You Got Married? Congratulations!!! You’re Fired. October 15, 2014 You likely know that the Supreme Court — by choosing not to hear several appeals last week — added 11 more states to the marriage equality roster (bringing the number to 30). Brent Childers has run North Carolina-based Faith In America since 2007. “For much of his adult life as an evangelical Christian,” reads his bio, “he aligned himself with the anti-gay religious industry.” In 2012, one of his four kids came out to him. Since then — living in a socially conservative part of North Carolina — he’s watched the harm religion-derived “derogation,” as he calls it, has hurt her and his family. Of the Court’s decision, he wrote: I wish everyone could have seen the reaction of my 16-year-old daughter late yesterday morning when I told her North Carolina’s anti-gay marriage amendment was in essence struck down. We live in a socially conservative area and she has heard many times, especially two years ago, all the religion-derived derogation that comes with those amendments. Many times it takes only the topic of sexual orientation to prompt expressions of such derogation. So many young people for years have heard those expressions from family, peers, teachers, pastors, elected officials and many others. Just last week, the grandmother of my daughter’s very best friend made the comment that she is “evil” – only because she is gay. An uneducated bigot? Actually the grandmother is a physician – an educated individual made blind to understanding by outdated and misguided church teaching. My daughter and many other young people will return to school this morning knowing that the moral condemnation that drove the passage of North Carolina’s anti-gay marriage amendment and the moral derogation it placed on their very being has been judged wrong. They will know that what morality exists within the law sides with them and not individuals like that grandmother. Such knowledge is liberating on many different levels. So I’m not sure “revel” is the correct word as far as what I’m experiencing. Rather, it’s a profound peace in knowing that life for countless young people, such as my daughter, just got so much better. We know marriage equality will not single-handedly eliminate religion-derived derogation toward LGBT youth and families. But few could disagree that the one-man-one-woman construct has been one of religion-based bigotry’s most formidable weapons. It was a powerful construct derived from misguided biblical interpretation. As that construct is unfastened, it surely will weaken further the remaining biblical construct of “homosexual immorality.” After today’s decision and those to follow, the time of spiritual equality and the time of full equality can become one – which we now can see in the very near future. Yes, a transformational day indeed. This photo of two sheriffs deputies marrying — in North Carolina! — in the wake of the Court’s ruling, prompted one long-time activist to write: “Seriously. I really just have to say: I think we’re done here. Next project: Federal anti-discrimination law. Because you don’t wanna get fired in North Carolina just for gettin’ hitched! Which you could, and it’d be legal.” The Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) would prevent employers in North Carolina — or any of the 28 other states that still allow it — from firing people just for being gay. ENDA passed the Senate last year by a wide majority — 64-32. But Republicans in the House, believing employers must be allowed to discriminate against gays and lesbians, kept it from becoming law. (Want to fix that? Just vote. Early, if you can.)
How To Lower Unemployment October 14, 2014 MITT PROMISED TO GET IT DOWN TO 6% IN FOUR YEARS Here: “I can’t possibly predict precisely what the unemployment rate would be at the end of one year. I can tell you that over a period of four years, by virtue of the policies that we put in place, we get the unemployment rate down to 6 percent, or perhaps a little lower.” BARACK DID IT IN UNDER TWO To 5.9%. And if the Republicans in Congress would just allow it, we could be doing so much better still: Boosting the economy by revitalizing our crumbling infrastructure . . . boosting the economy by hiking the minimum wage . . . boosting the economy by passing the Senate’s bipartisan immigration bill . . . and thereby initiating a virtuous cycle that would lead to higher wages, higher tax receipts, lower safety-net payments, and reduced deficits. Kind of like the virtuous cycle we had under Bill Clinton. (Remember?) All that stands in the way are the Republicans in Congress. Please vote.
