us you get in a room the more you hear great stories. I have heard them all 100’s of times before. But, they get better every time.

The planning for our trip was juxtaposed with the end of an era. All My Children, a long running daytime soap opera, was airing its last episode on network TV. What’s a soap opera lover to do now that Susan Lucci – perhaps daytime TV’s most well-known star – has faded to black along with the entire Pine Valley community?

Susan Lucci as Erica Cain

One of my favorite stories is about my late father-in-law, Dominick, who lived to the age of 95. He was as tough as any Italian born in the old country but he could also charm the skin off a rattlesnake. I loved him dearly and we still miss him 20+ years after his death.

In their later years, Dominick and his sister Catherine would sit together watching afternoon soaps. This was not idle time. They were truly engaged in the process. You might have thought these soap opera characters were their neighbors or, perhaps, distant relatives. They would swear and curse at the immorality on display. How would they react to Susan Lucci’s character, Erica Cain? They would be spitting mad.

“Che puttana!” (What a whore!)

Note: it is far funnier to hear this story told by my sister-in-law than it is to read it.

Were they alive today, Dominick and Catherine would be crestfallen to hear of the end of All My Children. Where could they get their melodrama fix?

Well, fear not! We have the Republican candidate debates. Well, we call them debates; but, are they really? For the most part, they are sound bite contests. No need to watch. Just wait for the four minute summary on the morning news. They will dutifully show you the “highlights” which focus on barbs and retorts NOT on substance.

But, that’s not the real melodrama. The daily reports of who’s in and who’s out are the real action. Will it be the fat guy from New Jersey? How about the hot chick from Alaska?

This is more fun than wondering if Erica Cain’s daughter is really a lesbian. Is Mitt Romney really a conservative? Moreover, which Republican will the voters kill off before the primaries? We have already seen the rise and fall of both Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry. However, Perry seems like he could come back and cause problems for the main characters. Sort of like when Erica Cain’s thought-to-have-been aborted son, Josh Madden, returned to the show.

The other melodrama? The competition to be the most influential state in the primary season has moved big state Florida to schedule its primary in late January. So, New Hampshire and Iowa will likely hold their main events shortly after New Year’s Day. Too bad. It’s clear that anyone who hasn’t declared is unlikely to jump in now. Fat guy says no. Hot chick says no. They’re spoiling the fun, aren’t they?

Pop star, Rihanna, made several guest appearances on our favorite soap opera back in 06. Couldn’t we have at least one more brief guest appearance? How about South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson who famously yelled, “You lie”, at President Obama during the 2009 State of the Union address? Wouldn’t that drive everyone crazy? Wouldn’t Bill Maher have a ball with that?

Amidst all this madness comes the Wall Street Journal editorial (October 5) which almost, but not quite, names Romney as the best of the lot. They refer to him as a “technocrat” (whatever that means) whose candidacy would give Republicans the best chance of reclaiming the White House – maybe.

Speaking of juxtaposition. The demise of Erica Cain is nearly simultaneous with the rise of upstart, Herman Cain (no relation). The Journal describes him as the “most intriguing” candidate. They were careful not to endorse anyone.

Cain’s 9-9-9 proposal has gotten everyone’s attention. Personally, I love it. It would reduce the government’s misallocation of capital, increase economic growth and employment; more fairly tax the public, attract Foreign Direct Investment and favor exports over imports. And, it has the added advantage of being easily understood by the average Joe.

But if Cain ever made it to the White House, the real soap opera would begin. I am not a lawyer but I think I could translate Cain’s 9-9-9 program into a Congressional bill in two or three pages. What would Congress do to 9-9-9? How many pages would the legislation be after the lobbyists got hold of it?

I am tempted to utter some Italian epithet. But, instead I will simply ask:

CHI PRON GUIDO? (WHO WILL LEAD?)

They Don't Write Songs About Volvos

57 Studebaker Silver Hawk

I am a “car guy”, sort of. I have always loved cars. My parents used to tell stories about me at age 3 sitting in the back of their 47 Dodge naming every car that went by. There’s a Plymouth, a Hudson, a DeSoto and so on.


