The real agenda.

Today's Jack Kelly column is interesting. Kelly talks about how evil public sector unions are in Wisconsin, particularly taking aim at teachers (Governor Walker has largely exempted police and firefighters from making cuts in their wages or benefits, evidently because police and firefighters are more likely to give money to Republicans). Kelly cites a CPA (!) who says "If government workers were paid the same as equivalent private sector workers, no state would have a budget deficit". In point of fact, the Center for State & Local Government Excellence found in 2008 that state and local workers made around 11 percent less than comparably educated private sector workers.

In a rare display of honesty, Kelly does note that Wisconsin public employee unions have offered to meet the governor's financial demands, although Kelly fails to note the governor has simply refused to talk to them. Kelly instead rails against the evils of collective bargaining, implying the unions will simply demand more money and reversal of the concessions next year. But these same unions have had no raises in two years, and at least one year in the past accepted an unpaid furlough that amounted to a three percent pay cut. And this was with a governor who is a Democrat.

Plus, Wisconsin is not currently bankrupt. In fact, before announcing this bill, Walker pushed through tax cuts benefiting big business. Further, the pension fund that Kelly talks about in vague, general terms is in fact fully funded. As so many Democrats and labor leaders have said, this is not about the budget.

I have heard several pundits/reporters suggest the Republican motivation in this case is to bust public sector unions, with the goal of reducing union influence in general. And some of that may be true, but today on "Meet the Press" I heard that Howard Fineman has proposed a slightly more limited but focused goal. Pubic sector unions are known for giving money and labor to the Democrats. Changing public sector unions by eliminating the automatic contribution from members (and reducing the income of members) will remove public sector unions as factors in elections. This would pave the way to change the financial equation, where Republicans will be able to receive essentially unlimited amounts of money from corporations while Democrats will have many fewer and smaller sources of financing.

Meanwhile, Kelly goes on about how Milwaukee teachers are paid, on average, $100,000 for nine months work in wages and benefits. By the way, that doesn't taking home a hundred grand, it means taking home maybe sixty, seventy grand (how much does Kelly make for working one day a week?). But Kelly says, eight of the 100 worst performing schools are in Milwaukee.

My question is, by cutting teacher pay and benefits forever more, does Kelly think Wisconsin (and the rest of the country) is going to get better job applicants? That paying less will make the city's schools better?

Apparently, in their desire to gain power in local, state and the federal government, Republicans are willing to permanently damage the public school system, and much of the rest the government (I haven't even mentioned cuts to the SEC, the IRS and the EPA).

The little engine that couldn't ....

So today in his column, Jack Kelly essentially said that while freight trains are fine, passenger trains are pretty useless, and the government shouold not spend extra or perhaps any money on them. Before I look at the gaps in his argument, I should probably look at where I might agree with him. Kelly states that right now passenger rail accounts for a small percentage of all of travel in the US, and I have no doubt that's true. I suspect Amtrak has been given an impossible task, ordered to charge ticket prices that reflect as a large a part of costs as possible, and then given a subsidy that allows the trains to (just barely) continue running. I believe the trains between DC and New York/Boston are somewhat popular, but I would be surprised if any other routes could say even that.

So when Kelly compares passenger mile prices between driving, flying and taking the train, he is looking at just the cost of gas for driving, and the for flying the ticket price for a flying cattle car (full capacity seating) as compared to the less than full trains. Of course the driving cost ignores maintenance, insurance and other incidentals, and the cost of both driving and flying ignores their greater effects on the environment. But what really caught my eye was that Kelly ignores the fact that train ridership is higher in Europe (in absolute and percentage terms). Why would that be the case? I am not absolutely sure, but I'll bet a lot of the train tracks in Europe wee laid after world war II, and can accommodate faster trains (which they run). Oil being highly taxed there probably makes train travel more attractive pricewise, especially if the trains have more passengers, and so can better leverage the higher fuel efficiency per passenger mile of trains.

