“Warren Buffett and our Regional Building Dept.,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, March 16 - 22, 2012, 17.

BUFFETT WEIGHS IN ON POLITICS

Warren Buffett is super-rich, one of our American billionaires who is ready to leave the stage. As he’s planning to depart, he has given the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation the responsibility of disposing of his billions for good causes. Delegating is an art, not a science, and Buffett seems to be masterful at finding expertise where he needs it.

So why weigh in on political issues? Why make headlines about paying a tax rate lower than his secretary? Why go public with what seems to be his private business? Why expose himself in a way that the millionaire Mitt Romney has shunned for months?

Perhaps the master investor has figured out that presidential election are more of a side-show at best, and at worst a way to expose the ugliest of what our country stands for, with mud-slinging and unfounded accusations, appeals to religion rather than the Constitution, and overblown concerns with abortion rather than health care reforms.

Perhaps he’s figured out that presidents come and go, maintaining a status-quo set up by a huge D.C. bureaucracy that runs its own course. Presidents—Republicans and Democrats alike—end up powerless against Congress. There is a reason why Congress’ approval rating is so low that in some polls it’s in single digits: it has become a dysfunctional institution.

So, Buffett sent out a letter offering his “Congressional Reform Act of 2011.” It’s fairly simple, and if implemented could change the course of American politics, bringing it back to the vision of the Founders who believed that representatives should meet for short periods of time annually to legislate. Here’s Buffett’s agenda:

“1. No Tenure/No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term’s, then go home and back to work.”

Straightforward as this seems, no ground-swell support is seen anywhere. We grumble and complain, despise our professional politicians for the special conditions of their employment, health care, and their retirement benefits, but they snub us all, remaining detached from the constituents they are supposed to represent.

Moving from the national level to the local, one wonders why our local millionaires—and there are quite a few of them here—aren’t as outraged as Buffett or as forthcoming with suggestions to reform our local political bastions of power—bureaucracies without supervision. Some do get involved, but not enough.

RBD’s leadership, Sharon Brown, chairwoman of the commissioners and Fountain City Councilwoman, vice chairman Dennis Hisey who is El Paso County Commissioner, and Bernie Herpin who is CS Councilman, has refused to respond to the questions posed in writing on 1/12/12 and published in the CSBJ on 2/17/12.

Obviously RBD is not accountable to anyone. Its organizational chart is still a secret only these commissioners know but refuse to divulge to the public. And here we are, trying to lure businesses to our town, but they won’t be able to refurbish spaces or pull permits because the commissioners won’t let them know who they should approach. Maybe a contractor will whisper the secret to their ears (for a fee), maybe not.

Unlike the RBD, and for that matter MHS and CSU, the Fire Chief decided to put together a task force to find “Business/Broker Solutions for 2012.” Chief Brown and Fire Marshal Lacey are trying to be business-friendly, forward-looking. Two RBD representatives were at the first meeting—nice and conscientious individuals who care about the city but remain politically powerless.

It’s not that RBD employees are not wonderful professionals who want to do the right thing; it’s that their bosses are unresponsive to the public, careless at best and negligent at worst, snubbing the same public these employees are trying to serve.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS who is still waiting to hear back from RBD’s three commissioners. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com See previous articles at sassower.blogspot.com

“CSU should follow Memorial’s fate,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, March 9 - 15, 2012, 21.

CSU SHOULD FOLLOW MEMORIAL’S FATE

Just as the recalcitrant Memorial’s CEO, Dr. McEvoy, thought his ideas were the only ones worth listening to and never expected his imperial visions will evaporate before his very eyes, so CSU’s CEO, Mr. Forte, may be dreaming that his empire is beyond reproach. Wake up and smell the roses!

With public scrutiny now finally at professional levels, as the city has enlisted expert lawyers to negotiate on its behalf the transfer of Memorial to UCH, it has become clear that selling the hospital is the right choice among many others that were available. We, as a city, can have our cake and eat it, too: enjoy the benefits of a first-class health care service (underwritten in part by the billionaire Anschutz) without liabilities and an incompetent leadership team and supervisory board.

If we were worried about what to do with Memorial (around $600 million enterprise), why aren’t we worried about what to do with CSU (around $1.1 billion enterprise)? The same incompetent board that supervises Memorial is still supervising CSU. Despite the recommendation to install an independent board, this monolith has got to go!

Just as Memorial was run by a provincial leadership that scared us into thinking increased health-care costs would ruin the hospital and leave us without proper care, so does CSU pretend that its leadership, and even ownership, can never be different from what it is.

Why not put CSU out to bids and see what happens? By now even our confused Council can figure out how to handle such an offering, with all the legal guidelines that have been set in place for MHS to solicit bidders. There are companies out there, from Xcel on one extreme of the private spectrum, to RISI on the other extreme of non-profit regional utilities, who might be interested.

