Kobe Bryant goes down with a torn Achilles tendon.  It’s the end of a saga that started when Phil Jackson retired.  Instead of hiring a Phil disciple like Brian Shaw, the Buss family decides it wants to return to Showtime.  So they go out and hire a defensive coach in Mike Brown.  Huh? And they don’t even confer with their superstar, Kobe.  Mike comes in and never really earns the respect of the team.  Reportedly Kobe suggests they go to the Princeton offense, and Mike Brown brings in Eddie Jordan to install the offense.  Then miracles of miracles, the Lakers acquire Steve Nash and Dwight Howard.  With Pau Gasol and Howard, the Princeton offense should have been scraped, but Brown has never been a coach to adjust his system to his team.  He might still be the Lakers coach if he had.  So, predictably the Lakers lose all their preseason games and the first five of the season.   Instead of sitting down with Brown and pointing out that he needs to adjust to the new talent that has been acquired, they fire him.  Despite the fact that Phil Jackson is ready to come back, the Buss family concludes they want to continue in a different direction.  No Jackson.  No Brian Shaw.  Huh? And despite the makeup of the team, they bring in Mike D’Antoni…… a coach that never has adapted to his talent.  He pushes his system which does not maximize the talent of Howard or Gasol.  And he tries to run an up tempo offense with an older team with talent that is optimized for getting the ball down in the post to the big guys.  Players are benched for not shooting the ball from the outside.  The tempo breaks down the players.  Nash goes out with an injury.  Howard can’t run the floor because he’s still recovering from back surgery.  Gasol can’t keep up and he goes down with injuries.  World Peace goes down with an injury, then Nash again and finally Kobe goes down with an injury that may end his career.  Instead of being in a position at the end of the season to rest Kobe and others, they are playing Kobe 46 to 48 minutes a game.  This did not have to be.  Having a coach adjust to the talent was all that was needed.  Look at San Antonio.  With all due respect to Jerry Buss, he may have ended the Laker dynasty by allowing his son to make basketball decisions.  Like I said, I didn’t want to have to write this. 

Below is an article by Thomas Freidman discussing the importance of technology and the need to understand its implication worldwide.  More reason for education and entrepreneurship.

 

 

 

 

Bill Moyers aired a program that discussed the effect of Big Media on our government and on politics.  It expressed my concerns concisely.  

In the fall of 2007, I wrote two articles that were published on the Authors Den website.  Little did I realize how prophetic they were.  

 

The United States laborer: Skilled, unskilled, professional and small business owner, is the hardest working laborer on the planet. Not only that, they are close to being the least rewarded for benefits and vacation time. One of the background issues in my book, Inventions, is corporate greed, or making money at all costs.  I won’t go into the details of how this issue plays into the plot, because I want you to read the book and see for yourself.   However, this issue is even more of an issue today than during the setting of the book.  More and more corporate executives have been caught modifying the books, back dating stock options and committing other corporate sins.  Of course, Enron is the poster child for this corporate mentality.  Today, we see the greed on the part of mortgage lenders and junk bond companies that has led to the problems in the sub-prime market.  It is estimated that 358 individuals own more financial wealth than half the world’s population collectively owns. About one billion people earn less than one dollar a day.  We see China ignoring the problems of millions of people while the elite of China amass wealth.  The middle class in the U.S. is fighting to survive. We see the world’s natural resources being plundered to the point that we will be unable to sustain human life without some drastic measures being taken.  We are told that globalization is a good thing and that it is here to stay. But one must ask what has happened to our corporate morality? 

 

The Buddha warned that three poisons could destroy individuals and societies: greed, anger and ignorance.  My book Inventions traces these three traits in it’s main characters.  Some of the characters learn the anecdotes of justice for greed, compassion for anger and knowledge for ignorance. Some do not.  The same is true for individuals and institutions in today’s world.  Unfortunately, the short term views fueled by a society that is built upon short term gratification and consumption are at the heart of many of the problems we face today.  I often question why our country is so indifferent to minorities and the poor.  One of the answers lies in our individualistic culture.  This culture often sets our priorities as self, then our clan (those most like us by family or ethnicity), then our country, then mankind.  This is further evidenced by the fact that countries that are mostly monolithic in ethnicity are the ones that take best care of it’s citizens and are willing to pay higher taxes.  Given the scope of the problems we face and given the rapid globalization of the world, we might better be served by considering the needs of mankind first.  Our religions profess this, but far too many of us say this on Sunday  but in reality practice a religion of self.  Of course there will always be times when one needs to put oneself and one’s family first.  But there needs to be more of a balance than exists in today’s global economies. 

 

Today’s global corporations are often short-sighted.  Most companies in the U.S. are measured on quarterly performance.  When quarterly goals are not met, these companies are considered failures, even though their annual performance may meet expectations. Our short term consumer oriented view is reflected in the up and down swings of worldwide stock markets. Too often, corporate executives articulate well thought out market and product strategies that emphasize teamwork, but the corporate CEOs are really most interested in their own short term success and financial gain.  Given this environment, it is no surprise these captains of industry want to make as much money as fast as possible, because the rules of the game are stacked against their long term survival.  This is the root of corporate immorality.  

