^∞Fouroboros

First there's this, from the NYT:

Bush's Aides Put Higher Price Tag on Medicare Law

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 — The Bush administration said on Thursday that the new Medicare law offering prescription drug benefits and private health plans to the elderly would cost at least $530 billion over 10 years, or one-third more than the price tag used when Congress passed the legislation two months ago.

Conservative Republicans said the new estimate confirmed their worst fears, while Democrats said it vindicated their view that the law gave far too much money to drug manufacturers and insurance companies. The bill passed narrowly in the House after Republican leaders gave assurances that the cost would not exceed $400 billion.

Uh-huh. We're surprised? Now look at this, from the WaPo, 12/23/03:

GOP's Pressing Question on Medicare Vote - Did Some Go Too Far To Change a No to a Yes?

About 20 Republican congressmen -- all fiscal conservatives -- gathered nervously in a back room at the Hunan Dynasty restaurant on Capitol Hill on Nov. 21, trying to shore up their resolve to defy President Bush. It was the night of the big vote on the Bush administration's Medicare prescription drug bill, which they had concluded was too costly, and they began swapping tales about the intense lobbying bearing down on them.

Over egg rolls and pu-pu platters, one complained that a home-state politician had insinuated that he would run against him in the next primary unless the lawmaker voted for the bill. Another said House leaders had warned that if the bill was defeated because of his no vote, he might lose his subcommittee chairmanship. Several recalled being telephoned by insistent lobbyists from the health care industry.

But the most dramatic account was given by Rep. Nick Smith (Mich.), who is to retire next year and hopes his son will succeed him. According to two other congressmen who were present, Smith told the gathering that House Republican leaders had promised substantial financial and political support for his son's campaign if Smith voted yes. Smith added that his son, in a telephone call, had urged him to vote his conscience, and with the support of dissident colleagues, Smith stuck to his no vote.

[ . . . ]

It was a little before dawn on Nov. 22 that the House passed the Medicare bill. And it was the next day that Smith wrote a column for the Lenawee Connection about the House leadership's use of what he called "bribes and special deals" to eke out that margin of victory.

During the deliberations, Smith wrote, some "members and groups" had not only offered extensive financial support and endorsements for the campaign of his son, Bradley L. Smith, but also "made threats of working against Brad if I voted no."

So. First: threats and bribes to get sensible Republicans--who can add--to vote for a patently interest-friendly and bad piece of legislation. (Remember: Medicare can't negotiate better drug prices.) Okay, maybe they would have gotten over that. Eventually. Now, the news that not only were you arm-twisted, you were rolled. By your own guys. Hear that hiss? It's a fuse burning. Many fuses. With (R)s attached.

Lord of the Flies certainly is an allegory for a lot of things, isn't it?

This hurts to watch. WorldNetDaily, Today:

Republicans: Don't give up on 'W' now!

The most serious threat to President Bush's second term is not a Democrat; it is the growing mass of disenchanted Republicans who are accepting the proposition that there is little or no difference between the two major parties.

[ . . . ]

The Patriot Act, the prescription drug program, the "guest worker" program, the so-called "free trade" programs and a half-trillion dollar deficit have left conservatives reeling, wondering why a Republican administration and Congress have produced results that look so much like what they would expect from a Democrat administration and Congress.

Consequently, many, many Republicans have thrown up their hands and have decided to either join some doomed third-party movement or simply stay home.

While this reaction may be understandable, it is not only self-defeating, it violates the first law of true believers: Never, never, never, never give up!

[ . . . ]

Democrats alone cannot regain control. If conservatives give up, throw in the towel and fail to show up for the November battle, the Democrats will win by default. Conservatives who truly believe that freedom is better than socialism, those who want freedom for their children rather than a world socialist government, will never, never, never, never give up. They will show up in November.

...and, swallowing hard, vote for the Democrat clean-up crew.

Dispatches from the everything-you-know-is-wrong department

Simplistic, emotional, unfounded or agenda-laden assertions are anathema to successful progress and the Scouting Motto. So here at Fouroboros Worldwide, we have an entire division dedicated to spreading a little light into the deep dark karst of opinion masquerading as fact. We call them the Sunshine Squad. It's dangerous work, but they get Dental.

