A Farm Went by My Window

A farm went by my window
last night.
A fleeting window of my childhood
Framed by organic memories,
Of scents of hay, dairy cows, specked chickens,
And sun cats licking,
Where poetry springs naturally
Inspired by living things,
Just for the pleasure of it.

A farm went by my window
last night,
Slowing, frame by frame
I watch as for the first time.
It crept from the recess of my memory,
Forever imprinted there
To surface in my dreams,
Framed in a context of certainly,
Like a dormant seed that seeks the moist, warm earth,
Running through my mind
rich in living, doing, dying things.

A farm went by my window
slowly last night,
With time to reflect upon
my place,
It was a call to participate on equal terms
with other living things,
To coexist with life’s seasons,
And to be grateful for events I don’t control.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

I had resisted reading Malcolm Gladwell until I realized that I had already read many of his articles in The New Yorker.  My prejudice was that I’m suspicious of popular nonfiction, and, unfairly or not, the reviews I read of his first bestseller, Blink, were mixed.  But when my friend John said that Outliers was an “epiphany,” or something to that effect, I picked up a copy to see what he found so compelling.  I’m glad I did.

First and foremost, Gladwell is a gifted and thoughtful reporter.  He’s really good at drilling down through what we call “common sense” to expose more revealing and occasionally startling truths.  In Outliers, Gladwell challenges the conventional notion about how successful people become successful -- uncovering some of the conditions that led to their extraordinary success and, in a few cases, spectacular failures.

He starts out simply, by examining the birthdates of the finalists in the Canadian junior hockey league playoffs.  Why is it that most of the players were born in January, February and March?  This pattern holds true not only for junior hockey but also for Canadian players in the NHL. Why?  Well, it turns out that until just a few years ago, no one noticed this pattern, much less questioned it, until a Canadian psychologist named Roger Barnsley studied this phenomenon.

The answer, by the way, is that the deadline for signing kids to play is January 1^st.  A boy whose birthday is January 2^nd could be playing along side a boy whose birthday is twelve months later, on December 29th.  Think about the difference in physical maturity of a preadolescent ten-year-old born in January and one born months later.  At ten, there is a significant developmental difference between the two, with an overwhelming advantage going to the older kid.  What sets them apart is not only their age difference when they start out, but also the accumulated advantages heaped on the older player.  Year after year, the older player has more opportunities to play and, therefore, gains experience denied the younger player.  He is more likely to be picked for the traveling teams and of being selected for the more advanced hockey leagues.  Year after year, the older kid gains more and more experience, putting distance between him and his younger peers.  This experience pays off.

This is just one of many phenomena Malcolm Gladwell examines in this entertaining and insightful book.  The genesis of this book lies in his own family history, which he describes in the epilogue.  It comes down to two critical points; the amount of time you spend developing a skills – whether it’s programming a computer, playing an instrument or practicing law – and the circumstances into which you were lucky enough to have been born – and here I don’t mean wealth.  Whether you are Bill Gates, Bill Joy or Steve Jobs, who each caught the wave of computer technology, or members of the legal profession who caught the wave of mergers and acquisition law in the early sixties, personal circumstances and timing can be more important than genius.  Would Bill Gates have founded Microsoft and become a household name were it not for the fact that he had, literally, unprecedented, unlimited access to a mainframe computer in high school at a time when students were just being introduced to hand calculators?  Bill Gates himself attributes much of his success to this unusual circumstance, luck and timing.

Outliers goes well beyond a contemplation of how successful people got their start.  He also examines cultural issues.  For example, what explains the high incidence of airplane crashes of Korean Air in the 1980s and 90s, and what happened to turn that around?  And, why is it that Chinese students do better in math tests than almost any other cultural group?  And what was the cause of feuds in the Appalachians that resulted in more deaths per capita than anywhere else in America? And what did this pattern of violence have in common with the cultures of Sicily or the Basque region of Spain?  And why is an educational program started in the Bronx, where poor students outperform students in much more privileged communities, so successful?  Gladwell examines the KIPP middle schools and uncovers the conditions that have made such a difference in the lives of students there.

Sometimes you have to work at finding the thread that weaves these stories together, but that’s what makes this such a fascinating, insightful look at things most of us have not spent much time thinking about, but should.  Employing his exceptional reportorial skills, Malcolm Gladwell delights in delivering new surprise in every chapter, and that spirit of inquiry is contagious.  I’ll look forward to reading every book he writes from now on.

