Exxoff January 9, 2002February 21, 2017 Look at the time! I seem to be 893 minutes late posting this column. Oops! Well, I certainly hope you didn’t wait for me. Eat! Eat! BOYCOTT EXXON/MOBIL When Exxon and Mobil merged in 1999 they became the world’s largest corporation. For some, that might be reason enough to boycott Exxon/Mobil. For others, the sheer ungainliness of the name – Exxon/Mobil – could be a reason to steer clear. You say you’re “running down to Starbucks,” and it just trips off your tongue. To the A&P? To Kinkos. You’re out of Kleenex or you’re flying Delta or you just bought a Hewlett Packard printer . . . these just sound right. ‘I’m just running down to the Exxon/Mobil station’ doesn’t sound homey, doesn’t sound natural. The two shouldn’t go together. Which is apparently exactly what top Exxon executives think about Charles and me. We shouldn’t go together, either. So when Exxon and Mobil merged, they became not just the world’s largest company, but also the first U.S. employer ever to rescind a non-discrimination policy covering sexual orientation. Mobil had been one of what are now 299 of the Fortune 500 companies to have such a policy. Had Exxon acquired the policy along with Mobil, the number today would have been 300 of the 500. But Exxon does discriminate against gay and lesbian employees, and proudly so. (This was no oversight – they’ve resisted plenty of pressure to change their minds.) What’s more, open merging with Mobil, Exxon closed Mobil’s ‘domestic partnership benefits’ program to any additional employees Mobil employees, let alone any Exxon employees. So if you’ve been married for two weeks, your spouse is fully covered at Exxon/Mobil. But if you’ve merely been life partners for two decades – prevented from the legal benefits of civil unions because of your sexual orientation – Exxon thinks it’s fair to deny you the same spousal benefits your coworker gets. You know what? This sucks. It’s unfair, it’s unAmerican, and it’s something Exxon will doubtless change sooner or later. Let us never forget how Alabama Governor George Wallace – proud segregationist – eventually came around. With time, good people almost always do. Exxon will, too. But in the meantime, how hard is it to fill up at a competitor? It’s so easy! The Coalition to Promote Equality at ExxonMobil was formed in October of 2001, with the simple goal of getting Exxon/Mobil to rejoin the majority of America’s Fortune 500 companies – as I say, 299 of them at last count – that include sexual orientation in their nondiscrimination policies. And to rejoin the growing number of Fortune 500 companies – 157 at last count – that offer domestic partnership benefits. Handy phone numbers: To cancel your Exxon/Mobil credit card: 800-903-9966. To cancel your Speedpass: 877-696-6245.
Hip Hop January 8, 2002March 25, 2012 ‘I’m just gonna hop in the shower,’ a friend said, and I have often said the same myself. But think about it: why do people always HOP into the shower? Has any one of them – even one – ever actually hopped into the shower? (Or, for that matter, started hopping when they got really mad?) Hopping is just not something one does after early childhood, unless one has stepped on a tack, and then only long enough to get to a chair. ‘I’m just going to hop on down to the store and pick up some bagels.’ Oh, sure you are. I’d love to see it. Could the Early Man who came up with this word, hopping around his cave after stubbing his toe, ever have imagined showers or stores? Or that hopping down to the latter would mean walking over to a shiny 3,000-pound cave on wheels (wheels I think they invented right around the time they came up with the word ‘hop’), stick a small shiv into a slit, turn a wrist, and summon 160 horses? This is hopping? To hop has come simply to mean, ‘to go, impulsively, casually.’ One never hops to do something important – unless one ‘hops to it!,’ which is almost the opposite of doing it casually – and you and I, being native English speakers (well, most of you), just know all this stuff intuitively. Imagine having to learn English as a second language starting at 14, let alone 40. It would be all but hopless. This brings to mind four things. First, obviously, how fortunate we are (again, most of us) to know the Internet’s primary language with no effort at all. Second, how extraordinary are our friends (like the designer of this web site, among so many others) who have met the challenge of learning English as a second language. Third, how difficult it must be for the young man who has been assigned to translate the new edition of my book into Japanese. He sends me the nicest e-mails asking questions that make me realize how impossible this must be. Starting with the dedication page: ‘To my broker, even if he has, from time to time, made me just that.’ How do you translate a pun? (My recommendation: just delete it; my broker will never know.) (And why on earth does the Japanese publisher think anyone there will want to know why the Roth IRA is a better choice than the traditional IRA?) Fourth, what a smart idea it is to enroll the five and six-year-old children of immigrant parents into ‘English immersion’ programs when they start school, while they are still young enough to pick up the language with ease. The ‘bilingual’ classes many school districts have spent so much money on turn out to be – though well intentioned – basically school-in-Spanish. Which is fine if you’re a kid in Mexico or Chile, but a real disservice if you’re a kid in Los Angeles or Boston. That last observation is controversial. Bilingual education is strongly supported by, among others, those employed in bilingual-education programs, many of whom work very hard trying to make the theory (which is a good one) reality (which after 30 years of trying seems rarely to happen). In California, virtually every politician in the state came out against a 1998 ballot initiative that would have ended most bilingual classes. Yet it passed overwhelmingly, and was even heavily supported by the Latino community until shortly before the vote, when massive opposition advertising flooded the Spanish-language media. (It was only after the election that the funder of the opposition was revealed: the owner of the Spanish-language Univision television network. Univision has a natural economic interest in having kids not learn English.) Three years later, the California results are in, and they are good. Arizona has passed a similar initiative. Massachusetts is currently debating one. It is a much larger topic than I have the space or competence to cover, but if you’re interested, hop over to englishforthechildren.org.
Over My QUIVERING Dead Body January 7, 2002February 21, 2017 Tomorrow, a lighter topic. But if you missed Paul Krugman in Friday’s New York Times, click here. A tidbit to whet your interest: ‘Adjusting for inflation, the income of families in the middle of the U.S. income distribution rose from $41,400 in 1979 to $45,100 in 1997, a 9 percent increase. Meanwhile the income of families in the top 1 percent rose from $420,200 to $1.016 million, a 140 percent increase. Or to put it another way, the income of families in the top 1 percent was 10 times that of typical families in 1979, and 23 times and rising in 1997.’ Armed with this knowledge, and surveying the panoply of challenges we face, the Republican response is to shift the playing field further toward the 1%. Not enough money for schools or prescription drugs or Social Security or alternative-energy research? Well, that’s too bad – first things first. Another tidbit from the Krugman column: ‘The Republicans have moved so far to the right that ordinary voters have trouble taking it in; as I pointed out in an earlier column, focus groups literally refused to believe accurate descriptions of the stimulus bill that House Republican leaders passed on a party-line vote back in October.’ So, while I am not authorized in any sense to speak on behalf of the Democratic Party, I am moved to make a pronouncement anyway. My pronouncement is inspired by our President’s recent pronouncement – ‘Not over my dead body will I let them raise your taxes.’ He said this to what C-SPAN described as a ‘largely blue collar’ audience, and I suspect he’s been saying it, and will be saying it, to audiences wherever he goes. Read his lips. Well, on behalf of the Democratic Party (unauthorized, but still) I say: ‘That’s nothing! You could torture us and threaten to kill our nearest of kin; you could condemn us to eternal damnation and take away our MTV and STILL we would not raise your taxes! And that applies not just to you in the audience, but to the 2% of you at the very top of the income and wealth pyramid, too! We will not raise YOUR taxes, either! But we will freeze further tax cuts for you fortunate few until we can afford them. The goodies that applied to you for 2002 will still phase in right on schedule; the additional tax cuts for the top 1% or 2% that were slated to phase in in future years (because we had massive budget surpluses as far as the eye could see) we’ll just hold off on. Because it would be really stupid to throw fiscal prudence to the wind and rack up more gigantic budget deficits and triple the national debt again, as we did the last time we enacted massive tax cuts for the top 1%. We’ve been down that road.’ It just strikes me as so dishonest for the President to be telling a crowd of cheering middle-income people that HE won’t raise their taxes when, in fact, NO ONE is proposing that they be raised. It’s all part of the strategy to gain popular support for preserving massive tax cuts for those at the very top . . . such as, for example, reducing the top estate-tax bracket for billion-dollar estates from the current 55% to zero. So if you missed Paul Krugman Friday, I say again: click here.
