Year: 2004

SELL YUKOY

On August 23 I suggested the brave at heart consider the American Depository Receipts (ADRs) of the Russian oil company Yukos – symbol, YUKOY – at 16 or so. Oil prices seemed likely to stay strong and a friend who had studied the situation had bought a million shares. Well, oil prices have certainly been strong, and YUKOY touched 21 earlier this week before closing last night at $16.74, but my friend is now out of the stock, so I’m getting out, too. There’s always the chance that it will zoom – I still think the government will not want to scare off investors by clobbering YUKOY completely. But better safe than sorry.

DOWNLOAD UPRIVER

If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed . . . it turns out you don’t have to go see Going Upriver, as I’ve been recommending. You can download it for free and it will come to you, right where you’re sitting. The only teeny-tiny catch – it will take half the night to download if you have a fast connection . . . or approximately 394 years if you use dial-up. Click here.

GEORGE AND JOHN, SIDE-BY-SIDE

Click here.

For those of you who want to see John Kerry win, take heart. Electoral-vote.com currently shows us down 228-284, but that’s with Bush winning Florida and New Mexico, and New Jersey tied. We are going to win all three (see September 17), and that makes it 275-252. Add in Ohio and it’s 295-232. More than half the country disapproves of the job President Bush has done. More than half the country thinks we’re on the wrong track. A tremendous number of new registrants and “unlikely voters” are going to turn out to vote. They are not going to reelect George W. Bush. Hang in there: just 18 days to go.

DECISION 2004

In terms of your prosperity, it’s pretty simple:

If you make less than $200,000, vote for Kerry.

If you make more than $200,000, consider Bush.

But bear in mind that there is more to your long-term prosperity than the tax rate on your income above $200,000. Kerry has the backing of Robert Rubin and Warren Buffett, perhaps the two best respected business leaders in the world. Also, the job and stock markets generally do better with a Democrat in the White House.

IT’S NOT JUST RUBIN AND BUFFETT . . .

I’ve previously linked to the recollection of one of the President’s old Harvard Business School professors. It turns out he is not the only professor willing go public with concerns. Here is an open letter signed by scores of them – 56 from Harvard Business School alone.

October 4, 2004

Dear Mr. President:

As professors of economics and business, we are concerned that U.S. economic policy has taken a dangerous turn under your stewardship. Nearly every major economic indicator has deteriorated since you took office in January 2001. Real GDP growth during your term is the lowest of any presidential term in recent memory. Total non-farm employment has contracted and the unemployment rate has increased. Bankruptcies are up sharply, as is our dependence on foreign capital to finance an exploding current account deficit. All three major stock indexes are lower now than at the time of your inauguration. The percentage of Americans in poverty has increased, real median income has declined, and income inequality has grown.

The data make clear that your policy of slashing taxes – primarily for those at the upper reaches of the income distribution – has not worked. The fiscal reversal that has taken place under your leadership is so extreme that it would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. The federal budget surplus of over $200 billion that we enjoyed in the year 2000 has disappeared, and we are now facing a massive annual deficit of over $400 billion. In fact, if transfers from the Social Security trust fund are excluded, the federal deficit is even worse – well in excess of a half a trillion dollars this year alone. Although some members of your administration have suggested that the mountain of new debt accumulated on your watch is mainly the consequence of 9-11 and the war on terror, budget experts know that this is simply false. Your economic policies have played a significant role in driving this fiscal collapse. And the economic proposals you have suggested for a potential second term – from diverting Social Security contributions into private accounts to making the recent tax cuts permanent – only promise to exacerbate the crisis by further narrowing the federal revenue base.

These sorts of deficits crowd out private investment and are politically addictive. They also place a heavy burden on monetary policy – and create additional pressure for higher interest rates – by stoking inflationary expectations. If your economic advisers are telling you that these deficits can be defeated through further reductions in tax rates, then you need new advisers. More robust economic growth could certainly help, but nearly every one of your administration’s economic forecasts – both before and after 9-11 – has proved overly optimistic. Expenditure cuts could be part of the answer, but your record so far has been one of increasing expenditures, not reducing them.

What is called for, we believe, is a dramatic reorientation of fiscal policy, including substantial reversals of your tax policy. Running a budget deficit in response to a short bout of recession is one thing. But running large structural deficits over a long period is something else entirely. We therefore urge you to consider the fiscal realities we now face and the substantial burden they are placing on our economy.

We also urge you to consider the distributional consequences of your policies. Under your administration, the income gap between the most affluent Americans and everyone else has widened. Although the latest data reveal that real household incomes have dropped across the board since you took office, low and middle income households have experienced steeper declines than upper income households. To be sure, the general phenomenon of mounting inequality preceded your administration, but it has continued (and, by some accounts, intensified) over the past three and a half years.

Some degree of inequality is inherent in any free market economy, creating positive incentives for economic and technological advancement. But when inequality becomes extreme, it can be socially corrosive and economically dysfunctional. Problems of this sort are visible throughout much of the developing world. At the moment, the most commonly accepted measure of inequality – the so-called Gini coefficient – is far higher in the United States than in any other developed country and is continuing to move upward. We don’t know where the breakpoint is for the U.S., but we would rather not find out. With all due respect, we believe your tax policy has exacerbated the problem of inequality in the United States, which has worrisome implications for the economy as a whole. We very much hope you will take this threat to our nation into account as you consider new fiscal approaches to address the nation’s most pressing economic problems.

Sensible and farsighted economic management requires true discipline, compassion, and courage – not just slogans. Given the tenuous state of the American economy, we believe that the time for an honest assessment of the problem and for genuine corrective action is now. Ignoring the fiscal crisis that has taken hold during your presidency may seem politically appealing in the short run, but we fear it could ultimately prove disastrous. From a policy standpoint, the clear message is that more of the same won’t work. The warning signs are already visible, and it is incumbent upon all of us to pay attention.