 

hat happened to Corporate Morality - The Answer

 

The real answer is provided by Robert Reich in his new book “Supercapitalism.” In it, Reich investigates what has happened to social morality, or the “corporate statesman.”  What he found is that we, yes we, are the unwitting culprits.  As new technologies have evolved, barriers to entry have lowered and competition has intensified.  There have been two beneficiaries of this intense competition:  The consumer and the investor.  This “supercapitalism” has driven companies to seek the lowest cost.  Those that accomplish this have a competitive advantage.   This drive toward lower costs often involves seeking the lowest labor markets, and an avoidance of concerns such as what effect the processes or actions have on the environment.  Yet, we as consumers flock to those companies that can give us the bargain prices.  At the other end, just about all of us are investors, whether it be through direct investment in the stock market, or through mutual funds or 401(k)s.  We want the highest returns form our investments.  And we benefit financially from those concerns.  This drive toward the highest returns has also intensified the effort on the part of companies to show their investors that they can provide the highest returns.  As a consequence, companies are more concerned about taking actions that improve their stock prices and dividends than they are in taking socially responsible positions. They can’t afford to, because if other companies offer higher returns, our fund managers will move our investments to other companies.  Or as individual investors we’ll sell the stock and move it somewhere that offers higher returns.  The focus is the short term.

 

So we need to examine ourselves.  We are schizophrenic.  We want these lower prices or higher returns, but another side of us is concerned about the negative social and environmental impacts. Even those companies that try to act more socially responsible (usually in specific areas and for limited times) often find themselves experiencing lower returns and thus lower stock prices, or higher costs.  There are numerous examples of companies who for years acted more socially responsible, and who eventually were acquired by other companies that took advantage of the lower value that resulted from their “social” conscience.   

 

A third issue is the time and money that lobbyists spend serving companies by trying to influence our laws.  These actions are primarily in response to the companies trying to get laws passed or prevent laws from being passed that may effect their  competitive position.  This is a result of the same intense competition.  So with their contributions to political campaigns, they get access to the congressmen and their staffs.  They dominate the discourse with our legislators.  They drown out the individuals and groups that represent the social good.  This results in the vast dissatisfaction the public has with congress.

 

As the final paragraphs in Reich’s book state:

 

“ The triumph of supercapitalism has led, indirectly and unwittingly to the decline of democracy.  But that is not inevitable.  We can have a vibrant democracy as well as a vibrant capitalism.  To accomplish this, the two spheres must be kept distinct.  The purpose of capitalism is to get great deals for consumers and investors.  The purpose of democracy is to accomplish ends we cannot achieve as individuals.  The border between the two is breached when companies appear to take on social responsibilities or when they utilize politics to advance or maintain their competitive standing. 

            We are all consumers and most of us are investors, and in those roles we try to get the best deals we possibly can.  That is how we participate in a market economy and enjoy the benefits of supercapitalism.  But those private benefits often come with social costs. We are also citizens who have a right and a responsibility to participate in a democracy.  We thus have it in our power to reduce those social costs, thereby making the true price of the goods and services we purchase as low as possible.  Yet we can accomplish this larger feat only if we take our responsibilities as citizens seriously and protect our democracy.  The first step, which is often the hardest, is to get our thinking straight.”[1]

 

So what do we do?  First, we need to pass campaign reform so that political campaigns are financed by the public.  This includes TV time being given equally to all candidates at no cost.  Next, we need laws that regulate how far companies can go in increasing the social costs resulting from their actions.    Only by having laws that all companies have to meet can we level the playing field, maintain fair competition, and assure we know what the true costs are to our citizens.    

 

 

 

[1] Reich, Robert,  Knopf 2007 Supercapitalism, the Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life, pg 224, 225.

 

Is it the Great Disruption or the Big Shift.  Read Tom Friedman's article and decide. 

I wrote this article in 2007.  It applies even more today:

What happened to Corporate Morality - The Answer 

  

The real answer is provided by Robert Reich in his new book “Supercapitalism.” In it, Reich investigates what has happened to social morality, or the “corporate statesman.”  What he found is that we, yes we, are the unwitting culprits.  As new technologies have evolved, barriers to entry have lowered and competition has intensified.  There have been two beneficiaries of this intense competition:  The consumer and the investor.  This “supercapitalism” has driven companies to seek the lowest cost.  Those that accomplish this have a competitive advantage.   This drive toward lower costs often involves seeking the lowest labor markets, and an avoidance of concerns such as what effect the processes or actions have on the environment.  Yet, we as consumers flock to those companies that can give us the bargain prices.  At the other end, just about all of us are investors, whether it be through direct investment in the stock market, or through mutual funds or 401(k)s.  We want the highest returns form our investments.  And we benefit financially from those concerns.  This drive toward the highest returns has also intensified the effort on the part of companies to show their investors that they can provide the highest returns.  As a consequence, companies are more concerned about taking actions that improve their stock prices and dividends than they are in taking socially responsible positions. They can’t afford to, because if other companies offer higher returns, our fund managers will move our investments to other companies.  Or as individual investors we’ll sell the stock and move it somewhere that offers higher returns.  The focus is the short term. 

  

So we need to examine ourselves.  We are schizophrenic.  We want these lower prices or higher returns, but another side of us is concerned about the negative social and environmental impacts. Even those companies that try to act more socially responsible (usually in specific areas and for limited times) often find themselves experiencing lower returns and thus lower stock prices, or higher costs.  There are numerous examples of companies who for years acted more socially responsible, and who eventually were acquired by other companies that took advantage of the lower value that resulted from their “social” conscience.    

  

A third issue is the time and money that lobbyists spend serving companies by trying to influence our laws.  These actions are primarily in response to the companies trying to get laws passed or prevent laws from being passed that may effect their  competitive position.  This is a result of the same intense competition.  So with their contributions to political campaigns, they get access to the congressmen and their staffs.  They dominate the discourse with our legislators.  They drown out the individuals and groups that represent the social good.  This results in the vast dissatisfaction the public has with congress. 

  

As the final paragraphs in Reich’s book state: 

  

“ The triumph of supercapitalism has led, indirectly and unwittingly to the decline of democracy.  But that is not inevitable.  We can have a vibrant democracy as well as a vibrant capitalism.  To accomplish this, the two spheres must be kept distinct.  The purpose of capitalism is to get great deals for consumers and investors.  The purpose of democracy is to accomplish ends we cannot achieve as individuals.  The border between the two is breached when companies appear to take on social responsibilities or when they utilize politics to advance or maintain their competitive standing.  

