Libera Voce

To understand the complexities behind this topic, we would have to start with a discussion on management, which in itself is too expansive for a blog post, so we will briefly define what it is and its main functions and styles.

In business, and for all institutions public and private, the generally accepted definition of management is the organization and coordination of activities in order to achieve defined objectives. The seven functions of management are planning, organizing, staffing, directing, controlling, coordination and cooperation.

There are also many styles of management, which generally fall into the three categories of autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire; autocratic is the most controlling and laissez-faire being the least controlling.

Regardless of management style, an analytical process is critically essential for success.  For analysis to be meaningful you need an inquiring and unbiased attitude to get the best information available; restricting that process will result in a myopic organization, a syndrome we can characterize as bunker mentality.

The term derives from military experiences, also called siege mentality; it comes about as a collective fear of being under attack.  In the military sense, that can be a very deadly reality. In management however, it is often not of a clearly defined aggressor, but the world in general, especially for causes yet unknown.  It can manifest itself as an irrational urge for isolation and extreme defensiveness; these are panic reactions to perceptions more so than realities.

Such an environment is indicative of fear. Good managerial skills include the ability to face fear, not to deny it, but in order to control it and look through it to the cause of the anxieties at play. Further, when faced with problems, good management requires an analysis of the consequences of any actions being contemplated.  Uncontrolled fear can blind you to the consequences of your reactions, often causing more damage than the problem itself.

Good management understands that a bunker mentality is a common reaction to problems outside of historical experience, causing a withdrawal from analytical processes such as consideration of the consequences of proposed solutions; inevitably this in turn increases fear, further feeding the impulse to withdraw into a defensive shell, and a heightened intolerance for any conflicting opinions as to what to do.

Often when a state of bunker mentality exists, it will seek the first solution offered to the exclusion of any alternatives; it is rushed to execution without consideration of future consequences, only the exigencies of the moment.  Soon however the future becomes the present and the consequences make the initial problem almost trivial by comparison, mostly because no one was prepared to deal with consequences precisely because no one thought about or was allowed to think about them.

Another characteristic of the bunker mentality is how it treats the unintended consequences that were never considered; basically it goes into the blame game phase. The focus then becomes how to deal with the perception of who screwed up and not on the original problem. Any critics of the decisions that led to the unintended consequences are dismissed as uneducated fools who don’t understand what the experts know and what those in power have to deal with.  Time and again, additional bad decisions follow in an effort to deflect these consequences, putting everything into a death spiral.

It is extremely difficult getting people out of the bunker mentality. The resistance to come out of their comfort zone is strong, even as the defensive shell they are in is collapsing around them; often it means reassignment or dismissal as the bunkers can be impenetrable. Working against the bunker mentality will also bring out the self-righteousness of its supporters, and those whose agenda is not about what’s best but what is expedient to their immediate benefit.

From a military perspective sieges either succeed because those besieged took no action, or fail because either the besieged are relieved and/or come out and break the siege or the reasons for the siege are themselves mitigated in some way as when peace is declared.

Similarly, from a managerial perspective, you need to overcome the bunker mentality and move forward to solve problems, inclusive of avoiding negative long term consequences, i.e. do no harm.  The alternatives are you fail and the organization or project fails also, leading to irredeemable losses. This may also happen even if the “other side” concedes the issue at hand. There is no upside with a bunker mentality, not in the long run, and if you are not managing for the long run, you don’t belong in management to begin with.

#bunkermentality1

Why is there increasing noise in social media about the topic of secession?  In order to discuss secession itself, we need to understand this question and the answer; that can be difficult given all that “noise”, and the fact that civil discourse is absent from any debate, but that doesn’t mean it should be ignored.

Let’s not get hung up on the simplistic notion that this is just another crisis of the Age of Trump; this goes back much further than the current administration. The list of significant such movements in the US is about a dozen and range geographically across the country from Vermont to Hawaii. The impetus for such movements range from cultural, social, political and economic issues, and support secessions of counties within states all the way to groups of states seceding from the Union.

A common theme is the reaction to the imposition of culture, laws and attitudes dictated from above, meaning not representative of a particular local area.  The “above” is perceived as Washington DC, i.e. the Federal Government. The imposition resented comes from the politically elite in the urban areas of the Northeast and Pacific Coast.

The resulting social and political dynamic reviving and driving these movements is polarization. With the advent of social media, these movements have grown and the synergy created with technology back feeds into even more support; it’s like a chimeric growth with an indeterminate evolution, but decidedly alienating.

