Insight From Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson

During an interview with The Telegraph three years ago, the musical wizard Ian Anderson, leader of trailblazing rock ensemble Jethro Tull, made an observation which voters might do well to take to-hand for inspiration as they next step into polls determined to anoint a new leader with the gift of substantial power over their lives.

The somewhat insightful question asked of Anderson by Mark Anstead was, “Now that you are better off, are you happier?” 

He answered, “Yes, of course. The contrary position is something I can’t imagine. But if I hadn’t been a musician I probably would have signed up as a police cadet and I don’t think I would have been any less happy doing that. I would just have been working without the same sense of financial responsibility towards others.” 

The answer tells much of the common sense with which the music legend has lived his life. However, for all those of us desperately job hunting and for all those now rethinking what nature of individual is essential to lead a Nation toiling through economic hardship, the answer holds more pertinence. Anderson has always personally managed all of his and his band’s affairs including its contracts, bookings, and accounting, with his wife of 37 years, Shona. He is a superbly talented musician who resisted the lower-hanging temptations to which celebrity rockers so readily succumb, and at the peak of his more entrepreneurial ventures, Anderson managed over four hundred people. 

Ian Anderson’s observation of the “sense of financial responsibility for others” reveals an introspection which can only be achieved through ‘doing’ it – it being the running of a successful business, large or small, and being singularly responsible for incomes of employees. 

Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur nor would the world function if we were, however, when your responsibility spreads beyond your own familial charge and you become accountable for the sustenance of other individuals, something visceral occurs which can be characterized as a teachable moment. When you have to ensure that there is cash enough to cut that check, you know. You know the stress felt and you know the effort infused in all facets of guiding a business to prosperity, any prosperity. You know everything that comes with not only signing those checks, but with having been responsible for assuring that the checks you sign don’t bounce. Society cannot teach you that in a classroom at MIT or at Harvard. You can only appropriate that knowledge through experience. 

In the next private and intimate voting poll, as you bestow your name in support of a Presidential nominee, satisfy yourself that the would-be leader has felt and learned that very powerful piece of knowledge. Confer your vote on one who has seized that “sense of financial responsibility towards others.”

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• World Awaits America’s New Entrepreneurs

The developed world, and most of the struggling third world, as much as it may pretend otherwise for politically expedient reasons, is depending on an American economic turnaround. This means that the world is in fact awaiting, not for Washington to solve its debt crisis, not for a forestalling of Obama’s armageddon, not for resolutions of budget deficits, but for the resurgence of America’s unique brand of entrepreneurialism.

American entrepreneurs have always been the consummate optimists, whose innovation, creativity, ingenuity, resourcefulness, and financial diligence, have produced the most successful economic engine in history. Entrepreneurs have independently created companies, big and small, that have sustained the tests of time and market adversities, and some have gone on to become international behemoths.

Today, America is spinning and twisting under leadership that vilifies businesses and maligns corporate America. It imposes laws, and institutes structural dictates that push entrepreneurship into the realm of the nearly impossible. An administration that promotes a climate of government growth and government dependence, is promoting the destruction of the fundamental and positive core of the human spirit that makes for a dynamic society.

When government grows faster than the private sector, net productivity shrinks. Such is the trend in America. It would be a complete waste of time to look to Washington for ideas or programs that might actually be helpful to any advancement of the entrepreneurial exercise. Furthermore, let’s not look to those glad-handers, who’ve gravitated to the beltway to rub shoulders with this Administration, for any answers. The agenda is being manipulated by less than a handful of ideologues behind Obama. Everything else is showcasing and pretense for the masses, accomplishing nothing positive toward improving productivity or increasing GDP.

Not everyone is cut out to become an entrepreneur, however, the urgent need for supporting entrepreneurship is now more manifest than at any time in the past century. Far too broad a swath of the MSM has been supportively trumpeting the Obama Administration’s ideological convictions and hostility toward corporate America. Too many Americans are sliding into the slothful perception that heaping taxation on those who “have,” is an answer to deficits produced by bloated government spending.

Since America’s earliest days, entrepreneurs have disseminated enthusiasm and passion for success which has been contagious. American entrepreneurs champion the work ethic while playing by the country’s rules and laws that much of the world may not emulate, but furtively admires. I say "may not emulate" because, as we have discovered in so many other socio-political environments including China, laws and decency don’t often matter.

