Off To The Holy Land

Bill,

We're on the 4 o'clock plane from Newark to Tel Aviv tomorrow.  Bibi and Abu Mazen want our advice on how to settle their differences. After we've taken care of that we're going to take in the sites of this beautiful and  blood soaked place that I have not laid eyes on since I was 17.

Set an empty chair for me on Wed night, just to keep things even and post your take on the BPS on the performances of challenger and champion.

Eli

What It Means To Be Poor Redux

Bill,

JK Rowling was on the radio on the way into work today, being interviewed about her new book about kids in a "special school" for the marginalized in a fictitious working class English town. The book is informed by her own experience as a seriously underemployed single mother of 3. I couldn't help be struck by the calm but vivid way she recalled the experience of economic transformation that the luck (her words not mine) of Harry Potter's success had brought her. Here was one of the most famous (and richest!) authors of our age expressing the simple gratitude for the opportunity to buy her own home, and the freedom to write what she wants to.

She hasn't forgotten, it seems about what it means to be on the outside. Maybe Mitt Romney should give her call. Perhaps she can conjure up a fantasy that rescues him from his current predicament.

Eli

Those Jobs Are Not coming Back

Bill

In an unguarded but brutally honest moment, John McCain uttered those words during a campaign stop during the Michigan primary campaign in January 2008. He lost that election to (who else?) Mitt Romney, who prevailed in his home state by telling Michiganders what he thought they wanted to hear (sound familiar)?

McCain's lament, however politically unfortunate, gets down to the nub of the problem now confronting millions of American workers with rapidly diminishing prospects and limited adaptability. Long gone are the days when a strapping fellow could captain the high school sports team, slide by with C's, go to work in a good job in the local factory, and single handedly feed his family, buy a new car every few years and head on up to the fishing cabin at the lake every summer. Long gone is the postwar American hegemony (will there ever be such a halcyon period for a country again?) over all matters economic. Gone are millions of jobs at labor intensive companies, in steel, automobiles, farm implements, textiles, furniture and on and on. The argument the Washington wonksters who so dissatisfy you are trying to make is that the relation between productivity, which continues to advance relentlessly, and employment seems increasingly disconnected. Adapt, innovate, be nimble we are told by pundits and policymakers on both the left and right. Not so easy for many. As a charity for my national society I recently interpreted a series of cardiac imaging tests done in a remote village somewhere in India. It was not lost on me that if those pictures could be sent to me from half way round in the fiber optic blink of an electronic eye, then the same pictures from my patients could be sent with equal facility to someone in India or elsewhere who would interpret them at a fraction of the price I currently charge.

While I defer to you in all matters economic, I remain puzzled at the hallowed place that consumers seem to hold in your economic cosmology. I'm all for consumption. mind you, happy to shop with the best of them and as intent as the next fellow on getting the cheapest deal. But cheap deals won't do a person any good if they have no money. Consumers are always something else first, heads of households, single parents, high school students, hedge fund managers or out-of-work home builders. As the economist you love to hate argues repeatedly, the cause of the current economic doldrums is not capacity, it's demand, or more accurately, lack therof. You can't spend what you don't have or can't can't borrow (unless, or course, you are a sovereign government). I'm not sure how more of our countrymen can reenter the virtuous cycle of working and spending, but I'm pretty sure the working, for most will have to begin 1st.  

That's the challenge for policymakers. Maybe, as I surmise you would argue, the answer is to simply get out of the way. If you want to call a group of folks ignorant of what's really going on around them though, I'd begin with that distinguished group in Washington who inhabit the United States Congress.

Eli

Obama's $18,000 Gold-plated Chastity Belt

Eli,

This e-card from the Obama/Biden website is making the rounds on the right-wing blogosphere. $18,000 to "help" pay for birth control? What in the world is Obamacare paying for, gold-plated chastity belts?

Bill

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Pity The Poor Governor

Bill

I'm beginning to feel sorry for Governor Romney. Even babies, it seems, don't like him.

Eli

It's depressing to read the Washington Post's Wonkbook

Eli,

This passes for serious wonkery in the liberal wonkosphere. It's unfortunate since is it so silly. Here's the paragraph that had me shaking my head:

"There are one of two ways to look at the digital revolution of the last few years. The first way is that it hasn't done much for the real economy. The major players like Apple and Google and Twitter and Facebook simply don't employ that many people. They've made a smaller number of people very, very, very rich. But the Internet hasn't been like the automobile, where the new industries meant jobs for millions upon millions of American workers."

It's just a staggeringly ignorant statement. Consumers purchase an iPhone and iPad because the value of the product is at least as great, to them, as as the value of anything else they can buy. Or put simply, it makes the consumer's life better. The number of ways it makes the consumer's life better is as myriad as the number of consumers. For some it will make their work life more productive, which equates to wealth creation and job growth. For some it lowers costs, leaving room in the budget for spending on other items, leading to wealth creation and job growth. For some it just makes them happier to have the device.

And then it leads to other things. The iPhone isn't some paperweight. It requires a cellular network. It requires a distribution network. It requires apps that give it value and makes it object of desire by consumers. Those things aren't just created out of thin air. It requires software programmers. It requires data centers and power generators and electricity, meaning it needs batteries and natural gas and coal and oil.

It is so remarkably stupid to posit Apple, Google, Twitter and Facebook  "hasn't done much for the real economy."

Bill

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/27/there-will-someday-no-longer-be-a-great-stagnation/

There will someday no longer be a great stagnation

Farhad Manjoo has me convinced: Square is a really exciting company.

Square

There are one of two ways to look at the digital revolution of the last few years. The first way is that it hasn't done much for the real economy. The major players like Apple and Google and Twitter and Facebook simply don't employ that many people. They've made a smaller number of people very, very, very rich. But the Internet hasn't been like the automobile, where the new industries meant jobs for millions upon millions of American workers.

The second way is that it hasn't done much for the real economy yet. But there are signs that that's changing. If you look at the much-hyped digital start-ups of the past few years, you're seeing more and more companies knitting the physical, brick-and-mortar economy into the digital revolution.

Groupon, for all its recent troubles, is a good example: They're using e-mail and social networks to get more people into local businesses. Uber, the app-based, on-demand limo service, is another fit: They're using iPhones to get people into physical cars driven by real drivers, leading to transactions that wouldn't have happened in their absence.

But none of these have been gamechangers. Square, a company led by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has the potential to be a gamechanger. It wants to do nothing less than change how we pay for everything. In doing so, it has the potential to vastly lower transaction costs for businesses that accept credit, and to significantly increase the number of transactions that happen, period. If it works, that could be a transformative advance.

Of course, that leaves open the question, will it work? Perhaps not. But something will. Eventually. 

Obama Supports Citizen's United (So Do I)

Eli,

From the President's speech to the UN:

"the strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression; it is more speech."

