Moolah April 26, 2007January 8, 2017 LUCKY 13 NBC reports that only 22% of voters think the county’s on the right track – and the Dow breaks (surges?) through 13,000. Fine with me. And speaking of cheery news: GLDDW These are the warrants we originally bought a year ago at 70 cents and then again as low as 38 cents, back when the company was called Aldabra, when all it had was cash and no business. Then, you’ll recall, it traded that cash for a business, Great Lakes Dredge and Dock, GLDD, and now, a year later, the warrants closed last night at $3.06. So – on paper at least – you have made anywhere from 4 times to 8 times your money in a year, with nearly two years left to run before the warrants expire. A chunk of my own position went long-term yesterday, so I sold it, recouping my original investment. I’m in no rush to sell the rest, in part because it would still be taxed as a short-term gain, and in part because I’m hopeful more upside remains. AXP First suggested here nearly two years ago, at $52.5, American Express has done better than it seems, closing last night at $62.32, because you also got a fifth of a share of AMP in a spinoff, which at current market prices adds another $12.20 . . . plus a couple percent more in dividends . . . so before tax, you’re up nearly 44% . . . unless you bought the LEAPS, in which case you took more risk but have a significantly higher return. I’ve sold some of mine, but not all. BLAH BLAH BLAH Notice I’m not talking about the ones that have been ‘blah’ at best, like GE, up just slightly since it was suggested it – let alone those ill-fated Google puts I hope no one but me took a flyer on. FMD One stock not hitting new highs these days is First Marblehead. I’m betting on this one to rebound, along the lines described yesterday by bankstocks.com co-founder Tom Brown. If you missed it last year at $25.50, and if you can afford the risk, FMD could be a good buy today at $36 (down from $57 earlier this year). PROSPER.COM One of the links to this site was bad yesterday (now fixed). Michael Axelrod: ‘With the huge amount of identify theft around these days (you can buy a phony ID packet on the streets of LA for about $300), the lenders are taking a big risk. An unsecured loan is mighty hard to collect on. Why do think loan sharks use baseball bats?’ ☞ Well, it will be interesting to see how this works out. If you’re using Prosper to borrow, I don’t see any special risks; just the possibility of lower costs. If you’re using it to lend, then the risks are significant – especially if you’re not spreading your money over dozens of different loans (with their automated feature, which makes it easy). It’s possible that Prosper borrowers may actually prove to have a better repayment rate than would be expected from their credit ratings, because (perhaps) they will feel more loyalty to ‘people’ than to a credit card company (and because, if they’ve gotten a lower rate, it should be at least slightly less onerous to make the payments). But it’s also possible that a lender will be less frightened of stiffing Prosper than stiffing MasterCard (even though their default would get reported to the credit bureaus in exactly the same way). And it’s possible that what a 750 credit rating (say) may mean in the population ‘as a whole’ may wind up being quite different from what it means in ‘just that odd special niche of borrowers who find themselves going to Prosper for a loan.’ Prosper is not an appropriate place for someone with $30,000 to invest that $30,000. But if you’re a retiree with (say) $600,000 and time on your hands, and were intrigued to put $30,000 to work at Prosper in hope of netting a better return, after bad debts, than you could from a money market fund – with the added kicker of feeling that you helped out some younger folks whose stories appealed to you – well, I can think of dumber ways to risk $30,000.
Be Your Own Little Credit Card Company? April 25, 2007March 6, 2017 BUT IT’S BIGGER THAN A WATERMELON . . . . . . and it didn’t seem to tug the plane very fast. (And the guy driving it was, arguably, a bit annoying.) (Though who am I to talk?) Click here. THE ULTIMATE DISINTERMEDIATION This one is fascinating. You know those obscene interest rates credit card companies charge? No one who comes to this page ever pays them, but tens of millions of people do. Well, what if you could be the credit card company, so to speak? Maybe not charging the full 21% or 29% or whatever, but earning a lot more on your money than the 4.5% your money market fund is paying you. Or – if I’ve misjudged you, and you do borrow at credit card rates – what if you could borrow for at least somewhat less? From me! That is the premise of Prosper.com, a very well thought out enterprise about which you will surely have frequently asked questions. (I.e., how does Prosper.com make its money? By clipping the borrower 1% or 2% for originating the loan and then 0.5% to 1% a year for servicing it.) To all the obvious objections that spring to mind – at least the ones that sprang to my mind – there are ingenious answers. The limit on borrowing is $25,000. Lenders – who are encouraged to diversify over many loans in chunks as small as $50 each, and who can place ‘standing bids’ so they don’t literally have to hand-transact dozens of separate $50 or $200 loans – can ultimately invest as much this way as they want, all without ever even knowing the name of the various borrowers. Move over, Visa; here comes Aunt Vanessa, who’ll take 12% instead.
