On December 31, 2011, I watched a Connecticut Public TV special called From Hitler to Hollywood. It caught my attention because it profiled the process by which the German and Central European film industry was built between the end of World War I and 1933, dismantled by Hitler because a significant part of the film industry participants were Jewish, and then recreated in Hollywood between 1933 and 1945.

There were several noteworthy insights from the program:

• The German and Central European film-makers were incredibly innovative, and they sparked the development of many features of American cinema that changed the films Americans saw, especially after World War II, when the industry was free to resume its normal kind of film-making.  Most noteworthy was the development of the “film noir” style of movie.  “Film noir” was a genre of film that usually was done in black-and-white, as opposed to color, presentation.  It was set in harsh urban settings, was a type of drama and action film, and often involved criminals or gangsters.  Films like The Asphalt Jungle, Dark Passage (which starred Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall), and even On the Waterfront could be considered “film noir” movies.
• The filmmakers who emigrated from Germany and Central Europe created funds to help others trapped back in Europe come to the United States.  They not only sent money back to people trying to escape from Nazi-occupied countries, but helped them with contacts and created the equivalent of an “underground railroad” to enable people to get help crossing borders, hiding inside Nazi-occupied countries, and eventually finding their way to friendly countries.  Germany and the countries it occupied saw a huge drain on their artistic talent, but it would not have been as big of a drain as it turned out to be, had not American-based exiles provided a considerable amount of financial support.

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I love the New York Post headlines.  One of my favorites was in the Sunday, December 11, 2011, issue.  The headline was “E-Z CASH: Change he can believe in: Toll collector makes $100K.” On page 5, the story to which headline refers is entitled “High-Pay PA Crew Taking Their Toll.”  It describes what we have learned is an all-too-common rip-off of taxpayers, the use of what is called “pension spiking” to give people making a certain level of income the chance to get an even larger pension by awarding them a huge amount of overtime pay opportunity in their last year of employment, the only year that counts for pension calculations in many public-sector collective bargaining agreements.

In this case, the employer is the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, an entity created by a contract between New York and New Jersey and jointly owned by the two states.  This entity is not accountable to elected officers or voters, except for the indirect influence that elected officials from the two states sitting on its board of directors have on the entity’s operations.  Oddly enough, entities like the Port Authority were created over several decades in the 20^th century because elected officials believed that they would operate in a more business-like fashion and not be subject to the corrupting influences of elected officials trying to “buy” votes by bestowing favors on constituents. However, the lack of public accountability means that the customers of the Port Authority, namely those who travel in the New York Metropolitan area, will bear the brunt of the abuses of the pension system.

In one sense, it should be easy to solve this problem: abolish this “pension spiking” scheme in the next collective bargaining session.  However, we get a hint of why these kinds of schemes are so hard to uproot. A toll collector named Princesella Smith is quoted as saying: “I’m blessed. I have a great job, and, in this economy, it’s great that I can cover everything with my eight hours a day and overs.”

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Every once in a while, something happens at a sporting event that provokes a discussion of much deeper societal values. Such an event happened Saturday, July 9, at Yankee Stadium. Christian Lopez, the fan who caught Derek Jeter’s 3,000^th hit, a home run, made an instant decision to give the ball to Derek Jeter, even though he had an absolute right to keep it, and maximize the economic benefit from securing a ball that is very important in the history of baseball.  To put this into perspective, the value of what the Yankees gave him for the ball was probably worth around $50,000.  The ball could have fetched $400,000 in an auction.

Whether he made a values-based judgment that he had simply received a windfall and did not deserve to profit simply from being in the right place at the right time, or whether he believed that he would receive more long-term economic benefit from giving up the ball does not matter: he did an admirable thing.

Everyone’s behaviors are on a continuum from being totally generous of spirit to others to being totally mercenary and interested only in helping oneself.  To be generous of spirit does not mean that one withdraws from the capitalist system, lives like Mother Teresa or Paul John Paul II, and deny or give away everything material.  A person whom I consider an example of practicing behaviors that are generous of spirit, and whom I have always admired, and got to meet by serving briefly on a board of directors with him, is Neil Armstrong, the astronaut who was the first person to walk on the moon.

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Why don’t more Americans go into public service?  This is a most important question, because the public sector is being crippled by mediocre, sometimes poor, and, infrequently, but too often, corrupt leadership.  When I was young, my parents strongly encouraged me to consider either a career in public service or taking on periodic assignments in public service. I do not want to romanticize government officials in the past, because many of the pathologies we see today have been around for centuries and even millennia.