Amusingly Kelly also complains about the time it would take to go to a train station, without once mentioning the time it takes to go to airports, including larger parking lots and of course the wait at security checkpoints. But despite the fact I disagree with Kelly on theoretical grounds, I think he may have a point. Unless we throw maybe ten times what the President wants to spend, we won't be able to fund more than one or two projects, a drop in this bucket. Americans seem in love with cars (and/or SUVs and pick-ups) and flying, and even if Congress were to increase the gas tax (though I don't that coming to pass), I don't think Americans will give the cars and planes easily or soon.

Still, the ultimate point in Kelly's column, for my money, was where he said he had read somewhere that the Denver airport covers more land than would be required to build an Alaska to Miami rail line. First of all, hunh? And second, if anything, that meaningless factoid supports rail construction. But Kelly tries to present it as the opposite, as he so often does.

Kelly and Islam

Jack Kelly continues his campaign of indirect attacks on the President while also implying conservatives would do a better job of running things, all vis a vis Egypt. He is snidely implying both that Obama has no influence in Egypt and that Obama is making missteps that endanger American interests and threaten to help the (according to Kelly) fundamentalist and terrorist Muslim Brotherhood take over the country. I can't help but wonder which is true.

Now, I think there is a danger the Muslim Brotherhood could wield significant or even dominant power in a future Egyptian government. I think that is the case because the Muslim Brotherhood is identified as a group that opposed Mubarak (or that Mubarak opposed, which ever). I think this is a possibility regardless of what the administration has said or will say. But Jack Kelly thinks it is important that you know to blame Obama if anything bad does happen, and to give neocons and Republicans credit if Egypt turns out OK.

Anyone who would describe Mark Steyn as a "humorist" has major issues (at least in my book).

Addendum to Kelly on food prices

Interestingly, Paul Krugman wrote yesterday about much the same topic that Jack Kelly had on Sunday. Krugman mentioned the same basic ideas, that high food prices are putting the world's very poor at considerable risk. Krugman also mentioned, as Kelly did, that some people blame the Fed's "easy money" policy, although Krugman dismissed the notion. But Krugman also looked at a cause for the current spike in food prices that Kelly did not consider: climate change. Krugman suggested that droughts (in Russia) and floods (in Australia) are the sorts of weather we might expect to see becuase of climate change.

I notice that the PG did not reprint Krugman's column on Monday, as I believe they often, if not usually do.

Als0 in the Sunday NYTimes was a review of a book "Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth". Now, I haven't read this book, but I was struck by how (as communicated through the review) the book emphasized that we are handing off a lot of misery to our children. Our blinders (as indicated by the House of Representatives) towards climate change is increasing the depth and length of the problems that will be caused by climate change. We can't wish away the problem, neither religion or capitalism will save us. The price of oil will inevitably go up, whether we try to mange the increase or not (it is looking like we will not try).

Perhaps there is a similarity between our head in the sand behavior about climate change and the behavior of businesses in not hiring workers, in demanding to be able to avoid paying workers healthcare benefits, and in keeping executive compensation so far above average employees. There is that sense in both climate change and the business world that we have ours, and see no benefit in sharing or helping others. That worked well for the French monarchy and aristocracy in 1789.

Kelly on Egypt

In today's Jack Kelly column, Kelly engages in innuendo and implies all sorts of negative things about Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and Obama. To be fair, our experience with the Iranian revolution should let us us know that it is possible for revolutions in countries that have dictators we supported can turn out very bad for us. Kelly's various quotes indicate worst case scenarios for Egypt, and I will say that Americans should be reassured that Mohammad El-Baradei appears to be the leading figure to replace Mubarak. But Egypt will need to develop Democratic processes as rapidly as possible, or risk falling prey to another totalitarian regime.

