Year: 2010

TWO MINUTES UNDER OATH

This is not the Republican who dresses up like a Nazi . . . or the Republican who mocks Justice Sotomayor’s name (and calls Secretary Chu “Secretary Chow Mein”) . . . or the one who says she’d be honest with Hitler if she were hiding Jews in the attic but lied about her educational record. No, this is the Republican running to be Governor of Florida. Sure, the clips are spliced together without full context. But if you prefer, by all means download the unedited two-hour deposition here.

THE CLINTON TAPES

Carl Silkett: “Wow! I finally got around to watching the clips of the extended Daily Show interview as you suggested a while back, and I was blown away! What a shame that the rest of America is not hearing the story told that way!” [Watch for yourself! – A.T.] As much as I hate to say it, I’m afraid that I’m back to the point where I think it is hopeless, and that maybe the best option is to move to Canada or Australia or something. It’s really frustrating, and yet I really can’t bring myself to blame Obama or anyone else on the Democratic side. When our Supreme Court turned the election financing over to the corporations, that doomed us ultimately to Third World status, I’m quite sure. Sorry, but despite the emails and phone calls from the DNC, I just can’t bring myself to try to contribute enough compete against the major corporations!”

☞ The DNC is actually out-raising the RNC, even though we don’t take federal PAC or lobbyist money and they do. But you’re right: unless and until one of “our” billionaires rides to the rescue, the right-wing donors anonymously funding their effort are outspending labor unions and progressive donors seven or ten to one.

Still, it is hardly “hopeless.” We have a lot going for us. The two top things are the issues (a lot of people don’t see going backwards as the solution to our problems; don’t want to borrow $700 billion over 10 years to extend the Bush tax cuts on income over $250,000) – and you . . . and millions of others . . . who can employ the OFA tools (or this app, if you have an iPhone) to knock on neighbor’s doors, make calls, and in other ways help turn out the vote.

I think we may do better than people expect. Join the effort!

HEALTH CARE

Here’s a key thing people don’t seem to get about the health care bill: it’s more than paid for. Over the long run, the many pilot programs in the bill may lead to improved quality and efficiency that will. And that’s really important. Free preventive care may more than pay for itself in lowered medical bills. And that’s really important. And future tweaks to the bill (including, I hope, medical malpractice courts of the type Philip K. Howard has proposed) may build on the great start this bill makes, which would be important, too.

But even leaving all that aside, it’s more than paid for.

To those who intuitively know you can’t provide 30 million uninsured coverage at no cost . . . that you can’t close the prescription drug doughnut hole at no cost . . . that you can’t remove the lifetime cap on benefits or accept people with preexisting conditions at no cost – all true – I say: what you may be forgetting is that these costs are more than met by the added 3.8% tax on investment income (and the 0.9% tax on ordinary income) above the first $250,000.

Some will argue that it’s unfair or un-American to ask those with more than $250,000 a year in income to chip in for this. Just how progressive our tax system should be is a judgment call.

But I would argue that taking the capital gains rate back to a level significantly below the 28% it was in Ronald Reagan’s second term is neither unfair nor un-American. After decades of growth in the gap between the rich and everybody else – decades in which the rich got phenomenally richer as the rest of America for the most part found it harder and harder to make ends meet – it’s not unreasonable to shift things back a little in favor of the middle class.

PROGRESS

Phyllis Overstreet: “My significant other was laid off by a sizable Georgia Engineering firm from his Civil CAD job (he’d held for over 20 years) in October, 2008. He starts work this coming Monday with a local firm here in SC that has a contract with the county for a fiber optics stimulus project. It takes so long for these government contracts to go through the hoops, even the ‘shovel-ready’ ones. I just wonder how many folks who are getting these jobs are even able to connect them back to the stimulus act? And I also wonder how many will be like my co-worker, who groused about ‘having’ to keep his kids on his insurance since ‘Obama’ changed the rules and raised the age of children’s coverage to 26. When I asked who twisted his arm and ‘made’ him keep the kids covered, he just stared at me then walked off.”

APPEALING “DON’T ASK/DON’T TELL”

Steve G.: “I understand the point about how the legal system works, but I don’t think it’s clear at all that a lawyer – public or private – has an obligation to defend a legal position that he considers to be in violation of the Constitution. Does the President think DADT is just a matter of politics? I guess Gay rights aren’t so important after the votes have been counted. Apparently Ahnold Schwarzenegger didn’t feel the need to defend discrimination against Gays. I know, he’s not running for anything, but would Obama have acted differently if he, too, were a lame duck? If so, how is it that you still defend him?”

