I downloaded Suze Orman’s book and I’m getting this one.  Last time, I was late to the game in getting the word out about the Orman free download.  This time, here is plenty of notice.

I’ve been getting emails from readers who are so disappointed the Obama hasn’t already “fixed” this crisis.  There are certainly problems with how our 2-party system in the US makes it very easy to become paralyzed and road-blocked.  But, this economic freefall isn’t even a question of how our federal government works — because the economic challenges are global.  The world financial leaders allowed this to happen by a serious lack of oversight combined with a Roman Empire style greed and love of excess.  So it is no surprise that the cards are not just tumbling, but rather cascading down. 

We are in absolutely in crisis and according to Obama, possibly heading into catastrophe.  It is dire.  We are all scared.  And we have to get cracking… as a people and not counting on government alone…to get innovative and find the ways to cauterize the bleeding.   The newly signed stimulus package is, to my mind, like half a cauterization.  The artery will stop projectile bleeding (so hopefully we, the patient, won’t bleed out in 4 minutes) but there is a gaping, seeping wound. 

I have the urget to go off ona tangent here (but there is a point, I promise):

A couple of years ago, I re-fractured my navicular bone (a small, but critical bone near the ankle) in my left foot.  I went to a highly recommended orthopedic surgeon, Clifford Kahn. I remember meeting him for the first time.  Very tall, attractive in an unusual way — with a very unorthodox full Z-Z-Top beard and cowboy boots peeking out from under the scrubs.  I’d never met a doctor who didn’t actually look like a doctor, but he was incredibly brilliant and incredibly kind and he was able to put me on the right path to fixing my teeny, tiny little injury.  That is not what this tangent is about.  It is about the other part of Dr. Kahn’s practice — that of wound healing and care.  He specialized in trauma to the foot and circulation to the feet tends to be poor as we age…resulting in very slow wound healing.  Part of wound healing, as I learned, requires taking off unhealthy flesh to the point of leaving only healthy flesh, so that the wound will bleed freshly and allow nature to heal the diseased area.  And often, it was necessary to work on the wound with no freezing so that the doctor would clearly know where diseased flesh ended and clean flesh began.  Imagine having a deep wound cleaned with no anaesthetic.  Yes, people scream in pain.  I heard it…not good for a gal with a weak stomach.  When I asked Dr. Kahn about that, he told me that the patients understand why the rot needs to be cut out and that they also understand why they need to communicate the pain.  So that they can ultimately and hopefully heal — without amputation.

I’m not a doctor, so perhaps I didn’t understand the explanation perfectly, but that is the image I carry around in my head regarding our economy.  Our government is trying to figure out what the extent of the rot is, what is salvagable and what needs to be amputated.  Obama is the new head doctor and he’s hearing the screams of the patients whose rot developed on another surgeon’s watch.  He took over the job, he wanted the job and now he’s got to get us out of the mess.

We are all realizing that is not going to be a short-lived crisis.  Speak to any older person, let’s say 70 years and older.  They will all tell you they see a struggle for the next 3-5 years until we can feel a bit of economic confidence.  I agree with them.   I also believe that our carbon-fuel economy will ultimately be replaced by renewable and alternative energy solutions.  But that also will take a ton of time and new infrastructure building.

We all know that housing is a disaster and will be the next big item on Obama’s plate.  Right next to the auto industry.  If you were watching the news yesterday, both Chrysler and GM had to present their viability plans.  It’s pretty bad.  A big restructure is in the cards for GM and Chrysler.  And a painful restructure this will be.  Here is a link to the GM press conference.  It will be available as of Wednesday at noon. You’ll have seen the sound bytes, but what CEO Rick Wagoner put forward in terms of the viability options is that GM projects it will cost much less to support the plans for restructure than to support a bankruptcy.  47,o0o employees will be terminated at GM and about 3,000 at Chrysler.   Additionally GM and Chrysler may need $22 Billion now and ultimately as much as $39 Billion over time to bail them out. 

I cannot see how we can let any of the Big 3 can go into bankruptcy.  Their effect on world economy is so huge that the ramifications of letting any of these companies fail are beyond imagination.  We need them to take the lead, on a global level, on renewable and alternative energy solutions, do it well and do it as quickly as they can.

Today we’ll hear the next pain solution as Obama lays out what he’s looking at regarding the housing market.  Crikeys.  Can’t wait.

The plan is hanging on by a thread right now in the Senate, according to a newly released article from the Associated Press. 

Last month, in Detroit for the North American International Auto Show, I had a great conversation with a highly experienced E-flex director, Gregory Cesiel, at General Motors.  One of the great challenges of changing propulsion systems is having the consumers eager to purchase the vehicles…i.e. enough customers to make producing the cars viable.  I asked him why the government didn’t change their own government fleet contract to hybridize all their vehicles.  He was surprised that I asked the question and, in fact, that was exactly what some of the discussion was at the time.  This was confirmed in Obama’s speech on Thursday — the government fleet will be hybridized — creating jobs in the auto industry and for the American manufacturing plants that will be producing American-made lithium-ion car batteries.  It was just a sentence…but what a sentence.  Those few words may equate to over 900,000 related jobs in the US alone, never mind European markets.

