Year: 2009

CRASH COURSE

Sam Linder: “You pointed us to chrismartenson.com a while back and for that I cannot thank you enough. His Crash Course really opened my eyes to a whole new world!”

☞ Thanks, Sam. He’s added chapters since then, so all the more reason to reprise this. It’s a lifetime of financial perspective and economic education in one evening. (Or 30 minutes a day for a week.)

AVERTING DEPRESSION

Paul Krugman said it so much more clearly than I did Friday. Congress really needs to do this – and err on the side of too much spending, not too little.

RECOVERY.GOV

Take four minutes to listen to your President make the case. Especially the part about oversight, accountability, and recovery.gov.

And then take 13 minutes more to hear Virginia Governor and DNC Chair Tim Kaine elaborate and take questions.

But first . . .

LOVE WILL PREVAIL

Have you got three minutes, fifty-four seconds for this really nice song and video? It aims to prevent 18,000 marriages from being torn asunder.

FOR EXAMPLE

Ellen Degeneres’s. She seems so happy describing her wedding – why can’t Ken Starr just accept that she, like any American, has certain inalienable rights; among them, the pursuit of happiness?

DANTE AND THE NANNY TAX

Gus Johnson: “For Mr. Sullivan to conflate the tax problems of a few nominees with the systemic corruption, malfeasance and incompetence of the past eight years is disingenuous. You should remind your readers of what FDR said in one of his speeches where he quoted Dante. To wit: ‘Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales. Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the constant omission of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.’”

Dick Theriault: “Of COURSE there is bias. That’s why we have parties in the first place. And as of yesterday when I received my new registration card, I am also a Democrat – after 60 years as a Republican. I probably would still be, if the Current Crop had not totally perverted the principles of the party.”

And now . . .

THE STIMULUS PACKAGE

This is getting serious, folks. If there are a few pieces of the stimulus package you particularly don’t like (preventing STD’s? reseeding the mall?), fine; let’s get rid of them (I think those are already out anyway). But we need to do this, do it big, and do it now.

We’ve thrown in tons of tax cuts – too many, in my view . . . a quarter-trillion-dollar nod to our friends on the right side of the aisle.

That part, they like.

It’s the spending they don’t like. It is criticized either for taking too long to kick in (but trust me: we’ll still need it when it finally does; and the mere anticipation of it has its own salutary effect). Or for being too much (but trust me: it’s going to prove to be not enough; there will be more).

Whatever its size or composition, the cost of the package – whether tax cuts or spending – will all be put on the National Credit Card.

So the critical thing: what are we borrowing the money for.

With the tax cuts, to the extent they are spent at all (most of it will be saved or used to pay down debt), they will largely be spent on things that don’t make us stronger over the long term: A TV made in Korea? A ski trip? More frequent restaurant meals or a new car? More clothes made in China? Apart from these boots (made in Brazil, reduced from $500 to $151*), do you really need more clothes?

Consumer spending will give a little temporary bump to the economy and maybe keep some sales clerks and busboys employed a little longer, but what will we have left to show for it? We will have simply borrowed a giant sum of money to spend-beyond-our-means yet a little longer and postpone even greater pain.

It’s not spending we should be borrowing for, it’s investing. If the money goes to weatherize homes and modernize our electric grid and build windmills and digitize health records and fund basic science and rebuild our aging schools and bridges (and dredge our waterways), we will have a more efficient, competitive, prosperous economy to show for it.

And the latter frame is one people can come to understand and have confidence in. Confidence trumps fear and leads to a virtuous cycle.

(As they can also understand and perhaps take some comfort in the portions of the bill designed to keep cops on the street, firefighters employed, and unemployment benefits extended.)

The former tax-cut/consumer-spending frame: “Don’t worry, we’re all going to go out to the mall and spend an extra $2,000 that Uncle Sam borrows to give us. We don’t have to change our behavior at all! We just have to accept more tax cuts and start spending again – that will get America back on track.”

The latter investing/infrastructure frame: “Don’t worry, we’re going to go through some tough times, yes, but with the clear goals of becoming energy independent – saving multiple trillions each decade we’d otherwise send overseas for oil and gas – and becoming leaders in and exporters of green technology . . . and rationalizing our healthcare delivery system to make it more efficient . . . and modernizing our infrastructure . . . and improving the competitiveness of our schools and their graduates . . . and maintaining our lead in higher education and basic research . . . and hang in there, because through that hard, smart effort America will get back on track.”

