Year: 2012

I like this so much, I’ll just hand the mike to Steven Pearlstein here in the Washington Post (I couldn’t resist bolding a few key sentences):

I am a job creator: A manifesto for the entitled
By Steven Pearlstein

I am a corporate chief executive.

I am a business owner.

I am a private-equity fund manager.

I am the misunderstood superhero of American capitalism, single-handedly creating wealth and prosperity despite all the obstacles put in my way by employees, government and the media.

I am a job creator and I am entitled.

I am entitled to complain about the economy even when my stock price, my portfolio and my profits are at record levels.

I am entitled to a healthy and well-educated workforce, a modern and efficient transportation system and protection for my person and property, just as I am entitled to demonize the government workers who provide them.

I am entitled to complain bitterly about taxes that are always too high, even when they are at record lows.

I am entitled to a judicial system that efficiently enforces contracts and legal obligations on customers, suppliers and employees but does not afford them the same right in return.

I am entitled to complain about the poor quality of service provided by government agencies even as I leave my own customers on hold for 35 minutes while repeatedly telling them how important their call is.

I am entitled to a compensation package that is above average for my company’s size and industry, reflecting the company’s aspirations if not its performance.

I am entitled to have the company pay for breakfasts and lunches, a luxury car and private jet travel, my country club dues and home security systems, box seats to all major sporting events, a pension equal to my current salary and a full package of insurance — life, health, dental, disability and long-term care — through retirement.

I am entitled to have my earned income taxed as capital gains and my investment income taxed at the lowest rate anywhere in the world — or not at all.

I am entitled to inside information and favorable investment opportunities not available to ordinary investors. I am entitled to brag about my investment returns.

I am entitled to pass on my accumulated wealth tax-free to heirs, who in turn, are entitled to claim that they earned everything they have.

I am entitled to use unlimited amounts of my own or company funds to buy elections without disclosing such expenditures to shareholders or the public.

I am entitled to use company funds to burnish my own charitable reputation.

I am entitled to provide political support to radical, uncompromising politicians and then complain about how dysfunctional Washington has become.

Although I have no clue how government works, I am entitled to be consulted on public policy by politicians and bureaucrats who have no clue about how business works.

I am entitled to publicly criticize the president and members of Congress, who are not entitled to criticize me.

I am entitled to fire any worker who tries to organize a union. I am entitled to break any existing union by moving, or threatening to move, operations to a union-hostile environment.

I am entitled to a duty of care and loyalty from employees and investors who are owed no such duty in return.

I am entitled to operate my business free of all government regulations other than those written or approved by my industry.

I am entitled to load companies up with debt in order to pay myself and investors big dividends — and then blame any bankruptcy on over-compensated workers.

I am entitled to contracts, subsidies, tax breaks, loans and even bailouts from government, even as I complain about job-killing government budget deficits.

I am entitled to federal entitlement reform.

I am entitled to take credit for all the jobs I create while ignoring any jobs I destroy.

I am entitled to claim credit for all the profits made during a booming economy while blaming losses or setbacks on adverse market or economic conditions.

I am entitled to deny knowledge or responsibility for any controversial decisions made after my departure from the company, even while profiting from such decisions if they enhance shareholder value.

I am entitled to all the rights and privileges of running an American company, but owe no loyalty to American workers or taxpayers.

I am entitled to confidential information about my employees and customers while refusing even to list the company’s phone number on its Web site.

I am entitled to be treated with deference and respect by investors I mislead, customers I bamboozle, directors I manipulate and employees I view as expendable.

I am entitled to be lionized in the media without answering any questions from reporters.

I am entitled to the VIP entrance.

I am entitled to everything I have and more that I still deserve.

Are a few of these zingers unfair? I think so.  And are most CEOs and business owners outstanding, decent people.  I think that, too.  But c’mon.  An awful lot of it calls for vigorous head nodding.  Remember: Mitt Romney, the standard bearer of this crowd, wants to reduce the estate tax on billionheirs from 45% to zero.  And a lot of my Wall Street and business friends feel abused by the Obama Administration, and insufficiently valued. Never mind that the President played a major role in preventing a complete collapse, or that corporate profits are at record highs, or that they are still making millions, or that their stock portfolios have doubled; they feel more comfortable with Mitt Romney. He feels their pain.

WELCOME TO 1936

In this 60-second clip, FDR speaks of the opposition party’s “smooth evasion.”  Just as relevant today.  [I posted this Friday but bobbled the link.]

