Balance

Every leader must reach some sort of balance in the areas in which they are trying to lead. These leaders must also reach some sort of balance between the areas in which they are trying to lead.

I am not arguing that the leader should not have his or her own position within a given area. I am not arguing for wishy-washy compromise. I am not arguing for an un-grounded pragmatism.

What I am arguing for is for a leader to strike an appropriate balance of competing forces not only within a given area of interest but also between areas of interest. Notice too that I said “an” appropriate balance…not “the” appropriate balance. In addition, there is another point of contention as well. The balance that is achieved in various areas and between various areas will change over time…a balance cannot be held onto indefinitely.

The problem is that in any important area (or even not-so-important areas) of interest within the scope of a leader’s responsibility there will be competing positions…even within the group of people that are the leader’s closest allies. The same will be true when it comes to discussing priorities between areas of interest. There will be many competing positions…and those that may be allies in one area may be opponents in another…and so on.

And, within such an environment it is so important to remember that you may have to count on someone on a very, very important issue even though you fought tooth-and-nail against that person on the last thing you worked on. Even though people may oppose you there is a very good chance that sometime soon in the future you will be working with the very same person.

Achieving balance is important even if there are only two competing ideas within an area of interest. It is very seldom a winner-take-all situation. In many cases, you will be working with the “other side” in some capacity in order to carry out the goal that has been decided upon. Whether it be in government, or business, or in friendships, or in families…once a plan of action has been decided upon…it is necessary for those involved in the discussions to bind together in order to make something happen. The “winning” side is not the one that must move forward and execute the plan.

It, of course, becomes that much more difficult in the usual situation when there are multiple positions that have to be reconciled. People still have to go forward. They have to act and must avoid some form of paralization that could occur if some of the parties involved decide to opt out of the effort. Balance must be achieved so that people feel that even though they may not have gotten all they wanted in this situation that there is a good chance they may achieve more of what they want in another one.

Furthermore, as mentioned, care must be achieved in reaching a balance between different areas of interest. Here there may be more a notion of priority setting…we can do this now…but, we can only work on that thing partially at the present time…and we will have to wait a year or so before we can get to the other thing. Again, balance has to be achieved because you want to achieve a whole portfolio of objectives and not all of them can be attained at the same time. Thus, plans must be made for how the different areas will be addressed in what order and so forth.

Again, the leader will have to deal with shifting sand in terms of those that they are working or will work with on some issues, who will not be so warm to other areas and to those that they will be working with on different areas in the future. Everyone is a potential ally…and everyone is a potential foe. But, in one way or another, all of these individuals must work together in some form, on some issues, at some time in the future.

Having written this, I must go ahead and strongly emphasize two very, very important things. First of all, arguing as I have does not mean that you don’t have strong feelings about the different issues that you will be dealing with. On the contrary, it is very important that the leader have strong ideas…and it is crucial that the leader have a strong sense of who they are…and it is also a requirement that the leader feel comfortable within their own skin. That is, not only does the leader know what he or she stands for but it is also important that they know themselves and are unified and whole within their own person.

The further the leader is from this ideal the less confident they are in their ability to lead. And, the further they are from this ideal, the more they seek certainty of opinion and control over the chaos that is swirling around them. A leader with this shortcoming wants only people around them that agree with them and demand that these people be loyal through thick and thin.

A leader like this is not really a leader and will, in almost every case, fail in what they set out to do.

Second, it is not a weakness to work for balance. Reaching an appropriate balance is a secret of success. Achieving an appropriate balance is the way to build strong teams that can accomplish what they set out to accomplish. And, even though different combinations of individuals or groups may make up the team the sets out to attain another objective, the balance that is achieved within each team and between teams is vital to gaining more successes than fewer ones.

It takes a strong person who knows who they are to achieve an appropriate balance within a given area…and also between areas. Strong because they have to combine people and groups that also have strong wills. Strong because they have to lead people to work together. Strong because they have to convince people to postpone something they believe is very important until some time in the future in order to work on something right now that these people do not feel is as important as the other thing.

Barack Obama has said that he has learned quite a few things from President Ronald Reagan. I believe that one of the things that he learned from Reagan was the ability to attain balance when striving for various and sometimes contradictory goals. I don’t think anyone around would argue with the claim that Reagan had very strong views. But, he compromised to achieve balance. He sought supporters from all different positions of thought. And, he maintained friendships so that he could reach out to individuals in the future even though they might have had substantial differences on given issues in the present. In this way Reagan got a lot of what he wanted…not everything…but a large amount. By starting out with strong positions he was able to keep the balance in many areas tilted to his end of the spectrum…but, he gave in to many in order to keep the doors open and the discussions continuing. Reagan knew who he was, what he believed in, and was very comfortable in his own skin.

It is easy to pick on Bush 43 as the one at the other extreme. Bush 43 I would not call a leader. Bush 43 wanted certainty. He never worked for balance. And, he also demanded loyalty of those on his “team” above all else. I really never got a sense that he was really comfortable with himself. He wasn’t the “star” that his father was. He had very little intellect or talent. He “forced” himself to stop drinking and this effort of will was constantly in front of him as he “forced” his way through life. Objectives were either acceptable…or unacceptable…no in-between. And, he failed…with miserable incompetence…and almost everyone that surrounded him was tarnished in some way by the failure of his administration.

