Michael Bloomberg

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“An Insider Jokingly Refers To It As ‘Scientology On Speed'”

December 7, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

michael-bloomberg-terminal

Being great at one thing doesn’t necessarily mean you possess any general genius (e.g., Ben Carson, neurosurgeon). Michael Bloomberg believed the financial sector needed a certain type of information terminal and he created it with a ridiculous $10 million golden parachute he was handed after getting shitcanned by Salomon Brothers. About the terminals, he was right. It made him one of the richest people in the world, but his wealth should never have been taken as a sign of competence or rectitude.

As Mayor of New York, he did some great things and bungled major projects like Build It Back. He was tone deaf enough to want to proceed with the marathon in the wake of Hurricane Sandy turning New York City into a necropolis. Crime was kept low but policing got out of hand on his watch. The poorer people he claimed to champion often did worse. His paternalism knew no bounds, often seeming petty. He even scammed a third term, writing his own law in a back-office deal with another billionaire, voters be damned.

As a businessperson, Bloomberg is likewise a mixed bag. Unencumbered with the mayoralty, he’s returned to his namesake business, slicing and dicing his way through the journalistic side, an area for which he holds no great regard. All the while, those terminals keep updating, making general rightness or wrongness seem almost irrelevant on a large scale but often troubling on the micro one.

From Isabell Huelsen and Holger Stark at Spiegel:

Visitors to the building could be forgiven for thinking that the heyday of journalism was still ongoing. Staff exit the elevator into a light-filled foyer that feels like the lobby of a designer hotel. The eye is drawn to orange sofas and white lacquered counters, upon which rest bowls stuffed with apples, oranges and diced melon. There are carrot sticks and broccoli, as well as fresh roasted coffees that would put any Starbucks to shame. The employees scurrying by can help themselves free of charge. Bloomberg wants his people to be comfortable.

But his paternalism can at times seem condescending. The potato chip bags are free, but they’re only available in the smallest size possible. Bloomberg would like his people to eat healthily. And the elevators don’t stop on each of the building’s 25 floors — only on those marked with a white circle — forcing employees to take the stairs.

In nearly every Bloomberg bureau around the world there is at least one saltwater aquarium with purple and yellow fish and corals — to foster relaxation, Bloomberg says. Those who work for him should be proud of their job. One of his favorite sentences is: “The best for us.”

‘Scientology on Speed’

Those who jump ship, though, get a taste of his colder side. Bloomberg once confessed that he doesn’t attend going-away parties out of principle, saying that he couldn’t wish departing employees all the best. “That just wouldn’t be honest of me,” he said. Whoever turns his or her back on the company is no longer one of us, but one of “them.” Bloomberg’s employees must enter a binding contractual agreement to not divulge company secrets, including a clause that permits the company to scan an employee’s e-mails even after that person has left. The microcosm of Mike Bloomberg is a whimsical world of good and evil, one with its own unique — some might say sect-like — view of things. An insider jokingly refers to it as “Scientology on speed.”•

 

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“The Cause Of Climate Change Is The Political And Economic System Itself”

February 25, 2015 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I haven’t yet read Naomi Klein’s book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, the one that Elizabeth Kolbert took to task for not being bold enough. (Kolbert’s own volume on the topic, The Sixth Extinction, was one of my favorite books of 2014.) In an often-contentious Spiegel interview conducted by Klaus Brinkbäumer, Klein contends that capitalism and ecological sanity are incompatible and calls out supposedly green captains of industry like Michael Bloomberg and Richard Branson. An excerpt:

Spiegel:

The US and China finally agreed on an initial climate deal in 2014.

Naomi Klein:

Which is, of course, a good thing. But anything in the deal that could become painful won’t come into effect until Obama is out of office. Still, what has changed is that Obama said: “Our citizens are marching. We can’t ignore that.” The mass movements are important; they are having an impact. But to push our leaders to where they need to go, they need to grow even stronger.

Spiegel:

What should their goal be?

Naomi Klein:

Over the past 20 years, the extreme right, the complete freedom of oil companies and the freedom of the super wealthy 1 percent of society have become the political standard. We need to shift America’s political center from the right fringe back to where it belongs, the real center.

Spiegel:

Ms. Klein, that’s nonsense, because it’s illusory. You’re thinking far too broadly. If you want to first eliminate capitalism before coming up with a plan to save the climate, you know yourself that this won’t happen.

