Green.

It used to be a color that you related to illness.

Gang”green”.  Even mental illness.  “Green” with envy.  Or things a bit slimy.  Like pond scum.  Frogs.

Now, everyone wants to be green.  We’re going through green-o-mania.  And folks are tripping over themselves on how to describe, articulate, and label their “greeness.”

Green by any other name?   Well, some don’t smell as sweet.

Want to have some fun?  Take the Consumer Reports “Weed Out the Green Groups ” quiz.

Seems like there are many shades of green.  And not all green names wear the same.

We’ve all gone mad.  And we’ve all gone poor.

And the economic mess that we’re in right now shows you that going mad can make you poor.  Like giving loans of a quarter of a million dollars to households with combined incomes of $50k.  That’s mad.  And now the household and the bank left holding the note, have gone poor.

Are we mad?  Of course we are!  I’m in the marketing communications business.  I know mad when I see it.  People are just downright crazy.  And we have been for some time.

People at their core are not rational beings.  We stare at grocery shelves comparing the unit price of two tubes of toothpaste to save twenty cents … then five minutes later blow six bucks on People magazine at the checkout counter.  We spend money on water from a bottle when it is free from the tap.  We buy off-road vehicles that never go off road.  We read Perez Hilton.  We’ve been through fads that have included Hula Hoops, Tiny Tim and the Marlboro Man.    We do all kinds of crazy stuff every day.

Some guy got 18,000 to get naked and curl up like a fetus in a city square in Mexico.  The same guy got over 6,000 people to get naked and stand on a glacier in Switzerland.  On a glacier!!!!  Any objective or “rational” outside observer would say we’re all insane.

So why shouldn’t markets be the same?

George Soros said so some time ago.  But traditional economists were unimpressed.  Backin May, David Lynch wrote an article in the USAToday on Soros and his economic theory of “reflexivity.”  Christopher Neely’s reaction to Soros’ challenging the theory of rational market equilibrium:

“It is difficult to conceive of a more mistaken understanding of the profession’s research in the last 10-15 years. … The great danger of the (earlier) book is that non-economists will take seriously his ill-founded criticism of economic research,” wrote economist Christopher Neely of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.”

What Neely doesn’t understand — and Soros did — is that there is a human element to markets that make markets irrational.  Indeed, the starting point of Soros’ theory is so clear … so plain … so evident in everyday life … that I am amazed that economists have the temerity to challenge it.

According to Soros … “The starting point of my theory … holds that our thinking is inherently biased.”

Duh!  Soros’ observations would be a no-brainer to us marketing types so I find it fascinating that the Wall Street and banker crowds disdain it.  Here are some excerpts from Soros’ speech at MIT back in 1994 !!!

The generally accepted theory is that financial markets tend towards equilibrium, and on the whole, discount the future correctly. I operate using a different theory, according to which financial markets cannot possibly discount the future correctly because they do not merely discount the future; they help to shape it …

Facts and thoughts cannot be separated in the same way as they are in natural science or, more exactly, by separating them we introduce a distortion which is not present in natural science, because in natural science thoughts and statements are outside the subject matter, whereas in the social sciences they constitute part of the subject matter. If the study of events is confined to the study of facts, an important element, namely, the participants’ thinking, is left out of account. Strange as it may seem, that is exactly what has happened, particularly in economics, which is the most scientific of the social sciences …

Classical economics was modeled on Newtonian physics. It sought to establish the equilibrium position and it used differential equations to do so. To make this intellectual feat possible, economic theory assumed perfect knowledge on the part of the participants. Perfect knowledge meant that the participants’ thinking corresponded to the facts and therefore it could be ignored. Unfortunately, reality never quite conformed to the theory …

I don’t know too much about the prevailing theory about financial markets but, from what little I know, it continues to maintain the approach established by classical economics. This means that financial markets are envisaged as playing an essentially passive role; they discount the future and they do so with remarkable accuracy. There is some kind of magic involved and that is, of course, the magic of the marketplace where all the participants, taken together, are endowed with an intelligence far superior to that which could be attained by any particular individual. I think this interpretation of the way financial markets operate is severely distorted. That is why I have not bothered to familiarize myself with efficient market theory and modern portfolio theory, and that is why I take such a jaundiced view of derivative instruments which are based on what I consider a fundamentally flawed principle. Another reason is that I am rather poor in mathematics …

In coming out of “retirement” and based largely on this theory of reflexivity, Soros made several billion over the last decade.

