| ThoughtsOnline |
|
Rambling thoughts on who knows what... Because not everything is as the conventional wisdom would have it... BLOGS I SORT OF LIKE... Volokh Conspiracy ProfessorBainbridge MarginalRevolution Patterico Powerline Ace Wizbang JustOneMinute XRLQ Betsy's Page HE WHO USED TO LINK ME EVERY NOW AND THEN InstaPundit Email Steve
|
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Two thoughts come to mind regarding Tom Daschle's not having paid over $100,000 in taxes...
First, what Daschle did wasn't anything out of the ordinary, at least for people who have the ability to do what he did. EVERYBODY (except for a noble few) would like to not have to report and pay taxes on income they receive. For most people, that's hard to do as all of their income is reported to the IRS via W4s and 1099s. For guys like Daschle, who are compensated in all sorts of ways, it is a lot easier to have income that isn't reported. And when one has income that isn't reported, one tends not to report that income. Daschle had an opportunity to get away with something and, but for the scrutiny he received as a Cabinet nominee, would have gotten away with it. Second, just how much money is the guy making and/or just how clueless is he that $83,000 in consulting income went unreported because of a clerical error? Most people know how much they make (within the nearest dollar) and leaving $83,000 off a return ought to have sent up a red flag ('I could have sworn I made more money than that last year').... unless of course, Daschle was making so much money that $83,000 was an insignificant portion of his total income for the year... and if he was, it would show that while he 'could' be excused for not having included a trivial amount of income on his return, he was simply another pig making money off his prior time in Congress. Friday, January 30, 2009
The kerfuffle over Wall Street bonuses (especially as to the bonuses paid by financial firms receiving federal bailout money), corporate jets (Citibank and the Detroit automakers, all recipients in some way of federal rescue funds), corporate outings (AIG, yet another recipient of rescue funds) and lobbying (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two more of a somewhat endless list of firms getting taxpayer money) are all rooted in a combination of (1) the belief that such expenditures are not legitimate and necessary business expenses but instead represent excess spending that shouldn't be taking place and (2) a desire of lawmakers and the public to 'see them suffer' by forcing employees of such firms to take publicly available transportation and do without any type of activity that can be remotely characterized as either celebratory or of rewarding prior performance*.
'Defenders' of such practices (to the extent that anyone dares do so in public) argue that such expenditures are in fact legitimate and that subjecting these companies to such things as caps on executive compensation actually jeopardizes their future as employees denied the ability to take private jets, hold conferences in exotic locales and be paid 7 and 8 figure bonuses are sure to flee to companies that don't labor under the same restrictions. Those who defend such practices as being a business necessity are blowing smoke. N company 'needs' to have a sales conference at a Four Seasons (not even the Four Seasons itself). No company 'needs' their employees to have access to private jets. No company 'needs' to pay for the employees' lunches and dinners. And no company 'needs' pay employees $20 million bonuses. The reason these expenditures get made is that employees (and management, to the extent they are aware of and approve these practices) can get away with it. There's a discreet arrangements between workers and their bosses: employees will take for themselves whatever they can get away with and their bosses agree to look the other way so long as such practices don't go over the top. This holds up and down the line: office workers who 'steal' time by surfing the web during office hours, by those who take office supplies home, by those who order a fancier desk than they need, by those who upgrade themselves to first class when they can get to their destination all of five seconds later if they sat in the back, by those who raid the hotel minibar and have their company pay the tab for the movies they watch while on the road, and by those who schedule company meetings in fancy and expensive places instead of a cheaper place. And the public, being the very people who engage in such activities at their own workplaces, knows it goes on in other companies. They know employees at Wall Street firms are milking their company for company-paid dinners and entertainment, for outings at exotic hotels, for limo service to take them home after work and so on. And while ordinarily the public, being the very people who engage in such activities at their own workplaces, might not care what was going on at some other business, given that the public now OWNS these companies, they feel that they're the ones being taken advantage of... and they don't like it. And that's why there is such strong support for pay caps and forcing companies to do without their private jets and corporate outings. Having said that, it is probably a bad idea to tie their hands too much. All things being equal, employees, especially those with talent, will always go to where the grass is greener. If a bond trader has the choice between Firm A and Firm B and Firm B pays a whole lot more than Firm A, then they're going to be working at Firm B. Over time, Firm A will be staffed by employees who aren't good enough to draw a higher offer from anywhere else and in the cutthroat world of Wall Street, 9 times out of 10, the firm with the less talented employees will find itself suffering relative to its competitors. The public has a choice: we can demand that 'our' employees stop stealing from us but only if we're willing to see those employees depart and leave us worse off. And yes, it is extremely hypocritical for Congress to blast these 'excessive expenditures when they themselves have long conducted their outings at very nice places. Just as no business 'needs' to hold meetings at an expensive resort, Congress doesn't 'need' to hold its outings at such places either. * Yes, that was one long sentence.
Eugene Robinson, who must have dirty picture of someone high up at the Washington Post (how else to explain his having a column when he obviously has so little talent, insight or common sense?) tries to analogize the House GOP's rejection of the stimulus plan to the air traffic controllers going out on strike - and getting fired for having done so - early in Reagan's presidency.
