Category Archives: Economics

What does Innovista success look like?

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How will we know when Innovista is succeeding? Well, to begin with, we won’t be at the point where we can call it a complete success for many years, at best. But along the way, there will be signs.

Some of them will be big, such as the new baseball park and the Moore School moving to the geographic area that is central to the Innovista movement. Or the eventual construction of the waterfront park that makes the area more inviting. Most important will be the development of high-tech start-ups that you won’t even be aware of at first, but that will grow and feed off each other as the dynamic starts working.

But there will also be other less obvious signs. Here’s one small, but definite, sign that jumped out at me in recent days…

Have you heard the radio ads for Thirsty Fellow Pizzeria and Pub? The part that jumps out at me is when this eatery/watering hole announces that it can be found in USC’s Innovista. I’m never in a position to take notes when I hear it, but here’s what the Thirsty Fellow says on its website:

Owners Willie Durkin, Chuck Belcher, Dean Weinberger and Terry Davis want you to join the Thirsty Fellow family. Located in the USC Innovista area, we have a comfortable atmosphere, a great menu, a full bar and plenty of televisions. Open for lunch, dinner, late night and Sunday brunch, put Thirsty Fellow on your “to do” list.

“Located in the USC Innovista area.” Whether you take that as a boast — a desire to be associated with the idea of the Innovista — or merely as an acceptable way of giving directions (thereby suggesting that everyone knows where the Innovista is), this is a small-but-telling sign of the concept moving forward, taking hold in the marketplace.

Let me say that again: In the marketplace. You know, that place where Gov. Sanford and the Policy Council don’t want USC to go messin’, the place where they believe, with all the fervor of their secular anti-gummint religion, it is doomed to fail.

And yet, the place where, in this tiny way, it is taking hold…

Whew, I’m so glad THAT’s over (the recession, I mean)

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Well, it’s been rough and it’s been real, folks, but I have to say I’m glad the recession is over, according to a USC economist.

Oh, but wait, there’s more (like you had to tell me). It seems that, ahem, “significant challenges remain,” a phrase that to a guy in my circumstances bears a certain understated, bureaucratic chill reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s “Mistakes were made.” No, it doesn’t mean the same thing. I’m talking aesthetically, or metaphysically, or something. The flavor of the words…

Anyway, the recession’s over, but…:

In spite of national economic growth of 3.5% during the third quarter, significant challenges remain for South Carolina’s economy — particularly for labor markets — said Coastal Carolina University research economist Don Schunk.

“I expect slower real (gross domestic product) growth in the coming quarters as the effects of various temporary boosts to the economy fade,” Schunk said. “The recession may be over, but this does not mean we are on a path of sustained recovery. As the private sector grapples with deciding what a ‘new normal’ for the economy may look like, we will likely see continued restraint in terms of consumer spending, private-sector investment, and business expansion and hiring.”

Just so you know. I don’t know about you, but I live in South Carolina, which apparently will be stuck for sometime in “yes, but…” mode in this recovery.

I’m thinking about adding “The New Normal” to my list of possible names for my band.

Lay a little capitalism on me, baby

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No matter what your political views, you’re bound to get at least a smile out of the S.C. Policy Council’s new “Unleashing Capitalism” site.

For my part, I was prepared to be bored to death when I followed the link, only to be greeted immediately with this:

“I stopped going bald because of capitalism.”

So I kept watching the automatic slideshow, and while none of the other assertions had quite the comic punch of the first one, the others weren’t bad:

  • I lost 70 pounds with the help of capitalism.
  • I sleep with the windows open thanks to capitalism.
  • Our marriage was saved by capitalism.
  • I don’t hate Mondays thanks to capitalism.
  • I learned algebra because of capitalism.

I am not, as Dave Barry says, making this up.

I didn’t know my friends at the Policy Council (and I do have friends over there) had this much of a sense of humor. But I’ve got to hand it to them; this is a grabber. It’s cute, and enjoyable whether you agree with the Policy Council’s worldview or disagree sharply.

Of course, it’s not all sweetness and light. Far from it.

Be sure you’ve taken your antidepressants before you watch the video on the site, which paints a picture of South Carolina that makes “Corridor of Shame” look like a Chamber of Commerce production. It makes the Airstrip One of 1984 look like Disneyland. It makes South Carolina look even worse than it looks to me as a guy who’s been looking for a job for 8 months.

And of course, guess what the cause of all this misery is? Well, no, there’s not a lot of guessing to be done with an organization that would assert that capitalism, and not public education, is the best provider of algebraic knowledge.

But interestingly, the video doesn’t attack government so much as it attacks “politicians,” with assertions such as:

We gave politicians too much power…

We’ve trusted them to make decisions for us…

It’s time to take power back from politicians.

Of course, this is a direct attack on the greatest form of government ever devised — representative democracy. You know, the system in which we elect representatives to make public policy decisions. The only logical conclusion to derive from this presentation is that we should grab our pitchforks and run riot in the streets, a la France in the 1790s.

Which persuades me once again that, no matter what you may say about it, the Policy Council is certainly not a “conservative” organization.

By the way, lest you get too depressed watching the video — it gets all happy at the end. And here’s a thought to cheer you up even more — I’m guessing those bustling free-enterprise operations they’re showing (in the color, Dorothy-arrives-in-Oz part) actually exist already in this world that is supposedly crushed and oppressed by “politicians.”

