Author: A.T.

The Convention starts today. Several of you wrote good comments last week, suggesting I went overboard last week criticizing the Bush acceptance speech. You deserve a good answer, and I almost finished writing it over the weekend, but I don’t want to post it until I’ve had a chance to get it right. It’s been very hectic around here blowing up balloons and lettering signs.

And now they want me to start shredding the colored paper to make confetti.

Soon.

Dave Muller: “Stephen King sees your ‘clickle” and raises you a “cluck” (i.e. a dollar a chapter for his new on-line novel). Any thoughts?”

☞ Two. First, he should have made the first chapter available free to anyone who wanted it. Five million people would have downloaded it . . . and been hooked if it’s any good. Second, he should have made it 50 cents, not $1, a chapter. (I’m assuming it’s about 20 chapters – why should an online book cost $20?)

Try http://trac.org/ for phone rates, but also for a whole list of directory assistance services, like anywho.com.

Mike da Mailman: “One of your links is to a site that offers free long distance phone calls if you watch enough ads. Well, I discovered dialpad.com and it has free long distance, no ads, no charges, no money, no kidding. I have been talking to Virginia (the state) from California for free. I love it. Have to have speakers and a microphone (I use earphones with a swing down mic) and sign up and get a password and then just call. It is as clear as most cell phone conversations or a two way radio, but, what the heck, it’s free.”

And speaking of free, 1-800-555-TELL is now ready for anyone and everyone to call — and it’s free! Just call and say the keyword you want — “Stock Quotes,” “Weather,” “News,” “Sports,” “Traffic,” “Taxi” if you need to call a cab or “Airline” if you want to call Southwest but can’t recall the number. You no longer need to use the PIN that was assigned during the trial. And for a while anyway, if you find yourself at a payphone without a quarter, you can say “Phone Booth” and use Tell Me to make a free two-minute local or long distance call. Click here for more – or just try it . . . 800-555-TELL.

Or customize your favorite stock quotes and then call800-555-TELL and say “Tell me my favorites.”

Not bad for free.

Listen: While all this election stuff is going on, I’m going to have to rely on you guys even more than usual to say something interesting.

So here are two examples, the second of which will doubtless make the slave-owners in the crowd really cross, so I apologize in advance.

Robert Doucette: “If anyone would be interested in a little evidence of the value of diversification and asset allocation, let me present my own example. When my company’s stock reached an all time high this spring, I was envious of those who had 80-100% of their portfolio invested in it. Over the years, I had sold some of the stock and diversified into slower growing investments – occasionally wondering if I was doing the right thing. Over the past few months the stock has dropped from 75 to 35. My portfolio, on the other hand, has dropped only 15% — painful but still tolerable.”

Jim Batterson: “The main reason I’m voting democratic this year is to remove Jesse Helmsfrom his committee chairmanship. I think he has sabotaged American foreign policy for long enough.

“There are many issues in American foreign policy in which we have not only failed to show leadership but clearly surrendered the moral high ground. How can we have the nerve to shake our finger at Castro when:

“1. No one, not president or candidate nor anyone in Congress, is outspoken about the practice of SLAVERY in Sudan and Mauritania. Is this a controversial issue? Should we be embarrassed for not pushing this?

“2. We persuaded the rest of the world to sign on to an international treaty to ban LAND MINES and then drag our feet on signing on ourselves. These indiscriminate mechanisms of maiming and death continue to kill children and civilians for decades after their useful life is spent. They should go the way of poison gas.

“3. Why has the United States refused to sign on to an international treaty banning the use of children in combat? Is it because the treaty defines children as under 18, whereas the United States allows enlistment at age 17? Since most of the services require a high school diploma and most people are 18 or nearly so by the time they graduate from high school, it seems a small price to pay in exchange for supporting a clearly defined global good.

“4. After persuading the United Nations to water down the power of an international criminal court, overcoming any objection that anyone could have to it, we still have not committed to endorsing it. Could there be any more obvious need in the world than for an international criminal court? Do we really think that unilateral military intervention is a long-term solution to these problems? Please.

“5. Let us get in the habit of paying our dues to the United Nations in a timely manner. This is just embarrassing.