From the Wall Street Journal, Via The Fulcrum:

PROFLIGATE PRESIDENT Average annual real increases in domestic discretionary spending
	Fiscal Years	% Increase
Lyndon Johnson	1965-69	4.3%
Richard Nixon	1970-75	6.8%
Gerald Ford	1976-77	8.0%
Jimmy Carter	1978-81	2.0%
Ronald Reagan	1982-89	-1.3%
George H. W. Bush	1990-93	4.0%
Bill Clinton	1994-01	2.5%
George W. Bush	2002-04	8.2%
Source: Club for Growth, based on U.S. Budget, Historical tables, 2004

WSJ:

The much delayed omnibus appropriations bill for 2004, scheduled for a vote in the Senate this afternoon, looks set to cap the first term of the most profligate Administration since the 1960s. [snip] GOP leaders would have us believe this all adds up to one of the leanest spending plans in years -- an increase in federal discretionary spending of only 3%, compared with 13% and 12% in each of the previous two years.

But Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation points out that it's really more like a 9% increase, and that's assuming there will be no supplemental appropriations as in previous years.

(Sorry, no link to WSJ - subscription only.)

For those playing at home the numbers tally thus:

	Avg. Disc. Spending growth	Total Administrations	Total Fiscal Years	CPI/Inflation (avg. annual)	Avg. Senate Maj.(yrs)	Avg. House Maj.(yrs)
RED TEAM	5.14%	5	23	5.565%	Dem. (21)	Dem. (18)
BLUE TEAM	2.93%	3	17	5.27%	Dem. (16)	Dem. (13)

(House and Senate figures tentative, still sourcing. -Ed.)

Dispatches from the everything-you-know-is-wrong department
[1/31/04: Edited]

NYT, Dan Pink: Love the tax subsidy, demonize the tax payer [Link via atrios]

Words failed me. So here's this instead:

Federal Taxing and Spending Benefit Some States, Leave Others Footing the Bill

If some states are beneficiaries, then naturally some must be benefactors - those states where so much is collected in federal taxes that any federal spending they receive is overwhelmed.
    
New York has often been the biggest payer in the Tax Foundation's annual comparison of taxes to spending, which inspired Daniel Patrick Moynihan and the Kennedy School of Government to launch their annual reference book comparing state taxes with spending (www.ksg.harvard.edu/fisc99) more than 25 years ago. In recent years, however, other states have eclipsed New York for the "blessing" of being the state that gives far more than it receives.
    
Combining the third highest tax burden per capita with the ninth lowest federal spending, New Jersey had the lowest federal spending-to-tax ratio (62¢). Other states that had low federal spending-to-tax ratios in FY 2002 are Connecticut (65¢), New Hampshire (66¢), Nevada (74¢), Massachusetts (75¢) and California (76¢).

[taxfoundation.org]

Red state, Blue state, Sponge state, Screwed state. Pitiful.

More Fouro's "Executive Lexicon and Big Book of Business Wisdom"^©

Flan -- The Plan that results from the decison to execute a Frydea.

FlowerPoint™ -- Presenter (or presentation) oblivious to an audience sniggering at repeated uses of "agreeance," "paradigm," "synergy," or "bucketize."

Frownsize -- Number of "personal days" requested after announcing "There will be no bonuses this year due to 'the economy'."

Frydea (Frydealist; frydealism) -- A concept that a decisionmaker thinks is deeply insightful or useful, and one that those responsible for executing believe could easily have come from a high-schooler who works at McDonalds.

From: The Enterprise System Spectator

Companies mum on savings from IT offshore outsourcing

Here's more on the impact of IT outsourcing. Computerworld observes that many large public companies, such as Microsoft, AT&T, and IBM, who are usually quick to trumpet their cost-cutting initiatives, are slow to publicize how much they are saving by moving IT jobs offshore, fearing an anti-outsourcing backlash. Furthermore, major Indian outsourcing firms such as Infosys, Wipro, and Satyam have stopped announcing new customers.

"The problem is that companies aren't sure if it's politically correct to talk about it," said Jack Trout, a principal at marketing and strategy firm Trout & Partners. "Nobody has come up with a way to spin it in a positive way."

The article predicts that as many as 2 million U.S. white-collar jobs such as programmers, software engineers and applications designers will move offshore by 2014.