Respectfully submitted,

Francis Aguilar
Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus
Harvard Business School

Ramon J. Aldag
Glen A. Skillrud Family Chair in Business
School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Teresa M. Amabile
Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Kenneth R. Andrews
David K. Donald Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus
Harvard Business School

James E. Austin
Eliot I. Snider and Family Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Joseph L. Badaracco
John Shad Professor of Business Ethics
Harvard Business School

Lotte Bailyn
T. Wilson (1953) Professor of Management
MIT Sloan School of Management

George P. Baker
Herman C. Krannert Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Louis B. Barnes
John D. Black Professor, Emeritus
Harvard Business School

James N. Baron
Walter Kenneth Kilpatrick Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources
Graduate School of Business, Stanford University

Jean M. Bartunek
Robert A. and Evelyn J. Ferris Chair, Professor of Organization Studies
Carroll School of Management, Boston College

Yehuda Bassock
Professor
Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California

Thomas A. Bausch
Professor
College of Business Administration, Marquette University

Max H. Bazerman
Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Cynthia Beath
Professor Emeritus
McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin

Michael Beer
Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus
Harvard Business School

Jack N. Behrman
Luther Hodges Distinguished Professor, Emeritus
Kenan Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina

Norman A. Berg
MBA Class of 1958 Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus
Harvard Business School

Barbara Bird
Associate Professor of Management
Kogod School of Business, American University

John E. Bishop
Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus
Harvard Business School

Robert B. Bostrom
L. Edmund Rast Professor of Business
Terry College of Business, University of Georgia

Joseph L. Bower
Donald K. David Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Stephen P. Bradley
William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Arthur P. Brief
Lawrence Martin Professor of Business
Freeman School of Business, Tulane University

Philip Bromiley
Curtis L. Carlson Chair in Strategic Management
Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota

Alfred D. Chandler
Isidor Straus Professor of Business History, Emeritus
Harvard Business School

Chao C. Chen
Professor
Rutgers Business School, Rutgers University

Charles J. Corbett
Associate Professor of Operations Management and Environmental Management
UCLA Anderson School of Management

Thomas G. Cummings
Professor
Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California

Michael Cusumano
Sloan Management Review Distinguished Professor
MIT Sloan School of Management

Fariborz Damanpour
Professor
Rutgers Business School

Jose de la Torre
Dean, Chapman Graduate School of Business
Florida International University

John A. Deighton
Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Rohit Deshpande
Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing
Harvard Business School

Nancy DiTomaso
Professor
Rutgers Business School–Newark and New Brunswick

Jane E. Dutton
Professor
University of Michigan Business School

Amy C. Edmondson
Professor
Harvard Business School

Benjamin C. Esty
Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Ronald F. Fariña
Associate Professor
Daniels College of Business, University of Denver

Ann E. Feyerherm
Associate Professor of Organization and Management
Graziadio School of Business and Management, Pepperdine University

James A. Fitzsimmons
William H. Seay Centennial Professor of Business
McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin

James W. Fredrickson
Tom E. Nelson, Jr. Regents Professor of Business
McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin

Sherwood C. Frey, Jr.
Ethyl Corporation Professor of Business Administration
Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia

Cynthia V. Fukami
Professor
Daniels College of Business, University of Denver

Pankaj Ghemawat
Jaime and Josefina Chua Tiampo Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Stephen M. Gilbert
Associate Professor
McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin

James R. Glenn, Jr.
Professor of Management
College of Business, San Francisco State University

Leslie E. Grayson
Isidore Horween Research Professor, Emeritus
Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia

Jerry R. Green
Daniel A. Wells Professor of Political Economy,
John Leverett Professor in the University
Harvard Business School

Leonard Greenhalgh
Professor of Management
Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth

Douglas T. Hall
Professor of Organizational Behavior
Boston University School of Management

Donald C. Hambrick
Smeal Chaired Professor of Management
Smeal College of Business Administration, The Pennsylvania State University

Rebecca M. Henderson
Eastman Kodak LFM Professor
MIT Sloan School of Management

Linda A. Hill
Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Raymond Hogler
Professor of Management
College of Business, Colorado State University

Yasheng Huang
Associate Professor of International Management
MIT Sloan School of Management

Mariann Jelinek
The Richard C. Kraemer Professor of Business Strategy
School of Business, College of William & Mary

David B. Jemison
Foster Parker Centennial Professor of Management and Finance
McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin

John M. Jermier
Exide Professor of Sustainable Enterprise Research
College of Business, University of South Florida

Shulamit Kahn
Associate Professor
Boston University School of Management

Kate M. Kaiser
Associate Professor
College of Business, Marquette University

Rosabeth M. Kanter
Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Steven O. Kimbrough
Professor
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Stephen J. Kobrin
Wurster Professor of Multinational Management
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Thomas A. Kochan
George Maverick Bunker Professor of Work and Employment Relations
MIT Sloan School of Management

Nancy F. Koehn
James E. Robison Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Howard Kunreuther
Cecilia Yen Koo Professor of Decision Sciences and Public Policy
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Rajiv Lal
Stanley Roth, Sr. Professor of Retailing
Harvard Business School

Theresa Lant
Associate Professor of Management
Stern School of Business, New York University

Paul R. Lawrence
Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Organizational Behavior, Emeritus
Harvard Business School

Carrie R. Leana
Professor of Business Administration and of Public and International Affairs
Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh

Dorothy A. Leonard
William J. Abernathy Professor of Business Administration, Emerita
Harvard Business School

Herman B. Leonard
Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Donald R. Lessard
Epoch Foundation Professor of International Management
MIT Sloan School of Management

Daniel A. Levinthal
Julian Aresty Professor of Management and Economics
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

David Levy
Professor of Management
Department of Management, University of Massachusetts, Boston

E. Allan Lind
Thomas A. Finch Professor of Business Administration
Fuqua School of Business, Duke University

Richard M. Locke
Alvin J. Siteman Professor of Entrepreneurship and Political Science
MIT Sloan School of Management

George C. Lodge
Jaime and Josefina Chua Tiampo Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus
Harvard Business School

Jay W. Lorsch
Louis E. Kirstein Professor of Human Relations
Harvard Business School

Michael Magazine
Professor
College of Business, University of Cincinnati

Michael R. Manning
Professor of Management
College of Business Administration & Economics, New Mexico State University

Theodore R. Marmor
Professor of Public Policy and Management
Yale School of Management and Political Science Department

Joanne Martin
Merrill Professor of Organizational Behavior
Graduate School of Business, Stanford University

Thomas K. McCraw
Isidor Straus Professor of Business History
Harvard Business School

Anita M. McGahan
Professor and Everett W. Lord Distinguished Faculty Scholar
Boston University School of Management

Kathleen L. McGinn
Cahners-Rabb Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology
Harvard Business School

