If Your TiVo Malfunctioned November 30, 2010March 19, 2017 BLESSED ARE THE RICH Rachel Maddow quotes the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office: helping the jobless by extending their unemployment benefits is at the top of the list of effective ways to stimulate the economy; helping the best off by extending their tax cuts is at the bottom of the list. This clip has it all. In case you have no TV or your TiVo misfired last night, check it out. The Republicans are absolutely determined to borrow the money from the Chinese or whoever will lend it to us to extend the tax cuts on income above $250,000. They claim it’s simply to help “small business” – “the job creators” – but as has been noted over and over, that’s just a crock. (If you disagree, please click and scroll down to items #1-#5 under Mitch McConnell.) PAY OFF YOUR MORTGAGE? Christian Svendsgaard: “Can you discuss the pluses and minuses of paying down your mortgage now? Even after the tax break, I get a higher return by paying off my mortgage than I can from a lot of other possible investments.” ☞ It’s never a terrible idea to pay down debt (especially adjustable rate debt). But if you have a long-term fixed-rate mortgage on a home that you think you’ll be in for a long time, then I’d think twice. Say you’re paying a rate now that works out to 3.25% after tax. Paying off the mortgage gives you a risk-free, tax-free 3.25% “return” on your money. Not bad these days. Plus, you have the psychic satisfaction and sleep aid of knowing you own your home free and clear. Those are the pros. The con is that you are letting the lender off what might be a 28-year hook (if it’s a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage you took out two years ago). That’s a nice hook from your point of view. You can pay off the mortgage any time you want, but the lender has to keep lending to you at this ridiculously low rate even if, years from now, inflation roars back and people would kill for a low-rate mortgage, you lucky dog, you. If it’s an adjustable rate mortgage, there’s no hook: the lender just ratchets up your rate. So the only downside in paying it off if you don’t have something better to do with the money is the expense and hassle of remortgaging your home if you ever do find a compelling need for those funds. (Then again, confronting that hassle might make you think through whether the need is really compelling – do you really want to go into debt again? – and possibly avoid something imprudent.) Likewise, if you’re likely to sell the home in a few years (when you retire, say), the lender won’t be on any hook, either. Mortgages are not portable – you can’t take your terrific low-rate loan and use it to finance your next home. And they’re not assignable – you can’t advertise that your home comes with three recently remodeled bathrooms, two working fireplaces, “and a super-low rate long-term mortgage.” There’s no right answer, so feel good whatever you decide. THAT WOULD-BE CHRISTMAS-TREE BOMBER A reader in Oregon, Professor Emeritus Paul F. deLespinasse, blogs . . . When I was a student at Willamette University in the 1950s, a political science professor told us that the only way Republicans could win Multnomah Country would be to shut down the Portland telephone system on election day. He thought that Republicans would probably vote anyhow, but Democrats needed to phone people who hadn’t voted and offer to drive them to the polling places. Since I was a Republican back then I figured out two different ways to shut down the telephone system. I am afraid that one of them, however, was not very practical. It involved hijacking an atomic submarine from the U.S. Navy, running it up the Columbia to Portland, plugging the output from its reactor into the local phone network, and then revving the reactor up to full power and burning out all the telephone circuits. The other approach, which I won’t disclose for fear someone might actually try it, would have been easy to do. But once I considered the side effects of shutting down the Portland phone network, the idea lost its charm for me, as I think it would for most people. It would have been nice to have the Republicans take Multnomah County. But what about people who couldn’t call the fire department about a house fire? Or those who couldn’t call an ambulance for a heart attack? Defensible ethical generalizations are hard to come by, but I think there are two such generalizations that apply both to my own case and to Mohamed Osman Mohamud: First, in a fully civilized world children must be brought up to think concretely about all of the consequences their actions will produce and to evaluate their actions in terms of the Golden Rule (which has analogies in many religions). Second, no religion can be all good that tolerates any of its members bringing up children to hate people of other races, nationalities, or religions. Islam is not alone in suffering from this imperfection; it has Christian brethren. Members of an Islamic peace group were handing out leaflets protesting terrorism to the crowd awaiting the Christmas tree lighting in Portland Friday. Ironically, if the bomb had worked, a number of Muslims would have been among the dead and injured, just as a number of Muslim workers were killed when the World Trade Center towers fell. Clearly, the world is not yet fully civilized. We should avoid reacting to situations like that in Portland in ways that make it even less civilized. Paul F. deLespinasse is professor emeritus of political science at Adrian College in Michigan.
