Next time you’re confronted with charts and graphs and reams of data at work, you might want to simply shove it all aside and look at the person sitting across the table and ask: “So, what’s your sign?”

While it may sound like a bad pickup line from a single’s bar, talking about astrological signs in the workplace may be gaining acceptance as more people look to develop communication beyond the hard data often continuously spit out by technology.

Steve Weiss, author of a new book on using astrology in business, says that he does believe astrology can be an important communication tool on the job.

“No way, no how, is astrology a substitute for everything else you need to know,” Weiss says. “But I think it can help create a language for us to understand one another better.”

That’s why he says he has written “Signs of Success: The Remarkable Power of Business Astrology,” (Amacom, $24).

Astrology – defined in the dictionary as “the study of positions and aspects of heavenly bodies with a view to predicting their influence on the course of human affairs” – is often only experienced by others through brief astrological predictions in the morning newspaper (Taurus: “Money will come your way this week”).

But Weiss says that by using the “terminology” of astrology for business trends, people can develop a greater ability to understand why people – such as bosses or co-workers – behave in certain ways.

He stresses, however, that astrology should not be regarded as something written in stone, and even goes so far as to say that some aspects of astrology – such a predicting specific events – is “a bit wacky for my tastes.”

“In the wrong hands, astrology is just another form of intolerance,” he says. “It’s not a science. It’s much more like an art – like art wrapped up in the science of math and astronomy.”

The book provides information about each of the 12 astrological signs, and gives examples of traits for those born under various signs. For example, “creative entrepreneurship is the true stamp of the Leo leader, frequently to the point of personality cult as well as to fortune and fame.” Weiss says those born under the sign of Leo include Martha Stewart, Magic Johnson and Mick Jagger.

Or, “a Capricorn is inclined to the more conservative position that a happy destiny is the result of a hard, well-managed, socially-sanctioned climb.” He says that 19th-century author Horatio Alger “was a Capricorn to his very soul,” while founding father Benjamin Franklin’s dedication to hard work and movie star Mel Gibson’s movies about family honor (“Braveheart,” “The Patriot”) show the Capricorn’s traits.

Weiss further points out that by understanding our astrological sign, we can better grasp how we react in today’s business climate, and have a clearer understanding of other individual’s strengths and weaknesses. (To join the blog discussion of astrology and business, check out www.anitabruzzese.com.)

For example, when dealing with an Aquarius: “Try not to take offense at their forgetfulness, which may even include the name of long-term associates. They are easily distracted by their own bullet-train of thoughts.”

Or, “Scorpio plays secrecy of intent as an advantage, so accept that you will rarely be granted a full confidence. But also know that loyalty and competence will be handsomely rewarded.”

Weiss says this ancient tradition of studying astrology has an important role to play in our modern society.

“We are clearly living in an era of metrics. In the last 20 years, it’s been the story of the personal computer and the Internet. We’re great data-sharers. And yet, that doesn’t always drive us to insight,” Weiss says. “Astrology reminds us that…we can’t write an equation for inspiration. Astrology creates those opportunities.”

Weiss says that by increasing our understanding of astrology, we can better develop interactive skills that improve communication and understanding. Still, he cautions that it’s only one tool that should be used by someone trying to survive in the business world.

“I see beauty and precision in astrology, but it’s a very complex craft,” he says. “It depends on the person interpreting it. It can’t make mean people not mean.”

Weiss also points out that as we all try to compete in a global economy, astrology may be another way to build a bridge between cultures.

“There are many places such as South America, India and China where astrology is not that foreign to them,” he says.

Anita Bruzzese is author of “45 Things You Do That Drive Your Boss Crazy…and How to Avoid Them,” (www.45things.com). Write to her at: anita(AT)anitabruzzese.com or c/o: Business Editor, Gannett News Service, 7950 Jones Branch Dr., McLean, Va. 22107. For a reply, include a SASE.

By the time you’ve been out of work six months or more, your mind starts playing tricks on you.

The past starts looking pretty darn good and you forget how much you hated the first 15 years of your career and conclude with almighty certainty that you really did like purchasing. Or that being in information technology wasn’t so bad after all. Before you know it, you’ve convinced yourself that you should go back to your previous, lackluster career.

That might be. Or you could be falling for the when-all-else-fails-go-back-to-the-past strategy.

I keep meeting more and more people banking on former careers they left years ago as a new and improved place to hang their hat for the next decade or so. Many reason that, “I just need something secure for the next 10 or so years.”

If that is what’s making you nostalgic for the past, better rethink your plan.

First, you don’t want to end up miserable again. Second, it’s not necessarily an easy sell. Obviously you will have to answer sticky questions from potential employers about your change of heart. They will also compare you to newly minted graduates eager to jump in. How can you beat that? If a return to the past is truly what you want, you need a three-pronged approach to be a serious contender:

-Anticipate employers’ objections.

It’s only natural for an employer to probe. So expect to hear questions like, why after ten or more years, do you want to go back to what you did before? Why did you leave the field in the first place? And, if you’ve held management or leadership positions, why do you want to give it up?

You can bring up their concerns before they do: “You might be wondering why I want to get back into accounting…” Then give your well-thought-out response that explains your new career objective.

One of my clients who had been in information technology ten years before becoming a teacher explained how, even as a teacher his focus had been on helping students understand and use technology — a subject he loved. Now he wanted to apply his teaching skills to help adults understand technology by working in a customer support role. It’s a logical step, and he also had a story to tell.

- Explain how you’re up to speed and will keep up to date.

If you’ve been out of the field for years, you need to be up on the latest and greatest processes, issues the industry faces, as well as required skills. So be ready to explain how you’ve done that. What training have you taken? What do you read to stay abreast? Be prepared to talk about how you’ll stay ahead of the curve.

- Explain what has reignited your interest and why you’re excited about the work.

Employers can smell it if your heart’s not in it. How will you explain your renewed interest in a field you haven’t worked in for years? What is it about the work that you can’t wait to do again? What has happened in the last ten years that might add to your value in this new direction? How do you see yourself developing in this field?

If you can’t seem to come up with a story that you believe with all your heart, how can you convince someone else? In that case, perhaps heading back to your past is not the best plan for moving forward.

