Drugged and Constipated: A Tale of Middle Age and a Muddle Through Economy

Our view of Canandaigua Lake

My wife, Suzanne, and I just returned from a two week vacation at our second home in Canandaigua, NY – the name translates to the Chosen Spot in Iroquois. I am sure you can see why. We drive up and back, a trip of 1400 miles one way – which strikes most people as crazy. But, we love to hang out at the lake and we love to hang out with our dog; so, we drive the dog to the lake. After two and half days of sleeping pills and fast food, we arrive drugged and constipated.


It gives us the opportunity to experience a little slice of America that we would miss if we flew. I am an amateur economist so I always view these little slices through that lens.

We always talk about selling the place on the way up. Our financial planner would approve. We bought it during the run-up in real estate as an investment which, of course, hasn’t worked out as we planned. But, once we get there, those thoughts always evaporate.

Vacation when you own the place isn’t the same as renting a room at a four star resort. Ours are more like rehearsing for retirement than true R&R. What do we do? We go on hikes, visit family, read, and have friends over for dinner. And, we shop. Oh, when I say shop I don’t mean going to the nearest Gucci outlet. We go to TJ Maxx to replenish the linens and to the local furniture store to buy a new mattress. (Mostly Suzanne does this while I hang out with the dog and read.)



Yours truly hanging out with Parker

 I managed to polish off two eBooks. The Big Short, Michael Lewis’ story of the mortgage crisis, and Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, a 673 page tome cataloging the emergence and development of human civilization since the Ice Age. I recommend them both.

I also quit my job half-way through. That was a weird thing to do on vacation. There is a new opportunity waiting for me this week. Yes, folks, there are jobs out there but it helps to have one when you are looking. In my role at Tatum, I have met 10’s or maybe 100’s of unemployed executives with great qualifications who can’t find meaningful work. It’s a national problem not just a Florida problem.

Most economists would agree.

Our niece, Renee, and her husband, Bob, dropped by. Their son just received his commission in the US Army and is on his way to Kuwait. Bob owns an electrical contracting business. His take on the economy is that things will be like this for years. Why? Because people lack confidence. No one is quite sure what will happen next. He is not talking about the EU debt crisis, the budget deficit or the prospective failure of the Medicare system. He is talking about people who build things and buy things. “It might not be so bad,” he says, “if ‘they’ wouldn’t talk things down so much.”

Most economists would agree.

On the drive home, we checked in at the Residence Inn in Waynesboro, VA and got a takeout dinner at the Outback next door. Chicken strips for the dog. We like stopping in Virginia since we are focused on it as a prospective place to retire. We keep saying we should spend more time there. We need to go back soon. (Without the dog.) The girl who took my money at Outback was a local resident who grew up in Danville, NY a few miles from Canandaigua. She told me that she moved back for a few months last year to be closer to family but returned as soon as she could. “Couldn’t handle the weather?” I asked. “No,” she said. “It’s too expensive there.” Taxes, rent and almost everything else are cheaper in VA. Good place to retire, right?

Most economists would agree.

The next day, we stumbled onto the Island Grill in Port Wentworth, GA. What a great place to eat (Exit 109 off I-95, in case you are interested). The parking lot contained more pickups than SUV’s. So, when we found a little spot in the corner of the patio under an umbrella, the conversation wasn’t Wall Street or Washington. It was about Harleys, fishing and felling trees. These are the people who pick up and move to where the work is. They live from paycheck to paycheck and the paychecks aren’t as big as they used to be. Like most Americans, they are working harder and making less these days.

Most economists would agree.

Our last day on the road, I woke up and checked out the NY Times on my iPad. I read David Brooks' column describing the way in which key executives at Fannie Mae spent the better part of the 1990’s currying favor in Congress so they could increase home ownership in America, all the while taking big bonuses for themselves. We all know how that worked out. If you want the details, read The Big Short.

I flipped on CNBC to listen to John Hofmeister, the former president of Shell Oil, complain about the anti-oil bias of the Obama administration. It’s a fair criticism. I think we should take advantage of America’s natural resources without government interference. Perhaps the interviewer should have asked him if he would give up federal subsidies for oil drilling in exchange for an improved regulatory environment. I would have. By the way, guess what Mr. Hofmeister is doing now. He’s a lobbyist, of course.

While Washington dithers, Fannie Mae is doing what it has always done and Big Oil (and every other big money interest) is having its way with Congress. Meanwhile, from Williamsport to Waynesboro to Port Wentworth, Americans are muddling through as best they can. We are addicted to a media that feeds us a steady stream of immaterial stories -- the President’s birth certificate or (dare I say it) Wiener’s wiener.

