Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist. - GC

Where did all the smart people go?

There was once a professional with an undiluted ethic. A genuine, tried-and-true, knock ‘em dead with brilliant, karate-in-the-groin, touché-my-ass, savant-skills.

But, these young, professional, awesome assets have seem to be hijacked by the lazy ingrown leftover businessmen, who, were on their way to being dismissed as archaic and dusty. However, I’ve recently realized these fogies are anything but benign, in fact, they’re using age as an alias, and exercising time against us young folk– and the penance we pay to survive in a pool full of potbellies, is our pride.

Recently endured/survived/subsequently sat through two meetings with two very prominent businessmen…now because this blog is read by Denverites, (and I have the utmost respect for these two individuals) they will remain nameless, and however their questionably shrewd business tactics shall not.

While this particular entry lacks coherence and possibly direction all together, there is indeed frustration swimming in the midst of my babble. I’m done with people not doing their homework before negotiations, so in the place of hard numbers and data, in which decisions should be founded, these men are pontificating about this and that circa 200 NOBODY GIVES A DAMN, just to frighten me off. No, their vacuous attempts to frighten are simply preposterous and annoying. And just because they graduated a few generations before me doesn’t equate to knowing how to penetrate a demographic they share zero commonalities (aside from breathing space). Seriously, intimidation only gets people so far, and then people actually have to practice polite manners and common sense, and god forbid an iota of logic.

And while brains occasionally require more effort than say, indignation, disrespect and apathy when someone says, “hello”…. It’s an ingratiated part of our society, that through this bearish economic collapse, climb, crash, rise again, us youngsters are supposed to buddy-up, hold hands and sing kumbaya. But, would someone please recognize that Generation Y being trampled by frightened and pride-thirsty baby boomers ain’t the most effective way in approaching business deals.

Yes, we’re younger. Yes, they’re older. Yes, there have been babies and mortgages, wars requiring global attention, and yes, days when you had to be strategic enough to function without google, blackberry, facebook, and navigate the opposite gender without match.com. WE GET IT.

That said, the two meetings this past week were brutal, and little blond Auna was bullied....not because the content or matter in which we were discussing was anything but mesmerizing to me (as I love the business model and strategy I develop), however I’ve never encountered men so frozen in their approach to people… and it was exhausting.

I just wish I could have a dinner with George Carlin. I have a feeling he’d make me feel better about all this....

"IN TREES WE TRUST"

China owns 24% of America's liabilities.

China has a billion more people than America.

Do the math, it ain't pretty.

Just finished an article in TIME. And while the writer characterizes FDR with astounding applause, he fails to mention the horrific acceptance of the deficit, which yes dates back to 1700, but grew significantly with the inception of " The New Deal."

Pondering the deficit, while from a financial standpoint (and those who know how to balance a checkbook, or god forbid understand a balance sheet), its implications are frightening, yet even to us aren’t close to debilitating… as far as “Joe” knows the government is visibly handing out “invisible” money, and who cares where it’s coming from? Or did Obama lose all sense of “where”… just because paper comes from trees, doesn’t mean the trees will back our spending. I think Obama is trying to make "inflation" popular... inflation, a cousin to the word "infection"....

In a society where “citizens” cannot take responsibility for their own actions, spending dollars they don’t have (and aren’t projected to make), on credit they cannot fairly be accounted for? Our only options are threatening to post a link to bank statements on people’s facebook profiles? Along with “photos, hobbies, quotes are also a lovely links to credit scores." And if that somehow goes against our “private rights”, then we might be abandoned with our favorite/most-disturbing theorist... (see below). And, while the “war of terror” didn’t frighten the most retarded of liberal pundits, I hate to say it, but a war against our kids and their piggybanks should scare the hell out of all of us...

*** The personal “Auna” solution would be highlight the “fun” in investments… this is where my great belief that while mutual funds are titillating (kidding)... Seriously, our banks should have VC booths set up ... Some of our money could be allocated to investing in other people? Sort of like Wall Street minus SEC on a smaller scale?

Why does that sound familiar? I’m thinking Sweden?

