It is difficult to spend much timing musing over the year 2008. At this time of year many of us look back on the year that has passed and try to make sense of it. Our mistakes, hopefully, will teach us what not to do or guide us toward trying things that worked for others. We reminisce over the fun and exciting events of the year with plans and goals freshly laid for the coming year. The last quarter of 2008 was fraught with daily upheaval and financial losses that caused many people to despair. I needn’t list everything that went wrong (it is a long, long list). I have had enough doom and gloom and 2008 can be summed up as a financial mess. So let’s step back to look only at those things that stand out as hopeful against this grim backdrop.
Most prominent was the election of a new President and the excitement, swelling around the globe, of his upcoming inauguration on January 20th. Obama has wasted no time organizing his transition and making appointments to his cabinet. All of Obama’s picks appear to have substantial experience and come from diverse backgrounds, they are:
- Senator Hillary Clinton as secretary of state - Clinton seems to be uniquely qualified to be secretary of state bringing her years as a senator and first lady in her husband's administration as important experience.
- Timothy Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury – has been the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since 2003
- Larry Summers as Director of the National Economic council – served as The World Bank’s chief economist and treasury secretary under Bill Clinton.
- David Axelrod as Chief Advisor – served as Obama’s chief strategist during his campaign.
- Eric Holder as Attorney General – served as Bill Clinton’s deputy attorney general and as Obama’s legal advisor during his campaign
- Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader – served in the house from Las Vegas and then moved to the senate in 1987.
- Tom Daschle as Secretary of Health and Human Services – was a congressman from South Dakota and minority leader in the senate until he lost his seat in 2004.
- Bill Richardson as Secretary of Commerce – has served as governor of New Mexico and as energy secretary.
- Robert Gibbs as Press Secretary – lead Obama’s communications team during his campaign.
- Paul Volcker as Chairman of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board – served as chairman of the Federal Reserve under Jimmy Carter.
- Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense – is currently serving as secretary of defense under George Bush.
- Rahm Emmanuel as Chief of Staff – is an Illinois congressman and was an aide to Bill Clinton.
- James L Jones as National Security Advisor – was a four-star general who served in the Marine Corps for four decades.
- Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House and is the congresswoman from San Francisco.
- Henry Waxman as Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee – is a representative in the house for Los Angeles and chairman of the committee on oversight of government reform.
- Janet Napolitano as Secretary of Homeland Security – served as Arizona’s attorney general and became governor of that state in 2002.
- Susan Rice as US Ambassador to the United Nations – was a Rhodes Scholar with a doctorate in philosophy, and held several positions during the Clinton administration including assistant secretary of state under Madeline Albright.
- Arne Dunkan as Secretary of Education – is the head of education in Chicago, the third largest education system in the US.
- Steve Chu as Head of the US Energy Department – is the Nobel-prize winning physicist from the University of California Berkeley.
Generally, Americans are looking forward to the change in government with anticipation. The nonprofit sector has suffered recent setbacks along with the rest of America but a reason for optimism shines as a beacon of hope for all of us. What do you think of Obama’s picks? How do you think these choices will affect your nonprofit?
nonprofit
2 comments:
I think after the election and the subsequent appointments you layed out we hit a post election blues period that was magnified by recent scams and bad economic news.
I think we in the nonprofit area are naturally optimistic and you are heading that charge.
We need more inspirational news and I think the coming government with all its new faces will give us some hope but its hard to rely on government for long term faith and encouragement.
I believe the nonprofit industry makes faith and encouragement an everyday task. For those who fall in the gaps of service because of their station in life and/or because they are poor we provide what the government cannot, namely longterm hope and inspiration that a better day is coming!
Thanks for the encouragement with thoughtful questions and proding!
It is nice Scott to have the money it takes to get a Foundation up and functional, but billions of dollars are being fed to business and banking, loan, and investment groups that do not share the same motivation as you have. Since they have a higher station in life they tend to forget about what could be lurking at their feet and pass off shining up on that so much so run out and toss that pair of solutions in the trash and buy another pair without any solutions attaching. Its the gear up to Hybrid Syndrome what makes them jump over the Plan entirely.
I would hope that sometime in the year 2009 that the Foundation which is My Plan could get up and functional at least, I was not looking for $25 million parole for myself like some Board of Directors have for retainers. I really could have used support of government but I cannot see that a National Endowment would help any at all esp. since it tosses out donation capability.
I am left with a possible private Foundation which could organize business that would help to support the Foundation providing those Grants and Purchase Power. Yet I find it rather difficult to figure in payroll for employees the Foundation may need, group insurance would be OK if I could get it covered through Medicaid but every State does not have Medicaid and Congress will not organize States to mandate Medicaid. medicaid is where I feel UAW needs to be wrung out to dry so the union workers would get coverage from State supported Medicaid and the bailout money could cover that so they then could drop down their employment payroll hourly wages since that is how they obtained those higher amounts complaining about insurance. The UAW does not pay for electricity, sewage, water, garbage and really the automakers are suffering cause they are doing so. These overheads should be covered by UAW instead if UAW figures its a UAW automobile the automaker does not exist by those rules, so yes UAW should pay the price when they profit from it being a sole union made vehicle at the automaker plant. Let's free off the UAW quickly and get Medicaid working.
My Plan is as simple as it can get, the Foundation manages and the established employer sets the table for the work force and the work gets accomplished. The Foundation gathers up assets as quickly as is possible and pays off the overhead and whats left is dealt to the employer. The employer can make a contribution to the payroll of the employees and that become a tax deduction for the employer, therefore the more work accomplished the larger the Tax Deduction.
A Employee Fund would help to manage the asset for payroll purposes when needed, I just don't know about the methods yet.
See My Plan: The Electric Vehicle Free Conversion Foundation (EVFCF)
Here: http://jonalist.bravehost.com/articles/evfcf.html
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