—

Andrea Kay is the author of “Life’s a Bitch and Then You Change Careers: 9 Steps to Get Out of Your Funk and On To Your Future.” Send questions to her at 2692 Madison Road, No. 133, Cincinnati, Ohio 45208; www.andreakay.com. E-mail: andrea@andreakay.com

The proposed end games for General Motors and particularly Chrysler illustrate why government shouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place.

It’s worthwhile to begin with the broader picture. Americans used to buy about 17 million new cars and trucks a year. Now, we’re buying fewer than 10 million. That, of course, puts considerable stress on manufacturers with weaker products or financial structures.

How many new cars Americans will want to purchase in the future is unknown. But there can be a high degree of confidence in this: However many it is, someone will sell them to us.

Moreover, they are likely to be produced in the United States. A majority of cars sold by foreign manufacturers in the U.S. are actually built here.

So, why should the federal government care who it is that sells us our cars?

There are two rationales offered. First, to preserve an “American” auto industry. Second, to preserve “American” jobs.

The proposed Chrysler restructuring gives the lie to both rationales.

Under the Obama administration’s proposal, Chrysler would, in essence, be given to Fiat, an Italian company, to operate.

So, how is an Italian car maker operating in Michigan any more “American” than a Japanese manufacturer operating in Kentucky?

And why should the federal government give a market preference – through taxpayer financing and warrantee guarantees – to Italian cars produced by American workers in Michigan over Japanese cars produced by American workers in Kentucky?

The Obama administration’s proposed restructuring is more than just unjustified, however. It dangerously undermines the rule of law, as explicated so beneficially by Friedrich Hayek in his classic, “The Road to Serfdom.”

The essence of the rule of law, according to Hayek, is that what the government will do is known to all economic actors in advance. That government will not act arbitrarily in specific circumstances to favor some economic actors over others.

Chrysler has $6.9 billion in secured debt. Under the law, secured lenders have the first claim on the assets of the debtor in the event of nonpayment.

The Obama administration is attempting to muscle past this law. Under its proposal, the health care trust of the autoworkers union, an unsecured creditor, would forgive 57 percent of what Chrysler owes it, and receive 55 percent of the company’s equity in exchange.

The federal government would forgive about a third of what it would loan Chrysler and receive 8 percent of the company’s equity. Fiat would pay nothing for its 20 percent initial ownership.

The secured creditors, with the first claim on Chrysler’s assets, were asked to forgive 70 percent of what they are owed and receive nothing in equity. When they refused and forced the company into bankruptcy, they were excoriated by Obama – a shameful act by a president who pledged to uphold the law, not make it up as he went along.

The purposed GM restructuring is equally lopsided. The union trust would forgive half of what it is owed and receive 39 percent of the company. The government would forgive half of what it is owed and receive 50 percent of the company.

The other private lenders, in this case unsecured, would forgive 100 percent of what they are owed and receive just 10 percent of the company.

In his recent press conference, Obama said he had no interest in owning or operating car companies. Until this point, I was willing to accept Obama at his word, while fundamentally disagreeing with his economic policies.

Given his actions, however, it’s hard to credit his disclaimer in this instance.

These proposed restructurings are power grabs, pure and simple. The positions of lenders are eviscerated to give control to the union trust and the government.

The emergent companies are given market preference through taxpayer financing and government warrantee guarantees. All to serve no true national purpose.

Robert Robb, an Arizona Republic columnist, writes about public policy and politics in Arizona. E-mail: robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com

Sunflower Electric Cooperative's coal-fired power plant churns out electricity in Holcomb, Kan. Coal-fired electricity is one of the country's primary contributors to greenhouse gases. But more than half the country's electricity is produced from coal.

The pending decision by the Environmental Protection Agency to designate greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, as a threat to human health and welfare probably marks a point of no return.

One way or another, the United States is going to regulate greenhouse gases.

To the extent human-caused global warming is a real problem, this can be a step forward. It will, however, expose the lie that a transition to a less carbon-intensive economy will be painless or even enriching.

Despite proclamations about the limited nature of its finding, EPA can hardly designate greenhouse gases as a threat under the Clean Air Act without regulating them under the act.

Nor can the agency, as a practical and legal matter, limit its regulation to automobile emissions.

The regulatory structure of the Clean Air Act is technology focused. EPA sets air quality standards. Areas that don’t meet them have to come up with plans that include all reasonable measures that could be taken to come into compliance.

Businesses that emit regulated pollutants have to obtain operating permits and get agency approval of the control technologies they will use.

There are several problems with using this approach to regulate greenhouse gases. In the first place, the problem they cause is global, not local. So, how does the agency set a local standard?

Second, they vastly exceed in volume any other pollutant the agency regulates. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that more than a million businesses would be subject to technology-focused regulation if greenhouse gases are regulated under the Clean Air Act.

The act’s regulatory structure would be simply overwhelmed.

Clearly the Obama administration wants to use the EPA’s finding to prod Congress into enacting a cap-and-trade program as an alternative to regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

Under cap-and-trade, the government would set a limit on the total quantity of greenhouse gases that could be emitted. Pollution rights could then be traded.

President Obama has proposed that all pollution rights be sold at auction and the proceeds used to pay for making his payroll tax credit permanent and subsidizing alternative energy sources.

Now that it’s for real, however, Congress has discovered an inconvenient reality. If a price is put on carbon, someone has to pay it.

Coal-fired electricity is one of the country’s primary contributors to greenhouse gases. But more than half the country’s electricity is produced from coal.

The prospects of significantly higher electricity bills for average consumers and significantly higher operating costs for energy-intensive manufacturers have spooked even some Democratic members of Congress.

So, they are proposing that some of the pollution rights be given away for free, and proceeds from selling them be used to subsidize utility rates.

This, however, defeats the purpose of the exercise. If carbon doesn’t have a price that hurts, less of it won’t be emitted.

Simply put, if greenhouse gases are to be reduced, those who produce them have to be disadvantaged and those who don’t advantaged. This, however, will mean wrenching changes, within and between industrial sectors, and within and between geographic regions.

Green jobs won’t make the pain go away or be all better.

