October Classic in 5-7-5

October Classic,
ginkgo, Japanese maple:
perfect curves to home.


crimson, saffron, a
thousand buddhist monks climbing:
field box, mezz, loge, tier.

I Have Nothing To Say, Almost

Today, being Friday, I have nothing to say about the following topics:

1) HealthScare: If it was a holiday, it would be Halloween. Count Dracula operating, Ponzi's Ghost doing the billing, Tony Perkins's Ghost preparing your clean-up shower.

2) Local Taxes: The median property tax in my town, which some morons officially made into a city many years ago, is nearly equal to the median income in the United States, $48,000. The difference is that US median income is falling, while local taxes are rising. I define "city" as a group of people formerly known as a community, who become so focused on future expectations and past glories that they become totally stuck in the present moment, in which they have become incapable of making any decision. They have become Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

3) CFO's: When they lay their heads on pillows at night, they dream of the vast number of employees who will soon become ex-employees. Their favorite number: Zero. Their favorite color: Black. Their favorite work of fiction: Last Year's Annual Report, until this year's version is printed. Their favorite charity: Senior Management Bonuses. Favorite Movie: Meet Joe Black.

4) Retirement: Something that's good to do for your auto every 25,000 miles, but bad for your soul.

5) 401K: A four letter word related to Retirement. When it was invented by the securities industry and hailed as Capitalism's visible hand by Republican supporters, actuaries estimated that retirees would have an average of $350,000 in their accounts. Actual average in 2005: $35,000 for the minority that had an account, 40% less by late 2008.

6) Afghanistan: Read Rory Stewarts's The Places In Between. He already said it all.

7) Fox Sports: Soon we will be carving the Thanksgiving Turkey early, in order to catch the first pitch of the World Series on Fox (after twelve football games) and hear Buck (the perfect Fox announcer name!) and McCarver (the perfect Thanksgiving Series name!) root for the National League team, unless it's the Mets.

8) NFL Commissioner and Lawyers: "Tackling, what tackling?

9) NYC's Next Emperor: Poor Mike, like another famous shortie, he's going to be stuck on his island, still with all the dough, but without an enormous amount of respect he once had. How do we ask Afghans and Iraquis to adopt democracy, when our brightest, richest, savviest citizens don't trust the  system to provide a successor who will be as bright, rich or savvy as they are? This guy went from hero to schmo in a New York Minute.

10) Fall: Every Fall, around Halloween in fact, I mix some dried ginkgo, sycamore, Japanese maple, and beech leaves in a coffee can. Then I strike a match,  light the leaves and close my eyes. The result, like a geni from a lamp is that the smoke grants me three wishes: 1) I am back in Forest Hills Gardens, walking home from my game and smelling the burning leaves from a dozen small piles in the streets, 2) I return to a magical time, in which reasonable human beings played World Series baseball games in the day time; afterwards, we celebrated one ritual with another: the burning of the leaves.3) I remember that after a rain soaked these fires, they smelled even better.

But, I'm not going to say a word about these things today; I am going to see Kandinsky and see what he had to say.

What's So Open About Open Enrollment?

Some people are grappling with difficult voting decisions this week, but millions more are baffled, ticked-off and downright angry over an Orwellian thing called "Open Enrollment." Our editorial meetings were brimming with thoughts about this annual phenomenon. Below is a summary:

