Happy 4th!

Boys and their toys

The Wall Street Journal had a fun article yesterday about strategy gaming highlighting a new video game Making History 2: War of the World that descends from a long line of strategy board games. My favorite as a child was Risk I know it wasn't as complex as Diplomacy or Axis & Allies but you could explain it to newbies and start a game quickly.  The Journal has a theory about why these types of games both digital and traditional board games have remained so popular.

The reason Axis & Allies and other such games have such lasting resonance is that they teach a subject which is no longer fashionable: the mechanics of military history.

I'm note sure about Making History 2 its getting mixed reviews online but I'm excited about Sid Meier's Civilization V that comes out in the fall.

I'm from the Government and I'm here to help!

The Oil keeps spewing in the Gulf and the clean up seems to be dragging on and on with no sense of urgency.  The Christian Science Monitor identifies the top 5 bottlenecks.

1. Coast Guard red tape
2. The Jones Act
3. EPA
4. Lack of coordination between skippers and spotter plans
5. Lack of leadership from the Feds.

Looking at the list it's now common wisdom that Obama is over his head in dealing with this crises.  To me the most frustrating this has been the whole disaster could have been severely reduced it wasn't for the EPA.

"Three days after the accident, the Dutch government offered advanced skimming equipment capable of sucking up oiled water, separating out most of the oil, and returning the cleaner water to the Gulf. But citing discharge regulations that demand that 99.9985 percent of the returned water is oil-free, the EPA initially turned down the offer. A month into the crisis, the EPA backed off those regulations, and the Dutch equipment was airlifted to the Gulf."

This is insane! After a month, the damage has been done the wildlife has been destroyed. The EPA helped exacerbate the largest Environmental disaster in American history.

GE CEO Immelt slams Obama

According to the financial times Immet was addressing a group of Italian CEOs.

"Mr Immelt also had harsh words for Barack Obama, US president, lamenting what he called a “terrible” national mood and expressing concern that over-regulation in response to the global financial crisis would damp a “tepid” US economic recovery. Business did not like the US president, and the president did not like business, he said, making a point of praising Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, for her defence of German industry."

He latter hedged his comments by stating they were made at a private dinner and taken out of context.  Its understandable that he didn't want to expose GE to the ire of this administrations overzealous regulators, but we need more leaders to speak out and explain why a new course is needed.

Respect and Leadership

Leaders are not born they are made. The private sector understands this lesson. Look at all emphasis companies place developing their people.

"If our country is going to get back on track, we need to redevelop confidence in and respect for our leaders and institutions. This means first and foremost electing and appointing people who command this respect by virtue of their bona fide achievements and not simply their paper credentials. In recent years, far too many people with prestigious degrees and titles have made far too many horrible decisions that have caused great harm to Americans everywhere. We need people who have shown through their actual performance in business, the military, government or academia (preferably in multiple areas that pertain to the problems we face) that they can and will handle pressure and act at all times with integrity and good judgment. "

Great credentials might get your foot in the door, but you have to produce. Those achievements help earn you the respect of your peers. It is this accrued respect you leverage when making the tough calls as a leader.
People who disagree with you still execute because they respect your judgment enough to give your plan a chance.

Contrast the private sector with Washington today:

• We currently see a Supreme Court nominee with virtually no experience in the law, outside academia and the White House, and none as a judge.

• We have the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee considering the Elena Kagan nomination focusing ad nauseam on her handling of the gays in the military issue years ago at Harvard Law School, and largely disregarding issues that are of real significance to Americans today -- such as her views on the implications of the Constitution's Commerce Clause for the new health care law.

• In House hearings on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, we have noted experts in petroleum engineering -- Reps. Henry Waxman and Edward Markey -- making determinations as to which well-drilling method was preferable.

• We have a treasury secretary with no private sector experience and who had trouble filing an accurate tax return.

• And last year we saw our president -- with no experience running a business -- deciding to oust the CEO of General Motors.

The Business Perspective on Dodd-Frank

Not a real shocker here it's a disaster that will create all sorts of compliance nightmares, and reduce US competitiveness vs overseas banking hubs like London and Zurich.  Worst of all it totally ignores Freddie and Fannie.

"Today, Fannie and Freddie are larger and weaker than ever, accounting for some 95% of all newly-written mortgages, and representing a $5 trillion asset base that, investors understand, is now fully if implicitly guaranteed by US taxpayers. US housing is still in such a fragile state that Congress dared not expose Fannie and Freddie to market forces or to force them to restructure. From September 2008 until today, they’ve sucked down about $145 billion in bailout funds, and each continues to lose about $10 billion per quarter. This is the ongoing cost to taxpayers of artificially supporting US housing. Nothing has changed, and the abusive and hyper-risky behaviors of the bubble years continue to this day, albeit in attenuated form."

Wonderful, Washington imposes massive regulation that it admits no one understands, grabs even more power and ignore key culprits in the crisis.  Then it has the audacity to call it Reform!

One way to solve the Immigration crises

Wall Street Journal: Spanish Downturn Sparks Immigrant Exodus 

When Spain's construction-dependant economy cratered amid the global financial crisis, the government sharply curtailed foreign-worker recruitment programs, limited family reunifications and stiffened penalties on employers of illegal immigrants. Spain created a Voluntary Return Program, paying accumulated unemployment benefits as an incentive to get legal immigrants to go home.
Immigrants have borne the brunt of job losses and their unemployment rate has shot up to 30%, from 12% in 2007, compared with the 20% national average.
Ecuadoran fisherman Gustavo Luzuriaga had been in Spain seven years, but he returned home last year after he couldn't find work on a boat. "Everything had gone sour there, and there was not much hope for the future," he said.

Immigrants come to a new country because they seek opportunity driven by the demand for their labor.  We often loose sight of this fact when discussing the issue here in America.  Most of the debate is centered around language and culture.  But it's often superficial I'm not concerned if people enjoy soccer and eat burritos but rather if they subscribe to the American tradition of liberty and are willing to work to become productive citizens.

I do think its important to enforce the law but lets ensure the law meets the needs of the country.  We shouldn't force talented engineers educated in American universities to migrate to Canada or Australia if they are willing to pledge the fidelity to the republic.  Nor should we allow crops to rot in the fields or migrants trampling private property in boarder communities when when we could create an orderly process.  What we desperately need in Washington is leadership and debate that is not focused on platitudes and fear.

Obama too brilliant to fail

The immovable object is the conviction on the part of some who are also his critics that he  is the smartest man who has ever held office, and is therefore too brilliant to fail. Citing his "shimmering intellect," Richard Cohen is at a loss to explain why he hasn't done anything with it.

Intelligence is not synonymous with leadership. Leadership it is character based and acquired through experience no one is born with the skill.  Looking at Obama's background we scant examples of any leadership.  His academic records from Columbia & Harvard are sealed.  His stint as a community organizer didn't involved managing or directing large scale project but mostly sitting in meeting's and delivering speeches.  As a State Senator he mostly voted present and avoided tough issues.  Ditto for Senator Obama who's years were spent mostly campaigning for President.  So now here we are at present day and his policy's have not worked.

An irresistible force is meeting an immovable object on the field of perception, and causing an odd sort of storm. The irresistible force is the growing idea that Obama has failed as a leader on a number of items: "Engagement" has failed; our allies are angry; the oil keeps gushing, his ideas are job killers; the recession goes on.
His party lost three big elections under his guidance and seems poised for a drubbing. The harder he pushes the country's laws leftward, the more its politics bend to the right.

Clearly we need to change course and I think the country will do so in November.