Robert P. McGowan
Professor
Daniels College of Business, University of Denver

Robert C. Merton
John and Natty McArthur University Professor
Harvard Business School

David M. Messick
Kaplan Professor of Ethics and Decision in Management
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Alan D. Meyer
Charles H. Lundquist Professor of Entrepreneurial Management
Lundquist College of Business, University of Oregon

Marshall W. Meyer
Richard A. Sapp Professor, Professor of Management and Sociology
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Richard F. Meyer
Thomas D. Casserly, Jr. Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus
Harvard Business School

Ian Mitroff
Harold Quinton Distinguished Professor of Business Policy
Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California

Cynthia A. Montgomery
Timken Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

David A. Moss
John G. McLean Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

J. Keith Murnighan
Harold H. Hines, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Risk Management
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Steven Nahmias
Professor
Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University

Barry Nalebuff
Milton Steinbach Professor of Management
Yale School of Management

Das Narayandas
Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Paul Newman
Clark W. Thompson, Jr. Chair in Accounting
McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin

William Ocasio
John L. and Helen Kellogg Distinguished Professor of Management and Organizations
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Paul Osterman
NTU Professor of Human Resources and Management
MIT Sloan School of Management

Lynn S. Paine
John G. McLean Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Johannes M. Pennings
Marie and Joseph Melone Professor
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Margaret Peteraf
Associate Professor of Business Administration
Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth

Joel Podolny
Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management
Harvard Business School

John W. Pratt
William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus
Harvard Business School

Drazen Prelec
Professor of Management Science
MIT Sloan School of Management

Keith G. Provan
Eller Professor of Public Administration & Policy
Eller College of Management, University of Arizona

Ronald E. Purser
Professor of Management
College of Business, San Francisco State University

Roy Radner
L. N. Stern School Professor of Business
Stern School of Business, New York University

Daniel Raff
Associate Professor of Management
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Howard Raiffa
Frank Plumpton Ramsey Professor of Managerial Economics, Emeritus
Harvard Business School

V. Kasturi Rangan
Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing
Harvard Business School

Stefan H. Robock
R. D. Calkins Professor of International Business, Emeritus
Graduate School of Business, Columbia University

David Rogers
Professor Emeritus of Management and Sociology
Stern School of Business, New York University

John W. Rosenblum
Dean Emeritus
Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia

Lori Rosenkopf
Associate Professor of Management
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Walter J. Salmon
Stanley Roth, Sr. Professor of Retailing, Emeritus
Harvard Business School

Carol Saunders
Professor of MIS
College of Business Administration, University of Central Florida

Melissa A. Schilling
Associate Professor
Stern School of Business, New York University

Arthur Schleifer, Jr.
James J. Hill Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus
Harvard Business School

Claudia B. Schoonhoven
Professor of Organization and Strategy
Graduate School of Management, University of California, Irvine

Bruce R. Scott
Paul W. Cherington Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Michael S. Scott-Morton
Jay W. Forester Professor of Management, Emeritus
MIT Sloan School of Management

James K. Sebenius
Gordon Donaldson Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Benson P. Shapiro
Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing, Emeritus
Harvard Business School

Roy D. Shapiro
Philip Caldwell Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

William F. Sharpe
STANCO 25 Professor of Finance, Emeritus
Stanford Business School

William W. Sihler
Ronald E. Trzcinski Professor of Business Administration
Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia

Alvin J. Silk
Lincoln Filene Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus
Harvard Business School

Harbir Singh
Edward H. Bowman Professor of Management
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Jitendra V. Singh
Saul P. Steinberg Professor of Management
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Sim B. Sitkin
Associate Professor
Fuqua School of Business, Duke University

William B. Snavely
Professor of Management
Richard T. Farmer School of Business, Miami University

Olav Sorenson
Associate Professor
UCLA Anderson School of Management

Debora L. Spar
Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Bert A. Spector
Associate Professor of Human Resources Management
College of Business Administration, Northeastern University

Richard Staelin
Edward and Rose Donnell Professor of Business Administration
Fuqua School of Business, Duke University

William H. Starbuck
ITT Professor of Creative Management
Stern School of Business, New York University

John Sterman
Jay W. Forester Professor of Management
MIT Sloan School of Management

Richard S. Tedlow
MBA Class of 1949 Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Ramkrishnan V. Tenkasi
Professor of Organization Change
College of Business and Technology, Benedictine University

David A. Thomas
Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

William R. Torbert
Professor
Carroll School of Management, Boston College

Anne S. Tsui
Motorola Professor
W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University

Michael L. Tushman
Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Karl T. Ulrich
Professor of Operations and Information Management
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Garrett J. van Ryzin
Paul M. Montrone Professor of Private Enterprise
Graduate School of Business, Columbia University

N. Venkat Venkatraman
David J. McGrath Jr. Professor of Management
Boston University School of Management

Richard H. K. Vietor
Senator John Heinz Professor of Environmental Management
Harvard Business School

Mary Ann Von Glinow
Research Professor
College of Business Administration, Florida International University

Sandra Waddock
Professor of Management
Carroll School of Management, Boston College

Melanie Wallendorf
Eller Professor of Marketing
Eller College of Management, University of Arizona

Richard T. Watson
J. Rex Fuqua Distinguished Chair for Internet Strategy
Terry College of Business, University of Georgia

David Weil
Associate Professor of Economics
Boston University School of Management

Louis T. Wells
Herbert F. Johnson Professor of International Management
Harvard Business School

Patricia H. Werhane
Ruffin Professor of Business Ethics
Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia

Birger Wernerfelt
J. C. Penney Professor of Management Science
MIT Sloan School of Management

D. Eleanor Westney
Society of Sloan Fellows Chair in Management
MIT Sloan School of Management

James D. Westphal
Ed and Molly Smith Chair in Business Administration
McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin

Robert B. Wilson
Adams Distinguished Professor of Management, Emeritus
Stanford Business School

Sid Winter
Deloitte and Touche Professor of Management
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

JoAnne Yates
Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management
MIT Sloan School of Management

David B. Yoffie
Max and Doris Starr Professor of International Business Administration
Harvard Business School

Abraham Zaleznik
Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus
Harvard Business School

Ray Zammuto
Professor of Management
Business School, University of Colorado at Denver

Paul H. Zipkin
The T. Austin Finch, Sr. Professor of Business
Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.