Yes, we need to set a task-force and finesse the nuances of negotiations; yes, we need to have people with integrity serving on it for the right reason; and yes, we need to see that our future liabilities regarding pollution and any toxic waste associated with any of the power plants will be cared for by the new owners.

So, what’s holding us back? Is it a bureaucracy that fears losing its grip on wages and benefits, pensions and other perks? It can’t be that petty. Or is it? What is so special about a municipality that owns its utilities if rates go up while services decrease? What’s so special about CSU that warrants keeping it city-owned?

Perhaps it’s a lethal combination of pride, tradition, and inertia, lethal because it has no warrant, no rationale. Until we try to sell CSU we wouldn’t know if we can get a deal better than the one we currently have. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as the saying goes. Our local rates are definitely higher than those offered by Xcel Energy in Denver and in Summit County, as local citizens who have second homes report. So, this argument doesn’t hold.

The big management questions about CSU haven’t been answered yet. Who oversees this huge organization? What is the competence of top management at CSU? Is its CEO qualified and up to the task (still waiting to see his resume)? Rumor has it that he won’t just retire, but has another job waiting for him (with whom?). Will an “independent advisory board” make any difference, as long as legally oversight responsibilities remain with Council?

There are other big operational questions that need to be answered as well. Why is CSU still using coal, an energy source that might be cheap up front but very expensive in terms of pollution and EPA guidelines that must be adhered to? Is the so-called Neumann solution for filtering after burning coal not backwards (more on that in a later column)?

Shouldn’t we worry about replacing coal with gas or biofuels and then not have to deal with this kind of pollution at all? Are we stuck using 20^th century equipment in the 21^st?

Likewise, one wonders if all the resources available to operators, like CSU, have been exhausted. Given the global economy (see my last column), has CSU consulted all potential solutions to providing energy for the future?

For example, regardless of alternative energy sources, have equipment efficiencies been considered? We have Sturman Industries up the pass in Woodland Park: can they help make the equipment 10-30% more efficient as they have done for major trucking companies?

Should we have one centralized source of energy with an expensive grid and potential for failure? This is where national security concerns (of sabotage) merge with the concerns of the Sierra Club (of ecological preservation).

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS who is praying CSU doesn’t turn off service to his buildings. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com See previous articles at sassower.blogspot.com

 

“The global economy and local stress,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, March 2 - 8, 2012, 21.

GLOBAL ECONOMY, LOCAL STRESS

There are those, like Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, who want us to get over our economic gripes about outsourcing, and realize that by the twenty-first century things are “Made in the World.”

Forget about where something is made, and get used to the fact that the global economy is here to stay: whoever provides the cheapest labor force or raw materials is chosen. Whoever responds to a call for proposals, architects from Germany or interior designers from Brazil, is competing with the entire world, regardless of the target location.

In the Digital Age, physical or geographical location means nothing: any set of ideas or designs or drawings can be digitally transported across oceans and mountain-ranges in seconds. The Internet has connected us not only socially, but also professionally and financially. Experts can bid from anywhere to perform tasks anywhere they are needed.

I met a physician in South Africa that was reading and interpreting MRIs and X-Rays for hospitals in the United States. Her services were rendered during the day (her time), while it was night-time here. Isn’t this efficient? Doesn’t it solve our fast-pace hunger for immediate responses?

There are others, like Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics (2001), who is concerned about the optimistic view of globalization. For him, there is a fundamental asymmetry between the developed and developing countries, such that the kind of policies imposed by the former on the latter would cripple any potential benefits that could come from “the removal of barriers to free trade and the closer integration of national economies.” What is good for Germany may not be good for Egypt or even Greece (as we have recently seen).

National differences are easily observed in the laws countries enact, from tax codes to zoning and labor safety. Simply expecting the same rule of law across national borders is a folly: different cultures have different beliefs and ideals they enshrine in their laws.

It’s not that the Chinese refuse to abide by Western intellectual property laws; it’s that they have ancient traditions that find personal ownership of ideas quite perplexing. The idea that some can copyright an idea is foreign to them. And the Indians think of the legal system as an ongoing conversation whose interpretive flexibility would be dumbfounding to American lawyers.

When Adam Smith encouraged us to think in terms of the division of labor and added foreign trade as a source of national wealth (1776), he couldn’t have imagined current globalization trends. For him, trade was supposed to enrich all parties, rather than some at the expense of others. But as we look around us, we feel impoverished at the expense of Chinese and Indian ascendancy.

A befuddled President Obama was chastised by the late Steve Jobs about Apple’s labor practices. Jobs was clear in asserting that 20,000 overseas jobs (plus around 700,000 subcontractors in Asia and in Europe) “were not coming back.” Wake up, this is the real world, and not fantasy American labor-land (with about 43,000 Apple-related jobs)! But we want to make things here: we want factories to work three shifts a day, employing skilled labor at reasonable wages, the way it was a century ago.