Your Fleks; Your Pooch April 24, 2007March 6, 2017 BE THE FIRST ON YOUR BLOCK Flektor quietly beta-launched yesterday. I made this poll in 45 seconds, free. (Right now, it takes longer than that to load, so be patient – something about the beta, I think.) I made this postcard . . . and if I were 16 instead of 96 (which is another story for another day), I would have made videos and photo albums and my very own chat room (oh, look – I did). Basically, each such element is a called a flek and can be sent to your blog or your MySpace page or your eBay account – lots of places – or just emailed to a friend. You are the ‘direktor.’ Chek it out. BUY THIS BOOK, OR I’LL SHOOT YOUR DOG A non-credible threat, to be sure, when you see what the book is – it’s my pal Dan Mathews’ wonderfully funny, just published Committed: A Rabble-Rouser’s Memoir, the story of his fight to prevent cruelty to animals. ‘Like David Sedaris but with a mission,’ blurbs Lily Tomlin. ‘Funny, frank, and daring,’ blurbs Bill Maher. ‘You’ll be laugh-crying so hard that you won’t be able to read through your tears!’ writes one of the early reader raves on Amazon. I know: you don’t waste money on hardcover books. (Good!) But don’t think of this as a $20 book, think of it as a $20 vote to hoist it high on the bestseller list so people catch on and start treating animals more humanely. Or I’ll shoot your dog.
Sprint Mobile Cards April 23, 2007March 6, 2017 A few Mondays ago I asked whether you’d choose to leave your country or your spouse. I assume you’d leave your country – though it’s certainly a rotten choice to have to make. Here’s a less obvious – if less momentous – choice, and one I face today: Would you click here to install Microsoft’s Windows Installer Cleanup Utility? That click takes you to a page from which you can download the utility; but it begins with this warning: Warning The Windows Installer CleanUp Utility is provided “as is” to help resolve installation problems for programs that use Microsoft Windows Installer. If you use this utility, you may have to reinstall other programs. Caution is advised. Caution? You mean, install it . . . very slowly? Wearing goggles? I face this question because I have seen 10,000 full-page newspaper ads for the Sprint mobile card that works 5X faster than the competition in 2X as many places. Eager to be able to email and Google even on the train to Washington, and to save the $10 a night in hotel rooms – and to have an alternative connection when my cable goes out – I signed up. Not long afterward, I received my nifty USB Novatel Wireless Ovation U720 and inserted the setup disk to install it. Well, I have a very arcane setup. I use an operating system called Windows XP on a laptop called an IBM ThinkPad – there can’t be many like me – and so at the very end of the installation process it gave a completely incomprehensible error message that required an hour on the phone with Sprint to report. The Sprint rep decided it was a Microsoft error message . . . looked something up . . . and advised download of the afore-referenced installer cleanup utility. If I downloaded it, it might clear up the installation snag. ‘Good luck,’ he said. So? What would you advise? Risk it? Bag it? Currently, I lean toward throwing it all out the Window and buying a laptop with wireless already built in. But I await your advice. If no further columns appear in this space, I took your advice and it wrecked my computer. 18 SECONDS TO CHANGE A LIGHTBULB? The old line used to be: ‘When you have nothing to say, say nothing.’ That was modified to the more helpful, ‘When you have nothing nice to say, come sit by me.’ But on this page, the operative instruction is: ‘When you have nothing at all to say, post something about Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs.’ So here you go. This time, it’s a short video. READ THIS, OR I’LL SHOOT YOUR DOG This new website, devoted to examples of how Republican rule disadvantages ordinary citizens, begins with a story of how it disadvantages their hounds.
