Newt, Newt, Newt And Signs of Progress February 27, 2009March 12, 2017 SIMPLY PUT: “There are times where you can afford to redecorate your house, and there are times when you need to focus on rebuilding its foundation. Today, we have to focus on foundations.” – Barack Obama, Thursday, February 26, 2009. That’s really it. And why tax cuts to help people redecorate their houses cannot be our top priority right now. (“No tax cut built a road, no tax cut puts a cop on the street, no tax cut educates a child.” – House Finance Committee Chair Barney Frank) This was the line of argument I tried to pursue yesterday in response to Governor Jindal’s call for more tax cuts. Here, now, the 12 measures Newt Gingrich is putting forth to solve our problems (look for a full page Wall Street Journal ad coming soon to tout them): Payroll Tax Stimulus. With a temporary new tax credit to offset 50% of the payroll tax, every small business would have more money, and all Americans would take home more of what they earn. ☞ Yes? So? This would require tremendous borrowing from our children, and to what end? See yesterday’s five questions. How would Newt answer them? And if cutting the payroll tax in half is good, why not eliminate it altogether? And eliminate the income tax, too? Oh wait . . . Real Middle-Income Tax Relief. Reduce the marginal tax rate of 25% down to 15%, in effect establishing a flat-rate tax of 15% for close to 9 out of 10 American workers. ☞ So not eliminate it, but slash it. But again, why just down to 15%? Why not to 5%? True, this is the kind of peculiarly Republican patriotic sacrifice it’s easy to ask people to make – “please, take these tax cuts: we need you to do it so we can create jobs” – but how would it create jobs? How would Newt answer yesterday’s five questions? Reduce the Business Tax Rate. Match Ireland’s rate of 12.5% to keep more jobs in America. ☞ Somehow, American innovation and job creation did just fine for decades when the corporate rates were higher than they are today. And, of course, the effective rate most companies pay is much lower – many corporations pay zero federal tax even in years when they actually have profits to pay them on. Is this really the way to rebuild America’s infrastructure? Would American companies really not want to bid on the work that needs doing because profits are taxed? I know a dredging company just itching for a chance to unclog our nations waterways that would be eager to hire new people to take on the added work and make more profits, even though the profit is subject to tax. Rebuilding America’s infrastructure is not, by the way, something that can easily be outsourced to Ireland. Homeowner’s Assistance. Provide tax credit incentives to responsible home buyers so they can keep their homes. ☞ Outstanding – you’ve heard much the same thing from President Obama. A point of potential common ground. Control Spending So We Can Move to a Balanced Budget. This begins with eliminating Congressional earmarks and wasteful pork-barrel spending. ☞ Outstanding – you’ve heard much the same thing from President Obama. A point of potential common ground. It was shameful how earmarks exploded when the Republicans controlled Congress; shameful how they got rid of “pay-as-you-go” budgeting. Terrific to have Newt’s considerable influence on the right side of this issue. No State Aid Without Protection From Fraud. Require state governments to adopt anti-fraud and anti-theft policies before giving them more money. ☞ If Newt knows effective ways to deter theft and fraud that the states don’t – or that they do know but for some reason don’t care to implement – my only quibble is that he waited until now to sound the alarm. (If his method is simply to eliminate programs that experience any fraud, cutting off the 95% or 99% of honest, deserving recipients, then you can see how reasonable people would disagree about where to draw the line.) More American Energy Now. Explore for more American oil and gas and invest in affordable energy for the future, including clean coal, ethanol, nuclear power and renewable fuels. ☞ Another point of exciting common ground . . . if not necessarily on all the specifics. (See for example, COAL, below). Abolish Taxes on Capital Gains. Match China, Singapore and many other competitors. More investment in America means more jobs in America. ☞ Somehow, there were huge pools of venture capital available when the capital gains rate was higher than it is today. Google, Apple, IBM, Cisco, Intel, FedEx, Starbucks, Amazon – all these and thousands more were started when the rate was higher. Is there even one lone entrepreneur anywhere in America burning to start a great new business – or one potential investor looking to score big – who fails to move forward because, if he succeeded, he’d have to pay 15% or 20% in taxes on his eventual $10 million or $100 million or $1 billion bonanza? Name one such person, Newt. Seriously! Name one! Protect the Rights of American Workers. We must protect a worker’s right to decide by secret ballot whether to join a union, and the worker’s right to freely negotiate. Forced unionism will kill jobs in America at a time when we can’t afford to lose them. ☞ Agreed (at least by me). But for this not to be disingenuous, Newt needs to go along with provisions that would truly allow UNforced unionism. There is a compromise to be made here, and the status quo is not it. Replace Sarbanes-Oxley. This failed law is crippling entrepreneurial startups. Replace it with affordable rules that help create jobs, not destroy them. ☞ No question: unnecessary regulation should be dropped. Just what fits that definition is a little harder to agree on. But I’ll bet there will be a lot of receptivity to reexamining this. Abolish the Death Tax. Americans should work for their families, not for Washington. ☞ Newt is just so way too smart for this pap. (Americans should work for their families, not for Washington? So who should pay, say, for our military – Peruvians? Who should pay for our National Institutes of Health – Austrians? Who should pay for our disaster relief or the interest on our National Debt – Egyptians?) First off, something like 98% or 99% of Americans already are effectively exempt from any estate tax. And way back in the last century, President Clinton let it be known he’d happily adjust the tax – going immediately to a $3.5 million exemption (which is effectively $7 million with a by-past trust) and then indexing it to inflation. Those may not be the exact numbers, but it was that general range (which, with inflation, by now would have been more like $5 million and $10 million). So