Who ya going to believe?  Soros or your undergraduate economics teacher?

He knows we’re mad.  And he ain’t poor.

These past few days may help redefine the number “lucky seven.”

Seven hundred point drop in the Dow.  Seven hundred billion and counting on a bailout.

Who’s a winner and loser?

I suggest that the tsunami of opposition to the bailout which led to its first failure shows the limits of “fear” as a brand element.

Paulson, Bernanke, and a host of others last week pushed the bailout based on fear.  Vote for this or we end up deep in Dante’s inferno.

Vote here.  Vote now.  Or lose all hope.

A lot of people out there appeared to say … “screw you.”

It appears that Americans are tired of fear.  They have labored under it for so long.  It worked post 9/11 on a host of issues — from the Iraq invasion to the Patriot Bill.

At some point, people get tired of running scared … even when they should.

The Congress looked at the financial abyss, looked at the bailout, and many of them said “enough!”  Being afraid is simply not enough.  I’ve got other emotions to satisfy (namely revenge and disgust).

People don’t mind being scared if it is the occasional roller coaster or Halloween movie.  In fact, they really enjoy it.

You just don’t want to have to live in it.

Capitalism and free market economics are in a world of hurt.

They just begged us for 700 billion.  Doesn’t quite jive with the “free markets are the fairest, most efficient …” fill in the blank.

To their credit, there are hard core conservatives and libertarians standing their ground, effectively telling the financial markets to pound sand.  Personally, I don’t think that’s helping their cause.  For me, it conjures up the scene in Dr. Strangelove where Bradley rides the bomb bronco-style into oblivion.

There’s Senator Shelby, thumping a list of names of economists who say all this talk of bailout won’t work.  All that while we’re looking down the last rungs of Dante’s financial inferno.

Indeed, the conservative’s case had become so bad that their bugaboo in preventing them from supporting the bailout package was possible benefit to ACORN — a liberal community organizing group.  This, while the brunt of the bailout was for financial institutions and Wall Street firms that helped got us into this into our mess in the first place.

Go figure.

Capitalism and the free market philosophy that underpins it are in a world of ideological hurt.  The events of the last few months have caused folks throughout the world — many of whom were skeptical of capitalism in the first place — to say they’ve had enough.  The Wall Street Journal article headlines “Crisis Stirs Critics of Free Markets.”  The New York Times, “Criticizing Capitalism From the Pulpit.”

The ghosts of Adam Smith and Milton Friedman are turning in their grave.

Look for a free market counter offensive soon.  Any takers?  Any advice?

This post is about words, themes, change, and claims of change.  It is about a recurring phenomenon in the U.S. (and I suspect across the world) that I call the “Generational Change Tsunami.”

You see, each generation thinks they’re going to fundamentally change things. Here we come folks.  We’re different.  We’re in charge.  And we’re going to change EVERYTHING.

Every generation says so.  I think they’ve got to.  Otherwise, why get out of bed?  We went through the existential era.  That wasn’t fun.  It gave us books titled “Nausea”.

So let’s take stock of the GCT track record.  Going in reverse order.

• In the 1990s Clinton promised us a “Third Way.”  A lot of it worked — we actually at one time had a budget surplus — but now we’re at record deficits.
• In the 1980s Reagan offered us “Morning in America”.  We grew, rebuilt our military, the wall came down and now Russia is back with a vengence.
• In the 1960s and 1970s it was the “peace generation” whose protests actually stopped a war (no mean feat at the time) and today we’ve got not one (1) but two (2) wars — in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Or how about going way back to the 1930s and the temperance movement.  Back then we actually made heroes (Elliot Ness) out of people who destroyed beer.  Today alcohol consumption is at an all time high.

