Tag: Hank Paulson

Sarah Palin, The Look For Less

I caught a few minutes of “The View” today.  Elisabeth Hasselbeck is one of the hosts.  She used to host “The Look For Less” on the Style Network.  It was a show about  shopping and makeovers for ordinary people on a budget, copying runway style in preparation for a special event.  I watched it a couple of times.  The outfits are adequate, but they are never as good as the original designer clothes.

Sarah Palin looked great last night.

I can do that.

 If I had a national televised debate tonight, I could be ready by show time.

 All I have to do to look as competent and professional as Sarah Palin is to go uptown to Bergdorf Goodman or Saks Fifth Avenue, buy an outfit and then go to an upscale salon and have my hair colored and styled.

I can do that anytime I want–I have a credit card!  (Oh crap, what if Wall Street crashes and we don’t bail out Hank Paulson, no credit, I won’t get my makeover…)

As for the policy questions..

That’s completely irrelevant.

Hank Paulson don’t you dare take all my money so you can say you are solvent and everything is fine!

After college I left Montana to find work.  A year or two later I desperately wanted to return home but couldn’t find a job that covered rent.  While visiting my then boyfriend at his father’s home on Flathead Lake, we went out to a bar.  I was introduced to one of his father’s friends, one of those retiree transplants to a beautiful part of the state, (the county with the highest per capita income and the poorest record of passing school levies). He was the kind of person known in certain circles as “A Golfing Republican”.  He looked me straight in the eye and said “You have no problems here.”  

This was a year or so after the stock market crashed spectacularly just as naive newly minted college grads such as myself were entering the job market.  I remember overhearing one of my ambitious well-educated housemates sobbing on the phone;  “so tired of watching the clock day after day” at her receptionist job and actually being told to her face that she must “be patient and wait 2 or 3 years” until the baby boomers ahead of her were promoted out of the jobs for which she was qualified.  Without the perspective of age and experience, I heard so much about the importance of being productive (a word that had never once been spoken in my presence as I pursued my liberal arts degree at a university) that I believed I was failing to the point that I would face a firing line and be executed for my crime of not being productive.

If Hank Paulson gets his money from Congress then Wall Street will be fine and the executives can retire to beautiful locations.  BUT THERE WILL BE PROBLEMS THERE.

the morning after the NO

In her book, used by nonprofit workers, “The Ask: How to Ask Anyone for Any Amount for any Purpose,” Laura Fredricks presents “The 10 Guiding Principles For Any Ask.”
Using the guiding principles as a “road map” for all your asks, she wrote, will make you “ready, focused, and energized to ask for gifts in your own winning style.

The 10 Guiding Principles For Any Ask:

  • The more personal and sincere you are with the people you are cultivating, the quicker you will be able to make the ask.
  • Every prospect must be treated separately and distinctly.
  • Anyone asking for a gift must first make his or her own gift.
  • Ask for a specific amount for a specific purpose.
  • Consistent givers can and will make larger gifts.
  • Always use we instead of I in any ask because that connotes that the ask is being done with all the strength and backing of the organization.
  • Any organization’s planned giving program must be coordinated with all other fundraising programs.
  • Every campaign prospect must be asked for as specific amount, with guidelines on how to fund the gift and with a proposed time frame.
  • At the initial ask, stay committed to the ask amount.
*Hank Paulson didn’t do these things, no wonder the American people got to their members of Congress and convinced them to say “No”.
*He wasn’t personal and sincere–he was alarmist and threatening.
*He almost commanded Congress and the American people practically out of the blue to give him $700 trillion by the end of the week.
*He never said he was giving up any of his own personal net worth (between $500 and $700 million) towards this purpose but he expected taxpayers who make minimum wage to contribute.
*He didn’t say what exactly he was going to do with the $700 trillion and in fact didn’t want anyone to ask him.  The bill included the following text; “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.” [RED FLAG RED FLAG RED FLAG!!!!!!]
*Consistent givers can and will make larger gifts, (but at some point they have to look at their own budgets).
*Always use we instead of I in any ask because that connotes that the ask is being done with all the strength and backing of the organization.  So how come everyone heard; “Hank Paulson asks for $700 trillion.”
*Any organization’s planned giving program must be coordinated with all other fundraising programs. (Health, Education, Welfare; Highways and bridges; Farm programs; National Parks…)
*Every campaign prospect must be asked for as specific amount, with guidelines on how to fund the gift and with a proposed time frame. (These guidelines on how to fund the gift were missing.  (“Gimme $700 trillion by Wednesday or else sounds more like a character from The Sopranos”)
 *At the initial ask, stay committed to the ask amount.  (Well he did do that!)
Ask for what you want.
You just might get it.  
What’s the worst that can happen?
They may say no.
You’ll be no worse off than you are now.
Well, Congress did say “No.”
and
We’re all still here.