THE DALY SHOW

Rush Confirms My Case: Right-Wing Media Scared

This is a posting about why you should stop watching cable news or listening to talk radio – for news. Plus, I found another alternative on satellite radio called POTUS.

LAS VEGAS, NV (January 31, 2009) – To delve into the recent silliness of Rush Limbaugh here only plays into his entertainment tricks. I won’t waste your time.

So, let me say this to any of you who still think Rush matters. If you had a broken leg would you go to a comedian? Then why would you go to an entertainer for news?

Rush’s goal – along with the rest of the characters in talk radio and cable news – is ratings. If you pay attention to these entertainers for anything else but laughs, then you are wasting your time. Enjoy sports or a good comedy or drama instead.

Here’s my caveat about watching cable news: breaking news. Most of the cable networks – especially during the day – are competent at the developing story. That doesn’t mean they get it right; many news stories rarely come into focus in the first minutes or hours. Yet, cable news and your local TV news, for that matter, are the first warning signals to us. And for that reason, they should be heeded.

But when it comes to understanding today’s issues in-depth – the economy and foreign policy – run as fast as you can from talk radio and cable news.

Here’s a book plug. My book shows you how to gain much more information in twenty minutes than the two hours you’d be forced to watch Keith, Rachel, BillO, Sean, or Greta. Drop me an email at info@johndaly.tv and I will send you an e-version of the book for free.

One reason for Rush’s antics is a switch in TV news habits. According to recent ratings, Americans are watching serious news in larger numbers. Granted, the economy has a lot to do with that; either folks are trying to figure out the mess or they’re at home without jobs.

Shows like CBS’ 60 Minutes, ABC’s Nightline, and PBS’ The News Hour with Jim Lehrer are seeing increases in viewership. The reason appears to be that these shows offer more in-depth coverage. More often on these shows, experts, not political hacks, are interviewed. Too often the cable shows stage a match between a Democrat and a Republican and the verbal version of a hockey game or Jerry Springer breaks out. Even CNBC has taken on this style.

Now, some of you will say these “serious news shows” appear on the so-called liberal media. Let’s examine that.

Yes, the media seems to have a love affair with Barack Obama. First, he made history. Second, he is the anti-George Bush: articulate and smart.

But is the infatuation with Obama because the media is liberal? Yes, there is some truth to that.

But here’s the more dominant reason. Obama is a great and new story. That’s far more important to people in the media. To be honest, most people I know in the media are a-political.

The critics screaming “liberal media bias” give reporters and editors too much credit. They’re not smart enough to dictate to the public what to think. The media, for the most part, listens to what the public is yearning for and they give it to them.

If you could listen to a morning news meeting at any station or network, the implied question is this to staffers: WAPTA. What Are People Talking About? Trust me; it’s much easier and less expensive than doing investigative journalism.

I think this is a far worse problem than so-called liberal media because the news business caves into what I call an Entertainment Bias.

Furthermore, if the media was so liberal why didn’t they correct the false allegations and innuendos about Al Gore (”I invented the internet”) that were perpetuated by the Rove-Bush machine? And why did the media so gleefully cover the Lewinsky story? Were they suddenly self-righteous members of the Moral Majority? No, there was a titillating story to report.

Another thing not mentioned recently: the day after President Obama announces his intention to close Gitmo as a prison for foreign war criminals, it was the New York Times, Sodom and Gomorra in the eyes of the right, that broke the story about the number of released detainees that have gone back to become combatants for al Qaeda. It was on the front page.

So, let’s temper the liberal media stuff. I’m not saying it doesn’t exist; it’s just not a dominant factor that so many right-wing whackos want you to believe.

Now let’s look at the other side.

Rush’s uber-bloviating could be out of ratings fear. There is reason to believe that the public is mounting a backlash against the Right-Wing media – namely Fox News and talk radio.

The ratings on Election Night were interesting. The winners were ABC News and CNN. NBC and CBS have been deemed far more liberal than ABC, while CNN has been perceived as more moderate compared to the extremists on MSNBC and Fox.

I think there is this perception. Entertainers like Rush, Hannity, and O’Reilly are partially to blame for the economic and foreign policy mess.

Is that true? Yes, but only when you add this: the extremist wing of the GOP allowed the falsehoods and one-sided diatribes from these jokesters to go unanswered – for their own political purposes.

But other knuckleheads – not just Rush – might be noticing it. Neil Cavuto on Fox News Channel and Fox Business News answered a viewer who accused him of criticizing only Democrats with a lengthy review of clips of him accusing Republicans of overspending. Ironically, those clips were all in 2008 and 2009. He certainly wasn’t saying that in 2004.

But enough picking low-hanging fruit.

