Presidential Availability

It’s an interesting exercise to think about the American government as a business – with the President as the CEO and the voters both as customers and as shareholders. The President interviews for a job with his campaign and we give him the job based on our votes, and then we use government programs.

The last administration seemed to carry with it an air of aloofness. As an everyday American that happened to devour news, I found it difficult to get adequate answers from high ranking officials about issues small or large, and policy answers proved even more elusive. Sure, we heard talking points and well-scripted answers that kept a veil of secrecy up between government and the people it served, but that just never seemed to cut it for me.

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh on the Bush administration in terms of transparency in governing (and I understand that some parts of the government should be kept secret), but something tells me that more than a few people share my belief.

This new administration charged into the White House on the backs of small donations (and, really, huge donations from corporations and special interest groups) with the help of the Internet. I don’t know about you, but I was almost sick of receiving emails from Barack Obama during the campaign. And I liked it.

President Obama promised to change the politics of Washington, and while we all knew this to be hyperbolic, it appears that he is at least trying earnestly to change the availability and transparency of the Office of the President and, indeed, of the President himself.

In the past two weeks, President Obama has been on Leno and 60 Minutes and he held a virtual town hall meeting on CNN where he answered questions from attendees (there live) and the Web. The President is making himself available to the American Public.

I’m stunned.

It’s amazing. I actually feel like President Obama can be reached. Back when I was a kid, if I had some kind of monumental complaint, my mom/teachers/whoever would tell me to write my Congressman, basically letting me know that my complaint was falling on deaf ears, with no solution in sight.

Now, it seems, our President is following in the footsteps of FDR’s famous fireside chats and reaching out to the people, actually hearing our concerns and letting us know what the government is doing to help. The President spent most of his time explaining his budget, his stimulus plan, and his view on the future of the economy (bleak, but, thankfully, fairly realistic), but he had time to crack some jokes as well. Yes, the Office of the President is still difficult to reach, but not impossible.

President Obama started his term facing monstrous obstacles, and while I don’t always agree with all of his policies and decisions, it calms me to know that he is an incredibly smart man that takes his job, and his country, seriously. I hope he continues to reach out to us, the American public, explaining his decisions and listening to our thoughts/fears/concerns/ideas.

He may not take our views into consideration as much as we’d like, and he likely cannot save the jobs we’d like him to save or quickly turn around the economy, but, hey, he’s not Superman. As long as he keeps himself available and attempts to increase the transparency of governance, he can start to cause actual change in Washington: bringing our Democracy (republic, really) back to the spirit of Democracy where every citizen’s voice actually matters.

I could get quite used to four years of this.

Gratuitous Cash

The talk of the town as of late has been AIG and the $165,000,000 in bonuses paid to executives … after receiving more than $170,000,000,000 in bailout money. The public, the government, the media, everyone, really (except for those receiving the bonuses, of course), is upset and appalled at this egregious amount of money in the face of our faltering economy.

Here are the numbers, according to New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo: 418 employees received bonuses. 298 of them received bonuses of $100,000 or more, with 73 of them receiving at least one million dollars. A lot of money, to be sure.

It seems almost a no-brainer that this is a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money and that something should be done about it, right? President Obama and Congress are working on just that – they’re taking this populist sentiment being spewed from all corners of the country and attempting to pass legislation that recoups the expense of the bonuses.

The US government, after all the bailout money, owns upwards of 80% of AIG, more than enough to attack this issue from the standpoint of owner of the company as opposed to a regulatory body. The controlling stake and finances that we (speaking as a taxpayer) have in the company certainly allow the government to take a more active role in employee compensation, and after all the talk about limiting executive pay in companies that accepted bailout money, the government almost has to take action.

Should it?

Everyone is looking for some place to put all of their anger at the failing economy, a scapegoat to take the blame for all that’s going wrong. It’s easy to point fingers – at banks, at lack of market regulation, at mortgage companies, at AIG, at people living beyond their means, at Bernie Madoff … people are flinging blame at anything it’ll stick to. Which, fine, I understand your anger. The economy is in shambles, people were seemingly bamboozled into accepting bad mortgages, the promise of the ever growing market is letting us down, and the world economy is on the brink of collapse.

As has been thoroughly noted in the press, many of the executives receiving the bonuses ran the financial services part of the company responsible for much of the unchecked risk that is largely responsible for the company’s current predicament. These executives, it seems, are being rewarded for driving the company into the ground and nearly taking the economy with it.