Bob Lutz is a real car guy. In his new book, Car Guys vs. Bean Counters, he contends that MBAs and finance guys have stolen the soul of the Big Three auto manufacturers as well as most of the big corporations in America. Lutz has worked for all of the Big Three and BMW. He was coaxed out of retirement in 2001 by then GM Chairman and CEO, Rick Wagoner, because the company needed someone who understood how to build great cars. Lutz was behind the resurgence of Cadillac and Buick and championed the Chevy Volt from the original concept in 2005 to its production, starting last year.

Lutz describes how the cars we lust after – the great classics of the 50s and 60s – were built during an era when designers and engineers were the prime movers at GM. He reminds us of the beautiful cars from GM’s design studio – the Chevy’s of 55 and 57, the Pontiac GTO, the early Corvettes and the classic Cadillac designs. Focus groups would never have come up with these designs and the finance guys would never allow such expensive treatments as big fins and chrome embellishments.

My first car was a 57 Studebaker Silver Hawk. It had a hole in the floorboard and a dented trunk lid but it ran a 289 V-8, same as the Mustangs of that era, and only cost me $100. Best of all, it was mine! This was an era when rock songs referred to cars as part of the popular culture. When the Beach Boys sang “SHE’S SO FINE, MY 4-OH-9”, everyone knew they were talking about a Chevy Impala with a 409 cubic inch engine. The kids at school nicknamed my car the Batmobile because its fins reminded us of the car on the cult TV show starring Adam West. Or, maybe it was because I drove like a bat out of hell. I don’t know.

I do know that the design came out of the Raymond Loewy design studio and is beautiful enough to have a cult following today. Maybe Lutz is onto something.

By the mid-70s, GM’s culture was starting to shift. No longer would the design studio drive product decisions nor would engineering be a prime mover. By the 80s, it was all about numbers and focus groups. So, GM produced a series of forgettable cars for a generation.

79 Camaro

My first GM car was a 79 Camaro. It ran a small block 305 V8. It was blue with a black interior and was a great boulevard cruiser. When I became a daily commuter in New Jersey, I traded it for a VW Rabbit which got great gas mileage and held more stuff.

Lutz was brought back to GM to help change the culture as much as anything else. During the generation in which engineers and designers were marginalized, Vehicle Line Executives (VLE’s) became the decision makers. They were bonused on meeting quantitative measures of cost and specifications developed from focus groups. There were standards for wheel clearance and windshield height. Each car had to respond a certain way when you drove over a bump. The results were cars like the Pontiac Aztec and the Chevy Impala which met the standards but looked like each section of it was developed by a different committee. Any wonder no one wanted them?

The pronouncement that brand identities must be developed for each model led to all Chevys having a horizontal chrome bar through the grille and each Pontiac having body cladding glued to the side. It didn’t matter if it was ugly, it met the standard. The VLE got to check it off his list and be eligible for his or her bonus. Changing an entrenched culture like this in a global corporation is a monumental task.

But, while his book was primarily about the evolution of GM in the last decade, the sub-text was about LEADERSHIP.

The first lesson? Courage. If you know your product, your market and your business, you should have the courage to follow through on your vision. During the 50s, Cadillac was the premier automotive brand in the world. The phrase “it’s the Cadillac of…..” was a popular phrase, meaning it’s the best of a category. By the turn of the century, Cadillac was an aging brand whose target customer base was literally dying. It had lost its 50s brand image – a high fashion, great performing vehicle whose engines were transplanted into race cars. Chuck Berry sang, “CADILLAC DOING ABOUT 95 IT WAS BUMPER TO BUMPER SIDE TO SIDE” in the hit song, Maybelline. It was a great time for GM.

For the 21st Century, Lutz decided Cadillac should take on BMW. How’s that for courage? The Cadillac CTS brought edgy styling, V8 power and rear wheel drive to a car which was exactly the same size as a BMW 5-Series. GM could have tested their new model at their Michigan proving grounds; however, they chose to test it at Germany’s famed Nuerburgring where it promptly set lap times better than its targeted competitor. A bold move? Sure. But the automotive press picked it up and the car has been a rousing success. This week, Cadillac announced a new model, the ATS, aimed at BMWs best selling 3-series. Cadillac executives didn’t mince words, saying the car would be new from the ground up and focused on performance.



