Unfortunately, male pattern baldness does not run in my family. That means, well into my middle years, I still have enough sprouting up there to occasionally read what’s going down in DC, grab two handfuls, scream at the top of my lungs and pull with all my might.

Here’s a zinger I stumbled on today while reading Bloomberg news. For those of you with hair, I suggest you put on a tight fitting hat before reading.

During the course of crafting the new stimulus bill in Congress, lawmakers yesterday approved an amendment to fix the troubled HOPE for Homeowners program. Sounds like a good idea. And you gotta love the handle for the initiative, HOPE for Homeowners. I guess a couple of copywriters leaked out of Madison Ave and made their way to the Capitol. The program was part of the TARP legislation created last year to let homeowners struggling with subprime loans refinance into fixed-rate loans backed by the government. It was designed, targeted and budgeted to help 400,000 mortgage borrowers.

Here is where you might want to grab the bill of your cap and give it a firm tug. Care to guess how many people have actually qualified for the program since October? Exactly 24. TWENTY-FOUR! Are you kidding me? Out of a goal of 400,000? That is 0.006% of the original target. And there is no shortage in of homeowners in this country looking for HOPE.

I had a basketball coach who once turned to one of our star forwards in the locker room during half time of a big game and announced that he had ZERO rebounds for the first half. He reminded the player he was “tied with a dead guy for first half boards.” 24 loans against a target of 400,000 is the equivalent of “tied with a dead guy”.

And to make matters worse, we can only assume that serious bureaucrats, subcommittee members, congressional aides, and expert witnesses from the mortgage banking industry all weighed in on this plan before it was incorporated into TARP. They could have brought in the night janitorial crew at the Capitol and done no worse.

And now in a fresh moment of clarity  lawmakers believe the program is under performing because the terms to enroll were too tough. Ya think?

I’m genuinely enthusiastic about the future of our country. There is a crisp new generation taking the reins; optimism and transparancy are in the air. Things are going to work out in the long run. But for the short haul, I just hope the old players we still have on the court have enough gas in the tank to get the job done. Or at least grab one rebound in the second half.

A rare re-post from our company blog. A great group of people doing amazing work…

“With 85% of all global disease directly attributed to bad water, the stakes and opportunity for improving lives in the developing world have never been higher. Our friends at Water for Life approached us to completely redesign their identity and take it to the web with a deep and wide treatment. The result is a new logo and www.waterforlife.org.  The site features project pages profiling the current work in Kosovo, Rwanda, Indonesia and Brazil. Check out the new site, consider attending a water seminar or send them some money to support a project. They need our help.

We’re humbled and pleased to have the opportunity to present this gift to the WFL gang. Keep up the work guys. You’re out there doing good stuff. We’re praying for you.”

"I sang backup for Janis in '68"

America has a personnel management problem. The personnel in question; the ever present boomer generation, the 7 million of us born between 1946 and 1964. And the management problem is just what to do with us as we ease into our twilight years. As with everything else related to this generation, the numbers are big. And the solution is popping up all around the country in ever growing numbers, Boomer Barns. They’re being built in every suburb, city and small town in the country. And before you can say Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, they’ll be chocked full of boomers. Right now, they’re testing the plumbing with today’s seniors. But trust me, the big prize in the retirement center game is the boomers. And they’re coming in droves.

The Woodstock generation is poised to trade in their VW buses for Power Scooters and gently cruise into that final Be In. And you can bet your original vinyl of Highway 61 Revisited, Whispering Pines will be retooled to welcome these wrinkled flower children.

Whispering Pines will be renamed The Farm. Gone will be knitting and needlepoint circles, replaced by macrame and tie dye classes. The dining room once filled with the aroma of pot roast and potatoes will be replaced with vegan dishes made from organic veggies grown in the People’s Garden. And physical therapy will no doubt be replaced by group therapy for those who still can’t sort out their place in the universe. Movie nights, once jammed with gray hairs marveling at Fred and Ginger’s dance steps, will feature Easy Rider, The Graduate and 2001 A Space Odyssey. The later follows a late night dessert of oregano brownies, perfect for improved digestion.

Brothers and sisters at The Farm will gather in small groups to complain about the cost of healthcare, compare surgery scars and lie about being in the front row at Monterey Pops when Jimi torched his Strat. And oh yes, much like previous generations, they’ll wonder why the kids don’t come to visit more often. Maybe the kids will be tired of hearing how cool it was back in the day. Because, maybe it just wasn’t that cool.

