If the recent earthquake that shook the East coast was not really an earthquake but was our nation’s founders turning over in their graves, the more recent hurricane (Irene) must have been their tears being shed over our country’s lack of leadership.

There seems to be no lack of blame being offered to explain why we have our current state of unemployment and national indebtedness, but too few politicians are coming forth with any meaningful solutions. It is hardly adequate to offer “blue sky” proposals that supposedly pump up the economy but only add more debt (QE3) without some guidelines about how it will be used and some realistic goals rather than arbitrary criteria like “shovel ready” projects.

There are two recent events that can give us hope if they are kept in proper perspective. These two events come out of the business community, not Washington’s political maze. Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway (Omaha, Neb.) made the news with his investment in Bank of America Preferred Stock. According to Forbes website, he purchased 50,000 shares of preferred stock which will pay a 6 percent dividend. That is just a good investment for a company (Berkshire Hathaway) that has $100 million a week to invest.

They also obtained warrants that allow his company to buy 700 million shares of common stock at a price of $7.142857 each anytime within one year. The company’s book value is $20.29 per share. He can make a profit on either of these transactions very quickly and don’t be surprised if he doesn’t end up with a position as a major stock holder in Bank of America which has 10.13 billion shares of stock outstanding. This investment package was designed to aid Bank of America at a time when our nation’s major banking industry is being tested by the economy. For an investor like Buffett with his strong support of investing in America’s future to keep this amount of money in our economy rather than going overseas says a lot about him and his view of our nation’s potential. He is not a “corporate raider” noted for trying to make a fast billionby selling off a company in pieces after a hostile takeover. We can take heart in Buffett’s choices of where to invest in the long term and his faith in America.

The second encouraging sign also comes from the business community and islead by the CEO of Starbucks - Howard Schultz. According to numerous sources, including Politico, 100 business leaders have signed a pledge to stop making political donations to incumbent elected politicians until they make real progress in controlling deficit spending. It is difficult to determine exact numbers of a goal for reducing the spending, but any threat containing a promise of reduced political contributions is guaranteed to get Washington’s attention. On its website Aug. 25, 2011, Politico writer Jennifer Epstein reported more than 100 business leaders agreed to this pledge but not all were willing to have their names released. If large corporations withhold their financial support, a major source of campaign funds will dry up for incumbents seeking re-election (and House members are elected every two years). Unless wedelve into every report issued by every major publicly-held company, it is impossible to know which candidates or which party individual companies support. However, they are going to support candidates that they believe will make decisions that best benefit their company’s interests. And, it is being done with the money you and I pay for whatever product or service they supply.

Proctor and Gamble, General Electric, 3M and the listgoes on, provide products which you and I buy as consumers or as taxpayers. If you are among the 50 percent who reportedly don’t pay any taxes to the federal government, the latter may not apply to you. However, when you buy a roll of Scotch tape from 3M, an appliance from G.E. or a container of soap from P & G, you contribute to their profit and this allows the very top level executives and the board of directors to make the decisions over policy on political giving.

As a taxpayer and consumer, I applaud Howard Schultz’s efforts to initiate this program. Hopefully he will be able to get the majority of America’s business leaders to “get onboard” this program and look to America’s future as well as the future of the enterprise they lead. My faith in America’s business leadership has weakened over the years as I have seen moreand more companies tie their futures to political concerns.

Maybe this will be the turning point to bring back industry to our shores and provide new, non-political party, leadership to Washington.

◊◊◊

Editor’s note: Leo Lynch, a native of Benton County has deep roots in northwest Arkansas. He is a retired industrial engineer and former Justice of the Peace. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Opinion, Pages 4 on 09/07/2011