My 190SL



Next, communication. You need to relentlessly communicate your vision to the troops. They want it, they love it, and they want to be included. Lutz was in charge of product planning during his recent stint with GM. He had no authority over engineering, marketing or manufacturing. He had to convince not only the company’s CEO but also the various committees involved creating new products of his vision.

Last, but certainly not least, find likeminded people, support them and shine a light on them. In the end, it will be the folks on the front lines that will get the job done for you.

Lutz book really made me want to root for GM. The author is an ex-Marine fighter pilot who carried his combat instincts over to a career he loved.

Still, I am a foreign car guy. I have owned 3 Mercedes, 2 Audi’s, 2 BMWs, an Acura and a Lexus. Indeed, my first love was a 62 Mercedes 190SL. I got to spend some time with another car guy, AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson, a couple of years ago. It turns out his first car was a 190SL. We commiserated on how difficult it was to keep its duel carburetors synchronized among other things. It was a great day for a car guy.
What about you? What was your first car?

What About the 100th Anniversary?

Like most of you, I found myself glued to the TV on Sunday morning, watching coverage of the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Reliving the shock and grief seemed like a responsibility. I was required to watch it, to remember. The sight of the memorial, so powerfully designed and executed, and the backdrop of a new tower rising from the ashes caused the emotions of 10 years ago to well up inside me again.


I remember taking a business trip shortly after the beginning of the Iraq war and being seated next to a contemporary, a retired Army Colonel who worked for a defense contractor. He and I had much to talk about and found ourselves making the same rationalization. It went something like this: no, there weren’t any WMDs but we won’t know the true impact of our military venture for quite some time. The real reason for the attack was to create a democratic government in the Middle East to serve as a model – to prove it could be done. To prove that free societies could exist in the Islamic world. It would take quite some time to see if it would work. A generation or more.

That was our rationalization. Our way of being supportive to our country and our troops.

I opposed the war from its conception. It made no strategic sense to me. To understand why, you have to remember your geography lessons and mix in a little macroeconomic analysis. The United States is blessed by the most favorable geography in the world. We are the only nation with long seacoasts and navigable seaports on both the Atlantic and Pacific. You see, much like the global economy of 400 years ago, it is still cheaper to move goods by sea than by any other method.

Our geography also favors food production beyond the capacity of any other nation. That, coupled with our long navigable rivers to bring products to the seaports made us an exporting giant from the mid to late 19th Century onward. Expressed in financial terms, because of our natural infrastructure, investment in the U.S. provides a higher return than any other nation.

Okay, let’s shift from our geography lessons to our history lessons. From the presidency of George Washington to that of JFK, the U.S. made a series of strategic moves to consolidate and secure its economic future.

From Washington’s signing of "Jay's Treaty" which was highly unpopular (and which I wrote about in a blog post titled "Let's Put the Washington Back in DC") to the Louisiana Purchase, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish American War and WW II, we fought to secure our sea lanes. These gains were further consolidated by the post-war institutions set up by Truman and Eisenhower (the UN, NATO, SEATO et al.) and defended without a shot being fired during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

The result? Today, the US Navy controls every sea lane in the world. We take it for granted. But many Americans died to establish this awesome sea power and many politicians and presidents put their country ahead of self-interest to create it.

Which brings me back to Iraq. There are only two other geographic ranges with the potential to compete with the U.S. One is the plain that stretches from France to Russia. And, the other, in the Middle East and Southern Asia, stretches from the Mediterranean to the Himalaya Mountain range.

Ever wonder why there have been so many wars fought by Germany against northern European competitors? It’s because there are no natural boundaries between France, Germany, Poland and Russia. Southern Europe has numerous mountain ranges and rivers. And, less history of warfare as a result.

The partitioning of the Middle East, primarily achieved by the British between the two world wars, was designed to establish dictatorships that would serve our interests – oil exports. It has always been in our interest to have internecine competition between the larger Middle Eastern states. Why? Because a consolidation of all those countries coupled with their oil wealth could create a serious strategic competitor to the U.S.

Which brings me back to Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s government served as a wedge between Iran and its sympathetic allies to the west of Iraq, mainly Syria which has great influence over Lebanon. His removal, coupled with the installation of a democratically elected government in Iraq, enabled by and legitimized by the U.S., has provided Iran with an opportunity.

