The Height of Irresponsibility: $18 billion for catastrophically bad performance
January 29th, 2009I just read a piece from the LA Times on Obama’s comments on the $18 billion for Wall St. bonuses in 2008.
This is the height of irresponsibility.
Why is it that auto maker CEOs were immediately supposed to take $1 salaries and everyone on Wall St – except Blankfein and his inner circle – keep their base salaries and massive bonuses. It’s irresponsibility with a generous dose of insanity.
This is the meat & potatoes of conspiracy theorists… How this level of BS gets the greenlight in “the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes” stretches the imagination.
Where’s Robin Hood when you need him?
More broadly this is just another sign of our sickness, of some deep & ugly systemic problems – the cancer that inevitably attacks any great success – in our case empire.
Our current predicament reminds me of Eisenhower’s farewell address. There are many points of great relevance but his comments on crisis are especially noteworthy: “Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties.”
He calls for balance, a Franklin like moderation in dealing with difficulties, and I do have grave doubts about whether the TARP and upcoming stimulus are really the kind of solutions we need or if they’re just scaled up DC pig parades w/ a full complement of cosmetics…
Bowling Update: Streaking through the halfway point
January 8th, 2009We’ve covered 16 weeks and we’re almost at the halfway mark (only 19 weeks to go – Albany Bowl has become our second home!)
I won’t lie – the ride has been bumpy at times but over the last four weeks we’re 12-4 and we’re climbing the ranks. Everyone put in solid performances but last night the Inmans carried us; Cal bowled 61 pins over average and Liz bowled 40 over.
Next week we face off with Call 4 Alcohol – they’re currently one spot ahead of us in 5th. It’ll be a veritable clash of the titans! This is a team packed with Olsons: John Olson, Christie Olson & Mike Olson. They’ve also got two non-Olsons: Marvin Davis & John Loggins. It’ll be the first time we play them and we don’t have a single Olson… I’ll post a quick update after the game to let you know how things shook out.
Let’s take a quick look back, sure we’re at the top of the leaderboard now but it wasn’t always that way… Our team has made a considerable amount of progress – see the brutally simple but serviceable table below for proof of our collective and individual improvement.
Here’s a look at our historical averages:
| Start | 1st Quarter | Halfway | |
| Carol Camp | 112 | 121 | 124 |
| Shannon Noe | 86 | 99 | 100 |
| Liz Cardenas | 85 | 87 | 91 |
| Cal Inman | 73 | 101 | 109 |
| Chris Camp | 130 | 145 | 155 |
Naomi Klein on the Corrupting Influence of $$$ (x-post from C-C)
December 18th, 2008Naomi Klein, activist and author of No Logo, has a great series of 1 minute videos on BigThink.com. In one she addresses the corrupting influence of corporate money in politics:
“I think there needs to be a citizen’s revolt against the corporate takeover of politics… Americans are in an endless election campaign. It never ends. So the idea that after the election then there will be policy, there is no after the election. There is always another election, another fundraising campaign, and you know it never ends.”
Klein also highlights the critical importance of campaign finance reform: “Before this can actually lead to political change, we need to change the rules. We need to get corporate money the hell away from politics; or at least a huge separation. It has to . . . It’s the most pressing issue of our time. It’s the most pressing issue of our time because it’s what needs to happen before anything else can happen.”
We’re advocating the same thing.
Money is not the only problem but it’s the problem that must be fixed first. The time is ripe and with your help we will create the change that we need.
Morning thoughts on data, identity and the almighty $$$
December 11th, 2008This was a comment on Identity Woman’s blog – I’m reposting here.
A snippet of IW’s post:
“Mary Hodder is one of the 8 experts Fast Company tapped to predict evolutionary trends for web 2.o in 2009:
Mary Hodder, Founder of Dabble.com and VP of Product Development, Apisphere
‘The future of social media is user’s owning their data, deciding who to send it to. Look for more companies that currently host the user’s identity to have less control over that, as things like Open ID take over and more companies try to compete by giving users more control over themselves. Look for ways users can own their own data, and companies that might offer that, sort of like a personal information bank’.”
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Sounds dead on to me.
I agree that one company or a small set of companies having preferred access/control over user data is not ideal. Sadly, I’m not sure that concentrated control won’t become the norm. Our economic and political systems have strong tendencies to concentrate power – it’s a recurring collective action problem where a small number of players (facebook, google, msft, etc…) have access to lower cost “cooperation” (collusion) than 6 billion citizens of the world – despite the fact that net social benefit would be maximized by a non-collusive approach.
