Throughout my life I have learned an important lesson, you have to always be looking ahead, learning from the past and thinking out of the box. As most of you know I am passionate about finding a cure for type 1 diabetes. I am pleased to share that we are funding an important project at Massachusetts General Hospital that is actually going to test a potential cure on humans - not mice.
Go to www.iacoccafoundation.org for the news article.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Living off our credit card
The other day I was handed a report from Decision Economics, Inc.
Sinai’s Market Perspectives: The Weakening Dollar and “Next Great Global Currency”, published on March 4th, 2008.*
After reading the report, I think you’ll agree this is the price of not giving a darn and living off our credit card. Real fighting stuff in my opinion.
*This proprietary research article is provided through the generosity of Decision Economics, Inc. and Dr. Allen Sinai, President.
Sinai’s Market Perspectives: The Weakening Dollar and “Next Great Global Currency”, published on March 4th, 2008.*
After reading the report, I think you’ll agree this is the price of not giving a darn and living off our credit card. Real fighting stuff in my opinion.
*This proprietary research article is provided through the generosity of Decision Economics, Inc. and Dr. Allen Sinai, President.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Mr. Schneider Goes To Washington
If you think just showing up to vote in November is going to fix this country, you got another thing coming. Voting (which 50% of Americans usually don't do) can't be the end of our obligation as American citizens.
Recently I saw a fantastic documentary film. The director, Jonathan Neil Schneider left a successful career and spent his savings to expose how our elections are financed and how it can corrupt Washington. "Mr. Schneider Goes to Washington" couldn't be more timely. It is also funny and entertaining. Throughout the film I kept asking myself, "Where is our democracy heading?" "Aren't there any rules anymore?".
Everyone needs to see this film! And to all my friends in the media, if you want to know what Lee Iacocca thinks is wrong with politics, watch "Mr. Schneider Goes to Washington."
(www.MrSchneiderGoesToWashington.com )
And, please take a look at the "revised" 9C's Scorecard! Print it out and pass it around.
Recently I saw a fantastic documentary film. The director, Jonathan Neil Schneider left a successful career and spent his savings to expose how our elections are financed and how it can corrupt Washington. "Mr. Schneider Goes to Washington" couldn't be more timely. It is also funny and entertaining. Throughout the film I kept asking myself, "Where is our democracy heading?" "Aren't there any rules anymore?".
Everyone needs to see this film! And to all my friends in the media, if you want to know what Lee Iacocca thinks is wrong with politics, watch "Mr. Schneider Goes to Washington."
(www.MrSchneiderGoesToWashington.com )
And, please take a look at the "revised" 9C's Scorecard! Print it out and pass it around.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Demanding Answers
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Presidential race and the remaining front runners. Last year, Katie Couric asked if we’d come up with some questions, based on my latest book Where Have All The Leaders Gone?, to ask the candidates.
Take a look at the following questions. Do you know any of the candidates’ responses to them?
1. Leaders are not born; they’re made in times of crisis. Name a crisis that you have faced, and talk about how you demonstrated leadership.
2. Name your two primary models for leadership from the past 50 years. These are the individuals you call to mind when you’re faced with a tough decision.
3. The ability to collaborate with those who have different ideas and approaches is a key factor in leadership. Give an example of a time (professionally or politically) when you have successfully collaborated with people who have different views.
4. As a businessman I learned that the best way to fully understand what it means to be responsible is to meet a payroll every week. In your life, when have you had tangible responsibility for the livelihoods of others – and what did the experience teach you about leadership?
5. Being President is not a one person job. The team is just as important. Are you prepared to tell voters who will be on your team so they can make an educated choice? In particular, who are your candidates for Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and Attorney General? (If you’re not prepared to name them, can you name individuals from recent history who have excelled in those positions?)
6. The United State has one of the lowest voter turnout rates among democratic nations – especially for young single adults. What will you do to encourage young people to vote and participate in government?
7. A leader inspires others to participate fully in the life of democracy. The words of JFK – “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” – still resonate. Give a specific example of what you will ask citizens to do, and what sacrifices you will ask them to make.
Maybe if these questions are circulated to millions by email (just like the first chapter of my book), the tough questions will get asked and the candidates will feel obliged to give the American people an answer!