While listening to Sirius Satellite Radio the other day, I found POTUS. POTUS means Politics of the United States. It’s a channel that covers Washington, DC. It even has actor Ron Silver, a Republican, as a host. But the content is truly fair and balanced.

One show called The Press Pool discussed President Obama’s choice of Al Arabiya Television for his first exclusive interview. The host – and I didn’t get his name and can’t find it online – brought on two separate guests. One was from the Media Research Institute, a conservative think-tank about the media. The other was Media Matters, a liberal website that keeps tabs on the media – especially the right-wingers.

Each guest was allowed to spill their views. The host was more interested in delving further into the guests’ thinking – without any agenda. It’s refreshing to listen to. I highly recommend it.

It reminded me of going to the right doctor for the right ailment.

My New Career

This is a tongue-in-cheek posting in the aftermath of the Blago impeachment.

LAS VEGAS, NV (January 29, 2009) — Now that Blago is out, I’m going on the comedy and impersonation circuit as the defamed governor from Illinois.

Hey it should be easy.  Everyone tells me I look like him.  All he’s doing is a cheesy Ronald Reagan mixed with a young Wayne Newton.

The only thing missing is a good photo shoot.  Can anyone out there, help?  I need you to photo shop my headshot.  It’s right there.  Email me at info@johndaly.tv if you need a PDF version.

Understanding Bank Mess Through Pit Bulls

This is a posting that might offer a clearer picture of the financial mess. I’ll use a column from a highly recommended economist along with some canine common sense to tame those ferocious hounds the banks unleashed on us. Either way, brace yourself for a big bite – maybe $2 trillion.

LAS VEGAS, NV (January 25, 2009) – Since September, we’ve realized one thing. No one can really figure out how to solve the economic solution.

One economist told me that a recession is like a hang-over. “You tell yourself two lies. The first is that you’re going to die. The second is that you can do something right now to end it.”

So, time is one solution. Some of us don’t have time, though, as jobs and our savings evaporate.

But there may be a sign that a solution is here.  (You’re not going to like this.)  It’s when all those crazy financial instruments – derivatives, credit default swaps, and hedge funds – come back.

Don’t click delete yet. I can hear what you’re saying.

So, Daly, what you’re saying is we need to allow the idiots who got us into this problem to go back out on the streets and do what they did before? That’s like saying you want the drunk drivers back out driving again.

Hear me out. I’m not nuts. And I am not a cheerleader for Wall Street. Sure, we need to crack some of the Wall Street higher-ups in the back of the head for spending money on retreat spas and office redecorating. These knuckleheads are really a small minority. And like it or not, we need them. And we need them to get back to work.

Some simple background is needed. The problem appears to be that the banks aren’t lending – despite the billions in TARP money. True, but banks don’t just lend money. They lend money and then they sell those loans to other institutions who sell them to investors. The banks then get paid and have more money to lend.

This is best described by John Mauldin, an economist who consults for investing firms. His newsletter, Thoughts from the Frontline, is quite good. It’s free. Yes, you have to weed through some pitches and personal stuff about John and his family and his travels.

But he will offer some gems. The most recent came in his column from January 23, 2009.

The real problem is that we vaporized an entire Shadow Banking System that bought securitized debt in a wide variety of forms: autos, homes, student loans, credit cards, etc. That industry exists no more.

Mauldin explains further what we took for granted.

A pension fund in Norway (or wherever) would look at the rating from Moody’s, see AAA, and buy it. Or banks would create off-balance-sheet vehicles (SIVs) to buy their debt and leverage it up, and book some nice profits. In any event, the debt did not end up on the banks’ balance sheets for very long.

Those off-balance sheet vehicles are like pit bulls. Everyone is frightened of pit bulls. They’re perceived as killers. But they’re not killers. Pit bulls are only killers when they’re trained to be killers. A good owner and trainer can turn these dogs into loving, friendly, and gentle pets.

It’s the same with these sophisticated financial instruments. They’re actually brilliant devices that help balance markets – if done correctly. The problem was they weren’t regulated and they lacked transparency. In short, no one trained them and they came back to bite us.

Remember the Michael Vick dog fighting chapter. Many of those dogs had to be destroyed since they were either so damaged or they were beyond being retrained. The same might be true for these financial instruments. It’s going to take a while to find some new dogs.

Now that process is broken, and it will not be fixed this year or next year or the year after that. We are going to have to come up with new ways of credit creation and debt processing. You can’t go to Goldman and tell them to start making auto loans. They simply don’t have the people to do that. Now, they used to be able to take auto loans from other actual originators and package them and sell them, but they did not make the loans. And the buyers for much of that securitized auto loan paper are gone. And they are not coming back any time soon without greater transparency and real capital guarantees and higher returns. A Moody’s (or any rating agency) rating is not worth the paper, as far as the markets are concerned.

