Buffett and Borealis (No, He's Not Buying It) October 3, 2008March 12, 2017 THE DEBATE Governor Palin’s weeks of cramming paid off. Not only was she well-prepared (if you put your mind to it, you really can learn to be President in two weeks), she actually winked at me! Who could fail to love that? My friend Peter, a life-long Republican financial whiz at whose most recent birthday party a congratulatory note from President Bush was read, writes: ‘I feel like I just watched an adult debating a college student.’ Peter voted for Bush twice but just wrote $60,000 for Obama. FAUX NEWS This 26-second video shows why Obama wins Pennsylvania – and why Fox is truly pathetic. FAUX REGULAR GUY This 60-second tour of the McCain home (13 bedrooms, 14½ baths) gives you a sense of how the family has lived the past 20 years. In that context, the level of the family’s charitable giving is pretty astounding. Specifics on Monday, but they sure seem not to have used any meaningful slice of their giant Bush tax cut to support nonprofits. Which is totally their choice. It’s their fortune to do with as they please. But it speaks to their core priorities. Thirteen cars, seven or eight houses, a private jet – it’s been a positively grand time to be rich and powerful in America, and John McCain has vowed, with his promise to make the tax cuts permanent, to keep it that way. ANOTHER REPUBLICAN FOR OBAMA Wick Allison – former publisher of the nation’s leading conservative magazine, The National Review – is editor-in-chief of the Dallas-Fort Worth city magazine, D. He maxed out to McCain in the primary, but now writes: My party has slipped its moorings. It’s time for a true pragmatist to lead the country. The more I listen to and read about “the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate,” the more I like him. Barack Obama strikes a chord with me like no political figure since Ronald Reagan. To explain why, I need to explain why I am a conservative and what it means to me. In 1964, at the age of 16, I organized the Dallas County Youth for Goldwater. My senior thesis at the University of Texas was on the conservative intellectual revival in America. Twenty years later, I was invited by William F. Buckley Jr. to join the board of National Review. I later became its publisher. Conservatism to me is less a political philosophy than a stance, a recognition of the fallibility of man and of man’s institutions. Conservatives respect the past not for its antiquity but because it represents, as G.K. Chesterton said, the democracy of the dead; it gives the benefit of the doubt to customs and laws tried and tested in the crucible of time. Conservatives are skeptical of abstract theories and utopian schemes, doubtful that government is wiser than its citizens, and always ready to test any political program against actual results. Liberalism always seemed to me to be a system of “oughts.” We ought to do this or that because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of whether it works or not. It is a doctrine based on intentions, not results, on feeling good rather than doing good. But today it is so-called conservatives who are cemented to political programs when they clearly don’t work. The Bush tax cuts—a solution for which there was no real problem and which he refused to end even when the nation went to war—led to huge deficit spending and a $3 trillion growth in the federal debt. Facing this, John McCain pumps his “conservative” credentials by proposing even bigger tax cuts. Meanwhile, a movement that once fought for limited government has presided over the greatest growth of government in our history. That is not conservatism; it is profligacy using conservatism as a mask. Today it is conservatives, not liberals, who talk with alarming bellicosity about making the world “safe for democracy.” It is John McCain who says America’s job is to “defeat evil,” a theological expansion of the nation’s mission that would make George Washington cough out his wooden teeth. This kind of conservatism, which is not conservative at all, has produced financial mismanagement, the waste of human lives, the loss of moral authority, and the wreckage of our economy that McCain now threatens to make worse. Barack Obama is not my ideal candidate for president. (In fact, I made the maximum donation to John McCain during the primaries, when there was still hope he might come to his senses.) But I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don’t matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama’s books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers. Most important, Obama will be a realist. I doubt he will taunt Russia, as McCain has, at the very moment when our national interest requires it as an ally. The crucial distinction in my mind is that, unlike John McCain, I am convinced he will not impulsively take us into another war unless American national interests are directly threatened. “Every great cause,” Eric Hoffer wrote, “begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” As a cause, conservatism may be dead. But as a stance, as a way of making judgments in a complex and difficult world, I believe it is very much alive in the instincts and predispositions of a liberal named Barack Obama. 