American sentiments to look back and reflect every December are just as striking in this volume.  This is the first volume that acknowledges a growing domestic anti-war sentiment throughout 1966.  It must have been considered “strong enough” to influence policies in early 1967. Volume IV C-6-b opens with the examination of key news correspondents, examining the impact of journalists reporting against the war.

Pentagon Papers:  Part IV. C6b: Evolution of the War.
Extracted pages 1-22
1. Hedged Public Optimism Meets the New Year
Harrison Salisbury’s dispatches from North Vietnam were generating an explosive debate about the bombing. Not only had he questioned the “surgical” precision claimed for the bombing of military targets in populated areas, but he questioned the basic purpose of the strategy itself. In his view, civilian casualties were being inflicted deliberately to break the morale of the populace, a course both immoral and doomed to failure. The counter-attack mounted by bombing advocates (and apologists) combined with the predictable quick denunciations and denials from official sources helped generate a significant public reaction. The Pentagon reaction to the Salisbury articles touched off a new round of editorial comment about the credibility gap. Polls at the start of the year reflected the public’s growing cynicism about public statements. One Harris poll indicated that the public of January 1967 was just as likely to blame the United States for truce violations (despite public announcements to the contrary) as the enemy. Two years earlier this had not been so. Salisbury happened to be in North Vietnam when Hanoi was first bombed — whether by accident or design is uncertain. Consequently, his dispatches carried added sting — he was reporting on the less appealing aspects of a major escalation in the bombing campaign which would have attracted headlines on its own merits. His “in depth” of such an important benchmarks added markedly to its public impact. So great was the cry that President Johnson felt impelled to express “deep regret” over civilian casualties on both sides.

To Walter Lippman, the New Year meant “there is hope ONLY in a negotiated compromise” (emphasis added), but to others optimism was the keynote. Ambassador Lodge, in his New Year’s statement, predicted that “allied forces will make sensational military gains in 1967″ and “the war would end in an eventual fadeout one the allied pacification effort made enough progress to convince Hanoi that the jig was up.”  The New York Daily News informed 15 million New Yorkers that the “U.S. Expects to Crush Main Red Force in ’67.”

Johnson’s troop commitments generated an interesting quote from future President Gerald Ford on page three of this volume: “This event generated a storm of criticism especially from Congressman Gerald Ford who attacked the Administration for expanding operations into the Delta without advising Congress.” Ironic he would serve Nixon as VP (beginning in 1971) and had to confront Nixon’s secret war in Cambodia dating back to 1969.
Even the The Washington Starquoted North Vietnam’s Premier Phan Van Dong as being convinced that American public opinion “would eventually force the US to leave South Vietnam. He confirmed the often expressed fears of US officials who prophesied great danger of a wider and bloodier war if North Vietnam misread the peace marches and opposition to the war, interpreting it as lack of US determination.”

One of the interesting sections in this Volume is Section 4 “The Domestic Debate Continues: Polarization at Home.” Both members of Congress and citizens at home were protesting the war in Vietnam.  This was noted in February 1966, yet the war would continue and more Americans would die for another 10 years.  Another hot issue was inconsistent reporting from the military with reporters:

Pentagon Papers:  Part IV. C6b: Evolution of the War.
Extracted pages 90-100
In early February the Pentagon acknowledged that it had lost 1800 aircraft in Vietnam as opposed to the 622 “combat planes” which it had quoted earlier. R. W. Appel wrote in the New York Times questioning COMUSMACV infiltration figures.

 The public and the press alike were becoming increasingly wary of the statistics coming out of Washington. Even the Chicago Tribune in early March surmised that either the figures coming out of MACV were wrong or those coming out of the Pentagon were misleading. The paper cited a recent joint press conference held by McNamara and Rusk in which they announced that communist military forces in Vietnam had suffered tremendous casualties in the past four months, quantitatively an increase of 40-50%, thus reducing their effectiveness significantly, but in the next sentence announcing that serious communist military activity in Vietnam had “increased substantially.”

By mid-March editorial commentary was focusing on the theme that generally there would be more and wider war. American casualties announced on 10 March were higher than those for any other week of the war: 232 KIA, 1381 WIA, 4 MIA for a total of 1617.  Four days later the U. S. conducted the heaviest attacks of the 1967 air war on North Vietnam (128 missions flown by approximately 450 aircraft). Not only was there a feeling that the war would be longer and more intense, bur the public was becoming increasingly aware of its costs. In mid-March the House Appropriations Committee approved a $12 billion supplemental appropriations bill and a week later the Senate overwhelmingly approved a $20.8 billion military procurement program. The ease of which the appropriations bills were being passed was not truly indicative of the mood of Congress which was becoming increasingly divided about the war. The Stennis Subcommittee (Preparedness) was carrying the military’s fight for more troops. In late March Stennis charged that “American commanders in Vietnam are not getting all the troops they want and the bombing of the north is overly restricted.” The Pentagon reply to this was that “there had been no reduction in any program of troop deployments previously approved by the Department of Defense.” Senator Symington was publicly urging wider air raids of North Vietnam to include attack of the MIG airfields. By late March, Stennis’ charges were coming in drum-fire fashion focusing on charges that future troop deployments to Vietnam would fall below approved levels; that urgent military appeals for the bombing of more meaningful targets in North Vietnam were being arbitrarily denied and that the Pentagon was responsible for a gross shortage of ships in Vietnam. Prior to General Westmoreland’s return to the U.S. in late April, General Abrams had been named as his Deputy Commander and it appears that indeed, despite Westmoreland’s promises of victory, it would be a long war. For early that week the infiltration/casualty figures for the first quarter of 1967 were released, and they indicated that despite huge Red losses of nearly 25,000 men in the first 12 weeks of that year, nearly 4,000 more than that amount had infiltrated during the same period and were now active in enemy units in the South.