According to Robinson, both the House GOP and PATCO (the air traffic controller's union) fail to recognize that "one political era has given way to the next" and that the GOP is destined to suffer the same fate if they don't start going along with the Democrats. What Robinson fails to recognize is that while the air traffic controllers certainly misjudged the situation, they were bucking their boss, who could - and did - punish them for their unlawful actions. The House GOP on the other hand, while Robinson may wish it were otherwise, doesn't report to Obama, Obama can't fire them if they do something he doesn't like. As Robinson should know, Congressmen report to their constituents and Congressional districts with GOP representatives are full of people who WANTED their representative to vote against the stimulus bill. Demonstrating either his ignorance or a willful disregard of the facts, Robinson writes "it's pretty clear that the GOP caucus has been meeting in a soundproof room" when it is in fact pretty clear that the GOP caucus has been paying attention to the cries of protest they've been hearing from their constituents. And Robinson does this one better, in trying to paint Obama's victory as some kind of "rare fundamental shift in American politics". Well, if that were so, why would less than half of the public support the stimulus bill? How much of a shift could there have been if the public as a whole - and not just conservative voters - think the stimulus bill will either do no good or more harm than help? It's a longstanding tradition for politicians and their supporters to claim a mandate where none exists. And Robinson is trying to do the same now... with just as little support for his claim as Clinton had in 1992 or Bush in 2004. Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Of course, some of us eat at McDonald's because we like the food... the fact that it's cheaper than a five-star restaurant is just icing on the cake.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
The GOP doesn't have the votes to derail the Obama/Democratic 'stimulus' plan. And given the Democrats' longstanding tradition of brushing aside GOP objections and suggestions (the Democrats, unlike the GOP, doesn't care about being 'bipartisan'), the GOP doesn't even have the ability to influence the makeup of the package.
So what should the GOP do? They need to realize that this is but the first skirmish in the election battle of 2010. And while they don't have the votes to win many of these battles, the way they fight these battles will go a long way to determining whether the GOP has a chance of regaining control in 2010. And to do so, the GOP needs to re-establish themselves as responsible stewards of taxpayer money and protectors of the middle class against the unreasonable demands of both those with more money and those with less. They need to paint the Democrats as a combination of corrupt and clueless. While the public has accepted the idea of a stimulus package, they haven't signed off on the Democrats using the situation as a means of sending money to their allies and on causes that don't help middle America. Thus, John Boehner is on the right track ridiculing the Democrats wanting to include money for contraceptives in the stimulus package. The GOP needs to highlight one or two of these types of outlays every day through the day Obama signs the package. They need to reveal the earmarks the Democrats will include; it's a given that there are going to be more 'bridges to nowhere', the GOP needs to find them and expose them to ridicule. Other Republicans need to highlight the CBO report that revealed that only a small fraction of Democratic spending will have an impact before the recession is likely to end. And the GOP needs to continue pushing more aggressive tax cuts for both businesses and the middle class. And the GOP has to refrain from acting like the Democrats, as nothing will undercut their arguments than news that Republican Senators and Congressmen are earmarking funds for their pet projects. On the national security front, the Republicans need to declare their opposition to Obama's initiatives (which pretty much consist of doing things opposite of the way Bush was doing them). The GOP needs to declare its opposition to closing Guantanamo and bringing the detainees to the United States (doing so is a no-lose for the GOP: if nothing bad happens, fine, it won't be a campaign issue, but if, God forbid, something goes wrong, the GOP is well positioned). The GOP needs to introduce, on no less than a monthly basis, new legislation to toughen up one aspect or another of our national security apparatus, going beyond whatever it is that Obama proposes. Yes, the legislation won't go anywhere, but again, should something bad happen, I'd rather be on the side that proposed a tougher approach than the party that went with the 'softer' approach. Friday, January 23, 2009
Neil Barofsky, an official at the Treasury Department is going to ask banks what they did with the money they received from the federal government.
Does Barofsky not realize that money is fungible? It's not like asking someone to account for how they spent their paycheck. An individual tends to have a single source of cash and a relatively small number of uses for that money. Banks, on the other hand, have the thousands of sources (depositors, trading partners, etc.) and tens of thousands of uses (payroll, fixed operations, payments to trading partners, lending). When a bank takes in a deposit (or, in the case of the TARP money, money from the federal government), they don't tag that money and follow it. They don't tell their employees that their paychecks came from depositors #AC543 and #DR876.... because they don't know where the money came from. They don't tell their borrowers that money for those loans came from borrowers #567333 and #984333 paying back their loans... because they don't know if that is 'where' the money came from. Ah... but maybe Barofsky knows that tracking the use of funds on a transaction by transaction basis is a fool's errand and what he's really looking for is a funds flow statement (the financial statement that tracks uses and sources of cash on an aggregate basis). Such a statement would show if a given bank increased its loans outstanding in an amount that matched the amount of money that it received from the federal government. Well, setting aside my question of why he would need to specifically request that information, as every public company has to produce that information on a timely basis, even if it turns out that banks haven't increased their loan portfolio in an amount equal to the money they received from the government, that would merely be a symptom of the real problem. Without the TARP money, banks didn't have money to lend. With the TARP money, they now have money to lend, they just don't think there are a lot of credit worthy borrowers out there... at least not enough to 'use' up all of the money they got from the federal government. And you might think that, having previously gotten in trouble lending money to people and businesses who were unable to pay back their loans, the Treasury Department would applaud banks instituting tougher lending requirement, of taking a less-rosy view of a particular borrower's capability and intent to repay the loans. Isn't it a good thing for banks to not shovel money out the door to everybody who comes in with a questionable appraisal and a lack of documentation of their income? Isn't it a good thing that it takes a bit more to approve a loan than a borrower saying "I've got a great idea for a business, let me have $1mm, you can trust me to pay it back"? But that would make sense... and making sense is just not important to those in Washington who feel the need to interfere in what they know little - if anything - about.