One last thought, though, just to cover all my bases: Hey, if you’re going to unleash some capitalism, unleash some on me. The public sector isn’t hiring, because we live in a state run by politicians who would rather have their eyes put out with sharp sticks than raise taxes to maintain even the minimal level of services we have come to expect in South Carolina. In fact, if underfunding gummint will unleash capitalism, we should be experiencing a tsunami of private investment about now. I’ve got my surfboard, and I’m ready…

They’re coming back…

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As the day has worn on, I haven’t thought of anything particularly clever to say about the news that the Legislature is coming back to town. I’ll just make these three quick points, and turn it over to y’all:

  1. I don’t know that lawmakers should try to rush into impeachment proceedings — although if they’re going to do it, I’d rather they get it out of the way so it doesn’t waste another legislative session, the way Sanford’s foolishness over the stimulus wasted the last one.
  2. Sanford’s right that the department of Employment Security should report to the governor. Of course, he’s done all he could over the past year to undermine the case. It didn’t help with the commissioners disclosed that this governor had never been interested enough in what they do to have a real meeting with them in his six years in office.
  3. In case you wondered, I don’t have a dog in this fight, in the sense that I don’t think I, as an unemployed person, derive any benefit from what lawmakers are coming back to do. Long story, which I’m not going to get into right now, but suffice to say that as of this moment, I am not claiming unemployment compensation.

That’s all for now. What do y’all think?

What I said to the Five Points Rotary

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I forgot to post my comments to the Five Points Rotary on Friday. As you know, I hate to write anything (for public consumption, that is) without posting it here. And since it elaborates on a discussion we’ve had on a couple of recent posts (about the sorry state of the newspaper industry), I might as well go ahead.

Some of you will note that I’ve used the little self-mocking anecdote at the beginning before. Hey, it got me a laugh the first time, so why not stick with it? Only one person in the crowd had heard it before — a fellow member of the Columbia Rotary who was attending the Five Points club as a pre-emptive “make-up” in order to skip listening to Gov. Mark Sanford at our club on Monday (name withheld to protect the guilty). Anyway, here’s my speech:

Current and Future Challenges in the Newspaper Industry

Rotary Club of Five Points

10/9/09

Here’s a story that went over well during Health & Happiness at my own Rotary Club:

One Saturday several months ago, I was walking through Columbiana mall when I was accosted by a pretty young woman with an exotic accent who grabbed my hand and started buffing my left thumbnail with some device in her hand while extolling the virtues of a line of cosmetics from the Dead Sea in Israel. I was helpless in her grasp – how do you pull away from a pretty young woman who’s holding your hand insistently and standing so close that you smell the sweet fragrance of her chewing gum as she breathes into your face?

But, being unemployed and having no disposable income, I did manage to resist buying anything. Moments later, I posted something about the encounter on Twitter. By the time I left the mall, several acquaintances had Twittered back to say that they had encountered the same young woman, and had been less successful at resisting the sales pitch. My friend Mike Fitts wrote, “Yes, they’re ex-Mossad agents (you know, the Israeli secret service) who’ve gone into the Mary Kay business, I’m pretty sure. Three minutes in, I told them where the explosives were hidden.”

Bottom line, and the moral of the story:

If The State newspaper had these ladies selling advertising, I’d still have a job!

As you may know, I’m the former vice president and editorial page editor of The State, where I worked as an editor for 22 years. I was the best known of the 38 people who were laid off in March. The reason I don’t have a job now is that the newspaper couldn’t bring in enough revenue to pay my salary. I suppose I’d feel picked on and persecuted if not for the fact that, as a vice president of the company, I had sat in on senior staff meetings in which, for the last few years, each week’s revenue figures were worse than the week before – sometimes dramatically worse.

There was no way that the newspaper could continue paying all the people it once paid to write and edit the paper. People had been laid off before me, and people have been laid off since then, and while I’m no longer privy to those dismal weekly reports, I have no particular reason to believe the industry has hit bottom yet.

Note that I say, “The Industry.” This is not a problem peculiar to The State. In fact, sad to say, but The State is probably somewhat better off than the average. Other newspapers have closed, while still others – most notably The Chicago Tribune, have gone into bankruptcy.

Nor is it a problem confined to newspapers, or to papers in this country. I was interviewed by a journalist from France’s largest weekly newsmagazine earlier this week, and he spoke of how his publication is suffering. Nor is the problem limited to print: Conventional television stations, once gold mines for their owners, are suffering as well. But the problem is most acute in print.

What is the problem? Well, it’s not a lack of interest in news. The demand for news – indeed, for news conveyed by the written word – is a great as always. And it’s not competition from the Internet – not in the simple sense. But the Internet does play a huge role, just probably not in the way you think.

The fact is, no one is better positioned to bring you news on the Web than newspapers. They still have far more reporting resources and expertise than any other medium in local and state markets. And it’s the easiest thing in the world for newspapers to publish their content online – far easier, and far, FAR cheaper, than publishing and delivering the news to you on paper. Eliminate the need to print and distribute the paper version, and you eliminate half of a newspaper’s cost (most of the rest being personnel).

There are a couple of problems with that, though: While newspaper circulation is down everywhere, there is still enough of a demand for the paper version that newspaper companies can’t simply abandon the traditional medium. If they did, someone else – most likely a bare-bones startup without the traditional paper’s fixed costs – would step in to take that money off the table.

The second problem is that without the revenue from print ads, as reduced as such revenue is, newspapers would have even more difficulty paying their reduced staffs.

And that points to the main way in which the Internet is killing newspapers: While it’s easier and even cheaper to publish content online, and newspapers can provide more such content than anyone, newspapers can’t maintain the staff levels it takes to do that with Web advertising.

The problem is that on the Web, the market won’t bear prices comparable to the prices newspapers have been able to charge for print ads. Sell just as many Web ads as you did print ones in the past, and you lose huge amounts of revenue.

Basically, that’s the problem facing The State and every other newspaper in the country. There’s no problem in the relationship between journalist and reader; that’s as strong as ever (and the people who mutter about newspaper’s dying because they’re “too liberal” or “too conservative” – and believe me, I’ve heard both of those many, many times – simply don’t know what they’re talking about). The demand for news, particularly U.S. political news, has never been greater.

