Dear President Obama
How you can improve for the second term.
Foremost is working on personnel management skills because results
come from the work of your people.
I maintain that wisdom, emphathy, team player attitude and instinctive
feel for the levers of power are what is needed.
Wisdom is more than intelligence. Wise people are able to solve local
problems in a way that contributes to the big picture. So after
several years the big picture has improved. They are always mindful
of the big picture yet have problem solving skills (define the
problem, suspend blame mentality and brainstorm for a solution ) to
address the issue at hand. They visualize the best possible blue sky
big picture. The best examples are H. Clinton and R. Gates. The most
deficient is T. Geithner, for whom every problem is local. How do you
recover the people’s money that went to executive bonuses when you
freely gave the money away in the first place?
Ratings 0 lowest, 5 highest
H.
H. Clinton V. Jarrett D. Plouffe
Wisdom 5 3 5
Foremost is working on personnel management skills because results
come from the work of your people.
I maintain that wisdom, emphathy, team player attitude and instinctive
feel for the levers of power are what is needed.
Wisdom is more than intelligence. Wise people are able to solve local
problems in a way that contributes to the big picture. So after
several years the big picture has improved. They are always mindful
of the big picture yet have problem solving skills (define the
problem, suspend blame mentality and brainstorm for a solution ) to
address the issue at hand. They visualize the best possible blue sky
big picture. The best examples are H. Clinton and R. Gates. The most
deficient is T. Geithner, for whom every problem is local. How do you
recover the people’s money that went to executive bonuses when you
freely gave the money away in the first place?
Ratings 0 lowest, 5 highest
H.
H. Clinton V. Jarrett D. Plouffe
Wisdom 5 3 5
Empathy 5
0 5
Team player 5 0 5
Feel for levers
Team player 5 0 5
Feel for levers
of power 5
2 4
Total 20 5 19
Looks to me like H. Clinton scores as better advisor.
Worth repeating - My point of view.
The election was close because you have a bad record. Your record is
bad because you didn’t build a focused economic team. I couldn’t
predict that your initial team would disintegrate. But I saw it and
told you, you didn’t do anything about it. I did tell you I thought
Bill Clinton knew more about economics than you, but he showed he
didn’t know enough by supporting the extension of the Bush tax cuts in
2010. He promised millions of jobs by stimulating a green
retro-fitting industry… not so much. No one is a know it all, not even
me. You must have team work on the economy, look what you, H. Clinton
and R. Gates did as a team in foreign affairs.
Your initial economic team didn’t know how to pull the strings of
power. In recent public appearances, Goulsbee still thinks government
is powerless. Leadership is not blaming Congress, real leadership is
figuring out the strings of power where there is no user's manual.
Your election team won by writing their own playbook. Economics,
indeed government, runs by people who make up the playbook. It seems
to me A. Greenspan and L. Summers know how to write the playbook, they
know the strings of power. I would think you should ask the two for
their advice when going over your short list of people for Treasury,
Commerce and the White House.
You were able to prod the military into actions, it initially didn’t
offer as options, because you drew ideas from the backrow of advisors.
You weren’t so lucky in the economic domain. I wrongly predicted that
the Occupy movement would produce Watts riots. I feel the sense of
social injustice is palpable and you are right to focus government
policy to help the middle class. There is no backrow of government to
prod to initiate this. I think making a cabinet position for H.
Clinton called Intra-governmental Affairs to address these issues is
what is needed, a front row person who is wise, empathetic and knows
the strings of power. She is passionate about this.
You are a slow learner.
You repeat mistakes from the first term. You seem to ram through the
fiscal cliff bill, to start the second term, the same way you rammed through the
stimulus bill in the first term, which builds resentment for rest of
the term. People have feelings, they don’t like to be bullied.
You don’t mind the store.
Bill Gates said that the Affordable Healthcare Act lacks cost
controls. Bill Gates gives away a lot of money. When he gives away
money, he tries his best to assure himself that it will be well spent,
by careful decision making at the outset. He addresses his concern
for the risk of financial abuse. His public comment decries your
failure to design up front controls when dealing with the expenditure
of such large sums of money.
You just pour money into Universities with no strings attached in the
belief that, that is all that is needed. You don’t realize that
Universities squander the money by paying themselves exorbitant
salaries, guaranteeing themselves salaries for life (tenure) and
pampering themselves with year long vacations (sabbaticals).
