Expert Professional Advice

McCain doesn’t get it – he’s not capable of leading or inspiring national improvement. The proof? All he can do is say that Obama is going to raise taxes, but McCain cannot show anything significant about himself as a leader. And that claim that Obama’s plan would raise taxes has been proven false by the Tax Policy Center (TPC, a non-partisan joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. Based in Washington D.C.). So, McCain is lying… and even if it was true all he’s saying is, “Vote for me because the other guy is going to raise taxes.” What he misses is that no one is particularly worried about taxes going up a little, because if the average working person has less money or no money, there’s less tax burden. McCain’s actions lead me to believe he’s out of touch with the working class. Actually both candidates tax plans would lighten the tax burden as reported by the TPC, but Obama’s plan reduces taxes a bit more, and his plan would increase the federal deficit by about $3.5 trillion over the next ten years while McCain’s plan would be even worse – about $5 trillion.

Some interesting cases are presented in the book of people choosing to act in ways that would be contrary to their best interests and the point the authors make is that they are stunned by this pull of irrational behavior that even affects expert professionals at their craft and the premise is that this tunnel-vision approach could affect anyone. What the authors miss, which is evident throughout history and in great literature is that man rarely serves his best interests. If he did, Utopia could be built in a year. It is human nature to work against your own best interests, the authors of the book treat it as an important discovery, while individuals of the world of all levels of education and experience continue to do what is not in their best interest, and act on whims, rather than consult some timetable of all possible good outcomes from a planned best interest way of life.

What it comes down to, for me, is not selecting a candidate based on political experience… it’s knowing that no matter what the situation is that person is going to do the right thing every time for the people. What’s important to you?

There is something in his voice, he sounds fake most of the time when he speaks. I’m still wondering how he thinks he relates to the everyman. A journalist had asked McCain awhile back, “How many houses do you own?” He said he didn’t know! If the guy has seven houses, or eleven houses, whatever the case may be, how is it he shares the concerns of the average working person? He lives in a completely different world. And I don’t think this election is about electing McCain on the belief he can lead or do anything overwhelmingly positive for the nation or globally, he is only a choice for those that don’t want Obama in the White House. McCain has shown poor decision-making ability by his choice of VP. McCain was reprimanded by the Senate Ethics Committee for his involvement, as in using influence, during the Savings & Loan crisis. Although he was not charged with any unlawful activity it did illustrate poor decision-making. How is this guy going to clean up Wall Street when he didn’t do anything great to fix the Savings & Loan crisis? He made a big deal about stopping his campaign to go back to Washington and work on the bailout… and then he didn’t do anything significant. Is this how he will address a future crisis? And anyway, is Biden alone, a better choice than McCain? Has this been considered?

Not much of a book. It covers several topics by using historical examples in order to make a case that people suffer from defects in processing information. While that’s true, any statistics book generally discusses how people arrive at fallacies that affect their judgment. It’s common to overweight the recent past, or see linkages where no scientific relationships exist, for example gambler’s fallacy. The reason smart people make mistakes is that they don’t have a system of implementing a trial, the only way to clarify is to experiment on a small scale, otherwise we’re in the common situation of life of making decisions on unknowns, too little information, or unreliable information taken as an authentic knowledge-base. J.P. Getty discussed decision making briefly in his book, How to be rich (I posted some commentary of his analysis). He stated, “Is this fact or opinion?”

What I’ve heard from two ladies this past month is that they feel that the culmination of deals from government and business leaders and the corresponding economic position of the nation is going to take a longtime to unwind. How long? One hundred years. They both felt that all this fooling around with the system has caused the nation to be immersed in something deep. The right thing to do to restore confidence in the system is to go after all the wrongdoers, be it government representatives, lawyers, or business people, and handout mandatory prison terms. Consecutive ten-year prison terms so that people are put away for one hundred years. The ladies agreed. Then you have to take back all the money that was stolen and return it to the public coffers. And unless the next leader is willing to do that, perhaps I’ll have to agree with the ladies that it may a take a hundred years to overcome these deep-rooted problems. It’s the lack of a proper and ethical approach to address the real problem of corruptive influence that scares me, not the problem, no matter how severe it may seem.

I’ve met with several retained search recruiters to get an understanding of their personal experiences in reaching out to others and shaping the decision to court a decision-maker into another high-level role. For example, let’s say your client is seeking a top fund manager in the Korean fixed income market. After a few days of research for your boss you’re on a plane to Korea to meet that fund manager… that happened to a retained recruiter in his first week of work.

If you’re looking to court top talent to your organization, here are some considerations to Hire with your head:

The problem with provocative self-help books and approaches is that when times are good you can use them to bolster your hopes, but when you really need to settle your mind and move forward these approaches fall apart, hold you back, or when hope is slipping the approaches of the authors appear nearly worthless. There is no salvation – soothing words from people that don’t care, unless they are promoting their books or seminars, are an obstruction; life remains life, nothing can change that.

For those few folks that love to deal in investments because it is aligned with the ebb and flow of their existence, fine, be merry in all facets of all stock markets because playing the game is no more than dealing with yourself and how you make decisions. For the majority of folks that invest it seems they are in the game for the wrong reasons – or their actions are not aligned with the true purpose of their initial investments: to accumulate capital to provide for themselves many years from now in their retirement. So, the average retail investor risks his or her account value today and allows his or her investment holdings to diminish by refusing to sell – this decision is contrary to providing for yourself. When the day comes that the Dow and S&P 500 index fail to regain about half what it loses after a large drop and deviates from the pattern of partial rebound, that is the signal, or perhaps evidence, that the crowd of players no longer has the will to risk as foolishly or the capital to play the game in the same way: the market falters for the long-term because the players perception shifts: they look for other games.

The power of the crowd and how it shapes business: According to the book, the first recorded instance of crowdsourcing is the 1714 British government offering of 20,000 pounds (roughly $12 million today) to anyone who could invent a way to determine longitude on a sailing vessel. The solution – a clock that operates with superb accuracy, even during the rigors of an overseas voyage – was developed by John Harrison, an uneducated cabinetmaker from Yorkshire. A modern example might be: WellPoint, X Prize launch $10M health care contest (this was not part of the book). The book reminds us that when you mine the crowd you will often find the best ideas and approaches from those that do not have a specialty in the field in which they solve a problem. The author’s tips for applying crowdsourcing:　

Crowd funding (example, sellaband.com)