Is the American dream of manufacturing over? The car industry is proving otherwise, with record profits at GM, Ford, and Chrysler, and added jobs from Michigan to Tennessee. Yes, two of the three got bailout money. But unlike the banks that got much more, this industry added jobs over time. While banks reduce their workforce to become more profitable, robotics on assembly lines still require human labor.

The sanctity of Jobs’ legacy should come under closer scrutiny when it comes to profiteering from cheap labor abroad while Americans are the main target consumers. Does Apple have a moral obligation to employ Americans rather than exploit Chinese workers at Foxconn? Should Apple care about the economic well-being of America? Should it sacrifice a lower profit-margin to sustain the health of the local economy?

This may sound xenophobic, even protectionist; it may sound contrary to classical economic principles of capitalism and even of communism, where the laborers of the world must unite. Instead, this is meant as an urgent reminder that the fruits of a global economy may turn out to be sour at the end.

Bud and Sam Walton would turn in their graves, unlike Jobs who didn’t care, if they knew that Wal-Mart employees can’t afford to buy the items sold there. Their efficient distribution genius wasn’t intended to increase joblessness in America and create a permanent unemployed class.

Capitalism’s dream was to make everyone more prosperous, not to make some richer at the expense of others. Can we revive the dream?

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com Previous articles can be found at sassower.blogspot.com

  

“Should the city be run like a business?,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, February 24 – March 1, 2012, 17.

IS THE CITY A BUSINESS?

On Valentine’s Day, of all days, I went to a press briefing by the mayor. Listening to the gripes of some journalists—do you really want the minute by minute calendar of the mayor?—I was struck by one participant who admonished the mayor that “the city is not a business.”

It’s obvious that the city isn’t a business in the same sense that a dog isn’t your friend: the city can run like a business just the way you can consider a dog “man’s best friend”. But the reporter must have had something more profound on her mind.

If by business we mean an organization whose sole purpose is to maximize profits, as classical texts used to define it, then of course a city isn’t a business: it makes no profits as a civic entity, and therefore its purpose isn’t to maximize said profits.

What if we changed profit maximization with profit optimization or even sustainability? This would be relevant for businesses but still insufficient as an answer to our question. 

If by city we mean an organized group of people who self-legislate their social contract and agree on self-governance and the adoption of rules and regulations that include taxing authority, then of course this is not how businesses are structured or run.

Does it mean that cities are not meant to run efficiently like businesses? That’s silly, since efficiency is valued no matter the context. You can be efficient washing your dog without sacrificing being careful and kind; this means, for example, not wasting water or making sure to dry your dog before leaving the bathtub (rather than after water-marks mess up the entire house).

So, if businesses are supposed to be efficient with their resources, both human and material, why would that be bad for running cities? After all, the city budget is made of taxes and fees collected from the community, and it stands to reason that the community would want the city not to be wasteful.

Perhaps the issue is human resources. Do businesses treat employees differently from city governments? I doubt anyone has empirical evidence to definitively answer this question. But in principle, businesses and cities similarly invest in training their employees and therefore treat them well (so as to have low turnover which is costly).

A sense of family-like relation evolves in businesses and city administration alike, especially when employees work together for long periods of time. Labor laws—state and federal—apply in both organizations, so it’s not about that either.

Is it a question of treating the public differently? Do city employees always treat members of the public who pay their salaries worse than business employees who are paid indirectly by their customers? I doubt this is the case, especially as city employees are trained to treat citizens as customers (who are always right, even when they are not), just as in the business world.

The more we think about it, the more we may realize that what we are talking about is organizations and their internal culture. The culture of an organization may arise organically, growing along the growth of the organization, responding to external and internal pressures, figuring out the core mission and values of that organization.

Sometimes organizations get distracted when financial or natural crises appear; sometimes changes come about for no apparent reason. And then there are changes that force a reorientation, like an election of a new leader (CEO or mayor).

Some may like Mayor Bach, some may not; some think he’s too tall, some that he’s not tall enough; some voted for him, some voted for other candidates. The fact is, the majority voted him into office—for one term only, as he promised.

Some may like the strong mayor concept, some may not; the majority voted for it, so the city charter was changed.

Given majority rule in a democracy, the strong mayor is a reality, and so is Mayor Bach. We can choose to either put every obstacle imaginable in his way, or let him try to accomplish what he said he would: run the city like a business, bringing his business experience to bear on the administration of this city.

Some top city administrators have quit or retired; some were invited to leave; some are under investigation; some deserve their pensions for years of service (a socialist concept that is fading under the harsh realities of hyper-capitalism).