So this in turn leads to the issue of secession itself, an issue that we assumed was settled with the Civil War.  However, from a constitutional perspective, that may be only an assumption.  The Constitution provides a clear path for a territory to become a state of the Union, but is silent on the issue of secession. That curious fact has been explained variously by many scholars, but not conclusively.

Foremost against secession we have the Supreme Court 1869 ruling in Texas v. White; the case was about US bond sales and redemptions by Texas during the Civil War, and not specifically about Texas’ right to secede from the Union. However the case presented the Supreme Court with an opportunity, so it ruled that the sale was illegal because it occurred at the time of secession, which in turn it deemed illegal stating that the Constitution did not permit states to unilaterally secede from the United States. That is true as the Constitution says nothing about secession, so unilateral or not, permission or prohibition, it is not addressed.  

Some scholars have argued that the court should have gone further as it did not address the fact that the Constitution did not speak against secession. Obviously, having just had a bloody civil war about secession and with the South still under Reconstruction governance, the court found itself compelled to take a stand against secession or put the entire outcome in jeopardy. However, by not addressing the issue of the Constitution’s silence on secession, it lost the opportunity to resolve that issue in regards to powers not expressed and therefore reserved to the States.

Regardless of which way you may argue the issue, it remains that the Constitution to this day is silent on secession, does not provide an expressed power, and has not had an amendment to resolve that. On that basis those promoting the right of secession make their case.

Taken all together, we have a Balkanization of America.  I chose that phrase based on its definition, i.e. a geopolitical term for the process of fragmentation or division of a region or state into smaller regions or states that are often hostile or uncooperative with one another. The term evolved during the many periods of fragmentation of the Balkans from the time of the Byzantine Empire’s collapse to that of the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

Well by definition we certainly have Balkanization going on in America today, and the current economic collapse will only exacerbate the underlying causes even further. It is difficult to separate the growing polarization from this issue as therein lay both the cause and the possible solution.

Let’s start with the simple premise that when developing policies of governance, especially for a country as large and diverse as America, we can’t take an approach that one size fits all; by definition it can’t work in governance any more than in shoe making since no matter what you’re excluding more people than you are serving.

Government works best to serve the people when it operates at the most localized level to the people involved, i.e. state and county, city and town.  This is how the US was originally constructed through the constitution and therein lies the way to understand how polarization starts and grows to the extremes we have today.

With the growth of the Federal government, specifically its assumptions of powers despite restrictions within the Constitution, we have conflict through intervention in areas of governance that belong at the state and local levels, an assumption of powers never intended even by the Federalists and certainly feared by Jeffersonians.  It is this growth of the Federal Government and its attendant powers that is the underlying cause of the alienation tearing the Republic apart.

Knowing the problem and its cause informs us for a solution. We need to face and collegially embrace the fact that we are a union of various States, each representing its own unique history, culture, social and political characteristics. We must acknowledge and respect our differences, not ridicule them from partisan perspectives. We must embrace our common values, chiefly our respect for individual freedom as guaranteed by the Constitution, the rule of law and the protection of individual lives, liberties and private properties. There should be no more debate about the Bill of Rights; it was the one thing that enabled the ratification of the Constitution, thanks to the insistence of the New England states, the birth place of the Revolution.

This means an existential shift in the direction of our political institutions away from nationalistic agendas to localized prerogatives; for a truly civil society, when it comes to government, less is truly more.

This should not be dismissed as wishful thinking as this is what our Republic is based on, what the Revolution was fought for, and what the Civil War was intended to preserve. If we do not do these things, polarization will only get worse and we will face the inevitable prospect of Balkanization.

#balkanizationamerica

Is the collapse of the US market only about the pandemic? True the shut downs have crippled the economy, but since markets react to a horizon 6-9 months out, perhaps there’s more to this. Obviously COVID19 is serious in and of itself, so yes it is indeed an immediate source of the recent market collapse, but also a catalyst for exposing other problems of a more systemic nature:

