SamSaid!

JUST NOT RIGHT

     When I get together with my kids and their spouses, we talk about important matters  –  international events, wars, national politics, investing, taxes, real estate prices, natural disasters, crummy TV and even the weather and sports. When I offer my views, they even listen, sometimes. It isn't exactly lecturing  –  maybe  closer to a bit of pontificating. They all understand.

     Of late the conversation is dominated by the horrific events in the stock market where a handful of extremely powerful business leaders have systematically looted their companies and destroyed the lives of thousands of investors and employes. Such words as fraud,  corruption, greed, abuse of power, misrepresentation,etc., aren't good enough. It is theft  –  just plain theft –  of corporate funds and the savings and investments of people who placed their faith in an honest system.

     Now, my kids are not bomb-throwing left wingers. Two are self employed, one is employed  in corporate America and the other is in the Public sector. They save their money and invest carefully. They are conservative and believe in the free enterprise system. Actually, one still claims to be a liberal but I think he is wavering. All of them  see nothing wrong with the profit motive and the desire to sell goods and services for a fair profit. But when it comes to the looting and fraud by the leaders of Enron, Global Crossing, Adelphia, Tyco, Worldcom, etc., they say “That just isn't right”. To see these guys hang onto hundreds of millions of dollars and buy/build ungodly mansions while the Companies are in Chapter 11 bankruptcy just isn't right. I agree. It isn't.

     And these young adults are smart enough to see the handwriting on the wall. Sure, these big guys  will be investigated and we will see the whole gamut of escape  techniques  –  deny, deny, deny  –  delay, delay, delay, take the 5th as often as needed, supress information and evidence, delay some more, change lawyers a couple of times,and then as a last resort plea bargain and walk away free with a huge bundle of cash. And looking over their shoulders saying, “I did nothing wrong”, and “I didn't know”.

     Maybe the new Federal legistlation will fix the problem, but I am skeptical. Political contributions are likely to be the deciding factor. What is the old saying?, “Anything worth doing is worth doing for money”.

     Our “civilized ” society banned vigilante justice a long time ago. But I am re-thinking that one. Somehow, our “civilized” justice system just isn't up to the task of getting an appropriate remedy for the injustices at hand. I have not been personally affected by the misdeeds of these arrogant and ultimately corrupt men, but if I were, I don't think that “doing nothing” would rank very high on my list of options.

ROCKS AND GREENHOUSES

     Jonathan Karl is a reporter for CNN. Can't say that I have read much of what he writes, but he authored a good column in the WSJ the other day, “Cooking the books is an old recipe for Uncle Sam”.

     There is a veritable frenzy in Washington to severly punish the Corporate giants who are guilty of fraud, theft. embezzlement, shoddy accounting, misrepresentation, and destroying the lives of many shareholders and investors. Our Congressmen and Senators are highly indignant and vow vengeance on Corporate America for all of these misdeeds. And in an election year they are riding the wave of anti-business sentiment. Mr Karl points out that our duly elected leaders in Congress are hardly strangers to creative, imaginative accounting when it suits their purpose. And the public never knows the difference. He offers several examples. I'll only cite a few.

     1.  Last year Congress spent $15 Billion to bail out the railroad workers retirement fund, but not a cent showed up on the books. Using a trick called “directed scoring”, they simply voted to keep it off the books. By comparison, WorldCom's $3.8 Billion overstatement of profits looks like chickenfeed.

     2.  A census is taken every 10 years. Last year, Congress changed the designation of “census” to “emergency” and detoured $4.5 Billion out of the operating budget into an emergency bill. Just change the label  –  but of course that's not shady accounting —right?

     3.  Consider the Medicare and Social Security Trust Funds. Congress sets up these funds and then borrows heavily from them with no re-payment. The liabilities run into the trillions. But you will never find the trillion dollar liabilities on the books. The GAO Director says, “How can the federal Government pretend that a trillion dollar liability doesn't exist. Easy  –  just use off-the-books accounting. Sound familiar Enron??

     4.  Looking at the Executive branch, for the past 5 years, the GAO has refused to certify that Federal agencies are following generally accepted accounting principles. Due to slipshod accounting, GAO was unable to provide assurance that the financial statements were fairly presented. Doesn't that make you feel good??