fewer than one in 100 estates would be affected. But what Newt is saying is that if you work hard and leave a $5 billion estate – or even just a $40 million estate – you shouldn’t have to throw any of your chips back into the game, we should raise the needed revenue some other way, from people less fortunate than you. And maybe he’s right, though a lot of smart wealthy people (Warren Buffett, among them) argue strenuously that he’s not. But job creation? A short-term stimulus to solve today’s crisis? How does he figure? The two things are completely unrelated. The only certain long-term effects would be, first, a terrible blow to charities (as it would become much less advantageous for rich people to give); second, even more concentration of wealth (someday, we could be one of those countries with just six really wealthy, powerful families, owning and controlling everything; oh, boy, I can’t wait); and, third, the aforementioned need to replace this tax revenue by taxing less wealthy, living people. Invest in Energy and Transportation Infrastructure. This includes a new, expanded electric power grid and a 21st century air traffic control system that will reduce delays in air travel and save passengers, employees and airlines billions of dollars per year. ☞ Outstanding! We’re with you all the way. SIGNS OF PROGRESS Thorsten Kril: “The stimulus projects are already starting here in Santa Clara county, to which $25 million has been allocated. (The first project: metering lights for highway on-ramps. It will be a big help for traffic around here.) We will have a lot of construction to make our infrastructure more efficient. And then there is $8 billion for the new high-speed rail system from LA to SFO. Some good news for a change! It’s lifting morale around here before the projects even begin. Our President’s plan makes sense, so does his vision for our country, and equally important is the rapid and relentless execution of this vision, including the new budget. You can see it all coming together.” COAL I have never been given even a lump, so I claim no expertise; but this 30-second spot – directed by the Coen Brothers, who gave us everything from Fargo (Best Pic ’96) to No Country for Old Men (Best Pic ’07) – will make you think twice about “clean coal.” SOLAR “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope that we don’t have to wait ’til oil and coal run out before we tackle that.” – Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931) “Florida Power & Light broke ground today on a 25-megawatt solar power plant, the Sunshine State’s first commercial-scale photovoltaic array.” – Environment and Energy Daily, February 26, 2009 All part of The Great Transition. HONG KONG LIGHTS UP Stephen Willey: “You might like this picture of downtown Hong Kong. If you place your cursor at the top of the photo, you’ll notice it shows 6:10 a.m. As you bring it down slowly over the photo, the pictures slowly darkens and the city lights come on. At 7:40 p.m. it’s dark. Photo technology at its best!” Have a great weekend.
The Third Interstate Highway System And a Few Words About Taxes February 26, 2009March 12, 2017 Be honest: Is the reason you’re not investing in stocks these days (a) the prospect of having to pay 15% capital gains tax? Or (b) the fear of further losses? (Well, or – c – that you don’t have any money?) Is the reason you don’t start a new business that (a) if it made you a lot of money you’d have to pay a lot of taxes? Or that (b) you can’t get anyone to risk the funds you need to finance it? Is the reason you don’t hire new workers that (a) you’re paying so much in taxes? Or that (b) with business down so much, you don’t need them? Is the reason you’re not spending money as freely as you used to that (a) your taxes are too high? Or that (b) you’re afraid of losing your job? (Well, or – c – that you’ve lost half your net worth and suddenly realize you’d better get serious about saving for a decent retirement?) Is the reason you’re unemployed that (a) taxes are too high to make you want a job? Or that (b) you’ve sent out 400 resumes and called every connection you have, but no one’s hiring. If the answer to all – or any – of these questions is (a), then Louisiana Govenor Bobby Jindal and his fellow Republicans may have a point in trashing the President’s strategy and pushing tax cuts to get us out of this mess. Otherwise, can we please stop with that? Indeed, you have to wonder how Governor Jindal would answer these questions. My guess: He’d side-step them entirely and talk instead about how “the Kennedy and Reagan tax cuts worked.” But Kennedy cut the top bracket from 90% to 70% and Reagan, to 28% – so sure they worked (although Reagan’s cut proved a cut too far, because that’s when we really began to pile on the deficits and balloon the National Debt). But when tax rates are already low? And in our current paralysis? I refer you back to those five questions. Would cutting taxes help? Or else he’d ask a question of his own: “Do you really think the government can spend your money better than you can?” And the answer is yes. At least for now, in this circumstance. You, if you got a tax break, would either use it to pay down debt or increase savings – neither of which would create new jobs or break the vicious economic cycle – or you would spend it. What would you spend it on? Would you spend it to keep cops on the street at a time of rising crime – or on Chinese-made clothes? Upgrading our electric grid or another Korean-made TV? Repairing our bridges or remodeling your kitchen? Obviously, some of your spending – “greening” your home to be more energy efficient, for example – would be great. And obviously, some government spending, for all the scrutiny it will get (see, for example, recovery.gov), will be disappointing. But as a general matter, the balance has shifted too far toward consumer spending and away from investment in national infrastructure. Listen to Van Jones, profiled in the New Yorker last month: “You have construction workers who are idle, and they’re going to be idle for twelve months, twenty-four months, thirty-six months,” he said. “They’re not going to be able to build anything. Let them rebuild everything. We have people coming home from wars, coming home from prisons, coming out of high school with no job prospects whatsoever. Let us connect the people who most need work with the work that most needs to be done.” Another proposal involved upgrading the nation’s electrical grid, to allow power generated, for example, by wind turbines in the Midwest to be transmitted to population centers in the Northeast. “You say, We can’t do it,” he observed. “And I’m going to say, Au contraire, mon frère, and I’ll prove my case. We used to have a country, allegedly, but you couldn’t drive across it, because all we had was a bunch of old dirt roads. Somebody, in the name of national security, said, ‘Hold on a sec. What if we get invaded on the West Coast, how can we get troops from the East Coast?’ So we created an interstate-highway system that connected the country to itself.” He lowered his voice to a grumble: “ ‘Oh, we can’t afford to do it! This is insane!’ We couldn’t afford not to do it. Because the minute you did that the economy went through the roof. It was such a good idea that we did it again. In the name of national security, people in the Pentagon said, ‘If we have one big communications tower, and somebody knocks it out, then we’re blind, deaf, and dumb. We’ve got to figure out a way to distribute our information system.’ So they came up with the idea of the information superhighway—for you young people, that’s what we call the Internet. ‘We can’t afford to do this!’ We couldn’t afford not to do it. The minute we connected the country to itself, the economy went through the roof. All we’re saying is, let’s do it again. But this time, instead of connecting the country to itself to move bodies and vehicles or data around, let’s connect the country to itself so we can move clean-energy electrons around. Then you’ve got the strongest economy in the world.” ☞ And incidentally, Governor Jindal, it’s not “spending” if the money stays here and goes for things that will pay off – it’s investing. It can’t possibly be true that it’s better for us to borrow to pay people unemployment benefits when we could be borrowing to employ them doing work – greening America – that cries out to be done. AND ONE LAST, RELATED THING From politicalirony.com: “One of the interesting ironies about the economic stimulus bill that just passed is that by most any measure it is the largest tax cut in US history. It includes $282 billion in tax cuts over two years. In comparison, Bush’s largest tax cuts (in 2004/2005) totaled $231 billion. So why did the Republicans just vote overwhelmingly against the largest tax cut in history? Obama’s tax cuts are aimed mostly at the middle class, families and people who work. While Bush’s tax cuts primarily benefited the rich.”
“Slowly, But Surely, Confidence Will Return . . . . . . and our economy will recover" February 25, 2009March 12, 2017 YES, WE CAN Read or watch the President’s address to Congress. (And here is the Republican response.)
Less Stuff February 24, 2009March 12, 2017 THE GREAT . . . WHAT? REINVENTION? As the problems mount and our President confronts them squarely (did you see his speech yesterday, and the remarkable q&a?), it becomes increasingly clear that we face an opportunity, like a heart-attack patient who just might quit smoking, start eating right, and biking to work; thereby setting himself on a truly healthy path. If we get our act together, embrace the need for shared sacrifice (not just tax cuts) and choose to work together (see Governor Schwarzenegger’s comments yesterday), the Great Depression II many fear could in fact prove to be something quite different. A Great Reinvention, some have called it. ‘The Great Transition,’ my law student pal John Dicks calls it. Many of the broad strokes are not all that complicated, starting with the President’s refrain that we should ‘put Americans to work doing the work America needs done.’ Like building a modern electric grid; greening our economy to save the environment and become energy independent; wringing waste from our homes, offices, highways, and factories. With efficiency comes prosperity (just as with weight loss comes health). We need great teachers and great cops and great nurses. Great engineers, great entrepreneurs, great construction workers. We might be able to get by with fewer car salesmen, real estate agents, and health insurance clerks. Outstanding citizens, all; but we may be overstaffed. Social Security? Easily solved. Health care? Harder – but isn’t a consensus growing that we need to do it? Tort reform (not draconian reform; thoughtful, Prop 200-201-202-like tort reform) – likewise. Not to mention the gasoline tax (or, now, carbon tax) we should have begun scaling in, 10 cents a gallon per year, in 1974 – with every penny earmarked to cut the taxes on work and investment. Had we done that, gas today would cost $5 a gallon, but our cars – the envy of the world, with Detroit still #1 – would get 60 miles to the gallon, so it would be cheaper to drive a mile than it is now, with gas temporarily down at $1.90 – and our trade deficit would be so much smaller, our prosperity and security so much greater . . . but it was politically impossible (or so we were repeatedly told). Now, maybe not. I’m not saying this will all get done. But it’s at times like this we often do make great strides, having dithered to the brink of disaster. Andy Bernstein: ‘From Sunday’s New York Times: ‘The economic malaise that plagued Japan from the 1990s until the early 2000s brought stunted wages and depressed stock prices, turning free-spending consumers into misers and making them dead weight on Japan’s economy. Today, years after the recovery, even well-off Japanese households use old bath water to do laundry, a popular way to save on utility bills. Sales of whiskey, the favorite drink among moneyed Tokyoites in the booming ’80s, have fallen to a fifth of their peak. And the nation is losing interest in cars; sales have fallen by half since 1990.’ Why is it BAD to recycle water, spend less on liquor, and drive the same car for as long as it continues to run. Over-spending and waste are good?’ ☞ I’m not sure I’m ready to wash my clothes in a tepid pool of my own filth (or Kramer’s) – but . . . exactly. For a while at least, we will need to go light on energy and resources (so, smaller cars; smaller homes; smaller, healthier portions; more chicken, less beef; less elaborate packaging), even as in other ways we continue to live ever richer lives (cars that never get lost and park themselves; homes that respond to voice commands; a vaccine for the flu, a cure for the common cold, a computer program that sharpens your mental acuity even as you age). One day, energy will become ‘almost free,’ as phone calls have. And maybe that will allow amazing materials breakthroughs as well. (If energy is all but free, how much can it cost to make aluminum? Or to fashion composites?) But for now – by which I mean maybe 20 years, anyway – we’re going to have to find ways to live well with less energy and less bulky stuff.
