FOLLOW UP: Chinese Growth - Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

By now, it's cliche to say how great China is. You won't be off the plane an hour before you hear that this is Asia's century. And, having recently returned from there, I can concur that the progress, the development, the overall civility there is spectacular. However, I can also confirm what I said 2 years ago before I had visited. Their miracle is going from communist-agrarian to capitalist-urban in 50 years, but it'll be nothing short of a second miracle if they can clean up the mess they've made in less than another 50 years. Specifically:

• They have set up an industrial complex which consumes their (and others') natural resources at such a rate that they'll be devoid of economically-viable resources within 50 years. They must make friends with nuclear power, non-petroleum plastics, hybrid vehicles, and RECYCLING.
• Which segues into the next issue: pollution. There must be about 500 trillion pieces of trash on the ground in that country. With a population of 2 billion, I calculate that it will take half of 'em exactly 50 years to pick it all up. Meanwhile, the other half of the population can start straining the crap out of their water supply. At the same time, of course, they're going to start facing the health problems caused by their decadence. Hey you stock-chasers: listen up: buy pharma stocks, buy Gilette. These folks are gonna need lots of Kleenex! Ah-choo.
• And while we're talking about the population, we might throw in the ridiculously low productivity figure. The population has to be educated, outfitted with new technologies, and taught how to work in a profit-incentivized capitalist structure. This is a generational change, not a 5-year plan.
• The allocation of capital has been entirely and cronyistic. As such, past and present investments are quite likely to crash and burn. Projects with obviously negative ROIs continue to get money tossed at them while entrepreneurs are trying to get water from stones. Existing investments need to be reviewed and new investment methodology must be totally revamped. How do you say "risk adjusted return on capital" in Mandarin?

FOLLOW UP #2: You've heard of the Illuminati, right?

Six months ago, I singled out one of the 'illuminati' for particular criticism. In the last week, he has been relieved of his job, pushed off his board (and, surely, others will follow), and thrown to the proverbial magnate-curb. As I said before, the roaches can only survive in the dark. Turn on the light and they scurry. Poor Ace Greenberg just had a hitch in his getalong and couldn't scurry fast enough. If you ever need an affirmation that perfect information is contributory to perfect capitalism (which, IMHO, is the economic ideal), here you have it!

Game-time Thoughts on Management

As I take my daily blind walk through the world of management, I can only hope that I can learn from my own experiences. Here is a living, evolving journal of my thoughts along the way:
-- 10/17/04 -- Among executives, one of the rarest commodities is the ability to make good, accurate, and workable decisions in the least amount of time, with the least amount of information.
-- 10/17/04 -- If there's a commodity rarer than decision-making, it's the ability to carry out your decisions, even in the face of tremendous adversity and discord. This is non-political leadership, and it is rarer than diamonds.
-- 10/17/04 -- Political leadership is being able to understand the opinions of one's constituents (customers, bosses, employees, whatever) and either taking ownership of or redirecting that collective opinion. It is often valuable, and as such MUST be in the toolkit of a good executive/manager. It builds collegiality, but not necessarily a following. A manager who uses exclusively this type of leadership doesn't really need to understand the topic of discussion, just the people. Thus, such a manager has an achilles heel: if the entire group has the wrong opinion, so will the manager. Should a non-political leader come along and see what has happened, he/she will have no trouble making a fool of the political leader as he draws everyone's attention to the fact that there is no factual or analytical support for the political leader's decision. How can a whole group be wrong? Small groups. Unempowered groups. Uninformed groups. Disinterested groups. Or, most dangerously, groups of political leaders. It's a wonder the Congress ever gets anything right!
-- 10/17/04 -- Managers are responsible for maximizing the productivity of their staff. To be productive, staff need to be motivated. Money is, of course, THE motivator, but others can factor in, such as confidence, as in confidence that their management supports them. Without this, they are afraid to take bold action. Lack of action is, by definition, detrimental to productivity.
-- 6/5/04 -- Good ideas are the most valuable form of capital
-- 6/5/04 -- It isn't the role of management to come up with all the ideas, it is their role to be good critics. No one has a monopoly on ideas. In fact, the most valuable ideas are those which are new and different. Often, these come not from the ensconced management but from those elsewhere (inside and outside the firm) with a different perspective. All ideas should be accepted equally and critiqued equally by management. Those which pass management's filter should be considered fit for implementation.
-- 6/1/04 -- Managers don't need to be good at doing (or even really know how to do) their subordinates' jobs. Rather, management is a skillset entirely independent of that held by subordinates. This may give us insight into why many successful people who are promoted into positions of management perform abysmally. It also reminds us that the review of a manager's performance needs to be based on this separate "management" skillset. A manager's products are not the goods and services his team produces. HIS products are his people. Thus, his unique skillset is primarily composed of people skills (a motivator, a coach, a conductor, a negotiator, a teacher, and perhaps most importantly, a communicator -- both in terms of convincingly conveying his own messages and in terms of detecting and understanding those of others). Secondarily, his skillset includes more inwardly-focused skills like decisiveness, acumen, entrepreneurship, and a critical mind.

FOLLOW UP: What Tomorrow will Bring . . .

REAGAN ON THE TWENTY
. . . Now that he has passed, it's time. I never really liked Andy Jackson anyway. If he's there because of the War of 1812, then what about the World War presidents? If, instead, it was imposition of federal rights over those of states, then he's nothing unusual. If it's his war on the Bank of the US, hey, that was just a power play, and in the end, the Fed turned out to be the same thing.

Reagan on the twenty, baby!!!

FOLLOW UP: You've heard of the Illuminati, right?

The illuminati I described last year know that they are most effective when they are anonymous. Unfortunately, sometimes some curious spelunker shines the spotlight on them. If you watched closely this week, you saw the roaches scurry. One name I didn't mention last year was one of the most frequently heard American names among the congnac-swillers.

Greenberg.

As in 'Ace' Greenberg, head of AIG, who has successfully placed his sons atop two other top insurance companies. Ace Greenberg who probably influences the management of more assets than anyone else in the world. Ace Greenberg who made the front page of the FT and WSJ this week for giving brokers kick-backs to the expense and detriment of his customers.

Do I think he was wrong? Yes. Private price negotiations are detrimental to my ideal of perfect capitalism. Am I against the illuminati or their big companies? No way. Size alone is no cause for concern. These guys have been consistently successful for decades and centuries. Assuming they did it legally, they deserve to enjoy the spoils.

All in all, not bad at all . . .

Quite simply: thank you, Gip, for putting us back on course.
We miss you already!