DEBATE ADVICE

We get hundreds and hundreds of e-mails with advice for the debates. All well meaning, some brilliant, but some, like this one, demonstrably shy of the mark:

Bernadette: ‘There is a point on the cost of the Iraq war that I have not heard mentioned in the televised debates and it will hit most Americans this fall and winter. It is the increased cost to heat their homes. And it will be especially hard on people on fixed incomes like senior citizens. The price of home heating oil has risen 101% from a year ago. Over the same one year period natural gas has risen 44%. Granted some of the price increase in oil is due to growing demand from China, but the majority is due to the botched war in Iraq. What if Kerry were to state the cost to heat our homes this winter will double because of Bush’s mess in Iraq? Many people can’t relate to $200 billion in war costs. But tell them it will double their heating costs this winter and they will sit up and take notice. Just a thought.’

☞ Yes, it will be tough on average Americans. But here’s what Bernadette is missing: For Houston energy guys, it’s a BONANZA. If you’re pumping 1 million barrels a day, you’re making an extra $25 million a day. So it all evens out. Don’t you see? On average, everyone’s doing fine in George Bush’s America.

$200,000 and small business Sub-S Corporation

Mark Phariss: ‘Kerry needs to point out that the $200,000 amount is what’s left after all deductions for business expenses – employee salaries, health insurance, rent, etc. It’s what the small business owner really earns, putting him on a par with doctors, lawyers and CEOs of larger businesses. Spend, hire, do whatever to grow your small business. The tax increase could actually become an incentive to hire and spend more, because higher tax rates actually make such expenditures less costly.’

☞ This is the famous ‘900,000 small businesses’ Bush keeps talking about. The whole thing is wildly exaggerated. It includes doctors and lawyers – who are not huge generators of employment no matter how much their after-tax income grows. And as Mark notes, for those few who actually would face a slightly higher tax rate on their income over $200,000, this would actually be a correspondingly slight incentive to spend more to grow their businesses – because the tax deduction for spending becomes more valuable.

YOUR PRESIDENT ON THE SUPREME COURT

From the last debate:

QUESTIONER: Mr. President, if there were a vacancy in the Supreme Court and you had the opportunity to fill that position today, who would you choose and why?

BUSH: I’m not telling.

(LAUGHTER)

I really don’t have — haven’t picked anybody yet. Plus, I want them all voting for me.

(LAUGHTER)

I would pick somebody who would not allow their personal opinion to get in the way of the law. I would pick somebody who would strictly interpret the Constitution of the United States.

Let me give you a couple of examples, I guess, of the kind of person I wouldn’t pick.

I wouldn’t pick a judge who said that the Pledge of Allegiance couldn’t be said in a school because it had the words under God in it. I think that’s an example of a judge allowing personal opinion to enter into the decision-making process as opposed to a strict interpretation of the Constitution.

Another example would be the Dred Scott case, which is where judges, years ago, said that the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights.

That’s a personal opinion. That’s not what the Constitution says. The Constitution of the United States says we’re all — you know, it doesn’t say that. It doesn’t speak to the equality of America.

And so, I would pick people that would be strict constructionists. We’ve got plenty of lawmakers in Washington, D.C. Legislators make law; judges interpret the Constitution.

And I suspect one of us will have a pick at the end of next year — the next four years. And that’s the kind of judge I’m going to put on there. No litmus test except for how they interpret the Constitution.

CONGRESSMAN JOHN LEWIS ON PRESIDENT BUSH

In reaction to the President’s reference to the Dred Scott case, Congressman Lewis, once a young aide to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., issued this statement:

I am relieved to hear that George Bush won’t appoint judges who might reinstitute slavery. But unfortunately, we expect more than this from our judges and frankly, we need more than this from George Bush.

George Bush’s Dred Scott comments underscore the fact that when it comes to the African-American community, he is completely out of touch with the issues that concern us. The President’s record is appalling – his administration is the most anti-African American in a generation.

On Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, he announced his opposition to the University of Michigan Affirmative Action program and called it a ‘quota.’ The day after he laid a wreath on Dr. King’s grave, he appointed anti-civil rights judge Charles Pickering, who once described cross burning as a ‘prank.’ A new United States Commission on Civil Rights report finds that ‘President Bush has neither exhibited leadership on pressing civil rights issues, nor taken actions that matched his words.’ And his Vice-President has admitted that he was somehow ‘not aware’ of the AIDS epidemic plaguing African American women.

African Americans can’t afford four more years of George Bush . . . We’re going to vote and we’re going to vote in record numbers.

HE FORGOT POLAND!

This is for fun only. Good luck to both candidates tonight. As you watch, try to imagine which one is more likely to make us stronger at home, respected again in the world.

Paul Krugman’s preview of tomorrow’s debate is well worth reading. In part:

Jobs. Mr. Bush will talk about the 1.7 million jobs created since the summer of 2003 . . .

Mr. Bush is the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a decline in payroll employment. That’s worse than it sounds because the economy needs around 1.6 million new jobs each year just to keep up with population growth. The past year’s job gains, while better news than earlier job losses, barely met this requirement, and they did little to close the huge gap between the number of jobs the country needs and the number actually available.

Unemployment. Mr. Bush will boast about the decline in the unemployment rate from its June 2003 peak. But the employed fraction of the population didn’t rise at all; unemployment declined only because some of those without jobs stopped actively looking for work, and therefore dropped out of the unemployment statistics. The labor force participation rate – the fraction of the population either working or actively looking for work – has fallen sharply under Mr. Bush; if it had stayed at its January 2001 level, the official unemployment rate would be 7.4 percent.

The deficit. Mr. Bush will claim that the recession and 9/11 caused record budget deficits. Congressional Budget Office estimates show that tax cuts caused about two-thirds of the 2004 deficit.

The tax cuts. Mr. Bush will claim that Senator John Kerry opposed “middle class” tax cuts. But budget office numbers show that most of Mr. Bush’s tax cuts went to the best-off 10 percent of families, and more than a third went to the top 1 percent, whose average income is more than $1 million.

The Kerry tax plan. Mr. Bush will claim, once again, that Mr. Kerry plans to raise taxes on many small businesses. In fact, only a tiny percentage would be affected. Moreover, as Mr. Kerry correctly pointed out last week, the administration’s definition of a small-business owner is so broad that in 2001 it included Mr. Bush, who does indeed have a stake in a timber company – a business he’s so little involved with that he apparently forgot about it.