Long Weekend April 20, 2007March 25, 2012 I just discovered a clause in my contract that gives me the day off. Enjoy it!
We Are Now! April 19, 2007March 6, 2017 To all those who caught yesterday’s spelling error (since corrected) – thank you. You are my heroes and heroines. WMT My friend Hunter Lovins, of Natural Capitalism Solutions, paid a call on Wal-Mart. Here‘s the encouraging account of the meeting. I still own the stock. (And, perhaps more important, I still live on the planet.) If Wal-Mart were a country, it would be the 20th biggest in the world. Previously one of the most reviled companies; it has become the poster child example of a company in profound transformation. Hunter was invited, in part because there is a bit of a culture clash between the ‘old’ Wal-Mart culture of hunters and fisherfolk, who like to drive pick-up trucks, and who built the company; and the ‘new’ Wal-Mart of Ivy-league MBA’s, environmental consultants and left coast change agents. Some Wal-Mart insiders thought that Hunter might offer a bridge. With NCS Operations Director, Jeff Hohensee, Hunter flew to Bentonville, Arkansas. Professor Jon Johnson of the Walton School of Business invited the NCS team to advise the interdisciplinary group at the University of Arkansas, charged with creating a Center for Sustainability. Hunter also met with University of Arkansas students and joined an evening panel with Jib Ellison of Blu Skye consultants, facilitator of Wal-Mart’s sustainability efforts, and her old friend Adam Werbach of Act Now Productions. Adam, the youngest-ever elected President of Sierra Club, has been hired to teach Wal-Mart managers about sustainability. He figures that by the time he has finished, he and his team will have spoken with 1% of the U.S. workforce. Talk about leverage. The three shared their perspectives about how Wal-Mart could use its market power to drive change. The next morning, the group joined Wal-Mart’s senior management, their major suppliers and non-profit partners in the huge auditorium at the Home Office. Hunter followed her old friend, Jim Woolsey, ex-head of the CIA to the podium. Jim warned the standing-room audience of the perils to the country of failing to get off imported oil. He spoke of the national security reasons to shift the economy to renewable energy and energy efficiency, drawing on the work he and Hunter presented in their 1981 book, Brittle Power. Hunter was equally challenging, raising the social issues that Wal-Mart critics have used to hammer the company. She asked, ‘What would a truly sustainable Wal-Mart business model be?’ She continued, ‘Fair enough, it’s great that Wal-Mart is putting solar panels up and selling organic underwear. But if you roam the planet exploiting people in developing countries and communities in America so that people like me can throw away more junk . . . this is not sustainable.’ She then posed what the company might do differently: work with communities to create business ecologies, in which Wal-Mart partners with local sustainable businesses who might co-locate and piggyback off Wal-Mart’s strengths. Urban Wal-Marts could partner with local community groups and suppliers to implement sustainability programs. Or the company could bring sustainability to communities in developing countries. . . . Hunter described the business case for behaving more sustainably, and how the elements of NCS’ Integrated Bottom Line can reduce cost, increase profits, reduce risk, preserve a company’s franchise to operate, increase labor productivity, attract and retain the best talent, reduce the cost of distrust, differentiate a brand and drive innovation. After she spoke, a senior Vice President came up and thanked her for bringing the missing conversation into the room. Is the Wal-Mart commitment authentic; is it cherry-picking or just very well presented PR? Hunter and Jeff sat beside Lee Scott for an entire morning, listening in some amazement to a litany of speeches that could have been presented by Hunter’s students at Presidio or by such business sustainability leaders as Ray Anderson (who has been advising Wal-Mart for some time). At one point, as Scott was speaking, he turned to his head of sustainability and asked where the company was ‘on getting that chemical out of the plastics in children’s toys….? Are we on top of that?’ The executive jumped up and said ‘We are now!!!’ The air filled with the whir of fingers on “Crackberries,” as the roughly 2/3rds of the room of a thousand people who were major Wal-Mart suppliers scurried to text home offices that they were going have to get phthalates out of plastic. Over a decade ago, Dr. Theo Colburn fell on her sword, sacrificing her career to expose the dangers of endocrine disruptors. Now a throwaway line from the CEO of the world’s largest company might just get the job started. As senior executives unfurled chart after chart demonstrating why sustainability is just good business, charts that looked eerily like the sorts that environmentalists have used for decades to argue that this is not an issue of environment versus business, Jeff turned to Hunter and said ‘We really are on a different planet.’ Then the Wal-Mart marketing folk got up to say how they have studied the Wal-Mart demographic (and you’ve got to believe that they have. . .) There turns out, they reported, to be a very significant correlation especially between their female shoppers, the dominant demographic, and a desire for sustainability. Lee Scott stood up to state that: ‘Working class people should not have to choose between affordability and sustainability.’ Wal-Mart will re-brand itself as ‘affordable sustainability.’ As these marketers spoke, one of the company’s change-agents knelt beside Hunter. Did she realize, he asked, just how historic a moment this was. . . .? In all prior meetings, he explained, the marketers have said of Wal-Mart’s sustainability commitment, ‘Yeah, whatever. . .’ This was apparently the first of the senior management meetings at which that whole segment of the company had gotten on board. With them acknowledging the business case for sustainability, the entire company was committed. The meeting over, Hunter raced for a plane to arrive in the waning moments of a Presidio open house that evening in San Francisco. When Presidio’s Director of Marketing, Rebecca Bell, asked her where she’d spent the day, Hunter told these stories, concluding with what a profoundly disorienting experience it was to be at such a meeting. Again, it is hard to overstate the magnitude of this transformation. Wal-Mart has moved the debate from whether there is a business case for sustainability to how to integrate the social issues, and just how fast can you implement everything that Natural Capitalism teaches. As Wal-Mart begins to send their environmental scorecard out to their 90,000 suppliers, the entire field of sustainability had better grab a whole new gear. Gives a whole new twist to Pogo’s observation that ‘We have met the enemy and he is us.’ And, Hunter added, this is an even stronger reason to enroll in Presidio. ‘As I was leaving, a senior Vice President approached me and asked whether Wal-Mart could hire Presidio graduates.’ Wal-Mart certainly has a lot of work to do. Hunter’s questions to the audience in Bentonville remain unanswered. Hunter and Jeff will begin discussions soon with Wal-Mart executives charged with sorting out the company’s relationships with communities around the world. It was clear from being at the Home Office that the corporate commitment to make compact fluorescent lights affordable to all customers could start at home: employee productivity at the ‘Cube Farm,’ the company’s windowless, warehouse-sized concrete box of a World Headquarters, would soar if they day lighted their roof, as they once did in their first experimental green building. (Retail sales went up 40% in the day lit sections and all the employees wanted to work there.) But the lever has begun to pry: As Hunter and Jeff returned to Colorado, they were contacted by a Wal-Mart supplier asking whether NCS could help them design a sustainability program that would not only meet Wal-Mart’s scorecard, but position this company as a leader in their industry. Jeff has already been to Chicago this week to meet with the company. Hunter has long stated that a commitment to sustainability enhances every aspect of shareholder value, and that the companies that get it right will be first to the future-the billionaires of tomorrow. Every one of Wal-Mart’s suppliers now faces the challenge of proving that they are green enough to get shelf space. . . .
Three Quick Ones April 18, 2007March 6, 2017 SUBPRIME . . . So the sub-prime mortgage market is imploding, and there are those who are blaming the lenders. Well, and to the extent they were deceptive in their lending practices, they should be blamed. But as Michael Lewis engagingly argues, if this was another case of the rich exploiting the poor, why did the rich lose so much money? Click here. MORE FMD So, FMD bounced back a couple of points, and the Financial Times weighed in with this piece speculating on an eventual buy-out. There are no sure things, but if you can afford the risk: Don’t sell. ATLAS SHRUGGED I still have about 35 miles to go, but the heroine, presumably on some level the embodiment of the author, is now surrounded by three unbelievably handsome, brilliant, powerful men, all wanting nothing in the world so much as her. I think Ms. Rand had a very good time writing this book.
