Postcards Form The Road: PA

Postcard #1: We're getting a free cup of coffee at Country Suites, a brand new property in Carlisle, PA. The tables are filled with rather large Americans and their smaller offspring partaking of the free breakfast. A pretty blonde lady with perfect white teeth, wearing a pink dress and pearls around her neck is on the TV. She looks like she might be going to a cocktail party, but instead she is reading business news. The new 10-year deficit projection is $9 Trillion. Now that's super-sizing!

Postcard#2: Our hotel, just off Rte. 81 is made of acrylic siding, made to look like wood clapboard. The doors to all of the closets and to the bathroom are also made of acrylic material and have fake wood grain. My lamp is also made of acrylic and painted brown to look like wood. This does not seem like an attempt to be green; this seems like an attempt to save some green. When we ask for a recommendation for a restaurant near the college we are visiting, the Manager says that he usually recommends Chili's, just down the road off of 81. It is frightening to think that Chili's is the best restaurant in town. On a tour of Carlisle's Historic District we discover that he is right. There are no restaurants or taverns downtown near the college. All of this is very, very sad.

Postcard#3: We're driving north on Rte. 22 between Lancaster and Allentown, PA. There's a truck ahead trailing a huge American flag from its bed. As we pass we can read the message on the cab window: God, Guns, and Guts. We think that by Guts they mean courage, not the things that grow in front of people who super-size free breakfasts and watch pretty ladies on TV. We think that the two men in the truck probably did not vote for Obama, if they voted. We think that they would not like the government sticking its nose in their lives, as with healthcare. We wonder why these guys aren't more angry at the people who build plastic hotels and cover the landscape with ugly restaurants serving unhealthy food. We think they should worry much more about the mindless companies that have taken over their landscapes, their history, and their opinions.

Postcard#4: Back to that $9 Trillion 10-year deficit projection. Clarification: that is an additional $9 Trillion. The WSJ today covers the story on Page One. The Times covers it on Page Four. Apparently, the fact that we will need to spend 40% of 2010 revenue just to pay interest on our national borrowing before we add that $9 Trillion is not very big news at the Times. Perhaps this news interferes with the Times' support for Obama and his healthcare plan. Perhaps the Times is so used to losing money itself that these things simply do not worry its owners and editors. One does not need to be Bill O'Righty, Sean Profanity or Sir Rupert of Murdoch or the lady in the pink cocktail dress to think that $9 Trillion is a big story.

Postcard#5: Why is that $9 Trillion additional to the deficit a big enough story even for Times' editors? Because, if they were paying attention, if they had EVER gone west of the Hudson and driven Rte. 81 or Rte. 22, they would know why it's a big story even for their little Upper West side and Brooklyn brains. That number means that the secret healthcare plans, that is: the 1,000 page House plan and the 600 page Senate plan are D.O.A. Caputski. Flat-lined. One doesn't need to have a God, Guns and Guts sticker on a pickup to know that citizens can figure out that, if we will use 40% of all tax revenue this fiscal year just to pay interest on our current borrowing, we cannot afford the risk of adding a single additional healthcare loan from China or Japan to make this thing happen. Nada. Those gents in the truck might be afraid that the US government will take over their lives. Wait until it dawns on them that the Chinese government has already taken over their lives without a shot fired from those guns at home in the closet.

Postcard#5: We're driving north out of Gettysburg on Rte. 34. Across farmland we can see the crest of the hill that overlooks the battlefield down the other side. We wonder at the amount of misunderstanding and deep mistrust that could have caused a Civil War. Americans killing Americans. We think about Lincoln, having just passed near the spot of his great and historic Address. We think, surely that could never happen again that we could become so mistrustful of our fellow citizens, that we could so misunderstand each other. Surely, people would never resort to getting those guns out of the closet ever again out of pure frustration with our government and with the establishment that powers it.

Would they?

August:

Eliot was wrong; August is the cruelest month. Those of us in transition are not looking to take any vacation days. We've had all the vacation days we can handle, and then some. For years, we took regular summer vacations, many of them during August. Now, we are astounded when so many people leave behind their jobs and head for the beach, the lake or their backyards. If we are ever entitled to vacation again, bosses will have to pry us out of our chairs and have security make us leave to join our families. All the while, sitting on the beach, we will worry that someone might have their eyes on our job.