I am not a global warming denier. I favor a revenue-neutral carbon tax.

A carbon tax eliminates the uncertainty and avoids the bureaucratic and equity problems inherent in the issue of distributing pollution rights under a cap-and-trade regimen. I would use the tax proceeds to reduce payroll and income taxes, so there is no net drain on the private sector economy.

The benefits, however, wouldn’t be distributed commensurate with the costs. They can’t be, if greenhouse gases are truly to be reduced.

If carbon is to be reduced by putting a price on it, someone has to pay the price and not be reimbursed for it.

Robert Robb, an Arizona Republic columnist, writes about public policy and politics in Arizona. E-mail: robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has proposed what amounts to the confiscation of private property without compensation or due process.

During the campaign, I wrote a column saying that Barack Obama was not a socialist, when the accusation that he was became pervasive in certain conservative haunts.

To me, some distinctions are valuable to maintain. And there is a very important difference between even a heavily regulated and taxed system of democratic capitalism and socialism. Obama was proposing the former, not the latter.

Nevertheless, there are some highly critical lines that should not be crossed if the essential character of our system of democratic capitalism is to be maintained. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has proposed to cross one of them.

Geithner has proposed that the federal government be given the authority to take over financial institutions that, in its judgment, pose a systemic risk.

After taking over the company, the federal government would have unlimited power to do whatever it wants. It could override the rights of shareholders and abrogate obligations to and contracts with employees, creditors and customers. All the normal legal rights of these other parties would be extinguished.

This is basically the confiscation of private property without compensation or due process.

Companies which the federal government fingered for takeover could appeal to the courts for review. But since there are no normative standards to restrict such takeovers, it’s a subjective judgment of the regulators and there’s no real basis for appeal.

Moreover, there’s no point. A company so designated by the federal government is toast. There’s nothing a court can give it of any value at that point – except compensation, which isn’t a remedy permitted under the Geithner proposal.

Geithner says that his proposal is patterned after the resolution authority of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation over banks. But there is a critical difference.

The FDIC insures deposits at such banks. Such banks receive a competitive advantage in attracting capital in exchange for subjecting themselves to the FDIC’s resolution authority.

Geithner’s proposal is at least arguably unconstitutional. It would certainly be found to be so if we had judges who placed as much importance on protecting property rights as did the founders.

Regardless, the proposal puts too much power in the hands of fallible regulators. The handling of all the various bailouts to date hardly inspires much confidence.

Regulators have handed out hundreds of billions of dollars and shredded shareholder equity in several companies to stem a systemic risk they’ve never been able to coherently or cogently define. Moreover, what has been disclosed, for instance about AIG’s counterparties, severely undercuts some of the claims of systemic risk.

The proposal also is fundamentally unfair. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac didn’t want to be taken over by the federal government. They thought they could still make it.

Then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson made the decision to take them over anyway, even though it wasn’t legally his decision to make.

Fannie and Freddie may have been wrong. But their shareholders and management should have had the chance to try.

My solution is to let big boys fail. The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy is claimed to be evidence against that approach. But in his recent book, “Getting Off Track,” Stanford economist John Taylor makes a convincing case that the Lehman bankruptcy did not, in fact, add significant stress to the credit markets.

If additional regulation is to be the response, then regulating behavior is in keeping with our system of democratic capitalism. If leverage is thought to pose excessive systemic risk, then limit leverage. If opaqueness is a risk, then increase disclosure requirements.

But allowing the federal government to preemptively confiscate private property and abrogate contracts without due process or compensation is a radical departure.

It may not be socialism, per se. But it’s a giant and dangerous stride away from being a civil society dedicated, in part, to the protection of private property rights.

Robert Robb, an Arizona Republic columnist, writes about public policy and politics in Arizona. E-mail: robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com

General Motors workers view President Obama's address in Detroit on Monday. Obama refused further long-term federal bailouts for GM and Chrysler, saying more concessions were needed from unions, creditors and others before they could be approved. He raised the possibility of controlled bankruptcy for one or both of the beleaguered auto giants.

Barack Obama promised that, if elected, he would create more jobs for Americans.

Yet for the most part, all President Obama has created so far is confusion over his stance on the jobs Americans already have – and the ones they’ve lost.

In fact, you could say it’s a full-time job keeping up with all of the president’s incarnations on the employment issue.

There is Obama the pragmatist who, during a recent online town hall meeting, dished out some straight talk.

In fielding a question about when outsourced jobs would return to the United States, Obama acknowledged that “not all of these jobs are going to come back” because there are so many countries that pay workers much lower wages than Americans would want to do the same jobs.

The goal, he said, was to “go after the high-skill, high-wage jobs of the future” and create positions that can’t be outsourced to the lowest bidder.

But then there is Obama the protectionist who, during a primary election debate last year with Hillary Clinton, tried to sweet-talk displaced workers and organized labor.

In that exchange, Obama demanded that the United States take steps to discourage outsourcing of jobs. Obama said the government should “stop providing tax breaks for companies that are shipping jobs overseas and give those tax breaks to companies that are investing here in the United States of America.”

How you see all this – either a shameful flip-flop or a commendable evolution – depends on where you stand on the Obama presidency.

I am willing to give the chief executive the benefit of the doubt and go with the latter. And, as such, I like the new Obama much better than the old one. I just hope he doesn’t regress.

With rising unemployment, and many Americans either out of work or worried about losing their jobs, now is the perfect time for Obama to show real leadership by telling U.S. workers the hard truth about globalization – about how it is here to stay, even if many jobs aren’t.

More often, politicians take the easy way out and try to coddle the American laborer with protectionist rhetoric while offering up countries such as China and India as convenient scapegoats.

So what if Americans are in no mood to compete with foreign workers or even with one another? The contest has been long under way, whether we like it or not. We can lace up our sneakers, or we can forfeit the race.

No matter what candidate Obama said during the campaign, I think President Obama understands that basic principle.

He surely understands now that American workers can’t survive in the international job market as long as they’re in a defensive position demanding that the government cordon them off from the rest of the world. That said, hopefully, we’ve heard the last echo of protectionism from this administration.