Thus you understand President Obama’s desire to start regulating the financial markets right away. We need them back and running – but with transparency and regulation that we all understand.

If we can get that Shadow Banking system in place again, we will start to see lending and economic growth.

The economic activity might also increase the value of those toxic assets on the books of the banks and other financial institutions. Mauldin echoes what I wrote in some previous columns. The toxic assets being held by our financial institutions are far worse than we thought or the banks will tell us – and they’re only getting more worthless.

Mauldin, like me, believes we will need somewhere between $1 trillion and $2 trillion in this or future stimulus packages. Presidential Economic Advisor Larry Summers hinted at that this morning on Meet The Press. Economist and columnist Paul Krugman has been begging for something bold as well.

Either way, folks, prepare yourselves for more than a big bark from President Obama.  And yes, he will need to feed our financial institutions with money and a tight leash.

New Heroes: Sully The Pilot and Bailey The Road Warrior

This is a posting about the media attention on the U.S Airways pilot who safely landed the crippled jet into the Hudson River. We desperately need him and others. In fact, as you read on, I introduce you to another hero, another Sully. His name is Bill Bailey and he is trying to, literally, pave a future for our environment and some poor countries.

LAS VEGAS, NV (January 18, 2009) – Don’t be surprised at the extensive media coverage and attention to the successful emergency landing of US Air Flight 1549. It’s not the story’s news value. And it’s not because we have the actual video of the water crash. No, it’s the story’s psychological value.

We desperately need a hero.

Look at the parade of screw-ups and scoundrels we’ve had for the past eight years. The line-up includes many people in the Bush Administration – including the President, Vice President and other elected officials like the now incarcerated Duke Cunningham. Many of these are politically-connected people who didn’t get their jobs through merit but guile, cunning, and deceit.

The results show it: Katrina, the aftermath of the Iraq War, and the lack of policing in the well-connected and special interest spending financial industry.

In addition, we have some of the smartest people in America who used their brain power for self-gain and the destruction of others. As I mentioned in a previous column, Bernie Madoff is only the beginning.

So, we’ve been searching for a new American hero.

Enter Pilot Chesley B Sullenberger III – a.k.a Sully. Call it fate or a Black Swan event. It might be Divine Intervention where a benevolent God says, “OK, you’ve gone through enough. Here’s something I bestow on you. I call him Sully.”

Sully landed that crippled jet into the Hudson River. Reports say Sully was the last man off the floating craft. He wanted to make sure everyone was out safely. Wow, a leader who feels his life is no more important than others.

Sully also made what seemed to be a split-second decision after considering a multitude of options. Wow, a leader who is a certified expert.

Take a look at his bio and his education and you’ll understand how Sully performed flawlessly under pressure. He’s well-educated in his field and he has a deep pride and interest in what he does. It’s no wonder that Sully shrugged off his heroism as just something he does.

Memo to Barack Obama: Sully sits in the gallery and is introduced at your first State of the Union.

Sully fits Obama’s style. The comparison is too rich. Sully safely maneuvering a crippled aircraft is an allegory for Obama’s treacherous journey to a hopefully soft-landing in the economy. In these times, we need something that obvious.

In other words, Barack doesn’t have to go it alone. Sully is there. And the media gets it.

I write a lot about media bias. I try to be balanced by not offering too much opinion, but uncovering the different forms of bias. Some bias is inevitable. The Sponsor Bias goes without saying. Some media outlets will not tell the truth or avoid certain stories about sponsors who help keep them in business. I don’t like the trade-off, but I understand it. And I feel compelled to write about it so folks can make their own assessment.

Another media bias is Entertainment Bias. The extreme is the constant coverage of people like Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears. It’s journalism that borders on an uncomfortable voyeurism. I felt it for John Travolta after the untimely death of his son. Please stop the stories and allow them to grieve in private.

But here’s where media bias – or in this case Entertainment Bias — is good. The media understands what we as a people need. And they have presented us with Sully.

He’s not rich; he lives in middle class America with what seems to be the every-American family. He’s not young; he’s 57 with decades of flying experience. And according to reports, he’s humble. All indications are he’s not going to change either. It makes you feel that W and Bernie are in the rear view mirror.

But Sully is not alone. Look around and you will find more Sully’s. I have.

His name is Bill Bailey. Bill may come across as a good old boy.  But like Sully, he is well-educated in his field with decades of experience.  He also has great pride in his work.  He carries around a plastic cup of gray rubber pellets that might be an answer to pulling some countries out of poverty.

Let me explain.  Bill works on roads. More precisely, he has created technologies that turn tires into asphalt.

