Ten Minutes With Bill Maher June 15, 2012June 15, 2012 If you read yesterday’s post between about 3am and 8am, Eastern time, you missed the rather important UPDATE. (Executive summary: the President will be reelected.) Sorry about that. LIGHT! The quality of LED lighting is apparently much improved, even as the cost seems to be half what it was the last time I ordered bulbs. Watch this video, as described here: By now, we hope that most of you know that swapping incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs saves money and energy, but there’s still a lingering misconception that LED bulbs emit a cold, bluish light that is just not as warm or attractive as the old filament-filled bulbs we grew up with. To dispel this fallacy, we sought out a group of people with a critical eye for light bulb color and ambiance – lighting designers on the show floor of the International Contemporary Furniture Fair at New York Design Week. These meticulous designers take light warmth and quality very seriously (that is their job after all), so we couldn’t think of anyone better suited to give an honest opinion about the latest generation of high-tech LED light bulbs. Watch our video above to see how we retrofitted five gorgeous designer lamps with new Philips LED light bulbs – and in the process saved $1,732.86 in energy costs and won over some designer converts to the future of LED lighting. This is the kind of news we should be working together to make — for fuel efficiency in lighting, in weatherizing homes, in retrofitting office buildings (the poster child for which is the Empire State Building, which has cut a projected 38%, which is to say $4.4 million, from its annual energy bill). It’s part of the economic renewal Republicans have blocked at every turn that will put our unemployed back to work and restore our economic competitiveness. How can we afford to put people to work restoring our infrastructure? The better question is: how can we not? It’s the same situation we faced in World War II: only there, no one was filibustering our way forward. Of course we needed to do what we needed to do, even if it meant running up huge deficits to do it. Now we have to do that again; only instead of running up massive debt to blow things up, we’d be running up massive debt to rebuild the nation and, by the way, tremendously improve our energy efficiency and, with it, our competitiveness, prosperity, and national security. AND NOW . . . I saved these for the weekend, on the theory that you might more easily be able to find the time to watch. WARNING: Bill Maher’s sense of humor, as you probably know, springs from outrageous tastelessness. There is a reason his show was long called, “Politically Incorrect.” That barely begins to describe his irreverence. Which on some levels is too bad, because if some of what he says makes me cringe, what chance has it to keep someone watching who doesn’t already agree with him? But he’s so right about this stuff: Clip #1: “If he’s a socialist, he’s a lousy one.” From the estimable Matt Ball: “Best New Rule ever? Start at 1:58 and watch the last 5 minutes – about how ‘socialist’ Obama has let him down.” Maher is scathing on Obama — you really have to watch — to make the point that the President has done largely what the conservatives wanted. Concluding: “So just admit it. This isn’t about what Obama is, it’s about what you need him to be, because hating him is what gets you up in the morning.” Clip #2: “Occupy Wall Street” And what about last week’s “new rules”? Even better? Much of the first two and a half minutes are very funny but if time is really short start watching at 2:42: “Now that summer is upon us, the Occupy Wall Street movement must think of a more effective form of protest than . . . camping. To be considered a real movement, it has to start moving asses off the streets and into the voting booth.” Have a great weekend.
Get Cracking June 14, 2012June 14, 2012 Republicans are working hard to make it harder for eligible voters to vote. And working hard to misinform those who do. And giving yet more power to the already rich and powerful. I know most Republicans will reflexively disagree — or simply close their ears. But that doesn’t make it any less true. (And we’re not supposed to talk about it. Did you read Paul Krugman on “the new political correctness?” Here, in the New York Times: “[E]ven talking about ‘the wealthy’ brings angry denunciations; we’re supposed to call them ‘job creators’. Even talking about inequality is ‘class warfare’. . . .“) I hate that it’s come to this. And if they win, with their completely backwards economic vision, I think it will hurt your personal finances even worse than eight years of Bush (six of them with a Republican Congress) did. WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT Well, for one thing, if you’re a Democrat or Independent or moderate Republican (remember those?), you can reject the current Republican candidates November 6. And you can volunteer. And you can listen to Joe Biden, who recently wrote: Friend — Something inspired you to step up and pitch in to support Barack and this campaign — whatever it was, whoever it was, I appreciate it. I bet you know one or two people, possibly dozens, who would follow your lead if you just asked. This is the time to do it: Last month, for the first time in this campaign, Mitt Romney and the Republicans brought in more money than we did. They’re just getting started. We’re up against an unprecedented tidal wave of special-interest spending, and we won’t survive it without people like you asking your family and friends to get involved, too. Here’s how: Create a personal grassroots fundraising page, then invite your friends and family to pitch in to help you reach your goal. You can tell them Joe put you up to this. Our grassroots fundraising program is all about growing this campaign the right way — person by person, donation by donation. And it’s how we’re going to win. The single best person to convince your friends and family to step up and own a piece of what happens in November is you. And since this campaign is only as strong as the people behind it, you’ll know you made a real difference when the last poll closes on Election Day. The next five months are going to be some of the toughest Barack and I have been through, and I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to know folks like you have our backs. Take it up a notch and get your friends on board: http://my.barackobama.com/Create-a-Grassroots-Fundraising-Page Thanks again for your support. Let’s go win this thing. Joe If you can get a million people to donate $10 each (and I know that, popular and energetic though you are, that may be tough), you’ll have raised for Obama as much money as one guy — Sheldon Adelson — is reported to be giving the other side