the deal with manufacturing.

A few years ago I was obsessed with manufacturing. While I’m not an expert, I have read thousands of pages on the topic and hundreds of articles. In my campaign for Congress, I tried to make jobs, and as a result, manufacturing a cornerstone. All that to say, that this is something I find interesting and care deeply about.

In the past few days I came across two must-read articles on the topic.

1) The NY Times dives into the topic through the lens of Apple and the iPhone. How the US lost out on iPhone work; Apple, America and a squeezed middle class. Must Read.

2) The Atlantic Monthly absolutely blows the doors off with a great dissection at the high-level of American manufacturing and weaving in the human face. Making It in America. Phenomenal.

I recommend starting there. There are a slew of topics that every citizen should understand. Manufacturing is one of them. It drives the wealth and stability of nations and the type of society you have. At least until now it has. It was clearly one of the building blocks of a prosperous and triumphant America. Our mercantilist policies and inherent natural advantages largely contributed to the sole superpower position we held.

I want to lay out 3 important things about manufacturing that are not well understood or known. I’ll do a separate post on why manufacturing matters — but the fact that has historically been a primary source of work for the masses should be enough for now. (That shouldn’t be controversial.)

1) Automation. Robert Reich is the one who first drew my attention to this in 2009. Essentially, global competition or not, technology was rapidly cutting into the humans you needed for production. This trend has only accelerated, as robotics and software improve at scale, the costs of automating repetitive tasks are going to continue to sharply decline. We’ll see more automation everywhere in the world. It will literally take a shortage of the natural resources (a whole other post) to cease this inevitability. So, net, automation has cost a good chunk of American jobs. This is also true for Chinese, German, Japanese, South Korean, et al jobs.

2) Training. I blame politicians (shocker) for why this is so little understood. Since Bill Clinton, I feel like this has become one of those safe ubiquitous lines everyone agrees. “Move up the value chain. Education is the key. etc, etc” These lines have been parroted and led us to the “sacred truth” that everyone needed to just go to college and they’d be well on their way. I think this is (and was) total bullshit, though all the reasons why this is true is another post. (Google Thiel “Higher Education Bubble” for an excellent background on the counter to this “truth”). In reality, educated workforce meant a very complex, diverse truth. It meant a great liberal arts education for some, a rigorous math, science/engineering education for others, and the missing one — was a highly valued vocational training. Germany has long known the importance of this and has a variety of vocational training. Both articles linked to above touch on the need for this. Over the past decade we have all but given up on this kind of training. While part of a more complex point, I believe that we should aggressively be retooling our community colleges to focus on this kind of vocational training.

3) Industrial Policy. Automation aside, the Apple story talks about government having targeted industries that they wished to build up and this resulting in an unbeatable combination. This is what’s called industrial policy and is something that is rarely talked about in America. Countries that have heavily used industrial policy? Japan, China, Germany, South Korea. It’s a whose who list of the powerful, triumphant manufacturers of the world. America too once had a very muscular industrial policy starting largely in the 1800′s going through World War II. With Europe in shambles and our industrial and economic might seemingly infinite, foreign policy and political concerns dominated any kind of industrial policy. The result has been that slowly but consistently (with a surge this past decade) built up industrial capability overseas that has led to Ross Perot’s sucking sound of jobs going overseas. Industrial policy can be a combination of tax benefits, cash and natural resource subsidies, calculated currency manipulation, and protectionist trade restrictions to protect a burgeoning industry. While there are examples of America focusing here (agricultural primarily) we’ve sat out this game. Industrial policy matters and while it has its skeptics (can the government really pick the right industries that matter?) — the rise of most of China, Japan, etc is ridiculous proof for a thinking person to ignore.

There are a lot of other important things to join this discussion. The importance of building a cost infrastructure that supports manufacturing vs consumption. On a scale of 1 to 10 — China is a 10 towards supporting jobs (manufacturing, etc). The US is close to a 1 — we have focused on consumerism and the amassing of more and more crap. By the way, lately that crap has been debt. There’s also a philosophical question about what an ideal, fair, and practical society looks like. I find that you have to not think on a national scale to do this exercise, but go back to that of a small village. Unfortunately we’re neither having an abstracted conversation about where we’re headed, what we’ve been doing, and where want to go nor discussing the actual real impact on American’s lives. Both the NYT piece and The Atlantic do both of these things on some level. It’s much needed.

I’ll end by saying that while I loved the articles, I found Davidson’s closing line in The Atlantic to be a bit disingenuous:

For most of U.S. history, most people had a slow and steady wind at their back, a combination of economic forces that didn’t make life easy but gave many of us little pushes forward that allowed us to earn a bit more every year. Over a lifetime, it all added up to a better sort of life than the one we were born into. That wind seems to be dying for a lot of Americans. What the country will be like without it is not quite clear.

It’s become fairly clear. In fact, that’s why his article was so great. He lays out the clear arc:
1) People like Maggie who the article opens with are actually quite rare. A great very many “Maggie’s” across the country don’t even have the opportunity that she has.
2) And even for her, the basic ideal of a middle class life barely escapes her reach on a salary of sub-$30K.
3) And then finally, the writing is on the wall that with automation, even what the lucky one, like Maggie has is likely to be gone in the forseeable future.

