As IF Times

link Its Apple and CalPERS vs. Greenlight in stock proposal showdown – latimes.com.

While not exactly an obvious burning social issue, the battle that is developing between a stockholder, (actually hedge fund manager) and the corporate behemoth Apple is a good example of why businesses have such a hard time in modern America.  Unless you’ve been in a coma for the past 10 years, it’s widely accepted that Apple has been the most successful of American corporations of the past decade, possibly ever, parlaying innovative thinking  and creating must-have items into unparalleled commercial success.   People fortunate enough to have owned the stock from a decade ago at around 10 dollars a share were rewarded with a meteoric price rise to just over 700 last fall.

And yet Steve Einhorn of hedge fund fame, thinks that he is a better judge of how the company should employ their growing cash asset as if he were a tech visionary.  While Einhorn uses the red herring of “returning the cash” to Apple’s shareholders, in reality, he is second guessing the very business strategy of a company that has outperformed anything in the U.S. stock market in recent memory.  It’s as if he dines in the nation’s best restaurant and then decides to tell the chef how to make a better Bearnaise sauce.  Despite the success that Apple has become through the vision of Steve Jobs, the company is obligated to now spend untold money on lawyers to defend themselves from someone who thinks they could do better.

Wielding the green eye-shades of backroom bookies measuring quarter to quarter performance,  large  institutional investors can successfully coerce public  corporations in many ways; from what suppliers they use, to where they operate, whom they hire, or even the actual core business direction.  The rise of activist investment funds such as Einhorn’s can successfully bully companies into actions that can end strategies that have long term growth potential for the sake of short term gains.   While those with Einhorn’s mentality may be lauded for their short term investment shrewdness, their ilk are responsible for much of what ails American industry.  Of course none of this happens without the everpresent threat of legal action.  The bully tactic of using lawyers to advance a particular cause has of course become high art here in the West.  While the popular discussion these days is about restricting the access of guns to the average folk, the epidemic of lawyering up has continued unabated causing immeasurably more and longer term harm to society.

The business of Wall Street has gone from providing an environment designed to seed and grow corporations to that of being a virtual casino in which the actual businesses themselves are irrelevant; they are merely statistics for comparison on the worksheets of MBA’s and bankers like cards in a poker hand.  Some may notice the similarity to the dynamic present in today’s professional sports business, notably football.  While the actual sport itself generates it’s own circle of economic influence, the ancillary and derivative businesses of wagering are thought to be as big or bigger than the legitimate monies involved with the actual sport.  So much money in fact that there are ongoing suspicions of game rigging to benefit large bettors. This has happened to the investment business.  The problem is that the derivative tail winds up wagging the underlying dog.  Eventually, it all gets corrupted and the entire enterprise is threatened with collapse.  In a casino at least, you are given the illusion that you can win.

It’s laughable to accept that Einhorn has a better feel for what Apple can do with their cash horde, since to my knowledge, he has no experience at all in running a real operating company, much less a leading edge tech giant.  Presumably, if he did, he would start a competitor.   Luckily for him, the free market provides a mechanism for venting his frustration for not getting his way.  He can sell.

link What Happened to Obama’s Passion? – NYTimes.com.

Even after 3 years and ample evidence from which to draw some rational conclusions, people like Drew Westen are still delusional.  If you read through Westen’s opinions, the answer to the query posed in his headline is embedded within, but despite this, he is unable to make the connection with reality.  It’s as if he knows it, but can’t admit it due to ideological hard wiring.

While he may ask “what happened to Obama’s passion?”, the realists who were not drawn into Obama’s soaring rhetoric already know what happened to it.  It never existed.  It existed only in the minds of the people who,  as Weston describes it, would rather hear stirring stories than face harsh facts.  Westen acknowledges that the vast populace can be taken in by soothing rhetoric and statements that have no basis in reality.  It’s not Obama that has lost his passion.  It’s that reality has set upon the vast populace who naively bought the Pied Piper-like messages offered by his campaign.  As a politician, he has been as masterful as anyone has  ever been in American history,  aided by a complicit and adoring media.

History tells us that we should be skeptical of all politicians, whatever their affiliation. When a nation adopts a Messianic figure like Obama without paying any regard to his complete lack of accomplishments but solely on his ability to read speeches, it is not the fault of the candidate, it is the fault of the naive public.  And of course  the media which allowed this to happen.   Certainly there’s nothing wrong with invoking touchy-feely rhetoric about world peace and equality.  But if that was the only prerequisite for leading a nation, any of the last dozen or so Miss Americas could have been  just as eligible.

Although Westen claims to be an educated professional, he adamantly clings to the cliche notions that it is the usual villains of Wall Street, big business and of course the Republicans that are to blame for all malaise that affects the nation.  Now, with the brunt of reality facing them, delusionals like Westen blame Obama for changing when in fact it has been their own fairyland worldviews that are flawed.

As long as we have enlightened people like Westen avoiding reality, what chance is there that the plain folk will be able to make sense of what to do?  My hope is, plenty.  I’d be willing to bet that the drape of mass delusion that has shrouded a huge contingent of American voters has lifted.  My bet is that the preposterous statements that emanate out of the White House which are completely incongruent with reality, will start to fall on skeptical ears.  A few articles back, I made mention of the similarity of what’s happening in US politics now with the premise of  the old 1962 movie, The Music Man, which depicts a town of rubes taken in by the optimistic promises of  a hustling salesman.  The moral from the movie is the same as the moral we can apply to real life:  The only real changes come from within, not through someone else.  Westen should absorb that instead of the fairy tales he’s used to.  Enough of the storytelling already.