Two Speeches and a PS February 13, 2013 I thought the State of the Union was spot on. Investing in the future: in research, in infrastructure, in our kids, in alternative energy, in modernizing infrastructure. Voting rights. Granting gun safety measures 92% of us favor an up-or-down vote. Raising the minimum wage to $9 by 2015 from it’s current $7.25. (This latter would, after allowing for inflation, put it back to where it was in 1981, when Ronald Reagan began tilting the balance of American prosperity ever more steeply in favor of the wealthiest of the wealthy. Watch Nick Hanauer’s six minutes again if you’ve forgotten how it’s consumers, not the ultra-rich, who are the job creators.) Predictably — though that doesn’t make me wrong — I thought Marco Rubio’s response was awful. He said: “Presidents in both parties – from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan – have known that our free enterprise economy is the source of our middle class prosperity. But President Obama? He believes it’s the cause of our problems.” What a ridiculous belief to ascribe to the President. Either Rubio knows better — which is just awful — or he doesn’t — which is nearly as bad. He said: “The idea that more taxes and more government spending is the best way to help hardworking middle class taxpayers – that’s an old idea that’s failed every time it’s been tried.” Really? President Clinton did a good bit of this — against unanimous Republican opposition and predictions of disaster — and we created 23 million new jobs and watched virtually everyone prosper, from poorest to richest. He speaks of “the President’s obsession with raising taxes.” Actually, the President’s obsession, if he has one, is for “a balanced approach.” And the balance he seeks would include tax reform that cuts the corporate tax rate. He would put personal income tax rates for income above $250,000 back to more or less where they were under Clinton, and far, far lower than under Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter, during which time the middle class did quite well. “Raising taxes won’t create private sector jobs,” he states flatly. Well, it sure did in World War II, now didn’t it? Rosie the Riveter wasn’t working for Uncle Sam, she was working for General Motors. And the tax rate on the richest was 90%, where it stayed for 15 years after the war until Kennedy lowered it to 70%. Not that anyone is proposing tax rates remotely that high. But if we did raise tax revenue and let contracts not for warplanes but for windmills, not for destroyers but for bridge repair, not for the Manhattan project but for alternative-energy research, not for the Marshall Plan but for a similar plan to help rebuild America — why would that not create jobs? Senator Rubio seems sincere . . . and wildly under-qualified. BUT BORROWING MORE NOW — REALLY? Paul deLespinasse: “You say interest rates are so low we would be nuts not to borrow to put people to work modernizing our infrastructure and making the country more efficient and competitive. Yes, of course. But what happens when interest rates go up, possibly way up? I know it takes time for U.S. debt to roll over, but won’t interest costs for the accumulated debt then move toward becoming overwhelming? It seems to me that Paul Krugman, who has been pushing this idea, has not discussed this aspect of the problem. This is not to say it should not be done, but it should be done with a clear understanding of the possible downside.” ☞ Great question. One way to look at it is to ask this question: Will we have an easier time managing our already giant debt if our infrastructure is crumbling . . . or managing an even slightly larger debt if we have a modern, efficient infrastructure? Which economy is likely to generate more tax revenue long-term? Which is likely to inspire more investor confidence? Another way to look at is: Will austerity and non-investment in our future really lower the deficit? Or will it mean (at best) more of the same kind of economy we have now, with lots of safety-net expenditures but less tax revenue than we’d raise in a robust economy? A third way to look at it: What will be the cost of repairing bridges after they’ve collapsed versus repairing them now? Ten times as much? A hundred times as much? What will be the cost of dealing for 70 years with kids whose intellect has been impaired because we failed to de-lead their homes, or because we failed to provide pre-school education and modern classrooms . . . versus the cost of doing that work now? Ten times as much? A hundred times as much? Isn’t it cheaper to put idle people to work doing that now so more of those kids become productive taxpayers rather than wards of the state? And note, as always, that scary as half-trillion-dollar deficits sound, if we just ran them every year for the next 50, in an environment where our economy were