It takes a lot more than money, believe it or not, to keep up a plutocracy. One of those things is fake public opinion perceptions. The days of buying that appear to be numbered, if Rachel Maddow's performance is any indication. Her treatment is worthy of any college course on statistics or social science.
The progressive community has railed for many many years about the pernicious effect of "push polling" -- a poll designed to influence the results that the pollers want to see. But only Rachel can boil it down and slice and dice it like this (with the help of the inestimable and uncompromising Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com):
I have nothing more to say:
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Friday, October 09, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Oh my god: Katie Couric Does It Again
This is chilling. Just chilling. Glenn Beck rants about "white culture" and then can't explain it in an unedited interview. Katie can show some brass when she wants to.
Blackwashing: by Stephen Colbert
This just cannot be seen enough:
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| ||||
Sunday, September 20, 2009
NPR & PBS: Who Are We Fooling?
NPR and PBS both have turned themselves into corporate ad channels -- locally and nationally every hour of programming contains probably 6 to 10 minutes of corporate and foundation promos -- we're not stupid, we know it's advertising.
So let's not pretend that PBS is the BBC.
If someone will point to Fox News and the corporate media bias and stand up for public broadcasting, then there should be NO corporate sponsorship in exchange for public grants for PBS and NPR. I know, I know... but this is what we could have if we elected BETTER and more Democrats, hell just plain more liberals.
With the Republican party imploding, lets face it, what will be left is "Conservative Democrats" and "Liberal Democrats." Oh, and a Republican fringe along with the Greens, LaRouche, Libertarians, etc.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Rachel Maddow: She Doesn't Want It. (Oh & Ridge Is A Good Guy)
For many months I've been saying Rachel Maddow (Dr. Rachel Maddow, that's Rachel Maddow, Ph.D, Rhodes Scholar, Stanford undergrad) would make an excellent choice for the chair of NBC's Sunday's Meet The Press. NBC has a major coup in her recruitment. She slices and dices the politics and the politicians of the day nightly on MSNBC.
In these crazy times, anyone to the left of Attila the Hun is labeled a "liberal" and biased. Not true of Maddow. I've long said, so long as someone is honest about their opinions, that's all I need in any reporter.
I'm convinced after tonight's ASTOUNDING interview of Tom Ridge that Rachel Maddow doesn't see herself with a future of the chair of Meet The Press. I say this tonight because of how she concluded her brilliant, civil, 3-part interview of the deeply human -- and deeply flawed -- Tom Ridge, a man deserving of any reasonable person's respect.
Rachel plants a flag at the end of the interview - her own flag. Like Odysseus escaping the Cyclops & revealing his true identity, she can't resist laying out her own analysis, which is great for her current program, but on a huge "get" like Ridge, seems misplaced if she were at all thinking about showing her chops for a future as a master interviewer on a larger stage. She is already a master interviewer - nobody's given her the job yet. But she's capable. Tonight, though, it seemed to me she's comfortable in her chair as commentator.
(The entire interview is very very worth watching, once it is posted. As of right now, it happened about an hour ago and the conclusion on which I base my post is all that seems to be posted yet).
In these crazy times, anyone to the left of Attila the Hun is labeled a "liberal" and biased. Not true of Maddow. I've long said, so long as someone is honest about their opinions, that's all I need in any reporter.
I'm convinced after tonight's ASTOUNDING interview of Tom Ridge that Rachel Maddow doesn't see herself with a future of the chair of Meet The Press. I say this tonight because of how she concluded her brilliant, civil, 3-part interview of the deeply human -- and deeply flawed -- Tom Ridge, a man deserving of any reasonable person's respect.
Rachel plants a flag at the end of the interview - her own flag. Like Odysseus escaping the Cyclops & revealing his true identity, she can't resist laying out her own analysis, which is great for her current program, but on a huge "get" like Ridge, seems misplaced if she were at all thinking about showing her chops for a future as a master interviewer on a larger stage. She is already a master interviewer - nobody's given her the job yet. But she's capable. Tonight, though, it seemed to me she's comfortable in her chair as commentator.
(The entire interview is very very worth watching, once it is posted. As of right now, it happened about an hour ago and the conclusion on which I base my post is all that seems to be posted yet).
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Rachel Maddow: Pulling Their Pants Down
For my friend Denny.
Rachel Maddow is an angel dancing on the head of the pin that is U.S. politics. She has earned her own show on MSNBC at 9PM ET. She is easily the smartest commentator on television, and not surprisingly, she is an unapologetic progressive. Do you think Glen Beck has her credentials? Do you think Lou Dobbs has her credentials? Rush Limbaugh? The other blow-hard entertainers? Rachel Maddow has serious horsepower under the hood:
Yeah that's right. She competes and sometimes beats LARRY KING in the 9PM time slot. And she's the smartest person in all of politics, actually, except of course the universally praised for his intellect, Chairman of the House Banking Committee, Rep. Barney Frank (and yes, it's purely coincidence that they're both openly gay).
She's a Rhodes Scholar, like Bill Clinton. She has a degree from Stanford. She's a PhD. Dr. Maddow. Yes, Dr. Maddow. And she filets those political creeps every night.
Why do I harp on this and on her in particular? Because she's a phenomenon, every bit as unique as the first black president -- she's the first seriously smart person ever to anchor a nightly program. You think Cronkite is the gold standard? Watch Rachel at 8PM CT on MSNBC.
With that as prelude, my friend, watch how she absolutely slices and dices the obviously coordinated Republican plan to bill health care reform as a "secret plot to kill old people." You heard that crazy caller, like the crazy "birthers," call into the AARP forum today with Pres. Obama and ask about the [brownshirts] people coming into old people's homes and forcing them to decide how they want to die? You want to see who's behind that exactly? You want to see the evidence layed out on a table like a deck of cards in a Vegas casino? Watch Rachel. She latches on and shakes it all out using a full 12 minutes on her show, calling "crazy 'crazy'". She lays it all out for everyone in the media, in NBC news, in Washington D.C. to see; she's done everyone's homework for them. Watch - this is splendorous, and she gives everyone a firm point on which to pivot. This is what's been missing for 40 years:
My response? I laughed out loud hysterically. A "Three's Company" storyline! Ha! LOL! When I saw it watching Rachel, I fell into hysterical laughter. My dog was worried. Why was I in hysterical laughter? Because Rachel just planted a rod for all of Washington and all of political media. She and her staff did the homework. She exposed the crazy liars. She identified them. (And for some reason they're all white and have southern accents: Southern Strategy anyone?) She played the clips of them live. She reached deep into the cesspool of right wing hater talk radio and even the "Internets" to identify the culprits. She did everyone's homework. And she encourages people to copy off her work. Today? This clip and story are the lead story at the MSNBC homepage.
Journalists hate homework. That's why network news is so craptacular. "Journalists" today don't want to work, they just want to take transcripts and "leaked" talking points and repeat them as their own "political insight." Repeating talking points fed to them on "background" by the partisan leaders - revealing their "playbooks" - that's become the bread and butter of main network journalism. Fine. Let them have it.
Meanwhile, watch how earlier this and last week, Maddow led the charge against the alarming level that "the birthers" had been allowed to rise, to the point where Republican congresscritters were afraid to call them out for the stooopid they are. "Calling crazy 'crazy'" is exactly what Republicans are afraid to do, and until the past year, the crazies were not part of the "polite" network coverage of politics in the past. No more. Watch Rachel lay these creeps flat (with the help of online journalist Mike Stark), and then watch what just happened the next day, thanks to Maddows sunshine on a bed of cockroaches.
It's results like this, a result of her dazzling tenacity and incisive wit, that have made Rachel Maddow a force within MSNBC. That means she's a force within NBC. That means she has a voice in that traditional media I'm criticizing. It means that the fix is in - the bullshit that the haters have been pulling for 30+ years is being called out from a little corner on cable at 9PM ET. By Dr. Rachel Maddow. She packages it together, she's the first to do it on any given day, and then her work drives fair-minded commentators and writers for the following day. That's why she's on at nights and not in the mornings. The spin begins at night, not in the morning. In the mornings all news is old news. If Maddow were not an internal force, then how could she get away with knocking down MSNBC's own and her own guest, Pat Buchanan? Where else have you seen such a thorough smack down with succint, cutting analysis that lays out the naked facts full monty?
So you wanna know which way things are blowing? Watch Rachel. Night after night ever since she got her own show, she reliably and regularly uses her acute intellect to pull the pants down on the scumbag haters of the Nixon school trying to pull the craziest of shit these days because... they... simply... have... nothing... left.
In the end, it's the margin in the middle of the electorate, the "gut" voters who really are fair minded but not deeply involved, who steer the future course. And Republicans are still operating in the old environment when they could keep their neanderthal constituents so critical to their power base (I realize that's unfair to neanderthals) under the radar. No more. The jig is up.
This isn't 1968. This isn't 1980. This isn't 1993. This isn't 2003. It's 2009 and finally...... FINALLY.... the media are getting both the talent and the ratings to secure a cutting read of the bullshit that's been going on from Republican haters for 40 freakin years. It's over.
