How Many Employees Does it Take?

While Buffalo Pundit chastises the Buffalo Economic Renaissance Corporation for lack of strategic foresight in its lending practices, I found today’s article on the BERC disappointing for a wholly different reason:

-It takes 25 employees to administer about a loan a month.

Six-sigma lean it ain’t.

Open Letter to NY Assemblyman Quinn

Dear Assemblyman Quinn,

I want to thank you for your 18 November response to my recent email regarding my opposition to balancing the 2010 budget with additional fees and taxes. While you explained to me your stance on the original budget as well as the upcoming mid-year adjustments, you did not seem to appreciate the frustration and anger that many of my colleagues and I have with you and your fellow legislators. Perhaps I did not elucidate this well in my email; perhaps you merely replied with a form letter. One thing, however, is clear:

You do not understand what we are angry about.

We are angry at you – the collective you – because you cannot get beyond the side of the aisle on which you find yourself. It doesn’t matter to which party you belong: Your actions are those of children in a schoolyard, taking sides but never reaching across to resolve the differences.

Your letter contained many promises and calls to action. Nothing in it, however, spoke of the need to reach across that aisle to address New York’s problems in a bipartisan manner; nothing spoke of doing the Peoples Business. Instead you emphasized your frustrations with the Democrats, and the us versus them mentality that pervades the legislature.

Your letter was full of bellyaches and personal accomplishments, but no mention the word bipartisan. Not a single sentence spoke of collegiality or a sense of urgency. You are quite eloquent at placing blame on the Democratic Party, not so articulate at offering an olive branch. You don’t seem to get it: We are angry at you because you are all to blame.

You – the collective you – need to get beyond your rhetoric in a hurry, for the sake of this state and for your jobs. I for one remain unconvinced that you and your fellow legislators deserve another term. Without seeing real bipartisan action in the near future I intend to join the rapidly-growing ranks of those determined to help vote you out of office. You demonstrate by your words and collective (in)action that we no longer have anything to lose by throwing the bums out.

One final point: What happens behind those closed doors in Albany may be deemed progress by the few of you privy to the inner sanctums. But the perception out here is one of shady deals, power grabs and chaos; the perception is that it’s all about you, not your constituents. You have scarce time left to change that perception.

Here’s a suggestion: Reach across the aisle with this letter. Let your Democratic colleagues know that as many voters are gunning for their jobs as yours. Then offer that olive branch.

Best Regards.

Extreme Makeover – The Aftermath

Mayor Brown would be smart to distance himself from taking any credit for the success that Extreme Makeover brought to Buffalo’s Massachusetts Avenue neighborhood.  Instead, he should cite this as an example of what can be accomplished when everyone works together for the betterment of a neighborhood.  He’d be way ahead if he uses his political clout to help sponsor and organize Extreme Makeover, Part II – XYZ Neighborhood.  I think any area around Jefferson and Best would do just nicely.

Someone asked about the tax liability that Delores Powell will have on her new home.  Rest assured that the producers of Extreme Makeover don’t leave that open-ended.  Essentially, they got the city to agree never to raise the assessed value of Delores’ property so long as she owns it.  What Extreme Makeover did was lease the house for two weeks from Delores, so that they could renovate it under leaseholder improvement provisions.  There is even a federal provision nicknamed the Extreme Makover Loophole that Congress passes every year, just so these guys on ABC can do what they do.

I’m not sure how New York State sees this but I wouldn’t be surprised it sends Ms. Powell some kind of tax bill for imputed income.  It is New York State, after all.

It’s a wonder that this Extreme Makeover segment even happened.  When the producer first went to City Hall with the schedule, some of the first words out of the Municipal Housing Authority were “It’s not gonna happen by those dates” to which the producer said “We’ve done 168 homes throughout the country so far; do you really want to be known as the first city that couldn’t accommodate the schedule?”  The permits were put into place shortly thereafter. 

This is yet another example of the territorial nature of our local government.  I’m happy that clearer heads prevailed and if Mayor Brown had something to do with this, then good for him.  Rather than embrace Extreme Makeover and its potential for great intentions and even greater PR, some clown in City Hall decides to throw his weight around.  The issue of little duchys permeates across Western New York govenment and grows by example, starting with our political leadership.  How do we ever change something so ingrained as this?