A Better Direction November 29, 2010March 19, 2017 THE ONLY INVESTMENT GUIDE YOU’LL EVER NEED (UNTIL THE NEW EDITION) Bob Cullum: “I purchased the previous editions of your investment guide and would like to have an excuse to buy the new one too. Please explain why your fans should purchase yet another edition.” ☞ Hey, thanks! But you were supposed to borrow it from the library and save $10, which by now would have grown large. The new edition makes an effort to put things in perspective – “the big picture” – adds quite a few money saving tips, and offers two ideas that might boost your stock market returns by 2% a year without adding risk. If one of these ideas were to boost the return on your $10 million portfolio from 5% to 7%, that’s an extra $80 million over 40 years. (Your $10 million would grow to just $70 million at 5%, but to $150 million at 7%.) Granted, when you consider taxes, inflation, and the facts that you may not have $10 million, nor 40 years to wait – and that there’s obviously no guarantee my suggestions will prove to be good ones – you have to dial back the expected $80 million return on your $10 purchase to, as I say, perhaps just perusing a copy at the library. Either way, I hope you enjoy it. INDEXING Jim Busek: “This is excellent advice we have seen – and you have given – many times before, but this time it comes from the ultimate nothing-personal-to-gain guy. (He’s dying.)” ☞ He’s right: most stock market investors will be best off with “passive” management, keeping their fees, expenses, and tax bills to the bare minimum. Still, if you want the extra $80 million referenced above, read both books. WE’RE NUMBER ONE! In obesity and incarceration, but #49 in life expectancy (down from #24 a decade ago). According to Glenn Greenwald, here, UNICEF ranks us 19th out of 20 wealthy nations in “child well-being.” And the World Economic Forum ranked our bank soundness 108th out of 133, just behind Tanzania and just ahead of Venezuela. Not to mention where our kids rank in math (#27) and science (#22). I cite the Greenwald piece because, like you, I love my country and want to see it head in a better direction. With its “race to the top” education initiative and its preventive-care-emphasizing, pilot-program-laden health care reform and its emphasis on infrastructure and its innovation-seeding energy department and its financial reform and reinvigorated regulatory agencies – among other things – that better direction is just what we’re getting from the Obama Administration, albeit dragged down at every turn by an opposition party dedicated to the Administration’s failure. JOE BIDEN: IT GETS BETTER The Administration’s embrace of the “It Gets Better” campaign continues, encouraging bullied kids to hang in there, most recently with these videos from the Vice President and the Secretary of Agriculture. (The ones from the President and Secretary of State you may already have seen.)
Dangerous Inequality Don't Cry for Argentina November 26, 2010March 19, 2017 Hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Ours ranged from ages 4 to 91, and from wealthy-ish to scraping by, with thanks and good cheer enthusiastically on display up and down the line. And speaking of the gap between the wealthy and those scraping by (or in some cases not scraping by) . . . New York Times columnist Nick Kristof writes that “inequality in the United States has soared to levels comparable to those in Argentina six decades ago.” To wit: A Hedge Fund Republic? By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Published: November 17, 2010 Earlier this month, I offended a number of readers with a column suggesting that if you want to see rapacious income inequality, you no longer need to visit a banana republic. You can just look around. My point was that the wealthiest plutocrats now actually control a greater share of the pie in the United States than in historically unstable countries like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana. But readers protested that this was glib and unfair, and after reviewing the evidence I regretfully confess that they have a point. That’s right: I may have wronged the banana republics. You see, some Latin Americans were indignant at what they saw as an invidious and hurtful comparison. The truth is that Latin America has matured and become more equal in recent decades, even as the distribution in the United States has become steadily more unequal. The best data series I could find is for Argentina. In the 1940s, the top 1 percent there controlled more than 20 percent of incomes. That was roughly double the share at that time in the United States. Since then, we’ve reversed places. The share controlled by the top 1 percent in Argentina has fallen to a bit more than 15 percent. Meanwhile, inequality in the United States has soared to levels comparable to those in Argentina six decades ago — with 1 percent controlling 24 percent of American income in 2007. At a time of such stunning inequality, should Congress put priority on spending $700 billion on extending the Bush tax cuts to those with incomes above $250,000 a year? Or should it extend unemployment benefits for Americans who otherwise will lose them beginning next month? ☞ If you missed it in last week’s Times, it’s worth reading the whole thing.