It might take the old Beltway insider game a bit to catch on, but the election of Pres. Obama is all the proof anyone needs to see that the old game is over. Yeah, the election was too close for comfort and Sarah Palin still gets too much time on tee-vee. But at least Palin gets a lot of "crazy person" criticism in that coverage now. Not so thinkable 6 years ago. Not 16 years ago. God knows not 30 and 40 years ago. But now?
Well, just read the polls. Just watch Rachel. If there weren't enough fair-minded concerned citizens out there to make a difference, Dr. Maddow would be peddling her doctoral dissertation in the petty halls of academia, and not laying out her incisive analysis in prime time on NBC cable to an audience that outsizes the venerable Larry King. Out with the old indeed...
This is some of the funniest political satire I've seen in a while, again from Rachel Maddow, who uses humor to cut through the crazies like Limbaugh uses anger, self loathing, and racism.
Want even more evidence of my theory? Here's a story, not just on MSNBC from the *AP* that's running all day and ran last night about Glen Beck on Fox News calling the president "racist." Again, they're "calling crazy 'crazy'".
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32197648/ns/politics-more_politics/
And here's the video:
Birther Rage & Lou Dobbs -- Getting Called Out (They Think They Can Still Get Away With This)
Here's Maddow on the decades old "C-Street" house in Washington DC, a "secret society" for radical Christian congress rats, the place where the John Ensign affair was "handled." Maddow has been on this story night after night, exposing them and causing the members to obfuscate and run and deny. This isn't something that just popped up. No the Ensign affair exposed them, and unlike even 3 years ago, Maddow and others are there *now* to follow the bigger story of what in the world is this seedy "C Street" boys club ("No Girls Allowed" as Pulitzer winning Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post characterized it on air) - what in the world is going on with this? Maddow decried it as something these people's constituents, including NV Sen Ensign's, did not elect them to do: go to Washington and represent the interests of their secret club first instead of the interests of the people who elected them. Calling crazy "crazy."
The C-Street update is preceded by Maddow's update that her calling out of Lou Dobbs' well-known racism has elicited a forceful defensive response from him. Think about that. Maddow has had her own show maybe a year? And Lou Dobbs? Uh, yeah. That's the power Maddow has already accumulated. Then she moves into Sen. Inhofe (R-Crazyland) and C-Street, 2 minutes in. This is from last night's show.
This stuff is just an easy list of the types of things indicative of a turning of the giant ship of the Fourth Estate. Give it some time and keep the faith. The chapter of the last 40 years is done, and the page is turning.
Rachel Maddow is an angel dancing on the head of the pin that is U.S. politics. She has earned her own show on MSNBC at 9PM ET. She is easily the smartest commentator on television, and not surprisingly, she is an unapologetic progressive. Do you think Glen Beck has her credentials? Do you think Lou Dobbs has her credentials? Rush Limbaugh? The other blow-hard entertainers? Rachel Maddow has serious horsepower under the hood:
Maddow received a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Stanford University. She earned her doctorate in political science at Oxford University, which she attended on a Rhodes Scholarship. She is currently working on a book on the changing role of the military in U.S. politics, due out next year. She lives in New York City and Massachusetts with her partner, artist Susan Mikula.
Yeah that's right. She competes and sometimes beats LARRY KING in the 9PM time slot. And she's the smartest person in all of politics, actually, except of course the universally praised for his intellect, Chairman of the House Banking Committee, Rep. Barney Frank (and yes, it's purely coincidence that they're both openly gay).
She's a Rhodes Scholar, like Bill Clinton. She has a degree from Stanford. She's a PhD. Dr. Maddow. Yes, Dr. Maddow. And she filets those political creeps every night.
Why do I harp on this and on her in particular? Because she's a phenomenon, every bit as unique as the first black president -- she's the first seriously smart person ever to anchor a nightly program. You think Cronkite is the gold standard? Watch Rachel at 8PM CT on MSNBC.
With that as prelude, my friend, watch how she absolutely slices and dices the obviously coordinated Republican plan to bill health care reform as a "secret plot to kill old people." You heard that crazy caller, like the crazy "birthers," call into the AARP forum today with Pres. Obama and ask about the [brownshirts] people coming into old people's homes and forcing them to decide how they want to die? You want to see who's behind that exactly? You want to see the evidence layed out on a table like a deck of cards in a Vegas casino? Watch Rachel. She latches on and shakes it all out using a full 12 minutes on her show, calling "crazy 'crazy'". She lays it all out for everyone in the media, in NBC news, in Washington D.C. to see; she's done everyone's homework for them. Watch - this is splendorous, and she gives everyone a firm point on which to pivot. This is what's been missing for 40 years:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
My response? I laughed out loud hysterically. A "Three's Company" storyline! Ha! LOL! When I saw it watching Rachel, I fell into hysterical laughter. My dog was worried. Why was I in hysterical laughter? Because Rachel just planted a rod for all of Washington and all of political media. She and her staff did the homework. She exposed the crazy liars. She identified them. (And for some reason they're all white and have southern accents: Southern Strategy anyone?) She played the clips of them live. She reached deep into the cesspool of right wing hater talk radio and even the "Internets" to identify the culprits. She did everyone's homework. And she encourages people to copy off her work. Today? This clip and story are the lead story at the MSNBC homepage.
Journalists hate homework. That's why network news is so craptacular. "Journalists" today don't want to work, they just want to take transcripts and "leaked" talking points and repeat them as their own "political insight." Repeating talking points fed to them on "background" by the partisan leaders - revealing their "playbooks" - that's become the bread and butter of main network journalism. Fine. Let them have it.
Meanwhile, watch how earlier this and last week, Maddow led the charge against the alarming level that "the birthers" had been allowed to rise, to the point where Republican congresscritters were afraid to call them out for the stooopid they are. "Calling crazy 'crazy'" is exactly what Republicans are afraid to do, and until the past year, the crazies were not part of the "polite" network coverage of politics in the past. No more. Watch Rachel lay these creeps flat (with the help of online journalist Mike Stark), and then watch what just happened the next day, thanks to Maddows sunshine on a bed of cockroaches.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
It's results like this, a result of her dazzling tenacity and incisive wit, that have made Rachel Maddow a force within MSNBC. That means she's a force within NBC. That means she has a voice in that traditional media I'm criticizing. It means that the fix is in - the bullshit that the haters have been pulling for 30+ years is being called out from a little corner on cable at 9PM ET. By Dr. Rachel Maddow. She packages it together, she's the first to do it on any given day, and then her work drives fair-minded commentators and writers for the following day. That's why she's on at nights and not in the mornings. The spin begins at night, not in the morning. In the mornings all news is old news. If Maddow were not an internal force, then how could she get away with knocking down MSNBC's own and her own guest, Pat Buchanan? Where else have you seen such a thorough smack down with succint, cutting analysis that lays out the naked facts full monty?
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
So you wanna know which way things are blowing? Watch Rachel. Night after night ever since she got her own show, she reliably and regularly uses her acute intellect to pull the pants down on the scumbag haters of the Nixon school trying to pull the craziest of shit these days because... they... simply... have... nothing... left.
In the end, it's the margin in the middle of the electorate, the "gut" voters who really are fair minded but not deeply involved, who steer the future course. And Republicans are still operating in the old environment when they could keep their neanderthal constituents so critical to their power base (I realize that's unfair to neanderthals) under the radar. No more. The jig is up.
This isn't 1968. This isn't 1980. This isn't 1993. This isn't 2003. It's 2009 and finally...... FINALLY.... the media are getting both the talent and the ratings to secure a cutting read of the bullshit that's been going on from Republican haters for 40 freakin years. It's over.
It might take the old Beltway insider game a bit to catch on, but the election of Pres. Obama is all the proof anyone needs to see that the old game is over. Yeah, the election was too close for comfort and Sarah Palin still gets too much time on tee-vee. But at least Palin gets a lot of "crazy person" criticism in that coverage now. Not so thinkable 6 years ago. Not 16 years ago. God knows not 30 and 40 years ago. But now?
Well, just read the polls. Just watch Rachel. If there weren't enough fair-minded concerned citizens out there to make a difference, Dr. Maddow would be peddling her doctoral dissertation in the petty halls of academia, and not laying out her incisive analysis in prime time on NBC cable to an audience that outsizes the venerable Larry King. Out with the old indeed...
This is some of the funniest political satire I've seen in a while, again from Rachel Maddow, who uses humor to cut through the crazies like Limbaugh uses anger, self loathing, and racism.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Want even more evidence of my theory? Here's a story, not just on MSNBC from the *AP* that's running all day and ran last night about Glen Beck on Fox News calling the president "racist." Again, they're "calling crazy 'crazy'".
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32197648/ns/politics-more_politics/
And here's the video:
Birther Rage & Lou Dobbs -- Getting Called Out (They Think They Can Still Get Away With This)
Here's Maddow on the decades old "C-Street" house in Washington DC, a "secret society" for radical Christian congress rats, the place where the John Ensign affair was "handled." Maddow has been on this story night after night, exposing them and causing the members to obfuscate and run and deny. This isn't something that just popped up. No the Ensign affair exposed them, and unlike even 3 years ago, Maddow and others are there *now* to follow the bigger story of what in the world is this seedy "C Street" boys club ("No Girls Allowed" as Pulitzer winning Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post characterized it on air) - what in the world is going on with this? Maddow decried it as something these people's constituents, including NV Sen Ensign's, did not elect them to do: go to Washington and represent the interests of their secret club first instead of the interests of the people who elected them. Calling crazy "crazy."