Naomi Klein:

Look, if you want to get depressed, there are plenty of reasons to do so. But you’re still wrong, because the fact is that focusing on supposedly achievable incremental changes light carbon trading and changing light bulbs has failed miserably. Part of that is because in most countries, the environmental movement remained elite, technocratic and supposedly politically neutral for two-and-a-half decades. We are seeing the result of this today: It has taken us in the wrong direction. Emissions are rising and climate change is here. Second, in the US, all the major legal and social transformations of the last 150 years were a consequence of mass social movements, be they for women, against slavery or for civil rights. We need this strength again, and quickly, because the cause of climate change is the political and economic system itself. The approach that you have is too technocratic and small.

Spiegel:

If you attempt to solve a specific problem by overturning the entire societal order, you won’t solve it. That’s a utopian fantasy.

Naomi Klein:

Not if societal order is the root of the problem. Viewed from another perspective, we’re literally swimming in examples of small solutions: There are green technologies, local laws, bilateral treaties and CO2 taxation. Why don’t we have all that at a global level?

Spiegel:

You’re saying that all the small steps — green technologies and CO2 taxation and the eco-behavior of individuals — are meaningless?

Naomi Klein:

No. We should all do what we can, of course. But we can’t delude ourselves that it’s enough. What I’m saying is that the small steps will remain too small if they don’t become a mass movement. We need an economic and political transformation, one based on stronger communities, sustainable jobs, greater regulation and a departure from this obsession with growth. That’s the good news. We have a real opportunity to solve many problems at once.•

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Quick Thoughts About Politics, NYC And Global

September 12, 2013 in Politics | Permalink

  • You see some terrible things living in New York. Like Bay Ridge, for instance. How awful. But there was nothing awful about Election Day here this week. Bill de Blasio and Bill Thompson seemed like the best candidates in an uninspiring field, and they finished one-two. (It may or may not take a run-off to decide things.) Much is being made about de Blasio using his multiracial family to woo voters–Mayor Bloomberg stupidly called it a “racist campaign”–but the candidate did so well because he’s the only one who identified and addressed the overwhelming worry of most New Yorkers: the fear of falling. Larger and larger swaths of this city are for the wealthy and tourists, with middle-class and poor residents wondering whether there is still room for them. If de Blasio emerges as Mayor, we’ll see if he has any answers. But at least he knows the question.
  • In order to beat Eliot Spitzer in the Democratic primary of the NYC Comptroller’s race, Scott Stringer had to show himself to be as credible (or nearly as credible) as his opponent. If Stringer fumbled, he would have lost. This wasn’t a victory won out of moral outrage. This was New Yorkers seeing a pair of strong candidates for the post and giving the victory to the one who hasn’t previously disappointed them. Spitzer ran a strong campaign and didn’t lose this election; Stringer won it.
  • On the inernational front, I was pleased with President Obama’s brief address on Syria Tuesday night. If we can stop the atrocity of chemical weapons and send a message to the whole world that such a tactic is a tipping point, that would be great. Though I certainly hope that result comes from diplomacy rather than explosions. Blowing up stockpiles of chemical weapons will release those chemicals into the environment, and that can’t be good for anyone.
  • Two issues Obama wanted to avoid at all costs–gun control and new military intervention abroad–chipped away at his conscience until he couldn’t avoid them any longer. But while Sandy Hook deeply saddened him, Syria is the first time in his Presidency that he hasn’t been able to contain his fury publicly.
  • We all need to stop using the phrase “line in the sand,” or at least use it more honestly. As horrifying as it would be if, say, the Chinese government used chemical weapons on its people, we would not bomb that country. Sure, there’d be international pressure and sanctions, but there would not be bombing. The line always depends on whose sand we’re talking about.

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“Bloomberg Presents A Conundrum”

June 17, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

Did it amuse any of you (if bitterly) that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad respected term limits in Iran over the weekend, but Mayor Bloomberg didn’t do the same in New York four years ago? Bloomberg has done his share of good things for the city–and some really dumb, tone-deaf ones–but circumventing the free vote of the people will always stain him. As his third term draws to a close, a passage from “The Untouchable,” Ben McGrath’s pitch-perfect 2009 New Yorker profile about Bloomberg at the very moment his arrogance was in the process of transforming him from able technocrat into something far less flattering:

“To people who aspire to become mayor of New York City in the traditional way, by suffering countless fund-raisers in apartments far larger than their own and attending interminable Democratic club meetings with the same cast of hangers-on, year after year, Bloomberg presents a conundrum. Many in the city’s political class believe that he’s been a good, if overrated, executive, and acknowledge that his ability to forgo the shaming hat-in-hand routine has proved far more valuable in warding off corruption than they would have liked to admit. When dealing individually with the more promising among these wannabes, Bloomberg is affable and plainspoken, in the way that a self-made man can be. He dispenses advice, tinged with just enough humor so that the condescension is not immediately apparent. (‘You know what you should do is, go out and make a billion dollars first, and then run for office.’) Or he chides, gently, ‘Why are you wasting your time doing this? You could be doing something really meaningful.’ They are flattered—who wouldn’t be?—by the attention. Only in retrospect does it begin to rankle. It’s not as though they haven’t privately nursed fantasies of ditching the numbing routines and indignities associated with a legislative life and exploiting their connections in the service of making millions (though maybe not billions) of dollars. They are not fools. They understand that the political game is rigged in favor of hackery. They know it because the hack businessmen come calling every day on the steps of City Hall.