The “very lucky” in this story, Luke, is shown as a clear anomaly. In fact the NY Times story on Apple presented the other side of Luke, in the well-trained Eric Sargoza an engineer who can’t find a job and has been replaced by someone in Shenzen who makes nearly what he did.

From Davidson’s own article, the future, by connecting the dots, is even more dark. The variable here is that we live in increasingly chaotic times. You can’t make predictions in times like this because there are too many variables. You’re bound to be wrong if you do. In the absence of that, you have to at least connect the dots and prepare. Because that’s the best you can do. Sadly, the dots have clearly been there since I was born (30+ years). We’ve chosen mostly to ignore them and, I fear, the chickens are coming home to roost.

**This article was written stream of consciousness and is unedited. I’ll remove this once I’ve edited it** Also, a future post will be what I think we need to do now. At a ridiculously high level, it’s this: http://votechili.com/7/#manufacturing

the white earbuds society.

Over the past year, whether I was in New York, Chicago, San Francisco or Cincinnati, there was always one unmistakable sight. White earbuds. Walking in the morning across Madison Ave, getting on the El headed downtown, or out for a run along the Ohio river. White earbuds dangling.

I was heading in to the office. Naturally with my earbuds in. Listening to a podcast or some music. Before I walked downstairs to the train, I walked by two older visibly homeless men asking for money 100 yards apart. You become immune to these requests so quickly. At times you don’t even notice or, if noticed, you don’t even process them anymore — you just unconsciously know to keep walking. On this particular day, last March, it was freezing cold in Chicago. I wanted to get on the train as soon as possible and so I moved along quickly. When I was underground, I checked my phone and saw the train was still a few minutes away. I looked around and saw no less than five folks who also had their white earbuds in. I thought back to the homeless guys I had quickly walked by minutes before.

Then the thought first hit me. Had we become an earbuds society?

It was the division that was the clearest to me. Apple, a company whose products I love, stood out as a clear example. You have millions of people who flock to Apple stores, buy the latest in technology: laptops, phones, tablets. Admittedly, it’s a diverse group. Apple fanboys(girls) are everyone from those who camp out for hours to be the first to buy to the more casual buyer who waits a few months.

These are items that can cost in the thousands of dollars (MacBook’s and iPhone’s with data plans). They’re amazing devices and I find extreme utility in them (I’ve used them for my professional productivity for the past four years). So I’m not calling out any intrinsic issues with them or saying there’s anything wrong with Apple or buying their stuff. My larger point is their roles as a representative of the division between vastly divergent economic lives.

There are a ton of other signs for who belongs to what “economic class” — Audi or Honda?, Coach purse?, designer jeans?, Patagonia jacket?. The most subtle to me, the white earbuds, also in feels like its clearest manifestation. Perhaps because it isn’t an overt display of wealth. It’s not flashy. It’s arguably just a utilitarian device that most who own don’t think twice about. But that’s why it’s the perfect representative. It’s the stuff that you don’t even realize– that you take for granted– that’s often the clearest basis for division.

So, one, the white earbuds are the subtle representation of the split in society. You are either a part of the group that can (fairly) casually drop a few hundred dollars to join or you aren’t.

The second thought was the more resonant one. The earbuds represented the barriers that we put up to avoid engaging and really looking into what’s going on around us.

It’s easier to walk by someone in need on the street if you can pretend you don’t see or hear them. White earbuds allow us to stay in the perfectly manicured universe of our iPhone tuning out all else.

It’s a lot easier for us to do this because the road forks very quickly. A homeless guy asking for money is lazy, looking to buy alcohol, to avoid working — someone who has spent his life shirking his responsibility to himself and society. He’s that. Or… A homeless guy asking for money is a military veteran, who had a sick spouse that led to an eviction, bankruptcy, the loss of a job, the path to battling alcoholism, and every day tries and fails to get back on his feet. Or has a mental illness (innate or from the war like PTSD) that led to estrangement from family, the inability to hold down a job and the downward spiral. The stories I’ve heard go on and on.

The thing is, I don’t know which of these is the case. Maybe the archetype of the lazy, good-for-nothing homeless represents 80%. Or maybe it’s that of the veteran in shitty circumstances that’s 80%. Either way, I’ll save that discussion for another writing. My point is the road forks very quickly. From seeing him begging for money– and us walking by– or to actually stopping and giving them money (or food, whatever) and letting them enter our consciousness. We wish to prevent that fork, whether consciously or not, and white earbuds are our invaluable ally.

So, two, the white earbuds are the subtle way in which on a daily basis we stay within our worlds and the lives and circumstances of others are prevented from seeping into and affecting our paths.

I don’t have a pronouncement here. A solution. A recommendation. I am also not judging or lecturing anyone else. I am a member of the white earbuds society. With all the talk of the Occupy Wall Street & the 99% and 1%, I guess 10 months ago I was wondering if the division is far more distributed a ~80% 20%. Maybe my numbers are way off, but not my point. Is it really just all about the “super-rich” or is the much broader antipathy of people like me (and most of the folks I know) also responsible for the absurd state of everything?

I believe we have a white earbuds society. And almost a year after I first had this thought, I could see it in my nieces and nephews. In the iPhones they had, the presents they got for Christmas. A new generation growing up with white earbuds.

