Thugs May 31, 2012May 31, 2012 MYLGF Methylgene is split into 317 million shares, approximately none of which trade each day. I first told you about it at 37 cents a share. On those rare occasions when it does trade, shares go for only 20 or 25 cents these days. Well, finally it’s caught the attention of an analyst, whose extensive write-up you’ll find here. He agrees it’s very risky — only to be bought with money you can truly afford to lose — but thinks it could be $1 in the next couple of years. If you buy or sell, be sure to use “limits”; the “spread” between bid and asked is very wide. THUGS From Chris Bowers in a Daily Kos email blast on the Wisconsin recall: Andrew, our best bet to beat Scott Walker next week is high voter turnout, and in cities like Madison, LaCrosse and Milwaukee, turnout is indeed huge. Supporters of Scott Walker are responding with tactics that are clogging up phone lines at Tom Barrett’s campaign headquarters: The campaign headquarters of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett was inundated Tuesday with outraged callers who received an anonymous text message accusing Barrett of being a “union puppet.” The message, which came from WI@obamasaliar.com, said this: “Tom Barrett is a Union Puppet who will give Union Thugs everything they want. Call & ask why 414.271.8050.” That is the phone number for the main campaign office for Barrett, a Democrat running against Gov. Scott Walker in the June 5 recall election. For a short period Tuesday afternoon, the Barrett campaign number appeared to be out of service from the flood of calls. It’s sadly typical that Republicans are trying to mess with Democratic efforts to get out the vote, but it also shows they know high turnout means trouble for Scott Walker. Please contribute $3 to Tom Barrett to make sure every Wisconsin Democrat can vote to recall Scott Walker. Keep fighting, Chris Bowers You have to wonder who the real “thugs” are here. AND THEY ARE WELL FINANCED According to Politico: GOP groups plan record $1 billion blitz Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives – including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress, according to officials familiar with the groups’ internal operations. That total includes previously undisclosed plans for newly aggressive spending by the Koch brothers, who are steering funding to build sophisticated, county-by-county operations in key states. POLITICO has learned that Koch-related organizations plan to spend about $400 million ahead of the 2012 elections – twice what they had been expected to commit. Just the spending linked to the Koch network is more than the $370 million that John McCain raised for his entire presidential campaign four years ago. And the $1 billion total surpasses the $750 million that Barack Obama, one of the most prolific fundraisers ever, collected for his 2008 campaign. . . . A KEY TACTIC: DISCOURAGE VOTING What could be more thuggish? More unAmerican? But the Republicans work hard at it. Here is Rachel Maddow on the topic last night. It’s not a small thing. We may lose our democracy to Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh and the Koch brothers over this.
Uncertainty May 30, 2012May 29, 2012 “The truth about uncertainty,” write the editors of Bloomberg News, “is that it’s (mostly) untrue.” When corporate executives are asked why they don’t spend more of their record profits by investing in their businesses and hiring workers, they offer this mantra: uncertainty, brought on by President Barack Obama. . . . Is the uncertainty plaint really just an excuse for inaction — and cover for lobbyists looking to build support for less regulation? Or is there substance to the anxiety? If so, what can be done about it? . . . Hiring is down because consumer demand remains low as households continue to deleverage. Employers are also using technology and other productivity enhancements to make do with fewer workers. And it’s worth repeating the obvious: Business investment hasn’t bounced back to pre-2007 levels because there’s still too much slack in the economy. If you accept these explanations for the elevated jobless rate, as most economists do, it’s hard to see the connection to Obama’s economic policies or to blame him for uncertainty. So who or what is to blame? Some of it stems from the European debt crisis, which is cutting into demand for American exports. At the same time, China’s growth is slowing down. And some of the blame rests with the banks. They are still restricting lending, in part out of fear loans won’t be repaid. Much of the problem is self-inflicted by Congress. . . . [L]ast summer’s debt-ceiling fight almost derailed the recovery, and this year’s replay could be worse. . . . Those invoking the uncertainty principle fail to mention that inflation and interest rates are historically low. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has repeatedly pledged not to raise rates at least through late 2014 — a gold-plated certainty guarantee if we ever saw one. The pledge may be showing up in an uncertainty index created by Steven J. Davis, a University of Chicago business professor, with two others. Using news searches, differences among economic forecasters and other tools, they have measured the level of uncertainty by month, back to 1985. Their research shows that monetary policy and taxes, not regulatory policy, are the biggest drivers of uncertainty. The highest point, in August 2011, came when [the Republicans in] Congress [manufactured] the debt-ceiling debate and the U.S. lost its AAA credit rating. Since then, the index has declined steadily and is now at the August 2008 level, before the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. . . . You can blame Obama for many things, but uncertainty isn’t one of them. I don’t buy that “you can blame Obama for many things” — at least not fairly blame him. I think it was an easy way to give a little flourish to the last line of the piece, and that if one subjected most of those “many things,” whatever they are, to the same kind of balanced scrutiny they gave this “uncertainty” rap, one would find those charges to be equally basely, or largely so. But it’s good to have this one debunked. Hats off to Bloomberg for the analysis. TWO PHOTOS This one is columnist Jonathan Capehart’s “all-time favorite presidential photo” — the one where the President is leaning down to let a little black boy touch his hair. Jonathan concludes his commentary: “Obama gets a bum rap for not talking more openly about race. What his critics don’t get — and what the Souza photo perfectly illustrates — is that the president addresses so much about race without ever opening his mouth.” This one, which comes thanks to Andy Towle via Rex Wockner, shows a dog (who spells no better than you might expect), holding a sign in his mouth that says: “I AM A DOG. I SUPPORT SAME-SEX MARRIAGE. IT WOULD EFFECT ME AS MUCH AS IT EFFECTS YOU.”
