With the coming election only seven weeks away it may be wise to consider the possibility of new terrorist attacks within our borders. Terrorists have had eight years to study the Bush approach to an attack. They understand how he works and responds. They also know that the election will create a possible major shift in the way the U.S. may respond under a new administration. There will most likely be little in the way of action prior to the election. If there is action it will be something small just to remind us that they can reach us. After the election things will heat up. To help you recognize the probable patterns of activity that will unfold here are the things to look for in the coming months.
1. Depending on who is elected there will be some small terrorist action around the globe to measure the verbal response from the President-elect.
2. Based on the responses of the President-elect the terrorist activity may be stepped up to test those responses just prior to the inauguration.
3. On or about the inauguration date or shortly there after, there will most likely be significant terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, France and Germany. The attacks will be to let everyone know that terrorists can reach them. The attacks will also test for possible joint response positions from those attacked and the new U.S. administration. The attacks in Europe will test the willingness of the Europeans to put together an aggressive strategy and join the U.S. in some form of frontal assault against terrorist strongholds. If the attacks in Europe are close enough to the inauguration there is a strong possibility the Europeans will go it alone because of no track record with the new President. If this turns out to be the case the terrorists will have achieved a great victory. The reason this would be a victory is simply the European rejection of the new President early in his term. In addition, such an action by Europe would most likely anchor the probability of the President being reluctant to make future overtures on terrorism to Europe. That would leave the European defense against terrorists up to NATO. The Europeans could call for the use of NATO security and still have U.S. support with out the leading commander for the security being American. Under a NATO threat the terrorists could call for and rally new supporters calling the NATO alliance against terrorists a disguised crusade against Moslems.

This scenario will take us through March of 2009. After that period there is a greater probability of additional attacks aimed strictly at the U.S.

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Government agencies are trying to fix a broken system. In many instances those playing a part in the issue are from the financial world they are trying to support. The representatives of the Government as well as Wall Street want immediate action. Although Congress has been slow to respond to the requests of the outcries for help and that may not be a bad thing in the long run. The crash and paralysis of the market projected by the agencies for the last two weeks has failed to materialize. It is now obvious that part of the financial slowdown over the last week is due to the slow response by Congress.

That being said, Congress is doing what it is supposed to do relative to holding investigative meetings and exploring the ins and outs of the request. Actually it is what they have not been doing for many years. Presently the individuals with their hand out want immediate action and act as if the Congressional process is being obstructive. Well it is not. There are still many questions left to be answered. And if it were not for the Congressional probing Wall Street and the governing agencies would have had a big blank check with no strings attached as to how the money will be used.

At the same time the American people want the problem fixed but they also do not want to see the people who put us in harms way get off without a penalty. In addition, the Street as well as the Agencies states that the biggest problem is to get the foreclosure and bad debt issues off the books of the banks. Those of us on Main Street believe that fixing the problem of bad mortgages on the books can be corrected by an infusion of money into the mortgage market. In this manner the banks could readjust the terms and rates of the existing mortgages currently in challenge. It seems that the feeling in Congress, as of now, is that those with money should not get the cash and certainly not the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps that is wrong but only time will tell. It also seems that Congress is looking at the problem in an appropriate manner and is asking is there a better way? And the better way may be by pushing the money to correct the mortgage issue first and let Wall Street clean itself up.

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I have received a lot of comments about the IBM Think sign over the last two weeks. The common question was "how come it did not work"? To answer the question for those that did not write in but would like to know is as follows.

Though the concept was a good one it failed to release the restless beast within most people. That beast is the desire to accomplish the individual daily tasks each person is accountable for. That accountability, in our present society, is addressed by getting through the day with the least amount of effort yet still providing some semblance of accomplishing the tasks at hand. Unfortunately, such activity is not construed as thinking but merely an automatic reaction to the tasks on ones plate.

Obliviously this is not what IBM had in mind when they created the sign. They envisioned deliverance from the level of the robotic worker with the emergence of an individual with critical and strategic thinking skills. IBM considered those skills somewhat inherent in most people. They reasoned that once people stopped and pondered the dept of the message of the sign they would initiate the appropriate thinking action. It is believed that the pause to ponder was the response that failed. It did not overcome the need to accomplish the task at hand which means the individual stays in the box. Thinking out of the box was the expected result but for the average person thinking for themselves is either too difficult, to dangerous, or both. Each individual's job demanded the completion of the tasks at hand by the end of the day. Such a requirement left no room or time to pause and think. The demand for the short term success made the worker disregard the tool that would have made their life easier and more fruitful.