growing just 2.5% in real terms but also 2.5% with inflation, our National Debt would gradually but dramatically shrink as a proportion of GDP. From roughly 100% of GDP now to roughly 25%. No need to “balance” the budget at all — especially because the way Uncle Sam budgets, we don’t capitalize investments. Bridges that cost $1 billion to build are not amortized over decades, as a business would amortize a power plant; they are “expensed” all in the year the cash goes out the door. This is what we did after World War II, when the National Debt peaked at 121% of GDP . . . but gradually shrank to just 30% of GDP until Ronald Reagan put a halt to that and started it climbing back up again to finance a military build up and tax cuts for the rich with borrowed money. Finally, brush aside the financial part for a minute and just consider the really big picture: Work that really, really needs doing . . . People who really, really need work . . . Seems as though there’s a fit there. PS – MARCO RUBIO AGAIN A few hours before giving his State of the Union rebuttal, Senator Rubio joined 21 other Republicans –all men — who voted against the Violence Against Women Act. All the Democratic senators, and all the other Republicans (and all the women, of both parties, not that anyone should defer to their judgment on such a matter), voted for it, so it passed overwhelmingly. But good for Senator Rubio for standing firm on what he believes.
Small Government February 12, 2013 The State of the Union is . . . obvious. We have a huge infrastructure deficit, millions unemployed, and interest rates so low we would be nuts not to borrow to put them to work repairing 150,000 bridges, modernizing 35,000 schools, weatherizing 80 million homes . . . and everything else that would make us more efficient, competitive, prosperous, healthy and secure. (Side-benefit: we’d jump start the economy, increase tax revenues, decrease safety-net payments, and lower the deficit.) No? We would do this not by hiring more government workers, by the way, any more than our Interstate Highway system or our sewers or submarines were built by government workers. But hang on: why all this government bashing in the first place? Peter Stolz: “We should attack the Republican Party’s key premise: that smaller government is better. It’s not true because the government is the people. Have they not heard of “government of the people, by the people and for the people”? Government is the people’s ONLY tool by which they can run their country themselves and determine the future of the country themselves. Without the people using the government to manage and run their country, it would be run by big business and those with the most money and therefore the most power. Democrats need to start making a strong argument against the right wing dogma that smaller government is better. If we invalidate that piece of nonsense it will go a long way toward eliminating one of the key foundations of the Republican party. Government is the arm of the people. It is the only way by which we the people can exert power to govern our own country. A strong government of the people, by the people and for the people is a very good thing. It is not something that we want shrunk and weakened. Conservatives frame it as a choice between bigger government in control or people in control. Democrats should decode this right wing double speak and make it clear that when government is in control in a democracy, that is the only way for the people to have power over their own country. If government is shrunk and made weaker the resulting power vacuum will inevitably be filled by the richest and most powerful corporations and individuals in the country. The power taken away from government will never go to the individual people. The rich and most powerful will grab every bit of power that government is stripped of. That is a dictatorship of the rich, by the rich and for the richest and most powerful, which is an oligarchy and a plutocracy. It certainly is not a democracy. The Republicans want to shrink the power of your government, they want to weaken your only source of power. At least with any member of government you can vote them out of power. If government power is greatly diminished and corporations take over that power, which they already have done to a large degree, they can’t be voted out as government can be. If we can make this point clear it will greatly invalidate the Republican party’s core message. Every time you hear a Republican talk about making government smaller in the future, you should hear it as, we want to take power and control of the country away from you the people thru your elected representatives, and give it to our rich and powerful friends.” In the meantime, shouldn’t we put people to work modernizing our infrastructure? AND WHILE I’M BEING ALL SERIOUS . . . Take 30 seconds to watch Gabby Giffords’ first ad. Talk about simple and direct. And obvious. “Since 1968,” Politifact confirms, “more Americans have died from gunfire than died in … all the wars of this country’s history.” Guns should be legal. And no safety regime will eliminate homicides, suicides, or accidents. But shouldn’t a government of, by, and for the people be able to enact commonsense regulation that 92% of the people favor?