In high schools, colleges and universities, students should be encouraged to break new ground for themselves as new entrepreneurs, rather than to go out and “find a job.” It’s always easier and is the default to pursue the latter, but some encouragement is required to attempt the former. Educational institutions should place more emphasis on the stimulation of entrepreneurial thinking, and should allocate class time and courses to the encouragement of new entrepreneurs. You may not be able to “teach” entrepreneurialism, but you can certainly induce its discovery, and inspire its actualization.

Some entrepreneurs may be born, but entrepreneurialism is also a mindset that can be ignited and nurtured, and its required skills developed. More effort should be addressed to cultivating the perception that entrepreneurs are among the most positive contributors to a vibrant and successful society. They are critical to the economic health of America. The entrepreneurial attitude is the antithesis of the union led bureaucratic morass that has grown out of control, and clogged the wheels of progress and the financial well being of companies.

Typically the entrepreneurs who grab public attention are those who cut new trails in technology, however, any new business, in any industry, that can be formed to employ at least one person, is a step in the right direction. America has no choice but to reverse the current trend toward disaster. The Nation must enthusiastically promote entrepreneurialism and its optimistic perseverance.

The world looks forward to America’s new entrepreneurs and the energy they will inject into the world’s most consequential economy.

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• End Our Intimate Relationship With Debt

American taxpayers are witnessing an unprecedented full-frontal attack on free enterprise, business, innovation, invention, creativity, productivity and entrepreneurialism. This is a misguided strategy from elected officials. At its core it is also an attack on employment.

We are provided a daily dose of news from Washington and from Wall Street’s experts that the economy is now in a phase of recovery, however we are told that this is a jobless recovery. "Jobless recovery" must be a new mantra concocted to perpetuate feel-good perceptions. There is little point in wasting anyone’s time analyzing this non-sense. For the millions of unemployed, and all the workers who will lose their jobs over the coming months, the economy is, and for the foreseeable future, will continue to be in a recession. This is not a glass-half-full attitude, but a lucid perception of the reality facing the road ahead for taxpayers, so let’s not sit and wait for answers from government. The actual number of unemployed is over 26 million. Where are we going?

As a result of this drawn out recession, and out of the undiminished American perseverance, a whole new wave of entrepreneurial ventures will spring up over the next five years. Washington has not been able to kill the entrepreneurial energy that created the millions of jobs in the first place, regardless how much it has tried. This remains enough of a "free" country that from the housewives in the suburbs struggling to feed their families, to the laid off office managers in the cities, individuals across America will rise to the challenge, and do something for themselves. They will take back whatever control over their own lives they might have relinquished to carelessness. Such is the nature of the human condition, as long as it does not allow itself to succumb to oppression, but holds the door open to fulfilling inspiration. America continues to be an environment where fulfillment at all levels is possible.

Out of the current stress and anxiety, will sprout a new collaborative entrepreneurship flowering through mutual inspiration and encouragement. The population’s negative reaction to “bigger, more expensive government,” that we have seen this past year, has not been an accident. While there will always be those who want to be “taken care of,” the vast majority of America has a natural desire to flourish and succeed without “big brother.” America also wants to see its government implement its laws with more diligence than has been demonstrated over the past twenty years.

Over the coming decade, the biggest change in perception that Americans will have to make will be in their relationship to debt. Debt has been very effectively promoted by banks and government, to the point where consumption of the conspicuous kind became a necessity for happiness.

Our general perception has been that debt is not only right, it is a right. Evermore lavish homes with equally lavish mortgages have become expectations, without which we have not achieved the unanimously accepted “dream.” How has such a perception translated to the national stage? It has become nationally acceptable that the U.S. government reach a state where it owes $13 trillion or a little under $120,000 per taxpayer. With an ever-increasing Federal budget deficit nearing $1.5 trillion, and no one seriously yelling stop, politicians have every right to think they have free reign to do as they please.

Washington knows and understands that perception is everything. Until the taxpayers decide otherwise, the White House and Congress will not implement restraints on the out-of-control spending.

The 110 million Americans paying income tax should lock out the grating noise of the propaganda machines lathering up their conscious minds with idiocies, and do what is right - Change perception on debt. Debt should be used when absolutely needed, rather than when desires have been stimulated into “wants.” Much of the national budget has been bloated by special interests, and by satisfying the personal wants of elected officials. A fraction of all government spending is needed. Demand a drastic cutback on that spending.