EIGHT THINGS YOU MAY NOT HAVE KNOWN ABOUT IRAN

Less to worry about here than we think?  A strong case NOT to jump the gun?  Here is a different perspective on Iran.

ARIZONA

Mike Martin:  “Virginia? How about Arizona!  I just got home from a Women for Carmona breakfast with my wife when I read your reader’s appeal for funds in Virginia’s Senate race. Dr. Richard Carmona is running for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by John Kyl and is tied in the polls with his opponent. Dr. Carmona is the former Surgeon General of the United States who stood up against the Bush Administration that had appointed him to complain about political pressure ‘preventing him from speaking out on certain public health issues such as embryonic stem cell research, global climate change, emergency contraception, and abstinence-only sex education,’ (per Wikipedia).  What the national Republicans figured out back in the early 1950s with the China Lobby is that a senator is a senator is senator and it is a lot cheaper to fund campaigns in smaller states where they can overwhelm the locals. So I would suggest you encourage people to fund Dr. Carmona where they can receive a great return on their money because only a little could push him over the top.”

Yes!  Yes!

I met Dr. Carmona when he first started running and wrote him a check on the spot.  He . . . is . . . a- . . . mazing.

Mike again: “He started out as a poor Hispanic kid who dropped out of high school and went in the Army.  The Army made him a Special Forces medic.  As a Green Beret in Vietnam he won two Bronze Stars and got two Purple Hearts. After leaving the Army he went to medical school on the G.I. Bill and became a trauma surgeon in Tucson, Arizona, as well as Pima County Deputy Sheriff and a leader of the Sheriff’s SWAT team.  He won a national award for a dramatic rescue where he rappelled from a helicopter to a downed medevac helicopter on a mountainside.”

YO MAMA

“When you look at the Ryan budget, tax hikes for the rich can’t be on the table, but we can put on the table Social Security, we can put on the table Medicare, we can put on the table Medicaid.  So we’re really saying: we can’t touch the rich, we can’t touch the elite, but seniors and those that are most vulnerable — they’re up for discussion.  That’s why this election is not about Obama.  It’s about yo mama.” — Al Sharpton, MSNBC

But first . . .

DAVID BROOKS ON CONSERVATISM

Agree with him or not, David Brooks is a thoughtful conservative. He would not sit well with Joe the Plumber. An elitist, an intellectual — all that bad stuff. He concludes his latest column:

. . . Some people blame bad campaign managers for Romney’s underperforming campaign, but the problem is deeper. Conservatism has lost the balance between economic and traditional conservatism. The Republican Party has abandoned half of its intellectual ammunition. It appeals to people as potential business owners, but not as parents, neighbors and citizens.

HERE’S WHAT OBAMA AND ROMNEY WOULD PAY UNDER THEIR TAX PLANS. AND WHAT YOU WOULD.

Interested? Ezra Klein does the math.

Under Romney’s plan, Romney would pay millions less, the typical family would pay a thousand less (and even so, somehow, with everyone paying less, we are supposed to believe the deficit would shrink).

Under Obama’s plan, Romney would pay millions more, the typical family would see no change (and the deficit really would shrink).

WELCOME TO 1936

In this 60-second clip, FDR speaks of the opposition party’s “smooth evasion.” Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. (Don’t hate me for knowing six phrases in French.)

“WAKE UP” — LITTLE SUSIE

And finally, for your weekend’s entertainment, a tale. Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, it begins (to the cadence, roughly, of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”) . . .

In the silvery moonlight that bathes every town, the people lie dreaming — so safe and so sound. They’re warm in their beds, snuggled up in their sheets. But four years before, they were out in the streets. Now, it’s as if they don’t know what’s at stake. All except one girl, wide-eyed and awake.

This, in three-and-a-half minutes, is the story of that one wide-eyed little girl . . .

But first . . .

DAVID BROOKS ON CONSERVATISM

Agree with him or not, David Brooks is a thoughtful conservative.  He would not sit well with Joe the Plumber.  An elitist, an intellectual — all that bad stuff.  He concludes his latest column:

. . . Some people blame bad campaign managers for Romney’s underperforming campaign, but the problem is deeper. Conservatism has lost the balance between economic and traditional conservatism. The Republican Party has abandoned half of its intellectual ammunition. It appeals to people as potential business owners, but not as parents, neighbors and citizens.