Love Prevails May 29, 2012 MUD If you enter “GLDD” in the search field at right, you’ll find we have a long-held fascination with sediment and an equally long-held shareholding in Great Lakes Dredge and Dock. This write-up argues that the value of GLDD’s assets is more than double its current enterprise value (market cap plus debt). One more reason to feel comfortable holding for the long term. MITT Art: “To the extent that he has documented his claim of creating 100,000 jobs through Bain, it appears that he believes we should count even those hired by Staples yesterday — years after he left. Yet when counting jobs during the Obama administration, he believes the job losses attributable to Bush’s policies ended abruptly the day Obama was inaugurated.” It’s as if Nixon, not Kennedy, deserves the credit for the moon landing because it happened shortly after he was inaugurated. And by the way — those Staples jobs? They came largely at the expense of jobs at competitors whom Staples put out of business. Which is okay — I’m all for all for “creative destruction.” But if you’re going to count the Staples payroll as jobs Mitt Romney helped create, don’t you also have to count the perhaps even greater number of workers Staples displaced as an indication of how many jobs his efforts helped destroy? He made a ton of dough for himself and investors — nothing wrong with that — and helped to make the office-supplies industry more efficient — definitely nothing wrong with that — but what does this have to do with our urgent need to boost employment? As you know, given the chance to work his magic for four years, Governor Romney took the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from an already bad 37th-out-of-50 rank in job creation down to a near-rock-bottom 47th. I’M CHRISTIAN UNLESS YOU’RE GAY First Dan Pearce blogged about his closeted 27-year-old friend “Jacob.” Then that blog post was assigned in a high school class. One of the kids’ mothers saw the assignment and forbade her 15-year-old son from participating. He did anyway (from a safe undisclosed location) and emailed her the result. Here, she tells the story — and shares her son’s essay. All of which goes to show that in the ongoing tension between Christian intolerance and Christian love, love can still sometimes prevail. MORE HOLY TERROR From Mel White’s recent Huffington Post: According to the Baltimore Sun, at a hearing on Maryland’s proposed constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at American University, was requested to testify. At the end of his testimony, Republican senator Nancy Jacobs said, “As I read Biblical principles, marriage was intended, ordained, and started by God. That is my belief.” Raskin replied, “People place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution; they don’t put their hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible,” eliciting applause from some people in the room. . . .
Dick, Ron, The Other Dick, And Mitt May 25, 2012March 27, 2017 A MITT CONCEPTION Market Watch lays out the facts: Of all the falsehoods told about President Barack Obama, the biggest whopper is the one about his reckless spending spree. As would-be president Mitt Romney tells it: ‘I will lead us out of this debt and spending inferno.’ Almost everyone believes that Obama has presided over a massive increase in federal spending, an “inferno” of spending that threatens our jobs, our businesses and our children’s future. Even Democrats seem to think it’s true. But it didn’t happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s. Even hapless Herbert Hoover managed to increase spending more than Obama has. . . . The facts are not what Governor Romney wants people to know: that in the last fiscal year of President Bush’s presidency (which began October 1, 2008, nearly four months before Obama took office), federal spending rose 17.9%; whereas in the first year of Obama’s presidency, federal spending fell 1.8%. As you’ll see from the first chart, the big ramp ups in federal spending were under Reagan and Bush. There’s more. Share it all with your uncle who is “socially liberal but fiscally conservative.” Because the truth is: that makes him a Democrat. If Democrats “tax and spend,” it’s because we think that, to the extent possible, one should pay for the things one spends on. That’s responsible. Republicans ramp up spending even more, but “borrow and spend” — cutting taxes and going deeply into debt. That’s irresponsible. HE MITT LEADS And terrible puns aside (I’m giddy at the prospect of a long weekend), Governor Romney has a lot of help from Karl Rove and the superpacs. Here, Rachel Maddow dissects their latest $10 million ad buy. All lies. But who would know? As in the example above, most people just don’t know the facts. Six revealing minutes. DICK, RON, THE OTHER DICK, AND MITT Yesterday — wishfully thinking it was Friday and that you would have a long weekend to watch — I posted Rachel on the Romney-Cheney connection. Riveting. Well today — and I know this because I have double-checked and called friends to be sure — is Friday and the start of a long weekend. So you may have more time to watch. Remember those who died for our country — whose future, as we head toward November 6, is in our hands.
Turning The Other Cheek But Leaving Virginia . . . and a few words about Dick Cheney May 24, 2012May 24, 2012 I just got Reverend Mel White’s new book, Holy Terror: Lies the Christian Right Tells Us to Deny Gay Equality. I don’t pretend to know Christ the way religious people do (I just like all the things he said about loving thy neighbor). Mel, by contrast, is religious, and even ghost wrote his friend Jerry Falwell’s autobiography. Also ghost wrote for Pat Robertson and Billy Graham. He is the nicest man. His story, briefly told here as he was leaving Virginia, will presumably be condemned by Christians like this now-famous pastor (the one who would put gays and lesbians behind separate electrified fences to die out over time), and his parishioners who liked what they heard. But it seems to me Mel may have a better sense of what Christ was going for. Anyway, I commend the book (it starts out with a murder) — and this true tale from the Lynchburg, Virginia News & Advance: Community Viewpoint: The Sweet Sorrow of Parting Soulforce founder bids city farewell with a plea for acceptance of gays By: Mel White | The News & Advance Published: April 15, 2012 On Palm Sunday, April 1, Gary Nixon and I celebrated 30 years together. Ten of those years have been spent in beautiful Lynchburg. In recent months, however, we’ve made the painful decision to sell our home and return to California. On the surface, we are leaving Lynchburg to spend our final years close to our children and grandchildren, but just below the surface is our growing fear that gays and lesbians are no longer welcome in Virginia. It seems that even after his death, Jerry Falwell Sr.’s antigay rhetoric is winning the day. We first visited Lynchburg in 1999 when 200 of our Soulforce friends and supporters spent an amazing weekend with 200 of Jerry’s staff and student leaders. Gay Christians came to Lynchburg from across the nation hoping to help him understand that “… the research is clear. Homosexuality is neither mental illness nor moral depravity. It is simply the way a minority of our population expresses human love and sexuality, (American Psychological Association).” That weekend, covered by 183 media crews, made headlines across the nation. In spite of our visit, Jerry continued his unwarranted and untrue attacks against lesbian and gay