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SUNDAY, AUGUST 15, 2010
Romer is out. Who
should be in?
With Christina Romer stepping down as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, President Obama is in the market for a new econ-geek to whisper in his ear about issues from jobs to Wall Street to global trade. He is reportedly considering a couple of usual-suspect types: Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago professor already on the three-member council, and Laura Tyson, who chaired the council in the Clinton White House.
The council chairmanship has traditionally been populated by academic economists, but how about drawing a chair from the private sector or even the news media? Washington Post business reporter Frank Ahrens suggests five candidates who may not be on Obama’s radar — but should be.
Pepsi’s Indra Nooyi is the best big-time chief executive you’ve never heard of. While her academic
bona fides (master’s degree from the Yale School of Management) will satisfy the pointy-heads, more important, she knows real-world business and economics. Nooyi was a product manager at Johnson & Johnson and worked at Motorola before joining PepsiCo in 1994. She smartly got Pepsi out of the restaurant business, spinning off its KFC and Taco Bell joints, and doubled-down on beverages, buying Tropicana and Gatorade. Under her leadership, PepsiCo’s profits have doubled. As a native Indian, she is deeply familiar with world’s largest democratic economy — one that really wants to play ball with Washington.
Want someone with the deepest feel for the health and desires of the American
consumer? You
won’t do better than James Sinegal, co-founder and chief executive of Costco. This son of a steelworker started as a discount-store bagger and worked his way up. He founded Costco in 1983 and has gotten high marks as a manager and employer. He believes in long-term business growth.
Outside the academic world, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman is best
known for his New York Times columns arguing that the $787 billion, debt-busting stimulus bill was not enough, so even moderate Democrats — not to mention conservatives — might lose their minds with this pick. But maybe it’s time for Krugman to put his money where his mouth is. You think government needs to spend more to get us out of this funk? Okay, Paul. Here’s the key to the car.
Ford chief executive Alan Mulally gets points right off the bat because his automaker was the
only one of Detroit’s Big Three to not take a government bailout. He has been rewarded with increased market share during the recession. He’s also an engineer, which means he thinks rationally. Mulally was a top exec at Boeing before taking over Ford in 2006. Even though he had never run a car company, he understood that firms making cars and planes are all transportation companies and share many traits and problems. He cleaned up Ford’s globally disparate parts under the mantra of “one Ford everywhere.” And he can handle unions while creating jobs — no mean feat.
You might laugh at this one, but CNBC anchor Larry Kudlow worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of
New York and the Office of Management and Budget during the Reagan administration before going to Wall Street to make his millions and subsequently flame out like a booze-and-drug-fueled Icarus, a low period he has discussed openly. But Americans believe in second chances, and Kudlow’s been one-day-at-a-timing it for more than a decade. There is no more articulate spokesman for supply-side economics and tax-cut job creation. Yet, not even his legendary selection of suits and ties will likely win him admirers in the Obama White House.
— Frank Ahrens
ahrensf@washpost.com
ALEXEY NIKOLSKY/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin co-piloted a firefighting plane over the Ryazan region on Tuesday, a move seen by many as a PR stunt.