The main goal of a real leader is to achieve a sufficient balance in all that he or she is doing and with all the people that he or she is working with. Achieving such a balance is necessary if one is to be a successful leader…and achieving such a balance is a sign of personal strength…and inner wholeness.

Improvers

I have just finished the book “Empire of Debt” by William Bonner and Addison Wiggin. I won’t focus on much of the content of this book for I am doing a book review on it for Speaking Alpha and the reader should go there for a discussion of the book, itself, and its major thesis. What I want to concentrate on in this post is the authors disdain for people they refer to as “improvers” and the problems these people can create within a democratic form of government.

An “improver”, as defined by the authors, is someone who wants to make improvements to the world…wants to impose his or her view of how the world should run on all of the rest of us. Of course, politics within a democracy is a perfect venue for “improvers” to show their wares.

One can get a taste of what is meant by an “improver” by checking out Bonner and Wiggin’s “Hall of Shame” as well as their “Hall of Heroes.” To them, the stars of the United States Presidents they list as villains are Lincoln, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Nixon, and Bush 43 and so on. The heroes that stand tall in their book are James Garfield, Chester Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Millard Fillmore, and their personal favorite Warren Harding.

Just waiting to enter into this “Hall of Shame” is Barack Obama…just his proposals, even before taking the oath of office, are enough to bring down the abuse and ridicule of these two authors. President-elect Obama wants to make the world better for others. What a joke! What a crock of …well, you name it.

And, it is just this attitude that is walking…no, now, running…no, now, sprinting…down the path to the doom of the empire. In short, the American empire has been built upon the shaky premise that foreigners will continue to finance the debt of the United States forever and will continue, through thick and thin, to keep faith in the strength of the almighty United States dollar.

How much debt is the Obama administration going to add to the total United States debt outstanding?

Trillions and trillions of dollars!

But, this is not the focal point of this post. The focal point is on Bonner and Wiggin’s definition of “improvers” and the role that “improvers” play within a democratic framework of empire. Empires, to Bonner and Wiggin, keep their people happy and distracted by giving the masses “enemies and circuses”. That is, the thing that keeps an empire going is the diversion of its people. And, a democracy, according to the authors, is just perfect for the exploitation of the people.

Empires have always existed upon imperial interests, which mean that there are always wars on the periphery. The twist of the modern day imperialist is that they “pretend all manner of selfless and world-improving motives, every one of which is either an obvious fraud or a monumental bamboozle.” The authors go on to say that “The gist of the modern empire builder’s creed is that he has a duty to make the world a better place, and he can only do it by telling other people what to do.”

Empires need enemies…and isn’t it just convenient that when the modern empire takes on an enemy it is often done to bring liberty and democracy to the people it is fighting for. Perhaps, Bonner and Wiggin argue, one of the most difficult periods for the American empire came after the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of Communism because it left the United States government with no “bad guy”…no enemy. Thank goodness, they continue, for 9/11 because it gave the empire a vague, world wide enemy, the terrorist, that it could combat endlessly and without constraint on cost. Just what the empire needed to continue.

But, just as the empires of the past, these excursions cost lots and lots of money. In the past the empires extracted the funds to pay for their adventures from the defeated. The modern empire, the wealthy, prosperous empire, the empire that does not do its own saving, borrows from the poor of the world…those nations in which their people actually save.

So much for wars…now for circuses. The modern day circus, to Bonner and Wiggin, has to do with the promises and dream worlds which politicians in a democracy offer to the electorate. These promises and dream worlds can never be achieved and many attempts at attaining them leave those whose votes are solicited by the politicians worse off. To get elected, therefore, the politicians engage in lies and outright fraud. But that is the way of the modern world.

And, what is promised? Full employment. No financial pain. A home of their own for everybody. And, so on and so forth.

And, who is going to pay for the delivery of all these programs and policies?

Bonner and Wiggin tell us…China, India, Brazil, countries in the Middle East…and others in the less developed world…who save some of their income.

I keep getting off-the-point. Democracy gives “do-gooders” (those that want to make the world a better place to live based upon the knowledge the “do-gooders” have about how the world works and what should be done to make the world a better place to live in) the opportunity to make the world a better place to live in. And, so we get the modern empire…America in the 21st century.

The obvious thesis of Bonner and Wiggin is that the world would be a lot better place if there were fewer “improvers” or if the “improvers” were taken for what they are, in the authors words, frauds and cheats. They believe that people need to stick to their own business, be humble, and work hard. They believe that grandiose ideals and plans can only lead to trouble. They believe that the United States did pretty well until that incompetent fake, Woodrow Wilson became President.

Europe knew that Wilson was a fraud and laughed at him. They used him and then abandoned him and his ideals on how the world should be built. Yet, Wilson became the model for the many activist Presidents that came after him starting with Franklin Roosevelt. And, as they say, the rest is history…the history of the American Empire.

