tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89398532024-03-14T01:14:43.812-04:00Common MistakesWelcome to Common Mistakes - a blog for my take on events and the world. Read and comment at your pleasure.Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.comBlogger571125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-89935902486066923782018-11-17T16:22:00.001-05:002018-11-18T07:26:00.302-05:00The Beginning of the End of Our Populist NightmareThe backlash to the last three years of the populist, nativist moment has begun.<br />
<br />
You can see it most clearly in Britain - where the Brexit vote constellated and presaged a global Blood and Soil movement, retreating from the global stage and building walls to international commerce and culture.<br />
<br />
Hard-line Brexiters, willing to scrap a compromise that innevitably hurts Britain, given that there is no leave option that can honestly help, may be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/opinion/sunday/brexit-theresa-may-politics.html" target="_blank">pushing the public to support Remain</a>, writes Jenni Russell in the New York Times.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://i.cbc.ca/1.4904618.1542201715!/cpImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/britain-eu-brexit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="530" data-original-width="780" height="217" src="https://i.cbc.ca/1.4904618.1542201715!/cpImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/britain-eu-brexit.jpg" width="320" /></a>After two years, it's finally dawning on the general British public that the populist promise of a pain-free Brexit producing an economic boon was nothing but a bunch of hooey, sold by power-hungry pols. Britain was already booming before the self-inflicted Brexit wounds. The compromise will be worse, and if Brexiters get their wish of a hard exit, potentially economically disastrous. Now the reality is dawning.<br />
<br />
There are those still willing to push Britain off a cliff in order to see their xenophobic plans comes true. But most of Britain is waking up to the idea that self-created economic chaos is not a terribly great idea.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, in the US, Trump now has to contend with a newly energized Democratic congress that was able to assemble a majority across a wide ideological spectrum, while he continues to shrink the Republican Party into a cold, black hole of resentment, white nationalism, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/opinion/republican-party-nativism-trump.html" target="_blank">todying cronyism</a>.<br />
<br />
One might be tempted to say that there is no similar economic nightmare scenario that Trump has wroght in the US - but one would be wrong.<br />
<br />
As we run out the clock on the economic recovery created by Obama - and juiced for a year by the Republican party's amazingly painfully horrible tax givaway to the 1% - we are about to run out our own fiscal good luck. The debt is <a href="http://www.usdebtclock.org/" target="_blank">soaring</a>, global trade is <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/05/ripple-effect-from-pending-us-china-trade-war-drop-in-fdi-worldwide.html" target="_blank">being eviscerated</a>, the planet is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/16/upshot/california-smoke-map.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage" target="_blank">burning</a>, and economic indicators such as housing starts, stocks, and interest rates are starting to <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/07/twelve-charts-to-watch-for-signs-of-the-next-u-s-downturn" target="_blank">blink red</a>.<br />
<br />
There's no signal that the US downturn would be anything like a hard-exit Brexit or even the last mini-Depression. But long term, with global climate change only 22 years away from becoming <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-climate-report-2040.html" target="_blank">a global crisis</a>, sending millions more scrambling for refugee status, the US populists are running us headlong into economic misery again of our own making.<br />
<br />
Heed this warning: “In some parts of the world, national borders will become irrelevant,”
said Aromar Revi, director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements
and an author of the report on global climate change. “You can set up a wall to try to contain
10,000 and 20,000 and one million people, but not 10 million.” <br />
<br />
Climate change is now inevitable, and the displacements <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/reader-center/california-wildfires-escape.html" target="_blank">happening today</a>. If we continue on our present trajectory, the next twenty years will more closely resemble a dystopian combination of "Mad Max" and "Z" than the pleasant multi-cultural prosperity on Star Trek. And it may be something that the next President of the US seriously has to deal with.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/photo/2018/11/paradise/c01_1059404754/main_900.jpg?1541782994" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="426" src="https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/photo/2018/11/paradise/c01_1059404754/main_900.jpg?1541782994" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Camp Fire engulfs Paradise</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The Democrats won their majority on the issue of healthcare, but as other Trumpian follies come to the fore, the full scale of the present populist moment of self-inflicted wounds will become as obvious as they have in Britain.<br />
<br />
The solutions for these problems won't come from this White House or this flawed President's recidivist thinking. They will require global cooperation, local engagement, political moderation, complicated compromise, free trade, ethical leadership, common sacrifice, respect for diversity, environmental custodianship, and humanitarian compassion. All qualities of our liberal democracy that have gone up in flames in the trash fire of this administration.<br />
<br />
No doubt, our public will wake up from this present Trumpian nightmare as well. My only fear - it will be too late.Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-30884684616168187242018-11-07T10:14:00.001-05:002018-11-07T10:19:43.253-05:00Four REAL Take-Away's from Tuesday's Midterm ElectionsForget what pundits are saying on CNN and in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/us/politics/election-news.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage" target="_blank">NY Times</a>.<br />
<br />
This was not a repudiation of Trump and Trumpism.<br />
<br />
This was not a re-alignment of the parties.<br />
<br />
Let's look at what really happened in this election.<br />
<br />
<b>1. The South is Still the South</b><br />
<br />
Democrats lost major races with charismatic candidates in Florida, Georgia, and Texas. Their strategy was built on turning out progressives and tapping in to the growing demographic shift in these southern states.<br />
<br />
They fell short, and Florida once again showed it's really part of the South.<br />
<br />
While demographics will continue to shift the Democrats way, now Republicans will have the chance to shore up and gerrymander their way to retaining control of the Old South for the next ten years. Florida especially was a major loss with implications for 2020 and beyond.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>2. Blue-color Suburban Workers Voted their Pocketbooks, not their Values</b><br />
<br />
Is the suburban Eisenhower Republican now a thing of the past, as extinct as the DoDo?<br />
<br />
No, not really.<br />
<br />
Yes, the wealthy, leafy suburban districts in New Jersey, New York, and California flipped Democratic, but don't fool yourselves. Those wealthy suburbanites with five acre horse farms are still card-carrying Republicans. What flipped were the blue-color, middle-class Catholic voters in closer-in, high-tax suburban enclaves that are also part of these same districts.<br />
<br />
Those blue-collar voters in high-tax states were killed by the Republican tax "cuts." Theirs were the taxes that actually went up, and the ones most concerned about holding on to healthcare. They flipped because they've been paying through the nose for everyone else's economic "miracle."<br />
<br />
<b>3. The Trump Trade War Cost Him the Upper Midwest</b><br />
<br />
While the Trump Street Journal crows about how Trump is really a classic Republican, they conveniently overlook all of Trump's populist, anti-conservative economic policies.<br />
<br />
Like huge deficits<br />
<br />
Like trade wars <br />
<br />
Those policies have hit home in states like Kansas, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota where conservative voters like trading with Canada and China, and reigning in interest rates, more than they like bashing immigrants.<br />
<br />
<b>4. Democrats Won the Easy Stuff and Lost the Hard Stuff. The Next Time Won't Be So Easy</b><br />
<br />
Flipping college-educated suburban voters hurt by higher taxes, scared by gun violence and antisemitism, and anxious over exploding deficits, slowing housing markets, and a plunging stock market wasn't too hard.<br />
<br />
Trump voters don't have stock portfolios and Jewish lawyers and so don't care about those things. They are having too much fun bashing liberals.<br />
<br />
Now all the moderates have been flipped and we are left with true deep red and blue, country and urban, two Americas that can't stand, let along talk to, each other.<br />
<br />
Where do Democrats go from here in 2020?<br />
<br />
In 2016, Democrats got a wake up call - they can't simply coast to elections any more. They woke up, and finally, in 2018, they organized.<br />
<br />
But in 2020, that won't be enough. <br />
<br />
They need to now start doing what Republicans have been doing for 30 years - building grass roots money, activists, and think tanks, caring about and electing the right judges, controlling state houses, drawing favorable districts, and staking out sustained, simple, mass media positions that can make inroads in the general population. That is, doing hard work, day after day, to change the conversation, the election game, and the story.<br />
<br />
Anything less and they will be sorely disappointed.Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-25518831407310448232017-11-17T14:25:00.001-05:002017-11-17T14:31:43.164-05:00Republican Tax Plan Robs Middle Class to Pay the Rich. Why That's Such an Ugly Thought<b>Californians, New Jersians, New Yorkers Will Pay More</b><br />
<br />
Look it's pretty clear that without the State and Local Tax Deductions and limitations on property tax and mortgage deductions, middle-class homeowners in these states are going to be <a href="http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/11/15/rep-peter-king-house-tax-plan-criticism-mick-mulvaney-new-york-comments" target="_blank">losers under the Republican tax plan</a>.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>As will Seniors and Graduate Students</b><br />
Yes, the other two groups winding up on the losing stick are<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/get-there/wp/2017/11/07/this-gop-tax-plan-provision-could-be-catastrophic-for-seniors/?utm_term=.55a76a553651" target="_blank"> seniors</a>, who can longer deduct medical expenses, as well as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/16/opinion/house-tax-bill-graduate-students.html" target="_blank">graduate students</a>, whose huge tuition waivers will now be taxable.<br />
<br />
More than that, the Republican tax plan will also likely<a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/11/15/social-security-on-the-chopping-block-how-the-gop-plans-to-fix-its-own-budget-mess/" target="_blank"> cut the Medicare and Social Security funding </a>that most of us are banking on for retirement. <br />
<b> </b><br />
Look - I want to keep my money as much as the next guy. I've worked hard for it. But as would be most people, I bet, I'm willing to pay a little bit more if it would help our country.<br />
<br />
What do I mean by that? I mean things like -<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Lowering our debt</li>
<li>Funding our military in time of necessary war</li>
<li>Taking care of our veterans</li>
<li>Investing in educating our citizens</li>
</ul>
I can probably be convinced to part with my hard-earned dollars. But that's not what this plan does. Instead it gives the money away to the top .02% through tax breaks to multi-millionaire estate owners and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/16/opinion/republican-tax-bills-trump.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region" target="_blank">CEOs</a>. Meanwhile, making our budget deficits WORSE, not better.<br />
<br />
Honestly, I believe that people would be willing to pay their fair share or even a bit more if we were working together to improve our country's finances. Perhaps a bit more tax on everyone - from CEO's to the middle-class - would actually bring our deficits down, fund our unfunded wars, rebuild our infrastrucutre, and give us first class education.<br />
<br />