If the Bach experiment has a prayer, it’s that he’ll choose wisely the best candidates to fill positions in his administration. We can either watch from the sidelines or help him succeed. His success or failure, after all, is ours.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS who supported Richard Skorman for mayor. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com Previous articles can be found at sassower.blogspot.com

 

“Who’s in charge at the Regional Building Department?,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, February 17 - 23, 2012, 21.

RBD: WHO’S IN CHARGE?

On January 12^th, these questions were e-mailed to Sharon L. Brown, the Chairwoman of the Board of Commissioners of the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department:

“1. What is the role of the RBD's board and why is it constituted in the way it is?

2. What is your role as the chair of that board?

3. What authority do you or your board have regarding policy and personnel (can you fire anyone?)?

4. What is the organizational chart of RBD and where can it be found?

5. What was the 2011 and is 2012 RBD's budget and where can it be found?

6. What specific decisions/goals have you set up for RBD for 2012?

7. What annual review process have you instituted for all RBD's personnel?

8. What complaints have you had to deal with regarding RBD or any of its personnel?

9. How have you changed RBD's culture, if at all, to make it business-friendly?

10. If developers feel treated unfairly in the application of the code or any part thereof, what appeal process is in place to give them a fair hearing or variance?”

None of these questions have been answered as we go to print, even though the Chairwoman asked for them in writing, rather than being interviewed. Now that they are public, would anyone please answer them?

Over the past fifteen years I have been involved in a few downtown developments, some fairly complex. The licensed contractors and sub-contractors, as part of their competitive bids, ensured me that they had a “good relation” with RBD and its inspectors. It’s almost a pre-requisite to be able to complete a project in this town. Should it be?

After the advancement of the European Enlightenment movement in the eighteenth century, nation-states came into being. Part of their success depended on their rule of law and its administration. By the nineteenth century, political philosophers and sociologists wrote about the virtue of bureaucracies. Yes, their virtues!

The main virtue is that the arbitrary rule of a despot or feudal lord was replaced with a bureaucrat who followed the rule of law and administered the duties of the position with fairness. Fairness is defined in terms of treating everyone equally, regardless of wealth or power.

For example, no matter if you are rich or poor, you must stand in line at the Department of Motor Vehicle and wait your turn. You are given the same quick eye exam, the same camera takes your picture, and you receive a driver’s license that is good for the same length of time. You pay the same fee. No, you can’t send your secretary to take care of this task.

Most of us resent bureaucracies for a variety of reasons. They are faceless monoliths whose members exert disproportionate power without being challenged. Paperwork gets lost, responses to inquiries take weeks, and when anything goes wrong, no one is responsible.

Franz Kafka was right. In a series of books, The Penal Colony (1919), The Trial (1925), and The Castle (1926), he dramatized encounters citizens have with bureaucracies. The faceless bureaucrat simply follows orders, as if decisions are always made elsewhere, and no one knows who is ultimately making them. Any reproach is dismissed as paranoia, and any problem is portrayed as the fault of the simple-minded, know-nothing citizen. Rules are being enforced arbitrarily, and no appeal is ever granted. Alone and confused, the citizen has no choice but to cave, grovel, bribe, or commit suicide. As we say: you can’t fight city hall.

So, the fair bureaucracy has become unfair. From equally protecting the rights of citizens, it has become a fearsome force of nature. Can capitalism reverse this transformation? Wealthy media owners have tried to do this for decades, holding the feet of powerful bureaucrats to the fire. But, unless you are Hearst or Murdoch, you don’t have the financial leverage to fight city hall. As dailies close or consolidate, they have become less aggressive in pursuing corruption or callous disregard to the plight of the individual.

Does capitalism have another weapon to fight bureaucracies? Wealthy citizens buy favor with bureaucrats rather than with bureaucracies, as the latest Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) is being played out in super PACS. Millions of dollars buy access to decision-makers: politicians who lead large bureaucracies all of a sudden court the favor of rich people. Would they become more responsive? Would they force their bureaucrats to be friendly and helpful, responsive and flexible? The jury is still out.

One still wonders who runs the RBD, the most important obstacle to any renovation or development in this region. Nothing has changed since the 1920s of Kafka, except that this bureaucracy uses English rather than German. Who is in charge there?  

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com Previous articles can be found at sassower.blogspot.com

“Many Valentines, one day,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, February 10 - 16, 2012, 21.

LOVE $$$

You don’t have to be a cynic to admit that Valentine’s Day is a big business opportunity for retailers, florists, jewelers, and restaurants. Once New Year’s celebration is over, the shelves at most stores switch colors to red and pink.

After Christmas and Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day is the third highest expenditure holiday, accounting for about $18 billion in sales. According to the Greeting Card Association, over 190 million greeting cards are sent each Valentine's Day; additional 15 million e-valentines were sent in 2010. Did Hallmark invent this holiday?

