Proposition 8: Shame on Us, California

The ongoing irony of Californians amazes me. We overwhelmingly pass a bill to guarantee minimum space standards for the livestock we eat (Proposition 2), and we narrowly pass a bill which prohibits how two consenting adults can define their relationship.

The most bizarre pro-Prop 8 poster I saw leading up to the election exclaimed, "Keep Government Out of Marriage!" Huh? The whole point of Proposition 8 was to establish a law (i.e. "Government") which placed restrictions on civil unions between adults.

But that was one of the main points of the Prop 8 supporters, that the California Supreme Court somehow "made law." Go back to Civics class, folks, and refresh your knowledge of Constitutional Law. Basically, it goes like this: The State should have no interest in the civil relationships between consenting adults, so long as personal and property rights of others is not infringed. Furthermore, since we have anti-discriminatory statutes on the books for sexual orientation, then, well, you can't discriminate! Being "offended" by or "fearful" of gay couples, or what many refer to as the "Ick Factor," does not affect your personal rights. So, the California Supreme Court ruled correctly that banning marriage between a particular class of people is wrong, wrong, wrong.

But never mind, I'll just keep rambling. Keith, as usual, puts everything in proper perspective. It's six minutes long, but worth every second:

U.S. Auto Maker Bailout: There Better Be Major Strings Attached

The US auto industry has been in decline since the first oil crisis in 1973. Even during the heyday of SUV's and big trucks in the 90's and 00's, anyone with a serious forward-looking focus could see that any major blip in oil prices, oil supply, or macroeconomic health would send the industry off the cliff.

Why? Because American consumers change their buying habits quickly, and the American auto makers have never built a diverse enough fleet to satisfy consumers' changing whimsy.

The major foreign makers, like Toyota, Nissan, and (yes) Hyundai have built and maintained a diverse fleet of vehicles of useful features and high quality that meet customer expectations. You can buy a bad-ass pickup or SUV from them, and you can also buy quality subcompacts and alternative fuel vehicles.

Meanwhile, Detroit has fought long and hard against improvements in the most basic standards for safety, fuel efficiency, and emissions. They claim that better standards will cripple the industry. At the same time, they spend years developing buggy, butt-ugly vehicles that fewer Americans are willing to buy. Just look at Honda and Toyota, and what they have successfully done on their own in the same areas, using the same market forces that Detroit seems unwilling to heed.

Here we are now, and Detroit has been caught off-guard again, with a huge inventory of big clunkers and no answers for consumers' current demands for highly efficient and high quality vehicles. Auto dealerships for American cars are closing at a fast pace, too, and that's no wonder. I have rarely received good service on either the front or back ends of a car sale through an American dealer.

So now, Detroit has joined the mantra: "Bail us out!" Now, I certainly don't want the auto industry to implode, at least not right now. Job losses will be mounting over the next few months, anyway, and a few million more added to the jobless rolls would be nasty.

That being said, we can't just give money to Detroit and expect them to do the right thing. Left to their own devices, they would just go back to designing 20th century vehicles for the 21st century. And, they would still complain about improving standards, the same as before. Hey, Detroit, quitcherbitchin!

So, Congress, here's what we should ask for return from Detroit before handing them the money:

• Ownership stake in the companies (preferred stock)
  
• Observer status on the Board of Directors
• Commitment to design of vehicles which meet aggressive fuel economy and emission standards. (Additional tax breaks are welcome here.)
• Commitment to manufacturing processes which are sustainable. (Again, additional tax breaks are okay.)
• Retooling of the sales and inventory process, so that most vehicles are built to order. The traditional auto dealership should be moved to its proper place...a museum.
  

This is the short list. In any event, we should not allow Detroit to come to the trough without expecting some long term changes to their business model.

A Historic Moment, and Daunting Challenges

I rarely experience chills from speeches. But tonight's acceptance speech was eloquent, humble, conciliatory, but most important, cautionary. President-Elect Obama knows full well that entering his term with a damaged economy and an obscene budget deficit leaves few options. So he asked for us to be willing to sacrifice and work harder. I hope you all heard it, too. Sign me up, let's get to work.

Part 2 of my "Screwed" series never saw the light of day. The premise was that we can't overcome the challenges we face, because we have pissed away the cash and credit needed to solve them. Over a trillion dollars squandered on the Iraq and Wall Street misadventures.

Why, with a trillion dollars, we could:

• Provide health care to everyone in the USA
  
• Educate all of our children and provide activities for them while their parents work
• Transform our society and economy to be sustainable
• Rebuild our infrastructure for the 21st century (it's gotta be sustainable, after all)
• Fund a Manhattan Project to mitigate the climate problem

But, who am I to whine over squandered opportunities? What's done is done, and all those lives and money won't be coming back.

