Year: 2012

+YOU+ BALANCE THE BUDGET

Mark Klein:  “It wasn’t so hard after all.  Took about five minutes and I’m running a surplus after 2014.  (Of course, I had to reduce military spending).  As soon as I’m elected emperor and don’t have to get buy-in from everyone else I will be happy to fix this little problem.”

Mike Hanlon:  “Nice link Friday to the Budget Control site. To answer your question about the Daily Bible Guide ad at the top:  The site’s developers have essentially sold that space to a company called LifeStreet Media, which in turn rotates various companies’ ads into that space. If you press the F5 key on your Windows keyboard (to reload the page) a few times, you’ll see some of the other ads. If a visitor to the Budget Control site clicks on one of the ads, the advertiser pays LifeStreet Media for the click and LifeStreet shares the fee with the owner of the Budget Control site.  This is a pretty common online business model: Google is the leader with its AdSense program. It chooses the ads that appear on a site you visit by cross-referencing recent Google searches you’ve done in an attempt to make them more relevant. The results can be helpful, funny or a little creepy. Like this.”

HAIKU

Reader Gary Diehl sent three Mitt Romney limericks which didn’t strike me as suitable (even though Mr. Romney did just grab $7 million from Nantucket).  Actually, they were quite tame, which as any adolescent boy can tell you is exactly what limericks are not meant to be.

For example (emphasis added for those who don’t know how to read a limerick):

Party FAITHfuls will always believe him
that’s of COURSE very easy to tell.
But the WEBS that he weaves
are most TANGled indeed
and his rhetoric’s starting to SMELL.

I mean . . . really?  Where is the prurience?  It barely scrapes the sophomoric.

Still, not to be rude, I responded, “LOL — what’s next, haiku?”

To which he responded — rather magnificently, I think — with these 17 syllables:

Excitement builds up
The candidate takes the stage
Click factcheck.org

BIG DIFFERENCE

Candidate Barack Obama was recorded at a 2008 fundraiser with the now famous “they cling to guns or religion” line, but before you let anyone write off Mr. Romney’s recent remarks as no different, notice two differences.  The first, for the record, is that Senator Obama immediately apologized.  But the really big difference is that, as you’ll see if you read the few paragraphs into which this phrase fell, his remarks were filled with empathy for the plight of some folks who’d had a particularly rough go of it.  He was talking about how to try to persuade them that he really would get them health care (which he has), that he really would lower their taxes (which he has), that he really would ask those at the top to pay a little more (which he is asking).  He feels their pain and seeks to rekindle their hope.  Contrast that with Mr. Romney, who writes off 47% of the electorate as, basically, contemptible.  Empathy versus contempt.  Big difference.

ARE WE BETTER OFF THAN WE WERE 4 YEARS AGO?

A compelling one-minute answer.  Share it with one friend.

WHEW!

For a minute I was afraid I had been asking you to give too much – hey, it now looks as though we’re going to win – but then I realized:

1.       We might not.  InTrade today puts Mr. Romney’s chances at 33%.  If you were about to play Russian Roulette with only two of the six chambers were loaded, would you be unconcerned?  Help us narrow the odds.  They have a huge money advantage; they are unconstrained by the truth; the electorate cannot always discern the truth (as when Bush assured them that “by far the vast majority” of his tax cuts would go to benefit people “at the bottom of the economic ladder”); and they are working overtime to make it hard for people like Jim Cramer’s 92-year-old dad to vote.

2.       There’s more at stake than the White House.  Even if we turn out more voters than we need to re-elect the President, that extra margin would help us take back the House and hold the Senate.  And to win state and local races.  And send the message that voters reject the Republican obstructionism of the last four years.  Do we really want to entrust the House committee that oversees climate change to a climate-change denier?

It is simply not possible to win this thing by too much – if we win it at all.  Now is the time to RAMP UP, not relax.

Did you know that Florida’s Republicans have arranged for this year’s ballot to be 10 pages long?  That alone might double the time it takes to vote . . . leading to endlessly long lines outside (what if it’s raining?) and causing people to give up in disgust; or because they simply lack the physical stamina; or the support system to care for their kids; or can’t show up so late to work.