Americans. So we moved to Hill City in 2001 and rented a four-room house directly across the street from the church on Thomas Road. We hoped that by our daily witness, he and his congregation would see that gay people do not have, as he claimed, “a godless, humanistic scheme for our nation — a plan which will destroy America’s traditional moral values”; and that we are not planning “the complete elimination of God and Christianity from American society.” When The News & Advance announced our permanent move to Lynchburg, we thought our new neighbors might not be happy to see an “out” gay couple move into their neighborhood. Quite to the contrary, when protesters did gather on our sidewalk, several of our neighbors ignored the “God Hates Fags” signs, walked through the noisy, nasty crowd and welcomed us with buckets of fried chicken, deep dish apple pie and sweet tea. From that moment we have loved this town and its welcoming and affirming people. I first met Jerry Falwell in 1986 when he hired me to ghostwrite his autobiography, “Strength for the Journey.” I liked him immediately. I even found myself defending him when he was attacked unfairly. On the night that Jerry died, Anderson Cooper and Larry King both asked me to appear on their programs to respond to the atheist intellectual, Christopher Hitchens, who described Jerry as “an ugly charlatan,” “a little toad,” “a giggling and sniggering huckster” and “an evil old man.” That night I found myself on network television defending the man who called me a “pervert who abandoned his wife and children to join this deviant lifestyle.” In fact, my family and I have maintained a loving, committed relationship that was demonstrated clearly when my son, Mike, and I appeared on two seasons of CBS’ “The Amazing Race.” Jerry never told the truth about me, but the night he died I had the opportunity to tell the truth about Jerry. He would be missed. He had been a good pastor to his congregation at Thomas Road and a good chancellor to his students at Liberty University. But I also expressed my grief that Jerry had died before he apologized to my sisters and brothers for his antigay rhetoric just as he had apologized for his racist rhetoric in the 1950s and ’60s. During our first five years in Lynchburg I thought we were making a slight difference, that thousands of other gay and lesbian individuals and couples who lived in loving, committed relationships were changing Virginia’s political landscape. I felt certain that organizations like Equality Virginia and Open and Affirming Churches like First Christian in Lynchburg were helping their fellow Virginians understand that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Virginians live healthy, happy and holy lives just like heterosexual Virginians. Then on Nov. 7, 2006, 57 percent of Virginia’s voters ratified an amendment to the state Constitution that wasn’t content to limit marriage to one man and one woman. The amendment, sponsored by Del. Bob Marshall and Sen. Steve Newman, went on to prohibit the creation or legal recognition of any relationships of unmarried individuals “that even approximates the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage.” Of all the states with constitutional amendments prohibiting marriage equality, Virginia became the most strident and mean-spirited. More recently, the state Senate passed legislation allowing private adoption agencies to deny gay and lesbian couples the right to adopt (when 80,000 American children go un-adopted every year). And just weeks ago, both houses of the General Assembly approved “conscience clause” bills that would allow state-funded child placement agencies to discriminate against lesbian and gay couples who are willing and able to provide foster care as well. The General Assembly may be the oldest legislative body in the Western Hemisphere, but in recent years it has certainly not been the wisest. Members of the Senate and the House of Delegates are still making laws based on the antigay rhetoric of Jerry Falwell. And like Jerry, our 23rd District senator, Steve Newman, and his colleagues refuse to consider the facts. Census data shows that there are at least 270,000 American children being raised by same-sex couples: “Numerous studies over the last three decades consistently demonstrate that children raised by gay or lesbian parents exhibit the same level of emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as children raised by heterosexual parents, The American Psychiatric Association.” When the Assembly makes laws that deny lesbian and gay Virginians the right to adopt or provide foster care they are denying hundreds, perhaps thousands of Virginia’s children, the right to home and family. During our 10 years in Virginia, we’ve watched this great state turn against its gay and lesbian residents. Not only are we denied the rights and protections of marriage, our relationships are no longer safe here even when “protected” by wills or powers of attorney. And when the General Assembly denies lesbians and gays the right to adopt or provide foster care, they are implying that we aren’t capable of being loving and trustworthy parents and even worse that we are a threat to children. With a great deal of sadness and a real sense of failure, Gary and I are leaving this beautiful city and the wonderful new friends we’ve made here. We thought that in 10 years our witness would have helped in some small way to change Virginia for the better. In fact, it’s gotten worse. And though we are genuinely sad about leaving Lynchburg, it’s much easier to move knowing that members of the Assembly, the governor and a majority of the voters of Virginia have spoken. Gays and lesbians are not welcome here. What a loss that will be in professional, personal and financial resources for the people of Virginia. I’m thankful that there are thousands of Virginians (native and transplants) who know that God created gay people and loves them exactly as they were created. One day, through their witness, truth will prevail. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” We are driving down Rivermont Avenue one last time, but the city is ablaze with the brilliant blossoms of red buds, dogwoods and cherry trees and even as we drive away from Lynchburg we are remembering that with the spring hope is always born again. White founded Soulforce in 1998. Learn more about the organization at www.soulforce.org. R.I.P. Joel Grow: “A moment of reverent silence please for the passing of Eugene Polley, inventor of the wireless remote control…sniff.” A moment? Just a moment? This is huge. As Polley himself put it near the end of his 96-year life, as reported in this New York Times obit, “The flush toilet may have been the most civilized invention ever devised, but the remote control is the next most important. It’s almost as important as sex.” (Polley, the Times says, “seemed to avail himself of his own internal mute button only rarely.”) Okay, so his groundbreaking device was quickly supplanted by better one. (The Times is fascinating on these developments.) But look: can you imagine your life without the remote? Having to hire someone to stand by the TV to change channels for you, speed through the commercials, and adjust the volume? Which would mean having to remain clothed whenever you watched TV? It would be like driving a car without automatic ignition or piloting a jet that required a human-driven tug to back it out from the gate. Rest in peace, Eugene Polley DICK, RON, THE OTHER DICK, AND MITT Rachel. Riveting. Watch. If you liked Dick Cheney, well, so does Mitt Romney.