     5.  As far back as 1985, Budget Director David Stockman said, “We have increasingly resorted to squaring the circle with accounting gimmicks, evasions, half-truths and downright dishonesty in our budget numbers”. Doesn't look like much has changed inside the beltway in 15-17 years.

     To our Congressional leaders we say, “You are right to act in behalf of thousands of shareholders and investors who have been victimized by flim-flam accounting”.

     But how about the millions of just plain citizens, Senators??  By what accounting standards do you judge the accused??   Whose greenhouse should be under the rock assault??  

THE SPLENDID SPLINTER

     Last week, Ted Williams died. To many it may have been a non-event or at least a semi-event. To me it was a major event.

     I was raised around baseball. My Dad was a good player and in his later years managed the Town Team. I was a batboy at 6 and learned basic math by keeping the box scores, and calculating batting averages and earned run averages. Skill-wise, I was a lot longer on desire than I was on talent but still had a few memorable occasions as a player.

     Best of all, I had the oportunity to watch the great ones play  –  Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Dizzy Dean, Bob Feller, Jackie Robinson  –  to name a few  –  and was fortunate enough to attend All-star games and the World Series. In recent years my interest in baseball has waned due to the Player's Union, agents, strikes, free agency, big bucks and player behavior. Last week, I didn't even see a pitch in the all-star game. Not interested.

      Williams was really something special. It was worth the price of admission just to watch him hit 4 times. His running fued with the Press in Boston was more a matter of irresponsible journalists than an individualistic super talent. He was his own man and set many good examples for others to follow. It's OK to be outspoken when speaking from a position of authority  –  and he was all of that.

     It is not appropriate to grant him fame for all of his being. Let's just say that he was the very best at a special skill  –  hitting a baseball. I hated to see him go. He will always be my selection of the best in a great era of sport  –  baseball, football, track, golf, tennis, skiing, skating, boxing, etc. Now I will have a lot of time to see who I would put in second place. So long to the Splendid Splinter!

LIARS AND JUSTICE

     The last few weeks have been very troubling for me. I feel betrayed.

     I am a very strong supporter of  –  and believer in  –our American Economic System, whether it is called capitalism, free enterprise, economic freedom, or whatever. It is undoubtedly the best eco-socio system in the history of mankind. It provides more opportunity and benefits to individuals than any other system, and in my view there is nothing else in second place. As far as I can see, all socialism does is provide employment for left wing academicians who have never met a payroll and are content to contaminate universities by hogging up on the benefits of free enterprise as parasites while bad mouthing the system that allows them to do it.

     Maybe I am hopelessly biased because I am one of the millions who have benefited from our economic system. From a modest backgroud I was able to fashion a rewarding career in industry, put 4 kids through college, and retire with dignity. Along the way, I had the privilege to work with, and for, many outstanding, high quality, high integrity people. Were there some scoundrels?  Sure, there always are. But overwhelmingly, it was the quality people who moved ahead as leaders.  As it turned out, the Company for which I worked for 33 years has disappeared from the corporate scene  –  but not because of theft or fraud. It failed because of the ego, greed and avarice of 2-3 men. And there is no way we can legislate our way around that.

     But the ongoing revelations of big time corporate theft, greed and fraud are disheartening indeed. And it starts and ends at the top. Whether Enron, Adelphia, Global Crossing, Tyco, Worldcom, or Arthur Andersen, it is just a handful of very powerful men (and maybe an occasional woman) who knew exactly what they were doing. This business of finger-pointing, “don't know”, “can't recall” or taking the fifth is so much hogwash. They knew exactly what they were doing  –  every step of the way. They just got caught. All of corporate American surveys the bottom line numbers and relates them to the stock price. Every day!

     True enough, a million dollars isn't what it used to be. But it still is a big chunk of change. Most Americans simply can't relate to the enormity of a net worth of $50 million, much less hundreds of millions or billions. How many toys can you accumulate? Why do people of immense wealth have to evade taxes, cheat and steal? But even beyond in the quest for super wealth, these guys just didn't sink the ship, they took the crew down with it. It was all so simple  –  just manipulate the numbers and tell no one. And now they sit in a hearing  taking the fifth.