The problem is between the newspaper and a third party – the advertiser. That’s what has always supported newspapers in this country. If you think you’re paying for it through your subscription you’re wrong – that pays for maybe an eighth of the cost of producing the newspaper. The problem is that the advertising is going away.

The business model that has made newspapers so prosperous in the past – not long ago, owning a newspaper was like having a license to print money – is simply melting away.

And no one that I know of has figured out what the new business model will look like.

I firmly believe the answer is out there somewhere – the demand for news will eventually lead to a profitable way to pay for gathering and presenting it – but no one has found it yet.

QUESTIONS?

By the way, the topic was suggested by the Rotarian who invited me to speak. I try to deliver what is requested when I can.

I left a generous amount of time for questions, and was not disappointed. That’s always my favorite part of a speaking engagement. I’m never completely at ease during the actual speech part, because I can’t tell whether I’m reaching my audience or not. That’s one reason I speak from notes, or even write it out as I did here, if I have time. Otherwise, I can get flustered and lost as I stand there wondering, Is anybody even interested in this?

So to keep that suffering to a minimum, I keep the formal speech part short, and as soon as I start interacting with the audience, I’m completely comfortable, whatever questions come up.

In this case, the questions were mostly directly related to my topic (which is slightly unusual; generally the topics are across the board), although I did get one or two about Mark Sanford and Joe Wilson.

A good time was had by me, and I hope by all.

Of COURSE the health care status quo hurts small businesses

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Sometimes the things said in connection with the health care “debate” are so painfully obvious that they make me want to shout. And while I’m shouting, I wonder, Is it possible anyone doesn’t already know this?

The latest thing to get to me in this way is this bit from a series on health care reform:

Thompson’s challenge is common among small-business owners in South Carolina. Many are too busy to keep up with the complex health care reform policy proposals that Congress is debating. But they know one thing: The current cost of health insurance for very small groups is stifling their growth and hurting their competitiveness.

At this point I would scream “Duh!,” if screaming “Duh!” were not so last-decade.

Of course our current health care “system” is stifling small businesses’ growth and hurting their competitiveness! It’s helping drive some of them out of business. And it’s keeping plenty of others from coming into being in the first place. I know it’s kept me from at least one good job opportunity in the last few months. And it’s the consideration that keeps me from simply hanging out a shingle and earning a living as a “consultant” in communications. Sure, I might be able to pay the light bill and buy groceries and such that way, but I have to have medical coverage — the same sort of coverage that is simply not a consideration in other advanced countries when individuals make career decisions.

Right now, I’m pursuing a number of job opportunities. But most of the opportunities I’m seeing either don’t pay enough to pay my mortgage but have good benefits, or they pay well but the bennies are quite iffy. But one thing I CAN’T consider going forward is going into business for myself. Sure, I can pay a few bills here and there with free-lance work while I’m on COBRA. But my COBRA premiums more than double starting in December.

This strongly discourages entrepreneurship. It seems increasingly to me that the only way a person can go into business for himself is if he and his family and his employees and their families never have to go to the doctor and never will have to go to the doctor. In other words, the only way you start a business in this country is by hypnotizing yourself into believing a lie.

I’d probably be a lot happier if I were able to delude myself that way.

Anyway, yeah, the current health care situation stifles small businesses. Duh.

Friedman plugs the Energy Party agenda

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We haven’t spoken much about the Energy Party lately, what with being obsessed with the economy and all (see, I told y’all this wouldn’t be fun before we started). Thank goodness, Tom Friedman took the time earlier this week to get us back on track by touting a key plank of the Party platform, in a piece headlined “Real men tax gas.” An excerpt:

But are we really that tough? If the metric is a willingness to send troops to Iraq and Afghanistan and consider the use of force against Iran, the answer is yes. And we should be eternally grateful to the Americans willing to go off and fight those fights. But in another way – when it comes to doing things that would actually weaken the people we are sending our boys and girls to fight – we are total wimps. We are, in fact, the wimps of the world. We are, in fact, so wimpy our politicians are afraid to even talk about how wimpy we are.

How so? France today generates nearly 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power plants, and it has managed to deal with all the radioactive waste issues without any problems or panics. And us? We get about 20 percent and have not been able or willing to build one new nuclear plant since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, even though that accident led to no deaths or injuries to plant workers or neighbors. We’re too afraid to store nuclear waste deep in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain – totally safe – at a time when French mayors clamor to have reactors in their towns to create jobs. In short, the French stayed the course on clean nuclear power, despite Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and we ran for cover.

How about Denmark? Little Denmark, sweet, never-hurt-a-fly Denmark, was hit hard by the 1973 Arab oil embargo. In 1973, Denmark got all its oil from the Middle East. Today? Zero. Why? Because Denmark got tough. It imposed on itself a carbon tax, a roughly $5-a-gallon gasoline tax, made massive investments in energy efficiency and in systems to generate energy from waste, along with a discovery of North Sea oil (about 40 percent of its needs).

And us? When it comes to raising gasoline taxes or carbon taxes – at a perfect time like this when prices are already low – our politicians tell us it is simply “off the table.” So I repeat, who is the real tough guy here?

As Friedman correctly asserts, raising the gas tax would be a “win, win, win, win, win” that would make us “physically healthier, economically healthier and strategically healthier.” But none of our politicians, of either party, have the guts even to bring up the subject, because they can hear the voters screaming at them with all the mature outrage evinced in this unrelated, but hilarious, commercial (only instead of screaming, “I want those sweeties,” we’d be hollering, “We want our cheap gas!”)