            We are all consumers and most of us are investors, and in those roles we try to get the best deals we possibly can.  That is how we participate in a market economy and enjoy the benefits of supercapitalism.  But those private benefits often come with social costs. We are also citizens who have a right and a responsibility to participate in a democracy.  We thus have it in our power to reduce those social costs, thereby making the true price of the goods and services we purchase as low as possible.  Yet we can accomplish this larger feat only if we take our responsibilities as citizens seriously and protect our democracy.  The first step, which is often the hardest, is to get our thinking straight.”[1] 

  

So what do we do?  First, we need to pass campaign reform so that political campaigns are financed by the public.  This includes TV time being given equally to all candidates at no cost.  Next, we need laws that regulate how far companies can go in increasing the social costs resulting from their actions.    Only by having laws that all companies have to meet can we level the playing field, maintain fair competition, and assure we know what the true costs are to our citizens.     

  

---

[1] Reich, Robert,  Knopf 2007 Supercapitalism, the Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life,pg 224, 225. 

            

The following article from the NY Times underlines the effect the great recession is having on the black middle class.  As I continue to propose, all of us (blacks and non-blacks) must seek ways to take their economic future into their own hands. 

 

How Cuts Will Change the Black Middle Class

What will the shrinking of the public sector mean for the economic prospects of African-Americans?

Severe Hardship, Dashed Hopes

July 25, 2011

Michael C. Dawson is the John D. MacArthur Professor of Political Science and the director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago. He is the author of the forthcoming "Not In Our Lifetimes: The Future of Black Politics."

We are entering a period when for blacks there is a dangerous and growing confluence of severe economic hardship and dashed hopes.

Historically, the foundation for black income gains in the middle 20th century were based not only on the movement of what had been a largely Southern agrarian population into unionized manufacturing jobs, but also a parallel movement of blacks into the public sector — a sector that saw far smaller income disparities by race than the private sector.

This current economic crisis is a further blow, eroding the traditional foundation for the black middle class while appearing to all but block roads for less affluent blacks to move into the middle class. The withering of black economic hopes is mirrored by a steep decline from 2009 to 2010 in blacks’ evaluations of prospects for racial equality in the U.S.

The economic devastation within black communities has been even further exacerbated by the economic crisis. This crisis has been at the level of a full economic depression within black communities. The disturbingly high black unemployment rate provides a useful indicator of the degree of economic distress found within the country’s black communities. Black unemployment since April 2010 has floated between 15.4 percent and 16.3 percent, and is currently at 16.2 percent, according to the University of California, Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.

As has been the case for more than half a century, the black unemployment rate, which is understated, has been running at twice the rate of white Americans. Black teenage unemployment rates are particularly dismal. They have been hovering around 40 percent, and the rate for both teenage males and females is currently more than 35 percent. High teenage unemployment, as well as a dismal job market for new college graduates, suggest that attaining or maintaining middle-class status is increasingly difficult for black youth, and the three paths that earlier generations of African-Americans took — work in the unionized manufacturing sector, public sector employment and more recently college and graduate education — either no longer functionally exist, or are much less reliable conduits to social mobility than they were even a decade ago.

These economic trends bear potentially dire political consequences. Public opinion data collected by my colleagues and me over the past 20 years demonstrated that black disillusionment with the prospects for racial equality had grown from the early 1990s to the point that by 2005, four out of five blacks believed that racial equality would not be achieved in the foreseeable future. After two decades of growth, this percentage declined by 30 percentage points by October 2008 and the eve of the election of Barack Obama. For the first time since we started collecting data on this question, more than half of blacks believed that racial equality for blacks would be soon achieved or had already been achieved.

This relative level of euphoria was short-lived and plummeted with the onset of the economic crisis. Once again, half of all blacks believe that racial equality either will not be achieved in their lifetimes or not at all within the U.S.

The combination of blocked roads to social mobility, continuing economic crisis, the near unanimous belief among blacks that racism remains a major problem in the United States, and the consequent widespread and growing despair about the prospects for racial equality provide the grounds, if not the inevitability, for an ever more volatile and conflicted racial landscape.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blacks' economic gains wiped out in downturn

A generation that played by the rules and saw progress falls out of the middle class

"Just being able to pull out my checkbook and pay a bill, even though there might not be much left in there," Deborah Goldring says, of her hard times. "I really miss that checkbook with my name on it."

By JESSE WASHINGTON

 

BALTIMORE — Growing up black in the segregated 1960s, Deborah Goldring slept two to a bed, got evicted from apartment after apartment, and watched her stepfather climb utility poles to turn their disconnected lights back on. Yet Goldring pulled herself out of poverty and earned a middle-class life — until the Great Recession.

First, Goldring's husband fell ill, and they drained savings to pay for nursing homes before he died. Then Goldring lost her executive assistant job in the Baltimore hospital where she had worked for 17 years. The cruelest blow was a letter from the bank, intending to foreclose on her home of almost three decades.

Millions of Americans endured similar financial calamities in the recession. But for Goldring and many others in the black community, where unemployment is still rising, job loss has knocked them out of the middle class and back into poverty. Some even see a historic reversal of hard-won economic gains that took black people decades to achieve.

Goldring remembers her mother taping the blinds to the wall so no one could see them stealing electricity. She remembers each time she sat on the curb with her three brothers, surrounded by her family's belongings, waiting for a new place to live. Sitting on those curbs, she promised to always pay her bills on time.

Now, after finding herself poor again, "the only word I can say is devastated," says Goldring, 58.

"For me to live that life we were so comfortable in, we never had to worry about finances, we always had money where I can help my kids and my grandchildren — to go to calling my daughter to borrow $100 because I can't pay a bill ..." Goldring's voice trails off as she struggles to hold back tears.

