|
||
What Happened to Foresight and Common Sense?
Two venture capitalist friends of mine visit now and then, not because I know an ounce of what they study every day, but because anyone who is deeply involved in the vicissitudes of the economy likely lacks the big picture. It reminds me of when I was learning to play golf and a truly accomplished golfer said to me, "I'd love to be where you are now. You can still change your swing and how you play. I'm stuck with habits I can't undo." That describes the supposedly "indispensable" economic experts we've been relying on, and continue to rely on, to pull our country out of a terrible mess.
Let's leave the likes of Ben Bernanke to the able Ann Pettifor and Timothy Geithner to the considered thoughts of David Sirota. Both of these men are supposedly among those "indispensable" experts who, though complicit in the economic crisis facing our country, are facile at passing blame or lying low while the reputations of others are tattered.
Criticism of Timothy Geithner has been tantamount to an attack on Barack Obama in some quarters, but the truth is our president stuck his neck out for this guy. He spent a lot of favor bank assets to get him on board. And as each day goes by, we learn that Geithner is over his head when his job is to save rather than sink the ship of state.
Yesterday was another lesson in politics. You may recall during the primaries when Chris Dodd publicly threw his support to Barack Obama. And now it is the Obama administration pointing fingers at him -- blaming him for removing constraints on executive bonuses that would have prevented the AIG travesty. And if indeed he did do their bidding, as he has admitted, he was wrong. More wrong than those who pressured him? I don't know, but the blame is being passed around as if they're all playing hot potato. Daily those in high places who thought themselves indispensable or owed too many favors to fail are learning quite the contrary. That's when you know something is deeply amiss.
Barney Frank is coming on strong about AIG. But he should have known that greed does not respond to fear of shame because greed is already shameless. He and his colleagues should have known that people who live for money and power don't suddenly change and reject huge bonuses.
Where are Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid? They're very quiet right now -- not in front of cameras day and night, despite how visible they were when the bailouts needed support -- when there was supposedly no choice but to rush them through.
And let's look for a moment at our new president. He might take a lesson or two from all of this even if his popularity remains high. He shouldn't be wasting political chits. As a Harvard graduate, he has come to believe, despite his concern and compassion for average people, that the best answers come from members of the "club." But big shots do indeed put their pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us. Many of them are stellar in their particular areas, but not impressive when it comes to seeing the bigger picture. Few have had to balance checkbooks from the age of sixteen, but have instead learned about economics from books rather than reality. Their understanding of people is wanting. President Obama would be better served with some people experts on his team -- psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, communication experts, political scientists and others who know what people do and how they spend under stress -- not what they're supposed to do based on some abstract formula on a white board.
Change means finding people who have foresight and common sense uncommonly found among the "indispensable". It means not calling in the people who created the problem to fix it.
When your stove is on fire, having a conflagration expert around to discuss the likelihood of spread is interesting, but give me a down-to-earth, experienced firefighter any day. Now there's the indispensable guy!
That's what we have -- a raging firestorm of overqualified incompetence and no experienced firefighters around. We have a plethora of wealthy big shots intending to stay that way. They owe a lot of people and they've paid off many of them at our expense. It's time for all this disingenuous finger pointing to end. No more yelling at each other and deflecting blame. No more "the buck stops here" to cover the many places it stopped on the way up.
Forget about hiring anymore of the pedigreed "indispensable" types. Let's get some smart, big picture people for whom foresight and common sense are not, at best, soft science. And let's stop looking for someone to hang so all the other bandits can go free, and, most important, let's get on with saving the country.
Dr. Reardon also blogs at bardscove.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Dr. Reardon might answer at least part of the question if she read a bit of Voltaire: "Common sense is not that common."
Or put another way, "common sense" is a misnomer like dry rot and ground termites. "Dry rot" is actually the result of too much moisture, while "ground termites" can fly.
So Dr. Reardon (and President Obama) should look beyond the small pool of seemingly well educated, arguably highly qualified Ivy League college graduates, the knock on all too many of them being that they think they know it all (or have a monopoly on smarts).