GOP: Fewer Jobs, Higher Debt; More Sex Talk and Filibusters May 23, 2012 STATEMENT ON POLITICS BY A READER’S 10-YEAR-OLD Sarah J. writes to her list: Dear Everybuggy: I must preface this with (1) I don’t have a TV, so although like all of us my son gets lots by osmosis, there isn’t a white noise of talking heads at home and (2) I don’t read the newspaper out loud so (3) if he wants to read an article, he has to read it himself and ask questions — this is usually limited to stuff about either dinosaur fossil discoveries or child soldiers. Also, (4) although I have been complaining about stupid or horrible things in the news, I don’t go into detail and mostly just do a lot of gasping or guffawing while reading without reference to the trigger. Yesterday when we came home from school, he pulled out the Scholastic Magazine (that we all got in elementary school, same thing) and said, “Mama, there’s an article about Mitt Romney in here and he’s not even talking about sex!” My response was “What? Why would Mitt Romney be talking about sex? Or not talking about it?” He said, “Well, it seems like all the Republicans talk about sex all the time.” Yours, deep in the Readers’ Digest Kids Say the Darnedest Things Section, Sarah J. THE CONTRAST Kris: “Thought you might enjoy this graphic reason to vote out the Teapublicans.” (Click to enlarge it.) Which is better — 44 million jobs in 22 years, or 24 million jobs in 28? A tenfold return in the stock market over 22 years, or a doubling over 28? And why, oh why, didn’t this graphic include something on the Debt? Reagan quadrupled it, Clinton reined it in (though it took him the better part of eight years); Bush doubled it (remember: the 2009 fiscal year began October 1, 2008, before Obama was even elected, so that year’s $1.5 trillion is on Bush, not Obama), Obama has begun reining it in (though it will take him the better part of eight years — and some cooperation by Republicans). THE FILIBUSTER Here‘s how the Republicans have undermined the democracy envisioned by the Founders. Seriously: Is there any reason not to find this appalling? [HOUSEKEEPING] Kathryn Lance: “Re your photo, I hate both new ones. Please go back to the one from when you were twelve years old.” Two Best-Sellers May 22, 2012March 27, 2017 THE ROMNEY / RYAN / AYN RAND BUDGET Marissa Hendrickson: “Re your column Friday on Paul Ryan, when people sing the praises of Atlas Shrugged as a source of lessons for the real world, I always want to tell them to read it again, but this time, remember that they’re not John Galt, they’re Eddie Willers. The guy who could appreciate genius, but didn’t have any of his own — look what happened to him. Unless Paul Ryan can produce a machine of his own invention that produces unlimited electricity from the static in the air, he’s not John Galt, and he shouldn’t try to make policy as if he is. I liked the book, too, but yeesh. It’s not a handbook, it’s a cheesy novel.” ☞ Another wildly popular book that can’t be taken literally but that approaches these moral questions from the opposite end of the spectrum — from the left — is the dovish, bleeding-heart one about “blessed are the meek” and “turning the other cheek.” (I particularly like this little passage.) Call me a centrist (please) but to me the best path lies someplace between these radically different bestsellers: an ample dose of good rough and tumble capitalism, with lots of safeguards against price-fixing, lots of creative destruction as new and improved technologies supplant the old . . . yes! . . . but all that tightly coupled with seriously progressive taxation, government investment in basic research and infrastructure, a “there but for the grace of God go I” safety net, and extensive — enlightened — regulation for a complicated world. (And a vibrant press constantly on the prowl for waste and corruption to root out; stupid or excessive regulation to revamp.) That’s my utopia. GOVERNOR ROMNEY ON REVEREND FALWELL Columnist Pat Cunningham of Rockford Illinois has a question about Governor Romney’s embrace of the late Reverend Falwell: . . . I ask you: Whose words were worse? Jeremiah Wright’s, for inviting God’s punishment of America for its racism? Or Jerry Falwell’s, for saying that God had punished America — and rightly so — for its liberalism? Last Saturday, Mitt Romney delivered a speech at Liberty University, a school founded by Falwell, and said this of the late reverend: In his 73 years of life, Dr. Falwell left a big mark…The calling Jerry answered was not an easy one. Today we remember him as a courageous and big-hearted minister of the Gospel who never feared an argument, and never hated an adversary. Jerry deserves the tribute he would have treasured most, as a cheerful, confident champion for Christ. I will always remember his cheerful good humor and selflessness. There were no qualifications in Romney’s praise of Falwell, no hints of disapproval of Falwell having blamed America for Sept. 11, no effort to distance himself from the suggestion that God had punished America for not hewing to Falwell’s moral code. So, there you have it. Barack Obama has disowned the man who said “God damn America,” but Mitt Romney has praised the man who said God has rightly punished America with horrendous acts of terrorism. And yet, some people want us to believe that Obama’s morality is the more questionable in all of this. HOUSEKEEPING Richard Theriault: “You ARE going to rotate your head shot, aren’t you? Last week’s, with the open shirt and smile, was much better. You look so — so — Republican — in this one. Forgive me, but I had to say it.” ☞ I seemed to have some horrible skin disease in the last photo. Live with it: I’m a +moderate+ Democrat. Behold! May 21, 2012May 20, 2012 DOONESBURY ON JOB CREATORS There were no jobs created in America from 1945, when the war ended, through 2003. How could there be? Taxes were too high. Preposterously so under Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan (who left office with a 28% rate on long-term capital gains) and Bush the Elder. You remember those awful times? Because of high taxes and powerful labor unions, America had no job growth from 1945 through 1992. Employment rose almost not at all, from 53 million to 119 million. And then it got even worse — Clinton came in, with his awful tax hikes. In those disastrous years — strangled by the insane Democratic regulation that kills jobs — we added barely 23 million more jobs. Barely 23 million! Then we elected George W. Bush. We slashed taxes, especially on the best off (because as Nobel-prize-winning economists Frank Luntz and Joe Scarborough have shown, the best off use those tax cuts to create jobs) — and job creation — finally! — took off. And now we have the Romney/Ryan plan (see Friday’s post) which seeks to build on the enormous Bush success* by slashing taxes even further. Because, as noted in this wonderful Doonesbury, job creators are very sensitive. Circumstances have to be just right for them to unleash their magic powers. Which is why, I say again, until Bush 43 came along, we had created almost no jobs since 1945. *And reduce the deficit! THE BUMPER STICKER SHOULD READ: If tax cuts created jobs, we’d be drowning in them. BOREF Borealis reports that “M-1” — the name it’s given its first generation WheelTug® system — “is up and operating in our lab [and] ready to drive a 737 around the tarmac. It has plenty of power. The system works.” Behold. My pretend-nemesis, the evil Spaniard, remains certain it’s a fraud. But what if it’s not? El Al, Alitalia, Jet Airways and Israir have signed on as launch customers and one can imagine that this video — and