☞ Steve is too cynical. The President is absolutely committed to getting this done – right. Watch this Rachel Maddow interview with former Clinton U.S. Solicitor General Walter Dellinger for more on the legal nuances. And if you really want an in-depth analysis, listen to yesterday’s recorded National LGBT Bar Association conference call in which three eminent pro-equality legal scholars conclude that the Administration is probably doing the right thing by appealing.

As for Arnold, it’s great that he’s chosen not to appeal California’s marriage-equality ruling, but there’s a big difference between that situation and this: Arnold twice vetoed marriage equality passed by his state legislature. Obama is trying to get his legislature (Congress) to pass repeal so he can sign it.

The House already has. There’s good reason to think the Senate will before the end of the year.

Movies! The Facebook movie (“The Social Network”) sure is fun. “Wall Street Money Never Sleeps,” too.

“WAITING FOR SUPERMAN”

This documentary examines the current public school system. It builds slowly, but will have you totally absorbed by the end, more alarmed than ever about – and more determined than ever to see improvements in – our K-12 educational system. In that improvement, or lack of same, lies our future.

“INSIDE JOB”

And this one is about Wall Street and the terrible decisions and lack of regulation that led us to the mess we’re in now. It is devastating, important, completely absorbing – and in places probably too harsh. (For example, it dismisses the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill as largely worthless, which I think is far from the truth.) It skewers all the people you would expect, and even some you might not, like some of the nation’s leading business schools.

PROGRESS

This site, plugged Friday, is so good, I wanted to be plug it again. It shows what we’ve been doing to get the economy moving forward.*

*This, despite relentless Republican attempts to kill the stimulus bill . . . to kill small business assistance . . . to kill tax cuts for 98% of us unless we borrow a further $700 billion over the next ten years to retain them, as well, for the top 2%. (And by the way? Even the top 2% – even billionaires – would still get to keep the ill-advised Bush tax cuts on the first $250,000 of their income. Desperate times call for desperate measures – like asking the best off to allow some of their Bush tax cuts to expire.)

Brad: “So I clicked on that ‘Progress’ link. It told me that: ‘225,000 – Number of jobs created or saved through June in Texas because of the Recovery Act.’ Great. So why can’t I get one of those jobs? I had a similar reaction to your post about Georgia Works – you sort of gave the impression that most of the work was done by the job seekers, in creating the positions they wanted. Not to take anything away from them, but if the state of Georgia hadn’t been willing to fund them, all their wishing would’ve been for naught. (And most states are having budget problems right now, as I’m sure you know.) This is depressing. I need to cheer up with a good graphic novel: unemployedman.com.”

☞ I thank my lucky stars I’m not in Brad’s predicament, as so many are. It’s a nightmare out there. But we need people to see that CUTTING the stimulus money and CUTTING spending to cut taxes for the rich – the Republican plan – will make it worse, not better.

BULLIES

Joel Grow: “Hey! Our straight bullies are just as mean as your closeted gay bullies any day of the week!”

☞ LOL. My point Friday was: they may not be as straight as you think.

George Mokray: “Watched the Joel Burns speech to the Fort Worth City Council. Strong and important stuff. I’m not gay but I’ve been bullied. This campaign (thank you Dan Savage) could do more for the concept of civility in our culture than anything else I’ve ever seen.”

Marge Wright: “Of all the ‘It Gets Better’ videos Dan Savage inspired, this is my favorite: the soaring positive energy and strength bring me to tears every time.”

But first . . .

IT GETS BETTER

If every 12-year-old in the country – and every parent – took a few minutes to watch this Fort Worth City Councilman, there would be more happiness in America and, at the extreme, fewer teen suicides.

The irony of course is that the worst bullies are those who are gay themselves (whether they yet have become fully aware of it or not), and who resort to verbal or physical gay-bashing to “prove” this could not possibly be the case. (Hey, just look at Senator “wide stance” Larry Craig’s 100% anti-gay voting record.)

I’ve always thought that if that irony could become common knowledge – the irony that if you’re disparaging one of your classmates that way it probably means you’re gay – the public disparagement would cease. What would be the point in trying to hide your own homosexual feelings by bashing others if that very bashing would make you suspect?