alone. And one-fortieth as much as two guys, Charles and David Koch, plan to give. They have a lot more billionaires than we do, and their billionaires love Citizens United. Our billionaires are — rightly — appalled, and, so far at least, seem to favor unilateral disarmament, despite the potentially disastrous consequences. So, yes: set up that personal fundraising page, and get about the business of democracy. Millions of us are needed to balance the influence of a dozen of them. AND THIS JUST IN: Millions of us will pitch in, as we did in 2008, millions of new voters will be registered, as they were in 2008, more than a million volunteers will help turn people out to the polls, as they did in 2008 — and we will win. Because the Romney vision is to cut taxes on the rich (raising the deficit and national debt that much further) while cutting back drastically on everything else — just when the economy most needs government demand and the infrastructure is most primed for renewal. Cut back on everything else, that is, except for a trillion hike in military spending that we neither need nor can afford. I’m not making any of this up. It’s as nuts as the Bush economic stewardship was. The Romney jobs record as chief executive was to take Massachusetts from a poor 37th out of 50 in job creation down to a near-bottom 47th (today, under a Democrat, it’s shot up to more like 11th) at the same time as he left the state with the highest per capita debt in the country. He did his best, presumably, but that proved to carry with it no special magic. (His success with the Olympics, meanwhile, was in getting more federal government subsidy than all previous US Olympics combined. It wasn’t deft budgeting; it was government bailout.) The Obama record — despite being thwarted by the G.O.P. every step of the way — was to avert depression, save the auto industry, cut taxes for the middle class and small business, and help create 4.3 million private sector jobs — more net private sector jobs than were created in 8 years of his Republican predecessor. (Also to restore our standing in the world, bring our troops home from Iraq, put us on a path to leave Afghanistan, decimate Al-Qaeda; pass health care reform the specific provisions of which — save one — are highly popular; double fuel efficiency standards, triple the representation of women on the Supreme Court, and sextuple the number of stem cell lines available to researchers.) At the end of the day, the President will be reelected. But it will be some nasty fight. And we need you.
Republican Economics in a Nutshell June 13, 2012 Are we really going to forsake the Clinton/Obama approach and try this stuff again? The Koch brothers are betting $400 million that we will. That Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Rick Santorum, Donald Trump, and the rest — even that great economic thinker Herman Cain — will be able to persuade 50.01% of the electorate to go back to George W. Bush economics. But “on steroids,” as former President Clinton has taken to describing the Romney/Ryan vision. Republican economics . . . First, as described by the left: The Disaster of Republican Economic Policies —By Kevin Drum Tue Jun. 12, 2012 8:12 AM PDT A few days ago the Congressional Budget Office released a short analysis explaining why the $5.6 trillion surplus they projected for the decade following 2001 instead turned into a $6.1 trillion deficit. Bruce Bartlett summarizes: Putting all the numbers in the C.B.O. report together, we see that continuation of tax and budget policies and economic conditions in place at the end of the Clinton administration would have led to a cumulative budget surplus of $5.6 trillion through 2011 — enough to pay off the $5.6 trillion national debt at the end of 2000. Tax cuts and slower-than-expected growth reduced revenues by $6.1 trillion and spending was $5.6 trillion higher, a turnaround of $11.7 trillion. Of this total, the C.B.O. attributes 72 percent to legislated tax cuts and spending increases, 27 percent to economic and technical factors. Of the latter, 56 percent occurred from 2009 to 2011. Even if we absolve George W. Bush of responsibility for those “economic and technical factors” — mainly the Great Recession — his policies are still responsible for a turnaround of about $8.4 trillion in the deficit projections. In other words, if we had merely hung onto the policies of the Clinton administration, paid for things like Medicare Part D, and avoided the disastrous war in Iraq, we would have entered the Great Recession with one of the lowest debt levels in the advanced world. That in turn would probably have kept the housing bubble a bit smaller than it was, making the Great Recession a little less catastrophic, and would have given us more headroom for fiscal stimulus in 2008 and 2009, which also would have reduced both the length and depth of the recession. But none of that happened thanks to Republican economic policies. This year, they swear they’ve learned their lesson and will never do this again. Do you believe them? And now, as described by a Reagan/Bush Republican: June 12, 2012 The Fiscal Legacy of George W. Bush By BRUCE BARTLETT Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul. He is the author of “The Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform – Why We Need It and What It Will Take.” Republicans assert that Barack Obama assumed sole responsibility for the budget on Jan. 20, 2009. From that date, all increases in the debt or deficit are his responsibility and no one else’s, they say. This is, of course, nonsense – and the American people know it. As I documented in a previous post, even today 43 percent of them hold George W. Bush responsible for the current budget deficit versus only 14 percent who blame Mr. Obama.The American people are right; Mr. Bush is more responsible, as a new report from the Congressional Budget Office documents. In January 2001, the office projected that the federal government would run a total budget surplus of $3.5 trillion through 2008 if policy was unchanged and the economy continued according to forecast. In fact, there was a deficit of $5.5 trillion. The projected surplus was primarily the result of two factors. First was a big tax increase in 1993 that every Republican in Congress voted against, saying that it would tank the economy. This belief was wrong. The economy boomed in 1994, growing 4.1 percent that year and strongly throughout the Clinton administration. The second major contributor to budget surpluses that emerged in 1998 was tough budget controls that were part of the 1990 and 1993 budget deals. The main one was a requirement that spending could not be increased or taxes cut unless offset by spending cuts or tax increases. This was known as Paygo, for pay as you go. During the 2000 campaign, Mr. Bush warned that budget