perhaps on-site visits to see it live — might bring other airlines on board. The anticipated savings per plane is in the vicinity of $500,000 a year. There are north of 10,000 planes on which this system might be installed. If there is a 50% chance this will work and become the new standard (what airline wouldn’t want to save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on each of its planes?) . . . and if by leasing these patented systems the company could realize a $50,000 annual net from each plane . . . and if uses for the technology could be found elsewhere (cars?) . . . and if . . . It reminds me of my days as a 21-year-old with stock options at a company whose shares were soaring and splitting and soaring and — while comically tame by Facebook standards (I stood to make about $3 million in today’s dollars, not billions) — it was glorious. I would walk home from work every night multiplying earnings by P/E ratios by the number of shares on which I held options, doing the calculation pre-split and post-split, composing letters I would write to inform the shocked recipients of my anticipated largesse (even then I was a bleeding heart) — it was glorious. The bubble burst; the CEO went to jail; I went back to school and wrote a book about it. But, while it lasted, it was glorious. I’m 99.9% certain that WheelTug is no fraud, but only 50% certain there’s a bonanza here that management will successfully realize for its shareholders. So no one who can’t afford a 50/50 chance of total loss should have shares in this crazy speculation. And maybe the odds of success are nowhere near 50% — I do tend to get carried away with my enthusiasms (have you tried Paul Newman’s Low-Fat Sesame Ginger salad dressing? Oh. My. God.). But with Borealis (which owns most of Chorus Motors which owns most of WheeltTug) selling at $5 a share and thus valued at just $25 million — a Manhattan condo recently sold for $90 million — I’m sure having fun doing the math in my head, dreaming. FACEBOOK — AND THE IMPORTANCE OF GOVERNMENT GRANTS This interview in The Atlantic posits that Facebook’s success is — in at least one sense — very bad news for Silicon Valley. Venture capital will be diverted from game-changing science to Angry Birds. It concludes: THOMPSON: Does this represent a large-scale failure among venture capitalists in the Valley? BLANK: It’s not like anybody is doing evil or bad. It’s like what Willie Sutton said: Social media is just “where the money is.” THOMPSON: What’s the fix? BLANK: I don’t know what the fix is. Thank God for federal government grants, and the NIH . . . . THOMPSON: So is American innovation simply doomed, or is it more complicated than that? BLANK: The headline for me here is that Facebook’s success has the unintended consequence of leading to the demise of Silicon Valley as a place where investors take big risks on advanced science and tech that helps the world. The golden age of Silicon valley is over and we’re dancing on its grave. On the other hand, Facebook is a great company. I feel bittersweet. There’s a lot more here. To emphasize my point, I elided Elon Musk and Google. But if we do want job creation (and deficit reduction), the Romney/Ryan plan of slashing taxes — and cutting federal government grants, widening our gap with China even further — is madness. Paul Ryan May 18, 2012 Yesterday, 37-47-11. If you missed it and don’t know what 37-47-11 means, take a minute to find out. (It’s not the address of a globular cluster — although apparently it’s that, too.) In a nutshell: when Governor Romney took office, Massachusetts was a not-great 37th out of 50 in job creation. After four years of applying the job-creation skills he now offers us the nation, Massachusetts had dropped — to a near-last 47th out of 50. Yet today, with a Democratic governor, Massachusetts has risen to an ever-so-much-better 11th out of 50. Anyway, that was yesterday. Today, Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan is a hugely consequential figure in American politics right now, and therefore a major player in the kind of future we and our kids will have. He is a member of the church of Ayn Rand — Atlas Shrugged is his bible* — and you can read a fascinating profile of him here. Governor Romney embraces the Paul Ryan budget. He would increase military spending; cut taxes on the rich; tighten the screws on the sick, the poor, and the elderly. That’s his path to job growth: cut back on infrastructure and research and alternative energy initiatives, fire more teachers and nurses, lower taxes on the rich. Make no mistake: if we elect Governor Romney, we’ll be getting Paul Ryan in a very real way. Snippets: Romney has shown no inclination to challenge Ryan, praising him fulsomely and even promising him, according to The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes, he’d enact Ryan’s plan in the first 100 days. Republicans envision an administration in which Romney has relegated himself to a kind of head-of-state role, at least domestically, with Ryan as the actual head of government. Ryan would achieve his short-term deficit reduction by focusing overwhelmingly on programs targeted to the poor (which account for about a fifth of the federal budget, but absorb 62 percent of Ryan’s cuts over the next decade). [His] budget repeals Obamacare, thereby uninsuring some 30 million Americans about to become insured. It would then take insurance away from another 14 to 27 million people, by cutting Medicaid and children’s health-insurance funding. This is not a moderate plan. As Robert Greenstein, a liberal budget analyst, summed up the proposal, “It would likely produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history.” And yet, Ryan has managed to sell it as something admirable, and something else entirely: a deficit-reduction plan. . . . Whether Ryan’s plan [actually] is a “deficit-reduction plan” is highly debatable. Ryan promises to eliminate trillions of dollars’ worth of tax deductions, but won’t identify which ones. . . . Ryan is specific about two policies: massive cuts to income-tax rates, and very large cuts to government programs that aid the poor and medically vulnerable. You could call all this a “deficit-reduction plan,” but it would be more accurate to call it “a plan to cut tax rates and spending on the poor and sick.” Aside from a handful of exasperated commentators, like Paul Krugman, nobody does. In 2005, Ryan spoke at a gathering of Ayn Rand enthusiasts, where he declared, “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.” . . . Ludwig von Mises, whom Ryan has also cited as an influence, once summed up Rand’s philosophy in a letter to her: “You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: You are inferior and all the improvements in your condition which you simply take for granted you owe to the effort of men who are better than you.” In 2001, Ryan led a coterie of conservatives who complained that George W. Bush’s $1.2 trillion tax cut was too small, and too focused on the middle class. In 2003, he lobbied Republicans to pass Bush’s deficit-financed prescription-drug benefit, which bestowed huge profits on the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. In 2005, when Bush campaigned to introduce private accounts into Social Security, Ryan fervently crusaded for the concept. He was the sponsor in the House of a bill to create new private accounts funded entirely by borrowing, with no benefit cuts. Ryan’s plan was so staggeringly profligate, entailing more than $2 trillion in new debt over the first decade alone, that even the Bush administration opposed it as “irresponsible.” [W]ith the possible exception of anti-tax activist/Bond villain Grover Norquist, nobody has done more in recent years to prevent the passage of a bipartisan debt agreement than Paul Ryan. And yet, incredibly, Ryan has managed to position himself as the nation’s foremost spokesman for the cause of bipartisan deficit reduction. Possibly his favorite accusation against Obama, one he repeats day after day, is that he failed to openly endorse the Bowles-Simpson plan. [Ryan was on the Simpson-Bowles Commission — and voted against its plan.] Ryan regularly holds forth on this subject in a way that seems genuine and even admirable to his audiences but, to anybody who happens to recall his actual role in these events, utterly surreal. Read the full profile. *I loved Atlas Shrugged, which I listened to over the course of a 346-mile walk. (Not all at once.) But to me it was a cartoon, even for the era in which it as written, let alone for the realities of 2012. 