Neither political party in America represents us!

August 19, 2013

I rarely talk to individual Americans who adamantly support one or the other political party. In fact, most of the folks I talk to describe their political views in terms of not wanting government to waste our money, while also believing in helping the truly needy.

It seems to me this is the perfect description for moderate centrists, which I think best describes the beliefs of most American voters.

However, in spite of a majority of moderate centrists, the partisan political debate remains primarily driven by relatively small numbers of extremists in each party. Politicians from both parties and most national media then design their messages to inflame the passions of party loyalists against the hated extremists in the other party. The majority of moderate centrists in both parties then continue to support their chosen party label. However, many tell me they end up feeling somehow both dissatisfied and disenfranchised.

The real question all party loyalists should ponder is whether any real differences exist in the past actions of either party! Due to space limitations, I can only share a few examples to make my case:

Republicans, under the leadership of Bush 43, led the fight for the Medicare prescription drug plan. Part of the GOP support for this new benefit was a desire/need to convince seniors they were just as worried about them as the Democrats. However, the new benefit was actually created by the lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry with the full support of both parties. It's very likely this industry simply exchanged campaign funding in return for support from both parties.

The payoff to this industry has been immense as this new Medicare benefit provided billions of tax dollars to pay for expensive, patent-protected prescription drugs for seniors. Some seniors certainly benefited, however, we all now know this benefit is both unaffordable and unsustainable.

Then President Barack Obama gets elected partially by promising to fix American health care. His initial stated goals were to provide insurance coverage for the millions of uninsured Americans, guarantee coverage for those with pre-existing conditions, and reduce health care costs for all Americans.

The improvement goals he set were needed and laudable. However, the process he and his fellow Democrats used to deliver these promises was deeply flawed because they ignored the fact that our existing health care system already cost twice as much per capita as any other developed nation. The Democrats then did exactly what Republicans had done — they enlisted the help of the involved special-interest lobbies to craft the law. It's similar to a farmer asking weasels to help build a secure chicken coop.

Why didn't Mr. Obama, with control of both houses, implement a less expensive, single-payer health care system like every other developed nation already had? After all, half of all Americans are already covered by such a plan. The answer is simple: The special interests wouldn't allow it. They had too much to lose if the bloated health care system they feast on was placed on a diet.

Next, look at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush 43 started both needless wars with support from most prominent Democrats. Then Obama, in spite of his protests as a senator, failed to get us out of Iraq one day sooner than Bush had promised, and he extended our time in Afghanistan for no benefit to anyone except the industrial-military complex. Because funding for these two wars was mostly borrowed, our nation is now trillions of dollars deeper in debt.

Add the ongoing housing bubble-caused recession. While Bush complained about the actions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, did he or the Republicans actually attempt to stop the shenanigans? Both parties participated in further setting the stage for collapse by reducing financial industry regulations. Bush immediately responded to the risk of a banking failure by creating the infamous TARP program.

When Obama followed, he immediately increased the Bush bailout of financial institutions, expanded funding for previous Bush green initiatives, and even bailed out General Motors. Who benefited? Not American homeowners or taxpayers. No Wall Streeter, banker or any elected or appointed political official went to jail. GM was even able to protect most union leadership positions.

As usual, our politicians, the leaders of financial institutions, favored constituents and even owners of some "green" companies made out like the bandits they were.

Last but not least, the ethanol boondoggle was foisted upon the American people with the support of both parties, and it is about to be expanded to 15 percent in our gasoline.

The evidence clearly shows that our elected officials from both parties, no matter their rhetoric, work for the same special interests — and that's surely not us!

This is why I say neither party works for the best interests of the majority of Americans, and why I cannot claim allegiance to either one. Today I proudly describe myself as a moderate centrist independent American. In my opinion, to maintain a loyalist label for either political party simply denies the truth and equates to being an enabler for the ongoing destruction of our nation.

These are my opinions. What do you think?

Mike Tower 

America's ethanol boondoggle increases

Nation's ethanol boondoggle increases

I have written previously about ethanol and the fact that its use in our vehicles causes more harm than any possible benefits claimed.

You won't find a credible person anywhere outside of the ethanol and corn industries who can cite logical evidence supporting ethanol continuing to be blended with our gasoline. Well, except for those we elect from both parties to run our nation and whose campaigns have been heavily supported by these two industries, and whose livelihood also depends on the continuing perpetration of this fraud on our country.

To make matters worse, with our current administration's support, the Environmental Protection Agency last year approved boosting the amount of ethanol in gasoline by 50 percent, from 10 percent to 15 percent. It's a move that cannot in any way be defended as being in our citizens' best interest and is simply a continuation of our politicians' pandering to the corn and ethanol industries.

Plans call for the higher ethanol content fuel to only be allowed in light cars and trucks built after 2000. It will not be allowed for small engines such as lawn mowers, motorcycles, etc., or even in heavy-duty engines because it will damage their parts even worse than the 10 percent mix currently being sold.

The corn and ethanol lobbies, and their politicians, always tout the twin benefits of reducing dependence on foreign oil and reducing pollution. They conveniently ignore the use of oil-based fertilizers to grow the corn, oil-based fuel required for farm implements to plant and harvest the corn, oil-based fuel used to truck the corn to the ethanol production facilities, and finally oil-based fuel used to truck the finished ethanol to the oil refineries so it can be blended with gasoline.

Oh yeah, the reason for trucking the finished ethanol instead of transporting it by pipeline is because ethanol is too corrosive to safely ship via pipelines. It's this basic corrosive nature of the product that makes it unsafe for use in smaller engines and why many believe it is potentially harmful to any vehicle's engine. Interestingly, many of the world's largest auto manufacturers have declared that their warranties will be voided if ethanol at this higher concentration (E-15) is used in their vehicles.