The C-Street update is preceded by Maddow's update that her calling out of Lou Dobbs' well-known racism has elicited a forceful defensive response from him. Think about that. Maddow has had her own show maybe a year? And Lou Dobbs? Uh, yeah. That's the power Maddow has already accumulated. Then she moves into Sen. Inhofe (R-Crazyland) and C-Street, 2 minutes in. This is from last night's show.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
This stuff is just an easy list of the types of things indicative of a turning of the giant ship of the Fourth Estate. Give it some time and keep the faith. The chapter of the last 40 years is done, and the page is turning.
Monday, July 27, 2009
FOX News: Killing the Republican Party?
We live in interesting times, and that's interesting!
The title link is to an article at a prominent website about media. The new authorship here plans to focus more about the media. This article linked is about how the Republican enablers basically cannot help themselves: they are hastening the demise of the Republican party. (?) It's kind of a shame. We need loyal opposition after all. I find this part compelling:
So here we are, in the belly of the beast.
Mark my words, the Republican party has yet to reconcile the crazies they have relied upon since the 1960's with the modern ability now to expose those crazies for what they are with new media.
And if you wonder about how FOX News gains a seemingly disproportionate influence in political media, commit this to wit:
Okay, so maybe FOX News isn't as influential as you fear they might be. Find solace in the truth, my friend.
Before you think that reasonable Americans are besieged by the likes of O'Reilly, consider this from the article:
So have heart. Keep the faith. You are not besieged. Hold your head high and speak loudly. Preach it! Preach the truth!
The title link is to an article at a prominent website about media. The new authorship here plans to focus more about the media. This article linked is about how the Republican enablers basically cannot help themselves: they are hastening the demise of the Republican party. (?) It's kind of a shame. We need loyal opposition after all. I find this part compelling:
Fox has corralled a stable of the most disreputable, unqualified, extremist, lunatics ever assembled, and is presenting them as experts, analysts, and leaders. These third-rate icons of idiocy are marketed by Fox like any other gag gift (i.e. pet rocks, plastic vomit, Sarah Palin, etc.). So while most Americans have never heard of actual Republican party bosses like House Minority Leader John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, posers like Joe the Plumber and Carrie Prejean have become household names.
So here we are, in the belly of the beast.
By doubling down on crazy, Fox is driving the center of the Republican Party further down the rabid hole. They are reshaping the party into a more radicalized community of conspiracy nuts. So even as this helps Rupert Murdoch’s bottom line, it is making celebrities of political bottom-feeders That can’t be good for the long-term prospects of the Republican Party.
Mark my words, the Republican party has yet to reconcile the crazies they have relied upon since the 1960's with the modern ability now to expose those crazies for what they are with new media.
And if you wonder about how FOX News gains a seemingly disproportionate influence in political media, commit this to wit:
Fox News is fond of boasting about their ratings dominance. It is a daily occurrence and the structural core of their argument that they reflect the mood of America. The GOP has bought this argument in its entirety. So it is important to note here that success in the Nielsen ratings has no correlation to public opinion polling. The ratings only measure the program choices of Nielsen’s survey participants. That is a subset of the population at large, and not a particularly representative one. It is a sample focused on consumers, not voters. And its respondents are just those willing to have their TV viewing monitored 24 hours a day, which skews the sample in favor of people who aren’t creeped out by that. ...So any attempt to tie ratings to partisan politics is a foolish exercise that demonstrates a grievous misunderstanding of the business of television.
Okay, so maybe FOX News isn't as influential as you fear they might be. Find solace in the truth, my friend.
Before you think that reasonable Americans are besieged by the likes of O'Reilly, consider this from the article:
. A mere 3 share (3% of people watching TV) will land you in the top 10. For cable news the bar is set even lower. In fact, the top rated show on the top rated cable news network (The O’Reilly Factor) only gets about 3 million viewers. That’s less than 1% of the American population. It’s also less than World Wrestling Entertainment, SpongeBob SquarePants, and the CBS Evening News (the lowest rated broadcast network news program). By contrast, America’s Got Talent is seen by 12 million viewers - four times O’Reilly’s audience.
So have heart. Keep the faith. You are not besieged. Hold your head high and speak loudly. Preach it! Preach the truth!
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
You Can Bet H1N1 Affects Real Estate & The Economy
From The World Health Organization, the public health division of the United Nations, in Geneva, Switzerland:
However if things rise to the level of a global crisis, I doubt we will hear many more figures or warnings. Once the barn doors are wide open......
29 April 2009 -- The situation continues to evolve rapidly. As of 18:00 GMT, 29 April 2009, nine countries have officially reported 148 cases of swine influenza A/H1N1 infection. The United States Government has reported 91 laboratory confirmed human cases, with one death. Mexico has reported 26 confirmed human cases of infection including seven deaths.Notice that the focus continues to be on sensible precaution, attention, prevention... This is not an emergency declaration.
The following countries have reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths - Austria (1), Canada (13), Germany (3), Israel (2), New Zealand (3), Spain (4) and the United Kingdom (5).
Further information on the situation will be available on the WHO website on a regular basis.
WHO advises no restriction of regular travel or closure of borders. It is considered prudent for people who are ill to delay international travel and for people developing symptoms following international travel to seek medical attention, in line with guidance from national authorities.
There is also no risk of infection from this virus from consumption of well-cooked pork and pork products. Individuals are advised to wash hands thoroughly with soap and water on a regular basis and should seek medical attention if they develop any symptoms of influenza-like illness.
However if things rise to the level of a global crisis, I doubt we will hear many more figures or warnings. Once the barn doors are wide open......
Monday, April 20, 2009
CDS's Strike Again: Screwing Up Bankruptcy
In Felix Salmon's excellent economics blog for Reuters (kudos for a positive indication of adaptation to new media by Reuters), Salmon points out how Credit Default Swaps (the unregulated "insurance" policies investors could take from swindlers believing they were protecting various investments, swindlers who never had the capital to begin with to pay out the claim if it happened and statutorily not subject to any regulatory oversight), anyway these CDS's after bringing capitalism to its knees are now complicating what would be a normal process of pre-bankruptcy negotiation with debt-holders who can normally be wiped out in a normal bankruptcy process. But finance and economics are anything but normal these days.
The problem now? As Salmon points out, bondholders in troubled corporations also hold these CDS insurance policies and some of their insurers are able to pay out. So what's the incentive for these bondholders to negotiate completely with the troubled entity whose bonds they hold if bankruptcy itself could actually lead to a higher payout than offered in pre-bankruptcy negotiations?
See that? Bondholders with good CDS policies have "an economic incentive to opt for the more economically destructive option." This is definitely something to watch. Oh, a caveat from Salmon - the example actually is worse...
I do not agree with Salmon's analysis after his example as to what should and should not happen. But in a response that I normally criticize when it comes from others, my only one is that I don't know enough at this point to offer an alternative.
But when you see mainstream media interviewing regular "Janes and Johns" on the street, just bear in mind how subtle and how very complex this entire economic and Wall St mess really really is.
The problem now? As Salmon points out, bondholders in troubled corporations also hold these CDS insurance policies and some of their insurers are able to pay out. So what's the incentive for these bondholders to negotiate completely with the troubled entity whose bonds they hold if bankruptcy itself could actually lead to a higher payout than offered in pre-bankruptcy negotiations?
Let’s say that I buy $1 million of bonds. In order to protect my downside, I buy $600,000 of credit protection: if the issuer goes bust, I get $600,000, and a healthy 60% recovery value. I don’t want the issuer to go bust — I’d much rather the bonds continued to perform, and to be worth $1 million. But at least I can’t lose more than $400,000 in the event of default.
The issuer then gets into serious difficulties, and the bonds start trading at 25 cents on the dollar: my $1 million of bonds are now worth just $250,000 on the open market. The distressed issuer then seeks to avoid bankruptcy by entering into negotiations with its bondholders. “If we default and are forced into bankruptcy,” they say, “then bondholders will end up collecting no more than 20 cents on the dollar in a liquidation. But if you agree to a restructuring which keeps us out of the bankruptcy court, we can get you a good 45 cents on the dollar in value.”
Normally, bondholders would be well disposed to such an offer. But in this case, I might think twice. If the restructuring doesn’t count as an event of default for the purposes of the CDS contract, then I might end up with just 45 cents on the dollar — $450,000 — if I agree to the company’s plan. If I just let it go bust, on the other hand, I get $600,000.* And so I have an incentive to opt for the more economically-destructive option.
See that? Bondholders with good CDS policies have "an economic incentive to opt for the more economically destructive option." This is definitely something to watch. Oh, a caveat from Salmon - the example actually is worse...
*Update: Hemant, in the comments, points out that I actually get $700,000, not $600,000: I get $600,000 from the hedged portion, and also another $100,000 (25% of $400,000) from the unhedged portion.
I do not agree with Salmon's analysis after his example as to what should and should not happen. But in a response that I normally criticize when it comes from others, my only one is that I don't know enough at this point to offer an alternative.