The waring signs were ringing again.  Yet the lack of honesty in the military and the White House contributed to a protest movement that required another two years to become simply unavoidable for Johnson.  But it was all at such a terrible cost.

I feel that more reports documenting a losing effort will continue to surface as I make my way through all 7,000+ pages of the study.

On the surface it should shock Americans today to read the reports and both military and diplomatic cables that show President Johnson, General Westmoreland & their aides planed how to deal with losing the war in Vietnam in mid 1965.

Regrettably if you read previous volumes of the Pentagon Papers its very clear America had absolutely no reason to back Diem and the South in its war against the communist North….other than the domino theory that was gripping global politics.  They knew well before ’65 that South Vietnam would fall to the communists.
US involvement in Vietnam and to a greater extent South East Asia began during the late stages of World War II.  During the 1961 Presidential transition we learned President Eisenhower briefed incoming President elect Kennedy that Americans would again be drawn into war in Laos — not Vietnam.  The Johnson White House clearly understood the history of failed efforts by the US to aid South Vietnam in it’s long protracted war against the communist North.

While it was Watergate that would later gave us the catch phrase “What did the President know and when did he know it” clearly Volume IV-C5 reveals Johnson and his White House advisers knew between March and July of 1965 that South Vietnam could not win their war.  Mid 1965 — its already understood we cannot turn the tide against the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong?

These memorandums appear on roughly page 1,780 in Volume IV-C5 and just five months before the battle of the Ia Drang valley.  Today some will recognize this battle by the critically acclaimed book We Were Soldiers Once… And Young. Many remember the 2002 movie starring Mel Gibson.  305 Americans died in this battle. And while winning at LZ X-Ray, horrifically American soldiers marched to LZ X-Albany where the stung enemy ambushed and killed an additional 155 Americans.  So even before waging this battle the White House knew it was a losing effort.  Again, just stunning to read these cables and reports by key members of the White House and armed forces outlining how to bring US soldiers into Vietnam in a formal landing while working on a strategy to salvage face (against the Soviets and Chinese) while understanding their efforts were inevitability a lost cause.

Volume IV C5 reveals the deep ties of four consecutive Presidential Administrations regarding Southeast Asia, Laos and Vietnam.  Beginning with Truman in 1945 to Eisenhower, then Kennedy and at the time of the writing – Johnson with Richard Nixon to take over and expand the War after 1968.  Despite an initial deployment of 44 US battalions (~57,200 troops) to Vietnam to help fight the war all reports by military and civilian analysts, well…now we can read for the first time – 40 years later….it was all just bullshit from before our troops even landed at Da Nang.

Pentagon Papers:  Part IV. C5: Evolution of the War.
Phase I in the Build-up of U.S. Forces: March – July 1965
Section: N:  The U.S. Moved to Take Over the Land War — The Search and Destroy Strategy and the 44 Battalion Debate
Subsection: D:  Search and Destroy as a Strategy and 44 Battalions as a Force
Key participants:  President Johnson, General Westmoreland, Assistant Secretary of State William Bundy, US Ambassador to South Vietnam Maxwell Taylor, Under Secretary of State George Ball & Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton

Extracted Text: Pages 104 – 116:

Page 104:
D. Search and Destroy as a Strategy and 44 Battalions as a Force
—
Page 114:
This message was extremely important, for in it COMUSMACV [Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam] spelled out the concept of keeping U.S. forces away from the people. The search and destroy strategy for U.S. and Third Country forces which continues to this day and the primary focus of RVNAF on pacification both stem from that concept.  In addition, Westmoreland made a big pitch in this cable for a free hand to maneuver the troops around inside the country. That is the prerogative of a major field commander — there is good indication that at this stage Westmoreland saw himself in that light rather than as advisor and assister to the Vietnamese armed forces.

Ambassador Taylor returned to Vietnam from Washington shortly after the battle at Dong Xoai, just as the new Thieu-Ky government was being installed. His first report confirmed the ‘seriousness of the military situation as reported by General Westmoreland and also pointed up the very tenuous hold the new government had on the country.  This report apparently helped to remove the last obstacles to consideration of all of the forces mentioned in Westmoreland’s request of 7 June. On 22 June, the Chairman of the JCS cabled Westmoreland and CINCPAC to inform them that the ante had gone up from 35 to 44 battalions, counting all forces planned and programmed and including the 173rd. Westmoreland was asked if 44 battalions would be enough to convince the VC/DRV that they could not win. General Westmoreland replied that there was no evidence the VC DRV would alter their plans regardless of what the U.S. did in the next six months. The 44 battalion force should, however, establish a favorable balance of power by the end of the year. If the U.S. was to seize the initiative from the enemy, then further forces would be required into 1966 and beyond.

