teabag clarification

Robert takes me to task in the comments. In the service of cleverness, I implied that all the tea party participants were incipient klan members.

This is not true, of course, and my apologies for lumping all the protesters together in this manner. In a more general sense, I do get the idea that a lot of the people (mostly poor, and white) who are most upset by the government's recent policies are motivated by, shall we say, less than appropriate ideas of what makes a person a full citizen of this republic. Not to dwell too much on the point, but growing up in Wise County I had a rather keen insight into the kind of person who is downtrodden in one way or another and who, in a fruitless search for ways to feel better about themselves, ends up settling on, for example, differences in skin color as a way of looking down on others.

But yeah, not everyone is like that, and clearly there are many rational and well-thought-out reasons why one might protest our government's policies. You can read this blog and see a few, in fact. And your humble blogger isn't exactly downtrodden. (And, I would be remiss if I didn't ask where these teabag folks were during the last 8 years as George W. Bush was implementing massive increases in the size and power of government.)

But to address the substantive point here, I think it is correct to say that this particular protest was somewhat incoherent. (See this Sullivan post for the hodgepodge of "issues" represented -- it is truly laughable.) As I pointed out, T.E.A. apparently stands for Taxed Enough Already. Well, taxes are low -- at least relatively speaking, compared to the last several decades. And yet, government spending is high -- compared to just about any historical context. In my view this is unsustainable. This country has far too much debt, public and private.

But, ultimately, if these protests are to be taken seriously, then they have to drop the "high taxes" focus (taxes aren't high), and concentrate on something else. And if that something else is government spending, that's fine, but then you have to say where you want to make cuts. Social Security? Medicare? Military? Cutting any of these items is politically impossible, and together they represent over 60% of the federal budget. Debt service is another 8%. All the other many many things the government does and pays for are part of the remaining 30%. Presumably some of this stuff is worthwhile. Some of it is almost certainly not, but you're never going to be able to cut out even half of that even if you performed your budget-cutting with a chainsaw. And even if you could, you're still looking at a reduction of only 15%. Which could be used to pay down the debt. Or, of course, you could lower taxes by 15%, which wouldn't really be that big of a cut (especially for the type of lower-income folks who make up the bulk of the Fox News protesters).

And then you have to confront the idea that cutting government spending in the middle of a massive economic downturn may very likely represent a monumental disaster of an economic policy. I'm certainly no economist, but from my admittedly cursory investigation of this topic, it appears there is somewhat of a consensus of economic thought that says that this is a very bad idea. (Think Hoover.)

Anyway, I'm not prepared to argue this last point. But it definitely is arguable, and in fact it was argued by the candidates in the last presidential election. One of them won, and the other one lost.

But beyond all of that, the fact is, we are going through a very painful period in this country because we -- collectively -- lived beyond our means for a long period of time. This needs to stop somewhere, or we're likely doomed. On this, I'm sure Robert and I can agree. Furthermore, I agree -- in the abstract -- that there is an almost exact inverse relationship between the size of a government and the amount of freedom enjoyed by its citizens. And, as a believer in the concept of maximizing freedom, I too would, in principle, love to see a great deal of government shrinkage. The trouble is in how to apply that principle in the current context. It's not simple.

these teabagging parties

Apparently Fox News has organized some folks around the country to go out and protest today. What are they protesting? Your guess is as good as mine.

Since it's April 15, we can assume it might have something to do with taxes. The problem with this theory, however, is that taxes haven't gone up. Taxes for most people have gone down. Or have been offset by government checks being sent out to people. Obama has said he will raise the marginal rate for the highest tax bracket (which I'm quite sure has a high level of applicability to your average Fox News viewer), but only back to the level it was at under Clinton. Same with the capital gains tax. Seems like things were pretty good -- economically speaking -- during Clinton's presidency. But that was during the long long ago (during the "before time"), so the records are a bit sketchy, and, for all any of us know, maybe it was really like hell on earth rather than a time of relative peace and prosperity. Or something.

Anyway, I've seen where maybe the protests have to do with socialism. And here I'm presuming "socialism", as the term is used by Glenn Beck and his viewership, is actually a clever if transparent euphemism for "stuff that benefits spics and niggers". Which, obviously, is something we should all get very worked up about. So, I'm thinking we all ought to take the day off of work, grab our burning crosses placards, dress up in our best white hoods khakis and knock-off lacoste shirts, and take to the streets.

good luck with all that

Tom Hicks, owner of local sports teams, can't make interest payments on his credit facility. I don't know the man personally, but he shows up in the media a lot, and my impression is that he's an arrogant dick. He did very well with his investment company during bubble years. Not so well during the bust years. If I were a bit better at convincing people of stuff I wasn't very sure about myself... I could probably do the same. But I'm not, and he is, and so he's got this house to show for it.