In 2000 we clearly had the better candidate.  And our opponent’s arithmetic clearly did not add up.  But in hindsight it’s equally clear that our failure to pull out ALL the stops had tragic consequences.

So – whew! – don’t worry that you’ve helped too much.  As amazingly generous as so many of you have been, you haven’t wasted a dime.  And if you have any dimes left . . . . if MasterCard retains even the slightest faith in your creditworthiness . . . help make the morning of November 7 the best we ever had.

As always, I’ll see your help the minute it comes thru to say thanks.

Feel free to forward this to YOUR list.

THIRD QUARTERLY ESTIMATED TAX DUE

Today.  Or as I put the 1040ES link in this space a year ago: Patriots Pay Taxes.

DREDGEFEST!

Reason enough to visit New York.  Any of us with GLDD among our long-term holdings will enjoy this Bergman-esque 86-second short film, which introduced me to the concept of the “Anthropocene.” (More on eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages here.  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.  It was the Age of Aquarius, it was the Anthropocene.  The Me Decade, the Year of the Woman, Irish History Month, Inhalants & Poisons Awareness Week, National Peanut Butter Day, Amateur Hour, Minute Rice, instant coffee.)

LAWRENCE KUDLOW BOOSTS OBAMA

A Republican, he writes:

I have long believed that stock markets are the best barometer of the health, wealth and security of a nation. And today’s stock market message is an unmistakable vote of confidence for the president.

Except as Paul Krugman deliciously notes, Kudlow was writing about the previous president.  With the market now double its level of three years ago, may we assume Mr. Kudlow is voting Obama?

THE VIRGINIA-PILOT ON MR. ROMNEY

September 14, 2012

American presidents don’t indulge in public tantrums during international crises. They don’t exploit the deaths of American servants in an attempt to score cheap political points. And they don’t accuse American diplomats of sympathizing with terrorists.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney did all of those things this week, in the midst of attacks on U.S. embassies in the Middle East, thus providing his opponents and voters with ample reason to question his ability and judgment in foreign affairs.

. . . “It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions [Romney said], but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

As has been widely reported, Romney’s assertion about the administration’s “first response” is not true. His misstatement in the heat of a developing crisis is one thing, but to repeat it hours later at a news conference transforms a misstatement into something else.

. . . It is Romney’s vile assertion that the White House “sympathizes with those who waged the attacks” – with terrorists – that is so far beyond the pale, so far beyond the bounds of American civil discourse that the Republican candidate should be ashamed of himself.It amounts nearly to a charge of treason, an allegation that requires evidence. Romney has none. What he does have is an ambition to be president, an ambition that seems to have overwhelmed his sense of decency. . . .

MICHAEL LEWIS ON MR. OBAMA

I posted the audio link Friday knowing that some of you might have more time to listen over the weekend.  For those with faster eyes than ears,  here it is in Vanity Fair.  (The Huffington Post has a story about the writing of the story.)

Stewart Dean:  “Michael Lewis just sucks you in with an account of how impossibly demanding the President’s job and responsibilities are, akin to walking on water, and then he recounts how Obama does that miracle daily, and does it jaw-droppingly well, while remaining an approachable, decent person.  More than anything I’ve heard or read, this assures I will vote and support and contribute to Obama.  The man is a wizard in all the best ways.”

OBAMA EVEN BETTER THAN CLINTON?

If you liked Bill Clinton’s presidency, and, boy, did I ever, then — Jonathan Chait argues here — you should admire Barack Obama’s even more.  And not be embarrassed to admit it.

HOLDING HIM IN HIGH REGARD

Chait’s view may certainly be your own once you’ve read Michael Lewis in Vanity Fair or heard him on NPR.  Michael Lewis really got to know him.

YOUR TAX BILL UNDER ROMNEY

If you want to see how the Romney/Ryan tax plan would affect YOU, watch them not tell you (perhaps because you would not like it?) here.  Under two minutes.

WOULD GORE HAVE PREVENTED 9/11?

Jack Rivers: “I remember your saying you thought things would have been different with Gore as President. That he would have demanded we devote more resources to stopping Bin Laden and that the CIA and FBI might have unraveled the plot.  Now, more than a decade later, I read this and I think you may have been right.”

