US politicians officially “For Sale” after Citizen’s United ruling

If you haven’t been watching Stephen Colbert’s brilliant skewering of SuperPAC rules, you need to go here. You will laugh. You will become ill.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Still reading?  OK, then, here’s the gist of his lampooning. The recent “Citizens United” Supreme Court decision allows corporations to donate unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns, as long as that money  goes through a “SuperPAC” which does not “coordinate” with the candidate.

Colbert’s skewering hinges on this word “coordinate”. You can hire your best friend to run your SuperPAC (Colbert chose The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart). The SuperPAC can hire all your old staff from your PAC before it became Super. You can even talk to each other in an informative way (on cable TV, even) as long as you don’t speak in a coordinating way.

So SuperPACs are basically a sham that allows an endless flood of money into political campaigns.

While I doubt you need more to believe that’s bad,  here’s a perspective: the Obama campaign in 2008 raised over a half billion dollars in campaign donations from 3 million individuals. That’s less than $200 per individual, and each individual was limited in how much they can donate.

Newt Gingrich’s 2012 campaign raised $5 million from one person (well, technically it went to his SuperPAC, but whatever). Gingrich could equal Obama’s 2008 campaign haul with just 100 rich folk or corporations.  100 people can buy a President.  You should believe that those 100 people will have more influence on candidate Gingrich than the 3,000,000 people needed under the old rules.  And more than anyone that merely, quaintly, “voted”.

In this brave new world, you’ll at least know who’s pulling the puppet strings:  SuperPACs disclose who donates.  (Just kidding.  Due to the details of the rules, you won’t know who’s been donating this last 7 months of campaigning until January 31st of this year.)

Why struggle to get even 100 donors?  Just one is more than enough: Apple computer had $76 billion in cash at the end of 2011. Less than 1% of that could buy a President  (in Obama campaign equivalents).  Or, they can blow it all and buy 150 Presidents.

Perhaps your iPhone has made you believe that Apple is benevolent.  No problem.  ExxonMobile has $27 billion in cash.  That’s more than 50 Obama campaigns.  Even Bill Gates could get elected president (Microsoft has $57 billion in cash – more than 100 Obama campaigns).

$50 billion is a lot of attack ads.  It’s nearly 100% of annual US television advertisements.  Anyone’s approval ratings would suffer:  Mother Theresa.  Cute puppies.  Breathing.

The legal argument for “Citizens United” came from the rational, established legal framework that for some things “corporations are people”.  That allows us to tax corporations like people and restrict corporations like people.  Of course, unlike people, corporations are not allowed to vote, cannot be drafted for military service, and cannot be executed for murder.  So, “corporations are sometimes people”.

But if this goes on, there is one place where corporations will be perfect replacements for people.  Instead of Abraham Lincoln’s “government . . . by the people, for the people . . . ” we will get “government  by ExxonMobile, for ExxonMobile . . . “

Tom Brady beats God 45-10 in NFL game

From CBS (read the article here):

According to a national telephone survey conducted by Poll Position, 43 percent of people believe that “divine intervention” is responsible for Tim Tebow’s success . . .

That’s right, God cares about football, plays an active part in it’s outcome, and is a Denver Bronco’s fan.  If you are playing against Tebow, you aren’t on God’s team.  If you are cheering for Denver’s opponents, you are cheering against God’s will.  Does that make you evil?

To be clear, I believe in a God that wants each of us to be the best we can be.  I pray for strength to improve my humanity, but I don’t pray to get a better deal on car insurance, or to rain hellfire on my neighbor because his grass clippings end up in my yard.  Those seem to be the sort of motives that I’m aspiring to eliminate, rather than consecrate.

I know there are folks that believe in a more activist God.  I ask only one thing as we head into a political season.  Can we please not demonize the other side?  We’ve got a lot of work to do here in this country, and if 50% of the country is categorized as “evil”, “alien”, or “immoral” (all easily found on Google in references to President Obama or President Bush), then we can’t get anything done.  We are all God’s people, sinners and saints, Democrats and Republicans.