     Why shouldn't Americans be leery of the stock market when funny numbers are so prevalent? Now Congress is on the attack for stronger laws to punish the trangressors. All we can hope is that they don't throw out the baby  with the bath water. As an aside, considering the spending proclivities of Congress and some of the creative accounting now being used (see Social Security) inside the Beltway, Congress and its leaders may not be in the best position to be outraged at financial deception. To many of them, a mirror might be helpful. No matter what, we cannot pass laws to guarantee honesty, integrity and trust. It is difficult indeed to put those qualities in place, and very easy to lose them. But without them, our system surely will fail.

     The current top level thieves have done a great disservice to this country. We no longer have vigilante justice, and maybe that is unfortunate. I personally think we should commandeer all of their assets, lock them up, and throw away the keys.

     Come to think of it those seeking harsh extreme penalties for the corporate transgressors are indulging in just another form of greed  –  greedy for revenge. Certainly, the corporate leaders now facing justice can't quarrel with greed, can they?

FREE SPEECH

     Back in college days, my majot was Political Science, regarded  in those days as pre-law. After getting my undergarduate degree, I chose the path of business instead of law and, considering the events of the past year, I am proud to say that I am neither a lawyer nor an accountant. How lucky can I get?

     A major element of PolySci study was the US Constitution, very much including the 1st Amendment. Good old free speech. But over the past 40+ years, the whole notion of free speech has been stretched way beyond what was contempleted by our forefathers. Now we have obscene filth at art exhibits, and a veritable tidal wave of coarseness, vulgarity, oscenity and pornography beamed at us by the media purveyors of garbage  –  printed material, movies, and the internet. And what does our Court system say?  –  “OK, 1st amendment”  –  and the ACLU stands back and cheers. In all of this stuff  mailed to me or beamed into my living room there isn't much I can do about it whether or not I am offended or my sensitivities have been violated. When you hear the defenders say “control your channels or monitor the PC –  keep this stuff away from your kids” it's nothing short of laughable. If I am offended, too bad: if I find it insensitive to my values, too bad. Those who create this garbage just point to the 1st amendment, chuckle, and hide behind it.

     But in the great world of academe  –  on our prestigious campuses, it is a different story. Here we have speech codes to ban the use of terms that may be offensive or insensitive to others. We can't use words like “fat, broads, rag-heads, slant-eyes, hunkies, krauts, nigs, spics, queers, fags, wops, or even Indians (since real Indians aren't really Indians). So now the criterion isn't free speech, it's terms that are offensive or insensitive. The terms cited above are not gentle, kind or considerate. And indeed they may offend some. But why are some offensive terms accepted but others are not. If I am at home with my family and become offended by obscenities or pornography coming from a Federally approved media broadcast, why is that to be ignored or sanctioned under the 1st Amendment while non-flattering terms –  pejorative or not  — are verboten on our campuses? And some of the student penalties are severe. So some people are offended. So what. We either have a 1st Amendment or we don't.

     After 3 years in the military and 4 years on a college campus, I am no prude when it comes to language. But the very idea that a charge of insensitivity by someone trumps the 1st Amendment is flat out ridiculous.

     Harry Truman had it right, “If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”. I frankly think the 1st has been stretched way too far and a cooperative judiciary has contibuted to having the moral fiber ripped out of our culture. But if we are going to say (via the courts), “anything goes”, then we should get rid of asinine college speech codes that make a joke out of the 1st Amendment. Just tell the students on the first day, “if you are offended, tough; if you find comments insensitive, tough”. After a couple of bumps, life will go on.

TWENTY MILES

     After a pleasant round of golf, my companions and I stopped at the Grill to enjoy a cup of New England chowder laced with Taco sauce. Good zesty taste. As we settled in, we couldn't help but overhear a couple of guys at the next table really tearing up Big Oil. Unscrupulous, money grubbers, price gougers, rip-offs — these were the more polite terms  –  all because gasoline prices had risen to $1.70 per gallon for Regular. Granted, gasoline proces in California are higher than in most places, but I began to wonder if all of the condemnation was justified. I thought about it driving home.

