1960

After 28 years in businesses of various kinds, Tim Holland decided two years ago to become a fulltime writer. He's one of many classmates I've encountered who are retiring early, changing careers, or otherwise deciding to just do something they've always wanted to. Tim's switch is maybe a little more dramatic than most, though. He remembers he was attending an all-day video program at the Smithsonian Institution on the religious philosopher Joseph Campbell when a Campbell quote hit him: "Many people spend their lives climbing a ladder, only to get to the top and find that the wall it's leaning against is not to their liking." Having written "in the closet" for years while working in advertising, manufacturing, and banking in New York and Washington, "I suddenly decided what I wanted to do," he says. The next day he enrolled in a writer's center in Bethesda, Md., and began closing down his consulting business. He now teaches at the center, teaches writing to executives, and writes. He's working on two books, one a novel and the other a non-fiction book on "dysfunctional relationships between bosses and subordinates in business, a subject on which I'm eminently qualified, having been both."

I promise I'll get off politics one of these months, but I did want to see what some of our money mavens thought about the Clinton economic plan. Everyone I contacted was less than enchanted, but no one was contemptuous. Bob Freedman was initially put off—even though "I'm a longtime Democrat in a Republican world"—by Clinton's businessbashing, tax increases on corporations, and "naive" citation of the bond market boom to defend his program. ("The bond market loves bad news," Bob says.) However, Bob said he began to feel better as it began to appear that Congress and Clinton would agree on deeper federal spending cuts and as the stock market and the public responded positively to the program.

Mickey Straus, a top fund manager in New York, said "I'm a lot more positive than I expected to be. I'd give the plan a B, whereas I thought I'd be giving it a D." He said he thinks Clinton really means to reduce the deficit and credits Clinton with half of the interest-rate reduction that is helping to fuel a strong economic recovery. "I don't think Clinton is the same kind of tax-and-spend liberal that we've seen in the past," he said. Mickey's avocation is the arts. He's former chairman of the American Ballet Theater and is now the chairman of the board of overseers of the Hopkins Center and the Hood Museum at Dartmouth. Jon Cohen, personnel chief of Goldman Sachs in New York, said that he thinks Clinton has made a "good start." Jon is on the board of overseers of the Tuck School.

Dick Aronsohn, a lawyer in Hackensack, N.J., is on a 30-member steering committee raising money and giving advice to New Jersey Governor Jim Florio in his re-election race. Dick is optimistic about his man's chances because the public is over its rage about Florio's tax increases, the Republicans are split, and the GOP-dominated legislature committed the "horrendous" error of siding with the National Rifle Association in voting to lift a ban on sales of assault rifles.

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