Buffalo needs more Extreme Makeovers.  What a great way to bring out the best and show the rest of the world why we so rightly deserve the title “City of Good Neighbors”.

Bill Stachowski Meets His Constituents, Part Deux

Part 2:  Why 62 Senators Stood Pat for 2 Months NOT Doing the People’s Business.

Senator Bill Stachowski spent an hour and a half with about 25 members of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership last Thursday.  His introductory remarks focused on why he voted for the 2010 state budget.  In summary:

• The governor’s office gave them little to work with;
• Legislative rules prevented them from making wholesale changes;
• The state senate was forced to re-insert necessary expenditures that the governor’s office removed;
• The other side refused to deal with this mess last year.
• Voting YES was the lesser of two evils;

I’m glad he was able to deflect blame away from the Democrats; otherwise he would have had to implicitly blame my Democratic-leaning friends who voted for him.  Luckily, there were plenty of other entities with which he could spread fault for this fiscal mess.  This was a practice session:  I’m sure that next year during the election season he’ll find even more scapegoats and not-for-the-people public officials to impune.

But I was interested in learning more about the recent two-month-long senate stalemate, so during the Q&A I asked this question:

“There were 62 senators who – to a person – decided that allegiance to the Party was more important than the people’s business.  Why, to a person, is the Party so much more important than your own constituency?”

Stachowski got clearly irritated and trampled on the last word of my question to blurt out

“You’ve got it all wrong”

At which point some guy to my right shouted out “That’s bulls**t, that’s exactly what it was”.

Stachowski and the guy, and the guy next to him went back and forth for what seemed to be an uncomfortably long time but was probably just a few seconds.  I didn’t really mean to cause a ruckus, I just wanted an answer to a question that’s been on my mind since June.

“Our side offered 15 different resolutions to solve the impass.  The other side rejected all of them.”

He proceeded to explain the compromises that the Democrats offered the other side about power sharing, each party submitting bills on alternate days and some other measures to break the impasse.  He was clearly irritated but not belligerent.  I think it was because I distracted him from the roll he was on with the budget, with all that smugness because he could throw out jargon and policy-ese and bill-ese that only those in the know, like him, could comprehend.  The 31-31 impasse was clearly not something he wanted to talk about and he did so in a more curmudgeonly manner than on budget questions.

He never did answer my question though.  It is clear that neither he nor anyone else in the senate thought that crossing party lines was a solution.  I learned a lesson here, that someday, if I really want to wield power, I should join a political party so they can tell me exactly how I should wield it.  Yesiree, I’ll take my marching orders from the Party!

Stachowski is betting that by next November we voters will have forgotten about this rotten budget and the senate impasse.  Brian Sampson of Unshackle Upstate is betting that our state politicians’ collective behavior will not be forgotten.  Unshackle plans to be highly visible during the 2010 elections reminding the voting public how political spinelessness and Party allegiance above all else got us to where we are today.  Stachowski on the other hand has $4 million in legislative pork to spend on his constituency in order to buy their votes and make them forget.  Ah, pork:  a most potent amnesiac.

Back to the budget.  Brian pointed out that with 38 million people, California’s state budget topped off at $91 billion.  New York – with half that population – has a $132 billion budget.  Here’s what the burden per person looks like:

Brian also spoke of the state pension hole that will force dramatic tax increases in 5 years as state employees retire en masse (and move to Florida where the New York State legislature has much less authority).  Stachowski brushed it off as an accounting trick, that in reality the hole doesn’t exist.  This article begs to differ.  I beg to differ too.  In fact, I begged to differ with almost everything Stachowski said.  It would have been refreshing to have him even hint that New York State is out of control both fiscally and politically, but it didn’t happen.

Sampson was impressive in his ability to keep a straight face while Stachowski spoke.  When it came to credibility there was no contest.  When it came to having to feign respect, there was also no contest.  Both speakers get one point each.

I have to compliment Senator Stachowski for his willingness to sit in front of us and provide justification for political decision-making that clearly no one in the room believed was justifiable and then repeat that process time after time in front of various audiences.  It takes a real belief in the system and a really thick skin to do this, or else abject stupidity.  I’m not sure which camp he belongs to.