Economists say the Great Recession lasted from 2007 to 2009. In 2004, the median net worth of white households was $134,280, compared with $13,450 for black households, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by the Economic Policy Institute. By 2009, the median net worth for white households had fallen 24 percent to $97,860; the median black net worth had fallen 83 percent to $2,170, according to the EPI.

Algernon Austin, director of the EPI's Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy, described the current wealth gap this way: "In 2009, for every dollar of wealth the average white household had, black households only had two cents."

Since the end of the recession, the overall unemployment rate has fallen from 9.4 to 9.1 percent, while the black unemployment rate has risen from 14.7 to 16.2 percent, according to the Department of Labor.

"I would say the recession is not over for black folks," Austin says. He believes more black people than ever before could fall out of the middle class, because the unemployment rate for college-educated blacks recently peaked and blacks are overrepresented in state and local government jobs that are being eliminated due to massive budget shortfalls.

 

Maya Wiley, director of the Center for Social Inclusion, says the anti-discrimination laws passed in the 1960s took decades to translate into an increase in black economic security — and that was before the recession.

"History is going to say that the black middle class was decimated" over the past few years, Wiley says. "But we're not done writing history."

Cleaning hotel rooms 
Goldring was born and raised in Baltimore, and her mother was single for much of Goldring's childhood. At 16, she dropped out of school and went to work cleaning hotel rooms.

"That's when I first met white people. Some of them would stay a month at the hotel. They would have all their children with them," she remembers. "I thought, one day I'd like to hang out at a hotel."

She didn't know any middle-class people in her all-black neighborhood. "Where we lived, everyone struggled. We just struggled a little harder," she says. "If the lights stayed on for a whole year, if we didn't get put out, I thought we were doing really, really well."

At 21, pregnant with her second child, Goldring decided to get her GED. Then she went to community college, got a degree in secretarial work, and began a career.

She met her husband in 1983. He had a steady job as a heating and air-conditioning installer, and owned a brick two-bedroom home in Morgan Park, a leafy, integrated neighborhood.

With two incomes, money was not a problem. He liked to travel. She had never been out of Maryland.

"I thought, 'Is this how rich people live?'" Goldring remembers. "From where I was to where I ended up, it was way different."

Her husband had been married before. As a condition of the divorce, his daughter's name was added to the deed of the house. After Goldring's husband died in 2007, Goldring took out a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, with a 6.5 percent interest rate, to purchase the house outright.

Everything was fine until her hospital "restructured" in 2009. Her boss, a senior vice president, was transferred to the corporate office. Executives were now sharing secretaries. A few months later, they let Goldring go.

 

No more family vacations. No more trips to the mall. No more filling the grocery cart.

But what Goldring misses the most is her checkbook. Her unemployment payments arrive on a debit card.

"Just being able to pull out my checkbook and pay a bill, even though there might not be much left in there," she says. "I really miss that checkbook with my name on it."

Spike in unemployment 
Last April, black male unemployment hit the highest rate since the government began keeping track in 1972. Only 56.9 percent of black men over age 20 were working, compared with 68.1 percent of white men.

Chris Wilder, a Philadelphia journalist, lost his job in 2008 as the media industry suffered huge losses. Unemployment benefits amounted to about one-third of his salary. Ever since they ran out, his income has been near zero, other than sporadic freelance work.

If not for a policy in his apartment co-op to assist people who lose their jobs, "I might be living with my mother," he says.

He has felt depression and anxiety. He's gone from a six-figure salary to having to check his balance before using his bank card. "I miss being able to go into a store and go off budget," he says. "Now, when I go to shop for something, I have to stick to exactly what I came to get. I never have money to buy anything else."

Wilder, 43, grew up solidly middle class, the son of a newspaper editor and a college administrator. Now the single parent of a 15-year-old, he has managed to keep his son in cleats and baseball camps, but thoughts of dying poor have crept into his mind. All of his savings are gone.

"It's definitely harder for black people to get jobs," Wilder says. "With the economy as bad as it is, people are hiring nephews and family friends and friends of friends. It's hard for black people to break that cycle. We don't own or even run the big companies."

"It's hard to keep jobs as well, because they're gonna 'last hired/first fired' you," he adds.

Wilder isn't giving up on finding a job in his field, "but I should."

 

"I call everyone. I send resumes. It is extremely rare that I get a call back," he says. "When I was growing up, I never imagined there would be a time when I was out of work for three years."

College-educated blacks fared worse than their white counterparts in the recession. In 2007, unemployment for college-educated whites was 1.8 percent; for college-educated blacks it was 2.7 percent. Now, the college-educated unemployment rate is 3.9 percent for whites and 7 percent for blacks.

"I've definitely played by the rules," Wilder says.

He's not desperate enough to break the law, but "I see why people become drug dealers."

Becoming a drug dealer 
Horace Davis did become a drug dealer. He illustrates another dimension of the recession's impact on blacks: While law-abiding folks are falling out of the middle class, those who got in trouble with the law are further than ever from a second chance.

After serving four years for drug trafficking, Davis walked out of prison into the middle of the recession in 2008. "I thought to myself, I'm older, I need to get a job, move on. The dope game was dead to me," Davis says, sitting on a concrete porch in an Asheville, N.C., housing project.

In the past few decades of the "War on Drugs," harsh drug sentencing laws have sent a disproportionate number of black people to prison, even though blacks are not more likely than whites to sell or use drugs, according to a 2008 report by the Sentencing Project. Today, about 280,000 African-Americans exit prison each year. They are often the last of the last to be hired.

After Davis got out, he spent months applying for dozens of jobs mopping floors or flipping burgers. He carried a letter from the state offering a $2,500 tax credit for hiring ex-offenders. He got one call back, from a chicken restaurant. "We'll be in touch," Davis remembers them saying. They weren't.

