PARADISE LOST

I read on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times yesterday an article by Greg Smith, "Why I am Leaving Goldman Sachs". Then today, I note, the world press is picking up on it with commentary, pro and con.

Smith is a South African of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry who obviously is bright and talented. He got a full ride to Stanford, was a Bronze Medalist in table tennis in the Maccabiah Games (the Jewish Olympics)and a Rhodes Scholar finalist. He had been with Goldman Sachs almost twelve years, recruited as a summer intern while at Stanford and then joining the firm after graduation. As of yesterday, he left the company.

All kinds of opinions are being bandied about regarding his article. Some skeptics say he was bitter at being dead-ended and passed over for a more senior position; others say he is naive and doesn't understand how the game is played. Quite a few others express admiration for his willingness to put himself on the firing line and live by his principles. To quote him, "Goldman Sachs today has become too much about shortcuts and not enough about achievement." He decries the reigning philosophy of making money any way you can and to hell with the clients, whom they describe by insulting nicknames like "Muppets".

Goldman Sachs has been under continuing investigation for its cynical policy of loading clients with derivatives and other complicated financial schemes---and then going against them by expecting and betting on the market to fall. Would you call that a slight case of conflict of interest?

To me it speaks of the prevalent attitude in our business society of today of "morality, be damned, full speed ahead to profits by any means". I've often said my age is showing when I recall in my earlier business dealings, a handshake meant trust and integrity. Care to try that today?

Greg Smith is now coming out of the Garden of Eden, eyes wide open, principles bruised and future clouded because of his lost "innocence". It is a very sad morality tale.

MAN'S BEST FRIEND

i just heard another wonderful dog story. If you follow my blog, you know that I am a dog lover, even though, due to travel schedule going to England in the summer and living on an island with alligators where dogs must be kept on leashes, I have not owned one for quite awhile.

We own a condo on the island which we rent and also make available for our children and grandchildren at Christmas time. Today we had the condo annual meeting where, after a short and sweet business meeting, we have a wine and pizza party. I was chatting with one of my friends there, a really nice guy from Wisconsin, who winters at the condo. Somehow the subject of hunting came up, and I discovered we both once enjoyed pheasant shooting.

My friend, Gary, had a Golden Retriever who was his hunting dog and, as the story will attest, his boon companion. One autumn day Gary decided to go hunting and, just before he planned to leave, he noticed the gutters of his home were overflowing with fallen leaves, so he thought he best clean the gutters out before going hunting. He attached a ladder to the house, and, as he hit the last rung, with one foot on the roof and the other on the ladder, the ladder broke and Gary fell on the concrete driveway. He smashed a hip. broke an arm and ribs and was knocked out with a blow to the head that turned out to be a fracture and a severe concussion.

He lay in the driveway, unable to move once he revived. His dog was right there and saw that Gary was helpless, so he ran to the neighbors on the left and barked furiously. Nothing happened. Then this Golden ran to the neighbors on the right and, once again, barked furiously until, this time, the neighbors appeared and spied Gary prostrate on the driveway, whereupon they called emergency.

While Gary was in the hospital, his vet called to say that the thirteen-year-old Golden was in bad shape and would not have long to live. The vet made arrangements for the dog to be put on a gurney and stay next to Gary in his hospital bed, and the dog died a few days later in the hospital next to Gary.

"Greater love hath no man..." and, in this case, no dog. Wow!

THE BELLE OF THE BALL

The next few days in the life of Peyton Manning are going to be interesting, to say the least. He will feel like the belle of the ball with lots of suitors lining up for the dance.

i have mixed feelings because of worry about his neck. Doctors claim his neck will be stronger than ever, and obviously from recent reports the nerve regeneration in his throwing arm must be improving. He's such a great guy I would hate to have anything happen to him. I see him as a coach and/or owner in the relatively near future.