And far be it for us humans to pick sides anyway, because we are fallible.  For instance, were you one of the people who thought Mitt Romney’s real name was “Mittens”?  2% of people surveyed thought so (and only 6% knew his real first name, “Willard”). 

 

New Year’s resolutions – 10 tips

It’s not too late to make New Year’s resolutions. If you promised to exercise more, I’ve already seen you at my favorite running and biking spots. If you swore to, let’s say, swear less, did you survive stubbing your toe?

All too often, New Year’s resolutions are New Week resolutions. They fail, and then go back in the box until next year.

But over the years my friends and I have had extremely high success rate with very difficult New Year’s resolutions. There are techniques to getting it right. Here is your chance.  I dare you.

Ten steps on crafting and executing New Year’s resolutions:

1. Positive – This sounds very second grade, but psychologically it’s harder to “quit smoking” than it is to “become a non-smoker”. To quit something is bad, it requires restraint. To become something is good, it requires driving forward. That difference matters.  Make your resolutions positive.
2. Measurable – How can you possibly know by March if you’ve been “exercising more”?  It’s too vague, it can’t be measured, and you’ll let things slide. Instead, make it specific, like “ride my bike three times a week”. You’ll know if you’re delivering, at least as long as you can count to three.
3. Realistic but aspirational – Too often, our resolutions are designed to fix something we haven’t been able to fix so far – our weight, our habits, our perpetual 5 minute lateness.  It might be something we’ve struggled with every new year’s.  ”Egad, it’s been another year and I still haven’t applied to graduate school.”  These are aspirations that you absolutely can accomplish.  These are good resolution material.  ”Become Master of Time, Space, and Dimension” is not.  ”Find a spouse” is not.
4.  Consequences – What happens if you don’t move forward on your resolution this week?  You need a consequence.  You could give me $50, for example.  Or, you could make a little bonfire in your living room with 50 $1 bills.  Or you could give $50 to your most hated cause (this is a “negative commitment contract” and I blogged about stickK earlier).  Whatever the consequence, it has to be significant enough to cause pain, otherwise it’s not consequential.
5. Not too many, not too few – When I was at BCG, we had psychologists explain human memory and thought processes.  Let me spare that particular pain by summarizing:  you cannot easily remember a set of more than about 3 to 5 things.  If you have more resolutions than that, you’ll forget some.  Plus, your many resolutions may be more like a list. “Get bananas at Safeway” is not a good resolution.
6. Write it down – The first of the process steps.  Write down your specific, measurable resolutions.  Post them on the wall, next to your computer, or carry them in your wallet or purse next to the photos of the kids.
7. Edit and revise – Like a Hemingway novel, don’t expect the first draft to be perfect.  You need an editor.  That editor shouldn’t be you.  Show your resolutions to someone.  See if they understand.  See if the resolutions are measurable from another perspective.  Force yourself to explain your resolutions.  All my resolutions get better when someone else tells me they are too easy, unmeasurable, or unobtainable.
8. Tell everyone – You may have flinched when I suggested you show your resolutions to someone.  This one is even harder.  Tell everyone.  Lead with your resolutions in conversation.  Tell people you care about what you plan to accomplish resolution-wise this year.  You could even, gulp, ask for their help and encouragement.  I know, scary.  But making external commitments is key.  Another psychological tidbit – you are more likely to let yourself quietly fail than to publicly fail.  If you really want to complete a resolution, if this is more than an idle waste of your time, tell everyone what you’re attempting.  That’s why you give your marriage vow in public instead of to yourself.
9. Create structure – Change requires dedication.  Change requires time.  Putting in place some structure will help with that.  Put your exercise times in your calendar.  Find other people to exercise with.  Keep track of your calories on your iPhone.  Put the guitar next to the couch and hide the TV remote.  Heck, take the batteries out of the hidden TV remote.  Put the TV on a timer that will turn it off after 15 minutes.  Make the timer tamper-proof.  Don’t disarm the timer.  Don’t touch it even for a Desperate Housewives 2 hour special.  Seriously, leave it alone.  I mean it.  Sometimes structure has to fill in for lack of discipline.
10. Celebrate – At the end of the year, make sure you celebrate your successes.  Another obvious psychology point – we like getting rewarded.  That’s why some folks struggle with food, it was or is a reward.  It is comfort.  When accomplishing resolutions leads to a great big hullabaloo, then resolutions might become as vital to you as chocolate.  OK, a bit of hyperbole, but you read this far so I thought I could get away with it.
11. More than me – The bonus tip.  All my examples of New Year’s resolutions have been about self-improvement.  Intentionally.  You didn’t even notice it as odd. But where else in your life are you so totally focused on yourself?  Hopefully nowhere. Resolutions are no different. You need to make resolutions about your family, your community, or your country.  Seriously, are you going to let another year go by with insufficient, unmeasured, or unfocused help to others? Is that what you wanted to be when you grew up?  I.  Didn’t.  Think.  So.