But when you see mainstream media interviewing regular "Janes and Johns" on the street, just bear in mind how subtle and how very complex this entire economic and Wall St mess really really is.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
A Brief History of Tea Parties & Taxes
I like to read good blogs as much as I like to write my own. This morning I ran across a post by a user named "Science Teacher By Trade" about the proper understanding of the establishment of federal taxes in the United States by George Washington (The Whiskey Rebellion) following the Revolutionary War. This is a very good recap of that moment in history.
History often has a way of becoming mere folklore over years until the truth of what actually happened is twisted beyond recognition many times. That effect is what creates the space for allegations of "revisionist history" particularly when an accurate recounting of history runs counter to how the folklore has evolved. Consider this phenomenon a quirk of evolutionary psychology in the modern paradigm
Anyway, some truth about the founders and taxes:
History often has a way of becoming mere folklore over years until the truth of what actually happened is twisted beyond recognition many times. That effect is what creates the space for allegations of "revisionist history" particularly when an accurate recounting of history runs counter to how the folklore has evolved. Consider this phenomenon a quirk of evolutionary psychology in the modern paradigm
Anyway, some truth about the founders and taxes:
The first assumption to dispel is that our "Founding Fathers" were resolutely opposed to taxes, and that the Boston Tea Party was due to this opposition. This is true to a limited extent. Following the Glorious Revolution, parliament established a declaration or Bill of Rights. Among these rights was that reserving the ability to Tax for parliament alone. Since parliament was an elective and representative body, this implied that legitimate taxation was restricted to citizens with representation. This wouldn’t become an issue in the Americas for several decades. Following the French and Indian War, Britain was left with a standing army, something it had not really dealt with before. Because of a sense that it was necessary to continue to protect the colonies, as well as the benefits of maintaining an army to restrain French aggression, it was decided to maintain a large force in the Colonies.
This meant that funds had to be found to not only pay for the extremely expensive war that had just been fought, but also to pay for the standing army in the Colonies. Naturally, parliament decided that it only made sense to use taxation to pay for this, and it seemed to follow that since the colonies were benefiting from having an Army for their defense, as well as a war fought partially for their benefit, that they should pay for a large share of the expenses.
This presumption had two problems: first, it assumed that the colonists would perceive the troops as guarantors of security, rather than occupiers. Second, it violated the idea that taxes were linked to representation. In response, mutterings of anger began in the colonies. To be fair, much of the anger was simply due to the fact that taxes were going up to pay for troops that most people did not feel were necessary, especially since the colonies had voluntarily raised their own internal taxes for the war, and had never been fully reimbursed. As resentment strengthened, however, the colonists began to examine their conceptions of natural laws and rights. Ultimately they would realize that fundamentally, the new taxes violated their rights because they had no representation in parliament.
There would be ongoing protests in the future, many which would echo the mob violence of the Boston Tea Party. Curiously, due to a variety of factors, the Boston Tea Party would have no hint of simple anger at increased prices due to taxes. At this point in time, the East India Company had long been competing with Dutch smugglers for the tea imports market in the colonies. Recent acts of parliament had actually made it possible for the East India Company to import tea into the colonies for less than the smugglers were charging. Unhappily, there was a tax attached to these imports that the colonists refused to pay, even though the overall price was less. Due to opposition to the right to impose this tax, the colonists either forced the authorized resellers of tea to resign, or forced the ships importing the tea to return to England without offloading their cargo.
Finally, in Boston the Governor refused to let the ships bearing tea leave until they had paid the tax on the tea they carried. Since this would have forced the company to take a loss (paying the duty without selling the tea,) the ship captains refused to leave, although hostile colonists would not permit their cargo to be unloaded and sold. After a rowdy meeting led by Sam Adams, a large group of men raided the ships and dumped the tea overboard, declaring they would destroy the goods before they paid a tax on them.
Since price was not the issue, clearly the Boston Tea Party was not about paying extra money: it was almost exclusively about taxation without representation, combined with a dose of drunken mob violence. It still became a symbol of valiant resistance to tyranny, especially in American folklore, and would otherwise lose much of its meaning in terms of the specific grievances of the participants.
If more proof is needed that the founding fathers did not oppose taxation per se, but instead just taxation without representation, we can look at our most famous leader of the period: George Washington. In 1794, while Washington was president, an outraged group rebelled against what they perceived as an unfair tax on whiskey (meant to pay down debts from the Revolutionary War.) In response, Washington ordered the rebels appear in federal court, and summoned an army of militia of more than 12,000 men to suppress the rebellion. Whups! By today’s standards, conservatives would apparently be calling old Washington a fascist/socialist enemy of the United States. (Just for the record, Abe Lincoln also presided over tax increases. In fact, the first income tax was progressive and enacted during his administration. Such socialists, our best loved presidents!)So much for the founding fathers being anti-tax. ...
Friday, April 10, 2009
From An Executive Producer of Cesar Millan
Okay, so rule #1 about blogging: most non-professional bloggers such as myself are not journalists. We don't have time to fact-check everything or chase down all the articles we link to, etc. Blogging is sort of a citizen sport, more about commentary and opinion than reporting. Nonetheless we have a moral obligation to try at least to be accurate.
My last post took Cesar Millan and his program to task for focusing too much on domination and not enough on the nuances of psychology -- I suppose when you have a weekly show to do, it can get kind of formulaic and frankly that's what I think of the show.
So a web savvy or surfing producer of the show emailed me earlier a long email in their defense, and that's fine, frankly I didn't read it closely but I will try to paste in some of the main points below to help round out the discussion, and lord knows I appreciate the time she took to defend her work and respect that she did so.
I sincerely regret not knowing that the lawsuit mentioned in the previous post was apparently settled in 2007 according to the producer, and I trust her. And I have neither the time nor the interest to research it further - but in the era of Google, you dear reader already have everything you need if you should so choose to do so yourself.
Frankly I'm already bored with this post. So without further adieu, here is I suppose a legitimate email from an executive producer of Cesar Millan's The Dog Whisperer. I told her I would post a follow up including snippets of her email but also that I stand by my post and my opinion, and I do. She was polite in her response. Now to follow through.
I'm not sure the defense above really answers the thrust of my criticism sufficiently, however I do recognize there are many angles to a complicated endeavor like producing a weekly show such as this. I accept results will be at best mixed, and to what degree exactly I don't know, and Ms. Peltier doesn't address fully (nor should she). I know what I know, she knows what she knows, and anyone reading this can think for themselves. More:
Well again I do sincerely regret not knowing that the lawsuit had been settled, and in my defense (although I don't have much of one on this point), I did say "If true..." I know, I know. I regret not knowing it had been settled (and no I haven't verified that either, I'm hungry, my dog needs to play, I don't really care).
As for the facts of what the lawsuit alleged, it makes no difference when it comes to the thrust of my commentary about the over-use of dominance I have witnessed on the program, my informed commentary about pit bulls (the point I care about the most), nor my notes about using a pinch collar.
My last post took Cesar Millan and his program to task for focusing too much on domination and not enough on the nuances of psychology -- I suppose when you have a weekly show to do, it can get kind of formulaic and frankly that's what I think of the show.
So a web savvy or surfing producer of the show emailed me earlier a long email in their defense, and that's fine, frankly I didn't read it closely but I will try to paste in some of the main points below to help round out the discussion, and lord knows I appreciate the time she took to defend her work and respect that she did so.
I sincerely regret not knowing that the lawsuit mentioned in the previous post was apparently settled in 2007 according to the producer, and I trust her. And I have neither the time nor the interest to research it further - but in the era of Google, you dear reader already have everything you need if you should so choose to do so yourself.
Frankly I'm already bored with this post. So without further adieu, here is I suppose a legitimate email from an executive producer of Cesar Millan's The Dog Whisperer. I told her I would post a follow up including snippets of her email but also that I stand by my post and my opinion, and I do. She was polite in her response. Now to follow through.
We placed our success rate (that is, long-term dog rehab success) at about 80% based on that book, which only covered the first three seasons. We are now filming our 6th season and have had even more impressive successes, primarily because we have been able to do more long-term follow-ups and repeat visits with cases, which we weren't able to do because of budgetary reasons back when we began Season 1.
Not only is the show real, the crew likes to call it "the only REAL reality show on television." Nothing -absolutely nothing - is pre-scripted. Cesar knows nothing (or only a bare minimum of facts) about any case before he goes on the consultation. Cesar won't repeat any of his actions for the camera (as is SOP, even in documentary work) because he says, "Dogs don't understand 'take 2'. He is there for the dog, 100%, and not the cameras - much to the frustration of the crew, but we've learned to adapt to each other over the past several years. ...
