Trust

                                                        “Trust”

                                                          By

                                                  Dennis W. Lid


It’s all a matter of trust, and, frankly, the people don’t trust you. “You” refers to the government, big business and the media. The lack of trust applies to a huge assortment of entities. It starts with the present federal government administration, including the President and his vast assortment of gurus. It continues with congress and the judiciary, state and local governments. It extends to big business concerns such as the defunct Enron company, some auto and oil industry firms, numerous banks, several Wall Street investment brokerages, behemoths including AIG, and specific claim-dodging insurance companies. The list goes on ad infinitum.

Government officials of all stripes, Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), their business executives and media moguls better wake up and change their ways. Past history has caught up with them. It’s a history reeking from failures, lack of oversight, corruption, fraud, greed, lies, shams, gimmicks and outright incompetence. The people grow weary of it all and are becoming angry. A restive populace indicates a desire for change, but this time people want the right kind of change.

Things folks would like to change run the gamut from the simple through the complex to the sublime. Let’s consider a few examples starting with a simple one like a typical ad offering a product on sale for $19.95. Why not say it like it is? The people know that the item is not really on sale in the first place, and that it is actually rounded off at an out-of-pocket cost of $20.00. They are not impressed with the ploys and gimmickry employed with slick sales tactics. In fact, they find these rather tedious and disgusting. Again, a newspaper subscription promotion offering the Sunday paper for $1.00 a copy per month for a full year sounds good, right? The catch is that one must pay for the subscription by allowing the newspaper to debit your credit card for payment. Otherwise the price increases from $4.00 to $6.25 per month. Of course, the promoter does not divulge this information until the potential customer is asked for their credit card information. Then the subterfuge becomes clear, and the client exhibits a degree of irritability at having been temporarily duped. It all ends in a waste of time, effort and no sale. Now some people would call these shrewd business tactics, gimmicks or ploys; others would label them as they are – deceit or outright lies.

There are other simple business gimmicks (let’s call them little lies) that people would like to change as well. The favorite deceptions of the business community are the rebate versus a straightforward, simple discount; the “plus postage and handling” ploy; and the usurious interest rates and excessive overdraft fees on credit cards by banks. We have all encountered these odious practices and have acquired a built-in aversion to them. The business community should reconsider these gimmicks and eliminate them. The majority of their potential customers have already done so in their own minds.

Some of the more complex things that folks would like to change might be exemplified in  the many pork barrel projects inserted into numerous hand bills passed by our politicians at the various levels of government. As any past president or governor can testify, the line item veto is needed here in order to defeat the pork barrel riders attached to valid legislation without vetoing the entire hand bill. Does the “bridge to nowhere in Alaska” or the “$600 toilet housing with seat” for U.S. Air Force aircraft ring a bell with anyone? Of course, our elected politicians would never consider allowing the line item veto to become law. That would ruin their pork barrel tactics; it would take the cover off their deceit and wholesale hypocrisy.  Ah, but there is always the next election at which the electorate can level the playing field by eliminating those politicians deserving of censure and rebuke for their misdeeds. The hypocrites involved in such shenanigans seem to forget that they will ultimately pay the price. Admittedly, however, too many of them get away with their deceptions for too long a time before justice catches up with them, if it ever does.

Government is not the only culprit. What of the oil industry’s artificially inflated gasoline and oil prices, especially as a prelude to seasonal climate changes, long weekends and traditional holidays – are these prices possibly manipulated by oil company executives just as they are by the oil producing nations? This manufactured price inflation is only superseded by the outright greed exhibited at annual bonus or retirement times by industry CEOs.
 
One of the things people would like to change that has been getting a lot of attention lately is the health care program. This issue and attempts to resolve it border on the sublime. Yes, all agree that health care reform is needed and that no one solution will satisfy all of the people. Yet we must ensure that in trying to correct the ills of the past, we don’t incur even greater flaws in the future program.  Formerly, the insurance companies controlled too much; at present they still do; in future they better not. Additionally, hospital and doctor fees have been outrageously high and must be tempered and moderated. The people, too, must be educated to impose self-discipline so as not to abuse the new system that will eventually be established. And most important of all is that oversight must be established and enforced to keep everyone relatively honest.