Debt has inflicted enough damage on the American landscape, and come very close to injuring the American psyche beyond recognition.

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• ECONOMISTS, OUR NEW PHILOSOPHER KINGS?

Our mainstream media has been in panic mode for a couple of months, and in its continuing consternation, has clamored for the President Elect to rush, first and foremost, into naming his economic team. “Hurry up, and you better be picking some guys who understand numbers and the economy. We want experts. The best money can buy.” So you turn off the news, and head off to bed confident that although a gloomy, almost mystic storm is brewing outside your window, all will be well. An Economist will figure it out. Some hours later your wake up call is the dawn sending rolling thunder that jolts your home to its foundation. You jump, wide awake, and in a cold sweat. “What the hell is an economist?” The sun is actually attempting to cast light around your drapes.

Once upon a time, "economist" was a term applied to an individual who enjoyed a certain conservative frugality to all human endeavors. Vestiges of that connotation remain with today’s definition, although these cannot be assigned to the modern economist in whose hands we appear to entrust our economic lives, those of our children and those of our grandchildren. Not that some of our more illustrious ancestors might not be addressed today as economists. Certainly Xenophon, Aristotle or Adam Smith wore the mantle well, in addition to being philosophers. Doubtless, each would probably be perplexed by the current definition, and even embarrassed by its most modern incarnation.

Our best known are too often staggering egos, rooted in analytical methods far from the disturbing notion of public discourse and sensibilities, but readily capable of pontification on the state of everything economic. Aided by the most powerful computational powers the world has even known, they interminably scrutinize the minutiae of fractions, macroeconomically dissecting our lives, creating hypotheses felicitous of one theory, or another that each might have subscribed to. The new breed of economist hopes that the consequence of his or her efforts might eventually dissolve into public policy. All struggle to be heard in one way or another, and a few get lucky.

Alan Greenspan for example, was much more than lucky. He was feared. He was clearly not as competent as he believed himself to be, but he was feared, as well as venerated. So discombobulated were four American Presidents on the state of their economies that Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton and Bush Jr. each capitulated, leaving him insulated, permanently ensconced in office as 13th Chairman of the Federal Reserve. For 19 years Greenspan was arguably the most powerful man in the world, if you place money at the top of the human existence food chain.

Who preceded Greenspan? Paul Volcker, who will now be Obama’s eminence grise.

Aristotles, they are not, but let's cast a slightly more discerning inspection their way, and toward the state of their art. Economists are human with any of the frailties the rest of us might also endure. They are products of their educational systems, and environments limited by the very nature of economics. It is a vast endless field of study. Some concern themselves with wide global movements of goods, people and money. Others might specialize in capital ratios, dealing with banking regulations and interpretations on depository requirements, or the standards of capital and asset risk measurements, with specializations within each area. Others are preoccupied with inflation, and just to complicate matters all countries have individual methods of calculating capital within their boundaries, though they are confined to internationally accepted guidelines. Unfortunately, they either specialize, or they really don’t know anything, and become really, really dangerous.

It was anomalous that a few economists, during the bubble’s inflation, indulged quietly on the more dire economic possibilities, but their squeaks were obscured in the noise of the herd.

We assume that society’s Greenspans can not only be visionaries with insights into mathematical models, but can hover above the fray issuing profound prognostications on the state of our malaise. We assume a dream team of economists crowded around a new Commander In Chief of Change will blend their discordant mix of views into a powerful amalgam. One capable of charting a methodical path out of a labyrinth no one really understands, and no one is taking credit for.

Repeating platitudes on the perils of assumptions would be pointless. Through the kaleidoscope of our bank accounts we are witnessing the evolution of our own wreckage in slow motion.

The first clue as to why our modern day Aristotles of economics are not the oracles we sanction them to be, is that they deal with yesterday. They present the past beautifully, and with more clarity than the Hubble’s brilliant and awe inspiring images of distant galaxies as they existed billions of light years ago. As to what will occur tomorrow, or even later today, our seers are particularly inept. Specialization and compartmentalization are dangerous competences, particularly when compromised by insecure egos.