I took a couple of hours this weekend to watch Into Great Silence, a documentary film directed by Philip Gröning that was first released in 2005. It’s the remarkable story of the everyday lives of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, high in a remote corner of the French Alps (Chartreuse Mountains). The film was made 16 years after the director first requested permission to make it. Then he lived at the monastery for six months, and filmed all alone, behind the walls no ‘outsider’ had ever been allowed to enter before. The film is prayerful, enchanting and successfully taps into the basic human need for solitude.

Sign the petition…

The events of the last few weeks have left many Americans anxious and fearful. Nothing stirs emotions quite like losing money. And Americans have lost a boatload. The financial gains they’ve made over the last 5 -10 years have disappeared. Seniors on fixed incomes are reassessing retirement and many will have to return to work. More and more jobs are being lost. No doubt, this has been tough and it will probably get much tougher.

But in the last week we’ve seen fear start to bubble to the surface as anger. We’ve seen it in a number of political rallies. Faithful supporters screaming at the top of their lungs, calling for tougher language, and in some cases violence. Some have suggested it’s reminiscent of other dark periods in our history.

Even the press has subtly jumped in on the action. CNN has introduced on Anderson Cooper 360 a feature called 10 Most Wanted:Culprits of the Collapse. On each of ten nights they feature a different baron of Wall Street or Fed official pictured on a wanted poster. It’s wrapped in a western motif, usually reserved in the 1800’s for train robbers and murderers. CNN even includes a nifty graphic element; as each bandito appears on their respective wanted poster, a gun sight cross hair descends over their face. I’m not sure, but maybe CNN and Anderson Cooper are suggesting we round these guys up, grab a rope and exact a little frontier justice.

We may be inching toward something potentially dangerous. When events like these create real fear and we add the element of rage, it inevitably leads to violence. You don’t have to go too far back to see the results of rampaging violence that was stoked by fear and anger. Germany is the obvious benchmark, but many other examples can be traced to virtually every corner of the globe. It’s something in our DNA, that once unleashed can take the loss of assets and turn it into the loss of life.

These are dangerous times, but having the press stoke the fire doesn’t help. If you disagree, drop me a line. If you agree, let Anderson Cooper know. Here’s a link.

http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?10

Washington has been host to many great political spectacles including impeachments, bedroom scandals, money grabs and the D.C. specialty, tuxedo mud wrestling. But the spectacle in Washington this week is almost unprecedented. It’s the squeeze play to end all squeeze plays. And we’ve all got a ringside seat. At least as long as we have something to place on that seat.

Consider the players. On one side we have Fed Chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. On the other is Congress. And in between, you guessed it, John and Jane Q. Public, awaiting financial Armageddon or a slow painful recovery.

The anxiety is palpable and the stakes are beyond the reach of fiction. Ben and Henry are predicting a complete global market meltdown within days unless a massive funding bailout is approved by Congress. And they may very well be right. But nervously seated across the table is the entire Legislative branch of our democracy, itching to wrap this up by the end of the week so they can return home and campaign for reelection. Each and every one of those legislators understands this may be the most important and far reaching vote of their political lives. Take too long and the bridge may fall away under their feet. Rush to judgment, make a mistake and those carefully crafted political careers will fold up like a sub-prime mortgage. And the squeeze is on.

It’s the perfect storm, Washington style. And everyone is getting clipped. No is left out on this one. Or maybe not. Perhaps there is one small group that isn’t getting pinched. I’m not a Wall Street wizard. And understanding the intricacies of high finance is clearly beyond me. But I have this nagging feeling that the same cast of characters who orchestrated this mess are quietly sitting on the sidelines, poised with sacks of cash, waiting for the deep discounts. And when the bailout comes, and it surely will, they’ll swoop in and make a killing…for the second time.

Greed

noun- The desire for or pursuit of money, wealth, power, food, or other posessions, especially when this denies the same goods to others.

+++++++++++++

I admit the recent string of setbacks on Wall Street have left me sad, angry and confused…Sad for all the fixed income seniors who have suddenly lost the metrics for retirement they so carefully planned…Angry for the lack of leadership by those we entrust with the public good…and confusion over why this has happened. But nothing I’ve heard or read left me in the condition I found myself after reading an article on Time’s website this morning entitled “How Financial Madness Overtook Wall Street. I was virtually apoplectic.

Here is the line from the article. Particular emphasis on bold copy.