But the AIG employees that received bonuses were owed them contractually. AND nearly all of them offered to give the money back (AIG also reportedly asked all employees receiving $100,000 or more to give at least half of the money back). Is it too little, too late? Or should they even give the money back?

I understand the public outcry, I mean, I certainly would like a hundred thousand dollar bonus. Hell, I’d like a thousand dollar bonus. But it’s not in my contract to receive a ridiculously huge bonus. I can’t wrap my head around the unintended consequences of the government stepping in, even as primary shareholder, and reneging on a contract. That would set a precedent for avoiding unfortunate contractual obligations.

Many companies are taking preventative measures and reducing bonuses or freezing salaries, but these companies are, in general, communicating these decisions with employees, NOT giving them a bonus or a raise and asking for it back (except, of course, Microsoft and that whole asking for severance pay to be returned fiasco). It just seems that allowing companies to break contracts due to the whimsy of public opinion.

Does this mean that financial companies should pay outrageous bonuses to their employees? No. Does it mean that AIG should just give out bonuses all willy-nilly? Absolutely not.

It is unbelievably irresponsible for AIG to pay out such massive bonuses after taking so much taxpayer money and needing to be bailed out from bankruptcy several times. It is commendable that the employees are offering to give their bonuses back, but that makes me think that they’re overpaid anyway if they can afford to return over a hundred thousand dollars. Perhaps the “leadership” at AIG could have had the foresight to understand that giving out a hundred million dollars in bonuses would create a public backlash, but, then, if they had any kind of foresight, perhaps they could have avoided this mess all together. 

Don't Let Them Fail

Print newspapers are in trouble of going out of business all across the country, and we can’t let this happen. An article yesterday in the NY Times (link) talks about the trend of large cities with two major papers are facing the economic crunch by turning into one paper towns, and one paper markets are facing the realities of life without a major local newspaper.

This is a trend that must be stopped.

A lot of you are probably thinking that maybe the fall of the printed newspaper won’t be such a bad thing, that they can survive in electronic form, and, indeed, some folks make that argument in the Times piece. I believe that those people are sadly mistaken.

Yes, some form of the newspapers will likely survive and live on the Internet, but it will hardly be a newspaper. I cannot imagine online ad revenues funding a newsroom (or if they can fund the newsroom, it’ll almost certainly be a skeleton crew of reporters) outside of a bare minimum of editors. And these editors very likely won’t be doing a huge amount of reporting, but, rather, will be in charge of pulling stories from newswires like Reuters and the Associated Press (AP).

It is not my intention here to say that newswires do not report quality news, they do. The problem that would arise is twofold.

First, this would basically eliminate local news. Newswires don’t make their money by reporting local news stories, they generally provide only national and international news stories and provide smaller, regional papers (that can’t afford international correspondents) with their world news. While some of you might think that national and international news is the only news worth reading, I think you’d be missing out so so much. Book reviews, the classifieds, job listings, film reviews, music reviews, restaurant reviews, editorials, the culture section, local sports beats, arts, entertainment, local event listings, local nightlife information, local features, local flavor, local vernacular … all of this and more would be completely eliminated from your life. Sure, some of it would be replaced by random online sites, but it’ll be a hodgepodge of different sites that likely will not cover everything quite the same way a well-run newspaper would.

The second issue involves something that is often complained about now: monopoly. One complaint about the current news industry is that large papers (NY Times, Wall Street Journal, LA Times) have a monopoly of news reporting. I don’t agree with this, but it’s a fair complaint. The NY Times is almost universally considered the Paper of Record, but I’m just fine with that. Imagine what would happen if even half of America’s major cities took the majority of their news from one of three major newswires? Now that would constitute a monopoly (or oligopoly, I suppose) of news reporting. 

Newspapers need to find new revenue. I, for one, think that charging for online readership is just the way to do it. Online viewers far outnumber hard-copy readers, and since a major source of revenue (print ads) have disappeared recently, new subscriptions from online readers would significantly boost revenue, even if it scared away some readers (I would definitely pay a monthly/yearly fee for a trusted source of news).

A world without trusted major newspapers is one that I not only can’t imagine, but don’t want to be a part of. Newspapers need to bite the bullet, make like the Journal and charge for online material. Readers need to suck it up and pay for it. 

Legalization

This week the cover of The Economist boasts “How to stop the drug wars” and shows a witty little picture of a skull outlined by guns and a cannabis leaf. The image is jarring and the subject thought provoking. How do you stop the drug wars?