There are many, many graduates of non-Ivy League colleges, and yes, even graduates of public universities like my alma mater, the University of California at Berkeley, who have a lot of "good sense." (Cal provided William & Mary grad Dr. Christina Romer to chair the Council of Economic Advisers)
FYI, Fed chairman Bernanke is a graduate of Harvard and MIT, SecTreas Tim Geithner is a product of Dartmouth and Johns Hopkins, and ill-starred Harvard President and current director of the National Economic Council Larry Summers is a graduate of MIT and Harvard. With many years as bureaucrats and/or academics, it remains to be seen what people skills, if any, each of these men have.
When they threw out the bathwater, the baby and tub went with it.
I think there are two major problems when assessing Geithner and Obama.
One is that people in Washington and in the press are creatures of habit and ingrained thinking. They cannot break bad habits developed over the decades of gop rule and what passes for conventional wisdom.
Therefore, they seem to be agast at the different way Obama handles problems and opposition.
They cannot accept anything outside the conventional wisdom way of thinking while pretending there is no change.
Two is that everyone is demanding an instant fix for a problem that has been decades in the making. No one wants to accept the reality. We are in a very deep and complicated recession that has several causes hitting all at once and is going to take some time to untangle it all and get things on track. this is not a minor recession or something you can fix with simple answers or overnight.
I am in agreement with those who do say this is a different kind of recession and one that no one has had to tackle before. Some of it requires old answers and some new. but, all of it requires people to realize that this is going to take awhile and to stop listening to shallow thinking pundits.
You posted this: "That's what we have -- a raging firestorm of overqualified incompetence and no experienced firefighters around. We have a plethora of wealthy big shots intending to stay that way. They owe a lot of people and they've paid off many of them at our expense." Geithner, Rubin, Summers, plus the power executors Rahm and Axelrod, are not inexperienced nor incompetent given the position they hold in Obama's administration today. Think they know exactly what they are doing: protecting the wealthy and the corporate interests of this country, perhaps even the world. And they are doing it quite well with a few complaints from Congress and certain columnists, which Axelrod believes don't represent anyone but themselves. Obama supporters will have to get over what they heard in the campaign. I really don't think Obama has any truly populist bones in his body, except as an orator and perhaps a painter of the big picture....one not too well-focused. There are some progressive gains that Obama has made: closing Gitmo, appointment of some federal judges. But don't expect this administration to be a fulfilment of most progressive goals, especially those pertaining to economic equality or universal health care.
The problem could be rooted a little lower than Geithner!
Kashkari, a Paulson Goldman leftover, is the likely one that pulled this kind of thing!
It is worth seeing if he is still on staff and had anything to do with this. His useless and belligerent testimony before Congress tells me he is the kind to pull off something like this!
He often refuses to honestly answer Congress members questions! Instead he said it was confidential of give some vague response!
It was then that Keith Olbermann began saying that the Bailouts are "Why Daddy went to Jail!"
Experts have seldom played a part in implementation of solutions. Solutions require action in real time and force participants to modify as needed with a minimal time for analysis. Look to the experts for advice but leave building and repairing and operating to those capable of tolerating imperfection.
Brilliantly articulated. For way too long, we've had to put up with 2 bought-off, swollen bloated political parties who get in power, then execute mindnumbingly stupid-ass clod movement A tactics (Repubs) alternating with mindnumbingly stupid-ass clod movement B tactics (Dems), with Americans paying the consequences. And as Arianna Huffington pointed out on Larry King, it's disgusting that our elected officials keep consulting and considering the meritless interests of "Wall Street-centric" overly-paid megalomaniacs who haven't a clue. B.O. has done some good things in his brief time in office, but he's botched it with hiring Tim Geithner. Neither our economy nor our country can take any more. Cut losses. For the love of God, get rid of the institutionalized special interests that have had Washington's ear, get rid of entrenched politicians who've been in Washington 20 years or more, and focus on the USA's well-being. Thanks.
I have to agree with you and so do so many other people..The dems toss us a bone every few years and think that will do it....Look what Rubin did, he is just as bad as Geithner and Summers and they are all holding out for Wall Street because that is the KAHOONA tit... What they are doing now is just a kiddy break....
We need to get REAL and tax greed the same way we legislate against abortion....
I did not read the post and am only replying to the Headline.....
What happened to foresight & common sense...it was high-jacked by the religious right.
Go back and read the article. Your post makes no sense here.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