The Obama Administration and Congressional Health Care Proposals all claim that their respective plans will be paid for out of savings from the current health care program, primarily MEDICARE. This is indeed a wild assumption, and there is no reason to believe that it will be so. Fraud, waste and abuse have not been stopped over all the past years of the currently existing program and won’t be stopped by implementing any new health plan. Why is this the case?  Corruption, waste and abuse will continue because of human nature. Even if strict oversight is established, people in government, business and citizens-at-large will find ways to defeat the system and continue their wasteful, abusive and corrupt ways. Wherever people and money are involved, fraud, waste and abuse will follow. The best we can hope for is to keep some modicum of discipline and preventive control.

Equally sublime are unsubstantiated assertions of racial discrimination, liberal claims of conservative obstructionism, and conservative claims of democratic socialism regarding the health care issue. These are all balderdash. The liberal and conservative entities are simply pursuing their separate agendas rather than searching for ways to compromise and come to agreement. The liberals promote their relative agenda of universal health care for everyone and include a public option, complete coverage for abortion, contraception, sterilization, human embryonic stem cell therapy, euthanasia and assisted suicide. The conservatives want universal coverage as well but oppose the public option for economic reasons and all of the other dubious and controversial coverages on moral grounds. They do not want tax dollars used to promote those efforts which they consider to be morally wrong and intrinsically evil. The quest for compromise and agreement continues on the health care issue, as does polarization of liberal and conservative political and business positions. Sooner or later a solution will be reached through compromise. Hopefully, the compromise will overcome all the sublime arguments and will result in an improved, economical and morally acceptable health care plan for all with adequate oversight to prevent, or at least subdue, fraud, waste and abuse.

Now let’s get back to the primary issue of trust. It is not so much the President and CEOs that cause our disbelief, although they are not exempt. It is, rather, all the President’s men and corporate business executives in general that contribute to the public’s mistrust. It is the President’s corps of operatives and gurus with their past extremely liberal or even radical histories and their present hidden agendas that contribute to the public’s suspicions as to the administration’s true motives and goals. As a consequence, those same suspicions apply to President Obama himself, since he appointed his cabinet and collection of gurus.  As for business in general, we the people have always been wary of its hypocrisy and sleazy, deceptive practices. Where else did the warnings “buyer beware” and “get it in writing and signed” originate? “By their works you shall know them.” Therein lies a clue to the people’s mistrust. A greater degree of transparency by all concerned would help to reduce or eliminate that mistrust.

In an effort to be transparent, the President tries to explain and clarify his position on each important issue facing the nation with frequent media events and public speeches. Yet these are unconvincing; they amount to overexposure and information overload. He is trying too hard. If his positions on the issues are so good for the people and the country, why aren’t they obviously so? Why does he feel that he must convince us of their worth? Why is it that half of this nation’s people don’t believe him?

They don’t believe him because it is a matter of trust. The people are suspicious and lacking in trust of President Obama’s administration, and he who leads it, because the final results of the administration’s initiated actions on the important issues are still pending. President Barack Obama talks a good story, but words are cheap. Shakespeare expresses it best: “. . . truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.” Earning the people’s trust depends on achieving positive results on critical problems such as health care, the economy, jobs, trade, the housing and credit markets, the deficit, and successful handling of the Afghan and Iraqi Wars, for example. These issues and their outcome will determine whether the people’s trust will be bestowed or withheld. All of these matters, and more, are currently unresolved. We shall have to wait and see how things work out regarding the critical issues of the day. Meanwhile, doubt and mistrust prevail.

Despite all the suspicion, fear and anxiety, the President and his administration, congress and the judiciary, CEOs, their corporate executives and the media must be given the benefit of a doubt – at least temporarily. They must be given time to prove that they are worthy of trust, once again. After all of the debacles and misfires of the past several years, this will be a monumental task. We wish them well in pursuit of their goals and the people’s trust, all the while keeping in mind the biblical admonition - “By their actions you shall know them.”

Amidst all the turmoil and doubt, one might be prompted to consider two possible prophecies – that of a young man pursuing his liberal vision, or one of an old man dreaming his conservative dream. Whichever prophecy is realized, we must not sell our souls to the devil, yet all must take a stand and abide by it. We, the people, must choose wisely.  We must caution our government, big business, and the media to take heed lest past and present foul deeds incur the people’s wrath and lead to anarchy. The powers that be must beware of what changes they institute lest they reap the whirlwind. And reap it they will if they do not regain the people’s trust.  They must remember the prophet Jonah’s warning to Nineveh to repent. Armageddon draws near.
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