The fire Putin can’t extinguish R
by Lilia Shevtsova and David J. Kramer
ussians fainting in the sub- way. People jumping into city pools and the Moscow River, and in many cases drowning. Ambulances racing around a
city eerily free of its normal traffic con- gestion. Morgues running out of space and corpses piling up on the floor. Hun- dreds of homeless animals dying of thirst. Muscovites trying to escape but getting stuck at airports that are scram- bling to handle some 64,000 flights canceled or badly delayed because of poor visibility. Staff at foreign embas- sies fleeing. A voice on the radio warn- ing: “Surgical masks do not help. The monoxide gas and the burning sub- stances will stay in your lungs forever!” These seem like scenes from a horror movie, but they are all too real. Be- tween hundreds of wildfires in Russia and record-breaking heat, this has been the worst summer in Russian memory. Nearly 100 deaths are officially attrib- uted to the fires so far (the real figure is undoubtedly much higher), and offi- cials report that the death rate in Mos- cow has doubled from its customary levels, to 700 per day, owing to heat- induced illness and smoke-filled air. Thousands of homes and dachas have been destroyed, with direct losses esti- mated at $15 billion and rising. The fires started a month ago, but
Russia’s leaders were slow to grasp the gravity of the situation and slower to respond. As his country burned, Rus- sian President Dmitry Medvedev went on vacation in the resort town of Sochi — and then, inexplicably, headed off to the Georgian separatist region of Ab- khazia to mark the two-year anniversa- ry of the Russian-Georgian war. Despite the dire situation in the cap-
ital, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov de- parted for his own holiday, in the Alps, returning only grudgingly. The state forestry agency’s Moscow director was fired for refusing to cut short his own vacation, while Medvedev, in a striking display of hypocrisy, threatened to dis- miss other forestry officials who re- mained on leave. This response has been so appalling in its ineptitude that it invites compari-
tion, they do seem to be fanning a long- smoldering public distrust of the gov- ernment. And fires can be unpredict- able.
stage P
rime Minister Vladimir Putin bears direct responsibility for the dysfunctional system that set the for disaster: Legislation that
came into effect in 2007, when he was president, turned forest management over to poorly equipped local author- ities and to companies that manufac- ture paper and related products. Oli- garchs close to the Kremlin allegedly lobbied for the law, which decimated the forest ranger corps and left Russia ill-prepared for today’s calamity. But Putin’s political survival skills are formidable, and writing his politi- cal obituary would be premature. More than anyone in the top leadership, he has been meeting with affected families and directing emergency operations. In a blatant PR stunt Tuesday, he even co- piloted a firefighting plane in the Rya- zan region, site of some of the worst fires.
ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
In the smoggy heart of Moscow, residents are wearing masks and the usual traffic congestion is gone.
sons to past disasters. Is this like the 1986 Chernobyl disaster? Or is it more like Hurricane Katrina in 2005? Politi- cally speaking, it should be even worse than Katrina. For one thing, a good part of Russia’s catastrophe has unfolded in the nation’s capital, not in a far-off re- gion such as the Gulf Coast. And these fires are burning with Russia’s 2012 presidential elections on the horizon; Katrina hit after George W. Bush had been reelected. The current crisis should expose and discredit the Russian government at its most incompetent and should perma- nently taint those in charge. Of course, this doesn’t mean it will: Russia’s gov- ernment is not a government of the people, but of the well-connected. Its citizens haven’t expected much of their leaders, even before the fires. But if the events of the past month haven’t started a political conflagra-
And while elections are coming up, voters are unlikely to have much choice when they go to the polls, given the ab- sence of viable political alternatives. Russia doesn’t have a remotely func- tioning democracy; it lacks official ac- countability, independent institutions and a vigorous media. Opposition lead- ers and other critics of the government are endlessly harassed by the author- ities. Elections for governors were elim- inated in 2004 and replaced by a cor- rupt appointment system, and the same is starting to occur at the mayoral level. Under such circumstances, it is no wonder that firemen in some regions, ordered to protect the local bosses’ da- chas, watched helplessly as the homes of ordinary people were reduced to ash- es. And it is no wonder that, despite the raging fires, officials have in recent weeks managed to find the personnel and resources to crack down on on- going protests against cutting down part of the Khimki forest on the out- skirts of Moscow, innocuous opposition rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and a protest this past Thursday against the AWOL mayor of Moscow. The poor response to the fires will