     Gasoline is black slimy stuff found in pockets under the surface of the earth, often in very inaccessible places. It takes some smart cookies to find it, bring it to the surface and control it so that it doesn't splash all over the landscape. Then it has to be transported to a good location for storage until it can be transported by railcar, pipeline, or huge ship to still another storage point often thousands and thousands of miles away. All of this doesn't come cheaply. After the latest storage stage, it has to be transported again to a refinery (a very expensive complex facility) in order to be converted into a form suitable for consumer use. Different octanes, diesel fuel, etc., etc., etc. Then as a last step, it is transported again to locations all over the country  –  all over the world. And in our case, to the local neighborhood gasoline station where we can buy it for $1.70 a gallon  –  enough to drive our cars about twenty miles. Just imagine the huge costs to get this far in the process. Rip-off??  Sounds more like a miracle to me considering where the whole process started

     I hate to hear reasonably smart (assumption?) people bitch and moan about about trivial matters. With a buck-seventy in your pocket you can't buy a hot dog at the ball park or a draft beer at the local pub. And you can forget about a movie, a rental V-tape or a sandwich. In my view the best solution would be to take these kinds of folks out front and have them walk twenty miles. After 19 miles, ask them if they want to walk back or get a ride back for a buck-seventy. Either that or let them try to buy a gallon in Europe or Japan. That might restore a degree of perspective. Maybe. But in any event, don't try this exercise on left-leaning liberals who frimly believe that Big is Bad. Got that??

CAN'T WINN'EM ALL

     James Q. Wilson is a savvy editorialist/columnist and whenever I see his by line I make it a point to read the article. In a recent issue of the WSJ, he authored “The enemy will always surprise us”.

     The point of the article was the virtual impossibility of our investigative agencies in discovering the nuggets of information in the “clutter”  –  the intelligence term for useless trivia. With hundreds of thousands or millions of bits of information received every day from do-gooders, off-the-wall wackos, disgruntled spouses, double agents, misguided academics, those desiring to mislead, foreign agents, etc., etc., there is no way that the brightest guys in the world can consistently or reliably sift thru all the clutter and come up with good hard data  –  particularly in a finite period of time. And add to this the fact that lots of data comes in umpteen foreign languages where translation is required. Now that is not to say that the FBI and CIA can't do a better job. Sure they can. But under the best of circumstamnces, they might spot 3 out of 5 terrorist plots  –  maybe 4 out of five  –  but not all five. We may as well live with that harsh reality.

     Nowadays the media and congressional committees are in a feeding frenzy over blame fixing and “connecting the dots”, the current buzzword that is surely best suited for 20:20 hindsight. Easy to connect the dots when the game is over. But, we are going down a predictable path. To wit:

     Nazism could have been prevented……..if..

     The holocaust could have been prevented….if..

     Pearl Harbor could have been prevented…….if..

     Princess Diana could have survived…….if..

              and now,

     The 9/11 tragedy could have bee prevented….if..

     And what does all this accomplish?  Ashcroft is a good man. Let's let him do his job. And the FBI and CIA will do better. They were never founded to be cuddly buddies exchanging information. Each protected their own turf  –  and Congress planned it that way. Now that is changed. Now, let's see how well they do.

     Wilson was right. We can't winn'em all, but we just changed the odds. That's a positive step.

TOLERANCE

     It was a bit unnerving to hear our Veep and FBI chief say that it is only a matter of time until a terrorist suicide bomber strikes in the US. With that prospect in mind, it is understandable that we all pay closer attention to others, i.e., strangers, while going about our daily lives  –  particularly if they wear different apparel, speak a different language, hold to different beliefs, eat different foods, etc., etc.

     Even after 9/11 there have been very few incidents of attacks on middle-easterners. Under the circumstances, Americans have shown remarkable restraint and tolerance. And of course, we are regularly bombarded from the usual sources about judging ethnic or religious groups on the basis of the actions of a few who are conveniently called “extremists”. That's a no-no.