I don’t say all this to get anyone depressed.  And despite the above I actually buy into the “change” mantra of Barack and Joe.  But the history of failed predictions and failed promises should give one pause when picking up books like Jeff Gordinier’s “X Saves the World” or Zogby’s “The Way We’ll Be.”

Godinier’s title is audacious enough.  Xers will save the world?  Really?  But the subtitle gently modifies what “saving” means  — “How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking.”  The hero of this play is, of course, our Xer candidate Barak Obama.  In an interview with John Avalon of NewGeography, Gordinier comments:

“Obama’s talk about going beyond the old politics of ‘red’ and ‘blue’, liberal and conservative, and building a third way does resonate. Gen Xers tend to be pretty post-ideological, there is less allegiance to any one party or any one way of thinking. … Our political pragmatism comes as a result of growing up in the shadow of the Boomers’ idealism and seeing it fail miserably.”

I guess as a boomer I should take offense.  No, I should be depressed.  Our X’er children view our idealism as a failure.  That’s ok.  I can live with that.

But “keeping the world from sucking” is neither an effective rallying cry nor is it as realistic or pragmatic as Gordinier thinks.  The world will always suck — at least for someone somewhere.  And for every significant achievement in societal development (women’s rights, race relations) we know that it wasn’t one (1) generation that made a difference — it was multiple generations all coalescing around one idea.

Then there’s Zogby’s book with an equally audacious title, “The Way We’ll Be.”

Really?  Are you talking about me?  Do I know you?

I like Zogby’s stuff because he reaches.  And there is no shortage of entertainment in his unique (and sometimes even insightful) look at attitudes and behaviors.  A recent favorite:  an analysis of the 2004 voting prerference based on folks shopped.

Godinier believes that the next revolution will be generational.  Zogby agrees but casts that in a framework where the true tectonic shifts are techonlogical and structural:

Spearheaded by today’s eighteen-to-twenty-nine-year-olds–the “First Global” generation–Americans are becoming more internationalist, consensus-oriented, and environmentally conscious and less willing to identify themselves by the things they do to earn or spend their money. But this is more than a youth tide. Americans of all ages are moving beyond old divides–red state/blue state, pro-life/pro-choice, beer drinker/wine connoisseur–to form a new national consensus that will shape the nation for decades to come.

The phrase that sticks out to me is “less willing to identify themselves by the things they do to earn or spend their money.”

Sorry.  I look around and I just don’t see it.

In the end I side with Joe Queenan who wrote in his review in the New York Times:

A dominant theme of his book is that mean old white men who drive big cars are a spent force. I only wish this were so; for quite some time I’ve been thinking of cleaning out my desk and heading for the exits now that society no longer needs me. But as my wise old mentor, the Barron’s editor and columnist Alan Abelson, used to remind me, the con man’s favorite pitch line is: “This time it’s different.”

I believe in the change thing.  But I have no illusions.

Egads!  I think I’m becoming an Xer!

It has been awhile. Apologies. Got tied up.

For the moment, if you’re so inclined, you can check out my post today on the Brodeur Partners “open” blog. (I’m starting to split my writing between the two.)

The title: Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire. Pretty juicy, eh?

Will be back with an original shortly … zeroing in on books and covers.

More, later.

For those of us who travel a lot, one of the many headaches is traveling with liquids.  Specifically, not being able to take your water bottle with you.

Water.

Very, very dangerous stuff.

In the TSA handbook it is potentially lethal.  And we’re not talking drowning.  Who knows what that colorless liquid could be?  A potential molotov cocktail.  Battery acid.  Ammonia, chlorine and other colorless liquid material that when shaken (not stirred) will blow the cabin to smithereens.

