Hoyer Now Supports Public Option: "With or Without Republicans"

Brett Zongker at the AP (I know, the "Against Progressives" AP!), has an article today featured by Huffington Post stating that at a town hall (can we retire that silly term already people...) that he now supports the Public Option, "with or without Republican support." This is progress we can believe in... for now. To wit:

"If the question is do I plan to vote for a public option with or without Republican support, the answer is yes," Hoyer said.

A public option would lower insurance premiums for everyone through competition with private insurers, he said. The House, he said, would not pass an alternative calling for nonprofit cooperatives, which has been floated in the Senate.

And then, in a "tell" or a "wink" at his enlightened readers, Zongker goes on to -- gasp, almost "report" -- by including a short episode reflective of the deep insights and awareness that these persistent town-hallers (tea-baggers/deathers/birthers/seceders) bring to the table. HILARIOUS. Like someone on Medicare decrying gov'mnt run health care, this time it's her state that has it covered, so why do we need the government? Sheesh. We are not even having the same conversation in this country. Not even in the same room:

The first questioner who challenged Hoyer directly, April Burke of Mechanicsville, Md., said her son and daughter in law both had lost their jobs and health insurance but were covered by the state.

"So why should I want to have the government get into my business?" she asked Hoyer.

The congressman said Burke's family would benefit from the health care overhaul being proposed. But she shouted back: "We want government out of our business now."

I presume this means she wants everyone to pay out of pocket for their children to go to private-run schools (why should single people subsidize parents who made an individual choice to have children)? Right lady? And we should all pay out of pocket for private protection services - let them compete - and get rid of municipal police and fire departments, right lady? Surely the private sector can be more efficient and provide better teachers, fire fighters, ambulances, police. Oh, and while we're "getting government out of our business," we should get rid of the Defense Department, right lady? Just replace it with Blackwater and Halliburton, right lady? Then it will all go better and cheaper. Hell we already had as many contractors (mercenaries, ahem...) in Iraq as we had patriotic enlisted troops, so we're almost there.

Oh, and no more NASA, no more spy satellites, and no more satellite TV or GPS. No more control over epidemics -- no more annual flu shots, right lady? It's all government in our business.

And why not have 3 of the same road everywhere you go - we should make road builders compete and only the people who drive on them should pay tolls for those roads. That won't hurt quality much, will it?

A Libertarian - er, Anarchist - paradise.

Because that's what these people really are: anarchists. You want government out of our business? It means there's no government. That's anarchy. That's destruction of the nation. Lady, meet the secessionist klan. You want your country back? No lady you want your country gone.

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.

Site Selection said Houston clinched the top spot after scoring 179 corporate real estate deals in 2008, unseating three-year incumbent Chicago-Naperville-Joliet.
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.”

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.)

Stimulus Money for Toll Roads: Good Policy

Let the political games begin. Now that the stimulus bill funds are being allocated by state and local authorities, well-meaning but terribly misinformed citizens and grand-standing politicians are cutting off our economic noses.

The purpose of the stim bill was to create immediate spending through public investment projects, the so-called "shovel ready" projects that retain and create infrastructure jobs immediately.

The following story from The Houston Chronicle is about the current kerfuffle among perennially disgruntled citizen activists and perennially grand-standing politician enablers of both parties.

As Stephen Colbert would say, the idea that allocating stim funds to toll roads is an unfair application of public funds sounds "truthy," meaning it has a ring of truth and so often is accepted as truth by people who miss the larger context that stands their "truthy" argument on its head. First:

$700 million eyed for toll projects
Grand Parkway's among 21 Texas roads in allocation
By ROSANNA RUIZ Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
Feb. 27, 2009, 9:37PM

The Texas Department of Transportation has set aside more than $700 million in economic stimulus funds for toll road projects across the state, sparking criticism and questions about whether the pay-to-drive roads are an appropriate use of the federal dollars. ...

“It’s a total rip-off,” said Terri Hall, director of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, a nonprofit opposed to toll roads. “That’s not how the money is supposed to be used.” ...