"Nobody has come up with a way to spin it in a positive way."

Geezus. You don't need spin. Just a firm grip on reality, well explained. And a public reminder that we've travelled and survived this road before. Followed by a coherent, bracing and embracing answer to the question: "What's next?" Lookee here....



Now, what that looks like in practice....

USA Gross Domestic Product
	Billions_ Real year 2000 US dollars	CPI/Inflation
2002	10068.111	1.50
2001	9849.395	2.80
2000	9824.650	3.40
1999	9469.269	2.20
1998	9095.129	1.50
1997	8721.603	2.30
1996	8351.417	2.90
1995	8063.564	2.80
1994	7853.953	2.60
1993	7549.238	3.00
1992	7354.111	3.00
1991	7136.403	4.20
1990	7170.047	5.40

(OECD Excel)

Now look at what we and everyone else has gone through since Seventeen-hundred and frozen-to-death...



50 years... and equilibrium sets in, if Goldman Sachs and OECD are correct. And even if their numbers are off a bit, history doesn't lie.

Where is Gerstner on this? Bush? Or Commerce Secretary Don Evans. Or Dean or Kerry or Clark? This is the top line of their job descriptions, all of them. Absent political cojones or understanding, it's a prime opportunity for business to step up and show some national leadership.

In this case, to clearly explain that global growth and accelerated second and third world manufacturing puberty comes with, guess what? Growing pains. For everybody.

Act Two of that explanation is to demonstrate why the sooner developing countries grow mature industries and middle classes, the more incentives there will be not to rely on "cost" but "differentiation"--and it's commensurate higher margins--as their competitive advantage. (But first, WE have to shake that lazy habit ourselves. And quick.)

Finally, Act Three: if the near term course (30-50 years) is to follow Adam Smith's hand to inevitable Global Economic maturity and stability, what's the plan on what we do for eats and advantage in the interim, and then, beyond?

Once upon a time, another President named Bush said "we have more will than wallet."

He was wrong. A uniform paradox of business (and politics, and entertainment, and...) is that imagination and layered, sustainable solutions take sweat and spadework, perspective and patience, and more than just a little curiosity. Each of these are increasingly institutionally suspect and subservient to "speed." Writing a check is easy, and it feels like "action." Cut and paste ideas, Excel Spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations pass for expansive thinking. Going back to the moon doesn't cut it. We've seen that movie. In short, there is far too much money chasing far too few ideas. There is a dearth of new frontiers in American Business and Politics, and that lack has Americans Jonesing. And biting their fingernails. And swinging fists. Big time.

More to come later this evening.

Gallery of Global Leaders--the home game

I was working on a post about Finland's Weapons of Mass Lutefisk-related program activities this afternoon, and couldn't for the life of remember where I'd filed that headshot of Finnish Big Wheel Anelli Jaatteenmaki. I hate it when that happens. Lucky for me, Professor Phil van Auken of Baylor's Hankamer School of Business keeps a handy bigshot photo gallery for just such occasions. (Whoa, Turkey's Abdullah Gul looks like he'd kick your ass just as soon as look at you. My kind of guy.)

Lieberman to suspend campaign-related program activities.

[Courtesy Calpundit] Take these for what they're worth, although I have to say that they're remarkably close. Here's the average of all six [exit polls]:

Kerry - 35.7
Dean - 31.1
Edwards - 12.6
Clark - 11.5
Lieberman - 6.4

Fouro's "Executive Lexicon and Big Book of Business Wisdom"^©

Claradigm -- See Clara Peller, Actress; Wendy's Hamburgers: "Where's the Beef?™"

Crampion -- Throbbing pain you get after being told you're heading up the internal morale initiative following the recent layoffs.

Cross-disciplinarian -- A person, usually management, with a strong aversion to departmental collaboration but no qualms about public floggings.

Disintermediaryexpialidocious -- Medical term: Excision of puss-filled lesion. (Colloquial: Fire a consultant.)

A little sampling of something we're working on at Fouroboros Worldwide, Plc, SA, GmBH, Inc.

The Creative Class rises, then emigrates to Bondi beach.

From How the GOPs Anti-elitism could ruin America's economy:

...the lion’s share of benefits from The Lord of the Rings is likely to accrue not to the United States but to New Zealand. Next, with a rather devastating symbolism, Jackson will remake King Kong in Wellington, with a budget running into upwards of $150 million.