A girl's high school basketball team that won its last game by a score of 100-0 is being criticized for the margin of victory... but the real problem isn't that they won by 100 points, it is that they were even playing such an inferior team.
Matchups such as this don't do either team any good. If the better team continues to play hard, they win in a blow out and are criticized for being poor sports while the losing team gets humiliated. But if the better team hits the brakes, while the score is less lopsided, the result is the same - the inferior team still gets humiliated and the better team still looks like jerks. It's no fun - for either team - playing in a game where one team won't shoot until the last two seconds of the shot clock or will only shoot after everybody on the team has touched the ball three times a possession or will only shoot one type of shot. And on the other end of the court, it's no fun - for either team - playing in a game where the better team won't play defense or, even worse, just pretends to play defense. It's embarrassing when one team blows out another, but it's just as embarrassing having your opponent play with one hand tied behind their back. Absent an official 'mercy rule' which ends the game early, there is no miracle cure that will keep one team from having its nose rubbed in the dirt... and the other team feeling just as bad for being the ones doing the rubbing. Thursday, January 22, 2009
Firing former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain from his new position at Bank of America because of surprise losses at Merrill Lynch either doesn't go far enough... or it goes too far.
If BofA's position is that Thain knew that Merrill's losses were higher (or likely to be higher) and didn't disclose that relevant and material information to Bank of America during the course of the negotiations to sell Merrill to BofA, information that would have had a direct bearing on the amount BofA would be willing to pay for Merrill Lynch (if not scuttle the entire deal?), isn't that the textbook definition of securities fraud? If so, Thain ought to have the SEC and the Justice Department breathing down his neck. Or if BofA is claiming that while Thain might not have had actual knowledge of the additional losses he should have known of and told BofA about those losses, then according to the theory pushed by the SEC and Justice Department in going after and jailing, among others, former WorldCom Chairman Bernie Ebbers, then that is also securities fraud and Thain ought to be packing his toothbrush and heading off to prison. But if Bank of America isn't alleging that Thain knew of these additional losses, and if they are not alleging that he had a duty to know of those losses, then why are they forcing him out? Everybody knew that Merrill Lynch was in terrible shape and was desperately seeking to avoid going under like Lehman Brother. Is BofA jettisoning Thain because Merrill's accountants underestimated the extent of just how bad off Merrill was? Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Boy, if the market keeps going up at the same rate it did for Obama's first full day in office for the remainder of his term, just $1 of what I have invested will grow to a level that will allow me to not only retire in style but to pay off the entire (existing) federal debt.... No thanks necessary, I'm all about sharing my good fortune with others.
As this post puts it, while it is critical to properly diagnose the economy before prescribing a cure, it is even more important to properly identify the patient and the degree to which they're ailing.
For all of the talk about the 'economy' and the 'market', neither exists as an entity in and of itself. They are simply 'us'. 'We' are the market, 'we' are the economy. And as such, the market and economy reflect 'us' in that they move based on how we feel about ourselves: when we are feeling good, the 'market' goes up and the 'economy' goes up. And the market and the economy go down when we're not feeling so good. Given the drop in both the economy and the market, it's clear that we're not feeling too good about ourselves. But we shouldn't be acting like we're in such bad shape... because 'we' are not in bad shape. Sure 'some' of us lack jobs, some of us have houses that we're in danger of losing for one reason or another, some of us work at companies that are in some degree of financial trouble, some of us lack health insurance and some of us aren't as healthy as we would like to be. But those people are in the minority of 'us'. The majority of 'us' are in fine shape. Our jobs are reasonably secure (especially the millions of us who work for some level of government; for all the talk about government cutbacks, a government job is just about the most secure job one can hope for). We're making our mortgage payments and our houses are worth more than what we owe. Most of the companies we work for are in decent shape and profitable (while profits are dropping, for most companies, they haven't dropped into negative territory). And most of us aren't going to drop dead next week or have to suffer through an illness or an injury because we can't find a doctor to take care of us. 'Our' problems are a cold, a sprained foot, an upset stomach, but it is not cancer. So why are 'we' acting like the end is near, like we've all been given the news that we have but weeks to live? This is not to diminish the plight of those in trouble, but the rest of us CAN NOT let them drag us all down. We can not let their plight blind us to the fact that most of us are in good shape, financially, physically and mentally. We can not - in trying to help - create a situation where we're all worse off. 'We' need to start acting like the reasonably secure and well off people that we still are. 'We' meed to buy the cars we can afford and take the vacations we can afford and buy the big screen TVs we can afford. And 'we' need to tell all the naysayers (the Rahm Emmanuels who don't want to waste a good crisis and the talking heads on TV who thrive on fear) to shut the f*** up, that we're not going to let them tell us we're in bad shape when we're not. And the sooner we start acting like we're not in such bad shape, the faster 'we' will be able to help those who really are in sorry shape.