Anyway, I posted something on Twitter about the Friedman column earlier this week, and Doug Ross responded on Facebook. I’ll share our exchange here just to get the blog discussion going:

Doug Ross

Real men must like double digit inflation, high food prices, and punishing low income Americans who need to drive to work
Brad Warthen

We love all that stuff. We just don’t like quiche.
Did you read the piece?
Doug Ross

I did read the article. He says he wants to take 10 cents of each dollar and give it to “the poor” to cushion the $1 per gallon cost. What about the people who aren’t “poor” who will see their fuel costs go up by several thousand dollars a year? and the increase in cost of every single item that is manufactured and transported. it’s a recipe … Read Morefor economic disaster. Some of Friedman’s ideas go beyond “ivory tower” to the point where the people in the ivory towers have to crane their necks to see him.
We have all the money we need to do what Friedman wants currently in the federal coffers. Our political “leaders” choose to do other things.
Brad Warthen

But raising the revenue isn’t the point; it’s just a side benefit.
The point is making ourselves more energy-independent so we stop underwriting the thugs of the world.
If France and Denmark can do it, so can we.
Doug Ross

Oh, if we could just be like Denmark and France!!! Apparently that’s the new American Dream
And yeah, for those who are confused — I was using that “irony” thing again when I said “we love all that stuff.” But I was serious about not liking quiche.

Dead-blogging the GOP debate

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Just some scattered thoughts as I listen to the GOP debate last night via the Web. Can’t call it “live-blogging,” but it’s kind of like that, so I’ll call it “dead-blogging,” which sort of reflects my level of enthusiasm about the candidates so far, a few minutes into it. Some random observations:

  • These people aren’t running for governor of South Carolina. They’re running for the GOP nomination for governor, which is entirely different. Every word they’ve uttered so far has dripped with Republican jargon and catch phrases, and none of them has communicated the slightest desire for MY vote. Anyone else feel that way? I mean, it’s like listening to old-line Marxists talk about “running-dog imperialists.” These phrases don’t communicate or inspire, they just help us pigeon-hole the speakers…
  • Did Larry Grooms just say that DHEC regulates too aggressively? In what state, in which universe?
  • Seems the panel should have some folks on it with more of a statewide perspective, such as, say, the editorial page editor of The State. Oh, wait; there isn’t one any more…
  • Nikki’s sweet (oh, the women are going to come down on me for that one, but she is), but she really shows she’s out of her depth whenever she starts comparing government to a business. Inevitably, she betrays a lack of understanding of one, or both. For instance, she just decried the fact that the state lottery spends $7 million on advertising. She says that should go to education. Well, fine, so far. I don’t like the lottery spending to sucker more people into playing; I don’t think the lottery should exist. I would not, of course, try to make people think that the lottery is in ANY way an answer to our school funding needs. But that’s not the problem with what she said. The problem is, she says a business would not spend the money on advertising to keep the customers coming. Ummm… yes it would, Nikki. It would have to. I mean, duh, come on. It’s hard to imagine a type of business that would be MORE dependent on ad spending to keep its product front-of-mind for prospective players, to constantly whip up interest in its “product.” It has no substance, so it’s ALL about generating buzz…
  • Interesting how it is an accepted truth among these GOP candidates that the current administration has totally dropped the ball on economic development. There’s nothing new about it — Republicans have been griping about it for years — but it’s interesting because it sounds for all the world like these folks are running for the nomination of a party that has NOT held the governor’s office since 2002.
  • Which is dumber or more off-point — a TV watcher asking when we’ll eliminate property taxes, or Larry Grooms saying we shouldn’t tax either property or income? Which of course only leaves taxing economic activity as the last major category. And given our current economic situation, how stupid is that? And is he unaware that we’ve already tilted our tax system far too far in that direction already? Where’s he been the last few years?
  • Gresham Barrett tries to deflect a question about the Confederate flag by saying we need to concentrate on sending the signal that we are serious about moving forward on economic development in this state. Well, getting the flag off our state’s front lawn is the easiest, simplest, most obvious step we can take in that direction.
  • Here’s another odd question from the public — Would you oppose more stimulus funding for SC if South Carolinians didn’t have to repay it? What relationship does that have to reality? None. There has never been, and never will be, such a major expenditure that we as taxpayers won’t be on the hook for. Of course, Nikki’s reply acts as though that’s the very situation we had with the stimulus that she agreed with Sanford on, which is the opposite of the truth.
  • Henry at least gets a plug in for comprehensive tax reform…
  • Grooms is right to say across-the-board is not the right way to cut the state budget, but then he retreats into quasi-religious ideological gobbledegook about how the problem is too much spending to start with. (More specifically, he says we shouldn’t institute programs — as if we’ve instituted new programs lately — that we don’t know how we’ll pay for. And yet he’s the guy who wants to make sure we don’t have the revenues we need, by taxing nothing but economic activity.)
  • Just watched Bill Connor’s Gov Lite campaign ad, which reminds me: If I ever do run for office, and I start blathering about how you should vote for me because I’m not a “professional politician,” will one of y’all slap me? Not hard, mind you, just to sort of reboot my brain so I can come up with something other than cliches…
  • Nikki says she supports “all education reforms.” So basically, if you call it a “reform,” she’s for it. Talk about failing to be discriminating…
  • Henry doesn’t seem to be aware that we are a national leader in demanding accountability of public educators. Lack of accountability isn’t the problem. We’re et up with it. In fact, we just had an insurrection over the PACT test, because so many parent agreed with the teachers that they’d had enough of it. I’m with him on merit pay, though.
  • Andre just came out for consolidating school districts. Good for him. Of course, Mark Sanford has always said he was for it, but hasn’t lifted a finger to make it happen. He also said he doesn’t want to spend money on football stadia, which I certainly applaud.

OK, I’ve got to stop watching now… lunch appointment. More later, if I get time…

It already failed, yet we’re just starting to track it?