"Nobody wants black felons in their businesses," says Davis, 26.

A 2003 University of Chicago study by Devah Pager sent young white and black "testers" to apply for real low-wage jobs. Some of the testers were randomly assigned felony convictions. The study found that whites with felonies were slightly more likely to get callbacks than black applicants without criminal records.

"The penalty of a criminal record is more disabling for black job seekers than whites," Pager and other researchers wrote in a follow-up study in 2009.

 

Davis says he learned skills in prison: "How to cook, clean, horticulture, janitorial. I can do it. I've been trained. Tile, carpentry, mortar, edging and trimming, all that. I can operate a backhoe, a roller. Any opportunity to do something that would show my talents, I'd do it. It would be my ticket out the streets.

"I just need someone to give me that chance. A nice construction job, anything. I would hold onto that until I die."

Some economists say the real black unemployment rate is as high as 25 or 30 percent, because government figures don't count "discouraged" workers who have stopped looking for jobs and dropped out of the labor force.

Davis now falls into that category — partly due to societal forces and partly, he knows, because of his own bad decisions.

Recently, police said they caught Davis with a half-ounce of marijuana. His trial date is approaching. As a habitual felon, he could get a 10-year sentence.

Bitter irony 
Some see a bitter irony in soaring black unemployment and the decline of the black middle class on the watch of the first black president.

"I thought Barack Obama could have provided some way out. But he lacks backbone," Princeton professor Cornel West told truthdig.com recently.

He said Obama had sold out the poor and become "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats ... I don't think in good conscience I could tell anybody to vote for Obama."

Yet many jobless blacks do not blame their plight on the president.

"I have no problem with Obama when I look at what the alternatives are," Wilder says.

Goldring doesn't think Obama is doing a bad job either. "The unemployment situation is not the best, but I don't think it has a lot to do with him," she says. "Fixing this economy, it's going to take time.

 

Wiley, the Center for Social Inclusion director, says Obama should be applauded for several initiatives that have helped the black middle class, such as programs to modify certain mortgages and forestall foreclosure due to job loss.

She would have liked Obama to aggressively counter the suggestion that first black president would be showing favoritism if he specifically helped black people.

"It's the right thing to do for the nation," she says. "Black people are a huge segment of the population, they're especially hard-hit, and the country cannot recover if the black community — as well as the white community and others — does not recover."

Homeownership hits record 
Black homeownership hit an all-time high in 2004, with 50 percent of African-Americans owning their homes, according to census data.

Today, the black homeownership rate is 45 percent, compared with 74 percent for whites. Nearly 8 percent of African-Americans who bought homes from 2005-2008 have lost them to foreclosure, compared with 4.5 percent of whites, according to an estimate by the Center for Responsible Lending.

Goldring remembers that when she got a foreclosure notice from the bank, "I bawled."

Her son, Chris Fredericks, says she was "vulnerable, more than I have ever seen her, but she still kept moving."

He was incredulous that his mother was in such a position. "At any point, you can slip back. It's just the way the economy is going," he says. "Once you get into a spiral, there's no telling how far down you could go."

One day, at a counseling session on how to prevent foreclosure, Goldring learned about a new Maryland program that offered help to people who were behind on their mortgages due to layoffs or medical bills.

She thought it was too good to be true. It wasn't.

The Emergency Mortgage Assistance program, financed by federal money, offered a zero-interest loan of up to $50,000. The money would pay off up to a year of back mortgage payments, plus up to two years of regular payments. All Goldring had to do was pay 31 percent of her current gross income, or the full mortgage payment if she got a new job close to her original salary.

And so on a sweltering June day, Goldring stood before a podium in her freshly mulched back yard, flanked by a congressman, the mayor, the lieutenant governor, and other officials. The sound of chirping birds filled the air. Cameras rolled as the dignitaries told Goldring's story, using her as an example to spread word of the Emergency Mortgage Program to other struggling homeowners.

"I want to thank you for your courage," said the lieutenant governor, Anthony Brown.

"I know you did everything right," Brown said. "You worked hard, you saved diligently, but challenges never overtaking our will sometimes overtake our wallets."

Goldring stood in front of the microphone and exhaled.

"After this," she said, "the only good thing would be to be employed, once again."

Unemployment for youth around the world is not just a problem in the middle east.  It also affects young people in the west including the U.S.  All the more reason, for us to invent jobs.

 

 

The images coming from the earthquake and Tsunami in Japan are heartbreaking. Like any culture, the Japanese culture has its advantages and disadvantages.  In this post I’m going to concentrate on the positive aspects.  Though we see great physical destruction in the images on television, what we do not see is also revealing and important.  What we do not see is looting.  Unlike natural disaster aftermaths in our country and others throughout the world, there does not seem to be looting going on.  Don’t get me wrong, Japan has crime and I’d be surprised if there are not some elements trying to take advantage of the catastrophe.  But I’m also sure that whatever negative elements there are, they are minimal.  As witnessed in the rise of quality improvement processes in Japan, the Japanese culture is one that is rooted in cooperation and teamwork.  That’s one of the reasons that quality concepts took off in Japan.  Working together is in the DNA.  What we are also seeing is selflessness.  There is sharing going on at a level most likely not seen in other cultures.  These societal elements will help Japan recover at rate that we’ve not seen in our country.  I predict we’ll see Japan rebuild their damaged areas before we see  New Orleans rebuilt. 

 

One of the reasons is that Japan is a homogenous society.  There is no racial bias contributing to allowing an area to languish.   The disadvantage of this closed society does not allow foreigners to deeply penetrate it.  Having said that, I’ve also seen outsiders do surprisingly well in building  businesses in Japan.  We often say that our country is the land of entrepreneurship, and it is.