I was never bullied in high school for being gay – I was one of the guys with the varsity jackets. (A terrible soccer player, albeit with heart; such a mediocre swimmer that Coach Kramp – true name! – suggested I go out for wrestling instead; a wrestler who made the varsity only because the guy ahead of me had his neck broken early in the season.) But even without being bullied it was tough knowing – and knowing I would always have to keep secret – that I was unacceptable.

Things have gotten so much better since then, thanks to innumerable wonderful people like you, who get it.

But as the Councilman’s clip shows, we still have a long way to go. Watch it? And pass it on?

And now . . .

PROGRESS

If yesterday’s list was a little clunky (though substantive), click here for elegant. It’s a just-launched site that shows the progress we’ve made – nationwide, or by state, or even down to your own zip code. And you can drill down to see, for example, all the tax breaks given to small business.

Don’t miss this.

And pass it on?

Finally . . .

APPEAL

The Administration is well on its way to repealing Don’t Ask / Don’t Tell. Repeal passed the House and would have passed the Senate had not all 41 Republican Senators voted to prevent it from coming to the floor. My guess is that the Senate will pass it in December before adjourning for the year. In the meantime, a California Federal District Court judge ruled the law unconstitutional – and said the ruling, which would normally apply only within that district, applied worldwide.

The Justice Department yesterday asked for a stay of the ruling – and a lot of people are wondering why. If the Obama Administration wishes to get rid of the policy, why appeal this verdict? And, for that matter, why appeal the pro-LGBT marriage rulings in Massachusetts and California?

You’ll find one explanation here. “The short version,” says the author (“no apologist for Obama”), “is that the US legal system often works in ways that are deeply counter-intuitive. We should not only expect that these cases will be appealed, we should desire that they are. . . . The sky is not falling. We are not doomed. Do not panic about these (or similar) appeals. That’s how the US legal system works. It’s long and slow sometimes, but taking shortcuts isn’t how to win the day.”

If the full analysis resonates with you, pass it on, too.

VERIZON

Marian Calabro: “We came home from vacation in June to find no Verizon landline service. No telling how long it was out, but it took them four days to repair. Fortunately we also have a cable line. Since then, three other friends in north Jersey have had similar experiences. Until this year I never heard of Verizon crashes unless there were huge storms. They’ve become just plain lax. The fellow who says to complain to the BPU is correct, because they’re a utility—or should be.”

Ted Graham: “If you have broadband, there are several options for switching to Internet calling and keeping your current home phone number. I have an Ooma, which cost $200 and offers no monthly fees, free long distance and cheap international calling. We kept our home number and plugged in our existing wireless handsets, it works great. Saves $25/month, plus lots of crazy fees and taxes. I’m not sure I’d do it for your only phone, but most people will have at least one cell phone around.”

☞ I haven’t used it myself, but I’m glad to hear you’re pleased, because I suggest Ooma in the new edition of my book.

DEPO

Suggested at $4.50 a year ago and a few weeks later at $3.02 – and a few months later still at $2.47 – our patience (obstinacy?) has begun to pay off, with the stock closing at $4.81 last night. Guru thinks it will be over $6 in a year. I wouldn’t rush to buy it here and have sold some shares in my tax-deferred account – but am happy holding the rest.

FIRED UP!

If you haven’t seen this on Daily Kos or The People’s View, check it out – and pass it on. It’s not particularly elegant, but it shows that an awful lot has been accomplished, even in the face of unprecedented opposition. That the Republicans would have filibustered their own Bipartisan Deficit Reduction Commission speaks volumes, I think, to the all-but-treasonous way the Republicans in the Senate have sought to throw wrenches in the gears of progress. You can argue that their cheers when Chicago lost its Olympic bid was just robust partisanship. You can argue that their prayers the health care bill would fail was based on policy differences – though the “Waterloo” talk suggests some just wanted to see the President fail. Likewise, their votes against extending unemployment insurance, against the stimulus, against the small business package, against the credit card bill and the financial reform bill and the hate crimes bill and repeal of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell – all that. But how do you argue that scuttling their own proposed bipartisan deficit reduction commission was anything other than trying to make sure the President fails, whatever the cost to the country?

Anyway, here it is:

Respectfully, Mr. President: Thank You!
by ThisIsMyTime
Wed Oct 13, 2010 at 08:56:57 AM PDT

As the battle for control of Congress has tightened and the so called enthusiasm gap is evaporating, we must continue speaking to voter about what Democrats in Congress have accomplished.

