Boston MA
26 September 2008
Dear American Citizen:
It was my original intent to write and post this letter one week before the Presidential election. After consideration, I didn’t think that was enough time to spark debate in this very modest forum. These are my non-comprehensive opinions. I don’t expect you to agree with them but I would hope you would find some truths embedded here. Today, our country’s economic health is on life support and while it is more than likely to survive, the patient is still fat but no longer happy.
We live in a great country. For nearly a century and a half, we have enjoyed the world’s mightiest army and the most robust marketplace. We developed the best education system in the world. Over that time, our democratic principles and work ethic have been the envy of nearly all. We have aided the world whenever called upon with technology, medicine, manpower, both military and humanitarian, and money. We have never turned our back on anyone in need. Domestically, we tried to give everyone of our citizens the opportunity to reach the top rung of the ladder. We didn’t always succeed but our efforts and intent were peerless. Immigrants worked two and three jobs to pave the way for their sons and daughters because there was no free lunch. Immigrants were welcome in this country through legal channels. Healthcare was affordable as was housing but undoubtedly, if you wanted either you had to work hard. We did give away housing and healthcare to those men and women who selflessly and nobly served our country in the armed forces but theirs was hardly a free lunch. Those were the good old days.
Today, we are standing at the edge of a treacherous precipice. Our country is still a leader in many areas but our advantage shrinks with each day. Those who see us as a great nation on the rise are deluding themselves. There are now 40 nations around the world with a higher life expectancy than the United States. How can that be? Make no mistake; this must be due in part to the lack of health insurance for 45 million of our citizens. Ask an eighth-grader if they can name five signatories of the United States Constitution, the most important document ever produced that organizes our government and is a model for over 100 countries around the world. How can we know where to go, if we don’t know what we are and where we have been?
You might ask, why would I write a letter like this? What qualifies me to have an opinion on all of these issues? I have never served in the armed forces or as an elected official. But I am an American citizen. I am an American citizen who is not content to know “what is” as much as “why it is.” I want to apply my intelligence to the understanding of the issues of the day along with a good healthy dose of common sense. Daily, I ask myself why does our government need to part along party lines and if we will ever get our issues resolved that way. Partisanship is killing us as much as anything else and perhaps more. You’ll notice that at the outset of this letter, I stated that our country has enjoyed a leadership position in the world for nearly 150 years. Couldn’t I reach back further, to say, our Declaration of Independence? Why just 150 years? My reason — nearly 150 years ago we experienced the darkest time in our history: because from 1861 to 1865, our nation was fighting itself. Today, we are doing exactly the same thing albeit without munitions. We have become our own worst enemy.
Financial Health
The Stability and Growth Pact is an agreement by the European Union member states that was ratified in Maastricht in 1993. The intent of the pact was to give strict financial guidelines to the member states in order to be included and remain in the European Union. A member country could have an annual budget deficit of no more than 3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Additionally, a member state had to have a national debt of no more than 60% of GDP. According to those benchmarks and without the impact of the recent financial bailout, the United States, with an annual budget deficit of nearly 6% and a national debt of over 65%, would be denied entry in the European Union. It is no wonder that the United States of Europe has passed the United States of America as the third largest marketplace in the world. We’re number 1? No. We’re number 4. And falling. My friends constantly tell me that it doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks of us. This is some of the denial that I mentioned earlier. Of course it matters. It matters a lot. We cannot continue with this type of isolationist thinking or we will take a step over the edge of the precipice.
The Middle Class
One of the inarguable drivers of America’s boom was the strength of its middle class. The middle class, while it had little power or influence, was an economically stable demographic and it was large. If you can envision the classic Bell curve, the bulge in the middle was our middle class. Over the past 10 years, the bell curve has changed considerably. Imagine taking a fist and punching the bulge downward. More of the middle class became wealthy and more of it, much more of it, became poor. In an editorial published on April 4, 2007, The New York Times headlined screamed to anyone who would listen that “It Didn’t End Well Last Time.” Here are the first few paragraphs of that editorial.
Not since the Roaring Twenties have the rich been so much richer than everyone else. In 2005, the latest year for which figures are available, the top 1 percent of Americans – whose average income was $1.1 million a year – received 21.8 percent of the nation’s income, their largest share since 1929.
Over all, the top 10 percent of Americans – those making more than about $100,000 a year – collected 48.5 percent, also a share last seen before the Great Depression.
Those findings are no fluke. They follow a disturbing rise in income concentration in 2003, and a sharp increase in 2004. And the trend almost certainly continues, spurred now as then by the largess of top-tier compensation, and investment gains that also flow mainly to the top. For the bottom 90 percent of Americans who are left with half the pie, average income actually dipped in 2005. The group’s wages picked up in 2006, but not enough to make up for the lean years of this decade.