Take a look at the following questions. Do you know any of the candidates’ responses to them?
1. Leaders are not born; they’re made in times of crisis. Name a crisis that you have faced, and talk about how you demonstrated leadership.
2. Name your two primary models for leadership from the past 50 years. These are the individuals you call to mind when you’re faced with a tough decision.
3. The ability to collaborate with those who have different ideas and approaches is a key factor in leadership. Give an example of a time (professionally or politically) when you have successfully collaborated with people who have different views.
4. As a businessman I learned that the best way to fully understand what it means to be responsible is to meet a payroll every week. In your life, when have you had tangible responsibility for the livelihoods of others – and what did the experience teach you about leadership?
5. Being President is not a one person job. The team is just as important. Are you prepared to tell voters who will be on your team so they can make an educated choice? In particular, who are your candidates for Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and Attorney General? (If you’re not prepared to name them, can you name individuals from recent history who have excelled in those positions?)
6. The United State has one of the lowest voter turnout rates among democratic nations – especially for young single adults. What will you do to encourage young people to vote and participate in government?
7. A leader inspires others to participate fully in the life of democracy. The words of JFK – “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” – still resonate. Give a specific example of what you will ask citizens to do, and what sacrifices you will ask them to make.
Maybe if these questions are circulated to millions by email (just like the first chapter of my book), the tough questions will get asked and the candidates will feel obliged to give the American people an answer!
Monday, February 11, 2008
What Is Freedom?
It’s been awhile since my last blog. I took a break over the winter holidays and then “my guy” pulled out of the presidential race. For the time being at least, it’s back to business as usual.
Several weeks ago I received a letter from a boy scout who was working on a project for a citizenship badge. The subject was freedom. He wanted to know my definition. I said the following:
“There are those who never have known freedom and those who were born free but have had their freedom taken away. I am an American and was born free and still have my freedom. I do not have the experience of what it is like to not have freedom.”
We all need to be diligent about our freedom.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Why are we writing checks our grandchildren can't cash?
With the amount of money we've been spending, you'd think we'd have a little more to show for it. Better roads, schools, healthcare, something. Because right now, our national debt is approaching $9 TRILLION dollars. That's a lot of zeroes and it sure as hell is a lot of interest — somewhere in the neighborhood of $400+ billion annually to be exact.
Since George W. Bush has been in office, this shared tab of ours has gone up a staggering $3 trillion (for perspective, the ENTIRE debt never reached $4 trillion when his old man was in charge.) Why is this? Because we've had to pay for little line items like the war in Iraq and tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans. What gets me though is that of all the issues on the table, all the flubs this guy's made, this one seems to get the least amount of attention. People, he turned a budget surplus into a budget sinkhole. If this was a business, the CEO would have been shown the door a long time ago. And that rapidly accruing interest I just mentioned? It's not being paid to banks in this country. It's going to foreign lenders, like China, Japan and Saudi Arabia.
Contrary to popular belief, this isn't Monopoly money. It's cold, hard cash and the vig is running. Yet we don't seem to give a second thought to what this might mean for future generations. They may very well wake up one day to the realization that they don't own their own country anymore. We'll have gone from the richest nation in the world back to being somebody else’s colony.
So what do we do? Simple. It starts with sacrifice. We cut out programs we don't need. We stop spending money we don't have. We don't back tax cuts we can't afford. We quit putting billions into pork barrel projects. And we start slowly paying down that debt. We've done it before. We can do it again.
Since George W. Bush has been in office, this shared tab of ours has gone up a staggering $3 trillion (for perspective, the ENTIRE debt never reached $4 trillion when his old man was in charge.) Why is this? Because we've had to pay for little line items like the war in Iraq and tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans. What gets me though is that of all the issues on the table, all the flubs this guy's made, this one seems to get the least amount of attention. People, he turned a budget surplus into a budget sinkhole. If this was a business, the CEO would have been shown the door a long time ago. And that rapidly accruing interest I just mentioned? It's not being paid to banks in this country. It's going to foreign lenders, like China, Japan and Saudi Arabia.
Contrary to popular belief, this isn't Monopoly money. It's cold, hard cash and the vig is running. Yet we don't seem to give a second thought to what this might mean for future generations. They may very well wake up one day to the realization that they don't own their own country anymore. We'll have gone from the richest nation in the world back to being somebody else’s colony.
