The need for regional infrastructure consortiums

There is an article in The Washington Post entitled "Experts struggle to express direness of infrastructure problem to a wary public" which clearly expresses that there are looming (if not current) problems with our infrastructure, but then does quite a poor job of explaining the true financing aspects. These "experts" somehow misguidedly presume that only the federal government should be taking the lead in financing of infrastructure. I would submit that the primary burden of planning and financing of infrastructure should be at the state and regional level, with emphasis on regional consortiums such as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

 

Sure, the federal government should have a role, such as in setting standards for quality and safety, but there is no good reason for the extremely inefficient mechanism of taking money out of states up to the federal government and then parceling that money back to the states. Let the states, or those regional consortiums, handle the financing, whether through state and local taxes, bonds, or user fees.

 

In some cases, the federal government may have national interests beyond the interests of the states and regions, so in some few cases maybe the federal government may need to take the lead in financing, but those would be exceptions and not the bulk of the cases.

 

There might also be a need for a federal bond guarantee program, but that should be based on standards and having financial standards and financial reviews for states and regional consortiums issuing infrastructure debt that must be met in order to secure such a debt guarantee before it is granted.

-- Jack Krupansky

Is the Occupy movement really just a front for communism?

There is an interesting essay on Adbusters.com, the mother ship and puppet masters for the Occupy movement, by Jessica Whyte entitled "Awakening the Giant - Is the long night of the left drawing to a close?" which basically reveals that the true goal of the whole Occupy movement (not no much the rank and file foot soldiers, but the theorists behind the curtain) is to supplant Western-style democracy and capitalism ("neoliberal democracy") with... no, not socialism, but... communism. As the essay ends:

Libya provided the opportunity for the Western powers, who had reacted with fear to the revolts in Egypt and Tunisia, to use a humanitarian cover to reinsert the numerous possibilities opened up by the Arab Spring into the familiar narrative of neoliberal democracy. ... what is at stake today... the isolation of the communist idea may yet give rise to a new collective subject finally capable of realizing communism.

That is the significance of the many tent "communities" with their leaderless structures and "general assemblies" and "working groups", to more closely approximate true "communes" suitable for a "communist collective."

 

Ultimately, the Occupy movement is doomed to fail, precisely because it has a conflict of interests between its three main factions, the communist theorists, the militant anarchists who don't need or want the communist structures, and the vast masses of mere foot soldiers who actually never really signed up for either the communist or anarchist agendas and really do simply want to engage in truly non-violent, truly peaceful protest to pursue "change we can believe in", but well short of actual revolution that the first two factions seek. This is why the movement is currently so indifferent to being explicit about goals – to hide from the true goal of communism and to deny the inherent conflict between communism and anarchism. The current vagueness works for all parties, but eventually the conflicts of interest will surface.

-- Jack Krupansky

Background on the Occupy movement, Organizing World Revolution 2011

Here is some interesting background on the Occupy movement, straight from the horse's mouth, a post by former Yale Professor David Graeber, one of the "organizers" and promoters, on the Adbusters web site entitled "Situating Occupy - Lessons from the revolutionary past."

 

From the Wikipedia article for the author, David Graeber:

Graeber has a history of both direct and indirect involvement in political activism, including playing an organizing role in, and speaking in favor of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Comparing it to the Arab Spring, he claimed that this and other contemporary grassroots protests represent "the opening salvo in a wave of negotiations over the dissolution of the American Empire."

Ultimately, we are still left with the same question as before, namely, is the Occupy movement "just a protest movement" or is it "a revolution"? Protests can wax and wane and still contend that they have done their job, but a "revolution" ("the dissolution of the American Empire") either makes progress and achieves its goal or fizzles and dies. Or maybe Occupy will simply be a pseudo-revolution (revolutionary aspirations with lots of "big talk") that morphs into a protest movement and then claims "victory" in the sense of "we raised awareness of the issues."

