1268 What a Figure!

1268 What a Figure!

How much is your life worth?  In dollars.  There aren’t real standards for this kind of thing.  But now we have something of an idea.  And the figure is $205,000 and change.  

Let’s be a little more specific.  205-thousand, 167 thousand dollars and 17 cents.

Where’d that come from?

It came from the settlement reached between American Airlines and Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial firm with the single largest number of civilian deaths in the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Twelve years after the fact. Nine years after the start of the suits.

Here are the ugly figures.  The settlement: $135 million.

The number of Cantor Fitzgerald employees who died: 658 (out of about 1,000.)

Before anyone gets a penny, the settlement goes to federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a Clinton nominee from 1998 and now with senior status.  His decision is due -- nominally -- on January 13, a Monday. There isn’t a lot of doubt that he’ll sign off on it.

Now, since companies can’t sue each other for wrongful death, where does this money go?  To the relatives and estates of the victims.

Cantor’s position was and is that American should have prevented the hijackings.  

And is AA ready to pay with a smile and a “thank you, sorry about that?”  Nope.

American says it was the government’s job to prevent the attacks.

Oh.  You mean the company that has long been a leading opponent of  regulation is telling us the government has an actual function and failed at it?

“Not our job.”

Don’t cry for the airline.  The money comes from the insurance companies.  But don’t for a minute think that those policies include “accident forgiveness.”  There’ll be a newly drafted premium bill any day now, and it’s going to be almost as ugly as the corporate response.

And the families?  When the dust settles, they’ll each walk away with a few bucks.  And that’s not much of a trade off for the lives of the victims.

Let’s not wax sentimental about what great guys the people of Cantor are or were.  It took CEO Howard Lutnick only days to stop the paychecks of the dead.

Lutnick had a lousy reputation on the street.  Pushy, punk-bully 40 year old.  He didn’t die that day because he was late to work.  Had to drop his kid off at off at school.

Why didn’t he just pack it in and go out of business?  He told the newspapers “We had to keep going.” And going he kept, along the way providing ten years of health insurance for the families and a good chunk of the profits.

So, Lutnick is a flawed hero, but a hero nonetheless.

Shrapnel:

--So just what IS Cantor Fitzgerald, anyway?  It’s basically a middleman between people who want to buy US Treasury bonds and one of only 21 companies authorized to deal directly with the fed.  They do other things, too… but bond trading is the main deal.

--This should not be big news to you.  Everything on Wall Street is a middle man and many are middlemen between middlemen.  Makes you wonder what, after commissions, your investments really cost.

--Target was the target and 40 million of us may have had our credit and debit accounts “compromised,” as they put it.  That means someone may have your credit card number, its expiration date and the security code on the back.  A real confidence builder, this.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013

1267 Help Your Government

1267 Help Your Government

Okay, small government friends, time to make a money saving gift to Washington, something that will help bolster national security, reduce the federal workload, reduce the deficit and mark you as a patriot even more than your membership in any particular well regulated militia.

Email a copy of your 2013 electronic calendar to the National Security Agency. And no cheating, now.  Send everything.  Everything.  Even “take my One-A-Day Vitamin” or “Pay the Mortgage.”

And don’t omit those repeating events, either -- the ones that have no end date.  Include “Anniversary,” “Joey’s Birthday” and “Renew Lipitor.”

After all, remember that people who have left out important events like “Cat to vet,” have gone to jail for such omissions.

Here’s how that happens.  Say you’ve been sending your calendars all along.  But you forgot the cat entry.  The NRA ‘bots pick up that discrepancy and earpiece-wearing agents in black suits will visit you at 4:30 one morning and haul your conniving self off to an undisclosed location, possibly in Bangladesh or Tijuana where the torture laws are far more lax than where you live.

We don’t want that to happen, do we?

Why, you may ask, do they need all that stuff?  Simple. They look at your pay stubs, your checkbook and make sure you actually followed your own calendar instructions.

If you really want those brownie points, send along copies of your to-do lists.  And don’t just cross out the items you’ve done.  Don’t just check them off.  Date and time them.  Neatness doesn’t count. But accuracy does.

What will the agency do with all this?  Depends on whether you’re a person of interest.  That’s the current law enforcement term for people whose direct accusation could mean a messy and secret-spilling lawsuit.

So you’re not quite a suspect and you’re not quite NOT a suspect.

(For the contrarians among you, make life tough for the NSA.  Have your computer declared a crime scene.  Let the local cops and the feds fight for jurisdiction.)