Watching and reading all of the inauguration stuff (and having to pay $2 for the 'special' edition of the Washington Post!), as much as I am not thrilled about Obama, I keep repeating to myself that it could have been worse, much worse... but for Obama, Hillary Clinton would have been moving back into the White House yesterday.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
In 2000 and 2004, there was lots of complaining that Bush had no mandate, that just as many, if not more, people had voted against Bush as for him. There were lots of complaining from people that Bush was ignoring them and their interests. And there were complaints about the costs of the inauguration, especially while we were at war, and how security for the inauguration inconvenienced many people.
In 2008, there's not much of anything along these lines. So what is it? Are Republicans just better behaved than Democrats? Or do they just lack the media outlet and sympathy for voicing their complaints? Or are they in such sad shape that they lack the voice with which to complain and object to whatever it is that Obama is going to do? Me thinks the latter. I see John Cornyn holding up Hillary Clinton's nomination on an issue that NOBODY really cares about (note to Cornyn: if you're going to take a stand, do it on an issue that the American people will support you. Otherwise, you just look like an idiot). I see no coherent opposition to the almost-trillion dollar 'stimulus' bill the Democrats are putting together. If indeed America is still a center-right country, it ought to be fairly easy to mobilize public opinion against much of what the Democrats are proposing to do. Unfortunately, I don't see the GOP doing much.
I'll use Israel's recent foray into Gaza, widely viewed as a success, in Gaza to illustrate what I think Bush should have done in Iraq...
Israel had some grand - and unachievable - goals. Israel would have liked to finish off Hamas and replace it with a government friendly to Israel and totally supportive of Israel's right to exist... but that wasn't going to happen. So instead of chasing after windmills, Israel limited itself to accomplishing what it could accomplish: a major degradation of Hamas's ability to strike at Israel, elimination of several high-ranking Hamas officials, killing a whole lot of Hamas terrorists, eliminating the tunnels Hamas uses to smuggle arms into Gaza, destroying facilities Hamas used to attack Israel, and causing Hamas to lose face (by doing such a bad job of fighting back against the Israelis) among the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world. As a result, the Israelis limited their losses and expenditures. By not sticking around, they didn't lose the (limited) support they had by turning themselves into occupiers. By keeping things simple, they didn't jeopardize Israeli public support for going after Hamas. Now contrast that with Bush's actions with Iraq. He could have gone in, gotten rid of Hussein, found and destroyed whatever there was of Hussein's WMDs and left Iraq to the Iraqis to sort out. And just as Israel has preserved for itself the right to attack Hamas again and again if they don't get their act together, so too could Bush have sent troops and air strikes into Iraq over and over if whoever replaced Hussein resorted to Hussein's old habits. Had Bush taken this approach, over 3,000 more Americans would be living today and tens of thousands of our soldiers wouldn't be missing arms and legs and parts of their brains. Had he done so, we would have saved somewhere north of $500 billion. Had he done so, our military wouldn't have been stretched so thin and our efforts in Afghanistan wouldn't have had to take a back seat to Iraq. Had he done so, the Democrats would have had to look for something else to attack him on. Had he done so, he wouldn't have fed the Muslim view that we were occupiers. Had he done so, our international reputation wouldn't have taken such a hit. But no, he had to chase after windmills, he had to chase the unattainable. And for all the talk about Bush 'winning' in Iraq, the fact remains that while he has indeed won the military fight (which,, for all the naysaying, was never in doubt), he still hasn't accomplished what he set out to do: turn Iraq into an ally of ours, supportive of our interests and our friends (the Iraqi support for Hamas is illustrative of how Bush has missed on this goal) and an ally in the war against terror (while Iraq may not be an active participant in planning and supporting terrorist attacks, they are no where near being a supporter of the fight against terror). Put another way, Bush wasted hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives to accomplish nothing more than he could have accomplished with a whole lot less money and military losses. That's not winning. And this is my last post on Bush... he's gone and good riddance...
Howard Kurtz finally reports what has been evident for quite some time: Time and Newsweek have abandoned their once traditional practice of providing straight news coverage to readers in favor of a more partisan cheerleading of liberal causes.
And note the absence of any kicking and screaming from reporters and editors objecting to becoming arms of the Democratic Party. Note the lack of criticism of an approach that drops (the pretense of) being neutral reporters in favor of becoming open advocates of liberal programs and politicians. Of course, the reason for the lack of noise is because this is what the MSM has always wanted. They've chafed at restrictions imposed by old tired journalistic norms that required them to present both sides of a debate, to avoid favoring one side over another. They got into this business, not because they wanted to present the Who, What, When, Where and Whys, but because they wanted to use their platform to 'make a difference' (with 'difference' being defined as criticizing anything and everything 'conservative'). So now, reporters get to do openly what they've had to be secretive about in the past. No more having to use subtlety to get a point across, no more hoping readers read between the lines to get the partisan point the reporter was trying to make. But while reporters are getting what they want (not only in the pages of Time and Newsweek but elsewhere throughout what we call the MSM), they will find it a Pyrrhic victory: they're gaining their freedom but losing their ability to influence the public. By becoming openly partisan, they're going to lose (and are losing) the readers (of all slices of the political spectrum, but predominately those to their right) who want their news played up the middle, who were willing to put up with the subtle partisanship but aren't going to subscribe to - or read - what has become no different than openly partisan publications such as The New Republic. And with these reader losses, the MSM loses the ability to influence people who aren't already sold on the liberal program. Sure, the readers they have left, being of the liberal persuasion, will eat up the advocacy, but that's simply preaching to the choir. Monday, January 19, 2009
It's time to say goodbye and thanks to Bush.