For now,, we must force ourselves to take a vacation from all this transitioning. At night we dream a sweet dream; we dream that it is September and everyone is back.

The Network's The Same: You're different:

My friends have asked if I will help their son try to find a job. Now that's positive thinking. I am no longer sure that I can be an authority, although it's true, I do have a great network. That network will probably work even better for a 23 yr. old eager beaver, whom the people in the network have never before met. One problem with your network: they know you too well, and you're not that person anymore.

Double Dipping:

The Times today tells yet another Albany story. It seems that active legislators over 65 may receive their full pension benefit and continue in office at full salary. Additionally, those pensions look very generous. One legislator explained that all you need to do is "retire" for a day at the end of the year, then you go back in as a "newly" elected representative. Since you've retired, you can "double dip" legally. One is tempted to say, "Only in Albany," but we know that's not true. There are 49 other state capitols, plus Wash. D.C.

Transitioners have a form of "double dipping" too: we tap into our pensions and 401k's simultaneously, while we try to transition to new work. Is it too late to run for office?

Race of Masters:

Again the Times. A woman dynamo named Suzanne Rheault has started a service for parents and students. It prepares them for pre-K testing. She finished MIT in less than four years and became a star at Morgan Stanley. She must be an uber-Energizer Bunny. Three-year-olds who read this article will be bugging their parents to forego the new stroller and pop for the fees at "Aristotle Circle." No, we're not making this name up.

Didn't someone try this Master Race thing already? Could this have been one of the causes of the subprime mess: overachieving bankers? Our advice: take your child to the baby pool and don't challenge her friends to any races, okay, just watch them play.

Hey! Mr. Healthcare Man*

Hey! Mr. Healthcare Man, protect my co-pay,

I'm bewildered 'bout the place you think we're goin' to.

Hey! Mrs. Healthcare 'Mam, how can so much be free?

All my jingle-jangle coins will soon be followin' you.

Though I know the Healthcare empire's made of sinking sand,

making Doctors vanish across the land,

Leaving us near-broke right where we stand and wetly weeping.

Our weariness is contagious, tries to brand us with defeat,

By premiums we can't meet,

We feel so ancient, clogged, in dread we might quit dreaming.

Hey! Mr. Healthcare Man please lighten costs for me,

I'm half sleepy cause generics are just so-so.

Hey Mrs. Healthcare 'Mam find me a sweet nursie,

Before even more jingle-jangle goes to Goldman too.

Take me on a ride upon your magic deficit ship,

My cents and dollars stripped, my hands empty of tips,

My toes count ten trill debt,

I wait only for bankruptcy lawyers calling.

I'm ready to hide anywhere, as hope for sanity fades

Into clinic line parades, spelling waste and a huge charade,

Stale ideas are taking us further under.

Hey! Mr. Healthcare Man, spell it out for me.

I'm weary, but there's still a place to take me to.

Hey! Mrs Healthcare 'Mam, think simpicity,

Affordability and I'll come followin' you.

Though we might hear Media spinners, howlin' git yer guns

From their frothy millionaire gums, their aims are really dumb,

But stop your pie in the sky and all this racing!

And if you persist with vague traces and no ideas that rhyme,

Don't get healthcare more sublime, then these ragged clowns behind

We don't want to pay any mind

Won't be shadows, but a real force that you'll be chasin'

Hey! Mr. Healthcare Man play much sweeter for me

You're making me sleepy, though I want follow you.

Hey! Mrs. Healthcare 'Mam leave behind that dull D.C.

On that jingle-jangle morning I'll come followin you.

*Apologies To Bob

Town Hall HealthScare Angst Explained

Members of Congress seem truly shocked to find that most citizens have not read the 1,000 page or 600 page HealthScare bills in Congress and the Senate respectively. Both the hapless (Spector/PA) and the remarkable (McCaskill/MO) were amazed to hear the anger out there. Clearly some of these citizens on both sides of the issue were encouraged to portray angry individualist colonial patriots by people who make several million a year working for large corporations like Newscorp, GE, or Time Warner.