surpluses were dangerous because Congress might spend them, even though Paygo rules prevented this from happening. His Feb. 28, 2001, budget message reiterated this point and asserted that future surpluses were likely to be even larger than projected due principally to anticipated strong revenue growth. This was the primary justification for a big tax cut. Subsequently, as it became clear that the economy was slowing – a recession began in March 2001 – that became a further justification. The 2001 tax cut did nothing to stimulate the economy, yet Republicans pushed for additional tax cuts in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2008. The economy continued to languish even as the Treasury hemorrhaged revenue, which fell to 17.5 percent of the gross domestic product in 2008 from 20.6 percent in 2000. Republicans abolished Paygo in 2002, and spending rose to 20.7 percent of G.D.P. in 2008 from 18.2 percent in 2001. According to the C.B.O., by the end of the Bush administration, legislated tax cuts reduced revenues and increased the national debt by $1.6 trillion. Slower-than-expected growth further reduced revenues by $1.4 trillion. However, the Bush tax cuts continued through 2010, well into the Obama administration. These reduced revenues by another $369 billion, adding that much to the debt. Legislated tax cuts enacted by President Obama and Democrats in Congress reduced revenues by an additional $407 billion in 2009 and 2010. Slower growth reduced revenues by a further $1.3 trillion. Contrary to Republican assertions, there were no additional revenues from legislated tax increases. . . . Putting all the numbers in the C.B.O. report together, we see that continuation of tax and budget policies and economic conditions in place at the end of the Clinton administration would have led to a cumulative budget surplus of $5.6 trillion through 2011 – enough to pay off the $5.6 trillion national debt at the end of 2000. Tax cuts and slower-than-expected growth reduced revenues by $6.1 trillion and spending was $5.6 trillion higher, a turnaround of $11.7 trillion. Of this total, the C.B.O. attributes 72 percent to legislated tax cuts and spending increases, 27 percent to economic and technical factors. Of the latter, 56 percent occurred from 2009 to 2011. Republicans would have us believe that somehow we could have avoided the recession and balanced the budget since 2009 if only they had been in charge. This would be a neat trick considering that the recession began in December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. They would also have us believe that all of the increase in debt resulted solely from higher spending, nothing from lower revenues caused by tax cuts. And they continually imply that one of the least popular spending increases of recent years, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, was an Obama administration program, when in fact it was a Bush administration initiative proposed by the Treasury Department that was signed into law by Mr. Bush on Oct. 3, 2008. Lastly, Republicans continue to insist that tax cuts are highly stimulative, often saying that they add nothing to the debt, when this is obviously ridiculous. Conversely, they are adamant that tax increases must not be part of any deficit-reduction package because they never reduce deficits and instead are spent. This is also ridiculous, as the experience of the Clinton administration clearly shows. The new C.B.O. data confirm these facts.
Catch Up June 12, 2012June 12, 2012 Yesterday’s post went up late and included a video you may not have had time to watch, so today I’m mostly just rerunning it to give you a chance to … KETCHUP Nutritionally the ideal food, it encompasses all four major food groups: FRUIT (tomatoes are fruits), VEGETABLE (tomatoes are vegetables), SALT, and SUGAR. And now, writes David Bruce, “MIT has solved the problem of ketchup left in the bottle.” MIT’s Freaky Non-Stick Coating Keeps Ketchup Flowing When it comes to those last globs of ketchup inevitably stuck to every bottle of Heinz, most people either violently shake the container in hopes of eking out another drop or two, or perform the “secret” trick: smacking the “57” logo on the bottle’s neck. But not MIT PhD candidate Dave Smith. He and a team of mechanical engineers and nano-technologists at the Varanasi Research Group have been held up in an MIT lab for the last two months addressing this common dining problem. . . . Who says America is losing her edge? OK. Yesterday’s post: BOREF This could be an interesting few weeks. Borealis — parent of Chorus Motors which is parent of WheelTug — says it hopes to test an actual WheelTug system in the actual nose wheel of an an actual Boeing 737 the week of June 18 at the Prague Airport (an official WheelTug partner). If it works, they would presumably have a video to show at the annual Farnborough International Airshow, July 9-15 — or, if they can get one for the purpose, perhaps even an actual airplane to drive around the air show. I am working very hard to steel myself for snafus, delays, disappointments, or disaster of some kind. But I think it’s now reasonable to allow for the possibility this is real, and that — just as all TVs now come with remote controls and many jets come with those “winglets” the industry resisted for so long — in a few years, most commercial airliners will be able to back out from their gates without waiting for a tug; taxi around the tarmac without having to run their main engines. In an ideal (for me) world, it could mean $50,000 a year profit per plane from leasing the systems, times ten thousand planes. That’s half a billion dollars a year in profit. With its stock currently selling at $5, the company is valued at $25 million. Not to say I’m being anything but wildly optimistic here. I am. Then again, I’ve assigned no value to the possibility that the Chorus Motor technology could find uses elsewhere. (Cars?) Or to the possibility that any of the other Borealis alleged scientific breakthroughs, or their mineral holdings, could be commercialized. So call this a lottery ticket where there’s still, say, a 50% chance we will lose every penny (did I mention that the company is legally headquartered in Gibraltar? that it used to be a Canadian mining stock?) . . . but perhaps a 50% chance of winning big. CALL HIM HIM MISTER? THE MITTSTER? Joe Devney: “You made a reference Thursday to ‘Governor Romney.’ This is a construction I come across in the news media and elsewhere, and want to raise my voice to object. There have been two ‘Governor Romneys’ in the past; there are none now. When someone leaves an office, they should leave their title as well. When the Komen Foundation was in the news a few months ago, a Komen employee in an interview kept referring to the CEO as ‘Ambassador Brinker.’ This seemed absurd: she doesn’t have diplomatic immunity. I noticed on PBS’s News Hour today that, while the Republican spokesman referred to ‘Governor Romney,’ the News Hour people spoke of ‘former Governor Romney’ and ‘former President Clinton.’ I think that’s proper. And democratic.” ☞ Thanks, Joe. I wanted to show respect, but I guess I have been off-base, at least according to this. (“There is only one Governor at at time, and it’s not respectful of the current office holder to refer to former office holders as it they were still in office. “) But former ambassadors? The same source seems to grant them more latitude. (“Former ambassadors are addressed with the honorific Ambassador at their preference … and most I’ve encountered to prefer to be addressed as such.”) And I’m all but certain it was okay to address Harland Sanders as “Colonel,” because his chicken was so good. SOMETHING WORSE? Because his campaign is so unashamedly deceptive, Rachel Maddow and others might call Mr. Romney something worse. See her latest on this point, here (the full clip) or, minus 8 minutes of build-up, here: Our democracy is in some danger not just because billionaires can now swamp the airwaves with a seven to one advantage (as in Wisconsin), but also because it’s entirely legal for those ads to be complete lies. You can’t lie in ads about toothpaste — saying your brand reduces cavities by 40% if it does not — but you can lie in political ads, saying anything. Entirely legal. No recourse. Some years ago I put three tort reform measures on he California ballot, the central one being an initiative that the Stanford Research Institute estimated would lower auto insurance premiums by 40% even as it improved the pay-outs to most seriously injured accident victims. At the behest of the trial lawyers whose income was threatened by this measure, Ralph Nader proclaimed in TV ads that, if passed, this measure would raise auto insurance premiums by 40%. He had the number right — 40% — but had flipped the direction. It was as dishonest as George W. Bush claiming that “by far the vast majority” of his tax proposed cuts would go to people “at the bottom of the economic ladder.” So the auto insurance reform lost and George W. Bush won. And Mitt Romney may win, too. But that would be a shame, because his economic vision — further tax cuts for the wealthy, austerity for everyone else — will lead, instead, to a depression and larger deficits. He has embraced the draconian Paul Ryan budget. He proposes deep cuts in investment in infrastructure, research, and practically everything else except the military. So to those who wish this site were more about personal finance and less about politics, I’d suggest the two are tightly entwined. Ask any college applicant hoping for a Pell grant. Ask anyone still out of work because the Republicans refused to pass the American Jobs Act. Ask any relative old enough to remember the last Depression. If you care about your money, you will learn the facts (did you know that Mitt Romney had a poor jobs record as Governor of Massachusetts and left the state with the highest per capita debt of any in the nation?). And you will get involved. JOIN “THE TRUTH TEAM” Here. It is a portal to three web sites: attackwatch.com, where we debunk phony claims they make about us; keepingGOPhonest.com, where we debunk phony claims they make about themselves; and keepinghisword.com, where we note the promises that, in the face of unprecedented obstruction,the President has nonetheless kept.
Politics and Prosperity Entwined June 11, 2012June 12, 2012 Yesterday’s post went up late and included a video you may not have had time to watch, so today I’m mostly just rerunning yesterday’s post to give you a chance to catch up. KETCHUP Nutritionally the ideal food, it encompasses all four major food groups: FRUIT (tomatoes are fruits), VEGETABLE (tomatoes are vegetables), SALT, and SUGAR. And now, writes David ruce: “MIT Solves Problem of Ketchup Left in Bottle.” MIT’s Freaky Non-Stick Coating Keeps Ketchup Flowing When it comes to those last globs of ketchup inevitably stuck to every bottle of Heinz, most people either violently shake the container in hopes of eking out another drop or two, or perform the “secret” trick: smacking the “57” logo on the bottle’s neck. But not MIT PhD candidate Dave Smith. He and a team of mechanical engineers and nano-technologists at the Varanasi Research Group have been held up in an MIT lab for the last two months addressing this common dining problem. Who says America is losing her edge? Yesterday’s post: BOREF This could be an interesting few weeks. Borealis — parent of Chorus Motors which is parent of WheelTug — says it hopes to test an actual WheelTug system in the actual nose wheel of an an actual Boeing 737 the week of June 18 at the Prague Airport (an official WheelTug partner). If it works, they would presumably have a video to show at the annual Farnborough International Airshow, July 9-15 — or, if they can get one for the purpose, perhaps even an actual airplane to drive around the air show. I am working very hard to steel myself for snafus, delays, disappointments, or disaster of some kind. But I think it’s now reasonable to allow for the possibility this is real, and that — just as all TVs now come with remote controls and many jets come with those “winglets” the industry resisted for so long — in a few years, most commercial airliners will be able to back out from their gates without waiting for a tug; taxi around the tarmac without having to run their main engines. In an ideal (for me) world, it could mean $50,000 a year profit per plane from leasing the systems, times ten thousand planes. That’s half a billion dollars a year in profit. With its stock currently selling at $5, the company is valued at $25 million. Not to say I’m being anything but wildly optimistic here. I am. Then again, I’ve assigned no value to the possibility that the Chorus Motor technology could find uses elsewhere. (Cars?) Or to the possibility that any of the other Borealis alleged scientific breakthroughs, or their mineral holdings, could be commercialized. So call this a lottery ticket where there’s still, say, a 50% chance we will lose every penny (did I mention that the company is legally headquartered in Gibraltar? that it used to be a Canadian mining stock?) . . . but perhaps a 50% chance of winning big. CALL HIM HIM MISTER? THE MITTSTER? Joe Devney: “You made a reference Thursday to ‘Governor Romney.’ This is a construction I come across in the news media and elsewhere, and want to raise my voice to object. There have been two ‘Governor Romneys’ in the past; there are none now. When someone leaves an office, they should leave their title as well. When the Komen Foundation was in the news a few months ago, a Komen employee in an interview kept referring to the CEO as ‘Ambassador Brinker.’ This seemed absurd: she doesn’t have diplomatic immunity. I noticed on PBS’s News Hour today that, while the Republican spokesman referred to ‘Governor Romney,’ the News Hour people spoke of ‘former Governor Romney’ and ‘former President Clinton.’ I think that’s proper. And democratic.” ☞ Thanks, Joe. I wanted to show respect, but I guess I have been off-base, at least according to this. (“There is only one Governor at at time, and it’s not respectful of the current office holder to refer to former office holders as it they were still in office. “) But former ambassadors? The same source seems to grant them more latitude. (“Former ambassadors are addressed with the honorific Ambassador at their preference … and most I’ve encountered to prefer to be addressed as such.”) And I’m all but certain it was okay to address Harland Sanders as “Colonel,” because his chicken was so good. SOMETHING WORSE? Because his campaign is so unashamedly deceptive, Rachel Maddow and others might call Mr. Romney something worse. See her latest on this point, here (the full clip) or, minus 8 minutes of build-up, here: Our democracy is in some danger not just because billionaires can now swamp the airwaves with a seven to one advantage (as in Wisconsin), but also because it’s entirely legal for those ads to be complete lies. You can’t lie in ads about toothpaste — saying your brand reduces cavities by 40% if it does not — but you can lie in political ads, saying anything. Entirely legal. No recourse. Some years ago I put three tort reform measures on he California ballot, the central one being an initiative that the Stanford Research Institute estimated would lower auto insurance premiums by 40% even as it improved the pay-outs to most seriously injured accident victims. At the behest of the trial lawyers whose income was threatened by this measure, Ralph Nader proclaimed in TV ads that, if passed, this measure would raise auto insurance premiums by 40%. He had the number right — 40% — but had flipped the direction. It was as dishonest as George W. Bush claiming that “by far the vast majority” of his tax proposed cuts would go to people “at the bottom of the economic ladder.” So the auto insurance reform lost and George W. Bush won. And Mitt Romney may win, too. But that would be a shame, because his economic vision — further tax cuts for the wealthy, austerity for everyone else — will lead, instead, to a depression and larger deficits. He has embraced the draconian Paul Ryan budget. He proposes deep cuts in investment in infrastructure, research, and practically everything else except the military. So to those who wish this site were more about personal finance and less about politics, I’d suggest the two are tightly entwined. Ask any college applicant hoping for a Pell grant. Ask anyone still out of work because the Republicans refused to pass the American Jobs Act. Ask any relative old enough to remember the last Depression. If you care about your money, you will learn the facts (did you know that Mitt Romney had a poor jobs record as Governor of Massachusetts and left the state with the highest per capita debt of any in the nation?). And you will get involved. JOIN “THE TRUTH TEAM” Here. It is a portal to three web sites: attackwatch.com, where we debunk phony claims they make about us; keepingGOPhonest.com, where we debunk phony claims they make about themselves; and keepinghisword.com, where we note the promises that, in the face of unprecedented obstruction,the President has nonetheless kept.
Two Auctions June 7, 2012June 8, 2012 [UPDATE: THANKS FOR THE HELP MANY OF YOU SENT. I WAS GOING TO WRITE TODAY’S COLUMN ON THE PLANE BUT FOUND MYSELF WATCHING ONE OF THOSE MOVIES WHERE THE GOOD GUYS’ CELL PHONES WORK PERFECTLY EVEN FROM INSIDE BANK VAULTS. AS IF! SO I’M LEAVING YESTERDAY’S POST UP INSTEAD. HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND.] You saw that the Kochs et al are now budgeting $1 billion to swamp the elections with a likely 10-to-1 superPAC advantage and take over all three branches of government. And you saw that — having refused to passed the American Jobs Act (“right away,” as the President exhorted in his address to that Joint Session of Congress last September) — the Republicans lick their chops at last month’s tepid jobs numbers, hoping that a weak economy will enhance Governor Romney’s chances. The good news is that we can win. Not just the White House, but Congress, too. “All” we have to do is register and turn out millions of new voters (many of whom were 16 and 17 last time), as we did in 2008 – we know how to do this – and RE-register millions of existing voters the Republicans are working so hard to disenfranchise. It’s an enormous, colossal, massive undertaking that requires thousands of field organizers to recruit, train, and motivate a million volunteers. We got it done in 2008. It’s an even bigger job this time. But we’ve had a running start we didn’t have last time. (It was not until June 4, 2008 – four years ago this past Monday — that Senator Obama clinched the nomination. We’ve been building +this+ effort since last April!) And we have a candidate whose capability can no longer be questioned: he has restored our standing in the world, decimated our #1 enemy, averted a depression, saved the auto industry, launched health care reform, doubled CAFE standards, tripled the representation of women on the Court, sextupled the number of stem cell lines available to researchers, and (among many other things) enhanced the sense of self-worth of millions — be they black kids or gay teens or Hispanics (did I mention that one of those Justices is Sotomayor?) — even as the other side blocks the Dream Act, opposes equal rights, and seeks to “take back America” by turning our President out of office, cutting taxes for billionaires and cutting investment in our future. And now to the “auctions.” The first is maybe a little off topic, but we all know people who plan to vote for Republican strictly over “taxes.” I want to offer a way you might engage them and, conceivably, bring them over to our side. (I know, I know: but it’s worth a try.) It’s one of Warren Buffett’s favorite riffs, so you may already have heard it. Here’s what you might tell your Republican-because-of-taxes friends: << Imagine you are in the womb, about to be born. And you are twins. Identical. Both brilliant, talented, good looking, healthy. Just the way you are in real life today. What a great life the two of you are about to have! Except imagine that, just prior to your birth, you are told that one of you will be born in America and the other will be born in Somalia or Peru or Cambodia someplace – and it’s up to you who’s born where. And because both of you express a preference for America, there’s going to be a little auction, based on the top marginal tax bracket