Thanks for the tax cuts, but not for your lack of effort in making them permanent. Thanks for getting rid of Hussein, but not for your wasting hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives sticking around pursuing your pipe dream of turning Iraq into an ally of ours. Thanks for keeping Al Gore and John Kerry from becoming President, but not for screwing things up so badly that the GOP become all but irrelevant (I know other Republicans contributed, but it never would have happened had you shown the least bit of leadership). Thanks for raising the alarm over Fannie and Freddie, but not for completely abandoning the fight in the face of Democratic opposition. Thanks for including Iran in the 'Axis of Evil', but not for your doing nothing while they moved ahead on the nuclear program. Thanks for declaring war on terrorism, but not for doing so much to undermine that war. Thanks for nominating Roberts and Alito, but not for doing so little to advance the other judicial nominations that Congress blocked. And (note the sarcasm) thanks for the huge increases in federal spending, the continued nationalization of our school system, the expansion of entitlements, your pathetic disregard of the need to persuade the American people to support your policies, your attempts to open the borders and provide amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants, your opening up the federal checkbook, first in response to Katrina (it isn't the nation's responsibility to rebuild local communities) and then in response to the financial crisis (how you let Paulson convince you that it was in America's interest to save his cronies from collapse is something I'll never understand). Friday, January 16, 2009
The WSJ editorial page praises Bush for achieving "...the one big thing he and all Americans demanded of his Administration. Not a single man, woman or child has been killed by terrorists on U.S. soil since the morning of September 11".
Does the WSJ not consider this 2006 attack to be terrorism, where one person was killed and a number of others were wounded by a Muslim "upset about "what was going on in Israel"? Or what about this 2002 attack at Los Angeles International Airport where an Egyptian killed two here two Americans in an attack that any non-PC hamstrung person would have called terrorism?
As the stock market moves in correlation with the prospects of the Treasury Department getting its hands on the remaining $350 billion in TARP money. Every time it looked as if the funds were going to be held up (or serious restrictions placed on their use), the stock market went down.
Well... with a large part of stock trading being done by traders at banks and other financial firms in line to receive large chunks of the bailout funds, my inner skeptic has to ask: To what extent were these traders driving down the market in order to scare Congress into releasing the money? Wednesday, January 14, 2009
In the days after 9/11, there was some talk that our habit of freely using the word 'hero' in describing run of the mill activity diminished the true heroism of the firefighters who went into the WTC and those in the military who risk their lives trying to protect us from our enemies.
The same was said of the overuse of the word 'holocaust' in describing events that, while certainly unpleasant, simply did not rise to the level of the German attempt to exterminate the Jews and other 'undesirables' during WWII. By throwing around the words 'hero' and 'holocaust' so freely, we not only diminished the significance of real heroism and the Holocaust, we also elevated run of the mill activity to a level those activities simply did just earn. Well.... I think the same is happening with the word 'torture'. To me, torture is not simply being unpleasant to someone, it is causing them extreme pain and for no purpose other than satisfying the sadistic urges of the 'torturer'. Unfortunately, critics of the Bush Administration have succeeded in defining 'torture' down by labeling as torture pretty much everything that makes a detainee unhappy. And even worse, the Bush Administration has now thrown in the towel by agreeing to define torture down. This isn't about whether one feels we should use 'torture' to gain information to prevent terrorist attacks, it is about using the word properly. Cutting off a detainee's testicles or fingers is torture, sticking him in a cold room isn't. Sticking a broomstick up their rear end is torture, taking away their clothes isn't. Beating them with baseball bats is torture, keeping them up at night isn't. Not tucking them into a warm bed with a full tummy isn't torture, nor is flushing a Koran down a toilet. Saturday, January 10, 2009
I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb to say that the factors that come into play when people decide the extent to which they are willing to help someone else include:
* How close they are to one another. People are usually more willing to help out family than they are strangers and they're more willing to help out friends than they are enemies. * The degree to which someone thinks someone else is responsible for the trouble they find themselves in. People are usually more willing to help out 'innocent' victims than they are people who are facing the negative consequences of their own actions. * The degree to which helping someone out negatively impacts their own lives. People are far more willing to help out someone if the 'cost' of doing so is either negligible to themselves or borne by someone else entirely. And of the three, the one that matters the most is the last, the 'cost' of helping out. No matter how close one is to someone in need, and no matter how 'innocent' they are, there's a limit to how much the prospective donor is going to be willing to help out. For example, the Israelis are fine with helping out 'innocent' Palestinians (for example, by not firing near schools and hospitals), but only up to the point where doing so threatens their own security and well-being (Hamas uses those schools and hospitals as bases to attack Israeli forces). In that case, the 'cost' of helping out becomes too high and the Israelis will (reasonably and justifiably) forget about 'helping' the Palestinians in favor or protecting themselves and their own families. Another example is the public support of helping out those in risk of losing their homes to foreclosure. The public is fine with such efforts, but only so long as those efforts aren't seen as hurting the value of their own homes. And a twist of the last factor is the willingness of people to view help as not a cost but a benefit, such as the way some people justify giving on the basis that doing so makes them feel better about themselves. This is why proponents of any government aid program market the program as a combination of (1) a benefit to people who are in trouble through no fault of their own and (2) a benefit to ALL of America, and not just those directly receiving the government handout. For example, proponents of aiding help those at risk of losing their homes to foreclosure never portray the homeowner at fault, it is always the fault of the mortgage broker, Wall Street and the corrupt and incompetent Bush Administration. And proponents look to convince the public (i.e, all those not at risk of losing their house) that these relief programs, such as giving bankruptcy judges the