An excerpt taken from the FDR TIMES article (our of context it might not make sense), but Obama needs to answer how we’ll stimulate the economy while being the consumer-hungry economy we are…

“Next came tax. Instead of reversing Hoover’s tax-hike error, Roosevelt compounded it by raising taxes again and again. His treasury also cobbled together new businesses taxes. The same caution that had led banks to accumulate reserves during the worst of the downturn had moved corporations to put aside extra cash instead of using it to expand. Roosevelt, angered that firms were not spending to stimulate the economy, retaliated with an undistributed-profits tax on top of ordinary corporate taxes. Taken aback, observers accused him of ‘breaking the nest egg’.”


Revisiting our dear friend (and foe) ethos, I’m curious how to sculpt an argument, which will address not only what the deficit will do to our children, but somehow quantify through tangible scenarios. Is that even possible? Not what the deficit going to do to our kids, or grandchildren… and not from their checkbooks, or student loans, but how exactly that affects us through examples that can be easily understood, not by numbers, but the honest repercussions of losing our country to ourselves.

Here is how I envision a metaphor… A tennis match. We’re at the US Open and we’re the predicted champions, year after year we take home the gold. But instead of practicing our serve, it is far more exhilarating to find practice partners (Mexico/Canada). Killing opponents with our overheads, backhands, and volleys, (Iraq), but through whatever means we can justify (tanks, bombs, first-aid to Africa), we refuse to practice our serve (self-awareness/responsibility). And at the end, we lose the match.

Too many defaults later- we’ve run out of second chances, and we’ve run out of ways to win.

While we aren’t afraid to dip into international political, ideological, and ethical stratosphere, we’ll let them (China) eventually own our debt? Until our country files a Chapter 11. The country needs to go on a freaking diet. Rid of our adipose tissue, addiction to trash television (hell, let’s forgo porn), and habitual trips to the shopping mall.

A scenario even the shrewdest of journalists are too afraid to take seriously.

So little me is thinking… a campaign argued through numbers would be so difficult to capture attention (yes, even in Vegas (where my friend is running for Congress)), and so maybe a way to get people to pay attention to date, is illustrate the unfathomable scenarios, which leads me back to Machiavelli and the Prince. Is fear more powerful? Obama is frustrating, while inspiration is beautiful and tastes yummy, and offers the laziest of Americans warm and fuzzy feelings, pushing aside duty and responsibility, for the future to do lists… Let’s face it – and I can vouch as business development – it is wayyyy more fun to start stuff, than clean up messes.

So all this BS leads us to believe in a greater tomorrow, but sure isn’t helping us achieve that “great tomorrow,” today. Besides isn’t that Oprah’s job? Entertainers and priests, etc. Sure let’s do a check-up every once in awhile on our president, but it isn’t policy-makers beaming smiles that are going to reinvigorate the work ethic of the American spiraling into debt and despair via videogames and McDonalds.

Nope, monopoly money won’t be a national currency this time.

So there you go: Paint a pretty (sad/scary) picture of a future full of debt – and this time there isn’t an American government to bail anyone out. Sure, Japan can bail us out, or hell let’s give India a shot (they've been picking up the phone long enough), but at the end of the day would we rather save a little more, spend a little less or turn to the rest of the world for help, when for so many years we've boasted our capitalistic economy?” It isn’t so black and white. But everything eventually is black and white – when you’ve hit rock bottom. There is only one option. Seeking help, and unless the rock we’ve landed on is solid diamond, we’re screwed.


Obama isn't A Bad Guy:

Enough of my Obama bashing, I do have some respect for the guy- it appears that he has a healthy marriage. What is it with charismatic democrats (or politicians in general) cheating on their wives? Lately the media has uncovered affair after affair, governor after senator caught red-handed, in some intern/secretary/aid’s panties. Seriously, half of why I’d vote Romney is his odds cheating are nearly zip. FDR lost my respect purely for his outlandish affairs.

The only way to come out on top - isn't to cheat the system...

Caveat Emptor: POWERFUL CAREER MY ASS

A touchy subject, a sensitive issue even to broach, especially for someone who isn’t yet subjected to the one double standard our society has set. Instead of pondering such debilitating and often painful truths I tried to rummage up something cutesy or funny, I even came up with this: Picture this: Blond hair (desperately needing to be highlighted) windows down, driving on University Boulevard in my 2008 Escape, I’m singing, pumping my fists, swaying my body to Flo Rider’s “Right Around”, which is the hottest rap song to hit high schools and subsequently waspy white girls’ hybrids.