Next Up:  The Partnership, and the Paladino – Rudnick Love Affair

Bill Stachowski Meets His Constituents

Part 1:  Encounter with Bill Stachowski:  Lessons in Finger Pointing Assigning Responsibility

The Buffalo Niagara Partnership offers member access to its Movers and Shakers events, usually held monthly.  This month’s M&S was a meeting with state senator Bill Stachowski (D, deflection) and Unshackle Upstate Executive Director Brian Sampson.  Whether you like or dislike the Partnership the M&S event is usually informative and sometimes entertaining.  Last Thursday’s event was both.

Brian spoke first and set the stage with a critique of this year’s state budget, the inability of the state legislature to hold the line on expenses and the impact that new taxes and fees will have on personal incomes and businesses.

Senator Stachowski then aggressively took the defensive, following up with an explanation of the budget.  He spoke rapid fire – spoke might not be the correct word here; for at times I thought he had marbles in his mouth or suffered a stroke or horrible malady, his speech being so mumbly as to be intelligible – about the limited options the state senate had available to cut expenses because of what they (meaning the governor’s office) delivered.  He clearly laid blame for the current budget fiasco at the feet of the previous majority’s refusal to deal with it in last year’s budget.  In burbled tones he spoke of FMATs and “ATAT’s”.  [I really have no idea what he said but it sure sounded like "A-T-A-T"; throughout his narrative he tossed around jargon without explanation, expecting his audience to know it cold, I guess.  I am in awe of his mastery of speed mumbling.]

Stachowski also speaks while viewing people’s midsections, like he’s trying to look at you out of the top of his glasses but not quite succeeding.  I think he was trying to make eye contact but maybe his neck or something wouldn’t let him raise his head enough to actually do so.

The good senator did make a point that the state budget’s actual increase was only 1% even though, um, when using what I learned in 4^th grade it’s 10% or $12.1 billion.  “The [federal] stimulus money allowed us to fund programs that otherwise would have been cut”, he explained.  Now, even though that means next year’s budget will suffer a monster shortfall when stimulus funds are no longer available to cover those programs, that’s apparently a 2010 problem and something that he swept aside maybe for the sake of brevity during this meeting, or maybe because he didn’t want to face up to it, what with an election cycle starting soon.

Stachowski also pretty much glossed over the 88 new taxes and fees that were enacted to close the budget deficit.  Actually, he didn’t speak about those at all except in the collective:   “It was hard to vote for this budget,” he said.

But I got the feeling from the matter-of-fact bluntness by which he deflected blame elsewhere that voting YES was probably the easier choice since it was clear that the governor and the other side were to blame for this mess.  I should note that Senator Stachowski seems to have trouble saying the word “Republican”.  I’m not sure why.

Next Up:  Why 62 senators stood pat for 2 months not doing the people’s business.

How to Fund a Waterfront Project

Read this article; it’s about the $148 million that New York City and the state will spend to renovate two piers along the East River.  It creates 400 new jobs in Gotham.

That’s about $370 thousand per job created.  All it takes is David Paterson, Sheldon Silver and the mayor of a great city to pull it off.

Well, we have all three, right?  This means that Buffalo will be next, right?  We need some state-funded jobs like that.

What Jenny Sanford Should Have Said

Well, yet another politician whose brains are in his pants.

It is one thing to preach about the sanctity of marriage, wholly another to practice that sanctity.  My husband, like so many other politicians, lives in a world where egos are stroked at every turn and power is more addictive than cocaine.  He obviously felt that he needed more stroking than I could give him.  The sense of entitlement that comes with political office carried over into the rest of his life, and he failed to keep them separate.

I’m sure his biggest regret is getting caught.

If I were a bit less civil my first reaction would be to Bobbetize him.  Instead, for the sake of our children, I will try to work through this.  But you can bet that he’ll be cut off for a long, long time, maybe for good.  I may love him, but he’s a jerk and like so many other jerks, could not keep a commitment he promised to keep, twenty years ago.

Going forward, Mark’s words will be repeated in the press; but they are just words.  I and others will from now on be vigilant of his actions, and the effect that every one of those actions will have on regaining his trust.

That will take a long time, probably longer than one election cycle.  This is something you too should consider the next time you vote for governor.