1. Credit – The economic impact of COVID19 will be to all market sectors, not just tourism and entertainment. Those companies that have run up debt, some to the point of “zombie” status, i.e. earnings less that debt service, will have even less earnings and will be even more financially distressed, perhaps fatally; this will make the high yield corporate bond market even less attractive than it already is; markets would price that in. 
2. Fed Reaction – The recent Fed rate cuts were ill advised as there was already plenty of liquidity, perhaps too much.  It will not really mitigate the impact as debt will not go away and much of it was already at interest rates that are not retroactively affected. The Fed showed both panic at a time when sober reaction was needed and a loss of confidence in its own appraisal that the American economy was fundamentally sound; markets react negatively to both.
3. Energy Glut – It’s the Saudis versus the Russians.  In reaction to what was already weak demand and gross over supply, OPEC wanted a cut in production.  A seemingly sensible proposal even for a cartel. Russia, whose economy is as dependent on energy as the Saudi’s, refused to go along and went for even higher production.  The obvious happened and the oil market collapsed. This will hurt American shale production as the technology costs make that unprofitable.  Natural gas prices tend to move with oil, so that will also impact the energy sector, and with such cheap carbon fuel costs, alternative energy will be even less competitive. For perhaps 3-4 years the energy sector is toxic to investors and that will create serious long term problems.  
4. Federal Debt & Budget Deficits – Political campaigners may not be talking or even thinking about this, but markets do, especially regarding sovereign debt. It has reached the point where traditional foreign purchasers of US bonds, such as China and much of the EU, are reducing not only new purchases, but not turning over maturing bonds. Given the worldwide economic collapse they will have their own issues selling debt.  No one any longer seems to believe that the US has a plan to address its $23T debt, especially with the Cares Act and corporate relief bailouts resulting in even greater annual deficits and campaign talk of even greater spending. It’s becoming apparent to the markets and even in the mainstream media that we are running out of road to kick that can down, and we could face a credit crisis worse than 2008, and at the worst possible time.

The stock market was an attractive alternative to bonds for yield, and the bond market an attractive alternative to stocks for security; so what happens when both turn ugly?  With all this selling, the money is going somewhere, but not into investments, and that could see a credit freeze such as we saw in 2008.  While the banks are supposedly more financially sound, meaning fractional reserve ratios are higher with the mandate for stricter stress testing, where does that leave the highest consumer debt of all time? If we are on the doorstep of a recession as many say, if not depression as few will, how can Americans repay that debt?

Generational pandemics such as COVID19 have happened before and will likely happen again, like The Spanish Flu of 2018, MERS, and SARS; but when a culture of debt and consumption is faced with such an event, we have a perfect storm creating an even greater existential threat, one of our own creation.

#perfectstorm

An open letter to President Trump:

Please don’t hold this against me, but I did not vote for you in 2016.  It’s also unlikely to happen in 2020.  I know you fire people who disagree with you, even if they are just doing their jobs, but I don’t work for the government.  The truth is I would never work for the government so I assure you I pose no threat to you other than a single vote you may never have.

I also think that you will likely win the 2020 election for no other reason than the simple fact that while your opposition says they represent some better alternative to you, they can’t even represent what that means.  In effect your single strength is that you actually represent virtually nothing at all other than some notion that you are not them and therefore better than whatever they say they are.  If that seems confusing it’s because it is and therein is your advantage.

So here’s my single and simple request– end the shut down now! I’ve already read how you do not have the power to decree a lock-down, and that any such powers that may exists to do so lies only with the States and not the Federal Government – that’s great news. However, I plead the case that the States are killing Americans, violating their civil liberties, and bringing the American people to ruin. The consequences are far worse than the flu they are meant to fight.  Another case of the road to hell paved with good intentions….but I’m not sure there are even good intentions.

Right now I entitled this open letter as a “Life Suspended”.  I think soon it will be “Life Terminated”, and I’m not referring to COVID19.  I’m referring to the end of America’s economic life, and all the destruction that comes with it. 

Be a savior and free the people!

#lifesuspended

We should avoid politicizing this crisis with recounting all the dumb things that politicians have said; that would be a full time occupation and it really detracts from the central issues of not about what they said, but about the egregious things they have done.

We’ve heard so much about the need to “flatten the curve”, yet there is no longer a curve to flatten.  The “curve” is now a vertical line straight up the Y axis, and will accelerate with the ever increasing testing, most of which is in NYS. That’s only logical as the more you test, the more results you have, and only proves the point that this virus does what all viruses do. All the modeling and geometric progression analyses will do nothing as reliable epidemiologists already know.  What we need is empirical data, and the greater the statistical base, the better the data. 