Feeding Your Family On $15.87 A Day February 11, 2013 I spend that much on shrimp. Salad shrimp (only by mistake), large shrimp (rarely), jumbo shrimp (which is to say), colossal shrimp (mine, recently, for $16.95 a pound, of which I am not proud) and epically gargantuan shrimp sold here at $49.95 a pound (which I have bought exactly never). Needless to say, because I Cook Like A Guy, I buy them cooked, peeled, and ready to eat. Heinz does the rest. But I digress. Here is the story of a woman who decided to live for a week on a food-stamp budget. “We fed ourselves — and fed ourselves well — on $5 a day [each]. And you can, too,” writes Mary Elizabeth Williams for Salon. Her series touches on three things: compassion, nutrition, and thrift. Few of you will have time to read all 20 blog entries, but a taste of each here: First: “Inspired by Cory Booker’s recent experience on the SNAP Challenge, I told my daughters recently that I wanted to try living on a food stamp budget for one week as well.” Next: “It takes a little more work to cook. But it’s really rewarding, because work is satisfying.” Next: “I spent a lot of the weekend cooking my butt off, and now that the week is starting you’re going to see a whole lot less effort from these parts. That’s the whole point of cooking in a way that works – do the heavy lifting where there’s more time, then you can lower the bar the rest of the time.” Next: “As I have told my lovely family many times over the years: I’m exhausted and you’re all lucky you’re getting one meal so take it or leave it.” Next: “If you think NYC and Manhattan in particular are just for millionaires, I humbly suggest you get your head out of your ass.” Next: “We start in earnest on Sunday, but we’ve been thinking and talking about it for weeks now. My personal goal is greater empathy and understanding of how precious the food we eat is, and to instill some of that respect in my children, as well as compassion for those who have less.” Next: “We have menus planned and we’re in pretty good shape with a lot of the staples, though we need to buy the perishables closer to the start date.” Next: “Cooking isn’t supposed to be a nightly remaking of the earth. You are not a restaurant. You are not a showman. Just make some beans, man.” Next: “On Friday my kids and I finished the bulk of our shopping.” Next: “Today the girls and I started the SNAP challenge in earnest. (My spouse opted not to do it.) We have $5.71 left for the rest of the week. Okay!” Next: Photo of one daughter’s lunch. Next: “I asked my [13-year-old] daughter Lucy today to write about her feelings so far about our family SNAP challenge. Here’s what she said.” Next: “My own personal strategy: one animal a day or fewer.” Next: Photo of soup. Next: “Having less can be really boring.” Next: Photo of pickled carrots. Next: “Well, we’re over the hump. Three more days to go. Went to the supermarket today and bought eggs and romaine lettuce, and I now have $1.27 left in our SNAP budget, and yes, I do have a plan for that money.” Next: Photo of hot cereal. Next: Beet salad. Next: “I’d had big plans for my last $1.27 too. An avocado. I would get to prove at last when I’ve known all my life – that I would literally spend my last dollar on an avocado. But when I got to the supermarket, I learned avocados are $1.29 each this week. Two cents short, and my dream of a future grilled cheese and avocado evaporated.” Next: “46 cents left. Dinner was grilled polenta sticks and corn with tomato sauce, and salad with beets and almonds.” Finally: “We did it. We finished the SNAP Challenge. Seven days, 21 meals, $110.58, and three ladies [so, really, 63 meals]. We cooked a lot, we baked, we got 27-cent fudge. And starting tomorrow, we can eat whatever we want again.” If only everyone were so lucky. Which is why it baffles me that so many people focus on the 5% or 10% of food stamp recipients (I’m guessing) who may be scamming the system — and whom, of course, we should try to weed out — rather than the 90% or 95%, especially the children, whom their tax dollars are going to help.
