Paint Your Wagon!

There are many people, smart and good people, who are deeply confused about the direction of the current administration. They are baffled as to why Obama and his acolytes cannot see what is happening to our economy. They keep telling everybody that we’ve turned the corner and yet all I seem to see are businesses in strip malls closing and no new ones being opened.

My mind goes to the old story of the IBM salesman who has failed to consummate his marriage and after several months just sits on the edge of the bed telling his new bride how wonderful it’s going to be.

I recently heard from of a gentleman who holds some real estate investments. We had met through Republican politics, but I sensed he was really uncommitted politically and certainly was no staunch Republican. It all started when he asked me how I was doing. I replied that I was doing great compared to many and said so.

He said, “You’re doing great? You are the only one I talk to who is doing great. All my tenants are struggling. These people in the Administration are so smart, why don’t they understand what is going on out here?”

What an opening – how could I pass on that one? So I told him what I thought he understood already. Yes, the folks in the Administration may be smart, but they have no experience. Virtually none of them has ever participated in the free enterprise system creating income and jobs, so how – and why – would you expect them to create policies that would help entrepreneurs and small-business owners move the economy forward. They may be smart, they may be great at writing papers and drawing charts with arrows and symbols, but they are fairly low on wisdom. Wisdom comes from suffering experiences in life – not just living arcane social and economic theories.

A perfect example of this wisdom deficiency is the newest member of the administration, Donald Berwick, the man chosen to administer the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. These two behemoth bureaucracies consume 4% of our gross domestic product, and that’s even before Obamacare vastly increases the amount of money running through their bureaucratic fingers. So one might think Dr. Berwick would have had some experience running a major medical operation or a similar entity.

It turns out that his most significant position was as President of the non-profit Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). If you go to the IHI website, they self-describe the organization as “a small organization with a very big mission.” Not exactly the credentials most of us would consider when looking for someone to run an organization that dispenses hundreds of billions of dollars.

The important thing for Obama it seems is that Dr. Berwick has studied health care organizations and written heady papers and pontificated in speeches about how the health care system should be run. Since that is the background of the occupant of the Oval Office and almost all of his advisors, Dr. Berwick seems to be a natural choice.

Obama believes that should be good enough especially since Dr. Berwick shares his view of the world and how things should be. But it’s not as we shall surely see. And the people who should be pointing all this out are almost entirely silent.

Instead, the media simply circles the wagons!