37 47 11 May 17, 2012May 17, 2012 It’s not the combination to my locker (I’m too cheap to join a gym). It’s the essence of the 2012 presidential election: 37, 47, 11. And I’ll tell you why. On foreign policy, 17 of Governor Romney’s 24 advisers come from the George W. Bush Administration. So if you liked the finesse with which President Bush handled foreign policy, as some do, fair enough — Romney’s your guy. But this next election is not about foreign policy. On the judiciary, Governor Romney’s chosen adviser is Robert Bork. So if you liked Citizens United and want to see Roe v. Wade overturned — if you think Bush v. Gore was well-reasoned and that it’s okay for Clarence Thomas’s wife to head a conservative advocacy group — again, Romney’s your guy. But this next election is not about the Court. (Well, actually, it is, but that’s not what will decide it.) What this next election is about is jobs. In one corner you’ve got the President of the United States, who inherited an economy hemorrhaging jobs, stabilized it, and — despite Republican refusals to do so much more that should have been done — has given us 26 straight months of private job growth. You’ve all seen the graph by now. In the other corner, Governor Romney, whose success with the 2002 Olympics turns out to have been based in no small measure on his ability to wangle $410 million in federal subsidies — more than in all past Olympics combined — and who was already given a trial run at this: namely, a four-year chance to use his job creation skills to boost the economy of Massachusetts. How’d he do? When he took office, Massachusetts had a lot of room for improvement: it ranked 37th out of 50 nationally in job creation. Romney ran for election on his promise to do better — as he’s running and promising now. After four years of applying his skills, Massachusetts had actually fallen from its not-great 37th out of 50 to a near-worst 47th out of 50. And lest you think Massachusetts has so little inherent potential that no one could have arrested that slide, please note that under his Democratic successor, Massachusetts now ranks 11th out of 50 for job creation, nicely near the top. So there it is: 37th when he took over, 47th after he applied his skills, 11th now that he’s gone — 37 47 11. Governor Romney embraces the Paul Ryan budget. He would increase military spending; cut taxes on the rich; tighten the screws on the sick, the poor, and the elderly. That’s his path to job growth: cut back on infrastructure and research and alternative energy initiatives, fire more teachers and nurses, lower taxes on the rich. More on this tomorrow. WHERE TO GIVE Alan Anderson: “I tried to donate $20 to Obama via your link, and was rejected — it only takes amounts above $100. If he has so much money that he doesn’t need small amounts, maybe I should vote for someone smaller (if I can find any such).” ☞ Almost ALL our 2 million contributors are small, and their importance to the campaign, taken as a whole — ENORMOUS. Our average contribution is something like $59. Your $20 is badly needed and deeply appreciated. Use this link. Or — to buy a T-shirt or something that helps with money AND helps (when you wear it) to build the buzz — this one. Thanks! 1 2 3 Next
Two Best-Sellers May 22, 2012March 27, 2017 THE ROMNEY / RYAN / AYN RAND BUDGET Marissa Hendrickson: “Re your column Friday on Paul Ryan, when people sing the praises of Atlas Shrugged as a source of lessons for the real world, I always want to tell them to read it again, but this time, remember that they’re not John Galt, they’re Eddie Willers. The guy who could appreciate genius, but didn’t have any of his own — look what happened to him. Unless Paul Ryan can produce a machine of his own invention that produces unlimited electricity from the static in the air, he’s not John Galt, and he shouldn’t try to make policy as if he is. I liked the book, too, but yeesh. It’s not a handbook, it’s a cheesy novel.” ☞ Another wildly popular book that can’t be taken literally but that approaches these moral questions from the opposite end of the spectrum — from the left — is the dovish, bleeding-heart one about “blessed are the meek” and “turning the other cheek.” (I particularly like this little passage.) Call me a centrist (please) but to me the best path lies someplace between these radically different bestsellers: an ample dose of good rough and tumble capitalism, with lots of safeguards against price-fixing, lots of creative destruction as new and improved technologies supplant the old . . . yes! . . . but all that tightly coupled with seriously progressive taxation, government investment in basic research and infrastructure, a “there but for the grace of God go I” safety net, and extensive — enlightened — regulation for a complicated world. (And a vibrant press constantly on the prowl for waste and corruption to root out; stupid or excessive regulation to revamp.) That’s my utopia. GOVERNOR ROMNEY ON REVEREND FALWELL Columnist Pat Cunningham of Rockford Illinois has a question about Governor Romney’s embrace of the late Reverend Falwell: . . . I ask you: Whose words were worse? Jeremiah Wright’s, for inviting God’s punishment of America for its racism? Or Jerry Falwell’s, for saying that God had punished America — and rightly so — for its liberalism? Last Saturday, Mitt Romney delivered a speech at Liberty University, a school founded by Falwell, and said this of the late reverend: In his 73 years of life, Dr. Falwell left a big mark…The calling Jerry answered was not an easy one. Today we remember him as a courageous and big-hearted minister of the Gospel who never feared an argument, and never hated an adversary. Jerry deserves the tribute he would have treasured most, as a cheerful, confident champion for Christ. I will always remember his cheerful good humor and selflessness. There were no qualifications in Romney’s praise of Falwell, no hints of disapproval of Falwell having blamed America for Sept. 11, no effort to distance himself from the suggestion that God had punished America for not hewing to Falwell’s moral code. So, there you have it. Barack Obama has disowned the man who said “God damn America,” but Mitt Romney has praised the man who said God has rightly punished America with horrendous acts of terrorism. And yet, some people want us to believe that Obama’s morality is the more questionable in all of this. HOUSEKEEPING Richard Theriault: “You ARE going to rotate your head shot, aren’t you? Last week’s, with the open shirt and smile, was much better. You look so — so — Republican — in this one. Forgive me, but I had to say it.” ☞ I seemed to have some horrible skin disease in the last photo. Live with it: I’m a +moderate+ Democrat.