But he is, first and foremost, a prime competitor with a lot of pride, and he wants to show the world that he is still "The Peyton" with plenty of grit and competitive juices flowing.

Where will he end up? I'll put on my swami turban and predict Miami or Arizona. He likes warm weather and has a place in Florida. Arizona plays in a dome and has good weather (if you don't mind 120 degrees in the summer!). It'll be fun to see, and we'll soon know.

Whatever the choice, GO, PEYTON!

ST. AUGUSTINE GETS IT RIGHT

"In an earlier time, St. Augustine captured the sense of what is required in civil discourse: 'Let us, on both sides, lay aside all arrogance. Let us not, on either side, claim that we have already discovered the truth. Let us seek it together as something which is known to neither of us. For then only may we seek it, lovingly and tranquilly, if there be no bold presumption that it is already discovered and possessed.'"

This quotation is from a blog commentary by John J. DeGiola, the President of Georgetown University, entitled “On Civility and Public Discourse” in which he reaffirms the necessity in a democracy for civil discussion and debate of conflicting views on issues. The Sandra Fluke (a Georgetown law student)/Rush Limbaugh confrontation inspired his analysis. I would recommend it as compulsory reading in good political sense. It is available on “The Huffington Post”.

Limbaugh is famous for hyperbole and overstatement, and in this instance he seemed to do a thorough job of offending women who want choice in their lives. The debate of Pro Life vs. Choice is one of the prime issues of our time, igniting incendiary emotions on both sides. Personally, I am for Choice, as I think a woman’s right to choose is a Godgiven privilege. Within my own family both views are represented. It is one of the hot button issues of our age. I am willing to accept reasonable limitations on Choice and accept the premise that a human life is sacred and that certain limitations exist in the time frame of pregnancy where abortion should be performed. I also still think it is not a subject for governmental mandates but a matter of personal choice, Of course it is too late for that as the debate concernning Roe vs. Wade rages on and will end up back in the hands of the Supreme Court one day.

Behaviour on both sides of the issue is too often inflammatory and vicious. Until we learn to follow St. Augustine’s sage advice quoted above, we will not solve the problem. Let us seek together.

THE GONG SHOW

I was at a neighborhood party last night and chatted with the host, a really likable Nova Scotian who winters here in Florida. We got on the subject of American politics. He loves America, spending three months or more here, but he also is able to take an objective look at us. He noted in Canada the process of electing a new Premier takes ninety days. I noted it is about the same in England.

I’ve been on this soap box for a long time that the American electoral process has become tortuous and unnecessarily long. My Canadian friend used a wonderful image for the Republican debates---the Gong Show. I’m sure many of you remember that hilarious show back in the eighties where amateurs performed and were kicked off the show by a loud gong sounding. It was fun to watch.

I can’t say the Republican equivalent is quite so hilarious. It has its share of bumblers; all four candidates take turns making gaffes and then spending an inordinate amount of time removing their feet from their mouths. The unfortunate part is that this show isn’t comedy but more in the nature of tragedy as we watch the Republican Party self-destruct. More and more political pundits are commenting on the sad state of politics and the loss of moderation in political views.

I have also commented before that I am a political dinosaur when I said I was once a Moderate Republican. There ain’t no such animal left in existence today. A simplistic definition of a Moderate Republican could be summed up in the phrase, “a social liberal and a fiscal conservative”. The Republican in me preferred that as much and as efficiently as possible in government be handled on a state or local level. The liberal in me thought that certain federal standards and supervision were necessary in key elements of our lives like Education, Social Security/Medicare, Defense, Foreign Policy and Health (this latter being a really dirty word).

One of these days we old dinosaurs are going to win one and make a comeback. The extremes are doing to knock each other out, and suddenly civility, discussion, compromise, reconciliation and all those other outmoded terms will return to favor.

I hope it’s in my lifetime. I’m sick and tired of the current Gong Show.

ARE WE CRAZY?