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People have always feared change because it brings the unknown. The uncertainty of job security, the economy, and the changes in the societies in which we live, all create uncertainty and a sense of fear and foreboding. What is too easily forgotten is that it always takes change to move forward. In general almost all changes make things better over time. Change has been the historic process that has moved human kind from caves to cities. Urban centers have created a diversity which allows human interaction to be at its best and its worst. The paramount logic here is that coming together has enabled all to learn from one another. Yet, such learning comes at a price. The price is constant change and fear. The benefit is growth via pain. Because pain is the major price most people pay for growth. Change always happens and change almost always causes fear. Once the individual accepts a change as inevitable the fear becomes pain. Once the change is fully adopted the pain slowly subsides and the potential for growth slowly emerges. The new growth now sets the stage for new change and another round of fear and change. In the long run change builds upon itself and the end result is growth in almost every corner of human life.



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Arrogance and overconfidence are self created mental drugs that tend to have a long life cycle. There to help us in tough moments there is potential for a big downside. The downside I am talking about causes the individual or group to believe in the hype have created themselves. These self induced drugs can make the individual careless and less focused relative to the necessary achievements required to achieve the next goal. Unless one stops at each goal to reconsider the steps to be taken, all follow on events, which may have seemed to be on track, have a strong tendency to derail. Plans are designed to incrementally move a condition from one place or condition to another. Each new place and condition is a new goal and overstepping the goal without benefit of reconsidering the playing field is a disaster waiting to happen. The arrogance and overconfidence of our financial Gods and those that run the system continue to suffer from this condition. In the past they did things because of greed. However, greed did tend to keep them relatively honest so they did not hurt themselves. As time moved on success allowed for the overconfidence and arrogance to become part of the way they did business. They had been so successful they believed they could not make mistakes. That state of mind always becomes the point of greatest peril. When the time arrived to own up to the dangerous condition of the financial system the arrogance played its best hand and contended the system needed help. They said they needed help, in the form of money, to be able to keep the system together and keep the little investor from being hurt. Their arrogance is unbelievable. So, if anyone out there feels I am wrong or that the big players gave one single thought about their investors relative to the request for relief please write me. I would love to hear that side of the story.

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Truths and half truths, as well as downright misrepresentations that are being made in the current election campaign, are supposedly done in the name of democracy. These are the people who want CEO's and all the top management of corporations to be squeaky clean. These Government officials wish to require leaders in the business world to meet a different standard than the self protecting standards they have covering their indiscretions within the government. These powerful rulers of our government are the Janis Gods of our time. In the political campaigns the tell people what they want to hear and then point to themselves professing to be the only good guys in the political spectrum. At the same time they speak with their other face when cutting special deals over Congressional Bills in an effort to secure their own political future.

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What this country needs is an elected body of new stewards for democracy. Those in power must be replaced with new stewards who understand that right is right and there is to be no compromise over that issue. Truth is truth and honesty is honesty all set by the moral compass we know, understand and were raised by. We need leaders who will do the right thing no matter how difficult the issue. We also need leaders who do not seek power as a personal weapon but as a tool to assist them in fulfilling their oath of office. As a collective tool individual power when combined and used in unison with the rest of the powerful leaders, who feel the responsibility of their oath, can honestly resolve the problems of America today. Such a power collective would be able to participate in an appropriate manner when confronted with the international issues of the moment and make wise and global savvy decisions. A change of this magnitude would make most Americans happy and the world a less dangerous and scary place.

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Don't think the November election will chance the way politicians do business. Let's face it, most of them are just trying to hold onto their jobs and guarantee their re-election. Lest we forget these individuals have taken an oath to do what is best for America as a whole, and their constituents in particular. The reality is, many politicians play only for power and spend most of their time trying to cut off the opposition and hopefully stop the other party in its tracks. In the halls of congress the mark of a good politician is one who will carry the party line, wins position and destroys political party opposition. With all this time spent fighting the opposition there is little time for thought as to the issues at hand on an individual basis. Generally each politician waits for the party line to be established on an issue before any thought is given to the subject. Should an individual of conscience break ranks with their party's line they will surely pay a political price for it down the road.