“6. How many embassies are now the home to ‘acting’ ambassadors while Jesse Helms holds up appointments of real ambassadors for petty or political reasons.

“7. And while we are at it, how large is the backlog of cases in our criminal court system because the Judicial committee refuses to approve the appointment of minority judges? Will George W. and his new party of diversity be appointing judges that reflect the full diversity of our society? Is that more important that the fact that he has a nephew that they call the little brown one?

“Give me a break.

“I care about all of these issues. I want the Democrats to talk about them. All of them. Go out on a limb. Come out against slavery.”

All right. I can live with that. And somehow Robert forgot to include the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, that Trent and Jesse took such relish in deep-sixing. To me, that was perhaps the most egregious of all.

I know some of this stuff is controversial (not slavery, obviously) — and that Dick Cheney doubtless thought he was doing something good and anti-communist when he voted against urging South Africa to release Mandela – but on balance, I sure think Robert’s onto something here.

Anonymous: “Your idea of ‘Andyday’ sounds like something my 6 year old son would fantasize about. On that notion alone, I will never buy one of your books.”

Geez! You miss writing one rotten column, and people start saying they’ll never read any of your other rotten stuff!

(Sorry, though.)

Tom Sasek: “Will middle-America vote for a Jewish vice-presidential candidate?”

Well, I feel certain they’d vote for a Jewish Fed chairman, and that’s a far more important job.

Senator Lieberman is a very smart, very decent man. And I must admit that when it comes to economics, I am a so-called “new Democrat,” as are he and the Vice President.

Many of you know that the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) is the group that Governor Clinton chaired before becoming President — and that Joe Lieberman currently chairs. When you hear about “practical idealism” or the “third way” politics of Bill Clinton and Al Gore and Tony Blair and the “New Democrats,” this is where it comes from. I tell many of my Republican friends that, now that the Republican leadership has slid off the right edge of the earth, they — my friends — are really DLC Democrats without realizing it.

This is not to knock the more economically liberal wing of the Democratic party. But I think Clinton/Gore have resoundingly shown that you can be practical idealists, favoring investor-friendly, free-market solutions — yet fight for everything from a rise in the minimum wage to the Family and Medical Leave Act to sensible policies on guns and tobacco, to the environment and equal rights.

Barron’s (or was it the Journal?) recently had an interesting little piece about how we shareholders would fare under Bush or Gore. Not that this is any way to pick a president – or that the past can be counted on to repeat. But the market, this article showed, generally does better when the incumbent party’s presidential candidate is reelected than when it is not. I think that could be particularly true if Bush won and felt he had to make good on his much-too-large tax cut instead of “staying the course” we are now on.

I think Senator Lieberman is a terrific choice.

I’m for ’em! Moderate ones, targeted mainly, but not entirely, to working folks who have the toughest time making ends meet. (Bush’s tax cut would go 60% to the 10% who have the easiest time making ends meet.) And timed more to boost a flagging economy than to overheat a booming one.

Keith Fette: “You never mention that the reason tax cuts benefit the rich the most is the fact that they pay most of the taxes! The numbers are amazing: the top 1% in income pay something like 33% of all taxes, and the top 10% pay about 50% of all taxes. But even an average wretch like me has to fork over everything he makes to the government until sometime in mid-May, at which point he can finally keep the money he earns.”

Well, that’s my point! I’d rather see a modest tax cut, directed mostly to wretches like you, than a bonanza directed to minor millionaires like me. (Let me stress: minor.) Yes, I’d like some sop sent my way. For example, it would sure be nice to have that “millionaires” 39.6% tax bracket kick in at $1 million instead of $250,000, as it does now. Or maybe raise the estate tax exemption from $1 million, where it’s headed now, to $3 million — and perhaps reduce the top rate from 55% to 45%. That would be a great gift to the well-to-do — yet fall far short of the windfall George W. proposes.

Keith continues: “As for that extra $100,000 you’d save, don’t you think you (of all people) could put it to better (charitable) use than a bureaucrat?”

