I have refrained from writing much about the US Presidential
election campaign on my blog during the past year or so. I have refrained from commenting much about
Donald Trump's victory over 16 Republican opponents or Hillary Clinton's victory over Bernie Sanders in the Democratic race.
I tweeted many times during this period. Every now and then something related to the presidential campaign got
my attention that I felt deserved a tweet or three. I decided a few weeks ago that I would write a major blog after
both conventions were completed. Since the Democrats finished up their convention last Thursday I have been thinking
about the presidential election and how I feel about it. One of the big differences between this campaign and those of the past is that both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton
are extremely well known by the American people. It will be hard to find anybody that has never heard of these candidates.
Everybody knows something about them.
Since
Trump is not a professional politician there is no reliable source of historical information as to where he stands on political
or governing issues. Trump's magnificent buildings in New York and other cities, his golf courses, the success
of the Apprentice TV show and his ownership of a variety of other businesses are a testament to his successes during
his long business career. The bankruptcy of his casino business, controversy and lawsuit over Trump University
and a variety of other issues related to the conduct of his business affairs are testaments to the fact that he doesn't have
a perfect track record. He has built a net worth of somewhere between $3B and $10B starting with some help from his
father but the vast majority of his net worth was built through his expertise and management and sales skills.
Trump is the richest man ever to run for President of the United States.
Clinton's life and career are completely different than Trump's. While Trump built his net worth by himself
with support from his management team (which now includes his three oldest children), it is hard to separate Hillary's
success from that of her husband, former President Bill Clinton. Bill and Hillary have made themselves very wealthy
(though not close to Trump's wealth) through book deals, paid speeches and speaking tours and their not well understood
financial relationship with the Clinton Foundation. During the time each of them held public office, their salaries
were small in relation to their current wealth. Early in her career Hillary made money as a lawyer and even made some
money trading commodities. Hillary's life has been built around her goal to obtain as much power as possible to promote
her political objectives and to gain wealth in the process. There is no doubt Bill and Hillary were successful in achieving
their goals. The only question is how many laws they had to stretch or break to achieve their objectives.
The activities of Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation during Hillary's time as Secretary of State are the pinnacle
of the Clinton's ability to stretch or break laws or regulations for their own gain.
Both candidates have personal issues. Trump has been married three times
and has five children combined from his wives. He has been fodder for the scandal sheets for decades. But to his,
and his wives, credit the kids appear to be very fine individuals with the four oldest children working with
him on his campaign. Trump now has eight grandchildren.
Bill and Hillary Clinton's marriage and Bill's multiple affairs have been fodder for the media for over 20 years.
How they stayed married through Bill's public infidelity is pretty amazing to most of us, but it is their marriage not ours
and they have elected to stay together. Their daughter appears to be a fine woman. She has been an advocate for
her parents for many years. Bill and Hillary now have two grandchildren.
Which candidate will be the best choice for our nation going forward? It
depends on what outcome you want. If you want more of the same from the Obama era, you should back Clinton.
There is no doubt that she will continue to support Obama's policy on most current issues. Clinton has policy statements
on many issues posted on her website and in her speeches. We know who she listens to for policy advice. It is
easy to guess the pool of people that will included in the senior levels of her administration. They served under her husband
and President Obama. She has had a liberal progressive bent during her entire adult life, but like her husband
is a pragmatic politician. Her goal will be to maximize policy success pushing to the left.
Nobody knows how Trump will act as President. He has no political track record.
We don't really know who he will listen to when making policy decisons. We don't know who he will choose
to serve in his administration. While he won the Republican nomination he really isn't a Republican at heart.
Trump isn't a Conservative as most people would define it today. Trump is a mix of liberal, moderate and conservative
views on issues and has a huge personal drive and ego. He has said many things on many issues, some of them contradictory
on the surface. He knows that many of the policies and regulations created by the DC establishment (Republicans and
Democrats) over the past decades has created the multitude of problems we face today. He has some ideas
as to what needs to be changed but we don't know exactly what he would do.
Certain facts apply to both candidates. The President has limits on his own power. The President's
administration can create policy within existing laws. The President's administration can create regulations
within existing laws. A new President can reverse or modify the commitments of prior Presidents within existing
laws. The President can issue executive orders in areas where the law is unclear or a situation was not
previously clearly defined. The President can nominate Supreme Court Justices and members of his administration.
But to do anything really significant
the new President will have to work with the new Congress that will be elected at the same time. How will the Congress
change from what we have today? It is likely that the Democrats will gain strength in the House and Senate and may take
back leadership of the Senate. It is likely that the Republicans will lose strength is both legislative chambers.
Which presidential candidate can work best with the new Congress? There is no way to possibly know. it all depends
on how the whole situation shakes out. I can make a case for both candidates in a variety of situations.
So which Presidential candidate should I vote for on election day? If you
want more of the same as promoted by the Obama administration and a liberal progressive pushing President then you should
vote for Clinton. If you want a President that may attempt to blow up a lot of what is wrong about the DC establishment
and create a new direction then you should vote for Trump. What that new direction may be isn't totally clear.
Both candidates and all American citizens face
uncertain times. We have a $20T national debt that is increasing a rate of at least $600B per year. We have a
social security system that has a $70B negative annual cash flow and needs to be fixed. We have a $40B per month
trade deficit. The world order is being challenged by radical Islamic terrorism and attempts by major powers like China
and Russia to increase their influence on world affairs. We have a broken immigration system. We have slow economic
growth, below 2% GDP growth. We have spreading income inequality. We need to replace a vacant seat on the
Supreme Court with more vacancies likely in the next years. These are a few of the issues that the next President will
have to deal with in addition to the politics of getting anything done.