Iran has developed security and trade relationships with not only Iraq but also with Syria and Turkey. Turkey? Aren’t they a U.S. ally and NATO member? Yes. But, they are also an emerging economic power whose rejection by the European Union has caused it to look eastward for trade relationships. Toward Iran and, of course, China. And, they have an Islamic democratically elected government.

Against this backdrop, we are pulling out of not only Iraq but also Afghanistan. The decision to leave only a few thousand troops in Iraq coupled with our timetable to get out of Afghanistan will provide Iran with the opportunity to consolidate its power from Lebanon to Pakistan, creating a strategic competitor for decades if not centuries to come. The Pakistani’s, our ally in the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, are not likely to be our allies post-war. Indeed, NPR Reports that elements within Pakistan’s security force favor the reinstallation of the Taliban in Afghanistan to stabilize that country.

Back in the US, there is little patience left to support our land wars in Asia. And, in Washington, the pressure to reduce the deficit will take its toll on our military capability. What’s worse is that, despite our natural advantages, investment capital is flowing out of the U.S. not into it. How can this be so?
US multi-nationals are incentivized by our tax code to invest their money overseas. Manufacturers with high tech operations in the US can’t find workers with the math aptitude to fill jobs despite our 9% unemployment rate. And, our political system is mired in partisan fighting rather than finding solutions.

Why? US multi-nationals are incentivized by our tax code to invest their money overseas. Manufacturers with high tech operations in the US can’t find workers with the math aptitude to fill jobs despite our 9% unemployment rate. And, our political system is mired in partisan fighting rather than finding solutions.


Before turning off the TV on Sunday morning, I watched an excerpt of a Tom Hanks narrated documentary, BOATLIFT, a 9/11 Tale of Resilience. Americans pulled together on that day. Many, who were safe in another part of New York, participated in a heroic effort to save their countrymen without regard to their own safety. Hanks’ narration compares the event to another famous boatlift when British and French citizens were rescued from Dunkirk. It was on that occasion that Winston Churchill delivered his famous speech declaring that “this was their finest hour”.

Has our hour passed? Can we pull together? WHO WILL LEAD?

Hurricane Aristotle

Hurricane Irene off the coast of Florida

"We Survived Hurricane Frances". That was the title of my journal (posted HERE), cataloging our experience in my pre-blogger days. It was 2004 and it was the first hurricane of substance in our Florida experience. I sent my journal to friends and colleagues by email until the power went out. Some thought it was hysterical. Others were unmoved.

As for us, we were scared. Frances was a Category 2 storm bearing down on us. It made landfall 20 miles from our house.

We had plans to leave on vacation that week but stayed to make sure my parents were okay. We moved them into our house because we knew it would be safer. You see, our house was built after 1992’s Hurricane Andrew and theirs wasn’t. Homes built to the post-Andrew standard could easily withstand the winds of Frances.

I was thinking of this as I received messages, read Facebook postings and watched news footage of Hurricane Irene’s destruction this past week. Folks in the northeast – particularly those of the inland communities – simply weren’t ready for what happened.

Amid this news, I listened to Larry Kudlow interview with Texas Congressman and presidential candidate, Ron Paul. Rep. Paul is as pure a libertarian as any politician I know of. If you have never studied the philosophy of libertarianism or read the works of its patron saint, Emmanuel Kant, you need only follow Paul’s presidential campaign to learn about it.

In the considered opinion of Rep. Paul, people make conscious choices about where they live – either implicitly or explicitly assuming the associated risks. If you want to live on the beach in Florida or in a flood plain along a river bank, you should not expect the rest of the taxpayers to insure your risk when the private market won’t.

Main St. in Prattsville, post-Irene

Tell that to the citizens of Prattsville, NY. Hurricane Irene completely destroyed every building on Main Street. It is highly unlikely that the city will survive without financial assistance from outside sources. Did the good people of Prattsville make a conscious choice to assume the risk of this outcome? Some might have; but, I doubt it. Most news reports featured long time or lifelong residents. Whether they had considered the risk or hadn’t, should we, as taxpayers, bail them out of their trouble? That is the philosophical question posed by the current debate about funding FEMA in Washington.

