Nations without Borders

“Where have all the Leaders Gone?”

I just received an email with excerpts from Lee Iaccoca’s new book that asks, “Where have all the leaders gone?” I’m sure the book will sell (though I won’t buy a copy). It hits just the right note about mediocre world leaders. Will Rogers sung to a tune by the Kingston Trio.

Good Lee writes,

"Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry."

Ah, Lee, your concern for the middle class is touching. Who will cut your lawn if the middle class goes dry? But the answer to your populist question is pretty simple really. There are lots of strong leaders out there--did you forget your support for George W in 2000? But for reasons you ought to know inside out, they don’t seem to get the corporate money they’d have to have to run a political campaign. The Iacocca-run corporations and their lobbyists know exactly where the leaders have gone because those corporations and lobbyists have made sure that the governments of the world don’t get in the way of corporate profits.

But you say, “I believe in America.” Jesus, Lee. Maybe you should get a church or a TV show. You believe in money, Lee, not some antique notion of America. No Chrysler has been built in the US since the one Abe Lincoln drove around the square in Jacksonville, Illinois. These days the brake pedal comes from Jalapa, the transmission from Podunk, Uruguay, the radio from a Japanese subsidiary in Bangkok, the new car smell from a perfume maquiladora in the west of France, the voice on the GPS from a bartender in Soho and the cheesy design from Mars or some other planet. Then you paint it red, white and blue (with paint imported from Seoul) and call it American, as you pretend that Japanese car companies are from Japan. My “Japanese” Izuzu Trooper has a chrome Chevrolet label that was made in China. Car companies don’t belong to nations any more. You know that. Nations are a story you tell the poor so they’ll feel pride or rage.

You know as well as any transnational CEO that nations no longer exist in any relevant way. In the year 2000, 51 of the the world’s 100 largest economies were corporations not countries. Nations are anachronisms, an idea sold to the naive so they’ll send their children to die defending corporate profit, so they’ll hang a flag on a house or stick a ribbon on a car that says “defend our troops” or “freedom isn’t free.” Have you checked out Halliburton’s new address? They quietly left Texas last year and have relocated in Dubai.

In the year 2000, Daimler Chrysler, with sales of $159 billion, ranked #28 in the world’s largest economies. Only Ford, Exxon, WalMart, General Motors and 22 nations had more income. The other 170 or so countries in the world had smaller GDPs than Chrysler and Exxon.

God bless you, Lee, but your question is populist bullshit. If my daughter wants to be CEO of one of the top 100 corporations, she needs to be smart, energetic, get a famous MBA from Harvard or Yale, get into Skull and Bones, and work very hard. The formula is pretty simple, Lee. You went to Princeton. You can read Forbes. Let’s consider the investment and the return. $200,000 ought to buy all that if she’s a smart young woman. And you know better than I what a CEO’s salary is.

But imagine if she wants to be a US Senator. She needs to do all the above, maybe swap the MBA for a law degree, and then if she’s really bright, she’ll still need to raise $10 million to launch her campaign. Ten million dollars, Lee. And you wonder what happened to democracy? If my daughter is not very bright, but still gets into Yale and Skull and Bones, say, on the legacy plan, she can’t be a CEO and probably not a US Senator. But, hell, Lee, if she can get a bit over a hundred million dollars together, she can be President of the United States. And, at least in the year 2000, she might have had your support. Now, we both know that it’s hard to put that sort of money together. But with your help, George W did it in 2000. Maybe you just made “some bad choices,” as the child-rearing knuckleheads say these days.

But let’s get back to my daughter. If she wants to be a US Senator, how can we help her? If the US housing market recovers and I get back the equity I lost in our house--my only real savings--I can pitch in $100,000. But she’ll still need $9,900,000. And some say the housing market won’t snap back. I guess she could ask a million of her friends for $10 each, but I’ve not seen that many friends around the house. So like all the other candidates, she’ll just have to look for corporate donations. And you CEO’s are really generous and democratic in a pure sense, contributing to both the Democrats and the Republicans. You claim that there are no leaders, yet your companies finance their campaigns. Maybe you’re not really looking for leadership exactly, eh? Remember when you got the Congress to guarantee bailout loans to Chrysler in 1979? That was pretty democratic. Do you think all those expensive campaign contributions helped pass that legislation? Where have all the leaders gone? Indeed. You got your salary that year, guaranteed by the United States Congress.

While the US economy has been taking the worst dive in our lifetimes--as you cleverly point out in the excerpts I’ve read--the economy of Exxon Mobil sets new profit records every quarter and is now the most profitable corporation in the history of the world. In the eight years of the Bush presidency, Exxon sales have increased from $163 to more than $404 billion dollars-- and Exxon is now the 18th largest economy in the world, better than the GDPs of nearly 170 of the world’s nations. Lee, do you think that Exxon’s CEO might be one of the leaders you find missing?

In the year 2000, Exxon was the only oil company on the list of the world’s 30 largest economies, but now there are many more. Did those mediocre government leaders help that happen? Is that why you help their campaigns? You studied politics, Lee. Do you remember how much PAC money Abe Lincoln raised?

There are clearly smart leaders in the world, Lee. But they are running oil companies and other multinationals. Let’s look at some annual sales numbers:

Exxon 404 billion
Royal Dutch/ Shell 376 billion
WalMart 375 billion
British Petroleum 281 billion
Chevron 204 billion
Toyota 204 billion
Conoco 172 billion

If these enormous corporate economies are thriving, breaking profit records every quarter, what happened to the nations headed up by the mediocre leaders you finance and then lament? the Bushes whose candidacies you have supported? Follow the money, as they used to say. The US goes broke while the companies that funded the political campaigns are awash in money. You graduated from Princeton. Can you see any cause/effect here? You want to know what happened in New Orleans? Follow the money. Check Halliburton’s profits. Buy a t-shirt that says, “Make levees not war.”

I think my daughter should apply to work at Exxon, don’t you? She could start an NGO, maybe Nations without Borders.

I like this quote of yours, though:

"I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bonehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change?"

Pretty cool words, Lee, chatty and tough at the same time. But the paragraph needs a little correction. Democracy was hijacked all right, and a long time ago. But if you can figure out how my daughter could run for political office without having to sell her integrity to make your companies even richer, maybe we could get it back. Till then, we’re stuck with the boneheads on the corporate payroll at Fox News, in the Congress and in the White House.