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Thought it was really conscientious of Richard Eckstrom to promise to keep us posted on how the stimulus money is spent:

More than a half-billion dollars in stimulus money from an estimated $3 billion have come through state government so far, according to a news release from Eckstrom’s office.

“The debt from this spending extends far into the future of our children and grandchildren, so we owe it to those future generations to ensure the funds are spent without impropriety and with accountability and transparency,” Eckstrom said in the statement.

“People deserve easy access to how this money is spent. Not only that, but when spending is done in the open, public officials are usually more accountable,” he said. “They know their spending decisions will be examined by the public. If transparency is important under ordinary circumstances, it’s even more critical with massive infusions of cash like this, which can invite opportunities for waste, mismanagement and even fraud.”

The stimulus-spending details will be updated monthly, Eckstrom said.

OK, let me get this straight — one sixth of this has been spent. You are going to keep us posted as it is spent, which also indicates that this is something that is ongoing, and most of it has not yet occurred. Am I reading that right?

And yet, you already declared the stimulus a failure back on July 13 — the 13th day of the budget year. More than two months ago.

What am I missing here?

What doomed Lehman? Richard Fuld’s ugly mug

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glower

With this week’s anniversary, all sorts of analysts will be telling us why they think Lehman Bros. went under. Why should I be left out?

My theory is simple: It was Richard Fuld‘s face. Fuld himself is said to harbor deep resentment (and he’s got a face built for it) that the gummint bailed out all the other kids on the block, but not him. I think it’s because the various officials involved in such a decision knew they’d have to draw the line somewhere, and Fuld’s perpetually glowering, arrogant, self-important visage was the deciding factor.Lehman Brothers

For the year or so leading up to last year’s collapse, I saw the image at right in The Wall Street Journal a lot, and in my mind, this one face had come to symbolize the very worst of the Wall Street “Master of the Universe” mentality. I suggest that I was not alone in this. If the bailout gravy train had to be stopped somewhere, there was no way this guy was going to get a helping hand to be the last one aboard. (There’s something a bit off about that metaphor, but I’m going to stick with it, because that’s what I think Richard Fuld would do, even if it meant running his entire thesis into the ground.)

Yeah, I know, people who understand a lot more about this situation than I do (such as people who, for instance, have a clue what in the heck people who worked at Lehman Bros. did for a living) can probably explain in detail why I’m wrong, citing all sorts of facts and figures and graphics with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was, demonstrating conclusively that there were all sorts of objective reasons why Lehman was allowed to fail while others were not. I acknowledge that. But I’m pretty sure that one could also find a bunch of other knowledgeable analysts who could prove that the opposite was true.

What I’m saying is that, given all the highly complex variables involved, there was a point at which intangibles came into play. And I think the people making the final call were sick of this guy looking down his nose at them and the rest of the world — or they understood at least that if you had to pick a fall guy, Central Casting couldn’t have come up with one less likely to excite widespread public sympathy than this guy.

That made the decision a lot simpler than it would have been otherwise.

This is not a new theory for me; I’ve just refined it over the past year, and this seemed a good time to trot it out so you could admire it. Here’s what I said about the best-known image of Fuld’s face last year:

It was the sort of picture that no sane company publicist would ever have distributed, unless it wanted its CEO to be hated. And you knew this was a CEO; the picture just radiated, “I’m the kind of guy who thinks he’s really hot stuff because I’m so absurdly overcompensated.” And you know, I seldom think that when I look at people. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt (something that drives some of y’all crazy, because you’re always wanting me to join you in despising somebody, and I just don’t feel like it — not necessarily because I’m a nice guy; I just don’t feel like it). But this picture INSISTED that you not like the guy. If a psychologist included this photo in a Thematic Apperception Test, I suspect there would be a surprising uniformity in the stories the subjects would tell.

Of course you think that, Joe — you’ve GOT a job

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Y’all know I like Joe Biden, but he does tend to say things without a lot of forethought. Such as this:

(AP)  Trumpeting economic progress to a skeptical nation, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden says the massive government program intended to stimulate and reshape the economy is reaching and exceeding goals.

Nearly 200 days into the effort, Biden says it is more effective “than we had hoped.”

Biden’s upbeat report card, to be delivered Thursday in a speech at the Brookings Institution, comes as economists say the United States is slowly breaking free of the most crippling recession in decades. Yet public angst is also deepening about the cost of government intervention, and millions of people remain out of work.

Of course, that may have had lots of forethought. He might be the designated guy in the administration to go a bit further than POTUS himself can go, and see if it gets saluted. It’s certainly a role to which Joe is suited, and a typical one for the Veep.

But it goes too far for me. I get turned off by either those who are too quick to say the stimulus has failed, or those who overstate its positive effect. Truth is, we don’t know yet. And may never know. Aren’t we still debating whether the New Deal pulled us out of the Great Depression?

Of course, my own situation may cause me to be a bit jaded on the subject. But I think I’m looking at it realistically.

Speaking of reality, here’s a cold dose of it: I ran into Sen. Hugh Leatherman at breakfast this morning. He was in town for a Budget and Control Board meeting, which I think he tends to dread these days because it always means another fruitless argument with the governor. (Here’s something interesting to watch: How much longer will Rich Eckstrom continue to back the gov, with re-election coming up next year?)

Anyway, I said something about my worry that prospective employers are hesitant to hire me, or anyone, until the economy warms back up, and the Senate Finance Chair said he doubted that would happen in S.C. until another year has passed. Or maybe two. He may be right, but I know I can’t wait that long. Nor can a lot of other people.

On that subject, Sen. Leatherman said he was recently talking to an economic development prospect, and the head of the company asked him, Isn’t South Carolina the state where a business prospect wanted to talk to the governor, but the governor ditched the meeting to go see his mistress in Argentina? Is that what doing business in South Carolina is like?