“I think it’s unfortunate that the discussion about these funds has eclipsed the broader discussion about the state’s transportation needs,” TxDOT spokesman Chris Lippincott said. ... [emphasis added]

I have to side completely with TxDOT on this. Toll roads, whether you like them are not, are not the issue right now. But that's really the beef that Hall has, namely toll roads in general and not this specific application of funds which has a different purpose of employing people and getting funds flowing into the cash-starved economy. I can respect Hall's citizen activism.

The political grandstanding, however, not so much:

U.S. Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land, who sits on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, also questioned the use of stimulus funds on toll roads.

“It concerns me that state officials would prioritize toll projects that will hit already hard-pressed Texas drivers with additional fees,” he said... [emphasis added]

And so where has Olson's opposition to Texas toll-roads been in the last decade as the state turned more and more to toll road construction financing to avoid "public spending" to improve highways and reduce congestion? Yeah, that's what I thought.

For the record, a Democrat in the state legislature, Rep. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, is the one "whose criticism led the commission to postpone its vote." Grandstanding has no party affiliation.

A reminder of reality from the U.S. House Transportation Committee:

The economic stimulus bill does not address toll roads, only that proposed projects satisfy requirements to create jobs and promote economic growth, said Jim Berard, a spokesman for the U.S. House Transportation Committee.

That's right. "[C]reate jobs and promote economic growth." Whether funds are used for immediate construction of schools, charter schools, highways, toll roads, government buildings -- public infrastructure regardless of how it's publicly financed is good stimulus. Now cannot be the time to piddle over the relative merits of various infrastructure projects. Is the project ready? Will it employ people? Will it create a public benefit when it's complete? That's all we need to know.

In addition to $181 million for the Grand Parkway, TxDOT’s list includes an additional $50 million for four new ramps connecting the Eastex Freeway and Beltway 8. ...

The above ramps proposal will connect a key alternative to the free I-45 north corridor into downtown Houston to the 2nd outer loop around Houston in a free portion (it becomes toll as it circles toward the west). These toll roads are not sparsely used. From before 6AM in the mornings until after 9AM and again for a few hours in the evening, these "toll" roads are used by thousands and thousands of motorists seeking the most efficient route around the city. The flyovers onto the 2nd outer ring will create even more incentive for motorists to use the toll roads and will off-set public tax dollars required to maintain these highways. You might argue with the idea, but you can't argue about the merits of the project at this moment in time.

There is a 3rd outer ring under construction in "segments" that will relieve traffic on Houston's other clogged highways that are mostly free. Better traffic capacity will benefit everyone, whether they choose to pay the tolls or stay on free highways. It's the driver's choice at any given moment on any given day.

Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack, whose precinct includes Segment E of the Grand Parkway, said the segment satisfies the federal stimulus mandate as a “shovel-ready” project. ...

Radack [argued] that a planned overhaul of U.S. 290 is not at the appropriate stage for the stimulus funds. ...

Radack points out that activists' demands that funds be used for a free northwest corridor (a "spoke" from the hub, so to speak) are misinformed because the project they advocate does not meet the criteria of the stim funds: the money couldn't be spent immediately and would not create immediate jobs. Yes, sometimes this governing stuff is actually kind of complicated.

Finally, the scale of the spending on the toll and free portions of area highways is of sufficient magnitude to achieve the express purpose of the stim funding:

The proposed Grand Parkway would span 180 miles, circling around the Houston area, at a projected cost of $4.8 billion. Segment E calls for a 15-mile, four-lane toll road that would connect the Katy Freeway and U.S. 290 at an estimated cost of $330 million, according to the Harris County Toll Road Authority. ...

Privatizing Gains, Socializing Losses vs Socializing Gains, Privatizing Losses

I thought, like most Americans, that the president gave a very effective speech last night to congress and the nation. But something struck me this morning as I listened to the chattering heads the morning after. Much of the argument from Republicans is the direct inverse of the argument Democrats have been making for several years, namely: it's all about whether we privatize or socialize gains and losses.