you’d be willing to pay to be born here. The bidding starts at 10% and both your little hands shoot up so fast they almost puncture the placenta. So ask your Republican friends where +they+ would stop bidding in this situation. At the 28% long-term capital gains rate we had when Reagan left office? At the 70% top ordinary rate that prevailed from Kennedy thru Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter? At Eisenhower’s 91% top rate? >> It could get them thinking. (If it’s “the debt” rather than taxes that lean them Republican, remind them that “tax and spend” Democrats +pay+ for what they spend. “Borrow and spend” Republicans do not – hence the debt. Reagan +quadrupled+ the National Debt, Clinton handed Bush a surplus. Bush +doubled+ the debt and handed Obama a $1.5 trillion 2009 deficit baked into the books as of the start of the fiscal year, October 1, 2008, before he had even been elected President.) Anyway, that’s the first “auction.” Conceivably, it could pick up a vote or two. Here is the second auction. And in this one, YOU are the bidder: What would you bid to have had Al Gore instead of George W. Bush from 2000 to 2008? (No war in Iraq, no decimation of our national balance sheet, no tax incentives to buy Hummers, no Alito and Roberts and thus no Citizens United . . . all that.) A hundred bucks? Five hundred? Five hundred thousand? I know it’s awkward bidding against yourself, and I know that of course this is a preposterous hypothetical, but seriously (or at least semi-seriously): if it were up to you and you could turn back time and reverse the outcome of Bush v. Gore, how high would you go? Got your number? Okay . . . Going once . . . (don’t forget that by accelerating rather than impeding stem cell research, a loved one might someday have caught, rather than missed, the wave and been spared) . . . Going twice . . . (don’t forget that by leading rather than lagging on “climate change,” we’d be further along dealing with this species-threatening challenge) . . . SOLD at whatever number you chose. And you see where I’m headed with this. You can’t roll back history and install Al Gore. But you +can+ roll history forward. You can help register the voters who will elect Barack Obama, hold the Senate, take back the House and state legislative chambers. Whatever number you chose for Bush v. Gore — now Romney v. Obama — cut it in half, or by two-thirds, or even by 90% if you have to (I don’t expect you to give ALL your money), but give it now, here, by clicking this link. If you do, I’ll see it and jump through the screen to say thanks. (Stand clear.) We have an amazing candidate with an amazing list of accomplishments. All the more amazing when you adjust for the terrible hand he was dealt and a Republican opposition committed to his failure. But planting seeds in October – just like trying to ramp up a voter registration effort in October – does not a bountiful harvest make. NOW is the time to plant these seeds. Click here. (Or, for contributions under $100 — which I won’t see but that are the hugely welcome, crucial preponderance of the millions of contributions received to date — here.)
Ver-y Annoying (Albeit, Small Problems to Have) June 6, 2012June 5, 2012 VERIO This page has been up and down lately thanks to the bizarre workings of our host, Verio. I often can’t even get their sales team on the phone, so their service must either be wildly popular (perhaps people like its unreliability) or they’ve pulled sales reps over to the crisis-management side of the call center or they’re just screwed up. I’m sure they’re working hard to resolve their issues. In the meantime, I’m extending everyone’s subscription a month by way of recompense. VERIZON Not to be all grumpy — am actually having a great day — but are you familiar with this company? Their wireless service is generally more robust than AT&T’s, at least in the places I roam,but they seem to have gone out of the copper-wire end of the business, based on my inability ever to get anyone on the phone to report that I have no dial tone. They are always “experiencing unusually heavy call volume” and are “busy assisting other costumers” and suggest calling back later. One time I waited on music hold (calling from my Verizon cell phone) for 45 minutes before giving up. As a Verizon shareholder since first suggesting it here six years ago,* I’m heartened by this, because I take it to be a graceful exit from the labor-intensive 20th Century “wire” phone model, as Verizon (and its competitors) come ever closer to being fully automated service providers each consisting of one highly paid CEO, one COO who interfaces with the outside legal team, and one guy watching to be sure that the self-generating software continues to write new code, as needed, to keep the network functioning and the automated customer signups, billing, and so forth, humming. Eventually, no one else will be needed . . . which is why, long-term, we proponents and beneficiaries of capitalism are going to have to find better and less controversial ways to spread the wealth that technological progress and efficiency produce. Which is a lot to think about, but try calling Verizon to report a problem, or cancel your account, and you’ll have plenty of time to ruminate. *The stock is up only 18% but there have 5%-ish annual dividends along the way, so not bad, given the rocky road since 2006. HATS OFF TO THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OF CALIFORNIA . . . . . . for contributing $1,140,909 to stand with Philip Morris against the American Cancer Society. Here’s the list of the main contributors on the two sides. BUTT KICK An update from Chris Brown (whose Aristides fund slipped less than 1% in May, versus the 6+% drop for the S&P 500 and the Russell 2000; up 8% year-to-date, net of fees, double and triple the other two): The price of BKUTK makes no sense at all here. At a $340 ask, that’s less than 7x trailing earnings per share, and less than 0.54 times the tangible book value (adjusted for net unrealized gains on held-to-maturity securities) of $633. We added Friday and today. Dividend yield is 2.85%, but could easily be much higher given the level of earnings. Tangible common equity as a % of assets is absurdly high at approximately 16%. As long-term interest rates have fallen dramatically and the company’s average maturity of assets is short, they are going to face a choice of reinvesting capital at very low interest rates, or else buying back their stock. They should buy back stock. I don’t know whether they will, but they should. This is the most attractive value stock I am aware of. It trades very lightly, but if you did buy some when first suggested, hold on. And if you put in a good-til-canceled order to buy 10 shares or 25 shares (or whatever) at some firm price ($340? $325? $360?) you might get it.