If you are a democrat and you have an enthusiasm gap, I am hoping that this could change your lack of enthusiasm.

The facts are in the last 23 months, the following are things that I think are worth keeping scores about what President Obama and the Democratic congress have accomplished that get over looked without an ounce of credit by some who are always disappointed about something.

I think it is important to not only speak to voters about the fact we are moving forward together but remind activists to see what they have been resisting.

I don’t know about you but I am ready to go and these are the reasons why I have more Enthusiasm than ever:

Health Care Reform:

1. Coverage can’t be denied to children with pre-existing conditions.
2. Adults up to age 26 can stay on their parents’ health plans.
3. Free preventive care.
4. Rescinding coverage is now illegal.
5. Eliminating lifetime limits on insurance coverage.
6. Restricting annual limits on insurance coverage.
7. More options to appeal coverage decisions.
8. $5 billion in immediate federal support to affordable Coverage for the Uninsured with Pre-existing Conditions.
9. $10 billion investment in Community Health Centers.
10. Create immediate access to re-insurance for employer health plans providing coverage for early retirees.
11. Made an $80 billion deal with the pharmaceutical industry to contribute to cut prescription drug costs for the nation’s seniors reduce the size of the “donut hole” in the Medicare (Part D) Drug Benefit.

Economy:

1. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) has worked. The Economy Has Been Growing – take a look at the graph of GDP growth between 2007 thru 2010.
2. US auto industry rescue plan — Detroit making profits again and at least 1 million jobs saved.
3. Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009 that extended Unemployment benefits up to 20 weeks and more.
4. Provided $14.7 billion in small business loans increasing minority access to capital.
5. The $26 billion aid to states package preventing large-scale layoffs of teachers and public employees.

Banking and Financial Reform:

1. Signed a sweeping bank-reform bill (the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act) into law.
2. Managed the $700 Billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that Banks have repaid 75% of TARP funds, bringing the cost down to $89B as of June 2010.
3. Cut Salaries For 65 Bailout Executives.
4. Closed offshore tax safe havens, tax credit loopholes on companies that use the tax laws to ship American Jobs oversees. HR 4213.
5. Signed into law the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act to fight fraud in the use of TARP and recovery funds, and to increase accountability for corporate and mortgage frauds.
6. Signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act.

Education:

1. Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010 that increased the amount of federal Pell Grant awards and enabled the stripping of banks privileges as intermediaries for student loan servicing.
2. Created the Race to the Top Fund, a $4.35 billion program to reward States that submit the best proposals for change.
3. As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, funded over$100 Billion for reforms to strengthen Elementary and Secondary education, early learning programs, college affordability and improve access to higher education, and to close the achievement gap.

Jobs:

1. The $787 billion economic stimulus package has created or saved nearly 2 million jobs slowing the bleeding.
2. Jobs for Main Street Act (2010)injected $27.5 Billion for Highways, $8.4 Billion for Transit into the country’s transportation system to create jobs and spur economic activity.
3. A $33 Billion Jobs Package that will allow Small businesses to get $5,000 tax credit for new hires.
4. A $26 billion State Aid Package Jobs Bill saving 300,000 teachers and public workers jobs from unemployment.
5. The Auto bailout saved 1 million jobs.

Green Energy:

1. Implemented renewable fuels mandate of 36 billion gallons by 2022, four times what we currently consume.
2. Automakers will be required to meet a fleet-wide average of New Gas Mileage Standards at 35.5 MPH by 2016.
3. A $60 billion investment in renewable and clean energy.

Housing:

1. $275 billion dollar housing plan – $75 billion dollars to prevent at-risk mortgage debtors already fallen victim to foreclosures and $200 billion to bring about confidence to offer affordable mortgages and to stability the housing market.
2. Established “Opening Doors” to end the homelessness of 640,000 men, women, and children in the United States in 10 years.
3. Provided $510 Million for the rehabilitation of Native American housing.
4. Provided $2 billion for Neighborhood Stabilization Program to rehab, resell, or demolish in order to stabilize neighborhoods.
5. Provided $5 billion for Weatherization Assistance Program for low income families to weatherize 1 million homes per year for the next decade.
6. Provided grants to encourage states and localities to take the first steps in implementing new building codes that prioritize energy efficiency.

