How Do You Measure Success?

Posted: April 29, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Republican politics, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , | 22 Comments »

“If people think there’s something wrong with being successful in America, then they’d better vote for the other guy,” Romney said. “Because I’ve been extraordinarily successful, and I want to use that success and that know-how to help the American people.”

— Mitt Romney on Fox News Sunday, 2/26/2012

I’ve been thinking about the definition of success for quite a while, ever since Mitt Romney started bragging about how “extraordinarily successful” he is and whining about how anyone who talks about income inequality (outside of “quiet rooms”) is motivated by envy.

It seems that Romney defines success as amassing vast wealth in business by any means necessary. In Romney’s case, he made a fortune at Bain Capital by buying up other businesses and–in many cases–destroying them in order to enrich Bain’s stockholders. In the process, he put countless people out of work and drove families and even towns into ruin. Is that success? Should we applaud him for that?

Even if we acknowledge that Romney has been successful by a number of societal measures–graduating from Harvard, running a business, being elected Governor of Massachusetts–isn’t his definition of success still pretty shallow and limited? I think so.

I think my dad was successful. He grew up in poverty, survived the Great Depression, fought in World War II, worked his way through college and graduate school, taught thousands of college students and inspired many of them to go into teaching themselves. He earned the title of full professor in his department and served as a Dean at his university. He helped my mom raise five children and did what he could to help us as adults. He was a loving and supportive grandfather and great grandfather.

My dad was honest and hard-working. He didn’t believe in cheating on his taxes or hurting other people in order to advance himself. He cared about his students, and they could tell he cared. He was loved and admired by both top students and average ones. I know because for two years I attended the university where he taught, and I met many students who enthusiastically told me what a great teacher he was. Some of dad’s students even wrote grateful letters to him after he retired–and we heard from others after he died two years ago.

That’s just one very personal example, but I think there are endless ways that people can be successful in life. It’s not all about money and holding high positions, as Romney seems to believe. Not too long ago, Romney became very defensive about a speech that President Obama made to a community college audience in Ohio:

Obama addressed GOP charges of class-warfare rhetoric while touting government programs before a group of community college students in job-training programs.

“These investments are not part of some grand scheme to redistribute wealth. They’ve been made by Democrats and Republicans for generations, because they benefit all of us,” the president remarked.

“We created a foundation for those of us to prosper. Somebody gave me an education. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Michelle wasn’t. But somebody gave us a chance.”

Obama never mentioned Romney, but he drew a contrast between the Democratic notion that society provides opportunities for people and the Republican claim that individuals make it on their own–even if, like Romney, they begin with much greater opportunities than most. Romney responded:

“I’m certainly not going to apologize for my dad and his success in life,” Romney said Thursday morning on “Fox and Friends.” “He was born poor. He worked his way to become very successful despite the fact that he didn’t have a college degree, and one of the things he wanted to do was provide for me and for my brother and sisters. I’m not going to apologize for my dad’s success.”

….

“I know the president likes to attack fellow Americans. He’s always looking for a scapegoat, particularly those that have been successful like my dad.”

No one asked Romney to apologize, but why is he so incapable of seeing that he has received rich benefits from his parents and from American society? Why doesn’t his phenomenal success in amassing great wealth arouse in him a desire to give back to other Americans who weren’t as privileged as he was? It seems that all wants is to look down his nose at 99% of the population and give us holier-than-thou lectures about self-reliance when he never once had to rely only on himself!

A couple of weeks ago, Michael Kinsley wrote about Romney’s “failed definition of success.”

Among the secrets of success that Romney might wish to share is how you arrange to be born to a rich family. Or, to be less vulgar, an intact and loving family that valued education. Or, for that matter, to be born smart. The neocon controversialist Charles Murray writes books arguing that the second and third factors (family and innate intelligence) are more important than the first (money). You can argue about this all day, but in Romney’s case it doesn’t matter because he had all three factors hard at work, paving his way to success.

Is he even aware of it? Maybe Romney’s not so smart, because he goes on and on about how successful he is in a way that strikes people as obnoxious. “I stand ready to lead us down a different path, where we are lifted up by our desire to succeed, not dragged down by a resentment of success.”