Instead, we could use more of the accountability we saw this week in how the Obama administration handled the fate of General Motors Chief Executive Rick Wagoner.

In an extraordinary but easily justifiable move, it forced Wagoner’s resignation as part of the bailout plan for the ailing automaker. In a statement posted on the GM Web site, Wagoner acknowledged that Obama administration officials had asked that he “step aside” as CEO and that he complied.

The government has loaned GM a staggering $13.4 billion, and it plans to dish out billions more. Yet, the automaker hasn’t improved.

The Obama administration this week gave GM – and Chrysler – failing grades for their efforts to turn themselves around and threatened extensive overhauls of both companies.

Don’t feel bad for Wagoner, who still could walk away with a retirement package worth more than $20 million, although some officials are trying to block that compensation. If Wagoner ends up with the money, you can expect more public outrage from American taxpayers. What happened to reserving the rewards for those who succeed?

Meanwhile, what some Americans are most worried about is the government taking the unusual step of pushing out the CEO of a private company.

But GM stopped being purely private when it accepted billions in bailout money. With taxpayer funding comes the strings. You can’t have one without the other.

That’s another important message that Americans need to hear right about now. And who better to convey it than the president of the United States?

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a columnist and editorial board member of The San Diego Union-Tribune. E-mail: ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com

The Geithner plan to improve the balance sheets of banks may work.

It is, nevertheless, a bad idea and shouldn’t be necessary.

This plan by the Treasury secretary, and much of the frenzied monetary expansion being conducted by the Fed, is based upon a dubious premise: that the credit markets are frozen and need to be unclogged.

This assumes that there is a significant excessive of demand for credit compared to its supply. While there are undoubtedly companies that want credit that are having difficulty obtaining it, if this were generally true, interest rates would be rising sharply.

They aren’t. In fact, they are at historically low levels.

The economic slowdown has reduced the demand for credit. Nevertheless, business debt increased 4.8 percent last year, indicating that credit markets are not truly frozen.

The Geithner plan involves the federal government creating joint ventures with private companies to buy bank loans and collateralized debt obligations, mostly mortgage-backed securities.

Private investors will put up some capital, the government will put up some capital, and the government will provide additional capital through subsidized loans. The joint ventures will then buy loans and securities the banks want to sell.

These are favorable enough terms that some private investors will probably be willing to play.

But step back a minute and consider this: The only reason they will be willing to play is if they have a high degree of confidence that they will be buying bank assets that are worth more than they will pay. And on the other side of the transaction, the banks will be giving up something worth more than they are getting.

The banks may be willing to do so, because what they will be getting will be of more certain value than what they are giving, and that may be advantageous to meet their regulatory requirements.

But a regulatory scheme that assumes that banks are healthier when they give up something everyone assumes is of more value for something that everyone assumes is of lesser value is self-evidently perverse.

There is, of course, nothing that legally prevents these loans and securities from being traded today. This, however, is a market that has been frozen because of uncertainty about what the federal government would do. No one wants to go into competition with the big gorilla that sets the rules.

On the securities side, the Geithner plan limits competition for bank CDOs, which will further depress their value.

The government will choose a limited number of private partners to create joint ventures to purchase these securities. Treasury’s white paper suggests probably around five.

These favored partners will then get access to government capital and favorable financing not available to other potential purchasers.

The Treasury will provide capital for both the loan and securities purchase programs. For the loan purchase program, FDIC will provide financing guarantees. For the securities program, private partners will be able to borrow from the Fed.

Of course, none of these governmental entities actually have any money. So, all the money the federal government is throwing in will either be borrowed or, in the case of the Fed, created out of thin air.

A better approach would be for the federal government to create a better environment for recapitalizing banks with purely private funds.

Banks are a bargain right now. If the federal government provided more certainty to the value of bank-owned CDOs, either through more realistic regulatory treatment or a direct guarantee of a portion of their worth, and exempted new bank investments from the capital gains tax for a while, private capital could probably do the job.

But the Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, apparently thinks markets are incapable of sorting through these things without the guidance and extensive participation of the government.

The Geithner plan, while far from optimal, is less ham-fisted than the efforts that have preceded it.

Robert Robb, an Arizona Republic columnist, writes about public policy and politics in Arizona. E-mail: robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com

Has outrage worn out its welcome? That question arose as members of Congress, which has passed a balanced budget in three of the past 40 years, took turns this week bashing insurance giant AIG for handing out an estimated $165 million in executive bonuses as taxpayers are being asked to bail AIG out of its bad business decisions.

Congress, especially the House of Representatives, is often a useful pressure valve for public outrage. It certainly lived up to its billing when members of a House subcommittee seemingly tried to outdo one another in expressing their outrage over “Bonusgate.”

At one point, Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas – opposed to the massive federal bailouts of Wall Street from the beginning – mocked the reaction to the bonuses as “the outrage of the week.”

President Barack Obama told a California audience they were “rightfully” outraged.

“I’m outraged, too,” Obama said, and then went on to declare the bonuses an offense against “what’s fair and what’s right” and “our values.”

Obama’s administration knew the bonuses were coming, anticipated the rightful outrage their discovery would provoke, and yet could not or would not stop them. Bonusgate smacked both of business-as-usual and ineffectual oversight, not the change that Obama said was coming to Washington.

We get it that people are angry, that the president is outraged, and that he inherited a lot of these problems. Now, what are you going to do about it?

When the bonuses first became public, the president and some of his top financial advisers differed on whether they could be stopped. Democrats in power scrambled to get them revoked.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, already under fire for an allegedly favorable loan from Countrywide Mortgage, acknowledged he helped write an amendment that allowed the bonuses, although he said he did not know of the $165 million in AIG plums when he was writing it.

Taxpayers have roughly an 80 percent stake – about $170 billion in aid and loans – in AIG. The bonuses were peanuts, relatively speaking, but symbolically huge, and that effect was vastly underestimated by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Obama stood by his man, saying Geithner faces a “multiplicity of problems” faced by no Treasury secretary since Alexander Hamilton in the formative years of the republic.