Is Today A Holiday? October 13, 2014October 12, 2014 IN A NUTSHELL Domestically we all know what to do — but Congressional Republicans won’t let us do it. Overseas, with ISIL, no one knows what to do — and many Republicans demand we do it. (Right? Domestically, we should shift the economy into high gear: by revitalizing our infrastructure . . . by raising the minimum wage . . . and by signing the bipartisan Senate immigration into law. Bang: the economy starts to really hum, unemployment and under-employment fall, safety-net payments fall, tax receipts rise, the deficit heads toward surplus, and, oh, by the way, tens of millions of American lives are made a little less difficult. With ISIL, the President is providing essential leadership, pulling the world together and making clear what we will and won’t do: it’s the region’s problem, and they are going to have to step up, even as we offer crucial support. But all the options suck.) VOTER SUPPRESSION Here’s what it costs to vote in certain states — a deterrent, disproportionately, to those struggling to get by, who tend to vote Democrat. Not included are all the soft costs, like taking a day off from work — without somehow getting fired — and paying for the bus to go get the needed documentation. One more way the Republican minority hopes to regain further control. SMOKING – II Celeste Myers: “About 20 years ago the National Smoke-out Day (remember that?) coincided with a conference I attended, the National Council of Teachers of English. I took a dozen or so copies of Kids Say Don’t Smoke, passed out a few to people I knew, and left the rest on the information table. At the next annual conference I got thanked by people who had been inspired to quit smoking by your book. I remember the overwhelming feeling of relief the first time I realized that I didn’t want a cigarette. Keep up your efforts to help people quit smoking.” ☞ Thanks! But as suggested last week, there seems to be an even better book to help people stop smoking. Give it to anyone you know who’d like to quit. THE MARKET Gettin’ a little wobbly, have you noticed? I don’t know where it’s going, obviously. The stocks I like — most recently, Home Depot; most long-standingly, Borealis — I hope will make us happy over the years regardless of how well or poorly the broader market does. And I’m told that it’s open today (why? didn’t Christopher Columbus suffer enormous hardship in order to give us the day off?), so, as per contract, I have slaved over the foregoing.
How To Fix Our Fundamental Domestic Problem October 10, 2014October 7, 2014 Here is Robert Reich (one of Time Magazine’s “10 Most Effective Cabinet Secretaries of the Twentieth Century”) on where we are (if pressed for time, just read the lines I’ve bolded): Sunday, September 28, 2014 I was in Seattle, Washington, recently, to congratulate union and community organizers who helped Seattle enact the first $15 per hour minimum wage in the country. Other cities and states should follow Seattle’s example. Contrary to the dire predictions of opponents, the hike won’t cost Seattle jobs. In fact, it will put more money into the hands of low-wage workers who are likely to spend almost all of it in the vicinity. That will create jobs. Conservatives believe the economy functions better if the rich have more money and everyone else has less. But they’re wrong. It’s just the opposite. The real job creators are not CEOs or corporations or wealthy investors. The job creators are members of America’s vast middle class and the poor, whose purchases cause businesses to expand and invest. [See that Nick Hanauer clip.] America’s wealthy are richer than they’ve ever been. Big corporations are sitting on more cash they know what to do with. Corporate profits are at record levels. CEO pay continues to soar. But the wealthy aren’t investing in new companies. Between 1980 and 2014, the rate of new business formation in the United States dropped by half, according to a Brookings study released in May. Corporations aren’t expanding production or investing in research and development. Instead, they’re using their money to buy back their shares of stock. There’s no reason for them to expand or invest if customers aren’t buying. Consumer spending has grown more slowly in this recovery than in any previous one because consumers don’t have enough money to buy. All the economic gains have been going to the top. The