I just read a wonderful definition of insanity, attributed to Albert Einstein. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. By this definition, many of our politicians are crazy. We stick to the same old, same old policies and dogma that have not worked before and then keep repeating the process.

Take, for example, debt reduction without financial stimulus, a mantra of the Republican Party. It has not worked historically; why will it suddenly change now? Europe has been practicing this policy of debt reduction in the form of austerity and where are they? In the same old rat hole, up the proverbial creek with no paddle is the answer. European leaders are now beginning to consider measures to stimulate the economy.

The President is presenting measures---and has tried to do so in the past---to combine debt reduction with financial stimulus. The Republican Congress greets these measures like a colony of lepers invading their space.

Go back in history. When F.D.R. effected the New Deal in the thirties, the economy started to improve. When he gave in to Congressional pressure to slow these measures and emphasize only debt reduction, the economy faltered and nosedived. World War II restimulated the economy, which is not the ideal way to recovery.

And where are we today? The Republicans keep insisting on debt reduction alone---no “wasteful” expenditures on job programs like the infrastructure repair. If we stimulate the economy and get more people working, won’t that increase revenue; won’t that help to reduce the deficit when combined with sensible tax and entitlement reform?

Yes, sometimes I think we fulfill that Einsteinian definition of insanity. Could we try to be a bit less crazy?

HOT TIMES, HOT STUFF

I’m one of those crazies who love hot spicy food, especially Indian curries to blow your socks off. But, reading about the ten hottest peppers in the world on AOL recently, I have discovered that I am a piker, a real wimp when it comes to real heat. I can handle the lowly Jalapeno, the occasional Habanero or the Jamaican Scotch Bonnet, which have a heat index of under 200,000 SCHOs (Scovill heat index). But there are a host of others, ranging from a few hundred thousand to a new champion of over 1,400,000 called the Jamaica Moraga Scorpion, which sounds like the h-bomb of chilis. These will gag and hurt you seriously, and, I admit, I’m not macho enough to handle that much heat.

I came from a family of heat lovers. My dad was a good cook and specialized in spicy Indian curries---shrimp, beef or lamb---, and he passed these genes down to his siblings. I developed a taste that could handle the hot stuff readily, adding seeded jalapenos to hamburgers, munching on hot peppers as appetisers and asking for the really hot curry sauce at an Indian restaurant.

Then I met my future brother-in-law in the late sixties when he was courting my wife’s sister. Mike was in the British army, an officer attached to a brigade of Gurkhas, the Nepalese tribesman who fought against and then for the British from the late nineteenth century. They are a tough and hardy breed. One Gurkha won the Victoria Cross posthumously in World War II when he singlehandedly took on a Japanese tank and won, though dying in the process.

Mike took his future wife and my wife and me to a curry restaurant on the Brompton Road in London where a whole string of Indian curry restaurants are located, and he chose The Star of India. Mike asked if we liked hot curries, which we did, and he suggested we order the Madras lamb curry. It was great---and really hot. In those days, as some of you may remember, men wore long hair and sideburns. By the end of the curry, I was wringing out my sideburns and feeling the top of my head similar to a small volcano, plus I was sure my contact lens were fused to my eyes---but I loved it. I asked Mike what he was having, which he was munching on like a chicken wing, and he replied, “I’m having a Bangalore curry---just a bit hotter.” I asked for a taste. It was like a bomb going off in my mouth, and I soon was spluttering, and this time I was sure the top of my head erupted.

Mike had spent time with his troops in the jungles of Malaya in the mid-fifties when Communist insurgents were trying to control the Malay Penisula, and he had learned to eat what they eat; hence, the development of an asbestos mouth. In any case, I declared Mike the undisputed champion of hot food, and I slunk off in thorough defeat.

So, bring on the heat, but I’m not man enough to tackle the Jamaica Moraga Scorpion and its 1.400,000 bits of heat. Maybe I’ll buy one and send it to Mike. If anyone can handle it, he’s the main man!