Schwarzenegger’s Leadership February 23, 2009March 12, 2017 SELL-BY DATE I found an open half gallon of pomegranate blueberry frozen yogurt in the back of the freezer. I hadn’t seen it in a long time. It was about three-fourths eaten, with ice whiskers well advanced and hanging down from the lid (but those are easily rinsed off). It smelled fine. “You’re not going to eat that!” Charles said. (Charles was 1,200 miles away, but I heard him anyway.) “Well, let’s see,” I said, checking the sell-by date. “Oh, good!” It said it had to be sold by June 2008 and, judging from the length of those ice whiskers, it clearly had been, so I was good to go. It was delicious. The I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter/Light sell-by dated August 26 – and merely refrigerated, not frozen – was primo, as well. (As long-time readers know, I am engaged in a life’s work experimenting on the refrigerator-shelf-life of various foods. Fresh apples, I discovered in one of my signature breakthroughs, only look bad after several months – they get crinkled – when in fact they are fine to eat. If this column ever mysteriously disappears, you will know I have pushed the envelope just a little too far. But not this time.) FIREFOX TIP Now that some of us are trying Firefox (so far so good, at my end), Gary Diehl wants to be sure we don’t miss this: “Yesterday I fired up my browser when my girlfriend was standing there. She was surprised to see that my ‘homepage’ was my five favorite sites, each in its own tab. She has used Firefox for quite a while and didn’t know that your homepage could be multiple tabs. All you have to do is open your favorite sites and then: Click Tools. Click Options. Click the Main tab. Click Use current pages. Click OK.” SCHWARZENEGGER Hats off to Governor Schwarzenegger for his leadership in this interview with George Stephanopoulos yesterday morning. I particularly like the “cancer patient” analogy. From the transcript: . . . I feel very strongly that I think that President Obama right now needs team players. He — this is why we’re here in Washington right now. We have, you know, more than 40 governors coming together here in Washington, and our idea is to get together with the White House, with this administration, and to work together, to have Congress, the White House, and the governors, and everyone work together, because it’s a very difficult time now, where we have to play together, rather than using politics and always attacking everything… . . . You’ve got to go and say, “What is right for the country right now?” I mean, I see that as kind of like, you go to a doctor, the doctor’s office, and say, “Look, can you examine me?” The doctor says, “You have cancer.” What you want to do at that point is you want to see this team of doctors around you, have their act together, be very clear, and say, “This is what we need to do,” rather than see a bunch of doctors fighting in front of you and arguing about the treatment. I mean, that is the worst thing. It creates insecurity in the patient. The same is with the people in America. That creates insecurity when you have those two parties always arguing and attacking each other, rather than coming together and saying to the American people, “Here’s the recipe. This is going to be tough, but this is what we need to do for the next two years. And we both believe in that.” That will bring calmness to the market and stability to the market. . . . ☞ Meanwhile, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal went on Meet the Press to criticize the just-passed $787 trillion stimulus package. Not enough tax cuts, and the wrong kind; too much spending, and the wrong kind. . . . GOV. JINDAL: Well, let’s be clear. The best thing that Washington could do to help Louisiana and all of our states with our budgets is to get this economy moving again. I think we just have a fundamental disagreement here. I don’t think the best way to do that is for the government to tax and borrow more money. I think the best thing they could’ve done, for example, was to cut taxes on things like capital gains, the lower tax brackets, to get the private sector spending again. ☞ Yes! That’s why we’re in trouble! People think of the 15% capital gains tax they’d have to pay if they made a big gain and figure the 85% sliver they’d get to keep if they doubled or tripled their money, just isn’t interesting when they can get 2% from a Treasury bond (taxed at ordinary income tax rates). Predictably, I think Republicans like Schwarzenegger (and Florida’s Charlie Crist, who took a similar approach) have a better vision for our future than those like Governor Jindal (and the all-but-three Republican Senators and Representatives who voted against the stimulus package). AND THANK YOU TO . . . America, for being the kind of country in which a movie like Milk could do so well last night. To think that in 40 years we could have gone from this topic being all but entirely taboo to acceptance speeches like this one (screenwriter Dustin Lance Black) and this one (best actor Sean Penn) – it makes one proud.