Actually, I’m not sure. In the first place, it’s not at all clear that most rich people would give their tax cuts to charity. But even if they did, let’s think about this accepted wisdom for a minute. The charities and causes I give to are terrific. But in many cases, 20% to 30% of what they raise goes just to the raising itself. The IRS, by contrast, spends less than 1% collecting its money. And can we say that every opera company or church program is ultra-effective? Can we say that charities tend to be run by flinty-eyed business types who measure their performance monthly and — spurred by competition — provide superior results or disappear? Can we say that the average person who gives to charity allocates his dollars shrewdly, after careful analysis, and within an overall coordinated plan? Ahem.

Anyway, let me give the last words on all this to two of you, who say it better than I have.

Michael Kjar: “A giant tax cut at this time goes against Economics 101. If there are inflationary pressures in the economy, as the Fed believes, a tax cut will only exacerbate them. This will, in turn, force the Fed to continue to raise rates. That isn’t going to hurt me much — I’m debt free with a 6.5% mortgage and I live frugally — but what about those paying for cars, tuition, computers, etc? It seems their tax cut will quickly be swallowed up by interest payments.”

Hal Crawford: “I have been trying to explain to my friends why Governor Bush’s tax cut plan is so stupid. I have a degree in finance, but it doesn’t really take one to understand this. I’m not sure exactly how big the current debt is, but I’ll take your number. At $5 trillion, the amount of interest that the US taxpayers have to pay each year on that at 5.0% would be $250 billion. If there are about 150 million taxpayers in the US, then that would equal about $ 1,667 of taxes each year that do nothing but pay interest. Notice that this doesn’t pay it down, just pays the interest. [Four-fifths] of that debt was run up during the Reagan & Bush administrations. Thus, the taxpayers can thank the Reagan & Bush administrations for a large part of their current and future tax bills.

“But this doesn’t explain why I think a large tax cut is so bad. [First,] we need to ask what happens if the surplus doesn’t happen as forecast? [Second,] Alan Greenspan is concerned that the economy is overheated and is trying to slow it down — to prevent inflation. A tax cut would tend to speed it up, thus causing the Federal Reserve to further increase interest rates. The increased interest rates would hurt people who borrow money to buy cars and houses. It might not hurt the wealthy, but it would hurt the average American family.

“So, let’s see, pass a tax cut that would mainly go to the wealthy, increase interest rates that would mainly hurt the middle and lower income groups — yep, sounds like a plan that a “compassionate” person would recommend. NOT!

“And if anyone is thinking about the next generation — what better present could the current generation give them than a strong economy with no heavy debt?

“The slogan that really irritates me is the one that says that it’s the public’s money, so it should go back to them. IT IS ALSO THE PUBLIC’S DEBT! And the current generation ran up most of it, so it follows that we should be the ones to pay it off.”

Still, we’d all like a little tax relief – including the both the President and Vice President. Their tax cuts, though, would be moderate, and aimed mainly at “average wretches,” as Keith put it.

FEEDBACK TO MY TV SCREEN

I’m sorry, but that was a pretty lame speech. You know the routine where you open fortune cookies and have everyone append “between the sheets” at the end of each one? (“You will find fame and fortune. Between the sheets.“) Well, after almost every paragraph, I found myself inserting, “by enacting a massive tax cut for the rich.” That’s how to make sure every senior has prescription drug benefits – by enacting a massive tax cut for the rich. That’s how to help the neediest of our children get health insurance — enact a massive tax cut for the rich. Need to beef up our military preparedness? Simple – build a $60 billion defense system that most other nations oppose and that almost every expert says can’t really work – and enact a massive tax cut for the rich. That’s how to improve the schools – abolish the department of education, end funding for Head Start, turn the whole effort back to the states (where most of it already resides) — and enact a massive tax cut for the rich. That’s how to renew our purpose instead of taking “the easy road” – we need to bite the bullet, grit our teeth as our parents did in World War II, and enact a massive tax cut for the rich.