Peter Jackson’s power play hasn’t been mentioned by any of the current candidates running for president. Yet the loss of U.S. jobs to overseas competitors is shaping up to be one of the defining issues of the 2004 campaign. And for good reason. Voters are seeing not just a decline in manufacturing jobs, but also the outsourcing of hundreds of thousands of white-collar brain jobs—everything from software coders to financial analysts for investment banks. These were supposed to be the “safe” jobs, for which high school guidance counselors steered the children of blue-collar workers into college to avoid their parents’ fate.

But the loss of some of these jobs is only the most obvious—and not even the most worrying—aspect of a much bigger problem. Other countries are now encroaching more directly and successfully on what has been, for almost two decades, the heartland of our economic success — the creative economy.

Very good article encapsulating the folly of traditional economic and business thinking in the face of a world fast learning the lessons of growth and ambition--and in many cases, walking the talk better than we do. Read it, it's about much more than the movie business.

Richard Florida is an Economic Development specialist whose 2001 book, Rise of the Creative Class, factually and in great detail finally took the knees out from under the traditional urban revitalization view: Build it and they will come.

They didn't, don't, can't, won't come.

You've seen the syndrome: Big stadia, gallerias, Biotech parks and incubators, big-box blackfields (Wal-Mart-ish aircraft hangars for retail, surrounded by acres of asphalt desert with shopping cart tumbleweeds).

These, and similar Frydeas* are the embodiment of the shortsighted "crown-jewel", "silver bullet" mentality of urban politicians and developers without opposable thumbs. And they fail with depressing regularity while siphoning off tax revenue and small business bases, thereby strangling community viability. You might call them the ultimate triumph of ego over any understanding of the food chain that is economic systems: Lions get the pampering. Gazelles, rabbits, mice and ants get bupkis because they aren't "sexy". In the end, the lions die of starvation too. Ditto corporate America, ditto the military, ditto you name it.

(If I seem a tad animated on this subject, I am. I love it. I love shortsighted, left-brain executives--I wouldn't have a company otherwise.)

In this article, Florida wisely sees a corrolary for the nation: We're not just subsidizing short sighted business ideas based only on influence, not merit, we're exporting our future. Read it, he's good.

*soon to to be revealed in Fouro's "Executive Lexicon and Big Book of Business Wisdom"

Tacitus Squeaks:

If you told me in fall '00 that the next Republican administration would embrace mushy multiculturalism; wipe out our reputation for fiscal rectitude; preside over a massive entitlements expansion; embrace secrecy as a good in itself; and unnecessarily strain the US armed forces to the breaking point, I would never have believed it. But it has all come to pass, and we must be very clear on why it has come to pass: it is not because these things are expressions of the core principles of most Republicans -- it is because most Republicans have allowed them despite their core principles. In this, I am as guilty as the rest. It's difficult for outsiders to appreciate the depth to which the frustrations of the Clinton years scarred and shaped the Republican core.

Commendable.

Note this date. Go read the above in full. Unlike many who'll jump on his post as blaming Clinton for the Republicans Jingoism and Hubris, I think Tacitus sincerely recognizes precisely how myopic and bloodlusting Republicans have become; he senses the portent of a crash, not just for his party, but for the country. Good for him.

Tacitus works in this administration. He says he's not alone in his feelings. That computes. But the painful march to the obvious for elected and otherwise grown-up folks who should know better is the part that always jangles my fillings in these situations. The calories burned to noisily deny the existence of gravity, common sense and other laws would probably get Bush to Mars, with leftovers.

Good luck, Tacitus.

Travel Advisory

Two executives and a programmer for Company X were taken hostage by al Qaeda. Company X was willing to ransom the programmer, but they told the terrorists to keep the executives. Terrorists said it was all or nothing, so the deal fell through.

The terrorists hauled out the three hostages and gave them the bad news. They were all going to be shot, but each could have one one last request before he was killed.

First Executive says, "Before I die I would like to share some thoughts about Leadership."

Second Executive says, "Are you guys familiar with Six Sigma?"

Programmer: "Shoot me first."

Enough words, time for [neocon] cartoons:
(click for larger)