But Republicans don't seem to be for this. After being swept in under a wave of populist anger demanding that something be done to build opportunity for the average American, Republicans come up with a plan to tax middle-class elites and seniors in order to give breaks to upper-crust elites.<br />
<br />
If this doesn't show their true colors to voters, I doubt anything will.<br />
<br />
I think the phrase "this country is going to hell in a hand basket" does get overused. But trust me (as our Prez likes to say) - this Bill is the biggest hand basket I've ever seen. Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-21794117254152509062016-11-27T07:53:00.001-05:002016-11-27T07:56:18.875-05:00Four Things that Jill Stein and the Clinton Campaign Should Do With Their Money Instead of a Recount<br />
A recount <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/23/sorry-hillary-there-s-zero-evidence-of-election-hacking.html" target="_blank">won't change the results</a>, and in my view, I don't see how it would reassure people that the election was "fair," since even in Pennsylvania there are not enough paper ballots to really audit the vote.<br />
<br />
If this election was stolen, it wasn't by Russian hackers infiltrating voting machines- it was based on voter suppression and disinformation. The things that would really give confidence back?<br />
<br />
1. Move for laws that would require state voting to <a href="http://heavy.com/news/2016/11/pennsylvania-recount-filed-results-deadline-rules-law-election-electronic-voting-machines-hillary-clinton-marc-elias-hack-fraud-russia-trump-jill-stein-hand-count-paper-votes-ballots/" target="_blank">have audit-able paper ballots.</a><br />
<br />
2. Aggressively<a href="http://www.colorlines.com/articles/alt-right-groups-threaten-intimidation-and-hidden-cameras-election-day-voter-suppression" target="_blank"> pursue Republicans</a> for their <a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2016/11/01/north-carolina-republicans-sued-rigging-election-trump.html" target="_blank">voter suppression tactics in key states</a>.<br />
<br />
3. Fortify the Hatch Act, <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/10/31/500071704/did-fbi-director-james-comeys-email-announcement-break-the-law" target="_blank">which Comey clearly violated</a>.<br />
<br />
4. Move for more ethics in the media on how <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/report-russian-propaganda-effort-spread-fake-news/2016/11/25/72eb461c-b33a-11e6-bc2d-19b3d759cfe7_story.html" target="_blank">fake</a> and <a href="http://niemanreports.org/articles/when-is-it-ethical-to-publish-stolen-data/" target="_blank">illegal news</a> is reported, especially when the disinformation is being used intentionally by a hostile foreign government to manipulate our election.<br />
<br />
These activities were far more responsible for Trump's shoestring victory, and right now, are open avenues for continued tampering with our elections. They ought to be closed.Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-5618720493569003432016-11-06T10:02:00.000-05:002016-11-06T10:03:22.588-05:00Electoral College Tie: Could We End Up with Trump and Kaine as Pres and VP?Here's an unlikely scenario that could make the unusual election season seem tame by comparison: what if we end up with a President Trump and a Vice President Kaine?<br />
<br />
The idea isn't so far fetched.<br />
<br />
First of all, what would it take for a tie? All it would take right now is for <a href="http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/?ex_cid=rrpromo" target="_blank">New Hampshire to tip into the Republican column on Nate Silver's Fivethirtyeight.com map</a>. The odds here are certainly not long. Several polls have shown Trump ahead in New Hampshire, though others favor Clinton. Silver gives Trump close to a 40% chance of winning New Hampshire, more than any other state currently in Clinton's column. If polls are off by even a small factor in Trump's favor, Trump is likely to capture this state first.<br />
<br />
That puts the race into a 269 to 269 tie.<br />
<br />
What happens next? This article gives a short overview of how the election then <a href="https://www.bustle.com/articles/193129-what-happens-if-there-is-a-tie-in-the-electoral-college-vote-hillary-clinton-donald" target="_blank">goes to the Electoral College and Congress to determine the President and VP</a>.<br />
<br />
With the House solidly in Repbulican hands, it's pretty safe to assume Trump would eventually emerge as the Presidential winner, even with a few supposed "faithless" Republican electors who decide not to vote for him.<br />
<br />
That turns the VP election over to the Senate. Right now, Silver's most likely scenario for the Senate is a 50 - 50 tie. In the event of a tie, the sitting Vice President (Joe Biden), casts the deciding vote. Mr. Biden is sure to vote for his Democratic colleague, Tim Kaine.<br />
<br />
What would a Trump / Kaine Presidency look like? Interesting, Dems would control the Senate, with Kaine, a Democrat, presiding over the Senate, and Trump as President. One can imagine either the worst gridlock possible....or perhaps, the idea that real compromise might be done. Either way, the unusual arrangement would certainly make the past year's folly seam like a light hearted romp in comparison. The HBO show Veep might become more of a real-life documentary than an absurdist comedy.....Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-61480591736677801892016-07-31T07:18:00.002-04:002016-07-31T08:49:11.986-04:00Trump versus Khan: Defining American ValuesCould this be the defining moment of the 2016 election? With 100 days to go, and a bomb-throwing GOP candidate seemingly careening toward self destruction, anything could happen, but the face-off between Donald Trump and Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the Gold Star parents of slain war hero Humayan Khan, may well go down as the most memorable portrait of what this election is about.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx73j-DfnPgOyxuswzZAotFEZ6zJsbczLG0roMjI9b1hOUyEyV_mt3J4qJKUYuodphtAFEuBO302p3Kt-Ci94i0dAHgSEjFWJm_eFy-cVR19RElYSKJz3xK3HmhY4YTG7Tmj2caA/s1600/Trump-Khan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9PkPl7y9WyaVbkTk6ofaJuVqwinRfSTQse_-WE11NaoJKpqJLUhW4wp3hx6BoVAkfDw3ctFftoLnz9LzsaFoVj4DV6Pal4rcfJevTXA2UX9-45GTUZB7dVYASrHfyKGtLU1eBtw/s1600/Trump-Khan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="451" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9PkPl7y9WyaVbkTk6ofaJuVqwinRfSTQse_-WE11NaoJKpqJLUhW4wp3hx6BoVAkfDw3ctFftoLnz9LzsaFoVj4DV6Pal4rcfJevTXA2UX9-45GTUZB7dVYASrHfyKGtLU1eBtw/s640/Trump-Khan.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7-bHdHh_403iL42hfp0FOhOPBOOP6Ep33ILoy5SMK3Z9fPQ8qrZRW5U85q266igiCw4LFT8m1kT6DHjzEGGiZU0gBWpPI5Gub1FbgcnQlIdh3d7H5lGb-JuN6hrx9HgFv7DVN6w/s1600/Trump-Khan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
<br />
Mr. Khan's speech at the Democratic convention was certainly the most electric not only because of its genuineness and emotion, but because of the vivid way he and his wife were able to capture something that has eluded the Democratic party for decades: a concise and pointed way to articulate their patriotism. In laying out the case against Trump, Khan not only cited the constitution, he called on the nation to remember that what defines America - a nation of immigrants - isn't the color of our skin, our religion, or our ancestry, it's our adherence to an ideal and a core set of values: freedom, justice, and equality. These were the values that gave birth to our nation, for which our soldiers fight (and sacrifice their lives), and which binds us together as Americans, in good times and bad.<br />
<br />
I'll admit, I've been a fan and supporter of Hillary Clinton ever since she took on a Republican Congress as First Lady and passed a health reform bill that eluded her slicker talking husband. However, I wasn't particularly thrilled by her nomination speech - her list of policy "specifics" culled from the agenda of left-leaning Bernie supporters was lacking in any genuine specifics on how she was going to address our country's finances, grow our economy, or address the concerns of blue-collar workers who are flocking to Trump's nativist pandering. But she got better toward the end as she went into the international sphere - you can tell this is where her inner wonk gets most excited. It was clear that Hillary had a strong hand in constructing the four days of the Democratic convention, which proceeded much like her speech (from the far left to the wonkish and parriotic - neigh, conservative with a small c - defense of American values and presence in the world). This blend of liberal activism with conservative American exceptionalism is what I first loved about Hillary, and it's clear that Hillary's America first will celebrate a rainbow coalition that represents the modern face of America and yet defends the same principals and values that defined this country over 200 years ago. Right on!<br />
<br />
Turn then, to Trump, who seems to relish being the model of that other strain in American culture: the ugly American, the selfish, oafish blowhard who cares only for himself. Of course he would take the bait laid by the Democrats and the Khans at the convention. My feeling is that Trump's supporters are probably, truth be told, a little embarrassed by the man, but respond to a policy proscription - curtailing immigration, cutting trade, stepping back from the world, shoring up the boarders, and investing at home - that a smarter, saner Republican might have surmised and capitalized on, if only that party hadn't been so shackled by lemming-like groupthink for the past eight years. Meanwhile, a shrewd outsider like Trump seized on a popular program prescription that was invisible to party mainstream. Oh well, as they say, you've got to dance with the girl that brung' ya.<br />
<br />
But the reason that America has opened its boarders, taken the lumps of free trade, and stepped into world affairs is *precisely* because of its values. The values of freedom, justice, and equality don't end at the boarder. Americans see threats to their way of life, to human rights abroad, and they can't sit idly by. Americans believe in a free economy where ruling elites don't have their thumb in the pie shoring up insider deals and artificial oligarchies; they negotiate trade agreements because economic freedom and the free flow of goods - while causing pain as economies transition - ultimately do provide a better life for children able to seize upon the advantages that their talents, culture and education can bring to the world economy. Trade makes the world, as well as America, more free. And Americans welcome immigrants not simply because they are themselves the descendants of immigrants, but because we are a nation of values, and welcome anyone who shares these values and feels compelled, as the Khan's did, to instill in their children the same sense of patriotic wonder and sacrifice to these ideals that we ourselves feel.<br />
<br />
I don't want to belittle the issues that are driving this election - the hollowing out of the blue-collar middle class, the lack of investment in our social and physical infrastructure, a tax and social safety net system that is neither fairly distributed nor realistically funded, the moral hazard created by big money in politics and excessive greed in finance that led to a great Recession and anemic recovery and still has not been fairly paid out. These are real issues that neither candidate is yet fully realistically addressing. But America, at its heart, is not a nation of whiners. When the going gets tough, Americans don't shrink from the world. They rise to the occasion, believe in their own abilities, fight for the little guy, stand up to the bully, stand up for their values, make a difference, and yes, make real sacrifices. These are core American values - values on display last week by Mr. and Mrs. Khan, two Muslim American immigrants - and they are what's really at stake in this election.<br />
<br />
Trump, perhaps more than any other candidate, exposes why the current nativist impulse on the right - even if understandably motivated by turbulent economic times and Washington gridlock that has allowed a sustain decline of the middle class - is also deeply un-American. That he can so easily expose this through his mocking of Americans who have paid the ultimate sacrifice to our country is perhaps just the strange coincidence of this strange and slightly unhinged candidate now on our public stage. But if in the end it reminds us all - both Democrats and Republicans, as well as Independents - why we are all Americans, and what our shared values are, it may turn out to be precisely the best thing this country needed to get past this present time of entrenched partisan bickering, and find its soul again.<br />
<br />Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-32106913400342052082016-03-20T13:05:00.000-04:002016-03-20T13:05:29.999-04:00This Crazy Election: Why Our Politcal Pendulum Swings in Three DimensionsCrazy, isn't it, that Republicans so hate their potential presidential candidates that they are campaigning harder against them than are the Democrats?<br />
