REAL Leadership: Ending Polio

TED: How we'll stop polio for good

Steve Jobs

Real Leaders, like NYC Commissioner Kelly, Do What Must Be Done for Others, Not Themselves

Speaking both to CBS (aired on 60 Minutes, Sept 25) and the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14839373) in the run up to the anniversary of 9/11, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said that the City of New York was safer, but still was the top terror target in the US:

"There is no doubt that New York is safer now than it was 10 years ago, but there are no guarantees. We don't know what we don't know and we are doing everything that I believe we can do to protect the city, but it is a dangerous world," he added.

Commissioner Kelly took over as head of New York's police soon after the 9/11 attacks and immediately began transforming the force so that in the future protection of the city would be done by those most familiar with the City itself, New York Police Officers. Using the latest in high tech and an astonishing display of creativity and determination, (detailed in the 60 minutes segment) Kelly came out of retirement to do what needed doing.

"A counter-terrorism bureau was created, intelligence experts from the CIA were drafted in and hundreds of heavily armed officers working in teams known as Hercules began to be deployed on the streets."

So who will really have the most lasting effect on the City, Raymond Kelly or former mayor Rudy Giuliani? The later used 9/11 to launch a run for President; nothing wrong with that, except he (Giulliani) changed a lot of long-standing positions about what was needed to keep the City safe, like gun control, in order to curry favor with "guns rights" Republicans.

Failure is always an option...

“Everything that is hitting the country hit Michigan first,” Jennifer Granholm, former and long-term governer of Michigan from said in an interview, reflecting on eight years in office in which the state’s economic crisis overshadowed all else.

Her response to the crisis, she said, was to cut spending, cut government jobs, cut taxes — the very approach now being promoted now by Republicans... to the extent they offer any ideas.

“We tried all of those prescriptions, too,” said Ms. Granholm, whose final term ended last December. “We did everything that people would want us to do, and yet it didn’t work.”

She added: “Laissez-faire, passivity, tax cuts, hands-off does not work. And, really, that’s the lesson from this laboratory of democracy which is Michigan.”

The only approach that showed glimmers of success, she said, came when the federal government stepped in — to bail out the auto industry, for instance, and to send stimulus funds that encouraged companies like the ones in Michigan now creating lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.

Adapted from:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/us/politics/in-granholm-book-cautionary-economic-lessons-from-michigan.html?_r=2

Defender of Capitalism?

Who is George Soros?

If there is such a think as an "expert" in financial markets, it is George Soros. As explained by Paul Volker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve:

George Soros has made his mark as an enormously successful speculator, wise enough to largely withdraw when still way ahead of the game. The bulk of his enormous winnings is now devoted to encouraging transitional and emerging nations to become 'open societies,' open not only in the sense of freedom of commerce but – more important – tolerant of new ideas and different modes of thinking and behavior.

If the following doesn't give you pause about the current "understanding" of our financial crisis, ie too much debt, nothing will:

"...the greatest threat to freedom today comes from the formation of an unholy alliance between government and business. This is not a new phenomenon. It used to be called fascism. The outward appearances of the democratic process are observed, but the powers of the state are diverted to the benefit of private interests (i.e. corporations)"

Government per se is NOT the problem. Big, BIG, BIG money buying favoritism from government is.
Business monopolists and oligarchs attempt to destroy free markets. Don't believe it? Visit GeorgeSoros.com read the free download from his latest book, then decide.

Bill Gates on Innovation: A Must See for Adaptive Leaders