Behold! May 21, 2012May 20, 2012 DOONESBURY ON JOB CREATORS There were no jobs created in America from 1945, when the war ended, through 2003. How could there be? Taxes were too high. Preposterously so under Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan (who left office with a 28% rate on long-term capital gains) and Bush the Elder. You remember those awful times? Because of high taxes and powerful labor unions, America had no job growth from 1945 through 1992. Employment rose almost not at all, from 53 million to 119 million. And then it got even worse — Clinton came in, with his awful tax hikes. In those disastrous years — strangled by the insane Democratic regulation that kills jobs — we added barely 23 million more jobs. Barely 23 million! Then we elected George W. Bush. We slashed taxes, especially on the best off (because as Nobel-prize-winning economists Frank Luntz and Joe Scarborough have shown, the best off use those tax cuts to create jobs) — and job creation — finally! — took off. And now we have the Romney/Ryan plan (see Friday’s post) which seeks to build on the enormous Bush success* by slashing taxes even further. Because, as noted in this wonderful Doonesbury, job creators are very sensitive. Circumstances have to be just right for them to unleash their magic powers. Which is why, I say again, until Bush 43 came along, we had created almost no jobs since 1945. *And reduce the deficit! THE BUMPER STICKER SHOULD READ: If tax cuts created jobs, we’d be drowning in them. BOREF Borealis reports that “M-1” — the name it’s given its first generation WheelTug® system — “is up and operating in our lab [and] ready to drive a 737 around the tarmac. It has plenty of power. The system works.” Behold. My pretend-nemesis, the evil Spaniard, remains certain it’s a fraud. But what if it’s not? El Al, Alitalia, Jet Airways and Israir have signed on as launch customers and one can imagine that this video — and perhaps on-site visits to see it live — might bring other airlines on board. The anticipated savings per plane is in the vicinity of $500,000 a year. There are north of 10,000 planes on which this system might be installed. If there is a 50% chance this will work and become the new standard (what airline wouldn’t want to save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on each of its planes?) . . . and if by leasing these patented systems the company could realize a $50,000 annual net from each plane . . . and if uses for the technology could be found elsewhere (cars?) . . . and if . . . It reminds me of my days as a 21-year-old with stock options at a company whose shares were soaring and splitting and soaring and — while comically tame by Facebook standards (I stood to make about $3 million in today’s dollars, not billions) — it was glorious. I would walk home from work every night multiplying earnings by P/E ratios by the number of shares on which I held options, doing the calculation pre-split and post-split, composing letters I would write to inform the shocked recipients of my anticipated largesse (even then I was a bleeding heart) — it was glorious. The bubble burst; the CEO went to jail; I went back to school and wrote a book about it. But, while it lasted, it was glorious. I’m 99.9% certain that WheelTug is no fraud, but only 50% certain there’s a bonanza here that management will successfully realize for its shareholders. So no one who can’t afford a 50/50 chance of total loss should have shares in this crazy speculation. And maybe the odds of success are nowhere near 50% — I do tend to get carried away with my enthusiasms (have you tried Paul Newman’s Low-Fat Sesame Ginger salad dressing? Oh. My. God.). But with Borealis (which owns most of Chorus Motors which owns most of WheeltTug) selling at $5 a share and thus valued at just $25 million — a Manhattan condo recently sold for $90 million — I’m sure having fun doing the math in my head, dreaming. FACEBOOK — AND THE IMPORTANCE OF GOVERNMENT GRANTS This interview in The Atlantic posits that Facebook’s success is — in at least one sense — very bad news for Silicon Valley. Venture capital will be diverted from game-changing science to Angry Birds. It concludes: THOMPSON: Does this represent a large-scale failure among venture capitalists in the Valley? BLANK: It’s not like anybody is doing evil or bad. It’s like what Willie Sutton said: Social media is just “where the money is.” THOMPSON: What’s the fix? BLANK: I don’t know what the fix is. Thank God for federal government grants, and the NIH . . . . THOMPSON: So is American innovation simply doomed, or is it more complicated than that? BLANK: The headline for me here is that Facebook’s success has the unintended consequence of leading to the demise of Silicon Valley as a place where investors take big risks on advanced science and tech that helps the world. The golden age of Silicon valley is over and we’re dancing on its grave. On the other hand, Facebook is a great company. I feel bittersweet. There’s a lot more here. To emphasize my point, I elided Elon Musk and Google. But if we do want job creation (and deficit reduction), the Romney/Ryan plan of slashing taxes — and cutting federal government grants, widening our gap with China even further — is madness.
