During the last five decades of my observing the U.S. electorate, hopefully filtered through increasingly critical thinking and emotional intelligence, it seems that two foundational elements of the U.S. system of governance are eroding.  Historically, the keys to effective U.S. governance have been an informed and educated electorate.  These two crucial characteristics depend on a free press and an effective public education system, two factors that seem increasingly ineffective.

Test scores and other indicators of comparative educational performance show the U.S. collective student body continuing a long decline compared to their colleagues in other countries.  This decline appears systemic and may point to a simultaneous decline in the absolute performance of U.S. students and improved test scores by their counterparts elsewhere in the world.  Teachers and their unions may be too easy a target for blame.  Ineffective teachers need to improve or seek new careers, but many teachers in the U.S. lack lack appropriate and necessary instructional resources and parental support to meet societal expectations.

Anecdotally, the decline in U.S. student performance seems to parallel the rise in two-income families.  When both parents work outside the home, especially if one or both parents work two or more jobs, mom and dad have no time to help with homework.  Seemingly simultaneous with the rise in two-income families in the U.S., in some cases driven by need as much as want, is the rise in participation in after-school sports and other extracurricular activities.  So students have less time for homework and parents have less time and, in some communities, less ability to help with that homework.  As a consequence, generations of students enter the workforce and electorate under-prepared by school systems and parents to make decisions in the workplace and in the voting booth.

The press in the United States is failing in their chosen calling of reporting news; in doing so, the fourth estate provides less information on which this increasingly under-educated and under-prepared workforce would otherwise rely.  Newspapers, magazines, electronic media, and cable and network television promote agendas rather than pursuing truth.  A so-called news program interviews two or more people who stridently assert inherently conflicting positions as fact.  Although both positions cannot possibly be true, the anchor or moderator or reporter rarely makes the effort to reconcile the positions and separate truth from fiction.

During the recent string of presidential debates, network fact checkers proved themselves unworthy of their titles or positions by failing to distinguish true from false.  News should simply be news and editorial clearly opinion without forcing the audience to classify the two.  News should be presented as fact and be consistently, reliably true with retractions or corrections presented when necessary.  However, the U.S. news media presents programming as commercial entertainment to secure advertising dollars.  The press may be free, for the most part, of government influence, but it is not independent.

So, the upcoming cliff may just be the continued degradation of the revered system of U.S. governance facilitated by an under-educated electorate and a less-than-independent press.  Unless leaders in the U.S. consciously and quickly begin to address the rebuilding of the three legs of our governance stool, the inevitable consequence seems to be continued societal fracturing and an eventual collapse over the cliff of basic governance.

The violent acts are troubling, disappointing, even enraging, but to respond against those nations as if the nations have attacked the U.S. would be as misguided, even ignorant, as the apparent inciting of the violence by a rumored anti-Islam film as being representative of and endorsed by the U.S. and the West collectively.  The West, and particularly the U.S., needs to respond, but that response must have focus, on the perpetrators and their leaders not the general population.  The identity of the perpetrators may be difficult to ascertain.

The Arab Spring phenomenon awakened unrest long nearly dormant because freedoms of speech and expression were historically more constrained than today.  The protests somehow connected to this ill-advised film, if it exists, simply would likely not have been possible less than twelve months ago in any of the countries where embassies and consulates have been attacked.  Somehow the countries that could suppress expression under previous regimes are no longer capable of providing security to the diplomatic community. That seems likely to be an indication of lack of will onthe part of government officials and community leaders.

Despite the lack of will or ability by leaders in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Sudan, and elsewhere, little or no evidence appears to indicate that the people in these countries have animosity toward the United States, the West, our leaders, or our citizens.  On the contrary, every current indication is that the perpetrators are not representative of the the general population and at least some of the elected leaders.  More to the point, the acts of violence seem to be more likely the result of a fringe element as unhappy with their new leaders as with the West and taking advantage of too many young people with not enough tondo as a result of high unemployment among the young, countries and regions desperate for leadership, and economies in desperate need of sustainable change.

Under the stimulus plan, California-based entities received more than 12,000 grants, most seemingly for infrastructure, research, or education projects.  The sheer scale of the stimulus program would seem to make the prospects for a “where are they now?” type of report.  Nearly three years after the receipt of many of these awards, an accounting of the taxpayers’ investments would be interesting and appropriate, even if an overwhelming undertaking.