Happiness February 7, 2013December 27, 2016 I first suggested this one at $6.30 18 months ago on the strength of a blog entry, and doubled up a few weeks later around $3 after the company was surprised by an unfavorable legal ruling. All this, of course, with money I could afford to lose. And bought more, a few weeks later, at $2. Ever since, it’s been limping along at around $3. Those of us who hold the shares have been hoping the legal ruling would be overturned . . . and that, in any event, Uncle Sam really may stockpile billions of dollars of its smallpox antidote. So if you own shares — or don’t but were about to buy a little motor boat (wait! stop! buy SIGA instead! no drowning risk! no gasoline guzzling! no swabbing, caulking, or environmental impact!) — you may be interested in this update. Jim Leff: “A friend who’s also a SIGA investor tells me that an investment analysis firm hired a distinguished Delaware judge to look over SIGA’s supreme court appeal and to share his findings for their big-wig investors. The judge agrees that the lower court decision (which “split the baby,” awarding the plaintiff half the future revenue from SIGA’s smallpox drug) was overreaching. He’s confident that SIGA will be on the hook for a much, much, much lower amount (that’s been my expectation, as well). This came to light late [yesterday] afternoon. “I listened to the oral argument before the Delaware Supreme Court last month, and one judge seemed overtly skeptical of the ruling against SIGA. It turns out that he’s the most powerful and respected judge in the state. This corroborates the likeliness that the Court will drastically lower the penalty. “SIGA has been playing possum throughout this legal dispute, doing everything possible to keep a low profile. That’s why we’re at $3 (even if the ruling stood, and SIGA lost half the billions in profits from their drug, they’d still be worth far more than $3). The Delaware Supreme Court prides itself on turning around decisions within 90-120 days (usually 90) of oral argument, so that puts a likely decision around mid-April. “Meanwhile, biological weapons, including smallpox, are very much in the news, particularly weaponized smallpox (thought to be held by Iran, North Korea, and Syria), which vaccines do NOT address, but which SIGA’s drug very likely does (depending on how novel the weaponization techniques are….i.e. if it’s anything like pox, SIGA’s drug is good). “It made curiously little news, but Israel has flown inside Syria’s borders to attack chemical and biological weapons stores. So smallpox is a big, big deal, and Israel has publicly included SIGA in its war scenario planning for several years. I expect an order there. Also meanwhile, the FDA approved a drug called raxibacumab against anthrax, based solely on animal testing. This has been the hold-up for SIGA with FDA — it’s not possible to test smallpox on humans, so you must resort to monkeys, and that’s not standard for FDA. But it appears FDA has finally accepted the standard, which is very good news. (Either way, though, SIGA doesn’t require FDA approval to keep selling to the government for their emergency stockpile, and the government has explicitly stated its attention to acquire billions of dollars worth of this drug.) I think it’s quite likely this could turn out well, although it could take time to shake out: the decision may remand back to the lower court to finalize, plus it will take time for SIGA to regain momentum and re-attract skittish investors. But I’m quite confident.” ☞ And confidence goeth before a fall. Or is that pride? Either way, let me stress: (1) I have not verified any of this independently and, as best I can recall, have never even had chickenpox — I had mumps — though when we were kids my older brother used to say things like, “Egad! A pox upon it!” (2) If you do decide to speculate in this stock, you must do so only with money you can truly afford to lose. It’s all part of my overall notion that if you do want to expose a bunch of money to the stock market, most of that should be done (via dollar-cost averaging and only for the very long term) through low-expense equally-weighted or fundamentally-weighted index funds or ETFs . . . but maybe 10% of your stock market stash should be in a play money account, split over a handful of my idiot speculations. That serves two, or conceivably three, purposes. First, it can be fun and a better place to channel your dream of big winnings than weekly lottery-ticket purchases. Some of us just need this, psychologically. Second, if over the years you merely break even with these speculations (though of course there’s no guarantee you’ll do even that well), you come out ahead, because of the “tax control” they give you: Use your losers to lower your taxable income by up to $3,000 a year (with any extra rolling forward to future years); use your winners, if held more than a year, to fund the charitable giving you would have done anyway (via the Fidelity Gift Fund or one of the others), which is both more convenient and, after-tax, less expensive than giving cash. You’ve broken even, yet, after tax, you’ve come out ahead. (Read my book.) Third, it’s conceivable you will do better than break even. After all, what is life without hope? Health first; then hope. If you have those two, and a high-speed Internet connection, happiness is surely yours. Have a great weekend.