Amen. More Speech. Now if he would just walk the walk. Citizen's United allows for the strongest weapon against hateful speech: More speech.

Bill

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/world/obamas-speech-to-the-united-nations-general-assembly-text.html?pagewanted=all&_moc.semityn.www

Trouble In The Clubhouse

Bill,

Yesterday, the Boston Red Sox completed their worst home season in 47 years. With the 3rd highest payroll in baseball, the result could hardly have proved more disappointing. The recriminations emerging from their  failure began with last seasons unprecedented collapse, and culminated with the historic trade of three of their stars in mid season. The players didn't care. The old manager lost control. The new manager belittled the players in public. The old GM spent money unwisely. The new GM wasn't given enough control and was undermined by ownership. In the end, for whatever reason, they just weren't very good. As Bill Parcells once said, "you are what your record says you are."

This sort of squabbling of course is the mark of teams that are losing. The Republicans, who are understandably apoplectic that an election they thought could be won by a gerbil, is in grave danger of being seized by a man they presume is the devil incarnate . So there is the endless denying, analyzing, blaming, strategizing, and advising. And of course, hand wringing.

If Romney crushes the President next Wednesday (and just how likely is that?) and the polls reverse themselves it will all go away. If the Dems somehow lose an election that is now widely reported by the evil left wing media as nearly a sure thing, the circular firing squad will decamp to the White House, and Democrats will hang David Axelrod and Jim Messina by the lampposts on Pennsylvania Avenue (how's that for mixing metaphors?). But if the trend continues as it has and the President prevails, all the ancillary explanations will not matter. There will be only explanation that counts, and that is that his opponent just wasn't good enough.

Eli

         

Score One For Labor And The Fans

Bill,

So the refs prevailed in their labor dispute with the owners. This wasn't dispute about equal pay. If, for instance, refs within either group (the union or the subs) were being paid unequally for the same work at the same level of talent, it would have qualified. This was an old fashioned labor management donnybrook, in which the owners wanted to minimize their labor costs and maximize their profits, and the workers wanted to maximize their  earnings and benefits. Unlike so many workers in the present era, the NFL refs had the advantage of possessing rare skills that are not easily transferable, and the owners miscalculated the cost of having them replaced by incompetents.

Eli

Death and American Exceptionalism

Bill

I finished my stint in the cardiac care unit yesterday. Our 90- year old is still there. With the usual manipulations we we able to restore her to a point sufficient to remove the breathing tube. She remains mute, as she was before she entered our unit. Her nephew, who has power-of attorney, has at last agreed to dramatically decrease the level of aggression with which we are treating her, and to allow her to leave this world when the next crisis arrives, which I expect will happen soon.

I have come to see this end-of-life ritual as exactly that, a ritual, like a bar mitzvah or christening or vision quest, only at the other end of life, and in which the presiding sentiments are  grief and loss as compared to joy and celebration. There is a curious intersection between the relentless optimism of American materialism and the unshakable reality that all of us die. Her next-of-kin  seemed to think that that death for his loved one was some sort of option-in reverse that could be avoided if only more stuff was done, more tubes inserted, more buttons pushed, more tests run, more money spent. No amount amount of reasoned counseling on our part (and believe me we tried), was going to change his mind. And so of course, the tubes were inserted the buttons pushed the money ($10,000/ day) was spent, but outcome was the same. This is a scenario played out day-after-day in intensive care units and operating rooms and cancer treatment centers across the land. I tell my loved ones, "I'll know you really hate me if you ever let this happen to me"

Eli  

The Debates

Eli,

Intrade odds of Obama blaming Bush more than 6 times during the debates exceeds 70%. Odds of comparing his economic policies to Clinton more than 6 times over 60%.

If I were Romney I'd be prepared for that and hopefully he'll have some rejoinder. How about, "Mr. President, you are not running against George Bush, and you are certainly no President Clinton."

Bill

NFL Refs and Equal Pay

Eli,

The NFL ref strike and performance of substitute refs demonstrates the overwhelming difficulties with mandated equal pay laws.

Should the substitute refs get paid the same amount as the striking refs? They are doing the exact same job. There seems to be an overwhelming belief, however, that the substitute refs are vastly inferior to the striking refs, so the suggestion of equal pay is risible. For the common chores, the substitute refs seem to be adequate. But for the unusual plays, or the high-value playsm the substitute falls far short of the quality of the striking refs.

There are somewhere around 120 plays in a football game. For how many would the substitute ref be adequate? 110? 115? So the sub is fine for 90-95% of the game. But the 5-10%, that's where the game can be decided, that's where the money is, that's why the striking refs get paid well.

The Equal Pay Act "requires men and women in the same workplace be given equal pay for equal work. The jobs need not be identical, but they must be substantially equal." (EEOC) The law says nothing about the quality of the work performed. It says nothing about a job where 90-95% of the work is tedious, but their is a significant need for high performance 5-10% of the time. Since the substitute refs are doing the exact same job as the striking refs under the law, they should be paid the same. But who would really argue for that?

The last three recoveries, Clinton, Bush, Obama have been the weakest recoveries, measured by job growth, since the end of WWII. And each recovery is weaker than the prior. This is the case despite different fiscal and monetary policies, different interest rate environments, different political power structures.

Maybe the cause is simple. Maybe we've weighed the economy down with well-intentioned, pleasing sounding initiatives that hamper growth and often-times hurt the very group supposedly being helped. If there were a free market in refs, would an equal pay law really benefit the substitute ref? There would be little incentive to hire that ref since the value of his labor would be dictated by the wage of the highest value laborer, not the value of his labor. The same is true of minimum wage laws. Does it really help workers with low skills to price them out of the market? Isn't there a cause and effect between high teenage unemployment, that has been increasing over the decades, and minimum wage laws?

This isn't a bashing of Obama or the Democrats. It's a criticism of almost all politicians. They rarely like free markets and letting prices clear. Instead they have an unholy desire to "do something." Unfortunately the "something" can often hurt more than it helps.

I do find some of the commentary on the ref's strike amusing. In the same article I have often read a complaint that the striking refs don't work hard enough for their pay, but then a harsh criticism of the quality of the substitute refs. Obviously it's not that easy to be a good ref. And in a high-value business like football, good refs clearly earn their money, no matter how often they have to show up to work.

Bill

Posted with Blogsy

What Hath Dodd-Frank Wrought

Eli,

One deleterious impact of Dodd-Frank is higher bank fees, and a reduction in free checking. How's that? The Durbin Amendment, which put a price cap on debit card and credit card swipe fees, the fee a retailer pays to the card issuers for using the card. Ah, the marvels of price controls. 

At the time banks warned it would result in higher checking fees since swipe fees are substantial and swipe fees were used to subsidize free checking, particularly for account with low deposit amounts And, as you can see below, it did.