The process is not new. It’s been around for almost 30 years. Simply put, you crush up old tires, treat them, add them to a hot mixture, and then spread it on the roads. Decades of testing show that tire asphalt creates roads that need less maintenance, are quieter, and are safer since cars can stop quicker in the rain.

And environmentally, for every one mile of paved highway with tire asphalt, 2000 tires are removed from landfills. That means less toxicity in nearby drinking water and less chance of those choking tire fires.

The problem is that this technology is expensive and cumbersome. To pave a road you need to bring what seems to be an entire factory to the site. So unless you have miles and miles of road to pave, tire asphalt might be too costly. In other words, if you wanted to pave your driveway or your backyard for your kid’s basketball court, you might need another mortgage.

That is until now.

Bill and his partner Ian Cousins formed the company and clever moniker Billian International. Together, they created a process – that is now patented – that will allow the tire asphalt process to be done on a smaller, less expensive scale. Take a look at this crude but revealing video of their testing.

Primarily, Bill and Ian have created a way to treat the crushed tire so the tire pellets — the ones he carries around as samples — can be used in the field efficiently while maintaining the long-term integrity of the finished road. Now Billian will license that process to paving companies. Billian will also build plants for entrepreneurs who can remove tires from their landfills and turn them into pellets to sell to paving companies. (We’re discussing franchising such plants.)

Yes, there is a business opportunity here for many of you.

And there is a great opportunity for Bill and Ian to make a lot of money. Look at all the infrastructure projects that will be funded through the Obama Economic Stimulus Package. Some of it could be heading indirectly in Bill Bailey’s direction.

But when I sit with Bill and talk about his technology, it’s not about the money. He wants to improve the world. “We can go over to some of those countries and pave roads in between villages and help them create commerce,” he tells me. He has a big smile and says, “We can do some good.”

And that “good” comes in the form of helping to grow an economy while cleaning up the environment rather than the decades of corporate indifference to the health and well-being of foreign people.

Some disclosure here. I’m trying to help Bill Bailey raise money to launch and market Billian. So yes, I have a financial interest in talking about him here.

But if you could sit with Bill and hear him talk about this, you too would be inspired beyond just making money.

Even if you don’t believe me about Bill’s intentions, what’s so cool about his work is that he’s creating something. He’s manufacturing. It’s not a financial instrument with illusionary money that most of us don’t understand.

Getting back to making stuff is what we need.

And Bill Bailey, along with Sully and Barack, have a chance of making a difference for all of us – and with all of us.

This Week’s Shows

John Daly’s Sports-News Talk and Futrell & Daly are airing on the Sports By Line Network across the country on 100 different radio stations from 10 pm to 1 am Eastern time and 7 pm to 10 pm Pacific time. Check your local listings at this site. If it doesn’t air in your area, call the station and request it. Or you can also see the video version of the shows on TV4U in a week.

LAS VEGAS, NV (January 17, 2009) – Here’s what you will see and hear on the shows that were shot at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

On Futrell & Daly, Ron and I discuss the start of the racing phenomena in Las Vegas back when we were TV newscasters in town. Ron tells the great story of the first race in Las Vegas. We also go over our predictions for the NFL’s League Championship games. And we cover the NHL’s outdoor hockey game which may be coming back to Las Vegas.

In addition, Ron and I remember some of the great times we’ve had with our military guys. For me, it has been my years playing in a celebrity golf event at Camp Lejeune, NC with the U.S. Marines raising money for the Wounded Warriors. The next event is in June and I will fill you in.

Check out Ron’s website — www.localslovevegas.com – where you can get a chance to win six tickets to the 2009 NASCAR Week February 27 to March 1.

On John Daly’s Sports-News Talk, John Demarco of www.lasvegasgolf.com discussed what’s happening with golf courses around Sin City and what deals are available. In addition, John offers our listeners a special deal if they book tee times at this site or on this toll-free number: 1-866-699-1777.

Also on John Daly’s Sports-News Talk, we hear from Michael Geeser of American Automobile Association about planning that road trip to Spring Training or a Major League Baseball excursion of your choice.

Missing The Point of Atlas Shrugged

 This is a posting about a piece written by Stephen Moore in the Wall Street Journal about Ayn Rand’s classic novel Atlas Shrugged and its relevance to today’s economic crisis. Although I agree with most of what Moore says, I think he fails to mention the true meaning of Atlas. I would also encourage you to read another classic, The Great Gatsby, which has many more lessons we fail to learn.