They Reject, You Decide Meanwhile: We Have Hot Water! November 24, 2010March 19, 2017 MARK TWAIN Volume 1 of the Autobiography of Mark Twain just hit our door, all $35, 760 hardcover pages of it – in small type. But guess what? It’s all free, and legible, here. BERYLLIUM Jackie Greenberg: ‘[With respect to yesterday’s item on Tom Lehrer], I thought you might like this new version, where Harry Potter (well, actually Daniel Radcliffe) does Lehrer’s periodic table on British telly. I guess he aced Potions class. My nomination for Lehrer song of the week might have been ‘National Brotherhood Week’ (National Smile at One Anotherhood Week).’ ☞ Who can fail to love ‘National Brotherhood Week’? And here you actually get to see him perform it. Meanwhile, this version of The Elements Song saves you yesterday’s 89 cents (what was I thinking?!) and provides a video that lists the names of all the elements as he sings them. This one, in Japanese, shows the elements themselves (or their namesakes). Peter Baum: ‘My Thanksgiving treat for my mother: my 8-year-old niece and nephew are going to sing Lehrer’s Be Prepared for her. They don’t know what almost any of it means; they just know that all the adults howl in laughter when they do. ‘Don’t solicit for your sister, that’s not nice / Unless you get a good percentage of her price’ will work wonderfully since they’re twins. Of course, Mom knows how funny this joke is. She did the same for us when we were kids.’ KF Gabe Kaplan: ‘Time to sell Korea Fund? This has a been a great investment.’ ☞ It’s overwhelmingly not in the interest of either Korea to go to war, so they probably won’t. The time to sell is generally when people AREN’T afraid. But it could certainly dip a lot further first (and there’s always the chance of some crazy miscalculation). Meanwhile, Heckman Global still sees Korea as attractively valued relative to other markets. CHOICE Eduardo Fernandez: ‘Excellent video [asking people on the street in Colorado Springs when they chose to be straight]. It proves to me that what I have always thought about people. A PERSON, a single solitary person, is a reasonably intelligent entity that can use logic and will accept it when shown they are wrong. PEOPLE, on the other hand, are panicky groups that can be herded whatever way you want just by throwing some hatred, conspiratorial and paranoid thinking at them and letting them react as a whole while you cheer them on further down the path you pointed them at. What a problem we have in this country. There are just too many that will not stop and think for themselves.’ ☞ Why listen to scientists or serious journalists when you can listen to Rush Limbaugh and Fox News? Karl Rove and Frank Luntz pull the strings. Not to say this all goes one way and that we on the left are all independent thinkers. But I believe some things are objectively knowable (aka, ‘facts’) and that our side generally sticks closer to them. Iraq did not attack us on 9/11 even though a majority of Bush re-elect voters believed it did; President Obama is not foreign born, even though 41% of Republicans doubt this; he is not Muslim (though what if he were?), even though 70% of Republicans are not so sure about that; the ‘vast majority’ of the Bush tax cuts did not go to ‘people at the bottom of the economic ladder’ even though Bush insisted they would; borrowing $700 billion to fund an extension of the Bush tax cuts on income above $250,000 is not a smart way to stimulate job creation or reduce our deficit. And the 68% of Republicans (and 40% of Democrats) who reject the Theory of Evolution are less likely to be right than the overwhelming majority of scientists who accept it. ‘In the U.S., only 14 percent of adults thought that evolution was ‘definitely true,’ while about a third firmly rejected the idea,’ according to one study. ‘In European countries, including Denmark, Sweden, and France, more than 80 percent of adults surveyed said they accepted the concept of evolution.’ And such is the state of our educational system, and our regard for science and logic, that the proportion not accepting evolution has been rising. Three of the Republican candidates for president in 2008 raised their hands at a debate to affirm that they didn’t accept evolution. WHY DID FOX NEWS REJECT THIS AD? They reject, you decide. Happy Thanksgiving! We have hot water! And TV and cell phones and power-steering and aspirin and no fear of hunger! At least most of us do. A far cry from what the Pilgrims had to give thanks for in 1621. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