The Judge

(Note: This poem was inspired by one word that came up when President Obama spoke about his criteria for selecting a Supreme Court Justice; Empathy.  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.  Including me.)

The mirror reflects      nothing

other than a purplish, bulbous nose,

decalcified and scarred still

by decades old acne

preserved in alcohol,

hanging high above

desiccated lips,

and deeply carved creases

racing downward,

merging with flaccid dewlaps

framing a crinkly stubble cleft of chin

that quivers now, even in wakefulness.

Under heavy protruding brows 

grown wild,

merging with each other,

sprout wiry hairs 

like a neglected garden,

from inside ears, nostrils,

and deep creases, long invisible

to cloudy, rheumy eyes.

Altogether, an almost Neander-like visage,

topped by a marbleized,

domelike pate and

staring, bulging eyes,

hidden beneath hoods -- ancient, bristly folds of skin --

reflecting nothing;

a countenance framed

by pendulous ears that seem to grow,

even as bones shrink,

joints calcify.

He doesn’t recognize this face,

even as he stretches and twist his mouth,

bulges his eyes, straining

until his thin black veins pulsate,

and flares his nostrils,

and sticks out his hoary tongue.

Still, no spark of recognition,

no gentle reassurance,

no compassion or sympathy offered.

Void of history and dreams,

reflecting a life so insular, of

so little time spent imagining the lives of others,

empathy eludes him,

even when he is in most need of it himself.

TIME TO CLIP … The Hairs that Wag the Tail that Wags the Dog

President Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali, stuffs ballot boxes so his brother can retain power; profits from opium sales; plays US forces off against the Taliban; buys up land that the US will need to stage operations, then rents it to us; profiting at every turn. Increasingly, President Karzai has convinced himself that the US wants to occupy Afghanistan permanently, but resists any talk of our leaving. Unhappy that the Electoral Complaints Commission found wide irregularities in the August election, throwing out a third of the ballots, Karzai decided to appoint all five members of the commission himself.

Angered by signs of corruption impossible to ignore, Obama uninvited Karzai to Washington. (If you’re going to be corrupt, don’t be so obvious!) To show his pique, Karzai invites Iran’s President Ahmadinejad to Afghanistan, who then proceeds to deliver a virulently anti-American speech, with a smiling Karzai looking on.

Now, President Karzai bitterly blame the UN monitors for electoral irregularities!  Is this an elaborate dance or has is he just losing it?

Meanwhile, Americans are dying in Helmand province while Afghan troops bring up the rear. And that’s just a warm up for things to come, as US and Afghan forces prepare to take Kandihar.

Lyricist Tyron Wells said it best - “… What are we fighting for?”

Then there’s Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu thumbs his nose at America, his strongest ally, by announcing new settlements in East Jerusalem just as VP Biden is there to reaffirm America’s eternal commitment to Israel. Then, arriving in Washington days later, Netanyahu makes a combative speech at AIPAC, the powerful American Israeli Lobby, reaffirming Israel intention to build and expand settlements, even though, as any one outside of Israel can see, peace talks, even “proximity” talks, will never happen as long as settlement activity continues.

These developments clearly annoyed Preident Obama. So, the President dines along, leaving Netanyahu to cool his heals. Upon arriving home, an indignant Israeli press and the prime minister himself complains about the chilly reception Netanyahu got at the White House.

Then Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, unhappy with election results, bitterly contests the election by conspiring to disqualify backers of his opponent, former Prime Minister Ayad Alawi. It turns out that, behind the scenes, our “old buddy”, Ahmed Chalabi, the very Chalabi who misled us into the Iraq war in 2003, controls the election commission and, it turns out, is closely aligned with the Iranians. Now the Iranians are playing the role of powerbroker in Iraq.

“… What are we fighting for?”

Are we propping up Iraq and Afghanistan long enough for them to walk on their own, only to have them run to Iran for succor? Should we just start packing our bags, pass out “mission accomplished!” stickers, and, like the affluent parents of ungrateful prodigy, pretend to feel good that they are advocating for themselves.

As long as we’re building roads, schools, hospitals, providing security and propping up their economies, we’re tolerated – but don’t mistake it for love.

I think we’ll just have to accept that they’re adults now. Let them pick their own friends. Time to start withholding child support. (We’re stretched too thin; we need to think about retirement – of our national debt.) It’s for their own good. But don’t expect them write home any time soon.

Maybe the best exit strategy is to get thrown out by the nascent regimes of both countries, and stop worrying about who they call friend afterwards. After all, it’s not as if we don’t need to attend to a few domestic priorities. As the passage of the healthcare bill demonstrates, getting a few bills passed at home goes a long way towards improving our image abroad.