The progressive argument states that corporations and their private shareholders/owners aim to privatize gains through profit as much as they can, while shifting "costs" or losses onto society in general. A clear example is pollution. If a company profits by manufacturing something that creates severe pollution that the company is allowed to dump into the air and water, then society bears a significant cost associated with the production of that product, and the company profits by not having to pay all the expenses associated with their production.

So then the pollutants often lead to higher incidents of asthma in children and adults near chemical plants, or higher rates of cancer, etc. -- and so social health programs (with public taxes, not at the company's expense) or individuals suffering then carry the burden of the "socialized cost." This is why Democrats often push for tighter regulations of private enterprise, to minimize the degree of socializing costs, shifting costs to the general public, in order to increase private profits.

The conservative argument postulates that a great economic danger is in privatizing losses while socializing gains, the exact inverse of the progressive argument - this is how we can tell now that we are on ideological terra firma with both arguments. The conservative argument is almost always made as an argument against the perils of taxes, and it's why progressives often accuse conservatives of thinking tax cuts are the solution to every problem.

In the conservative view, the nation does far greater harm to itself by privatizing losses and costs through excessive taxation in order to create socialized benefits. This is, however, the basic dynamic behind any taxation, whether it is to build roads and schools (albeit most conservatives do not oppose this) or to build and operate a "common defense" in the military. Conservatives, however, think there is danger in over-extending this dynamic to include what they feel are other ineffective social and other programs.

Neither position is absolutist of course, but they often stand on slippery slopes.

But here in this moment, in this time of great challenge, we need to be careful not to retreat to these easy diametric ideological positions and thereby miss the most practical circumstances and solutions that are key to our collective recovery.

The most salient question is the one posed by the president in another speech: the question is not, "Is government too big or too small?" as it was in the 80's and 90's. Rather, the question is, "Is government being effective." That's the question today. That's our question right now as a nation facing great challenge.

Reasonable people will disagree on that question. But make no mistake, that is the conversation we must be having.

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).

When Elevators Attack

If I told you that someone was injured when their elevator fell from the 27th to the 25th floor before the emergency brake kicked in, you might ask, "What happened?"

But if I told you someone jumped off a 2-story building, you'd probably ask, "Did they survive?"

It's essentially the same thing though.

Granted, elevator travel really is the safest form of travel in the world. The best elevators in the world will only fall 6 feet, even if the suspension cables hypothetically snapped. There are redundancies upon redundancies, and aside from accidentally falling in an open door into the shaft, the danger couldn't be less given that the car travels along a fixed path cleared of all obstructions in only 2 directions.

But still, like anything, systems fail. When I first read of the failure in the linked article, I thought it would be a clear example of how our nation's aging skyscrapers are falling into extraordinary disrepair in an ever spiraling need for greater maintenance to fight against the ravages of physical aging. Skyscrapers weren't built to last 100 years on their own.

But the building in question, in downtown Houston, was only finished in 2003. Instead of being of comfort, it only alarms me more.

I am convinced that the era for central business districts consisting of dense roads and tall skyscrapers is fated for an end. Whereas prior to the telecom revolution, businesses required physical proximity for efficiencies of day-to-day business, this is just no longer the case. The falling costs of telecom technology, its rising efficiencies and capabilities, and the inevitably rapid rise of transit costs - auto or mass - point clearly to the future trend, which doesn't favor the downtown skylines of 20th century American triumphalism.

I expect that one day American history books will have a chapter with awesome skyline photos of American cities in the same way they now have photos of the 19th century American West full of buffalo herds roaming on open plains.

Whether it's an isolated instance of failure or not, this recent elevator failure foretells I think the kinds of infrastructure problems we are certain to see more as the next few decades unfold amidst ever-expanding telecom technology, rising transport costs, and declining urban and municipal tax bases.

Beyond that, how many horror stories like the following will the public tolerate?

From The Houston Chronicle:

On Dec. 9, DeRouen, who has been working as a contract consultant for Rosetta Resources on the 27th floor, said she finished work about 5:30 p.m.

“I pressed one, and it started free-falling really fast,” DeRouen said.

Sent airborne during the descent, she slammed hard into the floor when the elevator suddenly halted at the 23rd floor.