“Arthur – It’s Your Mother” November 23, 2010March 19, 2017 STOPPING THE S.T.A.R.T. TREATY Nate Black: “Per your post last Friday, the Republicans have decided that discrediting our President is more important than keeping nuclear material from terrorists. I don’t see how you can get any lower than that. Count me as one of the many former Republicans astonished at what that party has become.” LOOKING FOR A TAX LOSS? Guru says: “A DYAX competitor is going to have data out by the end of the year that will probably look quite good. Probably best to take the loss on DYAX and move on.” The eggs in speculative baskets can’t all be golden. I sold the shares I have in my taxable account, for the loss; still mulling what to do with the shares in my retirement account. ARTHUR – IT’S YOUR MOTHER It has come to my attention that some of you have actually never heard the iconic 1962 comedy album, An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May. It’s available for download for $3.61, a sum so nearly trivial I think you should just trust me on this. And if you’re driving to visit your parents for Thanksgiving, listen to it on the way and then play it for them when you get there. You may be too young to remember payphones or the Vanguard rocket, but they won’t be. (And while we’re at it, you do know Tom Lehrer’s rendition of the Periodic Table of Elements, an 89-cent add-on to the otherwise complete, and completely brilliant, Tom Lehrer: That Was the Year That Was? “It is a sobering thought,” the young math professor / cabaret performer said at the time, “that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for four years.” “Ave Maria / Gee it’s good to seeya / Doin’ the Vatican / Doin’ the Vatican / Doin’ the Vatican ra-a-ag!”) TWO OTHER HOLIDAY GIFTS For the women on your list there is the [shameless family self-promotion ON] Charles Nolan shop at 30 Gansevoort Street in New York, or here, on-line. For anyone over 15 on your list [self-promotion still ON], there’s the 2011 edition of The Only Investment Guide [They’ll] Ever Need, pre-orderable here and timed by the publisher to arrive just after the holidays. (Go figure.) In the meantime, you could put $10 under the tree, as a placeholder. WHEN DID YOU CHOOSE? Carl Granados: “Here is a great quick YouTube. A group goes around Colorado Springs asking people if they think being gay is a choice. If they say it is then they are asked when they made the choice to be straight.” ☞ It’s all low-key and friendly, and you can see minds opening right on the spot.
We’re Number Eleven November 22, 2010March 19, 2017 BACH DUO Tap dancing on FAO Schwartz’s giant piano – here. (Thanks, Alan.) “IT GETS WORSE” Padavic: “Have you seen ‘The Daily Show’ clip on John McCain and DADT? Amazing. Brilliant. It was like looking into the future.” ☞ Will anyone on his staff be brave enough to show it to him ? SINGLE-PAYER HEALTH CARE Theo Kent: “In Friday’s post, J. Kloppenberg writes: ‘Obama explained why, because of our national traditions, the United States would never have a single-payer health-care system and would have to find a distinctively American hybrid relying on existing insurance plans.’ I hope and pray he is wrong. The time for H. R. 676, the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, is now, as further evidenced by this study by the Commonwealth Fund comparing the health care systems in 11 countries, summarized here.” ☞ The study’s key findings: One-third (33%) of U.S. adults went without recommended care, did not see a doctor when sick, or failed to fill prescriptions because of costs, compared with as few as 5 percent of adults in the United Kingdom and 6 percent in the Netherlands. One-fifth (20%) of U.S. adults had major problems paying medical bills, compared with 9 percent or less in all other countries. Thirty-one percent of U.S. adults reported spending a lot of time dealing with insurance paperwork, disputes, having a claim denied by their insurer, or receiving less payment than expected. Only 13 percent of adults in Switzerland, 20 percent in the Netherlands, and 23 percent in Germany—all countries with competitive insurance markets that allow consumers a choice of health plan—reported these concerns. The study found persistent and wide disparities by income within the U.S.—even for those with insurance coverage. Nearly half (46%) of working-age U.S. adults with below-average incomes who were insured all year went without needed care, double the rate reported by above-average-income U.S. adults with insurance. The U.S. lags behind many countries in access to primary care when sick. Only 57 percent of adults in the U.S. saw their doctor the same or next day when they were sick, compared with 70 percent of U.K. adults, 72 percent of Dutch adults, 78 percent of New Zealand adults, and 93 percent of Swiss adults. U.S. , German, and Swiss adults reported the most rapid access to specialists. Eighty percent of U.S. adults, 83 percent of German adults, and 82 percent of Swiss adults waited less than four weeks for a specialist appointment. U.K. (72%) and Dutch (70%) adults also reported prompt specialist access. ☞ A review of the study sure makes the British system sound better than ours. But though we’re not likely to adopt it, or anything like it, in the foreseeable future, what we are likely to do is tweak our just-passed health care bill in the years to come to reinforce the parts that work – especially the pilot programs – and course-correct elsewhere. In doing so, it’s helpful to keep in mind how much more bang the single-payer systems seem to get for the buck / pound / euro / loonie / kiwi / aussie. (Theo also recommends this short book: Single Payer Solution: America’s Health Care Cure. And this website. “We’re Number Eleven,” it titles its own blog entry on the Commonwealth study.)