But the political class always viewed Bloomberg’s mayoralty as an anomaly rather than as a paradigm shift, and looked forward to 2009 and, thanks to term limits, the end of his reign. For much of the second term, they endured the chatter, from the kinds of people whom they sometimes grudgingly court as their donors, about who could possibly succeed Mayor Mike, now that the bar had been raised: Dick Parsons, the Time Warner C.E.O. (since installed at Citigroup)? Jonathan Tisch, the Loews chairman? Joel Klein, the schools chancellor? One well-regarded politician recalled a breakfast last year at the Regency Hotel at which Tisch and Parsons joked about splitting the job in a tandem arrangement: alternating days, with both off on Sunday. Perhaps it was just a good-natured attempt at deflecting all the wishful speculation, but to the politician, after six-plus years of Mike Bloomberg’s booming New York, it sounded like self-satisfied dilettantism. It drove him mad. More insulting still was the proto-candidacy of John Catsimatidis, whose résumé seemed a too literal re-creation of the Mayor’s—billionaire entrepreneur, amateur pilot, and lifelong Democrat who had recently discovered the conveniences of Republicanism—but who seemed to lack any of Bloomberg’s obvious gifts. Catsimatidis owns Gristedes, a second-rate grocery-store chain, not a revered technology company that revolutionized global finance. But at least he was beatable. Then Bloomberg decided that he didn’t want to surrender his seat.”

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“People Should Be Able To Go Their Own Way, Even If They End Up In A Ditch”

February 25, 2013 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

I think the main problem with Mayor Bloomberg’s ban on gigantic sodas in NYC is that it won’t work. If obesity was mainly caused by this one product, perhaps you could make a case. If it led directly to saving lives like, say, mandatory seat belts, sure, that would make sense. But Bloomberg’s ban lacks such precision. 

Other people think that the main problem with Bloomberg’s plan is that he’s trying to create a nanny state, that’s he’s using state-sanctioned moral suasion. But is that always wrong: From Cass R. Sunstein’s New York Review of Books piece about Sarah Conly’s book Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism:

“Many Americans abhor paternalism. They think that people should be able to go their own way, even if they end up in a ditch. When they run risks, even foolish ones, it isn’t anybody’s business that they do. In this respect, a significant strand in American culture appears to endorse the central argument of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. In his great essay, Mill insisted that as a general rule, government cannot legitimately coerce people if its only goal is to protect people from themselves. Mill contended that

the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or mental, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right.

A lot of Americans agree. In recent decades, intense controversies have erupted over apparently sensible (and lifesaving) laws requiring people to buckle their seatbelts. When states require motorcyclists to wear helmets, numerous people object. The United States is facing a series of serious disputes about the boundaries of paternalism. The most obvious example is the ‘individual mandate’ in the Affordable Care Act, upheld by the Supreme Court by a 5–4 vote, but still opposed by many critics, who seek to portray it as a form of unacceptable paternalism. There are related controversies over anti-smoking initiatives and the ‘food police,’ allegedly responsible for recent efforts to reduce the risks associated with obesity and unhealthy eating, including nutrition guidelines for school lunches.

Mill offered a number of independent justifications for his famous harm principle, but one of his most important claims is that individuals are in the best position to know what is good for them. In Mill’s view, the problem with outsiders, including government officials, is that they lack the necessary information. Mill insists that the individual ‘is the person most interested in his own well-being,’ and the ‘ordinary man or woman has means of knowledge immeasurably surpassing those that can be possessed by any one else.’

When society seeks to overrule the individual’s judgment, Mill wrote, it does so on the basis of ‘general presumptions,’ and these ‘may be altogether wrong, and even if right, are as likely as not to be misapplied to individual cases.’ If the goal is to ensure that people’s lives go well, Mill contends that the best solution is for public officials to allow people to find their own path. Here, then, is an enduring argument, instrumental in character, on behalf of free markets and free choice in countless situations, including those in which human beings choose to run risks that may not turn out so well.

Mill’s claim has a great deal of intuitive appeal. But is it right?”