Commerce Department reported last Friday that the economy grew at a 4.6 percent annual rate in the second quarter of the year. So what? The median household’s income continues to drop. Median household income is now 8 percent below what it was in 2007, adjusted for inflation. It’s 11 percent below its level in 2000. It used to be that economic expansions improved the incomes of the bottom 90 percent more than the top 10 percent. But starting with the “Reagan” recovery of 1982 to 1990, the benefits of economic growth during expansions have gone mostly to the top 10 percent. Since the current recovery began in 2009, all economic gains have gone to the top 10 percent. The bottom 90 percent has lost ground. We’re in the first economic upturn on record in which 90 percent of Americans have become worse off. Why did the playing field start to tilt against the middle class in the Reagan recovery, and why has it tilted further ever since? Don’t blame globalization. Other advanced nations facing the same global competition have managed to preserve middle class wages. Germany’s median wage is now higher than America’s. One factor here has been a sharp decline in union membership. In the mid 1970s, 25 percent of the private-sector workforce was unionized. Then came the Reagan revolution. By the end of the 1980s, only 17 percent of the private workforce was unionized. Today, fewer than 7 percent of the nation’s private-sector workers belong to a union. This means most workers no longer have the bargaining power to get a share of the gains from growth. Another structural change is the drop in the minimum wage. In 1979, it was $9.67 an hour (in 2013 dollars). By 1990, it had declined to $6.84. Today it’s $7.25, well below where it was in 1979. Given that workers are far more productive now – computers have even increased the output of retail and fast food workers — the minimum wage should be even higher. By setting a floor on wages, a higher minimum helps push up other wages. It undergirds higher median household incomes. The only way to grow the economy in a way that benefits the bottom 90 percent is to change the structure of the economy. At the least, this requires stronger unions and a higher minimum wage. It also requires better schools for the children of the bottom 90 percent, better access to higher education, and a more progressive tax system. GDP growth is less and less relevant to the well-being of most Americans. We should be paying less attention to growth and more to median household income. If the median household’s income is is heading upward, the economy is in good shape. If it’s heading downward, as it’s been for this entire recovery, we’re all in deep trouble. If you want to fix this, JUST VOTE! . . . Democrat, November 4 — or earlier, if your state allows it — because the Republicans in Congress block everything that would help the 90%, who are the engine of economic growth. If you want to be able to refinance your student loan at today’s lower rates, as you would a mortgage, VOTE! . . . Democrat, because the Republicans in Congress are all that stand in the way. If you want to boost the economy with a 40% raise hike for those who make minimum wage, VOTE! . . . Democrat, because the Republicans in Congress are all that stand in the way. If you want the bipartisan Senate immigration bill signed into law and boost the economy, VOTE! . . . Democrat, because the Republicans in Congress are all that stand in the way. If you want to boost the economy by repairing America’s crumbling infrastructure, VOTE! . . . Democrat, because the Republicans in Congress are all that stand in the way. If you want to enact the universal background checks that even 74% of NRA members favor, VOTE! . . . Democrat, because the Republicans in Congress are all that stand in the way. If you want ENDA passed, VOTE! . . . Democrat, because the Republicans in Congress are all that stand in the way. # The Republicans currently serving in Congress pride themselves on being unwilling to compromise. Want to break the gridlock and get America moving again? Want to pave the way for 2016? Just take a couple of hours and vote. Want to avoid Mitch McConnell’s presiding over the confirmation of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s successor, if she or some other Justice should leave the bench? Just take a couple of hours and vote. It’s not rocket science. We can do this.