I'm not sure the defense above really answers the thrust of my criticism sufficiently, however I do recognize there are many angles to a complicated endeavor like producing a weekly show such as this. I accept results will be at best mixed, and to what degree exactly I don't know, and Ms. Peltier doesn't address fully (nor should she). I know what I know, she knows what she knows, and anyone reading this can think for themselves. More:
[The Humane Society] spent time on the set with us, and now are among our biggest supporters. In fact, they just collaborated with us on a powerful show about rescuing and rehabilitating puppy mill dogs. Ask the representatives of the prominent animal advocacy group Last Chance for Animals, or our thousands and thousands of friends and supporters in the Animal Rescue Community across the United States. Ask Martin Deeley, head of the IACP. You can even ask Ian Dunbar, the grandaddy of "positive reinforcement" training, who has met with Cesar personally (though I don't believe he's been on the set), and found that they share many more commonalities than differences.Fair enough, I don't know about any of this, but I have no reason to distrust Ms. Peltier. And finally:
Finally, an FYI: the Flody Suarez lawsuit to which you referred was amicably settled in 2007. A read-through of the court records will show that although Cesar was named in the suit, the incident happened on his property only. Cesar was not even present when the incident occurred, but had loaned use of his treadmills to an accquaintance - a trainer not even associated with him. That was back in the day when Cesar would naively do favors for anyone who'd ever done him a favor. Unfortunately, celebrity attracts lawsuits and he has since learned the hard way not to be so blindly generous.
In short, you may or may not agree with Cesar's methods, which he himself asserts are just "options" for rehabilitation - but I assure you, the show itself is indeed "legitimate."
Sincerely yours,
Melissa Jo Peltier
Co-Chair, MPH Entertainment, Inc.
Well again I do sincerely regret not knowing that the lawsuit had been settled, and in my defense (although I don't have much of one on this point), I did say "If true..." I know, I know. I regret not knowing it had been settled (and no I haven't verified that either, I'm hungry, my dog needs to play, I don't really care).
As for the facts of what the lawsuit alleged, it makes no difference when it comes to the thrust of my commentary about the over-use of dominance I have witnessed on the program, my informed commentary about pit bulls (the point I care about the most), nor my notes about using a pinch collar.
The Smoke of Cesar Millan
Well it is a very encouraging sign for the real estate market that I have been positively too busy to blog in recent days. I miss it. Today I post a response to a friend who asked about whether Cesar Millan's "Dog Whisperer" show is legitimate. It is not.
Most alarming is the lawsuit in California Superior Court against Millan's training center by a producer of "8 Simple Rules" (John Ritter's final series).
From the news article:
There are many better "Whisperers" out there. Do a search on Amazon and find the other popular behaviorists - particularly "The Other End of the Leash" by Patricia McConnell.
Positive dog training is a superior method. Dominance will be part of any behavioral practice because obviously dogs are pack-oriented and just want to know what their role is, what their job is, trust they will be fed and cared for, etc. Much of Millan's basic work is not unique to him. What is unique is his over-insistence on and use of forced domination. As guests of his show will tell you behind the scenes, the show often gets its video of a dog in a good moment but Millan rarely solves any problem.
It's sort of like that fraud John Edward, the purported psychic who communicates with the dead, and the mother of all such fraudsters, James van Praagh (currently a producer of a fictional program I like, "The Ghost Whisperer"). At least he's doing obvious fiction now.
Remember Edward's show (van Praagh had a short-lived show, too) where he just did cold readings on his studio audience? Well eventually it came out from attendees that they actually would film his studio sessions for up to 6 hours just to produce 22 minutes of footage. Now his TV specials heavily rely on a reading of a celebrity or lengthy narratives about a subject - which leaves only a few minutes for his "reading" - and nobody knows how long a session actually lasted and how many things he got wrong.
Millan's show is much of the same. I would call it entertainment, but his show is documentary-style and it misleads his audience, often to the detriment of their dogs. That's morally unacceptable.
Millan likes to parade his pit bulls on the show, but it just plays into the breed stereotype as if it gives him credibility. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is that any behaviorist / trainer worth their salt can tame a pack of pit bulls - they're the most trusting, smart, loyal, human-loving breed there is.
It's why fighters exploit them - the dogs aren't vicious - they're just trying to please their human. It's why the Michael Vicks of the world and punks like him stand right next to the dog in a fight to egg the dog on during the fight and doesn't get bitten -- by either of the fighting dogs. If the pit bull shows any instability, it gets put down -- that's always been the history of the breed. You think scumbag dog fighters want to work with unstable and unpredictable dogs? They fight dogs for the money (and the blood).
Point of order - I find pinch collars to be very effective in communicating with a dog on a leash. If used effectively, with a sudden light jerk but not sustained, it can make the dog pay attention and obey better. But it takes super human strength to choke a large dog with a pinch collar -- and despite their appearance, pinch collars are not "sharp" -- the ends of the links are dull.
Pinch collars actually cause less "strangling" than conventional collars because the "quick jerk" method helps snap a dog into attention and compliance, which is safer for the dog when on a leash. Pinch collars are better than "gentle leader" collars which seek to better control a dog's muzzle, which don't work and dogs hate them. (Pinch collars should always be stainless steel and of the highest quality, only purchased from reputable trainers.)
Any sustained pulling on a collar no matter the type and no matter from which end of the leash -- it's a bad thing and must be stopped. You can't just throw a strong dog on a leash -- dogs require leash training so they know what to do.
When dogs understand what to do and what's expected, and if the dog trusts they benefit from obeying, they are all too happy to do it.
Dog psychology is not rocket science. Dog psychology intersected with the foibles of human psychology -- now that's a little more complicated and causes most of the problems.
Most alarming is the lawsuit in California Superior Court against Millan's training center by a producer of "8 Simple Rules" (John Ritter's final series).
From the news article:
Hours after dropping the dog off at the facility, Suarez claimed a worker called to inform him the animal had been rushed to a veterinarian. He later found the dog "bleeding from his mouth and nose, in an oxygen tent gasping for breath and with severe bruising to his back inner thighs," the lawsuit claims.If true, that is unconscionable and Millan should be forced out of his show to clean up his center and techniques. My response to my friend's question is below. Many friends recall I volunteered in the Behavioral Unit of the Animal Rescue League of Boston, where I adopted my 7-year-old neutered pit bull, Tank, and also where I am a member of The President's Council.
The facility's workers allegedly placed a choke collar on the dog, pulled him onto a treadmill and forced him to "overwork." Suarez says he spent at least $25,000 on medical bills and the dog must undergo more surgeries for damage to his esophagus.
There are many better "Whisperers" out there. Do a search on Amazon and find the other popular behaviorists - particularly "The Other End of the Leash" by Patricia McConnell.
Positive dog training is a superior method. Dominance will be part of any behavioral practice because obviously dogs are pack-oriented and just want to know what their role is, what their job is, trust they will be fed and cared for, etc. Much of Millan's basic work is not unique to him. What is unique is his over-insistence on and use of forced domination. As guests of his show will tell you behind the scenes, the show often gets its video of a dog in a good moment but Millan rarely solves any problem.
It's sort of like that fraud John Edward, the purported psychic who communicates with the dead, and the mother of all such fraudsters, James van Praagh (currently a producer of a fictional program I like, "The Ghost Whisperer"). At least he's doing obvious fiction now.
Remember Edward's show (van Praagh had a short-lived show, too) where he just did cold readings on his studio audience? Well eventually it came out from attendees that they actually would film his studio sessions for up to 6 hours just to produce 22 minutes of footage. Now his TV specials heavily rely on a reading of a celebrity or lengthy narratives about a subject - which leaves only a few minutes for his "reading" - and nobody knows how long a session actually lasted and how many things he got wrong.
Millan's show is much of the same. I would call it entertainment, but his show is documentary-style and it misleads his audience, often to the detriment of their dogs. That's morally unacceptable.
Millan likes to parade his pit bulls on the show, but it just plays into the breed stereotype as if it gives him credibility. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is that any behaviorist / trainer worth their salt can tame a pack of pit bulls - they're the most trusting, smart, loyal, human-loving breed there is.
It's why fighters exploit them - the dogs aren't vicious - they're just trying to please their human. It's why the Michael Vicks of the world and punks like him stand right next to the dog in a fight to egg the dog on during the fight and doesn't get bitten -- by either of the fighting dogs. If the pit bull shows any instability, it gets put down -- that's always been the history of the breed. You think scumbag dog fighters want to work with unstable and unpredictable dogs? They fight dogs for the money (and the blood).
Point of order - I find pinch collars to be very effective in communicating with a dog on a leash. If used effectively, with a sudden light jerk but not sustained, it can make the dog pay attention and obey better. But it takes super human strength to choke a large dog with a pinch collar -- and despite their appearance, pinch collars are not "sharp" -- the ends of the links are dull.
Pinch collars actually cause less "strangling" than conventional collars because the "quick jerk" method helps snap a dog into attention and compliance, which is safer for the dog when on a leash. Pinch collars are better than "gentle leader" collars which seek to better control a dog's muzzle, which don't work and dogs hate them. (Pinch collars should always be stainless steel and of the highest quality, only purchased from reputable trainers.)
Any sustained pulling on a collar no matter the type and no matter from which end of the leash -- it's a bad thing and must be stopped. You can't just throw a strong dog on a leash -- dogs require leash training so they know what to do.
When dogs understand what to do and what's expected, and if the dog trusts they benefit from obeying, they are all too happy to do it.
Dog psychology is not rocket science. Dog psychology intersected with the foibles of human psychology -- now that's a little more complicated and causes most of the problems.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Houston #1 Corporate Growth In The United States
From the Houston Business Journal, a report about Houston at "the No. 1 spot for the first time on Site Selection magazine’s list of Top Metro rankings for corporate location and expansion activity."