Piping Up for Bush January 4, 2002February 21, 2017 Herewith, two columns for your weekend reading. The first, by Daniel Pipes, gives President Bush appropriately high marks for the war on terrorism. The second, by Matt Miller, gives him appropriately bad marks (in my view) for domestic policy. First the good news: SURPRISE! IT REALLY IS A WORLD WAR ON TERROR by Daniel Pipes New York Post December 31, 2001 The prospect of war between India and Pakistan shows how profoundly things have changed since Sept. 11. “From this day forward,” President Bush announced just days after the attack, “any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.” Washington, he signaled, would henceforth see international politics through the prism of its war on terrorism. Many observers, including this one, doubted his us-and-them approach. This unrealistic bifurcation, I wrote in the Oct. 15 Post, “will not work in the real world of messy and competing interests.” Well, I was wrong – the president meant what he said. Since Sept. 11, the war on terror has overhauled U.S. foreign policy. Nearly all American relations with the outside world are developed with this issue in mind. This seriousness of purpose – so unlike the Clinton years – has vast implications. Here are two. First, many states have adopted the war on terror to their own circumstances. Some of them (Zimbabwe, Syria, Nepal) do so opportunistically, with no al Qaeda problem in sight. Others that really do have a problem with militant Islam – Russia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Israel, India, China, the Philippines – restated their case in anti-terrorism terms to win American approval. We are witnessing a fledgling but unprecedented alliance of the world’s great powers against the forces of militant Islam. The cases of Israel and India stand out. After Sept. 11, suicide terrorism by militant Islam temporarily stopped, resuming only in December with parallel assaults on these two countries. Israel. Hamas and Islamic Jihad launched four terrorist attacks on Dec. 1-2, killing 26 Israelis and wounding many more. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon responded by announcing, “We will treat Palestinian terrorism exactly as you [Americans] treat bin Laden terrorism.” Emulating Bush’s policy toward the Taliban, Sharon held the Palestinian Authority “directly responsible” for the violence and sent Israeli troops into its areas to extirpate terrorism. India. If not for a mishap by the terrorists, the Dec. 13 assault by Jaish-e-Muhammad on India’s Parliament building would have assassinated much of the country’s political leadership and probably caused a national crisis. Also emulating U.S. policy, New Delhi held Pakistan responsible and demanded a crackdown on Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, militant Islamic groups supported by Pakistan’s intelligence service, threatening dire consequences if its wishes were disregarded. The two sides spoke of war, recalled diplomats, cut transportation links, put troops on “very high alert,” evacuated villages, laid mines, deployed missiles, and exchanged artillery fire. The Bush administration correctly accepted these as legitimate variants of its war against terrorism. It newly sympathized with the Russian and Chinese efforts. It sent military advisors and nearly $100 million in aid to the Philippines. It abandoned the earlier calls for mutual restraint and instead shifted in favor of Israel and India, noting how these governments have “a legitimate right to self-defense.” Second, the Bush policy has governments around the world paying much more attention to U.S. wishes. The petty criticisms of last August about U.S. “unilateralism” is history; foreign states now jump when Washington speaks. In mid December, for example, Defense Department sources noted the al Qaeda infrastructures in Yemen and Somalia and fingered them as potential targets. Those states immediately stood up and saluted. On Dec. 18, the Yemeni authorities launched a military campaign in the east against al Qaeda and days later arrested foreign adventurers. On Dec. 24, long-feuding Somali factions hastily put together a transitional government and vowed to eradicate al Qaeda in their country. Stepping back from the details, we see here something very major indeed, perhaps even (to use the term made notorious by the first President Bush) a new world order. It is characterized by an assertive United States using its power to protect itself, stand by its friends, and intimidate its enemies. Yes, this involves dangers, as shown by the growing worry of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan. But the only way to defeat militant Islam is through