Drinking October 9, 2014October 6, 2014 An appendix in the only investment guide you’ll ever need (ever) explains how buying wine by the case — if that gets you a 10% discount and you drink one bottle a week — works out to an internal rate of return on your investment of 177%. (Your investment is the extra cash required to buy a whole case.) If this is not intuitively obvious, buy the book. (If it is intuitively obvious, you must be at the extreme end of the spectrum.) In the book I use a $10 bottle of Bordeaux, to keep the math simple, though of course the rate of return is the same at any price point and just as good with a nice Pinot Grigio or Cabernet Sauvignon. The one problem I see with trying to get rich by consuming vast quantities of wine by-the-case is that this 177% return . . . well, if I have to explain the difficulty with getting rich this way, you must be at the extreme other end of the spectrum — no offense — which I know you are not. This all springs to my stone sober mind because a dinner guest brought me a bottle of wine this summer that, as we drank it, even I could tell was very, very nice. (I know nothing about wine.) I went on-line to see whether I could afford it and was astonished to find it for $6.99 a bottle. Needless to say, as brilliant as is a 177% return on a ten-dollar bottle of wine, it’s even more brilliant (if fewer actual dollars) at $6.99. I bought four cases, largely to serve others . . . excited . . . but nervously thinking – what do I know about wine? (Really: I know nothing about wine.) What if they hate it? I poured a glass for a connoisseur without letting him see the bottle. He started speaking Wine — a language I do not — telling me he was guessing it was French (it is South African), possibly from 2010 (2013), and commenting on its notes and hints and palate (or was it his palate? whatever). He may have said something about bacon. But the gist was that he liked it. What might it cost, I asked? He guessed it was perhaps in the $20-$30 range (I paid $6.29 with the discount, free shipping); $50-$60 in a restaurant. At which point I bought six more cases. Oracle Pinotage 2013. Enjoy.
Smoking October 8, 2014October 6, 2014 Know any smokers? Turns out — and this came as a surprise to a guy who wrote a little book about how addictive nicotine is — it’s easy to quit. Click here to buy a copy of Allen Carr’s Easy Way To Stop Smoking. And be sure to read the customer reviews — 543 five-stars, 31 four-stars, 27 three-stars, and only 23 two- or one-stars. One of its more famous fans, Ellen DeGeneres, blurbs: “Everyone who reads this book stops and I stopped.” Well, not everyone does. But most do. I’ve bought more than a dozen to give as gifts. At $13.27, it sure beats buying someone socks. ROICW Drew B.: “My tickler file awoke on the ROIC warrants … nicely humming along at $2.85, up ten-fold from where you suggested it. It was a great ride…..but its coming to an end in about three weeks. Perhaps I missed the post, but time to sell, or convert?” ☞ I’d sell. Wasn’t this fun?
Reductio Ad Absurdum – And A Medical Breakthrough You’ll Love October 7, 2014December 27, 2016 Yesterday’s two-minute clip (“WATCH AND BE PROUD”) prompted one of you to send me these anecdotes (thanks, Tom!): LBJ’s Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France when De Gaulle decided to pull out of NATO. De Gaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible. Rusk responded, “Does that include those who are buried here?” You could have heard a pin drop. And . . . There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying, “Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?” A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: “Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?” You could have heard a pin drop. You get the picture. Many of the things we’re proudest of as Americans, whether it be saving the world from fascism and communism or funding creation of the Internet — or our beautiful national parks or our unparalleled system of higher education or our putting men on the moon — were paid for in part or in full with our tax dollars. Likewise, our roads and schools and cops and courts and social safety net. Yet some have succeeded in persuading people that most of their tax dollars are wasted . . . and should, in any event, be paid by someone else. Taxes are bad. Government is bad. Private consumption is good. (Build that giant house.) Public consumption is bad. (Don’t fix that bridge.) Waste is often in the eye of the beholder. The military contractors and their employees paid to build planes the Pentagon doesn’t want may not see themselves as parasites on the taxpayer. But some government spending — like the disability payments one of my tenants used to collect by falsely claiming her son was mentally disabled — is unquestionably wasted. If it’s 20% — to pull a number out of the air — that’s hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Then again, it’s still “just” 20%. Zero percent should always be the goal, but zero waste in almost any undertaking is unrealistic. (How much of the food you buy goes to waste? And even if every morsel goes to waist — do you sometimes wish you had eaten less?) The charity you support may spend 30% or 40% of your contribution just collecting it — everything from fundraising salaries and direct mail to the cost of the annual gala fundraising dinner and the fee that