power to revise mortgage terms, will somehow be a benefit to all of us. The Bush Administration tried (and for the most part, failed) to do the same with their bailout of Wall Street and other financial institutions. Realizing that there was no way they could portray Wall Street as an innocent victim deserving of relief, the Bush Administration pushed the argument that their efforts weren't aimed so much as bailing out Wall Street as it was to protect Main Street from economic ruin. With his own livelihood at stake, the Bush Administration figured, how could Joe Taxpayer oppose sending billions and billions of dollars to Wall Street? And Obama is going to do the same thing with his stimulus plan, he's going to try and persuade us that his plan will help ALL of us. In order to do so, he - like the Bush Administration when they bailed out Wall Street - is going to depict ALL of America at being of risk of economic collapse if his programs aren't enacted. Of course, the problem with this is that these politicians are selling us 'stone soup', the only ones who benefit are those receiving the handout. Try as they might to convince us otherwise, bailing out delinquent homeowners doesn't help out those who either have no mortgage or who are paying their mortgage on time. Bailing out Treasury Secretary Paulson's Wall Street buddies (for example, by guaranteeing they wouldn't lose money due to AIG's inability to satisfy its obligations to provide billions in collateral) didn't help me in the least. And Obama's plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in 'stimulus' outlays isn't going to help me... at least not to the extent it is going to hurt in terms of higher taxes and interest rates in the future. Now, if you're one of the people who are underwater with your house, or if you're someone who figures on being on the receiving end of the stimulus spending (construction company, lobbyist, etc), I completely understand you being in favor of government action. And I hope you understand that you'll have to do without my support. Friday, January 09, 2009
Even though I usually disagreed with him on the substance, I always gave Bill Clinton credit while he was President for recognizing the value in keeping himself in front of the public and doing so in ways that conveyed 'Hey, I'm on your side". It seemed that hardly a day would pass without Clinton offering up his views on X or Y or pledging that the government would look into A or B. While a fair amount was of the trivial variety, and even though Clinton offered more than he ever delivered, to the people who cared about X or Y or A or B, Clinton's statements connected with them and, in my mind, contributed to Clinton's high approval ratings.
Then along came Bush who, for whatever reason, thought it unnecessary to maintain the same sense of camaraderie with the public. No 'I feel your pain' moments, no sense of making people think he understood what they were going through on a day to day basis. Note: Bush's high point came when he put his arm around the shoulders of the fireman at Ground Zero. That may have been the last time he ever gave the public a chance to see him as the nice guy his supporters claim he is. And now comes Obama who, to his credit, is picking up where Clinton left off, in announcing his desire to see a playoff system in college football and announcing that the FCC should delay the conversion to all-digital TV because not enough people have yet bought the digital converters they'll need to keep getting a picture on their old analog TV sets. While I think that Obama ought to have bigger fish to fry (what with the economy in bad shape, terrorism still a problem and all that), I like college football they way it is (actually, I liked it better before the BCS) and I don't know why the federal government needs to be giving people money to upgrade their TV sets, I give him credit for making an effort to connect with the American public, to letting us know he's not a guy who plans on hiding out in the White House, oblivious to what the rest of us are doing and going through. Thursday, January 08, 2009
Bush got all kinds of flak for 'playing the fear card' by claiming the country would be less safe if he didn't get the support he said he needed to carry out the fight against terrorism.
Obama employs the very same tactic in warning "of dire consequences without stimulus"... with nary a peep of criticism from either the right or the left. The Secret Service dictates that all bridges from Virginia into Washington will be closed to private traffic... with nary a peep of criticism from those who previously criticized Bush's power grabs, or from those who screamed every time the Secret Service closed traffic so Bush or Cheney or some other Bush Administration figure traveled around Washington. Nancy Pelosi announces plans to toss aside rules limiting the power of the majority party... with nary a peep of criticism from those who jumped at every chance to criticize the GOP for what they described as naked power grabs. Harry Reid announces his intent to ignore the law by refusing to allow Burris to take Obama's now vacant Senate seat... with nary a peep of criticism from those who decried (what they viewed as) the Bush Administration's ignoring of the law. And Norm Coleman is urged to concede and not contest the election by the very same people who had no problem in 2000 when Gore used every legal trick at his disposal. Yeah, there's a double standard at play here, a Democrats routinely do what they have long criticized Republicans for doing. But so what? Complaining about it won't help the GOP win any elections. Those who are truly upset by such antics are already solidly in the GOP ranks and voters who make up the prized muddled middle that determines who wins just doesn't care about inside-the-Beltway antics. The GOP (comprising of the 'official' GOP, as well as the bloggers and conservative pundits and writers that make up the 'unofficial' GOP) needs to realize that they have only so much air time in which to make their pitch to the American people... and it is silly to spend any of that time complaining about a double standard. The GOP needs to put forth consistent and coherent arguments for why its policies would be better for the country than what the Democrats are offering. Contrary to what the Democrats might like to believe, the country isn't sold on what they're offering... and every time a GOP figure shows up on TV to complain about some relatively petty squabble, they're missing an opportunity to convince a skeptical American public that the Democrat's ideas are wrong. Of course, if the GOP doesn't anything of substance to offer, I guess it's better to complain about how mean the Democrats are rather than sitting and doing nothing... but it ain't as good as actually having and touting the merits of a honest-go-god plan for getting things better. Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Metaphorically speaking, Fortune writer Adam Lashinsky knows not what he speaks, evidenced by his writing that "Metaphorically speaking, Google is killing the newspaper industry. Online news is quickly hollowing out the traditional paper - the Christian Science Monitor eliminates its print edition, Tribune Co. declares bankruptcy, Detroit's two dailies slash home delivery to three days a week - while Google rakes in advertising profits".