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“Leaving The ATF Without A Director Is Also A Public Safety Threat”

December 19, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

In an Op-Ed in USA Today, New York’s Mayor Bloomberg has some common-sense proposals for tightening gun laws in a way that doesn’t encroach upon the rights of law-abiding gun owners. Of course, it doesn’t address the huge amount of assault weapons already in circulation in the U.S., and there really isn’t an answer for that. Anyhow, I wasn’t aware that the ATF hasn’t had a director since the Bush Administration. An excerpt:

“The president should make a recess appointment to fill the vacancy at the top of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), which has been without a director for six years. The country would be outraged if the Department of Homeland Security went six years without a confirmed director. Leaving the ATF without a director is also a public safety threat.”

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“Over The Last 50 Years It Has Developed A Mythology Deep And Inspiring And All Its Own”

August 5, 2011 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plans to build a world-class science and engineering campus in Manhattan is the impetus for a debate in the New York Times about whether the Big Apple can ever overtake Silicon Valley as America’s center of tech. I think it’ll be a long haul at best. Tech-centric culture has been gradually and relentlessly built and nurtured in the Valley ever since Shockley and Hewlett and Packard set up shop there. It’s kind of like asking why Los Angeles can’t do better than Broadway or why a country that has never known democracy has trouble installing one. Minds have to be changed before reality can. An excerpt from the Times piece, which was written by Flipboard‘s Craig Mod:

“To be in Silicon Valley is to be completely immersed in technology. The building, the pushing, the hacking, the designing, the iterating, the testing, the acquisitions, the funding — it is everywhere and wholly inescapable. Here is a culture and place that emerged seemingly from nothing, and yet over the last 50 years it has developed a mythology deep and inspiring and all its own.

Anyone can take part in this great valley mythology. For a place so overflowing with money, there is shockingly little pretension. With sufficient curiosity and gumption you are in. This is what captures the minds of entrepreneurs around the world. That the great founders aren’t in Ivory Towers — they are standing in front of you, eating yogurt. That the great companies aren’t just of the past — they are being replaced by even greater companies. And those greater companies are hiring like mad.”

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“All My Adult Life In New York, Working Simply Meant Paying The Rent And Keeping The Lights On”

May 26, 2011 in Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

Bellevue Homeless Shelter, NYC. (Image by Beyond My Ken.)

Longreads pointed me in the direction of an amazing series of articles in Capital about homelessness in NYC during the Bloomberg years, which was written by Steven Boone, a former colleague of mine who was always an excellent writer and person. An excerpt from “Out, But Not Up: Homelessness In The Age Of Bloomberg“:

“Three months later, the last of my small savings ran out, and I went to my landlady in Castle Hill to tell her that I would be leaving at the end of the week, so that she could get a new room renter lined up right away. She asked where I was going. I lied, and told her I would stay with family until I got back on my feet. On Friday, I went to 30th Street Intake Shelter (better known as the Bellevue homeless shelter) for the first time and got assigned to Ready Willing and Able shelter in Brooklyn.

The next morning, I met my father to load his van up with my belongings and store them in an uncle’s garage. He asked me where I was going. I lied again.

This man was 72 years old, living in a small apartment with his wife and supplementing his fixed income by working in a high school cafeteria. All my life, he’d worked seven days a week—six for the U.S. Postal Service, and Sundays cleaning up at a beauty school. (Growing up, I used to be his assistant at the school, paid in movie money and donuts.)

Decades later, I hadn’t managed to do anything to ease his burden. All my adult life in New York, working simply meant paying the rent and keeping the lights on. So, to the extent that I was committed to living, I was committed to making the next transaction between us be a check for some outrageous sum of money, from me to him. If I told him as much, I knew what he would say: ‘Sport, I never cared that you kids would become king of the hill or any kind of bigshot, so long as I raised y’all to be good people in this world. That’s all I ever wanted, and I got what I wanted.’ And in fact that’s how he put it a couple years later, during one of our annual shy, stare-at-the-floor heart-to-hearts.”

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“He’ll Inevitably Fail This Year In His Shameless Attempt To Buy A World Series”

December 1, 2009 in Excerpts, Sports, Urban Studies | Permalink

In “Brian Cashman: Bad Lieutenant,” his scathing Men’s Journal article from April 2009, Matt Taibbi was none too kind to the New York Yankees General Manager:

“The GM of the New York Yankees may be the worst ever at the best job in the world. Which is why he’ll inevitably fail this year in his shameless attempt to buy a World Series.”

Yes, watching the Yankees spend more than gazillions and win the World Series was as soulless an experience as seeing Mike Bloomberg putting a third term as NYC Mayor on his American Express Black Card. But they did win and Taibbi is wrong. He should have eaten some post-Series crow.

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