Parallel parking in between a Jeep and a Jetta, both pimped out with ski and bike racks at Washington Park I’m reminded I’m in twenty-to-thrity-ville Colorado. The first day of spring and everyone including the birds and the bees, and the yellow and chocolate labs skipping alongside their taut owners, is happily bopping to their iTunes, a 2009 version of the first scene of “Sound of Music”. While a serious republican, I’ve finally fallen victim to believing in this whole scientific frenzy dubbed, “global warming”. The sixty-degree weather I’ve enjoyed since last March now has me concerned.

Boring right? Who gives a hell about global warming except for the mountain folk (and condolences to the mountain folk). Well I’m not in the mood to write about the sunny afternoons 90210 style, in fact dittying that diatribe only makes me want to get a personal trainer and locate a husband and/or burgeoning career pronto. So often I’ve said (and meant), “Oh if only I could be gender neutral, only if I could be A-sexual,” and my favorite, “My goal is to be so narcissistic I won’t want anyone.” Simply with the objective of avoiding this whole nasty, but sociologically fascinating conundrum… the two biological clocks. The female clock, which ticks disturbingly loud with a quota of “snoozes” and then the male clock, which is infinite as it is silent.

My Mom (who spent twenty years in television journalism, had her own company and her stories were syndicated nationally, oh right and now she is a portrait artist painting a president), but she is a freak example of someone who could pull off both the business card and the diaper bag. And those women I have SO much respect for... to love your kids enough to role model a career - but it isn't everyone who can pull off such a daunting feat. Not that anyone is holding a gun to my early-twenty-something brain demanding I give notice of my breeding intentions, but I’m witnessing my closest cohorts around me drop like flies, caring less about creating a “knock-em dead PowerPoint” which has now been substituted with, “he is obsessed with his nieces and neither of his sister-in-laws work. Isn’t that great!” again, choke, check out reflection, and proceed to vomit. But, I’m trying not to judge. Because I’m just praying my clock will wait quite awhile to turn on.

A friend (who owns his own company) mentioned that he cannot help but consider if a twenty-something employee will cut and run once a diamond has been cemented on her finger, but would he have the same hesitation about a man, no... And, even in the most equal opportunity of companies, how can an employer neglect the fact when an applicant vying for an engineering position (100-hour weeks) walks in pregnant? And the whole Sarah Palin thing? Do not get me started! Fascinating how 35,000 books have been written on the subject, and more than 211,000 websites pop up when googled, “Balancing work with motherhood.” What does this tell us? There is clearly a problem deeply entrenched in working America, and it isn’t if women can work and have kids, but rather how.

My concern isn’t the “Mompreneurs”, or the women fortunate to have husbands with the income to provide for her and the kiddos, but my real ethical concerns remain with the women who have worked their asses off in corporate America. Now in their late thirties and early forties they’ve reached the pinnacle, a point in their career when they can focus on something other than climbing the vicious ladder. And once surfaced (and callused) from heels and pantsuits they're ready to dive into the “sea of fish”, aka: the men their same age, who have a genuine desire to get married, produce 2.5 beautiful children and build a picket fence. But this sea might as well be a pitiful fish tank. And the men in the same position, well they’re just hitting up the twenty-something, fresh and eager to settle down with the more established men (who have toiled so they could financially provide). So what is an educated woman with drive, a passion to make a difference in her industry, and enjoys having the ability to independently take care of her own needs do? Logically, if it takes 10-15 years to get to the top… which is about the same time your clock will start running out…. That said, the women who care enough about their career to shove estrogen aside and bite the bullet - make it.

But, before you buy into your dream of becoming a powerful CEO of a major company, beware. The truth about having it all down the road is only as pretty as it appears...

Before All Else, Be Armed - Machiavelli

I wish I could find something funny about this whimpering economy. Sheltered in my make-believe American utopia where I routinely admit to relishing labels on my totes and the cost of haircuts that could feed a family for a week in Uganda, I can’t comprehend the value of a dollar in the eyes of a peso.

Summers in Brazil and discovery videos from Africa don’t penetrate my bubble of health insurance and paved roads, in which I innocuously reside.

And when a person is stripped of their job, their survival, in a messed-up way, someone’s job is how the world evaluates their worth, their contribution to society. And suddenly it’s obsolete, and then it is too late to turnaround.

