PART I: THE 100 YEAR WAR ON BUSINESS AND SUCCESS (1913-2013)
Chapter 3
The Legend of Bagger Vance and the Pivotal Financial Setting of 1931
Legend of Spend, Tax, Borrow (Woodrow Wilson & FDR)
Legend of Spend and Dance (John Maynard Keynes)
Legacy of Spent - No Tomorrow (Barack Hussein Obama)
The Amending and 2nd Chance ("We the People")
In 1931, on the Links at Krewe Island, two golf legends meet. Walter Hagen and Bobby Jones are going to play 72 holes over two days on the windswept course off Savannah's shore. A third golfer - the fictional Rannulph Junah - will also play. Down on his luck and his golf game, the former golf champion and World War I veteran has little chance against the two greats. Fortunately, Junah's caddie, Bagger Vance, has some wise advice that he dispenses freely throughout the match.
The story (a retelling of the Hindu epic "Bhagavad-Gita") is the background of the movie.
This fictional tale makes for good drama and nostalgia. Charlize Theron, as Adele Invergordon, tries to save her late father's seaside links club and resort that is set against a gorgeous backdrop that oozes Scottish charm. She plans to accomplish this goal by capitalizing on the notoriety of the match between the two most famous golfers of the era (and some would say of all time) and with the added appeal of the local favorite, Junah. Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen were as revered in 2011 by long-time golfers everywhere as they were in real life in the “Roaring 20’s”. The eight decades that bound The Links at Krewe Island in 1931 with the state of golf in America in 2011 were remarkable, historical and fundamental to understanding where America had been, where America was in 2011, and where America hoped to be in the future. The analogy that the game of golf was a microcosm of the "game of life” was still as true in 2011 as when Vance (Will Smith) told Junah that his "authentic swing" lay deep within if he became one with his inner self. The message went far beyond a miracle golf shot from deep within a wooded forest at a crucial time in a crucial golf match. It was a message for Junah's (Matt Damon’s) very soul.
Patience, calmness, humility, knowledge and character are as indispensable for a well-played golf match as they are for a well-lived life. This is Bagger Vance’s message as he imparts the knowledge of the age-old struggle to triumph over adversity. But in a final, painful twist, conflict rears its ugly head at the conclusion as Junah's chance for acclaim and self-redemption is suddenly frozen in time. With a slight dislocation of the ball, as it moves a scant quarter-inch on the final green, it is an infraction that goes unnoticed by all but Junah, and proper golf protocol requires a penalty to be called by the player himself. When he does indicate he is going to call the penalty on himself, no one including Jones and Hagen want him to do it. It ends his chance to win—or does it?
Conflict—and its successful resolution-- were monumental historical and cultural themes as America stood on the verge of the Great Depression – just as Adele and Junah were struggling to conquer huge conflicts in their 1931 world. Adele Invergordon claws through the struggles of impending foreclosure and financial dispair to overcome the overwhelming negatives of the greater financial despair beginning to beset an entire country as the Great Depression is taking hold of America’s psyche. Eventually, Adele convinces the bankers and backers, persuades Hagen and Jones to participate in the game, attracts huge crowds from near and far, and then she wins over Junah himself. Surmounting all of these seemingly impregnable obstacles, blazed a shining spotlight on the fighting spirit and pioneering entrepreneurship that built America to greatness. Saving the resort—while preserving her father’s legacy—was a monumental achievement for Adele Invergordon. If you haven’t done so already, invest a couple of leisure hours in watching the movie and find out what happens to Adele and Junah and their relationship. It’s a good story.
It would have been very enlightening to find out what happened to the resort in the ensuing decade and what happened to the jobs—and the workers—that Adele Invergordon had fought so valiantly for and saved in 1931. Would customers and potential repeat customers still have the means to come back to such a posh and idyllic wind-swept vacation in the future? Would America’s business climate support and allow Adele to continue to nurture and build on her initial successes and would it continue to provide a vibrant, free enterprise landscape? And would that same business climate support and encourage those driven ambitions and work ethics and entrepreneurial spirits and know-how that allow the rewards of free enterprise to expand and flourish? What happened over the next few years to Adele and her burning desire to be a contributor and a successful part of the millions of parts that work dynamically to empower a massive economy? What happened to the incentives for all of those millions of parts?