One thing that won’t work: not keeping an internet calendar.  The NSA will have to send agents to your office and your den.  They’ll still be wearing those earpieces and black suits.  But they’ll be carrying Minox Cameras.  (And you thought Minox was out of business.  How little you know!)

There are lot of agents on the graveyard shift these days.  And 4:30 in the morning is a great time for breaking and entering.

Shrapnel:

--Government reports are about to make you question a couple of “givens.”  One says those anti-bacterial soaps don’t kill any more germs than plain soap and water.  The other says most vitamin pills are useless.  And the agencies with these reports have directed manufacturers to prove their claims.

--Harold Camping has died.  The broadcast preacher who thrice recently predicted the end of the world with actual dates and by all accounts was wrong each time was 92.  He built a broadcast empire on the backs of poor listeners and viewers who contributed their rent and grocery money.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013

1266 Rotating Commissioners

1266 Rotating Commissioners

Detective Sgt. Maria M. works out of a large Manhattan precinct. She is one of those smallish spitfire kind of women with the blazing eyes that keep the boys she runs in line without a word, even though she mostly has to look up when she gives them the death stare.

Twenty-two years in and still debating whether to retire or take the Lieutenant’s exam.  She already outranks her husband, a Detective/2nd and her father, a retired patrol officer.  And whether she wants to try for the next rung kind of depends on Bill Bratton, the next commissioner.

“You get this rotation. Kelly, Bratton.  Going to be one or the other of these guys until one of them falls off the face of the earth,” she says.  “it’s like they’re the only two top cops in America.”

At street level, where Maria works, you don’t notice a lot of difference.
“The mayor sets the policy and names the guy.  The guy sends memos and then holds press conferences, comforts victims, and shares the limelight with the Mayor when there’s a triumph or takes the rap alone when there’s a failure.”

“Kelly’s smart,” she says.  “He’s old.  He did a fine job after 9/11. He’s not paying attention to the stop and frisk thing.  He’ll get a great job with some private company that needs a big name security chief.  And I’ll bet the NYPD pension’s pretty good at his level, too.”

“Then, there’s Bratton.  I HATE that Boston accent.  All those years here and in L.A. and he still sounds like he just walked out of Fenway.”

“And that broken window thing of his, early detection, worked well when the main problem here was crackheads and turnstile jumpers and old Italian guys running the rackets.  Now, we have Arab terrorists and eco terrorists and animal rights terrorists, not to mention the Russians, the Ukrainians, the Colombians, the Mexicans, the Salvadorans, the Tong, the Viets.  None of these guys break windows, they break knees and heads.”

So what about stop and frisk?

“Look, chico, I’m a middle aged woman, a mother, a minority and a cop.  Any combination two of those things is more than enough to know who to stop and frisk and who to leave alone.”

So you’re going to be okay with Bratton, even with the Fenway Park accent?

“Doesn’t much matter here on the pavement, unless you’re Trayvon Martin or Abner Louima.”

So, did you vote for de Blasio?

“Nah. I live in Massapequa.”

(Note to readers: “Maria” isn’t her real name. But her rank and her years of service are accurate and so are her quotes.)

Shrapnel:

--The mail about the Mandela post was about 75-25 in favor/opposed. The 25 was much more fun.  I know I’m doing my job when I’m wrongly accused of being an uninformed belligerent racist, genocidal, pro-torture anti-semitic anti-Christian communist revolutionary fascist tribalist fan of old school African dictators.

--The post office of Canada says it is ready to phase out all home delivery, replacing it with community mailboxes of the kind you find in apartment houses and groups of townhouses.  They don’t mess around with public opinion on this stuff up north.  Example:  Years ago, they eliminated the one dollar bill and replaced it with a dollar coin and -- surprise, surprise -- no one died, unlike here where the mere thought of a pocket full of Sacagaweas sent millions of us into anaphylactic shock.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com.

© WJR 2013

1265 An Open Letter to Mary Barra

1265 An Open Letter to Mary Barra

Dear Ms. Barra,

First, heartiest congratulations on becoming the CEO-Designate of General Motors.

But you’re already facing mischaracterizations in both the general and the automotive press.

Everyone seems to be saying it’s “great to have another woman”as the head of a fortune 500 company.  They compare you to Meg Whitman at HP, Indra Nooyi at PepsiCo, and Ursula Burns at Xerox. A computer maker, one of many. A soft drink maker, one of many.  A photocopier maker, one of many.