 

I want to recount three instances of entrepreneurship by outsiders in Japan.  First is the case of a person, I will call D.  D grew up in southern California, the son of a white male and a Japanese woman.  After his  father died, his mother lamented the fact that non of her children spoke Japanese.  D decided he would go to Japan and immerse himself in one of the language courses.  He did so and learned the language.  Along the way, he became involved with a medical device distributor.  His drive and intelligence saw him take advantage of investment opportunities in his adopted country.  He quickly rose through the ranks of several companies.  What struck me about D was his willingness to invest in entrepreneurial opportunities.  He invested amounts that I was reluctant to invest in my environment.  Today, D is married to a Japanese woman and runs the entire southeast Asia operation of a billion dollar medical device company today. 

 

I’ll call my second friend, T.  T immigrated to Japan from another Asian country.  His engineering background and his inventiveness quickly drew the attention of Japanese hospitals and investors.  T built numerous medical businesses in Japan starting with nothing.  I once asked T what was the best way to learn to speak Japanese.  His answer was to marry a Japanese woman. 

 

The third friend I will call MT.  MT grew up in Japan and received an engineering degree.  He started a commercial businesses based on his design of electronics and control devices.  His company quickly became one of the fastest growing businesses in Japan, a feat that is rarely achieved for companies that are not part of an established business network. 

 

My message is twofold.  First, as I encourage in my  “11 building blocks of success,” my friends built their businesses from the ground up in a society where this is more difficult than in our own.   Second, the culture of teamwork and the growing spirit of entrepreneurship in Japan will assure that it rebuilds and continues to prosper.

 

All of this should offer encouragement to my readers who are considering taking the plunge and building their own businesses outside the U.S. corporate environment.

 

It's discouraging to look at the political discourse in our country, and the media's concentration on so many things that are not important to our future.  I hardly watch the media news shows any more.  They are more interested in sensational news creation than reporting what is going on.  We have many challenges and our focus needs to be on these challenges.  We seem to be unable to face the big challenges.  The foundation building block in my 11 building block of success is the avoidance of teleophobia.  We can't be afraid to begin tackling a problem even though we may not have the detailed plan as to how to succeed.  We must have confidence that as long as we know what we want to do, or what problem we want to solve, we can figure out how to solve it or how to do it  To that end I thought the following column from the NY Times about tackling our infrastructure was worth reading.  Here it is:

 

 

One of the building blocks of success is understanding who you are.  That's always been difficult for African Americans as discussed in this blog posted on the Huffington Post:

Robin Quivers

Posted: March 3, 2011 09:51 AM

The Real Black History

I'm watching African American Lives on PBS, a documentary featuring the ancestry of prominent African Americans. The show features famous entertainers like Chris Rock and Tina Turner and prominent business and community leaders. Usually, when people look up their ancestors it's a happy occasion to learn where you came from and who you're related too. This is not so if you were born black in America.

I found out just how hard it is to figure out who your ancestors are last year when I looked up my grandfather on my father's side. It was so exciting to see his name in the government records, stating who he was married to and listing all of his children including my dad. My excitement was short lived, however, because that one census entry was all I found.

There was nothing at all before that one entry; it was as if he came from nowhere and suddenly appeared as a grown man with children. Watching African American Lives, I discovered why. Until after the Civil War, blacks weren't listed in the census because they were were slaves -- property. To learn anything about slaves, you have to examine property records, and even then you won't find names -- you'll find descriptions. We were listed with the cows, mules, pigs, chickens and other livestock.

It's in these records that we discover the true horror of slavery. We see how black people were valued, how they were sold and bought, how families were either preserved or broken up depending on the whim of an owner or circumstances. If an owner needed money, selling a slave was a way of getting some ready cash. Slaves were passed down in wills. The documentary also reveals the history of race mixing and asks the question, was every incident of race mixing under slavery rape? It also asks, what effect has this history had on the African American community today?

Seeing such accomplished people reduced to tears by discovering the fragments of their past tells me that the impact is great, even today. I was both fascinated and saddened watching the unraveling of these ancient documents and listening to the fates of these people. It was not about how hard they had to work or how they might have suffered physical hardship; it was about the emotional toll exacted by being treated like chattel.

This is what should be talked about during Black History Month. It's of little importance that George Washington Carver discovered hundreds of ways to use the peanut. What's amazing is that he managed to get the opportunity to have any freedom of self expression at all. The resilience of the human spirit it took for him to become a scientist is astonishing, and that's what is truly to be celebrated. As Chris Rock says during the special, it's amazing that any of us has managed to do anything at all given our history.

Next time you're enjoying that discussion with friends about where you come from, just remember that most African Americans have no answer to that question. And even if you ask them, realize that you're generally asking which state their family comes from -- not which country.

It's this history that needs to be remembered each February because it's a testament to the human spirit that African Americans survived and even thrived in post Civil War America even in the face of incredible discrimination, threat of harm and denial of opportunity. This is the legacy that should be proclaimed, celebrated and honored. It's a heritage to take pride in, and one that every African American child should be proud to carry on into the bright future our ancestors struggled to create for us.

 

 

As I watched the situation in Egypt evolve, I thought about the status of our democracy and how money and corporations have taken over our political process.  All the more reason for trying to start your own business and taking control of your life.  The following article from the NY Times causes reflection.

 When Democracy Weakens

By BOB HERBERT

Published: February 11, 2011

           

As the throngs celebrated in Cairo, I couldn’t help wondering about what is happening to democracy here in the United States. I think it’s on the ropes. We’re in serious danger of becoming a democracy in name only.

 

While millions of ordinary Americans are struggling with unemployment and declining standards of living, the levers of real power have been all but completely commandeered by the financial and corporate elite. It doesn’t really matter what ordinary people want. The wealthy call the tune, and the politicians dance.