HERE’S WHAT OBAMA AND ROMNEY WOULD PAY UNDER THEIR TAX PLANS.  AND WHAT YOU WOULD.

Interested?  Ezra Klein does the math.

Under Romney’s plan, Romney would pay millions less, the typical family would pay a thousand less (and even so, somehow, with everyone paying less, we are supposed to believe the deficit would shrink).

Under Obama’s plan, Romney would pay millions more, the typical family would see no change (and the deficit really would shrink).

WELCOME TO 1936

In this 60-second clip, FDR speaks of the opposition party’s “smooth evasion.”  Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.  (Don’t hate me for knowing six phrases in French.)

“WAKE UP” — LITTLE SUSIE

And finally, for your weekend’s entertainment, a tale.  Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, it begins (to the cadence, roughly, of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”) . . .

In the silvery moonlight that bathes every town, the people lie dreaming — so safe and so sound.  They’re warm in their beds, snuggled up in their sheets.  But four years before, they were out in the streets.  Now, it’s as if they don’t know what’s at stake.  All except one girl, wide-eyed and awake.

This, in three-and-a-half minutes, is the story of that one wide-eyed little girl . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4CsCuMcSPs

MITT’S HEALTH CARE DECEPTION

He says he’d keep the popular parts of Obamacare, like covering people with pre-existing conditions, but in fact he would not.  Read it here.

VIRGINIA

Chuck McLean:  “I have responded to almost all of your requests to send more money to Obama, based on my fragile returns from stocks that you have recommended over the years.  Now it is time for payback.  . . .  I live in a battleground state, Virginia, and for your readers who don’t, you can’t imagine the deluge of political ads that we have had.  I am watching the Orioles game right now, and two of the three ads between innings were from Romney.  We must keep Virginia firmly in the purple column (blue is asking for way too much). . . . First of all, I want your readers to send money to Wayne Powell.  He is running against Eric Cantor.  Do I think he can actually win?  It is an uphill battle – but, he has been upbeat, he is clearly more qualified in every single way to represent his district in Virginia, and I can promise you that he is not phoning it in. C-Span will be carrying his debate against Cantor live at 7 PM next Monday, October 1.  Do you believe in miracles?  I try to.  I can’t send Wayne anymore money, and it is killing me.  I hope your readers can step up. . . . Second, we cannot allow the R’s to take the senate.  The contest in Virginia between Tim Kaine and George Allen is very, very close.  This is a D seat, being vacated by Jim Webb, and we simply cannot allow Allen to take it.  Step up, folks.”

FLORIDA

Juan:  “BeReadyToVote.org lets Florida voters check their voter registration information as well as request an absentee ballot. Expect very long lines for voting in Florida (vote absentee!) since the legislature has placed 11 very complicated constitutional amendments that will make the ballots very long. (Vote NO on all the amendments, vote YES on retaining all the Supreme Court Justices; Vote Democrat from Obama down the line).”

ANTHONY GRIFFITH’S STORY

I was on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson twice, in 1978.  The first time I did well but should have unbuttoned my jacket.  The second time my jacket was unbuttoned but so, too, was my brain. Stories for another time.

Stand-up comic Anthony Griffith was on the Tonight Show three times, in 1990.  He “killed” each time.  His Tonight Show story was rather different from mine and not what you’d expect.  If you have 9 minutes for something not even a little bit funny — watch this.  And let me know, by the way, whether you think we should roll back the expansion of health insurance to more kids.

ONE ASTRONAUT’S TAKE

Tom Stolze:  “For this alone I would vote Obama:”

Obama’s Space Vision
by Rusty Schweickart
[Schweickart, the Apollo 9 lunar module pilot, is the former chairman of the California Energy Commission and an aerospace executive.]

The U.S. space industry, spawned by NASA’s 0.5 percent of the federal budget, has been a critical part of our economy for more than 50 years with aerospace being the largest positive contributor to our nation’s trade balance.

But the future of space industry and the local economies that support it are in jeopardy. For the United States to maintain its world leadership in aerospace technology, we must continue a robust and challenging program of space exploration and we must invest in the people and communities who create this engine of growth.

Future U.S. leadership in space requires a foundation of sustained technology advances.

Under President Barack Obama’s leadership, America has begun a new and exciting phase of human space exploration. President Obama has tasked NASA with an ambitious vision for human spaceflight that will take American astronauts where we have never been before; sending our explorers safely into deep space for the first time — with the ultimate goal being a human mission to Mars.