Despite this historical tendency I hope that the power of the net to decentralize / distribute decision making power will lead to more user control over their own data. It’s an ongoing battle and the open stack, data portability, etc.. are all fighting the good fight here.
One other thought tied to biz models – I have a sense that the most fruitful pathway to user controlled data is focusing on $$$. Recast privacy concerns as monetary ones, where data=gold and control over your data translates into income.
Advertising offers a quick and easy entry point. Imagine a scenario where only the user controls access to their entire pool of data. Individual sites may have access to some subset of the data pool but ad delivery/targeting efficiency presumably correlates positively to the size of the data pool. Advertisers would then have a preference for targeting ads based on the complete data pool, which only the user has access too and which the user could $ell to the highest bidder.
There are some technical hurdles to providing translucent data (vs. full transparency) but we went to the moon & decoded the human genome so I’m crossing my fingers that we’ll be able to build secure, flexible, translucent identity/data systems in the near future.
Anyway, those are my morning thoughts on Identity & Data. Thanks for the great work in this space.
Best,
Chris Camp
Senate Seat for Sale
December 9th, 2008Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been arrested and charged with corruption. Initial signs are appallingly bad.
Wiretap recordings indicate that Blagojevich was actively working to sell or trade Obama’s old seat in the Senate to the highest bidder, “I’m going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain. You hear what I’m saying. And if I don’t get what I want and I’m not satisfied with it, then I’ll just take the Senate seat myself.”
Wow.
In exchange for the Senate seat Blagojevich asked for “a substantial salary” at a non-profit or labor union for himself, substantial meaning $250,000 to $300,000 a year. For his wife he sought memberships on corporate boards that would amount to $150,000 a year.
Apparently there was at least one candidate engaged in the bidding, “Candidate 5.” Blagojevich said that he received an offer of $500,000 from Candidate 5 in exchange for the seat.
In the very best possible light this evidence looks terrible. Again we appear to have found a politician engaged in the most offensive sort of political corruption. There is a temptation to think that we’ve found just one more bad apple but the truth is that our system is a bad apple factory.
Blagojevich may be one of the worst offenders but his actions are evidence of a more pervasive culture of corruption. A systemic addiction to money. Every political party is afflicted and each politician plays a part.
It is time for the people to raise their voices and insist on change. Blagojevich can become a catalyst for that change – take two minutes to pester your representatives and tell them that you’re mad as hell and not going to take it any more.
(Cross posted from http://change-congress.org/blog/2008/12/09/senate-seat-sale)
Wobid Screenplay: Robin Hood 2.0 (Apocalpse Now+Wikipedia: a response to financial chaos and greed)
October 22nd, 2008All this pent up anger at 7 figure bonuses and super-rich CEO’s of crumbling companies requires a superhero level response. It got me thinking about a modern interpretation of Robin Hood.
A couple of related tweets encouraged me to throw the idea out into the world[1. (a) timoreilly Retweeting @jonl: Moyers implying the guys who plundered the U.S. economy should give it all back. <TOR: I've wondered about that too .... (b) @gnat: If Wall Street were in China, there'd be labor camps and executions for all the slimy pricks behind the subprime sleaze. I'd be for it. .].
Ours is a simple system of social physics: Injustice requires accountability, an adequate response from those in power. Those who robbed the system are made to pay: (1) they make restitution by giving back their ill-gotten gains and (2) they face some punitive measures, a punishment (prison?) which helps put the great karmic system back in equilibrium. These measures also serve as a deterrent to other would-be thieves.
As we all know too well – our systems of justice can be painfully ineffective.
The new Robin Hood steps in to fill this gap. RH 2.0 would run around and get our money back, by any means necessary; from slimey ceo’s, over-rich fat cats and boneheaded wall streeter’s pulling down million dollar bonuses…
Open season on thieves and those who give them cover.
A loner out for justice in a world gone mad.
RH is not super wealthy and gadget driven, I’m thinking something more along the lines of a semi-privileged Iraq War vet. World shattered, now he’s bringing the war home. Something in the Col. Kurtz mold, best of the best but not quite as crazy. He took the traditional, patriotic path – he “did all the right things.” and with all of that training and intelligence – the logic inexorably led him down this pathway.
Fair. Smart. Just. Skilled. and not afraid to act.
Vigilante Justice?
There’s always something of a problem here. One man, dispensing justice according to his internal compass. There’s something terribly un-American about it. It’s just not democratic damn it!
So, I’m going to make an adjustment to the standard “loner” model. It’s not that RH is alone – RH acts alone but he’s driven by us.