So what we get in this democracy of ours are astounding and increasingly obscene tax breaks and other windfall benefits for the wealthiest, while the bought-and-paid-for politicians hack away at essential public services and the social safety net, saying we can’t afford them. One state after another is reporting that it cannot pay its bills. Public employees across the country are walking the plank by the tens of thousands. Camden, N.J., a stricken city with a serious crime problem, laid off nearly half of its police force. Medicaid, the program that provides health benefits to the poor, is under savage assault from nearly all quarters.

The poor, who are suffering from an all-out depression, are never heard from. In terms of their clout, they might as well not exist. The Obama forces reportedly want to raise a billion dollars or more for the president’s re-election bid. Politicians in search of that kind of cash won’t be talking much about the wants and needs of the poor. They’ll be genuflecting before the very rich.

In an Op-Ed article in The Times at the end of January, Senator John Kerry said that the Egyptian people “have made clear they will settle for nothing less than greater democracy and more economic opportunities.” Americans are being asked to swallow exactly the opposite. In the mad rush to privatization over the past few decades, democracy itself was put up for sale, and the rich were the only ones who could afford it.

The corporate and financial elites threw astounding sums of money into campaign contributions and high-priced lobbyists and think tanks and media buys and anything else they could think of. They wined and dined powerful leaders of both parties. They flew them on private jets and wooed them with golf outings and lavish vacations and gave them high-paying jobs as lobbyists the moment they left the government. All that money was well spent. The investments paid off big time.

As Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson wrote in their book, “Winner-Take-All Politics”: “Step by step and debate by debate, America’s public officials have rewritten the rules of American politics and the American economy in ways that have benefited the few at the expense of the many.”

As if the corporate stranglehold on American democracy were not tight enough, the Supreme Court strengthened it immeasurably with its Citizens United decision, which greatly enhanced the already overwhelming power of corporate money in politics. Ordinary Americans have no real access to the corridors of power, but you can bet your last Lotto ticket that your elected officials are listening when the corporate money speaks.

When the game is rigged in your favor, you win. So despite the worst economic downturn since the Depression, the big corporations are sitting on mountains of cash, the stock markets are up and all is well among the plutocrats. The endlessly egregious Koch brothers, David and Charles, are worth an estimated $35 billion. Yet they seem to feel as though society has treated them unfairly.

As Jane Mayer pointed out in her celebrated New Yorker article, “The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry — especially environmental regulation.” (A good hard look at their air-pollution record would make you sick.)

It’s a perversion of democracy, indeed, when individuals like the Kochs have so much clout while the many millions of ordinary Americans have so little. What the Kochs want is coming to pass. Extend the tax cuts for the rich? No problem. Cut services to the poor, the sick, the young and the disabled? Check. Can we get you anything else, gentlemen?

The Egyptians want to establish a viable democracy, and that’s a long, hard road. Americans are in the mind-bogglingly self-destructive process of letting a real democracy slip away.

I had lunch with the historian Howard Zinn just a few weeks before he died in January 2010. He was chagrined about the state of affairs in the U.S. but not at all daunted. “If there is going to be change,” he said, “real change, it will have to work its way from the bottom up, from the people themselves.”

I thought of that as I watched the coverage of the ecstatic celebrations in the streets of Cairo.

 

 

 

The foundation of the eleven Building Blocks to Success is the concept of the avoidance of teleophobia.  Teleophobia is defined as the fear of definite plans.  In this context, I am using it to describe the fear of pursuing an objective without exact knowledge of what has to be done to obtain the objective.  Probably the greatest example of this would be the U.S. space program.  We had an idea of what we wanted to accomplish, but there was tremendous innovation and invention needed to succeed.  Yet we pursued that objective and invented what we had to invent.  In my view too many of our citizens don’t pursue their business dreams because they don’t know exactly how they will achieve them.  In today’s world where corporations no longer offer life time employment or pensions, I would encourage anyone to pursue their own business objective.  Create your own business.  Become your own company.  When I meet with young students, I strongly encourage them to get an education, learn a trade, network within an industry and start their own business as soon as possible.  Of course this isn’t easy, but avoid teleophobia and pursue your dreams.

 You are probably thinking, easier said than done.  I agree.  But what’s the alternative?  Being dependent on a corporation or someone else to provide you with employment  is a dicey situation.  In this world of outsourcing to the lowest cost organization or country, you are always only one decision away from being a casualty of technology, or the global economy.  The application of my building blocks gives you the opportunity to take charge of your future.  Stay tuned to this blog for guidance.  

Contact me about your situation.  And feel free to blog on this site about what has and has not worked for you.  

On Tuesday of this week, Congress hammered Yahoo top executives over the company's cooperation with Chinese officials in the jailing of a pro-democracy journalist.

 

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., renewed a call for Yahoo to endorse his bill banning such cooperation. Smith said he remained "absolutely bewildered and angered" that the beleaguered Internet portal had not pledged to stop the practice.

 

On Wednesday, Yahoo declined to endorse the bill. Repeating a statement Callahan made to the committee, company spokeswoman Kelley Benander said Yahoo "looks forward to working with the committee on constructive solutions to this complex issue."

Smith said Yahoo's support for his Global Online Freedom bill could spur other Internet companies to endorse it, too. "They would send a message to the other Internet and IT companies that there is a minimum standard — minimal corporate standards for online freedom," he said.

Smith's bill would ban companies from disclosing to governments such as China information identifying individual Internet users. Exceptions would be allowed when the U.S. Justice Department says such a disclosure is for a "legitimate law enforcement purpose."

The bill also would prohibit U.S. Internet service providers from blocking online content of U.S. government-financed sites and services. And it would mandate that companies disclose to a new State Department office any websites they block from foreign users. The bill calls for civil penalties as high as $2 million for businesses and $100,000 for individuals.