The first Valentine's Day cards were sent in England in the 18th century, while mass produced Valentines became available in the U.S. in the 1840s. In case you thought this holiday is limited to lovers, approximately 9 million people buy their pet something on this day to show their appreciation of their companionship, averaging around $5 per pet in 2011. Tells you something about who really warrants affection.

Is it mandatory to buy a gift on Valentine’s Day? Before you run out shopping this weekend, note that, according to American Express (polling 2,000 people), approximately 33% males and 20% females would prefer not to receive gifts on this day; a cranky 12% feel spending on Valentine's Day is "a waste of money."

Men generally spend twice as much as women on this day. 49% of men plan to buy flowers for their significant other, while 48% of women have no gift-giving intentions at all. What happened to equality among the sexes? Perhaps equal pay for equal work would help change these ratios.

While 44% of respondents said how flush they feel determines how much they spend, how much they like the person was a close second (39%). Length of the relationship is also an important factor (32%), and can dictate whether one spends at all. Most feel that dating an average of five months is suitable before exchanging gifts.

Some experts state that Valentine’s Day originated from St. Valentine, a Roman who was martyred for refusing to give up Christianity. He died on February 14, 269 A.D., the same day that had been devoted to love lotteries. Legend also says that St. Valentine left a farewell note for the jailer's daughter, who had befriended him, and signed it "From Your Valentine".

Others say that St. Valentine served as a priest at the temple during the reign of Emperor Claudius. Claudius then had Valentine jailed for defying him. In 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius set aside February 14 to honor St. Valentine. 

Still others claim that Valentine's Day started already in the time of the Roman Empire: February 14th was a holiday to honor Juno who was the queen of the Roman gods and goddesses, and the goddess of women and marriage. The following day, February 15th, began the feast of Lupercalia. On Lupercalia, a young man would draw the name of a young woman in a lottery and would then keep the woman as a sexual companion for the year. Pope Gelasius I was, understandably, less than thrilled with this custom. So he changed the lottery to have both young men and women draw the names of saints whom they would then emulate for the year. Instead of Lupercus, the patron of the feast became Valentine. For Roman men, the day continued to be an occasion to seek the affections of women, and it became a tradition to give out handwritten messages of admiration that included Valentine's name.

And finally, some suggest that under the rule of Emperor Claudius II Rome was involved in many bloody and unpopular campaigns. Claudius the Cruel was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues, because they didn’t want to leave their lovers or families. As a result, Claudius cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome. Saint Valentine was a priest during that time, and he and Saint Marius aided the Christian martyrs and secretly married couples. Because of this, Valentine was apprehended and dragged before the Prefect of Rome who condemned him to be beaten to death. He suffered martyrdom on the 14th day of February, 270 A.D.

Pick which version suits your taste, but what remains constant in all of them is the dedication of a day to love and lovers. While some celebrate their love daily, others have to be reminded that love is worthy of celebration. And since the measure of all things American is the mighty dollar, we must spend money to prove our love.

What if we don’t? Isn’t a kiss enough? Must it be a hand-written letter or can it be a downloadable e-message? It’s the thought that counts, and thankfully there are no emperors to put us to death anymore.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com Previous articles can be found at sassower.blogspot.com

“Shouldn’t public servants face questioning?,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, February 3 - 9, 2012, 21.

WHO DO PUBLIC SERVANTS SERVE?

The former chief of police didn’t want to talk to me some months ago, asking that Steve Cox, at the time the mayor’s chief of staff, would be present. I thought this would waste taxpayers’ money, and wrote about the police department’s budget without his input. His e-mails were friendly.

I asked to meet with the chief financial officer of the Fire Department, and when I met Leslie Hickey, Richard Brown (then interim and now Chief) was present, answering any and all questions. Even though the union president, Jeremy Kroto, wasn’t happy with my piece, suggesting that the numbers I got from Hickey and Brown were wrong, he was pleased that there was focus on the CSFD.

The CEO of Colorado Springs Utilities is “not available for an interview” according to David Grossman (1/10/12), one of the corporate communication staff. I asked why he was “unavailable” and about his compensation package and qualification, and received these numbers:

“Mr. Forte's annual salary of $276,750.03 has not changed since 2007. His 2010 short-term incentive was $31,411.13 and his long-term retirement incentive was $39,852.00. His 2011 short-term incentive was $34,455.38 and his long-term retirement incentive was $41,927.63. $50,000 has been budgeted for CEO incentive for 2012.”

I guess someone with a pre-assigned “incentive” doesn’t need to talk to the press or provide a resume. Given his latest shameless stand-off with the mayor about CSU’s line of credit, he is probably ready to retire (and he can definitely afford it).