I do want to note one paragraph in Kelly's column:

"President Barack Obama belatedly has concluded a lack of democracy is the source of instability in Egypt. The neoconservatives who were architects of President Bush's "freedom agenda" for the Middle East (which Mr. Obama sidetracked) wonder why it took him so long."

While Kelly is busy trying to pin this on Obama, let me ask, where was the neocon "freedom agenda" for Egypt during eight years of the Bush administration?

Kelly doesn't really rise to the occasion

Today Kelly is somewhat complimentary to President Obama. But he also gives us numerous examples of Democrats who tried to pin Loughner to right wing lines. The funny thing, for me, is that Kelly closed with "In the debates to come, let us focus more on the policies and the facts supporting them, and indulge less in name-calling and finger-pointing.". Fair enough, except that Kelly just spent a entire column pointing fingers.

The talkfest ...

Over on Two Political Junkies Maria posted rather angrily about Gabrielle Giffords. I don't blame her, and I am not happy that conservatives and Tea Party types have spent the last 24 months making relatively frequent veiled violent threats. What I found somewhat appalling is that the first and several more comments suggested Loughner is/was connected to the left. In other words, liberal complaints about the right's violent rhetoric are totally unjustified, and the right's claims that the left is plotting the overthrow of t he government are vindicated by Loughner. It has turned into a heated comment fest, 26 at last look.

Similarly, but in a more subtle way, the New York Times columnists have joined the national debate. Paul Krugman, not surprisingly, blames the culture of anger (indistinctly) cultivated by conservatives aand Tap Party types. To his credit, he does not specifically say the shooter was a Republican or Tea Party type, somewhat less to his credit he singles out Bill O'Reilly an Glenn Beck as two of the figures responsible for the "Climate of Hate" we are experiencing. I say somewhat less because while I personally don't like either man, there is a large group on the right involved in reckless rhetoric.

By contrast, Ross Douthat concentrated on the nuttiness of the Tucson shooter. He brings up the Communist connections of Lee Harvey Oswald, and the nuttiness of other assassins. He also noes the accusations of the left (he could almost be talking about Krugman's column). While I agree thee Loughner certainly looks like a classic nut, his apparent anti-government rantings certainly seem more at home on the right. And then there is Republican opposition to gun control.

Which brings Gail Collins. who makes what I feel are the most sensible points. Collins is appalled (as am I) that Loughner could purchase a (concealable) handgun capable of firing 30 bullets without reload. Collins notes the Giffords herself is opposed to gun control, But Collins also notes that Giffords is practical Democrat who likes to find compromises that allow legislation to go forward. So maybe Giffords would have supported a limited gun control, one where maybe the next nut might only shoot six people, instead of eighteen. Which is to say that Collins tries to find solutions that might reduce the level of violence, instead of pinning or denying blame. Which no one besides myself will praise her for.

Kelly today, and other matters

Howdy all, Sorry I missed last week's Kelly. I had a bit of surgery done, and now I am home recuperating.

But I couldn't ignore Jack Kelly's column today. In fact, if it were up to me, I would not have chosen to publish that column today, in light of the events in Tucson yesterday.

I am not going to go into great detail about the column, I think the obvious is enough without detail. If Kelly was right that there are the two kinds of Muslims, wouldn't we see civil wars across the Middle East? Yes, Pakistan has something of a civil war going on, and it is caused by the Taliban moving over from Afghanistan.

There is unrest in the Middle East, caused by occupations, poverty, repressive governments, etc. There is also anger at the way the US has behaved in Muslim countries. And some of that anger has made it to the our shores. Still, let's think about this. Eric Holder says that 50 of the 125 arrested in the last two years are American citizens. That's with the current administration still using Bush era wire-tapping and surveillance techniques. Given how much damage twenty terrorists did on 9/11, 50 citizens is nothing to sneeze at. But given how hard the government is working on this, should we suspect their might be hundreds or thousands more out there? Do we want McCarthy-like witch hunts, with persecution of Muslims throughout the US?