• What's so "Open" about a system in which most of the important decisions have already been made for you by two or more extremely large organizations, who are focused on cost-cutting and profitability with only a minor interest in your health? 
• Do former auto company execs and bank regulators migrate to healthcare companies after they "retire" early? Just at a critical moment in the national healthcare brawl, when you'd think that healthcare companies would want citizens/customers to think favorably about them, they demonstrate their stupidity, minor-league greed and inability to communicate clearly in any language. After reading the documents 10 times, you understand they're cutting bennies and charging you more. Can you spell "Public Option?"
• Why do we have to do this every year? There are many things in life that we do not have to become fearful about losing every year "unless you respond in writing by...." For example, we have been trying to cancel our Travel & Leisure subscription for several years. Nobody in the family even remembers ordering it. Yet, it keeps on coming. Why can't our healthcare be like that without this annual "Enrollment?" Why can't your company and your insurer write you an email that says, " We are cutting benefits this way, and we are charging you more this way." Period. Same thing every year. Have you ever heard from these Bobbsy Twins that, "we are giving you more and better coverage and reducing the annual cost to you and your wonderful family by 25%?" Hello!
• Sometime before next year's Congressional elections, Congress and the Administration will present you with the new Health Plan. It boils down to this: if you didn't have any insurance before, or couldn't afford it, you are going to get it. If you had insurance and couldn't afford it, you will pay the same for less. If you had insurance, could afford it and liked it, you may be sent to a low security prison and you definitely will pay much more for a lot less. That's it. Dems are betting that more people will like it than hate it and that they will vote next November. Republicans think  an invisible surgeon's hand will intervene. But, the worst part is that we will probably still have "Open Enrollment."
• Nothing is more closed than Open Enrollment.
• Your current of former employer, sensing a golden opportunity, desperately wants to have a Public Option, so they won't have to provide "benefits" any more. None. Zero. Zilch. CFO's all over the country are smiling because a company that a) never hires anybody anymore b) pays huge bonuses to CFO's and others, and c) no longer has to waste money on benefits that could be going to bonuses is a great company. Right?
• We though AIG was pretty bad. Some of us think owning GM/Citi/Etc is no picnic. We get upset at GoldiLocks and their bonuses. But these CFO's, CEO's and their healthcare partners make those three auto company dingles look like geniuses. And that's not good.
• When President O, Congressman "Wild Thing" Max, Mother Nancy and others look back on the whole sordid Healthcare Thing, they will point to the 2009 Open Enrollment period as THE turning point at which citizens, employees and healthcare co. customers decided that NOTHING could be as stupid, ineffectual and downright insulting as this Annual Customer & Patient Gouging they call Open Enrollment.
• And these were the more reasonable thoughts. We can't print the others.

As an antidote to Open Enrollment, I suggest, actually request, that you listen to Duke Ellington:The Private Collection, Vol. 6, California Dates 1958. Everything will seem a little bit more manageable after listening to Duke and his band live, 50 years ago, but perhaps even more alive today.

More "Truly Shocking" Developments

• Apparently, The New York Times is turning to comedy in order to get its financial house in order. The Times leads today with a "story" about the Afghan President's brother being, are you ready for this shock, on the CIA's payroll. If Times eds ever went anywhere except the Upper West Side and the Beltway, they would have known what any third-grader knows: the Karzai Boys are CIA Central Casting par excellence. Poor Dex Filkins: how did they rope you into this dopey "scoop?"
• President O and his advisors seem determined to send those $250 checks to every Social Security recipient, despite the math: it will add $14 Billion to the deficit. The shocking thing is that O's Team was willing to buy next year's senior votes, instead of this year's. Mrs. Pelosi has pointed out that, since the checks are taxable, the actual deficit number would be less than $14Billion.
• Mr. Rangel was so incensed at the $14B Senior Payoff, he is considering sending every American an extra tax bill this year for a flat $39,000, their share of the total outstanding national debt . Understandably, Mr. Rangel has exempted himself from this uber-tax. He will, however, keep his share of that $14B. It's only right, the guy's got seventeen mortgages to pay off!
• The Leader of the Republican Opposition, Rupert Murdoch, has decided not to change his name to "Red Fox" after all. Advisors to Murdoch pointed out that there already had been  a "Redd Foxx," a noted comedian. Also, his advisors did not think it was wise to draw voters' attention to his odd hair coloring, a secret mixture he got from his friend Paul McCartney. Finally, they told him that he could not be President anyway, since he is a naturalized human, er citizen.
• The FAA has suspended the Delta/NW pilots who overflew their Minneapolis destination, while working on their laptops, ignoring frantic controllers and tempting fighter jets. Delta/NW immediately received over 10,000 job applications for the two openings, many from actual pilots. Delta/NW has decided not to charge those overflown passengers for the extra mileage flown after all; however, the extra miles will not count in their frequent flyer accounts.
• Gen. McChrystal has decided to stop blabbing his new Afgan war strategy at every possible opportunity. He had been under the impression that, since Taliban laws forbid people from watching TV, listening to radio or reading newspapers it was safe to publicize the strategy. He was recently advised that Taliban leaders don't actually follow those laws. Talk about shocked!
• The newly-crowned Co-Commisioners of Baseball, Rupert Murdoch and Scott Boras, have begun talks with the ML Players Association about moving the World Series to early December in order to take advantage of the end of the regular college football schedule. In a related development, ESPN, a division of Disney, has purchased the University of Southern California from its Trustees in a private equity deal. 
• Advisors to NYC's current and about to be Mayor, Mike Bloomberg, have told him that an attempt to change his title from Mayor to Emperor was not likely to pass after his corona.....induction. Reportedly, Bloomie responded, "What good is having an Empire State Building without an Emperor?" Close advisors are considering whether to tell him that, in fact, Gov. Paterson had already staked a claim to the Emperor title anyway.

