Where’s the accountability?

Why are Barney Frank (D-Rep MA) and Chris Dodd (D-Sen CN) still in office? Not only are they economic idiots, they’re corrupt. If anyone is responsible for the meltdown in the financial markets we suffered last year, it’s these two clowns. But they are still officiating and the press still gives them airtime.
Oh that’s right, they’re liberals. Yes, they received huge contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Barney’s boyfriend was a Fannie executive and Dodd got a VIP loan. But they meant well.
There must be a lot of pork pouring into their two states, though both may lose reelection in 2010.
Another group that needs to man-up are moderates like Warren Buffet and Colin Powell who helped put Obama in office. They owe us an equal effort to try to unwind this disaster.
And then there’s big media, giving any lib a pass (Alan Grayson, D-Rep FL) and letting the Dems continue to blame Bush for everything.
Three years of Democratic control of Congress and a year of Obama in the White House has produced the biggest economic disaster since the 1930s. Time for heads to roll.

Earl Benson, Macon job creator

Pictured: Sandra and Earl Benson at Oct '09 reunion

Back in the 1970’s, Earl Benson decided to quit his bread truck route and open an office equipment company. Today a thousand people in Macon have good paying jobs, thanks to Earl’s initiative, hard work and tenacity.
Earl sold his highly successful copier company, Acme Business Products, to IKON Office Solutions in 1983. He continued on with IKON, expanding his responsibilities and growing jobs in Macon with corporate-level resources, until retiring just a few years ago. IKON later sold the leasing operation (Bass Rd) to GE Capital, and the sales & service operation (Preston Ct) and back office center (Arkwright Rd) to Ricoh.
On October 24th, Acme held a reunion. Seeing everyone again made me realize how great the good ol’ days in the 1980s and 1990s really were – genuine change and exciting opportunities.
You don’t hear much about Earl, mostly because he shuns the spotlight. But he’s done more for this community than people will ever know.
I moved to Macon in 1984 to work for Earl, and owe him a great deal.
Thanks, EB.

Nanny villages go kaput

When you’re under stress, go back to basics. And a basic way to consider public policy is to think of our country as a village.
Say that you’re the leader of a village of 100 people. The villagers hunt, farm, care for their families, build huts and trade goods. Everyone agrees to chip in and hire a few peace officers and teachers, plus they gladly give to the church to help take care of the less fortunate. The village prospers.
If the US were a village of 100, we’d have 5 teachers, 5 police officers, 10 attorneys, 5 social workers doing the work the church once did, 5 assistants to the leader, 5 vagrants, 5 guys scamming the system and 10 bureaucrats keeping tabs on the other public workers. We’d be in big time debt to the village next door, the one with the wisdom and discipline to maintain about a seven to one private-to-public ratio.
Soon, the 50 villagers who carry the load will slow down; some will move to a better village. The once prosperous village soon collapses.
The private economy in the US has done so well that it could sustain most of the increase we’ve seen in public works over the past 80 years. But Obama and his statist friends have stomped on the accelerator so hard that the engine can’t take any more.
Don’t like the village analogy? Just look at history. Countries with big central governments always fail. Low-tax, low-regulation countries thrive. But even successful nations run the risk of thinking that money grows on trees, get apathetic and slowly fade.