HE CAN RUN, BUT HE CAN’T HIDE – THE TRUTH

How can we talking about tomorrow’s debate when we’ve barely finished with last Friday’s? On Friday we had a louder, more energetic President, no longer packing something between his shoulder blades.

Kerry looks into the camera and promises not to raise taxes on folks earning up to $200,000 – and, in fact, to give them more tax cuts?

‘That’s just not credible!’ the President kept shouting. He knows from ‘read my lips,’ after all. But what a remarkable thing for this President to make even the slightest claim to credibility. Four years ago, he looked into the camera and said he wouldn’t touch the annual Social Security surplus – yet he has spent every penny of it. He looked into the camera and said that ‘by far, the vast majority’ of his proposed tax cut ‘would go to people at the bottom of the economic ladder.’

The President seems to be projecting.

And as for his new slogan . . . is my memory failing me, or didn’t he use that same ‘he can run, but he can’t hide’ deal to deride Osama Bin Laden years ago? How successful was that bravado? Even if we get Bin Laden next week, it will be two disastrous years too late.

Even so, the only mistakes the President could recall making these past four years were a few bum appointments – others who had made mistakes.

Bill Myhre: ‘It seems to me that one interesting angle is to speculate who those ‘appointment mistakes’ might be as a way of focusing on just how bad so many of them have been. Take the environment. You have likely seen Robert Kennedy, Jr.’s Crimes Against Nature, which includes examples of where Bush has put polluters in charge of agencies that are supposed to protect us:

• The head of the Forest Service who is a timber industry lobbyist.
• The head of public lands who is a mining industry lobbyist who believes that public lands are unconstitutional.
• The head of the air division at EPA who is a utility lobbyist who has represented the worst air polluters in America.
• The second in command at EPA is a Monsanto lobbyist.
• The head of Superfunds is a lobbyist whose last job was teaching corporate polluters how to evade Superfunds.

“Do you suppose any of these are on the President’s list of appointment ‘mistakes’?”

☞ Uh . . . probably not.

A CUBAN-AMERICAN’S VIEW

Click here.  This Cuban refugee, a lifetime Republican, is voting Kerry.  (He doesn’t mention it, but because he likely makes in excess of $200,000 a year, his taxes will be higher after Kerry wins.  But still he’s voting for Kerry.  Me, too.)

This is one more reason we’re going to win Florida [for the nine others, click here and scroll to item 11, subsections (a) thru (j)].

We’re gonna win.  Electoral-vote.com currently shows it 280-254 for Kerry – and that’s without Florida.  The numbers will seesaw between now and November 2.  The polls show the race hair-splittingly close.  But the polls don’t fully reflect the resolve of millions of “unlikely voters” to turn out and get this job done.  I hope it will be better, but if we go into the election down 3 or 4 points in the polls, Kerry wins.

(Gore went in down 2 or 3 points and he won.)

#

Coming one of these days: E-mail Commandments . . . Nuclear Rebuttal . . . Taking Stock of Our Stocks (They’re Up!) (Well, not MRK) . . . and, yes, believe it or not, More On The Calico Cats

But first . . .

GLOBAL TEST (In Case It Comes Up Tonight)

John Seiffer: ‘If John Kerry had said ‘smell test’ not ‘global test’ perhaps the media would have continued listening and heard his explanation that the test occurs AFTER you’ve taken action, not as a prerequisite for it. That passing the test means, and I quote, ‘your countrymen, your people understand fully why you’re doing what you’re doing and you can prove to the world that you DID it for legitimate reasons.’ Emphasis on DID is mine.’

And now . . .

THE COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVE

‘My opponent is a Massachusetts liberal,’ President Bush has taken to saying at rallies. ‘I am a compassionate conservative.’

I don’t think it’s conservative to go to war when you don’t have to or to borrow half a trillion dollars a year from your children.

I don’t think it’s compassionate to cut children’s health care – and I don’t think it was compassionate of President Bush to execute Karla Faye Tucker.

Do you remember that case? Karla Faye Tucker committed a terrible crime when she was young; but in prison she became a loving, caring woman, a born again Christian. A number of groups and individuals – including the Pope – pleaded with then Governor Bush to spare her life – to keep her locked up forever, but not kill her, the first woman to be executed in Texas in more than a century.

People can legitimately disagree on this and do. But was Bush’s choice compassionate? Was it the choice his favorite philosopher would have made?

Tucker Carlson, the ‘right’ wing of CNN’s Crossfire, profiled then-governor Bush for the premier issue of the now-defunct Talk magazine. He reported:

In the week before [Karla Faye Tucker’s] execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. “Did you meet with any of them?” I ask.

Bush whips around and stares at me. “No, I didn’t meet with any of them,” he snaps, as though I’ve just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. “I didn’t meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like ‘What would you say to Governor Bush?'”

“What was her answer?” I wonder.

“Please,” Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, “don’t kill me.”

‘When I read that,’ writes one well-known conservative, ‘I thought, ‘Please don’t let this man get close to any position of power – ever.”

‘I think it is nothing short of unbelievable,’ Gary Bauer, was quoted at the time, ‘that the governor of a major state running for president thought it was acceptable to mock a woman he decided to put to death.’

It’s not inconsistent with the memories of that Harvard Business School Professor people have been quoting. From Salon:

“He showed pathological lying habits and was in denial when challenged on his prejudices and biases. He would even deny saying something he just said 30 seconds ago. He was famous for that. Students jumped on him; I challenged him.” When asked to explain a particular comment, said Tsurumi, Bush would respond, “Oh, I never said that.’

. . . Students who challenged and embarrassed Bush in class would then become the subject of a whispering campaign by him, Tsurumi said. “In class, he couldn’t challenge them. But after class, he sometimes came up to me in the hallway and started bad-mouthing those students who had challenged him. He would complain that someone was drinking too much. It was innuendo and lies. So that’s how I knew, behind his smile and his smirk, that he was a very insecure, cunning and vengeful guy.”

. . . I used to chat up a number of students when we were walking back to class,” Tsurumi said. “Here was Bush, wearing a Texas Guard bomber jacket, and the draft was the No. 1 topic in those days. And I said, ‘George, what did you do with the draft?’ He said, ‘Well, I got into the Texas Air National Guard.’ And I said, ‘Lucky you. I understand there is a long waiting list for it. How’d you get in?’ When he told me, he didn’t seem ashamed or embarrassed. He thought he was entitled to all kinds of privileges and special deals. He was not the only one trying to twist all their connections to avoid Vietnam. But then, he was fanatically for the war.”

