The party now resembles a protection racket with an army of volunteers, with friends who never suffer and enemies who never relax. - Dick Durbin Edition

Eli,

Last year I ran across this story in Politico: Dick Durbin looking to become retailers’ BFF

So when Ben Domenech, in his The Clinton Machine is Alive, described the Democratic Party as "protection racket with an army of volunteers, with friends who never suffer and enemies who never relax," it rang true.

But, as I said earlier, I think the description is just as apt for the Republicans.

Bill

Dropbox, Spider Oak and Nude Photos of Jennifer Lawrence

Eli,

Someone hacked iCloud and downloaded nudie pics of Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Ariana Grande, and others. (I don't know who Ariana Grande is).

I don't have nude pictures of myself, so now worries about having them hacked and downloaded, but I am an iCloud user. All of my iCloud storage is of Apple related apps: iPhoto, Mail, Pages, my phone's camera, my iPhone and iPad backup files.

I'm a big fan of Dropbox, now $99 per year for 1 terabyte of storage. I passed on the recent Spider Oak offer of $125 per year for unlimited storage. Spider Oak isn't as easy to use as Dropbox and doesn't integrate with as many apps as Dropbox. But it is secure, in that your files are encrypted at your device, and the encrypted file is stored by Spider Oak. If someone hacks Spider Oak, they'll get an encrypted file without a key.

With the hacking of iCloud, I'm regretting my decision to pass on the Spider Oak offer.

Bill

Obamacare, Work and the Minimum Wage

Eli,
My only begotten son has a minimum wage job and, since he is under 26 years old, is on my health insurance. He was telling me his employer is keeping his hours under 30 per week since more than 30 hours would force his employer to provide health insurance. Of course, he doesn't need insurance through his employer since he already has insurance through my employer.

I don't need to ask the question why the law was designed to do this since I know the answer: The law was poorly constructed (see King v Burwell and Halbig v Burwell.  Even though these courts reached different conclusions, they agree the law, in the aspect they were investigating, was at best ambiguous) and it was rushed through in order to avoid Scott Brown and his promise to sustain a filibuster against Obamacare.

But this brings up two other interesting issues.

First, as many have predicted, Obamacare results in less work. My son would like to work more. He can't with his current employer. Of course, he could find another part time job, but there are costs to doing that as well and potential conflicts with work schedules. In any case, the law is resulting in less work. The theory supporting that observation is one most agree with: higher prices result in lower demand.

Second, if raising the minimum wage has no impact, as many claim, on work, why would my son's employer not let him work more than 30 hours per week? After all, the health care benefit is the same thing, economically as a wage hike. Ironically, my son agrees the minimum wage should be raised. It's odd he doesn't see higher wages, all else equal, results in less work demanded. For proof, all he has to do is look at his employer's actions relative to health care.

Bill

Chelsea Clinton Leaving Her Unbelievably Cushy Fake Job at NBC

Eli,

The headline and first paragraph of this article are priceless.

Kicking off the annual Labor Day Friday News Dump, Chelsea Clinton has announced, via People, that she will no longer pretend to be a reporter. The once (and future?) First Daughter has been a “special correspondent” for NBC News since 2011, when she was dubbed, following her debut, “one of the most boring people of her era.” For the occasional feel-good segment or interview with the CGI Geico gecko, Clinton earned a reported annual salary of $600,000, or approximately $26,724 for every minute she was on-air.

I don't begrudge her ability to earn $600,000 per year. Lots of people earn money for doing little: actors come to mind.

Bill

The party now resembles a protection racket with an army of volunteers, with friends who never suffer and enemies who never relax.

Eli,

This Ben Domenech piece on Hilary, Obama, the Progressives and the Democratic party is interesting. I don't agree with all of it. I did find this passage interesting.

History may ultimately consider Obama’s 2008 nomination as a representation not of progressivism’s resurgent appeal, but as its death rattle—a speed bump along the way to the Democratic Party’s becoming a fully corporatist, Clinton-owned entity. In practice, the party now resembles a protection racket with an army of volunteers, with friends who never suffer and enemies who never relax. And who are those enemies? Not big business or Wall Street, which has paid their way to new alliances; not America’s insurers, whose products Democrats have made it illegal not to buy; not privacy-challenging government, which Obama has expanded to unprecedented degrees. No, the only enemies who really matter to today’s Democratic Party are those wayward intolerant social-policy traditionalists with their un-American views of religious liberty.

It's unfair to tag only the Democrats as a protection racket when the Republicans can and do engage in protection as well, and the idea that the payer in the racket (insurance companies, Wall Street, big business) is now a friend, or not an enemy is a stretch.  The protection racket analogy is however, apt, in my view.

 Bill

Eli,
The new football season is here. I thought you would appreciate this.

24 Maps That Explain the NFL
#22 is scary, but I don't read brainscans for a living.
I love #16, most hated teams by state.
And on #14, why is there a pocket of Dallas fans in South Western Colorado?

The odds for winning the Super Bowl? Thank God it will be played in a warm weather city this year. Maybe the Broncos will have a chance, if they get there. Yes, I am blaming their loss to Seattle on cold weather.

 Bill

The Economic Consequences of the Peace

Eli,
I'm reading  "The Economic Consequences of the Peace," by J. M. Keynes. It's Keynes' predictions of what will happen to Germany and Europe if the Paris Peace Treaty ending WWI goes into effect as written. He has a description of Woodrow Wilson, who I know almost nothing about.

Wilson entered the peace conference as a hero, the hope of the world. Better yet,

The American armies were at the height of their numbers, discipline, and equipment. Europe was in complete dependence on the food supplies of the United States; and financially she was even more absolutely at their mercy. Europe not only already owed the United States more than she could pay; but only a large measure of further assistance could save her from starvation and bankruptcy.

In him were placed the hopes of the world and he had the power to make the world bend to his will, if he knew how to use his power and make others follow his lead. But he didn’t.

The President was not a hero or a prophet; he was not even a philosopher; but a generously intentioned man, with many of the weaknesses of other human beings, and lacking that dominating intellectual equipment which would have been necessary to cope with the subtle and dangerous spellbinders whom a tremendous clash of forces and personalities had brought to the top as triumphant masters in the swift game of give and take, face to face in Council,—a game of which he had no experience at all.

And he was impotent against the British Prime Minister Lloyd George and the French Prime Minister Clemenceau.

Never could a man have stepped into the parlor a more perfect and predestined victim to the finished accomplishments of the Prime Minister. The Old World was tough in wickedness anyhow; the Old World's heart of stone might blunt the sharpest blade of the bravest knight-errant. But this blind and deaf Don Quixote was entering a cavern where the swift and glittering blade was in the hands of the adversary.”

Wilson had an outline of the peace he wanted, but he didn’t have the details.

the President had thought out nothing; when it came to practice his ideas were nebulous and incomplete…

He was ignorant as well and incapable of thinking on his feet, adapting to the proposals made at the conference.

He not only had no proposals in detail, but he was in many respects, perhaps inevitably, ill-informed as to European conditions. And not only was he ill-informed—that was true of Mr. Lloyd George also—but his mind was slow and unadaptable.

and

There can seldom have been a statesman of the first rank more incompetent than the President in the agilities of the council chamber.

and

Victory would only have been possible to one who had always a sufficiently lively apprehension of the position as a whole to reserve his fire and know for certain the rare exact moments for decisive action. And for that the President was far too slow-minded and bewildered.

 Brutal.

Bill