Libertarians, like Ron Paul, would say no. John Rawls, a political philosopher of the 20th Century, offers a different approach. In “A Theory of Justice” (1971), he theorizes that if citizens were to write a social contract expressing principles to which the majority agrees, we would not be a libertarian society. But, there is a twist to Rawls’ approach. He asks that we assume we all start from an equal position. No one has an economic, social or educational advantage. He reasoned that from this position, most people would choose a more risk averse course. Rawls concludes that we would agree on a social contract that guarantees basic liberties (speech, religion, etc.) and economic justice. He believed we would choose a system where the most well off would insure the basic needs of the least well off members of society.

Hah! Tell that to Ron Paul and his followers.

Anyone who buys my house (and, here’s hoping somebody will someday), will pay for the security of Florida’s building standards. We weren’t sweating Hurricane Irene when it was aimed at Florida. We knew we could withstand the storm. (Don’t get me wrong. We weren’t looking forward to it either.) That additional cost is built into our social contract with the state and its homebuilders. And, I haven’t heard anyone complain about it. In a purely libertarian state, we would all be left to negotiate the degree of hurricane proof-ness with our builder.

So, what is Congress up to while the folks in Prattsville are contemplating their future? Well, the Republicans are not willing to de-fang FEMA – not after the spectacle of Katrina undermined President Bush’s credibility. But, they are willing to trade additional funding for FEMA for funds now going to liberal programs they don’t like, such as subsidies to the alternative energy industry.

Sounds like business as usual.

There are various approaches to government (including the utilitarian philosophy of John Stuart Mill which I won’t go into here). They have their intellectual roots in the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries and form the basis of the current debate about how we should govern ourselves.

The ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle believed that the principles by which society should be governed should be the result of reasoned debate among the elite. The core of his logic was that reasonable, intelligent people should decide what virtues it should honor and reward and what should be punished. This should be a fluid and ongoing process, Aristotle would say.

Isn’t that what our legislatures are supposed to do?

This is just one example of the unreasonable lack of reason being applied to the nation’s problems. I wouldn’t expect the Congress to debate Kant vs. Rawls. But, shouldn’t they be having a reasoned debate as opposed to posturing, conniving and threatening.

Meanwhile the Bully Pulpit – used so effectively by the last two presidents, Bush and Clinton – seems to have been ceded to the last two Speakers of the House, Boehner and Pelosi.

It makes you wonder….

WHO WILL LEAD?

WE SURVIVED HURRICANE FRANCES

Thursday, September 2, 2004; a hurricane warning is posted for Palm Beach County at 11 AM. Twenty-four hours to go. We never planned to stay through the storm. We had planned our annual getaway to Canandaigua Lake in upstate NY months in advance. It was to have been our first time visiting Suzanne’s family since her mother passed away; and, an old school chum had promised me a round at Oak Hill, site of last year’s PGA Championship. But, my aging parents refused to get on a plane to stay with my brother in Atlanta; and, we couldn’t leave them behind.

Noon: I leave the office to pick up Mom and Dad. They are packed and ready to go. We bring along some extra food and a couple of bottles of water. By 2 PM we are all ensconced in our house in Palm Beach Gardens ready for the worst that Frances can offer. Here are some pictures of our humble little bungalow before the storm hits.

3PM: I go to find gasoline to fill up my tank. I wait in line for 45 minutes only to have the owner cut off the pumps as soon as I get to the head of the line. Out of gas. What year is this? 1974? I get some gas elsewhere and go on the search for more ice and batteries. No luck. Suzanne goes to the supermarket for some last minute supplies. With her basket full and heading for the checkout, a fire alarm goes off and the fire marshal orders everyone to leave. One of the neighbor’s trees fell in our direction, its branches resting on our roof.

4 PM; I am connected to my company’s VPN catching up on email. After all, our offices in Orlando and around the world aren’t closed and I am no slacker.

7 PM; Suzanne serves up a chicken dinner and cooks all the chicken we can find. This will go on ice when we lose power. We have power, water, phone… everything we need. I close the hurricane shutters when it gets dark…. Still waiting.

Friday, September 3, 2004, 7 AM; Frances is taking its sweet time. She is stalled off the coast of Palm Beach and whipping us with wind and rain. The new forecast says we are still at least twenty four hours away. The storm is a Category 3; sustained winds of 125 MPH. I open some of the shutters to let in some light.