I think we have elected the right person at the right time, except Mr. Obama won't have the luxury of a budget surplus to squander like his predecessor. It will be most interesting to see how the new administration plans its strategy to address all the immediate problems that have been ignored for eight years.

Making a Travesty of the Game

From the Major League Baseball(tm) rule book:

Rule 7.08 Any runner is out when:

(i) After he has acquired legal possession of a base, he runs the bases in reverse order for the purpose of confusing the defense or making a travesty of the game. The umpire shall immediately call “Time” and declare the runner out;

The real travesty is what occurred in Philadelphia last night, in what was billed as Game 5 of something called the "World Series." As far as I can tell, very little "baseball" was played in Philadelphia last night. Somebody needed to call "Time" and declare the travesty over much earlier than was done.

All my life, I've adored the World Series for its ideals: two teams from each league who had survived victorious after a 162-game regular season and various playoff games would square off in a best-of-7 series to crown the world's best in baseball. For teams to get this far requires skill, consistency, healthy players, and a winning momentum.

Baseball requires fair, dry weather to play. Why is this so hard to figure out? The season starts in April and ends at the end of October, with snow and cold weather possible at both ends. Cold and wet weather is bad for baseball because it requires throwing a leather ball at high speeds and playing on a field with lots of dirt. As we know, leather becomes very slippery when wet and dirt turns to mud in the rain.

So here we have the two best teams, in potentially the last game of the series, playing in conditions which would be considered obscene by anyone familiar with the game. (You can review the gory details on mlb.com.) As someone who has umpired many games at the youth level, I know it doesn't take much rain before the safety of the players becomes a concern. As a responsible official, you are expected to suspend play until the conditions allow safe play.

So, last night in Philadelphia, why wouldn't the umpires call the game after it became obvious that play was impossible? Two big reasons: Bud Selig ("the Commish") and Fox Sports. I guess Bud can't read weather radar, because it was obvious after the second inning that the rain was going to get worse. "Never mind! Play on!" And I'm convinced that Fox did not want to see the game postponed until Tuesday, an official travel day, because it would have reamed their Tuesday night prime time schedule. Sucks to be them.

Once the game became "official" after the required 4-1/2 innings, it was clear that Bud would allow this joke to continue as long as necessary until the Rays tied the game (Thank God they did) or the Phillies won out. No, wait! Bud was going to instantly change the rules so that if they had to postpone the game with the Phillies ahead, Bud would declare that the game was not "official." Ooo, let's change the rules on the fly! I'm the Commish! Another travesty!

So, as luck would have it for all parties, (a) Bud saved face by not having to change the rules, (b) Fox is still happy because they won't finish the game until Wednesday, and (c) none of the players were seriously injured on Monday night.

It's time for Bud to step down and let someone run the game who actually cares about the integrity of the game. The sorry images I'm left with after last night will take a long time to erase. What a shame for the game.

Why I Won't Vote For McCain/Palin

These videos pretty much sum up the "say anything to get you elected" spirit of John McCain over the years, followed up with a plea to Sarah Palin that she's too out of touch to be "America's Mom."

John McCain and the economic meltdown:



"Drill Baby Drill"



John McCain: "I Know Squat -- I Don't Know Squat"



Memo to Sarah: "You Ain't Our Momma!"



Please don't forget to vote.

Why We're Royally Screwed, Part 1 (It's Only Greed)

What a surreal feeling: Vacationing in Europe while the next act in the financial meltdown of American financial markets played out.

Not that I was totally surprised. Many, even the FBI, warned that the subprime mortgage fiasco would create a domino effect that would last for months, if not years. And according to some, there is really no end in sight.

Why? Because of greed, plain and simple. Most analysts seem content to chalk it up to poor risk management. Nice euphemism. Risk and greed are totally interrelated. As far as I know, every human action we make that requires risk assessment includes a greed factor. Like playing poker. Or speeding while driving. Or crossing a busy street against the light. Greed is our human emotion (and human sin in almost every religion) to extract more than what we need from a given activity.

And we are constantly reminded that this is what makes America great. C'mon, the USA is predicated on the idea that every individual has a basic right to be as greedy as possible. All you have to do is stay within the letter of the law, or at least be able to afford a legal team to keep your ass out of trouble. There's nothing in the U.S. Constitution that discusses ethics, charity, or humility. No such words exist in the text. It's a framework to allow every white, landowning male (since amended, obviously, to include a few more citizens who have capital to burn) to suck every drop of worth out of whatever resources and labor he controls, to Hell with collateral suffering or future consequences.

