THE ENTERPRISE--QUICK HITS, BIG ISSUES
A few weeks ago I did one like this and it seemed that many people liked it, so here goes again:
A BIG LOSS FOR ME: NOVELIST ROBERT B. PARKER
Author of the Spenser series of novels, this Boston writer has been a favorite of mine for decades. His TV adaptations--Spenser for Hire, starring the late Robert Urich, his Hallmark movies with Tom Selleck as Jesse Stone, and his recent Westerns, notably Appaloosa were all great entertainment. I hoped one day to meet him. Too late now. He was "only" 77.
IN POLITICS THE "OUTS" CAN ALWAYS OUT PERFORM THE "INS"
That is one big reason the GOP resurgence can keep growing. The challenge is to find leaders and build programs so the GOP doesn't just become a different, but inept version of the current Democratic regime. That is no small challenge. The recent Supreme Court ruling allowing businesses to contribute to political campaigns should help the GOP, but will most make the media richer than ever. Multi-billion dollar campaigns will emerge all over.
UNION MEMBERSHIP DECLINES 10% IN THE LAST YEAR
While this mirrors what has happened with employment, it also tells a story about the continuing decline of the Union movement in the USA--except in public employment where people may still need unions to protect them from their employer--the heavy hand of the US government. Unions cost people jobs rather than save or add them these days, and the sooner that fact is realized, the better off all Americans will be.
CHICAGO CONVENTIONS FALL HARD--THANKS TO UNIONS, MOSTLY
I wrote about this a few weeks ago. Now some numbers are in. Convention business nationally was down about 3% due to the downturn. Chicago was down 18%! High costs, complex work rules and difficult unions are at the bottom of this decline. McCormick Place, still the largest US convention site with 2.6MM sq. ft. is losing ground to Las Vegas and Orlando, both of which offer better weather and much lower costs. Exhibitors found Chicago electrician costs 4 to 8 times as high as the same exhibits in Orlando. Excuse: Chicago electricians do more of the work. Reality: they are still too costly, too hard to deal with, etc.
CLIMATE CHANGE--THE CLICHE'—AND THE HOAX PART II
A UN panel (that's the Useless Nations--formerly United Nations) "is facing growing criticism about its practices after acknowledging doubts about a 2007 statement that Himalayan glaciers were retreating faster than those anywhere else.." It turns out that the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is revealed once again to be the leading purveyor of a "convenient" lie--or at least a distortion of the facts. The report cited as the "demise of the glaciers" was indeed speculation, not science based admitted the author. When will Climate Change advocates realize that their house of cards is falling down?
THE GREAT RECESSION--WHEN WILL IT BE OVER?
Answer given by many: "When I get my job back." Fewer than 10% of companies are adding jobs, while more than 20% are still cutting back. Government statistics mislead again. BLS December job losses were reported at 85,000. The bureau's household survey--a better and more comprehensive measure of unemployed and underemployed, showed a loss of 589,000 jobs. Maybe a recovery is underway. It seems to be. But for those out of work or working in jobs that are far from what they were...the recession is still here for them. If the government would be smart, it would increase quota for H1B Visas back to the 195,000 where it was in the early 2000s, up from 65,000 now. The fear that these "immigrants" will take US citizen's jobs is false. These people are the best and brightest and will help create more jobs. Glimmer of good new: UPS business is coming up. Not so good: Rail business is still soft.
AL QAEDA IS LIKE AN ARMY OF COCKROACHES
Step on it one place and it swarms to another. This time it's Yemen--where our naive President wanted to release Guantanamo detainees so they can go back to being terrorists full time. Finally, someone got to him and pointed out the error in his ways. Yemeni men make up half of the detainees. Now where will he send them? To his home state of Illinois where the unused Thomson prison sits waiting? Great, just great. Then they can get lawyers who want to make a name for themselves and glorify the killers. Does this sound like misguided priorities to anyone else? Stamp them out in Yemen, or move them to IL, they will pop up elsewhere and they are migrating to Europe, the US, etc. As long as America is too "Politically Correct" to call them what they are: Islamic extremists and terrorist murderers, people will fail to "step on the cockroaches."