Education is not about ransoming the people for knowledge!
Geithner poured money into the too big to fail financial institutions
with no strings attached. These institutions siphoned off the money
to pay themselves bonuses.
You fail America as coach, general manager and owner.
The starting line-up for your economic team was Orzag, Romer,
Summers, Goolsbee, Jarrett and Geithner. Orzag didn’t last training
camp. There was so much dissent among the remaining members, that
they all went in their separate directions. Summers, Jarrett and
Geithner were not team players to begin with. It was sad to see Romer,
Summers and Geithner state disparate economic policy in public. It was
clear they could not agree amongst themselves on the message. In stark
contrast, you, Gates and Clinton would amplify the message because you
worked as a team.
You can sign, L. James. D. Wade and C. Bosh or K. Bryant, D. Howard
and S. Nash but you don’t automatically win. K. Garnett, R. Allen and
P. Pierce clicked right away because management anticipated the nature
of team chemistry and coaching provided the appropriate game plan.
You failed to anticipate the dysfunctional team chemistry of your
hand-picked players and had an inept player draw up the game plan,
look at the housing plan of March 2009.
You lacked the skills to intervene when personality clashes adversely
interfere with dealing with the economy, such as between Summers and
Jarrett, Geithner and S. Bair, Geithner and E. Warren. While Summers
is confrontational, he cares about everyday Americans and knows how to
write the economic playbook. Jarrett cares more about protecting your
back, witness R. Gibbs, Shirley Sherrod and has no record of
compassion for downtrodden Americans. Even from the sidelines, Summers
has cried out that it is more important to fuel the economy than to
invoke austerity for deficit reduction. Why has no one in the White
House said this? You shouldn’t have allowed Jarrett to frustrate
Summers so much to force him to leave. Step in and maintain order,
show some authority. You can’t lose good people, S. Bair, E. Warren,
C. Romer and L. Summers, these are all stars. You are a loser for
letting them slip through your fingers.
You fail management 101
Presidents must make sure that the mundane administrative work of
government gets done. In Reagan’s parlance - trust but verify. You
need to delegate someone reporting to the Chief of Staff, to verify
that work promised is completed as promised and tell you the truth
when things are not so.
Are there nominations for all vacancies in the lower courts?
Where are the task forces to charge the Wall Street thugs for wrong doings?
Where is the proposal, we were promised, for the fate of Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac?
Where are we on re-examing the too big to fail challenge?
Where is Volcker's tax reform package?
Guantanamo is to close in a year, are we on schedule?
The pre-screening process was such a failure in the first round of
vetting appointees re: IRS, nanny’s etc. Mandate that all nominations
will breeze through the first round of vetting. It was so pathetic to
waste time on people who weren’t properly vetted – you never recovered
from the failure to staff trying to eliminate waste from government.
Geithner got off to a really bad start with his tax omission.
You cannot afford to have Miami Heat, LA Laker style problems with
your team members this time. Wisdom, empathy, team player attitude
and instinctive feel for the levers of power are the criteria in
picking players for a winning team.
Happy New Year
Total 20 5 19
Looks to me like H. Clinton scores as better advisor.
Worth repeating - My point of view.
The election was close because you have a bad record. Your record is
bad because you didn’t build a focused economic team. I couldn’t
predict that your initial team would disintegrate. But I saw it and
told you, you didn’t do anything about it. I did tell you I thought
Bill Clinton knew more about economics than you, but he showed he
didn’t know enough by supporting the extension of the Bush tax cuts in
2010. He promised millions of jobs by stimulating a green
retro-fitting industry… not so much. No one is a know it all, not even
me. You must have team work on the economy, look what you, H. Clinton
and R. Gates did as a team in foreign affairs.
Your initial economic team didn’t know how to pull the strings of
power. In recent public appearances, Goulsbee still thinks government
is powerless. Leadership is not blaming Congress, real leadership is
figuring out the strings of power where there is no user's manual.
Your election team won by writing their own playbook. Economics,
indeed government, runs by people who make up the playbook. It seems
to me A. Greenspan and L. Summers know how to write the playbook, they
know the strings of power. I would think you should ask the two for
their advice when going over your short list of people for Treasury,
Commerce and the White House.
You were able to prod the military into actions, it initially didn’t
offer as options, because you drew ideas from the backrow of advisors.