Tsurumi told Bush that someone who avoided a draft while supporting a war in which others were dying was a hypocrite. “He realized he was caught, showed his famous smirk and huffed off.”

Tsurumi’s conclusion: Bush is not as dumb as his detractors allege. “He was just badly brought up, with no discipline, and no compassion,” he said.

☞ Well, maybe. But at least he wasn’t a flip-flopper.

THE FLIP-FLOPPER

On the remote chance you have not already seen this:

Mr. Bush and His 10 Ever-Changing Different Positions on Iraq:
“A flip and a flop and now just a flop.”
By Michael Moore
michaelmoore.com

Wednesday 22 September 2004

Dear Mr. Bush,

I am so confused. Where exactly do you stand on the issue of Iraq? You, your Dad, Rummy, Condi, Colin, and Wolfie — you have all changed your minds so many times, I am out of breath just trying to keep up with you!

Which of these 10 positions that you, your family and your cabinet have taken over the years represents your current thinking:

1983-88: WE LOVE SADDAM.

On December 19, 1983, Donald Rumsfeld was sent by your dad and Mr. Reagan to go and have a friendly meeting with Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq. Rummy looked so happy in the picture. Just twelve days after this visit, Saddam gassed thousands of Iranian troops. Your dad and Rummy seemed pretty happy with the results because ‘The Donald R.’ went back to have another chummy hang-out with Saddam’s right-hand man, Tariq Aziz, just four months later. All of this resulted in the U.S. providing credits and loans to Iraq that enabled Saddam to buy billions of dollars worth of weapons and chemical agents. The Washington Post reported that your dad and Reagan let it be known to their Arab allies that the Reagan/Bush administration wanted Iraq to win its war with Iran and anyone who helped Saddam accomplish this was a friend of ours.

1990: WE HATE SADDAM.

In 1990, when Saddam invaded Kuwait, your dad and his defense secretary, Dick Cheney, decided they didn’t like Saddam anymore so they attacked Iraq and returned Kuwait to its rightful dictators.

1991: WE WANT SADDAM TO LIVE.

After the war, your dad and Cheney and Colin Powell told the Shiites to rise up against Saddam and we would support them. So they rose up. But then we changed our minds. When the Shiites rose up against Saddam, the Bush inner circle changed its mind and decided NOT to help the Shiites. Thus, they were massacred by Saddam.

1998: WE WANT SADDAM TO DIE.

In 1998, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others, as part of the Project for the New American Century, wrote an open letter to President Clinton insisting he invade and topple Saddam Hussein.

2000: WE DON’T BELIEVE IN WAR AND NATION BUILDING.

Just three years later, during your debate with Al Gore in the 2000 election, when asked by the moderator Jim Lehrer where you stood when it came to using force for regime change, you turned out to be a downright pacifist:

“I–I would take the use of force very seriously. I would be guarded in my approach. I don’t think we can be all things to all people in the world. I think we’ve got to be very careful when we commit our troops. The vice president [Al Gore] and I have a disagreement about the use of troops. He believes in nation building. I–I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders. I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening in the first place. And so I take my–I take my–my responsibility seriously.” – October 3, 2000

2001 (early): WE DON’T BELIEVE SADDAM IS A THREAT.

When you took office in 2001, you sent your Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and your National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, in front of the cameras to assure the American people they need not worry about Saddam Hussein. Here is what they said:

Powell: “We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they have directed that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was 10 years ago when we began it. And frankly, they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.” –February 24, 2001

Rice: “But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let’s remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.” –July 29, 2001

2001 (late): WE BELIEVE SADDAM IS GOING TO KILL US!

Just a few months later, in the hours and days after the 9/11 tragedy, you had no interest in going after Osama bin Laden. You wanted only to bomb Iraq and kill Saddam and you then told all of America we were under imminent threat because weapons of mass destruction were coming our way. You led the American people to believe that Saddam had something to do with Osama and 9/11. Without the UN’s sanction, you broke international law and invaded Iraq.

2003: WE DON’T BELIEVE SADDAM IS GOING TO KILL US.

After no WMDs were found, you changed your mind about why you said we needed to invade, coming up with a brand new after-the-fact reason — we started this war so we could have regime change, liberate Iraq and give the Iraqis democracy!

2003: “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!”

Yes, everyone saw you say it — in costume, no less!

2004: OOPS. MISSION NOT ACCOMPLISHED!

Now you call the Iraq invasion a “catastrophic success.” That’s what you called it this month. Over a thousand U.S. soldiers have died, Iraq is in a state of total chaos where no one is safe, and you have no clue how to get us out of there.

Mr. Bush, please tell us — when will you change your mind again?

I know you hate the words “flip” and “flop,” so I won’t use them both on you. In fact, I’ll use just one: Flop. That is what you are. A huge, colossal flop. >The war is a flop, your advisors and the “intelligence” they gave you is a flop, and now we are all a flop to the rest of the world. Flop. Flop. Flop.

And you have the audacity to criticize John Kerry with what you call the “many positions” he has taken on Iraq. By my count, he has taken only one: He believed you. That was his position. You told him and the rest of congress that Saddam had WMDs. So he — and the vast majority of Americans, even those who didn’t vote for you — believed you. You see, Americans, like John Kerry, want to live in a country where they can believe their president.

That was the one, single position John Kerry took. He didn’t support the war, he supported YOU. And YOU let him and this great country down. And that is why tens of millions can’t wait to get to the polls on Election Day — to remove a major, catastrophic flop from our dear, beloved White House — to stop all the flipping you and your men have done, flipping us and the rest of the world off.

We can’t take another minute of it.

Yours,

Michael Moore

HERE’S WHAT *I* THINK

I think maybe Dick Cheney really had met John Edwards prior to their debate. Maybe he and President Bush really were warned even before taking office that Osama Bin Laden represented a ‘tremendous’ and ‘immediate’ threat to the United States of America – and maybe they should have ramped up rather than shut down the efforts under way to avert it. Maybe there really were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Maybe Bush really shouldn’t have rushed to war without a plan to win the peace. Maybe we really wouldn’t be greeted with flowers. Maybe ‘by far the vast majority’ of the tax cut didn’t go ‘to people at the bottom end of the economic ladder.’ Maybe Lieutenant Bush really did know strings were pulled to get him into the Guard. Maybe he really would have been charged with insider trading if his father hadn’t been President of the United States. Maybe he really did keep people in prison in Texas for doing nothing more than he himself did at Camp David. And, yes, maybe all the carefully orchestrated mocking, ridicule, and character assassination for which the Bush machine is famous does not serve our country well. (If all this strikes you as character assassination, I would argue: it’s not character assassination if it’s true.)