MasterCard takes — and who is to say how well the remaining 60% or 70% is spent? Yet few would suggest we shrink non-profits to the size they could be drowned in a bathtub. And how about insurance companies? Do any of them waste your premium dollars? Well, of course they do — I could write a book about it! Their sales and marketing costs are far higher than the IRS’ cost of collecting your taxes; and the same people who defraud the government defraud insurers — and that fraud and waste gets built into your premiums. Yet few suggest we drown the insurance industry. The same could be said of private enterprise generally: Built into what we pay for its products and services are, often, lavish marketing costs, all manner of bureaucratic inanities, and, yes, even some fraud, such as shoplifting and “shrinkage.” And even if this were not the case, the very premise of much of what we buy from private industry is, arguably, waste. Do we really need all the things we buy? We should be free to buy them, of course; but is the money we spend directly, via our private consumption, really always better than the money we spend collectively, via our tax dollars? Who doesn’t love a granite counter top or a new convection oven? But wouldn’t most of us prize even more highly a sewage system that keeps us from living in our own filth? Ever since Ronald Reagan began demonizing government — and lowering taxes primarily for the rich — that balance has swung further and further from public consumption to private consumption. Especially private consumption by the rich. Which is why people are paying more than $100 million for single-family residences while our infrastructure crumbles. So that’s my first point. That, sure, grumbling about taxes is our birthright — but we’ve taken this too far. # Almost all agree some taxation is necessary (“the price we pay for civilization”); and almost all agree that rich people should pay more than poor people. But how much more? Nick Hanauer busts the myth that the wealthy must not be taxed at high rates because they are “the job creators.” If you still haven’t seen that clip, I recommend it yet again. Steve Jobs didn’t fail to start Apple or Fred Smith, Federal Express, because tax brackets in the Seventies were too high. Entrepreneurs don’t fail to pursue their dreams because 30% of their eventual billion might be taxed away instead of 15%. Progressive taxation, with those best off paying the largest share, is not just morally sensible — it works best. The economy did not tank when Bill Clinton raised tax rates on the best off. Job growth was spectacular. The economy did not boom when George W. Bush slashed them. Job growth was anemic. And far from tanking, now that Obamacare requires that we pay an extra 3.8% on each million dollars of dividends and capital gains we make above the first $250,000, private sector employment has been rising for the last 55 months. This is a 20-year real-world “experiment” in taxation. It’s not an academic exercise. Or a trial balloon in one small region of the country. And yet the Republicans in Congress are certain that taxes must never, ever be raised because, they say, raising taxes on the wealthy kills jobs. Even though it hasn’t. And lowering taxes on the wealthy, they say, creates jobs. Even though it hasn’t. I’ve written before about my signed copy of the 1941 budget, wherein Franklin Roosevelt called on Congress to pay for increased military spending with increased taxes and hoped Congress would “follow the accepted principle of good taxation of taxing according to ability to pay,” avoiding “taxes which decrease consumer buying power.” (It’s consumer buying power, Nick Hanauer makes clear, that is the real “job creator.”) Which brings me to . . . A MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGH YOU’LL LOVE This young woman is worth $4.5 billion because — look at this! — she’s come up with a way to “take your bloods” that involves just a pinprick . . . The next time you get a blood test, you might not have to go to the doctor and watch vials of blood fill up as the precious fluid is drawn from your arm. No more wondering to yourself, “Ah, how much more can they take before I pass out?” Instead you might be able to walk into a Walgreens pharmacy for a reportedly painless fingerprick that will draw just a tiny drop of blood, thanks to Elizabeth Holmes, 30, the youngest woman and third-youngest billionaire on Forbes’ newly released annual ranking of the 400 richest Americans. . . . . . . and that cuts from days or weeks to just hours the time it takes to get results. What a breakthrough for efficiency and better health! Which brings me to the part about . . . REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM Techonological innovation — which Kurzweil argues will be 32 times as great in the next 50 years as in the last — has the potential to make our economy ever more efficient and productive, our lives ever better and healthier. But consider what it will do to the employment of lab technicians and their support staff. And to employment at Walgreens, once the blood-test machine requires no attendant — you just stick your finger in — and no cashier, as it reads the payment info from your phone. Just a security guard and a janitor. Except the janitor could be replaced by a Scooba. And the security guard . . . well, what if as you tried to leave the store with something unpaid-for the