LAS VEGAS, NV (January 12, 2009) – Stephen Moore is an economics writer for the Wall Street Journal. He’s also a frequent guest on news and business talk shows. I enjoy him and his work. This past weekend he wrote a piece January 9, 2009 called Atlas Shrugged: From Fiction To Fact in 52 Years. It was well-written. Here’s Moore’s nice description of Ayn Rand’s work that has become the Bible for libertarians.

For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises — that in most cases they themselves created — by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.

Moore also makes his pitch to gather new converts.

If only “Atlas” were required reading for every member of Congress and political appointee in the Obama administration. I’m confident that we’d get out of the current financial mess a lot faster.

Not so fast, Stephen.

Like most libertarians and followers of Ayn Rand, Moore has missed the true meaning of Rand and her effect on American life in 2009.

First, Rand has already bled into the fabric of American life and business. Look at the millions of small businesses in America. Look at the number of people who work full-time and have businesses on the side. Imagine how many more enterprises will sprout as the Internet becomes a ubiquitous form of distribution and we shake off the old ways of last century’s corporate culture. Even Democrats, once known as strictly the party of unions and welfare recipients, understand the need to spur business to create jobs.

Rand, for me, is imbedded into the thinking of most Americans who haven’t even read the book.

But secondly and more importantly, libertarians and Randites fail to see the Rand-created villains that still exist today in their own ranks – namely Wesley Mooch. Mooch is a mediocre bureaucrat who becomes the nation’s economic dictator through betrayal and well-placed connections.

Who is Wesley Mooch today? He is the lobbyist and campaign donor; he’s also the corporate executive who wines, dines and lavishly entertains our elected officials behind closed doors. These are the people who have helped kill innovation today: look no further than our car companies.

Trust me, I’ve seen it. I’ve met many of these elected officials and business leaders who are nice guys but cannot intelligently, let alone intellectually, converse on issues that affect our way of life and business. Yet, they set policy; policy that’s based on who pays them – not on what’s good for America.

(Look at TV news – especially cable news. People like Ann Coulter are always on air because she offers “good television,” not because she has intelligent insight and information.)

While we try to figure out whom to give bailout money to, we forget that most politicians in both parties have gotten sweetheart deals from big business on mortgages, land deals, and campaign donations. The secret wiretappings of Gov. Blago are the norm, not the exception. Does Duke Cunningham ring a bell? You can add others still in Congress like Rangel, Dodd, and Frank.

And this won’t stop. Why? It makes too much sense (and cents) for big business to curry favor with politicians who are making laws. Laws can and will be tweaked to benefit the donor. It’s a small investment that can return millions. But it also creates an unfair advantage to small businesses that don’t have the clout, money, or access.

And this is where Moore and the Randites look silly. Their ranks are loaded with Wesley Mooches and they don’t even know it. I love to hear corporate bigwigs scream about how high our taxes are in America. Yet, they fail to mention the give-backs the politicians bestow on them. With those give-backs included, the U.S. has one of the lowest net corporate tax rates, according to many analysts. And then we scream about other nations stopping free trade.

And what’s even more amazing is the number of people who are small business people who will take to the Rand pulpit and defend these give-backs that will never reach them.

If Ayn Rand were alive today, she’d be asking for the abolishment of all forms of campaign contribution. Politicians don’t need it. They have the internet and other forms of mass communication to inform and educate the masses. But it’s much easier to line their pockets with money from donors and large media companies who reap profits from those donors in the form of campaign advertising.

Wake up, Randites and libertarians. You’ve been invaded by Mooches. And you have yourselves to blame because you’ve gotten lazy and rested on the original interpretation of Atlas.

I’m sure libertarians have just placed their version of a fatwa on me. This is blasphemy to them. But libertarians, like staunch liberals and conservatives, fall in love with their philosophies; they stop thinking and evolving. Think back on the famous adage of “No new taxes.” It sounds good and it’s well-founded economic theory – only if you include spending cuts.

Ayn Rand was an anti-Communist who woke us up to the pitfalls of Socialism. It’s no different than what Marx did in the 1800s; he woke us up to the pitfalls of capitalism. Both thinkers – and many others like Darwin and Keynes – transformed society; how we live and how we do business.

America is an evolving, reactive society. We don’t follow one philosophy. We’re a melting pot of thought. What makes us exceptional is our ability to form new forward thinking through social and business experimentation.

Ayn Rand is a major part of that American progress. So is Marx — whether we like it or not. (If Marx were alive today, we’d be listening to him on TV and one of the things he’d be upset about is the portrayal of his theories by the totalitarians in Soviet Russia and Red China in the last century.) But Keynes and Darwin are also strongly embedded in our thinking. Many others, too.

Should you read Atlas? Absolutely. It’s a great work. It is one of my five most influential books in American history. (A literary note: read Alan Greenspan’s autobiography. He was a Rand disciple and spent a lot of time with her in the 1950s and 1960s and he offers some interesting insight into Rand.)