7 MINUTES WITH A UNION GUY ON RACISM Powerful. 54 MINUTES WITH WARREN BUFFETT All is explained. ANOTHER WAY TO CHECK YOUR REGISTRATION A few of you reported bugginess with voteforchange.com. This site may be a helpful alternative – although for Florida it says, “Call local office,” where the Obama site handles Florida seamlessly. (As to those upset to be asked for an email address, just enter one you never check.) BOREALIS Ed H.: “Any comment? It’s a sinking like a stone. Bid/Asked is 2.80/3.60.” ☞ The stock price, while depressing, is sort of irrelevant. BOREF has always been a long-shot that will either work out or it won’t. As good a lottery ticket as I’ve thought it is . . . and as many shares as I own . . . it’s still a lottery ticket. Imagine a ticket where you had a one-in-four chance of making, say, 100 times your money. Phenomenal, no? And yet there’s a 75% chance you lose everything. A tiny amount of buying or selling moves BOREF. So, as people get discouraged and sell . . . or sell to take a tax loss, or sell because they died (technically, that would be their estate selling), or sell because they actually need the money, or sell because the IRS has garnisheed their brokerage account and forced a sale . . . the stock goes down. And may continue to. If at some point Delta announced that WheelTug™ is ready to be deployed – which may never happen! – or if at some point the slow but seemingly steady progress at Roche Bay led serious investors to believe there really is a highly valuable resource up there . . . then the stock would do very well. The past decade at first seemed to shorten the odds of success – the plane moved! the drill samples show tons of high grade ore! But by now? I remain resigned to the very real possibility, as from the beginning (“A Stock That’s Surely Going to Zero”), that this will not work out. Then again, it might.
A Quick Way to Be Sure You’re Registered Plus: How To Put Out a Barn Fire October 2, 2008March 12, 2017 QUICK! CHECK YOUR VOTER REGISTRATION I went to voteforchange.com to find out whether I’m still registered. (Our Republican friends like to do voter purges.) The site asked me address and then – an instant later – told me that if April such-and-such is my birthday (i.e., if I am that Andrew Tobias) then, yep, I’m registered. Knocked my socks off how fast it worked. I then asked for my early-voting locations (early voting has already begun in eight states) and – bang – there they were. The site may not work this well for your state, but it sure worked well for me. The first deadlines for voter registration are this Saturday. By next Wednesday, deadlines will have passed in 22 states. If you know anyone in a battleground state, be sure he or she knows about voteforchange.com. HURRY UP AND PASS THE THING This links to a summary of a study of 42 banking crises around the world. To summarize the summary: Some types of government intervention work and some don’t. One characteristic that is needed though is speed. Dithering, a la Japan, is a recipe for disaster. ☞ I love the man-and-woman-on-the-street interviews with folks angry at the situation. ‘This should not be happening!’ they say. (They’re right about that much.) ‘Absolutely not!’ they say to any bail-out. They seem quite sure that the combined wisdom and expertise of Fed Chairman Bernanke (who’s spent his life studying the Depression), Treasury Secretary Paulson (who ran the world’s premier investment bank), and Barney Frank (28 years on the House Finance Committee and now its chair) must be subsidiary to their own. It seems to me that when political polar opposites like George W. Bush and Barney Frank agree, the urgency must be real. It’s fine not to like the rescue plan. The liberal, brilliant Professor Jeffrey Sachs went on at some length on CNN explaining why he didn’t like it – but then made certain viewers understood that, if he were in Congress, he would have held his nose and absolutely voted for it. Good for the Senate last night, 74-25. Now for the House, please. Because, speaking of ‘dithering’ . . . FIRE! Few people know that on October 8, 1871, Mr. and Mrs. O’Leary, of 137 De Koven Street, were actually in the barn when their cow kicked over the lantern. ‘Patrick!’ screamed Mrs. O’Leary, looking around frantically for something wet. ‘Smash that champagne bottle and pour it on this hay!’ ‘The champagne? It cost a fortune! And what the hell’s it doing out here in the barn? — ‘ ‘Patrick!’ she screamed again. ‘ – and isn’t alcohol flammable? It just might make it worse!’ Her husband started running to the pump to get a bucket of water. Catherine herself then lunged for the champagne bottle, smashed its neck with a hammer and . . . SCENARIO A: . . . managed to douse the little fire. They went to bed. SCENARIO B: . . . was just a little too late to contain it. While the blaze ironically spared the O’Leary house, more than three square miles of Chicago were razed, leaving 100,000 homeless and 300 dead. I have purposely not Googled to find out whether champagne actually would put out the beginnings of a fire. There is uncertainty in any rescue plan. But beer would. TONIGHT’S DEBATE From the Campaign: This debate is about two very different philosophies of where to take the country: The economic philosophy that got us in this deep hole the last eight years, cost us 600,000 jobs this year and brought Wall Street to the brink of collapse and the foreign policy philosophy that isolated America and got us into a war in Iraq with no end in sight – versus a philosophy that says we need to invest in the middle class, put in place responsible 21st century regulations to protect consumers, revitalize our alliances and end this war. Joe Biden brings to the vice presidency more legislative experience and deep relationships on Capitol Hill than any vice president since the days of Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey, which is critical for an incoming Administration committed to making big, bold, fundamental changes in public policy at home and throughout the world. Governor Palin has energized John McCain’s campaign with his base, and demonstrated she’s an incredibly skilled politician who can throw a punch. She is undefeated as a debater with a 7-0 record. She debated and defeated two giants of Alaska politics: sitting Governor and 17-year Republican Senator Frank Murkowski as well as two-term former Democratic Governor Tony Knowles. She’s an exceptional communicator. ☞ I share characteristics with both. I am like Joe Biden in that I sometimes get a bit wordy. I am like Sarah Palin in that I am not qualified to be President of the United States. (If you think that’s not the relevant test, click here for a video reviewing Senator McCain’s health.) Tomorrow: ANOTHER Republican for Obama – a Texan, No Less, Former Publisher of the National Review!
Another Republican for Obama October 1, 2008January 3, 2017 TWO MINUTES WITH THE CANDIDATE Click here. It’s about your taxes. Speaking of which: LESS TIME FILING YOUR TAXES From his economic plan: Obama and Biden will ensure that the IRS uses the information it already gets from banks and employers to give taxpayers the option of pre-filled tax forms to verify, sign and return. Experts estimate that the Obama-Biden proposal will save Americans up to 200 million total hours of work and aggravation and up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees. ANOTHER REPUBLICAN FOR OBAMA This comes – via a friend who forwarded it – from a 63-year-old capitalist, John H. Scully, who sits on the board of, among other things, our very own Plum Creek Timber. (Yes, the trees keep growing.) It’s an email to members of a social and investing club that he and other members of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Class of 1968 set up: Dear Fellow Stanco Member, Like most of us I have never asked anything of my wonderful classmates in the GSB Class of 1968. I am now. Allow me to make it clear that I write to you as a concerned citizen, not representing Stanco or the Stanford GSB, but expressing my own personal views. Some of you may share these views and some of you may not. I respect everyone’s right to differ, but allow me mention that I am hardly a political zealot. (I voted for the republican presidential candidate in every election from 1976 up to and including, I’m embarrassed to say, 2000). But as Americans, whose country has been so good to us, I believe we are now all called upon to take action in response to the extraordinary incompetence of the last eight years that has so seriously marginalized our great nation and put us at real risk. It is very clear to me that we are now in our worst economic crisis since 1929, and the possibility of systemic failure is real. While reasonable men and women can differ on the immediate steps we should be taking, it is demonstrably apparent after eight dreadful years of gross mismanagement and incompetency that we need to expunge from our polity the Bush-Cheney-McCain-Palin axis of ideological pap and judgmental disasters. With all due respect I ask, indeed implore, that you join me and millions of others in the mission to elect Barack Obama as the next president of these United States. We have a long road ahead of us to reverse the disastrous damage done to our nation in the last eight years, and Barack is the leader with the intellect, character and courage to do it. We are blessed to have his candidacy in this moment of crisis. Smart, inspirational and endowed with superb judgment, Barack is the real agent of change. He’s a man of character and principles, who wants to give back to the country that has blessed him with the “audacity of hope.” And at the core he’s a market oriented moderate, not an ultra liberal – please read the key excerpts from his book that I have attached. Those of you that like to focus on your personal taxes, you will