Scientists find habitable planets. Now what?

Today was the first official announcement that scientists found a planet in the “goldilocks” zone, planets with orbit diameters just the right distance from their stars to be “not to hot, not to cold.”

It’s another confirmation that it’s possible there is life “out there”. And it’s another input to the classic “Drake equation”

The Drake equation states that:

N = R* • fp • ne • fℓ • fi • fc • L

where:
N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;
and
R* = the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy
fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

Source: Wikipedia

Too much math for you?  Let me simplify.  That’s essentially a long string of probabilities that are multiplied together, leading to a number that’s way smaller than your odds of winning the lottery.  The odds of alien intelligence are larger, however, than you becoming the next Justin Bieber.  Or magically turning into a groundhog, for that matter.

The ratios that this new data have been informing are “fp” and “ne”:  the fraction of stars with planets and the likelihood that those planets can support life.  Finding a planet in the goldilocks zone increases the odds of liquid water being present, which is required for our only good example of intelligent life:  us.  Well, us minus believers in the Detroit Lions’ playoff chances this year.  That team is imploding.

While all this is the stuff of my childhood imagination (Life on other planets!), I’m curious what we would do with certain knowledge of life beyond Earth.

Right now, we’re inferring details of the planets location and mass by observing the star’s wobble and the occlusion of light as a planet passes between us and the star on a regular basis.  But let’s say, just for a moment, that we had God’s own telescope, and we could spy all the way to honest to goodness technologically sophisticated aliens on the surface of the planet.  What on Earth would we do?  Literally.

We could beam them a message on every frequency we could find.  At 600 light years away, those aliens better manage to survive until the 1,200 years of a signal’s round trip.  We better have some amazing amounts of patience ourselves.  1,200 years ago we were in the dark ages, so who knows what we’ll manage to solve and screw up in another 1,200 years.

Or we could devote huge resources to going there ourselves.  That’s pretty grim, too, with so many problems here at home and the challenges of a ship that would need to preserve generations of spacefarers for centuries or more.

Or, and this is the sad realization, we’d just look to the sky and say “well, whaddya know.”  It seems this knowledge is not actionable for multiple, multiple lifetimes.

And this may explain the reason why no one is visiting us.  The distances are just too insurmountable.  The closer problems, the more pressing.  Where we place our feet is more urgent than reaching for the sky.

Maybe something “out there” already has God’s own microscope, and they are looking down on us (or us of 1,000 years ago — light takes a while to cover these distances).  Maybe we should at least be waving in their direction, to let them know we’re not a species that’s only interested in the steps our feet take.

US defense budget described via Oreo cookies

OK, sure, this is a gross over-simplification of budget issues. And yes, it’s a recruiting video for truemajority.org. But still, it’s worth 3 minutes.

8 things that are worth a lot less than they used to be

Everything seems to cost more, right? In California a 3 bedroom fixer upper is $1 million, after all. But is “everything” really worth more of your hard earned dollars than ever before?  Or, are there some things that are worth a lot less — less money, less time, less angst, or less mind-share — than ever before?  Maybe this is the time to stock up on these less valuable things.  Maybe there will be a turn around!  Or, maybe it’s time to let them go peacefully to the junk heap.

With that, I decided to start a list of things that are worth less now than they used to be. This is just a start.  Please add to this list.