Thirdgarage offers this reasoned explanation for this anger, which Congress, the President and the millionaire Talk-Heads might have missed, during their marathon jab-fest:

1) Roll back the clock. Leaving aside the citizens who are clearly deranged, most of us know that the "Recession" was not the usual cyclical result of market forces; it was the direct result of banks mistaking recklessness for risk and moving trillions of dollars among themselves, skimming billions from the top, while regulators slept. Reasonable citizens know that Wall St. and Washington forced this false recession onto their backs. Guess what? They are really mad at that and want an apology.

2) Leaving aside the usual wackos, many reasonable people have a legitimate fear of having the government run another healthcare agency. They not only know that the recession was manufactured by corporations and government, but they also look at this thing called Iraq. Remember that one? They know that the government mismanaged its Iraq foray, no matter how they feel about the right or wrong of it. The government dropped trillions of borrowed dollars there. Guess what? People are upset about it and want an apology.

3) Citizens may not have read the HealthScare bills, preferring War & Peace this summer, but they know that the states will take part in any new government/corporate health scheme. That means that politicos in places like Albany, Sacramento, Harrisburg (PA) and Jefferson City (MO) will help to manage the system's billions. Citizens have several terms for this possibility: Espada, Rudy the B, Sanford and Espada again. Not to mention Corrupt and Stupid. Every time Mr. Espada, the Dem/Rep/Dem, gets his picture in the paper, Mr Obama's plan takes a nosedive. The guy and his son have government jobs and make great dough running healthcare clinics! Hello! People are really angry when a politician rubs his own corruption in their faces every week!

4) Here is the Smoking Gun: some people do fear the government running healthcare and some people really do mistrust corporate America to do it. But what just about everyone fears is a secret combination of government and Corporate America colluding to run something. Like SubPrime, like Iraq, like Auto-Wrecks or AIG-eeze!

5) Let's end on a high note by getting back to Sen McCaskill. She actually made Bill O'Righty have a civil conversation about healthcare. Why isn't she taking the national lead on this!? She's your sister, your mom, your lawyer and your girlfriend all wrapped up in one! I'll bet that deep down she knows that Americans were set up to expect much more on healthcare. I'll bet she knows that asking Congress and Lobbyists to invent something really cool and affordable would be like asking AT&T to invent the iphone or NBC/GE to invent Tivo. They couldn't and the Lob-Cong in D.C. can't either. Sen Claire, we're begging, take charge! We trust you to get those apologies so that we can move on.

Recession For Dummies

According to the most trusted sources, for example, the Federal Reserve Board and government economists, the Recession has ended. For those of you who might have missed this turnaround, we offer this simple explanation of how you could have recognized this wonderful turn of events without having gone to an elite university, or, in my case, P.S. 101.

1) The total value of your 401K and home are now exactly equal to your pre-recession 401K balance.

2) More bankers are attending Federal Reserve Board interest rate meetings than Federal Penitentiary Prayer meetings.

3) New York State's Attorney General investigates more state government officials than insurance and banking CEO's.

4) Former President Clinton convinces North Korea's Leader to invest in T-Bills instead of old Russian nuke parts, while presenting him with a gift of 10 pantsuits in assorted pastels.

5) Congress, having excoriated those Auto-Wrecks boys over use of corporate jets, flexes its new-found corporate wings and orders up some new Boeings and Gulfstreams of its own.

6) Russia's real Czar, V. Putin, stops referring to the US as "Iceland with no ice."

7) Suddenly, 10 yr. Deficit projections have been reduced to $7 Trillion from $10T. Phew!

8) Even Healthcare looks better. The President calmed fears of a huge government healthcare bureaucracy this week by saying that a new agency would be just like the US Postal Service as it competes with Fedex and UPS. Double Phew!!

9) Albany, NY rebounds from calls to close it down and slightly remake it into a huge prison, by once again being acknowledged as home to the country's worst state government, instead of second worst. Springfield, Ill. will now be closed and made into a Federal prison.

10) The HR Director who phone-screened you for a Bear Stearns job, then moved to Lehman, where she wouldn't take your call, just phone-screened you again at Citi. Short it.