revolving door, sensing the still-activated security chip, stopped revolving? With you trapped inside, as a friendly customer service rep in Mumbai negotiated your release or arrest? My point is, for the sake of argument, imagine a world where almost every dreary chore was done for us by a network of machines and robots that were self-diagnosing and self-repairing, run off a solar grid, and showering us with capabilities like those on my iPhone. My iPhone can already do practically anything. It is magic. There is no such thing anymore as boredom or getting lost. And not a lot of delayed gratification. If I want something, I can order it within seconds and it will arrive at my door in a day or two — unless it’s a book or a movie or an album, in which case I can begin reading or watching or listening in a few seconds. So here is this imaginary, for-the-sake-of-argument world where 1,000 people, let’s say, hold the key patents and own the uber-machines that make everything and grow everything and deliver everything. (No need for truck drivers or cab drivers, now that we have driverless cars and tractors and combines and fork lifts.) All powered from the sun. The question becomes: . . . Do we arrange things, in this world of Abundance, such that those 1,000 people live like emperors while the rest of us live like slaves, competing desperately for any job that will feed us? . . . Or do we find a way to . . . I hope you will pardon the expression . . . spread the wealth? If we do the latter well enough, those 1,000 can still live phenomenally well, but the rest of us can live pretty darn well, too. There will be lots of jobs for masseurs and macrame instructors and soccer coaches and poets and troubadours and people who guess your weight on the boardwalk . . . jobs not essential to life but hard for a machine to fill with a human touch. There will be a yoga instructor and a philosopher at every Starbucks. (But perhaps no barrista — by then, a machine be able to accept voice orders, proffer the brew, and charge your phone.) And few of us will have to do jobs we hate (does anyone enjoy being a security guard?) . . . or forgo the six weeks of vacation many of us dream of (just as factory workers during the Industrial Revolution dreamed of what we now call “weekends”). But how do we do it well enough? I’m not sure we can rely entirely on the Invisible Hand. (Any more than it gave us weekends. Or family and medical leave.) As now, the free market will need some enlightened regulation — and collectively-agreed-to redistribution mechanisms. Which may horrify the Koch brothers, who may feel that $100 billion* is not enough . . . who may feel robbed of their incentive to work if they are not able to amass (and pass on to their children tax-free) $100 trillion. Why shouldn’t they or their heirs be allowed to own, say, half the world’s wealth (remember, this is reductio ad absurdam) if they violated none of the laws passed by the Congress and President their unlimited political contributions installed? But I guess that’s my point. My vote would be to limit the power of the Kochs and other very wealthy people to determine who writes the laws. My vote would be to write laws, regulations, and a tax system that helps everyone enjoy the fruits of all this potential efficiency and prosperity, so much of it owed to the sacrifice and suffering and hard work and ingenuity of our ancestors, not to today’s plutocrats. . . . Boundless, essentially “free,” energy from the sun, once the infrastructure is built out. . . . Boundless, essentially “free,” communications, entertainment, and information, now that the infrastructure is largely built out. (Not literally free — my iPhone cost a few bucks and Verizon isn’t giving anything away. But compared to the cost of a three-minute call from New York to Boston when I was growing up? Let alone a call to China? Let alone a video call to China, free on my iPhone via Skype?) So I’d like to see the 1,000 masters of the universe in this (absurdly exaggerated) example taxed at, say, a 99% rate above their first $1 billion a year, with that massive revenue available to fund all kinds of wonderful projects and programs — including the bare essentials of a clean, healthy life for those unable or unwilling to strive for more — the income from all of which will flow into the private enterprise system, leaving many of us with plenty of dollars to afford the aforementioned soccer coaches, weight-guessers, and masseurs if we work hard. Though perhaps not as hard as we used to have to — at jobs we sometimes hated. Because wouldn’t that be a good thing? The technology is coming to make this largely possible, if we as a species don’t first wreck this little spaceship we all share. Much of it, in fact, is already here. Imagine: 32 times as much technological progress in the next 5o years as in the last! Our challenge will be to figure out how most ethically and practically to allow us all — or almost all — to enjoy it, peacefully and constructively, together. I’m pretty sure that giving the rich and powerful more wealth and power, while freezing the minimum wage, denying Medicaid expansion, and cutting back on public school funding — all tenets of today’s Republican party — is not the direction we need to be going to get there. *Their net worth has tripled during the Obama presidency they’ve been so keen to subvert. Tomorrow: Smoking. Thursday: Drinking.