On the 26th of June, as has already been noted, General Westmoreland was given the authority to commit U.S. forces to battle in support of RVNAF “in any situation ..”when, in COMUSMACV’s judgment, their use is necessary to strengthen the relative position of GVN forces.”  This was about as close to a free hand in managing the forces as General Westmoreland was likely to get. The enclave strategy was finished, and the debate from then on centered on how much force and to what end. There were some attempts to snatch the chestnuts from the fire, however.

Westmoreland’s opposition, while far from presenting a united front, had its day in court during late June and early July 1965. The Embassy in Saigon, “‘while recognizing the seriousness of the situation in South Vietnam, was less than sanguine about the prospects for success if large numbers of foreign troops were brought in. Deputy Ambassador U. Alexis Johnson told Assistant Secretary of Defense McNaughton on 25 June that the U.S. should not bring in more troops. The situation,
according to Johnson, was in many ways no more serious than the previous
—
Page 115:
year. Even if it were more serious, he went on, massive input of U.S. troops was unlikely to make much difference. The best they could do would be to hold a few enclaves. Johnson pointed out that the Vietnamese were afraid they would lose authority if more U.S. troops were brought in. He advised that the U.S. allow the forces already in the country to settle. After some experimentation with them, the way would be much clearer. Once in, troops could not, without difficulty, be-taken out again.

The views expressed by Johnson to McNaughton parallel those of Ambassador Taylor throughout the build-up debate. Both men were very much concerned with the effect of the proposed build-up on the Vietnamese; They were not directly opposed to the use of U.S. forces to help the GVN; they merely wanted to go very slowly to insure against loss of control.

At the opposite end of the spectrum from General Westmoreland was Under Secretary of State George Ball. Convinced that the U.S. was pouring it’s resources down the drain in the wrong place, Ball placed himself in direct opposition to the build-up. In a draft memorandum he circulated on the 28th of June, Ball stated that Westmoreland’s intention was to go to Phase III combat (Phase III of the 8 May Concept of Operations which called for US/Allied forays inland to secure bases and areas for further operations). In Ball’s view there was absolutely no assurance that the U.S. could with the provision of more ground forces achieve its political objectives in Vietnam. Instead, the U.S. risked involving itself in a costly and indeterminate struggle. To further complicate matters,· it would be equally impossible to achieve political objectives by expanding the bombing of the North — the risks of involving the USSR and the CPR. There too great, besides which such action would alienate friends. No combination of the two actions offered any better’ prospect for success. Since the costs to achieve its objectives if the U.S. embarked on an expanding program were indeterminate, the U.S. should, in Ball’s view, not elect to follow such a course of action.   It should instead “cut its losses” by restricting itself to the programmed 15 battalions and 72,000 men made public at a press conference in mid-June by the Secretary of Defense.  By holding those forces to a very conservative Phase II strategy of base defense and reserve in support of RVNAF, U.S. combat losses could be held to a minimum while the stage was being set for withdrawal.

Ball was cold-blooded in his analysis. He recognized that the U.S. would not be able to avoid losing face before its Asian allies if it staged some form of conference leading to withdrawal of U. S. forces.  The loss would only be of short term duration, however, and the U.S. could emerge from this period of travail as a ”a wiser and more mature nation.” On 1 July, Ball sent to the President a memorandum entitled “A Compromise Solution for South Vietnam.” In that memorandum, Ball presented his case for cutting losses essentially as it is described above.
—
Page 116:
Assistant Secretary of State William Bundy, like so many others, found himself in between Westmoreland and Ball.  The U. S. needed to avoid the ultimatum aspects of the 44 battalions and also the Ball withdrawal proposal, both of which were undesirable in Bundy’s estimation. On 1 July, Bundy suggested to the President that the U.S. should adopt a policy in which you could allow it to hold on without risking disasters of scale if the war were lost despite deployment of the full 44 battalions. For the moment, according to Bundy, the U.S. should complete planned deployments to bring in-country forces to 18 maneuver battalions and 85,000 men. The Airmobile Division and the remainder of the 1st Division should be brought to a high state of readiness, but the decision as to their deployment should be deferred. By so acting the U.S. would gain time in which to work diplomatically to realign Southeast Asia and thereby salvage its honor and credibility. The forces in Vietnam, which Bundy assumed would be enough to prevent collapse, would be restricted to reserve reaction in support of RVNAF. This would allow for some experimentation without taking over the war effort — a familiar theme. Bundy felt, as did Ambassador Taylor, that there remained considerable uncertainty as to how ‘well U.S. troops would perform in the Vietnam environment. We needed to find out before going big.

While our trusted leaders and their advisers saw the writing on the wall they nevertheless marched America into that darkness. And we needed to find out before going big?  58,195 American lives and 350,000+ casualties.  Think that was big enough?

The study is a 47 volume, 7,000+ page report regarding the US involvement in Vietnam’s long civil war.  This is a long deeply engaging read of organizational failure at the highest levels of the military and government.  So many American lives were lost for a policy that was doomed from the beginning.  This book will painfully show that the brightest and smartest RAND analysts knew it, senior military and policy advisors knew it and so did the White House.

The study was commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967.  And for “newly released” material (in 2011) it provides the most horrific, fascinating and astounding read of our policy and warfare strategy under a total of four Presidents: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. However the war continued through both Johnson and Nixon administrations finally ending under President Gerald Ford in 1975.

The Vietnam War was the longest 20th century war in American history.  The study covers a 25-year military engagement in Vietnam while US political interests and efforts actually developed before the end of World War II and continued until the fall of Saigon in 1975.  Take a step back and realize it was a 30 year losing commitment.