Let’s add a Web 2.0 derived plot twist: crowdsourcing. Let the wisdom of crowds pick the victims. Wiki-justice.
A site about the scandal-makers goes up, it becomes a cultural touchstone. Data is uploaded, people review all of it and begin ranking the bad guys. The worst of the worst. Most wanted. and then RH, sitting at home – just as pissed as everyone else – begins to go after them…
Something like that :)
It would be a merger of the following: Apocalypse Now + Wikipedia + Punisher + kluster.com + McVeigh + Untouchables + Fight Club + Forest Gump + V for Vendetta + Clockwork Orange + Falling Down + The Burbs + Trading Places (1st half only) + Grumpy Old Men II
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Houston we HAVA problem
October 2nd, 2008Problems with Electronic Voting Machings
Recent articles in the Washington Post and New York Times raise concerns about potential electoral problems this November. The areas of concern may sound familiar to Change Congress readers: security of electronic voting machines, lack of an auditable paper trail, voter registration, and voter identification & disenfranchisement. Similar concerns were raised in the run up to the 2004 & 2006 elections. In the aftermath of both the 2004 and 2006 elections there were numerous and significant claims of voter disenfranchisement and voting irregularities. Some went so far as to claim that these irregularities had altered the outcome of the 2004 presidential election. These claims, while never having been fully proven in a court of law or of public opinion, are nonetheless unsettling when considered in the light of the problems that accompanied the 2000 presidential election.
Why is it that we are hearing similar stories eight years later?
Potential answers can be found in the origins of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, the chief sponsor of the Senate bill, described HAVA as “the first Civil Rights Act of the 21st century.” HAVA was a response to the election problems of 2000. The explicit goal of HAVA was to fix America’s electoral system by replacing outdated voting systems with newer, more reliable machines and procedures. The act created the Election Assistance Commission to administer Federal elections, to establish a set of election standards and to allocate $3.9 billion to be used for investing in new voting equipment.
Lobbying, Campaign Contributions and Conflicts of Interest
HAVA’s goals were noble but the results have been questionable. Some of the most vilified political figures in recent memory are deeply associated with the creation of the act. Former Ohio Congressman Bob Ney was the chief sponsor of the House bill. Robert F. Kennedy Jr described Ney’s HAVA involvement – “The primary author and steward of HAVA was Rep. Bob Ney, the GOP chairman of the powerful U.S. House Administration Committee. Ney had close ties to the now-disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose firm received at least $275,000 from Diebold to lobby for its touch-screen machines. Ney’s former chief of staff, David DiStefano, also worked as a registered lobbyist for Diebold, receiving at least $180,000 from the firm to lobby for HAVA and ‘other election reform issues.’ Ney – who accepted campaign contributions from DiStefano and counted Diebold’s then-CEO O’Dell among his constituents – made sure that HAVA strongly favored the use of the company’s machines.” For the record, both Abramoff and Ney are convicted federal felons as a result of accepting money and gifts in exchange for political favors.
Kennedy also found a series of deep financial and professional ties between lawmakers and voting machine manufacturers. “Diebold, along with its employees and their families, has contributed at least $300,000 to GOP candidates and party funds since 1998.” Additionally, Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, who also voted in favor of HAVA, was the former chair of one of the four major voting equipment manufacturers.
Given theses facts, it’s very easy to believe that Diebold and other voting equipment manufacturers gave money to well placed politicians in order to influence legislation that was worth $3.9 billion to their industry.
HAVA Unchanged Since 2002 + Diebold Today
From what I was able to gather from an hour and a half of research on Google, Maplight.org and the Library of Congress site, the Help America Vote Act has not been modified once since its initial passage in 2002. Of the more than 50 HAVA-related bills that have been introduced in the House and Senate since 2002 none have passed.
The Diebold board of directors acted to put an end to all executive level political giving in 2004 stating that Diebold officials “may not make contributions to, directly or indirectly, any political candidate, party, election issue or cause, or participate in any political activities, except for voting.” Despite the ban, Diebold executives continued to give money to Republican campaigns. Since that time Diebold has changed the name of its voting equipment subsidiary to Premier Election Solutions and while executive level campaign contributions appear to have come to an end, state level lobbying efforts continue. In addition to Diebold/Premier, other voting equipment manufacturers have engaged in an aggressive lobbying campaign in order to counter negative public opinion and to win business from states which have been allocated hundreds of millions in HAVA funds.