I feel guilty. Not for being part of this white earbud society. I’m not sure where that slippery slope ends and so any guilt at living a very comfortable life is pretty much outside of my daily consciousness. But I do struggle with the latter point of the barrier and the daily separation. That everything that this comfort and privilege that I have (earned?) also forms a barrier and prevents me from having empathy and understanding what is going on in the world around me. That my daily thoughts and reactions are shaped in the absence of others’ lives. Naturally, my experiences from the past few years shapes this fear in a big way. One of my biggest concerns is instability . I see unsustainable in everything: in the use of natural resources, in economic imbalances of currency and trade, and on a micro-basis in our individual societies. The white earbud construct helped highlight one such source of this division and the impact of it. And, maybe, one source of why such large sources of instability/inequity* can exist and grow.

White earbuds. Their presence divides us. Both in who has them and in how they keep our worlds separate.

*”Extreme inequity = instability/unsustainable” in my book.

what the debt committee actually said.

For immediate release 4:15PM EST [We’re releasing this statement after the US stock market closes. We don’t want you to see a cute chart on CNBC of the markets dropping as everyone realizes just how little we give a shit about actually doing our jobs. See: we’re not that stupid. Wait. Maybe that should be the new slogan: Congress – we’re not that stupid.]

After months of hard work and intense deliberations [Let’s just hope that you don’t read any of the reports that said that we basically only met a couple of times over the past few months. Though considering the horseshit that’s about to come, let’s address this really early to get it out of the way], we have come to the conclusion today [Today was the soonest we could reach the conclusion because it also happens to be the first time we’ve seen each other in a long time] that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee’s deadline. [For all of you who thought that all of us in Congress are incompetent, we hope you take note. We didn’t miss our deadline. There’s no ‘dog ate my homework’ or ‘my computer crashed.’ You’re welcome.]

Despite our inability to bridge the committee’s significant differences [Those of you who are our supporters, don’t worry! We didn’t miss out on whoring it up with lobbyists because, heck, we just didn’t meet! That’s why we couldn’t bridge differences. But our FEC reports are going to look sweet!], we end this process united in our belief that the nation’s fiscal crisis must be addressed [But not by us…suckers! Though someone should really get on that. We should some find some folks. Oh, wait...] and that we cannot leave it for the next generation to solve [We try not to let this get out, but we actually understand math. We’re pretty sure this ponzi scheme will be up by then. Remember: Congress – we’re not that stupid]. We remain hopeful that Congress can build on this committee’s work [hahahahahahah!] and can find a way to tackle this issue in a way that works for the American people and our economy [After Congress gets done with that, we can all go out find some unicorns, explain the series finale of Lost to each other, and take our hovercrafts to the moon. We are very sincere in all of this.]

We are deeply disappointed that we have been unable to come to a bipartisan deficit reduction agreement [That’s why you need to vote Republican/Democrat in 2012 so we can solve this for real. We’re serious. Just vote for our party in November, and we really mean it this time.], but as we approach the uniquely American holiday of Thanksgiving [We’re just like you! We celebrate Thanksgiving!], we want to express our appreciation to every member of this committee, each of whom came into the process committed to achieving a solution that has eluded many groups before us [Can you tell that this was the only part of this statement that the entire committee agreed on? The need to praise our hard work, sacrifice, and competence was a no-brainer]. Most importantly, we want to thank the American people for sharing thoughts [Really, we thank you for not paying any attention to this and for probably not holding any of us accountable come election time.] and ideas and for providing support and good will as we worked to accomplish this difficult task. [Thanks. We love you. Especially how rich we’re all going to get from our insider trading and the sweet lobbying jobs we have waiting.]

We would also like to thank our committee staff, in particular Staff Director Mark Prater and Deputy Staff Director Sarah Kuehl, as well as each committee member’s staff for the tremendous work they contributed to this effort. [These people wrote this release, so they get to thank themselves.] We would also like to express our sincere gratitude to Dr. Douglas Elmendorf and Mr. Thomas Barthold and their teams at the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation, respectively, for the technical support they provided to the committee and its members. [But most importantly, again, thank you for continuing to vote for each us no matter how far we have our heads up our asses.]

[Love,
Senate members
Patty Murray, Washington, Co-Chair
Max Baucus, Montana
John Kerry, Massachusetts
Jon Kyl, Arizona
Rob Portman, Ohio
Pat Toomey, Pennsylvania
House members
Xavier Becerra, California
Jim Clyburn, South Carolina
Chris Van Hollen, Maryland
Jeb Hensarling, Texas, Co-Chair
Fred Upton, Michigan
Dave Camp, Michigan

+ the rest of the house & senate]

the platform owns you.

For the past year, probably the most oft-asked question has been “Will you ever run for office again?” My answer is somewhere between “no” and “probably not.” To be fair, this was my answer throughout the campaign — the only way I knew to not become a politician, would be…well, to not…become a politician.

I saw a quote this week that just floored me. It was so deeply incisive. Here it is:

…David Frum, former George W. Bush speechwriter and once-prominent neoconservative, … “Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us,” he said. “Now we’re discovering that we work for Fox.”