This is a poster child of the legislation of the 111th Congress. Have prices declined at the stores? I haven't seen any indications that is the case, and that was certainly the argument made for the Durbin amendment. But checking fees have gone up. Who get's hurt most? The poor and those on the margin. Congratulations Senator Durbin! Congratulations Dodd-Frank! Congratulations President Obama and the 111th Congress! You must be proud.

Bill

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/checking/checking-fees-record-highs-in-2012.aspx?ic_id=Top_Financial%20News%20Center_link_1

Banks are in a fee-ing frenzy

The banking industry finds itself in the middle of a fee-for-all. In Bankrate's 2012 Checking Survey, almost every checking fee we follow went up, with some bank fees rising 25 percent or more.

What's behind the jump in all these fees? In part, it's the banking industry's response to recent regulations limiting consumer overdraft fees and to new rules capping the cost of debit card swipe fees for U.S. retailers, says Eben Jose, an industry research analyst with IBISWorld.

"That had a drastic kind of an effect on their revenue for retail banking," Jose says. "They need to find a way to make up for these fees in other ways."

Those fee hikes have sometimes gotten pushback from customers, says Greg McBride, CFA, senior financial analyst for Bankrate.com.

In a recent Bankrate poll, 72 percent of Americans said they would consider switching banks if their financial institution raised its fees on checking accounts, up from 64 percent in March 2011.

Banks have noticed customers' sensitivity to fees. Last year, Bank of America announced it would begin charging customers a fee for carrying a debit card, but the bank quickly backed down in the face of withering public criticism. Other banks followed suit; in our checking survey, less than 1 percent of banks charged a fee for carrying a debit card.

"The consumer backlash was such that the banking community as a whole just decided to look to other avenues to recoup revenue," McBride says.  "Banks have a lot of different levers they can pull to recoup revenue."

Here are some of the other fee levers banks have been pulling lately.

Eli, 

Not one cent in new taxes until waste like this stopped. 

Bill

Obama Preparing the Next Solyndra?

The Obama administration has seen its share of major scandals as it approaches the end of its first term, but by far the biggest has been the Solyndra debacle, where the White House rushed over $500 million to a struggling but politically well connected solar company whose eminently predictable collapse left taxpayers holding the bag.

It's not the kind of mistake you expect an administration to make twice, yet that's exactly what may be about to happen. Reuters reports that a new solar startup, SoloPower, is preparing to apply for funding from the same Department of Energy pool that funded Solyndra. While there are some important differences between the two programs (SoloPower is focused on lightweight solar panels that can be used on buildings that can't support traditional panels), the two companies may have more in common than not:

Like Solyndra, SoloPower is a Silicon Valley start-up and uses the same non-traditional raw material in its solar panels. And, like its now-defunct peer, SoloPower is one of just four U.S. panel manufacturers to clinch loan guarantees under the Department of Energy's $35 billion program to support emerging clean energy technologies. The DOE payments to SoloPower will come on top of the $56.5 million SoloPower has collected in loans, tax credits and incentives from the state of Oregon and the city of Portland, where its first factory will be located.

And, perhaps most importantly, SoloPower is entering the market at a time of cutthroat competition from cheaper solar products made in China.

Unfortunately, Via Meadia has no solar power scientists on staff, so we can't definitively say that this won't work. There are, however, many questions we wish people would answer. The thing that made the Solyndra deals look so dirty was the close political connection between the company and the administration. What's the situation here? Are the venture funds investing run by people who think they have an in with the White House?

Via Meadia doesn't think government has no role in promoting rise of new technologies, but the Obama Administration's record in keeping politics out of the investment process is not very encouraging. And because the green energy field as a whole is so reliant on government subsidies and mandates to create markets, the industry lends itself to crony capitalism more than most.

The administration is walking on shaky ground here; it's already taken one bad fall in this treacherous swamp, and it should take care that it doesn't happen again.

---

Original Page: http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/09/24/obama-preparing-the-next-solyndra/

capitalism's inherent tendency toward exploitation?

What a minute. What? "capitalism's inherent tendency toward exploitation?" How's that? I see government's collusion with special interests, (Solyndra, Exim Bank, Ethanol, farm price supports, National Recovery Act, UAW, etc.) tending to exploitation. But what are you referring to? 

Begin forwarded message:

Subject: [Bipartisan Soapbox] Refs of the World Unite

Bill,

Despite your optimism (or is skepticism?) about the true state of the Presidential sweepstakes, your talent for exposing my potential conservative tendencies remains intact. As I have written previously I see unions as an essential counterweight to capitalism's inherent tendency toward exploitation, but a devil's bargain, given their tendency to calcify eventually into cabals whose sole purpose is to protect the interests of their members, even if it hastens the destruction of the enterprises that employ them. So I stand with the NFL refs on this one, who are being made an example of by the owners in old fashion effort to show the players who is boss before the next round of labor negotiations.

I would also argue that  blaming the officiating for last night's Patriot loss to the Ravens, bizarre at it was, is akin to blaming the media for Mitt's Romney's beyond pathetic performance as a Presidential candidate to date. If I were a Republican I'd be shocked and dismayed, as many apparently are.

As far as the polls go, I'm surprised you don't mention the descriptor that has proved unerringly predictive above all others in the last several election cycles, the InTrade Market. After all, these folks are expressing something far more important than just a preference. They are voting with their pocketbooks.

Eli

--
Posted By E Butcher to Bipartisan Soapbox at 9/24/2012 11:36:00 AM

RINO's

Eli, 

Ben Domenech had an interesting take on the sniping by Republicans.

"One of the most interesting aspects of the 2012 election is how the Tea Party has proven more politically mature than the center-right's self-styled elites, and those who spent much of the Republican primary season chiding swathes of people for being insufficiently pragmatic have turned out to be far more childish than the conservative base.