Even today in 2012 its amazing to learn multiple volumes of this 1967 study remained classified for exactly 40 years until released (fully redacted) by the National Archives in June 2011.

As important as this study is for understanding our role in the world over a generation, it will regrettably open old wounds. We finally have full access to read the carelessness of our decision makers (both military and Presidential) that cost the lives of over 53,000 American soldiers.  How horrific would these numbers be viewed today?

So why isn’t this “book” listed with any 2011 best sellers?  It was sure greeted with much fanfare and press coverage the day the US National Archives released the study. 

IMHO today’s twitter-focused society cannot read a 7,000+ page study. Sorry to be so blunt. American culture today — we are a nation of ‘skimmers’ due to the vast amounts of data available and our busy lifestyle, we simply do not have the time to read such lengthly books.  We only seek to quickly skim headlines in print, online and while mobile.

And regarding war, I’m afraid here (yet again) is where the lessons of history are lost.

40 years also makes another amazing difference – my ability to hold all 47 volumes on an iPad. As of January I’m just past page 3,500.

My highest compliments to an amazingly professional effort to move the Papers, printed over 40 years ago into an easily copy/paste format for educators, students and historians.

May I suggest photoshopping the faded lines of text in attached memorandums?

By simply modifying the brightness level of the image’s histogram (using the Levels tool in Photoshop) it would benefit many readers who like me, find focusing and recognizing faded text somewhat difficult to read.

The example here took less than one minute to produce a deeper, darker text that makes character recognition much easier to comprehend.

BTW: Its wonderful to color hilight sections of any volume of the study on an iPad.  And carrying around this entire 7,000+ page, 47 volume study is just remarkable.

As Part IV-C.4. reveals research, studies & politics all concluded that South Vietnamese armed forces were on the brink of collapse against the Viet Cong.  The document provides the data that should have not only questioned the decision to deploy US forces but the questioned the role of the US in Vietnam vs Laos.

It was just one terrible decision by the White House after 20 years of continued support for the South Vietnamese.  The “no surprise at the time of deployment” was an existing 20,000 American force of military and policy advisers supporting the South Vietnamese air force and government.

An emerging mistake in the previous part “[Part IV. C. 3.] Evolution of the War. Rolling Thunder Program Begins: January – June 1965″ is the “automatic reliance” on superior air power to defeat the NVA and Viet Cong.  I believe Nixon proved this wrong at the very end of the war.

Looking back — One should not help but evaluate these hard lessons from David Halberstam’s The Best and The Brightest published in 1972 (my review here)  Kennedy seemed to have the top researchers and policy advisors like McGeorge Bundy, Robert McNamara, Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow continue policies established by Presidents Truman and Eisnenhower regarding Southeast Asia, Laos and Vietnam.   Halberstam looked at the promise of the young Kennedy think-tank and drew upon his own lessons while reporting from Vietnam.  Halberstam was awarded a 1964 Pulitzer prize for International Reporting on the war in Vietnam  and the overthrow of the Diem regime.

As I approach page 3,500 and reading about actions 40 years ago, I cannot convey how sad this is for America.  The loss of life in a war against communism (today we can realize) was doomed from the beginning. Consistently ignored by Washington and every President from FDR to Nixon lied through their teeth to protect US interests during the Cold War.

Interesting to look at the title “US – Vietnam relations 1945 – 1967″ clearly the early volumes indicate before the end of World War II the US sent money and arms to the Viet Minh — yes the Viet Minh.

In 1960 the Viet Minh changed their name to the National Liberation Front (NLF) aka Viet Cong.   So FDR and the US gave money and arms to Ho Chí Minh for one year…however we reversed course, backed the South Vietnamese and welcomed the quagmire that cost 53,000 American lives.  I hope to be done in January 2012.

I cannot help but look back at sections of his book regarding the CIA’s role in Vietnam from 1954-1975. Weiner book helps indicate where the CIA is today as an organization, regarding their war on terror….also known as the ‘transnational anti-terrorism activities’ including implications of human rights abuses.

Weiner’s rich history of CIA’s vast amount of intelligence gathering required by Presidnets Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon is no surprise, however I was surprised by Weiner’s documentation regarding Kennedy’s distain for the agency and its Director former Air Force General Charles Cabell.

As I read the Pentagon Papers its amazing to cross reference Weiner’s timelines to Vietnam and learn how Johnson and Nixon where throwing billions at a problem that simply never went away.  Faulty intelligence by the CIA misled Nixon into bombing Cambodia and ultimately a secret invasion that backfired on his Presidency.  Nixon, like Kennedy had no love for Director Richard Helms.  Weiner documents the difficult political role Directors have played in working with every President.  Chief issue for all: faulty intelligence.  Oh how it has cost America.  Then there is the whole Watergate thing…

Legacy of Ashes is a great read that will enlighten you to the amazing history of American espionage and the failures of the agency that have lead to incredible mistakes in American foreign policy.  Since America seems to ignore it’s own history this book provides the framework for future errors that will cost America more than just blood.

The study traces US involvement in Vietnam beginning in 1945 just after World War II and ending in 1967 before the Tet Offensive.  The report, a scathing self-examination of U.S.-Vietnamese relations and the Vietnam War, led to one of the largest and most significant court battles ever concerning government secrets vs. freedom of the press.  Nixon’s demand to damage Ellsberg resulted in the Watergate scandal.