. . . As President Obama visits the Space Coast today, we are witnessing how his policies are bringing jobs to the area and new hope to the space community. Florida’s Space Coast has become not just the launching pad for commercial rockets to the station and America’s launch pad for the largest heavy-lift rocket that NASA has ever built, but is now also a launching pad for new businesses and jobs of the future.In light of this leadership, Mitt Romney’s candidacy presents a stark choice. . . .

When it comes to NASA and space exploration, it is clear Romney is completely wrong on the issue and out of touch with the space industry. While Romney hasn’t presented a space plan, he has been unwavering in his support of a budget plan that slashes domestic investments and could require deep cuts in America’s space program. . . .

This is exactly why it is so essential we continue the new course President Obama has laid out, revitalizing NASA and its mission —not just with dollars, but also with clear goals and a larger purpose.

EASY SAVINGS

So I went to buy these really comfortable shoes on-line for a horrifying $90 a pair (Charles would have been horrified at the thought of such cheap shoes) . . . with free shipping because I was buying two . . . but just before I completed my purchase, seeing the APPLY PROMO CODE field on the checkout page, I Googled FLORSCHEIM PROMO CODE, clicked the first entry that appeared, cut and pasted the code into the field, and completed the purchase for 25% off, saving $45.  Elapsed time for the Google detour-cut-and-paste?  Maybe 30 seconds.  If I could make $45 every 30 seconds for a year, I’d have an extra $47 million.  Moral: any time you’re about to make a significant on-line purchase, take a few seconds to check for a promo code.

CHRIS HAYES ON $50,000-A-PLATE DINNERS

So you have to watch this video essay on the corrosive effect of political fundraisers.  Really.  You have to.  One distinction I would make between that Chris Hayes does not: at ours, the donors want their taxes raised (and campaign contribution limits lowered); at theirs, the donors want their taxes lowered (and campaign contribution limits infinite).  Also, our top ask is a bargain — only $40,000 a plate.

So their dinners and our dinners are really not the same.  But still.  Watch this powerful piece.

THIS JUDGE WILL GET REELECTED

Here is a brand new, self-contained, four minute West Wing episode.  I do miss that show.

SARAH SILVERMAN GETS RAUNCHY

So don’t watch this video if you had a proper upbringing.  I cringe imagining my parents watching it (may they rest in peace), although they may not have been QUITE as proper as I was brought up to believe — when I went to clear out some stuff from his medicine chest after my Dad died, I slid the mirror across the cabinet to reveal what you’d assume was the other half of the medicine chest.  It had been a long time since this had actually been my boyhood bathroom, and I had forgotten there was no other half to the cabinet — the other side  was just the blank wall.  Only, when I slid the mirror across anyway, having forgotten there’d be nothing there, there was something there: a poster-size photo of my parents, completely naked, startled and horrified at having been caught in the nude.  (My dad had apparently posed them that way with a time-delay camera, then had the shot blown up and mounted on poster board he pasted behind the mirror.)

What makes the video all the funnier is that Sarah’s grandmother is sitting there attentively as she says all these f—–g terrible things.

Sarah, as you may recall, is the one who encouraged Jewish kids of her generation to take The Great Schlepp down to Florida in 2008 to get their grandparents to the polls.  And as you can see, she’s still working to turn out the vote.

WHAT LABOR DAY MEANS TO REPUBLICANS

I know — I’m a little late.  I keep meaning to run Eric Cantor’s Labor Day tweet.  When I read Paul Krugman’s column over the weekend, I decided to let him tell you:

. . . Consider the Twitter message sent out by Eric Cantor, the Republican House majority leader, on Labor Day — a holiday that specifically celebrates America’s workers. Here’s what it said, in its entirety: “Today, we celebrate those who have taken a risk, worked hard, built a business and earned their own success.” Yes, on a day set aside to honor workers, all Mr. Cantor could bring himself to do was praise their bosses.

Lest you think that this was just a personal slip, consider Mr. Romney’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. What did he have to say about American workers? Actually, nothing: the words “worker” or “workers” never passed his lips. This was in strong contrast to President Obama’s convention speech a week later, which put a lot of emphasis on workers — especially, of course, but not only, workers who benefited from the auto bailout.