Yes, a lot of newspapers are in trouble, and yes, Google rakes in advertising dollars, but most of the trouble facing newspapers has very little to do with Google. Put another way, were Google to not exist, newspapers would still be facing a troublesome future. Let's start with his reference to the two Detroit dailies. Their troubles go back to well before 1987, when they entered into a joint operating agreement in an effort to keep themselves from going under... and in 1987, Sergy Brin and Larry Page, Google's two founders, were both all of 14 years old and Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, was still working at Sun. And ever since then, the two papers have done a p*** poor job of figuring out a way of making money. Yeah, let's blame the problems the Detroit papers have on Google. And while newspapers are suffering a big drop in advertising revenues, relatively little of Google's revenues would have otherwise gone to newspapers; businesses buying key words from Google were not - and if Google wasn't around, wouldn't be - candidates for advertising in major metropolitan newspapers. Think about it: how many of the vendors buying space on the right side or buying a 'Sponsored Link' at the top of any given Google search page were big advertisers in their local papers? Newspapers are losing advertising revenue in large part for three reasons: One, because classified advertising has moved to places like Craigslist (why spend hundreds of dollars for a Washington Post classified job ad that runs for all of three days when you can pay less than $50 for a listing on Craigslist and without having to get the ad copy in by noon on Friday to guarantee a run in that Sunday's paper? Why pay the Post even $50 for an ad with which to sell your old car when you can list it for free on Craigslist?) Two, newspapers are losing revenue as declining circulations lower the amount newspapers can charge for ads from the advertisers still interested in advertising in a newspaper. And while one reason circulation is dropping is more people are getting their news from alternative sources (network TV, cable news, faux news programs and, yes, the Internet), Google, despite dropping a ton of money on the effort, is but a bit player in this area. Third, the bad economy, which has made advertisers that much stingier with their ad dollars has also hurt newspapers, especially in areas, such as Detroit, where the local economy is - and has been for a long time - in real bad shape... is Google to get 'credit' for this as well? I'm all for giving Google credit for what they've done... convincing people that their search model is better than anything else out there and figuring a way of monetizing search. But they're not gods, just about everything else they've attempted to do has yet to turn a profit (what kind of return are they getting for their $1.6 billion purchase of YouTube? on their investment in Google Earth?), and they're not responsible for the poor health of newspapers. Giving them credit (explicitly or implicitly) for such is ridiculous.
A common mistake many reporters make when writing about business is not understanding the difference between a business that is in trouble because its business operations are losing money (such as is the case with GM, Ford and Chrysler), a business that is in trouble because its operations are profitable but not profitable enough to cover its debts (such as is the case with the Tribune company), and a business that is in trouble only because its operations are profitable, and profitable enough to cover its debt service, but not profitable enough to satisfy its ownership (such as is the case with Dell Computer, where Michael Dell has just replaced another set of executives because they weren't successful enough).
An example of this is found in this article that concludes that because the NYT is having trouble coming up with the money to meet its debt service, the NYT is facing the elimination of, at a minimum, its print editions. But why conclude this? The NYT remains a profitable company, albeit not as profitable as it was pre-Internet and pre-economic trouble. And it's possible that the NYT can emerge intact from its troubles as a more streamlined operation and with a profitable print edition. However, in order to scrounge up money to cover its debt obligations, ownership will look to sell off profitable pieces of the empire and will take other short term steps to raise capital that harm the long term outlook of the company. In other words, they'll probably kill the company trying to save themselves. Ownership can 'save' the NYT... but in order to do that, ownership will have to sacrifice its perks (management control) by handing over equity to its creditors. Were the NYT to do so, eliminating its debt and the accompanying debt service, its profits would be sufficient to allow it to stay in business for a long time to come. But ownership won't do that, they care more about their pockets than they care about the NYT as an institution. It's a reasonable position to have, but maybe we can stop hearing the false claims that management is only looking to protect the NYT; they're looking to protect something all right, but it's not the NYT. Tuesday, January 06, 2009
With Hamas using schools and mosques and hospitals to store weapons and as bases to fire at Israel, there's the inevitable hand-wringing over the loss of 'innocent life' when Israel strikes at these compounds, such as happened today when a number of Palestinian 'civilians' were killed when Israeli forces fired at schools from which mortars were being fired.