Would I like to see my effective marginal federal tax bracket fall from 43% to 33%? Of course. That would be another $100,000 in my pocket for every $1 million I make. (This lucrative daily column is just the tip of the iceberg.) But I kind of like the idea of using the surplus, which I fear may be fleeting in any event, for an even grander vision. And I like the idea of making hay while the sun shines by paying down a fair chunk of our $5 trillion debt. Most of it was run up under Reagan/Bush, and for the longest time, the Republicans were talking about the need to pay it off – even advocating strongly for a balanced budget amendment (a bad idea). So now that we have a chance to make a real dent, and do some other pretty grand things, along comes Bush with a vision to renew America’s spirit and end “our long night” (huh? 21 million new jobs, a booming economy, record low unemployment, record high home ownership, the lowest crime rates in decades, vast scientific progress, real progress on diversity, almost no U.S. citizens killed in combat, a President who still has a huge approval rating) — by enacting a massive tax cut for the rich.

Yes, I’m not being entirely fair. It’s not just the rich who would get a tax cut, but most of it would go to the top 10% — precisely the folks who need it least. And, yes, maybe the Republicans would no longer abolish the department of education, and maybe Cheney, had he to do it over again, would not have voted against funding Head Start and against funding AIDS research and against restrictions on cop-killer bullets. Maybe two rich Texas oil executives are just the ticket to champion the environment (which isn’t just snail darters, it truly is “earth in the balance) — but I don’t think so.

Finally, that line that got the best reaction of the night, about Al Gore inventing the Internet? Readers of this column know – and Bush surely knows — that Gore never, ever said he invented the Internet. Does that matter to anybody?

What he did do was champion funding of the Internet in Congress. What exactly was Bush doing in those years?

Now, this is already a long column — and half of you are furious with me — so feel free to read the rest Monday. But here’s more:

SILVER

Gray Chang: “In the early 1980’s, I bought several bars of silver bullion, at an average cost of $10 per ounce. After waiting 18 years for the oft-mentioned supply-demand imbalance to drive up the price, I gave up and sold out for a 50% loss (not counting inflation). I figured that with digital cameras becoming more and more popular, silver consumption and silver prices would have to come down in the long run.”

Alex Relyea: “I don’t think that it is a bad idea to buy silver coins at current levels, but please note that [the Investment Rarities offering prices] were nowhere near current levels. A quick check of wholesale prices shows 1921 Morgans (uncirculated) to sell for $11 each [not $17]. Circulated they go for $6.40 to $8.25. And 1964 Kennedys go for $3900 for the thousand dollar bag ($5.41 an ounce). But the best way to bet on silver is to buy war nickels. From 1942 to 1945 (since nickel was a strategic war metal) nickels were made of 56% copper, 35% silver, and 9% manganese. That is .05626 oz pure silver. The wholesale rate of those nickels is $800 with a melt value of $1125. In short, buying coins for silver value isn’t a bad idea, but make sure that you don’t overpay.”

☞ “How can this be?” I asked Alex. “Are you saying right now wholesalers will sell you bags of nickels for $800 that they could melt for $1,125? Why would they do that?”

To which Alex replied (and I have not verified his math):

“It boggles my mind as well, but doing the math: bags are $200 face value or 4000 nickels. At .05626 ounces of silver per nickel, that is approximately 225 oz silver per bag. Dealer bid is $810 this week and ask is $885, or $3.60 to $3.93 per ounce. Even retail it shouldn’t run you more than $1,000. I don’t understand the why of the vast disparity in price, but it exists. Perhaps there are difficulties in separating the manganese? Also, these prices are for well-worn coins, so perhaps as little as 220 oz. per bag, but still it is a very good value. The coin market sometimes does that. Last spring wholesale prices on 1980 U.S. mint uncirculated sets were $4.80 for about a month. Face value is $4.82, and I picked up a bunch from a dealer who habitually pays 10% less than the wholesale price, or $4.30 for $4.82 face value. I don’t understand it myself, but you might try calling some major coin dealers and getting their prices on the War Nickels.”

(And here I thought it was clickles that would make my fortune.)

JESUS DAY

Daniel H.: “Hmmm… Looks like you may have ruffled a few feathers. The Jesus Day link was working last night, but lo and behold it seems to have been removed tonite. Thanks to Google for caching it, those that missed it can read it at:

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.governor.state.tx.us/Proclamations/May00/5-00Jesus.html+jesus+day+bush&hl=en .”