From the story:

Hicks announced last week that he was seeking to sell up to 49 percent of both the Rangers and Stars. Such a sale could add between $400-500 million in cash to the HSG reserves.

You know what, Tom? No one wants to buy 49 percent of a sports team, and especially not at those inflated bubble-era prices. Sports teams are generally not a good investment from a purely financial perspective. The reason is that the price of buying them is inflated because of the "toy factor". People who are rich buy them not so that they can make money, but so that they can play at being a sports owner: hobnob with famous athletes, get mentioned on SportsCenter, get quoted in Sports Illustrated, and generally get a lot more fame and publicity than would normally be accorded to a boring (though rich) business guy. This results in a premium being placed on the price of sports franchises. Which means it is hard to make money from them. Which means that a non-controlling interest is worth a heck of a lot less, proportionally, than the controlling interest. But then again, I'm just a lowly blogger with living in a house that would fit in the master bathroom of your pool cabana, and therefore probably don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

one of these things is not like the other

I am a believer in the Teddy Roosevelt maxim "walk softly and carry a big stick." Having a strong military that can defend our country from any conceivable threat is important.

But what we have right now is a bloated military which is structured for things like invasions, long-term occupations, and nation-building operations on the other side of the planet. While invasions and (short-term) occupations may conceivably be needed as part of a defense-oriented operation (as in Europe during WWII), as a practical matter this capability has, over the last several decades, tended to manifest itself in ill-advised (and ill-conceived) adventures in imperialism, generally in contexts (e.g., Iraq, Vietnam) where we have no legitimate business projecting our military power.

And, now that we as a country are much less wealthy than we used to be, it seems that we might want to at least consider cutting back on some of the more extravagant programs in this area. Will this happen? Well, considering that Obama's proposed military budget is higher than last year's budget, and further considering that this budget is still being met with howls of protest from both parties because it is somewhat less than what was proposed last year by Bush's defense department... I'd say this is highly unlikely. Maybe it will only happen once our checks start bouncing.

Define irony.

Irony. Uh...
Irony.
It's a noun...
It's when something is... ironic. It's, uh, well I can't really define irony... but I know it when I see it!

And then the elevator doors close.

I am reminded of this scene by a chain email which was just forwarded to me. Below all the various headers picked up through the multitude of forwardings this email had undergone, I read the actual content. Which was a long and laboriously written denunciation of chain emails and the people who forward them, along with multiple listed reasons why persons (e.g., the recipients of this chain email) should not engage in forwarding chain emails, no matter how clever, topical, useful, newsy, or sickly sweet they might be.

Head. Asplode.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I recently re-read this book. Ok, actually I'm not quite to the end yet. But a number of things have become clear to me this time around that didn't quite sink in the first time.

First, while the philosophy laid out in the book will stand or fall on its own merits (I've not formed an opinion on this quite yet), I think the book loses a lot of power once you realize that the entire narrative is essentially a straight-up autobiography. This realization was nagging at me throughout the first couple hundred pages until I finally broke down looked up Robert Pirsig's wikipedia page. Confirmed.

I mean, I hate to be too hard on the guy, because he seems genuinely likable, and his writing style is very friendly and engaging... but once you know he is talking about the actual details of his life the whole thing starts to look like a somewhat embarrassing (if not pathetic) attempt at self-justification and excuse-making for his personal academic and career failings. Or maybe I'm just a cynical hard-hearted bastard. I kind of hope the latter is true.

Update: on further reflection, I'm pretty sure I'm just in a bad mood and being a jerk about this. So, nevermind.

humbug

Heh. Turns out the cwalken twitter feed was not actually Christopher Walken. Which is kind of disappointing. But more disappointing is that twitter has suspended the account. I probably would have kept checking it out anyway. Here's an "interview" with the guy who was writing it.

Obama continues to disappoint

Barry O apparently believes that marijuana legalization/decriminalization is a funny joke. Har har har. I doubt it is very amusing to people who are put in prison for possession. College students being denied financial aid because they got caught with a bag of pot aren't laughing. And as for terminal cancer and AIDS patients who are prevented from smoking some weed to make the last part of their lives somewhat less terrible... I doubt those folks see any comedic value here. Hah hah.

I wonder if Obama would have had a good laugh if he had been incarcerated back in his youth, when he has acknowledged experimenting with illegal drugs. That would have been hilarious, right? To have his career in law and politics derailed in his early twenties because of a drug conviction? Funny! Get it?

