Archive for March, 2009

Tough Love Only for Detroit?

Posted by Bob Kumagai in Business, Politics on March 30th, 2009

Is BHO demanding too much from the car companies while giving the princes of Wall Street a free pass? It might look that way, but upon closer inspection, most of the guys that drove us into the ditch are already gone. The public ouster of GM’s Rick Wagoner seems to be a bit of public relations flogging designed to keep the pitchfork and torch crowd appeased. Ever since GM’s former CEO jetted to DC last November aboard the company’s private jet to beg for government bridge loans, he’s been a dead man walking. That level of PR and political tone-deafness just can’t go unpunished. No doubt, he’s probably a great guy, has dedicated himself to the company for over 30 years and likely has forgotten more than most industry experts know, but somebody has to pay for the collective stupidity and organizational decline of the US auto industry. Besides, his early retirement package might be worth up to $20 million (provided GM doesn’t go into bankruptcy) so let’s not get too compassionate about his new job description, Chief Scapegoat, Automobile Division.

scapegoat 

Things could be worse – he could have Vikram Pandit’s job at Citi; federal regulators inserting the protoscope into every deal, the weight of the global economy on his shoulders and mudslingers calling him out every day. All this for $1 annual base salary and no bonus. Where do I sign up?

The obvious question is why is the Prez demanding so much from Detroit and, it would seem, so little from Wall Street? The $39 billion that Chrysler and GM are asking for looks to be only about 25% of what AIG has cost so far.  By the time we’re done burning through TARP 1.0 and 2.0, the Detroit portion of the tab is going to look like a rounding error. GM and Chrysler have been run just about as badly as Bank of America and Citigroup – yet the car company is jumping through hoops and the CEO is getting his head chopped off, the bank CEO apparently can pick up the phone and call Washington (collect, of course) for more money. It just seems odd.

Many of the highest level clowns that were stuffed into the Volkswagen that caused the financial market collapse have been sent packing – Chuck Prince of Citigroup, Joseph Cassano of AIG,  Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide, Jimmy Cayne of Bear Stearns, John Thain of Merrill Lynch, the list goes on and on. I guess Rick Wagoner joins this motley crew of failed executives.

, ,

No Comments

Is Bono Wrong? Dambisa Moyo thinks so.

Posted by Bob Kumagai in Business, Politics, That's Life on March 27th, 2009

Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo writes in “Dead Aid” that the money spent on foreign aid to Africa has created a dependency mindset that has hobbled the continent’s ability to become a productive part of the developed world. This is a provocative argument (to say the least) that the former Goldman Sachs and World Bank executive puts forth, i.e., that the more than trillion dollars that the U.S. and other nations have channeled to Africa over the last half century may be doing more harm than good. In essence, Moyo believes that the world’s response to photos of starving babies has unintentionally created a perpetual welfare state. She allows that such governmental foreign aid is to be differentiated from emergency humanitarian aid as well as the work and contributions of NGO’s that deliver resources directly to the needy. That said, Moyo believes that foreign aid should be shut off within the next decade – presumably to allow Africa’s governments to bootstrap themselves to financial self-sufficiency through trade, foreign investment and bond issuance. In other words – stop feeling sorry for Africa and start doing business ala China and India. See Lisa Miller’s article in Newsweek, “Thanks, Bono, but No Thanks” for more background.

Dambisa Moyo interviewed by Charlie Rose on March 25

,

No Comments

Better Late…

Posted by Bob Kumagai in That's Life on March 25th, 2009

Figuring out what to read is among the many tasks involved in preparing for a vacation. When much of your daily reading is for information, one is always trying to keep up with what you should be reading, not what you would like to read. As I was getting ready to leave for a recent trip where sitting on my derriere in a beach chair was the main planned activity, it occured to me that I had no idea what to bring. I remembered picking up a copy of The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri last summer – never had a chance to start it, but thought this would be the time.

Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri's first novel

This is the first novel from Lahiri, author of Interpreter of Maladies, a collection of short stories that earned the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The Namesake was published in 2003 and so I am a mere 6 years and hundreds of stellar reviews late to the party. Her prose is refreshingly clear and descriptive – a tale of trying to bridge the world of old country customs and identity with the new immigrant reality; of being “other”, not completely American nor Bengali. This is a story that resonates with anyone that is within or is a generation removed from the immigrant experience. Suffice it to say, the beach was great and the book was fabulous. Now I look forward to reading Interpreter of Maladies as well as her newest collection of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth. In the first, I will be close to 10 years late, in the latter, a mere 10 months late – I can’t wait.

,

No Comments

Confused? So are they…

Posted by Bob Kumagai in Politics, That's Life on March 22nd, 2009

This much we can all agree upon:

  1. The economy is circling the drain and my crystal ball shows that things are likely going to get worse before they get better.
  2. My crystal ball sucks. So does yours.
  3. Whether you’re a conservative or a liberal, you’ve got your fingers crossed that BHO and Tim-G have one that works at least a little better than ours.
  4. Will Rogers never met Rush Limbaugh

That’s pretty much it. Everything else is up for a vigorous, if not clueless, debate. The GOP Congressional delegation, now reduced to the back-bench, is claiming an apocalyptic vision of government bankruptcy. Whether it’s House minority leader John Boehner predicting Doomsday if we don’t cut taxes again, or de facto GOP chairman Limbaugh bloviating on how Americans will come crawling back to the Republicans on their knees after Obama fails, the nation seems to have stopped listening. On the other hand, Rachel Maddow can’t stop saying “we won, that’s why” as the primary rationale for the Administration’s aggressive spending proposals on energy, healthcare, education and just about anything else that the Republicans have said “no” to for the past 8 years. Economists run true to form, i.e., 3 economists generate at least 4 differing opinions. Deficits are the end of the world. Deficits are not that bad.