That’s from an article on the media and Sam Zell.

Think about that.

Republicans originally thought that Fox news worked for us
There was this jubilation on the right and this great fear and loathing on the left with the ascendance of Fox News. This incredibly clear, forceful, loud voice was helping to drive the very goals and agenda items that Republicans had seemingly laid out. Essentially Fox was helping to sell the Republican agenda.

Now we’re discovering that we work for Fox.
The above is great when the message is reinforces the very message that Republicans wanted and supported the eventual goal they aimed for. But eventually a crazy thing happened, which is the weird world we live in. Fox at some point (I wonder if we could find the moment?) shifted the line to their ideology. So instead of settling for taking cues and helping to support an agenda, they set the damn agenda. Their narrative fueled what the people demanded, which would in turn become what the Republican party had to deliver. They now work for Fox news.

As an aside, this has corollaries to the tech world where the discussion today is dependence on platforms. Things like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter are platforms on which you build your business on top of. The Republican party, in some ways, has built their business on top of the Fox News platform. And, while there’s a variety of reasons why it’s occurred, their far, and in many ways absurd tilt to the extreme-right, Fox eating the Republican party is some major part of it. Or at least this theory sits right in my gut at this second.

So back to the question I started with and why I brought up the quote. It just affirmed to me this notion that highest impact right now is not necessarily running for an office, but shaping the discussion. Folks like Fox and other pundits and “broadcasters” have, in my opinion, the biggest role to play in what happens. Things are still headed to shit in my opinion. Obama, the magical 2010 Republican congressional class, and everyone else have done nothing to change this. As my irritation and rage smolder, I now think about how I can help shape this narrative. So that’s what where my mind is.

naked and nothing.

The big news of the week was that of Steve Jobs retirement from Apple. His impact went beyond a brilliant technologist or businessman. Beyond painfully beautiful consumer products. He is a cultural icon. As I saw the profound impact his announcement had on so many of the people I knew, I was trying to put my thumb on why. In the end, I concluded it’s just because we know that it is hard to define genius. Like obscenity, most of us just know it when we see it. We saw it in Steve Jobs.

The WSJ gathered the greatest hits of his quotes. So many of them strike me with that powerful feeling of saying something you know to be true, that you feel, that you have been groping around to express but could never put into words. I’ll do another post about various Jobs’ quotes and what they mean to me, but for now I want to talk about this gem from his magnificent ’05 stanford commencement speech:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

I remember the goosebumps I first got when I came across the speech 6 years ago. I watched/read it at least a dozen times in that first day because it spoke to so much that I was going through and thinking about. When I reread it this week, it synced with another piece of writing that I recently enjoyed. It was from a Paul Bucheit blog post called “I am nothing” Here’s my favorite part:

Until we let go of our mental images of who we are or who we should be, our vision remains clouded by expectation. But when we let go of everything, open ourselves to any truth, and see the world without fear or judgement, then we are finally able to begin the process of peeling off the shell of false identity that prevents our true self from growing and shining in to the world. And it starts with nothing

Bucheit echoes Jobs here.

We’re all, ultimately, naked and nothing. We wear our baggage and it prevents us from living the life that we were meant to. From experiencing the amazing promise we each came into the world with.

This week was great to remind me that I am naked. It’s a choice to wear the baggage that the world can effortlessly clothe us in — dogma, judgment, fear, failure, comparisons, etc. I am naked and I am nothing. And now that I’ve reminded myself of this, what should I do? Where should I go? How should I act? What should I pour myself into? These are the thoughts on my mind. Though my answers change depending on when I do the asking, I’m better for having the right foundation.

Anyway. Thanks, Steve Jobs. Not just for my laptop and phone. But for serving as an inspiration. For showing us what it can be like when we live up to our promise in an area of our life. For reminding us to remember that we are naked and nothing, and that being so allows us to be everything we ever hoped to be.

obama’s failure.

When you’re talking about presidents, it should be declarative. They should own things. Think ‘Bush’s War’ for Iraq. Or, I guess, as I’ve now read ‘Obama’s War’ for Afghanistan.

So, I’m declarative here. Obama’s failure.

I’ve wanted to write this for a long time. It really built up over 2010. As my feelings grew stronger, I felt trapped by circumstances. For the first half of the year, I was seeking the Democratic nomination. Probably not the greatest strategy in the world to air your grievances against the leader of the party whose nomination you are seeking. In fact, in reality, the airing of grievances should be probably be kept to Festivus only. But I digress. After winning the nomination, in the second half of the year, I felt paralyzed by cynicism. If I called out the president, I would likely be viewed cynically as just another candidate who would say anything, and throw anyone under the bus, just to get elected. Likewise, I refrained from any Republican-bashing altogether because outside of the unproductive tone, I realized it would be dismissed as standard politics.

So that pretty much meant that I kept my mouth shut in public on the subject of the president. Tonight, the president delivers his third state of the union and I didn’t want him to address the nation until I had my say. I can only imagine his speechwriters’ frustration upon reading this post with so few hours to go and having to do a massive re-write. Such is life.

I am not happy with President Barack Obama. Some would (and have said) that I am being cynical. But it’s the opposite. I am horrified because the president has revealed himself to be the most cynical of all.