Greed is a recurring theme of Western Civilization, which I witnessed over and over while visiting the castles, churches, and palaces of Europe. On whose backs were such monuments built, hundreds of years ago? (Hint: Review your European history if you think Napoleon himself built roads and laid bricks.) So if we want to blame someone for instilling our society with the notion that "greed is good," I suppose we can blame the Romans, or the Spanish, or the French, or the English, or the Germans.

Obviously, the complexities of the financial shenanigans perpetrated on us are beyond the understanding of most CPAs, but that was the whole idea, to confuse everyone, wasn't it? It really was pure genius:

• Offer incredibly unrealistic loans to uninformed people, sold on the idea that any real estate bought with the loan funds will appreciate in value forever. Oh, and don't forget to collect your broker and funding fees.
• Package up these crap loans in opaque financial instruments and sell them to other firms, pension funds, and local governments who are driven by their own greed to increase their ROI. (Don't forget to collect your broker fees when selling these instruments!)
• Package up some more crazy ass derivative, options, and futures investments based on the crap you have created and sell that, too. (Pssst! Collect fees!)
• But most important, when it all starts falling apart, don't forget to pull that Golden Ripcord and book that long vacation in Monaco you've been dreaming of.

We're now faced with the collapse of the most elaborate Ponzi scheme in the history of the world, elaborately constructed by financiers, accountants, lawyers, politicians, lobbyists, and bureaucrats. And, as with all other Ponzi schemes, those who got in at the beginning and got out before the shit hit the fan made out like royal bandits. The rest of us are left with the economic bankruptcy and social carnage, along with the final bill. Former senior executives, managers, and traders who concocted this mess will enjoy the rest of their days in Country Club comfort. There will be no consequences for them; after all, they played "by the rules" and "within the letter of law and regulation." (For the most part. There will be investigations, and a few minor lambs will be sacrificed, but that's all.) That these executives are ethical pigs and moral maggots seems to bother few people. Everyone else seems resigned to the reality that we have been collectively screwed. Or maybe they're just stunned, it's hard to tell.

Or, maybe we truly are morally bankrupt as a collective society. I recently had a conversation with an ordinary citizen who seemed totally perplexed when I opined that ethics should play a role in everyday life, including economics as well has how we expect others to treat us on a daily basis. If pressed, I'm not sure this citizen could even provide me a working definition of "ethics."

But the blame can't be placed on the usual reasons, like we don't go to church anymore, or our public schools suck, or our prisons are full, or we fill our heads with vacuous television and video game programming. It's because we are interpreting our Founding Fathers' intentions with a twisted slant. Yes, our Founding Fathers were mostly very religious men: humble, modest, virtuous. Those who weren't religious were of like mind, since this behavior was expected in those days. I am certain that they assumed that we who followed would be equally humble, modest, and virtuous. They saw no need to codify the teachings of Jesus, Moses, and Muhammad into the Constitution, since it had already been written before.

So, even though we can tear our collective hair out over the crisis we find ourselves in, and we can lay blame on the greed of a very small group of individuals, these crooks were only following the standards and traditions of how our country and economy operate. And if we want to ever change that, we collectively need to take a hard look in the mirror.

Adobe, Now You Suck, Too

I'm a regular user of Adobe Reader, and that's about it. I have Adobe 6 installed, which came with the laptop or bought by my firm, but I rarely use it.

So I'm not surprised to get occasional popups from the Adobe Update Manager telling me there's an update to Adobe Reader, and the upgrades are no big deal.

However, today I got another popup which looked a little different, but it offered me an upgrade to Adobe 9, and without careful reading of the fine print, I clicked OK.

Big mistake.

So, what happens next?

• It placed an icon on my desktop so that I "could resume the installation later if necessary." (That's never encouraging.)
• For Firefox, it required me to include www.adobe.com on the allowed list of sites which could install add-ons, and it required the installation of an add-on to manage the installation of their software. (Thanks, like my Firefox client needs more add-ons.)
• It dropped an "Acrobat.com" link in my Start Programs list, without my permission.
• After automatically launching the MSI script (again without pausing for permission after download), it whined that I had processes running that were blocking the install. (Stupid! I told you to download, not install!)
• Finally, after shutting all my other apps down, and relaunching the installer, I get a fancy pants dialog that doesn't offer to upgrade anything. What they really want to install is Adobe AIR, their new online collaborative suite. And a fricking beta version at that. (Everybody is following MS and Google's lead now - all software will be beta forever.)

Needless to say, I shut the whole load of crap down, and will track down the remaining bits it left behind.

Thanks, Adobe. You suck.