<br />
How did this crazy situation come to be? Why is Trump so anathema to the 'mainstream' Republican party? It's clearly not his rhetoric and exclusionary attitudes (which they've condoned in the past). What they really detest are his policies: increasing trade barriers, meddling in corporate affairs, and so on. What's going on?<br />
<br />
Trump is no friend of the Supply Side economics that swept Reagan to victory. In fact, he's more anti-corporate than Bill Clinton (and conceivably Hillary). So what gives? How is it he's able to run on the Republican ticket at all and still be trouncing his candidates in the primaries?<br />
<br />
That's because he speaks articulately on two other core dimensions in the political spectrum - cultural issues, and America First-ism. Those are also core issues well articulated in the Reagan Republican coalition that re-defined the political landscape in 1980.<br />
<br />
What we are seeing in this election, in fact, is no leading candidate (except Ted Cruz, potentially) who cares about the core issues that drove the Regan economic revolution: low taxes, low regulation, and opening free trade. All the major candidates, in a somewhat belated reaction to the historical wage inequity and post-Great-Recession anger of the 2007 bank-driven economic collapse, are taking populist arguments over economic ones.<br />
<br />
This may seem unusual, but we all know the pendulum swings back and forth in America - from right to left, as they say. But it actually swings in three dimensions. The three dimensions of the Reagan definition of politics: social issues, economic issues, and foreign policy interventionism. In that sense, with all the major candidates (Hillary, Trump, and Cruz), we see the pendulum swinging away from the low-intervention and socially progressive Obama years and towards activist government along one of the three dimensions.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFIyYie4SBxO4-CRHNlAXXV1T3v2GaGxXmKENzoEQVdtzOsunELt0QhBEGtb8Oy2gqvsAgc1lk4IxCE-F67bKFc1JlWdgXCCsUPm-TJrScsuwk7CQZ8TVIpXanjeN_bw60w2i6Hw/s1600/3D+Pendulum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="387" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFIyYie4SBxO4-CRHNlAXXV1T3v2GaGxXmKENzoEQVdtzOsunELt0QhBEGtb8Oy2gqvsAgc1lk4IxCE-F67bKFc1JlWdgXCCsUPm-TJrScsuwk7CQZ8TVIpXanjeN_bw60w2i6Hw/s640/3D+Pendulum.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5i6Vj0tkjEbcFx6mlEtTuCc0PICE8ZIaogMYD9LYGHus-zMlg_SaN7kFCDhI41iN6te9AKbWGJSpjOgOY_xpfw0wm9AWsDhG1avGWk8vgPgMLkn7CLMSDH35Z6iqVSzZToUl7pw/s1600/3D+Pendulum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
If we examine the chart above, we find Regan in the upper left corner: defining the "right" side of the triple pendulum of Neo Conservative, Socially Conservative, Supply Side government. With Bill Clinton, in blue, the pendulum swung toward the lower right - away from all three, but slightly.<br />
<br />
When G. W. Bush took over, and swung the pendulum back, it didn't quite swing back to the type of Supply Side government Regan had defined. GW was a high-spending conservative who didn't give the same credence to Regan's religious leaning out of the government.<br />
<br />
Next came Obama - one might argue he is more liberal than Bush on spending, one might argue more conservative (at least working to level the debt). At any rate, no movement towards the supply side with Obama, but a distinct movement to social liberalism and away from Neo Con interventionism.<br />
<br />
In other words - the pendulum moved right on social issues and down on foreign policy, but not forward or back on the economic spectrum.<br />
<br />
Now we have three candidates promising the swing the pendulum back - but back where? Both Hillary and Trump, interestingly enough, promise to take us even further from the supply side theories that ruled the Regan coalition. Only Cruz is a firm tax cutter, but his conviction about international affairs may leave some of his Republican colleagues cold.<br />
<br />
But Trump - no matter how like Regan he sounds on the stump, is now as far from the economic revolution of the '80's as any candidate can get. He would certainly snap us away from the placid Obama years, as would Cruz. But you can see how anathema he would be for economic conservatives forged in the purity of the Regan triple-play.<br />
<br />Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-50622198850084106682014-12-22T22:33:00.000-05:002014-12-22T22:34:01.688-05:00Five Crazy Developments with Sony's "The Interview"Yep, a "<a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-interview-review-misguided-missile-1418937682" target="_blank">buddy-movie...turkey...with a slob aesthetic</a>" has become the most notorious film of the decade. Here are five recent developments with this Seth Rogen / James Franco farce elevating this film to ironically weird heights. <br />
<br />
Hustler is remaking The Interview into <a href="http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/12/19/the-interview-porn-hustler-sony/" target="_blank">a porn parody</a>.<br />
<br />
Taiwanese animators have reenacted "The Interview" scandal as a series of <a href="http://www.cnet.com/news/the-interview-sony-scandal-explained-in-hilarious-animated-videos/" target="_blank">weird animations</a>.<br />
<br />
Treehouse Theater in New York is planning a <a href="http://treehousetheaternyc.com/event/live-reading-of-the-interview-screenplay/" target="_blank">live script reading of The Interview on December 27th</a>. <br />
<br />
A Congressman wants to arrange <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sony-hack-congressman-offers-screen-760009" target="_blank">a special screening of "The Interview" for the Capitol</a>.<br />
<br />
and after all this Hallabalo, <a href="http://www.cinemablend.com/new/5-Crazy-Things-North-Korea-Said-Response-Interview-Trailer-43577-p5.html" target="_blank">Kim Jong-un is still planning to watch "The Interview</a>."<br />
<br />
Wow. In a year with Whiplash, Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Birdman, and Interstellar, this is the film getting all the attention?Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-70830544969082521442011-04-21T23:26:00.003-04:002011-04-21T23:28:35.607-04:00Defensive PoetryI was reading some kind of publishing industry research brief today and found the authors quoting Donald Rumsfeld - or what they called a "Rumsfeldian phrase" - that is, stating that they felt there were "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns." It was a bit startling to see that after less than a decade the great Rumsfeld has already been entered into the cannon of American poetry.<br />
<br />
Yes, practically a decade has gone by since an American defense secretary became the most lauded accidental post-modern poet who ever lived, but it inspired me to think again of Rumsfeld's great poem, "The Unknown":<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>The Unknown</b><br />
As we know, <br />
There are known knowns. <br />
There are things we know we know. <br />
We also know <br />
There are known unknowns. <br />
That is to say <br />
We know there are some things <br />
We do not know. <br />
But there are also unknown unknowns, <br />
The ones we don't know <br />
We don't know. <br />
<i>—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing</i><br />
<br />
<br />
Those of you who would like to peruse more Defense Department post-modern poetry can do so <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2081042/">here</a>.Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-21521491358868277502011-04-10T11:29:00.001-04:002011-04-10T13:56:48.096-04:00Generation X = Generation ScrewedWhile the Democrats and Republicans debate the draconian Medicare cuts in <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42518702/ns/meet_the_press-meet_the_press/">Paul Ryan's budget plan</a> the point that has gotten overlooked is exactly for whom all these benefits would be eliminated: people under 55.<br />
<br />
It's a telling number.<br />
<br />
Ryan is the first politician to begin to put on the table what so far politician's have yet to discuss: what is going to happen to the retirement planning safety net that most of us have relied on as we struggle to fund our 401K's and figure out how we'll survive in retirement.But believe me, this is just the opening of the conversation.<br />
<br />
The age that he picks is certainly no accident. Fifty-five: after the biggest swell of baby boomers have safely secured their government-guaranteed retirement.<br />
<br />
Assuming all these negotiations pass next year, then for the rest of us louts born after 1957, it's sorry, sucker.<br />
<br />
Or as comedian Bill Maher said on "Real Time" last night (in reference to the Charlie Sheen comedy tour travesty), "<a href="http://www.dlisted.com/node/41443">already got your f***ing money, dude</a>."<br />
<br />
That's what the big mass of Baby Boomers and elderly voters running government are going to be saying to us smaller proportion of Generation X'er as they debate this issue. Sorry there's nothing left for your retirements. Already got your money, dudes.<br />
<br />
Ryan's proposal is just the first of the great big screwing us Generation X'ers have coming.Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-39947669623129226002011-01-13T22:57:00.002-05:002011-01-13T23:04:02.970-05:00Deconstructing Palin's Rhetoric Against Anti-Rhetoric RhetoricIn terms of twisted logic, <a href="http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/01/12/us/politics/1248069556517/sarah-palin-on-the-shooting-in-tucson.html?ref=us">the speech on Wednesday from Palin</a> posted throughout the internet surely is a mind-bender, but let's unpack what she is saying just the slightest bit.<br />
<br />
"“We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker,” Ms. Palin said. “It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”"<br />
<br />
But Palin's accusers aren't blaming society - t<a href="http://www.truth-out.org/the-wrath-fools-an-open-letter-to-far-right66686">hey are specifically blaming her</a>. They are saying what she is saying, that Palin should be accountable for her actions of "inciting" hate against people such as Gabrielle Giffords (i.e., creating exaggerated claims such as "death panels" and rhetorically suggesting the death of political enemies). "Because this was your doing," says William Rivers Pitt in one of the most direct connections between Palin and the shootings. "You put the cross-hairs on her, and someone finally pulled the trigger. Run from it all you like, Lady MacBeth, but this blood will never be washed from your hands."<br />
<br />
So here is the difference - while those on the left are saying that incitement is an "action" that bloggers and politicians should be held accountable for (as if they had pulled the trigger themselves), those on the right are claiming a right to incitement. Incitement is mere discourse. However, when the left begins to act like the right - when they use the same tactics of casting blame, exaggerating ('this was your doing') and pointing fingers, the right calls this "blood libel."<br />
<br />
"Pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn," says Palin, in yet another turn of phrase seemingly designed to provoke controversy. In other words, if anyone accuses Palin's rhetoric of having any effect in the real world, they are inciting violence.<br />
<br />
Ok. So Palin's point is, you can only be responsible for inciting violence if you disagree with her. If you agree with her, you are merely using rhetoric that is not responsible for anything.<br />
<br />