In 2006 & 2007 as Barack Obama campaigned across America he spoke of change. Not just any change. Not changing a few policies. Like changing the healthcare system, changing the vacancy sign at Gitmo, or changing DADT (don’t ask, don’t tell). No, he talked about transformational change. Washington was a corrupt, fatally flawed place, that had cease to function for the American people. If the goal of Washington was to advance the cause of the American experiment, it had broken. And Barack Obama had come along to tell…no, to promise us, that he was coming to Washington to destroy it.

There’s a deep sense of hopelessness and cynicism attached to politics. Most of all amongst the youngest of voters. I believe it boils down to a sense that it doesn’t matter which candidate wins, nothing changes but the window dressing. In a campaign of historic proportions, Obama flipped the script. He galvanized young and old. Here, he promised, was your chance to be heard. I’m sick of all this too. The posturing. The petty bickering. The flitting away at the margins, while the glaring disasters are in plain sight. I hear you! Now is not the time to be small, it’s time to go big! Instead of being sick of everything, let’s change the system, he whispered to us.

So we elected him. And, look, I’m actually one of the people who think almost any decent Democratic candidate should have won that election. The conditions were about as primed as humanly possible (Bush fatigue, supreme economic malaise-turned-crisis, a changed McCain, and everything that was ‘Sarah Palin’) for a McCain defeat. But, still, the record dollars raised, largest grassroots effort in American history, electoral landslide. Change had come to America! Game on! Let’s go change Washington! Can’t Wait!

It’s been two years. I’m still waiting.

That’s not to say that a lot hasn’t been accomplished. Far from it. The president has presided over one of the most ambitious legislative agendas in decades. See this site for the laundry list of things he’s gotten passed and signed.. As checklists go, he’s been busy.

But Washington today looks a whole lot like it did 5 years ago. The huge scary problems that were looming over us 3 years ago, are still there. The president promised transformational change, and then once he got there, he got to work right away on transactional change.

Am I being too harsh? Is not realistic to expect big, systemic change? To expect the things that are course-altering? I was just expecting what was promised.

In the end, as much as I dream, at my core, I’m a harsh, realist. And so I as I watched the campaign unfold, I was never sure that Obama would be able to do the things he promised. But I believed that he was angry by these things and that he would at least try.

I do not believe that Barack Obama ever tried to change Washington. This is Obama’s ultimate failure.
Maybe he tried to do it by asking nicely. He went behind the scenes and extended olive branches to everyone and asked for their help in tackling the big problems and reforming the system. In fact let’s just assume that he did these things. And that, shockingly, he was rebuffed by all those with a stake in the status quo and that sought political advantage.

Then what did he do?

He used every old trick in the book to get things done. Nothing changed except the transactions. He got some impressively difficult legislation passed. To do so, he signed bills that had massive pork (when he promised to not do this). He OK’ed backroom deals (when campaigned clearly against them) to horsetrade for votes. He signed a ~$4 trillion tax cut extension when he said that wanted to truly take on the debt (not add a massive amount more over the next decade). Yeah, he sure did get a lot done. But at what cost? The cost was preserving the system, keeping our course (towards the iceberg), and maintaining the destructive status quo of DC.

What did I expect/want him to do? I wanted him to fight. I expected him to take a baseball bat to DC if it wouldn’t change easy. I expected him to expose the corruption, hypocrisy, and ideologues who stood in the way of transformational change. Hold press conferences where you call individual people out. Read the dollars that are flowing in between certain PAC’s and their supplicants and the resulting harm to the American people. Re-engage that army to go to work at the grassroots level to spread the word about what was happening. It would work because he was right. Because he took the moral high ground.

Sure, this would have consequences. Instead of passing all of the legislation he did, Congress would grind to a standstill. No healthcare reform, DADT, etc, etc, etc, etc. Instead he’s going to war with DC. He’s taking a bat to Washington. I’m OK with that. Not because I’m insensitive to the suffering of the people who have benefited from the incremental progress of the new laws. Not because I’m a purist (or idealist) who believes that Perfect is the enemy of Good. But because we are a nation at a pivotal moment, at a time of crisis, and transactional leadership won’t cut it. We need transformational leadership, and Obama was thrilled (during the campaign) to be the vessel in which we believed it would be provided. Why am I so hung up on this? Why am I so repulsed? Because the big problems aren’t close to being addressed:

- $14 trillion in current debt; record deficits; $50 trillion more coming down the pike
- $3 billion spent lobbying and more on its way each day
- A financial system that is still deeply vulnerable but papered over due to the Fed’s printing press
- A ~17% real unemployment rate that has showed substantial evidence of being the ‘new normal’
- A manufacturing sector on its last legs due to failed US trade, tax, and regulatory policies
- Control of our debt by nations who appear to be becoming increasingly aggressive towards us
- The list. Goes. On. And. On. And. On…

We are not capable of taking on these challenges as long as the status quo is permitted to stand. That was the narrative arc of the campaign. It was right then. It’s right now. All that’s changed are the president’s priorities. He chose getting stuff done vs getting stuff right. He chose progress today vs a real, stable foundation for tomorrow.

That’s President Barack Obama’s failure. He failed to do what he told us he would. Worst of all, he didn’t even fight to.