Is It Warm In Here Or Is It Me? February 6, 2013February 6, 2013 CLIMATE Click here to see what’s been happening to the temperature where you live. And remember that 1 degree Celsius is nearly two degrees Fahrenheit. Of course, it’s not the heat we should be worried about — I like warm weather. And I have an air conditioner. The problem is that we may be destabilizing the climate in catastrophic ways. Of course, that could happen anyway, if a comet hits us or enough volcanoes erupt at the same time (or the wrong butterfly flaps its wings?) — Mars once had water, and it was probably not the short-sightedness of some intelligent life form that rendered it dry. But just because there are things we can’t control doesn’t justify, it seems to me, failing to confront things we can. And so many of them are so simple! Changing from incandescent bulbs to LEDs, turning them off when you’re not in the room, and weatherizing your home, for the many who haven’t already done it (I know YOU have) can cut energy use significantly. And where’s the sacrifice? It just makes you more prosperous by saving you money and more snug by eliminating drafts. Rich and snug: why is that awful? Or Marxist? It’s certainly easier than moving all our coastal cities inland. And easier than dealing with monster storms or mega droughts and fires. (Apparently, we may not have seen anything yet — and we’ve already seen too much.) The good news is that the President has made climate change a priority — and even when that priority was less visible than now, the Administration had been moving forward — doubling the CAFE standard, among other things. According to New Scientist, here, “What’s … surprising is that the US – historically, the world’s biggest emitter – actually seems to be walking the walk. It is on track to meet Obama’s 2009 pledge to cut US emissions by 17 per cent, from 2005 levels, by 2020. The target could even be exceeded, which may give a boost to the long-stalled international climate talks.” But the bad news, as Rachel informed us last night, is that the Republicans put people like Representative Paul Broun of Georgia, who doesn’t believe in evolution or climate change . . . which is to say he doesn’t believe in science . . . on the House Science Committee. (The good news is that it appears he will run for the Senate in 2014, which could get him off the House Science Committee and, conceivably, toss retiring Republican Saxby Chambliss’s Senate seat to a Democrat who does “believe in” science.) S&P So the Justice Department is — finally — massively suing one of the rating agencies. Like everyone else, I’m wondering: what took so long? And how about the others? But like everyone else I’m also thinking: better late than never. And like most people, I’m thinking: listen, you have to start going after executives, not just corporations. Yes, we know it is much harder to make criminal cases. And of course they should never be initiated frivolously. But where an executive appears to have been party to fraud, or to have been criminally negligent, indictments should be sought. Without pursuing individuals, there is little or no deterrent effect. The good news is that, even if, at the end of the day, a jury fails to convict, there is still deterrent effect. No CEO relishes the prospect of being indicted. The contrast with the indictments brought after the Savings & Loan crisis in the Eighties is striking — and laid out by Professor William Black, who was in the thick of it back then, here. STEINBECK Joel Grow: “If you’ve ever read Cannery Row, you cannot have failed to love the character of Doc. Steinbeck based Doc on his good friend Ed Ricketts and, after Ricketts’ death, wrote a wonderful homage I found at the beginning of Log from the Sea of Cortez, used there as a kind of introduction. I’d forgotten about this little tribute to his pal until reading your column yesterday, but it’s worth seeking out, as is Cannery Row, if you don’t know it. I think I’ve read everything of his that is currently published. I re-read it all regularly, especially Cannery Row and The Grapes of Wrath. There’s such humanity and spirit and…nobility in his writing! Thanks for reminding me.”