 

The whole "occupy" meme is rather bizarre, with the tents and all. Were the tents supposed to be truly meaningful or just symbolic stage props? Now, after the "evictions", they talk as if they really didn't need the tents, but they still use the "occupy" meme.

 

Graeber is a self-admitted "anarchist", but it remains to be seen what his real motives are, as well as to what extent they are shared by the rank and file "membership" of the movement. What are participants in "Occupy" really signing up for? Do they know? Do they care?

 

-- Jack Krupansky

Barney Frank, Steve Jobs, brash bosses, and over-the-top petulance vs. accomplishment

There was an interesting commentary by Jena McGregor on Barney Frank's management/leadership style in The Washington Post entitled "Barney Frank and the cult of brash bosses."

Must leaders be nice to be noteworthy?

 

We don't have to look much further than Steve Jobs to see they don't have to. The former Apple CEO could be, as we all know by now, a grade-A jerk who threw tantrums, parked in handicapped spots, and was fully capable of so-called gratuitous nastiness. Some are even worried that "with the death and canonization of Steve Jobs and the emergence of the Jobs biography as a kind of sacred text for managers," writes Tom McNichol over at the Atlantic, "the ranks of bosses who see Bad Steve's nastier traits as something to imitate is liable to swell." Jobs, he writes, is considered by too many people in Silicon Valley to be "living proof" that being an ass was a big part of leading a good company.

 

Of course, Steve Jobs was not a phenomenal innovator because of his leadership style; he was wildly successful in spite of it. And no, I'm not going to draw some pained parallel between the brilliance of Steve Jobs and the ornery intelligence of Barney Frank. But it's worth considering when being a nasty boss can help and when it hurts. In a world in which extreme attention to detail is needed—like, say, technology development—or when there's a real need for motivation, there could be some virtues to having a controlling jerk in the top chair. Because many such managers are equally good at turning on the charm when needed, McNichol writes, their salesmanship could outweigh their bad sides. And occasionally, brash thinking (and unfortunately, brash behavior) goes hand-in-hand with an appetite for innovation and risk that other more measured leaders can't really summon from themselves.

 

But in most cases, it's obvious that over-the-top petulance stands in the way of accomplishment. That's especially so in a place like Congress where negotiating skills and relationship building are supposedly the keys to success. Sure, a combative and abrasive style might win leaders points in the highly polarized dysfunction that is today's Congress. But it could also cause them to lose the most accomplished legacy possible.

Maybe bosses are like (removing) band-aids, "fast or slow", choose your style of pain.

 

-- Jack Krupansky

Helloo

Helloo

My suggestion for the White House economic recovery web site: blog and Twitter

The White House has an "okay" web site for the stimulus package, www.recovery.gov, but it needs a blog and they need to exploit Twitter. I sent them the following suggestion:

The web site needs a blog and Twitter feeds to provide us with more timely information.

See the NY Fed site for Twitter examples:
http://www.newyorkfed.org/
http://twitter.com/NYFed_news
http://twitter.com/NYFed_data

Thanks.

-- Jack Krupansky

They do have a blog on the main White House web site, so it is not an unnatural request.

Somehow, I find it amusing that the New York Federal Reserve Bank is on Twitter!

In any case, I at least gave them some useful feedback. Have you??

-- Jack Krupansky

My suggestion for the White House economic recovery web site

It is all well and good that the White House has a web site for the stimulus package, www.recovery.gov, but I did not find it immediately helpful in terms of how much money is actually flowing into the U.S. economy. I sent them the following suggestion:

What is missing and really needed is a classic thermometer that shows the amount of stimulus funding that has actually been disbursed or spent by each agency and is actually out there in the economy.

There should be a daily log listing the agency, specific program, and amounts for daily disbursements and expenditures into the economy above the agency/program baseline budget that is directly attributable to the ARRA stimulus spending.

Thanks.

-- Jack Krupansky

It will be interesting to see if they actually can tell when each dollar of ARRA money is disbursed or spent.

In any case, I at least gave them some useful feedback.

-- Jack Krupansky