We know that six months later, the successful Americans in the real world, who might have had their best year ever would watch in horrified disbelief as the top tax rate skyrocketed to an astonishing 63 % (!!) from 25% the year before. They were not going to receive the bulk of their hard earned labors and income because the government was going to take it. In 1932, a new President was elected who, from the beginning, seemed to revile entrepreneurial success. He seemed to despise businesses and corporations that were established and built on ingenuity, risk-taking and hard work—like that of Adele Invergordon. Unbelievably, he raised the top income tax to a punitive 79%-- and later to 90%. Ultimately, he even signed an executive order into law that enabled the government to tax 100% of all yearly income over $25,000. Understandably, those who were blindsided with this monstrously unfair legislation were reeling in shock. Who could blame them?
Franklin Delano Roosevelt spent the 1930s issuing and levying stock market and business regulations, price controls and signed legislation that effectively hamstrung and demoralized management, owners and stockholders. To make matters even worse—impossible as it seemed—he promoted and promulgated adverse rhetoric to go with the mountains of legislation that built gigantic walls between management and labor unions. The methodical, systematic elimination of incentives and the forced shackling of ambitions and risk-taking were utterly debilitating to business and investors, and risk takers and dreamers.
FDR himself came from a wealthy family as an only child. He never got his hands very dirty working to do what Adele Invergordon did. He devoted his efforts to excelling academically at prominent schools. He worked his way up in politics and became the head dispenser of power and policy like his Uncle Teddy had been as president a generation earlier. It is hard to develop where his lack of appreciation and inherent "blind spot" to the strengths of corporate free enterprise and small business entrepreneurship came from, but he definitely saw those entities and people as his enemies to be overcome and to be controlled by government even though they were the ones who paid for the bulk of the government’s massive expansion.
The progressive media giant, Walter Lippmann, in his 1935 column, summed it up best in defining the progressive ideology’s viewpoint that it was the high duty of government and not private industry to control the management and decision making of business and free enterprise. He wrote that progressives would
"rather not have recovery if the revival of private initiative means a resumption of private control in the
management of corporate business . . . The essence of the New Deal is the reduction of private corporate
control by collective bargaining and labor legislation, on the one side, and by restrictive, competitive and
deterrent government action on the other side."
What happened to the Links at Krewe Island"? Unfortunately, since neither Bagger Vance nor his supernatural connections returned for a follow-up movie, we’ll never know. Even so, we can guess that it is the same thing that happened to the golf world and to golf clubs in America toward the end of the first decade of the new 21st Century. Two public golf courses and two country clubs closed down after years of operation in the south end of the hometown of the framers of "The 28th Amendment". Scores of long time course maintenance crew members and their supervisors lost their jobs. Gone were the jobs of the pro shop staffers, the bag-room boys, the range boys, and the golf pros themselves. Sadly, everyone from club managers to chefs to the receptionists and bookkeepers—and every hard-working employee in between-- had their livelihoods snatched from them as these courses closed their doors.
The reasons for disruption and decline seemed to point to the inexorable continuation of grand designs by progressives to run EVERYTHING and EVERYONE through massive government control. If "Joe the Plumber" could be brought down a little bit, then the government could equalize the outcomes a little bit and ultimately buy votes to keep the game going and the power flowing in the same direction. In the progressive’s utopias this would be good for everyone because in their eyes most Americans don’t know enough to realize when unfair government policy is being “shoved down their throats.” Don’t kid yourselves. This IS what MOST of those who run Washington really think of “the masses” (i.e. “the People”).
Joe dreamed of owning that $250,000 business and maybe climbing up the ladder of life to new heights. If the economy had not turned so sour again, he might even have joined a golf club to foster business connections while he enjoyed himself. We've got to check back with Joe, but it is quite possible that the previous allure wasn't worth all the new obstacles, escalating rhetoric and baiting between classes. It wasn't worth the effort to hire some helpers and expand. If he succeeded, why risk it when someone else was going to wrest his rightful reward from him?
In August, 2011, a coal mine owner in Alabama made national news and the viral video scene at the hearings for his permits went from bad to worse when the progressives ranted on about the regulations and restrictions, and the raving of the environmentalists pitched ever more rancorous and the voices of opposition got louder. As he watched it all, he finally interrupted in a voice that was calm but tinged with emotion. His words were straightforward, simple, and devastating:
Hold it! I have seen over and over desperate people trying to get jobs to save their families, people coming to me with tears in their eyes wanting to work. This mine was going to employ 125 people ranging in pay from $50,000 to $150,000 per year. It was going to buy $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 from the supply chain and businesses in the area. It was going to provide energy and add competition to the pricing of that energy. I have had enough. The mine is closing. None of that will happen. I don't need this. Nobody needs this. It is not worth it!