But unless these supposedly innocent Palestinians were forced at gunpoint to be there, unless they couldn't leave, I don't consider them innocents. By staying where they are, by not running away as fast as they could from the buildings and neighborhoods that are being used by Hamas, these supposed 'civilians' have declared themselves full-fledged supporters of Hamas's attacks on Israelis. They know what Hamas is doing, they know that their presence helps protect Hamas terrorists from Israeli retaliation. There's not much more one can do to earn the label of 'terrorist supporter' than provide shelter to a terrorist. I don't care that these Palestinians would have to leave their homes and neighborhoods. If a criminal came into my house, intending to use it to shoot at passing cars, I'd be out the back door as fast as I could get away. I'd grab the kids and the car keys and I'd be gone... and I wouldn't be back until the criminals were gone. The last thing I would want to do is stay and subject myself and my family to danger, whether from the criminals or as collateral damage from the inevitable police response. And if I had to hit the road, to stay with friends or pitch a tent, so be it, that would be a small price to pay for both keeping my family safe and not providing a terrorist with a safe haven. And if I stayed, knowing that my presence made it harder for the police to move in? I'd have forfeited any right I might have had that the police take my and my family's safety into account when planning their assault against the criminals. Paraphrasing Bush from seven long years ago, by not being against the terrorists, these 'civilians' are with the terrorists. And if you're with the terrorists, don't expect me to shed tears over your demise.
In yesterday's WSJ, Max Boot argues that Israel can not muster the will needed to win its fight against Hamas (and unstated, against Hezbollah as well).
Boot attributes Israel's lack of resolve to do what is necessary to win to its being a 'liberal democracy', that unlike regimes such as Russia, Syria and Burma, Israel's "military operations are conducted under the intense scrutiny of lawyers, judges, opposition politicians, reporters and human-rights activists..." as well as "the "international community," which monitors Israeli actions with a degree of interest and antipathy reserved for no other state in the world" that together limit Israel's military options in dealing with its enemies. Boot is right that Israel has tied one hand behind its back but misidentifies the culprit. It isn't the 'international community' that is forcing Israel into using less-then-effective tactics in fighting Hamas, the real reason is that Israel really doesn't view Hamas or Hezbollah as threats to Israel's continued existence. Sure, Hamas makes life hell for Israelis in parts of southern Israel. And Israel knows that Hamas and Hezbollah would like nothing more than to get rid of Israel altogether. But deep down, Israel doesn't believe that either group presents an imminent danger to Israel's existence. Israel views Hamas and Hezbollah as nuisances, as (unlike Teddy Roosevelt) speaking loudly and carrying a little stick, as pests to be dealt with with flyswatters as opposed to real threats that justify using every weapon in Israel's arsenal. It's not that Israel is hampered by 'there's only so much we can do' it's more that they feel that 'there's only much we should do in going after Hamas, given that much of Israel (as well as practically no one among the 'international community') doesn't connect the dots from A to B, where A is Hamas lobbing rockets into southern Israel and B is Israel (at least the Jewish Israelis) having to flee Israel or being wiped out in a nuclear attack. The big question: what will it take for Israel to view Hamas and Hezbollah as real threats, and if and when that day comes, would Israel finally take off the gloves.... and regardless of the criticism they'd receive from the 'international community'? Monday, January 05, 2009
John Bolton's proposal to have Egypt and Jordan take control of, respectively, Gaza and the West Bank in order to restore peace and stability to the region assumes facts not in evidence and thus won't work...
He assumes that Egypt and Jordan will want to and will be successful in controlling the terrorists. But why? As has long been demonstrated, Egypt and Jordan benefit from Palestinian attacks on Israel, as it gives the hard-line an outlet for their anger which otherwise could and would be directed at Egypt and Jordan themselves. Why would Egypt and Jordan want to assume control of Gaza and the West Bank if doing so obligated them to take action against Hamas? Why would they want their citizens, anti-Israeli to the core, angry that they are protecting Israel? He also assumes that Egypt and Jordan would assimilate the Palestinians into their economies and societies. But the Palestinians aren't Egyptians or Jordanians. The Egyptians and Jordanians don't want to have anything to do with the Palestinians, except as convenient outlets for anti-Israeli activities (i.e., terrorist attacks on Israel). Unlike, for example, East and West Germany, where there was a strong desire on both sides for reunification, there isn't any such sentiment in Egypt, Jordan or the Palestinian territories. There's no benefit to either Egypt or Jordan for assuming control of Gaza and the West Bank. And the biggest flaw in his thinking? Assuming that Israel would agree to this, even though it would be about the worst thing Israel could do. Why would Israel assume that Egypt and Jordan would take action against Hamas? As I pointed out above, there's no evidence that they would do so, or that they would be more effective at doing so than Israel is. And if Egypt and Jordan failed to take action against Hamas, Israel would be in a much worse position than they are now, where they have pretty much free rein to conduct their operations against the Palestinians. Israel would have to either absorb the continuing attacks or risk attacking Egyptian or Jordanian 'territory' and turning what is now a relatively isolated operation into the regional war that everybody professes to be so scared of. All in all, not a good idea from Mr. Bolton....
|