An Open Letter To Baseball "Commissioner" Selig

Dear Mr. Selig,

My name is Tommy and I am ten years old. I hope that you are the right Baseball Commissioner. My dad says Mr. Murdoch The Fox or his friend Mr. Boris are the real heads of baseball. But, I looked you up on the MLB site and got your name.

I am writing to say a REALLY big thank you. My dad has been trying to get me to like playing and watching baseball since I was six. He grew up in a place called Queens, near where the Mets used to have a team. He's always saying, "When I was a boy......etc." I think those are the five hardest words for kids. He and his friends used to play baseball, stickball, stoop-ball, whiffle-ball, cup-ball and pretty much endlessly pitch against walls and garages. He remembers sneaking a transistor radio into school to listen to the World Series, which he claims they played on warm October days once upon a time.

The thing is, I really HATE baseball. I don't like playing and always fall asleep trying to stay up and watch it. Dad took me to a playoff game once, but I nearly froze to death. No offense to you, but I like Math and Science, even though my dad says I must come from India or China, whatever that means. By the time I finish my homework, it's my bedtime, and your games are on too late for me to watch. This is good, although it makes my dad mad. I love my dad, but, Mr. Selig, please don't change the schedule. Also, keep all of those days off in October, so we have November ball. Even my dad watches football instead in November, and he doesn't make me watch those guys trying to kill each other like Transformers. Don't let them play on Fridays like some people want either.

Dad says that Boris, Murdoch The Fox's assistant, got a lot of money for the players and The Fox needs to get big audiences and make as much money as possible for himself and "the idiot owners." I think this is kinda like in futile times like we study in History, with Lords and Dukes and peasants. Fans are the peasants, which is okay with me.

Dad says everyone hates what's happened to baseball in October, but I don't think it's bad at all: I'm getting good marks in school. I am sorry to tell you that I never liked baseball, but I do think that you, Murdoch The Fox and Boris are doing a good job. Keep it up.

There are probably millions of kids like me in India and China who don't like baseball and love Math and Science. I'm sure they would like you too.

Sincerely,

Tommy

Snow Job, and Other Tales of Higher Math

Dr. Julius Erving, the great pro basketball player has said, "Being a professional means doing the things we love to do on the days that we don't want to do them." Swish, Dr. J. It's not that I don't want to share any brilliant thoughts today, but more that I have been concentrating on a new business travel blog called TripSmart. While I break from that, a few comments on current events, hopefully at the expense of those who believe they are our betters just because a few citizens or shareholders voted for them. We know much better:

• New York State can't seem to catch a break. Now, its math students are not living up to low federal standards and are showing few signs of any improvement. Maybe those folks in the State Assembly and Senate could tutor them. These elected officials are really good at math, especially making positive numbers out of negative ones, and making some numbers, like salaries for uncles and "nieces," disappear completely. Bet kids in Bangalore can't do that.
• Federal math test scores also show that many children are still being left behind. The US lags far behind the rest of the world's math students. Naturally, Asian students shine in this category. Still, Asian students can't touch us when it comes to school team sports and hours spent watching television. Asian parents and educators just don't get it, do they?
• I refer you to page A6 in today's Times for a truly Hilary-larious photo. Our human satellite was making a speech in Moscow, where the Times shot her showing about forty feet of wall behind her, in order to get that red flag with the Hammer & Sickle on it. The Times will roll out this photo again, if Hill ever tries to challenge their man, O. Also, if the Republicans can arise and walk out of Frank Campbell's Funeral Home, they can use it against her as well. What did she ever do to the Cheeseburgers who run the Times?
• Max "Wild Thing" Baucus's Tax....er....Health Reform Bill has emerged from Committee to the Senate Floor, AKA Trough. Some refer to it unkindly as the Snowe Job. When both the Times and the WSJ agree that this Bill, as is, reforms nothing, makes ludicrously optimistic budget projections, and raises healthcare costs for just about anyone who already has it, except Federal employees, that's trouble. But, the good news is that Max has agreed to allow US educators to use his math in a new textbook in order to improve student's test scores. Rumors that Max may receive next year's Noble Prize in Creatively Applied Mathematics could not be confirmed before deadline.
• Apparently, Congress is getting ready to raise a lot of new revenue, even though they won't need it, because Max Baucus found a cool way to lower the deficit. Mrs. Pelosi is considering the benefits of a Value Added Tax. Now, people who don't travel on government GulfStreams on tax dollars can tell you that VAT is one big oxymoron: emphasis on the moron. It's a huge sales tax on consumers, with no requirement for governments to report how it is spent. Apparently, it may be spent to pay for Max Baucus's healthcare plan, which, of course, doesn't really cost anything. Math again! Funny thing, but, what the Demo-Leader may have missed was that she is now in favor of something heretofore anathema to her: a flat tax. How can you be for a 17% flat VAT and  think a 17% flat Income Tax would be a sin against the poor and middle class?
• JP MorgueChasem and GoldieLax are reporting big profits and huge bonuses. Now, here are some guys who know how to do the math, always subtracting the biggest number for themselves before nasty clients, shareholders and customers start lining up. We might wonder: why didn't we buy these guys instead of Losers like AIG and GM? Being last in line with the Three For Us/One For You Boys is better than being first in line with the Losers.
• Citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq still don't get why they should have governments more like ours. Or, do they? 
• Finally, an anonymous donor has endowed a SUNY Chair in Higher Mathematics to be known as the Rangel Chair. 