With that, the national coverage ended. There went 125 exceptionally good- paying jobs as an immediate consequence. Who knows how many more jobs were lost as the result of $50 to $60 million in lost revenue from the peripheral businesses? This is one more similar example of the progressives’ massive efforts strangling America with regulation and outright hatred of business. This progressive victory emboldened many more progressives to go out and shut down more private enterprises, drive them out of business altogether or force them to relocate to another country because of the punitive taxes that have been levied against American businesses.
Still this is a golf story, so let’s resume our examination of the state of golf in America 80 years after Bagger Vance established his legacy. By 2011, there were literally no golf courses being built in America, the golf course construction industry was in limbo at best, and many courses nationwide and the construction businesses that built and repaired them went bankrupt or disbanded. Of the country clubs that were left, many were in desperate straights with pared-back budgets and skeletal staffs in place to survive. Memberships were dwindling from most clubs—and this was especially true in the case of long-time members who worked in the construction business dropping out of their clubs.
The true aspirations of legions of progressives were more and more being realized and by November, 2011, progressives where orchestrating and fomenting massive unrest and demonstrations in cities all across America. As the gaps were narrowing between reality and some of the unreality of the subjects on signs reading "Eat the Rich" and "Destroy the Rich" and "The only good Capitalist is a Dead Capitalist" (we assume figuratively), there was a growing anticipation in both those carrying the signs and those paying for the signs that events were moving toward the eve of major victories and there could soon be elation and partying throughout the progressive world. And with each new country club that shut its doors and as they were successfully undermining and ending more and more of the playgrounds of the supposed "rich", progressives were getting the double benefit of signing up the once proud fathers and mothers who once held jobs at those playgounds and businesses of the greedy rich and loathsome capitalists. Unemployed parents who, not finding other work, were now devastated at the cries of their children and spouses and by their personal failures and inadequacies to support their families. But for progressives, these were perfect times to convert the hopeless to the great welfare utopias and massive government schemes to provide ubiquitous "safety nets" as everyone came down to equality. Would the ultimate progressive hope soon be a reality and were progressives going to soon boast about unseating the decadent rich and vanquishing their golf courses and attaining collective equilibrium?
Ridiculous? Well, maybe. But seriously consider that Vladimir Lenin had been able to set the stage so golf courses would never be built anywhere under Soviet rule for over 60 years and this symbol of decadence would be barred from Communist China for almost as long. Could the new progressives be pining for something in between those models of State control and the golden age of FDR -- those good old days of central planning and all-caring government with so many dependent on government for so long and with a great leader who surely must have disdained those playgrounds of the rich also as he had famously said, "a round of golf is a good walk spoiled."
But back again to Savannah and those progressive golden years -- we don't know what happened to the Links at Krewe Island later in the 1930s, but we can guess. If Adele Invergordon did see her treasured family inheritance decline along with the rest of America as the 1930s ground to a halt, maybe it would have encouraged her to know that forces were on their way to American shores from the British Isles that would have given her new hope for Savannah Golf.
In fact, a revolutionary new way had been discovered to create money out of thin air and pump it into any economy. Hang on to your hats, folks. This is pure NON-fiction. We promise. Keep reading.
John Maynard Keynes had published this astonishing discovery, and he was coming to meet with Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936. America’s money machine was about to get revved up. The best part was the more you spent the more you had! It was great! The only problem was that in 1937, one year after FDR and John Maynard Keynes met, The Great Depression and its spend, tax and borrow binge took its famous “double dip.”
Consider the following true exchange chronicled in a 1929 memoir entitled That’s War between a Greenville, Alabama, soldier named Moses and his lieutenant at a Fort Gordon, Georgia, training camp in February, 1918—as America was entering World War I. When he was asked to sign up for the World War I government life insurance policy - Moses replied "No Sir, my ma warned me about those things where you put up a little money and get back a lot. Nobody ever done it." Could it be that Moses was smarter than "New Dealers" in the 30’s and 40’s, the "Fair Dealers" in the 40’s and 50’s and "Great Society" progressives in the 60’s and 70’s? At least he had more common sense. There’s certainly something to be said for that. Could Moses have been smarter than the vice president of the United States in the next century? Joe Biden said the following when he was challenged for spending $787 billion in stimulus, ANOTHER $800 billion for TARP --the massive Troubled Asset Relief Plan” that the government created so taxpayers could clean up the carnage from the subprime lending disaster and the collapse of the housing market, and STILL ANOTHER $1.5 trillion spent in 2010 for deficit stimulus. As all of this was created and spent out of thin air in 2010, Mr. Biden said:
"We are just going to have to spend our way out of bankruptcy".
