Too Big To Fail, Too Powerful to Regulate

Written on 12/06 at 01:49 PM by Andy Posner 2 comments

Filed under: Business environment

The Big Three Dama
I’ve been watching the Big Three bailout drama with increasing dismay.  First, the executives from GM, Ford and Chrysler flew in private jets to Washington for a hearing, and then proceeded to beg for $25 billion--without offering a plan as to how the money would help them get out of their present mess.  Congress told them to come back with a plan, and suggested that next time they find a more plebeian mode of transportation. So back the executives came this week, humbly carpooling in the poorly made cars their companies produce, with more detailed plans for restructuring.  The CEOs magnanimously offered to work for $1 a year if they received the bailout money (nevermind that the bulk of their salary comes from stock options and bonuses, not salary).  They presented a plan for laying off workers, closing plants, focusing on core brands, and lowering health care and other costs.  Congress wasn’t exactly impressed, and polls show Americans are not in favor of yet another bailout for yet another mismanaged corporation.

But here’s the problem: the Big Three are just too big to fail.  They directly employ roughly 100,000 people in the United States, but their suppliers across the country employ hundreds of thousands more, and the ripple effect would send our already reeling economy into a tailspin.  It now looks like the auto companies will get their money, albeit only half of what they were originally seeking.  The same “too big to fail” logic was used to justify the bailout of AIG and several other financial institutions.  And, like it or not, in a “centralized” economy, the logic is quite sound.  What concerns me is that “too big to fail” usually means “too powerful to regulate.”

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Don’t Forget the Green Collar Entrepreneurs

Written on 11/23 at 04:49 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments

Filed under: Huffington Post environment

I wrote this article for the Huffington Post.  It can be seen in its original context here.

Van Jones and others have so successfully argued for green collar jobs--defined by Green for All as a job that does something for the planet, pays family wages and provides opportunities for upward mobility--that the term has become ubiquitous among politicians, environmentalists and social activists.  This should come as no surprise, particularly in the current economic climate: after all, who can argue against creating more jobs for American families, jobs that also enhance our infrastructure, national security and environment?  In fact, President-elect Obama recently announced a plan to create 2.5 million jobs over the next two years, and many of those will certainly be green collar.

But lost in all the talk of green collar jobs is the fact that there is a significant portion of the target population--low-income, people of color, the unemployed and underemployed--who want to be green collar entrepreneurs.  For example, roughly 25% of the people that graduate from a green job training program in my hometown of Providence, Rhode Island want to start their own business.  According to Mark Kravatz, who runs the program, the enthusiasm among these entrepreneurs is inspiring; they see how green can be good for them, their family and their community, and they want to get in on the game. So what’s the problem? Simply put, they have little to no options for accessing the capital they would need to make their idea a reality. 

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Something Profound is Transpiring

Written on 11/05 at 01:10 PM by Andy Posner 1 comments

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Last night, as I watched the election results come in and it became clear that not only was Barack Obama going to win but that he was going to win handily, I couldn’t help but feel as though something profound was transpiring.  For the last 8 years whenever I have craved the inspiration of historical moments and rhetorical flourishes, I have had to find succor in the speeches of Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, and the other great orators and leaders that have inspired not only Americans but also the World.

But when Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination in Denver, and said the kind of things in his speech that one dreams of hearing politicians say, I knew that something profound was transpiring.  Still, I, like so many in this country, was afraid that Obama would not win.  In the final stretches of the campaign he had every nasty tactic in the book thrown at him--accusations of socialism, of “palling around with terrorists”, of being “not like you and me,” etc.  So when 11:00 PM rolled around last night and Obama’s electoral votes were well over 300, all I could do was blink away tears and wait for this new breed of leader to come and give his acceptance speech.

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Joe Hill vs. Joe the Plumber

Written on 10/20 at 11:42 AM by Andy Posner 0 comments

Filed under: philosophy News

In last week’s third and final presidential debate, John McCain spent a considerable amount of time talking about “Joe the Plumber.” Joe is a guy that met Obama on the campaign trail, and who confronted him about the fact that his tax policy would “penalize” him if he were to buy the business he works for and see a dramatic rise in his income, because Obama’s tax plan calls for tax cuts for people that earn below $250,000, and tax increases for those that earn more.  Now the amazing thing is that, for a lot of people, Joe’s complaint rings true even though they will most likely never earn more than a quarter million dollars a year.  As I starting thinking about this bizarre dynamic, it occurred to me that we’ve heard from a lot of Joes during this campaign: Joe six-pack, Joe the Plumber and Joe Biden.  But there’s another Joe we haven’t heard about--most likely because he died over a century ago--but whose story, immortalized in folk songs, has a lot to say about the state of the country and its potential for greatness.

A lot of you will have heard of Joe HIll because Joan Baez often sang, and probably still does sing, about his life.  To put it briefly, Joe Hill was a songwriter, labor activist and union member, who was framed for murder and then executed by firing squad in November of 1915.  In the version of the song about his life that Joan Baez sings, the lyrics go as follows:

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A Great Speech Confronting Racism Against Obama

Written on 10/14 at 12:05 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments

Filed under: News

Here is a speech by Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO.  It’s just a moving, simple, short, powerful speech.  I highly recommend watching it.  Things are happening in this country.  Obama’s ascendency is forcing our country to confront itself.

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Green Microfinance: Advancing Social Equality and Environmental Sustainability in the United States

Click here to download a PDF of my complete thesis. Questions and comments are much appreciated!

My masters thesis in Environmental Studies at Brown University looks at how microfinance--the provision of small…

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A Solution to the Limited Success of Micro-Credit in the United States?

Micro-credit has undoubtedly been a runaway success in developing countries as a tool of both poverty alleviation and economic development.  To date, some 100 million people have been reached by micro-loans, and Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank…

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Tonight, the Oneness of Things

It is late and my mind should be drifting through the colorful abyss of deep sleep, yet instead i find that tonight sleep will not come.  I am like a hungry flower who dreams of bees so ardently that all…

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