Medicaid/Medicare/Social Security:

1. giving $250 economic stimulus check to 55 million Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients in 2009.
2. Cutting prescription drug costs for Medicare recipients by 50% and began eliminating the plan’s gap (“donut hole”) in coverage.
3. Passing as part of H.R.3962 (Preservation of Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010) a $6.4 billion measure reversing a 21 percent cut in physician payments that would have started a flood of rejections by some doctors of seniors covered by Medicare.
4. Expanded eligibility for Medicaid to all individuals under age 65 with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level ($14,400 per year for an individual).

Military Veterans and Families:

1. Implemented a strategic planto increase the hiring of Veterans and Military spouses throughout the Federal civil service.
2. Provided for the expenses of families of to be at Dover AFB when fallen soldiers arrive.
3. Passed the Veterans’ Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2009 increasing the rates of compensation for veterans with service-connected disabilities and the rates of dependency and indemnity compensation for the survivors of certain disabled veterans.
4. Declared the end of the war in Iraqi bringing back nearly 100,000 U.S. troops home to their families.
5. Donated 250K of Nobel prize money to Fisher House, a group that helps provide housing for families of patients receiving medical care at military and Veterans Affairs medical centers.

LBGT:

1. Extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.
2. Signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
3. Instructed HHS to require any hospital receiving Medicare or Medicaid funds (virtually all hospitals) to allow LGBT visitation rights.
4. Banned job discrimination based on gender identity throughout the Federal government (the nation’s largest employer).
5. Signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act.
6. Extended the Family and Medical Leave Act to cover Gay employees taking unpaid leave to care for their children of same-sex partners.
7. Lifted the HIV Entry Ban.
8. Implemented HUD Policies that Would Ban Discrimination Based On Gender Identity.

Well, there is more but you see we have done a lot. We have the tools to shape the message. We need to move forward together and focus on what we will accomplish forward in the coming years. That is why we have to work hard for the next three weeks to GOTV.

These are my kids at the One Nation March about a week ago [adorable photo omitted for lack of technical expertise – A.T.]. They are fired up as I am. Are you?

THE OFA IPHONE APP

If you are . . . watch the demo, download the app, knock on some doors (it tells you which and how), hang on to Congress.

Andrew Schwarzer: “To counter your rant on Verizon: They are every year listed as the best carrier by Consumer Reports. They have the best coverage throughout the nation. They are the most knowledgeable salespeople in the business. Just because you have had a bad experience does not mean many others have. On the other hand, the complaints against AT&T and the iPhone are so pervasive as to be newsworthy. Yet, everybody loves Apple, except for those who can see the Emperor is no better, in fact less reliable, and a whole lot more expensive (have you seen their profit margins!) than the competition. Apple is an okay product with a mastery of marketing cool; they make you need their products like drug dealers make you need cocaine. The illusion Apple creates is amazing. Do you know that if you plug a non-Apple mp3 player into a computer not yours it will say, sure, hi, what do you want to download or upload. If you try that with an iPod, it will wipe all your music clean – and then you have to buy it (from Apple — those profits again), all over again. Try it. Okay, I have matched rant for rant. Do we both feel better now?”

☞ Yes!

Peter Kaczowka: “I had a similar experience in Lenox MA. Verizon came and hooked up a land line in my new place, my Internet connection before I had broadband. I used it for a week, then one day I got a call from a woman. I told her she had the wrong number, she called again and assured me she was calling her home phone to check messages from her cell, and this was definitely her number. The phone had company connected her number to my phone, working on the pole right outside my place, a real mess of wires. Verizon told me it would be two months before they could give me a line. I got a cable modem, canceled my land line, now just use cell phone. A Verizon rep called back to ask about the delayed installation, I told her I had canceled it and now did not want a line. To my surprise she was happy, and thanked me for not giving them business! Turns out Verizon and other phone companies only want to sell fiber connections (FIOS), not ’POTS’ or ’Plain Old Telephone Service’ as they call it. They want to get out of that business. That’s the problem Charles is having. If he had fiber in the area he could get a land line from it, not to mention the best Internet and cable available. Those who have it swear by FIOS, but it’s not available everywhere, certainly not here in the Berkshires.”

