History Repeating
On Monday, UMB Financial Corp. President and CEO Peter deSilva was in town to talk about the mortgage crisis at Park University.
UMB is a storied Kansas City corporation as it is the home of the Kemper family, one of the more influential and philanthropic families in city history. The company as we know it began when Rufus Crosby Kemper returned from the war and borrowed money to buy into City Center Bank with his father, W.T. Kemper. That bank began with a small storefront in Kansas City, MO, with first-day deposits of $1,100 (today it’s a financial holding company with billions of dollars in assets).
As usual, hats off to Park for providing a high-end, timely and informative program that was open to the public. I’d also like to thank members of the Kansas City media for reminding me about reporting born out of convenience (the knock on most journalists is that they report on whatever they see during their drive to work – an incredibly accurate yet understandable sentiment).
“Wall Street vs. Main Street” has dominated the news during the current financial crisis whicheveryone seems to be talking about, but few (myself included) understand. I mean, we get the point – Wall Street = fat cat; Main Street = everyday American – but we also know the idea, at least insofar as the television anchorman presents it, is disingenuous at best.
The mainstream American media bailed on Main Street during the advent of the big box era. As if to illustrate how out of touch they were, Kansas City television reporters, while they were in town, decided it would be a novel idea to interview Parkville’s Main Street merchants after 5:00 p.m., on a Monday. Anyone that knows anything about the retail business or small towns in general knows that most stores are closed on Monday and very few – other than restaurants – find it lucrative enough to stay open after 5 p.m.
Today, news reporters like to talk about the “rush to war” after 9/11. They decry the lack of serious, in depth, reportage during the early stages of the Bush Administration’s case against Iraq. They blame themselves for the predicament we find ourselves in overseas. The big media types are self loathing in that way. It’s a very convenient and easy way for them to act. Believe me when I say that no major news outlet has the energy or patience to report on Main Street affairs like The Luminary does.
This week the financial crisis knocked the scandal over the dismissal of U.S. Attorneys out of the news cycle. It’s doubtful that the story will ever be picked up again – at least in a way to make a difference, namely while President George W. Bush is still in office and accountable. There are a few ways to look at the story reported on our page one. It can be a story of petty, silly, country politics and Jeff Roe and Kit Bond or it can be a story about abuse of executive power, the politicization of the judicial branch and the misuse of the USA PATRIOT act in order to win elections. Watergate was about some mustachioed guy who likes guns (no, not Jerry Felker) stealing a couple of files from a hotel. If the latter scenario described above is true, there may be no bigger scandal in the history of America. You could roll the Teapot Dome, Iran-Contra and XYZ affair into a cigar and have Monica Lewinsky smoke it and you still wouldn’t come close to that level of scandal.
I sleep pretty well at night because I didn’t lose millions in the stock market over the past few weeks. That and the fact I sleep with my financial advisor – my wife – and she tells me we’re fine. Still, since I tend to hang out with many captains of industry, I figured I should gather some insight on current economic conditions. Largely, my efforts have flounder and failed. For instance, I’m not sure if the executives I spoke with on Tuesday appreciated my story about CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo.
“Did you know that Joey Ramone wrote a song about her on his death bed?”
Sensing that deeper insight was needed from a man of my influence and stature, I perused my voluminous library and researched the Herbert Hoover administration. My guess was that we were experiencing a bit of history repeating.
Most people consider President Bush to be the worst president of all-time. Most people are wrong most of the time (the worst president of all-time was James Buchanan. Google that, Holmes). Anyway, before Bush, most people (or at least anyone that has seen “Annie”) would have said Herbert Hoover. The Wall Street Journal reported that his successor’s plan, FDR’s “New Deal” would be worth $500 billion in today’s money. And that deal reformed the entire country, built schools and libraries and roads and dams and put us on the path to winning the next terrible war. I’m still trying to figure out what exactly we’re buying with the $700 billion buyout.
Hoover tried a public works program and bailout but failed. After his election loss he argued that government control of our markets would increase abuse and corruption. One look at the U.S. Attorney scandal reminds us how true that may be.