☞ Hmmm, indeed. If you go to the Governor’s official proclamations page, sure enough, June 10 Jesus Day has disappeared. June remains official Water Smart Month. June 5-11 remains official Runaway and Homeless Youth Awareness Week. June 11 The Spirit of ADA Torch Relay Day. But June 10 has disappeared.

In fairness, it turns out that the Governor has proclaimed other religious days. But you have to wonder whether they disabled Jesus Day because, on reflection, they realized it’s a bad idea to mix church and state, or simply out of political expediency. For now.

CHENEY

Both Cheneys seem unwilling to talk much about their daughter Mary. Which makes perfect sense if they think it’s shameful that she’s gay. But she apparently doesn’t think so – she worked at the Coors Brewing Company doing outreach to the gay and lesbian community. Read conservative Andrew Sullivan for more. It’s a powerful piece.

ONE-CENT STAMPS

Kurt Hemr: “A hang-up in your proposal [that first class stamps be good forever, no matter how their price may rise]: If I recall correctly, nondenominational stamps cannot be used in international mail. I believe the post office warns people who buy the “H” stamps or whatever when rate increases come about this very problem.”

☞ OK. So they should perhaps say “Domestic First Class.” Or else they should have their price printed on them — 33 cents, currently — but still be good forever.

Steven Coultas: “This is, in fact, the way England sells stamps now. They used to sell stamps using the price, same as America. But someone there obviously thought like you. See this [First Class sunflower stamp], for an example.”

Have a great weekend . . .

Monday, I wondered how the Post Office expects us to know to add 11 cents extra for square envelopes.

One of my previous beefs with the USPS was the lunacy of the 1-cent stamp. Why make everyone deal with this when the rate rises?

If people want to horde 32-cent stamps to beat the Postal Service out of a penny when the rate goes to 33 cents — wonderful! Let them buy a year’s supply! Or five! They save 3% or so – but the USPS gets use of their money, in effect “borrowing” it at a very modest rate.

On which subject at a miniscule rate of interest. John Docherty writes: “Personally, I think that the USPS should print stamps with ‘1st’ on them rather than ’32c’ or ’33c’ or whatever next year’s price is. The stamp would be good for first-class mail delivery for the life of the USPS. The transition to each new rate would be easier all-round. No pointless trips for consumers to the Post Office to buy sheets of 1c stamps, no retooling of printing presses to change “32” to “33”, no storage unnecessarily taken up by millions of sheets of 1c stamps.”

No licking, no pasting . . . no angry confrontations with the postman. Yes! John has nailed it!

If you like this idea, click here and cut-paste-send it straight to the United States Postal Service itself. You never know.

Steve Bujenovic: “What to do now. I bought 100 shares of a large funeral service company called Service Corp. (SRV) two years ago at $35/share and now the stock is $2.50. (How this company failed I still can not understand because the last I checked people are still dying in record numbers.) Question: Should I admit defeat, sell and collect my $250 or keep my pride and stick it out? (I try not to think about the $3200 already lost.)”

Knowing nothing about the company – but assuming you bought this stock in your own taxable account, not an IRA — I’ll tell you what I often do in situations like this. I’m not saying it’s smart, but it’s what I do. I’d buy another 100 shares, wait 31 days to satisfy the IRS’s “wash sale” rule, then sell the first 100 shares for a tax loss.

You will be left with a $3200 tax loss that could chop your tax bill several hundred dollars.

If SRV goes to zero, you’ve lost $3,500 instead of $3,200 – pretty much the same thing. But if it should gradually recover — and especially if you tucked away 200 or 300 shares as tax-selling later this year drove it down even further – then a few years from now, you might have recouped your loss.

Is this rational? Only slightly. But on the remote chance the stock does do well, you will not feel like killing yourself (and becoming an SRV customer) for having bought at the top and sold at the bottom.

An impish friend urges: “Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.”