The senator said no, that’s not what South Carolina is like. But he hears that sort of thing a lot, unfortunately.

There’s just me, and 41,999 other people

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Just saw this item at SCBiz:

South Carolina’s most populated areas have lost nearly 42,000 jobs during the past 12 months, according to numbers released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The hardest-hit areas were the two top tourist destinations, Charleston (9,300 jobs) and Myrtle Beach (9,100 jobs). As a percentage of total jobs available, the Myrtle Beach metro area had the biggest decline of any one region, at 6.9%.

Overall, South Carolina lost more than 77,000 jobs in the past year….

The Columbia area lost 6,300 jobs during the year.

So now at least I don’t think I’m alone. (But wait — does that mean I actually am?)

Of course, I never thought I was. I was among 40 who left The State in one swoop (Robert and I were just the ones you heard the most about most), so I’ve always had company in this unemployment thing.

Dude, you’re not getting a Dell, are you?

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As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been hanging out at an ad agency recently, which means I’ve been dwelling in the world of Mac. That’s all they’ve got around here. I’m writing this on one.

So as I got ready to get a laptop — I had decided it was a necessity, with the freelance work I’m doing and all — I had a number of people around me telling me I must convert to Apple, for all the usual reasons and more. You’ve heard them: More solid, more reliable, better designed, better software, far better for graphics, cooler, etc. In particular, they said, a Mac would be better for video production, something I’ve wanted to do more of for the blog.

So, of course, I went out and got a Dell. First, it’s about a fourth of the price (my daughter the graphic designer is buying a Mac laptop, and it retails at $2,600 with the software she needs). Second… to paraphrase Billy Jack, I’ve tried; I’ve really tried. When Jean and the kids at the school tell me to practice nonviolence and use a Mac, I really try. But when I’m doing something that would normally call for a right-button mouse click, and my fingers fumble with that one massive button on a Mac… I just go berserk!

Bottom line, I’ve been using PCs too long. The ways of navigating through Windows are built into my body’s muscle memory, and it’s too much work to change.

So I got a Dell. Specifically, this model Dell Studio. Last week, when they were on sale for $80 less than the price on that link. An Intel Core 2 Duo processor T6500, 4GB RAM, 320 Gig hard drive, plus the usual bells and whistles that have become standard — DVD burner, multi-format card reader, Webcam and so forth.

It not only had what I needed on it, but I liked the look and feel of it. It looked and felt solid and well-built. Compared to the Inspiron, it was like a Volvo versus a Trabi. The Inspiron seemed chintzy by comparison. It had little features that don’t mean much, I guess, but which I liked — for instance, it had a slot for CDs and DVDs instead of that flimsy tray that pops out, and which always makes me afraid I’m going to break it pressing the disc in. That seemed clean and smart, better design.

And the first few days went great. I was particularly pleased with my first effort with the Webcam.

Then yesterday, it crashed. Yeah, I know, you Mac folk are sneering now that that’s what PCs do; they crash. And yes, they do. It’s something PC users deal with. Rebooting makes for a nice bathroom break, gets us away from work for a moment. Part of life.

But this crash was atypical. I was running Firefox in two or three windows, with maybe two other low-intensity applications up, when everything froze up. I went to Task Manager, and saw that my CPU usage was at 100 percent, which was impossible. I bailed out using the power button, booted back up, and tried running Firefox alone — and it was showing more than 50 percent CPU usage. One of the cores of the duo core was running at capacity, the other hardly running at all.

So I took the Dell back to Best Buy, where an interesting thing happened. The Geek Squad guy, after pronouncing that I had an incurable hardware problem, leveled with me, saying that he wouldn’t buy a Dell. Yes, once they were reliable, but he had seen too many Studios come back. I should get an Asus or an HP instead.

Funny thing was, the sales guy last week had tried, gently to steer me toward an Asus. But I had never heard of Asus. I had used Dells for years, so that’s what I got. Now, I went back to that same sales guy, and he nodded and said yeah, he liked the Asus better but I had been obviously set on a Dell…

So we went to look at the comparable Asus — same processor, same memory, same hard drive size. The battery was longer-lasting. The screen was smaller (although perhaps slightly sharper). It had the flimsy pop-out tray instead of the slot I liked. It cost $30 more than I had paid for the Dell.

And it looked cheap and flimsy compared to the Dell. Sorry, but aesthetically it was not pleasing, and even though these tech guys were all but beating me over the head with the inside knowledge that it was very solid and reliable, it didn’t LOOK solid. Finally, I was unable to call up the Webcam to try it out, because of some quirk of how they had the machine set up in the store.

So, sheepishly, I said I wanted to try another Dell Studio, hoping that this one wouldn’t be a lemon. The sales guy said he understood, that it was like buying a car; you either liked the look and feel or you didn’t. But I could hardly look him in the eye, because I knew he thought I was an idiot, a guy who just doesn’t learn.

And when we got up to the customer service desk — where I was to leave it to get it “optimized” (cleaning off all the marketing junk such as trial software, and installing service packs), which is why I don’t have it yet — and I realized the Geek Squad guy who had warned me was standing right there and had to have noticed what I was doing… I almost went over and apologized to him.

But I figure I’ve got two weeks to try this one out (and longer, if it has a hardware failure), and if it isn’t everything it should be, I can go back and get the Asus, no questions asked. So I can’t lose, right?

By the way, I really hope I’m not getting these guys in trouble telling about how open and honest they were. Frankly, I think they should both get a raise, because they were going out of their way to help a customer. And they were both obviously good at their jobs, very knowledgeable about the product. Bright young men, a credit to their organization. I felt much better about Best Buy for having dealt with them.

It’s just that in this case, the customer was too stupid and stubborn to listen to them. Proof yet again that in the marketplace, consumers do not make rational choices, notwithstanding all the propaganda. At least, this one doesn’t. Neither do most people; I’m just logical enough to understand how fallible I am.