1.  Getting on TV – with the proliferation of video outlets, it’s not too big a deal to be recorded and replayed. When Walter Cronkite said your name, the country heard. When your neighbor Darrell films you falling off your roof and landing crotch first on a post, 14 people see it. Unless there is a “LOLcat” involved, in which case it’s a lot more people. Today’s reality TV stars are just an interim step towards eventual video meaninglessness.  Reality TV stars would give their left fake breast for the nearly 400 million views of YouTube’s “Charlie bit my finger”
   
   
2. News anchors – with more outlets, news anchors like Brian Williams matter less. And with the end of “Fair and Balanced” rules, they also don’t even have to report facts.  News anchors today can report opinions, Anderson Cooper style.  Maybe news anchors are tomorrow’s reality TV stars.  It’s all about the editing, not the facts, which leads to  . . .
3. Facts – Rest In Peace, factual data. The internet has allowed anyone with an opinion to post a conventional wisdom as fact. For example, does Pandora have positive gross margins? Do a search and find both yes and no answers (the correct answer is yes).  And don’t even get me started on federal budget reductions that are really reductions of future increases that still amount to increases.  Say that three times really fast.
4. Candy – Sure, candy might cost more today, but now that I’m older, halloween candy seems much less alluring.  It’s worth less in my book.
5. The Dewey Decimal system – Do you remember that 229 is for Apocrypha & Pseudepigrapha?  I think I was tested on that once.   Well, that knowledge is worth a lot less now.  File the Dewey Decimal System under 929.281
   
6. Cool hair - Paul Saffell always had the best hair in my high school. Still does, in fact.  I always wanted hair like that – feathered with that perfect center part.  Well, cool hair isn’t worth nearly as much as it used to be.  Since I’m essentially bald, I may be merely hoping hair has become worth less.  This isn’t Paul, but what great hair (if you’re 14 in the 70s)
   
   
7. Digital storage – At the beginning of the internet bubble, a gigabyte of storage would cost you $50.  Now it costs you $0.10.  If only cars followed a similar price decline.  A new Ferrari would now cost $400.
8. That great Farrah Fawcett poster – A must have when I was 12.  It was guaranteed to make you the coolest boy on the block.   Now I only see her ditzy performance on David Letterman

So what do you have?  What things are worth a lot less now than they used to be?

Quit saying “Investment” when you mean “charity”, “stimulus”, or “100% guarantee”

Solyndra recently went bankrupt.  The solar firm took with it nearly $1 billion in investor dollars, including $500m in debt from our tax dollars.  Your household’s share of that decision, by the way, was $6.

Now the government is in uproar.  We lost money on an investment!  A formal investigation has been launched, and I will tell you what they find.  The government folks who approved the investment, to quote George W Bush, “misunderestimated”.  They didn’t understand the risks, they didn’t understand the industry, they got it wrong.  They will be publicly castigated and then summarily fired.  If we were China, someone may actually be executed.

I hear people describe themselves as investors all the time.  I hear them describe what they do as “investing”.  Yet the financial goals often attributed to investors and investments, as well as the investment process itself, are missing.  Just because we call it an “investment” in education or green jobs or what have you, does not make it an investment.  Charities are not investors.  Governments are not investors.  Not if they can’t stomach the risk of failure.

Risk capital involves the potential for loss, and the government just rediscovered this.  They lost money on Solyndra.  The fact that people will lose their jobs for it will reinforce government behavior to not take risks, to not innovate, and to not change for the times.

The losses due to Solyndra are not just financial.  The loss is any chance of using “government” and “entrepreneurial” in the same sentence.  There was a chance, as a new generation of politicians and bureaucrats gained power, born with the internet and armed with the word “entrepreneur”.  Now, I fear it’s gone the way of the Dodo, a successful land war in Asia, and the Dewey Decimal System.

The power of words, the limits of help, and death

I am sadly reminded today of the power of words and our power to distort them.  We lost someone yesterday.

I recently read “The US is becoming a third world country.” To state this is to state one’s own ignorance. Having spent lots of time in those third world countries, this is patently false.  We insult their poverty to compare the U.S’s problems to theirs.