You weren’t so lucky in the economic domain. I wrongly predicted that
the Occupy movement would produce Watts riots. I feel the sense of
social injustice is palpable and you are right to focus government
policy to help the middle class. There is no backrow of government to
prod to initiate this. I think making a cabinet position for H.
Clinton called Intra-governmental Affairs to address these issues is
what is needed, a front row person who is wise, empathetic and knows
the strings of power. She is passionate about this.
You are a slow learner.
You repeat mistakes from the first term. You seem to ram through the
fiscal cliff bill, to start the second term, the same way you rammed through the
stimulus bill in the first term, which builds resentment for rest of
the term. People have feelings, they don’t like to be bullied.
You don’t mind the store.
Bill Gates said that the Affordable Healthcare Act lacks cost
controls. Bill Gates gives away a lot of money. When he gives away
money, he tries his best to assure himself that it will be well spent,
by careful decision making at the outset. He addresses his concern
for the risk of financial abuse. His public comment decries your
failure to design up front controls when dealing with the expenditure
of such large sums of money.
You just pour money into Universities with no strings attached in the
belief that, that is all that is needed. You don’t realize that
Universities squander the money by paying themselves exorbitant
salaries, guaranteeing themselves salaries for life (tenure) and
pampering themselves with year long vacations (sabbaticals).
Education is not about ransoming the people for knowledge!
Geithner poured money into the too big to fail financial institutions
with no strings attached. These institutions siphoned off the money
to pay themselves bonuses.
You fail America as coach, general manager and owner.
The starting line-up for your economic team was Orzag, Romer,
Summers, Goolsbee, Jarrett and Geithner. Orzag didn’t last training
camp. There was so much dissent among the remaining members, that
they all went in their separate directions. Summers, Jarrett and
Geithner were not team players to begin with. It was sad to see Romer,
Summers and Geithner state disparate economic policy in public. It was
clear they could not agree amongst themselves on the message. In stark
contrast, you, Gates and Clinton would amplify the message because you
worked as a team.
You can sign, L. James. D. Wade and C. Bosh or K. Bryant, D. Howard
and S. Nash but you don’t automatically win. K. Garnett, R. Allen and
P. Pierce clicked right away because management anticipated the nature
of team chemistry and coaching provided the appropriate game plan.
You failed to anticipate the dysfunctional team chemistry of your
hand-picked players and had an inept player draw up the game plan,
look at the housing plan of March 2009.
You lacked the skills to intervene when personality clashes adversely
interfere with dealing with the economy, such as between Summers and
Jarrett, Geithner and S. Bair, Geithner and E. Warren. While Summers
is confrontational, he cares about everyday Americans and knows how to
write the economic playbook. Jarrett cares more about protecting your
back, witness R. Gibbs, Shirley Sherrod and has no record of
compassion for downtrodden Americans. Even from the sidelines, Summers
has cried out that it is more important to fuel the economy than to
invoke austerity for deficit reduction. Why has no one in the White
House said this? You shouldn’t have allowed Jarrett to frustrate
Summers so much to force him to leave. Step in and maintain order,
show some authority. You can’t lose good people, S. Bair, E. Warren,
C. Romer and L. Summers, these are all stars. You are a loser for
letting them slip through your fingers.
You fail management 101
Presidents must make sure that the mundane administrative work of
government gets done. In Reagan’s parlance - trust but verify. You
need to delegate someone reporting to the Chief of Staff, to verify
that work promised is completed as promised and tell you the truth
when things are not so.
Are there nominations for all vacancies in the lower courts?
Where are the task forces to charge the Wall Street thugs for wrong doings?
Where is the proposal, we were promised, for the fate of Fannie Mae
and Freddie Mac?
Where are we on re-examing the too big to fail challenge?
Where is Volcker's tax reform package?
Guantanamo is to close in a year, are we on schedule?
The pre-screening process was such a failure in the first round of
vetting appointees re: IRS, nanny’s etc. Mandate that all nominations
will breeze through the first round of vetting. It was so pathetic to
waste time on people who weren’t properly vetted – you never recovered
from the failure to staff trying to eliminate waste from government.
Geithner got off to a really bad start with his tax omission.
You cannot afford to have Miami Heat, LA Laker style problems with
your team members this time. Wisdom, empathy, team player attitude
and instinctive feel for the levers of power are the criteria in
picking players for a winning team.
Happy New Year