Info, Misinfo, and . . . Oh, My June 5, 2012June 4, 2012 TODAY’S INFORMATION In the last 27 months, we’ve added 4.3 million net new private sector jobs. Not nearly as many as we’d like, but 60% more than George W. Bush added in his first 7 years and 8 months . . . that is, before the financial crisis hit. Did you know that? President Clinton made this point at two New York fundraisers last night. Here is a recent blog along the same lines, based on data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve. Of course, the Obama jobs numbers would have been a lot higher still if the Republicans had not blocked the American Jobs Act, which the President urged a joint session of Congress last fall to “pass right away.” And if they had not shaken the economy with last year’s manufactured debt-ceiling crisis. And if they were not shaking confidence again now with threats of a new one. But their goal from day one has been to see the Administration fail so they can retake power and resume cutting taxes for the best off. Such as Governor Romney’s pledge to cut cut the estate-tax rate for billionheirs from 45% to 0%. TODAY’S MISINFORMATION From Politifact: A TV ad running in eight states blames President Barack Obama for sending stimulus money overseas while Americans are out of work. . . . We checked all three examples — and found the ad incorrectly describes them all. . . . The ad strings together alarming-sounding tidbits about actual stimulus projects to create the impression of something else entirely — in a way that’s ultimately ridiculous. And that earns our lowest rating, Pants on Fire. The details are fascinating. And one more example of the $1 billion SuperPAC effort to confuse voters into supporting the interests of the Koch brothers, et al, rather than their own. AN 82-YEAR-OLD WOMAN BLOGS . . . [T]he Republicans are trying to get into my vagina again. I wish I knew what was up there that they find so interesting. . . . Goodnight can’t we just move on already? We get it. Republicans want to make sure that no woman anywhere for any reason can have an abortion. Some even want a restriction on birth control of any kind. Well I have a solution. Republican men should refrain from having sex of any kind. I bet the number of abortions would drop dramatically. And on a side note, I imagine many women could finally get a good night’s sleep.
Mitt, Mass., and My 2.4 Morality Rank June 4, 2012June 3, 2012 TODAY’S MOVIE Four minutes on Mitt’s Massachusetts Miracle. Where he took job creation from 37th out of 50 down to near-dead-last 47th. (Under today’s Democratic governor, it’s somewhere around 11th.) I have nothing against the Harvard Business School Class of 1975. I sat in those same swivel chairs myself, albeit a few years earlier. But having had one Republican member of the class of ’75 running the economy from 2001 to 2009, do we really want another from the same class, with many of the same advisers, proposing more tax cuts for the wealthy, running the country from 2013 to 2017? Before you shout “Yes we do!” check out his record in Massachusetts. YOURMORALS.ORG I’m disgusting. No, wait, strike that – I’m 2.4 on the scale of how easily disgusted I am – which is to say, more easily disgusted than most. Yourmorals.org is a nonprofit, academic site on which you can take all kinds of morality surveys and see how you compare with others. I liked the “disgust” survey in part because it offered a comments section in which to note or complain about questions you find unclear. The “sacredness” survey (and I assume lots of the others) allowed no such comments, and that’s a bit frustrating. It asks, for example, whether you’d insult someone for being fat if, in return, you were given $10. Or $1000. Or $10,000 (getting tempted?). Or $100,000 (that’s where I cracked). Or $1 million. Or “for no amount of money.” (It also gives the option of $0 – “I’d do it for free.”) Well, I’d do it for $100,000 — and probably should have answered $10,000, the more I think about it (you lard ass) — because I’d then tell the insultee why I did it and give him or her $1,000, or maybe more, to make sure he or she was happy I had done it. But is this allowed? Some of the questions make those boundaries clear (you insult your father and have to wait a year to explain why you did it) but in others, it is not. I said I would kill a member of an endangered species for $1 million, but only because I would then give every penny to an organization that helps protect endangered species. (Presumably, this is an endangered, not a “practically extinct” species.) My calculation there being that not to do so would set that species back further than if I had. No comments section to make this clear. And also no way to adjust the scale for one’s personal circumstances. Am I really more moral because I’d turn down $1 million others would not be able to resist? I don’t think so – it’s just that I’m already so fortunate, I can afford the luxury of, in effect, “paying” $1 million not to go deaf for a year (one of your choices), sit in a tub of ice cubes for 10 minutes (another), or be confined to solitary for a month with nothing to read (a third). Still: interesting stuff.