And when Mr. Romney waxed rhapsodic about the opportunities America offered to immigrants, he declared that they came in pursuit of “freedom to build a business.” What about those who came here not to found businesses, but simply to make an honest living? Not worth mentioning. . . .

So there are rich and poor and it’s always been that way and always will, at least in relative terms.  Fortunately, the definition of “poor” creeps up with time and, while it is still a condition aggressively to be avoided, at least it now generally includes, in the U.S., access to aspirin, refrigeration, electric light, and, television — treasures largely or entirely undreamt of by any Roman emperor or Russian czar.  But hunger?  Homelessness?  People freezing?

In Twenty-First Century America?

Yesterday, I linked to Bill Maher’s riff on the role of luck in the fortunes of the best off.

Today, this x-rated rap ode to the thrift shop, which reminds us that, yes, a $3,500 bespoke suit is a lovely thing to have but my $156 Zara suit actually fits just as well and my friend Victor has an indispensable blue blazer for which he paid $3 at a thrift shop.  In other words, if you’re smart and careful, you don’t have to be rich to live well.

Talk of poverty is a natural cousin of talk about personal responsibility and — oh, hi, Mitt! — talk about the distribution of wealth.  How much should the king have?  How much, the peasants?  The robber baron?  The robber baron’s 75-year-old shoeshine boy?  And before I say another word, please put me firmly in the camp of my fellow Harvard Business School graduates who believe in the hugely positive wealth-creating power of the free market.

But I think free-market capitalism works best with enlightened regulation and, yes, wealth redistribution.

Reasonable people can argue — and should, and will, endlessly — over just how much and what kind of regulation and redistribution are needed and work best at any given time.  Unreasonable people — often angry, loud, polarized, ill- or misinformed and closed-minded, on the right and on the left — will also argue over this.  And, as the merits are being weighed, some will have $10 million thumbs to place on the scale.  So as rational decision-making processes go, it’s a mess; but we need to do the best we can.

I don’t think anyone along the continuum from communism to pure libertarianism would disagree that a successful society requires some regulation and some redistribution of wealth.

On regulation, even most on the right think there should be some real estate zoning laws, some limits on who can drive and how fast and how drunk, someone inspecting the meat being shipped to market, some controls on what a factory can spew into the water we drink or the air we breathe.  And on and on.

And right or left, all agree that stupid regulations are stupid and that excessive regulation is excessive.  (See Philip K. Howard’s The Death of Common Sense.)  The question is: what’s stupid?  What’s excessive?  And how do we field a corps of regulators who are at once talented and vigorous, yet sensible and fair?

Just because these questions have no perfect answers doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t continually strive to come up with good ones.  To lambaste all regulation as excessive is as detrimental to the common good as to say taxes must only be lowered, never raised.

On redistribution, similarly, even most on the right think there should be some form of progressive income tax (even a flat tax is progressive if the first tens of thousands of dollars earned are exempt), and that children should be offered a decent education even if their parents can’t afford to pay for it (which means someone richer has to).  And on and on.

And done right, redistribution of wealth makes for a stronger economy, which ultimately helps those with the wealth.

Yet here is Mitt Romney calling out President Obama for daring, in 1998, to say he believed a certain amount of redistribution is a good thing.

As Michael O’Brien of NBC News reports:

Mitt Romney’s campaign this week has pounced on a 14-year-old clip of Obama speaking about “redistribution” in October 1998 at a conference in Chicago, in which the future president seems to extol the virtues of redistributing wealth.

Yet NBC News has obtained the entirety of the relevant remarks, which includes additional comments by Obama that weren’t included in the video circulated by Republicans. That omission features additional words of praise for “competition” and the “marketplace” by the then-state senator.

The truth is, just like President Clinton, President Obama is a champion of free market capitalism.  And that just like President Bush, a President Romney would redistribute wealth — to those at the top.

PROGRAMMING NOTE

If you like Bill Clinton, but want to save the $20,000 contribution to attend in person, watch the Clinton Global Initiative live — or at least the parts that interest you.  It’s three days starting Sunday.

“To some, the glass is half full. To others, the glass is half empty. To an engineer, it’s twice the size it needs to be.” — unattributed

I’m taking the day off to fill the glass.

But here’s a Bill Maher clip you may have missed that shows the boyhood homes of Mitt Romney, Barack Obama and Paul Ryan.  Being Bill Maher, some of it is too raunchy for my taste.  (I’m old!  I’m prudish!)  But as ever, he’s spot on.