This is logic that the right uses to reinforce its groupthink. It makes little sense to most people, but if you look at it carefully, Palin's speech is calibrated to capture the minds of only one audience: her followers. With its twisted, unpackable logic and code words, it's explicitly designed to keep them in line and prevent them from, in a moment of tragedy, waking up from the closed in cocoon of isolated derangement she is trying to keep them in.Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-64447543803002762952010-03-21T02:21:00.002-04:002010-03-21T02:30:19.714-04:00Will Obama Finally Take the Gloves Off?The big question is, if health care wins, will Obama finally take the gloves off - finally discard this mistaken attempt at "bipartisan" negotiations with a party whose only goal is to make the President fail at all costs?<br /><br />The Republicans have gotten Obama to waste a year on these dalliances. But passage of health care reform may prove that such attempts can be a trap: the more aggressive Obama will seem more Presidential (and also possibly more prescient), and thus see his popularity rise, along with the popularity of his programs. That will give him the wind behind him to make the other needed and hard-fought changes, such as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/us/politics/21address.html">banking reform</a>.<br /><br />It's a paradox, isn't it? The more Obama tries to be reasonable and reach across the aisle in that negotiable, Senatorial style he has, the weaker he seems, and the more his popularity slips with moderates. In a weird way, then, the best way for Obama to bring the middle of the country along may simply be to be more definite about pushing for his ideas.<br /><br />We shall see. But I have to say, this new, feisty Obama is more appealing than the one we've had to date.Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-92115114999159070722010-03-21T00:18:00.001-04:002010-03-21T00:18:52.541-04:00Pass Healthcare for Spite?There are all sorts of good reasons the healthcare bill should pass - but could the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/20/tea-party-protests-nier-f_n_507116.html">degeneration of the Tea Party movement into an ugly, angry mob</a> be the final straw that kicks it over the goal line?<br /><br />There are a lot of things one might criticize the bill for - though at this point, after a year of tinkering, it's hard to imagine coming up with anything else that would nearly come close to <a href="http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/checking-the-math-on-health-care/?src=me">creating real health insurance while also controlling costs</a>. If nothing else, perhaps these demonstration may open people's eyes to just how much the whole issue has become a proxy for something else: the last gasp of American <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing">know-nothingingism</a>. And perhaps that will convince that last few wavering senators that the opposition to the bill has nothing whatsoever to do with health care at all.Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-44399164983556167612010-01-31T09:00:00.001-05:002010-01-31T09:00:50.066-05:00JK Lassser - Tax Tip of the Day<div>Here's a nifty widget giving you a new tax tip every day until April 15th.</div><br /><script type="text/javascript" src="http://cs80.clearspring.com/o/4b4ba198efa13531/4b658d1141f47c9e/4b4c8d4f41400e85/a7ea5532/widget.js"></script>Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-77787372907231507652010-01-19T22:55:00.004-05:002010-01-19T23:18:46.094-05:00Lessons from the Coakley LossIs the Dem's loss of 60 seats in the house today in the Massachusetts special election really a "wake up call" that the Obama agenda is really too far left, as even <a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2010/01/bayh-warns-catastrophe-if-dems-ignore-massachusetts-senate-race-lessons.html">moderate Dems like Evan Bayh are suggesting</a>?<br /><br />Or is it, as I might suggest, more a sign that our country has - like California - become completely ungovernable?<br /><br />The healthcare legislation - massive and weighted with legislative favors as it is - is already a massive compromise that attempts to steer through a forest of self-interested lobbyists and contingencies to make some progress addressing just one issue that threatens to collapse our continued existence as a country. Clearly no one is happy with the result - and from what I'm reading on comment boards, the discontent with it is as much from the left not getting a public plan as it is from the right having anything happen at all. But how could anyone in their right mind possibly think we could get anything better? Or that the current situation is sustainable?<br /><br />I should add, the Democrats are clearly deluded if they try to rationalize this vote than anything other than a backlash. Unlike Virginia or New Jersey - two races where there were other circumstances where Democrats might rationalize the loss - this vote is a clear signal that Dems have lost the public on the issues. Unfortunately, it seems to me that the two parties are so far apart now that there's not even consensus on what our basic reality is. Independents, meanwhile, don't really want to try new ideas - they just want to punish whoever is in power.<br /><br />Attempting change means pissing some people off. And voters are clearly pissed off. The message that Massachusetts voters have sent, it seems to me, is f* you, America. I'm sure it feels good to say. Too bad it just leads us all to the brink of the abyss even faster.Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-26272362882782653132009-12-05T18:09:00.031-05:002009-12-05T19:23:22.735-05:00Top Ten Conspiracies for 2009: Did Vampire Squids Cause Swine Flu?It's that time of year again - time to list the top conspiracy theories from the year that's past.<br /><br />For those of you new to this annual feature, the full rules are <a href="http://www.commonmistakesblog.com/2004_12_01_commonmistakes_archive.html">here</a>, but the gist is basically this: every December, I list the conspiracy theories that made the biggest headlines during the past year. To qualify, they need to have an air of the bizarre, and not be the kind of thing proven true (as in an actual criminal conspiracy - of which, this year, thanks to the financial crisis, we certainly have plenty). Rather, these are the fanciful stories that have captured acclaim and started rumors, with no real basis of fact in evidence.<br /><br />Naturally, as one might expect, with a new party taking office this year, most of the top conspiracies for 2009 now come from the right (as opposed to from the left, as they have for the past several years).<br /><br />And now, without further ado, let's have a drum roll....and get to our list.<br /><br />10. <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-01-05/the-mob-did-it-we-think/">The mob killed JFK</a>. Perhaps one of the most enduring conspiracies of all time, this one breathed new life this year with new books and a <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/programs/info/1106.html">TV show on Frontline</a> resurrecting one of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102138/">Oliver Stone's favorite memes</a>.<br /><br />9. Sarah Palin's <a href="http://rawstory.com/2009/11/fox-news-fact-checks-sarah-palins-dollar-conspiracy/">"dollar coin" conspiracy</a> was perhaps notable not as much for its wide attention as for it's laughably typical <a href="http://www.commonmistakesblog.com/2008/08/top-ten-sarah-palin-scandals.html">Palin foible</a>: the grand conspiracy plot she refers to (moving "In God We Trust" to the side of the coin) was actually approved in 2005 by George Bush.<br /><br />8. Did you know that <a href="http://mashable.com/2009/12/02/eff-government-lawsuit/">the CIA is following you on Twitter</a>? So that explains all those annoying DM's.<br /><br />7. Call the fake Obama birth certificate the conspiracy that wouldn't die. Though <a href="http://www.commonmistakesblog.com/2008/12/top-10-conspiracies-of-2008-do-lizard.html">we reported this one last year</a>, this year <a href="http://aconservativeedge.com/2009/06/27/judge-obama-birth-certificate-lawsuit-raises-significant-issues-june-29th-response/">even a District Judge was tempted to side with the conspiracy theorists</a>.<br /><br />6. ACORN this year became the organization that conservatives loved to hate...and so the nutty conspiracy theories flourished. We have the <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/11/hoffman_declares_acorn_conspiracy.php"></a><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/opinion/17pubed.html">campaign finance law violation conspiracies</a>, the growing "<a href="http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2009/11/acorn.html">I lost my local election because of ACORN</a>" conspiracies, the <a href="http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2009/07/unraveling-the-acorn-conspiracy.html">tax evasion conspiracy</a>, the <a href="http://www.thelandofthefree.net/conservativeopinion/2009/09/18/acorn-conspiracy/">ACORN/Obama federal grants conspiracy</a>, the <a href="http://www.ihatethemedia.com/fox-covers-acorn-hooker-scandal">ACORN hooker conspiracy</a>, a lovely little <a href="http://www.examiner.com/x-2684-Law-Enforcement-Examiner%7Ey2009m8d16-ACORN-conspiracy-against-gun-owners-discovered">ACORN gun conspiracy</a>, the <a href="http://chattahbox.com/us/2009/11/20/majority-of-delusional-republicans-think-acorn-stole-election-for-obama/">ACORN stole the Presidential election conspiracy</a> (what else?), and perhaps my favorite, that <a href="http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200905280039">ACORN caused the financial crisis</a>. At least no one's blamed them yet for the weather.<br /><br />5. Speaking of conspiracies no one would have expected, who would have expected a <a href="http://retardzone.com/2009/04/27/top-10-swine-flu-conspiracy-theories/">swine flu conspiracy</a> this year? So many villains to go around that really, the whole list of them deserve to be condensed into one.<br /><br />4. Naturally, one would not expect a review of 2009 conspiracies to end without some kind of communist plot making the top of the list. So I nominate <a href="http://www.thedailybanter.com/tdb/2009/07/super-sleuth-beck-uncovers-massive-communist-conspiracy.html">Glenn Beck's Apollo Alliance Manchurian Candidate White Board Conspiracy</a> to take the spot.<br /><br />3. I love the writings and assorted ramblings of Matt Taibbi. And I think his Goldman Sachs <a href="http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2009/07/14/goldman-sachs-vampire-squid/">vampire squid conspiracy</a> really has to take the cake as the second runner-up for this year's top conspiracy. After all, who didn't want to take a swing at the fat cats at Goldman this year?<br /><br />2. Coming in second for this year's top conspiracy: <span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span><a href="http://gawker.com/5415361/climate-email-scandal-scientists-engaged-in-a-conspiracy-of-science">global warming has been faked by scientists.</a> <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article221600.ece">Even the UN is investigating this hot conspiracy</a>. I tell you, when a conspiracy is breaking news at the UN, you'd better pay attention.<br /><br />1. But even that didn't surpass this year's top conspiracy: The <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/12/grassley-endorses-death-p_n_257677.html">Obama Health Care Death Panel conspiracy</a>. When the U.S. Congress gets into the business of spinning conspiracy theories, even the President has to respond.Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-30510185067357044052009-10-24T14:49:00.008-04:002009-10-24T15:25:01.196-04:00Moral Hazard Rears Its Ugly Head: What To DoWith Goldman Sachs now left as a <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5310764">de-facto monopoly supported by the government</a>, there's good reason for <a href="http://www.fiercefinance.com/story/anger-goldman-sachs/2009-07-20">public anger</a> - even from conservative financial institutions like <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/25f2f950-b9cc-11de-a747-00144feab49a.html">the Financial Times</a> - at what are now <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jun/21/goldman-sachs-bonus-payments">record breaking bonuses</a> funded by taxpayer money: <a href="http://www.huliq.com/8684/88032/goldman-sachs-ceo-bonus-could-top-70-billion">bonuses that are eye-popping even by the standards of Wall Street</a>.<div><br /></div><div>The Goldman bonuses are perhaps the biggest example of what people mean by "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard">moral hazard</a>." That is, the problems created when governments step in and rescue companies, even companies deemed critical to the economic health of the country.<br /><div><br /></div><div>The problem with Goldman is, there's no longer any downside for the bankers making these obscene bonuses. The company is now "<a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjdkYTc0MDJkMTQxZTEwZDQyOTNiOTVlYWQ4ZDkzNDM=">too big to fail</a>," so there's no real risk involved: the traders at Goldman know that taxpayers will step in to support the company if it gets in too much trouble. Thus, traders at Goldman are now able to take insane amounts of risk with what amounts to other people's money - our taxpayer money - but taxpayer's get none of the upside of that risk, only the Goldman traders do.</div><div><br /></div><div>In essence, then, the bailout has created the biggest sucking sound the world has ever heard: the sound of about a hundred fortunate few sucking the remaining lifeblood out of the world economy.</div><div><br /></div><div>We knew moral hazard would be an issue when we went into the bailout. And certainly, all the bank regulation in the world, and <a href="http://washingtonindependent.com/64842/the-fed-takes-on-executive-pay">all the limits on executive pay</a>, ain't going to do a thing to stop the sucking from Goldman, which has already given the TARP money back and thus has escaped any regulation or pay cap talk - and even if they hadn't are so entrenched in the government that they'd find another way to make off with our cash.</div><div><br /></div><div>Certainly, no good capitalist wants to get into sweeping regulations about pay....and passing a law to tax Goldman Sachs specifically will just create the biggest loophole ever known, when Goldman - which has <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/the_great_american_bubble_machine">all the ins in the government it needs</a> to avoid such a fate anyway - simply renames itself. So there seems like there's no good solution, right?