Ethanol, when used as fuel, is not pollution free, and when you add ethanol pollution to the oil-based products used in the entire corn growing and manufacturing process, the overall pollution generated is greater than would have occurred with just using oil-based fuel in our vehicles in the first place. So we end up with a product that has been created by two industries, in conjunction with their paid puppets in D.C., in order to fill their own pockets. Its use neither reduces foreign oil dependence or overall pollution.

If you aren't persuaded yet, then also consider that the artificially expanded demand for corn to produce ethanol has resulted in higher prices for all food grains. Corn prices have skyrocketed due to the new demand created by ethanol. This has increased acreage planted in corn instead of other grains.

This has caused all grain-based food prices to increase. In fact, grain-based food prices have increased globally, which in turn, has not only harmed American pocketbooks but has also caused immense harm to the people in the poorest nations in the world who are forced to survive on mainly grain-based diets.

So let's summarize: Our elected leaders used our money to subsidize two industries to create a new market for a product that has increased pollution, not reduced our nation's oil dependence, raised our food prices and potentially will harm our vehicles. And now they have approved adding even more of this harmful substance to our gasoline!

Our leaders will once again tout the benefits of reducing foreign oil dependence and reducing air pollution. In fact, did you notice President Barack Obama recently vigorously stating his concerns about global warming? Any chance this is a precursor for him to publicly support expanding the ethanol fraud?

If we remain silent, we deserve to be treated like the fools these industries and our elected leaders clearly think we are.

These are my opinions. What do you think?

Mike Tower l

mike41tower@gmail.com

Corporate thinking dominated by the short term

August 4, 2013

During the past several decades, leaders of most large, publicly traded companies have become increasingly and primarily focused on the short-term financial performance of their organizations. Have you ever wondered why?

Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman may have explained this behavior in his New York Times Magazine article in 1970. He said that "a corporate executive is an employee of the owners of the business. He has a direct responsibility to his employers. That responsibility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires ... ."

Since the early 1950s, it is who these owners have become that may be the most significant reason for current short-term management thinking and practices.

In the U.S. during this time frame, publicly traded stocks have become increasingly owned and controlled by institutional investment pools such as mutual funds, hedge funds, pension funds, etc. In fact, during the entire first half of the 20th century, only about 5 percent of all stocks were held by such institutional investments. By 2010, these huge investor pools owned and controlled nearly 70 percent. Today, these huge institutional owners have become the very entities whose desires corporate leaders must satisfy.

In the late 1980s, while working for a large American pharmaceutical company, I was having lunch with a colleague who was director of investor relations. I asked him about his job. He said his primary role was to make sure "the market" was never surprised at anything happening in our company that might impact quarterly financial results.

He went on to explain that ownership of most large, publicly traded companies' stocks was highly concentrated among relatively few institutional owners. In our company, he said 96 percent of the stock was owned by only 4 percent of all shareholders. And these large entities were "the market" he spent all of his time ensuring no surprises.

It was no accident our company had record sales and earnings every single quarter for my entire 30 year career! It was what "the market" wanted. It was also interesting that every person in this company with the title of manager or above had, as part of his/her compensation plan, stock options that only had value if the stock price went higher. The higher one ranked in the organization, the greater the potential value of stock price increases became for personal rewards.

Today, institutional investor managers also have very powerful computers. This makes it quite easy to instantly factor in any news that might affect financial performance for any company whose shares they own, and then make immediate, responsive buy/sell decisions. They also constantly track the actions of all other large funds and the economy as a whole. So when another institutional investor enters a larger-than-normal sell/buy order, or a new government report of interest to the market is made public, they all jump on the bandwagon. This often triggers massive swings in the stock market. A good recent example is the stock market decline on June 20 when Ben Bernanke announced the future possibility of reduced quantitative easing.

The negative changes in the way most corporations view employees is simply a side effect of short-term thinking by corporate executives. During earlier times, the leaders of most large corporations seemed to take a longer-range view of their businesses. Thus, long-term relationships with experienced employees were often desired and highly valued.

Today, employees are mostly seen as expensive and expendable tools. Any opportunities to improve subpar short-term earnings by reducing staffing expenses are usually exercised. And as soon as a large company announces a planned reduction in workforce, the next financial headlines will usually announce both the planned staff reductions and a corresponding increase in the staff-reducing entity's stock price on the same day.

Such short-term thinking by corporate leaders has led to the elimination of millions of American jobs, and even entire industries, over the past few decades. And it has certainly contributed to the jobless recovery we are still experiencing.

Have institutional owners, demanding a company's quarterly financial goals are met, caused short-term management thinking? Or have executives become so adept at pulling the various triggers available to meet these short-term goals that they have given up on the much harder work of long-term planning?

Was the coupling of executive compensation to short-term stock price growth driven by the institutional owners to ensure executives would stay focused on actions most likely to lead to short-term stock value appreciation? Or did the executives connect the dots between tactics driving short-term stock price increases and their own compensation plans? Perhaps both!

It really doesn't matter who started it. The facts speak for themselves because this collective short-term thinking, while serving institutional owners' desires, has grievously harmed significant numbers of ordinary Americans and our nation as a whole.

As Gordon Gekko in the movie "Wall Street" said, "Greed is good." If so, then instant greed maximization has been nirvana for both the institutional investment firms that control most of Americas corporate stocks, and the corporate executives who work for them. Any negative side effects for other Americans they must view as simply collateral damage.

Our federally elected officials are supposed to protect our citizens from the foreseeable harmful side effects of too-greedy capitalists. However, they have all been too busy trying to remain in power by doing the bidding of the special interests to even consider their original reason for being.

These are my opinions. What do you think?

Mike Tower