The Business of Commerce
Dammit, Bill. How could you do this to all your fans? I know there was some major fence-building to be done with the Clintons. But to get aced out by Billary for State is just demeaning. And then to settle for Commerce. Jeeze. Where are we going to go with that? I had to think fast. There has to be an angle in this news someplace.
Sure, it is a seat in the Cabinet, but you have been there, done that.
Naturally, I went to take a look and see what Bill’s new domain holds in terms of prospects. I found it easily enough on the Commerce home page. I went immediately to the Budget, since as you well know, money talks and bullshit walks around here.
I was momentarily dismayed. Dollars in millions? Shoot, $6,919 on total budget authority in Y-09. That is ridiculous. Like a measly two aircraft carriers worth of Department. It is dissing a while class of my fellow Americans, you know?
Not that State has a lot of cash, but the walking-around perks are fantastic, and you get a private jet. At Energy, you had nuclear weapons, for god’s sake, and over $21,000 dollars in millions. At Comerica, you have…what?
Well, I didn’t know, so I looked. He has the weather, in the form of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And Patents, and Standards, of course, which is the last place I had dealings with them in the Government.
Yes, there are Spooks over at Commerce, too, as there are everywhere. But these are specialized Spooks who work tech transfer issues, and stuff like that. The last time I dealt with them directly was back when I was doing Sanctions Enforcement work on the Joint Staff, and met the elite corps of Secret Squirrel special agents and accountants. My spirits perked up immediately.
It is worth some investigation on my part, if I am going to exploit this narrow window of opportunity. Bill will running a bunch of stuff, even if the budget isn't that huge, and it is all cool niche market stuff, and very timely. OK, so it is not Treasury, but it is close, right? Good address, right on Constitution Street near the Mall. I enjoyed working at Health and Human Services, and who would have thought there were Spooks there, right? Here is the line-up:
Commerce Bureaus
Bureau of Industry and Security <http://www.bis.doc.gov/>
Economics and Statistics Administration <http://www.esa.doc.gov/> Bureau of the Census <http://www.census.gov/>
Bureau of Economic Analysis <http://www.bea.gov/>
Economic Development Administration <http://www.eda.gov/>
International Trade Administration <http://trade.gov/index.asp>
Minority Business Development Agency <http://www.mbda.gov/>
National Institute of Standards and Technology <http://www.nist.gov/>
National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration <http://www.noaa.gov/>
National Technical Information Service <http://www.ntis.gov/>
National Telecommunications and Information Administration <http://www.ntia.doc.gov/>
Patent and Trademark Office <http://www.uspto.gov/>
We’ll go on a tour on this little corner of the Federal Bureaucracy as I get time, since some of these outfits are a little obscure. I have to get hot and understand how they all tie together, and how we can bring them to heel in support of the new management. I will also have to generate some informational white papers to demonstrate my thought leadership and inspire new and dynamic programs.
I also have to locate a current copy of the Plum Book, the one that has all the political appointments.
The first one might be about the microchips the Chinese Intelligence Services have implanted in every computer, everywhere, the ones that are programmed to "call home" with all the really sensitive data when activated.
There is one right in front of you now, and I would not be surprised if there were some in the command and control chain of our weapons of mass destruction, not to mention your bank and the New York Stock Exchange. Not that anyone would care about that these days...
Copyright 2008 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com