American will have a hard time coming to terms with our diminished influence in the world. But joining the international bread line as a third rate power might prove the greatest humiliation of all.

The Verge of the Hill

A lone boy kicks the ball, first to one side of the house and then to the other.  Once he kicks it too far, and it flies over the edge of the hill, down among the workmen, many feet below, too busy to return it, indifferent, mildly resentful even, daring to be asked, although the boy is silent.

The boy stood above the ridge formed by the sand pit below, as earth machines undercut the hill, carrying away truckload after truckload of sand and gravel, to places the boy knew not where.

It is dinnertime.  His mother calls him in, but times being hard, except for a boy who has known no other, they eat lentil soup cooked with spinach from the garden and bits of ham, and home bread born from the oven to soak up vestiges of soup, a trick his mother learned years ago, to make the most of the nutrition there, of every bite.

The boy’s father eats silently, quickly, and hurries on.  Under lights rigged, turning night into day, he works two shifts now.  But the boy is not of an age to know that that is his fate.

This was his father’s land.  This house, built by his grandfather, planted high on the hill in prosperous, hopeful times, still standing, barely, shielding itself from the scene to the north with a narrow veil of trees, blind to what is coming.

After dinner, the boy returns to the crest of the undercut hill, trees precarious, a brow of grass ready to disengage, a precipice now, as hungry machines attack and retreat, again and again; the ball nowhere to be seen down below, lost.

Facing south, her favorite time of day, the boy’s mother, standing on the porch, the sun’s oblique rays warming her skin, witnesses alone a daily trick of nature; the sun nestling down among the soft fir trees for a good nights rest.

But facing north, at the verge of the hill, the boy buttons his jacket against the autumnal chill.  For the first time, the boy sees.

Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin

 When this book first hit the stores, I was inclined to ignore it as just another tell-all book designed to earn a quick buck and embarrass a few politicians and their handlers. This first impression was reinforced by Harry Reid’s hasty apologies for his now well-publicized “light skinned, African American with no negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one” comment and for a bevy of well-timed interviews of various political operators. Not a good start. But two things happened. To my surprise, my “this is a worthy book” filter, Joan, bought the book, read it and, yes, said, “this is a worthy book.” This arrangement works well, since she devours three or four times as many books as I do and filters the read-worthy from the pile we try to sell back to the bookstore for pennies on the dollar. The second thing that happened was that there was surprisingly little noise from the various campaigns disavowing Heilemann and Halperin’s attributions, and a deafening silence about the events they describe. Whether the players made a strategic decision to remain silent, in the hopes that it would all be washed away in the next news cycle – a safe enough bet – or that any refutation would be read as confirmation – another safe bet – it struck me that this was a book worth reading. I’m glad I did.

I’ll be brief (for a change.) The book is a narrative of the Democratic and Republican primaries and the subsequent 2008 Presidential election and, although it is 436 pages, which I consider short given the breadth of material they covered – after all, this campaign cycle was longer than any that came before it – it does a terrific job bringing the reader into the tent or, in some cases, slipping your nose under the tent. You become immersed in the high-stress game of politics at its highest level. Having lived through the events (especially here in NH), and having observed the candidates up close and personal, it is fascinating to compare that experience, still fresh in my mind, with what was going on behind the scenes. That a candidate could be raging in their campaign bus one minute, and then serene and on message as the doors swings open, is a marvel. Do you have to be crazy to put yourself and your family through this? Or is it a manifestation of the ultimate human challenge that few who found themselves in that positions could resist?

Oh! Another reason that there was so few complaints from the campaigns just might have been because the book was so well sourced and, hence, credible, that the candidates probably concluded that whatever counter narrative they put out would be contradicted by the public record and by the very people who knew the facts, their own campaign staffs. One indelible fact is that once a campaign is over, it’s every man and woman for himself. Hired guns work for themselves.

I guess Heilemann and Halperin had to leave something out, but I missed Joe the Plumber, whose name wasn’t even Joe. I remember one televised campaign stop when McCain called on Joe to take the stage, but Joe was nowhere to be found. I think that tells you all you need to know about how well managed the McCain campaign was. If you’ve seen the outrageously profane and funny comedy, In The Loop, that’s what I imagine the McCain campaign to have been like, especially after Joe the Plumber went missing. I can see McCain launching into scathing tirades of profanity and everyone around him blaming everyone else, with equally scathing tirades of profanity. As Obama said at one point to his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, when things weren’t going so well, “you know, this would really be interesting if we weren’t in the middle of it!”