Okay, back to the real world.

Great News/Bad News

Okay, it's been a little slow lately. Also, I am concentrating the usual creative energies into building a new business and earning a living. Nevertheless, we must have some fun....at others' expense. Fortunately, there's always some idiots around to poke fun at just when you need them.

• Great News: The "independent" Congressional Budget Office has confirmed that the new secret health-plan bill will actually shrink the deficit by arranging coverage for 29 million people currently not covered. Bad News: Congress will need to find other ways to grow the deficit.
• Great News: My phone interview last week with a major international company. The recruiter had a one track mind, seeking to know my past compensation. I avoided this discussion like the plague, but finally succumbed, since she threatened to hang up. Naturally, she eliminated me as being too expensive. When I mentioned the possibility of outsourcing the travel manager position to me, she ended the conversation. Strange News: that company's business: it's the global leader in outsourcing and off-shoring, especially to India.
• Great News: I have seen the new American economy and culture, and it works! Bad News: I was in Toronto, Ontario, Canada when I saw it working, a short crow-flight from Detroit, MI.
• Amazing News: President Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize! Bad News: Hilary will have to travel twice as far, twice as high and twice as fast, if she ever wants to get one of those things. For those who seem apoplectic over the award, be brave: Haldor Laxness got a Nobel too, although, admittedly, he did actually write some really long Icelandic novels. But, not even the Nobel Committee could finish one.
• Stupid News: On Sunday, The Yankees vanquished the Twins , while the dreaded Angels downed the Sox in Boston. So when do they begin the ALCS? Friday, despite the fact that the Angels were 190 miles from the Bronx. Stupider News: Where do moronic bankers, credit raters and regulatory agents go after they leave their posts? Major League Baseball Scheduling Department. Incredibly Stupid News: while the Denver Broncos football team was playing in daytime sun on Sunday, the Rockies had to play at night in below 30' cold. Rockies' fans did not looked pleased; they looked like Broncos' fans.
• Great News: The Baseball Hall of Fame has voted to relax its normal eligibility requirements: five years past retirement and actually playing, coaching, administering or announcing at the Major League Level. Amazing News: President Obama will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown next summer! 1.000 hitter, 0.00 ERA and never struck out. Ever. Now that's a perfect game!

Je Baucuse!

Some of my friends are confused about healthcare reform. Let's simplify it:

1) When the music industry needed reform, did we expect SonyBMG or Warner Music to reform it? Right. It took Apple to create itunes and the ipod to do that.

2) Way back when we were dealing with a ridiculously expensive book distribution system, in which authors got next to nothing, did we ask Random House or Simon & Schuster to reform the system? Correct again. Amazon created itself without asking permission from the Book Politburo.

3) Did you want verizon and at&t to provide an excellent cell phone? Go to the head of the class! Apple again, and BlackBerry just did it.

4) One more. You wanted to reform network TV? Did we ask GE/NBC, Disney/ABC or Viacom/CBS to start the revolution? Tivo to the rescue, thanks.

5) But yet, yet, if we really do want healthcare reform, why would we go to Congress to get it done. Congress is the great teacher for the status quo loving industries above, not to mention Detroit. Okay let's throw in Wall St. too. We've made this point before: asking Congress to reform anything is like asking the Madame to run the Vice Squad. It doesn't matter if you a blue or red; this is true for all.