IS CHINA CREATING A BUBBLE
Some folks think so. I don't know, but the symptoms are there. Looks a lot like Japan of a few decades ago. China is closing in on Japan as the second largest world economy, but still just a little over 1/3 as big as the USA. IF we could get our economy going again, instead of burdening it with taxes and regulations, we could sustain a sizable lead in the global market. By the way, the Chinese don't bother to "play nice." Ask Google.
FINALLY, SOMEONE IS AT LEAST THINKING ABOUT MAINTAINING OUR NUKES
Do we like the idea of using Nukes? Hell no. Do we need them in good working order? Hell yes. Is our President somewhere between naive and stupid to think the world will disarm? Hell yes. Will he put us at a dangerous disadvantage if he continues to cripple our ability to maintain and upgrade our nuclear and defensive capability? Hell yes. Isn't this an obvious call? Apparently not! Write your Senator and Representatives and weigh in on it.
SLUG THE OBAMA STORY "DISCONNECT"
Peggy Noonan, former Reagan staffer and speech writer is one of my favorite columnists. Once a week in the Weekend WSJ, she comes up with great stuff. A week or so ago, she titled her article as I noted above, and reflected on how President Obama's intentions and directions seem to be disconnected , detached and distanced from those of a majority of Americans. Scott Brown's win in MA proved this "in spades." Obama has figured out (or is figuring out) that his over-reaching Democratic Congressional flunkies have crafted a health care plan that simply won't fly. He has also started to show that he hears about his/their incredible binge of spending, and he'd better do something about it. The problem is, he's a rookie, and all he knows to do is convene a council and make a speech or two or ten. Maybe he should listen better. If he didn't learn anything from Bush's mistakes, it was to listen to more people and viewpoints than your close circle of advisors. Thanks Peggy--keep up the good work.
THE MOST DANGEROUS POLICIES AND LEADERS IN HISTORY
It almost seems as though no one on the Democratic side of the aisle (except maybe Joe Liebermann) is even thinking about our National Security. Only the fact that Obama has held over many of the Bush appointees and military leaders is keeping things from coming unraveled. Even Hillary sees this--and to her credit, speaks out about it now and then. Heads should roll over the Christmas Day bomber, starting with Napolitano. The person at the top is responsible when cooperation, collaboration and coordination fails. Then work the way down, clearing out cronies and replacing them until a good ones are in place--and good ones should have no real political agenda other than to protect America and Americans.
LIES AND LIARS--AND LACK OF EXPERIENCE
No one likes to use those words, but that is what they are. This weekend, Fox News will chronicle the campaign promised and rhetoric vs. the actions and policies of our President in his first year in office. It will not be pretty and Fox will be demonized for just calling it like it was. He lied, and continued to lie, with the most articulate speechifying imaginable. It's time to quit doing that and act as a President should--but he's back out "campaigning" again--this time on jobs. Obama has no more idea about how to create jobs than I have about how to perform brain surgery. He's never done it; he's never learned it; he's only parroting the words of staffers who have "studied it." I remember the time I "studied all about how to swim." Then I jumped in the water, got a nose and mouth full of water , flailed, sunk to the bottom, and damn near drowned. Some things you have to learn about by studying and then doing them. OJT is bad for the President of the world's largest and most complex country.
GOP BETTER START STUDYING AND LEARNING
It won't do any food for the GOP to unseat a bunch of Democrats this fall if the new people are "power hungry politician, and lobbyist lovers" like the old ones. New electees need to understand what their party members did wrong in 2004-2008. The need to quit arguing over "soft, social issues" and fix the "hard, practical issues" (like setting priorities, runaway spending/debt, fiscal sanity, national defense, attention to terrorism, economic growth and responsibility, meaningful--but not punitive--regulations, entitlements that are astronomical, and then, maybe tackle issues like illegal immigrants/border security, and education/helping the best and brightest and then keeping them in the USA, building accountability in schools/rewarding stellar teachers and dumping the drones, etc. To do all this, Candidates who get elected need to bring some new staffers with them, because the old ones may know their way around DC, but they are infected with the old diseases.
BRING BACK SOME FORM OF GLASS-STEAGALL
It was a mistake to repeal it. Sort of like taking away all the speed limits on highways and rewarding people for driving fast and recklessly. It may need to be "modernized? but it needs to be brought back to create a fence between conventional banks/banking and risk-taking investment firms. NOW! (one problem: when government makes rules governing business, they always screw it up. Why? Because they don't understand it well enough, and are reluctant to ask for help in fear it will look "politically incorrect." Get good advice. There are a lot of retired, unaffiliated business experts around. Use them.