For the past several weeks, Mitt Romney has been surrounded by critics from the DC-Manhattan elite who've denounced him for a lackluster, unfocused campaign, teeing off on Team Romney in the wake of the 47 percent comments for a number of issues—but mostly, in my read, from failing to take their advice. Romney's defenders, meanwhile, have been many of the same individuals who spent the primary season torching him in effigy as the encapsulation of everything they hate about the Republican ruling class. For months the elites bashed the base for failing to suck it up and see the big picture, to line up for Romney and come on in for the big win. But they got their wish! The Tea Party—once again proving its pragmatism once the general election season rolls around—lined up in the immediate aftermath of the Paul Ryan pick and has proven they can grow up. Professional concern troll David Frum, who spent most of the primary season telling liberals why conservatives were never going to suck it up and go for Romney, now seems very concerned that they have. http://vlt.tc/38v  Michelle Malkin, who could be taking the wood to Romney on a daily basis for his infidelity to the immigration hardline, has morphed into a loyal soldier while Peggy Noonan is calling for Romney to bring in the 82-year-old Jim Baker to rescue his campaign (yes, really).http://vlt.tc/h9w  Ann Romney seems a bit perturbed about this.http://vlt.tc/hbi

The roles of all these figures have completely reversed. Why is this happening? A number of reasons, but chief among them that the Tea Party just wants to beat Obama—they understand that as a necessary first step before continuing any of their internal battles on policy grounds. In contrast, while most insiders want to win, they value the importance of winning on their own terms. The Tea Party could be freaking out about any number of things from Romney.http://vlt.tc/ha8  Heck, his re-endorsement of Romneycare in the past few weeks barely got a peep. http://vlt.tc/ha2  They've largely sucked it up, making peace with the idea that they'll have to keep him honest if he gets to the White House. But consider the criticism from those center-right elites over Romney's failure to mention Afghanistan in his convention speech. Those who long for Bush III, dissatisfied with rise of a more libertarian base, took Romney for the block in the primary. Now it's become evident that Romney isn't running to be Bush III in most policy arenas—he has his own class of insiders, his own establishment, many of whom are his friends and colleagues from business, not from politics. The gripes from Bush-era foreign policy types is also an indication of how much they prioritize those issues over Romney's own bias toward domestic policy fixes—his failure to mount a defense of the Freedom Agenda is a cause of significant frustration from those still fighting the last wars. There's a bit of the spurned sweetheart effect here, too—the insider class and the opinion leaders view Romney as owing them to some extent for their willingness to line up quickly to pronounce Rick Perry unacceptable—but it's now clear their support for Romney is mostly unrequited. While the DC-Manhattan folks think their megaphones are valuable, Romney himself doesn't seem to think so. They just end up complaining about being invited to conference calls no one in Boston listens too, writing white papers that the candidate never reads, writing speeches the candidate scraps. http://vlt.tc/ha3 

This is a broad brush, of course, but the Ryan pick illustrates the division over priorities and tactics between Romney and the establishment elites. The choice of Ryan was particularly satisfying to the fiscal conservative base and ignited Tea Partiers, but it's now clear many insiders would've preferred a more foreign policy focused pick (Condi Rice) or a safer pick who does well with the money (Rob Portman). This sets up the storyline the elites will try to make stick should Romney lose. In November, the insider spin after a Romney loss will likely be: "The country wasn't ready for Paul Ryan's big ideas, they should've played it safe and gone with Portman." In this, they may be in agreement with Stuart Stevens—they may even be right, tactically (though the evidence really isn't there yet). http://vlt.tc/hav  But they'd also be extremely short-sighted as to their own future influence. There will be very negative consequences for a Romney loss for the power of center-right elites who are largely viewed as foisting him on the base despite the latter's objections. A Romney loss almost certainly pushes the 2016 nominee rightward, and I doubt the megaphones will be powerful enough to frame the 2012 contest, as they did in 2008, as one where the conservative Veep choice dragged down the ticket. Like it or not, the money and opinion elites on the center-right own Romney's failure from the perspective of the base—they need him to win. And the reality is that if Romney loses, it will have little if anything to do with Paul Ryan's big ideas, tactical choices, or elite misgivings—and far more to do with the simple fact that Romney is still disliked by most voters. Romney's ceiling is much lower than other candidates because of this, and he's never shown the political ability to overcome it by changing people's opinions. That is a rare skill: the only presidential candidate in the modern era to come back from being upside down in favorability ratings to win was Bill Clinton. Romney is no Clinton."

If the Republican Party has been taken over by the Tea Party, a favored thesis of the left, then who cares what Peggy Noonan and David Frum and David Brooks think? They are the cast-offs, not the vanguard. Of course they dislike Romney. Because of that I don't regard them as much of anything as far as the wind direction is concerned. 

Bill

With Friends Like These

Bill

Mitt Romney doesn't need enemies. The problem for Romney is that he really isn't one of them, and the American people know that he isn't one of us. Look beneath the raw preference data for the metrics-the questions about "cares about ordinary people" or "understands my problems".  Romney gets creamed to a degree that can't be explained away by skewed polls . As David Brooks has pointed out repeatedly, the guy is a pragmatic manager type running in an ideological age. In the end, all he has is his ambition, which may win him the election but will never inspire walk-through-fire loyalty. So we will both listen to the chatter, not from the left, celebrating his demise prematurely, but from the right, for a true measure of which way the electoral wind is blowing.

Eli

The Extremists Among Us Fleeing to the Middle.

Eli,

It seems like every left-wing commentator claims the Republicans are extreme or insane. (Yes, insane. Andrew Sullivan in the latest Newsweek writes Obama is the next Reagan and will jolt "the GOP back to sanity.")

It seems also every right-wing commentator attributes similar characteristics to the Democrats.

What I find odd about these remarks is they seem to divorce the parties from the populace. The left will say the Republicans can't win since they are driven by the extreme Tea Partiers. How then did the Republicans re-take the House in 2010? The right will say the Democrats can't win unless they shift to the center. How then did Obama win the White House and have a good chance for a second term?

As I've told you, I'm reading "Throes of Democracy" by Walter McDougall. The election of 1872, it seems to me, is instructive for our divisive times.

In 1872, Grant won “with largest percentage of the popular vote (55.6 percent) garnered by any candidate between Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt.

"The border states had declared themselves sick and tired of sectional conflict and most northerners replied, "So are we.” Grant heard vox populi when he lowered the military profile in the South... So did the Democrats, who demanded an end to Reconstruction and pledged not to overturn its amendments and laws. In other words, everyone fled for the middle.“

Grant potentially faced two opponents in 1872. Horace Greeley was nominated by “liberal Republicans” who “wanted to liquidate sectional conflict so that American could get back to building their glorious future.” The Democrats also nominated Greeley since they lacked a viable candidate.

Grant's first term followed Andrew Johnson, the first President to be impeached, although acquitted by the Senate. Johnson was in open warfare against the Republican majority in Congress over the nature of Reconstruction. Grant's first term did little to assuage the raw feelings of the American public. Like today, both sides called the other extreme and like today, the politicians merely represented the beliefs held by the public.

Ultimately, the public got tired of their extremism and their polarization, decided to get back to building their glorious future and fled to the middle. I don't know if the same will happen this election, but it will at some point.

Bill

Posted with Blogsy

Refs of the World Unite

Bill,

Despite your optimism (or is skepticism?) about the true state of the Presidential sweepstakes, your talent for exposing my potential conservative tendencies remains intact. As I have written previously I see unions as an essential counterweight to capitalism's inherent tendency toward exploitation, but a devil's bargain, given their tendency to calcify eventually into cabals whose sole purpose is to protect the interests of their members, even if it hastens the destruction of the enterprises that employ them. So I stand with the NFL refs on this one, who are being made an example of by the owners in old fashion effort to show the players who is boss before the next round of labor negotiations.