They fail to grasp that you are about to lead the single most important American company in the single most important American industry.

Or are you?

Generally, the title “CEO” is preceded by a phrase, usually “Chairman and…” or “President and…”

You are neither.

The new chairman will be Big Ed “I’m phone guy from Texas, what do I know about the auto Industry?” Whitaker. The new president will be Dan “bolt counter” Ammann, the financial guy.

So, CEO, without one of those pesky traditional titles.

You probably can handle these men, largely because your hands are going to be all over the real stuff: design studios, the engineering labs, the dealer franchise network, the production line.  Probably.

But allow one suggestion?  You have made a point of saying a goal is to not produce “crap cars,” of which you have plenty.  Thirty years ago, Lee Iacocca in taking the reins at Chrysler said “you can’t revive a car company by shipping crap.”

Everyone knows how that worked out.  Or, ask anyone with a Plymouth.

Today, you and Chrysler are in a race to the bottom of the reliability ratings and you won’t get there only because Ford’s touch screens and EcoBoost engines are worse than yours, Smartfortwo cars are still sold here, Fiat… great ads, not so great cars. Mini Coopers. Volkswagens.

Your appearance on Fortune Magazine’s CNN Channel said much more than all of the Blah blah about women on top.

You’re as Midwestern as wheat.  You’re an engineer in a job that should be held by an engineer.  But even more than that, it looks like you know what to do to get this monstrosity of a company back on track, a place it hasn’t been since before you were born.

Some specifics:  

1. Chevy.  When you drive down the Eight Mile and there’s a brand new Malibu coming in the opposite direction with only one headlight on, that has to be unacceptable.  Someone discontinued the Aveo, the worst bucket of welds you made since the Nova.  A welcome mercy killing.   The Volt: Bob Lutz is a great car guy and the technology he promoted will serve you well… some day.  Just not today. The Silverado: half your customers would rather have a Ford F150 but bought your version instead because they don’t like Bill Ford’s support of gay rights.  Others would rather have a Ram, but don’t trust Chrysler/Fiat.  These are not good reasons.

2. Buick: inconsistent. Some are pretty good, or even good. Others, not so much.  Harley Earl’s “doctor’s car” once was nice for people who wanted something like a Cadillac, but not a Cadillac.  These are grandpa cars.  But modern grandpas want simple. And touch screens are not ready for prime time.  Even worse, they’re a terrible distraction.

3. Cadillac. Gorgeous.  But too complicated. Mechanically unsound.  You can’t compete with Benz and Infiniti, Lexus, Audi, Porsche and BMW without being better than they are and you’re not.  Please fix.

4. GMC:  they’re just re-branded Chevys.  Why bother?

5. Dealers: do you really want this bunch of glad handing, plaid jacketed phonies as your link to your customers?

You don’t need focus groups, marketing bull sessions, the endless committees until you have mastered the basics of what we need in transportation:

Every car, every time, should:

1. Start when you tell it to.

2. Go when you tell it to

a. as fast as you tell it to

b. but no faster or more suddenly.

3. Stop when you tell it to.

4. Perform 1-4 thousands of times and for more than a decade per unit.

Ms. Barra, we know you know all this.  Please just remember we do too.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013

1264 The Bat Belt, the Sound of Music, Ed Koch Remembered

1264 The Bat Belt

Ever notice what a cop wears around the middle?  It's the nearest thing to Batman's Utility Belt that you can find in the real world.  Gun, baton, ammo, cuffs, two way radio, cell phone, and other secret cop stuff that we don't have clearance (or authority) to tell you about (not even the emergency spare donut case.  Oops.  Told you.  Top that with pockets full of keys, summons books and who knows what-all else, they could send the belt and uniform to the gym to work off some of that weight.

The stuff they carry must weigh a ton.  But we civilians are fast approaching the uniformed police for the carrying of gear.  And while still mostly optional, we're getting big around the middle and all the expansion comes externally. 

Think about it.  We carry a cell phone, maybe even two of them.  After all, you want to separate business and personal calls, don't you?  Many do, hence, two cells. One of them may also be a smartphone, hence, email on the go.  Email at the restaurant.  Email and text messaging in the car. Or on an airplane, or trapped inside a mine shaft. Email, telephones and texting in the bathroom.  (See Wessay #330, "Death Knell for Newspapers," 12/7/07.)  There are computers at the office, computers at home, computers everywhere.  Also at home, you have at least one land line or cable phone.  Back to your belt:  you have an iPod, a set of earbuds for it.  Maybe you even carry a radio or a CD player.  The only thing missing is a TV set, and that's only because your Sony Watchman broke and no one will fix it.