The British newsweekly concludes that the least of all evils is to legalize drugs … across the globe.

They make some excellent points and their overall argument sounds reasonable, and, I must admit, I have given thought about the legalization of certain illegal things as viable options – prostitution and marijuana are two examples. Legalized prostitution would, in theory vastly improve the lives of prostitutes – they could unionize, get benefits, arrange for proper healthcare and disease prevention/treatment, there would be extensive regulation etc. Marijuana is already legally used for medicinal purposes and is arguably a safer drug than either alcohol or tobacco, yet it remains illegal.

The problem that I run into with the legalization of “drugs” in general is that, while some drugs may be fine for general consumption, I can’t really picture the safe use of drugs like heroine or LSD. It can be argued, though, and is, that legalizing all drugs will allow for several positive things.

First is that drug abuse would be treated as a medical issue instead of a criminal issue, a huge benefit to drug abusers and the legal system. Legalization would also allow for the regulation of drugs, stopping the practice of lacing street drugs (already dangerous by themselves) with pharmaceuticals to boost profit. This regulation would also eliminate a black market and organized crime from the mix (mostly. There is still a large organized crime presence surrounding tobacco and alcohol, so it wouldn’t disappear completely). Drug education could also become much more mainstream in schools, warning kids of the negative effects of drugs (like we already do with tobacco and alcohol) in the hopes that education will reduce drug abuse.

Perhaps the most beneficial reason for legalizing drugs in light of the world’s economic woes is the huge influx of cash from the inevitable drug tax. Tobacco and alcohol already have hefty taxes imposed on them (tobacco especially) and people still buy booze and cigarettes in droves. The amount of users that a tax would scare away would likely be offset by the amount of new users that legalization would bring to drug stores (ha!).

But therein lies another issue. Do we want to invite drug use? It’s a measured risk, really. New drug revenue could fund drug education and treatment for abuse, and a more educated public, in theory, would use drugs in moderation, the assumption already used for alcohol consumption.

It’s a thorny issue, legalization, and there is no easy answer. But as The Economist and most every statistic I could find shows, the War on Drugs is not going well. The solution will not be easy, and it likely will not be unanimously loved, but who knows, maybe legalization really can be a viable option. I mean, look how successful prohibition was in the US…

E-Readers - The End or Future of Publishing?

I have recently become an owner of, dare I say, an electronic book reader – the Sony Reader, complete with a plethora of electronic books to read. Now, I am a book person. I work in publishing, I read books both for pleasure and for work. I devour print news from as many sources as possible, and I fancy myself a writer.

Publishers appear to fear for the future of books, magazine, and newspapers.

But I’m not sure that they should be. Books, magazines, and newspapers are tangible, real. They’ve been around for centuries. They bring people together, they tear people apart, they teach us, entertain us, enlighten us, provide us with opinions, they allow us to lose ourselves in a story … oh, and books look great on a shelf.

The Sony Reader is incredibly convenient … but possibly unnecessary. It holds upwards of a thousand books, which is nice, except why would I regularly need even ten books on me at once? The Reader is great for public transportation and presumably an extended vacation with lots of reading planned, but for sitting down for a nice read in the park or on the couch, I just can’t see myself picking up an electronic book.

At least not right now.

The future of devices like the Sony Reader can definitely be bright. The Ipod started as a device that only played music – already cooler and more practical than an electronic book – and helped people store not so portable music into a super portable device. The Ipod has continued to dominate the market and change the face of portable electronics because it continues to do more and more.

Electronic books like the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle can revolutionize the publishing world … once they become more than just book readers, that is. I imagine a device that, for a fee, can bring you magazines and newspapers electronically, as well as your books (and the Kindle 2 is starting to do this). Publishers can charge per book – ebooks are already out there (obviously), the trick is being able to keep margins up.

E-readers can actually save news publications, I think, if publishers embrace them. More people are reading news dailies online than in print, and most large papers offer online readership for free. I can’t speak for all people, but I would pay a fee to subscribe to a news daily on my electronic reader. Perhaps a portable, convenient reader is just what the newspapers need to increase subscriptions and boost their revenue.

Portable electronic readers can be a convenient device for people in urban centers that regularly use public transportation, but without modifications and multiple uses, the readers will never replace books. They have the opportunity to have an impact on all aspects of publishing, and I think it can be for the better. And for all those book people out there, books will still be around. But you might want to clear a spot on your shelf for your electronic reader.