The Nixon Library has a copy in that was part of President Richard Nixon’s papers. It will be released at 9 a.m., June 13, 40 years to the day that leaked portions of the report were printed on the front page of The New York Times.

Clearly Congress was pitched a bill of goods manipulated by Wall Street. That simply bit them in the ass.  I was amused to see how they were asking for the government to bail them out when their house of cards folded in on them.  And yet I’m amused to read and listen to “specialists” or “experts in the field” in the financial marketplace or even the vast field of TV “analysts” who say the government is socialist for ”buying” the banks.

TARP was issued under W. Bush?  If the Treasury did not step in and bail out Wall Street we would be in the middle of a global revolution as I type.  Sure ignore it all and watch our entire economy totally collapse.

I was impressed with the book’s level of detail surrounding the relationships between W. Bush and Obama’s senior leadership (who transitioned to the Democratic White House) and their twisted histories with the major banks on Wall Street.  Its clear the amount of money funneling through Congress today provides Wall Street with a clear avenue to set policy — and even give away free money.  Well its not exactly free…the money handed to Wall Street to protect their horrible investment decisions on terms they could bargain for collectively.  And of course they all took it.

As Jamie Dimon from JPMorgan Chase stated, somehow during the financial  collapse they managed to have the best year in the company’s history — and paid out billions in bonus compensation while most Americans who purchased their products lost everything:  jobs, mortgages and ultimately their future as a result of the recession that followed.

13 Bankers blog

Cedric Jennings is the focus of “A Hope in the Unseen” an incomplete story of a gifted high school student in the poor intercity of Washington DC during the height of the crack cocaine wars of the 90s. His story of overcoming all the odds to win a scholarship to an Ivy League college is just part of his story.  And college was just beginning another struggle in his life.  With other groups sometimes the title did not fit the organization, like Jon Krakauer‘s Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith. That is one tough book for any club.

I have learned what some titles really do not make any sense for a university administrator.  During a regular meeting with a former college’s senior leadership we went around the table speaking about a current book we were reading and how it fit into our job. I was reading about innovation yet was humored with one academic dean who shared her thoughts about her job and a murder mystery based in Chicago. Yikes!

This is the third book by Ron Suskind that I have read over the last year. Having been impressed with his previous works One Percent Doctrine and The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism it was no surprise I found his work again very enjoyable. What I did not realize prior to beginning this book was his Pulitzer Prize for writing a short story about Cedric Jennings while he attended Ballou High School were published in the Wall Street Journal.

Again the impression I found with this group was really to view Cedric’s life as a lesson for students that we engage every day on campus. I began to think about the type of discussions I could bring to students with my experiences to assist them making their way through college and life.  Cedric’s journey is not that far from the story of Sudhir Venkatesh in Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets, a great read about a University of Chicago grad student studying life in the Chicago gangs during the same time-frame.

The issue of simple attendance in Cedric’s high school was also not far from an experience I had working on a technology project with the Detroit City Schools.  This project took me into a high school back in the 90s that woke me up to the fact that I passed metal detectors manned by the Detroit Police Department…who also instructed me when to best walk the halls during the day.  Clearly I was out of my element.

This book is hard to put down when you consider the dynamics of today’s college students.

Six month later Sorkin’s story of the financial meltdown and shocking background stories that stunned the world still resonate – due to news that Wall Street again is on shaky ground, especially with municipal bonds

Clearly the lack of oversight and Washington’s hands-off approach to Wall Street contributed, yet as Sorkin documents the big investment banks were playing with loose money, morals and an ego the size of Canis Majoris.

Its no wonder the rich get richer and the poor get poorer when you can lose the largest trade in the history of Wall Street and actually keep your job.

With companies like Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley, Lehman, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and AIG its no wonder George W. Bush was forced to step in and save the country from a nuclear meltdown.  I believe Hank Paulson’s book On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System tells the tale of the Bush Administration and made it to my top five list too.

With HBO’s recent commitment to make a movie from Sorkin’s book it ensures many more will be reading this in 2011.

Author’s website

Tags: Andrew Ross Sorkin, Too Big to Fail, Bear Stearns, Wall Street, Morgan Stanley, Lehman, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, recession, AIG, trends

Harvard law professor Yochai Benkler has written a very comprehensive book to describe conflicts between analog and digital data creators in society and how internet based technologies are changing society and commerce.

It’s a good read but hard to grasp due to a focus on economics. Don’t be fooled the by title if your looking at computer networks….he has written it into the binding that ties his arguments together.  It is truly worth the read.

Benkler shares how technology has merged the professional and the consumer into a ‘prosumer’ due to low cost and high performing computers and robust networks have made distribution of information cheap enough that community is now empowered to drive change.

Take a look at how the internet has evolved.  The Akami to YouTube migration showed how multimedia has found a free, reliable distribution center.  When you also migrate 1st generation complex, large scale websites to new blogs and content management systems under the open source business model Benkler states that data is now a “non-rival” product that has democratized the digital workflow of data from brick and mortar to community, peer-developed content solutions.

Benkler suggests modern computing drives new, strong and deep collaboration that can have a large impact on the global economy and society.  Benkler also suggests that as more consumers embrace technology collaboration, change to our culture is possible due to engines of free exchange (wikipedia, creative commons, open source and the blogosphere) could be more efficient (when shared) than current models that are restricted by copyright and patents because the ability to duplicate (or reproduce digital content) makes little or no impact on business.

