Seven: Hillary

So, by her own words in every interview when she is asked why she should be the leader of the most powerful country on earth, Hillary's first words are, "My experience..."

Her experience: Hillary was almost the Health Care Czar of the United States of America, save for a monstrous error in judgment by both Bill and Hillary (but you've got to believe that Hillary was behind that one from the beginning); Hillary has been a United States Senator from the most liberal state in the United States for six years; an absolute dearth of business or executive level experience anywhere; was a lawyer for a while, but never ran her own firm, or even managed a practice area in a firm. Hillary did manage the damage control and spew propaganda ("vast right-wing conspiracy") for the several scandals during Clinton I, which would probably qualify her to be a decent chief of staff, or top political adviser to a president.

Compare Hillary's "experience" with that, say, of John McCain, Christopher Dodd, Sam Brownback, Rudy Guiliani, Al Gore, hell Jesse Jackson for that matter. Hilliary Clinton has one reason, and one reason only which drives her quest for public office: She is convinced that she is a morally and intellectually superior being, with some sort of divinely inspired right to decide how others should live their lives. She is, by all accounts (even her allies) one of the most coldly calculating creatures ever foisted upon the American public.

We survived Clinton I (just a "good ole boy" who couldn't get a date in high school), and Bush II (a decent human being, but an idiot). It is not a over-statement to say that a Clinton II presidency could quite possibly be a irreversible turn towards the end of our republic.

Six

Surprise, surprise. MOT is right-sizing, down-sizing, reducing-in-force, seeking voluntary terminations, or whatever the term du jour is these days for getting rid of dead weight. And God knows, MOT has a lot of it. How many more of these will Zander, or whoever is running that cesspool of MBA losers disguised as a telecom/technology company, go through before admitting the inevitable - that MOT needs to be broken up in as many pieces as possible, so as to shatter the corporate culture which burdens the remaining capital assets and intellectual property?

Probably 40% of the average Motorolan's work day is devoted to complying, monitoring, and analyzing human resource schemes for compensation and ladder-climbing. When you're inside of that kind of environment, it is simply impossible to focus on activities essential to the corporate livelihood - namely sales, new product development, customer service.

If ever there was a juicy piece of low-hanging technology fruit for a creative private equity firm, MOT is it.

Five

Permit me to indulge in a little gloating. Yesterday's post ("Four") was quite timely, to say the least. I see that MOT is down 10% in the pre-market this morning. On to (hopefully) better things.

Well, maybe not. Let's talk about Pelosi. I wish I didn't have to, but as long as she is spending my tax dollars to congratulate herself on become the first woman Speaker, I think I have the right to toss a few spears. It's pretty obvious that Pelosi and the Democrats really didn't "win" anything. George and that bunch of lily-livered wimps on Capitol Hill handed power to the Dems. I guess they were sick and tired of accepting all the bribes and decided to let the Dems share. And of course it really makes no difference which party is in power, because it's the entrenched bureaucracies that suck up the economic wealth we create, and when was the last time either party was able or inclined to reign in the growth of government?

So my bottom line for Pelosi is: If you can run the House of Reps like a business that is accountable to its shareholders, we'll be fine. On the other hand, if you run the House like a day care center, then we might as well just start speaking French or Swedish, because we're continuing to head for out and out Socialism.

Four

So, Nardelli got sacked at HD while doubling revenues and profits. And he got paid a couple of hundred mil to take a powder. It's not like the money is coming from unsuspecting boobs who have it deducted from their paychecks, like federal income tax or union dues. The money is coming from the shareholders of HD. Last time I checked, no one was forced at gunpoint to buy shares of HD.

If you want to look at a CEO who really desrives the axe, check out Ed Zander at Motorola. Zander took over a few years ago after the prior CEO, Chris Galvin, mismanaged what he thought was his family inheiritance. Actually, this entire compmany should be carved up like the Christmas turkey it really is. Since the dotcom bubble, MOT has tanked and never even started a comeback, despite having technology and IP assets second to none. It just goes to show that being smart is not necessarily a ticket to profit and success. MOT has displayed a kind of corporate arroagnce over the years which only an American company could develop. But for MOT's corporate idiocy, Nokia would not exist today. On top of all of MOT's other obvious assets, it has a board member (Negroponte) who operates at all of the highest levels of government. If you can't land a few fat contracts when you have relationships like that, your company deserves to be toast.

Three

Back in the office now, primed for what I thought would be a short, but productive work week. I didn't realize how short. Turns out Bush gave all federal workers the day off today. Isn't that nice. Really sets a great example for us stiffs in the private sector who have employees. Not to mention those people who had planned some business or activity which included the use of, a trip to, or interaction with a federal office. Hell, the US Post Office alone is taking it in the shorts for probably close to a billion dollars by paying everyone NOT to work for another day. I don't think President Ford would have approved of all this.