Her tibia bone tore through her leg between her knee and ankle, creating a long wound. Her ankle and toes on her left leg were fractured.

The elevator door wouldn’t open, so employees on the 23rd floor could not come to her aid as she pierced the air with screams, Boutros said. They kept her talking, though, worried that she might lose consciousness otherwise, she said.

It took a half-hour for help to arrive, Boutros said.

She has undergone several surgeries on her leg and will undergo at least two surgeries to repair the fractured lower vertebra and ruptured discs, Boutros said.

Oh, and there wasn't just one instance -- there was another one shortly after in the same building.

Both incidents are still under investigation by the landlord and its elevator contractors (and where are the police?), while the other elevators are still in operation. Naturally, many employees are taking 25 flights of stairs now instead of using the remaining elevators.

Just this week, roughly one month after the first incident still under investigation:

On Monday, Carleen Naumann, a sales representative for Besco Tubular, and Allan Keel, president of Crimson Exploration, were injured when an elevator dropped precipitously from the 27th floor to the 25th floor.

They were trapped in the elevator for a short time. Keel said he suffered a minor back injury and declined to be taken to a hospital.

Later, called ambulance
Naumann, of Katy, also declined treatment Monday. But she said she called for an ambulance after she got up Tuesday morning and her nose was bleeding. Her ankle also was hurting, she said.

Staff at Memorial Hermann Hospital in Katy determined she had fractured a vertebra in her lower back, she said.

“The elevator was flying. I thought we went down 15 stories. I was shocked to hear it was only two,” she said. “I was airborne and then it was as if we hit bottom.”

The nation's urban infrastructure problems are piling up so quickly from accelerating deterioration and a long history of deferred maintenance -- one day the costs of renewing the systems of the buildings, water systems, roads, fuel, and air will exceed the capacity of the nation to pay them. This is one of the biggest secrets in American municipal government and civil engineering. Few yet appreciate the full scope of the problem.

And if anybody else gets killed in their car from an exploding old gas main, or falls to their death in an open road hole from a water main break, or simply plunges into a river from a failed Interstate bridge, or especially if other cities see executives with bones sticking out of their legs or crushed vertebrae after an elevator falls two or three stories -- well, let's just say the suburbs and exurbs and rural areas will suddenly find new federal resources to support low-rise commercial development, and brand new sewer, water, electrical, and gas lines.

One day telecommuting won't be an HR incentive - it will be our way of life. It is destined to become the only affordable option for the nation's economy.

Suburban Blight

This article is terribly, horribly interesting. It is about certain community leaders' efforts to revitalize a corridor of north Houston that used to be the de facto suburbs just 30 years ago. The area is the FM 1960 highway corridor (really it's a 5-lane cement thoroughfare) from I-45 westward to about Steubner Airline. It used to feature a primary medical district for the north Houston region, family-oriented retail strips, major retail outlets, entertainment, restaurants, and mid-rise office buildings.

But in the past 30 years as the northern boundary of the city of Houston reached FM 1960, and as the suburbs sprawled ever northward into the next county and past one of the nation's earliest and most successful master-planned communities, The Woodlands, the FM 1960 corridor - along its many large adjacent subdivisions, many once affluent - fell into total disrepair.

Now, driving from I-45 westward on FM 1960 to Spring Steubner at night reminds me of driving through Times Square in its worst years. The once neighborly strip centers have bars on the windows, the nice restaurants now long gone, obscenely bright flashing LED lights untolerated in any dignified residential area, pawn shops every other block along with other "low rent" small businesses, and the office buildings that once spared nearby residents from long commutes have fallen into office-slum status.

So now a group wants to create a special taxing entity to tax commercial businesses in the corridor to make "improvements." And here is where suburban politics intersects with traditionally "urban" concerns: the Republican state representatives are sitting on their hands, reluctant to create "additional layers of government", "new taxes", or to do anything local businesses -- even low rent ones -- might find objectionable.

Call it suburban blight. And we'll be seeing a whole lot more of this.

From the article:

That management district would provide a method to raise money, through an assessment on commercial property, to carry out improvement projects in the 1960 area. The annual assessment charged to commercial property owners would range between 9-15-cents-per-$100-property valuation.