</div><div><br /></div><div>But there is. The solution - which is so obvious, I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone else suggesting it - is to raise the top tax rates. At least for people making obscene money in the heart of the recession - let's say, anyone making $1M a year or more. Call it a "windfall tax" and raise the rate to 55%. After all, isn't that the least that the rich bastards can do for our depleted country? That would recapture some of the oomph from Goldman, as well as anyone else making out in our depressed environment (no doubt due to the largess of the government in the first place).</div><div><br /></div><div>The solution is so obvious, the fact that no one in the Obama administration has suggested it makes me wonder: just <a href="http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14804928">how different is this administration from Bush's anyway</a>? On the issue of Goldman managing the economy, it seems: not much.</div></div>Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-62805998857093837102009-08-22T11:50:00.000-04:002009-08-22T11:51:08.844-04:00Barney Against the RabbleJoe Klein says the Republican party has <a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1917525,00.html">gone insane</a>.<br /><br />I watched a good hour and a half of Barney Frank holding his own against the wailing rabble. Captivating TV, like cage knuckle brawling. Give 'em Hell, Barney.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/nYlZiWK2Iy8&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/nYlZiWK2Iy8&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-67296263714935093812009-07-18T08:58:00.043-04:002009-07-19T08:13:13.951-04:0020 Rules For the Twenty-First CenturyAs we really start to dig into this new century, I've been thinking lately about the lessons learned from the past 100 years, and how they so intimately apply to our lives now. Things that have changed our way of being in the world but have also become new insights into the nature of our existence and what it all means. I've been thinking that there seem to be roughly twenty insights for our new times that will underpin how we live in this new century.<br /><br />1. That a well-functioning society is a complex thing that can easily be quickly unwoven (Katrina) or repaired (the West Bank) by a change in just a few key parameters.<br /><br />2. That democracies unleash both powerful creative forces (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">crowdsourcing</span>) and intractable political paralysis (global warming).<br /><br />3. That all work is about being social, even if it's done at a computer at home alone in your underwear.<br /><br />4. That compression of the human compound into smaller and more crowded spaces turns us into our basic elements: flesh, sound, and stink.<br /><br />5. That every generation is a Moses to the next: they can lead us through the desert, but they will never enter the landscape we're destined to inherit.<br /><br />6. That love is what provides meaning, but not fulfillment. Work is what provides fulfillment, but not meaning.<br /><br />7. Companies are just big brands that contain and manage smaller brands (products) that are created by assembling contributions from even smaller brands (other products and people). All of these assemblages work best as flexible systems that can easily adjust to constantly changing markets.<br /><br />8. Rather than right or left or conservative and liberal, a better way of describe competing political forces would be "defensive" and "offensive." And yes, offensive is the old "liberal."<br /><br />9. That the new meritocracy now most values creative talent, rather than managerial politics.<br /><br />10. That our educational system now requires rebellion, skepticism, and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">incredulousness</span> as key personality traits for success.<br /><br />11. That raising people from poverty requires lowering people from wealth - which can happen both gradually and all at once.<br /><br />12. That there is nothing more poisonous than a bad idea that seems true.<br /><br />13. That the more removed we become from physical labor, the more nostalgia we have for the raw dynamics of the earth: pets, gardens, parks, and extreme sports.<br /><br />14. That sometimes inefficient, low-tech, unhealthy, and complex can have more value than fast, efficient and healthy, if it's emotionally meaningful.<br /><br />15. That in addition to the four traditional types of labor - making things, destroying things, distracting people, and caring for them - we now have a major new type: managing information. That the United States is really good at three of these: destroying things, distracting people, and managing information - and not so good at the other two; probably due to the natural character of Americans.<br /><br />16. That the source of celebrity is notoriety, and that celebrity is the source of political power. Ergo, political leadership is the art of being notorious.<br /><br />17. That all resources are limited, even seemingly unlimited resources like the sun, hope, desire, or lust.<br /><br />18. That we pay too much attention to avoiding death and not enough to managing it well.<br /><br />19. That the last unexplored country is the 1/3 of our lives we spend asleep.<br /><br />and finally<br /><br />20. That Wall-E is really a movie about how a nerd wins the heart of a sexy girl.Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-89689586842709956582009-06-13T05:40:00.003-04:002009-06-13T05:51:03.916-04:00POLL: Is Gay Marriage The New Swing Issue?Since his election, Obama has been silent on gay issues - despite his campaign promises. And now, after first offending with the selection of Rick Warren at the inauguration, then his refusal to issue stop loss orders preventing the discharge of gay soldiers, and now most recently, with his <a href="http://lawdork.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/obamas-doj-did-not-have-to-go-this-far/"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">DOJ</span> legal team issuing an offensive report</a> supporting <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">DOMA</span> (the law that discriminates against married gay couples with federal benefits), Obama seems to have <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2009/06/12/mainstream-gay-groups-to-obama-fuck-you">finally struck out with the gay community</a>.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Interestingly</span>, however, <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/top-gop-consultant-endorses-gay-marriage/?hp">some influential Republicans have started coming out IN FAVOR of gay marriage</a>; even <a href="http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/archives/170044.asp">Dick Cheney</a> has voiced his limited support.<br /><br />So here's an interesting question. If a Republican presidential candidate in 2012 supported gay marriage, would <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">gays</span> support him or her? Could this be the swing constituency that can lead conservatives back to the White House? Take our poll and say your mind.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://polls.blogflux.com/poll.php?poll=33271&width=420&fontsize=11&height=175&fontface=Verdana&padding=10&textcolor=%23000000&bgcolor=%23FFAA00&doublespace=0&borderwidth=1&linkmap=1&bordercolor=%23cccccc" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" width="442" frameborder="0" height="197">&amp;amp;amp;<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">lt</span>;a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">href</span>="http://polls.blogflux.com/poll-33271.html"&amp;amp;amp;gt;Take the poll&amp;amp;amp;<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">lt</span>;/a&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">lt</span>;<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">br</span> /&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">lt</span>;<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">br</span> /&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">lt</span>;a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">href</span>="http://polls.blogflux.com/"&amp;amp;amp;gt;Free Poll by Blog Flux&amp;amp;amp;<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">lt</span>;/a&amp;amp;amp;gt;</iframe>Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-90509025085248328122009-06-04T12:05:00.023-04:002009-06-04T13:24:27.543-04:00What's the Matter with Obama?or - why are gays becoming increasingly disillusioned with the President?<br /><br />Quite obviously, Republicans have been quite successful over the past eight years turning gay rights issues into a wedge, and encouraging state-wide initiatives banning gay marriage to help drive conservative voters to the polls. Aside from some stalwart holdouts over at the Log Cabin club, few gays and lesbians are lauding Republicans for these efforts. Yet all evidence suggests that Republican leaders have used the issue as cynically merely to drive their base - few of them seem to really have the heart to push an inimical initiative like, say, a Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage.<br /><br />The question then comes to, are the Democrats really that much better? Two of the most destructive laws over the past twenty years - Don't Ask Don't Tell (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">DADT</span></span>), which requires the expulsion of service members found to be gay, and the Defence of Marriage Act (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">DOMA</span></span>), which denies federal benefits or recognition to gay couples - were <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">proffered</span> by a Democratic president. While Democrats see gays and lesbians as their base - and therefore pander to them as much as Republicans pander to the homophobes - when the rubber hits the road, the real question gays must ask politicians in both parties is: what have you done for (or to) me lately?<br /><br />One might argue - and count me in this camp - that it is much better to <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">under promise</span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">over deliver</span>, that to make promises you don't intend to keep (or worse, that set things back, as Clinton did). When Hillary Clinton, in her campaign against Obama, <a href="http://www.theinsider.com/news/632164_Hillary_Clinton_Gay_And_Lesbian">promised to repeal <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">DADT</span></span> but only to "promote marriage rights"</a> rather than strive for a full repeal of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">DOMA</span></span> (as Obama said he would do), she was criticized for "triangulating" - putting politics above principal. Obama, meanwhile, clearly promised action on both <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">DADT</span></span> and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">DOMA</span></span> - to essentially undo the wrong done by the last Democratic president. Whatever his intentions, many took him at his word.<br /><br />Starting with his inauguration, however, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Obama's</span></span> delivery has become more and more suspicious. While his invitation of Rick Warren angered many in the gay community (who felt that it undercut the optimism of his <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">inauguration</span>), others argued to put aside that emotion for the sake of the long-term benefits that Obama would bring when he <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">fulfilled</span> his campaign promises. While intellectually that argument made sense, however smart it was for Obama politically, emotionally it was difficult to see the new President promoting the same anti-gay speakers that the last President did. Gays and lesbians have become very used to being used as the first group to be "thrown over the bus" for political expediency. The question was raised: would Obama do the same? Would he really be able to deliver on his promises.