Society tends to reflect the morals of its leaders.  Those who decry the loss of family values and the failures of society – especially those in office – should look no further than themselves as the starting point for re-establishment of those values.  This post is not really about Mark Sanford’s failure or the failures of those other high-ranking politicians – God knows they’re only human – it is about the failure of government to adhere to tough ethical standards that have teeth, that hold politicians accountable for immoral or unethical behavior.  Instead, we find ourselves all but disregarding any political rhetoric because the person behind that rhetoric has no credibility.  We are more likely to do as he does – and not do what he says.  We’ll follow our leaders all the way down that amoral pit.

This all leads to the fiasco that is New York State government, a government that has established new lows in ethics, where a political official currently under investigation for fraudulent campaign tactics is one heartbeat removed from the Governor’s mansion.  Whose Legislative Ethics Commission in its 20-year existence has never filed a notice of wrongdoing and whose findings are specifically exempt from the state’s Freedom of Information Law.  Whose Senate is so beholden to the Party that not only can they not conduct the people’s business, they can’t even find cordiality in the same room.

Many of these politicians will be re-elected to office.  They are doing nothing that the majority of Americans have not come to expect of them.  The real failure of our society is our own unwillingness to hold these guys accountable for the very societal standards demanded of us.

It’s been interesting to watch the slow disintegration of my state government and the short-lived furor over national political figures who have strayed.  We’ve been on this slippery slope for a while, and we’ve got only a short distance to go, I hope, before it becomes so revolting that society revolts against the system.

“Let’s Just Go Home”

Today’s State Senate quote is courtesy of Senator John Sampson (R, Brooklyn); here’s the link to the whole story.

The rest of the New York population gave up on the State Senate (and the rest of State government) long ago, so it’s not really news that Senators are giving up on themselves.  My advice echoes Senator Sampson’s:  Go home.

I’ll add:  Don’t come back.

I chuckle at the suddenly used and in vogue phrase “the work of the people.”  The Senate long ago stopped doing the work of the people and have been party automatons ever since.  Like robots, they don’t take accountability and don’t do anything they’re not programmed to do.  It is clear that these guys are merely puppets whose balls are being squeezed strings are being pulled by other, more powerful men.

Some court case years ago ruled out the possibility of withholding Senate paychecks (regardless of what Sampson says) over a debacle like this; that’s okay, the pay is a just a zit on skin raked with raging melanoma.  I just hope that we voters remember this past week the next time these half-wits come up for re-election.

Elephant Spokesmen

The most vocal talking heads of the Grand Old Party are Dick Cheney, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh????

That can’t be a very good way to grow the Republican base to a size that can take on the Democrats, and could be disastrous for the Republicans for many elections to come.  A silent Colin Powell and an Eric Cantor who seems afraid to use the word “Republican” might be more statesmanlike choices around which to circle the wagons, but they are either unwilling or unable to take those leadership reins away from the attack dogs.

Maybe Cheney, Limbaugh and Beck are actually liberal-leaning strategists who realize that an adversarial right-wing Republican line that eschews moderates will only expand the Democratic Party’s grip on government.  Maybe that’s the strategy.  It’s certainly one that I can at least rationalize; because when you’re the minority, ostracizing your own and potential party members does not seem to be a reasonable approach to winning more friends.

We are now living the results of almost 8 years of single party dominance.  It stands to reason that 8 more years of a single dominant party will not lead to the rational compromises required to strike the balance that defines good governance.  A single dominant party is also likely to hand even more power to the unelected party bosses; witness, with rare exception, Erie County and the city of Buffalo’s election choices.

Yesterday I participated in a webinar sponsored by the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, in which Trent Lott was the guest speaker.  The webinar was supposed to be on the effects of the new stimulus package but it only superficially covered that topic, wandered into several others and generally did not stray very much out of the wading pool.  Former Senator Lott mentioned the Republican Party’s poor election showing and stated that the Party needed to have a clear voice on the issues of interest to the American people.

So I got to ask Trent Lott a very simple question:  What, in his opinion, is the clear voice that the Republican Party needs to vocalize?  He sidestepped the question entirely, choosing to answer with “The GOP needs to think about the words they choose”.

When virtually every American is decrying the economy, jobs and health care (note:  abortion and immigration aren”t even on the radar), it is clear that the Republican Party needs to put together a platform and a single voice that elevates those very issues, and needs to do so in a manner that is critical but constructive rather than adversarial to those in control.