Government support of innovation seems generally connected to new or newly emphasized policies.  In the Solyndra example, the policy was to support green energy in general and solar in particular.  Grunwald (2012) observed that the solar industry has grown dramatically since 2009.  The Solyndra example would seem, then, to have been a bad investment in an otherwise good industry for investment.

Individuals, governments, and investment firms, including venture capital, private equity, and angel groups, make bad investments every day, collectively that is.  Unless investment decisions are the result of some secret sauce or proprietary black box assessment that somehow produces above-market success rates and returns, any investor would be unwise to put all her or his proverbial eggs in one basket.  In the case of the US investment in Solyndra debt, the investment was 0.1% of the total portfolio of loans, grants, and contracts, certainly not an all-in-one-basket scenario.

Was Solyndra a bad investment of taxpayer money?  Certainly, if the standard is return on investment.  Was Solyndra an unwise allocation of risk capital?  No, since 0.1% of the portfolio would not seem to be over-allocation into one investment.  Was Solyndra risky?  Yes, but probably not any more risky, and possibly less risky, than other ventures at the same stage of development.  Should the Solyndra experience cause government decision makers to use a different assessment of innovation potential?  Probably, but the Solyndra failure should not become an excuse for governments to stop investing in innovation.  Early stage companies in innovative industries are risky investments; they always have been and always will be, and that is why investors demand and recieve the potential returns that they do.

References

Grunwald, M. (2012, August 27). Yes, more Solyndras. The solar company failed, but the decision to invest in it was the right one. Time, 180(8), Business 4.

The Levin Institute (2012) noted that international trade both causes and results from globalization.  The proliferation and distribution of products from the United States is an example of globalization as is the availability of goods and services from Japan, South Korea, China, Germany, France, Italy, and Mexico.  Trade negotiations effectively negated the consequences of any intended one-sided, eco-colonialism.

U.S. Imports, Exports, and Trade Balance by Year (in $millions)

Trade negotiations did not seem to reduce either exports or imports.  Despite the economic downturn that struck most of the world’s economies in 2008, imports and exports since the beginning of globalization continue their upwards march, albeit with a noticeable dip in both imports and exports in 2008 and 2009.  The assertion by Foroohar (2012) that globalization harmed the wages and upward mobility of workers in the U.S. would not seem to be related to a reduction of exports, as measured in dollars.  Globalization seems to have increased exports and imports.

The detrimental phenomenon related to globalization, or not, is that U.S. imports have exceeded exports every year since 1975.  The steady rise in exports since 1975, only dropping briefly in 2001-2002 and 2008-2009, would seem to have enhanced wage and mobility opportunities for workers in the U.S..  Similarly, the parallel rise in imports would seem likely to have had a corresponding influence on the economic well-being of  workers in the countries from which the U.S. imports goods and services.  Foroohar (2012) notwithstanding, perhaps the opportunity in the U.S. is not to somehow try to put the brakes on globalization, as if the U.S. is in control of such phenomenon, but to reduce the overall trade imbalance by taking steps through policy, innovation, and better management.  Slowing globalization would seem to have the potential to reduce imports and exports; the objective should be to narrow or close the gap by some combination of continued growth in exports and a slowing of the growth in imports.

References

Foroohar, R. (2012, August 27). The economy’s new rules: Going global. Time, 180(8), 26-32.

The Levin Institute. (2012). Trade and globalization.  Retrieved September 2, 2012 from http://www.globalization101.org/trade-introduction/

During this election cycle and the previous one in the U.S., pundits frequently expressed the desire to end the U.S. military’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and, almost in the next breath, proclaimed the need to fix unemployment.  Some pundits added the need to reduce government spending and to make government agencies more efficient.  Reducing the number of service members deployed would seem to eventually reduce the number of people serving in the military and reducing government spending would seem to rather quickly result in fewer government workers; in both cases, wouldn’t unemployment probably rise as a result of both actions?

It seems that the only way to reduce government-related payroll, whether civilian or military, and government spending and not increase unemployment is to create a coordinated, comprehensive plan to stimulate sustainable job creation that is synchronized with implementation of a strategy to improve efficiency of government services and reduce government payroll.  Treating them as unrelated would seem to offer dire consequences for unemployment and the economy.

