Affecting Change
Smack Talk
One of the things I have heard for years from both political parties is a lot of yelling. Partisans yell at the television. Or in groups, they will chat about the current thing and gripe about something. Social media elevates the noise and temperature.
Out on the campaign trail, everyone hears a lot of that stuff. Not from constituents, but from candidates. They will talk about what they have done. It makes sense if you have been in elected office. It makes no sense if you have never held elected office.
If you haven’t won an election, you never held the power to effect any change. It’s just noise, no different than the old man on the park bench shouting to get off his lawn. It’s not even his lawn; it’s a public park.
This is the first time I have ever done anything remotely like this. Citizen to candidate is a hard leap. But if I am successful, I hope this run inspires someone else like me to take the plunge. We need more people who have done stuff in the real world to enter government and get real stuff done.
Taxpayers are under too much pressure, and there is too much at stake.
I was chatting with a Munibond guy today. He is my age and has been in the biz since his 20s. I think we have known each other for about 20 years now. I saw him at his daughter’s wedding last December. He was telling me how antique a lot of treasuries are around the country. Not just states, but counties and cities, too. Their accounting systems are so old that they can’t even buy floating-rate bonds. That makes zero sense in this day and age. Even if you don’t buy them, your accounting software ought to be able to keep track of them.
Funny thing about business careers, most of the stuff you do is quantifiable, searchable, and objective when you measure it or talk about it. For people who have worked in what I call “Ivory Tower Factories”, nothing is measurable or quantifiable. Nothing is tangible. They did some chalk stuff on a blackboard. Maybe they wrote about it for some journal. Hence, everything they say is what we used to call “smack”.
The academics I used to interface with at Chicago Booth were quick to remark that some of the stuff they did would not work in practice, but it worked in theory. It is a running joke. CAPM is a perfect example. It’s taught in every Finance 101 class, but no one uses it. However, understanding it helps you understand something else.
When you analyze their literature and their proclamations, it’s all astroturf. It’s fake. Even when you go to Wikipedia or a website, it’s all linked back to fake stuff. “All hat and no cattle” is what my old friend BBJ on the floor called it. Some of them even shade the truth quite a bit to make you think something when it isn’t true.
I think that’s why they called Obama the “empty suit”.
I was chatting with a few people today, and they were surprised that I tossed my hat in the arena. Once I explained why, they weren’t surprised. They are supporting me.
Great atricle with a great perspective. There is much to do, and it will take more like minded people to jump into the fray with you!
I've been begging anyone who would listen for the past decade or longer to please update the archaic hardware and software in government systems around the country, local, state and federal, because it is an embarrassment. It is highly inefficient, and also dangerous, because it is susceptible to interference. DOGE has helped jumpstart that to a large degree on the federal level, but at state and local levels it doesn't surprise me to see a boxy white monitor from 30 years ago. 😄
The other thing is I wish more candidates would talk about accomplishments, because in today's environment it seems like the left is bereft of any achievements that they put forward, and their entire platform is "orange man/conservatives bad" and if you disagree, you're a fascist, Nazi, totalitarian, authoritarian, misogynist or a racist. Then we ask a question that would seemingly require a fact-based response and get more name calling. Seemingly all(okay, most of what) they do is focus on sound bites and they're a bunch of attention whores who are incapable of forming a coherent argument with any basis in fact. I see it on social media and I see it on mainstream media. At some point mud slinging has to take a backseat to a simple, calm, rational civil discourse about what will work and won't work, what has worked and what hasn't worked and how each candidate plans on going about making improvements and contributing to the benefit of society. I applaud you for sharing some simple ideas that are very practical and profitable or more accurately, will contribute to cost savings and improvements in efficiency. It just seems to be a lost art to focus on achievements and any sort of logical planning. I swear it seems some days like I'm back in junior high with a bunch of people teasing and making fun of each other.
Keep up the good work.