Remember the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US”?  Well, the writer got a look at some earlier briefings and reports that “the Aug. 6 document, for all of the controversy it provoked, is not nearly as shocking as the briefs that came before it.

IT’S RYAN WHO VOTED TO REMOVE WORK FROM WELFARE

Amazing.  As this Washington Post blog entry concludes: “Waiving the work requirement may or may not be a good idea. But despite what the Romney-Ryan campaign’s ads say, Paul Ryan is the only person on the national ticket to have supported doing it.”

OKAY, DEAR READER – YOU BALANCE THE BUDGET

Here.  Take all weekend if you like.  I’m not sure who’s behind this site, and I couldn’t tell whether the Daily Bible Guide at the top was hard-wired or just placed there by some ad engine (does it even show up when you go there?).  But the effort appears to be serious, factual, and non-partisan.  You can click on pie slices to reduce them; but more interesting may be the next screen where you can select various proposals (with an information button on each to get more background) and see what effect they would have.  They are ranked by size, with the biggest saving coming from Simpson-Bowles, which would save nearly $4 trillion over 10 years . . . on down through more modest ways to save . . . and then into ever deeper negative territory with proposals that would  make things worse, the last of which would actually add $4.2 trillion to the deficit.  (The proponent of that one argues that it wouldn’t really, because cutting taxes would so spur growth it would cut the deficit.  Which sounds awfully like what we’ve tried for the last decade, but what do I know?)

Monday: Michael Lewis on Barack Obama — the audio version.

IF

Kristina McCormack:  “Thought you might enjoy this sign.”

If what Mitt is proposing worked, George W. Bush would have been the keynote speaker at the Republican convention.

BUT

Joel Margolis:  “Nobody expects politicians, particularly Bill Clinton, to tell the truth but I’d like to think that you hold yourself to higher standards.  Bill Clinton claims that under Democratic Presidents 42,000,000 jobs were created. This counts from the first day of the President’s term (or more likely the first of the following month) to the last day of the last month of his administration.  But then Clinton and Obama boast about 4.6 million private sector jobs created in the past 30 months, that is from the bottom of the recession.  This is an obvious sleight of hand worthy of politicians and magicians but it seems to me that you would want to hold yourself to a higher standard.”

I actually do expect politicians to tell the truth.  I think you will find that all the speeches at the Democratic Convention were fact-checked (I know mine was) — and that President Clinton’s speech, and all the others, met a high standard.  I’m not going to suggest that every speech was completely balanced and dispassionate — obviously.  But I don’t think you can point to a single one, let alone one in prime time, that was riddled with verifiable, important deceptions as was, for example, the speech of the Republican vice presidential nominee.

As to the specific issue you raise, I agree it’s worth examining (so thank you for raising it) but reach a different conclusion.

Yes, it makes more sense to measure job creation (and, for that matter, debt creation) NOT from the first day of a Presidency, but rather at least a few months, and perhaps a year or more, in.

But that’s hard to explain . . . and — because in this case it would make the comparison significantly MORE favorable to the Democrats by shifting millions of private sector jobs from the red column to the blue — I don’t see the harm in the simplification when describing a 52-year period.

(Under your method, instead of the score being 24 million private sector jobs created under the Republicans over 28 years and 42 million under Democrats over 24 years, you would lop off the first Obama year, rightly attributing it to Bush, making the score more like just 20 million private sector jobs created under Republican Administrations and 46 million under Democrats.  An even more lopsided score, and with Democrats having had the ball only 23 years to their 28.)

So if anything, it seems to me President Clinton was being not just truthful — but generous.

Meanwhile, when viewing one specific presidential term (in this case, Obama’s), I think it’s perfectly appropriate to look at it more granularly and to note that, once the President’s policies took hold — blocked and watered down by the Republicans though they were — we had 30 straight months of private sector job creation totaling 4.6 million net new jobs.  It’s simply the truth.

THEY CAUGHT ONE!

Florida’s push to purge the voter rolls of Democrats actually netted one real live illegal alien perpetrator of voter fraud.  A Canadian — who I’d bet actually votes Republican, though no one knows for sure.  Here’s the story.

WHY MY JOB IS A LITTLE HARDER . . .