Choose Your Goal: Presidential Failure or National Success November 19, 2010March 19, 2017 STOPPING START Senator John Kyl of Arizona thinks it’s imperative to renew the nuclear START treaty so that we can keep inspecting Russian missile sites and help guard against loose nukes. Or at least he did feel that way. Now he’s joined with others in his party to block ratification. The number-one Republican objective – even when it means blocking their own policies and proposals – even when it means jettisoning a Ronald Reagan legacy – is Presidential failure. This Rachel Maddow clip tells the story. (And this from the New York Times gives more of the background on the John Kyl problem.) (And this from Keith Olbermann last April puts Sarah Palin and Fox News on one side of the issue, opposing the treaty, and former Republican Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Schultz on the other, favoring it.) TRUE TO HIS WORD The author of Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition writes (here, for Newsweek) that the President is committed to constructive discourse and national success: True To His Word Note to critics: Read (or reread) his books. Obama is doing just what he said he would do. By James T. Kloppenberg . . . The president’s critics on the right deride him as a radical socialist seething with anti-American rage. To them, he’s a frightening success who has transformed the federal government, ruined the economy, and undermined national security. To the left, Obama is a tragic failure who squandered his chance for dramatic change: no single-payer health-care plan, no heated battle against Wall Street, and endless war in Afghanistan. If the president is struggling these days, the critics say, it’s perhaps because he’s out of touch with Americans, and even at odds with his own principles. Yet Obama is doing exactly what he said he would do. Perhaps the critics should read-or reread-the president’s own books. Dreams From My Father (1995) and The Audacity of Hope (2006) are the most substantial works written by anyone elected president since Woodrow Wilson (who wrote several books before he won election in 1912). In laying out his philosophy, Obama contrasts the GOP’s excessive individualism with the ideal of ‘ordered liberty’ and the rich traditions of civic engagement typical of America in the 18th and 19th centuries. He also criticizes orthodox Democrats for too quickly dismissing market solutions and too often defending failed government programs. Above all, he criticizes the hyperpartisan atmosphere of contemporary public life. Almost everything you need to know about Obama is there on the printed page. In contrast to the charges coming now from right and left, Obama is neither a rigid ideologue nor a spineless wimp. The Obama who wrote Dreams and Audacity stands in a long tradition of American reform, wary of absolutes and universals, and committed to a Christian tradition that prizes humility and social service over dogmatic statements of unbending principle. A child of the philosophical pragmatists William James and John Dewey, Obama distrusts pat formulas and prefers experimentation. Throughout his career, Obama has refused to demonize his opponents. Instead, he has sought them out and listened to them. He has tried to understand how they think and why they see the world as they do. His mother encouraged this sense of empathy, and it’s a lesson Obama learned well. Since January 2009, Obama has watched his efforts at reconciliation, experimentation, and consensus-building bounce off the hard surfaces of political self-interest and entrenched partisanship, but there is no reason to think he will abandon that strategy now. He knows that disagreement is a vital part of the American fabric, and that our differences are neither shallow nor trivial. Although Obama’s reform agenda echoes aspects of those advanced by many Democrats over the last century, he has admitted-and this is the decisive point in understanding his outlook-that his opponents hold principles rooted as deeply in American history as his own. ‘I am obligated to try to see the world through George Bush’s eyes, no matter how much I may disagree with him,’ he wrote in Audacity. ‘That’s what empathy does-it calls us all to task, the conservative and the liberal … We are all shaken out of our complacency.” Obama rejects dogma, embraces uncertainty, and dismisses the fables that often pass for history among partisans on both sides who need heroes and villains, and who resist more-nuanced understandings of the past and the present. The shrill tone of Obama’s critics makes reading his books especially illuminating today. In Audacity, Obama explained why, because of our national traditions, the United States would never have a single-payer health-care system and would have to find a distinctively American hybrid relying on existing insurance plans. That’s what we have now. He explained why, although he favors regulation to protect against abuses, he rules out socialism and remains firmly committed to a market economy. His financial reforms follow that pattern. Finally, he explained why, although he opposed the war in Iraq, he supported war in Afghanistan for different—and legitimate—reasons. Now that he must bring that war to a conclusion, he has made clear that the decision will be based on evidence, not blind adherence to a predetermined course of action. After almost two years as president, Obama has failed to satisfy the left for the same reason that he has antagonized the right. He does not share their self-righteous certainty. Neither his personal restraint nor the achievements of his administration should surprise anyone who has read his books. In the domains of health care and economic regulation, and in his approach to Afghanistan, Obama has followed his script: substantial but incremental reforms growing organically from American experience rather than hewing to party orthodoxy. In November 2010, President Obama remains the man who wrote Dreams and Audacity, a resolute champion of moderation, experimentation, and deliberative, nondogmatic democracy. . . . ☞ Have a great weekend. I hope you find time to watch the Rachel Maddow clip. Oh! And wait! This totally unrelated three-minute clip just in. I dare you to watch to without feeling good. Not possible. Now have a great weekend.