Eat that, Chicago (#3)!!
And coming in at #2 behind Houston? Our little sister to the north, Dallas.
Eat that, Chicago (#3)!!
And coming in at #2 behind Houston? Our little sister to the north, Dallas.
Site Selection said Houston clinched the top spot after scoring 179 corporate real estate deals in 2008, unseating three-year incumbent Chicago-Naperville-Joliet.There is no place in The United States that I would rather own real estate right now than in and around the Houston metro area and definitely in the rightfully proud great State of Texas. (That's why I do, of course.)
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington finished No. 2 with 156 projects, and Chicago came in third with 138.
Last year, Houston was No. 4 behind Cincinnati and St. Louis for cities with more than 1 million in population.
“Site Selection ’s award adds to the long and growing list of distinctions the Houston area is earning for our business recruitment, business retention, job creation and economic growth efforts,” Jeff Moseley, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Houston Partnership, said in a statement. “We will continue to show that the Houston region is the most attractive place to locate or expand your business in the United States.”
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Before Stewart vs CNBC: Stewart vs Crossfire 2004
To follow up on yesterday morning's comment about the power of satire, and particularly of Jon Stewart's satire, here is the following from 2004:
Mmmmm me loves me some Jon Stewart. Political satire has a rich American history and a critical role to play in a functioning democracy, and in the case last week of Stewart vs CNBC, in a functioning capitalist democracy. Sometimes satire is the most effective way to bring such large and discordant forces into sharp relief. Operative word: sharp. See clip above and prior posts to wit. Jon Stewart is an American patriot and national treasure.
Mmmmm me loves me some Jon Stewart. Political satire has a rich American history and a critical role to play in a functioning democracy, and in the case last week of Stewart vs CNBC, in a functioning capitalist democracy. Sometimes satire is the most effective way to bring such large and discordant forces into sharp relief. Operative word: sharp. See clip above and prior posts to wit. Jon Stewart is an American patriot and national treasure.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Jim Cramer vs Jon Stewart: All You Need To See
If you know nothing about the current financial crisis and you can only handle so much before you go off a "thought cliff," then this is all you need to see. All week, Jon Stewart has been criticizing the complicity of the financial network CNBC with lying Wall Street execs to mislead the world on the crisis that they all should have known and been honest about.
We need independent investigative journalism for a functioning capitalist democracy. Just watch.
And do not miss the shorter Part II:
There are several unedited outtakes at TheDailyShow.com. And for the record, this is not the first time that the comedian Jon Stewart has single-handedly changed the landscape of political media. But more on that another time. A small example: remember the long-running show "Crossfire" on CNN? Jon Stewart pretty much single-handedly destroyed the show with his searing on camera criticism, including on that very show confronting its hosts. Think about that.
This was an astounding interview with Jim Cramer of CNBC. That network cannot escape culpability (no matter how shared) in fueling the run-up to the current crisis, along with the other principals named earlier on this site.
We need independent investigative journalism for a functioning capitalist democracy. Just watch.
And do not miss the shorter Part II:
There are several unedited outtakes at TheDailyShow.com. And for the record, this is not the first time that the comedian Jon Stewart has single-handedly changed the landscape of political media. But more on that another time. A small example: remember the long-running show "Crossfire" on CNN? Jon Stewart pretty much single-handedly destroyed the show with his searing on camera criticism, including on that very show confronting its hosts. Think about that.
This was an astounding interview with Jim Cramer of CNBC. That network cannot escape culpability (no matter how shared) in fueling the run-up to the current crisis, along with the other principals named earlier on this site.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Our Town & The United States of America
It's no secret I'm a living cliche at times and do enjoy the Sunday Morning Times, mainly its in-depth front-page reporting, and the always thought-provoking writing of their theater-turned-Sunday-columnist-culture-critic Frank Rich.
This morning, Rich provides insight into our collective national moment by highlighting the resurgent play, Our Town, the famous 1938 play performed by many talented and/or under-resourced theatres because it requires no set and a large cast of extras (a prescription for high school and community production if there ever was one).
But this morning Rich reminds us why the play is also enduring - its timeless call to a collective sense of ourselves and our nation, captured in these times by Barack Obama's famous refrain, "We are the United States of America," that has resonated with many Americans. Sometimes, though, we could do well to "remember" history so that we are not condemned...
Writes Rich:
Rich argues next a fundamental point discussed on this site. The American economy has no hope of recovery until we see a massive return of jobs and job confidence to restore broad-based consumer-driven markets, the cornerstone of real estate spending and values as well. A primary driver of the severity of this current crisis is the concentration of so little of our collective national income in the vast middleclass and working Americans, which I personally define as those earning less than $250,000 taxable income per year. Rich:
From the link behind "such gaping inequality" above is the following chart demonstrating the magnitude of the widening gap:
Finally, Rich brings it brilliantly together so as not to ruin our Sunday morning coffee:
This morning, Rich provides insight into our collective national moment by highlighting the resurgent play, Our Town, the famous 1938 play performed by many talented and/or under-resourced theatres because it requires no set and a large cast of extras (a prescription for high school and community production if there ever was one).
But this morning Rich reminds us why the play is also enduring - its timeless call to a collective sense of ourselves and our nation, captured in these times by Barack Obama's famous refrain, "We are the United States of America," that has resonated with many Americans. Sometimes, though, we could do well to "remember" history so that we are not condemned...
Writes Rich:
“WHEREVER you come near the human race, there’s layers and layers of nonsense,” says the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.” Those words were first heard by New York audiences in February 1938, as America continued to reel from hard times. The Times’s front page told of 100,000 auto workers protesting layoffs in Detroit and of a Republican official attacking the New Deal as “fascist.” Though no one was buying cars, F.D.R. had the gall to endorse a mammoth transcontinental highway construction program to put men back to work.He continues to frame our current moment with references to Warren Buffet, AIG, and Bernie Madoff:
We’re still working our way through the aftershocks of the orgy of irresponsibility and greed that brought America to this nadir. In his recent letter to shareholders, a chastened Warren Buffett likened our financial institutions’ recklessness to venereal disease. Even the innocent were infected because “it’s not just whom you sleep with” but also “whom they” — unnamed huge financial institutions — “are sleeping with,” he wrote. Indeed, our government is in the morally untenable position of rewarding the most promiscuous carrier of them all, A.I.G., with as much as $180 billion in taxpayers’ cash transfusions (so far) precisely because it can’t be disentangled from all the careless (and unidentified) trading partners sharing its infection.
Buffett’s sermon coincided with the public soul searching of another national sage, Elie Wiesel, who joined a Portfolio magazine panel discussion on Bernie Madoff. Some $37 million of Wiesel’s charitable foundation and personal wealth vanished in Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. “We gave him everything,” Wiesel told the audience. “We thought he was God.”
Rich argues next a fundamental point discussed on this site. The American economy has no hope of recovery until we see a massive return of jobs and job confidence to restore broad-based consumer-driven markets, the cornerstone of real estate spending and values as well. A primary driver of the severity of this current crisis is the concentration of so little of our collective national income in the vast middleclass and working Americans, which I personally define as those earning less than $250,000 taxable income per year. Rich:
The simplest explanation for why America’s reality got so distorted is the economic imbalance that Barack Obama now wants to remedy with policies that his critics deride as “socialist” (“fascist” can’t be far behind): the obscene widening of income inequality between the very rich and everyone else since the 1970s. “There is something wrong when we allow the playing field to be tilted so far in the favor of so few,” the president said in his budget message. He was calling for fundamental fairness, not class warfare. America hasn’t seen such gaping inequality since the Gilded Age and 1920s boom that preceded the Great Depression.
From the link behind "such gaping inequality" above is the following chart demonstrating the magnitude of the widening gap:
The chart shows the share of the richest 10 percent of the American population in total income – an indicator that closely tracks many other measures of economic inequality – over the past 90 years, as estimated by the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. I’ve added labels indicating four key periods. These are:Penultimately and for fun here, Rich doesn't miss the opportunity to pile on to the emperor clothes of CNBC and the righteous skewering by Jon Stewart shown earlier on this site. What's troubling is that the clips Stewart assembled were presented in full context and told a broader tale of CNBC and Wall Street insiderism that has become all-too-apparent now, and which CNBC is terrified to have revealed broadly.The Long Gilded Age: Historians generally say that the Gilded Age gave way to the Progressive Era around 1900. In many important ways, though, the Gilded Age continued right through to the New Deal. As far as we can tell, income remained about as unequally distributed as it had been the late 19th century – or as it is today. Public policy did little to limit extremes of wealth and poverty, mainly because the political dominance of the elite remained intact; the politics of the era, in which working Americans were divided by racial, religious, and cultural issues, have recognizable parallels with modern politics.
The Great Compression: The middle-class society I grew up in didn’t evolve gradually or automatically. It was created, in a remarkably short period of time, by FDR and the New Deal. As the chart shows, income inequality declined drastically from the late 1930s to the mid 1940s, with the rich losing ground while working Americans saw unprecedented gains. Economic historians call what happened the Great Compression, and it’s a seminal episode in American history.