Klein (2012) encouraged President Obama to redouble his efforts to reduce the budget deficit and the national debt.  Klein noted that the Simpson-Bowles plan received minimal support in part because it was not comprehensive enough to allow anybody to ascertain the consequences.  It seems that politicians frequently vote for legislation that leaves too much to chance or unwritten future laws and policies.  Perhaps one of the challenges of governing the United States in 2012 is that the systems and structures have grown too complex and too intertwined for simple or straightforward solutions to practical problems.  As demonstrated by the attempt at comprehensive healthcare reform, it may also be that attempts at comprehensive legislation also do not get read by those who vote.

The United States still seems to have the best system with the most peaceful regime change in the world, but sometimes it surely seems that a better way must be out there somewhere.

References

Klein, J. (2012, August 20). The trouble with Simpson-Bowles. Obama has tried to reduce the long-term deficit, but he should try harder. Time, 180(8), 19.

Various authors.  (August 20, 2012). White House for sale. Time, 180(8), 4.

Time’s Joel Stein, one of my favorite journalists, in part because of his irreverent tendencies, made a point about what is fair in his essay on solving the European economic instability (Stein, 2012).  Stein proclaimed that fairness “is the rallying cry of idiots” (p. 62) and, while that may be a tad harsh, in the context of the essay, a functional definition of fairness seems elusive.  Even if we could agree on definitions of fair and fairness, such agreement might not have utility beyond some moral keel rather than a rudder.

Stein (2012) offered examples that seem to suggest that people who cry out for fairness are frequently those who do not have something that they want somebody else to provide.  People in some of Europe’s southern countries want their counterparts in the north to be fair.  This, of course, is not always the case.  As a professor, students seem inclined to ask for, or demand, fairness in grading; rare indeed is they outcry for justice in grading.  As a consultant, clients want fair valuations for their companies and for services rendered; again, justice is, at best, an implication.

In each of these instances, fairness seems to be subject to negotiation, as if we should not expect what is fair to be somehow self-evident and obvious within a specific cultural context.  So, fairness is not a matter of objectivity.  Fairness also seems to be too rarely associated with accountability; people asking for fairness generally do not seem to want the other party to hold them accountable for the past, but the future might be a topic for negotiation.

People asking for fairness frequently seem to request grace and generosity from others.  Perhaps fairness is easier to request than grace and generosity because people in some cultures see fairness as an obligation whereas graciousness and generosity are gifts from one to the other.  In those cultures, asking for a gift might be rude and seeking fairnessoug may carry an implication of guilt if the request is denied.

Even though I dislike the traffic, the crowds, the exaggerated prices, and the excessive calories, the Fair somehow seems easier to fathom and define than the fair.

Reference

Stein, J. (2012, July 2). Acropolis now. It’s not hard to rescue Europe from Greece. Even I have a plan. Time 180(1), 62.

Stiglitz raised a key factor in economic growth, which seems otherwise ignored, or at least under-considered, in the overall harm done to the economy if society either takes steps to restrict access to opportunities by economically disadvantaged people or does not consciously provide mechanisms to improve that access. Stiglitz asserted a artificial yet de facto restriction of access to the potential of people at or near the bottom of the economic ladder. I have long supported the premise that a key to sustainable improvement in business performance or the greater economy is to take strategic and tactical steps to raise the performance of those currently performing below their capabilities and capacities. On this point, I seemingly can agree with Stiglitz; however, even the best leaders cannot force people to do what they consciously or unconsciously elect not to do.

Leaders, whether political, academic, business and organizational, community, or religious and social, can encourage, empower, and inspire people to live into their potential. The opportunity to live into one’s potential is an insufficient driver of realized potential. The unasked question is whether systematic or systemic barriers prevent the realization or whether something else may be going on? Stiglitz approached the unasked question when he offered that free markets, in reality, are a false premise because laws and regulations shape all, or most, markets so access to opportunity may be artificially, yet legally, constrained.