In the past two years, Renaissance 1960 has been working on projects aimed at spurring revitalization, including the creation of an Urban Design plan for the community, group “bandit sign” removal efforts and community clean-up days, but work on larger projects would require a larger, steady source of income, management district supporters say. ...Many see signs of deterioration in vacant and abandoned buildings, graffiti, signage, heavy traffic and the perception that crime is on the increase.

Well this is certainly new territory for suburban Republican representatives, such as state Reps. Patricia Harless and Debbie Riddle.

Harless said Renaissance 1960 and Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce members worked the past two years to communicate the management district’s mission to property and business owners, and they sought letters of support from those constituents.

In the end, 39 businesses representing about 10 percent of the property value in the proposed district’s boundaries wrote letters of support. That is a substantial number, Harless said, but the questions remain about the overall level of support, and the district’s ability to raise enough money to make an impact on the area even if the bill is passed.

“So that leaves us at how do you create a new tax and new layer of government when several major property owners do not support it?” Harless said.

Personally, I think all the smart "major property owners" bailed on this area years ago. Can anything be done now to lure those quality owners and developers back?

Hmmm... this is sounding more and more like a particularly well-known phenomenon... called urban blight.

Riddle said the management district option is not generating a positive response among commercial property owners who would pay the annual assessment. She said there is a misconception in the community that a management district would have the powers granted to a homeowners’ association, but that is not the case.

Because of those limited powers, she said the vast majority of problems on FM 1960 could not be addressed by management district, and there are other ways the community could address those issues with that without creating a “taxing authority.”

“We are all in agreement that doing nothing is not an option,” Riddle said.

Well now that's an understatement, Debbie. Welcome to urban, or post-suburban, politics.

"A Whiff of Inflationary Grapeshot"

Paul Krugman, NY Times columnist, Professor of Economics at Princeton University, and winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics, posted an article a couple of hours ago reiterating the approach featured and advocated on this blog a number of times: that deflationary ("liquidity trap") situations require inflationary responses.

Dr. Krugman's post this morning goes into an interesting theoretical detail we should be watching out for -- namely, how the Fed and Treasury are not limited in their response to the crisis with 0% interest rates. They can do more by credibly promising inflation.

Actually, Greg [Mankiw, a Harvard economist] has arrived at the same conclusion I did more than a decade ago, when I tried to model the problems then facing Japan, and now facing us. As I pointed out back then, the essence of a liquidity trap is that the real interest rate is too high, even when the nominal rate is zero. So the theoretically “correct” answer, if you can swing it, is to create expected inflation, pushing the real rate down.

Professor Krugman was roundly criticized for his analysis in the 1990's, however he has of course been vindicated since. A perfect market example of his argument can be found right now in government bonds, "treasuries" -- the recent issue of bonds by the government actually have negative interest rates when traded in the open market between investors. This means investors are willing to guarantee they lose money invested in exchange for the perceived safeness of their investment. Thus, the implication is that the real rate is too high, thereby depressing the economy. (High interest rates depress the economy.)

What we should be most cautious and vigilant about right now are people who are arguing moralism over pragmatism. In other words, let's not cut our noses off to spite our face. Doing so in this case will cause more American children to go hungry, Americans to go without health care, and American families to lose their homes and/or their incomes, which generally undermines family dynamics. We're in the gray here.

Krugman warns:

[Moralists argued that] Japan was supposed to suffer for its sins, not inflate its way out of them. I wonder if similar proposals for the United States will receive the same reception.

If you've heard Tim Pawlenty lately and others seeking a false and cynical "moral high ground" on federal spending (on the heels of our bipartisan government doubling the national debt in the last 8 years, and at the same time governors like him and municipalities plan for more debt and more spending in the face of the crisis), we need to "remember Japan." Let's not make this crisis a decade-long phenomenon.

What I Want to Know Is...

Here's what I want to know: Why in the world is congress giving American car makers such a hard time over a $35 billion loan, when the government has already allocated about $1 trillion for financial companies including American banks?

