We Need a Hero A rainy night, a lonely road, a scratchy windshield wiper, a flash of light from the sky, and a roaring turbine with a sick metallic whine. Then Dustin Hoffman, his face covered in aviation grease and his wet and soggy socks dragging from his limping feet, wanders up the muddy slope after saving fifty-four airline passengers from the exploding inferno that was flight 104 from New York. Andy Garcia is a…
No Joking Zone I am a strong believer in the value of a sense of humor. To me, being able to joke around about things sets people at ease and helps to break down the hierarchical barriers that often prevent the level of open communications that are essential in good management. There are many cautionary signs these days about what one jokes about. Since many people create jokes that are either off-color or politically-incorrect…
While Rome Burns Back in 1989 I went to the Amazon on a side-trip connected to a business trip to Brazil. In the prior five years, I had been back and forth to Latin America dozens of times as I ran first the Latin debt crisis team and then built from the ashes the Emerging Markets Department of Bankers Trust. During that time Brazil was our biggest debtor at over $1 billion and one…
The Sovereign State of Mine, Mine, Mine Yes, you heard that tight, Donald Trump is having a temper tantrum over a place he’s never been, has only 50,000 indigenous inhabitants (the size of Sheboygan, Wisconsin), and has only one and a half golf courses, one of which appears to be on a glacier or something similar. What it does have is a lot of land, with less and less ice and something called rare…
Ostrich Outreach I am reading about Quantum Technology and China’s push to dominate the space while Jamie Dimon and the Business Roundtable redefine the basis of corporate purpose to go beyond pure shareholder value. Something he has chosen to support since Rep. Katie Porter schooled him on the cost of living in Irvine, California. When you combine those thoughts with the goings on in China and Hong Kong and the shifting sands of capitalism and…
Hardballing The latest poll (indeed, a Fox News poll) about the general election in 2020 is out today and it stacks up Trump against all the leading Democratic contenders. The issue of who wins is not in contention with these polls. Ever since they began taking them in May, Biden, as the leading Democratic candidate, has gravitated between a spread of +2 to +13. Biden is currently at +12 (with three other candidates trouncing Trump…
Love and Hate in Las Vegas “Whether you love me or hate me, you’ve got to vote for me.” That was President Trump’s statement at his New Hampshire pre-primary rally last night. I prefer the quote made about Elizabeth Warren by a USA Today journalist, a self-professed staunch conservative. He said, “I don’t care if Senator Warren is a mendacious Massachusetts liberal, she could tell me that she’s going to make me wear waffles as…
Catch-22 I watched the Mike Nichols movie based on Joseph Heller’s dark WWII comedy about a bombardier off the coast of Italy doing everything he can think of to get sent home. Catch-22, the novel, was first published in 1961 and made into a movie in 1970. The story of its title deserves to be told as a prequel to its absurd comedic tone. The concept of the rule “catch” of a paradoxical situation…
Crying About Death We have some dramatic things going on that give me pause and make me think. I just watched a clip of presidential candidate Andrew Yang (a marginal candidate who has gotten some exposure lately, but who is far from a central or likely candidate who could be nominated to the Democratic ticket). He had talked with a woman whose child had watched her sibling get shot and killed in El Paso. …
Owning it All I was worried about having time to write my blog this weekend. We are in Ithaca staying at our house there, with my daughter and her husband and kids. Their Ithaca life is heavily dominated by the pool, the yard and fireflies at dusk (as it should be) and my weekend is dominated by seeing old acquaintances from college. These are not my usual classmate crowd that I lived with for most…