I suspect this post will infuriate many. It will bring out the instinctive need to defend their ‘guy’. I understand your reaction. Politics is horrifically adversarial and combative. It’s worse than sports. When a Steelers fan makes fun of the Bengals (even if they’re right), I pipe up. When a Patriots fan rips on the Jets (even if they’re right), I rush to concoct a tortured defense. But politics, the debate over the direction of the future of our country, should not be so tortured. I believe, to my very core, that we should not defend people or parties. We should defend principles and ideas. Only principles and ideas. For the people and the parties sell out. They change. They compromise. They sell out. Our values, our principles, our ideals and ideas, these are the things that are true. Hold them above all else.

For the first time in a very long time, I sat down to write without fear of if it would be used against me, if it would cost me votes, or if it would be popular. This is what I feel. I say it with a clear heart and no sinister purpose. I know my values and I know what I would like to see done. And so I write.

what is quora?

The best site you (probably) have never heard of.

I started playing around on Quora a little over a year ago. In that time I’ve become addicted. However it’s one of these sites that no has heard of beyond Silicon Valley and a few people connected to Valley’ers/obsessed with tech. So let’s talk about it.

So what is Quora?

1) It’s like Twitter. But for people who want to learn things and/or have intelligent discussions.

On twitter we can follow celebrities and other high-profile folks to get a view into their world (and follow our friends too). On quora we can follow the folks who are experts in areas we want to learn about, follow specific topics that are of interest, and can see our friends’ answers.

Assuming you’ve followed enough topics/people, when you pull up the site instead of seeing updates from your friends (Facebook or Twitter) you’ll see new questions and answers about people and topics that interest you. Really addicting if you like to learn new things or to answer questions.

2) It’s like blogging. But directed. Blogging answers questions that you have, while Quora is about answering questions other people have.

Typically I blog about things that I’m asking myself in my head or that I find really interesting. It’s really “answering questions no one asked”. Like say this post, “What is Quora?”. It has it’s place, but there’s something cool about answering a question that you know someone definitely cares about (because they asked it). I can’t speak for all bloggers, but there’s a large satisfaction that I get when I know that a post of mine is appreciated/well-read. I get that feeling a lot more on Quora. I believe bloggers have a “contributor”-mindset, and Quora is sort of a utopia for this mindset (more on why below).

3) It’s like Facebook. But nothing like Facebook actually.

It’s like Facebook in that it gets social design very, very right. Facebook is killer because the whole process of sharing (and consuming) updates, photos and many other forms of information with your friends is frictionless. Quora has designed a *terrific* social experience around asking and answering questions from the way you follow people/topics, the use of the the Facebook connect feature to encourage you to invite key people to the service, the “voting up/down” of votes which reward people who contribute awesome answers (while also curating the service so the next person browsing the question will immediately see the best answer), and so on. It’s amazing social design which we’ll likely increasingly see in every web service in the coming year(s).

So checkout Quora! I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. You’ll also see a bunch of answers from me on technology, politics, marketing, and other things I’m interested in. I’ve been meaning to blog more, especially about the campaign, but was struggling with where to start. So I decided to jump in with thoughts that I’ve been meaning to write up for the past year (like this one!)

a sane political campaign

I have a lot to write about in the coming weeks. Especially around this past election. Given that no matter the subject, we each have our own different perspective because it is informed by our specific experiences. Since all of my commentary and thoughts are driven by my specific campaign, I should probably explain how it was unique.

Obviously I’m biased. But I believe this was the most sane campaign in the country. I’m sure my choice of words is influenced by Stewart’s Rally for Sanity, but so be it. Here are the main three:

1) The only clean-money campaign in the country.

The problem: Some unbelievably insane amount of money was spent on campaigns this election season — a number, I hear, that is in the billions. Seriously. When running for office becomes something that is so unfathomably expensive that only a certain, well-connected or uber-wealthy class of people would ever consider it, we’ve failed miserably.

Of all the major federal campaigns (US House and Senate), we were the only one to not take any special interest money or self-finance (think Meg Whitman and Linda McMahon). The only one. We raised a quarter million dollars in all individual donations, averaging $250.

2) An organic campaign, not a synthetic one.

The problem: There’s a huge trust gap in politics. That much is clear. When a politician tells us something, our first reaction is to assume that they are lying to us or to try and figure out how much of what they said was a lie. We impugn the motives and statements of politicians because we know how artificial they have become. Focus groups, poll-tested sound bites, consultants crafting everything — we get that these politicians and their campaigns don’t mean what they say. Like a consumer marketed bar of soap, everything has been fine tuned by the men behind the curtain to make us want it. They don’t mean it.

So I ran an organic campaign. There were no “rented suits” (consultants) or focus-grouped taglines. But more than anything, I wanted to show what a sane, human campaign could look like. What if the candidate ran his own campaign, kept the books, ran the fundraising, wrote the speeches, policy positions, planned the media, created the commercials, and all the rest. So I did. It’s also why I was really, really irritated when my statements and motives were impugned. It was frustrating because all of this work was really an extension of me — but realistically, until this becomes more commonplace — that campaigns are a true, honest reflection of the candidate and their views — the cynicism and resistance will persist.

3) Ideas, not sound bites.