For instance, about $20 billion last week was allocated to Citigroup to prevent the failure of that massive bank. There was no public debate, no congressional approval... just an announcement. And make no mistake, Wall Street rallied, and it was the right thing for the government to do for the sake of America, and not for Citigroup's executives (jail them for all I care).

So why are the American car companies being publicly flogged for requesting a combined $35 billion -- less than 5% of the federal bailout law -- to get through this historical economic crisis?

Well, here's part of the answer, I think. Why does America only have 3 car companies to begin with, and all of them headquartered in the same failed midwestern city of Detroit? Isn't that odd for these modern times? There are no auto headquarters in California, or Texas, or Ohio, or Missouri? I could make a strong case for each.

If the Japanese and Koreans are going to force our industry out of business, and if we're going to let them do so, and largely with manufacturing plants even on our own soil, then why in the world can't America produce American competitors to beat the Japanese and Koreans? Maybe there's not enough competition within America and between American firms. Why would that be?

The thrust of the problem, I think, is that America has become hostile, even prejudiced, against American manufacturing. That's why it's held on in the city of Detroit, no innovation, no expansion, just old... thinking... and old... organizations.

Our primary concern as Americans right now needs to be American jobs. Without confidence in our jobs, America can never recover from this economic morass. Frankly, I don't know anyone right now who does not fear their job security at some level or another.

A rule of thumb is that a tenth of a percent of the unemployment rate equals about 100,000 jobs. Analysts suggest that a failure of "Detroit" could lead to a total loss of 2 million American jobs. That means unemployment would skyrocket by 2 entire points -- to maybe 8% (bear in mind that new calculation methods of unemployment make 8% equal to maybe twice that several decades ago).

So why is there a debate? I think Americans are tired of being ashamed of their auto industry. The truth is that Detroit has been making good cars in recent years, actually. Most people blame the unions. However if the unions did not exist at all, then Detroit would have to face the fact that their "failures" are really due to executive failures and a collective lack of imagination in design and understanding of market demand more than anything. To wit: GM and Ford decided just a couple of years ago that their best strategy was to create the big gas guzzling line of bland SUV's that had been so profitable for them. (There's not much room for a profit margin in a small, entry-level car.) Well, that was just the wrong decision and terribly short-sighted.

Global players such as Japanese and Korean firms have long marketed to European and Asian markets, of course, where highly dense metro areas require small, small cars. Even Mercedes produces the "Smart" car that is exotic in these parts but common on the streets of any major European city.

Maybe we need more than just 3 American auto companies. Maybe we need more competition. Maybe a California start-up will take a chunk of the market with advanced hybrid and electric technologies. Whatever happens, now is a time not for destroying our auto industry, but for paving the way for serious American innovation. History shows that when America innovates, the world has no choice but to follow.

I think it's time that America realizes that it's just as serious and worthy to have leading manufacturing sectors as it is to have leading technology and professional service sectors.

And congress should stop playing games with millions of jobs that underpin America's challenged middle class.

What If Houston NEEDED to Evacuate 4 Million?

Where the hell has all the "War on Terror" money gone in the past 4 years?

Houston traffic, in anticipation of Hurricane Rita and made all-the-more anxious by recent coverage of Hurricane Katrina -- is at a deadly stand-still. The mayor of Houston perhaps said it best this morning when he said that the highway parking lots would be "death traps" if Rita were a direct hit.

How the hell can this happen over 4 years after 9/11? With all the talk of terrorism against chemical plants or potential dirty bombers, how can emergency planners and politicians not be prepared for a mass evacuation of an entire city?

It seems that money could have been well spent on automatic traffic flow systems that would allow planners to reverse traffic flows with a virtual throw of the switch. Gates could swing entrances shut and open access to contraflow lanes. Instead, it took over 12 hours for a request to be made and then fulfilled, and even then, hapless planners and politicians worried aloud about just "shifting traffic north" unless their eventual exits and stays upstate were measured and planned.

This, after four years since 9/11.

Inexcusable at all levels. Government in the U.S. is broken. Who will fix it and when? Like Houston, the country is simply out of time.