By all means we as citizens should use our common sense as with all viruses:

1. Practice careful hygienic and sanitary procedures.
2. When sick, see a doctor and stay at home.
3. The medical industry needs to provide protective equipment for health care providers.
4. The medical industry needs to provide ICU equipment, such as ventilators and respirators.
5. The medical industry needs to provide research for treatment and eventually vaccines.

Cuomo had the foresight to bypass the sclerotic FDA and CDC and allow all POC facilities to do testing and to commission the 200+ licensed laboratories in NYS for results.  While he deserves credit for doing the right thing, his culpability in lock-downs is something contrary to his own stated instincts about fearing panic, which is a disease that spreads instantly and is a far greater threat than COVID19.

Sweden has not instituted the same draconian measures as the US and other countries due to their concern about the long term damage to their economy with lock-downs; they actually thought about the consequences of such policies, like how destroying an economy will lead to impoverishment and related health issues.  That’s really no surprise given Sweden’s far reaching visionary reforms taking the country out of the horrors of socialism as the unsustainable costs reached 70% of their GDP and high taxes were eviscerating their economy.

While the US government’s political policy reactions to 911 resulted in a severe degradation of our liberties, the government’s COVID19 policies will do the same to our economic wellbeing and freedoms.

# PoliticizingCOVID19

A few Days ago in a televised interview Governor Cuomo said something that I think was very wise, basically that he feared panic more than COVID19. I wish the Governor would act accordingly as his draconian measures are spreading the panic he says he fears; they are ill-advised and will do far more damage than the disease, actually proving his initial instincts correct.

Panic is defined as sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behavior. Well we’ve certainly have had plenty of that, but in this instance, it is particularly toxic. Many economists are judging Wall Street’s reaction as irrational; assume they are correct, but if financial panic is a bad thing, we should realize that government panic can do much greater damage in far less time.  

While statistics are changing from moment to moment, as of today, 03/24/20, on a worldwide basis, deaths from COVID19 are about 18,000 of the 418,000 cases reported; more than a third of which are in Italy – more on that later.  Consider for a moment that the 2019/2020 seasonal influenza has killed over 50,000 people and counting in the US alone, and we get some perspective of where we are from an epidemiological viewpoint.

You’ve heard from all sorts of talking heads at the CDC and WHO all kinds of dire predictions about death counts in the millions, yet China, the origin country of this pathogen, is experiencing ever declining rates of infection and related deaths.  Granted, China’s track record on reliable information is suspect, but South Korea is experiencing the same.

In a recent interview, Richard Epstein, a highly regarded legal scholar, also well respected for his analytical studies on previous epidemics like HIV, cautioned against the very panic and draconian measures such as the lock-downs we are seeing in California and New York.  His insights are well worth considering; his particular concern is that the rash and senseless government acts shutting down the country will result in a far greater economic catastrophe than the Corona virus would otherwise cause.

Epstein makes particular reference to the poor epidemiological work done so far that is based purely on a geometric progression calculation only, without consideration of all the other factors that such studies are supposed to include, such as causation, transmission, outbreak investigation, surveillance, forensics, environment, age, occupations, screening, biomonitoring, and comparisons of treatment effects. Obviously this takes access to data, and time, but time is what you take to have the knowledge necessary to make rational decisions that don’t have dire consequences.

The goal of a properly conducted epidemiological study is it to get the necessary knowledge about a disease from which such sound decisions can be made; panic obstructs this goal. What we should demand from our government leaders is a calm acceptance of the fact that we have a serious health problem with no basis in fact to judge what needs to be done until science solves it and then assess the situation rationally, not to panic as they have done. It’s a case so far of shoot-ready-aim.

What we don’t need is to feed the frenzied panic with drastic draconian measures like shutting down the economy, flooding the credit market with even more debt, spending trillions of dollars from already empty pockets, eviscerating an anemic dollar and driving the US into a recession or even worse. The US is not supposed to be some authoritarian third world country incapable of sound judgements. You don’t address pandemics with political and financial measures; pathogens don’t care about such stuff.

As mentioned earlier, the phenomenon of why Italy has suffered so badly, even worse than China, comes down to the simple fact Italy’s healthcare system is hopelessly inadequate for everyday services, let alone a pandemic. Add to this that they have one of the largest aged populations on the planet, perhaps second only to Japan. Consider the fact that 87% of the deaths in Italy are those 70 years or older, and the median age of those hospitalized is 67. It also doesn’t help when you have a health care system so eviscerated by socialized medicine in a country that has been in a recession for years.