a willingness to fight it; and the sooner it is confronted, the less bloody the fight will be. That the tragedy of Sept. 11 really has turned into an international wake up call is primarily a testimony to the leadership of George W. Bush. We are only beginning to see how focused, consistent, and determined he is. ☞ If we play our cards very, very carefully, the world really might unite against terrorism and yet move toward democracy, not away from it, in the process. Can anyone imagine these same actions, or anything vaguely resembling them, being taken on September 10? Sadly, without the image of the Towers imprinted in every brain on the planet, we surely could not have gone into Afghanistan, let alone wherever we go next, without phenomenal criticism and resistance. It may well be that the 4000 who lost their lives September 11 were the horrific price the world paid to avert something much worse. But as good a job as the administration is doing abroad, it’s been just awful on most issues at home. Some of the missteps have been inadvertent and excusable. (Surely, for example, the administration didn’t intend for its Treasury Secretary – in most respects an impressive fellow – to prove so inadequate for the job.) But much of it was completely deliberate, designed to shift the balance of wealth and power significantly further in favor of the wealthy and powerful. And in this regard, as Matt Miller suggests, September 11 works very much in the administration’s favor: ODDS FAVOR BUSH IN FRAMING ’02 DEBATE By Matthew Miller For release 1/2/2002 Sixty-eight percent of Americans believe the cost of the war on terror will ‘shortchange other needed programs,’ and most people think the anti-terror effort is worth the expense. Taken together, these findings from the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll have the Bush White House cheering. And they show how steep the climb will be for those who hoped the new year might offer a chance to make progress on domestic needs if the terror situation stabilizes. Washington is poised for a classic shouting match over who lost the budget surplus and how to cope with its disappearance. What the new poll suggests is that the public is predisposed to accept the false Republican argument that the war on terror has eaten the surplus – not the large Bush tax cut tilted toward the wealthy. When you combine this public predisposition with the presidency’s built-in advantages in shaping the terms of debate, you reach a depressing but unavoidable conclusion: The left will need to achieve unheard-of levels of political acuity and ‘message discipline’ for there to be any hope of fresh action for the uninsured, the working poor or disadvantaged kids. The shame is that the conservative argument on the long-term surplus is a hoax. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (a poverty-oriented research group in Washington whose numbers are respected across the political spectrum), only about 20 percent of the decline in the projected 10-year surplus comes from increased defense spending and homeland security measures, all of which the Center prudently assumes will be continued indefinitely. About half the decline in the 10-year surplus comes from the tax cut (the final 30 percent is swallowed by the recession and assorted technical re-estimates). This proportion surges over time as the tax relief phases in. Seventy percent of the surplus previously forecast for 2010, for example, has been devoured by the tax cut. To be fair to Republicans, the recession and new security costs will account for about three-fourths of the surplus’ decline this year. The GOP strategy is therefore to act as if the short-term explanation for the lost surplus is the same as the long-term explanation. This is dishonest, of course, but that’s politics. How can Democrats make the facts prevail in the coming debate? It won’t be easy. For one thing, the Bush tax cut is a fait accompli – so Democrats who make these points will be charged with wanting ‘to raise taxes in a recession,’ an obvious no-no. This charge is untrue – Democrats would simply stop future scheduled tax cuts for wealthier Americans from taking effect – but an untrue charge is not the same thing as an ineffective charge. At the same time, Democrats have handed Bush an underappreciated coup by joining with him to pass a largely hollow education reform. When trumpeted by Bush during his coming ‘State of the Union’ address and via every other megaphone at his disposal, this ‘accomplishment’ will certify in the public mind the president’s centrist, ‘compassionate’ credentials. (It also gives Bush several years – at least through his re-election campaign – in which to deflect