Today’s job fair: Sweatin’ at the museum

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Today's job fair at the S.C. State Museum. (Don't know whether all these folks are job-seekers; some may just be visiting museum.)

Today's job fair at the S.C. State Museum. (Don't know whether all these folks are job-seekers; some may just be visiting museum.)

Well, the job fair at the State Museum today was a great success, if you measure it by turnout. The place was packed during the noon hour. I had meant to go earlier (it started at 11), but I wanted to swing by the Bauer thing at the State House, so I think I was probably there at the peak.

By the time I got in from the jammed parking lot I was already pretty sweaty, even though I didn’t put on my coat until I was inside. Looks like I’ve got another candidate for the cleaners (sorry, bud, but I don’t know any way to job hunt except in a coat and tie). And for all the sweat, it wasn’t as productive for me. I think the employers at the Fort Jackson one I went to probably came closer to having openings that I might be suited to. Better yet, that one was less crowded, and it was easier to have a normal conversation with the folks at the tables.

This one was a madhouse. I guess some civilians hesitate to go to something on the Fort, but they definitely didn’t hesitate to show for this one.

Not much else to say, except to share my Tweets from while I was there:

This job fair has some of same names as Ft. Jax one: Aflac, Richco sheriff, others. Much bigger turnout…

I’m ruining another jacket milling about sweatily at job fair. A dry cleaner’s dream…about 4 hours ago from web

Toys not as good at this job fair as the last one. All I have so far is an unexciting keyring from Carmax.about 4 hours ago from web

Mary Kay and Avon going head-to-head at the job fair…about 4 hours ago from web

Maybe I’ll come back to job fair later. Can’t have tete-a-tete w/ prospective employer in this madhouse…about 4 hours ago from web

I’ll bet Obama asked him not to shave, either

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First and foremost, I want to congratulate fellow South Carolinian Ben Bernanke for keeping his job under trying circumstances. I’m glad he doesn’t have to go back to working at South of the Border.

Any time any South Carolinian can keep his job in this economy, considering the total cock-up the folks in charge have made of it, it’s good news… Oh, wait, Ben Bernanke IS one of the people in charge of the economy…

Seriously, though, I have no complaints about Bernanke’s performance. And maybe he has even helped us avoid things getting worse, as the president suggested today in reappointing him.

At the same time, I’m not sure how much difference it makes. The president wanted to signal stability — was in such a hurry to do so that neither he nor Ben could take a moment to put on a tie — and he did that with this action. Fine. And I love it when Democrats appoint Republicans, and vice versa (in fact, about the only Republicans I can stand are those who would appoint or be appointed by Democrats, and again vice versa).

And that might be as far as substance goes. It would be unsettling to change horses at this point, so the president interrupted his vacation to tell the markets he’s not going to shake them up that way. Fine.

And while it wasn’t mentioned, I’ll bet part of the president’s private conversation with Bernanke involved begging the Fed chair to not even consider ever shaving his beard. You don’t think that’s important? Huh. Shows what you know. Just as Ben Bernanke is an expert on the Great Depression, I happen to be an expert on the subject of the economic impact of Ben Bernanke’s beard. I was quoted by The Wall Street Journal on the subject, no less. Do you know anyone else who’s been quoted by the Journal on that subject? I didn’t think so. So all right, then: That makes me the world’s leading authority.

And speaking ex cathedra from my considerable store of expertise, I can assure you that the president reappointed the Dillon Countian for the same reason why Bernanke doesn’t get up one morning and decide to shave (even though I sort of suggested he should last year, but the situation was more desperate then): Because the markets couldn’t handle the change. They’re too fragile.

Santee Cooper on Pee Dee coal plant: Never mind

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You know, back during the controversy, when everyone else seemed to know exactly what they thought on the subject, I never was sure whether I favored Santee Cooper building the proposed coal plant in the Pee Dee or not.

The arguments against were fairly strong-sounding, but they never fully answered the question of where the power would come from instead. I would have found the arguers more persuasive if they had said we need to expedite nuclear plants. But they said too often that we could do away with the need via conservation. I’m all for conservation, but that’s a solution that makes more sense if you’re not planning on growing your economy. And in South Carolina, we need to grow our economy.

Now there’s an answer to where the power will come from — Duke Energy. And so now even the former advocates are saying “never mind,” which makes sense:

PINOPOLIS – Santee Cooper will not pursue construction of a controversial coal-fired power plant that has drawn intense opposition from environmentalists over the amount of mercury and greenhouse gas pollution the facility would release.

The board of directors of the state-owned utility voted unanimously today to suspend an effort to secure state permits for the $2.2 billion plant in Florence County along the Great Pee Dee River. The board’s vote followed a similar vote this morning during a board committee meeting.

The agency’s action makes it unlikely the plant will ever be built, said Santee Cooper board chairman O.L. Thompson.

Committee members and Santee Cooper staff said the down economy, looming federal regulation of carbon and a potential agreement with another power company made it possible to forgo building the power plant.

So I don’t have to struggle to make up my mind about it any more. That’s good.

Checking my look, checking my attitude

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Y’all remember Christina Binkley. She’s the super-savvy Wall Street Journal columnist who quoted me awhile back regarding key economic indicators (in this case, Ben Bernanke’s beard — don’t ask me to explain; follow the link).

Anyway, today she’s giving advice on how to be unemployed with style, so of course I paid close attention:

Laid Off? Check Your Look … and Your Attitude

Newly Jobless Update Wardrobes, Rein In Resentment and Embrace Punctuation

… In the aftermath of a layoff, style is critical. And it’s about more than the decision to polish a wardrobe. The way people comport themselves after losing a job can make all the difference in what comes next. From how they convey the news to colleagues, to the type of clothes they wear and how they punctuate their emails, the newly jobless must use careful footwork to navigate the job hunt.