. . . but I’m prouder than ever to do it.

Jane Mayer writing in the New Yorker details the tougher terrain Democratic fundraisers face in going after major donors.  Basically, that Barack Obama is not willing to court them as assiduously as past presidents have.  It makes the job harder — but is that, on balance, a bad thing?

. . . Creating a sense of intimacy with the President is especially important with Democratic donors, a frustrated Obama fund-raiser argues: “Unlike Republicans, they have no business interest being furthered by the donation—they just like to be involved. So it makes them more needy. It’s like, ‘If you’re not going to deregulate my industry, or lower my taxes, can’t I at least get a picture?’ ” . . .

[For the record, I can get you a picture.  Are you free Tuesday?  Email me. — A.T.]

. . . By August, at least thirty-three American billionaires had each given a quarter of a million dollars, or more, to groups whose aim is to defeat Obama. . . . Meanwhile, only three billionaires have contributed at least a quarter of a million dollars to Priorities USA, the largest pro-Obama Super PAC. . . .

. . . David Axelrod, the senior strategist of Obama’s 2012 campaign, warns that the Citizens United decision may have permanently tilted the playing field away from not just Obama but all future Democratic candidates. “We’re averaging fifty-dollar checks in our campaign [he says], and trying to ward off these seven- or even eight-figure checks on the other side. That disparity is pretty striking, and so are the implications. In many ways, we’re back in the Gilded Age. We have robber barons buying the government.”

. . . “There’s been no thanks for anyone!” the major Democratic donor says. He adds that in 2008 he gave “multiple millions” to groups working to elect Obama. But, he notes, although he has attended various White House functions, and has met Obama on several occasions, “I don’t think they have a clue who I am. I don’t think they even know how much I gave.” . . . Obama, he says, is “so interested in doing the right thing that he thought other people would be interested in him for doing the right thing, and he thinks that’s all that’s needed.” . . .

. . . Obama still rarely calls donors. One fund-raiser estimates that even now, at the height of the election season, he probably makes only a few such calls a month. Chicago supporters who have raised money for him for years say that it’s just how he is.  A Chicago donor, who has attended events at the White House, and describes the President as “unfailingly courteous, warm, wonderful, and generous,” notes that Obama has never called him. “He’s more of an introspective guy than either Bill Clinton or George Bush,” the donor says. “He’s fantastic in small groups, but he’s not the kind of guy I would go out and have a beer with. But, by the way, that’s not my thing, either. I’m busy, and he’s got more important things to do.”

. . . Some prominent Democrats, such as Chris Hughes—a co-founder of Facebook who helped manage Obama’s Web strategy in 2008—have devoted themselves to campaign-finance reform instead. Hughes and his husband, Sean Eldridge, have decided not to give money to any Super PACs, and to match any donations they make to candidates with donations to groups working to diminish the role of money in politics. Asked about Obama’s reluctance to court the extremely wealthy, Hughes described it as “a virtue.”

. . . [Hollywood mogul and giant Obama fundraiser Jeffrey] Katzenberg has been invited to a state dinner at the White House, but he has never met privately with the President. “One of the things we so love about this President is his integrity, and his attempts to bring new ethics to Washington,” the fund-raiser says. “But it makes our job harder.” . . .

. . .It is an article of faith among some Democrats that liberals give money to politicians for altruistic reasons, whereas Republicans make campaign contributions as self-serving investments, in order to protect future profits. “It’s a business expense for them,” Axelrod says. “They’ll make it back in no time.”

Jonathan Collegio, the spokesman for American Crossroads, the Republican Super PAC, dismisses such thinking as “puerile,” arguing that there are no more “nefarious motivations” behind Republican donors than there are behind Democratic donors, which include major unions promoting their members’ economic interests.  [Hello?  Would someone please tell Mr. Collegio that Sheldon Adelson represents the economic interests of one multi-billionaire.  Unions represent the economic interest of millions of working families directly and tens of millions more indirectly.  See the difference?]

Yet Tom Perriello, a former Democratic congressman from Virginia who was defeated in 2010 after a flood of outside conservative spending in his district, and who now focusses on campaign-finance issues at the liberal Center for American Progress, argues that the economic incentives for wealthy conservatives are far more obvious. He says of Sheldon Adelson, “He’s got billions he could get back on the overseas-investment tax and the estate tax,” both of which Romney has pledged to abolish.