Most of the communication stuff is two way.  The phones, maybe a walkie talkie to keep up with your kids.  We have more, better, cheaper, cleverer stuff than the US Army in World War II.  We have more personal communication gear than the moon-landing Astronauts.  We can "talk" with someone ten thousand miles away as easily as someone around the corner or standing next to us on the subway.

So, how come so few people respond to e-mails anymore?  Or return calls?

Old excuses don't work.  "I never got your message" once was a legit excuse.  Not now.  Voicemail has become technically so efficient that one almost never loses a message.  Email often used to vanish into cyberspace.  It doesn't do that a whole lot anymore.  (You can hit something on the keyboard and an unsent message may explode, but that's a different story.)  

So why?

Because secretly, we all have this stuff just to have this stuff.  It's kind of like smoke alarms.  We hang them up (the new religious icons?) and we hope never to have to use them.   But if the fire inspector comes along and asks if you have one, you have one to display.

Same with the cell phone array and the accompanying chorus of Blackberries.  They're not really tools of communication. They're talismans.

Shrapnel:

-- Fresh from its ratings success for “the Sound of Music,” NBC is planning more live musicals.  Let’s hope they find a better cast for the next show.  Carrie Underwood was abysmal and so was her response to critics, “they need Jesus.”

--Ed Koch as I remember him:And Ed Koch as you remember him:

On the eve of what would have been his 89th birthday, 12/12. (pics LaGuardia Community College; Findagrave.com)

I'm Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

an earlier version of this appeared in 2008 and is here now because the staff is either sick or on a holiday break or both.

©WJR 2013

1263 The War on You Know What

1263 The War on You Know What

Here’s an important key to power for all you guys with power envy.

Oh, wait. Before that, let us be the first to wish you a Merry Christmas!

Yes, it’s not for a few weeks yet.  But before the war gets going full blast, let us reflect on two things that are going on around America.

Back to the power trip:  Find a phony fear-fired threat and fight it. We don’t have the Soviet Union anymore.  We don’t have the Communist Party anymore.  So, we find something to make the low i.q. crowd (which is a big chunk of the electorate) quake in their Santa boots.

With more than two thirds of the population identifying Christian, what’s the war about?  It’s about power.  This war includes battles against religious displays on public property.  Only now, it has a name. Used to be the uprising was bumper stickerized “Keep Christ in Christmas.”

A noble thought.

But now those same “keepers” are saying boycott the stores and companies that Keep the Commercialism in Christmas because those places are making war by substituting "happy holiday" for Merry Christmas.

Scratch a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu or an atheist and do you find a warrior?  No.  You find a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu or an atheist.  And do we demand that you don’t mention the holiday by name?  

Of course not.

Power in fake victimhood.  Power in stirring the fear that your fruitcake will become an endangered species?

Creches and Menorahs have no place on public land.  But there are worse things that go on at City Hall, more important things that have no place on public property.  Like bad lawmaking.  So for a few days or weeks a year, what’s the problem?  You live with voter i.d.,  you live with “no parking this side.” You elect boatloads of disgraceful incompetent governors, mayors, council members, congressmen, drunks, thieves and such.

You find a big 3-D baby picture offensive?  Look away. Sitting there, inanimate, it will not do you anywhere near the harm of the disgraceful and incompetent.

Shrapnel:

--Turns out that Mandela was on the US terrorist watch list until 2008 because of his militant stand against apartheid.  Let’s see… he was already 90 years old in ‘08.  Must have been one terribly powerful dude, just not powerful enough to carry his dry cleaning home without help.

--Newspapers and websites around the country are on a manners bender.  No more anonymous personal attack comments. Civility is always nice, but the comment sections sure have dulled down.

--The Amazing Susan Boyle recently announced that she has Asperger’s.  That’s unfortunate for her because that’s a difficult condition.  But it has no effect on the beauty and power of her voice, which is fortunate for the rest of us.

Grapeshot:

-Ford Motor must have a new public relations guy because all of a sudden, everyone’s writing about the new Mustang.

-Good PR is good for business, but someone better find a way to fix up Ford’s so- called EcoBoost engine or at least give customers a copy of Get Out and Get Under.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013