Saving our Democracy: A Call for Transparency
Given the importance of the issue, the integrity of our democracy, there is a surprising lack of information available on the link between campaign finance, lobbying and the voting records of politicians. The data exists but it’s certainly not easily accessible. Our friends at OpenSecrets and MapLight have been doing a tremendous job of increasing the transparency in politics but neither has data that goes back to 2002 and the HAVA vote. If you have access to useful tools or information related to HAVA, please let us know.
In general our political system and the economy of influence that drives it need to be more open and accessible. Political contributions by PACs, lobbyists and corporations make up a significant proportion of money in politics and we need a more transparent system that will allow us to more easily determine if the drafting of legislation and votes are being traded for cash. There are plenty of tools out there that are being developed for this, including the array that the Sunlight Foundation have been working on. What we need to do is integrate these tools into our daily lives. Sunlight Foundation is collecting comments on the recent federal bailout bill. You can add your own here.
I’ve cross-posted this from Change-Congress.org
Holy Cadillac Batman! CTS-V is a world stomper and a sign of American Empire on the Edge
September 20th, 2008CTS-V: Misdirected Genius. Now if they could just build the car we NEED.
American mechanical engineering ingenuity lives! This is certainly something to celebrate because there have been times over the last twenty years when our zones of competence seemed have diminished to (1) Tech, (2) “Services” and (3) Bubble Building. The combined results of numbers 2 & 3: Real estate collapse, financial market chaos, & almost $1 trillion in bailouts.
While there’s nothing wrong with riding the wave of active contemplation all the way to the bank, there is a real danger that all that mentation may boil down to nothing more than hot air and trillion dollar hole in our collective pocket.
So it is good to read Dan Neil’s review of the CTS-V in today’s LA Times. Those who negatively critiqued his 2004 Pultizer win have a something to learn about the art and role of cultural criticism. This guy has a fierce genius that he’s chosen to apply to the domain of automobile reviews. I do believe that it’s about time that this level of intellectual horse power has been consistently devoted to one of the primary objects of American desire – the car.
Back to the CTS-V, America and staving off Armageddon.
The CTS-V is the physical incarnation of a mid-level deity. A harnessing of power which our ancestors achieved only by way of dark incantation and virgin sacrifice. It’s a reminder of what humans can accomplish in the absence of the supernatural. Of that critical nexus of Idea and Will. Conception and Action.
While I think a very sound argument can be made that this accomplishment deserves a round of applause, some derision is definitely in order as well.
Why has Cadillac built this car? A 556 horsepower Ferrari-Towncar. This car was built for boom times. It was built for lawyers, doctors, dentists and other guild members. It was built for real estate developers and mortgage brokers circa 2006. It’s price was to be paid for by Lehman bonuses and hedge fund gurus.
It’s a misguided beauty. Please have no doubt as to whether or not I want one of these. I do want the CTS-V. I want one very, very badly. My passions urge me to forgo morality and good sense in order to get behind the wheel of this brutal machine[1. Please note that I have not come to this place of deep desire by my own will alone - I've been sent here, in large part I would argue, by Road & Track, by Porsche posters, by Cannonball Run, by a long process of aculturation. That slow cooking that trains the mind to pursue certain designated trophies. I'm no mindless sheep but neither am I foolish enough to believe that I operate completely outside our elaborate systems tradition and convention.].
The energy is admirable. The engineering is remarkable. The result is questionable.
We need this same level of excitement and drive to be focused on solving fuel efficiency, not just 0-60 and the Nurburgring[2. a quick intro by way of Dan Neil: "One stat of note is that the CTS-V rips a quarter-mile in under 13 seconds. But that's a rather old-school metric. For connoisseurs, the true measure is the Nurburgring time. The 'Ring is a slightly terrifying, 14-mile asphalt roller coaster of a racetrack in the Eiffel mountains in Germany. The current production-car record is held by the Corvette ZR-1, at 7.26 minutes. The Corvette-derived CTS-V lapped the course in 7.59 minutes, which is apparently a world record for a production sedan.
To put that in perspective, it would take a 1980 Cadillac Eldorado about a day and a half".]. In this, we all play a part. Our psychology and system of rewards must be adapted such that we lust after fuel efficiency, sustainable design, and those other principles that will ensure both bare survival and quality of life.
This is our current conundrum – performing the alchemy of making boring, sexy.
A savior does exist, one clarion call rings true: that of money.
If you reward them, they will come. But… money is failing in its role as a signaling mechanism – a carrier of information. Markets work best when they bundle all of the available information up into a neat little package called price. Traditionally this has been the best option available but our pricing system is failing us because our political system is failing us. The incentives all are bungled – concentrated interests are beating out public interest. Price is being distorted because it is serving another master.