Moreover, Adelson’s company, Las Vegas Sands Corporation, is currently the focus of two Justice Department investigations. The first is looking into possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, centering on the company’s casinos in Macau. The second investigation, a joint probe with the Securities and Exchange Commission, concerns possible violations of anti-bribery laws. The future leadership of the Justice Department and the S.E.C., then, is of enormous material interest to Adelson. . . .

. . . Bill Burton, the former White House aide who is now running Priorities USA, says, “My worry is that the numbers will just get even more astronomical. It could easily be doubled, or quadrupled, by 2016. Once big business realizes it can purchase the White House, you have to wonder what the limit is.”

YOU KNOW IT’S BAD WHEN EVEN FOX NEWS . . .

. . . calls the Republican VP nominee a liar.

. . . [T]o anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s [acceptance] speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold. . . .

I should note that while this was aired on Fox News, it was not the position of Fox News, but rather the comment of a liberal contributor to Fox News.  But there’s no question that in airing her comment, Fox got this one right.  Here’s a round-up in the matter of “Lyin’ Ryan.”  (“… [I]t ‘just boggles the mind’ to see a vice presidential candidate stand up in front of the entire country, and its press corps, and tell obvious lies.”)

YOU KNOW AMERICA IS CHANGING WHEN . . .

. . . pro football players are stomping on politicians who oppose marriage equality.  Minnesota Vikings’ Chris Kluwe sides with the views of Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo, here.

I find it inconceivable that you are an elected official of Maryland’s state government. Your vitriolic hatred and bigotry make me ashamed and disgusted to think that you are in any way responsible for shaping policy at any level. The views you espouse neglect to consider several fundamental key points, which I will outline in great detail (you may want to hire an intern to help you with the longer words): . . .

YOU KNOW ROMNEY-CARE WILL COST YOU MORE . . .

. . . but click here to see how much more.  (Even if you’re already 65, it will cost you more.)  And  click here to see why.

Do you?  The Democrats.  Bloomberg News confirms the stats from President Clinton’s nominating speech Wednesday.  Nearly two-thirds of the new jobs since 1961 have been created under Democratic administrations, even though Democrats held the White House only 23 of those years, compared with 28 for the Republicans.  The average monthly private-sector job gain under Dems was more than double what it was under Republicans.

And the difference would be even more stark if Bush, not Obama, were dinged for the devastating job losses of early 2009 — clearly not attributable to anything Obama did.

And it’s not as though Dems did better because they hyped the economy with deficit spending — it was the Republicans who did that.  Reagan and Bush quadrupled the National Debt and then Republican George W. Bush doubled it again.  (Kennedy and Johnson, despite the Vietnam War, ran only modest deficits.  Carter, too.  Clinton actually wound up turning the deficit into a surplus in his final years.)

The private-sector job record was at its worst, it might be noted, when the tax rate on wealth and the wealthy during those 51 years was lowest — that is, since the dramatic Bush tax cuts.

So please don’t give me the stuff about the job creators.  I revere entrepreneurs — certainly the ones like Steve Jobs (Apple) and Fred Smith (FedEx) who change the world for the better (and who launched their enterprises without any regard, I feel sure, to tax rates).

This nonsense about tax cuts on the wealthy being needed to spur job growth — or having anything to do with job growth at all?  I’ve plugged it before, but this brief must-watch TED video puts the lie to all that.

POST PRESIDENCIES

John Leeds:  “Am just in the middle of watching Bill Clinton’s speech for the first time and realized something:  Both he and Jimmy Carter have gone on to actively promote causes that have direct impact on the poor, needy and sick of this world.  Their after-president works have been careers in themselves.  Off the top of your head, can you tell me the great works of charity done by the Bushes, Reagan, even Ford and Eisenhower, after their presidencies?  I’m not saying they did nothing — but Carter and Clinton have made great legacies following their time at the top, and I know Obama will, too.  Therein, in a nutshell, is the difference between Democrats and Republicans.  I hope you’ll pass this on because it’s a point that needs to be be made.  The measure of the person isn’t just what they do while their president, but after they’re president.”