But Atlas is not the Bible as most libertarians think. It has its flaws.

My problem with Atlas is its homage to one man – John Galt – who has the answers while being persecuted and tortured by the enemies of society. In the end of the novel, he is exalted as the messiah to America who will deliver us to true capitalism. This is trite and one dimensional.

Galt is the creation of a Russian writer; surely an anti-Communist, but also a Russian. Russia loves their strong-armed, rugged, individual leaders – not intellectuals or sacrificing servants. The line of dictators and despots starts from Peter The Great, Catherine The Great, through the czars, Lenin, and ending today with Putin. Can you make a literary connection between Galt and Putin? Sure, they’re both bringing order back to society that have been ravaged by their enemies.

Sorry, folks, but parts of Rand smack of Fascism. Still, that doesn’t remove the lessons we Americans have derived from Atlas.

My suggestion is to also read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. (It’s shorter reading.) This is still the greatest American novel. It was written in 1925 and its lessons still ring true.

Like Gatsby’s 1920s parties, we just lived in “orgiastic” times. Now the party is over with plenty of hang-over headaches. Some of our high and mighty have had Gatsby like endings – dead and motionless in the bottom of a swimming pool.

Gatsby’s gangsters are no different than today’s. Meyer Wolfsheim is the 1920s version of Bernie Madoff. Gatsby says Wolfsheim “fixed the 1919 World Series.” The laudatory tone of Gatsby’s description of Wolfsheim is similar to the pre-crisis belief that someone with money must be a good person. No one dared question Madoff’s incomprehensible returns: he’s rich. I’ll let you decide if stealing $50 billion equates to fixing the 1919 World Series.

(Another literary note: Wolfsheim is the dramatic creation of Arnold Rothstein, the gambler who really set the Black Sox scandal into motion. Read the book Eight Men Out or see the film.)

Gatsby even foresees the environmental crises that will occur decades later. He takes the famous Hawthorne poem, Evangeline, in the 1800s that extols “a forest primeval” and turns it into “This is the valley of ashes” in Gatsby. Fitzgerald laments that all those trees the first Dutch sailors saw in America are gone.

What’s amazing about Gatsby is that it was written in the 1920s – before the Depression. Yet, Fitzgerald saw that coming, too. Rand, on the other hand, wrote about the effects of Communism decades after 1917.

Like Gatsby, we Americans “are borne back ceaselessly into the past” to our detriment. Gatsby thought he could go back into the past and find love with Daisy. We Americans constantly think we can find that fountain of youth or the financial model that will make us all wealthy. The truth is we age and the economy has cycles.

We also believe we can find that one philosophy – like the 1950s Biblical lessons of Atlas – to find utopia. But society changes along with our technology and our thinking. The lessons of the 1950s don’t entirely apply today.

We fail to learn the lessons of Gatsby — until it’s too late. We’re “like boats against the currents”. We struggle, survive, and then thrive through traumas like Steinbeck’s 1930s Grapes of Wrath and the upheavals of today.

US Dissolves. Russian Hope or American Lesson?

This is a posting about a Russian analyst who believes the United States will not exist by 2010 and will be broken up into various parts owned by other countries. Sure, it’s silly stuff. But let’s look at the underlying reasons for such a prediction – while looking at ourselves.

LAS VEGAS, NV (January 3, 2009) – According to Igor Panarin, in two years I’ll be living here in Las Vegas under the government of the Peoples Republic of China.

Panarin is a Russian academic who has predicted that the United States would dissolve into four different countries and be run by other countries.

For example, the Northeast and parts of the Midwest would be part of the European Union. (Would that mean easier access to Amsterdam?)

The northern plains would be Canadian. (Think of how much better the NHL would be with fewer teams. And Canada almost certainly wins the gold medal in the winter Olympics.)

The Republic of Texas would be part of Mexico. (And this will bring one of the bloodiest civil wars of all time. Bush and Cheney would be the new el Presidentes, getting what they’ve wanted all along: controlling all oil reserves and declaring war on a group of people who are clearly evil — the drug traffickers.)

And folks like me in the Far West would be under China. (I can see us Las Vegans thinking that the gaming industry will prosper greatly. But I doubt our comrades in Idaho are going to be passive when it comes to the Chinese.)

And, here’s the best: Russia would get Alaska back. (Wouldn’t that be justice for Sarah Palin? If she’s still governor, she would be taking orders from Vlad Putin.)

Surely, this is silly stuff. Panarin is trained by the Kremlin so there is plenty of Russian wishful thinking. It makes me realize that Russian intelligence is as out of whack as ours was before 9/11.