Another friend mailed me an extraordinarily generous $20,000 contribution to the Democratic National Committee, but the Post Office decided not to deliver it because she had used a square envelope. It wasn’t a big envelope, but there was no denying it was a square envelope – five and three quarters inches on a side – and I guess the Post Office figures we all know there is an 11-cent “non-standard surcharge.” So after it came back to her for more postage and she phoned to tell me this, I walked down to get it. (For 33 cents the Post Office would have carried a rectangular envelope 8,500 miles to a rural hut up the side of a volcano on Maui, but to take this square envelope 1,000 yards, it insisted on an extra 11 cents.) When I got home, I noticed that she had written in the memo, “to Gore’s success.” This, of course, invalidates the check. (Party committees cannot accept checks that appear to be earmarked in any way for a specific race. Although we at the DNC are aware there is a Presidential campaign underway, and that many of our contributors have an interest in it, you can just imagine how our democracy could be subverted if a check with such a memo were deposited.) I am awaiting a replacement, and have asked the donor to check the dimensions of her envelope with the Postal Service first.

A Jewish friend writes: “Did you know that Bush recently proclaimed June 10th ‘Jesus Day’ in the State of Texas? It’s right there on the Texas web site. I think Jesus was a hugely great man; but what about the separation of church and state? I thought Christmas and Easter were already pretty good Jesus days.”

“The Boy Scouts of America’s leaders fought for the right to discriminate and won it. Now the question is, will the rest of us take action to dissociate from discrimination until BSA stops discriminating — as we would if we learned of an analogous admitted exclusion of African-American kids or others?” — Evan Wolfson, Senior Attorney with Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, who argued the case before the Supreme Court

Paul Glass: “Evan Wolfson seems to have his thinking muddled. I don’t believe the Boy Scouts case was about excluding African-American kids, etc. from membership. It was about a private organization being asked to keep someone in a leadership position who did not support the goals of that organization. Does Wolfson believe that anyone, regardless of beliefs, should be able to dictate to any private organization that they should be allowed to represent that organization? Should neo-nazis, pedophiles, etc. be allowed to represent that organization against its wishes? Get real, Evan, and get on with it. It is in the best interests of all that this decision came out the way it did. Thank heaven we have the freedom to associate with whom we wish, and not have it forced upon us.”

☞ Well, in the first place, James Dale very much did and does support the goals of the organization, unless one of those goals is to discriminate against gay people.

But the main thing is: Are you saying that gay eagle scouts as a group — just by virtue of their being gay — have something in common with pedophiles and neo-nazis?

Neo-nazis associate themselves with horrible bullying and murderous behavior. Pedophiles are prone to prey on innocent children.

What’s horrible about gay eagle scouts or their behavior?

No one would dispute that a gay eagle scout who molested a straight scout should be expelled immediately — any more than one would dispute that a straight male teacher who molested a female student should be discharged. But are straight male teachers as a class suspect and dangerous? Should they be fired because they might find some of their female students attractive?

Certain forms of behavior are clearly unacceptable. Cheating, lying, stealing, bullying, bigotry and sexual harassment spring immediately to mind. But honesty and love? These are not in and of themselves, in my view, grounds for any kind of alarm, let alone expulsion.

Still, the Court has spoken in reversing the decision of the New Jersey Court. They agreed with you, 5-4, that the Boy Scouts, being a semi-private group, should have the right to discriminate.

But what Evan Wolfson is saying, and a lot of folks are beginning to agree, is that while this discrimination is now legal, it is not necessarily laudable. And that so long as the Boy Scouts make it part of their mission to discriminate — and thus to make hundreds of thousands of kids feel inferior and unwanted and unworthy — the Scouts should be denied some of their special perks, such as having the President of the United States serve as their honorary leader, or being sponsored by public institutions.

I would defend Bob Jones University’s right to offend Catholics and African Americans, but I would not want my country’s leader honoring it with his presence, nor my United Way dollars going to support it.

All the Boy Scouts have to do to fix this is to follow the lead of the Girl Scouts — or of IBM or General Motors or hundreds of other semi-private entities — and adopt a policy of nondiscrimination.

And I believe they will, because I believe the Boy Scouts are, fundamentally, a very fine group that wants to do the right thing.

Jim Ries: “Just wanted to let you know that one way to fight discrimination is to hit them in the pocket book. We give to the United Way (which supports the Boy Scouts), but we specify that none of our gift is to go to the Boy Scouts due to their policy of discrimination.”