My conclusion? We could have ended up with John Edwards as a candidate for Vice President. That would not have been good, making McGovern’s choice of Eagleton look brilliant in comparison. (Thankfully, Obama didn’t give it a moments thought, although Joe Biden has a few quirks of his own.)   We could have ended up with Sarah Palin as Vice President. That would have been even worse. (Why did McCain choose her? At one point, when asked that question in private, Palin could only think of one answer. “It must have been Gods will.” What else?) We could have ended up with John McCain as President. Whatever you say about John McCain, Mr. Shoot-from-the-hip Maverick McCain is not executive material. He may have been an affective legislator once (past tense intentional) but he would have made a real hash out of the Presidency.  Now he's just a bitter, angry, grumpy Senator.  On November 4th, 2008, I think the electorate got it right. Of course I would say that. What do you expect? I’m just another flaming ass-hole liberal – which describes pretty much everyone to the left of Sarah Palin.

Inside Man by Joshua Green

(a profile of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner)
This is a review of an article in the April issue Atlantic Monthly.
Link to article>>

Historians will write the final chapters on whether the government’s response to the Great Recession was appropriate, and that may not happen for many years yet. After all, John Kenneth Gailbraith’s The Great Crash, 1929 wasn’t published until 1955. Even twenty years hence, it is unlikely that historians will agree. But about one thing everyone will agree is that Timothy Geithner, as President of the NY Fed under Bush and Treasury Secretary under Obama, was a central figure in this drama. Joshua Green writes, “The fact that most of the bailouts driving this anger occurred under George W. Bush has been easy to overlook, in part because Geithner is the most visible constant between the two administrations.” Along with Paulson and Bernanke, Geithner was part of the team that oversaw Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, and the bailout of AIG, Citi and Bank of Am.

In Geithner’s own words (from the article), “In the end, what people care about is, what did you do? Did it make things better or not? That’s what you’ll be judged by. Now, will it vindicate the president over time? It should, but I’m not sure it will. I think probably not. The country is dramatically better off today. People say the financial strategy was politically costly for us. And I say to them, relative to what? Would it have been better to have the stock market where it was in March, the economy still falling, and unemployment much higher?” (My italics)

Since the efficacy of every other road not taken is hypothetical, there’s just no way of knowing.
For those interested in context, of gaining insight into how and why choices were made, this article is excellent. While much is written today that simply recasts what we already know or confirms our worse suspicions, reading this article provides new insights, extends knowledge, and for some, will evokes admiration; for, no matter how you feel about it, to have faced the political storm and resisted the public’s calls for retribution, required an uncommon level of confidence and courage. To quote from the article, “It requires abstaining from moral judgments and pumping tax dollars into the same institutions that inflicted the pain, as part of an all-hands-on-deck effort to restore economic confidence.” And that took courage.
No doubt, some people think that moral judgment was, and is, exactly what was called for. But as satisfying as that would have been, for those who understood how close the world came to a worldwide depression that could have lasted a dozen years or more, with tremendous social costs, it is certain that history would have judged a political response with retribution as its goal as irresponsible and callous, when the inevitable disastrous social costs were taken into account.

When it comes to abstract thinking, the American polity does not do well with second and third-order effects.

What I appreciate most is Joshua Green’s elegant presentation of the opposing, yet coupled, philosophical underpinnings of the current crisis. Highly influential was the University of Chicago’s conviction that “regulatory capture” rendered regulation ineffective; that is “…if regulation couldn’t function as a disinterested public good, it should be abolished.” (No talk of how to make it work or the danger inherent in deregulation!) Then, from the liberal side, there was a drive towards “corporate liberalism.”

“Where conservative neoclassical economists and Marxist historians converged was in their desire to “sever the corrupting ties between industry and government,” as Eduardo Canedo, an economic historian at Princeton University, puts it.”

According to Green, a vast cast of characters played a role. Ralph Nader, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43 to name a few, perhaps unwittingly, worked to remove safeguards that had served us well since enacting the Glass-Steagall Act in the 30s, hastening the day when we would face another crisis, potentially worse than the Great Depression.
 

When it comes to history, Americans don’t do well with events occurring more than 25 years ago.  Conveniently, they can rationalize abandoning safeguards by assuring itself the fundamentals have changed.