BODY SCANS ARE NOT ENOUGH--AIR TRAVEL IS GOING TO BE ESSENTIAL TO KEEP AS SAFE AS POSSIBLE
Someone pointed out the other day that men have one sizable body cavity in which to smuggle explosive and women have two. Scans won't likely show those methods of concealment, and drug "mules" have used them for years. Security must come from a combination of technologies. Scans, chemical and composition detection, facial recognition, profiling (YES, profiling. 80-year-old Caucasian women are really less likely to be suicide bombers), identity tracking and secure ID cards, maybe even biometrics in some form. None of this is unknown technology. It's all expensive, and only effective if used in combination. This is not much different from baking a cake. Leave out an ingredient or two and the cake fails. So does security. I am not sure of all the remedies, but secure IDs for travelers who are thoroughly vetted and flow them through one lane, with biometric scans of fingerprints as they pass through. Profiling who goes through full body scans is another; but detecting explosive compound is the tough one, because they can be made by combining some pretty mundane substances. It's time to bring heavy science to bear on this issue. Once developed for Air Travel use, it can be adapted for mass transit, large public events, etc.
DRONES AND ROBOTS ARE THE WARRIORS OF THE FUTURE
They make a lot of sense, and spare human lives. But they cost a lot. It's time to rethink what we spend on "weapons of war," and redirect our priorities. It's also tie to rethink where and to whom we sell "weapons." I'd bet they are a large and growing part of exports, but selling the latest technology virtually ensures it will make its way through illicit channels to our enemies. How about some serious restrictions on this kind of "commerce?" Then redirect spending from multi-billion dollar behemoths staffed by people, to smart, small, remote controlled, precision automatons.
THE LAST WORD-IN PICTURES THANKS TO THE WSJ
If you wonder why the past decade was difficult, look at the charts below. No further explanation is necessary.
Best, John
-----------------------------------------------------------
John L. Mariotti, President & CEO, The Enterprise Group, Phone 614-840-0959 http://www.mariotti.net http://mariotti.blogs.com/my_weblog/
------------------------------------------------------------
A few weeks ago I did one like this and it seemed that many people liked it, so here goes again:
A BIG LOSS FOR ME: NOVELIST ROBERT B. PARKER
Author of the Spenser series of novels, this Boston writer has been a favorite of mine for decades. His TV adaptations--Spenser for Hire, starring the late Robert Urich, his Hallmark movies with Tom Selleck as Jesse Stone, and his recent Westerns, notably Appaloosa were all great entertainment. I hoped one day to meet him. Too late now. He was "only" 77.
IN POLITICS THE "OUTS" CAN ALWAYS OUT PERFORM THE "INS"
That is one big reason the GOP resurgence can keep growing. The challenge is to find leaders and build programs so the GOP doesn't just become a different, but inept version of the current Democratic regime. That is no small challenge. The recent Supreme Court ruling allowing businesses to contribute to political campaigns should help the GOP, but will most make the media richer than ever. Multi-billion dollar campaigns will emerge all over.
UNION MEMBERSHIP DECLINES 10% IN THE LAST YEAR
While this mirrors what has happened with employment, it also tells a story about the continuing decline of the Union movement in the USA--except in public employment where people may still need unions to protect them from their employer--the heavy hand of the US government. Unions cost people jobs rather than save or add them these days, and the sooner that fact is realized, the better off all Americans will be.
CHICAGO CONVENTIONS FALL HARD--THANKS TO UNIONS, MOSTLY
I wrote about this a few weeks ago. Now some numbers are in. Convention business nationally was down about 3% due to the downturn. Chicago was down 18%! High costs, complex work rules and difficult unions are at the bottom of this decline. McCormick Place, still the largest US convention site with 2.6MM sq. ft. is losing ground to Las Vegas and Orlando, both of which offer better weather and much lower costs. Exhibitors found Chicago electrician costs 4 to 8 times as high as the same exhibits in Orlando. Excuse: Chicago electricians do more of the work. Reality: they are still too costly, too hard to deal with, etc.