Is there a “resentment of success” in this country? I don’t sense it. Certainly you do not need to resent success in order to believe that successful people are, for the most part, adequately rewarded for their success.

And Kinsley asks, what about people who fail according to Romney’s definition? Should they just roll over and die?

A society that rewards success is good for the successful, and no doubt good for society as a whole. Romney is right about that. But not everyone can be successful. How many people did Romney have to elbow out of his way on the path to success?

“It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.” That’s Gore Vidal, and it’s unnecessarily vicious. The pleasure of success shouldn’t depend on the prospect of others failing, but the reality of success usually does.

But failures are people, too! If success is mostly luck, then so is failure. When a government policy rewards success in a way that actually does lift all of society, that’s fine. But the policies advocated by Republicans, including Romney — primarily lower taxes on the higher brackets — would only make success more successful. They would do nothing to distinguish success for the few from success that really does benefit us all.

Last week, after Romney became the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, he gave a speech in New Hampshire to kick off his general election campaign. He again bragged about his “success in business” and talked about “character.”

In the America I see, character and choices matter. And education, hard work, and living within our means are valued and rewarded. And poverty will be defeated, not with a government check, but with respect and achievement that is taught by parents, learned in school, and practiced in the workplace.

Well, I don’t think much of Mitt Romney’s character. To me, character implies empathy, caring for other people, and giving back to the society that has provided opportunities to succeed in whatever way we define success. I don’t buy Romney’s notion that only the rich and powerful are successful. I’d rather live in poverty until the day I die that have the kind of “success” that is built on hurting other people, as Romney’s is.

Tuesday Reads

Posted: August 9, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Global Financial Crisis, Hillary Clinton, Medicaid, Medicare, morning reads, psychology, religious extremists, Republican presidential politics, Social Security, The Great Recession, the villagers, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, voodoo economics, WE TOLD THEM SO | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 43 Comments »

Good Morning!! I’m switching to strong coffee this morning, because I’ve had the sleepies for the past few days. It’s been really damp and humid here, so maybe that’s the reason. All I know is I keep dozing off, and I don’t like it! Anyway, let’s get to the news before I nod out again.

A few days ago, commenter madaha turned me on to an article about a fascinating new book that just came out last week. The book is called A First Rate Madness. The author is Nassir Ghaemi, a professor of psychiatry at Tufts University. From Salon:

Nassir Ghaemi, an author and professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine, argues that many of history’s most famous and admired figures, from Churchill to FDR to Gandhi, showed signs of mental illness — and became better leaders because of it. Ghaemi bases his argument on historical records and some of the latest experimental studies on depression and mania, arguing that mild symptoms can actually enhance qualities like creativity or empathy.

After reading the piece in Salon, I immediately ordered the book and I’ve been dipping into it over the past couple of days.

So far, I’ve read the chapter on FDR, and I’m going to read about JFK next. According to Ghaemi, both of these men had hyperthymic personalities: basically, they were upbeat, enthusiastic, energetic, and creative, because they tended to be somewhat hypomanic (a milder, less disabling form of the mania experienced by those with bipolar disorder). In addition, both FDR and JFK suffered from serious physical illnesses–FDR from polio and JFK from Addison’s disease. These illnesses and other adversities these two men faced enabled them to develop empathy for the suffering of ordinary people–even though they were both from privileged backgrounds. Ghaemi argues that people with slightly abnormal personalities are better leaders–particularly in times of crisis when great creativity, empathy, and resilience are needed. According to Ghaemi:

Many people who experience traumas [like terrorism or war] don’t develop PTSD or other illnesses. So the question is, what keeps those people from getting sick? What creates resilience? The psychological research suggests that personality is a major factor. Resilience seems to be associated with mild manic symptoms, but you can’t develop resilience unless you’ve already experienced trauma. Many of these leaders faced adversity in their childhood and adulthood, and that seemed to make them better able to handle crises. It’s like a vaccine. You get exposed to a little bit of a bacteria then you can handle major infections and I think trauma and resilience and hyperthymic personality seem to follow a similar path.

Ghaemi does not discuss Obama’s personality in the book, but Salon interviewer Thomas Rogers asked the author whether Obama may be too “sane” to be a successful President in our current time of crisis.