1,000,000 Would-be Terrorists

The ACLU estimates that there are now over one million names on the nation’s terrorist watch list.  The Inspector General’s estimates are closer to 1.1 million identities.  Many names are duplicates and many are wrong with no systematic way of removing them.  35% of the domestic entries have no known link to terrorist activities.  Hundreds of thousands of foreign citizens were put on the list because they are from Iraq and Afghanistan. The watch list data is significantly peppered by inconsistencies in the way that names were added or not added (“nominated” in IG parlance) to the list.  New information regarding names on the list, either to bolster or eliminate suspicion, was mishandled two-thirds of the time.  The incredibly slow removal of names from the list is in directly violation of policy and has led to problems at border crossings and airport security lines, both in stopping ordinary people with no ties to terrorism from traveling while letting other suspicious individuals through.

I found this report startling for two very different reasons:

• That any list of this size (and growing at upwards of 20,000 entries per month) could be considered useful to agencies trying to use it as a screening filter is absurd.  Anyone who works with large databases recognizes that data accuracy is paramount, and even small errors have great consequences.  An untrusted list is an ineffective list.
• That this list could be grown so quickly to so many is about as Kafkaesque as it gets.

The terrorist watch list is a great example of what happens where paranoia is substituted for rational thought.  The creation of the list and the accumulation of names ranks right up there with the McCarthy communists and Nixon’s enemies. I look back with a historical perspective and am embarrassed by how our government ran itself at the height of the cold war and during the Watergate scandal; twenty years from now the Bush Administration’s creation of the terrorist watch list will end up on the list of historical embarrassments as well.

Carl Paladino, Speaker and Writer

Love him or hate him, Carl Paladino is one colorful character.  He was the guest of honor and Executive of the Year at the Buffalo Niagara Sales and Marketing Executives (BNSME) gala on Monday night.  Carl pulled no punches.

Paladino is calling for revolution.  I don’t think I have the backbone to follow him, or maybe it’s just that I don’t think it will do any good – Buffalo and Albany are just too corrupt to be influenced by whiny voters.  It would take balls – lots of them – to foment any real change.  Or maybe I’m just to busy trying to survive, and can’t find the time to take on New York State government.

Quick story:  The Albany Legislative complex is built like a fortress.  It is massive, surrounded by high walls and not pedestrian friendly.  100,000 protesters could show up (they’d have to walk – not enough nearby parking), break into the main entrance…and they would barely be noticed in the cavernous underground mall.  Dispersed throughout the complex they would not raise the people density enough to be taken seriously.  I’m sure the Capitol was built this way, for that reason.

Anyway, Palidino lit into every politician, by name, that has eaten from the public trough for all these years.  He blasted, just blasted, the Buffalo News and Margaret Sullivan’s leadership of it.  He vilified James Williams, Phil Rumore, the Buffalo Board of Education and the 800 million dollar school system they are supposed to be running.  He spat venom at labor unions, Buffalo city government and especially Albany.

How angry was he?

Prior to his speech – and in order to set the tone of what was to come – a letter that he wrote to Margaret Sullivan of the Buffalo News back in January was distributed to the dinner guests.  It starts like this:

Here’s my two cents on the News.  It’s a monopolistic predator imposing its liberal views and superficial journalism on a community seeking to pull itself out of fifty years of decline as a result of impotent public and private sector leadership.  As the only show in town during most of that time, it became lame and lazy serving up assenine [sic] slop without any guilt for failing to mobilize the community with objective, call to arms journalism.  You’ve been in a box so long that you have no idea how to get out of it.  Your subscriptions are falling and you are frustrated.  You have no follow through and you wonder why you can’t hit the ball.

There’s lots more (after the jump)

Downtown Buffalo, 2 PM

I didn’t have my camera with me but if I did I would have photographic evidence that the city’s new plan for plowing city streets during inclement weather does not include city streets.

It was clear that none of the east-west side streets downtown had been plowed at all and that the north-south thoroughfares maybe got plowed once.  It was a mess.

And today’s snow has been persistent, but not heavy.

At what point will we no longer accept failure as the only option from our local governments?

The President’s Last Speech

One statement from President Bush’s speech tonight struck a chord with me:

“So around the world, America is promoting human liberty, human rights, and human dignity.”

So long as waterboarding, and perhaps other forms of persuasion are not construed as denying human liberty, human rights and human dignity then I guess the President and I are in agreement.  But if we believe that these interrogation tactics are construed as debasing basic human rights, then we have a problem.