Good News, Bad News April 17, 2007March 6, 2017 But first . . . INSTRUCTIONS FOR YOUR GIGAPOD II I’m not saying you have a Spire GigaPod II Hard Drive Enclosure, or even that I know what it is. But you can get one here, and when it comes, there will instructions that read, in full: HDD Assembles Elucidation 1. Make an effort to press in the direction that arrowhead point the plastics lock button up. such as picture A 2. Heading up the upper cover to turn to turn over to rise. such as picture B 3. Cover up and down to separate then and completely. such as picture C Is good with machine plank according to the right method conjunction the hard dish, lock the tight and HDD, cover the upper cover, can immediately trust the usage. ☞ Now you know. (Sorry I lack the techspertise to include pictures A, B, and C – you probably don’t need them.) And now . . . THE GOOD NEWS A nice write-up of WheelTug here, in the Times of London on Line. Underwhelmed, BOREF stock traded down to $9.50 on volume of 100 shares. But tell me what’s wrong with this logic: The pressure to get WheelTug working, for real, in the nosewheels of thousands of commercial jets, will be considerable, both because of the potential profit to Delta and other airlines (and a marginally improved passenger experience) and because of the environmental appeal cited in the article. The effort could fail. But since a prototype already drove a fully loaded 767 around a desert airstrip for hours, as attested to by Boeing and Air Canada’s chief pilot, it might not. And so I hold on for the ride and the dream. (I’m still reading Atlas Shrugged. Thirty-five miles to go.) THE BAD NEWS FMD dropped 22% yesterday, down $9.83 to $34.60, having already fallen off sharply from its $57.56 high in January (albeit still up from $25.50 where some of us first bought it). Unlike BOREF, which traded 100 shares yesterday, FMD traded 26 million. So now what? My FMD guru, who, like me, owns a lot of shares (but who, unlike me, owns more), woke up cheerily on news that Sally Mae, the big student loan company, was being acquired at a 50% premium in a private equity deal. That would get the market thinking about how valuable the student loan business can be; and, since FMD is in the student loan business, up would bounce its stock. Or so he figured. Maybe it would open $5 higher? Instead, FMD dropped nearly $14 in the first half hour of trading. It seems that Sally Mae was acquired not just by any old private equity firm, but by some private equity firms in partnership with the two banks that are FMD’s biggest clients: JPMorgan and Bank of America. (And who, the fear is, may now become its biggest competitors.) Oops. Reboot. So here is his analysis. Executive summary: nothing is sure in the stock market, but he hasn’t sold a single share. After hearing about the SLM buyout at $60 early this morning – a nice 50% premium over last Thursday’s price – I happily turned on my computer to check and see what kind of upside pop FMD had enjoyed – only to have my chin hit the floor when I saw the stock down almost 30%. The volatility around this stock drives me nuts. However, I’ve spent some time thinking about today’s developments and do not yet see a compelling reason to change my assessment – and in some ways, with today’s dramatic drop, the stock could be considered substantively more interesting (volatility aside!). So where are we today? As you will recall, despite extraordinary growth in loans, revenues, profits and (importantly) cashflow over the last three years or so, the company has been under vigorous attack from shortsellers who have variously argued that 1) FMD’s margins and loan growth are unsustainable; 2) their client roster is too concentrated – leaving them vulnerable to one or more of their top client banks taking their business in-house or renegotiating for significantly improved financial terms; and 3) the value of the residual flows from their securitizations are overstated due to misunderstood credit and prepayment risk – creating potential for material markdowns and earnings challenges in the future. In response to these enumerated concerns, bulls argue: 1) In the first three quarters of fiscal 2007, loan securitization volume is up roughly 50%, while margins are expanding. For the first two quarters of fiscal 2007 (Q3 to be released in less than 2 weeks), revenues are up 87%, net income is up 110% and diluted earnings per share are up 115%. This kind of growth on a sustained basis is highly unusual – and a strong demonstration of the tangible value that FMD brings to its bank partners and end customers. 