The US is ramping up testing and likely the number of infected and those dying will increase, but for the government to go into such a panic indicates more the fact that politicians are afraid of a perception of inaction, mostly created by the media binge, than sending the US into an economic collapse that will create even greater suffering and related health issues.  To cover their irresponsible behavior, they will look to blame everything and everybody rather than themselves; in essence, they are more concerned with themselves than the good of the citizens they are supposed to serve.

What we should do is have a little more courage and common sense.  This brings to mind a great observation from an ancient philosopher named Seneca:   “We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.” 

#COVID19PANIC

The US Census contains many questions, but about 25% are about race and ethnicity.  Racial profiling made the social lexicon with stop-and-frisk, and other painful practices by the government throughout the country, and people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds rightfully raised their voices against it. 

Why then does the Census get a free pass? This is clearly a form of racial profiling as it seeks to categorize Americans according to racial and ethnic characteristics.   What we must understand is that racial profiling, no matter the source or intent, is racism.

The detail into which these questions go is mind boggling given this countries long struggles with this issue. So what is the US Government doing practicing racial profiling?  The purpose we are told is to better understand the diversities of the population; that raises an existential question, which is why would there be a differentiation of anything in government based on race or ethnic background when we are all equal before the law?

This was never the intent of the census. Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution mandates that an apportionment of representatives among the states must be carried out every ten years. Therefore apportionment was the intended legal purpose of the decennial census by our nation’s founders and the framers of the constitution, which makes sense when considering how to structure a representative legislature.

To insert race into the census is as bad as perpetuating the three fifths rule in dealing with the black slave population prior to the 13^th and 14^th Amendments.  It reeks of the very toxic practices of the post-Civil War era with its Jim Crow laws, or the persecution of the Jews in European history, or today’s bias against Muslims, or the anti-immigration policies focused on Hispanics and Latinos.

When there is any judgement or decision based on race, you have that cursed cancer known as racism, and as a nation and a society we have struggled against this since the republic was born. To have government blatantly practicing racial profiling is to have institutional racism. This has gone on for quite a while now and it’s about time that Americans stand up and refuse to answer any of the census questions about race or ethnicity.

#CENSUS2020RACISM

COVID19 killed 389 Italians Saturday, accounting in one day for 25% of Italy’s death toll to date. Italy’s medical structure has been exposed as systemically inadequate, especially in a crisis, and is reduced to triage protocols.

According to the WHO, as of last Friday, excluding Italy, the rest of Europe accounted for 7% of the world wide COVID19 infected population, whereas the worst affected countries of China, Italy, Iran and South Korea represented 75%.  Given the late response to COVID19 by the US we only represented .9%; likely a misleading statistic at this point given inadequate testing.

One positive note was the precipitous decline in the infection rate in South Korea, a relatively small country that amazingly reacted almost spontaneously with widespread testing and development of successful treatment protocols (not cures!) of those infected. We should send a medical task force there like yesterday to learn from South Korea. How there is anyone in the US who doubts the severity of this pathogen is amazing; has our illiteracy rate risen lately?

Now all the talk about COVID19 as the perpetrator of a likely recession is also a sign of illiteracy – it is more like the match that lit the fuse! The Fed has caused a deep lack of confidence in the market with such panic moves as interest rate cuts, postured as a concern for liquidity; it’s like concern for a man dying of thirst while drowning in a lake. It was such manipulations for more and more liquidity that brought on one recession after another over the years and this movie is no different – likely worse.

The match was serious as COVID 19 will burn businesses big and small, but the strain on what we were told was a strong economy was the short fuse as that was just bad economic reporting based on even worse statistical posturing; and the powder keg was a credit bubble and it went BANG!

It is true that this is not the 2008 Financial Crisis, but that is misleading; the truth is this is the result of all the bad things the FED and the UST did to “recover”, like QE.  If QE was such a success, did you ever ask yourselves why we had QE2 and QE3? Why the Fed’s balance sheet is still so hopelessly bloated?  Why we needed rate cuts during a strong economy? If you kick the can down the road long enough, you better hope you don’t run out of road.

So since early March the DJIA went from an all-time high of over 29,000 to today’s close near 21,000. I think a 30% fall sounds more like a collapse than a correction, so let’s get real, this is not the 2008 Financial Crisis; this is something much worse.

#COVID19ECONOMICS