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Many countries have started to fight the outsourcing of jobs as well as the loss of their industries to countries having populations which will work for much less. What all the countries of the world must start to understand is the global economic world is flattening. The obstructive legal walls and obstacles that slow commerce down today will eventually be removed providing for the acceleration of the economic actions of commerce. Over time the low wages will rise and the high wages will come down. It is part of the flattening process that occurs when those who are paid too little demand and receive more while those who make too much are forced to take less for their work. Eventually the wage of the average global worker will be quite similar. This is a settling process that will allow the manufacturing process to cost very much the same around the globe and and allow for the selling of the product on the market for just about the same price all around the world. However, it is just this settling process, and the look of change it presents, that people fear the most. Within the short run people will fight the change but eventually they will adjust and then thrive.

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Strong fences no longer make for good neighbors. Time has proven that fences can only take us so far. In our present world countries that fence off their neighbors may be doomed to isolation. Fencing off neighbors provides neither safety nor economic security. Generally the isolation will morph into what can easily be called a walled state. A state where those behind the walls will find difficulty in seeing out.These walls not only keep others from seeing in they also truncate the potential interaction of those who seek to interact with the population behind the walls.It tends to end the two way street of life that is so important to humans but also comes to humans with so much difficulty. Unfortunately, this is the short run time frame.

In the long run additional walls and fences will be built within the great fenced state. The outcome will be the creation of additional concentric walls within the original fenced boundary created for the sole purpose of further diminishing the possibility of free contact with those outside the state. This will become an extreme suppression of the interaction that is necessary for the growth of the state itself. The lack of growth may eventually lead to the demise of the state. It is unfortunate that during the heat and fervor of creating the original fence the fact that fences tend to create isolation was never given a second thought.

Alan Pfeffer

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Those in government must meet the same standards they wish to hold others to. That sounds like a statement an elected official would make out of one side of their mouth doesn't it? It assuredly is what people want to hear and in the course of the next two months that is what they will be told. Senators and members of Congress as well as the Presidential candidates will be pointing their fingers at their political opposition party identifying them as the poor stewards of our democracy. Each side will muck rake and promise to repair the damage the other side has perpetrated on the American citizenry. But not one of them will dare to provide a plan, beyond the words they speak, on how their acts of reformation will be accomplished. The government, and the people in government have lost my trust. It makes one want to vote NO for President but we know we cannot do that. Perhaps that is because We the People are the true stewards of democracy and in general we are a better judge of what is fair and correct than most of those we would elect to office. Yet, we fail to exercise that good judgement when the time comes to step into the polling booth. I suspect that is because we as Americans tend to look to the brighter side of most conditions. Sure enough, that is just what the politicians will try to sell us with out an honest plan to accomplish the condition changes of which they speak. Seems to me we should ask for hard facts before we vote or we will continue to have so many losers elected to public life.

Alan Pfeffer

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Once upon a time IBM used to have a sign that simply said THINK. I have often wondered what had become of that sign. It was a good sign. It said more than a huge book of facts or an endless novel. It was in reality a ticket for the magic carpet of the mind. It was a ride that was there for anyone who wished to read the sign and pause for a moment to reflect on its meaning. It has always been the best ride in town and the cost of the ticket was nothing more than a momentary pause for reflection on the thought. If one did pause and think about the meaning of the sign they became hooked. You see, once the individual really understands the concept of thinking before acting it changes the way they do things for the rest of their life. The magic carpet of the mind now becomes free to move about the universe.

Alan Pfeffer

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Our current world is very different from the one our parents knew. We have become a world of fast communication and intertwined economic dependence. Countries need each other and this need will continue to grow every day. Under most circumstances this is a good thing. Interdependence is what teams are built on. It is a structure that helps assure that no one person, country, or political institution is stronger or of more value than the whole. In the long run the friendly collective, whom we hopefully may someday achieve, cannot reach this goal without openness and self reinvention. The outstretched hand grabbing for money eventually realizes that the hand that honorably shakes hands first will be able to grow and gather both sooner and more. It is time for America to get back on track and figure out how to truly compete in this global economic world. The time has come to stop complaining about what is going wrong and start to figure how to play smarter, faster and to win.

Alan Pfeffer

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