In Obama’s prepared speech (which he departed from in his passionate address), this is what was scripted:

This plan will save or create over three million jobs – almost all of them in the private sector.

This plan will put people to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges; our dangerously deficient dams and levees.

This plan will put people to work modernizing our health care system, not only saving us billions of dollars, but countless lives.

This plan will put people to work renovating more than 10,000 schools, giving millions of children the chance to learn in 21st century classrooms, libraries, and labs – and to all the scientists in the room today, you know what that means for America’s future.

This plan will provide sensible tax relief for the struggling middle-class, unemployment insurance and continued health care coverage for those who’ve lost their jobs, and it will help prevent our states and local communities from laying off firefighters, teachers, and police.

Finally, this plan will begin to end the tyranny of oil in our time. It doubles our capacity to generate alternative sources of energy like wind, solar, and biofuels in three years. It saves taxpayers billions of dollars by making federal buildings more energy efficient, and it saves the average working family hundreds on their energy bills. After decades of empty rhetoric, that is the down payment that we need on energy independence.

There is NO mention of a government fleet of hybrid vehicles.  But in his empassioned departure from the teleprompter, he talked about changing over the government fleet to alternative fuel vehicles.  This is a big, big statement.  And offers MANY prospects for recovery.

Is anyone listening?

But it still doesn’t scare me, yet.  Having lived multiple corporate lifecycles, I’ve seen big business tighten and loosen the reins.  In that cycle, a company will decentralize to be more nimble and give great latitude to field operations.  As soon as profits start to shrink (which is inevitable), the company will again centralize, taking away operational privilege from field directors and managers.  Purchasing will become centralized, expense accounts downsized and for a period of time, there can be intense scrutiny on all aspects of remote operations.  And, then, when the burden of handling all operations and control internally at corporate headquarters, the cycle will begin again — more control and responsibility will head out to the field.  Some unprofitable operations will be shut down, corporate headcount will be streamlined and it’ll be sink or swim for the field leaders. 

If you are in a corporate structure for any period of time, you’ll see the same pattern repeated.  Each time the pattern is re-shaped, with a new leader, new CEO, new director, there will be many fancy names attached to the activity: downsizing, right-sizing, change management, restructure, etc, etc.  But if you take all the fancy, scary names away, really, you just have natural expansion and collapse.  Companies with enough support survive the collapse.  So right now, we are in an elevated state of collapse and the restructure is nationalization.  It’s the business reaction to a disastrous economy. 

Is there any silver lining to this current cloud?  I don’t really think so.  But I do believe that the innovators and inventors will find their way to invent and innovate new ways to rebuild economy.  Israel created farms out of desert through creation of irrigation and solar systems, when there was no other way to fuel their own need for a level of self-sufficiency.   We, the boomer generation, the “me” generation, the post-hippie Yuppie, found ways, as a whole,  to create wealth…to the point of fabricated wealth for which we are all suffering greatly now.

Obama’s mantra of “Yes, we can” is not about the government “doing” for us.  The government must and will shore up deficiencies by making more money to keep us afloat until the “we” in “yes, we can” actually get squeezed into invention.  That invention will come from our demographic and the invention of the millenials, our echoes.  Of that I have no doubt.

Well, that wasn’t quite the right image either.  So I pounced on the tried and true “two steps forward, one step back.”   Now, this one seemed closer to right.  Also called the “Frog in the Well”, the image is of a frog trying to get out of a well and for every two leaps forward, up the walls of the slippery well, it slips back by half, making for an arduous, but necessary journey.  If the frog gives up, it will drown in the well.  If it can make it out of the well, it will be depleted, exhausted, but will have survived death.

Since nothing is quite right to describe the trials and tribulations facing Obama as the leader of our nation, I came up with a combined image, instead.  Obama is in the well.   The water in the well is our economic death.   Obama has been elected by us, the people, to get us out of the well.  He’s climbing up the sides, two steps forward, one step back, with a humongous boulder on his back.  On top of that, it is raining.  Non-stop.  Now, if Obama were the frog, he’d likely be defeated.  I mean, how could a tiny frog possibly get out of a slippery well, in the rain, with a boulder on its back?? 

But Barack Obama is different.  He is not alone.  He’s asking us, the people, to work with him to get out of the well.  He’s shouldering the boulder in the rain, but he’s asked us to get behind him and help push.  It will still be two steps forward and one step back, but if we can help relieve the weight of the boulder and give him the support, energy, enthusiasm and innovation to fundamentally change how the US does economy, then, I’m pretty confident he’ll get us out of the well.  Oh yeah…also, we’re a people of good intentions.  Unlike Sisyphus.

As far as product goes, sales may be starting as early as today.  You cannot get any information online, but if you have a Circuit City near you, you may want to see if you can get it to pick up the electronic you’ve been waiting for.  I’m suspecting that lines will be next to impossible today.  Circuit City liquidators expect to have all inventory sold and final doors closed by March.  Here is the official announcement:  http://www.circuitcity.com/closed.html

My heart goes out to the employees and families of Circuit City…a retailer who after 60 years in business can’t get through this crisis, either.