Green writes; “When Bill Clinton was elected, pent-up Democratic desire, gladly facilitated by the new Republican leadership in Congress in 1995, unleashed the wave of deregulation that culminated in 1999 with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the seminal New Deal banking reform.” Consequently, “The assets of securities brokers and dealers … which represented less than 2 percent of gross domestic product in 1980, grew to 22 percent in 2007.”

As Wall Streets grew, so did Wall Street political contributions. But, as Green points out, more than political contributions was a work. “…[The University of Chicago’s] George Stigler’s idea about regulatory capture was widely accepted” so regulations were replaced by repeating the mantra of “… faith in financial markets.” Green sums up the trend as follows: “…The regulatory philosophy of the last three decades—that the government should step aside…” took hold. “This consensus narrowed the parameters of respectable debate to the point that criticizing Wall Street came to be considered unsophisticated.” (My italics) After all, the thinking went, “…‘Where’s the harm in this?’ If banks are making a little more money to keep up with their international competitors, what’s the big deal?”’

Geithner became President of NY Fed in 2003. Green writes, “Once he’d settled in, Geithner chose to focus on derivatives, delivering over the next few years a series of prescient speeches about their risks.” “Geithner was warning of “fat tails,” a term that suggests that catastrophic events at the far end of a bell curve are more likely to occur than statistical models imply.” Quoting Geithner: ‘“I felt like my entire time in New York,” he said, “there was a fear that this was going to end badly.”’ Boy, did he get that right!
As Treasury Secretary, Geithner became the chief architect of the recovery strategy. Green goes onto explain Geithner’s recovery plan as having three “cannons”, address monetary policy, fiscal policy and recapitalize banks, which required a lot of international coordination. What is not well understood is that the plan was designed to minimize the amount of taxpayer money required, by drawing in as much private capital as possible. By and large that was successful, but at a high political cost for the Administration. At the heart of the strategy were “Stress tests” for the big banks. In Greens words, “…investors, uncertain of how bad the crisis could get, assumed the worst”. To attract private capital, it was important to counter this perception. “The basic strategy,” Geithner says, “was to dispel the cloud of uncertainty.” “Geithner’s plan was wildly out of sync with the public desire for swift, retributive justice against the banks.”

Geithner’s strategy was, essentially, attract private capital, rather than government funds, to the extent possible, to fix the problem. Like it or not, that required, in affect, the “coddling of Wall Street.” Green writes, ‘“In a crisis, you have to choose,” Geithner told me. “Are you going to solve the problem, or are you going to teach people a lesson? They’re in direct conflict.”’ Or maybe, to be addressed at different times. If laws were broken, they should be prosecuted. Sadly, aside from Bernie Madoff and others, and aside from fraud within the mortgage industry, technically, most of what occurred was probably legal.  But, legal or not, reforms (below) must ensure that Banks invest, not speculate -- another word for gambling -- and certainly not by putting at risk depositors' or tax payers' money!

Green writes, “Geithner likes to point out that after a year on the job, he’s spent $7 billion recapitalizing financial firms while private investors have put up $140 billion. TARP money is being repaid faster than anyone imagined, and if Obama gets the $90 billion tax on big banks he proposed in January, it could eventually be recouped.”

As for reforming Wall Street, unbelievably, reform is still resisted by Wall Street and viewed as unsophisticated. Was this a missed opportunity? Should the Administration have pushed harder in the midst of the meltdown? Maybe there were just too many balls to keep in the air. Hopefully, memories will not fade.

The Administrations legislative proposal, drafted by Geithner, contains these elements:
1. Enforce leverage limits
2. Require higher capital reserves
3. Promote shareholder control of bank salaries
4. Establish a clearinghouse for derivative trading
5. Create a consumer finance protection agency
6. Require corporate “living wills”
7. Improve oversight of the entire financial system
(In my view, number five, the most controversial reform that runs the greatest risk of being gutted, is the most critical.)

While some believe bank size is a problem, Geithner disagrees. Green reports, ‘“It’s risk, not size, that matters,” Geithner told me.’

Clearly, this is an ongoing story. Whether Secretary Geithner and President Obama made the right decisions – or at least not too many bad ones – will become clear only if the economy fully recovers, including improved employment and lower deficits, both of which could take years. Let’s hope Doctor Geithner’s painful prescriptions prove a lasting cure; economically and politically.  It's critical that the President press hard to ensure that the financial reforms pass without being watered down.  It's important that Geithner makes this happen.

For a more critical view of Geithner and Wall Street, read Frank Rich's column in the NY Times at:
Frank Rich