2) FMD has been actively seeking to expand their roster of client bank relationships, with some demonstrated success. There have been a number of significant signings over the last few quarters – Key Bank and GE among them. However, business concentration with their two largest clients, JPM and BofA, remains around 40% – which can only mean that these two banks are actually growing their relationship with FMD, not preparing to exit. Also, JPM recently signed a longterm services deal with FMD that carries through 2010 (conditions of the contract are obviously proprietary). BofA does have the ability to end their relationship with FMD upon 90 days notice (starting mid-year). 3) Conjecture on the ultimate residual value of the FMD securitization vintages will most likely continue for several more years until they age more definitively. However, no one but FMD has the dataset (historical TERI database) with which to analyze their current performance – the key to their competitive advantage. The important thing to consider here is that FMD must — on a quarterly basis – persuade 1) the rating agencies that their forecasts of customer performance are accurate and reasonable, or they won’t be able to access their advantageous securitization terms; and 2) their external auditors that their assumptions underlying their residual valuations are reasonable. To date, there has been no deterioration on either of these dimensions. Today’s news that SLM was being bought out by a partnership made up of several private equity firms, along with JPM and BofA as significant minority stakeholders seems to have reignited the concentration risk argument (#2 above) – fueling the selloff. While this development certainly merits attention over the longterm, I am less concerned in the near and medium term and still believe that FMD will continue to deliver substantial investment returns (even more so from today’s depressed closing price) . . . because: a) FMD is the leader in the direct-to-consumer (DTC, or high margin channels), private student lending space, delivering significant, visible value to their bank partners. SLM’s expertise is in the federally guaranteed FFELP loan business and distributing private student loans through on-campus financial aid offices (significantly lower margin channel). SLM just does not currently have the value package to offer JPM and BofA (or any other bank partner, for that matter) to compete with FMD in the fast growing, highly profitable DTC business. This is not a commodity business and there is a clear difference in capabilities and performance. It seems very unlikely that either JPM or BofA would deteriorate the operating performance of a successful business in order to subsidize the earnings of a business in which they own a minority position. b) Even if the worst possible scenario actually occurred – JPM and BofA immediately withdrew all of their private lending business (practically and legally very unlikely), FMD’s current growth trajectory would allow them to make up the complete loss in less than a year. Again …in the worst possible scenario, you still have a company sustainably growing forward earnings in excess of 35% per year, with a forward PE multiple of 8 – producing an absurdly low PEG [price earnings ratio as a percentage of earnings growth rate] of less than 25%. Given point (a), if a wind-down did eventually happen, it would most likely happen slowly and methodically – giving FMD ample opportunity to capably manage through it without materially stressing operating performance. c) SLM will most likely not evolve into a capable DTC private loan competitor in the near or medium term, now that they are newly burdened by a very heavy debt load and most likely paralyzed by difficult cost cutting decisions. FMD is cash rich and nimble, with many productive growth initiatives already in place: it’s very likely that they will extend their already impressive lead in their business space. d) For what it’s worth, JPM has gone on record to say that they see no imminent changes in their relationship with FMD; Jack Kopniskey, the FMD CEO has publicly said that he sees no changes to current business arrangements; BofA, from what I can tell, has not commented.
