Blocking and Tackling

In 1959 a virtually unknown coach was hired by the Green Bay Packers. This short, hefty Italian American, Vince Lombardi, came to the coldest stadium in the league and turned football up-side-down. By the time he left his record was 98-30-4 (.758) he had won 5 NFL championships and the 1st two Super Bowls. Mr. Lombardi was not into flashy, complicated football. He started his tenure in Green Bay by saying that football was a game of blocking, tackling and execution. He did not have a team of a few superstars. He had a team of good players and convinced them to leave their egos on the bench. Bart Starr, Paul Hornung, JimTaylor, Jerry Kramer, Ray Nitschke, Boyd Dollar, Fuzzy Thurston, Herb Adderly, Forrest Gregg, Max McGee, Willie Wood, Elijah Pitts are all legendary names in Football. The results of Lombardi’s talent are almost mythical and on 2/1/09 yet another team will get a trophy named for him.

The point here is not that Mr. Lombardi was a great coach, we know that, the point here is the “blocking, tackling and execution” concept. Lombardi proved the value of this concept to such and extent that we need to find how to apply these principals to our current economic challenges.

Okay, so what are the blocking and tackling equivalents in our economy, borrowing and spending or saving and consolidating? Should we be encouraging people to spend money? Over the past 5-6 years the spending and greed factors have been proven devastating. We are on the verge of spending $1 Trillion more with no end to further spending in sight. Once again, Einstein comes to mind: “A definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.” With the brain trust available in this nation, is spending more money the best we can do? Is throwing more chum into the feeding frenzy even rational? Clearly, I don’t think so. So, criticism is easy – how about some solutions" I have a couple of suggestions:

1. Make savings and dividend interest income tax free for tax payers under a reasonable income cap, and allow a tax deduction for the 1st 10% of income deposited into a bank savings, CD or MMF account, every year. Encourage people to create and invest wealth instead of squander it (e.g., a tax rebate if you buy a car?)

2. Allow 100% of health insurance premiums to be tax deductable. Assist people with market place health insurance instead of paying it for them and creating yet another monstrously unmanageable government beaurocracy. Then regulate the health insurance industry make them make the system work. AND stay the hell away from my medical records.

3. Subsidize home mortgage interest rates and let the mortgage industry refinance the entire country to payments and rates people can afford. For people who have bailed on their home and mortgage its tough luck Charlie. For people who are hanging in there, but struggling, give them a chance to refinance to a lower fixed rate and cover a reasonable amount of past due payments. This country has an amazing mortgage lending machine, and it can work through this crisis with a little assist. FHA, VA, FNMA,FHLMC, and GNMA together have the tools, programs and knowledge in place to fix this. They just need a little tweaking and some prudent, reasonable limitations thoroughly spelled out. We have plenty of data on past excesses and they can be brutally controlled if there is even a hint of repetition. There are a lot of good lenders with integrity and ethics out there and they can and will step up and do this right, given the opportunity.

4. Make TARP/ARRB funds available to small and medium sized businesses to keep them healthy and productive. Give every congressman the task of finding 4—6 small to medium sized businesses in their district that are on the verge of collapse or job layoffs and help them stay in business and preserve or expand jobs.

This is the most likely place for greed and graft to occur so merciless oversight will be necessary.

Can you suggest a few more?