The problem: Most politicians run for office without any ideas. Instead they rely on 2-3 sound bites which they repeat over and over. It’s so bad that there are even a slew of politicians who don’t even have positions on their website. My opponent, Jean Schmidt was one of them. You could basically look at photos of her or donate to her campaign. That’s it. After a year of dealing with this idiocy, I let loose in the debate on it and called it what it was: parrot politics. You could teach a parrot to say the names of a few diseases, that doesn’t make the parrot a doctor. You can teach a parrot to say “lower taxes” and “smaller government”, but that doesn’t make that parrot a conservative either. It’s infuriating.

So I laid out an aggressive policy platform on my website. I even went further to post about relevant policy news on The Huffington Post. I constantly updated the Facebook campaign page with relevant news articles & commentary. I answered emails every day on policy positions and where I stood on issues.

I’m extremely proud of these accomplishments. I’ll talk more about what I hope the long-term impact of this will be in future posts. But this is what was especially different about our campaign. I like to think it was a brief glimpse at sanity in an otherwise insane election year and political climate.

Lots to come.

And I’m back. Probably starting tomorrow.

financial services reading.

Lots of disturbing, horrifying, and bizarre facts out there about the state of the financial services sector of our economy.

One of my all-time favorite writers, Michael Lewis, has a great piece on AIG in Vanity Fair.

Much more controversially, Matt Taibbi, in Rolling Stone posts a searing indictment of uber-bank Goldman Sachs. Almost must read.

The past year in the banking sector (based on the actions over the past decade+) has had a truly stunning impact on our country. Likely, we’re going through a history-shaping type event. Given that, I’m shocked at how quickly what has gone on (and is going on) has been out of the public spotlight. I hope to see more in-depth reporting coming out soon on the role lobbyists, PAC’s, and financial firms themselves played in this national nightmare.

More to come. On a lot…

good articles to read, take two.

Con’t…

6) Dream on a shelf — ESPN.com OTL. Interesting read on the insides of big money sport. More interesting as a human interest story than financial sports.

7) What makes us happy? The Atlantic. A look at a study that’s been going on for *72* years of 268 men at Harvard college. Probes the question of what the factors were that made some men happy, and others miserable (and suicidal).

8 ) The secrets of self control – The New Yorker. Self control has always fascinated me and this article was one of the most interesting I’ve ever read on the topic.

9) When underdogs break the rules – The New Yorker. Why people pick fights they know they are going to lose has long been one of my favorite questions. It’s not that I don’t like the underdog, or those who fight long odds bravely. Far from it. But I never understood the masochism of confronting a foe in the manner in which you know you’re at a disadvantage. Find your advantage. Gladwell, in his typical fashion, explains this idea simply and elegantly.

10) Geithner and the gilded age – NYTimes. Good read on Geithner, who as Treasury Secretary, currently is one of the most important people in the world. This is at turns fascinating and depressing. Try not to throw up in your mouth as you read about his best friends on wall street. full disclosure: i was not successful.

2 hours of pain and bliss.

I’m gathering up some of the more interesting articles I’ve found across the web over the past month. I’m not actually sure if it adds up to 2 hours of reading, but it sounded good to me. Why pain? Because reading some of these made my blood boil and my a indignation rage. After avoiding these kinds of articles for a few months, I’ve jumped back in with both feet. Maybe something productive will come out of it. Here goes…

1) NYTimes: Banks up to their old tricks.

After screwing over their country (and, to be fair, many other countries) the banks have decided they’ve been “punished” enough. They are passionately lobbying against regulation of the exact complex financial instruments that pushed the world economy to the brink of collapse and destroyed significant long term value from the dollar. They push for less transparency and less oversight. The money quotes?

“The banks run the place,” Mr. Peterson said. “I will tell you what the problem is — they give three times more money than the next biggest group. It’s huge the amount of money they put into politics.”
…
“The outrage among the public means that things have a chance to change, if things move quickly,” said Michael Greenberger, a professor at the University of Maryland Law School and a former director of trading and markets at the C.F.T.C. “We’re in this brief moment of time when the average citizen is on a level playing field with the lobbyist.”

The banks run the place? A brief moment in time when the average citizen is on a level playing field with a lobbying group out to bankrupt taxpayers? Wait. What was that sound? Oh, just me throwing my laptop against the wall.

2) NYTimes Magazine: Tom Davis Gives up on Washington

An old article on a republican congressman from Virginia. Half human interest story and half sad state affairs of Washington. I would take 435 Tom Davis’ over almost anything else you could give me. I found it really interesting to read the story of a man who spent a lifetime in politics, played the game enough to exist within the power structures, yet refused to compromise on some core ideas and principles.

3) The New Yorker: Money Talks – the Obama budget

Peter Orszag, Obama’s budget head may have the toughest job on the planet. By all appearances he’s a non-political, intellectually honest policy wonk trying to follow through on an ambitious agenda while not bankrupting America. In times like these, saying that last phrase, all of a sudden becomes more than empty rhetoric. Interesting to read about the schism within the administration between those who are scared of our deficits and those who feel we need to march ahead to “right America”. Though, unlike the battle in 90′s, we live in a different world where the dollar is actually in some (small?) amount of danger.