As we all know now, things have only become worse since that article was published. Consider this, in 1970 Chief Executive Officer salaries were 43 times that of their average employees. Ten years later that number rose to 84 times. By 2005, CEO’s were making 364 times that of their average employee. We have created a society where we have people stepping out of limousines and over the homeless.
Our Military
Recently, when Russia invaded the small nation of Georgia, our government and the two candidates for President condemned Russia’s actions and rightfully so. Our government supports Georgia’s right to align with the West. But what are we really in a position to do if Russia attempts to occupy Georgia permanently. Our military, which is still the strongest in the world, is stretched too thin. Forget about Georgia for a moment and ask yourself this question; do we have a sufficient military presence at home? We may feel safer than 5 years ago but today the United States deploys armed forces away from home bases in 6 key areas, Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom. There are 125 more countries where we have troops. Should another military (real) crisis ensue, especially at home, how can we take effective action? Currently, we have approximately 150,000 troops in Iraq. Yet there seems to be agreement that the real threat of terrorism exists on the Pakistan and Afghanistan border where we have 19,000 troops. If the real threat is in Afghanistan, why is it that our troop levels are nearly ten times greater in Iraq? Make no mistake; the primary reason for this is because we have politicized oil. Terrorism be damned: give us our oil. Our greatness as a nation is achieved not by picking fights but by solving them and then, getting out of the way.
Oil and Energy
The energy crisis is a most complex and convoluted issue. As a result, our government has debated the issue forever without resolution. Partisan politics and the inability to boil down the issue to its base parts have stalemated our leaders. Over the past fifty years, it was common knowledge that ultimately our reliance on foreign oil would be our nation’s Achilles’ heel. Yet we remarkably did little to wean ourselves off of this dependence. The numbers at their simplest spoke for themselves; the United States represents 6% of the world’s population and consumes 24% of the world’s energy production. How could this imbalance possibly continue? The new administration will need to address this issue swiftly and decisively. “Drill baby, drill” may sound like a great rallying cry but it is a long, long way from the solution that removes us from the teat of Middle Eastern oil.
Partisanship
Partisanship is perhaps the biggest problem our country faces today. This two-ton gorilla dwarfs the oil and financial crises. The partisan problem has never been more apparent and on display than the recent efforts by our elected officials, both Democrat and Republican, to reach consensus on the financial industry bailout. The grandstanding, posturing and divisiveness was shameful. It is a wonder that we can get anything done at all in our country. Lobbyists and constituencies make it difficult to consider every point of view and perspective but our politicians look after themselves first and foremost. They need to be reminded that we are supposed to be the United States of America. We are not black or white, rich or poor, man or woman, blue-collar or white collar. We have a common cause and common goals and it is long overdue that we remembered what they are. Tell our elected officials that civility matters to us. Tell them that results that are accomplished in a bipartisan way serve most. And most importantly, tell them that greatness for our nation immensely matters to us. While we create the current environment, our children and their children create the future. In order to create the future, they play by the rules we set today. To date, we have left our children an incomplete and wholly incoherent playbook. Today society and future ones will be well served if we stopped looking after one and started looking after the whole. The bickering must stop now.
The Future is Really Now
I am proud to be an American Citizen. I am proud that my country allowed my mother and father the chance to immigrant here. They came with nothing but through hard work and perseverance they put five children through university and gave us the opportunities they never had. They created the opportunity and my generation has created a future that is untenable. We need leadership in this country that is visionary, intellectually curious, kind and has the ability to inspire. That is why I am wholeheartedly supporting Barack Obama for President. The upcoming Presidential election has never been more important in our lifetime than it is now. We have a myriad of deep, complex problems that need bipartisan minds to come together for solutions. I believe that while Senator Obama is a young (ish) man without a comprehensive résumé, he has the requisite intelligence to know what he doesn’t know and the demeanor to carefully consider contrasting options. In my lifetime, I cannot remember another President that I could say that about. John McCain, by contrast, has a boiling, impulsive temperament coupled with a derma-thin understanding of today’s issues. Placing him into the highest office in the land will continue America’s walk over the precipice. This is not partisanship. I have never voted Democrat. That changes this year.
I have barely covered our country’s laundry list of issues. Originally, my intent was to post this one-week before the election. Given the wrangling of Congress over the past week, I didn’t think I could wait.
God bless you and God bless America.
Respectfully,
Michael P. DiCarlo
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I am not going to sugar coat this. I am scared out of my mind about what is going to happen to this country over the next decade. We are now in the process of making an incredibly painful transition from an economy built on credit to one built on cash. This will be a long drawn out process where you will see failure after failure in our banking system. If Citi can have issues so too can Bank of America and Wells Fargo. We are nowhere close to this being fixed and done. In the past couple of months, I have heard several of my friends optimistically and hopefully say that it will get better in late 2009. This is wishful thinking at best.
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