Buffett, Buick, Boehner (Well, not Buick anymore, but a big IPO) November 18, 2010March 19, 2017 BUFFETT TO UNCLE SAM: THANK YOU! If for some reason you don’t see the New York Times (really?), here was Warren Buffett’s op-ed yesterday, a letter to his uncle: Dear Uncle Sam, My mother told me to send thank-you notes promptly. I’ve been remiss. Let me remind you why I’m writing. Just over two years ago, in September 2008, our country faced an economic meltdown. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the pillars that supported our mortgage system, had been forced into conservatorship. Several of our largest commercial banks were teetering. One of Wall Street’s giant investment banks had gone bankrupt, and the remaining three were poised to follow. A.I.G., the world’s most famous insurer, was at death’s door. Many of our largest industrial companies, dependent on commercial paper financing that had disappeared, were weeks away from exhausting their cash resources. Indeed, all of corporate America’s dominoes were lined up, ready to topple at lightning speed. My own company, Berkshire Hathaway, might have been the last to fall, but that distinction provided little solace. Nor was it just business that was in peril: 300 million Americans were in the domino line as well. Just days before, the jobs, income, 401(k)’s and money-market funds of these citizens had seemed secure. Then, virtually overnight, everything began to turn into pumpkins and mice. There was no hiding place. A destructive economic force unlike any seen for generations had been unleashed. Only one counterforce was available, and that was you, Uncle Sam. Yes, you are often clumsy, even inept. But when businesses and people worldwide race to get liquid, you are the only party with the resources to take the other side of the transaction. And when our citizens are losing trust by the hour in institutions they once revered, only you can restore calm. When the crisis struck, I felt you would understand the role you had to play. But you’ve never been known for speed, and in a meltdown minutes matter. I worried whether the barrage of shattering surprises would disorient you. You would have to improvise solutions on the run, stretch legal boundaries and avoid slowdowns, like Congressional hearings and studies. You would also need to get turf-conscious departments to work together in mounting your counterattack. The challenge was huge, and many people thought you were not up to it. Well, Uncle Sam, you delivered. People will second-guess your specific decisions; you can always count on that. But just as there is a fog of war, there is a fog of panic — and, overall, your actions were remarkably effective. I don’t know precisely how you orchestrated these. But I did have a pretty good seat as events unfolded, and I would like to commend a few of your troops. In the darkest of days, Ben Bernanke, Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner and Sheila Bair grasped the gravity of the situation and acted with courage and dispatch. And though I never voted for George W. Bush, I give him great credit for leading, even as Congress postured and squabbled. You have been criticized, Uncle Sam, for some of the earlier decisions that got us in this mess — most prominently, for not battling the rot building up in the housing market. But then few of your critics saw matters clearly either. In truth, almost all of the country became possessed by the idea that home prices could never fall significantly. That was a mass delusion, reinforced by rapidly rising prices that discredited the few skeptics who warned of trouble. Delusions, whether about tulips or Internet stocks, produce bubbles. And when bubbles pop, they can generate waves of trouble that hit shores far from their origin. This bubble was a doozy and its pop was felt around the world. So, again, Uncle Sam, thanks to you and your aides. Often you are wasteful, and sometimes you are bullying. On occasion, you are downright maddening. But in this extraordinary emergency, you came through — and the world would look far different now if you had not. Your grateful nephew, Warren ☞ You may be able to think of a wiser, more thoughtful and successful capitalist – but I can’t. And yet he sees a role for government, for enlightened regulation, for progressive taxation and the estate tax. GM Part of the economic rescue package was the rescue of GM, which the Republicans opposed. “The GOP sees President Barack Obama’s decision to help the unpopular carmaker as an easy opportunity to paint him as a bailout-happy, deficit-drunk spendthrift eager to impose a heavy government hand on a swath of industries,” reported Politico at the time, continuing . . . Republicans see in GM a chance for their party to come out with a unified message – a confidence grounded in the conservative belief that government involvement in private industry always spells disaster. And GM’s long history of financial problems – even in more prosperous times – also makes Republicans see the company as a big albatross around Obama’s neck. . . . . . . While concerns over offending moderates, women and Hispanics has some Republicans treading lightly on the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, Detroit is a less sympathetic character in the political drama. Polling shows that a majority of voters oppose the federal loans and other types of government assistance given to General Motors and Chrysler over the past six months. . . . Republicans are more than happy to stoke the outrage. In news conference after news conference this week, they slammed the administration for taking