further widen the chasm separating the nation’s authorities from society. Even before Russia began burning, 82 per- cent of citizens surveyed by the state- run VTsIOM polling agency said state officials do not respect the law. Recent Levada Center polls report that 59 per- cent of Russians want a return to direct elections for governors, 56 percent are “unsatisfied with what is happening in the country” and 43 percent do not ex- pect “anything positive” from Putin. Surveys taken after the fires started show public support for Putin and Medvedev, declining even before this crisis, continuing to erode. Medvedev’s seeming indifference to the fires is like- ly to damage his standing further. His much-vaunted plans to modernize his country and build a Russian answer to Silicon Valley look deeply misguided, given that the state apparently cannot even protect its population from the el- ements. The image of a Russian govern- ment unable to put out a fire is likely to prove indelible. And while the fires may not be Pu-
tin’s version of Katrina, even he will emerge from the smoke having suffered the sort of pushback he rarely encoun- ters. At a meeting he recently attended in the Nizhny Novgorod region, desper- ate citizens shouted at him: “The au- thorities should be hanged by their balls!” Russian bloggers have taken him to task for his flying stunt. Increas- ingly, the authorities and society re- semble two galaxies moving in opposite directions. A decade ago this past Thursday, a
different tragedy befell Russia with the sinking of the Kursk submarine and the loss of 118 Russian sailors. The govern- ment at the time, led by its new presi- dent, Putin, was blasted for a tardy and feckless response. When, soon after- ward, CNN’s Larry King asked Putin about the loss of the Kursk, the Russian leader replied callously: “It sank.” Today, were Putin to be interviewed by King about the Russian fires, he might not get away with saying simply: “Russia burned down.”
Lilia Shevtsova is a senior associate at the
Carnegie Endowment’s Moscow Center, and David J. Kramer is a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington.
In space, no one can hear you giggling space from B1
human and sometimes absurd struggles behind them.” To research the book, Roach traveled
to Japan, where prospective astronauts are forced to fold 1,000 sheets of paper into origami birds, which are then ana- lyzed by psychiatrists. She also went to Russia, where a retired cosmonaut grumbled about the mind-numbing boredom of life on the space station. “I wanted to hang myself,” he said. “Of course, it’s impossible because of weight- lessness.” In the United States, Roach observed a
NASA study of the physical effects of re- maining motionless for weeks, which is what astronauts would have to do on a voyage to Mars. Subjects were paid to lie in bed 24 hours a day for three months, which is tougher than it sounds. One subject was fired when a surveillance camera caught him committing the un- forgivable sin of sitting, instead of lying, on his bedpan.
But Roach really shows her reportorial grit by using a NASA contraption to filter her urine and then drink it. “Urine,” she reports, “is a restorative and surprisingly drinkable lunchtime beverage.” Obviously, she is not afraid of the icky.
In fact, her book is packed with the kind of delightfully disgusting details that bring joy to the hearts of 12-year-old boys — and to the 12-year-old boy that lurks inside the average adult male. There’s a whole chapter on the history and physi- ology of vomiting in space. Also a chapter on how horrendously dirty and smelly astronauts get after a few weeks without bathing. And a truly bizarre chapter on the unhappy effects of weightlessness on an astronaut’s ability to eliminate waste products. That chapter contains a classic Roach footnote — she’s a maestro of the foot- note — revealing that NASA maintains a collection of Apollo astronaut waste products in a freezer in Houston. Alas, nobody has checked the specimens late- ly. “Forty years of freezing, with occa-
sional thaws due to power outages dur- ing hurricanes,” a NASA official told her, “may have reduced them to mere vestiges of their former glory.” Needless to say, there’s also a chapter
on sex in space. Roach reports that rats have engaged in space copulation, but she isn’t so sure about humans. “Dozens of astronauts have flown on coed crews,” she writes. “It’s hard to imagine that all these men and women, without excep- tion, have resisted temptation.” But thus far, even in our loose-lipped culture, no astronauts have regaled us with tales of weightless hanky-panky.
There’s a whole chapter on vomiting in space.
Roach ends the book with an oddly backhanded endorsement of spending the $500 billion it would cost to send as- tronauts to the Red Planet: Government money “is always squandered,” she writes. “Let’s squander some on Mars.” If we do, NASA should take Roach along for the ride. That way she could write a sequel to this erudite, entertain- ing and very funny book.
bookworld@washpost.com
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