Tags: The Wealth of Networks, Social Technologies, economy, society, Yochai Benkler, education, change, reading, trends

After reading Tom Friedman’s The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century book series on globalization and the breakthrough work by Jerry Wind and Victor & William Fung in Competing in a Flat World: Building Enterprises for a Borderless World.

I found chapters in Corporate Agility a fit perfectly to the above works.  Corporate Agility supports business case studies throughout the book that span a wide range of industries with lessons for all who are seeking new models for business in the 21st globalized century.

The strongest chapter is early in the book surrounding the shift in company buildings and the move to a mobile workforce that permits companies to break expensive building leases and create smaller ‘offices’ with limited administrative staff and resources.

I have experienced these efforts directly in working with clients who have been forced to trim staff and yet end up in an dry office complex with over 50% of their office cubes empty.

Actually I’m reminded of a PR company who hired temporary workers to “work” in all their empty cubes while a potential client made an office visit.  Needless to say they did not understand the basics of a company’s need for agility as described in the book.

I feel the early chapters of Corporate Agility is an expansion of The World Is Flat while the book’s case studies just touch the surface that is presented in detail by Competing in a Flat World.

Corporate Agility’s book website

Tags: Corporate Agility, Flat World, Case Study, China, India, globalization, education, Supply Chain, offshoring, Multinationals, manufacturing, technology, reading, trends

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Numerati is a great read regarding the impact of advanced analytics across the board.  I was impressed with mathematicians Baker interviews and the surprising number who eventually work for IBM or the NSA.  Baker has written a book about how the best mathematicians are changing the way we live by processing amazingly vast amounts of data and simply detecting patterns.  The data comes via mouse-clicks, cell phone calls and credit card purchases just to name a few.

It sounds simple.  On the surface with today’s high performance computing and powerful consumer technologies.  But Baker shows how mathematicians are working to draw upon extremely high levels of computational power to deliver products and solutions that will dramatically impact our lives.

At the same time some of the projects mentioned seems more ‘wonderland’ in design. Yet consider the amount of data created by the Large Hadron Collider for example, the emerging world of Big Science is just starting to take off.

Chapters tackle different subjects (mentioned above) and as others. Many have indicated the shopping chapter is the best of the book. It was very enjoyable to read.  Some of the ideas and inventions about health were interesting, some ideas a bit hard to wrap around your brain – like the ability of a floor tile to detect if your elderly father has a change in an existing medical condition.  Another example, how a computer can analyze a sequence of video (over time) and determine in your are prone to suffering Parkinson’s disease.

We do however live in a world today with amazing powers in biology, science and engineering.  Once dreams of having a Dick Tracy watch in the 1930s has been eclipsed by some revolutionary ideas mathematicians are working with today.  Baker also acknowledges how mathematicians are working to help detect terrorists in a very interesting chapter on safety.  His ending conversation with Google’s top SEO expert also reveals something about mathematicians, they ultimately analyze the numbers they are presented.  Baker lasting image for the reader is to help mathematicians focus on looking at the most accurate numbers for accurate analytics.
A great book that shows you the potential for good….and the opportunity for harm.

Book Website

Tags: Steven Baker, The Numerati, mathematicians, High Performance Computing, future, analytics, trends, reading

I read Ellsberg’s book Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers back in 2006 (review here) and realize its better than the movie.

However for today’s Gen Y its more than enough to get them visually interested in events as old as Vietnam, Watergate and Nixon.

Movie Website

Tags: SUPERFreakonomics, Stephen Dubner, Steven Levitt, Economics, datasets, innovation, energy, population, poverty, technology, Sudir Venkatesh, terrorist, trends

This is a great follow-up to his first book Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.  Shirky is right on target with engaging, connecting stories to share his ideas about our new ability today to share collective knowledge.

Over 1 trillion hours of TV is watched per year. Imagine what can happen when people turn TV off and begin contributing.  And Shirky elegantly shares the shifting nature of professionals vs. amateurs in the age of the internet.  Pretty amazing reading.

I believe there have been attempts to move in the direction he outlines but a tipping point has been the mass availability of consumer devices at very affordable price points.  I recall Peter Gabriel‘s interview on the Today Show in 1988 talking about the efforts of Amnesty International and their attempts to videotape human rights abuses with large, analog cameras.
Today we know all to well from the murder of Oscar Grant that cameraphones have made their efforts real.

The Napster thing
IMHO Clay’s single oversight in the book surrounds Napster.  I think he was trying to communicate a holistic answer to why people (not just Gen Xers) were stealing music.  He called it sharing — it was stealing plain and simple.
He overlooked the availability of cheap recordable media (external hard drives and blank CDs) along with fast networks.  Clay addressed Napster’s explosive growth and outlined the reasons for its huge success:

1. digital data is infinitely and perfectly copyable at zero marginal cost.
2. people will share if sharing is simple enough; and we generally resist being spiteful under the same conditions
3. Fanning designed a system to link 1 to 2 via the right incentives.

“That’s is. That’s what turned the recording industry upside down.”

He simply overlooked the physical requirement that brought the solution to everyone’s computer. If a storage solution (blank CDs or Hard Drives) did not exist at very affordable price points people would not be sharing so much music….because they would have no abiliy to store all the files they were downloading.  Today with terabyte drives under $100 we forget the considerably higher costs for consumer electronics before Napster arrived in 1999.