‘99 Blazer, Rescue Truck

I’ve never won anything significant, so it was pretty exciting to receive a call from the Georgia Industrial Children’s Home that I had won a car with my $10 raffle ticket. I was thinking new Camaro. Not even close. A 1999 Chevy Blazer with 143,000 miles.
The truck was in fairly good condition, but my theory is that a SUV with over 100,000 miles is like 100 in human years. I only accepted the prize because my son was close to getting his license, and this would be a good first vehicle.
A year and a half later, it’s still on the road, but has had some issues.
First the radiator blew. My son (let’s call him Matthew to protect his identity) thought it was on fire. A good cooling system lesson for $400. Then the A/C didn’t work in the middle of the summer; $500 for a new climate control panel.
The first $400 the prep-turned-thug earned at his new job at Kroger, he spent on speakers. The subwoofer is loud enough to make your head explode.
Then ol’ Matthew had a mental lapse and took the 2WD truck, with one wheel in the grave, out to an area the kids call Brandywine. I had no idea such a vast no-man’s-land existed in Bibb County… right behind Wesleyan no less. Steep, rugged trails with deep ruts wind through acres of marsh and woods. The various trails lead to mud holes – big, red clay craters filled with slimy mud and nasty water. Catnip for a 16-year-old.
Of course the boy got stuck. His buddies pulled him out of the bog, but his truck wouldn’t run. No tow truck or repair service would venture the half-mile from a paved road.
In the days the truck sat abandoned, some idiot threw a rock through one of the windows and stole the speaker system. Then the property owner locked the gate Matthew had entered. It poured rain every night. After letting Matthew exhaust his connections, I got retired off-road experts Walt and Eddie to drag the crippled SUV out of the wasteland and to the shop. They wouldn’t accept any pay for their incredible talents and equipment, but the shop bill was $900.
This week, the driver side electric window won’t work. Another hit to the boy’s savings account.
Despite all of the breakdowns and downtime, I must say that both Matthew and I have developed a very special bond with the little rescue truck. But a few more big cha chings and we’ll have to put her down.

At least the right hears both sides

I sit at the gate at the airport and watch CNN. The rabbit-eared TV in the kitchen only gets CBS News. The news reports between Neal, Sean and Rush segments on talk radio are from ABC News. I must sift through AP stories in the Telegraph to get local news. I sit through incredibly stupid anti-business propaganda to see otherwise entertaining movies. I sometimes can’t get my finger on the FFWD button fast enough to cut the juvenile political jabs of Leno, Conan and Letterman to get to their occasional good guest.
I can’t help but get the left-leaning media’s version of the news, but at least I get both sides.
I feel sorry for the left who miss half of the news and perspective in the world. Even sadder is that the left gets deceptive reports from the left of what the right is saying.

Libs don’t know the difference between profit and covering costs

Listen closely when liberals use the word profit. The tone is negative, the contempt compounded further by a snarl. Those wicked corporations and their money-grubbing CEOs care about profit more than people or the environment.
Clearly not everyone was paying attention in economics class, or they wouldn’t be using the p- word so loosely or as if it was something evil.
Here’s a question we used to ask middle school students in a Junior Achievement course I was involved in years ago: What percent of profit do you think the average corporation makes on sales? The replies were usually in the 50% range; the reality is more like 5%. And after running their own ‘company’ for a few weeks, the Junior Achievers understood how hard it was to eke out even 5%.
Stockholders deserve a 5% return on sales, just a little more than what the IRS demands. Anytime there’s a lot of profit, competitors flood in. And if you think oil, pharma and insurance companies make too much money, go buy their stock and get rich along with them!
Libs don’t understand that profit is essential to growing jobs, paying taxes and providing a little cushion for hard times. They have no idea how bright, hard-working and caring most CEOs are - at least the ones I've met.
Every organization must cover costs – except government. The Feds just print money while most state and local governments borrow far more than you or I would consider prudent.
So don’t let the libs use the profit word in a negative way. Unlike government, companies that don’t cover their costs, plus a little return for investors, go out of existence.

Hail the Class of '69

1969 was a landmark year – moon landing, angry Vietnam protests, drugs gone wild, Helter Skelter, Woodstock, and the graduation of about 400 kids, including yours truly, from Mt. Pleasant High School in Wilmington Delaware.
On October 10th we got back together for our 40th reunion. I figured four decades was a good time to catch up, and I’m glad I did.
By age 58, we’re past all the bravado. Some of my fellow Green Knights have retired in luxury, some are bankrupt, and it was hard to tell the difference over a few drinks. Most of the guys had added a few pounds, lost some hair, have trouble seeing and hearing, and struggle with the ol’ short-term memory. The women are fabulous, all even more bedazzling than they were in high school.
Only about 100 classmates made it, but many of us flew great distances (CA, TX, WI, AZ) to be together. A few of our classmates (maybe twenty) have died; most have lost one or both parents.
The lesson I would want my kids to hear is that high school is just the beginning of the journey. Looking back, kids that had success in high school – however you want to measure it - were often, but not always successful over the next forty years. And some classmates who barely got noticed in ’69 have gone on to great things. High school is a base, an important one, but there is plenty of time to recover if you make some bad choices or get off to a slow start.
Salutes to people at the reunion – to those who are taking good care of themselves, to those still happy in their marriages, to those who organized the event, to those on Facebook and to the spouses that endured the reunion (you have to really love someone to attend a reunion that isn’t yours).
The event was awkward, fantastic and surreal, all in one. Nothing like a reunion to ground you in your past. I hope to stay in touch with several new old friends. Go Green Knights!