“This latest go-round featured hedge-fund operators, leveraged-buyout boys (who took to calling themselves “private-equity firms”) and whiz-kid quants who devised and plugged in those new financial instruments, creating a financial Frankenstein the likes of which we had never seen. Great new fortunes were made, and with them came great new hubris. The newly minted masters of the universe even had the nerve to defend their ridiculous income tax break — much of the private-equity managers’ piece of their investors’ profits is taxed at the 15% capital-gains rate rather than at the normal top federal income tax rate of 35% — as being good for society.”

Oh baby, this sort of stuff has driven rational people into the streets. Are you kidding me? These guys have not only skimmed billions right off the top of our economy, fueled by lending practices that are nothing short of immoral, but they have been paying taxes at least 58% lower than everyone else in the country. And now the rest of us, who have been paying our taxes at the legal rate, are left holding the bag. Now I’m really angry.

Regardless of your political persuasion, I believe you would agree, this is a stain of monumental proportions on our country. We can begin to remove it on Nov 4.

A number of years ago I watched a 60 Minutes interview with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates. In classic 60 Minutes fashion, he was pressed about his limited philanthropic activities. As I recall, he replied that he was focused on his business and would take the time to share more of his wealth when he was older. The roof caved in on Bill. He got ripped. After all, Americans admire the super rich, but not ones that don’t give back. They can lavish wealth on themselves to our endless entertainment. But if they don’t extend a hand to someone in real need we can turn on them in a hurry.

Following that disastrous interview, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was formed and the rest is charity history. They created a philanthropic juggernaut. And in 2006, American billionaire, Warren Buffet pledged the vast majority of his $44 billion empire to the B&MGF. The combined effort must surely be the greatest gathering of private wealth for charity in history.

But looking back on the original interview, I recall feeling more than a bit smug about Bill. After all, how could someone with so much, be so unwilling to share it? I mean, hey, if it was my money I’d give it away. Not a moment of hesitation on my part. No sir, I might even give all of it away, move to a tenement flat and live on ramen noodles and rice. Or would I? After all, in some respect, Gate’s fortune is relative. To an upper middle class couple like us it dwarfs our earnings. But to a goat herder on the Serengeti or a homeless family in Portland, our lifestyle must look every bit as enormous. So there I sat, smug but slightly defensive. I knew I wasn’t much different from Bill, except for the cash. We were two peas in a pod, focused on making money with limited concern for those around us.

That interview and the effort the Gates ultimately mounted was a wake up call. In fact, I’d say it served as inspiration to pursue philanthropy for the little guy.

Sharing the process get’s a bit sticky. I’m not really comfortable disclosing the details of what my wife and I give. That’s personal. And honestly, the scope of the giving really isn’t the issue. The change in mindset was. I began to take a look at how I lived and the stuff I had. And I didn’t like what I saw. Not only was I dedicated professionally to promoting unbridled consumerism, but I’d sunk my incisors right into the meatiest part of it. In short, I had too much stuff and not a great deal of peace about it. The stage was set for change and giving more away was the agent.

It didn’t happen overnight. In fact, the early stages took place over several years. But as we began to give more each month, we gained confidence. And as our confidence grew, our effort followed suit. And now we’re blessed to be able to support people close to home and far away. There’s no fanfare, no board of directors and no glory. But there is a link with Bill and Melinda. They do with their fortune as they feel led, and we do the same with ours. Because we know there’s a place in the vast world of philanthropy for the little guy. And we can make a huge difference, because last time I checked, there were a whole lot more little guys out there than billionaires.

http://www.markportrait.com/causes/

For me the answer has been a bit of a work in progress. As a young exec, I was cautioned to always remain guarded and never reveal anything personal. The result was an efficient, but isolated professional life. The job always got done, but work became somewhat compartmentalized. Co-workers and clients never knew much about me and vice-versa. My choice was to reserve the friendships and intimacy for old friends and family. Some people may be very adept at compartmentalizing. But it didn’t work for me. In a twist, I became increasingly isolated from everyone including family, friends, coworkers and clients. Not a great recipe for happiness or service to others.

So over the last 10 years I’ve learned to break old habits and find a balance that works. As a professional, a Christian, a father and a man, I’ve discovered there is little to fear about transparency. In fact, most of what’s revealed may not be terribly interesting, but the willingness to be open is. Obviously, there are certain lines of discretion and appropriateness never to cross. But for me, it’s proven to be healthy and promotes genuine trust and connection.