Paul Ryan May 18, 2012 Yesterday, 37-47-11. If you missed it and don’t know what 37-47-11 means, take a minute to find out. (It’s not the address of a globular cluster — although apparently it’s that, too.) In a nutshell: when Governor Romney took office, Massachusetts was a not-great 37th out of 50 in job creation. After four years of applying the job-creation skills he now offers us the nation, Massachusetts had dropped — to a near-last 47th out of 50. Yet today, with a Democratic governor, Massachusetts has risen to an ever-so-much-better 11th out of 50. Anyway, that was yesterday. Today, Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan is a hugely consequential figure in American politics right now, and therefore a major player in the kind of future we and our kids will have. He is a member of the church of Ayn Rand — Atlas Shrugged is his bible* — and you can read a fascinating profile of him here. Governor Romney embraces the Paul Ryan budget. He would increase military spending; cut taxes on the rich; tighten the screws on the sick, the poor, and the elderly. That’s his path to job growth: cut back on infrastructure and research and alternative energy initiatives, fire more teachers and nurses, lower taxes on the rich. Make no mistake: if we elect Governor Romney, we’ll be getting Paul Ryan in a very real way. Snippets: Romney has shown no inclination to challenge Ryan, praising him fulsomely and even promising him, according to The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes, he’d enact Ryan’s plan in the first 100 days. Republicans envision an administration in which Romney has relegated himself to a kind of head-of-state role, at least domestically, with Ryan as the actual head of government. Ryan would achieve his short-term deficit reduction by focusing overwhelmingly on programs targeted to the poor (which account for about a fifth of the federal budget, but absorb 62 percent of Ryan’s cuts over the next decade). [His] budget repeals Obamacare, thereby uninsuring some 30 million Americans about to become insured. It would then take insurance away from another 14 to 27 million people, by cutting Medicaid and children’s health-insurance funding. This is not a moderate plan. As Robert Greenstein, a liberal budget analyst, summed up the proposal, “It would likely produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S. history.” And yet, Ryan has managed to sell it as something admirable, and something else entirely: a deficit-reduction plan. . . . Whether Ryan’s plan [actually] is a “deficit-reduction plan” is highly debatable. Ryan promises to eliminate trillions of dollars’ worth of tax deductions, but won’t identify which ones. . . . Ryan is specific about two policies: massive cuts to income-tax rates, and very large cuts to government programs that aid the poor and medically vulnerable. You could call all this a “deficit-reduction plan,” but it would be more accurate to call it “a plan to cut tax rates and spending on the poor and sick.” Aside from a handful of exasperated commentators, like Paul Krugman, nobody does. In 2005, Ryan spoke at a gathering of Ayn Rand enthusiasts, where he declared, “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.” . . . Ludwig von Mises, whom Ryan has also cited as an influence, once summed up Rand’s philosophy in a letter to her: “You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: You are inferior and all the improvements in your condition which you simply take for granted you owe to the effort of men who are better than you.” In 2001, Ryan led a coterie of conservatives who complained that George W. Bush’s $1.2 trillion tax cut was too small, and too focused on the middle class. In 2003, he lobbied Republicans to pass Bush’s deficit-financed prescription-drug benefit, which bestowed huge profits on the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. In 2005, when Bush campaigned to introduce private accounts into Social Security, Ryan fervently crusaded for the concept. He was the sponsor in the House of a bill to create new private accounts funded entirely by borrowing, with no benefit cuts. Ryan’s plan was so staggeringly profligate, entailing more than $2 trillion in new debt over the first decade alone, that even the Bush administration opposed it as “irresponsible.” [W]ith the possible exception of anti-tax activist/Bond villain Grover Norquist, nobody has done more in recent years to prevent the passage of a bipartisan debt agreement than Paul Ryan. And yet, incredibly, Ryan has managed to position himself as the nation’s foremost spokesman for the cause of bipartisan deficit reduction. Possibly his favorite accusation against Obama, one he repeats day after day, is that he failed to openly endorse the Bowles-Simpson plan. [Ryan was on the Simpson-Bowles Commission — and voted against its plan.] Ryan regularly holds forth on this subject in a way that seems genuine and even admirable to his audiences but, to anybody who happens to recall his actual role in these events, utterly surreal. Read the full profile. *I loved Atlas Shrugged, which I listened to over the course of a 346-mile walk. (Not all at once.) But to me it was a cartoon, even for the era in which it as written, let alone for the realities of 2012.
37 47 11 May 17, 2012May 17, 2012 It’s not the combination to my locker (I’m too cheap to join a gym). It’s the essence of the 2012 presidential election: 37, 47, 11. And I’ll tell you why. On foreign policy, 17 of Governor Romney’s 24 advisers come from the George W. Bush Administration. So if you liked the finesse with which President Bush handled foreign policy, as some do, fair enough — Romney’s your guy. But this next election is not about foreign policy. On the judiciary, Governor Romney’s chosen adviser is Robert Bork. So if you liked Citizens United and want to see Roe v. Wade overturned — if you think Bush v. Gore was well-reasoned and that it’s okay for Clarence Thomas’s wife to head a conservative advocacy group — again, Romney’s your guy. But this next election is not about the Court. (Well, actually, it is, but that’s not what will decide it.) What this next election is about is jobs. In one corner you’ve got the President of the United States, who inherited an economy hemorrhaging jobs, stabilized it, and — despite Republican refusals to do so much more that should have been done — has given us 26 straight months of private job growth. You’ve all seen the graph by now. In the other corner, Governor Romney, whose success with the 2002 Olympics turns out to have been based in no small measure on his ability to wangle $410 million in federal subsidies — more than in all past Olympics combined — and who was already given a trial run at this: namely, a four-year chance to use his job creation skills to boost the economy of Massachusetts. How’d he do? When he took office, Massachusetts had a lot of room for improvement: it ranked 37th out of 50 nationally in job creation. Romney ran for election on his promise to do better — as he’s running and promising now. After four years of applying his skills, Massachusetts had actually fallen from its not-great 37th out of 50 to a near-worst 47th out of 50. And lest you think Massachusetts has so little inherent potential that no one could have arrested that slide, please note that under his Democratic successor, Massachusetts now ranks 11th out of 50 for job creation, nicely near the top. So there it is: 37th when he took over, 47th after he applied his skills, 11th now that he’s gone — 37 47 11. Governor Romney embraces the Paul Ryan budget. He would increase military spending; cut taxes on the rich; tighten the screws on the sick, the poor, and the elderly. That’s his path to job growth: cut back on infrastructure and research and alternative energy initiatives, fire more teachers and nurses, lower taxes on the rich. More on this tomorrow. WHERE TO GIVE Alan Anderson: “I tried to donate $20 to Obama via your link, and was rejected — it only takes amounts above $100. If he has so much money that he doesn’t need small amounts, maybe I should vote for someone smaller (if I can find any such).” ☞ Almost ALL our 2 million contributors are small, and their importance to the campaign, taken as a whole — ENORMOUS. Our average contribution is something like $59. Your $20 is badly needed and deeply appreciated. Use this link. Or — to buy a T-shirt or something that helps with money AND helps (when you wear it) to build the buzz — this one. Thanks!