Oh, and remember how, just last week, Obama's attorney general came out and announced that the feds would no longer go after medical marijuana clinics which are legally operating under state law? I guess that was a practical joke, or maybe an attempt at satire. Ho ho! A real knee-slapper there.

Maybe if Obama and friends weren't so busy mocking and laughing about the mere possiblity of making meaningful changes to this country's disastrous drug policy, they might realize that providing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cash, weapons, and military equipment to the Mexican government is not a plausible solution to the violent situation in that country. The violence is a result of: (1) drug cartels warring amongst themselves for the most lucrative distribution routes, and (2) between drug cartels and drug enforcement personnel. Both of these result from a single cause: marijuana (along with other drugs) is illegal. Make drugs legal and, virtually overnight, the black market will dry up and, presto!, no more drug violence.

So says The Economist. So says this Harvard scholar guy, writing at CNN. So say a hell of a lot of people who aren't stupid... and who aren't fucking comedians, either.

lazy ass blogger

A few items to fill up the space while I'm not feeling like coming up with any original thoughts:

1. Brother IOZ had his car towed. Somewhat predictably (if you are a regular IOZ reader), he writes a post with the following tags: GLOBAL GULAG; POLICE STATE; TOTALITARIANISM. Worth a read, and, yes, he actually does manage to make the story of his car being towed into a plausible and astute commentary about the current relationship status of the invididual vs the state.

2. A couple of good BSG Series Finale posts. My own view: I thought it was great. I thought they had painted themselves into a corner in many respects, but they managed to pull off a pretty good ending. Not sure about the Starbuck thing, but the very last part with Angel Six and Angel Baltar was pretty cool. I probably have a lot more to say about this, but I don't feel like typing it all out right now.

3. Confessing in advance that I haven't read the article (this stuff is really just too depressing), but the headline (Obama to beef up Mexico border policy) pretty much says it all. We're plowing ahead with further militarization of our Mexican border (sure, that'll cut down on the violence!) because we just absolutely can't stand the fact that a significant percentage of our populace likes to smoke pot. Ridiculous.

4. Eighth grade girl strip-searched at school because she was reportedly holding two tabs of... wait for it... "prescription-strength ibuprofen". Her lawsuit against the school will be heard by the Supreme Court next month. I don't know what the outcome of this case should be, but I do know that those fucktards who did this should be placed into an occupation which has exactly nothing to do with overseeing the education, socialization, or discipline of children. But that probably applies to a lot of educators these days. The part of the story that made me smack my head against my desk was how the school's lawyers responded to the kid's assertion that she had an unblemished disciplinary record and was "a good kid":

“Her assertion should not be misread to infer that she never broke school rules,” the district said of Ms. Redding in a brief, “only that she was never caught.”

Amazing logic. You could do a lot with that kind of reasoning. Sounds kind of like a FAIL version of "these are not the droids you are looking for."

And now, little man, I give the watch to you.

Here I was thinking that no good could come from the irritating item of technology known as "Twitter" (the last thing I need is another mechanism for propelling my thoughts out into the world), but then I'm directed over to the greatness of the Christoper Walken Twitter feed. Samples:

A friend from out west mailed me a "Snuggie." A joke apparently. I don't get it. I look like a derelict Gumby in the thing. Funny, I guess.

There's a kid on a Pogo stick in front of my house. It's nearly midnight so let's assume he's been drinking. This should end well for him.

The Pope is in Africa "reaffirming the ban on condom use." His old stuff was funnier. I don't get this new material. Too edgy for my taste.

Religion... success(?)

It has been brought to my attention that the Pope -- due to his age at the time -- was not actually, technically a "Nazi", but rather a member of the Hitler Youth. So, obviously, I feel compelled to issue this correction. Therefore, when reading the post below, please substitute the term "Hitler Youth" in the place of each appearance of the word "Nazi".

Readers will, of course, be left to draw their own conclusions as to whether and to what degree this correction affects the point of the post as a whole.

In other news, I'm receiving information that the Pope's next official trip will be to the slums of Jakarta, where he will agitate against the use of modern sanitation practices implemented to restrain the spread of contagious diseases. Developing...

Religion fail, ctd.

In our continuing series describing a few small anecdotes which, though unimportant in themselves, when taken together, demonstrate how religion is destroying humanity, we must mention the Pope's recent trip to Africa. I don't intend to belabor this point, or to spend a lot of words on it, but rather, in one sentence, to boil it down to its essence, which is this:

The Pope, a former Nazi (yes, an actual, non-metaphorical Nazi), and currently the "infallible" leader of a religious organization with over one billion human members, traveled to Africa this week to encourage Africans not to use condoms to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, a deadly disease which currently infects more than 20 million Africans.