The primary poverty problem in the US is obesity. The primary poverty problem in Ghana is malnutrition, lack of education, poor health, and infant mortality (to name a few.  I guess that’s more than “primary”). To make this comparison accurate, we have to first burn every US community hospital, churn American roads back to dirt, and rip out our indoor plumbing. And then we are maybe 10% of the way towards a third world country.

Similarly, it’s become de rigeur to compare someone to Hitler. Sure, we have height challenged narcissists in our society. But to compare a current American political figure to Hitler is to insult an entire generation that died in the holocaust. Please, go visit the Holocaust museum, and then try to compare a tax increase to genocide.  I dare you.

I’m reminded of these word abuses when my acquaintance Rep. Gabby Giffords speaks for the first time for the cameras. Was it abused words in the mind of a crazy person that led to Gabby losing half her brain to a bullet? Maybe, or maybe that person was beyond help, regardless.

Beyond help. Beyond help. Today I teach a class on “measuring the results of microfinance”, via simulcast, to 40 business school campuses.  The challenge of measuring results is that the answer invariably says that someone was beyond help. Someone was even harmed, perhaps.  But does that mean we shouldn’t try?  Is only 100% success the ruler we can accept?

I’ll be teaching from the building where, yesterday, a student entered with a gun and, in a confrontation with police, was killed.  That student was beyond help.  As a society, we failed this student.

At moments like this, we are reminded of the rarity of our spectacular circumstances, the blessing of our sanity, and the foundation of our health.  We are reminded of mortality, in the face of a world of activities that seem designed to distract us from that.  For it’s not whether we have fun on life’s path, but whether we make the path better for those that follow.

 

US Navy “Gator” Bonhomme Richard

When the President says we are sending humanitarian support to a country ravaged by a natural disaster — say Pakistan — what does that really mean?  I always picture palettes of food being dropped by parachute to starving villagers, or crowds of well meaning, shovel wielding, Birkenstocked Americans digging new water wells for displaced folks.

I never really thought about the US Navy sending an amphibious assault ship to the region.  But that’s exactly what happens.  An amphibious carrier is the sharp end of the humanitarian spear.  Or maybe the inner sterile gauze of the humanitarian band-aid.

An amphibious assault ship, like the USS Bonhomme Richard LHD 6 that I toured a few weeks ago, is a multi-role, nearly 900 foot ship.  In addition to it’s 1,000 crew, it can carry 2,000 marines, plus helicopters, jets, and other amphibious ships.  Sure, the ship has the potential for firepower.  But aside from during drills, that firepower is seldom used.

USS Bonhomme Richard, taken from the helicopter

Our host, Captain Harnden, describing the history of the name Bonhomme Richard (Revolutionary war hero John Paul Jones beat the crap out of the British ship Serapis with the second hand, former French cargo carrier) It's namesake has come a long way.

The role that is more often performed by amphibious carriers is that humanitarian support role.  The amphibious carriers (or “Gators”), of which there are 8 in the US fleet, include a 600 bed hospital with 6 operating rooms and a 15 bed ICU.  Given the U.S. average of 2.6 beds per thousand population, that works out to enough hospital support for Topeka, KS, Macon, GA, Chico, CA, or Champaign-Urbana, IL.  It’s certainly bigger than the hospital in my tiny hometown of Harrisonville, MO.  No doubt Brazil will want at least one for their under-infrastructured hosting of the World Cup and Summer Olympics.

The 15-bed ICU

That’s just one of the multiple interesting things I learned during a special program called “Leaders to Sea” conducted by the Commander, Naval Surface Force, Pacific Fleet.  I was nominated for the Leaders to Sea Program by Dennis Hall, founder of Avere Group, who is civilian and makes nominations as part of his global community outreach.  Thanks to Dennis, Commander Jason Salata – Public Affairs Officer, Senior Chief Petty Officer Winkler, Ensigns Smith and Carterberry, and others — more than I can possibly include.  Really, thank you.