I think the answer is obvious.

Education as the boogeyman

Last week Jack Kelly claimed everyone hates "Obamacare" (well a majority of right thinking people hate it) and that it costs too much and takes away our freedom. This week Kelly is going after education; it costs too much and yields to little reward for people who study humanities or social sciences. This is an issue that strikes close to home, as my Dad is a retired math professor and I work at a local University. Now, I will say that in some respects I agree with him, but mostly Mr Kelly is full of ... well, you know.

There are funny meta-aspects to Kelly's argument, which I will get to after saying far too much. He says that since 1981 the cost of colleges/Universities has increased "sixfold", while the Consumer Price Index has only increased 2 and a half fold. What's interesting to me about that is that since 1981 a Republican has been in the White House for twenty of the last twenty nine years. Now Jack Kelly writes an essentially political column, so one would assume Kelly thinks this is a political problem, with political solutions. So why have the Republicans been so mean to college students (or allowed colleges to be so greedy)? Of course, indeed if the government stopped providing (or insuring or whatever) college grants and loans and tax credits, undoubtedly only the rich would go to college. And many colleges would cut back and many would close up shop all together. This apparently would suit Kelly just fine.

Now, for myself, the job I do could absolutely be done by someone who does not have a college degree. But they hired someone with a degree over all other applicants (me), which is the trend these days in a number of jobs. I suspect (although I do not know) that many of my work colleagues who have been on the job for twenty years or more do not have degrees, but all the more recent hires do seem to have them.

Part of my job involves verifying receipts and insuring that purchases are legitimate ones, following accounting rules. I am only part of that mechanism, and if I wanted to cheat the University (and the taxpayers and students and donors), I would have to enlist the help of several people, some who I know only barely. I would like to think that my college degree also makes me a more conscientious employee, one who is better able to see the big pictures as I perform smaller tasks. But I am probably not working all the way up to my potential, so I might be the poster child for Kelly's argument.

Except that I am working at a University, where we are supposed to be fleecing the public. Well, I have good hours, good benefits, a comfortable office, a gym I can workout at, good (but not great) vacation benefits. If I take classes, the tuition is free, but at the graduate level the taxes on that tuition are literally supposed to be crushing. And to be clear, my pay does not reflect the fleecing part. My dad, the math professor, received what one might call comfortable wages. I suspect he made as much as a plumber or an electrician, maybe a tad more, maybe a tad less.

It is true that the costs of Colleges, Universities and technical schools such as the Art Institute, Kaplan/ITT something or other and Rosedale Tech have all increased. There are two aspects to the increase, in my opinion. One is the commitment the government and sometimes the nation made to helping level the playing field for minorities, and the other is Bill Clinton.

During the seventies I think that there was an increase in both minority scholarships and assistance for low income people in general, which might well
disproportionately benefit minorities (who have higher rates of poverty). And Bill Clinton greatly subsidized higher education through new tax credits for attending school. And since the seventies, I think the government system of guaranteeing student loans has also increased the number of people attending higher ed of one form or another.

This is all related to what Kelly was getting at, that everyone has to admit higher ed costs have gone up. I will say he is wrong that educators and administrators are making out like bandits. But schools have gone on a property buying spree (probably more expensive during the bubble), and tried to sock money into endowments (consisting of investments ... uh oh).

But here's the thing. I think Kelly's argument that people with non science degrees are not getting the benefit of their degree by taking lower skilled jobs overlooks the fact that many companies are choosing to hire college in preference to high school grads, even if the job doesn't require the degree. And the college grads can advance, where the high school grad might not be able to (unless they use Clinton type tax credits to get the degree @ night). So although it is not an ideal situation, the reality on the ground is that if a person takes Kelly's apparent advice, saves money and does not have a degree, (s)he may lose in the competition even for the jobs that ostensibly don't require a degree.