<br /><br />This is why gays are so carefully reading <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Obama's</span></span> messages. Obviously, the President has learned from Clinton's mistakes, and doesn't want to create a political backlash. But times have changed - a clear majority of Americans now support partner benefits for gay partners, and more and more support full marriage equality. Obama needn't be as careful as Clinton needed to in 1992. Yet still Obama seems to be backtracking on his promises - <a href="http://www.examiner.com/x-4107-Gay--Lesbian-Issues-Examiner%7Ey2009m5d1-Obama-steps-backwards-on-gay-rights">changing campaign language on his website to "change" rather than "repeal" <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">DODT</span></span></a>, and pushing back the deadline for introducing legislation. Worse, while <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/cheney-reasserts-stance-on-gay-marriages/">even Dick Cheney can make public pronouncements supporting marriage rights</a>, the White House has remained silent while states enact full marriage rights and in the face of defeats such as the <a href="http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc2=news&sc3=&id=91824">Prop 8 decision in California</a>. Where is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Obama's</span> vocal support for full marriage rights? He still claims to only support civil unions: <a href="http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid56331.asp">Obama is willing to let Dick Cheney outflank him on the left on this issue</a>, which only gives <a href="http://cbs5.com/local/gay.marriage.mailer.2.853999.html">political <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">ammunition</span></a> to anti-gay <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">crusaders</span> who use <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">Obama's</span> position against equal marriage an argument to sway voters in individual states. Surely Obama realizes that his lack of support is actively <span style="font-style: italic;">hurting</span> gays as they fight these battles from state to state. Perhaps even more telling, Obama has continued Bush administration policies of <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-belkin/obama-to-fire-his-first-g_b_199070.html">dismissing gay service members</a> - not even taking the least of actions to put a hold on dismissals, and not even starting the legislation process that would result in repeal.<br /><br />Even some of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Obama's</span></span> staunches supporters have noticed that the backtracking on his campaign rhetoric: <a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/05/the-fierce-urgency-of-whenever.html">Andrew Sullivan writes compellingly</a> that Obama is once again falling into the trap of "equal rights can wait," as he uses the economy as an excuse to put off action. Next year the excuse will be mid-term elections, and the year after that the excuse will be that he has to campaign for re-election. There is no convenient time for equal rights, yet every day that goes by without action is a disaster on a million different levels for individuals and their families all across the country. It takes very little courage to say you support doing something for gays ten years from now - or even two. Tell that to Dan Choi, or couples like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_Hester">Laurel Hester and Stacy Andree</a>, for whom even tomorrow is too late. What disappoints gays and lesbians and their families most is that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Obama's</span></span> "fierce <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">urgency</span> of now" seems to exclude us. Gays can wait - and those who lose out in the meantime are expendable - says Obama through his silence.<br /><br />No one expects Obama to tackle every issue at once. Yet clearly he is able to discuss legislation about every other campaign issue except this one. Obama raised expectations with his very clear promises, and gays supported Obama over Clinton because Obama promised more direct action with less political calculation. Given how things worked out with the last Democratic President, gays have real reason to be suspicious. Now we find an Obama who calculates politics, who hems and haws and delays, just as much as any other politician. It may not be surprising, but don't tell us not to be disappointed.Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-78651817303429540492009-05-26T13:35:00.004-04:002009-05-26T14:07:39.319-04:00California's Prop 8 Ruling Exemplifies California's ProblemsToday's ruling by the California Supreme Court <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prop8-decision27-2009may27,0,6677891.story">upholding Proposition 8</a> (which bans gay marriages) while also preserving the marriages that took place during the window in which it was legal, was certainly expected. The suit to begin with was a long shot, even though it was based on a <a href="http://www.commonmistakesblog.com/2008/11/was-proposition-8-illegal.html">solid argument about how the court found the right to begin with</a>.<br /><br />However, more than anything this ruling illustrates a few lessons we've learned today about that quirky state called California - for this ruling says more about the peculiarities of California than about anything else.<br /><br />First, it illustrates just why California is in the financial mess its in. It's a state where any law - no matter how crazy - can be voted in by fifty percent of the population. The Supreme Court has just validated that there is nothing that the voters can't vote into law, even if it deprives groups of their "<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">inalienable</span> rights." Naturally, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Californian's</span> will vote in unfunded mandates - cake and ice cream and no bedtime. It is a mob-rule Democracy, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/opinion/25krugman.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=california&st=cse">completely unable to govern itself</a> or rectify its financial problems, let alone protect minorities.<br /><br />Secondly, just how will California enforce this new ruling, in which some gay people can be married and some cannot? Will everyone be required to carry around their marriage certificates now? How will gyms, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">health care</span> companies, hospitals, etc. be able to distinguish between couples married during the California "window" and those married elsewhere in other states at other times? And what about couples who married in <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Massachusetts</span> when marriage was legal in California? Are those couples "married"? The possibility for legal suits are <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">mind boggling</span>.<br /><br />But finally, perhaps most interestingly, the ruling - in which six of seven judges who a year ago ENCOURAGED gay people to get married saying it was an "<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">inalienable</span> right," now agree the right is in fact alienable - indicates just how much the court makes its decisions based on comfortable politics, rather than readings of the law. While it was comfortable to grant the right before the Amendment passed, it wasn't quite so comfortable to uphold it afterwards, especially when voters could simply go right back to the ballot box until they got the outcome they wanted. While this ruling may seem like a sage compromise, in fact the one thing its not is courageous - it simply punts the issue back to the voters, and creates an even bigger legal mess in the process.<br /><br />Welcome to California. Just don't make any legal plans while you're there.Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-58278978421418571242009-04-25T18:14:00.131-04:002009-04-27T11:01:30.552-04:00The Obama Economy: 100 Days of HopeThere are times, lately, I will stop whatever I'm doing for a moment - walking, reading, shopping - and think to myself, "thank God, Obama's President."<br /><br />I'm not a religious man, and I'm certainly not given to random exclamations of spiritual thanks. And I may be a registered Democrat but I never felt similarly about, say Bill Clinton. And Obama wasn't even my first choice in the primaries. Still, there are times when I am just overwhelmed with a feeling of just how lucky we are this man is our President - and what kind of calamity might have been in store had he lost the election just a few short months ago.<br /><br />I'm not talking about being an Obama-phile who thinks he's God's gift to the world, or even was ever particularly in love with his platform. And though it'd be nice if he solved our energy problem and addressed global warming and insured 50 million more Americans with health insurance and modified DOMA and restored America's standing the world, I don't even really care all that much about all of that. I thank God Obama is our President because of the state of our economy.<br /><br />I know, there is certainly a very vocal and highly organized minority of Republicans who feel just the opposite - who worry that Obama is mortgaging our future, building a nanny state, growing a large and useless government bureaucracy - sending us, God forbid, into the hell fires of a European style socialism. I will get to this line of rhetoric in a minute. For the moment, I just want to stand back from all the details and just appreciate how lucky we are, and how, in his first 100 days, Obama has shown he is worthy of our faith in him.<br /><br />First - and this, I think, is the point that the Obama naysayers never seem to address - we have to recognize just how close to the economic abyss we came (and yes, possibly still are). It seems that part of the problem is that there is no one left alive today who really lived through the Depression; who really experienced a true economic collapse. I certainly didn't, but my grandparents did, and before they died, I had discussed it in detail with them, and listened to their stories. They were - like myself today and most of us - middle class Americans, running a business and raising a family, when the banking crisis hit. Like many caught in the headwinds, they lost their savings, and their business went under. They had to give up the good life: no more evenings out, no more buying new clothes, no more meat on the table six days a week. But they weren't alone - every night, in every town in America, hundreds of formerly middle class Americans found themselves lining up for handouts of food and clothing. My grandparents made what ends meet they could by taking in washing, doing small chores, scraping together pennies here and nickels there. They re-mended old clothes and made a small fistful of meat last a weak. These are stories of survival that are, from our present day of consumer fulfilment, hard to truly understand. And this went on for years - years of raising a family on little, on denying every pleasure, of giving up pride in order to accept the charity of others, and of hoping only for a little bit more meat for dinner.<br /><br />Now fast forward to 2008. Those who begrudge a stimulus that costs about 1/3 of the total projected costs of Bush's war jamboree, or who think this is just a normal turn of the "business cycle", need to understand just how close to collapse our entire economic system was (and still might be). And what a collapse might mean. First, we are not talking simply about a few banks going out of business (as happened this week, and has for every week since September), the depositors being made whole by the government and taking their money to deposit elsewhere. We're not even talking about depositors losing their savings. We're talking about an international banking system that is far more complicated - and far more interconnected - than anything our grandparents could have imagined in 1931. The failure of Lehman Brothers showed just how interconnected these banks are. Then came AIG. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/09/AR2009030902806.html">Had AID failed</a>, we know now that a dozen other major banks - Citibank, Bank of America, Chase, and many more - would have also failed, suddenly finding their backing vaporized. And if a dozen major banks had suddenly failed, hundreds more would have immediately followed - and not just banks: car companies, other large employers, entire cities and even states would suddenly be bankrupt. A failure more massive than anything the government could insure...and perhaps leading to a run on U.S. Treasuries themselves and calling into question the financial solvency of the government: which could have led to the kind of complete <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/09/AR2009030902806.html">nightmare scenario of collapse</a> in which massive world-wide food shortages, power outages, starvation, and roving gangs of criminals lead to a real-world Mad-Max scenario.<br /><br />But even if the Federal government had survived, we would have been seeing massive loss of value - homes plunging in value 75% overnight, retirement savings of millions wiped out, entire cities with no means to pay police and firefighters, a huge rise in crime and millions of workers on the streets immediately. We very well could have seen a financial crisis that would have made the Depression look like a Sunday picnic.<br /><br />Now, I don't say this just to scare you, but I do lay out this scenario has a highly likely one, and one that our leaders were looking at on the day AIG was about to go under, so that you can understand the depth of the calamity we are talking about. They did what any sane person - Democrat or Republican, Libertarian or Rotarian - who had the means to do so would have done: they acted as quickly as they could to prevent it from happening.<br /><br />Now, we can argue till the cows come home about whether the money to AIG should have been monitored more carefully or whether the stimulus should have had 5% more tax cuts or 10% more spending. What mattered is that something was done, and the disaster scenario was avoided. The question then was: was it avoided temporarily, did we merely buy ourselves some time? Or did we luck the hell out and possibly save our way of life that all of us - even those who claim otherwise - so dearly cherish?