And it’s a big problem.  It’s doublespeak.  It’s the Nixonian approach to being above the law simply by saying so.

My respect for President Bush dropped as the folly of the Iraq war dragged on and plummeted after the Katrina debacle, but I lost the last of it when he and his team used semantics and wordplay to justify the use of waterboarding while simultaneously declaring that the United States does not torture.  And yet just a few hours after even more damning reports that indeed, we do torture, our President looked us straight in the eye to speak about America and human dignity in the same sentence.

I felt relieved after the speech ended, relieved because it is the last one President Bush will give as Commander in Chief.

“Not Having Weapons of Mass Destruction Was a Significant Disappointment”

I don’t think that’s what President Bush meant.  But it was still funny, in a nauseating way, to hear at his last news conference.

And I’m pretty sure his use of the term misunderestimated was intentional, in that he thinks it’s a real word.

If – despite his gnarled rhetoric – you still believe in President Bush then don’t go here.  You won’t find the kindness or praise you seek for him.

Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Men

On Christmas Eve my friend the Foreign National got ticketed for rolling through a right-on-red.

He did not have his passport with him.

The cop immediately called the local Homeland Security office, who took him into custody and after a few hours decided he was not in the U.S. legally.  He thought that if they allowed him to get his visa, at his apartment, it would prove that the U.S. is his legal home.

It didn’t.  Homeland Security said they had never seen a visa like his, so they took him back to the holding center and held him for a few more hours before finally agreeing that it had all been a mistake and he was free to go.

Only they had his car towed in the interim.  All this on Christmas Eve.

So now my friend is $190 poorer with little recourse but to put up with the harassment of a U.S. agency beholden to no voter, an agency that if he attempted to sue, could (and might) retaliate against him.  An agency that puts guilt before innocence and whose paranoia makes those it touches paranoid.

Sometimes I hate what we’ve become.

Energy Indpendence in Our Lifetime

(courtesy CNN)

John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil and now head of Citizens for Affordable Energy, spoke at WNED studios last Friday.  Parts of his speech were covered by the Buffalo News as well as the local television media.  An oil insider, Hofmeister made some great points that the media covered well.

That morning, John also spoke at the Buffalo Niagara Partnership’s Movers and Shakers series, making quite a few comments that didn’t make it into the paper or TV.  One of them was about the run up of oil prices this past summer.

Hofmeister pointed out that the dramatic rise in oil prices had nothing to do about speculation but about Asian aviation fuel demand and China’s preparation for the Olympics.  In its attempts to reduce smog, China demanded a change from burning coal for power to burning oil.  They basically bought up all the diesel fuel that they could, and this was principally responsible for the sudden increases.  Just as suddenly, demand pressure on diesel fuel started to drop shortly after the Olympics.

Interesting.   Since diesel is a middle distillate and gasoline is an upper distillate, one would think that as the world’s demand for diesel increases, a glut of gasoline (as a byproduct of the distillation process) will appear on the open market, depressing gasoline prices relative to diesel fuel.  This might make one question whether or not it is wise for the U.S., one of the few countries not fully converted to a diesel transportation infrastructure, to ever do so.

Hofmeister made a few other interesting comments:

• Without a huge improvement to mass transportation there is no way that dramatic rises in gasoline prices won’t strain many American budgets beyond their limits.  And suburban sprawl makes the mass transit solution untenable.  Because the U.S. has no infrastructure available to support alternative energy transportation in more than a niche manner, there are no short-term alternatives to the internal combustion engine through at least the next decade.
• When the U.S. was importing 35% of its oil from foreign countries the Nixon Administration, in 1973, declared that the U.S. would be oil independent in 5 years.  35 years later, 65% of our oil is imported and over that time no policies have been developed to reduce that dependence.
• You would think that the Department of Energy determines – or at least implements – energy policy in the U.S.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  There are 13 Executive branch agencies and 26 Congressional committees that determine policy, plus the courts.  Energy policy is determined politically.

Hofmeister was animated about his last point.  Unless Congress adapts the same model for energy policy as they do for monetary policy – an independent board modeled after the Federal Reserve – no solution to our energy woes will be found.  After 35 years, Congress has proven itself incapable of fixing the problems, and needs to relinquish policy control to an Energy Resources Board with teeth.