Obama’s persona is that of a very sane, rational person who is good at compromise — which is definitely how he sold himself during the debt ceiling crisis. Do you think Obama’s sanity is hurting his abilities as a leader?

I didn’t discuss Obama and other current leaders in the book, because there are documentation and confidentiality issues, and a lot of speculation would have to happen. That said, Obama has said himself that he thinks he’s very normal. This no-drama-Obama persona is meant to reassure people about his normality, but I think that when you look at his memoir there’s a sense of a much more complex and profound person who may have experienced a great deal of anxiety and maybe some depression growing up, being half-white half-African-American. The [sane] parts of his psychology may hinder his leadership in terms of not being creative, and that may not be as useful in a crisis. But to whatever extent he’s not fully completely average, he’ll have some psychological reservoir to draw on to think more creatively and realistically about the current situation.

I wish I could agree that Obama might learn to deal with the nation’s difficulties, but so far he doesn’t seem to learn anything from experience. Most of the leaders that Ghaemi discusses suffered from mood disorders–depression or bipolar disorder. Obama, on the other hand, appears to have a different kind of disorder–either Narcissistic Personality Disorder or Antisocial Personality Disorder, or both.

Dakinikat alerted me to an interview with Ghaemi on NPR. I haven’t listened to it yet, but here’s the link.

Getting back to current news, this coming Saturday, Rick Perry plans to announce that he’s running for the Republican presidential nomination.

Rick Perry intends to use a speech in South Carolina on Saturday to make clear that he’s running for president, POLITICO has learned.

According to two sources familiar with the plan, the Texas governor will remove any doubt about his White House intentions during his appearance at a RedState conference in Charleston.

It’s uncertain whether Saturday will mark a formal declaration, but Perry’s decision to disclose his intentions the same day as the Ames straw poll — and then hours later make his first trip to New Hampshire — will send shock waves through the race and upend whatever results come out of the straw poll.

Immediately following his speech in South Carolina, Perry will make his New Hampshire debut at a house party at the Portsmouth-area home of a state representative, Pamela Tucker, the Union Leader reported Monday. Tucker was among the Granite Staters who went to Texas last week to encourage Perry to run.

What can I say? This is ghastly news. Think Progress is reporting that besides being a fundamentalist religious fanatic, Perry shares a similar problem to that of fellow wingnut Michele Bachmann–he has taken lots of Federal money in farm subsidies–$80,000, to be exact.

Verizon workers have gone out on strike–45,000 of them.

More than 45,000 workers from New England to Virginia went on strike just after midnight today at Verizon Communications. Since bargaining began July 22, Verizon has refused to move from a long list of concession demands. As the contract expired, Verizon, a $100 billion company, still was looking for $1 billion in concessions from 45,000 workers and families. That’s about $20,000 in givebacks for every family, nearly 100 concessionary proposals remained on the table.

This despite Verizon’s 2011 annualized revenues of $108 billion and net profits of $6 billion. At the same time, Verizon Wireless just paid its parent company, Vodaphone, a $10 billion dividend. Meanwhile, Verizon’s five top executives received $258 million over the past four years.

The workers, members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the Electrical Workers (IBEW), say they are striking until Verizon “stops its Wisconsin-style tactics and starts bargaining seriously.”

According to Reuters, both sides are accusing each other of bad acts:

The second day of a strike by Verizon workers turned ugly after union representatives accused managers of injuring three workers while driving past picket lines, and the phone giant complained of a spike in network sabotage cases.

[....]

Verizon complained of network sabotage cases in the same statement where it said some picketing workers were unlawfully blocking Verizon managers’ access to work centers.

A spokeswoman for the Communications Workers of America, representing 35,000 of the strikers, said the union “does not condone illegal action of any kind.” The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, representing 10,000 strikers, also said members “are expected to obey the law.”

However, the CWA said some picketing workers were hurt by Verizon managers’ cars and that one worker was knocked unconscious when he was clipped by the mirror of a manager’s car that was speeding past a picket line.

Dean Baker had a great piece at Truthout yesterday: The Economic Illiterates Step Up the Attack on Social Security and Medicare

The nonsense with the S&P downgrade is yet another distraction – after four months of haggling over the debt ceiling idiocy – from the real problem facing the country: a downturn that has left 25 million people unemployed, underemployed or out of the labor force altogether. Tens of millions of people are seeing their career hopes and family lives wrecked by the prospect of long-term unemployment.

