Year: 2014

Warren S:  “Efforts like those disgust me, too.  They further undermine people’s confidence in elections.  But wouldn’t you agree that it’s not dissimilar from using the IRS to inhibit conservatives’ ability to mobilize the vote in recent years?”

☞ Actually, no.  I see stark differences on several levels.

First, the IRS is not the analog of the Republican Party.  Not least because it was run at the time by a Bush-appointee.  An appointee, by the way, that the Republicans in Congress for years prevented President Obama from replacing with his own.  That alone, it seems to me, makes the two situations entirely dissimilar.

Second, the goal of the IRS was entirely legitimate: namely, to find an efficient way, given limited resources, to cope with a flood of new applications.  (By flagging key words that sounded political — including words like “occupy,” that are generally associated with the left, not the right.)  By contrast, the goal of the Republican Party is deeply illegitimate (and unAmerican):  namely, to find ways to make it harder for likely Democratic voters to vote.

Third, as soon as the IRS situation came to light, Democrats from the President on down embraced the general alarm, taking immediate action to investigate and fix it.  Show me one Republican Party official condemning their ongoing efforts at voter suppression.

Fourth, the Republican efforts directly affect millions for whom voting will now be more difficult or nearly impossible.  The result will be Republican wins in races they would otherwise lose.  By contrast, I don’t think anyone can argue the IRS did kept even a dime of Republican money out of politics or cost them a single election.  Those who wished to spend tens of millions of dollars funding right-wing groups went right ahead and did so.

So no: I do not see the similarities here at all, Warren.

SIGA

This little speculation filed for bankruptcy yesterday.  Oops.  Not because it’s broke, but because . . . well, if you own shares, as I do, read the story.  I’m not selling at these prices but I’m obviously sorry I recommended it — unless you sold some or all your shares in that lovely period when they quintupled (and I advised that you “hang on” for further gains*).

*I was an idiot.

INCHING FORWARD

WheelTug to Host Airlines at World Low Cost Airlines Congress
Working Groups to Explore Leveraging WheelTug for Maximum Turnaround Time Benefits

GIBRALTAR–(Marketwired – Sep 12, 2014) – WheelTug is pleased to follow presentations at IATA and ICAO over recent weeks with two working group sessions with airlines attending the World Low Cost Airlines Congress in London, 16 and 17 September.

“Our current order book of 985 aircraft, across 23 airlines, has shown extremely strong market demand for WheelTug,” says CEO Isaiah Cox. “We want to work with our current and future customers to explore the best ways to take advantage of our E-Taxi system in operational use.”

The working groups will give the airline attendees (including senior management, operations experts and fleet planners) the opportunity to discuss WheelTug with each other in working sessions. . . .

SUPPRESSING THE VOTE

Ga. GOP sees voter participation as a threat, and acts accordingly
By Jay Bookman

This week, Secretary of State Brian Kemp announced a major investigation into voter-registration fraud allegedly perpetrated by the New Georgia Project, a group that has already registered some 85,000 new voters for the November election. The project is focusing its efforts on minority and other underrepresented groups, most of which tend to vote Democratic, but Kemp, a staunch Republican, rejects any claim that his investigation is partisan.

“At the end of the day, this is not going to be about politics,” Kemp told Channel 2 Action News. “This is about potential fraud which we think has happened.”

If fraud exists, it absolutely ought to be ferreted out. But let me climb out on a very sturdy branch and make a prediction:

After the November election, this investigation into alleged fraud will produce almost nothing. It may uncover a few harmless technical violations of the sort inevitable in any large-scale registration effort, but it will turn up no intent to defraud. Kemp’s claim of nonpartisanship notwithstanding, this “investigation” is meant to achieve two goals:

• Shut down or at least handicap a legal, successful voter-registration drive in an election year when margins of victory may be slim;

• Allow Kemp to win points among the Republican base that he needs to further his political ambitions.

And just to be clear, let me explain what I mean by “harmless technical violations.”

Under state law, every voter-registration form, regardless of merit, must be turned in to elections officials. The goal of that law is to ensure, for example, that Democrats running a voter-registration drive don’t throw away applications of those who might vote Republican, and vice versa. In practice, however, the requirement also means that those running a registration drive are obliged by law to turn in forms that they themselves suspect might be invalid, such as those filled out by “Donald Duck”.

That is not “fraud” by any stretch of the imagination. In this context, Kemp intends “fraud” to suggest an illegal effort by Democrats to subvert an election, and again, I predict that suggestion will prove groundless and even irresponsible. In effect, we’re watching as a state official whose primary responsibility is to protect the sanctity of elections turn around and use that power to game the system.