Middle class America: That’s the country I grew up in. It was a society without extremes of wealth or poverty, a society of broadly shared prosperity, partly because strong unions, a high minimum wage, and a progressive tax system helped limit inequality. It was also a society in which political bipartisanship meant something: in spite of all the turmoil of Vietnam and the civil rights movement, in spite of the sinister machinations of Nixon and his henchmen, it was an era in which Democrats and Republicans agreed on basic values and could cooperate across party lines.
The great divergence: Since the late 1970s the America I knew has unraveled. We’re no longer a middle-class society, in which the benefits of economic growth are widely shared: between 1979 and 2005 the real income of the median household rose only 13 percent, but the income of the richest 0.1% of Americans rose 296 percent.
Last week Jon Stewart whipped up a well-earned frenzy with an eight-minute “Daily Show” takedown of the stars of CNBC, the business network that venerated our financial gods, plugged their stocks and hyped the bubble’s reckless delusions. (Just as it had in the dot-com bubble.) Stewart’s horrifying clip reel featured Jim Cramer reassuring viewers that Bear Stearns was “not in trouble” just six days before its March 2008 collapse; Charlie Gasparino lip-syncing A.I.G.’s claim that its subprime losses were “very manageable” in December 2007; and Larry Kudlow declaring last April that “the worst of this subprime business is over.” The coup de grâce was a CNBC interviewer fawning over the lordly Robert Allen Stanford. Stewart spoke for many when he concluded, “Between the two of them I can’t decide which one of those guys I’d rather see in jail.”
Led by Cramer and Kudlow, the CNBC carnival barkers are now, without any irony whatsoever, assailing the president as a radical saboteur of capitalism. It’s particularly rich to hear Cramer tar Obama (or anyone else) for “wealth destruction” when he followed up his bum steer to viewers on Bear Stearns with oleaginous on-camera salesmanship for Wachovia and its brilliant chief executive, a Cramer friend and former boss, just two weeks before it, too, collapsed. What should really terrify the White House is that Cramer last month gave a big thumbs-up to Timothy Geithner’s bank-rescue plan.
Finally, Rich brings it brilliantly together so as not to ruin our Sunday morning coffee:
In one way, though, the remaining vestiges of the past decade’s excesses, whether they live on in the shouted sophistry of CNBC or in the ashes of Stanford’s castle, are useful. Seen in the cold light of our long hangover, they remind us that it was the America of the bubble that was aberrant and perverse, creating a new normal that wasn’t normal at all.
The true American faith endures in “Our Town.” The key word in its title is the collective “our,” just as “united” is the resonant note hit by the new president when saying the full name of the country. The notion that Americans must all rise and fall together is the ideal we still yearn to reclaim, and that a majority voted for in November. But how we get there from this economic graveyard is a challenge rapidly rivaling the one that faced Wilder’s audience in that dark late winter of 1938.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Hell Hath No Fury Like Jon Stewart Scorned
Okay. Let's set aside "truthiness" for a moment and look at what a snubbed talk show host and staff can put together in service of the truth. For anyone who watches CNBC for financial news - following is a potentially life savings saving recap:
And there's more...
What Really Happened
And here's where you find out what really happened at AIG and what brought down Wall Street...
There is a reason Jon Stewart is a cultural phenom and has been doing this show for ten years. There's a reason he's probably the leading news provider for young voters. It's as though the financial media and its guest executives think the public has a memory span of 30 seconds. But then, that's what Jon Stewart is for.
And there's more...
What Really Happened
And here's where you find out what really happened at AIG and what brought down Wall Street...
There is a reason Jon Stewart is a cultural phenom and has been doing this show for ten years. There's a reason he's probably the leading news provider for young voters. It's as though the financial media and its guest executives think the public has a memory span of 30 seconds. But then, that's what Jon Stewart is for.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Krugman: The Deficit Reduction Plan Can Work
In Saturday's New York Times, Nobel Laureate Princeton Economics Professor Paul Krugman sounds an optimistic tone about Obama's proposed new budget while still sounding a cautionary note about long-term economic challenges. It's worth a read.
Note all the big "ifs" however. They include a) a successful stimulus policy, which is still a working policy, and b) an ability to extremely reduce defense spending by achieving successful plans in both Iraq and Afghanistan (the new monster on our backs). Krugman also points to successful reform of spiraling health care costs for individuals and over-billing of Medicare to achieve substantial budget savings. These are big "ifs" indeed.
This is somewhat more optimistic than yesterday's post here about the risks of overextending the national debt as a) tax revenues decline with contracting production in the economy, and b) federal debt-spending is required to unfreeze credit markets and replace lost demand (to preserve jobs basically). This is a double whammy, but Professor Krugman says these dynamics could feasibly be limited to the short term, an assumption on which all policy planning seems to depend right now.
The overall outlook is best summed in Krugman's closing lines.
Can he actually reduce the red ink from $1.75 trillion this year to less than a third as much in 2013? Yes, he can.
Right now the deficit is huge thanks to temporary factors (at least we hope they’re temporary): a severe economic slump is depressing revenues and large sums have to be allocated both to fiscal stimulus and to financial rescues.
But if and when the crisis passes, the budget picture should improve dramatically. Bear in mind that from 2005 to 2007, that is, in the three years before the crisis, the federal deficit averaged only $243 billion a year. Now, during those years, revenues were inflated, to some degree, by the housing bubble. But it’s also true that we were spending more than $100 billion a year in Iraq.
So if Mr. Obama gets us out of Iraq (without bogging us down in an equally expensive Afghan quagmire) and manages to engineer a solid economic recovery — two big ifs, to be sure — getting the deficit down to around $500 billion by 2013 shouldn’t be at all difficult.
Note all the big "ifs" however. They include a) a successful stimulus policy, which is still a working policy, and b) an ability to extremely reduce defense spending by achieving successful plans in both Iraq and Afghanistan (the new monster on our backs). Krugman also points to successful reform of spiraling health care costs for individuals and over-billing of Medicare to achieve substantial budget savings. These are big "ifs" indeed.
But won’t the deficit be swollen by interest on the debt run-up over the next few years? Not as much as you might think. Interest rates on long-term government debt are less than 4 percent, so even a trillion dollars of additional debt adds less than $40 billion a year to future deficits. And those interest costs are fully reflected in the budget documents.
This is somewhat more optimistic than yesterday's post here about the risks of overextending the national debt as a) tax revenues decline with contracting production in the economy, and b) federal debt-spending is required to unfreeze credit markets and replace lost demand (to preserve jobs basically). This is a double whammy, but Professor Krugman says these dynamics could feasibly be limited to the short term, an assumption on which all policy planning seems to depend right now.
The overall outlook is best summed in Krugman's closing lines.
So we have good priorities and plausible projections. What’s not to like about this budget? Basically, the long run outlook remains worrying.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Ask Not What Your Country Is Doing To You...
I had the displeasure this morning to attend a commercial real estate seminar for which the opening speaker was a real estate economist who profoundly misunderstood the bounds of his expertise.
After stating that he didn't care who was president, and that he wasn't a Democrat or Republican, but a "registered cynic," he proceeded to rant without statistics, studies, or citations about the frustrations of the current situation the nation faces, a la Rick Santelli's now infamous rant on CNBC this week on the floor of the CME. Cynic, indeed.
It has always been easy to be a cynic about politics. Too easy. Cynicism is a coward's way out. Sometimes I want to yell at people, "Ask not what your country is doing to you, ask what you are doing to your country." We are where we are. Who in America could not go on an hour-long tirade about how frustrated we are as Americans right now, about how profoundly messed up the country is right now, and about how much and how many ways we have failed as a collective in recent years? Who couldn't do that?
I don't have time for people who can only state the obvious in the middle of a crisis and cannot offer or assess credible potential solutions.
A client of mine is not a professional economist. But he cares about politics, and though our politics is different, he asked a provocative question a few days ago. He said, why doesn't the government let responsible individuals (presumably including those who were steered into usury loans) refinance their loans to current market value with a balloon payment for the remainder of the balance due in 30 years? It's really a provocative idea. I can tick off a handful of problems with it, but not enough to declare it DOA. Really I'd like to look into his idea more. Like I said, he and I probably wouldn't agree on much politically (at least at first, perhaps), but he commanded my respect by offering an idea and being able to articulate it, an indicator of earnest reflection.
But ranting from these others? C'mon. It's defeatist. It's unimaginative. It's unhelpful and probably destructive. So what are these otherwise smart people thinking when they launch into these toddler tirades on the platforms given them by their professions as they step outside the boundaries thereof? I am embarrassed for them.
So I wonder... I suggested a while back of the Chair of the House Banking Committee Barney Frank, it must hurt to be that smart. But these high profile rants by otherwise smart professionals make me wonder in those moments: Does it hurt to be that dumb? I hope so.
Well for the record, I'm frustrated too. Consider this post my rant.
In case you missed it, Santelli:
After stating that he didn't care who was president, and that he wasn't a Democrat or Republican, but a "registered cynic," he proceeded to rant without statistics, studies, or citations about the frustrations of the current situation the nation faces, a la Rick Santelli's now infamous rant on CNBC this week on the floor of the CME. Cynic, indeed.