Consider Napster’s timeframe in the summer of 1999.  You could download mp3 files from Usenet newsgroups like alt.binary.music but had no affordable solution to store the vast amounts of music available.  Apple’s original 5GB iPod was introduced a month after 9/11. Smaller mp3 players were shipping at the time but most did not offer significant storage or an iTunes experience to easily library the music for your iPod.  And Rio’s 1998 MP3player was just a measly 32 megabytes — yes megabytes.  The “iPod effect” had yet to taken hold a chokehold on the mp3 player marketplace.  So users had to store their music on their computer, blank CDs or an external drive.

Shirky also overlooked the key transit issue.  As Gen Xers connected to robust campus networks, they connected (and shared) globally compared to their home or High School dial-up, DSL or Cable services.  And here lies the true key – bandwidth made it worth their time and effort to steal music. Can you image running Napster on a 9200 baud modem?  With a bigger pipe on campus Gen Xers could steal music and burn more blank CDs.  And it only accelerated when traditional music stores were charging $20 for the same CD Napster was making available for free. It was a perfect storm for ripping off the music industry.

I have spent twenty years on multiple campus networks.  Honestly when I spoke to students about Napster….they were all about stealing.  The term “sharing” is the spin word. College kids are not wealthy. They invest in books, cars and beer.  Students heading out for class would leave their music drives connected on their dorm’s network allowing anyone connected to hijack as much as they wanted.  At some point it became more than just having a folder of your favorite band’s complete discography.  It became about stealing a complete music library from the six major labels (in the early to mid 90s).  And it was not just music.  There remains to this day P2P tools that share software, ebooks and full length movies.  Many universities shut down access to Napster and sent memorable emails to their university community describing Napster’s primary use: digital theft of copyrighted music.

Napster’s explosive growth is not just Shirky’s 2 steps (above) but rather the following:

A. Devices to store digital data (CDs and external drives) were finally affordable to consumers.
B. Robust digital networks (non-modem) became available at universities.
C. Music was shared on the campus network all day long.
D. People swapped discs/drives of music for friends off campus.
E. Napster peaked in February 2001 and the iPod was introduced 45 days after 9/11

If you think Napster is dead then your not aware of torrents.  Beleive it or not YouTube is even a more popular way to steal copyrighted music.  Today there are free recording applications that permit users to capture high quality audio playing from a computer.  Search YouTube for a popular artist and odds are you will find a ‘video’ of a song that has a static picture instead of a video clip.  Anyone can hit the record button on the audio software and then click YouTube’s play button, and (drum roll) they have stolen a new song and probably copied it onto their iPod.  Think that’s clever? Search for an artist and add ‘torrent’ to the search string (U2 torrent) and look at whats available to everyone today.  Take a look at how U2′s business manager tried to stop ISPs from permitting music piracy.
/end Napster rant

Overall Shirky’s stories of how the modern internet, creative minds and the opportunity for citizens to kill their television and contribute is a great introduction to social networking.

Tags: Clay Shirky, Cognitive Surplus, kill your television, Social Networking, Creative, Sharing, trends, reading

The unit will also have two wireless options: a $139 WiFi only version and a $189 3G version.  Storage has been increased to 4GB.

Let the eBook price wars continue!

Tags: Amazon, Kindle, ebook, price war, ebook sales, reading, trends

The device is rumored to be even thinner an updated refresh screen and enhanced imaging. The new Kindle will remain greyscale and will not support a touch screen….but may include apps.

Tags: Amazon, Kindle, ebook, price war, ebook sales, reading, trends

Steve Eisman, Michael Burry, and Howie Hubler all have interesting roles in the credit swap and collapse (among others) that combine to document how greed, pure greed and outright criminal theft led to the economic collapse of financial giants and ruined our country.

Steve Eisman was blunt — to say the least when insulting financial CEOs but he was right all along about the coming collapse.

Why didn’t others listen to him?  Maybe its how the game is stacked to reward the few and control the governing agencies.  Wall Street views S&P and Moody’s as the guys unable to survive at a brokerage so they work outside the real game.  Lewis has much more to show how the game is stacked for the wealthy and against middle America and especially the poor.

Maybe the best part was his explanation of how Wall Street actually pays S&P and Moody’s for their credit ratings….

Hubler made the worst trade in the history of Wall Street. He lost $9 Billion on a single trade for Morgan Stanley.  And yet he was permitted to leave with a $100 million bonus.  $9 B I L L I O N and he walks unscathed?  Lewis briefly touches on how his actions were covered up by Morgan Stanley and buried from the light of day.

Whats worse? A farm worker in California earning $14,000 is approved a subprime to purchase a house for $768,000.  A stripper in Vegas and full time baby sitter in Manhattan have been manipulated to hold multiple six-figure properties that neither could ever hope to pay off.  But their financial institutions pushed them down the rabbit hole with stories of easy, affordable financing…

While going through Stanford medical school Michael Burry discovered he had a better talent for bond market research. More importantly he understood how to bet against risky consumers suckered into “teaser rates” on subprime loans.  He dropped out of medical school and started his own investment company.  He just had to advise his clients to hold onto investments for more over two years as those subprime mortgage adjustments expired and skyrocketed Americans into default.  In betting against the success of them he won big….really big.