As we stand here on January 10, 2009 on the edge of financial chaos we need to develop an answer for the criticisms of Bonner and Wiggin or we need to be very afraid. The debt of the United States is going to expand dramatically over the next few years.

Who is going to finance all these trillions and trillions of dollars of American debt? Is the only way to finance this debt to monetize it? To print paper money or to electronically generate money?

Who is going to want to hold the United States dollar? The dollar lost 40% of its value between the start of 2001 and August, 2008. Will it lose 40% more? Or, 80% more? Or, 100% more?

Is this where the “improvers” have brought us?

Bonner and Wiggin believe so.

What Conservatives Are Saying Now!

The United States is coming into 2009 having established one of the largest moves to socialization in the world. The prospects for the future do not provide any encouragement for this move to slow down!

The United States has moved into a new era…and who would have thought that it would be the Conservatives in America that created the environment for this to happen.

The Conservatives were always the people who believed in discipline…of not living beyond ones means and capabilities. Yet, it became the Conservatives that led the way to uncontrolled and irresponsible behavior…on the part of the government…and on the part of the private sector.

When did it start?

When Nixon claimed that “We are all Keynesians now!”?

Did this lead to the policies of Ronald Reagan who promoted Supply-Side tax cuts that led to large deficits that went on and on?

And this led to Bush 41 and Bush 43 and their undisciplined fiscal behavior?

The Republican Party…like most parties…is a conglomerate of groups with disparate or even conflicting positions. But, Nixon drew up the new boundaries of the party and created the new culture at the top. And, what were these new boundaries?

I would like to concentrate on three: making the Republican Party the party of the South and the religious conservative; the move to fiscal and monetary irresponsibility; and the emphasis upon loyalty to creed as the primary criteria for membership.

There is no question that the Nixon “Southern Strategy” became the foundation of the ‘new’ Republican Party. Lyndon Johnson basically disenfranchised the South with his policies on civil rights and welfare. These programs completed upset the social stratification of the South and caused many citizens of that part of the country to look for a new home.

Richard Nixon provided them with that new home. But, in doing so the Republican Party had to be open to two things…even if they were sublimated in all discussions concerning the party. These two things were, first, that the party had to accept the racist leanings of the Southerners that were brought in under the ‘big tent’, and, second, the party had to openly support a religious leaning that was more fundamentally orientated. Up until the late sixties, the Republican Party had been the home of the mainline Protestant denominations. That was to be no more…they were ‘too liberal’.

These two themes brought in the South and also appealed to more rural areas of the United States. This provided a background for ascending to the Presidency, but also to provide a strong bloc of support in both the Congress in Washington, D. C., and in state houses throughout the country. It also provided a funnel for future leaders of the Party.

The second boundary had to do with the economic policies of the Federal Government. Nixon was so paranoid about getting re-elected as President that he did whatever was necessary…the rest-of-the-world be damned. Consequently, the conservative policies of ‘hands off’, constraint, and discipline did not appeal to him. This made him susceptible to advisors around him…especially John Connolly…that led him in a totally different direction. That direction included ideas about ‘big government’, deficits in the budget, wage and price controls, and an easy monetary policy. And, the last item there was connected to the withdrawal of the United States from the gold standard that served as the basis for stable economic policies. Even Franklin D. Roosevelt did not dare get rid of this peg during the Great Depression.

Richard Nixon became a “Big Government” President opening the door for a succession of ‘Conservative’ big government presidents…like Ronald Reagan (a former Democrat), Bush 41, and Bush 43. And, “Big Government” for the Republicans included building up the military…for this was the patriotic thing to do. American was the leader of the free world and therefore it needed more and more resources for the military.

The problem with “Big Government” is that taxpayers in the United States will generally not support the taxes needed to run a big government so that the big government will have to be financed by selling bonds…or monetizing the debt. Nixon did both…but, to combat the possibility that inflation could get worse he also froze wages and prices in the economy.

Whoa ! ! !

The third boundary had to do with loyalty. Since the things discussed above became the ‘religious’ beliefs of the Republican leadership, adherence to the ‘religion’ became paramount…no matter how ridiculous the stance one had to take. Loyalty to the line became the most important criteria for membership in the leadership.

And, this loyalty transcended talent, ability, or experience. If you did not believe the way the Party did…you had no chance to help the Party regardless of how good or how successful you were. How else can we explain the incompetence of the Bush 43 administration? How else can we understand the ignoring of facts and of reality? How else can we explain the lies and the cover-ups?

In the past, the Conservatives were always the Party of reality, the Party of discipline, the Party of incremental movement.

I think that these Conservatives can now say…”We told you so!”

I think that these Conservatives can now say…”If you lose your discipline, you will eventually crash!”

I think that these Conservatives can now say…”Once you crash because you have lost your discipline, there are no good choices!”

I think that these Conservatives can now say…”There is only one way to ‘right the ship’ and that is by re-establishing your discipline!”

I think that these Conservatives can now say…”Re-establishing your discipline is VERY, VERY painful!”