[ExI] s&p 500 growth, was: RE:

Mon May 9 17:46:04 UTC 2016

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Monday, May 09, 2016 8:58 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] s&p 500 growth, was: RE:

On Sun, May 8, 2016 at 10:08 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net <mailto:spike66 at att.net> > wrote:

> >…I don’t understand why we didn’t get any local startup CEOs to run.  I would vote for any Silicon Valley biggie

>…Me too.

> >…any of them, even those I didn’t like much, such as Carly Fiorina. 

>…Well...she was a Silicon Valley Lilliputian…

Carly’s rise to the top of HP is impressive considering her credentials:  MBA from U of Maryland, MS in management from MIT which is a fine school for engineering but as far as I know isn’t noted for business management.  With only that, up against the Haaahvahd and Wharton MBAs, climbing the ranks quickly in AT&T, Lucent and HP without even being beautiful or sexy, well that is an accomplishment.  Had she not wrecked HP, we wouldn’t even need to bother with an election in the fall; cheering masses of Americans would carry her to the White House on their shoulders.

On the bright side: Carly is still almost young; she has at least one more shot at it, and might be compelling when we need someone to pick up the pieces.  That blank stare guy from Rhode Island whose name I can never remember might have another run (Lincoln somebody?  (He doesn’t look half bad now, does he?  (Four or eight years of blank stares would be less scary than what we are facing.))

> >I am searching hard for a silver lining in all this, and I may have found it.  We get to listen to the most bitter mudslinging contest in American history,

>…Yes, watching the slapstick will be very entertaining, I just hope it doesn't turn into a horror movie on November 8… John K Clark

Ja, but the chances are slim indeed.  Third parties have never won an election in modern times, always either the Democrat or Republican, every time since Lincoln won the war.  Even hardcore optimists like me recognize that 8 November will likely be a horror movie.

John on another note, regarding a comment you made before but I didn’t have time to reply, where you said something to the effect of Bill Clinton’s blowjobs were none of Ken Starr’s damn business.  This is a puzzling commentary indeed considering that was Ken Starr’s only business: he was assigned as a special prosecutor.  That is what Inspectors General and special prosecutors do: investigate and prosecute.  Bill Clinton’s blowjobs were as much his business as Nixon’s audiotapes were the damn business of Archie Cox and his staff in 1974.

If we wish to argue that he shouldn’t have been assigned (either of them) then we create a logical tension.  In Nixon’s case, we had these unexplained burglaries.  We eventually found out what they were doing and traced it all the way back to the White House.  In Clinton’s case, the security people probably get young ladies about every other day claiming to have given the president a blowjob.  They don’t do much with those stories, no credibility.  But this one had physical DNA evidence, the first one in history.  So now, the holder of the blue dress has the keys to the White House, she can abuse them at will, she could theoretically persuade the president to do things, or create suspicion that he ordered Wag-the-Dog actions such as Operation Desert Fox in December 1998.  So… Bill Clinton’s blowjobs sure were Ken Starr’s damn business, his only damn business.  Had he failed to act, he himself would be guilty of a cover-up once we all knew about the blue dress (and several people already did by that time.)

One parting shot on that topic please: In November 2012, the Lockheed Martin top dog was retiring and the second in command Chris Kubasik was already making some good leadership speeches to the troops, but a couple weeks before the big ceremony, a whistleblower leaked to the security people that he and another employee had been boning in the back corner office, that soundproof lockable one.  Neither of the participants had self-reported, both held top level clearances.  Polygraph, both confessed (those polygraphs can’t be fooled as far as I know.)

The security people don’t work for Lockheed, they don’t care about the employee’s rank or whether the employee is getting ready to take over the reigns as CEO of a multi-billion dollar company.  The security people answer to the Fed; they have their orders, they follow them.  Military people are that way (which is a good thing (exactly what you want when you entrust people with enough fireworks to start World War 4.))  Lockheed has no authority or influence over the security people at all, which is as it should be.  

Both of these Lockheed employee had their clearances suspended pending investigation, which never happens quickly regardless of the rank of the employee, so it is always means at least months with no clearance (I have seen that happen.)  A major aerospace CEO cannot run the company without a clearance, and there is no mechanism for making a special case for the CEO.  The company is not going to pay this guy all this money when he cannot even be legally briefed on what his own company is doing, and even if they did, you can’t risk having a colleague discuss normal business with a guy who has a suspended clearance, which is itself a felony: passing classified info to anyone not authorized to receive it, such as one who has a clearance suspended pending a special investigation (stand by, you will soon hear a lot more about that particular crime.)

Result: CEO-elect Kubasik resigned the next day.

However… you never heard of it, did ya?  Why?  I’ll tell ya why: that resignation happened the same day General David Petraeus resigned over passing classified info to an unauthorized recipient, ruining his career, his political future, his legacy, everything.  In this field of competitors, General Petraeus would have been a walk-in winner for president in 2016, had he been eligible to hold a clearance.  The press told us Petraeus resigned over an extramarital affair, but this is false: there is no law against that.  But there is a law against failing to self-report it if you have a clearance, and passing sensitive info to anyone not authorized is a felony.  We were astonished Petraeus managed to get off without a prison sentence, and was eventually charged with storing classified information in an unauthorized or unsecured location.  Hmmmm…  

Those of us who worked at LM at the time damn sure did hear about Chris Kubasik.  I had met him; he was a smart guy, excellent speaker, inspiring, very insightful.  I am absolutely astonished he would risk a multi-million-dollar dream job running the company for whatever he was doing back there in the old soundproof room. 

spike 

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