View from the Mountain

Fall suburban hayfield

There were a number of falls that I would have been really excited to have grass growing like it is this autumn  in Roanoke.  Those years when we had a lot of cattle, some extra grass in the months before we started feeding hay was a welcome extension to the grazing season.

Now that the only thing which eats the grass around me  is my Toro, fast going fall grass is not exactly welcome.  Most of us on the hill are ready for the mowing to slow down.

Today was the third time I've mowed my yard in the last ten days.  When I compare how the grass is growing here in the valley to how it is growing on the coast, I can understand why farming has remained a staple of the Virginia economy.    Since I have farm roots, I'm broadminded enough to be glad that the farmers who had a tough summer have got some moisture.

As is always the case, one farmer's good news is always the next farmer's disaster.  Still there is nothing more pitiful that horses or cattle trying to get a mouthful of grass from a pasture that just won't grow.  At least right now the farmers who needed the grass to grow are in better shape than they were early in the summer.                            

Water everywhere

As we settle into our home away home near Swansboro, NC, I'm struck by the prospect of having water in our backyard.  In fact most places aren't very far from some type of water.

This will be the first time we lived with water so close.  We lived a couple of times within a mile or so of the water, but it has never been one of our property lines.

This view from the dock behind the house shows water in its most peaceful state.  I'm sure we'll see it in many different moods over the years.

Yet the water already has given me some new perspective and at least started to soothe my scared corporate soul.  I'm looking forward to dipping a paddle into the water in the next few weeks.  It should be a great new adventure.

Revenge of the Chinese factory worker

There are always consequences even if they might not appear at first.   There is no free lunch.  Much of what has kept inflation at bay can be directly related to goods produced in China where wages are unbelievably low.

Finally I have decided that they're trying to get back at us in a very subtle way.  We're setting up a new house, and every bedroom seems to need a clock.

Granted my sample, three clocks, is very limited, but I've found two of the three clocks came with the alarm turned on and set to twelve midnight.  Not being aware of this insidious trap, I installed two of the clocks one day.  I set the time and forgot about them until one of them starting ringing at midnight.  My wife claimed not to hear it, so I ended up getting up and turning if off.

I thought the alarm was a random event, but I was to learn the next night that the fun would continue and that this time it would be upstairs.  The third clock I installed also had the subtle alarm trap turned on and ready for unsophisticated installers like  me.

Again my wife managed to sleep through the whole procedure and to act like nothing had happened.

The next time you buy a new alarm clock, watch out, it maybe armed and dangerous.

Beyond your fears

We live in an incredibly wide open country.  Aside from the miles upon miles of relatively open ocean shoreline, we have our border Canada which is practically wide open.  Given all this opportunity on one hand and the difficulty of flying these days, you end up wondering whether we're safer or someone is just trying to give us the illusion of safety.

John Tierney has an interesting piece in the NY Times this morning.  It's called, "Waiting for Al Qaeda," and in the article he quotes John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University who has recently written an article for  Foreign Affairs.

There are plenty of fighters willing to use terrorist tactics locally during civil wars and insurrections, as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya or Kashmir. But it’s harder to recruit competent warriors to fight abroad, and harder for them to operate in orderly countries where the citizenry and the authorities both want to stop them.

“Outside of Afghanistan and Iraq,” Mueller says, “the number of people killed around the world since Sept. 11 by groups in sympathy with Al Qaeda is not that high. These are horrible and disgusting deaths, but they’re not a sign of a diabolically effective organization. The total is less than the number of Americans who drowned in bathtubs during this period.”

It's interesting to look at terrorism from this perspective.  I guess if we didn't need to be protected quite as much we wouldn't need all the illegal wiretapping and secret prisons.  Weak leaders always need something to rally people against. 

It's the great leaders that can take people beyonds their fears  and help them achieve something great.  The idea that we turn our society into one great bunker doesn't appeal a whole lot to me.  I like Tierney's final closing points.

Compared with past threats — like Communist sociopaths with nuclear arsenals — Al Qaeda’s terrorists are a minor problem. They certainly don’t justify the hyperbolic warnings that America’s “existence” or “way of life” is in jeopardy, or that America must transform the Middle East in order to survive.

There undoubtedly will be more terrorist attacks, either from Al Qaeda or others, just as there were before 2001. Terrorists might strike Monday. There will always be homicidal zealots like Mohamed Atta or Timothy McVeigh, and some of them will succeed, terribly. But this is not a new era. The terrorist threat is still small. It’s the terrorism industry that got big.

Terrorism is also a great way to distract voters from issues where our politicians just can't seem to figure out what to do, like health care and social security.  We all know there are terrorist threats, but they shouldn't be the only thing on our minds.  Of course our politicians have one other main concern, their re-election.

David Brooks gets it wrong again

I really don't know much about David Brooks who writes for the New York Times, but I'm willing to bet that he has never spent much time doing work besides writing in a large corporation.

His article today, "The Populist Myths on Income Inequality," (NY Times Select required) asserts that workers are actually doing well and that jobs aren't insecure.

I actually know a fair number of corporate refugees who would argue with many of Brooks' statements.  The one that really gets me is the following.

In other words, the market isn’t broken; the meritocracy is working almost too well. It’s rewarding people based on individual talents. Higher education pays off because it provides technical knowledge and because it screens out people who are not organized, self-motivated and socially adept.

Most people that I know believe that Scott Adams of Dilbert fame lives within their organization.  I have little doubt that our corporate culture is in much poorer shape than Mr. Brooks would have us believe.  If you haven't seen a corporation where promotions are more related to whom you know than the skill level of the people trying for a promotion, you probably haven't done a lot of looking.  I'm sure there are good corporations out there, but there are plenty who aren't using their people effectively specifically because the whole idea of "meritocracy" is broken.

Large corporations typically reward those know how to manage upwards.  I'm not sure that's a great skill for companies to cultivate.  If things are working so well in corporations, why are our auto companies doing so poorly and why do we have a huge options backdating scandal? Perhaps Mr. Brooks needs some real corporate experience on which to base his opinions.

Maybe after he watches a corporation get rid of some of their best people like I've recently seen, he might understand that corporate reality and what he is writing about are two different things. As one person commented recently on someone who got a promotion, "He got the job because he'll do whatever he's told, no questions asked."  That's not exactly a "meritocracy."

Since I wrote this last night, Paul Krugman has come out with a piece,"Whining Over Discontent," that does a really good job of putting some real perspective on the issue with numbers to back up his argument.

More broadly, right-wing commentators would like you to believe that the economy’s winners are a large group, like college graduates or people with agreeable personalities. But the winners’ circle is actually very small. Even households at the 95th percentile — that is, households richer than 19 out of 20 Americans — have seen their real income rise less than 1 percent a year since the late 1970’s. But the income of the richest 1 percent has roughly doubled, and the income of the top 0.01 percent — people with incomes of more than $5 million in 2004 — has risen by a factor of 5.

I don't always disagree with David Brooks as my posts, "Agreeing with Mr. Brooks" and "Agreeing ten times over with David Brooks on immigration" indicate, but this time he's off base again with his rosy colored view of the corporate world.  Krugman's view is much closer to what I have seen in my corporate days.