I emailed the article to my friend, John Alexander, a PhD who consults for U.S. Special Forces. He wrote back: “While we have some significant problems, I suspect he (Panarin) is pretty far off base.”

Panarin really doesn’t appear (notice I said “doesn’t appear”) to “get” Americans. And I’d bet he never saw Casablanca. Remember the Nazi, Major Strasser. He asks Rick about German forces marching into New York City. Rick replies, “Well there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn’t advise you to try to invade.” The same holds true today whether it’s Baltimore, Miami, LA, or Boise.

Apparently Panarin thinks Americans and Russians are alike. A Washington Post article offers some good counter-balance to Panarin. The article quotes Thomas Baerwald, an investigator in a project called “Beyond Borders” and past president of the Association of American Geographers. He compares Americans to the citizens who were living under the former Soviet Union.

“We constantly were corrected when we tried to use the term ‘Soviets’ as a catch-all phrase for residents of the U.S.S.R.,” Baerwald says. “People firmly told us that they were Russians or Lithuanians or Estonians or Ukrainians or other terms that identified a region or subregion that described their own geographical identity. In contrast, if you ask U.S. residents what term describes who they are, an enormous majority will reply ‘I am an American.’ Even in those places where regional loyalties are especially strong, such as Texas, loyalties to the U.S. are far greater than they are to states or regions.

Still, Panarin’s predictions resonate. He hits home in a slightly unsettling way. No one in America would have heard of Panarin if the Wall Street Journal didn’t publish a front-page story on his findings and the Russian media frenzy following him. Ironically, it is still the most read article on the Wall Street Journal online. Don’t negate this.

So, someone is obviously giving Panarin an ounce of “what if?”

And it’s for good reason, too. We are in a financial mess that most of us can’t figure out. We see our leaders – namely the supposedly smarts ones like Paulson and Bernanke – scratching their heads. President Obama has to put together a team that is non-partisan; in other words, they really have to work since going to Washington isn’t a perk anymore but a responsibility as a citizen of this country. He’s really serious and that scares us.

I’ve written about a possible Armageddon here. I still say you need to keep cash on reserve for 2009 and be prepared to protect yourself and your loved ones. Too often, I hear from friends – wealthy friends – who don’t sleep at night wondering if their fortunes are going to be wiped out.

We also hear from pundits, sure they seem extreme, who say we’re printing so much money that we will have devalued the dollar to nothing, leading us to a regional currency called the Amero that will include Mexico and Canada. Others say our debt is owned by China, Saudi Arabia, and Dubai: if we default, then they own us. Hey we trashed the analysts a few years ago who said we are headed for a housing collapse. Who wouldn’t at least listen to these new theories?

However, before you run for the hills with shot-guns and survivalist supplies or you start trying to speak a foreign language to get acquainted with your new oppressors or lawmakers, let me assure you I’m only making a point here. We’re not going to disintegrate.

However, Panarin’s theory is partially right. And this is the lesson we need to take from the theories of this Russian.

We have disintegrated as a country. We have strayed from our ideals. Am I condemning America? No, we suffered through 9/11 and its effects are far deeper than we imagined. As a result, we have, at times, stopped being the America we once were.

When President Bush and VP Cheney point to their enduring achievement, it’s that we were not attacked again on American soil after 9/11. They’re right. But they’re wrong, too. As a result of that goal, which we all clung to, we became a different country. We invaded Iraq. We told the rest of the world, “You’re either with us or against us.” We became a black and white country; we never saw the gray. Our leaders sounded like Fascists. We acted like Fascists, torturing to allegedly stop torture.

Am I condemning this out-going Administration? Not totally. I was not in their shoes. I don’t know what they faced. However in hindsight, they responded like frightened old men. They headed to the bunkers and failed to lead.

There’s a good book. It’s called, The Idea That Is America: Keeping Faith With Our Values In A Dangerous World. It’s written by Anne-Marie Slaughter.

She points out that America is currently in a state of trying to seek power as an end in itself and as a result the world looks at us as ignorant, immoral, and incompetent imperialists.

Slaughter also points out that these values are the foundation of our country: liberty, democracy, equality, justice, tolerance, humility and faith. She points out how we have failed to live up to them.

What we show the rest of the world too often is Madison Avenue, rich and loud American entertainers, sports figures, and business executives who are the extremist minority of America. For instance, we never questioned Bernie Madoff because he was exceedingly wealthy, but that was the reason we should have questioned him.

The world sees the lavish Super Bowl half-time show but is never taught the intricacies or beauties of the football game. I don’t know about you, but I have barely seen any Super Bowl half-time show.