CLIMATE CHANGE--THE CLICHE'—AND THE HOAX PART II
A UN panel (that's the Useless Nations--formerly United Nations) "is facing growing criticism about its practices after acknowledging doubts about a 2007 statement that Himalayan glaciers were retreating faster than those anywhere else.." It turns out that the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is revealed once again to be the leading purveyor of a "convenient" lie--or at least a distortion of the facts. The report cited as the "demise of the glaciers" was indeed speculation, not science based admitted the author. When will Climate Change advocates realize that their house of cards is falling down?
THE GREAT RECESSION--WHEN WILL IT BE OVER?
Answer given by many: "When I get my job back." Fewer than 10% of companies are adding jobs, while more than 20% are still cutting back. Government statistics mislead again. BLS December job losses were reported at 85,000. The bureau's household survey--a better and more comprehensive measure of unemployed and underemployed, showed a loss of 589,000 jobs. Maybe a recovery is underway. It seems to be. But for those out of work or working in jobs that are far from what they were...the recession is still here for them. If the government would be smart, it would increase quota for H1B Visas back to the 195,000 where it was in the early 2000s, up from 65,000 now. The fear that these "immigrants" will take US citizen's jobs is false. These people are the best and brightest and will help create more jobs. Glimmer of good new: UPS business is coming up. Not so good: Rail business is still soft.
AL QAEDA IS LIKE AN ARMY OF COCKROACHES
Step on it one place and it swarms to another. This time it's Yemen--where our naive President wanted to release Guantanamo detainees so they can go back to being terrorists full time. Finally, someone got to him and pointed out the error in his ways. Yemeni men make up half of the detainees. Now where will he send them? To his home state of Illinois where the unused Thomson prison sits waiting? Great, just great. Then they can get lawyers who want to make a name for themselves and glorify the killers. Does this sound like misguided priorities to anyone else? Stamp them out in Yemen, or move them to IL, they will pop up elsewhere and they are migrating to Europe, the US, etc. As long as America is too "Politically Correct" to call them what they are: Islamic extremists and terrorist murderers, people will fail to "step on the cockroaches."
IS CHINA CREATING A BUBBLE
Some folks think so. I don't know, but the symptoms are there. Looks a lot like Japan of a few decades ago. China is closing in on Japan as the second largest world economy, but still just a little over 1/3 as big as the USA. IF we could get our economy going again, instead of burdening it with taxes and regulations, we could sustain a sizable lead in the global market. By the way, the Chinese don't bother to "play nice." Ask Google.
FINALLY, SOMEONE IS AT LEAST THINKING ABOUT MAINTAINING OUR NUKES
Do we like the idea of using Nukes? Hell no. Do we need them in good working order? Hell yes. Is our President somewhere between naive and stupid to think the world will disarm? Hell yes. Will he put us at a dangerous disadvantage if he continues to cripple our ability to maintain and upgrade our nuclear and defensive capability? Hell yes. Isn't this an obvious call? Apparently not! Write your Senator and Representatives and weigh in on it.
SLUG THE OBAMA STORY "DISCONNECT"
Peggy Noonan, former Reagan staffer and speech writer is one of my favorite columnists. Once a week in the Weekend WSJ, she comes up with great stuff. A week or so ago, she titled her article as I noted above, and reflected on how President Obama's intentions and directions seem to be disconnected , detached and distanced from those of a majority of Americans. Scott Brown's win in MA proved this "in spades." Obama has figured out (or is figuring out) that his over-reaching Democratic Congressional flunkies have crafted a health care plan that simply won't fly. He has also started to show that he hears about his/their incredible binge of spending, and he'd better do something about it. The problem is, he's a rookie, and all he knows to do is convene a council and make a speech or two or ten. Maybe he should listen better. If he didn't learn anything from Bush's mistakes, it was to listen to more people and viewpoints than your close circle of advisors. Thanks Peggy--keep up the good work.
THE MOST DANGEROUS POLICIES AND LEADERS IN HISTORY
It almost seems as though no one on the Democratic side of the aisle (except maybe Joe Liebermann) is even thinking about our National Security. Only the fact that Obama has held over many of the Bush appointees and military leaders is keeping things from coming unraveled. Even Hillary sees this--and to her credit, speaks out about it now and then. Heads should roll over the Christmas Day bomber, starting with Napolitano. The person at the top is responsible when cooperation, collaboration and coordination fails. Then work the way down, clearing out cronies and replacing them until a good ones are in place--and good ones should have no real political agenda other than to protect America and Americans.