$9 trillion deficit – and that’s providing things start to turnaround big by early 2010. Transformational changes in the employment base due to renewable energy, infrastructure projects and long-term investments/spending in education. Big savings by modernizing IT in the healthcare industry. Oh, and no crazy al Qaeda attacks to change the plan for withdrawal from Iraq and redeployment in Afghanistan. We really want to believe that the Prez is right. He’d better be or we’ll all need to start taking Mandarin Chinese lessons so that we can go to work for our primary debt holders.

,

No Comments

BHO on JTV

Posted by Bob Kumagai in Business, Politics, That's Life on March 20th, 2009

So the Prez decided to take his case directly to the public and go over the heads (not such a big task I suppose) of the pesky Washington press and the bomb-throwing GOP back benchers. It seemed a little odd to have a sitting President doing PR for his economic plan, and offering a spirited defense of Tim Geithner, in the same chair that Reese Witherspoon occupied the night before to promote Legally Blonde 5. In any case, you really can’t dislike him or the message that he conveys. Despite the small “Special Olympics” gaffe, the Prez gave the nation some sense of comfort that the country can work its way out of this mess. Whether his determination to pour giga-huge amounts of dough into education, energy and fixing the trainwreck that is healthcare while dealing with the banking crisis is wise – only time will tell.

Let’s hope that Tim G gets his act together (please hire some help Mr. Secretary) sooner rather than later and that he and BHO can pull all the right levers. We need them both to be great.

, , ,

No Comments

What If?

Posted by Bob Kumagai in Parenting, That's Life on March 19th, 2009

There is something that makes the death of Natasha Richardson even more vexing – what if she had worn a helmet? My kids have both worn helmets for snowboarding, skiing, skateboarding, biking, etc., since they were old enough to participate in any of those activities. It is such an expected part of their activities that they don’t complain about the negative hair effects, the dorkiness – they know that getting your eggs scrambled in a hard fall is not the desired outcome. Both of the kids remark on seeing motorcyclists sans helmet as “organ donors”. I started wearing a helmet for cycling after the birth of our first child. The realization that I was responsible for another person made me think wearing one was probably a good idea. Same for skiing – although I had skied without from age 5 and fallen, hard, plenty of times. I had worried that my desire to see as many risks to my kids mitigated as possible would result in them being risk-averse; not a good thing either.

Ms. Richardson’s death may have been unavoidable – might have had nothing to do with anything other than the fact that life is utterly unpredictable and occasionally cruel. But maybe wearing a helmet isn’t such a big price to pay.

No Comments

Hope for the GOP

Posted by Bob Kumagai in Politics on March 16th, 2009

Top 10 Ways for the GOP to Become More Hip

No Comments

Really good customer service – slopestyle

Posted by Bob Kumagai in Business, Colorado on March 6th, 2009

So I bought a snowboard last season – got tired of the hassle of renting and the razzing from my kids about how ‘old school’ I was for being on skis. Picked up a Ride Havoc board and Ride LX bindings from REI (the keeper of most of my discretionary spending – let’s just say that this year’s dividend was alarmingly large). My 11 year-old declared the deck set-up as “sweet” so I knew I had done something right.

This season, one of the binding buckles was sheared-off (due to me slamming into my daughter, totally out of control) making it tough to strap-in. I emailed the good folks at Ride and within a couple of hours, they sent a note back to me offering to send a new buckle strap. No questions, just took care of it. A couple of weeks ago, the other toe strap started to tear – same process – email Ride, customer service takes care of it by FedEx’ing a replacement strap. No questions, just done. That, my friends, is solid customer service. Does Ride make the best snowboard equipment on the planet? Frankly, I don’t know and I don’t care. They do have my business from now on…

No Comments

Marissa Mayer of Google

Posted by Bob Kumagai in Business, Technology on March 6th, 2009

Interesting interview with Google’s Vice President of Search Product and User Experience. Really smart people do tend to come up with really good products if they are driven by the desire to improve the user experience.

,

No Comments

Shoelaceapalooza

Posted by Bob Kumagai in Business on March 5th, 2009

My son has been working on his appearance lately in some interesting ways. Let’s just say that 6 months ago I was lucky to get him to bathe once a week. Packing for a week-long vacation typically involved 2 pair of underwear. Lately, as the hormones have kicked into overdrive, he has been getting in the shower at 5:45A every single day. Girls, it would seem, have joined skateboarding as his primary area of interest.

In order to be cool in both of those areas, one requires skate or deck shoes. These shoes must be either completely free of shoelaces or have a lacing system that would put the average suspension bridge to shame. He has experimented with multiple colors, length and thicknesses in order to reach the desired look. Today I came across a site dedicated to the art of shoelacing – Ian’s Shoelace Site. My initial response was “why?” but upon closer inspection I realized that this was the Mecca of lacing resources. Now I need to drop the subtle hint to my son that he can earn a degree in lacing. The web is an amazing place.

No Comments