We are indeed drugged and constipated.

Most economists would agree.

WHO WILL LEAD?

No Excuse, Sir!

I had many responses to my last posting (Memorial Day Memories). Most were expressions of gratitude for my service which were warmly received. Others complimented the health of my whiskers (also warmly received). But it was the one from a very close friend, Bob Cannan, which really stood out. Bob was a year behind me at the Naval Academy (USNA). It’s fair to say that my posting caused him to remember some of his own lessons from that time.


By way of background, I should recount for those of you who did not attend USNA that our plebe year (like all military training) was a process of breaking down our conditioned responses to stimuli and replacing them with something more suitable to the armed forces. There were only four acceptable responses to any statement or question from upperclassmen: “yes, sir”; “no, sir”; “I’ll find out, sir”; and, “no excuse, sir”. That’s it. Nothing else need be, should be or had better be said. Try on something else and there was a price to pay.

Why? Well I quote, in part, from Bob’s email:

“Here’s the one phrase that impressed itself on me most profoundly in those formative years: “No excuse, sir.”


“And, the few times I was stupid enough to say it, it was always followed in a nanosecond by, “YOU’RE GODDAM RIGHT THERE’S NO EXCUSE!”


“After a whole (plebe) year facing the holy truth of that response I realized, “Hey, there really isn’t any excuse.” It worked. That got through, and it’s been a big one for me.


“Since then, it always amazes me that the same people who step up and say they “take full responsibility” never really do.


“And further, the main point is that an admission of guilt is not what we want. We don’t want excuses, certainly. But we also don’t want admissions of guilt or failure. Who cares? They’re failing or quitting. That’s been done. They want our sympathy? Our admiration for their honesty?


“We want them to do what they were hired to do, and keep at it until they deliver. That’s when they’ll have my admiration. Honesty and candor aren’t as courageous as the media makes them out to be. In fact they’re so common they’re not even very dramatic anymore. Here’s an alternative: how about shutting your mouth and getting the job done? That’s what you promised. That’s all I want.”

Obviously, Bob is a passionate guy. That’s why I love him. Passion aside, let’s examine for a moment the value of the lesson. We have been served up a succession of failures by our so-called leaders who would have benefited from some USNA conditioning. Think of Richard Nixon, Bill CLinton, Martha Stewart and Scooter Libby.

The common element in each of these examples is that these folks were not guilty of the underlying crime of which they were accused. They were guilty of the cover-up, the lie – the excuse. Richard Nixon wasn’t involved in Watergate; he was guilty of the cover-up. Clinton’s failure was not the Whitewater caper but lying about his sex life. Stewart wasn’t found guilty of insider trading but of lying to the FBI about it. Ditto Scooter Libby.

I often tell people that the personal attribute I value most is “forthrightness”. Think about that for a moment. Forthrightness is more than just honesty. You can be silent and still be honest. Forthrightness is about putting your failures on the table and saying, “There’s no excuse for this but everyone needs to know”.

Can you admit your failures without being drawn out? To your colleagues? To your family? To your children? To your spouse?

In combat, when someone doesn’t admit to a problem, people die. Hopefully that doesn’t happen in our personal and business lives. But, the next time you screw up – and we all do – put it out there to those that matter and simply say, “I have no excuse for this. Let’s talk about it and discuss how we move forward”.

Over the last 20 years, there has been a call for our military heroes to run for President. Schwarzkopf, Powell, Petraeus. What is their appeal? The sentiment transcends party politics. People don’t care about that. Quite simply, they long for true leadership, forthrightness – a “No Excuse” approach to the job. Isn’t that what we grew up with? Eisenhower, JFK, John Glenn?

The Veterans Campaign, a non-profit dedicated to helping military veterans run for office, reports that, in 1969, 75% of members of Congress had served in the military. Today the figure is 22.5%.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have and will produce veterans who will step up and serve. It’s already happening. Indeed my own Congressman is a West Point grad. It will continue to happen because those who serve in the military will want to continue to serve. It will happen because people are tired of partisan politics.

To quote Seth Lynn, the Marine Corps veteran who heads the Veterans Campaign, “Military members have served overseas and seen that the enemy is the guy at the end of the battlefield, not the guy on the other end of the aisle".

Perhaps we will soon have the answer to my favorite question, WHO WILL LEAD?