notice that he proposes lower capital gains rates than Reagan’s era and zero for start ups! There can be little doubt that Bush 43 will go down as the worst president in the modern era. Besides the damage to our economy, our international standing has dropped precipitously, our brave military has been fundamentally weakened and our wonderful sense of limitless potential sadly compromised. Ronald Reagan’s beautiful image of the “shining city on a hill” is in real peril. Consider the legacy of the last eight years: Huge annual fiscal deficits – $450 B in the current year BEFORE the bailout, which will more than double to over $1 trillion. (Remember the democratic surpluses under fiscal conservative Bob Rubin?) Trade deficits in excess of $600B annually $700B down the drain in Iraq and over 100,000 dead – in a country that did not attack us! Ultimate costs of well over $1 trillion (Couldn’t we use those funds now!). Near exhaustion of our military capacity. Patent neglect of Afghanistan, the source of the real threat, which has lead to the resurgence of our true enemy. Zero energy policy – putting trillions of dollars in hostile or questionable hands Environmental disregard on all fronts China now our lender of last resort holding $1 trillion of US government paper (We had to save Fannie and Freddie because they and others own so much of this “agency “paper) No thoughtful oversight (in fact further liberalization of leverage limits) of the Wall Street casinos. (Lehman had 30x leverage) A decline in real family income of $2,500 in a supposed economic expansion period now ending with a thud. THESE HORRIFIC DEFICITS AND COSTS OF AN ELECTIVE WAR HAVE PUT US IN A POSITION WHERE OUR RESPONSES TO THIS HIGHLY DANGEROUS FINANCIAL PANIC ARE SEVERELY CONSTRAINED AND THE CORE OF OUR SYSTEM AND OUR VERY CURRENCY ARE AT SYSTEMIC RISK. The Bush republicans have been more effective at weakening our country than any enemy, domestic or foreign, has ever been. And we are supposed to reward this incompetence by reelecting the same party and Bush’s chosen successor? IF YOU WERE ON THE BOARD OF THIS “COMPANY USA,” WOULD YOU SUPPORT THE SUCCESSOR CHOICE AND PROTOGEE OF THE OUTGOING CEO, WHO HAD FAILED SO COMPLETELY? McCain a change agent? He has 26 years in DC. He has supported Bush 90% of the time. His campaign is run by lobbyists and the ads by Rove wanabees. He admits to a weak skill set in economics. What economic views he has were formed under the tutelage of Phil Gramm, who opposes even prudent government oversight. He’s been pro Iraq war from the outset. He wants more truncation of our tax code to favor the rich and further weaken the middle class. The projections for his policies are massive deficits and, unlike Obama, he has not presented any detailed deficit estimates, only saying the budget would be balanced in 2013! Then there are the total lies in advertising (straight talking express?) in an ad campaign produced by the same attack squad that ironically beat him working for Bush in South Carolina in 2000 with a series of clear lies. Then he chooses Palin – solely on the basis that she can boost his chances and reverse his sagging outlook, irrespective of her qualifications. Well, at least she is a change. Three prominent conservative intellectuals, led by George Will, have charitably phrased their view that, “She’s not ready.” Yet this is someone who would be a step away from a 73-77 year old president, who has had recurring melanoma. Her finger on the red button. Uncomprehensible and irresponsible risk – what kind of judgement does that show? Now I ask you to be part of the change that will allow us to emerge from this darkness and support Barrack Obama as generously as you can. A TOTAL OF UP TO $65,000 CAN BE GIVEN PER PERSON, less whatever other federal contributions you have made in the last two years (ask your legal advisor). Regina and I have each done this. Clearly most of you have the capacity to contribute generously. Most of these funds can go directly to the Campaign For Change, all of which is used exclusively to help fund the presidential race in the 18 battleground states. This is a highly focused and efficient way of getting the message out and combating the lies where it matters the most. I would be delighted to answer any questions and discuss the giving options by email or phone. If you are ready to contribute, please send the checks to me, and I will make sure they get to the appropriate party and promptly. This is a critical moment in our nation’s history. Just as our class has excelled in so many other callings, I would suggest that we are now called upon once again to lead. John ☞ Actually, it’s $67,800, not $65,000 (and on questions of federal campaign giving limits, feel free to ask me). But with literally millions of donors, the biggest push comes not from those who give all the law allows (truly grateful though we are and proud though they should be) – like the Scullys – but from those who give what their straitened circumstances permit, whether it’s $20, $50, or $250.