Nevertheless, I grew up reading about historical figures like the Roman leader Cincinnatus who left his farm to serve in a leadership position, fulfilled his public responsibilities, and then returned as quickly as possible to his farm and his family.  George Washington was admired because he completed his two presidential terms, and then went back to his Virginia home.  Both of these leaders represented a set of values which placed public service above personal ambition.

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Upton Sinclair, the author of The Jungle, and a renowned journalist from the early 20^th century, once said that “it is difficult to get someone to understand something when the continuation of his livelihood depends on him not understanding it.” This is a profound, but simple, truth.

Whole industries and marketplaces, and often political and social paradigms, depend on people willfully denying reality.  In health care, the stubborn myth is that more care is always better care.  This myth enables health care providers to make more money, not have to make tough end-of-life decisions, and appear to be giving the patient what he or she wants.

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The recent tragic suicide of Dave Duerson, a great professional football player, who made a conscious decision to end his life in a way that enabled his brain to be donated to Boston University’s Center for Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, reminds us of a profound truth about our nation’s health care crisis: we have to address the root causes of unhealthy and destructive behaviors before we can change the behaviors.

The assumptions underlying many of our health care policies are that people are most motivated to do what is healthy for them and their families, and if we could only get them good information, and good and affordable care, they would do the right things.  Unfortunately, the reality is much more complex.

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Dan Henninger of the Wall Street Journal wrote a column in the December 16, 2010, issue entitled “What are Taxes For?” This simple question triggered a thought in my mind about the broader purposes of government.

Most people would agree that government has certain roles as a provider of security, a deliverer of basic services, a regulator, an enforcer of societal norms through criminal and civil laws and the court systems that enforce them, and a provider or a creator of certain “safety net” services, such as unemployment compensation and welfare.

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In the early 1980’s, shortly after George Harvey became the Chairman and CEO of Pitney Bowes, I asked a more senior colleague why he thought George was the best candidate among those who vied for the CEO position.  He talked about George’s wisdom and track record, but he also said: “Unlike many adults who collect a paycheck, he actually makes tough decisions.”  He went on to explain that many highly-paid, well-credentialed people are afraid to put themselves at risk by making difficult decisions, but that no leader of a major organization could afford to be afraid to take the risk of being wrong or pretend to be taking certain actions.

That comment has not only stuck, but seems more astute than ever.  I have been both more admiring of people who stick their neck out, and more frustrated with those who should, but do not, when tough situations occur.  In the last few years, we have moved into the most difficult economic environment since the 1930’s.  It has effectively “smoked out” whether people want to embrace tough decisions and engage others in constructive conflict, or whether they will develop even more elaborate ways to avoid those decisions.  I have seen more of both kinds of people in the last three years than ever before, especially the non-performers who have learned to survive by “pretending” to perform.

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Catherine Rampell of the New York Times wrote an article that, unfortunately, reports on an all-too-common problem, the increase in the long-term unemployed population, on December 2, in a story entitled “Dwindling Prospects.” I know people who fit her description. In fact, I have spoken to a local support group of individuals who are part of the long-term unemployed population, in one of the wealthiest communities in the world, Darien Connecticut.

I was effectively unemployed once in my life, for about a 4-month period  (January, 1979, through May, 1979) between my second law firm job and my hiring by Pitney Bowes.  I was told in October, 1978, that I would not be offered a partnership, was given a few months to look for a job while on the payroll, and then was put in an “of counsel” status, meaning that I would be hired only for hourly project work. I had a little work, but nowhere near enough to support my family.  It was initially scary, and I felt all the self-doubt that Ms. Rampell described in the people she profiled.  When I became unemployed, despite a Harvard Law degree, I did not know when I would be hired to work again.

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In the Saturday November 21 New York Post, reporter Michelle Malkin writes a scathing op-ed piece on the Service Employees International Union,  entitled “The Union That Hates the Boy Scouts.“.  The major point of her piece is that the SEIU strongly opposes volunteer work in many communities, because they believe that volunteer work takes paid work away from union members.

Her description of certain union positions rings true to me because I recall that the Stamford Youth Foundation (Stamford, Connecticut) could not staff the variety and volume of after-school activities that it would have liked because union contracts required it to pay every teacher for the extra hours worked after the regular school day.  This deeply bothers me.

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