The second clue resides in the box that hides these enigmatic specialists of the statistical tables. They have perceptibly limited understanding of the nature that is human. The culminating pinnacle of their output is theory. Not practical, but obscure and probably intangible methodologies for hopefully enhancing efficiencies, or exploiting short, mid or long term trends, and biases. Nowhere in the mix that is the economist’s alchemy, can we find a scintilla of any universal principals that might inject percepts of morality into their mental and computational gyrations. Their inclinations fall short on the E.Q. meter, and human nature is not in their catalogue of, “Things I’m An Expert In.”

Now for the third clue. It is not in the nature of the economist to be an entrepreneur. Time spent in research, and analysis also do not allow for long term commercial endeavors. Unfortunately, this limit understanding of where the proverbial rubber meets the road.

The most effective presence at the round table carving a new path out of the maze America is trapped in, would be that of an entrepreneur. One who has had extensive success in the commercialization of goods or services to the broad market over a sustained period of time. One who has demonstrated vision and creativity, as well as capacities to motivate individuals other than himself to reach unexpected productivity. One who in practice and not through vicarious imaginings, has been drenched in all elements that fuel the economic engine driving an economy.

Drawing the curtains to let the sun’s warmth fill the room, you remain hopeful, but know that as the morning news will announce yet another bailout package, you will look elsewhere for telltales of contemporary Voltaires in our midst.

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• THE ROAD TO PANIC – GET OFF

Ten days traveling up and down the West Coast proved to me that the intent of those controlling the Wall Street joystick, with help of many ever-so-willing media pundits, failed to instill Panic and Fear in minds of most Americans. Concerns? Yes. Panic? Not so much.

Taxpayers have been hit with a hurricane of bad news, and have even been threatened with promises that if trillion dollar bailouts were not implemented overnight, the whole financial system of the U.S. and possibly the world, might collapse. The American economy is not failing, and unemployment is at a rate most other countries are envious of.

Since the real problem rests with lenders or repackagers of home loans that can’t be repaid, is anyone telling America’s taxpayers how much these losses really represent in total? No. Is it really almost a trillion dollars, or is it really much, much less? Is anyone asking where all this money went? When a house sold, affordable or not, someone cashed that check. Why are taxpayers told that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson needs to be given a blank check because only he will be able to do what is right, and he will know what backstops will be needed to provide a soft landing to this calamitous financial unraveling? Did he do what was right when he was head of Goldman Sacks for six years? Is it that he should be respected because he made almost a billion dollars as CEO of Goldman Sacks? His power and dominance continue their trajectory, and if he is given a carte blanche on access to taxpayer’s money, we can expect more abuse. Providing even more latitude to the likes of Goldman Sacks to become banks, is simply a knee-jerk reactive agreement to further consolidation of power.

Congress is not stepping up to the plate and neither are the two Presidential Candidates who are too busy flailing on the stump. If this is really the calamity we are all being led to fear, then all should be in Washington, coming up with immediate solutions. Bailouts are not solutions, just like band-aids are not a cure.

Don’t believe the panic-button pushers. Panic misleads, and it blinds those led to panic from seeing reality, or discerning appropriate action. Panic also leads to extreme swinging of pendulums that create new problems rather than resolve old ones.

It remains that America is a country that billions of people wish they could live in. America is the country that people have confidence in and whose environments they wish could be replicated. Its environment stimulates the entrepreneurial spirit that is further fueled by its creativity. It is also the only country that all capital gravitates toward when it is seeking security. The economic fluctuations, even those such as the ones we are currently witnessing or getting hurt by, caused by abuse or bad management, or even from errors in judgment, are risks accepted by those whose cash is seeking safe harbor. Transparency is one aspect favoring foreign investments in America, however, it is not the principal one. The overriding element is America’s power and international presence.

Whether you are a dictator in Africa, or an oil monarch pillaging your country’s wealth, or a foreign government fund, you will always place a significant portion of your cash where it is safe. America will print more dollars because it can, and it will have a market for them. The doomsayers all make money somehow, somewhere in the game, or just repeat nonsense they’re been fed. There are also those who feint left, then go right. Remember Goldman Sachs’ forecast that oil was heading to $200 a barrel when it was kissing $150? The price immediately caved in following their announcement. Were they looking for fish onto which to dispose of positions? This is no time to panic. Tighten up the belt a little, and save a few dollars. Middle America will ride this out in spite of its Wall Street leaders. However, American taxpayers should make sure their representatives in Washington take action on oversight, and implement some visible house cleaning, punishment on those responsible for the outlandish abuse.

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