a roughly 60 percent stake in GM as part of the bankruptcy proceedings. That decision, they argue, will result in lawmakers getting intimately involved with the daily workings of the troubled company. “I know that I don’t want Speaker Pelosi and Harry Reid designing the car that I drive, and I don’t think any New Yorker — or any American — does, either,” House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said in a New York radio interview Thursday. “Washington, the president, Congress, none … has any business running that car company. They’ll run it into the ground.” . . . ☞ Yet it looks as though the bail-out and government-guided restructuring was a success. Today, a renewed GM will have the largest IPO in history, its offering oversubscribed. The government will make a meaningful start at getting its investment back. To my knowledge, neither Nancy Pelosi nor Harry Reid attempted to design any of GM’s new models. (I have my eye on a new Chevy Cruze.) UN: OK TO EXECUTE GAY PEOPLE AGAIN By a fairly narrow margin – 79 to 70 with 17 abstentions and 26 absences – the nations of the world Tuesday voted to remove “sexual orientation” from a resolution condemning murders. “For the past 10 years, the resolution has included sexual orientation in the list of discriminatory grounds on which killings are often based,” reports IGLHRC. Not anymore. “This decision in the General Assembly flies in the face of the overwhelming evidence that people are routinely killed around the world because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation, and renders these killings invisible or unimportant,” said IGLHRC. Among the 79 nations favoring this change were Haiti (would they also like to return all those LGBT dollars?); Jamaica (already notoriously unfriendly to gay tourists); Cuba, China, Russia and their enlightened ally, North Korea; Iraq and Iran (finally, common ground!); Rwanda (which knows a thing or two about senseless killing); and – shockingly – South Africa (even though its Constitution was the first in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation). Homophobia runs deep. Even here, it took a new Administration finally to join 66 other nations in signing on to a (separate) statement that condemns human rights violations based on sexual orientation. The prior Administration would have no part of it. And our incoming House Speaker, John Boehner, last year explained his opposition to expanding the hate crime statue to include gays because, he said, hate crimes statutes should only protect “immutable” characteristics, like race and religion. In Boehner’s view, you can choose your sexual orientation but not your religion. Isn’t it great to live in a world with so much room for improvement?
Pin the Debt on the Donkey November 17, 2010March 19, 2017 Rachel brings to life the National Debt record in colorful, tuneful ways your humble correspondent cannot begin to approach. Watch. You will do much better than the fake quiz show contestants. But some of the stuff that follows their performance was news to me and may be news to you as well. The hypocrisy and double-speak are amazing. I yield back the balance of my time.
Two Views From Canada And One From Arkansas November 16, 2010March 19, 2017 THE VIEW FROM ARKANSAS Larry Taylor: “I work at a law firm and an Abstract or Title Company. I spend every day helping folks get their mineral rights cleaned up where they can lease them and/or draw royalty payments. It is a great pleasure to see old dairy farmers, who have worked so hard, finally realize a nice income. The Fayetteville Shale is the 10th largest gas field in the U.S. We have seen over 5,000 wells drilled since 2004 and have seen very little environmental problems. There is not a single fresh water zone that has been damaged by fracture stimulation. I saw Gasland the night that it came on HBO. It is a crock. It is funded by some folks in the Northeast who have other issues with drilling operations in suburban communities. Also, almost to a person (certainly true in Gasland), the complainers are those folks who do NOT own their mineral rights. They are just trying to get a piece of the gas money pie. Sure, there are going to be accidents and errors made by companies who do not follow the rules. And as the report said, only Haliburton objects to making public the chemicals used in the process. Change the law, make it public, and use good regulatory approaches…even very tight ones, but please do not ban the technique, as has been the approach by some in Congress.” Eileen Bartlett: “Another great documentary about the dangers of drilling for natural gas is Split Estate by filmmaker Debra Anderson.” ☞ My only concern with leaving it to the regulators is that sometimes, especially when anti-government folks are in charge, regulation grows lax. And if an aquifer is contaminated, how would you ever purify it? So the regulation needs to be solid, and there may be some high populated areas where we just shouldn’t take even a small risk. A VIEW FROM CANADA: MORTGAGES Erich Almasy: “Home mortgage interest is not deductible here in Canada. It took me a while to get used to this. Eventually, I saw that it encouraged rapid payoff of mortgages and shorter terms – average is less than 5 years, with rollovers as mortgages expire. Canada avoided the 2008 meltdown because there are essentially 5 big banks (and a Hamiltonian central bank) that were not irrationally exuberant. There is now some home price contraction but no meltdown. Home ownership percentages are higher than the U.S.A. with much higher home equity.” A VIEW FROM CANADA: THE PRESIDENCY From the