But there are two further issues. As I have mentioned before, the unemployment rate for people without a high school degree is 15%, for those who have only a high school degree the rate is 10%, while for those with a college degree the rate is 4.5% (I am not sure for those with an associates or "some college/university"). Having a degree means that it should be easier to get at least some job, if you try, while not having a degree makes that much more problematic.

And of course we know that the unemployment rates for young African-Americans are often much higher, although I suspect having the degree makes an even bigger difference there. I wonder if that is something Kelly has taken into consideration when seeming to recommend young people not get degrees. His suggestion could set one or even two generations back, considering how little progress has really been made in achieving equal rights for the vast majority of African Americans.

Now, anyone who reads this blog knows I have linked Kelly to the Tea Party movement. Unfortunately, the semi-racist narrative I described above fits with the views of at least some Tea Partiers. But there is an additional ominous element here. The Tea Party "declaration of independence", which presumably some number, possibly a majority or even all Tea Partiers agree with, includes a line complaining that the government is trying to bankrupt the country using socialist schemes so that the peasants will have to beg for sustenance from self styled "educated classes" and so-called "experts". There is also an line about the Tea Party rejecting "transformational change" performed on the nation by (as they put it) smug elites who call them "educated classes".

I believe the Tea Party has made it's position clear on intellectualism and education. So why should I not believe Kelly is subtly advancing the Tea Party position even while claiming to look out for the interests of young people. And as side consequence, out and out torpedoing the chances for employment of young African Americans and other disadvantaged minorities. Which is the final meta-aspect to Kelly's column for me.

Want to die?

Jack Kelly would like you to risk death so that he can keep some tiny measure of freedom that he doesn't need anyway. Today in his column, Kelly tells us a federal judge in Virginia struck a blow for freedom; also the often partisan Rasmussen polling organization found that when they ask the questions, Americans don't like "Obamacare".

The thing is (and I can't believe I have to say this again), health care reform is good for everyone in almost every way you look at it. When the uninsured poor go to the emergency room (as George Bush obliviously suggested they do), they literally face bankruptcy, and since hospitals don't have to admit people without insurance, they simply have to stabilize them, going to the emergency room does not necessarily solve health problems. But of course past that, there is that bankruptcy (whatever loans and credit card debt being swept into the un-payable healthcare debt), the higher costs hospitals charge to address unpaid bills, the absenteeism, the loss of potential productive labor to untreated illness and possible death. By the way, as a PG employee, I suspect Kelly has perfectly good health care benefits, which I am strongly suspect he would be unwilling to give up as a matter of principle (Go ahead, Mr Kelly, prove me wrong).

Now I will grant you that the wealthy enjoy a great health care system, possibly the best in the world. If adding health-care insurance for those without it and adding new regulations about whose coverage can be canceled and also limiting lifetime maximums mean that the health care of the wealthy would suffer, I can understand why they (and thus the Republicans) would object. But as far as I can see, the only way the wealthy suffer is if the small (or large) business they own has to buy health insurance for their (low level) employees (which they could make those employees pay a huge portion of). I assume these are low paid employees like cleaning or clerical staff in law firms or medical practices, employees who see how much the professionals are making in profits. If it is suffering to provide employees with a benefit that you yourself enjoy, and would help keep them at work and not bankrupt, then I think a little suffering is in order.

So (noted constitutional scholar) Kelly spends time giving us his (actually the Tea Party's) view of the commerce clause of the constitution. Of course, the Supreme's have shown the ability to accommodate the modern world in their rulings (Scalia: handguns are constitutional because you can hold a handgun in your other hand); so I think the idea of balancing economic needs with the constitution is not beyond them (unless they start getting death threats from Tea Party members).

Kelly also whines about costs (ignoring the cost of no health care reform to the country in terms of both dollars and lives), and Kelly emphasizes that 222 waivers from health care provisions have been granted to various entities including "many to labor unions that fought for passage of the bill". Kelly states that more than a million workers have been exempted, says this a lot, but tellingly he doesn't say what the waivers are for. Are they for minor provisions? Is Kelly saying that the only good laws are ones with no flexibility (the kind of laws republicans like are the ones they can force down everyone's throats)?