I would also argue that  blaming the officiating for last night's Patriot loss to the Ravens, bizarre at it was, is akin to blaming the media for Mitt's Romney's beyond pathetic performance as a Presidential candidate to date. If I were a Republican I'd be shocked and dismayed, as many apparently are.

As far as the polls go, I'm surprised you don't mention the descriptor that has proved unerringly predictive above all others in the last several election cycles, the InTrade Market. After all, these folks are expressing something far more important than just a preference. They are voting with their pocketbooks.

Eli

A Moral Dilemma?

Eli, 

Just curious. How do you view the NFL refs strike? Support, even though it results in a New England loss? Is there some philosophical dissonance reverberating in you?

 

I didn't watch the game. Instead, Mrs. Knabe and I watched the first two episodes of "Homeland." Gripping.

 

Bill.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Re-weighting Polls.

Eli,

This should scare you. Make sure you go to unskewedpolls.com, mentioned at the end of this article.
Bill

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/09/23/skewed-and-unskewed-polls/

Skewed and Unskewed Polls

by Charlie Martin

In most all things, I try to follow Hanlon’s (or Heinlein’s) Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

This is particularly important to remember when looking at polls, Sometimes, however, one must wonder.

As I pointed out yesterday, the result of Romney’s “really bad week” was that Romney had gone from 5 or 6 points behind in Gallup, to essentially tied. Even so, a number of people have noted that there are some odd assumptions in that poll, and others. Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen talked about it recently. Asked if the polls were, in his opinion, a fair representation of the electorate, Schoen said:

“The simple answer is no John. The bottom line is there were seven percent more Democrats in the electorate in 2008 than there were Republicans. That’s from the exit polls and that’s about as accurate as you can get….President Obama won by about seven points. Given 90 percent of Democrats vote for the Democrat and 90 percent of Republicans vote for the Republican, every time you reduce the margin between the parties by one point, roughly it’s about one point off the margin.”

Schoen pointed out that the Pew poll was based on Democrats sampled for having an 11 percent voters registration edge over Republicans. He further added, “saying that America has gotten more Democratic than 2008, which is a questionable assumption.”

In fact, Rasmussen keeps a running monthly poll of party identification. In the latest poll, released September 1, they found:

During August, 37.6% of Americans considered themselves Republicans. That’s up from 34.9% in July and 35.4% in June. It’s also the largest number of Republicans ever recorded by Rasmussen Report since monthly tracking began in November 2002.

Other polls — including Gallup — apparently have similar assumptions (called “turnout models”) in their polls.

There is a new website, called unskewedpolls.com, that basically reweights the data to fit the Rasmussen party identification. Their results are quite different, giving Romney somewhere between a five and eleven point lead.

Now, this should also be taken with a grain of salt. Basically, they claim (by the site name) to be an unskewed poll. In fact, they’re just a differently skewed take on existing polls. Instead of taking their numbers over, say, Gallup, though, what it should tell us is that even if the polls are being heavily weighted to Obama, Romney’s still essentially tied. Any difference in Romney’s direction in real turnout from the pollster’s assumptions would bring Romney into a lead.

The Party of Science?

Eli,

I think the genesis for this twaddle comes from Pennsylvania

"When House Demo­c­rat Mike Sturla defended his com­ment about nat­ural gas drillers spread­ing STDsamong Pennsylvania's "wom­en­folk," he pointed to a pre­sen­ta­tion a Brad­ford County com­mu­nity hos­pi­tal deliv­ered to Gov­er­nor Corbett's Mar­cel­lus Shale Advi­sory Com­mis­sion in May."

Tell me that part about science and deniers again.

Bill

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/latest-anti-drilling-claims-laughing-gas-article-1.1165244

RELATED STORIES

In their desperation to block Gov. Cuomo from giving the okay for fracking in New York, die-hard opponents of the natural gas drilling technology are floating laugh-out-loud-funny health and environmental threats.

Most hilariously, the enviro-activists have demanded that state officials explore an alleged link between fracking and — we kid you not — syphilis.

They argue that a drilling boom would draw an influx of male workers from other states who would engage in activities of a kind that would spread sexually transmitted diseases.

They also contend that a boom would trigger a housing crunch, adding to homelessness and the health ailments that go along with it.

And that increased truck traffic would not only lead to more road fatalities, but would also — again, no kidding — discourage people from getting the outdoor exercise they need to stay fit.

This is absurd. If New York starts saying no to entire industries on the grounds they might trigger population changes, rising home prices and truck traffic, it might as well turn out the lights.

Have the people pushing these theories considered the health effects of unemployment and poverty — which are all too common in the parts of New York targeted for drilling?

Have they forgotten the public health upsides of harvesting natural gas — which burns far more cleanly than other fossil fuels?

What fracking opponents really want is not a study of imagined risks, but many more months of wheel-spinning in Albany — and additional fodder for litigation.

Hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, involves pumping millions of gallons of chemical-laced water deep into the earth at high pressure to release trapped natural gas. For four years, the state Department of Environmental Conservation has analyzed the extent of true health concerns, such as the potential for air and water pollution.

As a result, the DEC has proposed what everyone acknowledges are some of the tightest regulations in the nation — including an absolute ban on drilling in the entire region surrounding New York City's reservoirs.

The opponents tried to push DEC Commissioner Joseph Martens into hiring a public health consultant to check out the danger of venereal diseases and all the rest.

Smartly, he went only so far as to ask Health Commissioner Nirav Shah to review whether DEC has appropriately considered health concerns. If faux seriousness is what it takes to head off lawsuits, so be it. Stifling laughter is a small price to pay for progress toward fracking approval.

PJ Media » German Troops Riot in Italy over Disney Film!

Eli,

For our shared chagrin, although for different reasons.

Bill

http://pjmedia.com/blog/german-troops-riot-in-italy-over-disney-film/?singlepage=true

German Troops Riot in Italy over Disney Film!

WASHINGTON (Routers) Outraged over the insult to their Fuehrer by a film recently released by RKO, German troops reportedly engaged in violent attacks on Americans attempting to consolidate a beach head in the area of Salerno, Italy, today. The attack was seemingly sudden and spontaneous, waged against the 31st and 45th Divisions near the villages of Altavilla and Battipaglia.

The casualties are severe. The 1st and 3d Battalions, 142nd, and the 3d Battalion, 143rd, have been thrown back from Altavilla. Company K, 143rd, has been cut off. The 1st Battalion, 142nd, has lost all except some sixty of its men. The 2nd Battalion, 143rd, has been smashed in the Sele-Calore corridor and the 1st Battalion, 157th, has been hit hard as well. The American line has been dented, even pierced, and only the artillery is preventing a complete break-through. Worst of all, there are almost no reserves available to mend the line.