It has always been easy to be a cynic about politics. Too easy. Cynicism is a coward's way out. Sometimes I want to yell at people, "Ask not what your country is doing to you, ask what you are doing to your country." We are where we are. Who in America could not go on an hour-long tirade about how frustrated we are as Americans right now, about how profoundly messed up the country is right now, and about how much and how many ways we have failed as a collective in recent years? Who couldn't do that?
I don't have time for people who can only state the obvious in the middle of a crisis and cannot offer or assess credible potential solutions.
A client of mine is not a professional economist. But he cares about politics, and though our politics is different, he asked a provocative question a few days ago. He said, why doesn't the government let responsible individuals (presumably including those who were steered into usury loans) refinance their loans to current market value with a balloon payment for the remainder of the balance due in 30 years? It's really a provocative idea. I can tick off a handful of problems with it, but not enough to declare it DOA. Really I'd like to look into his idea more. Like I said, he and I probably wouldn't agree on much politically (at least at first, perhaps), but he commanded my respect by offering an idea and being able to articulate it, an indicator of earnest reflection.
But ranting from these others? C'mon. It's defeatist. It's unimaginative. It's unhelpful and probably destructive. So what are these otherwise smart people thinking when they launch into these toddler tirades on the platforms given them by their professions as they step outside the boundaries thereof? I am embarrassed for them.
So I wonder... I suggested a while back of the Chair of the House Banking Committee Barney Frank, it must hurt to be that smart. But these high profile rants by otherwise smart professionals make me wonder in those moments: Does it hurt to be that dumb? I hope so.
Well for the record, I'm frustrated too. Consider this post my rant.
In case you missed it, Santelli:
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Storm Infrastructure in America
Rachel Maddow, the radio and evening television pundit, is a rare breed. A self-avowed liberal, graduate of Stanford, Rhodes Scholar, and PhD, Dr. Maddow is a 35-year-old model of a, if not "the", future of liberal politics. I guess.
Aside from that however, Maddow proves on her new hit show (which often beats Larry King in the time slot) that political orientation does not need to immunize anyone or any issue. (Her smackdown interview of Rod Blagojevich will go down in history. Anyone looking for some Blogojevich schadenfreude will enjoy her multi-part interview in which he seems to admit to his crimes in several trip-ups.)
More importantly however, were Maddow's opening remarks about the sad statement of the condition of American infrastructure revealed -- yet again -- by a normal winter storm putting over 1 million Americans in the dark, in the dead of winter, with no power.
Her most powerful remark is how we are accustomed to hearing about the unimaginable terrorist "force multiplier" threats that could target our nation's energy grid, and yet time and again, including what we experienced ourselves right here in Houston, the nation's energy grid shows just how frail a condition it is in and how it cannot stand up to even run-of-the-mill seasonal storms.
This commentary leads into a revealing and frustrating discussion with US Oregon Representative Pete DeFazio about his efforts to get the new stimulus bill to include more job-providing, long-term infrastructure projects that Americans overwhelmingly support.
On this issue there can be no legitimate debate about the broad outlines:
1. Economic stimulation policy depends on increasing demand. Any attempt to stimulate supply by providing tax breaks for producers and investors inevitably fails because if the demand doesn't exist, you can, as we have with banks, provide all the money you want, but that money will just sit on the sidelines until there are buyers to produce for. Scared money doesn't spend.
2. Economic stimulus to increase demand must increase both spending power and actual spending in the private markets. It's no use to give money to those who in fear will put the money under a mattress. Therefore targeting money toward those who need it most, who have no choice but to spend it, is most effective. Therefore stimulative policy must focus on low-income workers and families who will spend. In addition, without jobs, those who must spend cannot. Therefore the other prong of stimulative spending must focus on jobs: preventing job loss and creating new jobs, preferably private-sector jobs that can be sustained in a recovery.
3. Simple tax rebates to those who will not spend and tax cuts to those with incomes who pay the most taxes (and by definition do not need to spend immediately) are not stimulative in this kind of environment. Most economists suggest long-term policy should include a fixed tax policy and stimulative/arresting policies from the Fed. Tax policy, except adjusting to route money immediately into the economy to those who will immediately spend that money (such as through payroll tax credits, which take effect immediately), is not effective for immediate stimulus.
4. The best investments of government spending must provide for future returns on that investment enough to cover future debt repayments and instill confidence in global investors of American national debt. The entire stimulus bill will be borrowed money. In order to accomplish that confidence, foreign investors need to see the US increasing its production capacity. Tax cuts do not do that; that approach is what ballooned - along with unrestrained spending - the national debt in the past 8 years past $11 trillion in an economy that has been producing $13 trillion annually. However, infrastructure investments do work.
The most famous infrastructure success story came from the Eisenhower administration in the $500 billion National Highway bill that established the Interstate highway system in every state. The modern parallel, aside from repair and maintenance of our roads, would be creating new high speed rails ("bullet trains" that don't exist yet in this country) but will reduce demand of foreign fossil fuels and provide new much more reliable and convenient regional travel (think uber-convenient substitute to Southwest Airlines).
Nonetheless, the idea that Houston's evacuation efforts involve many many hours of gridlock on highways, and the midwest to northeast loses power in the middle of a standard winter storm for over a million people, and Houston and other gulf coast cities can lose power for weeks and even months in the wake of a mid-tier hurricane -- it's just unacceptable in America. It's incompatible with the American way of life, and it presents an enormous security risk.
Enjoy Maddow's opening segment (and then watch the Blagojevich segments in the link above for a good laugh as he crashes and burns under Maddow's withering, crouching interview worthy of any world-class legal team).
Aside from that however, Maddow proves on her new hit show (which often beats Larry King in the time slot) that political orientation does not need to immunize anyone or any issue. (Her smackdown interview of Rod Blagojevich will go down in history. Anyone looking for some Blogojevich schadenfreude will enjoy her multi-part interview in which he seems to admit to his crimes in several trip-ups.)
More importantly however, were Maddow's opening remarks about the sad statement of the condition of American infrastructure revealed -- yet again -- by a normal winter storm putting over 1 million Americans in the dark, in the dead of winter, with no power.
Her most powerful remark is how we are accustomed to hearing about the unimaginable terrorist "force multiplier" threats that could target our nation's energy grid, and yet time and again, including what we experienced ourselves right here in Houston, the nation's energy grid shows just how frail a condition it is in and how it cannot stand up to even run-of-the-mill seasonal storms.
This commentary leads into a revealing and frustrating discussion with US Oregon Representative Pete DeFazio about his efforts to get the new stimulus bill to include more job-providing, long-term infrastructure projects that Americans overwhelmingly support.
On this issue there can be no legitimate debate about the broad outlines:
1. Economic stimulation policy depends on increasing demand. Any attempt to stimulate supply by providing tax breaks for producers and investors inevitably fails because if the demand doesn't exist, you can, as we have with banks, provide all the money you want, but that money will just sit on the sidelines until there are buyers to produce for. Scared money doesn't spend.
2. Economic stimulus to increase demand must increase both spending power and actual spending in the private markets. It's no use to give money to those who in fear will put the money under a mattress. Therefore targeting money toward those who need it most, who have no choice but to spend it, is most effective. Therefore stimulative policy must focus on low-income workers and families who will spend. In addition, without jobs, those who must spend cannot. Therefore the other prong of stimulative spending must focus on jobs: preventing job loss and creating new jobs, preferably private-sector jobs that can be sustained in a recovery.
3. Simple tax rebates to those who will not spend and tax cuts to those with incomes who pay the most taxes (and by definition do not need to spend immediately) are not stimulative in this kind of environment. Most economists suggest long-term policy should include a fixed tax policy and stimulative/arresting policies from the Fed. Tax policy, except adjusting to route money immediately into the economy to those who will immediately spend that money (such as through payroll tax credits, which take effect immediately), is not effective for immediate stimulus.
4. The best investments of government spending must provide for future returns on that investment enough to cover future debt repayments and instill confidence in global investors of American national debt. The entire stimulus bill will be borrowed money. In order to accomplish that confidence, foreign investors need to see the US increasing its production capacity. Tax cuts do not do that; that approach is what ballooned - along with unrestrained spending - the national debt in the past 8 years past $11 trillion in an economy that has been producing $13 trillion annually. However, infrastructure investments do work.
The most famous infrastructure success story came from the Eisenhower administration in the $500 billion National Highway bill that established the Interstate highway system in every state. The modern parallel, aside from repair and maintenance of our roads, would be creating new high speed rails ("bullet trains" that don't exist yet in this country) but will reduce demand of foreign fossil fuels and provide new much more reliable and convenient regional travel (think uber-convenient substitute to Southwest Airlines).
Nonetheless, the idea that Houston's evacuation efforts involve many many hours of gridlock on highways, and the midwest to northeast loses power in the middle of a standard winter storm for over a million people, and Houston and other gulf coast cities can lose power for weeks and even months in the wake of a mid-tier hurricane -- it's just unacceptable in America. It's incompatible with the American way of life, and it presents an enormous security risk.
Enjoy Maddow's opening segment (and then watch the Blagojevich segments in the link above for a good laugh as he crashes and burns under Maddow's withering, crouching interview worthy of any world-class legal team).
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