At least smart Republicans are talking about alternatives, though not Tea Party types. Again tellingly, Kelly offers not a word about alternatives to Obamacare, he only cackled about what he thinks is momentum against it. Of course, the Republicans/Tea Party have been fairly successful in turning their stories (which sometimes could be characterized as out and out lies) into some people's view of reality (see Two Political Junkies).

Leaks-redux

I am still turning Wikileaks over in my mind.

I suspect some people will now choose not to defend Wikileaks because Julian Assange is accused of rape. Except that I think what he is really accused of is consential sex gone bad. The two women he had sex with went with him willingly, undressed and started the process (so to speak) willingly. At some point in one case a condom broke and in the other the woman wanted to stop and Assange didn't. So, I don't think you can call Assange some sort of sexual predator, although I would be willing to stipulate Assange is an asshole of a Bill Clinton degree.

The point is, though, whether Assange's character has anything to do with whether the cables in the latest Wikileaks release are true or not. It puts me in mind of the ACLU defending Nazis (or the KKK) having marches. As long as the Nazis don't violate any laws, don't throw rocks or firebomb synagogues, you kind of have to let them march. That's because you want to make sure that the government couldn't use anti-Nazi rally rules to silence anti war or anti racism protesters. Yet that effort by the ACLU was what has really done them in as a national organization.

So too, I gather American politicians (most notably Hilary Clinton) have been screaming that the Wikileaks release will destroy our ability to conduct diplomacy. I say that being able to say one thing publicly and another privately between government employees and politicians is what gets us bad policy and even into wars. There was one politician I had met years ago and had the rare opportunity to ask him first if he knew protectionist steel policy was bad for the economy (he did) and then why he supported it. He basically admitted it was for the votes (a politician being kind to a student intern). My point being that if more politicians (and for that matter economists) told the truth as they understand it, we would be less happy in the short run but maybe much happier in the long run.

This Wikileaks release exposes the fact that our diplomats don't think much of some politicians in some government, that we spy even on allies as a matter of course, and that some of our allies privately want us to do things they won't admit to wanting publicly. And Yeman agreed to claim credit for things we did. Whoopee.

This release has nothing to do with the much more important financial industry situation, where the industry is fighting many reforms, and many, perhaps most politicians are assisting the financial industry. In other words, this Wikileaks has nothing to do with the most important issues facing us, yet some politicians and some of the media act as though it is the Apocalypse (and almost all the rest talk about it with a sneer).

I suppose that's the point. Wikileaks is a wedge into a world outside our view. With that wedge, we can do one of two things. We can put in more wedges at other places in that shadowy world, or we can kick the Wikileaks wedge out, and forget we ever saw anything.

Kelly's Hero

So, I guess there is a new thing in the world: the Jack Kelly Presidential fantasy scenario. Kelly is trying to be a calm, rational prognosticator, to help us by noticing things we may have missed, and guiding us to their true meanings. He identifies Michael Bloomberg as a possible candidate for President. He notes Bloomberg's contempt for Republican voters and the current Democratic President. And Kelly notes that if Bloomberg ran, he would hurt a candidate like Mitt Romney most, perhaps because he and Romney are similar in being wealthy and regarded as intelligent. According to Kelly, Bloomberg would hurt Sarah Palin the least, because Bloomberg is more like Obama than he is like Palin. So ipso facto if the Republicans want to retake the White House and Bloomberg runs, then they should nominate Palin

The helpful Jack Kelly, pretty much proving what I have been saying about how he wants to get involved with and shill for the Tea Party (two words he never says once in today's column; did he think he could fool us). To be sure, Ralph Nader had a majorly bad effect on Al Gore's campaign and probably cost him the election. Still, I would be shocked if Palin made it past the first hurdle, getting nominated as the candidate. It would prove all the negative things that have somewhat jokingly said about the Tea Party and the Republicans were in fact true.