11) Recessionwire.com, that brilliant brainchild of three brilliant former Conde Nast editors, is considering a name change: letsdoitalloveragain.com

Truly Shocked Awards

It is Friday, which means it's time for the Truly Shocked Awards. You will remember Claude Raines, who played Captain Renault in the movie classic, Casablanca, who was "Shocked, truly shocked" to hear that there was gambling in his city. Each winner receives a fully-crushed Clunker, unless the winner is a car company; they get two Clunkers.

Two members of our Intern Nation helped make the picks this week: Connie is a 24 yr. old interning, for free of course, at Hole Fools, a digital ad agency in Soho. Tim is a 55 yr. old min-wage intern at Great Buns, a donut shop in Lewisboro, ME.

Mileage, What Mileage Award (Connie): To GM/Chevy for their pricey full page ad in the Times today trumpeting their Cash For Clunkers deals on four vehicles. The ad includes all kinds of info on each model, except it leaves out the mileage ratings. It even leaves out the ratings for the Malibu a popular hybrid due to its has high mpg rating. Wasn't that a main point of CFC? Dumb.

Weill You Were Away Recycling Award (Connie): To, well, Sandy Weill. Bank of America's brokerage unit, Merril Lynch, hired former Citi exec Sally The K to run its wealth management area. Reportedly, former Citi Chair Sandy Weill, who hired Sally to fix Citi's analyst mess a while back, paved the way. He called the embattled B of A Chair Ken Lewis to tell him Sally would be a great hire. Voila! Hey, isn't Sandy the one whose poor strategy created unmanageable Citi in the first place? And, didn't he force Jamie Dimon out of Citi, then hand-pick Chuck Prince as his suck-cessor? And, isn't Saint Jamie brilliantly running JPM Chase now. So a former Citi Chair is helping the hapless competition, B of A? Old bank execs don't even fade away; they just start running someone else's bank.

We Doughnut Believe This Award (Tim, naturally): Not to be outdone by GM its nationalized competitor, Ford's CFO Lewis Booth told reporters this week that, "Cars are like doughnuts. The ones you want to buy are the fresh ones, and they don't get any fresher on dealer lots. We're going to have fresh product." Precisely wrongo, points out our Tim. A new car, with no miles on it, is just as fresh after a year on the lot as the "fresh" one with the same miles. Dealers have only been saying this for a gazzilion years. Plus, you don't eat cars. Ford and GM would do much better to stop the insanity of having new models every year. That's a fresh idea, Lewis. Dumber.

PhD in Corruption Award (Connie and Tim): To the "Trustees" of the University of Illinois. Former Gov Rudy B has nothing on these guys. They ran an admissions process that was parallel, but separate from the official U of I process. The Trustees helped cronies and other well-connected types get their children into the U, even if their qualifications were less than required. Well, talk about being shocked! Imagine college and university trustees actually putting forth their own candidates. So hard to imagine. This could never happen in New York's vaunted U system. You'd catch a NY Governor with a prostitute before you'd ever have a trustee secure a spot in SUNY. PhD-ummest.

Clunk Junk Award (Tim): Cash For Clunkers. Despite the increased mileage of the vehicles replacing the Clunkers in this program, we cannot overlook the many flaws and the frightening idea that healthcare might look like this someday soon. 1) Dealers began the program July 1, but the rules weren't written and the app system wasn't available until July 27. 2) Experts predicted the program would handle 200,000 cars in all of '09; during July alone it handled 250,000. 3) Because of #2, the program's $1B funding, "borrowed" from another budgeted item, disappeared fast. Congress "borrowed" another $2B to keep it going. 4) Taxpayers trading a Clunker for a GM vehicle are getting borrowed tax money to help pay for a car they purchase from a taxpayer-owned company. Funny, if it wasn true.

Inhuman Resources Award (Connie and Tim): the Times reports that many employers have increased the use of credit checks in screening job candidates. Banks and government agencies sold houses and pushed credit cards to people without doing proper credit checks, which got us into this mess in the first place. Now businesses are making it nearly impossible for the hardest hit to get jobs. Young Connie has had five non-paying internships. How will she establish a credit rating before she "retires?" Tim's job was eliminated two years ago, when he was 53. His 401K is gone, his health insurance is gone, his Clunker is gone. How will he re-establish his credit rating so he can get another good job (no offense to Great Buns, but c'mon)? While trying to make Iraq like America, have we instead made America like Iraq, an ungovernable mess of warring tribes and factions?