4) New Yorker: Cost of healthcare…

Atul Gawande, the author of the piece, is an *amazing* writer. He wrote a great book on medicine (and life) called Better: A surgeon’s notes on performance. Here he takes on the peculiarities of health care costs. Gawande writes with the credibility of a renowned doctor and with the incisiveness of a gifted doctor to speak about a taboo in the world of medicine– the profound import that money now plays. Examining a city in TX that boasts health care spending far above the national average and surrounding towns, he dives in full bore. You’ll note a synergy to this and the Orszag article and you’ll see how, hopefully, we’re approaching a consensus in potential approaches to quell the death knot of health care expenses. Make no mistake, health care is the single biggest threat to our country’s future. It threatens our private sector viability and there’s also the looming bankrupting of the government. Social Security and bailouts can’t touch our medical system.

5) New York Review of Books: Crisis and how to deal with it.

I’ll say that Niall Ferguson is one of my favorite authors and speakers on economic issues. I’ll also say that please don’t read this link next to any sharp objects, prescription drugs, or other dangerous things. The conversation, between some of the “brightest economic minds”, offers very, very little sunshine.

I’ll have 5 more in a few days.

duty & skill and will.

Duty.

In Mullaley’s thoughts on the Ramayana, he focuses on the notion of duty. Growing up with parents who are apart from the culture you find yourself in presents all kinds of interesting and unique experiences. One of them was being surrounded by the notion of duty to family. When I was reading about duty, I was struck by what our predominant cultural notion of duty actually is. Those that grew up with JFK heard about duty to country. Generations before, duty to country was quite widespread and easily seen through voluntary military service. What is *our* generational/cultural sense of duty towards? I worry. Is it money? Prosperity? Have we been trained to believe that our duty is to maximize our personal prosperity and in doing this we do our service to society? If not this, then what?

Skill and will.

“Skill and will”, he told me, “win battles.”…

“Any knucklehead with sufficient practice can shoot a rifle straight,” he said. “Will, on the other hand, is different. Will takes character.”
The Unforgiving Minute, page 192

An elegant expression of what it takes to succeed. While, clearly, *skill* is not nearly as trivial as the quote makes it appear, the balance of the two rings true. Success can often seem far off, hard to realize, questionable, or even impossible. But, really, it requires but these two things. The hard work to acquire the skills necessary. This could be hours of training, practice, research, education, etc. And then it requires the will to believe. To truly, and completely believe, that once you apply your will to a problem, you *will* solve it. I’ve used the phrase “impose my will” previously, and I believe it. If you want something bad enough, I actually do believe you can will yourself to achieving it. Life is often a question of will. What’s harder? Acquiring the skill or the will?

fighting the world’s fight.

In The Unforgiving Minute, Craig Mullaney talks about his Rhodes Scholar experience a bit. In introducing it, he speaks of one of the criteria for selection being ‘a demonstrated passion for “fighting the world’s fight.”‘ I was immediately struck when I saw this phrase.

What did it mean to fight the world’s fight? How do you dedicate yourself to this? Is it a lifetime goal? Do you work towards it every day? Do you pay your dues so you can one day fight it? Is it one overarching fight? Is 1,000 little ones?

Since I first read about the fight, it has been echoing in my head. What a perfect phrase/question. As a member of the Google generation, I of course googled it. I came across this graduation speech (which I immediately recognized as an order of magnitude better than the one i gave). It’s a great speech and exploration of service.

How do you think we fight the world’s fight?

reading: the unforgiving minute.

I read Joker One and The Unforgiving Minute back-to-back (thanks, Amazon recommendations). I expected both books to be very similar given they are about a veteran’s experience in Iraq and Afghanistan respectively. This turned out to not be the case at all. While Minute was very readable, I found that it lacked the power and voice of Joker One.

Fair or not, I can’t help but compare The Unforgiving Minute with Joker One. was the story of Craig Mullaney’s life as a military man. Unlike Joker One which track’s the author’s experience as a platoon commander, Minute is more Mullaney’s life story. Much of the story surrounds his experience at West Point and subsequent trainings. The West Point account is supplemented by his tour in Afghanistan, his experience as a Rhodes Scholar, falling in love, and his relationship with his family. If you’re looking for a glimpse of life at West Point and into military culture, this is the book for you.

Strangely, though Minute is nearly an authobiography and Joker One is more of a military account, I learned more personally about Joker One author Donovan Campbell than I did Mullaney. I think this is due to how honest Campbell is in his detailed accounts of his failures, insecurities, and the details of war. Despite glossing over all the human details of his life, you’re left with a vivid portrait of the man and a feeling that you know (and admire) him. Whereas Mullaney’s book though diving deeply into his personal relationships, carry a different (almost detached) feeling. It was strange to read such personal details (his relationship with his father or his wife) and still feel so distant. I say all this to point out that for an aspiring author, the two books are a study in tone and direction. I can’t deconstruct the elements that makes one profoundly personal and the other slightly detached, but I’m pretty sure the reasons are remarkable. Any friends who are literary experts and can do this, please reach out and help!

Oh, and after reading Minute, you’ll have a new found admiration for discipline and a soldier’s training. Good book. My next three posts will be nuggets from the book that struck me.