You can tell which frame sings more true to me. And no, not all the stuff of that second frame is in the current bill; but as I say, this is not going to be over any time soon. There will be more to come.

* And take another 20% off with your “FF20” promo code at checkout.

RETIRED MARINE GENERAL QUESTIONS OBAMA

He and others dispute the need to study it any further: the nation will be stronger if its gay and lesbian citizens are allowed to serve openly. (“Dr. Laura Miller, a well-respected military sociologist who co-authored a study with the late Charles Moskos, author of the gay ban, said, ‘you don’t need a commission to tell you that you need to retain every able, trained, experienced and productive member at a time when both the stakes and the manpower needs are high.’”) Five years ago, 91% of people aged 18-29 supported allowing gays to serve openly. The number is likely even higher today.

CONSERVATIVE READER QUESTIONS *ME!*

Matt Sullivan: “I always enjoy, and usually strongly disagree with, your political commentary. I am writing for the first time to ask you a few simple questions: If four of President Bush’s top appointees had failed to pay their taxes properly, would that have been the subject of one of your columns? If following the last election there had been a republican governor of Arizona attempting to sell the very Senate seat that President McCain had vacated, would you have found that to be worthy of a column or two about the obviously corrupt Republican party? If Charles Rangel happened to be a Republican, would his residence shenanigans catch your attention? I suspect that if you honestly considered those questions, your answer would be yes. In some ways, reading your columns all of these years makes me feel as though I know you. If I did know you, I would say to you, ‘Andy, you lose your credibility with reasonable people when you ignore corruption on your side of the aisle.’”

☞ Fair questions.

On Blagojevich, it goes without saying (except you’re saying I should say it anyway, so here goes) . . . the guy should be impeached and kicked out and disowned by President Obama and by Democrats everywhere – and he has been. All those things have happened. With alacrity. So I don’t know what I would really be able to add. I assume right-wing radio is skewering him, as it should; but so are John Stewart and Stephen Colbert and Keith Olbermann and everyone else. I don’t see in Blagojevich’s behavior, even added to the behavior of the Louisiana Congressman who a few years ago put $90,000 in his freezer, a “culture of corruption” within our Party.

(Now that we have the White House and Congress, it’s doubtless something to guard against – power corrupts. But I like to think we will do a good job avoiding it, as we did the last time we had the White House. The ethics guidelines President Obama issued his first full day at work set a new standard in that regard. They are significant.)

If Blagojevich had corrupted the Justice Department but we had failed to make it right . . . or if he had held secret energy meetings and we had refused – even under subpoena – to disclose the names of the participants . . . or if he had blown the cover of a CIA agent and we had tried to keep him in office . . . well, in any of those scenarios I hope I would have gotten up on my high horse and railed against the injustice.

But where’s the injustice here? He’s been impeached and faces trial, exactly as should have happened.

As to the four (I thought it was three?) appointees with tax issues, I wouldn’t use the word corruption as you have. I’m corrupt if I accept bribes and let you water down the cement in the footbridge. I’m corrupt if I accept bribes to write you a tax loophole. But am I corrupt if I paid all my income taxes but didn’t realize, when I was employed by the International Monetary Fund, that – for tax purposes – I was self-employed? The Senate seemed to think that, in context, this was excusable.

Am I corrupt – or just negligent – if I failed to pay employment taxes on household help? It’s important to acknowledge that “negligent” isn’t good either. But it’s also important to note that Ms. Killefer withdrew her candidacy.

Similarly, am I corrupt – or just negligent – if I paid all the taxes due on my money income, but failed to realize it would cost me a fortune in taxes to accept the use of a car and driver? Your call; but it’s important to note that Senator Daschle has withdrawn his candidacy . . . and that the President has gone on national TV promptly to say that he – President Obama – screwed up by supporting that candidacy once the tax issue was known.

I don’t see this as a pattern of corruption. I see it as a lot of really good (but human) people trying to do their best for their country. Including Charlie Rangel, who would appear at the very least to owe New York a really big apology, and maybe more.

All that said, there is inevitably a bias in this column. For those just joining us or who’ve never clicked the Bio tab, I am a Democrat.

SWITCH GRASS

Dan Nachbar: “I agree that there is no ‘baby’ with corn-based ethanol. However cellulosic ethanol is a very worthy approach. With cellulosic, fuel can be made from darn near any plant matter – in particular all the leaves and stalks that go to waste today after we’ve harvested the edible bits from crops. So, with ethanol, cellulosic is the baby and corn-based is the bath water. The distinction is key and yet the press almost never manages to grasp it.”