9 AM; Dad and I head back to his house to pick up more food, another change of clothes and all the ice we can find. No one is on the highway; they all left town the day before. That’s what we should have done.

The day is uneventful. I putter around on the Internet. Mom and Dad watch TV. Suzanne does as much laundry as she can. Then she makes a meatloaf.

We decide if we are going to lose power, we should cool the house down as much as possible. By dinner, we are all walking around in long pants and sweaters complaining about how cold we are. Alliterative headline:

Florida Foursome Freezes during Frances

Saturday, September 4; we should be on a plane. But, tropical storm winds have cancelled all the flights. I call the resort, the airlines and the rental car company to roll everything forward one week. The power flickers on and off during one of the calls and I lose contact with US Airways.

I go out to the garage to find a phone that connects with wires. I find a splitter and connect it in parallel with the cordless phone that everyone still prefers to use.

11 AM; The cable goes out taking the Internet with it. We retrieve a 12 inch TV from a closet somewhere because it has rabbit ears. There are only two local channels coming through on VHF – all hurricane all the time. But, Frances isn’t moving so there is no news really. After lunch, we watch a rented movie on DVD; Mona Lisa Smile with Julia Roberts. We recommend it if you like old fashioned movies with happy endings (which we do).

6 PM: Suzanne cooks up some Pasta Fagioli. Molto Bene!!! This may go down as one of history’s famous last meals. (A little gallows humor.)

We close up the shutters and watch a video of Raiders of the Lost Ark (from the archives). I can remember every scene and most of the lines. How many times have I seen this movie anyway?

10:30 PM; we lose power just as all the Nazis are being melted by supernatural laser beams in the final scene. We decide to go to bed.

Sunday, September 5; 1 AM; Frances makes landfall at Sewall’s Point, 20 miles north of us. At 1:30, the southwestern edge of the eyewall hits us. We both sit bolt upright in bed. It sounds and feels like a fast moving freight train is barreling down a track between us and our next door neighbor.

We try to sleep to no avail. About an hour later, we hear water trickling. Is it inside or outside? We get up to investigate with our flashlights. No evidence of leakage.

Our house was built after 1997, when the last post-Hurricane Andrew upgrade to the building codes was passed. No overhangs on the roofs; hurricane straps in the attics and hurricane shutters cover all the windows and doors. It’s dark but safe.

We fall asleep as the eye of the storm passes over us.

6:30 AM; the eastern edge of the eyewall hits and we awake again. This time we get up to make some coffee and wait it out. Our gas stove still works. So, I boil some water and pour it through the basket in the electric drip coffee maker. We make eggs for breakfast since we know they won’t last.

We dump all the ice from the freezer into coolers and empty what we think may survive on the ice. Dad and I polish off the ice cream. (I mean you can throw the hamburger into the cooler; but, you know the ice cream is a goner.) It’s kind of slushy; like spring skiing.

Suzanne digs up a Sony Watchman I received as a going away gift from some job or another. I never use it but keep it because it’s kind of cool. It operates on 4 AA batteries and has a 1-½ inch TV screen. The shutters are still up and storm is still raging so this is our link to the outside world.

Mom and I play gin rummy by candlelight. It’s getting a little warm in here. Dad and Suzanne take turns watching the baby TV. NBC’s Al Roker has survived in his ocean abode and is telling his story. We switch to the CBS affiliate. It is truly bizarre to be watching TV to find out what is going on right outside your door.

The TV guys all say it’s not yet safe out there. They have the video to prove it. Miraculously, they say, no one died as a result of the storm despite the fact that every inch of the state was affected. Two people have died because when they lost power, they ran their gas-powered generators indoors. Official cause of death: asphyxiation; unofficial cause: stupidity.

11 AM; we are losing water pressure and the local health authorities have issued a boil water order due to potential contamination from sewage. We had filled both bathtubs with water the day before so we could flush the toilets and have 6 one gallon jugs; 12 one liter bottles and 5 dozen 20 oz bottles of drinking water. Suzanne was smart to fill up every pot in the house with tap water the day before.

Once the news reports get repetitious, we switch to the other channel. Al Roker is still at it. Boy, that guy talks a lot.