any criticism on schools by saying, ‘We have to give these bipartisan reforms a chance to work.’) All this comes even as Bush’s new budget will drive federal spending toward its lowest levels as a percentage of the economy in 40 years. No matter: The education bill ‘halo’ will make it next to impossible to paint Bush, accurately, as a president epically stingy with those left behind. A Rose Garden picture with Ted Kennedy will trump a thousand liberal editorials. In short, it’s hard to exaggerate the domestic political box Bush has put Democrats in even as he’s risen to the occasion of wartime leadership. To make any headway toward progressive goals – or even to stop severe backsliding with regard to the federal cash available for such purposes – the left will need to mount a successful campaign to teach the public that the cost of the tax cut dwarfs the costs of terror, and that their smiling president has plans to sharply shrink government unrelated to our security. Anything is possible, I suppose. But a betting man would say conservatives are in the catbird seat. Did someone say ‘happy new year’? © 2002 MATTHEW MILLER ☞ To which I would add: Don’t count us out. With hard work, progressive Democrats will continue to win elections this coming November just as we did this past November. (Democrats won both governors’ races, Virginia and New Jersey, and 39 of 42 targeted mayoral races, including Houston, where our friends in the other party pulled out all the stops. Our big loss, New York, was to Mike Bloomberg, a Democrat in all but name – he maxed out to Bill Bradley, Al Gore, Chuck Schumer, Barbara Mikulski, John Corzine, Chris Dodd, Bob Torricelli, Tom Harkin and Jerry Nadler – who switched party labels to get on the ballot.) The question, I guess: would it be too much to ask to have an administration that was, again, rather good both abroad and at home?
More New Year Mishmash January 3, 2002February 21, 2017 GAJ Barry Basden: ‘Click here to find basic info on many preferred stocks, including: GAJ – Great Atlanta & Pac Tea Co, 9.38%, 8/11/04 [call date], $25.00 [call price], Rated BA1/BBB-. Had I more than a double in it, I would sell, too.’ ☞ See what a little homework will do? Thanks! (And, yes, a $25 call price in 2004 does limit the upside when the stock is trading at $24.35..) SAVE! Allan Tanner: ‘I’ve found really good deals on printer cartridges and cell phone batteries through stores on eBay. For example, I found a place on eBay that sold me black ink cartridges for my Canon Bubblejet BJC-4400 printer for $2.19 each. I had paid about $4.00 for generic cartridges at Priceless-inkjet.com, which is a good non-eBay merchant, and about $7.50 for Canon brand cartridges at Best Buy. My daughter Naomi’s Nokia 8290 cell phone needed a battery. By searching for “8290 battery” on eBay, I found a place called eForce Trading Co. that sold me a lithium battery for $15.00 delivered, rather than for the $59.95 that Amazon.com wanted, or the $79.95 that Best Buy wanted.’ FRANCO George Fescos: ‘Is Franco really gone? When I was in Spain a few years ago I was surprised to find that the bust of Franco was still on the coins. No new Franco coins have been minted for years, but the old ones lingered on. The obverse side had a bust of Franco along with the Spanish phrase, FRANCISCO FRANCO LEADER OF SPAIN FOR THE GLORY OF GOD (oddly there was not enough room for the whole phrase so the word glory was contracted to the letter G). The converse side had the symbol of the king of Spain, a military eagle, and the symbol of fascism, a bundle of arrows held together by a ribbon (the Latin word for bundle, fascis, is the root word fascism came from). The coming of the euro, and the end of the peseta, will put Franco nearer the grave.’ OSAMA From The Borowitz Report: January 2, 2002 *Breaking News* U.S. ATTEMPTS TO LURE OSAMA WITH AD IN PERSONALS Evildoer Has Not Had a Date in Months, CIA Believes . . . MUSSOLINI Kartic Mants: ‘You know, I agree with you. So what if Clinton is a sociopath? People bitch to this day about another probable sociopath: Mussolini. But, as has been said of Mussolini’s reign: THE TRAINS RAN ON TIME. It’s no small thing such benefits as the trains running on time, as those are what affect people’s daily lives. So what if Mussolini had a mistress, and harassed those who opposed him, Clinton-style? THE TRAINS RAN ON TIME. I’m glad to read of your indirect but whole-hearted support of Mussolini.’ ☞ President Clinton, however distressing you may find his private infidelities, and whatever paroxysms of sarcasm and illogic they may drive you to, worked tirelessly and with enormous success to improve people’s lives. Can you really say that of Mussolini?