And let’s not forget vice presidents.  It’s not fair to compare Presidents Carter and Clinton (or Vice President Gore) — who were 56, 54 (and 54) when they left office with Presidents Reagan, Eisenhower, Ford, and Bush Senior — who were 77, 70, 63 and 68.  Obviously, a “retiree” in his fifties might be expected to launch more ambitious efforts than someone a decade older.  (And even Bush Junior was 62 when he left office.  Nixon was 61.)  But there’s no question, Carter, Clinton, and Gore have been amazing.  Not just lending their names to good causes and making the occasional trip to disaster areas — although that’s good, too — but launching broad scale initiatives that are positively affecting and will continue to positively affect tens or hundreds of millions of lives (well, billions of lives in the case of Gore’s climate-change advocacy).  What’s Dan Quayle doing these days?  He was 46 when he left.

Not to say that every President or Vice President needs to have extraordinary talents and an abiding commitment to making the world better.  But, well — why not?  Why wouldn’t we want leaders whose goals are clear and bold (reforming health care! ending the war! spurring innovation! building an economy that lasts! promoting equal rights! destroying al-Qaeda! making college more affordable! regaining the world’s respect! healing the planet!) and that extend far beyond cutting taxes for the very richest among us and cutting the 45% estate tax rate on billionheirs to zero.

I trust you watched the President’s convention President’s acceptance speech last week and Michelle’s speech and the VP’s — and lots more.  Certainly President Clinton’s.  I’m posting this column early hoping it might help you find time to watch any you may have missed.

Most of the scores of Convention speeches were not broadcast by the networks . . . so here are YouTube links to three of my favorites:

First, retiring Congressman Barney Frank on “Myth” Romney (9 minutes).

Second, former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm on cars (7 minutes).  (In Mitt’s world, cars get the elevator, workers get the shaft.)  This woman is fired up!  Is she always like this?  I don’t know her, but was sitting on the podium as she spoke, and — as you can largely but not entirely tell from the video — it was pandemonium.)

Third, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro’s keynote address (18 minutes), longer than the other two, but, I thought, a wonderful life story.

“RUTHLESS EFFICIENCY”

And good heavens — I certainly had not planned to subject you to this again — but here is a headline in The Atlantic . . . The Speech You Missed That Captures the Ruthless Efficiency of the DNC . . . which I clicked on when someone sent it to me, more than a little curious to see whose speech it was and to watch it, only to find out that I had in fact, well, delivered it.

For the record, there was no ruthless efficiency here.  I simply emailed the text to the “speech writer” assigned to me; he made some good suggestions for trimming it; and there ended the ruthless efficiency of the DNC.  (My assigned speech writer is not employed by the DNC; he’s President and CEO of a global micro-finance organization, Accion, who has been volunteering with the Campaign.)  Indeed, it is basically the same speech I gave in Los Angeles in 2000, in Boston in 2004, and in Denver in 2008.  (I am nothing if not lazy.)  Each time, in the same slim time slot, I tried to link the concept of “net worth AND self-worth”  — what good is net worth without self worth? — and to note that the Democratic Party advances both.  The difference is that, for whatever reason, it got noticed a little this time – as here, in The Atlantic. 

The comments that follow the clip are in the main inordinately generous, but I love the one about the Democratic  imposition of sharia law — and the rejoinders. 

Is this a great country, or what?

Oh.  And seriously:  if you missed it, here, again, the link to President Clinton’s nominating speech.  President Obama joked he should appoint President Clinton to his Cabinet as “Secretary of Explaining Stuff.”  (He knows something about job creation.)  So treat yourself to an enjoyable little piece of our country’s history.

So we’re having this Convention, and I got to speak.

You can’t go into much detail in three minutes, so on the claim about the stock market, I just did my best to be fair (actually, in the example I gave, you would have made more than FIVE hundred thousand dollars under Democrats, not three hundred thousand dollars, but I figured ten-to-one was enough of a contrast, and would at least mitigate some of the methodological objections some might raise).