Three “Historic Letters” February 5, 2013February 5, 2013 But first . . . ED KOCH Emerson Schwartzkopf: “I really didn’t think anything at all about his private life. But I sure would’ve liked more about those two battle stars. The U.S. Army didn’t hand those out for just hearing a few gunshots in the distance.” ☞ Indeed. Here is a lovely farewell from the West Point point of view. Marc Fest: “When you list openly gay international officials, such as mayors of Houston, Paris, and Berlin, you may want to include Germany’s openly gay foreign secretary, Guido Westerwelle. I find that even more impressive. “ ☞ Oh, sure, but then I’d have to list Belgian prime minister Elio Di Rupo, the world’s second openly gay national leader; and Iceland’s Johanna Sigurdardottir, its first. And perhaps Kathleen Wynne, elected to lead the Canada’s most populous province, representing more than a third of the nation And perhaps New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, whose legislative body has as many constituents as Switzerland. Where does it end? (Or is it just beginning? I don’t like them myself, but some real estate agents say it’s good for a neighborhood when the gays move in.) OH, OKAY Of course I like them, being one, but could not resist channeling Jon Stewart. Guest: “I love your show.” Stewart: “Really? I don’t care for it.” TTNP Some of us bought this one at $1.77. Some waited until (or bought more when) it had, by this past May, lost more than half its value. It was one of you latter prescients who wrote yesterday, with the stock tripled to $2.48, asking what Guru thinks now. He thinks it goes to $3 or more; and that $3 would be a good place to get out and move on. And now . . . THREE HISTORIC LETTERS (two of them about Borealis) Long-time readers will know that I collect “historic documents,” ranging from a great Humphrey Bogart letter that was once stolen off my wall (if you know anyone with a great handwritten 1938 letter from Bogie to “Ken,” hanging on his wall, please play it really cool . . . don’t let on that you know . . . just . . . shhhhhhhh! . . . [urgent stage whisper] call the coppers!) . . . to Einstein congratulating newly-confirmed Justice Felix Frankfurter . . . to a document from 1501 in which Empress Isabella directs that one of her servants be given a bonus. It is, I suppose, in its whimsical breadth, less a collection than an eclection. Anyway, I’ve lately been rummaging amongst old files, unearthing items acquired decades ago — when I was actually getting paid to write these columns — and I came upon three that had found their way into an unexpected box. Which makes rediscovering them all the more fun. The first was from John Steinbeck to a writer assigned to profile him. It has no financial significance but is so direct and revealing-of-the-man, and perhaps the times, I just love it. Handwritten with a fountain pen (ball points having only vaguely been invented) . . . two years before publication of The Grapes of Wrath but right around the time it must have been rolling around in his head: August 25, 1937 Dear Harry Moore, Back in New York and soon to go west again. Your letter written long ago was waiting for me. We didn’t have mail forwarded. We’re down at a place in Pennsylvania for a few days and I haven’t [given] them name and address. I’ll take a chance that this will be forwarded to you. Now concerning your questions -1 think you know my principle — that the perfect biography of a writer is born — died. The whole process of trying to be a writer is to drop personal identity. That person identity is the boundary of the writer’s possibility. He shouldn’t have any. His history should be the history of his people. I dislike in this period, all those little tricks by which writers of the 19th century proved they were “originals.” I’m not original. My life has been not dull, but not literary unless it is editorialized in that direction. I detest personal detail because it thrusts self-consciousness back when it should be eliminated. Physical facts – O.K. although I’m not much interested in them. Me – Born – Salinas, Monterey Co, California -1902 Father – John Ernest Steinbeck / born in Florida during the war (arrived California 16 years of age) Mother – Olive Hamilton / born in San Jose, Calif. My mother was a school teacher at 16 – taught in Big Sur, and in Peachtree near the mustang grade – There’s so much nonsense about the jobs – this surveying party stuff – Probably the first surveying party was in the Big Sur in the 18th century. I worked on a line for the first road below the Sur. You see what foolishness gets said. The Red Pony was written about two years ago and appeared in the North American Review and isn’t much of a story. I am not the doctor in In Dubious Battle and never was. I didn’t enter that book at all but simply tried to include various kinds of viewpoints. Because the doctor was the most literate in the group, it was taken for granted that I used him as a personal mouth piece. I was interested in the group and its components. I am working on a sociological study only in so far as an account of any group of people is a sociological study. As for the question about a swing Left. No, I haven’t swung left. I’ve always been left. I don’t look back with nostalgia to any good old time nor ahead to a static perfection. But I do believe and see a constant improvement (in the long view) a constant and consistent struggle toward a better kinder life, and I do see that the struggle and the impulse comes invariably from the common people. As for participation in this struggle – I take part when it is required of me. And one knows when it is required. That’s a bit oratorial but there it is. And there’s an end to and a rest on your questions. I’m awfully glad you got a reaction on your novel. There’s nothing like an advance to keep a publisher’s interest warm. Good luck. In a couple of weeks we drive home and very glad too. We’ve been away too long. Go on into Russia while you’re over and see what you come out with. I don’t yet know what I came out with. It’s nice of you to do this critique. I wish I could believe the work justified it but it is so poor, such a miserable statement of such a big thing. Must try to make it better. I’m down here at George Kauffman’s doing a final play script. The minute it’s done I’ll scram home. I’m not interested in the play but the discipline of writing for the theatre has been good. I’m fairly sure this will be my only Broadway show. Tortilla Flat is going on too this fall but I’m not writing the book for that. Jack Kirkland who wrote Tobacco Road is doing it. They both go on this fall but I’m through with the whole business when I finish the script. Let me know how you get on. John Steinbeck The other letters I happened on are about Borealis: The first, from Scotsman John Logie Baird, is dated October 25, 1929, six days after the crash — what a good time that must have been to build a new industry requiring massive investment — informing one Mrs. A. Tweedy of Mayfair that, no, he couldn’t show off his invention that Friday (he had, five years earlier, transmitted the flickering image of a Maltese falcon over a distance of several feet . . . demonstrating a more robust version of his “television” two years later, in 1926, and then over a 438-mile telephone line to Glasgow) — how about Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week? This is about Borealis because you will note that it then took a quarter century before his technology made any actual money. The second letter is dated February 15, 1867, in the hand of Sam’l F.B. Morse, a painter (of John Adams, James Monroe, and the Marquis de Lafayette, among much else), a Yale man, a supporter of slavery, an opponent of immigration (he ran for Mayor of New York on that plank) — and of Catholics (Wikipedia, which makes me sound way smarter than I am, says he refused to doff his hat in the presence of the Pope). He also invented the telegraph. And, for it to be useful, Morse code. (Funny story: by the time word reached him that his young wife was ill, and he reached her bedside, she had died. He gave up painting to develop a faster means of communication.) He is writing here to one of his business associates to say that, yes, if the Post Office would like to acquire his invention he would consider it; but — having turned him down for $100,000 in 1844, assessing, as he quotes them, that it would “never be productive of revenue” — they would now have to pay millions. It took nearly a quarter of a century for the value of technology to soar. Of course, even I am aware that for every letter like these there are a hundred thousand from inventors whose dreams turned out to be fantasies, or whose reward was snatched away from by someone who got there first or stole their patent for a song when they ran out of money. So the practical relevance of these letters to Borealis is close to nil. But it’s fun, isn’t it?
Will Jack Welch Apologize? February 4, 2013February 4, 2013 DUMB CONSPIRACY THEORIES It’s now clear Jack Welch exercised poor judgment in thinking — let alone tweeting— that the Bureau of Labor Statistics was in the tank for Obama, fudging its numbers in advance of the election. Even at the time, “[this] conspiracy theory drew intense skepticism,” USA Today reported, “including [from] Republicans who back GOP challenger Mitt Romney. Tony Fratto, a former spokesman for President George W. Bush, tweeted that the Bureau of Labor Statistics ‘is not manipulating data. Evidence of such would be a scandal of enormous proportions & loss of credibility.’ In another tweet, Fratto said: ‘Stop with the dumb conspiracy theories. Good grief.'” The former General Electric CEO should have apologized then, and perhaps he will now that it turns out the 2012 jobs numbers were under-reported. As you may have read Friday, “The economy added 335,000 more jobs than originally estimated during all of 2012, including an additional 150,000 in the last quarter of the year.” So the Bureau was estimating low, not high, in the run-up to the election. DUMB WAR IN IRAQ Yes, the Hagel confirmation hearing had a rope-a-dope quality to it, kind of like the President’s first debate. But like that debate, where virtually everything the President said was accurate and thoughtful, and much of what his opponent said was inaccurate and misleading, it was really the Republican senators (in my view) who came off badly. John McCain is just so pleased about his “surge,” never mind the 1,200 American lives it cost. He seems to miss the larger context — an unnecessary war that cost 4,400 American lives, 650,000 Iraqi lives, wrecked millions more — and body-slammed our national balance sheet. Chris Hayes led off yesterday with this essay. And the panel discussion that ensued (clickable to the right of that essay) painted a portrait of a veteran intimately familiar with the horrors of war, pragmatic in his thinking, non-ideological, deeply decent, and generally — if not very much at the confirmation hearing — willing to speak his mind. Just what you might want in a Secretary of Defense. GOOD MAYOR Ed Koch was easy to cook for. All I did was get a roast beef big enough for the eight of us (I figured a pound a head should do it) along with containers of things like cole slaw and potato salad from the local deli and a few pints of ice cream. I think I may have started it off with soup. I know how to heat soup. Obviously, this was all before Charles, who would have been horrified. Paper napkins? But it was fine — all served by me around a $300 oval Door Store table Charles would later replace with one of identical size and shape, but with fluted mahogany legs, hand-made to his specifications at a cost of . . . well, it is best not to speak ill of the dead. (And in truth, of course, Charles was right, as he always was in matters aesthetic.) We did this twice, a few months apart: The Mayor, me, and six other dark-haired guys in their thirties, mainly — one a judge, all with interesting careers. The mayor had a very good time, eating and holding court. He told us stories and answered our questions which led to more stories. He never asked what any of us were up to or thought; and when, a few times, conversation strayed from him, he disappeared. Still at the table, but far away. We’d ask him another question and he’d snap back on. (“One of his former aides recalls him saying, after reading the paper, that nothing of note had happened that day,” writes Joe Nocera. “What he meant was that he wasn’t mentioned.”) I assume “gay things” were discussed. We likely thanked him for his 1978 executive order outlawing job discrimination based on “sexual orientation or affectional preference.” (In 1980, he would extend it to city contractors.) But never in the context that he was gay. Or that his affectional preference ran, very discreetly, to my friend and summer-house mate Dick Nathan. It was a different time — “vote for Cuomo, not the homo” — and he was the Mayor. He made the rules clear to me the one time he had me to dinner, even before I was asked to host him. It was just he and I and his gay aide-de-camp (who cooked something), in his very small Greenwich Village apartment . . . and it began with his telling me a story that seemed to come out of nowhere that I think involved a bridge or some cement and some City contract — maybe a contract for cement for the base of a bridge? maybe some zoning issue about where the bridge should be? maybe there was no bridge? maybe a union was involved? — and I had no idea what he was telling me about or why he thought I would be interested, but it ended with his explaining how he had crushed the guy who had done him wrong in this matter, whatever it was. Crushed him. “I never forgive and I never forget,” he smiled sweetly. Being perhaps even denser than than I am now, it was only after I had left and was walking how did it dawn on me. He was telling me this story, as the introduction to our dinner, just to lay out the rules. Rule #1: “Don’t —- with Ed Koch.” Unspoken Corollary: So clear it was left unspoken. It was perfectly understandable in the context of the time. Today, with six openly LGBT congressfolk and one openly LGBT senator, with openly LGBT mayors of Houston, Paris, and Berlin, it would be different. But when someone gets as dug into one way of presenting himself as Ed Koch had over so many decades (when asked directly, he would say, “it’s none of your business”), it seems to me unrealistic to require some late-in-life disclosure. Where it gets problematic — to say the least — is in assessing what considerably more he might have done as the AIDS epidemic was beginning to ravage his City. If you’ve seen or read The Normal Heart, or seen this year’s documentary Oscar-contender How To Survive A Plague, you get why some of the commentaries this weekend have been scathing. But that should at the very least be leavened by my friend Charles Kaiser’s fond remembrance, here. Ed Koch was in so many ways a great New Yorker. Brilliant, funny, abrasive, hard-charging, trying to do the right thing as best he could.