Barack Obama’s steady decline in the polls this week may mean the American people are tired of the president’s divisive campaign rhetoric after nearly a year into his administration.  The Rasmussen Report’s daily tracking poll shows 53 percent of Americans disapprove of his performance in office.

With an economy shaking, unemployment rising, and two wars draining our nation’s human and financial resources, Mr. Obama prefers to use the divisive language of the campaign trail in hopes of gaining public and political support for economic policies rather than to provide the leadership his supporters sorely hoped he possessed.  He demonstrated this us-versus-them style during his interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes this past Sunday when he used the term “fat cats” to describe banking executives in line for rather substantial, and contractual, year-end bonuses.

As a victim of the tanking economy, one would think I would be the first to shake my fist at another’s paycheck and bonus.  I worked for the last ten years for a state university system, the last two years assigned to a division that receives the bulk of its funding from investments.  University administrators instituted a series of reductions in force that eliminated my position, which effectively put me on the streets at the start of the Christmas season with salary and benefits to expire in a few weeks.  Administrators cited my salary as the reason for their decision.  My experience, institutional memory, and contributions to the university had no value to the administration.

Ken Feinberg is the Obama Administration’s special master for executive compensation.  He distributed $200 million to Vietnam vets suffering from Agent Orange, and most recently he administered the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund by putting a price tag on the lives of those who died.

“Dollars are a surrogate for worth,” he told Time Magazine.  “When you start talking about dollars, what people hear is a ruling on their overall integrity and value to society.  It gets difficult.”  Indeed, especially if value to society is a key factor in compensation calculations. 

The people who collect your trash every week don’t make enough money to take European vacations, but their value to society rises rather rapidly when they don’t pick up the trash for several weeks. 

How much value do you give a person who operates on your heart or cuts into your brain?  Just before you go under the knife, ask if your surgeon makes $40 million an hour.  That was the pay rate for Floyd Mayweather, Jr. in his welterweight title defense two years ago.  His take was $20 million for a 10-round fight.

Tiger Woods, whose value to society is free-falling these days, made $110 million just from selling his name last year.  And Ricky Gervais, creator of “The Office” franchise, gets $50,000 every time the U.S. version of the show airs.

Mack Brown, head coach of the University of Texas football team, will get $5 million next year.  Someone asked me if that were fair.  He should be paid what the market allows, I answered.  The UT football program is one of the few in the nation that pays for itself.  It provides incalculable public relations and marketing for which UT doesn’t shell out a dime.  In fact, UT gets paid every time they’re on television.  And what’s the value of three hours of national television exposure?

Thanks to changes in federal compensation guidelines, approved by Congress, the number of federal employees earning more than $100,000 annually, increased from 14 percent to 19 percent during the first 18 months of the recession, according to a USA Today study of the federal salary data base.  And that’s before overtime and bonuses (by the way, I’ve never figured out why public employees get bonuses for doing the public’s work).

And speaking of bonuses, the president forgot his Wall Street executives kept their bonuses when they joined the administration in January.  The Wall Street Journal reported in March that the White House merely “encouraged” them to “review” their compensation packages.  A Citigroup executive took his bonus, but donated it to charity and, one assumes, wrote off the contribution.

Watching the president Sunday brought to mind Winston Churchill as he prepared his country for the possible German invasion of the island after the fall of France.  “The massacre on both sides would have been grim and great,” he noted in his memoirs.  “I intended to use the slogan, ‘You can always take one with you,’” he wrote.  He realized, though, the British people needed strong, positive rhetoric, and leadership, and not cheap slogans and weak performances from His Majesty’s government.

Barack Obama is not a Winston Churchill, but current and coming battles demand more than empty and divisive rhetoric from the chief executive.

We frequently use fear as a motivator, sometimes with good intentions. The fear of blindness temporarily stayed many a boy from personal exploration. On the other hand, some people play into deep-seated fears of social exclusion, racism, or terrorism to gain some level of control over individuals, whole classes of people, or nations.

One can make an argument that the United States government overreacted in some of its anti-terrorism laws and measures following the Sept. 11 attacks. We and our leaders responded in good faith to the fear that additional terrorists were poised to kill more Americans using airplanes and other weapons. The seduction of fear led to National Guardsmen patrolling airport terminals, armed with weapons that had no bullets. We continue debating the necessity of the past administration’s efforts to protect our nation, which included water boarding, wire tapping, and the Department of Homeland Security.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano this week said she disagrees with Bush Administration measures that fed into fears and did not include the participation of the American people in improving the country’s resilience against attacks. “The consequences of living in a state of fear, rather than a state of preparedness, are enormous,” she said.

Frank Furedi, a professor of sociology at the University of Kent, contends the seduction of fear feeds into the Precautionary Principle, which is designed to eliminate the risk of harm. Furedi says people no longer believe in acts of God or naturally occurring events. For example, accidents are preventable injuries, and we need to fix the causes. If a teenager dies in a car wreck, the family blames missing guardrails or poor road maintenance, and demands laws that keep teenagers from driving at night.