Business 101

If you’re going to borrow money for your company, the first thing any lender (outside of mom and dad) will ask for is a business plan.  You must have a plan that demonstrates how the borrowed money will successfully lead to business profits and eventual repayment.  This is as fundamental as it gets.

That the CEOs from GM, Ford and Chrysler did not so much as have a business plan to present to Congress says a great deal about their arrogance.  Or their incompetence.  Or both.

The act that the Big Three is trying to perpetrate on Congress goes way beyond contemptible.  It’s a shame that so many auto workers will pay so dearly for such inept management.

Just Say No!

With regard to saving the auto industry, there are at least two broad possibilities that have not been broached much by the media:

• Merger with and/or buyout by a foreign auto manufacturer, say, Toyota or Honda.
• Government aid not related to manufacturing operations but to the retirees that in large part are sucking the automaker dry.

I was not in favor of a financial bailout and I am not in favor of a direct auto bailout, either.  Management and the unions have only themselves and each other to blame for their predicament.  Americans voted with their pocketbooks years ago; it’s not like anyone other than GM management didn’t see this coming.

So instead of a bailout, consider those options above.

A buyout by a strong foreign manufacturer, however unlikely, is something that would change domestic management culture overnight.  A buyout (as opposed to a bankruptcy) would help to salvage the hundreds of parts suppliers on whom the foreign automakers rely just as heavily as the domestic auto companies.  The show-stoppers are health care, retirement obligations and the unions.  Especially the unions, who have far less leverage today than during strong economic periods; so if Toyota was to make a move, now would be a good time to buy into the domestic industry on the cheap.

The second idea is to improve competitive costs against foreign manufacturers by relieving the auto industry of a $1,500 per vehicle levy – retiree benefits – by taking them off the automakers’ hands, in return for ownership in the company.  Socialized health care and pensions for retirees.  Let’s call that, hmmm, Medicare and Social Security, respectively.

GM management will fight tooth and nail against the former, and the unions the latter.  So instead, Congress will be hard pressed not to take the easy way out and simply give the automakers a blank check with few strings attached.  It is the worst possible option, and the one they are likely to take.

Jack Davis, UB Philanthropist

I write not to bury Davis, but to praise him.

Jack Davis was officially recognized for his $1.5 million donation to the University at Buffalo’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences this morning.  President John Simpson and Dean Harvey Stenger introduced Jack to the crowd, praised and thanked him, then turned the podium over to him.  Jack was genteel and gracious, and praised the university in return.

Then he put on his politician’s hat and gave us a lesson in trade imbalances and how that issue became square one of the current economic recession.  He also pleaded with us to jump on his bandwagon.

I think most of those in attendance were academics so this may have been the wrong crowd to preach policy to.  However, I’m glad to have gotten the opportunity to hear his impassioned speech, one that I’m sure he gave many times leading up to his defeat in the 26th district Democratic primary.  It didn’t quite seem appropriate but the crowd was politely receptive.  Frankly, if I were giving UB $1.5 million I’d expect them to applaud even if all I did was wear a rubber suit and walk backward.

He was not a jerk.  He was very cordial and polite.  I’d love to meet some of his employees and ask them how he is as a boss, to learn what Jack Davis is really like when he’s not out politicking.

Philanthropists labeled as irascible are still philanthropists.  Jack could easily turn his back on Western New York; yet he does not.  Kudos to him.

Epilogue

A few observations about the National elections:

• The huge voter turnout was indicative of a restive populace looking for something different than what the current Administration has wrought.  The voters might be called lots of things, but complacent would not be one of them.
• A neo-conservative, ideologically divisive and demagogical approach to politics probably works when the resulting policies actually lead to something constructive.  Otherwise, payback’s a bitch.  In retrospect, George Bush beat John McCain twice.
• Although only a first step, eloquent speaking is a great first step.  Obama’s victory speech sort of puts into perspective the oratorical vacuum of the past eight years.
• If the Democratic Party can turn this campaign’s organizational approach into a repeatable phenomenon then the Republican Party will have its work cut out for it, for many years to come.
• The relative closeness of the popular vote indicates that this country still has a lot of healing to do.  As much as I would like to believe that we are the United States – and not Red and Blue states – much needs to be done to heal the wounds of the past eight years.

Let the healing begin.