Happy New Year! January 2, 2002January 25, 2017 A New Year‘s Mishmash: SELL! It may well be a good buy here – it still yields 9.5% – but I am selling the Great Atlantic & Pacific Company preferred J shares (symbol GAJ) suggested in this space 364 days ago at $11.75. It has a little more than doubled since then – it closed at $24.35 Friday – and has paid $2.34 in dividends along the way. That works out to a total return of 127%. Needless to say, that was pretty good for a year like 2001. (Even more needless to say, my life is not usually like this.) The reasoning behind my selling is barely reasoning at all. It includes the following: (1) I haven’t done the homework to make an educated guess as to whether that preferred dividend is safe. It probably is, but I really don’t know. If it is safe, then even at $24.35, this is a great buy – where else can you get 9.5% these days? But (2) I know myself. I would feel less bad not receiving that fat dividend than I would if GAJ got into trouble again and the stock went back down. It’s a relief sometimes to quit while you’re ahead. (3) My local Food Emporium is closing this month. (Food Emporium is one of A&P’s several chains.) Of course, this could actually be good news. It could be a sign of prudent management ready to cut losses rather than let them bleed. It could be the result of some irresistible offer they got to give up their lease. And it could certainly make the next closest Food Emporium even more profitable, as many of the closing-store’s customers happily walk the extra few blocks. But I’m just not willing to do the homework to try to find out what it means; and even if I were, that’s no guarantee I’d draw the right conclusion. Finally, (4) although the dividend yield is great, any further price appreciation is likely to be very modest. I’m too lazy even to find out whether these preferred shares can be called in at their par value of $25. But if they can be, and the company were to secure cheaper financing, the upside from $24.35 would be very slight. Anyway, I’m outta here, and didn’t want to leave without letting you know. PRAY! Joel Williams: You write: ‘My own view is that religion works best when it stops short of complete, unquestioning faith. You find it comforting, and you sort of believe – especially when there’s engine trouble at 37,000 feet or you’ve run off a deserted road into a snowdrift and are pinned inside the car. But you don’t fully, really, absolutely, literally believe.’ My wife worked with a fundamentalist Christian. He was fairly high up in the company, and drove a Cadillac. He took another employee on a business trip in the summer from Houston to New Orleans. They went in the Cadillac. Well, about half way there, the air conditioning died and the power windows would not work either. Some kind of electrical problem. The solution? He stopped on the road (I-10), went down on his knees and prayed that God would heal the car. Made his companion do the same. Did not work, of course. The moral is apparent.’ ☞ Yes: pray harder. MAYBE THEY SHOULD HAVE SUMMONED A GENIE Thanks to Ralph Sierra for this interesting op-ed from Friday’s Washington Post. It is by a Muslim with harsh things to say about Muslims – and harsh words for us as well. I don’t think the author is fair to Israel, or our support of Israel, but he is clearly worth a listen.