America: The Indispensable Nation October 6, 2014October 6, 2014 UNEMPLOYMENT Mitch McConnell says — in prepared remarks, not a slip of the tongue — that “by any measure, Barack Obama has been a disaster for our country.” So here’s another measure: jobs. George W. Bush handed Barack Obama an economy hemorrhaging 800,000 jobs a month. Barack Obama pulled us back from the brink of global depression. We have had 55 straight months of private sector job growth. Unemployment has fallen to 5.9%. Mitch McConnell, who hopes to paralyze the country for another six years (he is up for election in 29 days; help his challenger here), calls this “a disaster.” What is true is that things are not where they should be. The jobs picture could be significantly better still, with higher pay and less underemployment, if only the Republicans would finally allow the American Jobs Act to come up for a vote — it would put huge numbers of people to work revitalizing the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. And if they would finally allow the bipartisan Senate immigration bill and the minimum wage bill to come up for votes. All three would almost surely pass, and all three, economists estimate, would boost the economy . . . returning us to a virtuous cycle, as growth led to higher tax revenue, lower safety-net payments, and, eventually, the same kind of low unemployment — and surpluses — that President Clinton handed President Bush. We can have this again. We just need to end the Republican death grip. WATCH AND BE PROUD Two minutes. Seriously. America bumbles in pretty horrific ways from time to time; but no other country has ever done, or continues to do, as much good. TRANS-PARENT And speaking of pride, see the movie I keep recommending — “Pride,” about the 1984 British coal miners strike. An amazing true story. And binge on Amazon’s new TV series, “Transparent,” as explained by Stephen Colbert and Jeffrey Tambour here . . . or in more detail on the Huffington Post here. REGISTERED TO VOTE? In many states, it’s still not too late — and not just for you, for your kids or your housekeeper (mine comes in four hours a week and would like to see the bipartisan Senate immigration bill passed) or the folks who bag your groceries (who would get a 40% pay hike if Democrats regained control of Congress). Their votes count just as much as Charles’ Koch’s — if they register and show up at the polls. Click here to see your state’s voter registration deadline.