A Little Love; A Little Nicotine February 20, 2009March 12, 2017 THE CRASH COURSE Douglas Patton: “I’m sure surprised you touted this guy. He’s sure not on board with Obama – or humanity for the matter. See this [recent post of his, decrying Obama’s plan to help people stay in their homes].” ☞ I didn’t tout his political views, I touted his “crash course.” I think he makes a mistake to join the radio talk show hosts and others who whip up outrage and resentment over the mortgage package. Leaving aside any thought that it can be a good thing to help one’s neighbor, there is the question of whether it’s worth trying to avert a depression. A lot of people think that’s what’s at stake here. ONE THING IT WOULD COST NOTHING TO FIX From from the Miami Herald: Discrimination hurts — more so in hospitals By LEONARD PITTS JR. Your wife is dying. One moment everything was fine. You were in your stateroom on the cruise ship — it was to be an anniversary cruise — unpacking your things. The kids were in the adjoining stateroom playing with your wife. Suddenly, they banged on the door crying that mom was hurt. So now you’re in the hospital — Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital — waiting for word, and it’s not coming. They tell you, Joe (we’ll call you Joe), you can’t be with her. You plead with them, to no avail. No, Joe, sorry, Joe, we can’t tell you anything. One hour turns to two, two to four, four to six. Your wife is dying, and no one she loves is there. Finally, in the eighth hour, you reach her bedside. You are just in time to stand beside the priest as he administers last rites. Your wife is dead. Her name was Lisa Marie Pond. She was 39. It happened, Feb. 18-19, 2007, except that Pond’s spouse was not a man named Joe, but a woman named Janice. And there’s one other detail. Janice Langbehn who, as it happens, is an emergency room social worker from Lacey, Wash., says the first hospital employee she spoke with was an emergency room social worker. She thought, given their professional connection, they might speak a common language. Instead, she says, he told her, ”I need you to know you are in an anti-gay city and state, and you won’t get to know about Lisa’s condition or see her” — then turned and walked away. For the record, this is an increasingly anti-gay NATION, to judge from all the mean-spirited amendments and legislation that have made scapegoats and boogie men of them in recent years, including Florida’s Marriage Protection Amendment, which passed last November. Langbehn is suing the hospital for negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. In a hearing last week, Jackson asked a judge to dismiss the suit. A ruling is pending. Attorney Andrew Boese, who represents Jackson, says the hospital ”absolutely” disputes Langbehn’s characterization of her encounter with the social worker. And as for visiting Pond’s bedside: “Our first duty should be to patients, particularly in an emergency room. The decision to allow someone into a trauma bay should be a medical decision. It shouldn’t be a question for a jury . .. . ” All that notwithstanding, it strains credulity to believe that Joe would have spent eight hours barred from his wife’s bedside as Janice was from hers. Politicians and alleged religious leaders have routinely invited us to hate gay people and call it morality. They have taught us to frame gay lives in cloudy abstracts of tradition and values. But this isn’t abstract, is it? No, it is Janice and Lisa, meeting in college and falling in love, 20 years ago. It is a ”holy union” service in a local church, friends serving as maid of honor and ”best man.” ”We were dirt poor,” says Langbehn, “but we pulled it off.” It is taking in foster kids no one else wants, drug babies, HIV babies, babies with fetal alcohol syndrome. It is adopting four of them and Lisa deciding she wants to be a stay-at-home mom and Janice saying OK, and wondering how the six of them will manage on a social worker’s salary. It is Janice, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and Lisa, bashful Lisa, becoming the family extrovert, cheering the kids at ”toddler tumbling time” shepherding them to swimming lessons and story time at the library. It is Lisa, who loved pecan sandies, the movie Beaches and Mitch Albom’s book Tuesdays With Morrie, stricken by an aneurysm. It is Lisa, for eight hours, dying alone. It would be good if someone remembered her next time we are invited to hate an abstract. And remember Janice, who could not ache more deeply even if her name were Joe. BATTERY POWERED CIGARETTES – II Heather Lackey: “I love my electronic cigarette. Thanks for posting the link to the forum. It’s a valuable resource.” ☞ This left me with a lot of questions, so I asked Heather to elaborate. Here’s her story: I actually quit smoking in 1999, more or less, and I was fine till about 2005, when I suddenly started missing it. I picked it up and quit a few times between 2005 and 2008. If I’d been single, I probably would have just picked it up and kept going, but my husband married someone who didn’t smoke; I didn’t think it was fair to expect him to now live with the stink of a smoker. So, in mid-2008, I resigned myself to just having to live with the longing. I had read an article about electronic cigarettes in the UK earlier in 2008, but I didn’t think they sounded like a very good substitute. What I missed about smoking was the sensation of smoke hitting the back of my throat. I go to lots of concerts and inhale plenty of propylene glycol coming from the fog machines; I couldn’t imagine how that stuff could reasonably mimic the sensation of smoke. Then I saw a YouTube video of a young woman who had just received her electronic cigarette in the mail. She opened up the package, put it together, took her first drag, looked at the cigarette and said, “Wow, it really is like smoking” (around 6:50). I ordered my first – the Pocket Mini (DSE901b) from Puresmoker.com – the next day. It’s a bit larger than the one shown in the YouTube video, but it got a lot of favorable reviews on the e-cigarette forum. I tried explaining this thing to my husband before it arrived, but I think he was still expecting it to be pretty nasty. When it arrived, he checked it out, even took a drag himself, shrugged and went back to what he was doing. He has no problems with me using it, even when we’re watching TV in bed at night. His one worry after it arrived was that it would lead back to smoking actual cigarettes again, but there’s no way I’d go back to “analogs” after this. Real cigarettes don’t come in chocolate, pina colada and coffee flavors, and I like not smelling like an ashtray (or having to deal with the mess of ashes and cigarette butts!). A few weeks