The result?  Each time you go through the TSA lines you pass mountains of perfectly good (and expensive) Aquafina, Dasani, and, Fiji … yes … Fiji … the water that traveled thousands of miles to reach a store shelf only to be jettisoned out of fear that it could explode in transit like some South Pacific volcano.

Well, the Chinese have the simplest and best answer to this nettlesome security problem.

You can only bring it if I see you drink it.

According to wire service reports, as part of security in Bejing, “commuters are being asked to take a swig from water bottles on the subway to ensure they do not contain suspicious substances.”

It’s the “take a swig” test.

You want to bring it?  Then let me see you drink it.

If you don’t choke, vomit, blow smoke, writhe in pain, or otherwise groan and complain like the fat guy in the Batman film Dark Knight … well then you get a free pass.

As the folks at Guiness would say … BRILLIANT!

[NOTE:  The Chinese also ban anyone from coming  to the Olympics who has “mental illness” or a “a sexually transmitted disease.”  There will be no streaking (a sign of mental illness) or waving of insulting signs (no worry … football is not an Olympic sport).]

I think China’s on to something.  They don’t let you get on a domestic plane with a lighter (we do) but you can go on board with a liquid as long as you are willing (and able) to drink it.

The TSA allows lighters, but not water.

That is, they make it easy for you to start a fire, but not to put one out.

Do you believe in evolution?  Survival of the fittest?

A big part of the theory of evolution is that over time we get better.  Or if not better we get stronger.  Or taller.  Or healthier.  Or better looking.  Or something that we could chalk up to “improvement.”  Indeed there are quite a few people who’d make that claim and quite a bit of evidence to support it.

While I think we’ve evolved, I personally, don’t see much improvement over the millenniums.  I think there’s a lot of evidence that we’re not much better than the alleged brutes that proceeded us.  You look around at all the stupidity, violence, and overall creepiness that infests society (and us!) and it is hard to see how this is progress.

I bring the history of humor to support my case.

According to Reuters, there earliest recorded joke could have come right from an elementary school yard.  And those close behind will hearken you back to locker-room humor.  Here, according to Reuters, the world’s first known joke was a saying among Sumerians (currently Iraq) went something like this …

“Something which has never occurred since time immemorial … a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.”

OK, I’m sure something got lost in translation.  But the fact that the first joke ever recorded was a fart joke says a lot about how far we have not come.

We keep looking around and remarking about how much has changed.

In so doing I think we miss all the stuff that hasn’t changed … and likely never will.

Understand that and you’ve got insight.

I’m sitting in the lobby of the Sheraton in Portsmouth, New Hampshire getting ready to head back to Boston. On the way I’ll return the rental car. As I pulled the care around this morning to load the luggage I was reminded of one of the many things that make New Hampshire unique. And while small, this something somehow infests the culture and character of the place.

“Live Free or Die.”

Now that, my friends, is a motto. A motto that can build a brand. New Hampshire’s motto alone is reason to keep the tradition of this state having the first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

Exist in the unattainable state of complete freedom, or get the hell off the planet. Exhilarating. Scary. Lots of hard edges.

I grew up in Louisiana. We had “Sportsman’s Paradise.” Interesting. Focuses on consumer benefits. Aspirational. I’ve always wondered what “paradise” would be. Never thought that would be Louisiana.

I moved to Texas. The new plate on the Dodge Duster read “Lone Star State”. Historical. Allusions to rugged independence. But I’m not sure what it means exactly. And I’m a bit of a loner myself.

Both of course beat the most comical state motto. Idaho’s “Famous Potatoes.” What? Potatoes? That’s it? That’s the best they can do? A root vegetable?

I think motto’s have meaning. They show up on documents, correspondence, business cards, speeches, and yes … license plates. There’s something both ubiquitous and subliminal about them.

So kudos to those New Hampshirites (sp?) who went ballistic when someone tried to hoist the wimpy slogan “You’re going to love it here” on the states signage.

We don’t care if you love it here or not.

Live free or die!