“Nobody is working harder than this guy. He is making all the right moves in terms of playing a bad hand,” Obama told reporters before heading off to California and an appearance on the “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”

Looking back, we may well conclude that Bonusgate marked the moment when the Obama administration owned the nation’s financial crisis. Outrage is useless from this point on. So is blaming the predecessor.

Obama now will be measured on action and results. Bonusgate may have made that task much harder. Congress was already balking at his $3.65 trillion budget and the possibility of billions more in stimulus and bailout spending.

Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., a member of the subcommittee that grilled AIG’s overseer, said Congress needed to “put a pause button” on future bailouts while striving to win back the confidence of the public.

“As we point fingers in Congress,” Scott said, “we have got to recall that there are three fingers pointing right back at us.”

As political spectacle, it doesn’t get much more ironic than the AIG hearing. Elected representatives of a government that has put its people $11 trillion in debt took turns expressing outrage over immoral business decisions and lecturing on fiscal responsibility.

The man appointed to fix AIG, Edward M. Liddy, had nothing to do with the company’s problems. He is working for a dollar a year and has had death threats to him and his family.

And yet Liddy went to Capitol Hill to become a piñata for the latest dose of politicians’ outrage. Liddy told committee members that he’d asked bonus recipients to voluntarily return them, and that some had. Most members of the oversight panel were unsympathetic.

Rep. Paul Hodes, D-N.H., says AIG should stand for “arrogance, incompetence and greed.”

Some might add, “An Incompetent Government.”

Chuck Raasch is political editor for Gannett News Service. E-mail: craasch@gns.gannett.com.

Raasch’s blog: Get more behind-the-scenes reports, context and analysis about politicians and the political process in Raasch’s Furthermore blog. Look for it at http://gns.gannettonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS03.

President Obama gestures while speaking at Dobson High School in Mesa on Wednesday regarding the housing foreclosure problem.

From the political notebook:

• President Obama and congressional Democrats seem intent on permitting bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages on primary residences. They can probably garner enough Republican support to get it through.

There has never been a case, however, in which the unintended consequences have been clearer in advance.

The Democratic pitch is basically this: bankruptcy judges can modify other credit agreements, including for second homes and other luxury goods purchased by the rich. Why not for the only home of average Jacks and Jills?

Primary residences are treated differently in bankruptcies in a number of ways. Other creditors cannot go after your home; as long as you remain current, you get to keep it. Your home mortgage lender cannot go after your other assets for payment.

The Democratic narrative is also misleading about what goes on in bankruptcies regarding luxury goods, such as second homes. Bankruptcy petitioners don’t get to keep them and just pay less for them. They are disposed of to partially pay the claims of creditors.

Current bankruptcy laws do provide some leeway on primary residences. A Chapter 13 filing stays any foreclosure, and the homeowner is given three to five years to make up any arrears.

In an ordinary market, in which home values are rising, home lending is a low-risk business, given existing bankruptcy laws. In the event of default, the lender can get back the home, which is usually worth more than what is owed. No loss.

If lenders, however, have to assume the risk that a bankruptcy judge can impose a loss, they will charge for that additional risk.

This will be reflected partly in higher mortgage rates. The Mortgage Bankers Association projects that mortgage rates would increase 1.5 percentage points.

The larger impact will be much tighter underwriting: much larger down payments, sharper limits on payment-to-income ratios, and rigorous verification of income.

Now, the result might be good for the economy. Lax mortgage underwriting is a proximate cause of the current economic difficulties. Putting lenders at greater risk might be beneficial.

But the result will be that buying a home will be more difficult and take more time. Fewer people will be able to buy homes. Those who can buy will pay more for less.

The consequences will fall particularly on young people, who will probably have to remain renters longer.

This isn’t what Democrats intend. But it is what will happen.

• In a mostly bleak world, there are some hopeful signs regarding governance in Muslim countries.

One of the sources of global tension is the lack of secular, democratic governance and pluralism in Muslim countries. Islam has not been reconciled to the separation of mosque and state.

Such reconciliation did not come easily nor peacefully in the Christian world.

The assumption of many has been that the introduction of democracy in Muslim countries would lead to the rise of Islamist parties and theocratic rule. That risk remains large.

However, there are some counter-indications. In the first elections in Iraq, voting was along sectarian lines and mostly for religiously-oriented parties. In the recent provincial elections, voter sentiment shifted to secularists promising good governance.

Voter sentiment seems to have similarly shifted in Indonesia, where Islamist parties are polling at about half the support they received in the 2004 election, and currently at below 10 percent.

The most hopeful development is occurring in Turkey, where a democratically-elected, Islamist party has ruled for six years.

The only religiously-oriented moves it has made have been in favor of things we would regard as exercising the right of religious expression, such as permitting women to wear head scarves in government buildings. It has instituted more free-market and liberal reforms than its ardently secularist predecessors.

What’s happening in Iraq, Indonesia and Turkey may be the beginning of something extraordinarily important.

Robert Robb, an Arizona Republic columnist, writes about public policy and politics in Arizona. E-mail: robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com

Assuming government officials can fix housing assumes that they know how many homes should be bought and built and what they should cost. They don't. No one does. That's why there are markets.

Well, at least President Obama’s housing plan isn’t as bad as his stimulus plan.

It is, nevertheless, unnecessarily costly and cumbersome.

The common refrain that the economy won’t be fixed until housing is fixed has some validity. But it doesn’t offer much useful guidance for policymakers.

Assuming government officials can fix housing assumes that they know how many homes should be bought and built and what they should cost. They don’t. No one does. That’s why there are markets.

Instead, federal policy regarding housing is best seen as a welfare program, using the term descriptively, not pejoratively. The question is what government should do to help people cope with the stress the burst of the housing bubble and the economic contraction have put on mortgages.

There are three categories of people who could use assistance:

• Those who bought more home than they could afford, assuming that rising values would permit a later refinancing;

• Those who are having trouble making payments due to a loss of family income;

• And those who want to sell their homes but can’t because their homes are now worth less than they owe and they cannot afford the loss.

Obama spoke, as did President Bush before him, about separating the deserving from the undeserving in any assistance program.

But that’s impossible. An assistance program can, and should, be limited to primary residences. But beyond that, aid will fall on the just and the unjust alike.