☞ Right you are.

NOT SO FAST, SPARKY

Dan Nachbar: “I know you get excited but you really must control your enthusiasm and not oversell every alternative energy technology you encounter. This week’s example, thin-film photovoltaics, is indeed a fascinating and promising technology for certain applications. But given the underlying physics, even using very optimistic assumptions, one may be able to generate 10% of the juice needed for the average office building merely by coating its surface with film. That’s still a good thing to do; but uncritically repeating their salespeople’s wild claims of self-sufficiency inevitably leads to disappointment and a tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater (as happened recently with the media’s love then loathing of ethanol.) Just a bit of restraint and objectivity will avoid undermining the very technologies you are trying to foster.”

☞ In my own limited defense, I never thought ethanol was a good idea and still don’t see any “baby” in it, at least from Iowa corn. But whichever specific solar technologies wind up on top, it seems to me cheap clean energy likely will be a reality before too long. A decade or two or three, not a century. Look how long it took us to get here from the Apple II. No time at all! And the dazzlement is only speeding up.

Soon we may even be able to put a man on the moon.

CLINTON AT DAVOS – TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE?

Actually, it’s even more than two. President Obama is a rock star. Michelle Obama is a rock star. Their daughters are rock stars. The Secretary of State is a rock star. Her husband is a rock star. Click here for a report on his visit to Davos.

(If the VP is not fully a rock star, it’s only because the bar is set so high. Watch Senator Biden’s “farewell” Senate address for a sense of this remarkable, and deeply decent, man.)

CHEAP ENERGY

As suggested here from time to time, if we can just get through the next decade or two, things could be sweet. Imagine, for example, a cheap film on skyscraper windows that generated enough electricity to power the whole building. As described here, an early version is already being sold. (I had to click the link two or three times to get it to display – but it did.)

By Barney Gimbel
January 27, 2009: 1:20 PM ET

(Fortune Magazine) — Inside a converted textile mill in Lowell, Mass., Rick Hess unfurls a roll of brown plastic film attached to a small electric meter. “Three volts,” he says, smiling. “And that’s just from the light in this room. Imagine what this reads when we’re outside.”

Hess, who runs solar upstart Konarka, is showing off Power Plastic, a new lightweight, flexible, and cheap material that converts indoor and outdoor light into electricity. Think of it as a solar panel that rolls up like camera film. “Soon you may not even need batteries,” Hess says, holding a prototype of a portable device that will recharge your cellphone in an hour. “We can put this stuff anywhere.” . . .

☞ So take heart. With a modicum of good sense (not a given, but surely a possibility), we’ll get through all this, and our kids will live better than we have. Especially if the quality of life is not measured primarily in terms of the size of your house and your car.

LOSING AUSTRALIA?

But the challenges are certainly daunting. For example, we may need a lot of that film (or some other breakthrough) to power desalinization plants to rescue a parched Australia. It appears she is in trouble.

ATTEND OR HOST A RECOVERY PLAN HOUSE PARTY THIS WEEKEND?

We’re all in this together. So if you want to be part of the discussion, click here. But first, for a quick overview of “the plan,” click here.

SARAH PALIN AND RUSH LIMBAUGH

Intensely popular in certain some quarters, they are the de facto leaders of the Republican Party. According to this in Salon, “A Rasmussen poll out today found that fully 55 percent of Republicans polled think their party should be “more like” Palin.”

I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS!

As reported in the New York Times, Honest Tea is now all but the official drink of the White House:

Mr. Obama has also maintained the longstanding presidential tradition of weekly lunches with his vice president. For Mr. Obama, lunch generally means a cheeseburger, chicken or fish in his small dining room off the Oval Office. There is also a new addition to White House cuisine: the refrigerators are stocked with the president’s favorite organic brew: Honest Tea, in Mr. Obama’s preferred flavors of Black Forest Berry and Green Dragon.

☞ Now, if we could only get the Republicans on board with this.

BIPARTISANSHIP

It’s way too early to give up on bipartisanship, so there’s a fine line to be walked when it comes to criticizing Republicans for rejecting it. But in his latest nationally syndicated column, Bill Press expresses the frustration the Administration must feel. And don’t miss Frank Rich.