Have a great weekend. Maybe see GOING UPRIVER to decide whether John Kerry is a man you could be proud to vote for.

Anyone can forget meeting a senator three times – there are so many of them! – but can you imagine the Republican mockery if Al Gore had said he’d never met Dick Cheney . . . and then it turned out they had met three times?

The daily Republican outrage – the taunting – if President Gore had let Bin Laden get away at Tora Bora and still hadn’t gotten him three years, and so many thousands of dead and maimed Americans, later?

Ah well. Our long national nightmare is almost over. And if you’re not yet feeling pride in the Democratic challenger, you’ve not yet taken 90 minutes to see GOING UPRIVER.

#

Not that hiring a new CEO will be a panacea . . .

UH, OH – GOTTA WORRY ABOUT NUKES AFTER ALL

Somehow I figured things couldn’t be quite as rosy as Michael Axelrod suggested in ‘debunking’ Graham Allison’s book, Nuclear Terrorism. (Again, I invite you to click here to see what a 10-kiloton nuclear blast would do to your zip code.)

Not to say I know an isotope from an audiotape. But somehow these e-mails rebutting Michael’s view strike me as likely to be closer to the truth:

Andrew Klossner: ‘Grind Plutonium-235 into dust, spread it on the wind, get a gram into each person’s lung, and we’re all dead in a year. ☺ That’s why plutonium plant workers wear so much protective gear. As for those Russians, Chernobyl had built-in safeguards. And only hydrogen bombs contain DT gas. Reliable old fission bombs (like the ones we dropped on Japan) are just radioactive metal wrapped in explosive. You can only destroy a city center, not an entire city, but that’s enough for a terror mission. Terrorists won’t get A-bombs from a government, they’ll get them from a few greedy arsenal guards. May have already.’ ☺

Ed Bessman: ‘A low-tech fission bomb to be deployed in a car, shipping container, or even a suitcase is easy enough to make. ☺ The main barrier is getting a couple kilos of enriched plutonium. It is quite difficult to make a portable bomb that won’t kill the bombmaker, but a suicide terrorist isn’t concerned about any of this. Indeed with enough plutonium on hand, the problem is making sure you don’t inadvertently reach critical mass. It isn’t rocket science.‘ ☺

Walter Willis: ‘Michael Axelrod is wrong on all counts. Dirty bombs are dispersals of highly radioactive materials. The deadly affect to you comes not from your being irradiated from the outside, but by your inhaling the dust and being slowly killed from the inside. ☺ The Russians have already admitted that they have lost control of many radioisotope thermal sources. You are looking at something that will…well, I won’t tell anybody how to turn a radioisotope source into a really, really, efficient dissemination system. You don’t need to know. But this is industrial design that any chemical engineer can handle. ☺

‘Michael Axelrod writes: Almost no country would risk giving or selling a nuclear weapon to terrorists. . . . That leaves the terrorist themselves getting the material, designing, assembling a bomb, smuggling and detonating it. All this without testing? Do you think the terrorist are smarter than the Manhattan Project Team? And they did test. While this scenario is not impossible because modern technology has made things easier, the actual threat is likely very small. Wrong. The software we used to build the first liquid deuterium fusion bomb was run on computers with gears. No kidding. Your watch has more firepower than those computers had. All the technologies used in fission and fusion weapons have gotten dramatically cheaper over the last sixty years.’

☞ I have inserted smiley ☺ faces ☺ because I think it’s very hard to get depressed or anxious ☺ when you see ☺☺ them (assuming your browser displays them).

But it does sound as if young Professor Axelrod may be unduly sanguine on the subject of nuclear terrorism.☺☺☺☺☺☺

IF YOU KNOW SOMEONE WITH BREASTS

Caroline Carlton: ‘There has been much made in the press recently about women supporting Bush. But by supporting stem cell research, John Kerry wins my vote hands down. Maybe Bush doesn’t know it but October is breast cancer awareness month. Treating breast cancer, and many cancers, with chemotherapy and radiation often destroys bone marrow. Using stem cells to recreate bone marrow would give doctors the ability to use stronger treatment to destroy the cancer. Stem cell research could lead to creating cells that destroy the cancer themselves. With continuing research, scientists believe that tissue and organs damaged by cancer could be replaced by using stem cells. Stem cell research is a promising tool to be used against breast cancer. Please urge your readers to consider this point when casting their ballots in November.’

NOW ON 35 STATIONS

Or, wherever you are, just listen to it at your desk with headphones while you’re pretending to work until it’s time to quit and see ‘Going Upriver’ – AirAmericaRadio.com.

AN 8.8% YIELD

One of the smarter cookies in my jar recommends an unusual real estate investment trust, symbol ARC, that, selling just above $14, yields 8.8%. There is risk here, but less, she feels, than the market has built into its price. For no more than 5% of your nest egg, this could make sense. I bought some.

THE DEBATE

I kind of like Dick Cheney. Click here (and I offer this only in the spirit of good fun) for a Bush/Satan refrigerator magnet.

People seemed impressed with his swipe at John Edwards’ Senate attendance record. I wish the Senator had come back with, ‘Well, you know, Dick, I’ve been running for office – to try to rescue this country from your team’s disastrous mismanagement. But I never missed an important vote where my vote would have made the difference.’

Something like that. Instead, given the limited time, he did it even better. He said (in effect), ‘Gosh, if you want to talk about voting records, when you were in the House, you were one of only 10 Representatives out of 435 to vote against Head Start. One of 4 to vote against banning plastic weapons that can pass through metal detectors. Against the Department of Education. Against the funding of meals-on-wheels for seniors. Against a holiday for Martin Luther King. Against’ – and this one is my favorite – ‘a resolution calling for the freeing of Nelson Mandela.’

How do you defend a vote against calling for the release of Nelson Mandela?