Titled Der Fuerhrer's Face, the short film that caused the uprising mocks not only Adolf Hitler, but also his aides Goering and Goebbels, and the Nazi belief system itself, and is clearly intended to do so. Featuring an insulting Donald Duck, it seems like crude propaganda, depicting Germans as cruel and stupid. It also makes fun of Hitler's Mein Kampf. It also includes a racist depiction of General Tojo, the Japanese military leader. It features a silly and insulting song released last year by the so-called "comic" musician Spike Jones that mocks the Nazi Party.

Despite warnings by some that the film might inflame tensions with the peaceful German people, it had been shown in many theaters in the U.S. during the summer, but the State Department believes that the Germans had only recently become aware of it. There seemed little other explanation for the sudden outbreak of violence in the newly captured section of Italy. In hopes of tamping down the sudden and unexpected bloodshed, the State Department issued a press release:

The U.S. State Department condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the feelings of Germans, Nazis and other fascists — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all beliefs. Respect for others' beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the feelings of others.

A State Department spokesman followed up: "The German people have to understand that the American government had nothing to do with the making of this film, and unfortunately, that pesky First Amendment to our Constitution doesn't allow us to prevent such despicable things from being created. But this cannot justify all the bloodshed that we see taking place in Italy today."

However, sadly and shockingly, the statement has done nothing to quell the rioting. Some aren't surprised, however.

"The notion that this was caused by a propaganda film is ludicrous," said one source at the War Department on background. "No one is surprised that the Germans would counterattack when we've invaded their territory. This is war."

When asked if the attacks weren't spontaneous, he scoffed. "The Germans have been massing troops for days in preparation for this operation. The State Department people don't know what they're talking about.  People protesting propaganda films don't come armed spontaneously with tanks and artillery."

But the State Department is holding its ground, for now.

"Our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous — not a premeditated — response. What happened today in Italy, and many other parts of the region was a result, a direct result, of a heinous and offensive film that was widely disseminated, that the U.S. government had nothing to do with, which we have made clear is reprehensible and disgusting."

Generals Patton and Clark were asked for comment, but their response was unprintable.

It's Good We Are Not Politicians

Bill

Today's required reading

Eli

New comment on Silk Purse, Sow's Ear. Romney Edition.

Yea, I see what you are saying, (even though what he said was irrelevant).

But riddle me this, what's better, an off the cuff remark, or something that is blatantly false, like the garbage coming out of Susan Rice's and Jay Carney's mouths.

So if you have to choose between a liar or off the cuff?

And the answer to your question: 7.

On Sep 20, 2012, at 8:34 PM, MTMTMD <noreply-comment@blogger.com> wrote:

MTMTMD has left a new comment on your post "Silk Purse, Sow's Ear. Romney Edition":

I would like to know how many times in the course of the active campaign, Mitt has said, as an excuse or explanation, that he was speaking "off the cuff".

That is not the way I want my next president to deal with an interaction with a foreign issue. To be able to think before one speaks my not be a good reason to vote for a candidate. The inability to think before one speaks is a very good reason to NOT vote for a candidate.



Posted by MTMTMD to Bipartisan Soapbox at September 20, 2012 8:34 PM

what about mendacious?

I wasn't sure which one you would bite on. I'll assume since you were silent on mendacious you agree.

;)

http://bipartisansoapbox.blogspot.com/2012/09/if-obama-is-anti-semite.html

If Obama is an Anti Semite

Bill

Then so am I. So are the members of my extended family. So are millions of American Jews who disagree with current Israeli policy. So are the Israelis  who see the settlements policy as an illegal land grab and the continued marginalization of the Arabs within the occupied territories as a recipe for doom for the Zionist dream that we share. You can be a Zionist, as I consider myself to be, and you can believe passionately in the essential irreplaceability of Israel as a homeland for the Jews as I do, and also believe that the cynical policies of the Netanyahu administration are ultimately as damaging to that dream as anything Ahmadinejad and his band of lunatic millennialists can dream up.

Surely you, as a libertarian, don't believe that blind acquiescence to whatever Bibi and his right wing coalition dream up is in America's best interest. Never mind Israel's best interest.

I am not fond of the Arabs. We are not talking about nice people here. Arafat was a pathetic liar who, as the saying goes, never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity, and the one that he missed with Bill Clinton in late 2000 was as good a deal as the Palestinians were ever going to get. But I don't have to like them to believe it is essential to find a way to live beside them that ensures the survival of Israel as a Jewish state.

When (not if), the Israelis make their move against the Persians Obama will be right there behind them. That's why 70% of American Jews will vote for him, just as they did in 2008.

Eli

Pro-Choice

How do you explain the success of Lasik and plastic surgery in lowering costs and increasing choice and availability. Neither generally covered by insurance or Medicaid/Medicare. Both fee for service. How is that not evidence of the power of choice. You are  pro-choice aren't you? 

What Will Obamacare Mean For Care at the End Of Life?

Bill

You ask.

I don't know but I am guessing not much. Ryancare (if I may coin the phrase) shifts costs to patients and hopes that such an approach will reduce those costs by introducing competition. Such a notion is a fantasy with no data to support it IMO. Obamacare seeks to reduce costs by stealthily, inexorably paying the healthcare sector less to provide the same amount of care that it does now, also a fantasy for the reasons you have so elegantly articulated throughout this blog. Neither plan will have much effect upon the broad metrics that matter, such as life expectancy and infant mortality, since those metrics depend more on the non fancy parts of healthcare than upon what goes on in an intensive care unit or neonatal unit.

Until we Americans all along the political spectrum can accept the simple proposition that what we get has to be paid for or we get less, no plan will matter.

November after the election will be interesting, albeit terrifying. If we actually get through the next budget crisis without blowing up our economy I'll be impressed. If the Israelis don't bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities and thus plunge the entire Middle East into chaos and the price of oil into the stratosphere I'll be stunned.

Eli

---

Original Page: http://bipartisansoapbox.blogspot.com/2012/09/what-will-obamacare-mean-for-care-at.html

A twofer for Blumenthal dmubidity. (sic)

He has zero evidence speculators drive oil prices and calls for an investigation. There's plenty of evidence the attacks in the Middle East were coordinated and pre-meditated but Sergeant B calls for patience. 

He's now my official contrary indicator. 

Lieberman, Blumenthal split on Middle East attacks

Ana Radelat

September 19, 2012

Washington -- Sen. Joe Lieberman on Wednesday echoed the chorus of Republican leaders saying that the violent protests against the United States that started in the Middle East last week were planned.

"This to me looked very organized," Lieberman said after the Homeland Security Committee meeting. "I supposed accidents happen but to have this occur on 9/11, it stretches my belief that it was all accidental."