RECESSION HUMOR

“The economy’s getting worse. Home Depot announced that they’re laying off 7,000 employees… which is interesting because I’ve been to Home Depot, and I didn’t even know they had employees.” – Jimmy Kimmel

US AIR SURVIVORS: SO GRATEFUL TO BE ALIVE, THEY MAY SUE

What is going ON here, people? I don’t even know where to start. (“You’re going to crash me into the water, and you’re going to tell me all I get is [$5,000 and] and an upgrade?” asked Antonio Sales, 20, who was traveling with the University of South Carolina’s track team. “That’s more of an ‘OK, you’re not dead, I’ll give you something to hold on to.’ It’s not enough at all.” Teammate Gabrielle Glenn, 20, was more blunt: “That’s it. They should sue.”)

CHRISTIAN GROUP AFFIRMS: ONLY ONE PATH TO HEAVEN

Sorry, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus – as made clear here, God has no room for you in Heaven. He may have worked some miracles for Moses; but that was then, this is now. It’s not enough that you lead a life of constructive citizenship, kindness, integrity, and love. If you want in, there’s only one way.

LOOKING FOR A WAY TO HELP?

The President puts it in context in 30 seconds. And then you can enter your zip code here. Or create your own event and recruit your own volunteers here.

I had fully planned to make good on last week’s Mark Twain pledge of last week (“Next week: Mark Twain on Economics”), but you’ve been sending me such great stuff, Twain will just have to wait.

Alan Greenspan testifying five days into the Bush Administration:*

“… The most recent projections indicate that, if current policies remain in place, the total unified surplus will reach $800 billion in fiscal year 2011…”

☞ Good thing the Republicans had the wisdom to switch course.

David Letterman with financial advice a couple of days ago:**

“I want to warn people from Nigeria who might be watching our show, if you get any emails from Washington asking for money, it’s a scam. Don’t fall for it.”

HOW DO YOU NOT SMILE?

We are in the midst of tough times that will get worse before they get better. And yet there is such hope and sense of possibility here and abroad. So much youthful enthusiasm.

Yesterday we had the Irish singing to O’bama.

Today, Obama singing (after a fashion) and dancing himself.

And more:

THERE GOES MY WEEKEND

This guy makes Barack, Paper, Scissors impossible not to enjoy.***

I think even Mark Twain would have twinkled at some of this.

*Thanks, George Hamlett!
**Thanks, Joey!
***Thanks, James Musters!

YESTERDAY’S VOTE

So the President’s economic stimulus package passed the House without one – not one – Republican vote.

Sound familiar?

The same thing happened to President Clinton’s first budget. It passed without a single Republican vote. And yet it steered the economy into better balance . . . prosperity followed . . . and by the time he left office he handed the Republicans what they themselves called “surpluses as far as the eye could see.”

I’m afraid it won’t be so easy this time. But one thing not to worry about is that Republican lawmakers unanimously think it’s a bad plan. That’s what they thought sixteen years ago.

And aren’t they the ones who thought the disastrous Bush economic strategy was worth voting for?

GIANT PHOTOS

Richard Factor: You don’t need a special camera to take giant gigapixel photos. Microsoft has a free site – photosynth.net – to which you can upload as many photos as you want, so long as they all have some overlap. The site stitches them together for you. I did one of Mount Rushmore.”

☞ Looking at it close up, there’s clearly room for FDR to the right of Abe Lincoln – and maybe one day another great man or woman.

O’BAMA

If you haven’t heard this song, it is all but guaranteed to get your toes tapping. We have an Irish President!

THE FIRST INTERVIEW

But he is also Kansan, and Kenyan, and members of his family are Muslim. Here is one review of President Obama’s first formal TV interview as President. (“What Obama did has provided a new punctuation point in American foreign policy. This is a new game and a very impressive new leader.”)

DIVERSIFICATION – THE FATAL FLAW

Overheard at a recent cocktail party: “Diversified? I was wonderfully diversified – except that all my investments were on Earth.”

ZZZZZzzzzzzz……

Drew Bubser: “[The zoomable photo you linked to yesterday] is not only a great picture, but a very interesting story / process / robot that made it possible.”

☞ This 90-second video gives a quick overview of how it works.

Roger Berkley: “If you zoom in, you can see Justice Clarence Thomas [just behind and to the right of the President giving his Inaugural Address], fast asleep.”

YOUNG LOVE

Call me a sap, but if you have 11 minutes . . .

(Thanks, Marc!)