Name withheld on request: “I am a retired Verizon employee. I can think of three avenues of recourse for Charles, which are not mutually exclusive. First, there’s something called the President’s helpline. I did a quick Google and found 800-483-7988. Second, should you reach a human, the words that they absolutely hate to hear are, ‘I’ll be in touch with the New York State Public Service Commission.’ The company is rated on the number of PSC complaints and they have an impact on organizational performance measures. It is quite likely to bump up the priority of your service. The final option is to contact shareholder services. They do like to keep their shareholders happy.”

☞ I’d feel uncomfortable “cutting the line” unless it were an emergency. I just think their standard should be next-day service.

Chris Brown: “I can assure you that AT&T sucks as well. Naruc.org/commissions.cfm is a nice link for you and your readers with local phone (or other state-regulated utility) issues. I used it this morning to complain about AT&T. Competence is extremely hard to come by in America these days. Maybe that’s why we’ve dropped from #1 to #7 in average wealth per adult. Of course, we are number one in obesity. But I’m sure electing Republicans who will eliminate the Department of Education will solve all of our problems. . . . Incidentally, if you ever want to start a third-party, please count me in. Here where I live, my choices for Congress are a guy who dresses up like a Nazi soldier (no problem, it’s a father-son bonding thing) or a woman who boasts “I fully support maintaining traditional Social Security and finding ways to effectively extend it without cutting benefits to our nation’s seniors.” [emphasis mine] Nobody’s perfect, but, really? I mean, really? These are the people making the important choices for our future. Yikes.”

☞ It won’t surprise you to know I’m partial to the Democrat in the race. She did her graduate work in urban planning at MIT, which shows a certain seriousness of purpose, and, while the Social Security position on her website does seem to pander a bit, as Chris notes, she actually did a pretty good job of putting the Social Security situation in context – there’s room in what she said for her to accept Bipartisan Commission recommendations to tweak Social Security in the out years. But politics sucks, for sure. Much to be said for benevolent dictators, just so long as you and I get to pick – and depose – them.

VERIZON SUCKS

I have three reasons for saying this. First, it feels good to vent. Second, if you have experienced similar frustrations, my venting may make you feel good, too. Third, if you are not yet a Verizon customer, it could be fair warning.

I say this even owning VZ shares – that I am thinking of unloading, except that the company has so much room for improvement, that alone might be a reason to hang on. (I also say it recognizing that similar stories could doubtless be told about competitors; not least AT&T and its infamous dropped calls.) But this summer Verizon left hundreds (thousands?) of my fellow beach dwellers and me with no land-line service all weekend, and then all Monday (how long could it take to repair a cable that had apparently fared poorly in Point o’ Woods, several miles down the beach?), and all Tuesday (it’s not as though there had been a hurricane or anything), and all Wednesday and Thursday (what are we, Albania?) – and all Friday and Saturday and I think service was finally restored Sunday afternoon or maybe it was Monday morning, after about 10 days with no service.

All of which accentuated the frustration with Verizon wireless, because when word went out they had built a cell tower atop our community center, quite a few of us bought Verizon cell phones specifically for that reason, only to see the July 4th expected “switch-on” date delayed for months – I think it’s still not on – so when the land lines went out, there was no cell back up, either.

But that’s not why I write. I write because Charles’s land line in Manhattan no longer has the ability to receive calls – try him, you’ll see – though, peculiarly, he can call out just fine. And when I phoned Verizon yesterday to get it fixed, and was assigned “the earliest possible appointment,” that appointment was for a 7 days hence, so long as someone 18 or older would be home between 8am and 5pm. Which is better than having to wait two weeks and having to be available from 6am to midnight, say – but do you see my point?

WHAT IF WE HAD MORE SERIOUS OUTTAGES?

Wayne Seibert: “Discussing the film “Wall Street Money Never Sleeps” yesterday, you again mention how close we came to disaster, which appears to be the conventional wisdom across the entire political spectrum of economists and politicians. Many of us in the layman camp, including those that support the tea party, just don’t see it. The economy has shown solid productivity growth in the last couple of decades, which I thought was the bedrock of economic advancement. The problem has been with the allocation of that productivity dividend. Many of us see the interventions of TARP and the industrial policy initiatives of the last two years as policies designed to block that reallocation. At the time of the meltdown after Lehman Brothers’ collapse, many of the redwoods and sequoias in the economic forest were shown to have dry rot and would have caused a lot of damage if they fell. But the overall ecology of the economy was strong, and would have recovered a lot quicker and in a more healthy manner if we had allowed Citi, AIG and GM go through the established bankruptcy procedures. I agree the pain would have been sharp and severe, much like an amputation, but allowing markets to work would have punished the malfactors and let a new generation of competitors arise. Can you refer me to an article or book that can explain why I’m wrong?”