Thugs II June 1, 2012March 27, 2017 So Tom Delay, aka “The Hammer” — free on bail while appealing a three-year prison sentence — helped staff the “angry mob” that stopped the Florida recount. That thuggish tactic gave us eight years of George Bush which gave us the Supreme Court that gave us the 5-4 Citizens United decision that allows the ultra-wealthy to buy elections in secret. The Kochs are budgeting $1 billion to own the federal government six months from now — ten times what the left-leaning superPACs hope to raise (see yesterday’s post). Watch this stunning Rachel Maddow clip to see how America is being transformed from a democracy to a plutocracy . . . . . . and note that it’s even worse than it seems. Because not only may the Koch / Rove / Limbaugh crowd wind up controlling the White House and Congress — then tightening their grip on the Court even further — and not only can they work their same magic at the state government level (look at the 10-to-1 money advantage they’re giving Republican Governor Scott Walker in Tuesday’s Wisconsin recall vote) — there’s this: Without spending a dime, they can now tremendously influence legislation. All they have to do is threaten to dump millions into unseating a legislator next time out and, all too often, they will get the action (or inaction) they seek. It’s not as though the wealthy and the corporate interests did not already wield outsize influence. But now the game is close to being over. A handful of right-wing billionaires may just win. BECAUSE, FOR ONE THING, THEY CAN SAY ANYTHING From Time: Mitt Romney’s Ads: Still Wrong on the Stimulus by Michael Grunwald I’ve been on leave writing a book about the stimulus, so I’ve let others judge the Pants-on-Fire ads and Four-Pinocchio attacks and Solyndra-related nonsense that Republicans have been peddling about the stimulus. It’s certainly created jobs for fact-checkers. But now that I’m back, I suppose it’s my duty to weigh in on Mitt Romney’s new stimulus-bashing ad–apparently part of a new stimulus-bashing campaign–because it’s not just a rehash of the same old bogus charges. It’s added a brand new bogus charge that perfectly captures the up-is-down stimulus debate. Most of the ad is typical schadenfreude about Solyndra, along with three other stimulus-funded clean-energy companies that have run into problems. For the umpteenth time: Some of these companies will fail. That’s capitalism. That’s lending. That’s life. As one Obama aide told me: Some students who get Pell grants are going to end up drunks on the street. I’ve written about this before, and I’ll write about it again, but so far there have been fewer Solyndra-type failures than Congress expected. The Energy Department’s controversial loan program has billions in excess reserves. The stimulus did not just promote one company or one technology or one pathway towards a clean-energy economy; it invested in all kinds of alternatives to fossil fuels, so they could battle it out in the marketplace. And for what it’s worth, the Bush Administration was gung-ho about the Solyndra loan, too. It was a line near the end of Romney’s ad that caught my attention: “The Inspector General said contracts were steered to ‘friends and family.’” That sounded like news. I’ve spent two years in stimulus-world, and I had no idea an inspector general had said that. I asked the Romney campaign for documentation, and it produced a Newsweek article asserting that Energy Department inspector general Gregory Friedman “has testified that contracts have been steered to ‘friends and family.’”Except that Newsweek article was an excerpt from the book “Throw Them All Out,” written by Peter Schweizer, a right-winger who has served as an adviser to Sarah Palin’s PAC, edited one of Andrew Breitbart’s websites, and written a slew of books portraying liberals as pond scum. Not exactly a disinterested source. And it turns out that the inspector general never testified that stimulus contracts were steered to friends and family. He said his office was investigating whether stimulus contracts were steered to friends and family. So far, it hasn’t confirmed that any were. That’s the real news. The Department of Energy has handled $37 billion in stimulus money, more than its annual budget. Overall, the federal government has distributed over $800 billion in stimulus money. Where are the sweetheart deals? Where are the actual outrages that are provoking outrage? During the debate over the stimulus, experts warned that as much as 5% to 7% of the stimulus could be lost to fraud. But by the end of 2011, independent investigators had documented only $7.2 million in fraud, about 0.001%. As I’ve written, reasonable people can disagree whether the stimulus was a good thing, but it’s definitely been a well-managed thing. That will still be true even if it turns out that one of over 200,000 stimulus contracts was in fact steered to somebody’s friend or family. And it will still be true even if another stimulus-funded company fails before Election Day. (A123 Systems has a lot of smart people, but I don’t think they were planning to lose $90 million last quarter.) There’s a legitimate debate to be had about the Obama Administration’s green industrial policy, but the current debate over “crony capitalism” is a debate over a fantasy stimulus. Even Congressman Darrell Issa, the GOP’s chief Solyndra investigator, admitted after a year of relentless digging that there was no there there. “Is there criminal activity? Perhaps not,” he said. “Is there a political influence and connections? Perhaps not.”Will that stop Romney and his fellow Republicans from spending the summer denouncing the stimulus as a modern Teapot Dome? Hopefully not. Did I mention that my stimulus book is coming out in August? Watch Rachel’s clip. And yesterday’s as well, if you missed it. Have a great weekend.