Our next step is re-building our market system so that it functions more efficiently. As a coordinated system of exchange that insists on transparency and a level playing field[3. Of course these terms, "transparency" and "level playing field" must be defined - that's where the game of democracy comes in. We need an effective and well functioning democracy to be able to define these terms in a way that properly and efficiently reflects the public interest and net social welfare. And…. (in case you hadn't notice) our system of government and democracy is even deeper down the rabbit hole than our financial system :) It's a project that needs real attention, real soon. Government 2.0 or Bust.]. If any part within you still believes, after the last year of bailouts, that we live in a free, fair and open market I beg you look deep, deep inside yourself and at the root of that belief. Our version of free markets has become nothing more than a propaganda line, paraded out by marketers to fleece us.
Nationalize risk, privatize profits.
Enough whining – let’s start working: Government 2.0
So… the people, the public has got to jump back in the game and build a system of government with markets and regulations that meets our goals. We built the OG version of democracy – let’s get on this new shit. American innovation, technology, ingenuity and energy – all dedicated to a 21st century pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness.
To be sure, this is no easy task but in some sense we’ve got no alternative – if we keep letting “them” build it for us we’ll meet a crisis that we can’t fix. A time will come when this counrty is NOT too big to fail and the rest of the world will NOT come to bail us out. There may come a time when they will not buy our bonds and finance our debt. Instead they’ll stand by and watch us sink.
I don’t venture out on any thin limb in saying that my generation has been handed a basket of shit. Fortunately there are still a few golden eggs floating among the sewage. Fixing this will be an ugly, long, dirty slog but I’m not about to let this country die on my watch.
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In the name of Free Markets the SEC outlaws short selling, stock losses, financial failures, general negativity and frowning
September 20th, 2008I think I picked the wrong week to stop huffing spray mount.
The Markets and the Gods of Government have gone crazy:
“The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday issued a temporary ban on short sales of 799 financial stocks, a move against traders who have sought to profit from the financial crisis by betting against bank shares.
The S.E.C. said the ‘temporary emergency action’ would ‘protect the integrity and quality of the securities market and strengthen investor confidence’.”
And there you have it. Thank god for free markets.
I offer a smattering of quotes related to the short selling ban and market “integrity” pulled from LATimes Financial Blog
— Eric Newman, who manages the TFS Market Neutral Fund, which includes both long and short positions in stocks: “The SEC has done a fantastic job blaming short sellers for nearly every problem in the financial markets today. It’s a brilliant PR campaign that links legitimate short sellers to ‘naked’ short sellers, that assumes any stock going down is only going down because of those pesky hedge funds and their short selling.
“The irony is that SEC is doing exactly what it claims to be against — manipulating the markets and propping up ailing financial companies that are now politically important because they are essentially backed by taxpayers” via government loans.
— Larry Harris, a professor of finance at USC and a former SEC chief economist, as quoted by Bloomberg News: “Proposals to ban short-selling are a highly politically motivated attempts to stop reality. To ban short selling is to in effect say that the government is going to try to determine what stock prices should be.”
— Richard H. Baker, president, Managed Funds Assn., which represents hedge funds: “MFA is deeply concerned by the crisis in the global financial markets, but equally troubled by the SEC’s unprecedented actions in response to the crisis. We stand firm in opposing restrictions to short selling and maintain that short selling is an essential risk-management tool and a critical component of ensuring market stability, not a contributor to market volatility. Further, restricting short selling has not been shown to provide an ultimate benefit to the stocks it is meant to protect.”
— Jonathan Macey, securities law professor, Yale University: Banning short sales is “an abomination. Short selling is a legitimate, critical market strategy that has incredibly important functions, including ferreting out information that could not be ferreted out any other way.”
— Jim Chanos, head of well-known short-selling firm Kynikos Associates and chairman of the Coalition of Private Investment Companies: “We are very concerned that these emergency orders will not enhance long-term market integrity nor will they address the fundamental economic issues that have been afflicting our financial sector. We also believe that markets cannot withstand for long constantly changing rules in which each new regulation is announced in the middle of the night without any public comment or participation.
“Far from being the cause of the crisis, many short sellers were warning months and years ago about problems in this area. Simply put: short selling is a vital investment strategy that responds to market fundamentals and contributes to the integrity of stock prices. Investors are best served when they can hear both the reasons to buy and the reasons to sell any given security.”