Some of my best friends are liberals

One of the mysteries of life is how people who are bright and industrious can have such different approaches to public policy.
I’m not talking about the tens of millions of people who suffer from class envy or are led by the media like sheep. I’m talking about well-adjusted, thinking people.
Part of it is rivalry, similar to rooting for a college or pro football team. We start out following the same team as our parents, and build our position over time with more pride than logic.
Positions are then reinforced by how we filter information and everyday experiences. A liberal sees the guy in the picture above as a lucky Michelle fan. I find it disturbing that a guy in a food line has a $500 Blackberry.
Liberals look out over a world with a few greedy ‘haves’ and a sea of helpless ‘have-not’s’. It’s not fair (by their definition), so they feel compelled to do something. They demand that the government use their arresting power to tax and regulate the ‘rich’. The law of unintended consequences kicks in and the situation worsens, so they keep ratcheting up big government control.
It’s like taking a walk in the woods and seeing a fox attack a rabbit or a hawk swoop down and grab a chipmunk. The well intended liberal wants to help the little guy by hampering the big guy, and screws everything up. If you ignore the occasional unpleasantness and mess, nature does just fine. And like nature, the free market takes care of itself.
I don’t like greed any more than the next person, but I also hate to see people get a pass for making stupid decisions over and over – not taking school seriously, goofing off, drugs, etc. Liberals let slackers slide.
I say live and let live. Quit judging and trying to rig outcomes. Each of us has enough to do making the best with what we got. The greedy and the slackers will suffer the consequences and it won’t be at the hand of social engineering administered by a big central government.

No joy in watching Prompterpotamus get a beatdown

October has not been a good month for President Obama – higher unemployment, a public scrap with General McChrystal and failing to get the Olympics in Chicago. SNL even lambasted Obama in a skit (search hulu.com).
You might think that someone like me who fundamentally disagrees with Obama’s central government approach would be delighted in this beatdown. But the failure of wrongheadedness is no cause for celebration. We are going through a tough economic correction and the chronic mistakes by the Democrats have made matters worse.
Not only are we not getting what we need, but the crazy talk in Washington (sky-high debt, higher taxes and takeover of our medical and energy industries) is undermining everyone’s confidence. Duplicity and false promises are tearing the country in two.
The private sector needs stimulus – tax cuts, tort reform, relief from regulation. We need strong leadership in a troubled Middle East.
Washington has two jobs to do – stimulate private job creation (the tax base) and keep us safe. Quit the power grabbing and get busy.

Walk away, Dave

Letterman used to be fresh and funny; in recent years he’s become dim and sarcastic. The only thing that keeps him out of the political-hack pool with other two-bit comics like Al Franken or Bill Maher is self deprecation, and even that’s become insincere.
Dave’s behavior is so typical of the media and entertainment’s ridicule of traditional values. He even tried to get laughs as he made his sketchy confession on the show the other night. Letterman talks about his young son all the time – I’ll bet Harry will be real proud to know that his dad has been diddling the staff, dipping his pen in company ink, fishing off the company pier.
Letterman now joins the ranks of Clinton, Edwards and other remorseless libs with no character – egomaniacs leading America deeper down the sewer pipe.
This week’s uproar may help ratings for a while. Letterman fills his theater with sycophantic audiences, but the sponsors won’t put up with his crap for long.
And surely there’s another side to the story.
The late night format is great; it’s time to give someone else a chance.
You’ve made your hundreds of millions, Dave. Time to walk away into the Connecticut sunset.