Craiglist classifieds are overflowing with stellar resumes and still 50,000 Americans are wandering aimlessly around our democratic streets curious who is going to cover their mortgage. What happened to job security? Is there such a thing, and is it appropriate for such a concept to exist in a laissez-fair economy.

There is no such thing as a real promise- because who can actually predict what the future will heave at us? I love how America uses good faith as collateral… just in case government bonds go to hell. But think: In every aspect of our lives…. Marriage could end in divorce, a road trip could end in a car wreck, and botox could get boxed. Without any type of guarantee in life how the hell are we supposed to protect ourselves?

We can’t.

All we can do is try to protect each other.

Mark Cuban... the Willy Wonka of America

He is the ornery, irrational and yet delightful Willy Wonka of America. And you can’t help but admire the guy, and then chuckle. Aside from the SEC’s recent and very legitimate allegations, Cuban is in so little words, someone I'm intrigued by.

What Mark Zucker did to the Rolodex, P. Diddy did for the popular vote, and Sarah Palin did for lacrosse moms (hockey moms are still in exile) Mark Cuban has done for the dorks. He gave them a reason to be cool. Gave permission for big boys to pursue the little boy dreams once assumed collecting dust with Babe Ruth baseball cards. Instead of having a fantasy team or a Playstation he plays basketball coach/commentator/pontificator. He has taken brown-nosing to a respectable level that includes philanthropy and learning how to dance the tango.

Might sound demented but hear me out. I love football. And sometimes when I’m on the elliptical glider and I witness Jay Cutler throwing an interception I sort of make frustrated sounds toward the television and sort of frighten the women huffing on the stationary bikes. Most people would play QB but I’d rather not be responsible for making the calls and being pummeled by 800-pound angry linemen. So instead the position of running back is preferable. Catch the touchdown pass and hump the field goal like Shakira (not that Tatum Bell has ever done that…).

Cuban would make the original Samuel Maverick proud (a 19th century Texas cattleman famous for not branding his animals). Cuban’s interactive NBA purchase isn’t just metaphorical for his actions in life, but every aspect of his biography IS the iconic America story. And if he has anything to do with it, his legend will be passed through generations for millenniums to come. He is the 21st century entrepreneurial hoodlum, a less satirical version of Winston Churchill. He quotes himself as he recently did in his blog, reminding readers how he should have listened to his own insightful premonitions about the ultimate failure of overzealous hedge funds just a year ago.

If he can’t be a basketball coach, he will buy a team. If his wisecrack remarks and millions of dollars fined by the NBA irritate anyone, he’ll justify his sophomoric behavior by donating millions to charity. (Nothing criminal about that.) If Hollywood won’t make him a movie star he’ll produce movies himself. He’s altruistic too… keeping an eye out for the insatiable hunger for unrealistic entertainment the American public is recovering from. In 2006 he hired six individuals to compete for $1 million by accomplishing insane and crazy things. Instead of keeping all the amusement for his own viewing pleasure, he suggested ABC create a reality show, so we could join in the fun.

When he insults refs by yelling, “I wouldn’t hire you to manage a Dairy Queen” and then receives an official complaint by the company, he doesn’t apologize or retract his remark. He spends a day acting as an ice-cream manager, ultimately generating an additional $2 million in revenue for Dairy Queen. He is able to monetize his silliness by responding the way people would at least expect a multi-billionaire to do. It isn’t fodder it’s genius.

Maybe sadly and maybe proudly if Cuban can’t unearth his next toy, he doesn’t invent it, hire someone to find it, he instead creates an industry, no an entire marketplace for it. Last year he innovated a website www.sharesleuth.com to nail CEO’s for their ill-mannered ethics, my hypothesis is so he could make more money off their malaise, proceeding to short their stocks… it all sounded so lovely. He makes O’Reilly look like a timid pussycat with blog headings such as, “The Stock Market is for Suckers.”

Serious journalists and equity boys are still haughty toward Cuban’s unpredictable and often precocious ways. But regardless of how staunch and boring their Brooks Brothers ways might be, they cannot make the argument that Cuban isn’t a sparkling personality, a mensa in the media world, or doesn’t make large monetary contributions to the community. And while he might irk the LA Lakers, Cuban has handed America something more than High-def TV or a good laugh. Whether his playfulness is benign or a disenchanting echo from our unregulated past....

Cuban has reminded us that the only rulebook we're really restrained to, is our own.