When in doubt, it’s a safe bet to retreat to conservative styles. After Michael Bragg was downsized from his New York-based job at a high-end European fashion brand, he went out and bought a new pair of shoes—lace-up, American-made Aldens. Play it straight with email, too. Sure, sometimes it’s perfectly acceptable to shoot off a short, all lowercase missive to a colleague. But punctuation is a risk-free option. The same goes for social-networking. Now is not the time to post pics from a beer-sodden barbecue and share them with everyone in your network….

Good advice, that last bit. Hang on a sec while I go pull a couple of things off of YouTube…

…OK, I’m back. (While I was there, I updated my channel so it no longer says I’m “the VP/Editorial Page Editor of The State, the largest newspaper in South Carolina.” Along with style and attitude, I’m assuming accuracy is also important.)

Back to Christina’s piece today … I hope bud will take careful note of the advice therein. bud doesn’t seem to think I should be wearing clothing that requires dry-cleaning while unemployed. I disagree. Christina’s with me. Folks, I get up every morning, put on my coat and tie (shirt and pants, too — details are important), and go downtown to have breakfast at the usual place (Doug knows where). Only way I know to stay in the game and maintain contacts. To me, networking seems key. Looking like you’re ready to go to work this minute also seems advisable.

As for attitude — I think I’m OK there, too. I didn’t get upset and cuss anybody out when I got laid off. I mean, y’all can go back and see what I said at the time, here and here and here (I even said nice stuff about Mark Sanford). Maybe there will be a delayed reaction sometime, but I haven’t really worked up a good mad yet (which is actually sort of out of character for me, but there it is). I guess as a vice president of the company I understood the situation too well. Thirty-eight people were getting the ax that day, and they needed some of them to be top management. I got picked (and had the honor of being the one mentioned in the news story). Way of the world. Stiff upper lip and all that. A chap must face facts, and other pseudo-British mumbo-jumbo…

So I’m doing everything right. Of course, it hasn’t produced full-time permanent employment yet, so after a few more dry-cleaning bills maybe I’ll try bud’s approach, but for the moment I still think Christina knows the score.

Is that a promise, Sen. DeMint?

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My attention was drawn to this SCBiz headline:

DeMint says public option would destroy nation’s health care system

… to which I automatically responded, “Is that a promise? Are you sure? You’re not just teasing? All right! When do we get started?”

We’ve heard a lot of silly back-and-forth about health care in recent weeks, but this is the first time I’ve heard anyone suggest the one thing that makes the most sense to me: Blow up what we’ve got entirely and start over.

As my long-time readers will know, even back when I HAD good conventional health care coverage, I was agitating for this. Why? Because as I documented in this column and this one and elsewhere on the old blog, most folks who discuss the health care problem in this country focus on the wrong thing. They focus on the people like me who no longer have private employer-provided health care (although for a limited time I have access to the same care via COBRA thank God, at just under $600 a month — to go up over $1,500 after December, if I’m lucky).

But the real problem is that (note the numbers in my parenthetical above), medical coverage has gotten way too expensive even for the lucky ones who have it — and certainly far too expensive for the businesses that try to provide it.

My problem with Obamacare all along has been that the president is too timid on this subject, and this is not a situation for tiptoeing. This nation desperately needs a do-over on the way it pays for health care, because we are paying too much for results that just aren’t good enough for an advanced nation.

So thank you, Sen. DeMint, for getting the conversation started in a more productive direction. Even if you didn’t mean to…

Where the growth is

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Just got a release today from the state Chamber announcing that “The deadline is extended until August 31, 2009 for companies to nominate their business for the Top 25 South Carolina Fastest-Growing Companies program.”

I don’t know who’s going to make that list, but SCBiz reports that 31 South Carolina companies made Inc. magazine’s list of the 5,000 Fastest Growing Companies in America for 2009.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that not one of them made the top 500. The highest on the list was Customer Effective, a Greenville IT services company, at No. 541 on the list.

Anyway, it’s nice to know some part of the economy in South Carolina is actually growing, so congrats to Customer Effective and the other 30 growers. It will be even nicer when some of us find jobs as a result of said growth…

Do you think things are getting any better?

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Consider this another in my fitful efforts to gauge how the economy is coming along. Noting this item today:

Statewide home sales increase 13% in June

Monday, 20 July 2009
Staff Report
COLUMBIA – The number of homes sold in South Carolina rose for the second straight month. Nearly 4,200 homes were sold in June, an increase of 13% over May, according to the latest report from the S.C. Association of Realtors.

In May, home sales totaled 3,704, an increase of 16% over sales in April.

June’s figures also represent the best year-over-year showing so far this year, with just an 11.3% drop compared to June 2008 numbers.

Of the 15 regions reporting home sales for the association, 14 reported an increase in sales over May. The only area that reported a loss was the Southern Midlands Association of Realtors. It sold three more homes in May than it did in June, according to the report.

Of the state’s three major metropolitan areas, Greenville posted a 13.3% increase in June sales over May, followed by Columbia with a 10.5% increase and Charleston with a 9.4% increase, the report said.

The median price of homes in South Carolina was $147,000, up from $142,000 in May. The average number of days a home was on the market was 144, down from 155 in May.

For the full report, click here.

… which follows on news Friday that unemployment held steady, I wonder — do you see signs that things are starting to look up?

You can’t tell by me, since I still don’t have a job. For that matter, you can’t really tell by South Carolina. The state Board of Economic Advisors called for more state budget cuts last week.

But South Carolina lags, and I am a South Carolinian, so I guess that means I lag, too. Still, even I have seen positive signs in recent weeks — such as packed parking lots out in the Harbison area.

What are you seeing?