Do we want more of the same or do we want to attempt to blow up the political establishment and rebuild our government
and its policies and regulations? From my perspective the establishment has had long enough to address our issues and
they have failed. I want to elect a President that will be fearless. I want someone that is willing to take on
the existing power structure and say no or say we are going in a different direction. I am willing to gamble that Donald
J. Trump will be a great president because he owes nothing to anyone from a political perspective. Will he make some
bad decisions? Without question he will. All Presidents make some bad decisions. Will Trump make
more good decisions than bad decisions? I believe he will. I believe we will be shocked at how well he can work
with a new combination of Republicans and Democrats in our legislature. I believe Trump will make deals to get aspects
of his policy implemented. He will trade high priority items for lesser priority ones to get things done. I believe
it is worth the gamble to elect Donald J. Trump as the next President of the United States of America.
TPM
On May 24 I received an email from one of my US government contacts
established during my career as a senior executive in the satellite communications industry. Since I had no contact
with this individual for past 15 years I was very surprised to receive the email. I was invited to a book launch on
June 23 in downtown Washington, DC, which I attended. The book launch was for Eccentric Orbits - The Iridium Story
by John Bloom. Iridium is a publicly traded US based, global mobile satellite services company that
was founded by Motorola, Inc. Iridium endured a well publicized bankruptcy in 1999/2000, one of the most infamous
bankruptcies in US history. I bought a first edition autographed copy of the book at the launch which I just finished
reading.
My thoughts and comments about
this book are a bit different from my other reviews because I am an expert on the satellite communications industry during
the time frame of the book. As a senior executive I led businesses that directly competed with Iridium during the time
period where all the critical actions in the book took place. During my career I met or worked in some way with
several of the people that are significant players in the book. I know far more about the satellite communications
industry of the 1980s, 1990s and into the early 2000s than the author or any of his researchers.
I think the book is very well written and does a very good job of telling
the story of the rise, fall and rebirth of the Iridium satellite network. I freely admit I didn't know all the
details of the crash and burn of the Iridium business that occurred during 1999 and 2000 before reading the book.
However, I did forecast Iridium's bankruptcy to a number of my employees after I saw Iridium's first public
filing of its operating results after it began service. I was one of those people in the industry that had a vested
interest in Iridium's failure. I got the failure part right. The successful efforts of Dan Colussy to rescue
Iridium from the abyss of bankruptcy is one of the greatest stories in the history of the satellite communications industry
and American business. The rescue happened during the most traumatic period in the history of the industry.
As I read the book I thought about how I would review it. Since
the author, his researchers and his editors are not experts on the satellite communications industry they
had to rely solely on research and interviews for everything in the book. The author made a huge effort
to research this topic and it took several years due to his difficulty in getting information from the US government.
I have no doubt that his description of the development of the Iridium satellite network by Motorola, the initial difficulties
in bringing the Iridium system into service, the issues surrounding the bankruptcy and Dan Collusy's rescue of Iridium out
of bankruptcy are very accurate. The author admits in his book notes that he was limited to some degree by the US government's
refusal to turn over all of the records he requested, the refusal of some of the people involved to discuss the details of
the story and some conflicting information between the players. However, based on my knowledge of the situation as an
industry insider at the time, I believe the book is accurate and very representative of the events as they happened.
There are a few statements of fact in
the book that are incorrect. The incorrect statements deal with certain facts about the satellite communications industry
and Iridium's competitors. I don't know where the author got his information for these items but there are
a few statements in the book that are wrong or stated without proper context. All of the errors I found are tangential
to the primary objective of the book, which is to tell The Iridium Story. I don't feel any need to discuss
them in any detail or debate them with anyone since they don't fundamentally alter the great job John Bloom did in telling
the story of Iridium.
I have been debating
with myself about how much communications satellite services industry commentary or history I should include
in this blog. Should I discuss why it was virtually guaranteed that the Iridium satellite network operating
business would be a financial failure from the moment it was first approved by Motorola? Should I comment about
the structure of initial Motorola/Iridium management team and their level of experience and knowledge of the satellite
communication services industry? Should I comment now about how I felt about public statements made by Iridium's
senior management during 1998 and 1999 that told me Iridium would not be successful? Should I talk about the experiences
some of my people had using the Iridium system immediately after it launched its service that told me Iridium had some
major problems? Should I discuss some of the actions Iridium management attempted to take to improve their business before
the bankruptcy that involved my company, but didn't come to fruition? Should I discuss the great job the applications
and product development team at Iridium did in the post bankruptcy period that gave the company an opportuntiy
for long term success? Should I discuss the probability for financial success of Iridium's second generation
satellite network that is scheduled to begin its launch campaign within the next couple of months? I decided
not to discuss any of these items in this blog.
But
I will tell anyone that reads Eccentric Orbits - The iridium Story by John Bloom, there is a lot more to the story
when you put this book into context of the tumult of the satellite communications industry in the 1998 to 2000 period.
It was an incredible period for those of us that gave everything we had to make our satellite services companies successful
during this time. It was an amazing time in my life and I will never forget it. If you have any interest
in the history of the satellite communications industry I suggest you read this book. Thanks to John
Bloom and all of those individuals that helped him write Eccentric Orbits - The Iridium Story.
TPM