Obama proposes that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac refinance loans they own or guarantee up to 105 percent of current value.

He also proposes that other lenders write down the loans of borrowers who cannot afford their mortgages. Lenders would eat whatever reduction would get mortgage payments down to 38 percent of the borrower’s income. The federal government would then subsidize a further write down to 31 percent of income.

This is very costly. The program would require another $275 billion federal outlay to provide Fannie and Freddie additional public capital and subsidize loan write downs.

It’s also of limited reach and relief. Underwater mortgages not owned or guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie would be ineligible for refinancing under that part of the program.

And the write-down relief is good for only five years. After that, payments can pop back up. Unless home values or family incomes have sharply rebounded, the same affordability problem reappears.

There’s a better solution that’s both broader and less costly. It’s grounded in two realities: (1) the default rate on mortgages that are underwritten for income is very small; and (2) the market power of a government guarantee.

Here’s the proposal: For a short period of time, say two years, the federal government will guarantee the refinancing of any mortgage on any primary residence so long as the monthly payments don’t exceed 31 percent of family income. It doesn’t matter what the home is worth or how long the payment term has to be, even if it exceeds 30 years.

This would be at the option of the homeowner. Existing lenders don’t have to take a hair cut or consent. They are paid off.

The guarantees would work the same way as the existing Fannie and Freddie guarantees work. They would buy qualifying refinanced mortgages and then resell them with a guarantee, for a fee.

This part of the Fannie and Freddie business model was working fine. They were brought down by the subprime mortgage-backed securities generated by others that they bought for investment.

A federal guarantee should lubricate the private market to originate such loans and buy them in the secondary market. Federal losses, given the income underwriting, should be minimal and covered by the fees.

Since September, the federal government has been guaranteeing, for a fee, money-market funds. There have been no losses and the government has collected over $800 million in fees.

A housing plan based upon refinancing guarantees, not outlays and hair cuts, would do more and cost less.

Robert Robb, an Arizona Republic columnist, writes about public policy and politics in Arizona. E-mail: robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com

Taxpayers around the globe have paid over $13 trillion (more than a quarter of the gross global product) to bail out financial, insurance and other organizations as well as investors.

Was this global crisis – which with each passing hour is casting millions of Americans out of their jobs, out of their homes, and into a deep well of debt – truly inevitable?

In 1993, the gross global product represented about $20 trillion and derivatives traded in the world markets, $12 trillion. Although derivatives have appropriate functions, such as making hedging possible and lending liquidity to markets, they are instruments whose value is not intrinsic but derived from that of mortgages, securities and other assets.

Yet by 2008, while the gross global product had grown to $56 trillion, derivatives had reached approximately $530 trillion. When the derivatives’ underlying value was eroded by reckless mortgage loans, the huge excess in speculation and the artificiality in the financial edifice were revealed.

As far back as the early ’90s, books such as “When Corporations Rule the World”; hearings by the House Banking Committee on the derivatives market; leaders in academia such as the former president of Harvard University, Derek Bok; and reporters, such as Thomas Friedman, laid out different consequences of the practices and policies unfolding in global markets.

Economists of the stature of Joseph Stiglitz and a handful of prudent, long-time investors including Warren Buffet called attention to the growing dangers. The outcome was foreseen by those who were willing to see.

If there’s any hope of full recovery, we must look at the mythical mindset, symbolized by the infamous “bridge to nowhere,” which blinded us to that outcome as a means of connecting us to a brighter future.

Many believed that “the end of history” had been reached, that capitalism – not on the basis of enlightened self-interest but unregulated and unrestrained self-interest – was infallible and that the U.S. had become the only “indispensable nation,” free to disregard others.

Meanwhile, more than 40 million Americans did not have a bank account, approximately 45 million did not have health insurance and 30 million adults were considered illiterate.

The need for interconnectedness with our own poor and with other nations means that Americans’ image of ourselves, and our aspirations – the essence of what defines “the American Dream” – must undergo radical change.

When Americans disconnected the identity of the nation from the reality of its own marginalized community and from the international reality, during a period of rapidly evolving globalization, our mindset became dysfunctional. We manifested our own loss of faith in the principle of broadly-shared prosperity.

Now, it’s time to stop being awestruck by the cleverness of those who have been intent on succeeding at the expense of everyone else.

Intelligence, knowledge and power alone do not necessarily translate into ethical, moral or enduringly productive behavior; without wisdom and balance, they have repeatedly produced elitist excess … and they did so once again in bringing about the current crisis.

We the people need to ask what changes and sacrifices are required to move in a worthwhile direction. The future of our country demands that all of us build a bridge back to reality.

A good start is recognizing that the necessary flows of capital, products and services of globalization are not sustainable in a ruthless system of commerce that relies on low- or no-pay for work, and the assumption that our natural and human resources are expendable.

The notion of unending, increasing affluence, and of lax or nonexistent accountability, must be abandoned.

It is not too late and our history holds the answers: a return to honoring the truths that are “self-evident,” “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind,” and the full, educated, responsible engagement of the people.

This is the essence of modern democracy and the source of the longstanding success of our country.

The timing is favorable. President Obama has been a bridge between those in power and the rest of the country on a platform built on hope and inclusiveness.

The economic crisis has placed us outside our comfort zone, which makes a revolution of thought possible.

We can all help replace the paradigm built on the fantasies of self-proclaimed masters of the universe with one based on the profound realities that the founders of the nation modestly disclosed.

This paradigm shift will reveal the new 21st century frontier. It is a challenge to be grasped now. As candidate Obama observed, this is our and the peoples of the world’s moment.

Hector Garcia is a Minneapolis-based consultant on international trade and investment and on intercultural communications. This commentary was distributed by the American Forum, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, educational organization that provides views of state experts on major public concerns to stimulate informed discussion.

At least the Obama administration understands that ultimately private investment is the key to strengthening financial institutions.

The Bush administration never got around to this realization. In its early interventions, it sought to punish shareholders, as a deterrent to others taking imprudent risks.

It was too late for that. The financial system already was suffused with imprudent risks. And the Bush administration spent the rest of its days bouncing from one ad hoc first-aid idea to another.