Excuse us, Mr. Biden. Run that by us again. We must have missed something. When did SPENDING money you don’t have and are forced to borrow from the Chinese become synonymous with CREATING revenue or IMITATING sanity?
One year after Vice President Biden's ludicrous statement in 2010, Keynesian economics and the progressives’ 98-year, governmental spending binge of 1913-2011" had finally brought America to the brink of economic collapse and started America over the edge of the financial abyss. The progressives' “100 Year War on Business and Success” had driven so much wealth, accomplishment, success, and freedom from American shores, that only a miracle could reverse the largest, all-encompassing, economic threat to the United States in her history. The downgrade of American “full faith and credit finally happened, and on August 5, 2011, the S & P rating agency took formal, official action. In dropping the AAA rating that had led the world since 1917, S&P officials also stated that there was a one in three chance it would be downgraded from the new AA+ over the next six to 24 months.
The great debt ceiling deal of 2011 had laid bare the fact that the great debt- dealing Imperial Congress had become the proverbial Emperor who had no clothes on, and, as the rest of the world looked on, it was an international disgrace. The "Legend of Spend, Tax, Borrow" and "Spend and Dance" and the Legacy of "Red Inc" (REDistribution of INCome) was all culminating in the final Keynsian chapters and like most profligacy made public it was ugly and it was what Washington DC had become.
Meanwhile, socialism had failed everywhere and every time that it had been tried in history. America's socialistic march was seemingly in the last leg of its marathon. All of the groups were well-down their critical paths and pert charts for completing their goals, and they were starting to speak with one voice as they combined forces.
In one Internet video that went viral, Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO, bragged—literally-- that he was in the White House at least every other day and on the phone with the White House every day. He was in lock- step with Andy Stern, head of SEIU (Service Employees International Union), the most frequent early visitor to the White House according to the White House log. Stern was traveling around the globe consolidating international union structure with his loud and strident slogan "Workers of the World Unite.” Interestingly, and perhaps not surprisingly, the political slogan "Workers of the World, Unite!” is the famous rallying cry of Communism found in Marx’s 1848 publication, The Communist Manifesto. It’s worthwhile to note that Andy Stern also had a viral video. He smiled very confidently and said “If we can’t win with the power of persuasion, we will win with the persuasion of power!”
Stern was also “in cahoots” behind the scenes with George Soros' insidious and nearing success aspirations for “Global World Governance” and a “One World Order”. All of these were coming together with many others who were preaching revolution, anarchy and “collapse the system” and they were acting in concert all over the globe to try to achieve the end of American dominance and the eradication of its capitalism, institutions and ideals.
Who was the champion for the Marxists, the Communists and the anarchists and revolutionaries? Who spent his life surrounded by these leftist, radical revolutionaries, “blame America crowd”, Marxists, Communists? Who wrote a book where he declared that he “..sought out the Marxist professors…” and whose own father left Harvard to go write Marxist papers for the future of Kenya’s governance… the father that he entitled the book “Dreams From My Father” after? Finally, how could this person become the President of the United States and carry out that part of his oath of office “…. and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”-- while all his friends and associates were working to destroy America? That, my friends, is the ULTIMATE question, isn’t it?
Meanwhile, Congressional corruption reached its pinnacle in the backrooms and elite closed-door sessions as Congress reneged on its constitutional powers and assigned an unconstitutional “Super Committee” to meet in secret in November of 2011. This is in direct contrast to the light of public review in which Congress is proscribed to conduct its business. Suddenly 300 million Americans saw the most pressing issue of their time, i.e. cutting federal spending and avoiding national bankruptcy, being debated and hammered out, not by their 435 Congressional representatives and 100 Senators, but by a unconstitutional “Super Congress” of 12 people meeting in secret. "Dysfunctional” was becoming an understatement in labeling the actions of these court jesters and imperial fools as headlines of “America going the way of Greece’ and “Default?” and “100% Debt to GDP” splashed unceremoniously across the world.
In the meantime, there was a glimmer of hope. Fortunately, 60 new members of Congress, were elected in November 2010 to cut the size of government and quell its insatiable spending. They had actually resolved to do what their constituents sent them to Washington to do. They were trying to confront the spending with refreshing honesty about their intentions and goals. With admirable courage and aplomb, they deflected the lies and bribes offered to them by the proverbial long-nosed crooks who ran Washington.
"Patience, calmness, humility, knowledge and character are as indispensable for a well-played golf match as they are for a well-lived life." This is Bagger Vance’s message as he imparts knowledge for the ages that captures the struggle to triumph over adversity.