     But something tells me that if a middle eastern terrorist detonates a suicide bomb among Americans somehwhere on US soil, that tolerance will wear thin or disappear very quickly. It is at this point when the argument shifts from intellectual reasoning to gut feeling. The academicians may continue to live in their dream worlds of ideas, since most of them wouldn't fight for anything. A few dead Americans certainly wouldn't dissuade them from bashing America. But the man in the street is something else. I think Joe Citizen is far more concerned over life and survival than ACLU preoccupation of “rights”. Most people are not concerned about expanded investigatory rights of the FBI and CIA; they are more concerned about the threat posed by hostile aliens running loose around the country.

     Conceding their legal “blinders”, the ACLU and others may be “right”; but if they guess wrong a whole lot of us may be “dead right”. That is scant consolation

     Thus far, the middle eastern ethnics in the US have been relatively quiet in supporting the war on terrorism which, after all, is being waged against some of their countrymen. After the first suicide bomber, I think that the tolerance level toward middle easterners will drop from 8 down to about 2 on the scale of ten. It doesn't matter whether the attitude change is right or wrong; that's just the way it will be.

ANGER

     Late afternoon is a nice time of day at our house. Sitting in my favorite chair, I scan the newspapers, idly watch the news on TV and enjoy a cocktail while anticpating still another super meal being prepared by my wife who is an excellent cook. It can't get much better than that.

     Then my tranquillity was broken by three telephone calls from tele-marketers. One was to re-finance my home, the second was to give me a special vacation deal in the Caribbean and the third was to manage my IRAs. I know I can stop these calls by Caller ID, but I really hate to isolate myself from the rest of the world. What really irritated me about these three unwelcome calls was that the callers had heavy accents and I had a hard time  understanding what they were pitching. It's a helluva note to sit in your own home and be hustled for something you don't want by someone whom you can't understand. I don't know whether the accents were Swahili, Urdu, Cambodian, Guatamalan, or Farsi  –  and it doesn't matter. For the life of me, I can't understand why someone desiring to sell something would hire sales people who can even speak english clearly. The chances of me showing any interest in that type of sales approach are about the same as Castro embracing capitalism and apologizing to George Bush. As a kid, I remember the words of our neighborhood baker, Andy Pasquini, who said, “I didn't come to this country to be an Italian; I came to be an American”. If people come to this country, the least they can do is learn the language.

     The calls didn't ruin my evening, and the salmon dinner quickly changed my perspective. I know these callers can barely speak english  –  but I wonder if they understand four letter words. 

JUNK, AND NOSTALGIA

     My wife and I are in the process oif selling a nice home that had been our primary residence for well over a decade  –  12+ years. The whole process falls into a series of very logical –  and typical  –  steps. First there is the threshhold decision to sell. Sometimes, that can be a bit traumatic. The very thought of someone else living in OUR house. Once getting past that hurdle, the rest sort of falls into place. We get a realtor, decide on the asking price, wait for a offer, dicker on a settlement price, reach agreement, get the pre-requisite inspection approvals, sign the papers  –  and then move out. It is at this point when things get more difficult.

     It is truly amazing how much “stuff” can be accumulated in 14 years. Little stuff, bigger stuff, inconsequential stuff, valuable stuff, duplicate stuff, etc., etc., etc. Confronted by this massive amount of “stuff”, or “junk” as it is termed by some, there are several ways to dispose of it. First, ask the kids what they would like; then have a “moving “or “garage ” sale; then look to local charities, and then look for ways in which to just give it away to someone who will agree to take it. The problem is that all of this “stuff” has a special value. There is a story or experience attached to every bit of it . And that makes pitching it a tough call.

    We know we can't keep it, and there is no place in which to put it, so it has to go. But in consigning these various  items to the scrap heap, I feel like I am throwing away a little bit of my life. Sure, I'll be accumulating new stuff starting tomorrow, but nostalgia applies to the past, not the future. So, I guess I'll take a deep breath and gulp a time or two and then say bon voyage. The items will be gone, but the memories will stay  –  at least for a while.

     Moving can be a very exciting experience, but pitching the little treasures doesn't come easy. At least, for me.