For example, I learned that the bridge of an 850 foot long, 100 foot wide ship is way smaller than in movies or on Star Trek.  It’s 18 people in a space the size of a conference room with no chit chat.  No chit chat because it’s a darn serious place.  Running your ship aground, or hitting a navigational buoy, will be the end of your sterling 20 year career.  So cut the small talk and get to the freakin’ point.  (Next time you’re sitting in a conference room listening to someone talk about “establishing our value proposition priority system”, remember that.)

Serious and small. Dawn light on the bridge crew

By the way, that’s not camouflage in the photo, it’s “aquaflage”.  I’m not entirely clear why we want our crews to be invisible when they fall into the water, but it’s scientifically designed to blend in.

Being in the military means a serious commitment to health — you’ll have a hard time finding a Twinkie onboard.  There’s more than one reason why physical fitness is an important part of the military.  The spaces are small, the “stairs” are really treaded ladders, and the ship has 14 floors.  No escalators, no moving walkways.  In fact the only movement is the swaying of the ship while underway.  Urp.

Another reason why Michael Moore may not like the US Navy - a waterproof stairwell -- not ADA approved

A ship this size is a floating city, with it’s own chapel, internet cafe, store, yummy food, dentist, and not one but two barber shops.

One of two barber shops onboard

Did I mention the ship is really big?  It’s big enough to have 2 giant aircraft hangars and one gigantic, floodable internal dock for other ships.  All of you 60′ yacht owners with a Zodiac and a Sea Doo on the back, eat your heart out.  We can fit about 10 of you in the back half of our ship.

What this place needs is a little more space for toys

As I thought about writing this post, I thought about who reads me.  I have many readers on both ends of the political spectrum.  I like that.  But one thing on which both sides can agree is the dedication and professionalism of the US Navy.  If you ever have the chance to witness it first hand, it will fundamentally alter your understanding of the word “military”.

Purple means fuel handler. Fuel means the potential for explosion. That's one of the reasons for this look of determination

At the end of our stay, I was wishing for more time aboard.  But our ride had arrived.

Free Bird = Sikorsky SH-60

Preflight suit-up. It's obvious why the Navy was not excited to have me stay. Civilians in flight suits are ridiculous.

Herman Cain’s 9 9 9 tax plan

Herman Cain is espousing a simplified tax plan. I have just one concern.

The plan does hope to simplify the byzantine tax structure. The first two 9′s are 9% income tax rate on individuals and 9% on corporations with no loopholes and no deductions. That part is easy — your tax return now looks like this:

1) Enter your income from all sources _________
2) Multiply by 0.09
3) Send that number in.

So far so good. No favors and discounts.

Now some bad news.  Lots of unemployment among tax accountants. That’s not so good, but let’s assume they move into lobbying or ambulance chasing or other equally worthwhile endeavors.

The third 9 is a flat 9% national sales tax, similar to the VAT tax in Europe. Economists love the VAT tax, sociologists hate it (because lower income earners still have to pay it).  Many people are worried whether such a massive change will generate too little — or too much — federal tax.

Others worry that the tax is “regressive”, meaning it hits the poor as much as the rich.  I’m less concerned about this.  Our current system gives money to various groups through tax breaks, which are really expenses.  A flat tax moves all that largesse to expense instead of this bizarre anti-income.  So you may pay 9%, but the government will give it back to you.  Based on the current handout system, 50% of you will pay 9% of your income, but will get checks from the government for that 9% or more.  Congratulations!

No, my concern is different. My concern is that it’s a new lever for government. Giving the federal government a new lever, like a national sales tax or a carbon tax, means that eventually the federal government will do what they typically do with a new lever, which is pull it.

In 1913, when the 16th Amendment to the US Constitution made income taxes legal, the income tax rate ranged from 1% to 7%. Clearly, we’ve come a long way from there, and the average net tax rate in the US is 20%.  We pulled that lever.

So while I’m a fan of the simplification of a flat tax system, I think there needs to be ongoing discussion of additional methods to encourage us to live within our means.  Our Federal debt, after all , is already 100% of our gross national product, about what Greece’s debt burden was at the beginning of it’s mess.