ago, I ordered a Pee Wee, also from Puresmoker.com. This is like the one in the video, and I’ve quickly developed a preference for it. It’s lighter and more balanced; I’m more likely to hold it like a regular cigarette than I am my other one, so it feels more “natural” in my hand. I don’t use cartridges with it, though, because when I tried it with the cartridges that came with it I kept getting “juice” in my mouth. I just use an empty mouthpiece and put a drop of electronic cigarette liquid/juice on the atomizer, which lasts for about how long I’d smoke a single cigarette. So the way I see it, putting a drop on the atomizer is the equivalent to flicking a Bic. These things can be fiddly, though (the e-cigarette forum is a big help for troubleshooting problems you might be having with your electronic cigarette), and you have to stay on top of keeping batteries charged and having replacement atomizers on hand, so they’re not for everyone – yet. The technology will no doubt improve, and probably rather quickly as these things catch on. (And they have been catching on. Puresmoker recently said that they were filling 200-300 orders a month back in July, and now they’re filling up to 300 orders a day.) I have smoked them in public, but so far only outside, in the car, or in places where smoking is allowed (such as a club we went to recently to see a concert) – oh, and in public restroom stalls. If anyone’s noticed, they haven’t said anything. I haven’t tried them in non-smoking areas yet (aside from the restrooms). While I enthusiastically talk these things up online and to friends and family, I haven’t wanted to become the center of attention when I’m out having a meal or doing some shopping. I’ve read of others on the forum doing it, though, and it usually goes over well after a bit of explanation. The biggest (and definitely an understandable) concern that business owners are having with it is that other patrons may think smoking is being allowed if they see someone doing something that looks a lot like smoking. It can be easier to just say “Sorry, but you can’t vape in here” than risk losing non-smoking customers. Of course on the flip side, bars affected by smoking bans are starting to see these things as a way to get smokers back into their establishments. I generally buy zero-nicotine liquid, since what I’m after is the throat sensation. I have purchased low-nicotine when the zero-nicotine version of a flavor I’ve wanted has been out of stock. I haven’t had any trouble going back to zero nicotine when it’s available again. In fact, I so far haven’t actually finished a bottle of low nicotine – when the zero comes in, I stick the low in a drawer and forget about it until I run out of zero again. Some believe that the “throat hit” effect depends on nicotine levels (the higher the better), but in my experience it depends more on battery charge, atomizer condition and drag technique. ☞ So what does it all cost? “If I don’t buy any shiny new models and just buy liquid and replacement atomizers and batteries for the two I have, it’s about $70/month, $840/year.” That’s for the equivalent of nearly 20 smokes a day, she says; so about a third what actual cigarettes would cost. Not to mention the savings on life insurance premiums and medical care. LIFE’S TRUE BOTTOM LINE “Who, being loved, is poor?” – Oscar Wilde
Good News! February 19, 2009January 3, 2017 GOOD NEWS But what do I know? So listen to one of your fellow readers . . . and then I’ll tell you why. Janet Tavakoli: ‘Obama’s $275 billion plan to stem mortgage foreclosures – nicely done! I was delighted to hear President Obama’s plan to stem mortgage foreclosures. It was well thought out and right on target, and such a relief! I don’t think people have had time to process this. There will be critics, but I will not be among them. This is the best economic news I’ve heard in the past four years.’ ☞ Janet, whom you’ve seen on CNN, CNBC, the CBS Evening News and so on – and whom Business Week called ‘the Cassandra of credit derivatives’ (but Cassandra sure proved to be right, didn’t she?) – is the author of the recently released Dear Mr. Buffett: What an Investor Learns 1,269 Miles from Wall Street. She’s been railing against emperors wearing no clothes in the credit derivatives markets forever. If only people had listened. (Or maybe, some have: you’ll find something very like what was done yesterday in her book, which has been widely noted by serious people. Likewise, in its predecessor, which you might call the denser, professional version, beguilingly titled, Structured Finance and Collateralized Debt Obligations: New Developments in Cash and Synthetic Securitization.) I remember emailing Janet once about Merrill Lynch, then $75 a share, which she had just blasted in a column she sent me. This was October, 2007. ‘Where’s the stock going?’ I e-asked. ‘I don’t know,’ she shot back – ‘but not in MY portfolio.’ She was right about Merrill (which fell to $11), and has been right about pretty much everything else. None of which is to say our problems are over or your home is going to start appreciating or the recession won’t be deep and scary. But when someone as sharp – and often sharply critical – as Janet Tavakoli finds reason to be encouraged, it’s worth noting. ‘INFURIATINGLY EVENHANDED’ According to a recent post by my friend Joan Garry, one of the President’s law school classmates described him this way. I love it. ‘No drama Obama’ . . . ‘infuriatingly evenhanded.’ It’s almost as though a calm, purposeful adult is driving the bus. (Joan’s post touches on this only tangentially; but if you have a special interest in enacting equal rights legislation, you may want to consider her proposed strategy.) FIREFOX ADD-INS Vince DeHart: ‘Dennis wrote, ‘I like FireFox and use it 99% of the time. But be warned, there are occasionally sites that act a little goofy with it. When this happens, I still need to drag out IE.’ One of the wonderful features of Firefox is extensions, small, independently developed applications that extend the browser’s capabilities. The IE Tab extension allows you to use the Internet Explorer engine within Firefox. When you come upon one of those occasional sites that acts ‘a little goofy,’ you can click an icon at the bottom of the screen (or select from a context menu by right-clicking the tab) and choose to have the page rendered by the IE engine, without leaving Firefox and opening a separate browser.’ Andrew Krieg: ‘You can get this plug-in here. Be sure to search the entire database to customize Firefox to your needs . .. . here. Noah Stern: ‘My two favorites are Adblock Plus and Flashblock. With the click of a mouse I can shut off flashing, or otherwise obnoxious, ads.’