6) We have placed healthcare reform in the hands of one Max Baucus, who represents a state with 12 inhabitants, none of whom, it would seem, have ever been to a doctor! With all due respect to Sen. Baucus and his off the rack suit and diner-stained necktie, he will not be reforming anything. That's okay with me, because I didn't ask him to do anything.

7) But that leaves us with a reform job still to do. So I propose, once again that we put Apple designers, Google engineers, one smart nurse, one good doctor, one mom, one retired person, one veteran and a dentist in a room. In two weeks, they will have a healthcare plan that we can all buy. We won't need any legislation. Max Baucus can go back to doing Baucusian things. The President can focus on China (the key to Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, debt, the economy, Detroit, etc.)

8) Here's a list we can give that healthcare team: a) Americans are fat; we need to be leaner, b) Americans have terrible diets; they need to improve, c) Americans don't exercise; they need to start walking, d) American schools are bad, so income lags, and poor people get sick more often; we need to fix the schools e) immigrants are here, they use schools and they use healthcare. We can call them whatever names we want, but they are here, not over there. We need to figure them into school and healthcare reform, f) The wealthy are annoying in a thousand different ways, but it is not inherently evil to be wealthy. All immigrants want to be wealthy, but not all immigrants want to be evil, so g) Let's have the wealthy pay more for healthcare and let's have all immigrants pay something by considering a national sales tax to be used only towards healthcare, h) If Max Baucus or any other Congressional type person tries to use those tax proceeds for something else, we will sentence them to 20 years fixing fenceposts in Wyoming or wherever the hell it is that Max Baucus hails from!

Now, let's get serious.

China I: Empire State, But Who's Empire?

October 1, 1999, Beijing. I awoke at 4:30am, dressed, grabbed my packed bags, and went to the lobby of The International Club Hotel (now St. Regis) and got into the car. It was a bright cloudless morning, a good day for even a bad parade. On the way to the old airport, I passed busload after busload of colorfully dressed Chinese, mostly very young, heading for their places in thousands of lines to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the People's Republic of China.

I was returning home after helping to lead a group of executives on a journey across China, from Kashgar in the west, down the Yangtse, into Hunan to see a village election, through Shanghai with its new Stock Exchange, into the ancient capitol. We carried 40 capitalists around with the stated purpose of exploring a huge potential market. The real purpose was to burn several millions to make those guys, and a few women, feel important. They were so over-confident and self-involved, of course, that they didn't look very closely. So, they saw what they wanted to see. Easy future revenue.

But I and the expedition team had seen something else on our 6 trips between November 1998 and that day in Beijing. We had been in the big cities (China has no small ones), up and down a long river before its rapid rise, walked the villages, negotiated the deals, dined with the local Communist Party hosts, met with Foreign Affairs, and been watched, tutored, translated. In short, we had been managed into doing exactly what our hosts wanted us to do, while thinking that we were in charge, at least in the beginning.

China was and is in charge. If you doubt this, perhaps you have not seen the Empire State Building. It was lit with the colors of the People's Republic in celebration of their 6oth Anniversary. That's right, Mao's triumph being hailed in our own backyard. We are bogged down in two wars, healthcare, subprime slop, and our endless search for self-gratification. The Chinese are celebrating our troubles as much as their "triumph."

Funny. Our Team had argued in 1999 that it might not look so great for these mighty capitalists to be seen and photographed at the 50th Anniversary. We actually had to explain that to Management. We were, in effect, sneaking these people out of Beijing, while nobody could see them. I had chosen the old part of the airport, where Nixon had famously arrived, because it was deserted. Our efforts had not deterred the Chairman of our own company, who stayed to celebrate with his new young friend. The friend's company would soon buy our company, still the worst deal in the history of corporate America, since nearly $200Billion in market cap disappeared in the Bursting Bubble.

Until today, I'd always thought of that deal as Mao's revenge. But, I think that he'd be more pleased to see us celebrating his particular brand of totalitarian murder and idiocy, now funded by state capitalism, in the middle of Manhattan.

Empire indeed.

- Ed: Today's post is dedicated to my friend and colleague, Nini Gussenhoven, with whom I travelled many of those Chinese trails and waters. She left us behind far too early; however, she lives on in the words of her twin brother, John, in his new book: Crisscrossing America: Discovering America From The Road. I am sure that Nini was hanging on to him mile after mile as he road his bike. You must buy this book when it debuts next week. We also remember a courageous soldier and friend, John Blewett.