If laws and regulations are constraining access to opportunity or it’s realization, then political leaders should take steps to identify those constraints and remove or change them. The people positioned to propose those changes are members of the so-called 1%, a term which Stiglitz also takes credit for first offering. Insufficient attention seems to get paid to the reality that a 1% will always be in a better position to do something than a 99%. We simply do not live in a society or world in which every is equal with equal resources, or equal power, or equal capacities, or equal potential. The labeling of people as members of “the 1%,” as if only one such strata exists, is also a false premise and is not necessarily or inherently a demeaning moniker.

The challenge that is greater than a simplistic label or cry of lack of opportunity is to develop the societal will to examine the causes for unequal access to and realization of opportunity and potential. How do leaders help members of society at all economic levels understand and seek to live into their potential. What defines opportunity and potential for individuals, for groups, and for society? Once somebody identifies their potential, we may find that the next major hurdle is getting people to want to live into it.

One of the biggest challenges I see as a graduate school professor land that I hear from my public school teacher colleagues is that students offer as a primary reason for not doing homework that they simply did not want to o it. Teachers cannot get students to work. Parents cannot or will not get students to work. Why should anybody expect the system to facilitate the attainment of a person’s potential when neither parent nor teacher nor, sadly, a large portion of students clearly demonstrate tat the will or the ability is not there?

Reference
Luscombe, B. (2012, June 11). 10 Questions, Time, 179(23), 66.

It seems easy to complain about companies buying companies or parts of companies and then reducing costs, often through labor reductions, in order to realize a profit on their investments.  Investment firms have an obligation to their investors to produce a positive return on their investments.  For many of the firms that Bain and others purchased, the alternative was closure; companies like Bain may not have been able to save every job but some organizations were able to survive as the result of significant changes in operations.  In some cases, however, the seller to the investment firm made out much better than the investment firm or the purchased company’s employees.

Productivity improvement from the 1950s through at least the middle of the 1980s had scientific management based on the work of Taylor, the Gilbreths, Emerson, and Henry Ford, among others. Work measurement and work management were common. Colleagues of mine from my early years of consulting would tell of consulting firms that would, as crude as it sounds, essentially take a list of people and simply mark every fifth one for termination. The consulting world still includes firms who offer little other than work measurement-based productivity improvement and resulting staff reductions. I knew the techniques, but my clients seemed to only need me to use them to optimize the use of staff without staff reductions.

Scientific management principles applied to manufacturing firms initially, most likely because manufacturing was the basis of the economy in the United States and Western Europe for much of the 1900s. I was director of operations for a productivity consulting firm that worked primarily for government and service organizations. We helped then-growing telecommunications companies determine how best to staff and organize hardware installation teams and customer service organizations. We helped government entities figure out how to handle rapidly-increasing work volumes without expanding staff, since tax revenues were not keeping pace with demand for services.

In the 27 years since I began my consulting career, automation has changed most work processes. The automation of processes relies significantly on the principles and practices of scientific management. Improvement of operational and financial performance, of efficiency and effectiveness and quality, and the reduction of waste in its many forms continue to keep the attention of managers and to be central to the conversation about improving business and government performance. It is easy to forget that scientific management is at the root, even today, of how organizations get better, including enhancing the value of shareholder equity.

Today’s tools often seem more sophisticated than those my colleagues and I had available in the 1980s.  However, a goal of investors continues to be a positive return on investment. Managers and executives, among their many and conflicting objectives, have an obligation to shareholders to improve performance and assure investors that investment in certain companies and industries is good and not utter folly.

References
Bain Capital (2012). About Bain Capital. Retrieved from http://www.baincapital.com/AboutBainCapital/Default.aspx

I’m not sure whether this article identifies causes or effects, but it seems clear that people who profess a religion, delay children until after marriage, stay married, and finish high school, if not college fare better economically than people who profess no faith or religion, have children outside of marriage, get divorced, and do not, at least, finish high school.  The article does not examine whether the more “traditional” lifestyle leads to more economic success or whether people who are more economically successful gravitate toward a more “traditional” lifestyle.  The presented facts are food for thought.

The demographic differences seem to suggest that, as the middle class experienced division since 1960, during a time of broad cultural change in the United States and elsewhere, two seemingly distinct cultures emerged.  These distinctions may help account for the increasing sense of division in U.S. society and among our elected officials, along with the increasing sense of polarization in general.  Whether these are causes or effects, what is the vision of leaders for addressing the causes and the effects?