LIES AND LIARS--AND LACK OF EXPERIENCE
No one likes to use those words, but that is what they are. This weekend, Fox News will chronicle the campaign promised and rhetoric vs. the actions and policies of our President in his first year in office. It will not be pretty and Fox will be demonized for just calling it like it was. He lied, and continued to lie, with the most articulate speechifying imaginable. It's time to quit doing that and act as a President should--but he's back out "campaigning" again--this time on jobs. Obama has no more idea about how to create jobs than I have about how to perform brain surgery. He's never done it; he's never learned it; he's only parroting the words of staffers who have "studied it." I remember the time I "studied all about how to swim." Then I jumped in the water, got a nose and mouth full of water , flailed, sunk to the bottom, and damn near drowned. Some things you have to learn about by studying and then doing them. OJT is bad for the President of the world's largest and most complex country.
GOP BETTER START STUDYING AND LEARNING
It won't do any food for the GOP to unseat a bunch of Democrats this fall if the new people are "power hungry politician, and lobbyist lovers" like the old ones. New electees need to understand what their party members did wrong in 2004-2008. The need to quit arguing over "soft, social issues" and fix the "hard, practical issues" (like setting priorities, runaway spending/debt, fiscal sanity, national defense, attention to terrorism, economic growth and responsibility, meaningful--but not punitive--regulations, entitlements that are astronomical, and then, maybe tackle issues like illegal immigrants/border security, and education/helping the best and brightest and then keeping them in the USA, building accountability in schools/rewarding stellar teachers and dumping the drones, etc. To do all this, Candidates who get elected need to bring some new staffers with them, because the old ones may know their way around DC, but they are infected with the old diseases.
BRING BACK SOME FORM OF GLASS-STEAGALL
It was a mistake to repeal it. Sort of like taking away all the speed limits on highways and rewarding people for driving fast and recklessly. It may need to be "modernized? but it needs to be brought back to create a fence between conventional banks/banking and risk-taking investment firms. NOW! (one problem: when government makes rules governing business, they always screw it up. Why? Because they don't understand it well enough, and are reluctant to ask for help in fear it will look "politically incorrect." Get good advice. There are a lot of retired, unaffiliated business experts around. Use them.
BODY SCANS ARE NOT ENOUGH--AIR TRAVEL IS GOING TO BE ESSENTIAL TO KEEP AS SAFE AS POSSIBLE
Someone pointed out the other day that men have one sizable body cavity in which to smuggle explosive and women have two. Scans won't likely show those methods of concealment, and drug "mules" have used them for years. Security must come from a combination of technologies. Scans, chemical and composition detection, facial recognition, profiling (YES, profiling. 80-year-old Caucasian women are really less likely to be suicide bombers), identity tracking and secure ID cards, maybe even biometrics in some form. None of this is unknown technology. It's all expensive, and only effective if used in combination. This is not much different from baking a cake. Leave out an ingredient or two and the cake fails. So does security. I am not sure of all the remedies, but secure IDs for travelers who are thoroughly vetted and flow them through one lane, with biometric scans of fingerprints as they pass through. Profiling who goes through full body scans is another; but detecting explosive compound is the tough one, because they can be made by combining some pretty mundane substances. It's time to bring heavy science to bear on this issue. Once developed for Air Travel use, it can be adapted for mass transit, large public events, etc.
DRONES AND ROBOTS ARE THE WARRIORS OF THE FUTURE
They make a lot of sense, and spare human lives. But they cost a lot. It's time to rethink what we spend on "weapons of war," and redirect our priorities. It's also tie to rethink where and to whom we sell "weapons." I'd bet they are a large and growing part of exports, but selling the latest technology virtually ensures it will make its way through illicit channels to our enemies. How about some serious restrictions on this kind of "commerce?" Then redirect spending from multi-billion dollar behemoths staffed by people, to smart, small, remote controlled, precision automatons.
THE LAST WORD-IN PICTURES THANKS TO THE WSJ
If you wonder why the past decade was difficult, look at the charts below. No further explanation is necessary.
Best, John
-----------------------------------------------------------
John L. Mariotti, President & CEO, The Enterprise Group, Phone 614-840-0959 http://www.mariotti.net http://mariotti.blogs.com/my_weblog/
------------------------------------------------------------
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