Loonie Aussie Innumerate Insurgencies February 18, 2009March 12, 2017 C$ I have some Canadian dollars (via FXC). I do worry that about the collapse in commodity prices (Canada is resource rich) and about the effect our own economic situation will have on theirs (“when the U.S. catches a cold,” and all that) – and about their unreassuring name (Canadian dollars are known as “loonies”). But Canada has less military expenditure draining its resources than we do, and if this has it right, their debt has been shrinking for the past 11 years. Canada does now plan small deficits to stimulate the economy, but nothing like what we’ve (rightly) embarked upon. A$ This article suggests the Australian dollar (FXA?) could be a better value – and that China’s stimulus package could soon be driving commodity prices up from their recent depths. (“‘The 147% jump in ocean transport prices is evidence that China’s $580 billion stimulus plan will lift raw materials,’ said Ihab Salib, who oversees $3 billion at Federated Investors Inc. in Pittsburgh, US. That would benefit countries exporting them, so Salib is actively trading Norway’s kroner and Australian and Canadian dollars, nicknamed Aussies and loonies.”) There is the small problem, noted recently, that Australia may become uninhabitable. But in the meantime, its national debt is an even lower percentage of GDP than Canada’s. I’m not suggesting that we become foreign currency speculators. Then again, with the U.S. printing money like crazy (again, rightly), I’m not sure I want to bet 100% of my money on the U.S. dollar. JOURNALISTIC INNUMERACY James Musters: “Take a read of the Beat the Press blog each week. It provides some second thinking on the popular economic ‘facts’ of the day.” ☞ For example: February 14, 2009 Post Exaggerates the Size of the Stimulus Bill Okay folks, this is 2-year stimulus, not a 1-year package. (Actually, as the Republicans were fond of pointing out, much of the spending will not take place until 2011, year 3 of the package.) That means that there is a word to describe the Post’s claim that the package is more than 5 percent of GDP: “wrong.” Of course, if the Post was interested in accurate reporting it might also have noticed that the package saved the government $140 billion by reversing a change in the tax code put in place by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that allowed banks to write off the bad debts of banks that they acquire. That would substantially reduce the long-term cost of the stimulus. If might also have been helpful to put some of the items highlighted by Republicans in context so that their importance would be clearer to readers. The $198 million for Filipino World War II veterans comes to 0.024 percent of the stimulus package. The $50 million for the National Endowment of the Arts is 0.006 percent and the $25 million for the Smithsonian is equal to 0.003 percent of the stimulus. –Dean Baker REPUBLICAN INSURGENCY Congressman Pete Sessions (R-TX) has famously called the Taliban a model for GOP insurgency. Bob Shrum comments on Republican hopes for Obama’s failure. (“Facts don’t matter to the GOP anymore. Nor, incredibly, does the opinion of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is urging swift passage of the stimulus. The pro-business party is willing to wreck business itself if it takes a Democratic president down with it.”) FIREFOX Dick Theriault: “Why on earth are you still using Internet Explorer, officially recognized everywhere as the world’s most insecure browser? Even the Government urges its agencies to avoid it because of security issues. Firefox is superior in every way on both platforms, and you should switch as fast as you can.” Peter Snow Cao: “This link shows Firefox to have a 45.5% market share. Firefox is clearly superior. Give it a try.” George Hamlett: “You might want to try Foxmarks. It allows you to sync your bookmarks and (optionally) passwords across browsers and across access points by storing them on the Internet.” Dennis King: “I like FireFox and use it 99% of the time. I found it to be generally faster than IE. But be warned, there are occasionally sites that act a little goofy with it. When this happens, I still need to drag out IE.” YESTERDAY’S LINK Emanuel Rosen (author of Think Like a Shrink): “The Bill Moyers interview [with Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund] was breathtakingly illuminating.”
See or Read the Simon Johnson Interview February 17, 2009March 12, 2017 The market may have been closed yesterday (one of its best days in weeks), but our site was up and running – items targeted specifically to smokers, nonsmokers, and anyone concerned with getting older. Today the market may not fare as well. The just-signed stimulus package is very much in our interest, yet reminds investors what a truly deep hole the world economy is in. So let’s talk about something else. JONATHAN CAPEHEART’S SMART BLOG Two illuminating items excerpted from his latest at the WashingtonPost.com: President Obama: At his first prime time press conference at the White House, the president was asked about how he would go about getting more bipartisanship after not getting a single Republican vote when the House voted on the initial stimulus plan. His response: I mean, I suppose what I could have done is started off with no tax cuts, knowing that I was going to want some, and then let them take credit for all of them. And maybe that’s the lesson I learned. And it’s a lesson he shouldn’t forget. This tactic is used all the time in New York City. The mayor always plays the hard guy by cutting libraries and schools and neighborhood clinics in the budget he presents to the City Council. Council members then rail against him for being so cold, so heartless. They add the money back during budget negotiations. When the final budget comes out, the money has been restored to a level that reflects fiscal conditions at the time. Council members get to crow about programs they’ve saved. The mayor gets his budget. This SO could have worked for the stimulus bill. While the final bill passed the House and Senate without this tactic yesterday, the president must use some form of it going forward. Obama can rely on the courage of Republican Sens. Arlen Specter (Pa.), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Susan Collins (Maine) only so much. The Rev. Joseph Lowery: The opening words of the stirring benediction at President Obama’s inauguration by 87-year-old minister and civil rights leader Joseph Lowery were more powerful than many people probably realized at the time. God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou, who has brought us thus far along the way, thou, who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee. Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand true to thee, oh God, and true to our native land. Those are the closing words of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” written in 1900 by high school principal James Welden Johnson of Jacksonville, Fla., for an Abraham Lincoln birthday celebration. But it is more affectionately known among African Americans as “The Negro National Anthem,” because it speaks to the hope for liberation from oppression. To have the words echo across the National Mall from the steps of an edifice built by slaves on the occasion of the inauguration of America’s first black President is weighted with incalculable historical significance. In the days leading up to the inauguration, I wondered how or whether this song would be a part of the festivities. Lowery’s subtle use of the words, enhanced by a voice gravely with age and wisdom, was as elegant as it was poignant. THAT WINGDING “F” Dennis King: “I use FireFox which according to this has a 21% share. FireFox suffers from your ‘F’ ing problem. I complained a while back about, but figured I should not expect much action given the ‘F’ ing high subscription price. But it looks unprofessional and detracts just a little from whatever the ‘F’ you are trying to say. There is a simple solution: Just don’t use that ‘F’ ing Wingding.” >>> Good point. And after reading about its zoom feature, and some other stuff (session restore), I may start using Firefox, too. (But why, when I set it up, does it import so few of my “Favorites” from Internet Explorer?) Jeff Reynolds: “I think all you have to do to make a right-pointing finger work in any browser is to enter “☞” before your response. This is unicode, as opposed to the wingdings you’ve been using. You can find lots of info by googling wingdings and firefox (and/or unicode).” ☞ Did it work? Gene Somdahl: “Wingdings are not supported as standard HTML.” ☞ How could Microsoft have possibly known. WATCH PBS TONIGHT Here is the link to tonight’s PBS Frontline report, Meltdown. And here is the must-see Bill Moyers interview with Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, that really helps illuminate where we are. Well worth the 21 minutes to view (or five to read).
Cognitive Decline: No Longer Inevitable? February 16, 2009March 12, 2017 DON’T SMOKE NEAR ME People exposed to high levels of secondhand smoke were found to be 44% more prone toward dementia, cognitive impairment, and memory loss. COGNITIVE REPAIRMENT Then again, people who used a certain computerized mental fitness package (that, full disclosure, I own a fraction of a sliver of) were found to get sharper: Study results to be published in the April 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society show that computerized brain exercises can improve memory and lead to faster thinking. Prior studies have shown that older adults perform better on cognitive tests after repeatedly practicing those tests, but this large-scale study is the first to link a commercially available software program to improvement on unaffiliated standard measures of memory and to better performance on everyday tasks. The Improvement in Memory with Plasticity-based Adaptive Cognitive Training (IMPACT) study was funded by the Posit Science Corporation, which owns the rights to the Brain Fitness Program tested in the study. Elizabeth Zelinski, PhD, of the USC Davis School of Gerontology and Glenn Smith, PhD, of the Mayo Clinic were principal investigators on the study, published with colleagues from the University of California, San Francisco, Stanford, and California State University, Los Angeles. Of the 487 healthy adults over the age of 65 who participated in a randomized controlled trial, half used the Brain Fitness Program for 40 hours over the course of eight weeks. The Brain Fitness Program consists of six audio exercises done on a computer, and is intended to “retrain the brain to discriminate fine distinctions in sound, and do it in a way that keeps the user engaged,” Zelinski explained. The other half of participants spent an equal amount of time learning from educational DVDs followed by quizzes. Those who trained on the Brain Fitness Program were twice as fast in processing information with an average improvement in response time of 131 percent. The active control group did not show statistically significant gains, the researchers found. According to the researchers, participants who used the Brain Fitness Program also scored as well as those ten years younger, on average, on memory and attention tests for which they did not train. Many participants also reported significant improvements in everyday cognitive activities such as remembering names or understanding conversations in noisy restaurants. “The changes we saw in the experimental group were remarkable – and significantly larger than the gains in the control group,” Zelinski said. “From a researcher’s point of view, this was very impressive because people got better at the tasks trained, [and] those improvements generalized to standardized measures of memory and people noticed improvements in their lives. What this means is that cognitive decline is no longer an inevitable part of aging. Doing properly designed cognitive activities can enhance our abilities as we age.” “This study has profound personal and public implications for aging baby boomers and their parents,” said Joe Coughlin, PhD, Director of the AgeLab at the Massachusetts Institute Technology. “This means boomers may now have tools for a future that is not their grandfather’s old age. It also impacts most aspects of independent living – from aging-in-place to transportation to all the great and little things that we call life. This is big news for aging and for all of us.” The multi-site IMPACT study is the largest study ever of a commercially available brain-training program. ☞ Don’t you buy the program: you’re already so sharp you should have a warning label. But maybe someone you know? ELECTRONIC CIGARETTES Gary Diehl: “A friend recently showed up with one of these. Claimed he’s had no desire for a real cigarette since. I have no idea how he’ll do long haul, but anything that helps people quit is worth a look.” ☞ Hmmm. Nicotine without the carcinogens . . . and saves some money. But because it looks like a cigarette, it retains most of the opprobrium and hassles? Be sure to peruse this forum to get a sense of all the iffy purveyors and what really to expect. NOME Frances Walker: “My husband used to live in Nome and I have Alaskan friends visiting my house right now. The friend’s mother, Emily Boucher, owned the Nome Nugget from 1943-1963. The Nugget is now published once a week. It is composed on a computer in Nome, downloaded and printed in Anchorage, then flown back to Nome. I think it’s a bit too small for the Newseum to pick up.”