What is the sound of one hand clapping for these Awards?

Clunk.

Clunk, Clunker, Clunkiest

Congress, being Congress, saw the Cash For Clunkers program as such a resounding hit, despite some minor flaws, that it was quick to seize the opportunity to capitalize on the initiative. We are receiving information from our deepest Congressional sources regarding new similar initiatives, which will also borrow from one budgeted item to fund another, just the same as the Auto Cash For Clunkers deal. Here are some of the new programs:

• Clunker Health Insurance: This has the potential to become an integral part of the new secret national health plan. Citizens and Aliens ( terrestrial, not inter-terrestrial) will be able to trade in their expensive ineffective health plans or proof of having no health plan for a brand new spiffy one. The government will pay a $7,500 incentive for old plans and a $15,000 incentive for proof of having no plan. Funding source TBD.
• Clunker Homes: Why didn't Citi or AIG think of this one! This plan, in the early stages of development, would allow trade-ins of foreclosed or nearly-foreclosed houses for houses in far better financial condition and which are far more energy-efficient than the under-water houses. Cash incentives are still being negotiated.
• Biggest Clunker of Them All Trade: Why not think really big! This proposal would allow Congress to trade its own automobile company, GM, in its entirety, for Honda or Toyota. Although the cash incentive on this deal is potentially huge, the long term benefits of unloading GM for one of the other auto firms is even bigger.
• North Korean Clunker Nukes: The advantages of this crummy Nukes for Cash only deal should be obvious to anyone who knows anything about foreign relations, or anyone related to a foreigner.
• More Modest Clunker Proposals: Clunker Phones for iphones and BlackBerrys, Drab Old Clunker Suits in Your Closet for Armani, Clunker Pittsburgh Pirates for a Real Major League Team, Clunker 401K's For Newer Bigger Ones.

The list, apparently, goes on and on.

Pilgrims, there seems to be no limit to Congressional ingenuity when they put their minds to it, find creative ways to borrow from other programs like Social Security, and believe that you will love them for it.

Sleep tight. Hey, soon you might be able to trade in that Clunker Bed. Ladies, how about the Clunker Husband. And so on.

Inhuman Resouces

Every once in a while, the idea of working for myself scares me into doing something foolish. Like looking for a "real" job.

As the bills piled up last week, I became one of those Desperate Boomers. I searched a Careers page on a professional organization's web site and found a new job posting. I clicked on the site's Apply button and was taken directly to an internationally known bank's own HR site. Amazingly, the job description perfectly matched the free-lance project that I was currently doing for a client. Oh, Lucky Day!

After filling out a form, I clicked on the bank's Apply button. Nothing. So, I went back and did the whole process again. Nothing. I restarted and went directly to the site, and searched using the bank's own title, job number, location, etc. No results.

I went back to the organization site and confirmed that the posting date had been one day before. then followed the link again and hit Apply. Nothing.

I used the bank's HR and IT contact addresses. I registered and attached my resume, but could not connect it to this perfect job posting. Then, I worked my network to see what I could find out about the job. Nobody had heard anything about it, except that the person who previously had done the job had "left the bank."

Was it a mirage? Yesterday, I noticed that the posting had disappeared from the organization's site and still did not show on the bank's site. Today, I received a long system generated email describing some of the technical things I could try in order to "Apply," evidently for a job that no longer existed within the same company.

Veterans of this process will know some of the reasons these things occur: the job was posted before an agreed upon date, the job was filled internally before posting, or, most likely, the posting drew so many applications that the system did an auto-shut-down.

A friend asked me this morning, "Why would you ever want to work for a company as stupid as that one?" Exactly. Some companies make this process so exasperating, they should call it Inhuman Resources. They make it like Cash for Clunkers, and you, Pilgrims, are The Clunkers, not the new model.

I love my client. I love my bill pile. I promise not to do this again.

But, I probably will. Life, just when you arrive, you want to go home.