Maybe the best example of how criminal Wall Street is was how Goldman Sachs had someone selling credit default swaps to a company and then actually betting against that company’s ability to repay the swap back to Goldman.  He walked with a personal bonus of 1 BILLION dollars:

I’m impressed with Lewis’ storyline: Wall Street sold bullshit products to screw poor people – plain and simple.  Cannot see anyone reading this book actually taking a stand that Wall Street does NOT need serious reform.  Criminal insanity with a slice of reality over a ton of F-bombs.

His strongest writing are the 20 pages in the book’s Afterward, written one year after his departure from Treasury with the opportunity to look back and reflect upon the events and the solutions including TARP and the role of the G20.

Paulson was certainly the right type of person for the job having served as the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs.  He previously served in the Nixon administration as an assistant to John Ehrlichman during the Watergate scandal.

Although reluctant to accept the job as United States Treasury Secretary under George W. Bush, Paulson acknowledged upon his arrival in Washington a credit crisis was on the horizon.  Clearly Paulson notes he was naive of regulatory powers in Washington and any suggestions of financial reform in an election year were all dead on arrival.

It’s worth repeating that between March and September 2008, eight major US financial institutions failed — Bear Stearns, IndyMac, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, AIG, Washington Mutual and Wachovia.  Six of them in September alone.
Paulson jumps right out of the gate on page 1 as all Americans would have wanted:

Do they know it’s coming Hank? President Bush asked me.  “Mr. President we’re going to move quickly and take them by surprise.  The first sound they’ll hear is their heads hitting the floor….For the good of the country I proposed we seize control of the companies, fire their bosses and prepare to provide $100 billion of capital support for each.”

Regrettably its not Wall Street but rather Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government backed lending institutions (GSEs) that Paulson is addressing.  Paulson should could have done the same for Lehman, Bear Stearns.and ALL the other institutions since they received taxpayer money to keep them afloat….on their yachts.
–When you learn that someone at a financial company made a 1 Billion bonus (yes a billion for one person) you can see where the ship was heading…right into the rocks.

There is plenty of ammunition to show exactly how bad Wall Street was ‘self managed’ that led to the crisis.  Paulson simply but it best “AIG’s incompetence was stunning” as he reveals how difficult it was for Treasury and the Fed to use outdated tools to save a company gone over the edge.

Keep your enemies closer indeed
I was not surprised with his notes from the Beijing Olympics.  With the financial crisis already underway (Fannie and Freddie) Paulson documents how China and Russia tried to squeeze the US over GSE holdings in Fannie and Freddie.  Nice.  It shows something about those ‘old’ communists running Russia today.

I actually think the book’s afterward is the most important section in the book.  IMHO this must should be required reading for every taxpayer and student.  His four critical lessons:

1. The structural economic imbalances among the major economies of the world that led to the massive cross-border capital flows are an important source of the justly criticized excesses in our financial system.

2. Our regulatory system remains a hopelessly outmoded patchwork quilt built for another day and age.

3. The financial system contained far too much leverage, as evidenced by inadequate cushions of other capital and liquidity.  Much of the leverage was embedded in largely opaque and highly complex financial products.

4. The largest financial institutions are so big and complex that the pose a dangerously large risk.

Clearly government needs resolution authority when putting down a financial institution.  It would also address the anger and outrage regarding bonuses and compensation levels given to Wall Street.  But the free market system created this mess and as a result their club was simply too big to fail.
Why does Goldman get all the breaks?  Could it be that many of its former executives are executing the government’s financial policies?

Tags: Henry Paulson, On the Brink, Bear Stearns, Wall Street, Lehman, AIG, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, recession, crisis, trends

Most would agree Bear Stearns was the “perfect storm” in hilighting whats wrong with Wall Street.  Trusted executives who cannot lead their company or explain products they are selling.

Author William Cohan even points out as Bear Stearns was collapsing two executives were in Nashville playing in a bridge card game tournament.

I was rather amused that with their ‘tough guy’ reputation on Wall Street, in the end the executives at Bear Stearns, facing the closure of their firm were actually considering filing chapter 11 to force a major collapse of the Western financial marketplace.

Known as their “nuclear option” Bear Stearns actually considered triggering the collapse of the US economy because they were unable to secure their quickly falling stock price at an “acceptable” price during negotiations with the Federal Reserve and JPMorgan Chase in their final hours of operations.  And in the end, many of those tough guys ended up crying at their desks.

Cohan also reveals how in the end Bear Stearns simply cooked the books, played with massive egos and was actually surprised when JPMorgan Chase did not actually help them out after working with The Fed to set up a 29 day transition with JPMorgan Chase.  But after years of bad blood and pompous actions, in the end Bear Stearns got exactly what they deserved….they drove their firm into the ditch while looking the other way and “rewarding” executives with multi-million dollar retirement plans.

House of Cards and Too Big to Fail both make me think it may be a great time to have the Government get into the financial marketplace.  If implemented correctly (that’s a big IF) a Government run investment bank, securities trading and brokerage could generate enough profit to stop taxing Americans.  Think its crazy?  Read how all those trusted financial “wizards” acted while driving Wall Street and the global economy off the cliff.

And you think the best way to repair the financial economy is to give them back the keys to drive the car?

Tags: William Cohan, House of Cards, Bear Stearns, Wall Street, Morgan Stanley, Lehman, JPMorgan, Federal Reserve, recession, AIG, trends