One of the consequences of losing our real values is this economic downturn. This is my take, not necessarily Slaughter’s. We offered plenty of liberty to certain interest groups who had money and pull with our elected leaders while failing to create equality – especially in business. Our founding fathers were worried about “human fallacies” so they gave us a system of checks and balances. This Bush Administration and some Democrats in power discarded those values – especially the checks on greed in business.

The two values we need to concentrate on are humility and faith. As powerful and as smart as we Americans are, we don’t have all the answers. We need input from other countries. We also need to say every now and then to the world, “We screwed the pooch.” The War in Iraq and the economic downturn would be two good places to start.

Subconsciously, we Americans know this. That’s why we voted the way we did in November. That’s why some forward thinking people like Newt Gingrich, now in the minority, are telling the GOP to start being a party of ideas, not whining obstructionists.

I think Obama will at least give us a humble face to the rest of the world. We’ll see how long that lasts when he faces the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Surely, we need to stand with Israel, but we also need to make sure that the power of the Israeli military doesn’t create more conflict among the down-trodden Palestinians. It’s in our interest – and Israel’s – to have a prosperous Palestine.

And our faith. We’ve lost a lot of faith – thanks to religion. Slaughter points out that many of our religious institutions divide us rather than including some of the good secular themes such as tolerance. And the secularists are just as much to blame (maybe me too) by automatically dismissing all of the overly religious as stupid or intolerant.

So, don’t read Panarin — and his theories of Russian wishful thinking — with disdain. No, read it with some humility and faith, and then take away something to make America stronger.

MLB TV Spells Trouble In Two Ways

This is a posting after watching the first few days of the new television network dedicated entirely to baseball. I’m scared for myself now and for viewers later. Expect a nasty legal fight in a few years.

LAS VEGAS, NV (January 2, 2009) – I’ve just spent part of the morning watching Don Larsen throw his perfect game in the 1956 World Series.  It’s on the new MLB TV.

My fear: My business will start to fail and I’m going to get fat. (OK, fatter!)

I then caught myself during commercials – the ones for Gillette razors with Birdie Tebbets in the 1950s and the ones today – searching to see when other shows are airing. I have to know when the discussion of off-season trades and free agent signings – otherwise known as the Hot Stove League – will be airing. I’m so screwed.

I live baseball and diligently follow the Red Sox. I have been a baseball nut since I was five. I remember parts of the 1961 Series. I also remember the dramatic end to the 1962 Series: a line-out by the Giants Willie McCovey to the Yankees Bobby Richardson. The pitcher was Ralph Terry with whom I’ve played golf in the past few years and have been able to talk to him about it. Think about it. I talked to him about something that he participated in and I remember from 46 years ago. And now I can relive it all over again.

MLB will be like a sedative for many of us dealing with the economic downturn. Watching the fuzzy black and white of the Yankees and Dodgers in 1956 was very settling. It brought us back to a time that was simpler. As Jackie Robinson strides to the plate, we tell ourselves that even the seeds of removing our racist past were evident back then. For many too, it will help remind us of what our parents and grandparents loved.

Fortunately, MLB TV only comes in on one TV in my house. And apparently you can’t watch it online – only on cable or satellite.

That means there may be Information Age problems in a few years.

Major League Baseball owns the majority (67%) of the network while cable and satellite owners have a minority (33%) stake. This agreement allows the network to get on the air in many homes.

However, what happens in a few years when people start getting their television programming from the Internet? Will the minority ownership allow MLB TV reach more people at a lower cost at their expense? You could see a major fissure in this agreement or you might see cable and satellite companies restricting who can get MLB TV.

Already the seeds of this conflict are appearing. Ion Network (formerly Pax) is battling the cable companies. Ion wants to create an Urban TV Network, but they want to launch it with local TV stations that now have four or five channels to program once the digital age of TV begins next month.

The cable companies won’t air the Urban TV Network on the local television tier without getting paid for it directly even though cable companies are required to carry local TV stations’ programs. Expect a good battle here and to spill over to other media outlets who want more audience with less cost.

The fallout for cable could be this. The cost of cable has risen – despite the fact I can’t get whatever NFL game I want. So, if people can go to their local TV stations or the Internet for programming similar to cable and it’s free, then cable is in trouble.

This shouldn’t bother us baseball addicts too much over the next few years, though. So enjoy it.  Just warn your spouse.

Claiborne Pell: Obit

This is a posting about the death of Rhode Island Senator Clairborne Pell who I interviewed a number of times from 1985 to 1987.  He was a bit quirky, almost like the absent-minded professor.  However, he was always available for an interview to answer any question.  And when reporters examined which lawmakers were working late, Senator Pell was one of the few, if not the only one, who was still working late into the night.  Yes, he was wealthy, but he was a dedicated public servant.  Here is a link to his obit.