Roll that one around in your mind for awhile.

It's not a question of enough, pal. It's a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses.

In the midst of a nice Citi-led run up in bank stocks these last couple of days, there's been a big uproar over these AIG bonuses.

Let's first note that I'm not one to go all class-war-rich-v-poor on you. I've got no beef with people making ridiculous amounts of money: entrepreneurs, innovators, entertainers, athletes, capitalists, or even bankers. In fact, I'm all for it. The idea that hard-working and/or talented people are rewarded, and that even people of little talent often get rich for being in the right place at the right time, or for simply having -- purely by luck -- something that others are willing to pay a lot for, is one of the great things about America.

But then let's also note that the bonuses which are currently the subject of such righteous outrage are being paid to executives in the "Financial Products" division of AIG; the very same division that wrote billions upon billions of dollars worth of derivatives contracts that caused AIG to fail, and very nearly brought down the entire global financial system with it. These people were at the very epicenter of this whole mess.

Now, I will grant you that these folks were presented with some pretty perverse incentives: they were compensated on the basis of the revenue generated by sales of these derivatives, without any regard for the potential liabilities of such derivatives. (I can only imagine what the monumentally stupid people in AIG's risk management shop thought about this. But probably they didn't "think" about it in any way that could be considered meaningful.) But even given such perverse incentives, these derivatives traders cannot by any measure be considered productive or successful employees. In short, what they did was terrible -- catastrophic, in fact -- for their employer. And given this inescapable fact, they do not deserve bonuses, but more likely deserve to be sued for gross negligence or prosecuted for criminal fraud.

Ok, so hopefully we can all agree on that. The question then becomes whether tax dollars (the only kind of dollars AIG has or will have for the foreseeable future) should be used for the payment of these bonuses. The story we first got was that when Geithner heard about this, he immediately called up AIG's CEO and expressed his outrage and insisted (demanded!) that AIG suspend payment of the bonuses. Given what subsequently transpired, we can assume this was the Treasury Secretary's version of the Democratic Congress's "Sternly Worded Letter(TM)" so often in use during the Bush Administration.

If you'll recall, sending the Sternly Worded Letter is a ruse one will put into use when one becomes aware of a public circumstance that he or she believes is sure to outrage a significant segment of his or her constituency, but with respect to such circumstance he or she: (1) considers any meaningful action which might counteract it to be too much hard work, (2) actually has little or no disagreement with, (3) is personally benefited by, (4) is secretly personally implicated by, or (5) all of the above. So the preferred action is to take a public stance of stern outrage toward such circumstance, while taking little or no further action to impede it.

This describes Geithner's ploy in regard to the AIG bonuses. As we will see, it may also describe Obama's. In response to Geithner's "outraged" phone call (the substance of which was promptly leaked to the press), the AIG CEO sent him a letter stating that the bonuses were contractual obligations which could not be abrogated (for reasons I don't feel like typing out right now, this is a transparently idiotic excuse), and in any event they were being paid for the purposes of "retention" of valuable employees (neglecting, of course, to mention that many of them had already left the company, and astutely eliding any explanation as to why, of all the people in the world, one would want these particular employees to continue working for one's organization).

And so then Geithner, having made his outrage publicly known, meekly (though in a manner thoroughly evidencing his Outrage) acquiesed and turned immediately back to the project of funneling billions of dollars to his friends and colleagues in the financial services sector.

In other circumstances, this is where the story would end. But in the panicked and -- yes -- outraged America that we live in today, 2009, the public had finally has had enough of seeing guys in $8,000 suits, through the good auspices of (unwilling and largely un-consulted) taxpayers, being kept in the lifestyles to which they have become accustomed. And thus there was a great public outcry.

In response to such great public outcry, then, Obama took to the airwaves on Monday vowing that he would instruct the Treasury Department to do everything within its power, to "pursue every legal avenue", in order to block the payment of these bonuses. To my ears, he sounded very sincere about this.

But then later, sadly, some frowny-faced "administration officials" stepped forward to explain that the bonuses had already been paid on Friday and to opine that they "couldn't be extracted from their recipients without a legal fight that would cost the taxpayers even more." How very, very unfortunate. So, instead, "officials said the White House will focus on ensuring taxpayers recoup the cost of the bonuses and, going forward, executive compensation at AIG would be on a much tighter leash." Which means, I guess, that the Treasury will give AIG $165M so that AIG can then turn around and pay exactly the same amount back to the Treasury as a "recoupment" of these bonuses. See? Problem solved.