50,000 Free-Quent Flier Miles October 3, 2014October 2, 2014 Yes, there was a column yesterday, I was just a dozen hours late posting it. It was much better than today’s column, so if you’re short on time, read that one. FREE-QUENT FLIER MILES There is a general point here even if you have no American Express platinum card (and why would you? it costs $450 a year and the only reason I had one was that it doubled as an American Airlines Admirals Club membership, but that was discontinued so I was calling to cancel it). The general point is that you never know what you might get if you ask. I try not to be too awful about stuff like this (anymore) — I like a bargain but I don’t like to bargain — but in this case . . . using virtually none of the features that for some people make the $450 platinum card worth having . . . I figured I’d at least let the nice telephone rep make me an offer I might not refuse. After a nice chat, she said that, well, no, she couldn’t waive or reduce the fee — they never do that — but she could give me 50,000 membership points (i.e., miles) for re-upping. Miles being worth about a penny each to me in this instance, she was in effect waiving the fee. And who knows? I might use some of the other perks of the card in the course of the year. So I accepted. I know you know this, and are probably better at it than me, but just as a reminder: With credit cards and cable-TV contracts and cell-phone contracts and all that other stuff . . . there’s often some room to get a better deal; some new promotion you only find about if you ask. Ask. SUITES CLASS Tuesday, we shared a double bed from Singapore to JFK, with caviar, for $18,200. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. (Did I snore? I don’t snore! On rare occasion I have silent-scream nightmares, but I don’t snore.) I also plugged the movie “Pride” Tuesday, which you should see tonight if you haven’t already, but I digress (constantly; but I don’t snore). Michael Joblin: “No need to exaggerate! That $18,200 is the round-trip price. And it’s less than a third the price of a Queens Grill suite on the QE2 round-the-world cruise: ‘from’ $66,000.” [Actually, the QE2 has been retired. The new QE is not the QE3, as you might expect — perhaps too much confusion with Federal Reserve policy — but just the Queen Elizabeth again, 76 years later. And what a fine new tub she appears to be.] Gray Chang: “If I had an extra $18,000 to blow on an airline flight, I wouldn’t go for the booze and fine food and soft bed. You can get that at any fancy hotel. Instead I’d choose this zero gravity experience at a fraction of the price. How can you get zero G’s riding in an ordinary airplane? I explain that here on my website.” Have a great weekend.
2016 Slogans October 2, 2014 I know, I know. A little early for this. Still, I figured you should know. If it’s Mitt, as teased here in the New York Times, it will come down to: THIRD TIME’S A CHARM versus THREE STRIKES AND YOU’RE OUT. But it’s not gonna be Mitt (as explained here in Buzzfeed). Which makes the stakes 32 days from now even higher, because . . . (a) While no one knows what Mitt stands for (passing Romneycare? repealing Romneycare?), he at least likely “believes in” science and compromise and stuff, and not all potential 2016 Republican nominees do. So . . . (b) If Democrats pick up the governorships of Florida and Georgia next month — to take two key examples — that would block what would otherwise be strenuous Republican efforts to keep poor people and young people in Florida and Georgia from voting in 2016. And if voting isn’t suppressed among those voters, the Democratic nominee likely wins the White house — instead of a Republican who could be an even less good choice than Mitt. Which brings me back to this (I’m sorry for the repetition, but it is so phenomenally important): If you want to up the odds of a progressive outcome in 2016, please vote in 2014. If you want to be able to refinance your student loan at today’s lower rates, as you would a mortgage, JUST VOTE! . . . Democrat, November 4, because the Republicans in Congress are all that stand in the way of this being done. If you want to boost the economy with a 40% raise hike for those who make minimum wage, JUST VOTE! . . . Democrat, November 4, because the Republicans in Congress are all that stand in the way. If you want the bipartisan Senate immigration bill signed into law and boost the economy, JUST VOTE! . . . Democrat, November 4, because the Republicans in Congress are all that stand in the way. If you want to boost the economy by repairing America’s crumbling infrastructure, JUST VOTE! . . . Democrat, November 4, because the Republicans in Congress are all that stand in the way. If you want to enact the universal background checks that even 74% of NRA members favor, JUST VOTE! . . . Democrat, November 4, because the Republicans in Congress are all that stand in the way. If you want ENDA passed, JUST VOTE! . . . Democrat, November 4, because the Republicans in Congress are all that stand in the way. # The Republicans currently serving in Congress pride themselves on being unwilling to compromise. Want to break the gridlock and get America moving again? Want to pave the way for 2016? Just take a couple of hours and vote. Want to avoid Mitch McConnell’s presiding over the confirmation of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s successor, if she or some other Justice should leave the bench? Just take a couple of hours and vote. It’s not rocket science. We can do this.