The protests, which have spread to more than 20 countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan, were touched off by a YouTube clip of the trailer for "Innocence of Muslims," an unreleased movie made in the United States that depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a womanizer and a gay child abuser.

The violence began in Egypt when a peaceful protest against the film turned violent. The chaos spread to Libya, where an attack on the U.S. Embassy resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

Splitting from Lieberman, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said there is not enough evidence to determine if the attacks were planned or coordinated.

"I don't believe there's enough evidence to reach a conclusion one way or another," Blumenthal said. "I'm going to wait for the evidence."

Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Sunday the attacks were spontaneous and prompted by the video and not a result of U.S. foreign policy in the region.

An FBI team is on the ground investigating in Libya, and the State Department is also conducting an investigation.

A number of Republicans said they believe the protests were choreographed, some saying that the Obama administration failed to detect and stop a planned assault on Americans and U.S. interests overseas.

"A planned and coordinated assault points loudly to a security lapse," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has not accused the administration of a security lapse.

And, although Lieberman said he is certain the attacks were planned, he said he did not know if they were coordinated.

"I have no evidence it was coordinated, but it might be," Lieberman said.

1

---

Original Page: http://ctmirror.org/story/17511/lieberman-blumenthal-split-middle-east-attacks

I guess the part where he wants to investigate the speculators that drive the price of natural gas down was cut off. 

Dumb. Even for Blumenthal. 

Sen. Blumenthal Wants Crack Down on Oil Speculation

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal called on the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to crack down on the improper speculation and manipulation of gasoline prices.

In two different letters sent to the CFTC and Holder, Blumenthal asked for stringent and immediate enforcement of legal prohibitions that would help stop these abuses. 

In his letter to the CFTC, Blumenthal asked the agency to enforce their newly adopted position limit rule – imposing limits on the size of speculative bets that can be made by investors on future prices of gasoline.

Last May, Blumenthal and his colleagues called for the CFTC to adopt these position limits in order to prevent market participants from manipulating prices at the expense of American consumers. 

"I am writing to urge immediate and strong enforcement of the newly adopted position limit rule to help stop increasingly rampant speculative trading reportedly driving recent rapid price increases in gasoline," Blumenthal wrote. "Speculators continue to artificially inflate the price of gas, and consumers continue to pay the price. The Commission has done the necessary work to clearly establish legal authority to enforce position limits. It should use this authority now."  

Blumenthal's work on the improper speculation and manipulation of gasoline prices includes previous requests to the Department of Justice. On April 21, 2011, Holder announced the formation of an Oil and Gas Price Fraud Working Group to focus specifically on fraud in the energy sector by monitoring oil and gas markets for potential violations of criminal or civil laws.

The purpose of the working group was to safeguard consumers against unlawful harm. At the time, Blumenthal sent a letter to Holder maintaining that "announcing such investigations and beginning to issue subpoenas could curb some of the worst speculative activity that may well be underway at this very moment."

However, the working group was slow to release information about its investigations or conclusions. On March 18 Blumenthal sent another letter to Holder asking that he make use of the working group that had, at the time, been in existence for almost a year.  

If Obama is an Anti Semite

Bill

Then so am I. So are the members of my extended family. So are millions of American Jews who disagree with current Israeli policy. So are the Israelis  who see the settlements policy as an illegal land grab and the continued marginalization of the Arabs within the occupied territories as a recipe for doom for the Zionist dream that we share. You can be a Zionist, as I consider myself to be, and you can believe passionately in the essential irreplaceability of Israel as a homeland for the Jews as I do, and also believe that the cynical policies of the Netanyahu administration are ultimately as damaging to that dream as anything Ahmadinejad and his band of lunatic millennialists can dream up.

Surely you, as a libertarian, don't believe that blind acquiescence to whatever Bibi and his right wing coalition dream up is in America's best interest. Never mind Israel's best interest.

I am not fond of the Arabs. We are not talking about nice people here. Arafat was a pathetic liar who, as the saying goes, never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity, and the one that he missed with Bill Clinton in late 2000 was as good a deal as the Palestinians were ever going to get. But I don't have to like them to believe it is essential to find a way to live beside them that ensures the survival of Israel as a Jewish state.

When (not if), the Israelis make their move against the Persians Obama will be right there behind them. That's why 70% of American Jews will vote for him, just as they did in 2008.

Eli

What Will Obamacare Mean For Care at the End Of Life?

Bill

You ask.

I don't know but I am guessing not much. Ryancare (if I may coin the phrase) shifts costs to patients and hopes that such an approach will reduce those costs by introducing competition. Such a notion is a fantasy with no data to support it IMO. Obamacare seeks to reduce costs by stealthily, inexorably paying the healthcare sector less to provide the same amount of care that it does now, also a fantasy for the reasons you have so elegantly articulated throughout this blog. Neither plan will have much effect upon the broad metrics that matter, such as life expectancy and infant mortality, since those metrics depend more on the non fancy parts of healthcare than upon what goes on in an intensive care unit or neonatal unit.

Until we Americans all along the political spectrum can accept the simple proposition that what we get has to be paid for or we get less, no plan will matter.

November after the election will be interesting, albeit terrifying. If we actually get through the next budget crisis without blowing up our economy I'll be impressed. If the Israelis don't bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities and thus plunge the entire Middle East into chaos and the price of oil into the stratosphere I'll be stunned.

Eli

My isidewidth results

Bill

Obama 92%
Jill Stein 89% (ulp)
Romney 3%
CT voters 65%
Libertarian 3%

Eli

Silk Purse, Sow's Ear. Romney Edition

Eli,

You have to admire the Obama campaign, with a big assist from the media. How they were able to turn the death of US citizens in Libya and the storming of our embassy in Cairo into a critique of Romney is mind-boggling. Grand prize for sophistry however goes to Susan Rice. The attacks had nothing to do with US policy? Really? Oh well.

Romney's "open mouth, insert foot" comment on the 46% I don't think was that bad. America has a large population of dependents he says. The chattering class goes bananas. Hate to break it to you folks, but the US has a lot of dependents. That's the problem, isn't it. That's why budget projections are so scary. Too much middle class welfare.

So Romney is sunk, again. We'll see. The race is close. The polls seem to change so quickly and dramatically that I have a tendency to not trust them. Some of the internal logic doesn't quite make sense to me. Romney is winning the independent vote. Democratic enthusiasm is down, Republican up. That sounds like a Romney victory. So why are the polls so close? Obama is ahead in Massachusetts but his doppelgänger, Elizabeth Warren struggles (maybe). Obama is ahead in Connecticut, but Chris Murphy may or may not be leading Linda McMahon. Does that make sense to you? Not to me.