By the time I contacted the Regional Building Department, the friendly but suspicious chairwoman of the Board of Commissioners, Sharon Brown (Fountain councilwoman) asked for written questions. When I sent her ten questions on 1/12/12, she called back a couple of days later worried about the “purpose” of my inquiry. As we go to print, I’m still waiting for answers to simple questions such as the organizational chart of RBD and its budget. Councilman Herpin who serves on the board has yet to respond to my e-mail of 1/10/12.

Maybe I’m completely off-base for asking public servants to explain how they are fulfilling their mandate. If this line of questioning warrants an apology, please accept mine right here from these pages.

On the other hand, if the CSBJ is to serve the business community, if its charge is to inform the public of anything that relates to business matters, and if the questioning focuses on monopolies (we can’t get electricity elsewhere), then how public officials operate is of paramount interest: who is in charge of licensing and permits; who is enforcing codes and fining businesses; who can we appeal to when bureaucrats play power games?

The fallacy of the digital age is that “it’s all there in the website”, as Councilwoman Jan Martin admonished me when I asked about her maneuvering the Memorial process (which didn’t work out once the public was more involved). If it is, it’s not easily found; if it’s not, as in the case of the RBD, then simply directing an inquirer to the website is Kafkaesque (senseless, disorienting, with menacing complexity).

The danger of the digital age is that in the name of accessibility, the promise of liberalizing or democratizing the community is actually being undermined. It may even serve to control information more tightly, since there are no other modes of communication.

Besides, as every businessperson knows from experience, numbers alone don’t tell much. They need to be contextualized and interpreted. If I have been guilty over the past few months of presenting numbers out of context it’s because their context was not readily explained on websites and power-point presentations, and when officers refuse to explain (either because it’s beneath them or because they don’t know, rather than because they have something to hide), then one must resort to printing numbers and waiting for a response.

We all deserve to know because this is what our Social Contract dictates: agencies levy taxes and fees on us so as to fund regulatory activities (RBD, City administration) or services (fire, police, and utilities). As citizens we implicitly agree to enter a Social Contract with other citizens and use agencies to execute our individual wills (majority rule) in a legitimate way: we self-legislate. This way of thinking goes back to ancient Athens and has been analyzed for two thousand years by political philosophers.

When our agents—civil servants—forget their complicity in the Social Contract perhaps journalists or gadflies, as Socrates liked to describe himself, need to remind them of their role. If they don’t like this, they can resign; it’s that simple.

I realize that writing this column will prevent me from ever doing another project here. It’s a fair price to pay.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS who completed a few downtown renovation projects. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com Previous articles can be found at sassower.blogspot.com

“Slow it down,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, January 27 – February 2, 2012, 17

SLOW IT DOWN

When your daughter and her friends come home from college during winter break, you catch up on basic popular-culture phenomena. This includes terms, such as “rad” (for radical), music, and television shows, such as “Portlandia” (covered in the snobbish The New Yorker). It’s not that high-culture needs to legitimate popular-culture, but rather that the one feeds off the other, while the rest of us catch up.

It’s not the exposure to popular culture which jolts parents in these annual encounters, but the pace that surrounds us. While academics are used to recall facts and data, pull a book off their shelves to cite something relevant, our children click or Google anything under the sun in Nano-seconds on their laptops or cell-phones.

With this in mind, I was watching numerous taped episodes of “Criminal Minds,” skipping commercials at will. In a few minutes an entire puzzle is unraveled, only to be put together by a highly skilled FBI team of behavioral scientists. In less than thirty minutes a mystery is resolved and a criminal captured.

By contrast, when watching “Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy,” based on John le Carre’s spy novel, it takes two hours to plod along a circuitous road, slowly but surely eliminating options along the way, till at the very end the traitor in the highest echelons of the British secret service is uncovered. It’s 1973, not 2012. What a difference four decades make!

It likewise took time to complete a business transaction some four decades ago. A letter was send, a check was “in the mail,” and lunch took two hours. I remember my own first job interview after college. Driven by the chauffeured-limousine of the owner to his club, we had time to speak in the car, at lunch, and on the way back. It seemed like eternity, but it surely was at least three hours. We both figured, in our own ways, that if we could stand each other for that long, maybe working in each other’s presence was manageable.

By now there is a Slow Thinking Movement which is about taking time to talk with others about the things that are important rather than the things that are urgent. And this, incidentally, is what we must keep in mind when we interview, whether a potential co-worker or a friend.

It was that slow technique of interviewing that proved so magical when I finally found a chef for the Warehouse who stayed with me for more than eight years—a record of sorts for finicky and suspicious restaurant owners and prima-donna chefs. A long walk around downtown eventually forced certain issues to surface. We slowed it down enough to get a better feel that we were beginning a relationship and not a job of convenience.