Unfortunately, the new plan announced Tuesday by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner indicates that, while the Obama administration may understand the need to attract private capital, it hasn’t figured out how to make it happen.

To engage, private investors need to know what they are buying. They need to know they are buying into a relatively stable regulatory environment, that the federal government isn’t going to radically change the rules of the game on them.

And they won’t buy into a situation in which the federal government is, in essence, their senior partner.

Geithner’s plan, however, adds uncertainty and regulatory risk, rather than reducing them.

He said that the federal government would be conducting a “stress test” on regulated financial institutions. This stress test would be “forward looking.”

In other words, not based upon current conditions, but conditions regulators think could possibly exist in the future. The idea is to see how financial institutions might hold up if economic circumstances become even worse.

The implication is that the federal government will do something to institutions that fail this stress test about imagined future events. But what the federal government will do is unclear.

What private investor would commit a dime to any financial institution until these stress tests are performed, and the results and the federal government’s response known?

Part of the uncertainty discouraging private investment in financial institutions has to do with the value of their collateralized debt obligations, particularly mortgage-backed securities.

These are often labeled “toxic assets.” But they are toxic only because of the way they have to be valued for accounting and capital requirement purposes.

The assets have value. Nationally, 90 percent of mortgages still are performing. Even two-thirds of subprime mortgages are performing. These so-called toxic assets still are producing income of a known quantity.

But they cannot be valued, according to the federal rules, based upon their projected cash flow with loss reserves. They have to be valued based upon what comparable assets are selling for on the market. But there is no market.

One of the reasons there is no market is because the federal government cannot decide whether it is going to be a big buyer of such assets. No private investor is going to want to compete against the federal government.

Geithner prolonged this uncertainty. He suggested the federal government would enter into some highly vague joint venture with private investors to purchase these assets. So, their value remains uncertain and potential private investors remain frozen.

Moreover, Geithner said financial institutions receiving additional federal assistance would be subject to additional federal requirements regarding lending, executive compensation and dividends.

No private investor is going to want to commit capital to an enterprise in which politicians and bureaucrats ultimately call the shots.

Private investors need some certainty about the value of existing capital in financial institutions. They need to know that the federal government will unwind its management role and not radically change the regulatory environment.

And given how much uncertainty both the Bush and Obama administrations have created, they probably also need a significant tax incentive to run the financial, political and regulatory risks involved – say, an exemption from capital gains taxation.

The alternative is more government control, more uncertainty, more taxpayer risk and a further debased currency.

That’s the road we’re on.

Robert Robb, an Arizona Republic columnist, writes about public policy and politics in Arizona. E-mail: robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com

In Charles Dickens’ novel “David Copperfield,” Wilkins Micawber delivers an economics lesson to young David that has been lost on most congressional Democrats, the president and many of us.

“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

The so-called “stimulus plan” cooked up mostly by House Democrats is, in reality, a plan to stimulate government and make it an even greater presence (and burden) in our lives.

The appeal to speed and urgency by President Obama is an invitation to overlook details of the bill, which would accelerate the transformation of America from a capitalistic system that exalts the individual to a socialistic system that exalts the state.

Notice that in none of the apocalyptic rhetoric from the president and congressional leaders do we hear anything about the power of people to overcome the recession and restore the economy to health.

There is no call for us to help ourselves first, with the aid of family and neighbors, and to employ vision, persistence and risk in climbing out of the recessionary hole.

No, only government can save us, when, in fact, it is government (along with our greed) that has caused our predicament.

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, has studied the House bill (http://www.heritage .org/Research/Economy/wm2276.cfm). He finds it to be a resurrection of the welfare state, which many believe died during the Clinton administration with considerable assistance from the then-Republican Congress.

Rector notes that, in the first year following enactment of the stimulus bill, “federal welfare spending will explode upward by more than 20 percent, rising from $491 billion in fiscal year 2008 to $601 billion in FY 2009.”

That would be the largest expansion of welfare in the nation’s history. But it is only the beginning of Obama’s pledge to “Joe the Plumber” to “spread the wealth around.”

“Once the hidden welfare spending in the bill is counted,” writes Rector, “the total 10-year fiscal burden (added to the national debt) will not be $816 billion, as claimed, but $1.34 trillion. This amounts to $17,400 for each household paying income tax in the U.S.”

Under this legislation, according to Rector, the federal government for the first time “will give significant cash to able-bodied adults without dependent children.” Even though these people may have little apparent need of help, they’ll get a check just because government can send one.

Rector says that the House and Senate bills “use the idea of economic stimulus as a Trojan horse to conceal massive, permanent increases in the U.S. welfare system. The goal of the bills is ‘spreading the wealth,’ not reviving the economy.”

It will add to the growing number of people dependent on government and, thus, politicians, who will never show them the way out of poverty, but give them only enough money to sustain them in poverty and then tell them if they don’t vote for Democrats, those nasty Republicans will take their checks away.

How many have been duped by Obama’s personality and good looks? Don’t they understand that a socialist economy means the end of prosperity, individual initiative, personal dreams and a complete transformation of America as we have known it?

After the “stimulus bill” will come health care “reform.” Watch Obama declare an emergency in his pursuit of socialized medicine.

Then there’s Social Security and Medicare, which must be reformed to alleviate pressure from the retirement of massive numbers of baby boomers. Debt will mount on top of debt.

Part of this is our problem. We have believed the marketers who have convinced us that more is better and still more buys happiness. Politicians promise to help, but in fact hurt by hurtling toward a collectivism in which individuality will be subsumed to the will of the state.

Who will sound the alarm? Who will stand in the gap? This isn’t “change we can believe in.” This is a nightmare from which we’ll never escape. There’s still time, but not much. The choice is clear: happiness, or misery.

Cal Thomas is an author and broadcast commentator. E-mail: calthomas@tribune.com

The Democrats' false premise is that all Americans are construction workers.

The Democrats have some bad ideas for the stimulus bill. The Republicans also have some bad ideas.

Unfortunately, the compromise might be to combine the bad ideas of both parties.

The Democratic stimulus proposals are based upon a false premise and a deceit.

The false premise is that all Americans are construction workers.

The Democrats propose the federal government build new stuff for virtually everyone.