☞ Fair question. In addition to Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Too Big To Fail, there’s Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System, which I have not yet read, and doubtless lots of other things readers may point us to. But here are a couple of thoughts.

First, do note that at least the shareholders of Bear Stearns, Lehman, Citibank, Washington Mutual, AIG, and GM, among others, got largely or entirely wiped out – and awful lot of shares were owned by management. So it’s not as though capitalism’s rough hand was entirely restrained, or that business continued as usual.

But more to your question, imagine that Congress had not passed TARP on its second go around, and that the government had steered clear. The crisis of confidence was such that the global financial institutions that normally trust each other would have stopped trusting each other. (Would you have been comfortable wiring billions to a bank that might collapse?) Global commerce would have frozen. Exports would have stopped; just-in-time assembly lines would have been disrupted; layoffs would have been massive. The stock market would have crashed. The individuals and businesses that trust their money to banks and money market funds – and can theoretically withdraw that money with a few mouse clicks – would in a panic have pulled their money out, collapsing all but whatever few institutions the mob moved to – all crowding to one side of the boat. The ATMs would have stopped dispensing cash, loans would frantically have been called, the commercial paper market (by which the nations’ largest employers finance their day to day operations) would have frozen up, so payrolls would not have been met, so rents would not have been paid, so landlords would not have the money to pay the utility bills, so electricity would have been shut off, so martial law would have been imposed, but would that really have been enough to keep starving people from doing what they had to for food? So crime would have soared, but police would have been laid off (no tax revenues to pay them) . . . and to all this (and I was just getting warmed up) you can rightly say, “Oh, nonsense. The government would have intervened somehow.”

And that’s true. But that’s the point. Government did intervene, and early enough to succeed, however imperfectly. It was expensive, but the taxpayers will get a lot of that money back. Had the Government waited longer, it might well have been impossible, or at least a lot more difficult. The best time to put out a fire is when the flames first become visible.

Of course, the fire could have been averted at virtually no cost at all, simply by having had in place wise legislation and vigilant regulators with the tools they needed (and that henceforth they will a lot more nearly have) to oversee “nonbank banks” and to keep “liars’ loans” from being written and banks from speculating on 30-to-1 margin and all the rest. Indeed, just not having repealed Glass-Steagall would have gone a long away to avert the crisis.

There are still worrisome systemic problems; but Dodd-Frank puts us in a better place than we were. And global commerce has not stopped and the stock market has not crashed, people trust that their bank deposits are safe, and – as awful as it is, the economy is nowhere near as bad as it was in the Depression. What we need to d now is elect people who have their eye on the big picture: the need to invest in infrastructure, education, and energy independence so we can compete and prosper in tomorrow’s vibrant world economy.

A DOCTOR, A LAWYER, AND A PRIEST

I’ve known David Sipress since we were six. And what a dazzling short story he has just published – as richly textured as his New Yorker cartoons are spare. If you enjoy short fiction, set aside 15 minutes with this. It’s a holiday!

“WALL STREET MONEY NEVER SLEEPS”

Have you seen it yet? The scene at the New York Federal Reserve where 94-year-old Eli Wallach – as the grand old man of Wall Street – foresees the implications of failing to save the investment banks? “It’s the end of the world!” he says. This fiction jibes neatly with the real live facts, as recounted in Andrew Ross Sorkin’s page-turning Too Big To Fail, now in paperback. Most are oblivious to how close to disaster we came – not least because sounding the alarm full blast can cause disaster. (Maybe this is why they don’t shoot off cannon to warn of avalanche conditions.)

GLDD, NBIX, DCTH

GLDD is up 25% since discussed here last month; DCTH jumped last week on takeover rumors (which are probably bogus, opines this bull on the stock); and NBIX, first suggested here last February at $2.60, has now nearly tripled, closing up a buck at $7.34 Friday as Jefferies & Company initiated research coverage of the stock suggesting a target of $12. I am happily holding on to all three.

WARREN

“We’re going to have to get more [tax] money from somebody,” says Warren Buffett. “The question is, do we get more money from the person that’s going to serve me lunch today, or do we get it from me?”