He also believes society no longer expects individuals to rise above adversity. Society, instead, treats people as victims scarred for life. Enter the poverty pimps and community organizers who convince people that racists, bigots, and the wealthy will never let them succeed because of their race, their gender, or their economic status. Only they, the poverty pimps and community organizers, can affect justice for the oppressed.

Individual responsibility does not exist in a precautionary culture, according to Furedi. Thoughtless people, greedy corporations, and incompetent government watchdogs cause a plethora of societal woes. So, we divide the citizenry into vulnerable or at-risk groups that need government protection from a government we do not trust, and we roll over to the seduction of fear by allowing that government to throw money and regulations at circumstances within our control.

If we believe the national news media and Washington fear mongers, each one of us is in danger of losing our home to foreclosure or seeing our home’s value plummet unless Uncle Sam steps in with mountains of cash. People across the country bought into that fear, causing the value of homes in unaffected areas to fall. The government, meantime, pumped billions of dollars into the system to save troubled mortgages given to individuals who could not and cannot afford them.

Buried in a wire-service story this week was a statement from the chief economist of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation who estimates the number of home foreclosures could reach 5 million by 2011. That’s a big number, especially if you are one of the 5 million, but it represents just over 6 percent of all homes in the country. In other words, 94 percent of home mortgages are safe and have been.

Another example is the current healthcare debate. Eighty-nine percent of respondents to the latest Time magazine poll said they have some form of healthcare coverage, and 86 percent of that group said they are very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their plans. A Gallup poll last November found that 83 percent of Americans said the quality of their health care is excellent or good.

Proponents of sweeping changes in healthcare coverage and healthcare delivery use the seduction of fear to make their case rather than rely on reasonable examinations of the underlying causes and effective cures.

The seduction of fear only leads to the reduction of reason, which comes with a price tag no one can afford.

Mundus vult decipi

A friendly conversation the other night about politics and the economy underscored the great gulf between perception and reality. The old saying is true that perception is reality, but, in reality, only if one doesn’t delve deeply into the subject in question.

Here’s what happened. The after-dinner conversation turned to those Detroit CEOs who flew on corporate jets to tell a congressional committee they need taxpayer money to survive. Our guest was incensed at the audacity of these automotive swells, the personifications of corporate greed.

I agreed their choice of transportation was boneheaded at best, and another reason why folks living at the C-level should listen to their public relations people whose job is to keep well-paid fat out of the fire. This also was a fine example of how public perception can eclipse economic reality.

Many of us who qualify as pedestrian in our jobs and lifestyle look with more than a tad of resentment upon executive transportation, whether it is a car and driver, an express elevator to the corporate suite, or a company jet. We work long hours to make our bosses look good, yet we drive ourselves to the next meeting or to the airport where we jostle our way through the lines only to wait for a flight that’s delayed. What a waste of time, we say to ourselves as we anxiously watch for the next flight update.

And that’s the point. If standing around in airports is a waste of our time, just think of the waste of company time and money for those highly paid C-suite suits. Convert your pay and their pay to hourly rates and determine the most efficient use of investor or taxpayer money.

I used to write speeches for university presidents. Every now and then someone would ask why my boss would have a full-time speechwriter. My answer was simple. It takes about an hour to write each minute of a speech. As a taxpayer, who would you prefer to spend 40 to 50 hours a week researching and writing speeches?

Then, there’s the economic stimulus argument for corporate jets. First, let’s establish the premise that the creation of jobs is one of the top reasons for the federal bailout money. If so, then why eliminate jobs simply because of envy?

“Excuse me, but your corporation gets economic stimulus money, so you’re gonna have to jettison your jet, which means you’ll have to fire the pilots, flight attendants, and mechanics, and cancel your contracts with fuel suppliers and the fixed base operator, who, in turn, will make personnel adjustments based on lost revenue. There, I feel better, because your CEO now has to ride a mule to his next meeting.”

President Obama continued this Us-versus-Them attitude in his this-is-not-a-State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress this week. He told the giddy crowd he will hold banks fully accountable for their bailout money. “This time, CEOs won’t be able to use taxpayer money to pad their paychecks or buy fancy drapes or disappear on a private jet,” he said, adding, “Those days are over.” I guess that means you folks who sell fancy drapes and design and sew fancy drapes and supply raw materials that make up fancy drapes can start looking for other work, because fancy drapes, along with private jets, are no longer allowed.

Same is true for those bacchanalian conventions and conferences hosted and attended by companies and organizations across the land. Mr. Obama doesn’t like them. He said so in Elkhart, Ind. Companies can’t go to Las Vegas or to the Super Bowl “on the taxpayer’s dime,” he said.

In the last several weeks, Las Vegas hotels saw the cancellation of 30,000 hotel room nights at an estimated loss to the city of $20 million, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Goldman Sachs, which took $10 billion in bailout money, cancelled its technology conference and State Farm dropped its October convention expected to have 17,000 attendees.