Who’s Running the Show PLUS: Open a ROTH IRA Today; Lie or Cheat? April 16, 2007March 6, 2017 I guess we’ve learned that who runs the world matters, which is why politics – as imperfect as it is (you try winning the support of a wildly diverse group of people without stumble or compromise) – also matters. (The idea that some people don’t register to vote is depressing. The idea that I know some of them, and that their reason is that they don’t want to be called for jury duty, is deeply depressing. Not to mention that it probably won’t work.) So who runs the world? And how have they been trying to make that permanent? A trio of links today: 1. BILL MAHER – ELITES vs HAYSEEDS If you can get past the tone, which is in places discomfiting (well for example, when he calls the President ‘—- for brains’), this clip makes a devastating point. The third-ranking person in the Justice Department, in charge of overseeing the job performance of the 93 U.S. Attorneys was a 33-year-old graduate of Messiah College? And of a televangelist’s law school? Which brings us to Paul Krugman’s column from Friday . . . 2. PAUL KRUGMAN – 150 MESSIANICS In case you can’t access it, because you’ve not yet signed up for Times Select (oh, for heaven’s sake – $1 a week to support the nation’s invaluable newspaper? go for it!), here it is in part: April 13, 2007 Op-Ed Columnist For God’s Sake By PAUL KRUGMAN . . . Today, Regent University, founded by the televangelist Pat Robertson to provide ‘Christian leadership to change the world,’ boasts that it has 150 graduates working in the Bush administration. Unfortunately for the image of the school, where Mr. Robertson is chancellor and president, the most famous of those graduates is Monica Goodling, a product of the university’s law school. She’s the former top aide to Alberto Gonzales who appears central to the scandal of the fired U.S. attorneys and has declared that she will take the Fifth rather than testify to Congress on the matter. The infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda – which is very different from simply being people of faith – is one of the most important stories of the last six years. It’s also a story that tends to go underreported, perhaps because journalists are afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists. But this conspiracy is no theory. The official platform of the Texas Republican Party pledges to ‘dispel the myth of the separation of church and state.’ And the Texas Republicans now running the country are doing their best to fulfill that pledge. Kay Cole James, who had extensive connections to the religious right and was the dean of Regent’s government school, was the federal government’s chief personnel officer from 2001 to 2005. (Curious fact: she then took a job with Mitchell Wade, the businessman who bribed Representative Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham.) And it’s clear that unqualified people were hired throughout the administration because of their religious connections. [. . . Krugman gives four examples . . .] . . . Regent isn’t a religious university the way Loyola or Yeshiva are religious universities. It’s run by someone whose first reaction to 9/11 was to brand it God’s punishment for America’s sins. . . . The Bush administration’s implosion clearly represents a setback for the Christian right’s strategy of infiltration. But it would be wildly premature to declare the danger over. This is a movement that has shown great resilience over the years. It will surely find new champions. Next week Rudy Giuliani will be speaking at Regent’s Executive Leadership Series. 3. SYDNEY BLUMENTHAL IN SALON This, too, is merely excerpted here and worth reading (free!) in its entirety. . . . Bush has not simply filled jobs with favorites, oblivious to their underhanded dealings, as though he were a blithering latter-day version of Warren Harding. Bush has been determined to turn the entire federal government, every department and agency, into an instrument of a one-party state. . . . Within the Bush administration, there are hundreds of Monica Goodlings, and she was their ideal. . . . She interprets criticism and debate as a mortal threat to all that is good and holy. She sees any institution of American life that is not devoted to the flag and cross to which she pledges and worships as twisted, biased and infernal. . . . She sees those who adhere to standards of professionalism as agents of deception, hiding their real agendas. She was enthusiastic in weeding out Justice Department employees and replacing them with true believers like herself. [. . .] Consider the reports surfacing only within the past month: that scientists at the Fish and Wildlife Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency have again been forbidden to discuss climate change; that nine newly appointed U.S. attorneys are political cadres; that the new U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Rachel Paulose, cites Bible verses in the office . . . and, according to one of four assistant U.S. attorneys in her office who voluntarily demoted themselves, treats disagreement as “disloyalty”; that the Election Assistance Commission last year, giving credence to Republican talking points of widespread voter fraud, ignored experts’ testimony to the contrary; that between 2001 and 2006, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department has purged 60 percent of its professional staff and not filed a single voting discrimination case on behalf of African-American or Native American voters; and that after the state Republican Party complained to Rove that the U.S. attorney in Wisconsin, Steven Biskupic, was not attacking voter fraud, Biskupic kept his job by filing corruption charges against an aide to the incumbent Democratic governor on the eve of the 2006 elections. (The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled the aide was “wrongly convicted” on evidence that was “beyond thin.”) . . . . . . “There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one [says a former Bush appointee]: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you’ve got is everything — and I mean everything — being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.” FUND THAT ROTH IRA TODAY! Whether or not you’ve finished your taxes, you can still set up a Roth IRA (or make a 2006 contribution to an existing one) by going on-line today at, for example, here (Less Antman suggests the T. Rowe Price Spectrum Growth Fund) or here (with Vanguard’s lower expense ratios but a $3,000 minimum to start . . . perhaps one of these). A Roth IRA won’t affect your 2006 tax filing, because the contribution is not deductible. But it will begin growing not just tax-deferred but tax-free, and with less paperwork and better alternatives when you reach retirement age. (That said, a traditional IRA is a very good thing, too – don’t feel bad building one of those, either.) If you’re rich-ish, make your 2006 contribution today – but also your 2007 contribution. The more the better. (If you’re just plain rich, not ‘-ish,’ then $4,000 Roth IRA contributions won’t make a whole lot of difference to you. Give me that money.) LIE OR CHEAT? So let’s say you got legally married in Massachusetts. Do you lie on your 1040 and say you are ‘single’? Or break federal law and file jointly? Which is the honest thing for a same-sex couple to do? (Honesty aside, the government requires that you check ‘single,’ even if you’ve been coupled for 40 years.)