Junah called that penalty on himself. And, in doing so, he saved himself. America was calling on the strength of her previous goodness and beginning to confront the legacy of "The 100 Years War" by progressives. Fortunately more and more Americans were waking up to their plight. They were calling on their God and they were calling on themselves to re-examine their own lives and their own shortcomings and their real core beliefs. More and more the urgency was clear and more and more the call to action was gaining a footing.
Character was stirring again in a giant among nations. The "calmness, patience, humility and knowledge” needed was immense. The "penalty" would require time, repentance, and rededication and millions of pledges to that bond of “Sacred Honor” that the founders had pledged to each other and to their new country.
Time was running out, though. With only money to cover $178 billion in financial obligations every month, there was no money to cover the additional $138 billion that was necessary EVERY MONTH. Of the 80 million checks the Treasury sent out every month, 40 percent of them couldn't be covered. The clock was ticking louder, and the 32 million people who would not receive their checks when the economic game of “musical chairs” stopped were a collective time bomb waiting to explode. Things were coming to a momentous head in Washington. Americans were calling out for their founders, their history and their heritage. They were re-learning important lessons of the past, and those lessons were about to come back to life in a huge way.
Barack Obama was finally running out of other people to blame. His reality and his credit cards were starting to come back "DENIED.” Was it possible that the 44th President of the United States was going to be held in contempt by that jury of his peers, “We the People”? Was there time enough and enough fortitude in “We the People” to prevent and reverse a monumental grab for power and control? Was there the time and the will to arrest the forces against America and to stop irreparable damage to the amazing America that most Americans remember—and for which they yearned again?
"Patience, calmness, humility, knowledge and character are, as indispensable for a well-played golf match as they are for a well-lived life." OBPAO (Out of Bounds - Play Another One) was about to ring in the ears and sideline the careers of the elites from Congressional Country Club to Pebble Beach.
"Par for the course" was no longer the mandate from the progressives. They were out of mulligans and the only mullets they could find were the ones that they saw in the mirror as they looked back. Scores of two-stroke penalties that were ignored for painfully obvious "out of bounds" behavior resulted in nothing less than DQ (disqualification) at the scorer’s tent. Progressives were about to learn the humbling aspects of humility and, if not some hard-learned humility, then some well-earned humiliation.
.
As the great Bobby Jones wrote in his 1960 book Golf is My Game - "Golf should be played with 'courageous timidity'’. He completed his career at the age of 28 by achieving the incredible feat of "Golf's Grand Slam"—winning the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, British Open and British Amateur ALL in one year - 1930. It was a fitting tribute in many ways to the end of the fantastic decade of the "Roaring Twenties".
In mid-1930, the private economy of the United States was back on the mend, the hit song of Americans was “Happy Days are Here Again - the Skies Above are Clear Again”, and the top income tax rate was 25%, and it looked to Americans that the low taxes, and the small, frugal , intelligent and solvent government that they thought they were getting when they voted for Herbert Hoover and FDR were going to continue the "Happy Days". Unfortunately, the "courageous timidity" of Bobby Jones and the sound economic principles of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge would be retired and forgotten along with the word "conservative" and the phenomenal progress that underscored the amazing decade of the 20s.
Business and success were slammed in the 30’s at the hands of Hoover and FDR. The entire decade was an awful sequel to the distant "roar" of the 20s’ with its extensive successes and innovations. The 30’s government had no humility-- only hubris. It set in motion the long trend of Keynesian allure -- "something for nothing.” Americans had been seduced—and hoodwinked- by this outrageous lie for far too long. They were finally beginning to understand and to unite—in anger for what their government had done to their country, its traditions, institutions and values—and, more importantly, they were becoming resolute in their determination to effect a historic reversal of their government and restore dramatic, long-term, positive change to America to get Her back on the right path to prosperity.
In 2011 and 2012, across more than two centuries, the connections of tuned-in Americans again to those 1787 voices reverberating in long lost continuums of time and space in distant air-waves and frequencies and across the spectrum of generations whose bonds of hard-work, fortitude, thrift, common sense, common valor, common honor ---rooted in freedom and liberty for all – began resounding again.
By the end of 2011, with the crises of national bankruptcy threatening to trigger economic and political devastation at any time, progressives had set the stage for bringing the forefathers together again in a revival with "We the People" and eventually with the necessary 38 state legislatures. Was Divine Providence going to provide another MIRACLE and were a people who had been led astray and who were grappling with financial and spiritual disarray - about to repent and restore faith even as they repaired, repaid and repatriated the greatest country on Earth? Were some lessons from sports and life about to repatriate patience, calmness, humility, knowledge and character to Her people?