It is not, however, surprising. Nationwide, Republicans now treat every effort to encourage voting as a threat to their party, and for obvious reasons. In elections with high turnout, they do poorly. In elections with low turnout, they do well. Therefore, they seek elections with low turnout. Among Democrats, the calculation is reversed: The more Americans they can convince to vote, legally and properly, the better off they tend to do.

In DeKalb County, for example, officials this week announced that they would allow Sunday voting at three locations, a step likely to increase turnout in DeKalb and thus help Democrats. The step was quickly condemned as partisan, with Gov. Nathan Deal warning that he might seek to have the practice outlawed. Of course, outlawing it would also be nakedly partisan.

For the moment, other counties are also free to have Sunday voting, and two — Democratic-leaning Fulton and Republican-leaning Lowndes — quickly followed DeKalb’s lead. As long as the opportunity to vote is equal, I don’t see the issue.

I do, however, question the wisdom of a political party that bets its future on its ability to discourage voter participation in democracy. That doesn’t seem a long-term strategy for success.

[Emphasis mine.]

[Third Estimated Tax Payment Due Today (for taxable income not subject to withholding).  Click here for instructions and the form.]

INNER CITY KIDS EXCEL!

Did you see this a few days ago?  It’s the (extensive, New York Times Sunday Magazine) story of our Success Academy charter schools and their 9,500 wonderfully successful kids . . . on its way to being 46 schools by 2016.  I know I’ve been writing about this a lot, but: what could be more fundamental to our collective success than to break the cycle of poverty and underachievement in thousands, soon to be tens of thousands — and perhaps not so long from now, cumulatively, millions — of otherwise-at-risk kids?

I hope teachers and schools and school systems everywhere will grab hold of whatever aspects of the Success Academy template they believe could work for their kids.

OBAMACARE — SUCCESS!

You gotta watch this report from Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show.”

Really, guys: it’s okay to be proud of America and the progress we’re making.  And, yes, it would have been more progress if the Republicans had accepted a “public option” and not rejected Medicare expansion, but it’s progress nonetheless.  Likewise, if they would allow us to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.  Or allow a House vote on the bi-partisan immigration bill economists agree would boost our economy.

But compared to where we were five and a half years ago?  Things were so bad, a lot of investors thought the wisest course was to sell American stocks when the Dow was 6,500.

We’ve made tremendous progress.  Instead of wringing our hands and staying home as most Americans typically do in a mid-term election, why don’t we take a couple of hours November 4 to break the gridlock and get America firing on all cylinders again?  Just vote.

Watch!

I first met Martine and Bina, a biracial couple, at a small fundraiser five years ago.  The President came and sat for a few minutes at each table and I was at theirs.  Shy, lesbian (sort of) (yes! there are shy lesbians) . . . who were these nice, quiet people?  Did one of them have a trust fund?  Well, you can read all about them in New York Magazine’s cover story this week.  Martine made $38 million last year, the highest paid corporate woman CEO in America, but that barely scratches the surface of her remarkable story.  (She may live forever.  So may you.  Read her new book, Virtually Human: The Promise — and the Peril — of Digital immortality.)  She flies a helicopter.  She breeds pigs to provide organs for humans in the not too distant future.  One of her and Bina’s four kids is running for Congress.  Another was expected to die from a rare disease by the age of 10 (but is now 30).  The company she runs — after having co-founded Sirius Satellite Radio — sports a nearly $6 billion market cap.  She was born a guy.  She was on Colbert a few weeks ago with Bina and the Bina48, a robot in Bina’s likeness.  Ray Kurzweil sits on her board.

Is this a great country or what?

THE GIVER

Hey: what fun.  I’m surprised it hasn’t gotten higher audience ratings. Enjoy!

But if I do, they may come from bouqs.com.  Which is to say direct from the side of a volcano in Ecuador or a farm in California (no warehouse middleman in either case) . . . eco-friendly . . . free shipping.  Watch the pitch — it’s fun.  (I have no financial interest in this company, but if you enter the site and order via this link, I think I accrue a credit toward future orders.)

I WON’T GO TO A HAWKS GAME, EITHER

But only because I’m not a fan.  I thought Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s defense of Hawks owner Bruce Levenson was spot on.