I don't like Romney that much. His tirade against China is silly. If China wants to put a couple hundred bucks in every American's pocket by subsidizing its industry or artificially keeping its currency low, I say great. Bring it on. His inability to articulate and support free markets, the single greatest force of human prosperity grates on me. He has that consultant's belief in himself and his ability to fix things. In that sense, not much different than the "smart" people Obama recruited to fix things. I wish we would get away from this notion that all we have to do is turn this knob, and flip that switch and the system will magically work as the CBO's model suggest. Really? Haven't we had enough of that. Let's try some radical liberalization instead.

But I like Obama less. He is without doubt the most mendacious, anti-Semitic President since Nixon.

www.isidewith.com says I'm aligned with Gary Johnson. Daughter Knabe tells me, "He climbed Mount Everest with frostbite on his toes and doesn't seem like a complete moron or jackass." (I'm not sure if she is applying moron to Obama and jackass to Romney, vice versa, or both to each). Mrs. Knabe warns me I'll just be wasting my vote. I don't buy that argument, completely. In any case, lots of time to make up my mind.

Bill

iSideWith

Eli,

Take the quiz. Tell me your result:

http://www.isidewith.com

Here's mine:

87% Gary Johnson
79% Romney
51% Obama

I'm pretty sure there's a Libertarian heart beating within you. Be honest.

Bill

Dinner with Extremists

Eli,

It sounds like you hang around with quite an interesting crowd. People don't invite me to dinners. I don't know why.

Bill

How Does Obamacare Change the ICU?

Eli,

How does/will Obamacare change the outcome of your patient in the ICU? How will it change the care of everyone else? That is, will everyone's care suffer in order to reduce the resources spent on the terminal patient you described?

Bill

Extremists

Bill,

At dinner with friends the other night I made the mistake of talking about politics. It was a solid lefty crowd, so I thought I was on fairly safe ground mouthing the usual partisan platitudes about the election etc. Somehow the conversation drifted around to economics and the subject of monetarism, of all things, came up. Milton Friedman may have been misguided in some matters, I opined, but he clearly was a gifted and important economist.

"NO!" thundered the host. "Friedman was (and I quote directly) "...among the great charlatans of mid-20th century thought... the true lunatic, which I believe Friedman actually is,... can be identified easily. For the lunatic, everything proves everything else. The lunatic is all idee fixee, and whatever he comes across proves everything else. It makes no difference what the ultimate conclusion is... the lunatic lacks common sense, he takes liberties with what works, he seems inspired at times."

He wasn't done.

"Many people want everyone to make nice and get back to what is imagined as politics as they used to be - a concept sort of like the free market. It simply cannot happen the way the economy is run now. But this redistribution of wealth in favor of the very rich has been at least 30 years in the making. The loss of solid middle class and lower middle class jobs has been at least 45 years in the making. Make no mistake. They will come for the upper tier jobs sooner or later."

The problem with economy in his view is with...

"the 1%-ers. They are anti-Americans, they have their own government that resides globally. They are like the Mafia except their activities are legalized. But they are, by any estimation extortive, belittling, manipulative, and cruel."

And finally,

"Most revolutions, and I'm not limiting myself to "violent" revolutions, are the product of middle and even upper-middle class ferment. As the historians say: the uneducated make rebellions; the educated make revolutions. For every Mao there is a Chou. For every war paint-wearing colonist at the original Boston Tea Party, there was a Madison or Jefferson. Castro's father was quite prosperous. 

So this is a man, quite gifted intellectually, who believes that anyone who disagrees with his world view is either stupid or evil or more likely both. He believes that the current state of affairs is the product of an evil cabal of the wealthy (including me by his standards) and that  the ultimate solution lies in violence.

My advice to him is go. Go live under the tyranny of one of those revolutionary societies you admire so much. Let me know how you like it, if they let you out.

The fact that he ostensibly represents the left wing of the political spectrum is immaterial. He is the true extremist, with more in common with his fellow fanatics at the other end than the rest of us. They are the 1%ers we truly need to fear.

Eli.

In the Intensive Care Unit

Bill,

It's day 8 of my 10 day stint as the attending in the cardiac care unit. I was holding up pretty well until  today's admission to bed 8. She is a 90 year old severely demented non verbal lady who dropped dead after breakfast yesterday morning. She was subsequently resuscitated and brought by ambulance to the Emergency Room and then to my unit, where she now lies with a breathing tube down her throat, a catheter in her bladder and all the best (and most expensive) technology that 21st century American medicine can provide. And there she will stay until she dies, which she will likely do despite all of our efforts to prevent her from doing so. All at about 10 grand a day. There is no living will, no previous discussion with family  (where are those death panels when you need them?), There are many forms of torture that are less sadistic than what we are doing to this poor woman right now. This is American exceptionalism in its most bizarre incarnation-no one other country in the world allows its old folks to die as gruesomely and expensively as we do

This is where 25% of the Medicare budget is going. That is just nuts. But if the current election is teaching  any lesson to future candidates, it is that you mess with Medicare at your own political peril. Neither side is serious about doing anything to change this catastrophic state of affairs.

Good thing I only have 2 days to go. Otherwise I might run into this poor woman's family and give them a piece of my mind about how the hell they let this happen to someone they claim to love.

Eli

The weeks after 9/11 I spent in temporary office space

The weeks after 9/11 I spent in temporary office space. When the towers came down, the force blew through the windows of my office, across the street from the Towers, covering everything with dust and setting off the fire extinguishers, which then drenched whatever remained.

Even if the attacks hadn't precipitated a recession I would have been looking for work. The company I worked for was being purchased. The only question we had was would we be fired by our current company because business was down, or would we be fired by the acquiring company as part of the acquisition synergies.

I spent as little time in my temporary office as possible. I walked. A lot. I should have been looking for a job, but I wasn't. I walked.

There were posters of the lost everywhere. Taped to pay phones, sides of buildings, on bulletin boards. At a Duane-Reade near Union Square on 14th Street the entire north face of the building was covered in posters of people lost in the Towers. Some were "Have you seen?" At the time there was still hope that somehow someone had survived. I approached that wall and the pictures started to come into focus. The closer I got the better I could see how far down the side of the building the posters extended. No, I thought. No. It wasn't possible. It was not possible for this to have happened.

I was lost also, barely alive. On 9/11 I got stuck in Battery Park. We were eventually evacuated, via ferry, across the Hudson, to New Jersey. I sat on that boat and watched the smoke coming from the towers, where my office had been, where my job had been, where my life had been.

I knew it was 9/11 today, but it didn't really penetrate my consciousness until I got on the train this morning. Eleven years ago was very similar to today. It was a beautiful day. The sky was clear, the weather crisp. You could feel Fall coming. As the train brought me into Manhattan this morning, I looked out the window, and saw a plane. I flinched. Then I went back to my reading. I had things to do.