In the digital age, speed is everything. The psychiatrist Elias Aboujaoude even claims that it changes our personality into an “e-personality.” The virtual self can hide better, reinvents itself more often, disassociate more readily, and form relationships more quickly than ever before. The price is obvious, too, both psychologically and financially. Internet addictions are more lethal and more wide-spread than those observed at Cripple Creek or Las Vegas.

But what surprised me most this past few weeks was the sense of relief these young students displayed just hanging out and doing 1000-piece old-fashioned puzzles and even a Lego design of a helicopter. Maybe it was the altitude or the fireplace, the meals and alcohol; maybe it was because they were tired. Maybe they felt safe to slow down and reflect, think through plans for their future, rather than sound clever and witty.

It’s the same concern I’ve had for years about dining at restaurants, not simply with “slow food” as a cultural commitment, but for diners to appreciate an aesthetic experience that deserves to be savored, one moment at a time. Look around, take it all in. Think about what your body needs and what your soul desires. Think of your companions and the staff, respecting the situation as a whole, rather than just feeding an engine.

Slow speech, as I have learned moving from Boston to Colorado Springs twenty five years ago, doesn’t mean slow thinking, as the Noble Laureate Daniel Kahneman suggests in Thinking, Fast and Slow. It also means that our intuition is as important as our logic. Let your thoughts gather slowly and deliberately, because everything you say or do has consequences far beyond your wildest dreams.

We used to say “smell the roses”; we used to gesture towards the Buddha; we even thought that yoga would remind us to breathe more slowly. Now we should say “slow the connectivity”; perhaps this will force us to actually read our e-mails, appreciate subtleties, and not press too hastily the “send” button.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com Previous articles can be found at sassower.blogspot.com

“Mayor Bach is well-equipped, so let him lead,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, January 20 - 26, 2012, 17.

LET THE MAYOR LEAD

I supported the strong mayor initiative and wrote favorably about the Jenkins Proposal that made it happen. I also supported Richard Skorman out of loyalty and a belief that with a new structure in place, experience would count.

I still believe that given our council, a strong mayor is essential, and now believe that Mayor Bach is the right man for the job. His inexperience may be his biggest asset: he doesn’t just go along with what has traditionally been done, and as a one-term mayor, he’s doing what’s right, not what will get him re-elected.

One example the mayor cites is the multi-year budget process: next year’s budget proposal is based on the previous year’s one, rather than on actual revenues and expenditures. This means, for example, that out of a $223M budget, around $5M has been allocated for “authorized positions” at maximum pay even though they are not filled. Why keep this allocation in the budget?

City budget planners could argue that it’s the sensible way of doing business: keep the lines funded even when unoccupied, since they might be filled at some later point. Has the city suffered from these positions remaining unfilled? If unclear, keep them unfilled, and reduce the budget by whatever amount was allocated to them.

What happens if they are needed in the future? Then add them to a revised budget. Having worked on small ($1M/yr) and large budgets ($35/yr), budgets must be periodically revised, given the dynamic nature of organizations: people retire or leave, opportunities materialize, or markets dry out. Though council has to approve the budget annually, and though the mayor has veto rights, it seems that council relishes its ability to over-ride the mayor, as seen recently.

It all looks like the federal farce we are witnessing in Washington, when congress muscles its way to paralysis, leaving a befuddled president powerless. If the intent of council is to show the mayor who’s boss, they should all resign. Perhaps the three incumbents resent the fact that they are not the mayor—they could have run for the position—while the six new ones are as inexperienced as the mayor and still don’t know what role they ought to play.

The mayor claims to have reached out to all of them individually, only to find out that they don’t communicate with each other. The best he could get from them is a rejection of a contingency operating fund of $1.5M which they deemed his “slush fund.” This is a public institution with required transparency. So, it’s not that they don’t trust him, they probably don’t trust themselves.

Unlike them the mayor has offered four initiatives or Solutions Teams: community volunteers in the areas of Parks (Richard Skorman), Transit (Robert Shonkwiler), Streetscapes (Dave Munger), and Downtown (Chuck Murphy). Notice that two chairs were his opponents in the run for mayor. Only councilman Leigh has proposed initiates, and other council members mock him.

Some might be worried that the mayor’s new staff appointments are expensive, especially in this economy. Cindy Aubrey, Chief Communication Officer earns $95,000; her predecessor, Sue Blumberg, made $116,000; her department shrank from 12 to 8 positions. Laura Neumann, who replaced Steve Cox at $182,488, makes $165,000. Steve Cox is making the same salary in his new role as Economic Vitality Chief as before, heading a department with 4 rather than 8 members, while withdrawing $70,000 in subsidy from the EDC.

If these numbers don’t convince you that the mayor is prudent with city expenditures, or that he’s not applying his business acumen to his role as mayor, two other areas may prove the point.