Tao is serving a 10-year prison sentence after Yahoo's now-defunct China arm turned over information about his online activities at the Chinese government's request. He was imprisoned for disclosing "state secrets," a charge often used against political opponents.

Callahan originally spoke to committee members in February 2006, when they were investigating the role of Yahoo and other Internet firms cooperating with repressive governments. He said Yahoo didn't know the facts of the case when it gave the information. But the committee staff found Yahoo employees did know the nature of the case, even if Callahan did not.

At the heart of this issue is the continuing globalization of the internet.  What is most amazing is that when CEO Jerry Yang was asked by a committee member what he would do if China said they would revoke Yahoo’s license to do business in China if he would not give them access to potentially sensitive U.S. information, Yang didn’t say he would refuse the request and suffer the loss of his Chinese business.  This issue points to the intense competition in global businesses.  Left unsaid by Yang was that if he didn’t comply, some other company would step in and comply.  This is putting business above the social good, and it is one more reason why regulations must be enacted  that limit what business can do when the social costs are high.

 

The real answer is provided by Robert Reich in his new book “Supercapitalism.” In it, Reich investigates what has happened to social morality, or the “corporate statesman.”  What he found is that we, yes we, are the unwitting culprits.  As new technologies have evolved, barriers to entry have lowered and competition has intensified.  There have been two beneficiaries of this intense competition:  The consumer and the investor.  This “supercapitalism” has driven companies to seek the lowest cost.  Those that accomplish this have a competitive advantage.   This drive toward lower costs often involves seeking the lowest labor markets, and an avoidance of concerns such as what effect the processes or actions have on the environment.  Yet, we as consumers flock to those companies that can give us the bargain prices.  At the other end, just about all of us are investors, whether it be through direct investment in the stock market, or through mutual funds or 401(k)s.  We want the highest returns from our investments.  And we benefit financially from those concerns.  This drive toward the highest returns has also intensified the effort on the part of companies to show their investors that they can provide the highest returns.  As a consequence, companies are more concerned about taking actions that improve their stock prices and dividends than they are in taking socially responsible positions. They can’t afford to, because if other companies offer higher returns, our fund managers will move our investments to other companies.  Or as individual investors we’ll sell the stock and move it somewhere that offers higher returns.  The focus is the short term.

So we need to examine ourselves.  We are schizophrenic.  We want these lower prices or higher returns, but another side of us is concerned about the negative social and environmental impacts. Even those companies that try to act more socially responsible (usually in specific areas and for limited times) often find themselves experiencing lower returns and thus lower stock prices, or higher costs.  There are numerous examples of companies who for years acted more socially responsible, and who eventually were acquired by other companies that took advantage of the lower value that resulted from their “social” conscience.   

A third issue is the time and money that lobbyists spend serving companies by trying to influence our laws.  These actions are primarily in response to the companies trying to get laws passed or prevent laws from being passed that may effect their  competitive position.  This is a result of the same intense competition.  So with their contributions to political campaigns, they get access to the congressmen and their staffs.  They dominate the discourse with our legislators.  They drown out the individuals and groups that represent the social good.  This results in the vast dissatisfaction the public has with congress.

As the final paragraphs in Reich’s book state:

“ The triumph of supercapitalism has led, indirectly and unwittingly to the decline of democracy.  But that is not inevitable.  We can have a vibrant democracy as well as a vibrant capitalism.  To accomplish this, the two spheres must be kept distinct.  The purpose of capitalism is to get great deals for consumers and investors.  The purpose of democracy is to accomplish ends we cannot achieve as individuals.  The border between the two is breached when companies appear to take on social responsibilities or when they utilize politics to advance or maintain their competitive standing. 

            We are all consumers and most of us are investors, and in those roles we try to get the best deals we possibly can.  That is how we participate in a market economy and enjoy the benefits of supercapitalism.  But those private benefits often come with social costs. We are also citizens who have a right and a responsibility to participate in a democracy.  We thus have it in our power to reduce those social costs, thereby making the true price of the goods and services we purchase as low as possible.  Yet we can accomplish this larger feat only if we take our responsibilities as citizens seriously and protect our democracy.  The first step, which is often the hardest, is to get our thinking straight.”[1]

So what do we do?  First, we need to pass campaign reform so that political campaigns are financed by the public.  This includes TV time being given equally to all candidates at no cost.  Next, we need laws that regulate how far companies can go in increasing the social costs resulting from their actions.    Only by having laws that all companies have to meet can we level the playing field, maintain fair competition, and assure we know what the true costs are to our citizens.    

Now that we have celebrated labor day, it is fitting that we reflect on the fact the United States laborer: Skilled, unskilled, professional and small business owner, is the hardest working laborer on the planet. Not only that, they are close to being the least rewarded for benefits and vacation time. One of the background issues in Inventions is corporate greed, or making money at all costs.  I won’t go into the details of how this issue plays into the plot, because I want you to read the book and see for yourself.   However, this issue is even more of an issue today than during the setting of the book.  More and more corporate executives have been caught modifying the books, back dating stock options and committing other corporate sins.  Of course Enron represents the poster child for this corporate mentality.  Even today, we see the greed on the part of mortgage lenders and junk bond companies that has led to the problems in the sub-prime market.  It is estimated that 358 individuals own more financial wealth than half the world’s population collectively owns. About one billion people earn less than one dollar a day.  We see China ignoring the problems of millions of people while the elite of China amass wealth.  The middle class in the U.S. is fighting to survive. We see the world’s natural resources being plundered to the point that we will be unable to sustain human life without some drastic measures being taken.  We are told that globalization is a good thing and that it is here to stay. But one must ask what has happened to our corporate morality?  This is also one of the subjects in a non-fiction book that I am currently working on.  What are your thoughts?

Paul

I hope you enjoy my new novel.  Post your blogs here.
Paul L. Woodring