Noon, we boil all the remaining eggs in the house and make egg salad for lunch. Suzanne adds a little mustard, some paprika and some secret ingredient. It’s another great meal. The local news says the storm should clear by 2 or 3 PM. Al Roker is still talking and I wonder if I should hire someone to assassinate him.

All four of us play scrabble to pass the time. Suzanne wins.

3:30 PM; I remove the storm post from behind the garage door and we go outside.

DAYLIGHT!!!

A quick stroll around the house reveals little or no damage, although we later discover some roof tiles missing. The screens I heard whipping in the wind were the neighbors’. We lost three trees, one of which fell on the A/C tilting the water filtration system in the process.

I spend the rest of the afternoon cutting branches and piling them at the curb.  Dad worries about what he will find when he returns home.  The weatherman says tomorrow will bring seasonal weather.  That’s good/bad news.  Nothing that will destroy your house; but, nothing you want to live through without A/C.

6 PM; the leftover pizza that was in the freezer has completely thawed out.  Suzanne invents stovetop pizza. 

Modern gas stoves have electric controls.  In a power outage, the burners work by lighting a match but the oven shuts down.  Presumably, this is to forestall lawsuits from the families of people who blow themselves up trying to manually light the oven.  Don’t laugh.  I knew someone this happened to. 

At nightfall, Mom and Suzanne play Scrabble again by candlelight.  Dad and I enjoy the cool breeze.  It’s cool and moist – like an ocean breeze on your winter vacation.  The tail end of Frances is out there somewhere bringing occasional rain and high winds (40 to 50 MPH).   But, the breeze feels so good I decide to leave the shutters open. 

Monday, September 6; cold cereal with bananas for breakfast. The milk is still good. After breakfast, we load Mom and Dad in the car and take them back to Boynton Beach. No damage to their house. Lots of fallen branches and much good luck. They decide to move back in.

We go home to finish the clean up. Lunch is whatever is still not spoiled in the fridge.

2 PM; we are outside working in the yard when the sky opens up drenching us and causing puddles to form inside each of our open windows.

6 PM; we grill the remaining chicken for dinner then play another game of scrabble. We check in on the baby TV; CBS has returned to regular programming. We watch Two and Half Men and go to bed. I sleep like a log despite the heat and humidity. A day of manual labor will do that for you.

Tuesday; September 7; the local news says that the National Guard is distributing ice, water and non-perishable food at a nearby distribution center. We polish off our coffee and head over. We arrive at 7:28 AM, second in line for an 8 AM opening. The supply truck doesn’t show up till 9 but we are glad to wait in our air-conditioned car. At the head of the line, we get ice only. But, that was all we needed.

After breakfast (instant oatmeal), I shower and get dressed for work. I tell Suzanne that if the office is closed, I am heading for the airport to get a flight out of here tomorrow. It is and I do. Canandaigua Lake here we come and Hurricane Ivan be damned.

Noon; I make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch.

In the end, all that happened was that we lost a few trees that God didn’t put there in the first place. We were uncomfortable for a few days but it was nothing like the suffering of people who lost their homes a few miles north or in countless other natural disasters from the Northridge quake to the Mississippi floods to our own Hurricane Charley a few weeks ago.

But, it was an experience we’ll never forget. And, the next time we’ll be out of town before the storm arrives. If the house does fall down, I don’t want to be in it.

---  John Calia, September 8, 2004

Epilogue. Our Noon flight on Wednesday was delayed on the ground because Air Force One was on its way in and no one can be in the air when W is. Of course, our attitude is that unless he can fix the power grid, he should go back home and stay there (and by home, I mean Texas). The delay causes us to have fifteen minutes to make our connecting flight in DC. We sprint. We have to change terminals causing us to go through Security again. We arrive at our gate with 5 minutes to spare.

The flight to Rochester is cancelled due to mechanical problems. US Airways wants to put us on a flight to Buffalo and give us cab fare to the Rochester airport. (No wonder these guys are bankrupt again!) We opt for a later flight to Syracuse so that we have a shorter drive to the lake. It was not a fun drive. Unfamiliar with the roads and driving at night, we drove through a pouring rain – which, as it turns out, was the remnants of Frances.

This was followed by 7 straight days of perfect late summer, early fall weather which we enjoyed immensely.