*If you don’t get this reference (last week it was the Turkish reference), you obviously don’t know one of the fifteen best Broadway soundtracks of all time, Mack & Mabel.  Here’s the song.  Followed by her reply:  So who needs roses? (that didn’t come . . . from . . . him).  I’ve never seen it, but that’s the beauty of a good Broadway show: you don’t need to see it to get the story.  The fourteen others are My Fair Lady, Les Miz, L’il Abner, The Music Man,  City of Angels, Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorello, Sweeney Todd, A Chorus Line, Dreamgirls, Jersey Boys, The Rothschilds, and Oklahoma.  That’s actually only thirteen others, leaving one slot so you don’t get all crazy on me for omitting your favorite.  Which I probably liked, too.  (Company?  Bells Are Ringing?  Man of La Mancha?  Tommy?  Grease? La Cage?  Evita?  Hair?  Hello, Dolly?  Mame?  1776?  Once?  Book of Mormon?)

ONE-MAN BAND

Four minutes.  Terrific.

TWO INVESTMENT IDEAS

Puerto Rico is in rough shape.  It’s triply tax exempt (federal, state, and city) “general obligation bonds” are perceived as so risky that they yield about 9%.  A very smart, politically savvy pal — not rich – is so persuaded the U.S. won’t allow the Commonwealth to go broke that he’s put almost everything he has into them.  I recently bought some of the “8s of 2035 callable in 2020 for 92,” meaning that I paid $920 for each bond, and that each one will pay me $80 a year until sometime between 2020 and 2035, when they will be redeemed for $1,000.  All that income (except for the gain from $920 to $1,000): entirely tax-free.  The risk, of course, is that some of those interest payments may be delayed — or that the issue may default entirely.  But the bonds are backed by the taxing authority of the Commonwealth, so his guess — and mine — is that they will probably be made good (and all but certainly not be subject to total loss).

Because we could be wrong, he probably has more of these than he should.  (Diversify!)  I bought a more modest number so I don’t have to worry in case it goes wrong.

Another really smart friend persuaded me that Home Depot is a smart long-term holding.  It could better than double over the next five years, he thinks.  I bought that, too.  If the market falls out of bed and one day I can get shares on sale for 40% off, I’d buy more.

Oh?  Wait?  You mean the stock prices can go down?   There’s certainly reason to be somewhat cautious here, with the S&P at an all-time high, and definitely reason not to be borrowing to invest on margin.  Here is Nobel-prize Laureate Robert Schiller’s perspective and good advice.  Most of it is about what the stock market might do, why British stocks might be a better buy, how you should be thinking about your retirement, and so on.  But there are important policy insights as well, even though Sarah Palin and John Boehner see it differently.  E.g.:

So what we need is governments to get out of austerity and get into more stimulation and that will help people save more. We have to have a collective decision to expand the economy and ultimately that’s what will help people save more.

ONE-MAN BAND

Four minutes.  Terrific.

TWO INVESTMENT IDEAS

Puerto Rico is in rough shape.  It’s triply tax exempt (federal, state, and city) “general obligation bonds” are perceived as so risky that they yield about 9%.  A very smart, politically savvy pal — not rich — is so persuaded the U.S. won’t allow the Commonwealth to go broke that he’s put almost everything he has into them.  I recently bought some of the “8s of 2035 callable in 2020 for 92,” meaning that I paid $920 for each bond, and that each one will pay me $80 a year until sometime between 2020 and 2035, when they will be redeemed for $1,000.  All that income (except for the gain from $920 to $1,000): entirely tax-free.  The risk, of course, is that some of those interest payments may be delayed — or that the issue may default entirely.  But the bonds are backed by the taxing authority of the Commonwealth, so his guess — and mine — is that they will probably be made good (and all but certainly not be subject to total loss).

Because we could be wrong, he probably has more of these than he should.  (Diversify!)  I bought a more modest number so I don’t have to worry in case it goes wrong.

Another really smart friend persuaded me that Home Depot is a smart long-term holding.  It could better than double over the next five years, he thinks.  I bought that, too.  If the market falls out of bed and one day I can get shares on sale for 40% off, I’d buy more.

Oh?  Wait?  You mean the stock prices can go down?   There’s certainly reason to be somewhat cautious here, with the S&P at an all-time high, and definitely reason not to be borrowing to invest on margin.  Here is Nobel-prize Laureate Robert Schiller’s perspective and good advice.  Most of it is about what the stock market might do, why British stocks might be a better buy, how you should be thinking about your retirement, and so on.  But there are important policy insights as well, even though Sarah Palin and John Boehner see it differently.  E.g.:

So what we need is governments to get out of austerity and get into more stimulation and that will help people save more. We have to have a collective decision to expand the economy and ultimately that’s what will help people save more.

Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell says that “by any measure, Barack Obama has been a disaster for our country.”  He might want to read Forbes (“the capitalist tool”).