So we'll just go on down the road, "turn the page" as they say, and resolve to do better the next time around. And in the meantime, all of us poor schmucks out here in flyover country had a great opportunity to vent our displeasure at those who have made such an unfortunate mess of our economy. Ahhh. All better? Good.

Just one slight complication here, however. The meek frightened squirrel -- Congress -- appears to have found a nut, Democrats and Republicans alike. We now have many prominent Congressional Democrats screaming for an emergency tax bill which will, if successful, turn the AIG Financial Products shop into a flat, smoking abrasion in the earth's crust. Cleverly, they will tax these AIG execs at a 60% rate (in addition to the existing 35%) on all bonus money over $10,000. For their part, the Republicans are insisting that Geithner be hauled into the Capitol to be cross-examined on what he knew about the bonuses and when he knew it (apparently months ago!).

It promises to be quite the interesting story now, with Congresspersons of both parties vying to outdo each other in demagoguing this issue. Cynicism aside, my personal feeling is: (a) these bonuses should never have been paid, (b) Obama and Geithner made a huge political mistake by allowing them to be paid, and (c) whether or not it is, in the larger scheme of things, good policy to punish these AIG execs by taxing them into oblivion, it would make me very happy to see it done, because, well, fuck those assholes; there are a lot of people suffering in this economy right now, and no one deserves to do a bit of suffering more than the handful of sociopathic dickheads who had such a large hand in bringing the shitstorm down on everyone else.

Tab Dump

I have to say this in favor of my new(ish) computer: I can keep tons and tons of tabs open in multiple Firefox windows without noticeable sluggishness or crashing. Also, though I still have some non-trivial complaints about Vista, I've noticed I can go weeks without rebooting and don't encounter any problems.

But I really need to get rid of some of these open tabs:

1. A near-must-read absurdist rant from IOZ on how the economy got to where it is. And I'm not even going to try to excerpt it.

2. Yglesias slams Citi (among others) for agitating against a proposed law which will make it easier for employees to unionize. And, while I know nothing about this bill and have mixed feelings about unions, it is hard to argue with this bit of dicta:

First you manage your business so catastrophically badly that your company not only becomes worthless, but that it threatens to destroy the livelihoods of billions of people around the planet. Second, you get the taxpayer to keep you in business. And third, you turn around and warn that higher wages for workers might destroy the world economy!
[...]
These [bankers] haven’t shown themselves to be knowledgeable about anything other than enriching themselves and there’s no particular reason to take their opinions about ... unions or taxes or anything else especially seriously.

The thing is... people desperately want to believe in capitalism and free markets, but these people just have no shred of credibility whatsoever. Which, like it or not, gives folks like Yglesias the opportunity to argue forcefully (and, to some, convincingly) for positions like "we need more powerful unions and less powerful executives". Sigh.

3. Amazingly, Slash is not included among the right answers in this Sporcle game of the Top 100 Guitarists.

4. And while we're on Sporcle, this was one I did well on. Though admittedly it seems pretty easy even for non-lawyer types.

5. I've made a habit of checking out this blog from Scott Adams. I was never into Dilbert, but the guy has a lot of interesting stuff to say.

6. Here is The Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time. Incredibly, neither Marie Antoinette or Inland Empire has yet appeared. They've picked a few candidates that I actually enjoyed (e.g., Across the Universe and Mr. Brooks), but it's worth reading just for the quality of the snark.

7. Meghan McCain: "I just don't understand" the economy. This type of honesty might have served her candidate father well... or at least better than trying to b.s. his way through the campaign on this subject. Back in the first year of law school it was always painfully obvious when a student hadn't done the reading the night before and was called on by the professor. The smarter ones always closed their books, put on their best shameface, looked the professor right in the eye, and said "Unfortunately, professor, I have not read that particular case." Which would be brutally embarrassing, but not nearly as bad as the alternative, which would -- inevitably -- be a scenario where the hapless student endured 5-10 minutes of being ruthlessly dragged over the coals in a savage cross-examination, only to finally be forced to admit it anyway in a desperate plea for mercy. The professors who didn't have the stomach for administering this type of suffering were simply not allowed to teach first year classes. Too bad political reporters don't fit this mold, or we might have a lot fewer clueless politicians driving this country off a cliff.

W.

I watched W. last night. It had its moments. It was less ham-fisted than you might expect from an Oliver Stone political subject, and in spots I thought was actually showed some deep psychological insights. Overall, however, it was far from great, and I got bored during about the final 1/3 of the movie.

But the point of this post is to say this:


is to


as


is to