Given 30 seconds to respond – and again, you have to love this about the Vice President – he didn’t see any need to. Why would any of those votes need comment? He didn’t even try to change the subject, he just forfeited his rebuttal time.

CBS News tracked the reactions of 169 uncommitted voters – too small a sample to be precise (margin of error plus or minus a wide 7 points), but still: 41% to 29%, uncommitted debate watchers say Edwards won.

And Bob Schieffer characterized it this way: ‘This was a very testy debate. The vice-president tonight had the unfortunate task of defending a war that does not appear to be going very well these days. On the very day that the former top civilian official in Iraq was making a speech saying that we went about it in the wrong way. That was a tall hill for the vice-president to climb.’

TIM RUSSERT

I saw only a little of NBC’s post-debate wrap-up, but I did hear Tim Russert say that Kerry/Edwards are for ‘rolling back the tax cut.’

I’m beginning to get a little steamed at Tim Russert.

Yes, Kerry would roll it back for about 3% of us. But does Russert think the other 97% are too small a group to be considered? Is it not significant that Kerry/Edwards have said time and again that they would keep the tax cuts on the first $200,000, and even add some? Why is this not very, very bad reporting? And why didn’t my pal Tom Brokaw, who was conversing with him, make a gentle correction? This kind of thing is happening so much, one almost begins to wonder whether the mainstream press is doing its job.

A COUPLE OF OTHER FACTS

On jobs, it might be worth noting that after 9/11 and after the corporate scandals and so on, President Bush predicted a net gain of 6 million jobs in his first term. Instead, he will leave office with a million job net loss – the first President to do so since Herbert Hoover – seven million jobs shy of his own post-9/11 projection.

On taxes, it might be worth noting that, as a member of Congress, Cheney voted for 144 tax and fee increases that became law. And he repeatedly voted against the child-care tax credit, one of only 53 House members to oppose final passage in 1987.

GLOBAL TEST – EARLY EXAMPLE

‘WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation. We hold these truths . . . ‘

Ed: ‘No authority is ceded in the above . . . but if Jefferson and the founders thought it best to pay respect to world opinion prior to unilateral, pre-emptive action, then that seems like pretty good precedent to me.’

☞ Me, too.

OK – Tomorrow: Gotta Worry About Nukes After All

This column is actually about money. (Well, a little.) The 40% some of you earned, the 0.43% return one of you earned, the electronic coupons you can clip – and (apropos of nothing) a little melondrama.

But first . . .

Dave Matson: ‘One quibble: I think Ron Reagan is great, but I don’t exactly think it is fair to characterize him as a Republican.’

☞ Good point. I meant to characterize him as the son of a Republican president, like John Eisenhower. But you are not the only one to point out the erroneous implication that he is a Republican.

A MOVIE EVERY CITIZEN SHOULD SEE

Several of you have already returned from the cinema and seconded this recommendation, so I am emboldened to repeat it: Quit work early today and see GOING UPRIVER. You spend more than 90 minutes choosing a refrigerator. The choice we face November 2 is a million times more important to you and your family. (But get the GE side-by-side with adjustable shelves and ice-in-the-door.)

A MOVIE YOU CAN WATCH AT HOME RIGHT NOW

Remember in high school English when we were given novels to read and then asked to identify their ‘themes’? I was never good at this. The river is one of the themes of Huckleberry Finn? How is a river a theme? What is a theme, anyway? And if I can’t figure that out, am I bright enough to be in this school? Am I a fake? Will they find me out? Could this all be tied, in some perverse way, to my terrible secret??? [But, yet again, I digress.] Click here for the theme of the recent Republican National Convention.

TIMBER VS. A COMMODITIES FUND

Doug Gary: ‘I bought some PCL a while back, and it’s done nicely. You suggested considering 5% or 10% of one’s portfolio in it as a bit of a hedge. I wonder if the PIMCO RealReturn Commodities fund might be a better long term play as it tracks the commodities index and carries TIPS as well. Thoughts?’

☞ I can’t begin to answer this well, except to say I’m happy to be in timber for the long term (and very happy PCL is up 19% or so with dividends since last writing about it May 4 . . . up about 40% with dividends since first suggesting it August 14, 2003).

Of course, its being more expensive now hardly makes it more attractive. I’m not buying additional shares here. But I’m definitely not selling, either.

Consider this: Many commodities don’t grow (copper, for example) and those that do grow require feeding (cattle) or fertilizing (corn) – or go bad if you don’t harvest them at just the right time (cranapples). Not timber.

ROBBED BY UNCLE SAM?

Marion [full name withheld because even the keenest among us can suffer an obtusion]: ‘I invested in a thirteen-week, $15,000 Treasury bill last week and just received a refund payment in the amount of $63.89. $63.89!!! That’s roughly .43%. Say what? This at a time when the coupon equivalent for this particular auction was reported at 1.68% in the newspapers. That’s the payment rate I was expecting. Such an investment rate is no great shakes, I agree, but I’m pretty much a risk adverse retiree. The folks at Treasury Direct advise that my $63.89 payment is correct. Silly me, I erroneously thought a mistake had been made. I tried to find out how Treasury calculates these payments but just couldn’t understand what they were trying to tell me.’

☞ As you seem to know, interest on T-bills is paid ‘in advance,’ when you buy them. There are four 13-week periods in a year, so the $63.89 is one-fourth the $255.56 you might expect investing this $15,000 for a year. And $255.56 divided by $15,000 is – voila! – 1.7% or so. In hindsight, you should have bought timber.

COUPONS YOU CUT AND PASTE

Jenna Hurst: ‘I just want to suggest a pretty decent coupons website. It is: KeepCash.com.’

☞ Well, tickle my clickles. You go to the site, copy, say, a $20-off ‘coupon’ for Amazon.com housewares purchases of $120 or more into your clipboard, then get re-routed to Amazon . . . shop . . . and paste the coupon number into the appropriate field at check out. Voila! Yankee ingenuity at its best.

A LITTLE MELONDRAMA

‘You should elope!’ urges the girlfriend.
‘We can’t elope,’ wails the prospective bride.
‘Oh, Honey – do!’

I wrote that myself.

Don’t forget: GOING UPRIVER.

Don’t forget: Debate at 9PM

Tomorrow: Uh, Oh – Gotta Worry About Nukes After All

(Notes to the Humorless: Cranapples do not exist. Obtusion is not a word – though if it were, it would signify an instance of being obtuse.)