<br /><br />This was the question the country had on its mind as Obama took the oath of office on January 20th. It was obvious that Bush and company - though they had done, as I said, what any sane person would have done in that situation - weren't up to the task of backing us up from the precipice they'd driven us to over eight disastrous years. They had no plan, and they knew they didn't need one. It was good bye and good luck. And the question on everyone's mind was: Is Obama up to it?<br /><br />Now, 100 days into his Presidency, it feels like we can say, with all humility and some potential hedging: yes. Obama is up to it. And thank God. Because if he wasn't, I just don't know if I'd be up to a lifetime of living in a real-life <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jericho_%28TV_series%29"><span style="font-style: italic;">Jericho</span></a>; and personally, I think those apocalyptic right-wingers who are so eager to see everything wrecked for their game boy fantasies of pseudo-militaristic survival of the fittest, would be the first to perish in the long cold winter of our disaster.<br /><br />But why do I think he is up to it? Let's look at what he and his team have been able to do, in just these few 100 days.<br /><br />Within weeks, he was able to push through an economic stimulus package that all economists said would be necessary - a necessary MINIMUM - to cushion the coming economic blow. That was all settled and done in just WEEKS, when Clinton <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/29/opinion/bill-clinton-s-hundred-days.html">couldn't even get his stimulus package passed in his first 100 days</a>.<br /><br />Within a few more weeks, after yes, a rather fitful and uncertain start, his economic team was able to go to bat a second time with a plan that calmed the jitters of the banks, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090424-717871.html">convinced some rather intrepid investors to pour money into those very "toxic" assets that were causing the failures</a>, and that even the Wall Street Journal called "<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123879993742688425.html">a good start</a>." They came up with a series of tests for banks that will determine how we walk our way bank from the precipice. Though what happens next is still uncertain, the recent moves have earned the trust of the markets as well as banks and have been critical to abating the crisis mentality griping Wall Street.<br /><br />But even more importantly, Obama has been able to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/24/speech.poll/index.html">reassure the public with his speeches and address to Congress</a> (if not inspire members to cross the aisle for their votes.)<br /><br />But he also wised up after he learned that if the Republican political strategy was going to be to stand in his way and try blame him for any failures, he was better off leaving them behind. So when it came time to pass his budget plan, he did just that: he played hardball in response and abandoned the pretense that Republicans were necessary to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/03/us.house.senate.budget.passes/">get his budget passed</a>. And he learned he would need to do the same thing when it came to delivering the health care reforms that Americans had voted for.<br /><br />Republicans, on the other hand, made a strategic decision when Obama took office to fight him on every angle in his attempts to address the economic crisis. It may be their only political play: hope that the economy, in four years, is suffering more than it is today, and make Obama own the problem. Yet it is a shame that Republicans have decided to double-down on Hoover economics and <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/29020945?__source=RSS*blog*&par=RSS">political posturing</a> at the same time that former President Bush, who arguably presided over both the decimation of government (re: Katrina) and the borrowing-fueled bubble that led to the current crisis, was - and possibly still is - the one Republican who took some responsibility to address the crisis realistically, and has also been the one Republican leader who has shown both courtesy and respect of Obama's position leading the country (if this attitude leads to a rehabilitation of Bush's image in the history books, perhaps one can say, better late than never). Yet is was clear that after eight trying years, Bush was not the man to lead us out of a crisis of such proportions, when the Bush government didn't even the capacity to save a single American city from a <a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/">well-predicted</a> hurricane. But he seems to have not bought in to the raging anti-Obama mania that the rest of the party has convinced itself of, and has been the one figure on the right, ironically enough, who has reached with genuine sincerity across the aisle.<br /><br />Now, I have respect for John McCain, and I believe he might have realized he needed to get creative to solve this crisis. But his campaign showed that he was clearly hostage to the bunker mentality that the far-right created at the worst moments of the Bush administration, and that <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_02/016983.php">his closest advisers</a> - who were refusing the recognize the crisis even as it was happening - were not up to taking the steps necessarily to restore both public confidence and economic fundamentals.<br /><br />It's odd that even when Obama takes a position seemingly further to the right than his Republican predecessor - <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30366383/">figuring out a way for Chrysler to go through an orderly bankruptcy</a>, say, rather than simply throwing more money at it as Bush did - he still gets labeled as "leftist" for it. They have to come up with something so in this case, arranging a bankruptcy is derided as enabling "government interference." If this is interference, then give me more! I'd much rather have that than the negligent, criminal incompetence the Right seems to be peddling.<br /><br />So I wonder why, now, so much intransigence from the new Republican party leaders. Yes, partly, it may be intransigence due to not wanting to admit that their policies were the problem, not the solution. But I don't think that's really it. After some reflection it occurs to me that it has most to do with the dynamics of being out of power: it is much easier for Republicans to sit back and lobby irresponsible <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21725.html">accusations</a> and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/26/gop-budget-proposal-massi_n_179598.html">bromides</a> about the economy when they aren't responsible for leading the country out of this mess. I just don't know how great a play this is for them politically, given that the American public largely supports Obama's efforts, and that inevitably, chances are the economy WILL turn around. But for the moment, it seems to be working against them, as their economic policies enjoy their lowest popularity in years and their <a href="http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/polltracker/2009/04/good-news-for-obama-and-democr.html">party suffers in the polls</a>.<br /><br />Now, it's true, I wish that Obama's budget was more serious about starting to tackle the entitlement crisis that we will most surely be facing in five years, was a little more ahead of the most liberal members of Congress. But these are quibbles - and though certainly they indicate a temperament farther left than we had from the past eight years, not the moves of a rabid socialist. Let's not let ourselves get distracted by the vaporous anxieties and accusations of the tea parties: the one and ONLY thing that Obama has done so far regarding taxes is lower them (Bush's cuts from Clinton's top rates were always temporary, <a href="http://taxesandgrowth.ncpa.org/news/are-the-bush-tax-cuts-working">intended only as a RECESSION BUSTING move, remember?</a> - and already set to expire long ago, and well should have; Obama's letting them finaly expire as they should have in 2003 returns rates to <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=2741">a point lower than they were under Clinton</a>.) And yes, ballooning budgets and the potential for rising interest rates are a worry. But with the economy actually in the midst of the<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123984512170723549.html"> first signs of deflation in over fifty years</a>, spending more right now is precisely the right move...and we can worry about inflation when we actually have an economy to inflate.<br /><br />And in fact, there are signs that with Obama's management, <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gz--bPfVmDm1ppmVkZGZhuynmLkA">the crisis has reached a bottom and the economy is already stabilizing</a>. The stock market has also stopped its slide - in fact, it's up around 3% since Obama's inauguration, a trend that to many economists indicates that we have reached the bottom far earlier than many expected in Bush's last days in office. Yes, we're not out of the woods. Foreclosures are up, banks are still stressed, local governments are cutting back, many are out of work, and there are still <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/13/a-tent-city-near-you-tell_n_174609.html">tent cities all over America</a>. And clearly Obama doesn't want expectations of a recovery to build to quickly; Summers said on Monday that <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a0pTxXU7974E">the economy will continue to decline for the foreseeable future</a> (i.e., this year). And though the job outlook remains dire for the rest of 2008, we may yet get out of this recession with an unemployment figures no higher than 10 or 12% - far better than the 30% unemployment of the Great Depression, or the nearly universal catastrophe that awaited us in the deepest days of this economic crisis.<br /><br />But even more than turning around the markets, Obama has turned around America's sense of hope. After 100 days in office, this weekend's ABC poll shows that <a href="http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/04/26/Poll-Obamas-overall-rating-high/UPI-94231240745351/">Obama enjoys a 69% popularity</a> - the same level as Ronald Reagan after his first 100 days, and <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/117853/First-100-Days-Obama-Meets-Exceeds-Expectations.aspx">a remarkable 86% say he is meeting or exceeding their expectations</a>. And even more importantly, the percent of people who think the country is on the right track has risen from 19% during Bush's last days in office to a remarkable 50% today (<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/26/obama-100-days-poll/">the highest rating in six years</a>), and Americans rate Obama's handling of the economy as his top achievement since taking office.<br /><br />What the Great Depression - and what this crisis - had robbed us of more than anything, was the great hope of America: hope that hard work can bring prosperity, that our future is in our hands, not in the hands of princes or barons of industry, that if we dream big enough and are bright enough, each of us has the possibility to not only survive, but to truly be rewarded with the "American Dream." That dream died last fall as we all watched our worst nightmares about to come true, as we watched our savings evaporate, our businesses falter, our homes plunge in value - as we understood the same fears our grandparents once felt - and we all hunkered down for the great winter, as we all prepared for mere survival.<br /><br />Now, more than anything, Americans have hope again - not just hope, but faith. Faith that this economy will recover, faith that our government is competent, that they are able to do something to restore the American Dream. Americans once again have faith that their plans, their lives, their hopes and aspirations could happen after all, after we just get through this rough patch. It's Obama's faith - not just his economic policies but his youthfulness, his wonkishness, his energy, his belief in government as a force of good, as an expression of the will of the people. And it's not just faith for faith sake. Our economy RUNS on this faith: we give loans, we borrow money, we spend on investments, we build businesses all because we have FAITH, faith that America will be here tomorrow, and making these investments will pay off. Obama's given that faith back to us. He's not perfect, and maybe he'll spend too much money, and maybe he won't, and maybe he'll make enemies, and maybe he won't get to do all his lofty plans, and he'll certainly make mistakes. But an America without faith in itself is a sad place, indeed.<br /><br />After a mere 100 days, America is on the road to having that faith in the American Dream again. That's pretty remarkable. And we have Obama to thank.Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-5891262457610864152009-04-15T22:08:00.003-04:002009-04-15T23:04:16.651-04:00The Right Throws a Tea Party: Everyone Else Sees Mad HattersWhat a difference forty years makes. In 1969, it was the summer of love, and left-wing radicals were taking the street to protest corporate government, the military-industrial complex, and the stultifying effects of stolid capitalism. Behind them was a philosophy of radical deconstruction: that truth was an ideology propped up by the powerful, a collusion of government and business designed to exploit racial disparities, the middle-class and the working man. They were taking to the streets to get the middle class to wake up to the tragedies of war, capitalism run amok, and the moral hazards of materialism.<p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Fast-forward to 2009. Now, a black man runs <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>, Democrats control all facets of government, and it’s the conservatives who have taken to the street in protest. Our President pursues progressive policies with the carefulness and “conservativeness” of an establishment CEO, working with the existing system to salvage the economy, create reform, and build business-friendly yet socially and economically aware infrastructure. Meanwhile, it’s the right-wing thinkers who have embraced the radicalism of the Sixties, including its disbelief in truth, its use of street theater, and its sense of moral outrage and demand for urgent change. Their goal: to stop the government from trampling on the greed that in their mind, makes this country great.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Hence today’s “tea parties,” with their echo of <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s revolution and sense of organized demonstration and protest.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">What do these right-wing protestors want? These tea parties are not so much about taxation without representation as they are about protesting the swing away from the policies of George W. Bush. Newt Gingrich has put forward <a href="http://www.loybanks.com/blog/general/a-very-important-message-from-newt-gingrich">an agenda</a> that is broad, diffuse, and unclear, but the gist of it seems to be that they want a right-wing government that would take President Bush’s economics (and foreign policy) as but a starting point for an even more extreme version of trickle-up economics (based on what possibly surviving economy is anyone’s guess – the rich and well connected have already pretty much drained America of most of its resources). Never mind that they didn’t achieve that goal at the ballot box.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In discussing the concept of the tea parties with Michael Leahy, the editor of the tcotreport, Leahy suggests that this sort of street theater and protest is inspired by Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” – a post-Sixties handbook in which Alinksy lays out the principals followed by the left for a generation: make fun of the “oppressor,” reposition the truth, undercut the prevailing corporate PR. Such methods, presumably, are what the tcoters have in mind in regards to their version of the reigning elite (you know, the East Coast liberal media and all those other nabobs) when they make reference of Alinsky. But Alinsky subtitles his book “A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals.” The tcoters have the radicalism down pat, but what they seem to be missing is Alinksy’s pragmatism and realism. It’s perhaps because of this post-election explicit embrace of the radical strategy that the recent DHS report on right-wing radical groups has <a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/04/conservatives-d.html">struck such a nerve</a>.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sure, peaceful protest, a long time strategy of the left, shouldn’t be mistaken for radical violence. But as Alinsky says, radicalism, if it’s to have an actually political effect, needs to be embedded in pragmatic realism. So let’s talk realism. What Obama’s budget has proposed is in fact a tax cut for a great majority of Americans. The “rollback” of top tax rates to 1990’s levels – once the economy recovers – <span style=""> </span>would indeed amount to a tax increase on the wealthiest Americans. But they would still be rates well below what the rich paid for decades before, and considering that we’ve never financed a war before without some kind of tax increase, this piper has to be paid at some point. Yet at the same time the Republicans would let the financial system implode and march in the street for further tax cuts, they demand Obama balance the budget. Such logic is what brought us to the precipice to begin with: the Bush economics of borrow, lower taxes on the rich, and spend on favored businesses has already done its destruction to our economic health; its doubtful many Americans believe that lowering the tax rate does much good when our debt is skyrocketing and <a href="http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/jan/18/nation/chi-stimulus_bdjan18">even trickle down economists admit</a> that no economic growth, when no one can find a job, will hardly reduce the deficit – and that the government is the only buyer large enough to stimulate our economy back out of this mess.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But the Republican party, as it’s been conflated with the radical right, hasn’t been too keen on realism, these days. In fact, if an expert says it – whether the expert belongs to one party or another – they pretty much believe the opposite must be true. Whether it’s evolution, global warming, or economic theory, right-wing Republicans have bought into the same kind of postmodernism that their Sixties leftist counterparts once embraced: that there is no “objective” shared truth, no such thing as science (only “ideology” or as they would call it, “belief”), and so any posited principal can be easily disproved by simply believing it isn’t so. While the leftists used this postmodern approach to undercut the prevailing culture with an alternative “counterculture” that claimed equal validity, the right use the same techniques against the progressives now in power, in the hopes, it seems, of bullying the truth into a kind of numbing defeat, defeat brought to bear through control of the media and the sheer volume and stubbornness of their angry believers. Meanwhile, the rest of us have no option but to learn how to tune them out.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Then there’s pragmatism, which the Republican party seems to have left in a ditch as they’ve gone on their vision quest. The Right may be in love with Alinsky but they certainly haven’t read him carefully (if at all). For Alinsky’s primary point is that radicalism isn’t about creating destruction for the sake of protest, it’s about persuading the dissatisfied great middle. To have any effect, the radical must understand that the silent middle is ready to embrace their ideas, if only they are giving the proper push to demonstrate how the system is skewed against them. Simply whining about principals without understanding the real concerns of the vast populous only alienates the majority further.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The problem is, the middle is clearly not with the Republicans on the idea of a further redistribution of wealth to the wealthy. The number of people who think the country is going “in the right direction” has doubled since Obama took office; <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Politics/story?id=7210524&page=1">sixty-six percent of the country approves of Obama generally and 64% specifically approve of his economic plan</a>. There is no general fear that increasing the top tax rate by three percent is going to ruin the country, generally, or a middle-class tax payer, particularly. However, confront a tcoter with these facts and their most likely reply will be that “they don’t trust polls,” which is another way of saying, “people will believe anything and aren’t to be trusted.” But Alinsky’s radicalism depends upon the trust of the people – that the people may be silent, but that they are with you; lose that, and you lose the war. And unlike, say, the gay marriage issue, there is no generational demographic shift that might suggest the public is warming to this conservative message over time; to the contrary, younger voters are if anything <a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1607677/20090325/index.jhtml">MORE supportive of Obama and his economic policies than older voters</a>. So instead of offering arguments – against all expert evidence to the contrary, by the way – that their policies would have a better effect on the economy, they create a publicity stunt in the street and confuse the issue with scare words like “socialism.” But their radical politics seems to have abandoned not only reason and science, but the art of persuasion as well.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So not only are the Republican radicals tilting at windmills, they are doing so against a headwind blowing steadily against them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As to what Republicans can do about this problem, I have little to suggest, other than this: no political party has succeeded without addressing the legitimate concerns of the majority. Right now, those concerns are what got Obama elected, and the majority seems pretty happy with him. The more radical the conservatives look, the smaller a party they will become.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As for the rest of us, there are several reactions that Independents and Democrats can have to this. The first is an equally strong reactive anger. After all, the strategy of blaming Obama for the mess the country is in is like the brother who breaks the TV and blames his sibling who goes to turn it on. It’s easy to get mad a people who are attempting to deflect blame from themselves, especially when they do so with what can appear to be a manufactured sense of outrage. This reaction, however, leads to little more than name-calling and in a way, falls into the trap that right-wing strategist would like to set.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The second is a kind of self-satisfied bemusement. I think of Krugman’s comment, “it’s not nice to make fun of crazy people.” The smart Democrat looks at the radical right <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us/politics/16specter.html?hp">targeting moderates like Arlen Specter</a> for primary defeats and thinks, “hey, let’s just get out of the way and let them self destruct further.” In this case, it’s a little like watching a Risk player double-down on a losing strategy of attacking everyone in sight in order to go out in a blaze of glory. Fun and entertaining as you sit back and let them take themselves out of the game.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think we want to take the third reaction. Which is hope that by educating the Right on the foibles of their strategy, we can help them become saner, more challenging players. When the only ideas radicals have is to blow things up, good luck trying to have any sort of conversation. Sure, Obama has demonstrated he’s perfectly up to tackling and solving these problems on his own. But it’d sure be nice to also take advantage of some pragmatic, realistic ideas based on conservative principals – if only the Right would have some.</p>Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8939853.post-89247495379523047692009-04-01T08:30:00.004-04:002009-04-01T08:56:38.639-04:00Obama Announces Twitter BailoutMacon Phillips, Director of New Media for the White House, announced today that Obama's administration will be supplying a 250 million investment to the founders of Twitter to "promote a beneficial online experience and increased access to Twitter's API stream."<br /><br />Noting that there has been concern that Twitter may be limiting access to its API as preparation for introduction of a business model, Phillips said that it was essential to the improvement of the economy and well being of Americans that Twitter API be unlimited and available for all. "With so many people unemployed, we see Twitter as an essential resource to use up the free time of Americans."<br /><br />Philips was asked if the additional money provided to Twitter at this time would delay the development of a valid business model for Twitter. "We see Twitter as an essential lubricant to the American economy, like banks," said Phillips. "Right now Twitter gets clogged. We need to flush out all the toxic tweets."<br /><br />When asked if it was appropriate for the government to be spending taxpayer money on an internet startup, Phillips replied "we understand from the Twitter founders that the #tcoter's on Twitter are using most of the API. So this bailout will benefit conservatives more than anyone."<br /><br />Phillips said the new money for Twitter would be available immediately. "Yes - today's April 1st. So we'll have that sucker blowing like Old Faithful today!"Martin Schecterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16001489778016516848noreply@blogger.com1