The Answer (as opposed to "The Secret")

I figured it out. It came to me while reading a memoir of our nation’s recent Iraqi adventure – a rather depressing read, by the way. This epiphany is so wonderfully simple, yet so awe inspiring in its applicability to every one of the current “issues” our country and we as a people face in the world. I can tell you “The Answer” for what is wrong in the world today. Are you ready for it? Can you handle the truth?

It’s this: Lack of Personal Responsibility and Accountability. It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I mean, really, we’re all responsible people, right? We have our families, we have our bills, most of us are making the mortgage payment and putting food on the table – we are responsible grownups. But we are not. We have given up so much control of our lives to other people and other things that we don’t take the time to really know what we are doing. And, at a certain point, at some certain dollar value with lots of zeroes, Personal Responsibility and Accountability ceases to be a factor at all anymore.

Let’s start small. I had(!), as probably most of you do, most of my retirement savings in “Safe Long Term Investments” – IRA’s, Mutual Funds, 401K’s. But I really can’t tell you how any one of those financial vehicles differs from the other. My mutual funds send me a prospectus or synopsis or some kind of a report every six months and I can say I’ve actually looked at it – once or twice a decade or so, mostly to see where the "highly paid fund manager" (highly paid is defined as someone who makes more than twice as much as I do) thinks he should invest my and a bunch of “other people’s” money (remember that phrase – it’s key).

Do any of you really understand how these Accounts and Funds work? What exactly does a Fund or Account Manager do every day to earn that high pay? I know I have the picture in my head of an earnest individual (balding, rumpled suit, rolled up sleeves, green eye shade) who is tracking every one of the stocks in their funds every single day, looking at projections, reading profit and loss statements, wetting their finger and holding it up to see which way the financial winds are blowing, or something like that. Perhaps that is what they do, sometimes, but I bet they spend a lot of their time in meetings with other fund managers listening to Branch or Division Chiefs tell them that they are not making enough money for the firm itself. That they are paying out too much in commissions because they are trading stocks too often or paying out too many dividends to us investors, because – and this is part of the secret – it’s not really “our” money anymore – we have given it to “Them” to manage for us, because we cannot do it as well as they can. We have transferred our personal responsibility for our money and investments to “Them” and our money has become “Their Money”. But it’s not really “Their Money” like it was their “Their (Personal) Money”, it’s “Their (Other People’s) Money.” Either that or these places are something like LA Law or Ally McBeal reruns and everyone is chasing everyone else around to have an affair with… but I digress.

Once “They” (pronouns are going to kill me here) have the money, it is “Theirs”, the company’s. And the first rule for companies in business is to make money. So they use Their (Other People’s) Money to make more money, keep some of that and give some back to us, the investor/"other people". This serves two purposes, one, it makes us "other people" feel like we have been responsible with our money for it is increasing in value and it also increases the amount of money that “They” can then use to make more money because most of us just let the money accrue in the accounts. The money they keep for themselves pays those highly paid managers (and even more highly paid Branch and Division Chiefs) their paychecks and bonuses and puts fuel in the Gulfstream jets and all of that.

The problem with Their (Other People’s) Money is that they treat it like what it is – other people’s money. Ever wonder why used rental cars sell for so much less than “regular” used cars – it’s because people have driven them like they are rental cars – they are “other people’s" cars. In my last job I traveled quite a bit and the company would provide a rental car most places. Usually the cheapest thing with four wheels and an engine but it was better than the riding the bus in a strange town. And usually I would find that there was no need for a gas pedal – a simple switch to go from coast to full power was all I really needed most of the time – well, that and maybe a brake pedal. Short of trying not to wreck the car, there was no need to really take care of it, as it was basically an “other people’s" car” – not "my" car. And worse, if I did wreck it, there was insurance that would cover it, so I wouldn’t be out any of “My Money”.

So now the picture is clear – these people were using what once was “Our Money” that we transferred to them to become “Their (Other People’s) Money” like it was a bunch of rental cars. They knew that we wouldn’t pay close attention to what they were doing, and that if they wrecked it, the government would step in and insure them so they would not be out any of Their (Personal) Money.

There it is, the financial crisis in a nutshell, and we let them do it through our ignorance, trusting, and, in no small part, greed. But it’s worse than that. We are doing this with entire countries.

Since this epiphany came to me while reading about Iraq, let’s talk about Iraq. Our former President, aka "The Decider", decides to change the regime in Iraq, and does so. At that point he should have became personally responsible and accountable for what happened next. As every good executive does, he delegated authority to a highly paid manager, Paul Bremer, and sent him over to run the place. Unfortunately, this manager did not feel any sense of personal responsibility and accountability because even though it was his country to run, it was “His (Other People’s) Country” – and he drove it like a rental car, doing things that he would not have done if he felt that he would be personally held responsible for the consequences. So, he fires all of the Baath Party members that were the civil service of Iraq and disbands the Army – putting most of what we would have called the upper middle class out of work, all at once. Chaos follows, but this man has an insurance policy – the US Department of Defense. They will “pay off” and make his stupid decisions seem less stupid over time – to the tune of 4,000 plus US lives (and a bunch of Iraqi lives as well).

How about here in Afghanistan? Same thing. It is “NATO’s (Other People’s) Country” – nobody really gives a flying flip about outcomes beyond their tour of duty, and if they do, they soon become disabused of such silly notions (like when I was young and would actually take a rental car through the car wash before taking it back – I didn’t want to be thought less of for bringing back a dirty car). I’ve already written about the “not my job” and “I’m too short to worry about that” attitudes – “short” being a term used to describe coming up on the end of a tour of duty. The problem is that that attitude starts about the second or third day here for some people. And the Afghans are kind of like us with our mutual funds – they have handed the country over to us – the highly paid country managers – to make it better for them. Now they don’t have to take any personal responsibility either – it’s someone else’s worry. So if the generator runs out of oil because nobody checked it – Inshallah, ask NATO for another one. If half of my unit’s weapons disappear over time, no worries, ask NATO for new ones. We are their insurance policy, just like the Government is for the big banks.

Of course, the problem is, eventually it comes back to be “Our/My Money”, just as my diminished retirement accounts are now “My (much less) Money” and the Bailout/Stimulus (I’ve lost track of what is part of what anymore) is “Our Government’s (much less) Money, Iraq has already become “Our (lots and lots of) Money” and Afghanistan is fast becoming “Our (lots and lots more) Money”.

Colin Powell, it is apocryphally told, espoused the “Pottery Barn Rule” – If You Break It – You Buy It (Pottery Barn, for the record, disavows this as a “rule”). He knew that we were going to break Iraq, and we have bought it many times over since. We have broken Afghanistan (didn’t take much), and are buying it now, after putting it on layaway for a few years. We have broken our financial system, and now are trying to buy it back. But here’s the rub – Paul Bremer took no responsibility for his decisions and has not been held accountable for the consequences; none of the “highly paid managers” – to include Corporate CEO’s – of the American Financial Industry are taking any personal responsibility nor are they being held personally accountable (I don't count Madoff - he's just a crook), and the same applies to the leaders of the American Automobile Industry. Evidently, the buck does not stop with them. It’s passed to us. Harry Truman would be appalled.

Here’s the kicker – my friends with small businesses, restaurants, and such – they are forced to take responsibility and are held personally, financially liable. Why aren’t we holding our corporations and our government to the same standard as they hold us to? I once heard that if you owe the bank a thousand dollars, they own you and get to make the rules, but if you owe the bank a million dollars (probably billion now), you own them and get to make the rules – I guess that’s really true.

The Answer sucks, doesn’t it.