The incredible part of this story is that the people who are responsible are all doing just fine, and most of them are still making policy. Furthermore, they are using their own incompetence as a weapon to argue that we have to take even more money from the poor and middle class, this time in the form of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.

The basic story is that the economy needs demand. The housing bubble generated more than $1.4 trillion in annual demand through the construction and consumption that it spurred. Now that this demand is gone, there is nothing to replace it. President Obama’s stimulus was replaced by some of the lost demand, but it was nowhere near large enough. We tried to fill a $1.4 trillion hole in annual demand with around $300 billion in annual stimulus in 2009 and 2010. In 2011, most of this boost has been exhausted and the economy is coming to a near standstill.

If we had serious people in Washington, they would be talking about jobs programs, about rebuilding the infrastructure, about work sharing, and any other measure that could get people back to work quickly. However, instead of talking about ways to re-employ people, the fixation in Washington is reducing the deficit.

We’ve heard these arguments again and again (especially from our own Dakinikat), but they bear repeating until the ignorant Villagers get the message.

Remember the “rape cops” in New York–the ones who were found not guilty recently? Well, one of them finally got a tiny bit of justice. A judge sentenced Kenneth Moreno to one year in prison for official misconduct. But then another judge freed him.

Disgraced ex-cop Kenneth Moreno didn’t stay in jail for long.

A couple hours after an angry Manhattan judge flat-out called Moreno a liar Monday and dispatched him to Rikers Island to being a year-long prison sentence, an appeals court judge sprung him.

Moreno, acquitted in May of raping a bombed fashion executive while his partner served as lookout, was released on $125,000 bail by Appeals Court Judge Nelson Roman so he can appeal his conviction on official misconduct charges.

It was a startling turnabout for the 43-year-old Moreno, who Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro ordered remanded.

I sure hope he ends up serving at least some jail time.

Dakinikat sent me this article on a report (PDF) called How to Liberate American from Wall Street Rule. Here are the report’s basic recommendations:

How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule spells out details of a six-part policy agenda to rebuild a sensible system of community-based and accountable financial services institutions.

1. Break up the mega-banks and implement tax and regulatory policies that favor community financial institutions, with a preference for those organized as cooperatives or as for-profits owned by nonprofit foundations.

2. Establish state-owned partnership banks in each of the 50 states, patterned after the Bank of North Dakota. These would serve as depositories for state financial assets to use in partnership with community financial institutions to fund local farms and businesses.

3. Restructure the Federal Reserve to function under strict standards of transparency and public scrutiny, with General Accounting Office audits and Congressional oversight.

4. Direct all new money created by the Federal Reserve to a Federal Recovery and Reconstruction Bank rather than the current practice of directing it as a subsidy to Wall Street banks. The FRRB would have a mandate to fund essential green infrastructure projects as designated by Congress.

5. Rewrite international trade and investment rules to support national ownership, economic self-reliance, and economic self-determination.

6. Implement appropriate regulatory and fiscal measures to secure the integrity of financial markets and the money/banking system.

Finally, in case you missed it, I want to call your attention to this article that commenter The Rock linked to last night: Hillary Told You So

At a New York political event last week, Republican and Democratic office-holders were all bemoaning President Obama’s handling of the debt-ceiling crisis when someone said, “Hillary would have been a better president.”

“Every single person nodded, including the Republicans,” reported one observer.

At a luncheon in the members’ dining room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday, a 64-year-old African-American from the Bronx was complaining about Obama’s ineffectiveness in dealing with the implacable hostility of congressional Republicans when an 80-year-old lawyer chimed in about the president’s unwillingness to stand up to his opponents. “I want to see blood on the floor,” she said grimly.

A 61-year-old white woman at the table nodded. “He never understood about the ‘vast right-wing conspiracy,’” she said.

Looking as if she were about to cry, an 83-year-old Obama supporter shook her head. “I’m so disappointed in him,” she said. “It’s true: Hillary is tougher.”

Go read the whole thing. That’s all I’ve got for today. What are you reading and blogging about? Please share.