So what do we do? Simple. It starts with sacrifice. We cut out programs we don't need. We stop spending money we don't have. We don't back tax cuts we can't afford. We quit putting billions into pork barrel projects. And we start slowly paying down that debt. We've done it before. We can do it again.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Name your team: A challenge to the presidential candidates
Knowing what I do about the importance of a good team, I’m baffled about the way we run presidential campaigns as though they were one man (or one woman) bands. As I consider the ever-growing list of presidential candidates I have to wonder: who are their teams? Doesn’t it strike you as a little bit strange that we don’t demand that a presidential candidate introduce his key players before we vote? Who’s going to be running foreign policy? Defense? The Justice Department? Everyone acts like it’s such a big secret, and that’s a little scary. Can’t they at least give us a hint?
For example, would it make a difference to primary voters if they knew that Rudy Giuliani was planning to make Bernie Kerik Secretary of Defense if he won the White House? How about if Hillary Clinton wanted to bring Madeline Albright out of retirement as Secretary of State? What if John McCain thought Joe Lieberman would make a great Attorney General? These suggestions may seem wild, but who knows? The point is, we don't know. And that's a big problem.
The myth of the solitary hero riding to the rescue is still pretty strong in this country. But if we’ve learned nothing else from George Bush’s presidency, we’ve learned that it matters whom a president surrounds himself with. The key players on his team—Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Gonzalez—have made a huge difference. Some people think they’ve been the most influential gang in White House history. It’s fair to say that without Cheney and Rumsfeld, we probably wouldn’t be in Iraq. Yet back in 2000, when Bush was first running for president, he acted like the Lone Ranger. You may recall that Cheney was actually the guy in charge of vetting Bush’s possible vice presidential candidates. Cheney interviewed them, studied their strengths and weaknesses, and finally presented Bush with his verdict. The best person for the job was... Cheney!
I strongly believe that if the voters are going to make an informed decision about who will be our next president, we need more information about the other players. So here’s my proposal. In the next debate, the candidates should be asked the following: “If elected, who will be your vice president, secretary of state, secretary of defense, and attorney general? And if you haven’t made up your mind, give us the short list for each position.” This should also be asked whenever a candidate appears in public, whenever he or she gives an interview, whenever there’s a discussion about foreign policy or domestic issues.
Being president is a pretty tall order. It’s not a job you can do alone. We have a right to know before we cast our vote for president who’s going to be responsible for actually getting the job done.
For example, would it make a difference to primary voters if they knew that Rudy Giuliani was planning to make Bernie Kerik Secretary of Defense if he won the White House? How about if Hillary Clinton wanted to bring Madeline Albright out of retirement as Secretary of State? What if John McCain thought Joe Lieberman would make a great Attorney General? These suggestions may seem wild, but who knows? The point is, we don't know. And that's a big problem.
The myth of the solitary hero riding to the rescue is still pretty strong in this country. But if we’ve learned nothing else from George Bush’s presidency, we’ve learned that it matters whom a president surrounds himself with. The key players on his team—Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Gonzalez—have made a huge difference. Some people think they’ve been the most influential gang in White House history. It’s fair to say that without Cheney and Rumsfeld, we probably wouldn’t be in Iraq. Yet back in 2000, when Bush was first running for president, he acted like the Lone Ranger. You may recall that Cheney was actually the guy in charge of vetting Bush’s possible vice presidential candidates. Cheney interviewed them, studied their strengths and weaknesses, and finally presented Bush with his verdict. The best person for the job was... Cheney!
I strongly believe that if the voters are going to make an informed decision about who will be our next president, we need more information about the other players. So here’s my proposal. In the next debate, the candidates should be asked the following: “If elected, who will be your vice president, secretary of state, secretary of defense, and attorney general? And if you haven’t made up your mind, give us the short list for each position.” This should also be asked whenever a candidate appears in public, whenever he or she gives an interview, whenever there’s a discussion about foreign policy or domestic issues.
Being president is a pretty tall order. It’s not a job you can do alone. We have a right to know before we cast our vote for president who’s going to be responsible for actually getting the job done.
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