The Congressional Budget Office already has noted the constraints that exist on government’s ability to get hundreds of billions of dollars of construction money out the door quickly. But even that ignores the constraint from those who would need to do the work.

Residential construction is, of course, in a deep slump. Commercial construction not so much. And residential construction workers are not easily redeployed to do commercial and heavy construction. The skill sets are different.

The deceit is that all this spending requires suspending ordinary budget constraints to jump-start the economy. Most of the spending is actually in pursuit of long-term Democratic economic growth strategies.

Democrats believe that the economy will perform better long term with significant additional government investments in alternative energy sources, education, health care and social welfare programs.

Democrats won the election and have a right to try to advance their long-term strategies. But there is nothing about fighting the recession that justifies exempting these long-term strategies from the most basic of budget considerations: How are you going to pay for them?

Even without the stimulus package, the federal government already has reached post-World War II records for spending and the deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product.

The primary economic effect of the Democrat’s stimulus proposals will be to inflate private sector commercial construction costs and give the country an even worse fiscal headache.

The Republicans counter that our financial difficulties are rooted in housing and that’s where the fix needs to start.

Certainly, the bursting of the housing bubble was a proximate contributor to the economic downturn. But the heart of the problem was an overinvestment in housing, partially induced by government subsidies. That was compounded by imprudent lending to people without skin in the game in the form of a substantial down payment.

So, what do Republicans propose? New, more massive federal subsidies. Under the GOP proposal, the federal government would guarantee new mortgage rates of 4 percent. And don’t sweat that down payment. The federal government will give a tax credit of $15,000.

In the first place, existing mortgage rates already are historically low. Moreover, home sales are trending up, induced by deeply discounted prices.

The federal government could usefully reduce foreclosures by guaranteeing the refinancing of existing mortgages so that payments don’t exceed a certain percentage of income.

By massively subsidizing new home purchases, however, the GOP is basically proposing to reinflate the housing bubble.

Republicans also propose to reduce the income tax rates on the two lowest brackets. Rather than truly help low-income Americans, who don’t pay much in income taxes, the benefits will primarily flow to the upper middle class, while increasing the marginal tax rate increase faced by the middle class.

Truly providing income support to low-income Americans, who are most vulnerable in an economic downturn, would be something useful the federal government could do, through such things as temporary payroll tax relief and extended unemployment benefits.

The country would be fortunate if Congress would just enact those provisions and then call it a day.

Robert Robb, an Arizona Republic columnist, writes about public policy and politics in Arizona. E-mail: robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com

More than half a million people lost their jobs last month.

There’s no question we need a job-creation plan. The real question is what kind of plan will most quickly stimulate the economy and at the same time provide the best long-term investment for our nation.

President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Job-Creation Plan should be used to massively invest in our human infrastructure. Study after study shows that when our nation invests in its people, starting in childhood, the economic benefits are enormous.

By creating, subsidizing and providing training for jobs in childcare, early education, healthcare, eldercare and other “caring industries,” as well as supporting caring work in homes, we quickly stimulate the economy, help families, radically reduce poverty and violence, reward women’s economic contributions, save billions in crime and costs of prisons and develop the “high quality human capital” needed for our post-industrial economy.

Our economic crisis is an opportunity to lay foundations for a sustainable and equitable economic system instead of just trying to patch up an economy based on unsustainable consumerism, consumer debt and poor environmental practices.

The current economic meltdown is not due simply to the globalization of unregulated capitalism. The problem goes much deeper – and so must the solutions.

The financial return on investing in caring jobs and home activities is huge. We need a new economic system that really works – both in the short and long term. To make the job creation plan more effective we must consider that:

• America and the world are in the midst of a sea change as we shift from the industrial to the knowledge/information era.

Many of the jobs being lost in manufacturing and other fields will be gone for good as we move toward more automation and robotics. Our most effective investment is in human capital development, starting in childhood and continuing all through life.

• A job-creation program component that focuses on the work of caring and caregiving will stimulate economic recovery and develop high capacity human capital capable of pioneering new frontiers of innovation across the board in every sector of society: culturally, socially, technologically and environmentally.

• Neuroscience shows that the quality of child care directly affects the development of human capacities and potentials; caregiving produces what economists call “public goods” and should be economically valued as civic work.

• The hi-tech green jobs and infrastructure construction jobs proposed by the job-creation program as currently formulated are still largely “men’s work.”

Yet the time has passed when male “heads of family” were the sole breadwinners. The majority of families are two wage-earner families or families headed by women.

An effective economic stimulus program also provides jobs, training, and subsidies where the female labor force is concentrated: child care, education, health care and elder care.

Studies show that women buy 80 percent of household goods: the food, clothing, and other essentials that keep the core economy going.

• Support of “caring work” will radically reduce poverty and violence and their enormous economic, social and personal costs. In the U.S., as in most nations, the poor are disproportionately women and children.

• As aby boomers age, demand for elder care is rapidly exceeding services available. The job-creation program must address this urgent need by supporting good elder care in both the market and household economies.

• Millions of Americans are either lacking care or getting less than adequate care. We have a huge caring gap from cradle to grave.

A more broadly defined job-creation program will help close this gap at the same time that it stimulates the economy and trains both women and men for the work that is most urgently needed for a healthy economy and society.

• Creating a new Cabinet post or advisory council for high capacity human development will facilitate the reordering of social priorities and the implementation of a new economic agenda appropriate for the post-industrial era – and a more equitable and sustainable future.

The economic stimulus plan should be a bridge to the kind of economy and society we want and need: one where caring for humans and the planet is the primary economic driver.

Good care and education for children is an essential investment in our nation’s future work force, and hence our future quality of life.

Investing in human infrastructure will not only rapidly stimulate our economy; it will lay foundations for a new economic era in which our most precious resources – people and the natural environment – are nurtured, sustained, and thrive for generations to come.

Riane Eisler is author of “The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future,” now in 23 languages and most recently of “The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics.” She is president of the Center for Partnership Studies. For more information: www.rianeeisler.com This commentary was distributed by the American Forum, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, educational organization that provides views of state experts on issues of major public concern to stimulate informed discussion.