One Positive?

originally posted FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 2009one positive? Woody Allen had a bit in his stand up act that went something like...'I'd like to tell you something positive...but I can't. Would you take two negatives'.
Two negatives would be good news in the current environment. There is no adequate description of the fear and pain that is rolling in waves through our society. Today's NYT business sections had only bad news. We are looking at the world's largest financial institution--Citi--yesterday becoming a penny stock. GE--mainstay of the DJIA sunk into the 5s this week. And no one know anything. The finest, most powerful investment banker in the world was left bereft of any effective ideas. Our new Treasury Sec seems like a fine young bureaucrat. A bank guy through and through, when what we need is a visionary with executional experience and skills. The teams working on the solution !@#$?? are filled with academics, toadies, theorists and patronage. One observation: THERE ARE NO PRACTIONERS. NONE. That's important because the bills and the checks are being written by people who have never seen the true workings of a market. They have never lived the market. They don't know what it is.And without that basic understanding, we--the country--slides deeper into the second world. Debt, diminishing educational standards, a growing population of the unskilled and unemployed.With most of contemporary finance focused exclusively on increasing their personal wealth, it is hard to conceive of a working financier who has the intellectual horsepower and knowledge of the markets taking the time to bring sense to this downward spiral.
I have an idea: Michael Milken. He saw the future several times. He's taken straw and turned it to gold--launching Fedex, Continental, and others. He has the horsepower and the respect of the markets. I worked with him in the past--and I can say There is no one else.I've not read that anyone in the administration has asked him.