Here is a critique of a similar example I’ve posted here before that actually ends in October 2008, before the huge market upsurge under President Obama.  It notes (as I did in my speech) that dividends are not included; and notes quite reasonably that inflation is a factor that should be considered (though I don’t think he tells us which way that would have cut, unless I missed it); but makes, I think, one unfair criticism: he says that since it takes time for presidential policies to take effect, it would be fairer to begin the comparison a year into each president’s term rather than on Inauguration Day.

That would be true about job creation or debt reduction (or just about any other real world statistic) — but not the stock market.  Because the stock market is a barometer, not a thermometer.  It reflects not the current weather, but people’s prediction of the weather a month and a year and several years out — their confidence in the future.  Indeed, in an election that’s really close, the starting point should perhaps be the morning the election results are in and the new president (and his promised policies) are known — and investors begin to react to that.  In an election where the results are a foregone conclusion months in advance, an even earlier start point should perhaps be chosen.

So it’s not cut and dried, remotely.  Then again, a ten-to-one (or eighteen-to-one) difference is still worth noting as, I would argue, more than coincidence.  Democrats are expansive and progressive and invest in the future and grow things — and narrow the inequality gap that hurts the economy.  Republicans are pretty much the reverse.

Republicans held the reins in the eight years of rising inequality leading up to the crash of 1929 and then gave us Herbert Hoover; Republicans held the reins in the eight years of rising inequality leading up to the crash of 2008 and now want to give us Mitt Romney.

Have a great day.  Watch President Clinton’s amazing speech from last night — it is so, so important.  Get everyone you know to watch it.  And then tune in tonight.  If there’s no column tomorrow it’s because I got invited to the Google party.

WHOSE DEBT IS IT ANYWAY?

Kevin Clark:   “From Friday’s column (quoting Matt Taibbi): ‘Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time. In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth.’  The good news for Romney (and arguably bad news for the rest of us) is that his opponent is one of that handful of people on planet Earth who is an even more irresponsible debt creator.  I don’t think Romney’s anywhere near $5 trillion.”

There are two reasons, I think, Kevin’s knock on the President is unfair.

First off, it matters what debt is incurred for.  Debt incurred to buy a Rolex is different from debt to buy office equipment you  need to start a business.  Debt incurred to lower taxes on rich people is different from debt incurred to help desperate families and modernize the national infrastructure.  One is irresponsible (Kevin’s term), the other most emphatically is not.

Burdening the companies Mr. Romney did burden with debt served no greater purpose than enriching a few investors and weakening those companies.  Nothing illegal about that, just not a compelling need to do it.  Far from serving a greater purpose, you could argue that the net effect for society is negative.

By contrast, the compelling need to run deficits in deep recessions is to replace the private demand that has been lost with public demand, to bridge the gap until demand picks up again – which, after a financial collapse, always takes a very long time.  And also, not inconsequentially, to at least partially mitigate widespread suffering — keeping children from starving, say, or coming through with unemployment benefits so fewer people become homeless.

So I wold argue to Kevin that there is a difference between borrowing to enrich oneself, on the one hand, and borrowing to, say, win World War II (for which we borrowed massively, and which had the happy side effect of ending the Depression) or, in this case, borrowing to dig ourselves out of the calamitous economic ditch Republican leadership from 2001-2008 drove us into.  (You will recall that Bill Clinton handed the Republicans a very good economic situation on which to build.)

The second thing to note is that the $1.5 trillion 2009 budget deficit began running BEFORE OBAMA WAS EVEN ELECTED.  October 1, 2008.  No fair-minded person, I think, would call that Obama’s debt — it’s Bush’s debt.  Which brings down Obama’s debt from $5 trillion to a still staggering $4 trillion or so — but debt all incurred because of the horrible economic circumstances he was handed.  You want to incur debt to get out of a deep recession.  Except, you want to incur as much of it as possible not for tax cuts (which is the part the Republicans demanded) but for infrastructure, to put people back to work rebuilding our country, which is what the President emphatically called for in his speech to a joint session of Congress a year ago — the American Jobs Act (“pass the bill right away”) — and which the Republicans blocked, as they have blocked so much else.

And speaking of the Debt . . .

UNFORTUNATE RNC SIGN PLACEMENT

Have you seen this?  May be Photo-Shopped (does anybody know?), but could hardly be more apt.