Friday the 13th — A Terrible Day To Do Your Taxes But This Column Doesn't Have Anything To Do With That April 13, 2007March 6, 2017 SUMMER TRAVEL Alan S. suggests: 1. go to google 2. click on “maps” 3. click on “get directions” 4. type “New York” in the first box and “London” in the second box 5. hit enter 6. scroll down to step #23 ATLAS SHRUGGED The extremely estimable Less Antman: ‘Ayn Rand was NOT a libertarian and hated the libertarian movement. If you want to read a book about libertarianism, read Dr. Mary Ruwart’s Healing Our World In An Age Of Aggression. Radical libertarians are not apologists for big business: we are antiwar, pro-immigration, socially tolerant, and support a true free market (not privileges to government-favored powerful businesses). Here is what Ayn Rand thought of libertarians (‘a monstrous, disgusting bunch of people‘).’ ☞ The Rutwart book gets a rave on Amazon from John S. Ryan, who writes (in part): Ruwart carefully and compassionately explains why the libertarian approach is a better way to bring about the (entirely legitimate) goals of the more modern sort of liberal: for example, improving the quality and availability of medical care (including alternative medicines), reducing pollution, saving the environment, and so forth. . . . Ruwart’s outlook should delight everybody from Calvinists to Hayekians to Taoists. And there has never been a time at which it’s been more important to get the word out on liberty. Get this book at once and pass out copies to your friends; Ruwart’s libertarianism has something to say to people of every political and/or religious persuasion or none.’ Less went on to say – with a friendly wink – ‘As for creating straw men that are easy to refute, I bow to your expertise on the subject.’ So let me unpack what I was trying to say. Atlas Shrugged appeared in 1957, not long after the McCarthy era. Ayn Rand left Russia for America in 1926, nine years after Lenin’s revolution. Her book is a polemic that devastates the underpinnings of Marxism and communism that were then intriguing (and enslaving) so much of the world. So to those of you who are Marxists or communists – or who doubt the very substantial virtues of capitalism, low taxation, and the free market – I say: Quick! Start reading. However, not knowing any Marxists or communists today, and not believing their influence was as pervasive or profound in America in 1957 as I suspect Ayn Rand thought it was, Atlas Shrugged reads to me like a comic book. The heroes are industrialist superheroes. The villains are caricatures, straw men – stupid, venal, pusillanimous, easy to loathe. Which makes it great fun. Rand’s economic philosophy seems largely to overlap that of libertarians (or vice versa – judging from that link, she was furious they stole her ideas without attribution). My own view is that Marxism and communism are disasters, but that raw, unfettered capitalism is pretty disastrous, too. A balance is needed, with a role – but not too big a role – for government programs, progressive taxation, and enlightened regulation. Which of course is largely what we have. I just liked the balance better under Clinton/Gore than I do now, several clicks to the right, under Bush/Cheney. Let alone what I take to be the balance point desired by many of the (charming, highly intelligent) libertarians I know. To me, FDR and other liberals are nowhere recognizable in the pages of Atlas Shrugged. Everyone but the superheroes are either morally bankrupt idiots (if they are in positions of power) or else decent working folks who understand on some gut level that things have gone terribly wrong. Two-thirds of the way through the book, I am having a dandy time; have walked 80 miles; and have not changed my political philosophy (or, on economic issues, become a libertarian). Have a nice weekend. Do your taxes.