October issue of Senior Living Magazine Vancouver & Lower Mainland: America – He’s Your President for Goodness Sake! By William Thomas There was a time not so long ago when Americans, regardless of their political stripes, rallied round their president. Once elected, the man who won the White House was no longer viewed as a Republican or Democrat, but the President of the United States. The oath of office was taken, the wagons were circled around the country’s borders and it was America versus the rest of the world with the president of all the people at the helm. Suddenly President Barack Obama, with the potential to become an exceptional president has become the glaring exception to that unwritten, patriotic rule. Four days before President Obama’s inauguration, before he officially took charge of the American government, Rush Limbaugh boasted publicly that he hoped the president would fail. Of course, when the president fails the country flounders. Wishing harm upon your country in order to further your own narrow political views is selfish, sinister and a tad treasonous as well. Subsequently, during his State of the Union address, which is pretty much a pep rally for America, an unknown congressional representative from South Carolina, later identified as Joe Wilson, stopped the show when he called the President of the United States a liar. The president showed great restraint in ignoring this unprecedented insult and carried on with his speech. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was so stunned by the slur, she forgot to jump to her feet while clapping wildly, 30 or 40 times after that. Last spring, President Obama took his wife Michelle to see a play in New York City and republicans attacked him over the cost of security for the excursion. The president can’t take his wife out to dinner and a show without being scrutinized by the political opposition? As history has proven, a president in a theatre without adequate security is a tragically bad idea. Remember: “Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?” At some point, the treatment of President Obama went from offensive to ugly and then to downright dangerous. The health-care debate, which looked more like extreme fighting in a mud pit than a national dialogue, revealed a very vulgar side of America. President Obama’s face appeared on protest signs white-faced and blood-mouthed in a satanic clown image. In other tasteless portrayals, people who disagreed with his position distorted his face to look like Hitler complete with mustache and swastika. Odd, that burning the flag makes Americans crazy, but depicting the president as a clown and a maniacal fascist is accepted as part of the new rude America. Maligning the image of the leader of the free world is one thing, putting the president’s life in peril is quite another. More than once, men with guns were videotaped at the health-care rallies where the president spoke. Again, history shows that letting men with guns get within range of a president has not served America well in the past. And still the “birthers” are out there claiming Barack Obama was not born in the United States, although public documentation proves otherwise. Hawaii is definitely part of the United States, but the Panama Canal Zone where his electoral opponent Senator John McCain was born? Nobody’s sure. Last month, a 44-year-old woman in Buffalo was quite taken by President Obama when she met him in a chicken wing restaurant called Duff’s. Did she say something about a pleasure and an honour to meet the man or utter encouraging words for the difficult job he is doing? No. Quote: “You’re a hottie with a smokin’ little body.” Lady, that was the President of the United States you were addressing, not one of the Jonas Brothers! He’s your president for goodness sakes, not the guy driving the Zamboni at “Monster Trucks On Ice.” Maybe next it’ll be, “Take Your President To A Topless Bar Day.” In President Barack Obama, Americans have a charismatic leader with a good and honest heart. Unlike his predecessor, he’s a very intelligent leader. And unlike that president’s predecessor, he’s a highly moral man. In President Obama, Americans have the real deal, the whole package and a leader that citizens of almost every country around the world look to with great envy. Given the opportunity, Canadians would trade our leader, hell, most of our leaders for Obama in a heartbeat. What America has in Obama is a head of state with vitality and insight and youth. Think about it, Barack Obama is a young Nelson Mandela. Mandela was the face of change and charity for all of Africa but he was too old to make it happen. The great things Obama might do for America and the world could go on for decades after he’s out of office. America, you know not what you have. The man is being challenged unfairly, characterized with vulgarity and treated with the kind of deep disrespect to which no previous president was subjected. It’s like the day after electing the first black man to be president, thereby electrifying the world with hope and joy, Americans sobered up and decided the bad old days were better. President Obama may fail but it will not be a Richard Nixon default fraught with larceny and lies. President Obama, given a fair chance, will surely succeed but his triumph will never come with a Bill Clinton caveat – “if only he’d got control of that zipper.” Please. Give the man a fair, fighting chance. This incivility toward the leader who won over Americans and gave hope to billions of people around the world that their lives could be enhanced by his example, just . . . has to stop.