First, he’s drawing on his experience as a commercial real-estate broker to promote the city to local and outside companies. He’s the salesman in chief! And for this role he has trained for forty years, convincing companies to buy buildings and plant their roots here.

Second, he’s trying to make the city business-friendly. What does it mean? I doubt he’ll be able to reduce fees, since our tax base is so low, and fees are essential to maintain an operational infrastructure. But, just talk to the Fire Chief and you’ll hear the mantra of business-friendly. I proposed that the department provide pre-purchase inspection drafts (for a fee) to potential buyers so they’d know in advance what to expect from code enforcement. He promised to consider it. More than can be said about the Regional Building Board (on whose board councilman Bernie Herpin sits), where the mayor has no say.

Perhaps councilmembers should do their jobs as directors of Memorial, Utilities, and RBD and let the mayor run the city. It might be best that council is divesting itself from overseeing Memorial; perhaps council should do the same with CSU and RBD, and let the mayor oversee them, too!

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com Previous articles can be found at sassower.blogspot.com

“The 2012 economic forecast,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, January 13 - 19, 2012, 17.

2012 FORECASTS

You innocently ask people you just met what they do, and sometimes the answer isn’t what you expected: hygienist. Then I asked: what’s the most interesting thing you learned in your career, and she cheerfully answered: if you floss your teeth, you’ll live longer!

As anyone with elementary science education knows, there’s a difference between correlations--certain things seem to be related coincidently but in fact are not, and causation—this leads to that, this causes that effect. Flossing doesn’t prolong your life, but it’s reasonable to suggest that those flossing their teeth also take care of their health in general and therefore may live longer.

This is the problem with economic indicators, those that are supposed to help us predict our economic future: does an increase in nail polish sales indicate a recovery? Sales figures are significant since the economy depends heavily on consumption, and since some leading indicators—housing permits—give an indication of how much construction will be undertaken in the near future; and with increased construction, many manufacturing sectors will rev up their production, creating more jobs.

According to Adam Davidson, instead of following lipstick sales which traditionally were considered indicators of a declining economy (as cheap “pick-me-up”), or Alan Greenspan’s favorite—sales of men’s underwear—which when up foretell economic growth, the preference is tracking sales of Champagne.

Champagne sales have consistently predicted American income one year later with 90% accuracy. The more Champagne we drink, the better we believe our economic future is bound to be. So, 2012 looks pretty good in light of the Champagne indicator.

For years, as owner of the Warehouse Restaurant and Gallery I followed a similar indicator: the number of Christmas parties booked between Thanksgiving and mid-January and the amount of money spent on them. A good end-of-year season told me how my next year would look. Why?

Most employers who throw Christmas parties are not simply thanking their employees for the work they have done in the past year: a bonus check can do the trick! Neither are they all of a sudden enjoying the company of their employees—if they did, they would have partied with them all along and not waited for the end of the year. So, what is the Christmas Party about?

It seems that it’s as much about team building for the next year as for gratitude about the past one. Employers know if they have contracts for the next year, if their marketing strategy has worked, and what changes are needed. They know how many employees will be laid off by Christmas and how many will be hired in January—they all plan ahead. And as they position themselves for the next year, they know if the future looks positive or negative.

If things look bad, companies cancel the party or have a modest luncheon. If things look up, spending an extra $1,000 at a party is in order. It’ll energize the work-force for yet another great year!

Since I sold the Warehouse in 2007, I opened Il Postino in October 2010. That first Christmas season was modest at best, partially because we were new and Christmas parties are booked way in advance. My partner who bought us out and renamed the place Springs Orleans reports almost doubling of sales for the month of December 2011!

2011 turned out to be a flat year in economic terms, with some disappointments (increased foreclosures in some states) and some promising trends (finalizing an expensive war in Iraq). Given the Christmas Parties Indicator (XPI), 2012 will show economic growth across the country. No need for sophisticated economic analyses, just ask restaurants and events centers around the country what December sales are.

Is the XPI as silly an indicator as teeth flossing? Of course it is! Yet, just as people who are inclined to spend a few minutes a day flossing probably also spend extra time daily to exercise and wash their hands, buy organic produce and refrain from trans fats, so one can conclude that spending decisions by corporate America indicate their attitudes towards the future. A correlation no doubt, but an interesting one!

What is even more interesting is the recognition by economists that psychological factors are crucial in the spending trends of consumers—more than 70% of all economic activity in the US depends on consumption. Doom and gloom by news media will slow consumption, while rosy stories about the future—especially in a presidential election year--will convince consumers to spend more money and reelect their president.

Is the 2011 XPI an indicator of how companies think about 2012, or a way to reassure ourselves that 2012 will be better? Tune in a year from now for the correct answer.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com Previous articles can be found at sassower.blogspot.com