But why stop at Las Vegas? Who needs conferences and conventions anyway? Not businesses looking for clients, or managers looking for better ways to do business, or city leaders who keep telling us convention business is essential to their economic development.

By the way, Goldman Sachs said it was leaving Las Vegas because of the company’s “best efforts to operate according to the requirements of the new landscape of our industry.” It didn’t mention, however, the $600,000 cancellation fee to the hotel or the other costs associated with moving a big event at the last minute.

Some may think the move was to control public perception. And it was, because it had nothing to do with economic reality. Mundus vult decipi

Here we are with a new week and another round of posturing, politicking, and punditry regarding the price of petroleum.  As happens when folks do a lot of talking, very little is said.

I hang around educated and talented people.  Each individual has at least one university degree.  Most read, watch, or listen to more than one news source every day.  They span generations with ages ranging from the 20s to the 70s. 

Yet, not a single person among them knew the answers to some basic questions pertinent to the growing discourse regarding the rising price of oil.  A few knew some of the answers, and some knew a few of the answers.  To be fair, I had to look up the answers, or else I would have been among the shoulder shruggers.

For instance, how big is a barrel?  Answer: 42 gallons.  So, now you know that when the price for a barrel of crude oil hits $140, that’s the same as $3.33 a gallon.

What nation supplies the most crude oil and petroleum products to the United States?  Answer: The United States.  According to the Energy Information Agency (www.eia.doe.gov), our country supplied 41 percent of the oil we consumed in March of this year. 

What nation, other than the U.S. , supplies the most crude oil and petroleum products to our country?  Answer:  Canada .  Our northern neighbor accounts for 12 percent of our nation’s oil and 20 percent of all the oil we import.  The rest of the top five include Saudi Arabia (7 percent and 13 percent); Venezuela (6 percent and 11 percent); Nigeria (6 percent and 10 percent); and Mexico (5 percent and 8 percent).

How much oil do we import from Persian Gulf countries?  I’m glad you asked.  Persian Gulf countries accounted for only 16 percent of our foreign oil imports each year from 2005 to 2007.  In fact, our Persian Gulf imports declined most of this decade, from a 15-year high of a little more than 1 billion barrels in 2001 to 791.9 million barrels in 2007.

What’s the difference between crude oil and petroleum products?  Answer: Crude oil provides, among other products, gasoline, diesel and jet fuels, heating oil, liquefied petroleum gas, lubricants, asphalt, plastics, synthetic fibers, detergents, fertilizers, ink, crayons, bubble gum, deodorant, tires, and heart valves.

One barrel of crude oil (which is 42 gallons, remember?), yields about 19.6 gallons of gasoline.  The other 22.4 gallons go into the products just mentioned.

How much of the cost of oil goes into the price of gasoline.  Answer:  A bunch.  We consumed about 390 million gallons of gas a day last year in our cars, trucks, recreational vehicles, boats, farm implements, and construction and landscaping equipment.  Back when crude was $68 a barrel (that was just last year), it accounted for about 58 percent of the price of a gallon of gasoline.  The rest of the price came from refining costs (17 percent), federal and state taxes (15 percent), and distribution and marketing (10 percent). 

By the way, the price of crude accounts for about 77 percent of the cost of gas at $4 a gallon.

Here’s a little something you may not have considered.  What products that you buy on a regular basis are sold with tax included?  Answer:  Gasoline.  For everything else, you add the tax at checkout.

The folks in California pay 63.9 cents a gallon in state and federal fuel taxes, the most in the nation.  That’s just the base, though.  Motorists there also pay an additional 6-percent state sales tax, with some paying another 1.25-percent county sales tax plus applicable local sales taxes.  Same in Illinois , where Chicago motorists pay 12.75 cents per gallon on top of the 57.9 cents per gallon in state and federal taxes.  Some Illinois motorists also pay a 6.25-percent sales tax.

Politicians, pundits, and other TV talking heads don’t like to provide these answers, because facts get in the way of positions that pander to the mob.  We don’t point fingers at Canada , because it’s de rigueur to paint the Saudis with the broad brush of blame.  Folks float the idea of a moratorium on state and federal gasoline taxes without explaining its minimal impact on gas prices, or without mentioning the $3 sales tax some motorists pay on top of a $50 fill up.  Policymakers don’t explain that oil trades in the dollar, which is weak vis-à-vis the Euro, because that would require solutions for strengthening the greenback.

And, it’s easier for simple minds to convince simpler minds to impose windfall-profit taxes on pension funds and owners of Individual Retirement Accounts who invest in oil companies than to take on credit card issuers charging double- and triple-digit interest rates to the millions of people using plastic to pay for food and fuel.  Talk about irony.

And, we sure wouldn’t want to impose a windfall-profit tax on someone who goes from making $56,000 a year as, say, an Illinois legislator, to $165,000 a year as, say, a U.S. senator, an increase of nearly 200 percent (not counting book deals or real-estate related loans).

Mundus vult decipi (and as my magician friends add: decipiatur)