Forbes contributor Adam Hartung notes that the stock market has done terrifically well under Barack Obama (better, I believe, than under any other president, actually), but acknowledges that job growth may be a better measure of success in real people’s lives.  And so he quotes Bob Deitrich:

. . .President Ronald Reagan has  long been considered the best modern economic President.  So we compared his performance dealing with the oil-induced recession of the 1980s with that of President Obama and his performance during this ‘Great Recession.’

As this unemployment chart shows, President Obama’s job creation kept unemployment from peaking at as high a level as President Reagan, and promoted people into the workforce faster than President Reagan.

President Obama has achieved a 6.1% unemployment rate in his 6th year, fully one year faster than President Reagan did. At this point in his presidency, President Reagan was still struggling with 7.1% unemployment, and he did not reach into the mid-low 6% range for another full year.  So, despite today’s number, the Obama administration has still done considerably better at job creating and reducing unemployment than did the Reagan administration.

We forecast unemployment will fall to around 5.4% by summer, 2015.  A rate President Reagan was unable to achieve during his two terms.

It’s worth reading the whole piece (which deals, as well, with the issue of the labor participation rate and underemployment).  It concludes:  “Economically, President Obama’s administration has outperformed President Reagan’s in all commonly watched categories.  Simultaneously the current administration has reduced the deficit, which skyrocketed under Reagan.”

And yet Mitch McConnell, in prepared remarks, says that “by any standard, Barack Obama has been a disaster for our country.”  Why would anyone want him running the Senate?  A plea to my Republican friends: November 4, at least stay home.

FRED ASTAIRE

“Can’t act.  Can’t sing.  Slightly bald.  Can dance a little.”  — Louis B. Mayer’s assessment after watching Fed Astaire’s MGM screen test.  Click here. (Thanks, Mel.) Or, of course, if it looks like rain, click here.  “Too short,” Mayer said of Gene Kelly.  “I see no motion picture potential in Kelly,” agreed a studio exec.

HAMAS

First, please take five minutes to watch this prominent Australian commentator on the killing of children in Gaza schools and hospitals.  Andrew Bolt, makes a calm but compelling case.  “This should be seen by every Jew and non-Jew,” writes my pro-Israel friend Mel.

ISIS

Now, perhaps, six minutes to watch this New York Times‘ video doc of the lone survivor of an ISIS massacre.  It’s not as important as the first clip — in the sense that almost no one seems to doubt that ISIS is horrifically in the wrong, whereas views of the Gaza tragedy differ sharply.  But it’s indelible nonetheless.

Here’s a cosmic question to ponder.  (Think of yourself as a modern-day Isaac Newton beneath the apple tree.)  Gravity!  You’d think it would slow the expansion of the universe, no?  Yet that expansion is speeding up.  Why?

And, by the way, who cares?  Folks like you and me surely won’t understand the answer even once it’s found.

What mainly interests me about this interview of Neil deGrasse Tyson by Bill Moyers is what it says about science and democracy.

Only 43% of Republicans “believe in” evolution.  Why?

American high school students aren’t in the top 20 in math, science, reading — or anything else.  When we’re behind so many other countries, what does that suggest about our future?  Are we doing the best we can?

Baghdad, Tyson reminds us, was once the center of the intellectual world.  The Arabs invented modern numbers, for crying out loud — and algebra.  There’s a reason we don’t see the price of tomatoes as CCXLIX cents a pound.  Can you imagine trying to send a rocket to the moon using Roman numeral telemetry?

But then the Arabs lost their intellectual lead and, well . . . watch what Tyson has to say.   And embrace science and Success and Democrats — because Democrats, whatever our flaws (we like gay people! we like black people! we might one day get a majority of women on the Supreme Court!), “believe in” science and making college affordable and investing in basic research.  And separating church and state.  And sensible compromise.

As, of course, do most thinking Republicans, of whom there are tens of millions.  But that’s not how their elected representatives have been voting.  So those Republicans should vote Democrat for a while, or at least stay home, until they get their party back.

Does anyone think slave-freeing Abe Lincoln or trust-busting Teddy Roosevelt or interstate-highway-funding Dwight Eisenhower or EPA-establishing Dick Nixon would be voting Republican these days?

What does it say — as Bill Moyers tells us in his monologue after the Tyson interview — that climate denial is at a 6-year all-time high in this country, even as the scientific consensus grows ever more nearly unanimous?  And wait til you see the clips of Paul Brown with which Moyers concludes.  Of course, he says, Brown is entitled to his own beliefs (that the earth is 9,000 years old and climate science is the biggest hoax in history).  “But remember, this man is chairman of investigations and oversight for the Science, Space, and Technology committee of the United States House of Representatives, passing judgment on public policy and science.  God help us.”