It’s well worth reading the whole (short) thing – and ogling the charts – over at the Motley Fool.

BARNEY

Can you believe that “GOProud” – the gay Republican group that celebrates Ann Coulter – hopes to unseat Congressman Barney Frank? They have endorsed his opponent, a conservative Catholic marine who opposes marriage, opposes civil unions, opposes repeal of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell.

The rightwing, with virtually unlimited funds from undisclosed sources, is licking its chops at the prospect. They’re trying to pin the subprime mess and Wall Street’s meltdown on Barney – which is exactly backwards. But then this is the same team that mocked John Kerry’s purple hearts and bronze star and promised that the “vast majority” of their tax cuts would go to those at the bottom end of the economic ladder. Up is down, black is white, off is on – who cares?

Whether your issue is the financial reform he championed, the appointment of Elizabeth Warren he championed, the reduction in military expenditures he champions or, yes, the LGBT equality he champions – or even if it’s just his wit and refusal to sugarcoat his message that you want to support (“on what planet do you spend most of your time?”) – would you do me a huge favor and click here to help make sure he is returned to Congress?

And spread the word to your friends?

MEXICAN BONDS

Mexico just issued $1 billion in bonds maturing in October, 2110 – 100 years from now. They offer a tempting 6.1%.

I have to laugh.

Not at Mexico – I have high hopes for Mexico.

At the timing.

Just as the bonds were hitting the market earlier this week, I was wrapping up the new edition of my investment guide.

As some of you know, it begins with the tempting yields south of the border – a whole long cautionary riff, not a word of which has changed since 1978, except that at each new revision I get to add news of the most recent peso revaluation. The peso is now worth about one-thousandth what it was at the outset of my original anecdote.

So I’m proofreading and proofreading – found one place where some glitch in the typographer’s software changed a minus sign into a 2, which made 1930’s 6% deflation (“–6%”) 26% inflation – and I’m listening to cable news in the background, and I get to the last sentence of the last page of the book at almost the same moment as I hear this news about the Mexican bond issue – and that last sentence reads, as it has since 1978: “I hear, by the way, that the Mexican peso is now very strong again, and that you can get a hell of an interest rate south of the border.”

Hundred-year Mexican bonds.

What could go wrong?

GEORGIA WORKS!

I love this story and you will too.  Georgia has found its own way to create private sector jobs for the unemployed, and it seems to be working.  If you like it, send it to your governor.  This needs to catch on.

STOCKS AND BONDS

“It’s quite clear that stocks are cheaper than bonds,” Warren Buffett told a group of Powerful Women Tuesday.  “I can’t imagine anybody having bonds in their portfolio when they can own equities, a diversified group of equities.  But people do because they lack confidence.  But that’s what makes for the attractive prices.  If they had their confidence back, they wouldn’t be selling at these prices.  And believe me, it will come back over time.”

If you have any bond funds in your 401(k) mix, click the link above and read the whole story.

SULLIVAN – CONSERVATIVE?

Carl Granados:  “Re yesterday’s post, maybe Andrew Sullivan was ‘conservative’ at one time and I am sure he still likes to consider himself so, but few ‘conservatives’ these days would.  I read his blog all the time, as I read yours, and he is about as conservative in most things as you and I are.  Note that I consider myself and Dems in general more fiscally conservative than any in the GOP.  It’s more conservative to tax and spend than to borrow and spend.”

☞  Exactly.  When I describe Andrew Sullivan as a conservative, I have in mind a traditional conservative . . . which would mean going to war only as a true last resort, and financing wars (if you start them at all) by raising taxes . . . and legalizing marijuana (as William F. Buckley Jr. long advocated), and keeping the government out of your bedroom, and (let’s not forget) protecting the environment – conservation itself.

Not to say there’s a perfect match between Democratic policies and traditional conservative thought.  Hardly.  But there’s plenty of room for true conservatives to prefer Democratic positions these days, on balance, to Republican ones . . . to prefer Obama’s seriously thoughtful leadership to that of, say, Mitch McConnell, Jim DeMint, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Michele Bachmann*, Linda McMahon**, Christine O’Donnell***, John Boehner, and Glenn Beck.

*Who said. “Gay marriage is probably the biggest issue that will impact our state and our nation in the last, at least, thirty years.  I am not understating that.”

**Who kicked her husband in the groin on national television.

***Who would not have lied to Hitler about Jews in her attic but lied about where she went to college.