By the way, I skipped last week's column (I guess I just wasn't in the mood). It wasn't as political as usual, more of a defense oriented column. Kelly thinks we should leave South Korea to defend itself. I disagree, I think defending South Korea continues to send a positive message to the rest of the world.

Wikileaks

One of the stories I have let sail past me is the Wikileaks story. This issue strikes right at the heart of the sorts of cognitive dissonance we live with now. Which is to say one of, perhaps the biggest, disappointments with the Obama administration has nothing to do with increasing the deficit to stimulate the economy, or health care. That disappointment is the large scale continuation of business as usual in the executive branch. Now, the current Afghan surge is possibly part of that situation (that is sort of ambiguous), but the sorts of things revealed in the Wikileaks dump clearly is. Without having gone through them, I gather there have been secret talks where our middle eastern allies are pushing us to at least bomb Iran.

Glenn Greenwald has been covering this story, and delves into government and media reaction to the Wikileaks release. And to me, that is where things get interesting. The government is objecting to this theft of secret documents and the media is largely agreeing with them. Bill Keller admits to checking with the administration as it went to publish parts of the release, to make sure lives would not be endangered. So how is that different than Judith Miller publishing information about WMD's that she got from the (previous) administration without independent confirmation in the run-up to the Iraq war?

However, since this is the Obama administration, many people are caught between their automatic support for a Democratic administration and their desire to support whistle-blowers standing up to authority. Actually, I'll allow that any given person's support for Obama may be more nuanced than "automatic", but any one who steps back and tries to look at this situation dispassionately has to wonder why the Obama administration is acting so much like the Bush administration. Most nobody is stepping back. And that is a problem because it will have a further chilling efect on whistle blowers elsewhere in the government and in private industry.

The movie "Inside Job" also noted that many of Obama's top advisers, including Timothy Geitner and Lawrence Summers, have strong ties to banks and Wall Street (including sitting on boards). Now, I won't say that Obama's administration should have been a complete break with the past. But I think that an attempt at more balance, bringing in some people who were less inclined to place the financial industries' interests over the rest of the country, would have been a good thing. Increasingly, Obama is inhabiting the worst of all worlds. He is villainized by the right, excoriated by the Tea Party, and yet serves the interests of super rich and the military industrial complex. Can we get something, either Obama cutting his ties to industry and secrecy, or for the right to acknowledge Obama has done them a lot of good?

Back in time for Kelly

Back???

Yeah, I was out of town, visiting my brother, dad and cousin in the sunny South (where it was under 30 this morning). My brother asked if I would blog about my trip, and I may.

Meanwhile, though, I could chat a bit about Jack Kelly's Column today. My overall reaction is to say a word that Mr Kelly does not: "deficit". So many of the Republicans in general and Tea Party people in specific ran on reducing the deficit. Here's Jack Kelly suggesting the Republicans hold the Start Treaty hostage to a commitment to spend huge new amounts of money to modernize our nuclear arsenal. Kelly is worried that our aging arsenal will not be seen as a credible threat (because nukes deteriorate). Yeah, buit what would be the reaction to our suddenly having a new set of nukes compared to the Russian's old set. Kelly expresses concern about China being a threat, which it is to some degree. However, I am not sure that giving the Chinese a new reason to fear us is necessarily a good move. Our previous President showed a willingness to invade one country based on a flimsy excuse, and we could elect another Republican in 2012 or 2016. Perhaps Mr Kelly is thinking about a near version of mutually assured destruction, one where our nukes are weighed against our debt that China is holding. Except that in that case we have an incentive to nuke China to cancel the debt (probably what Kelly has in mind).

In any event, Kelly thinks the Senate should wait until January to vote on the Start treaty. After all, the people have spoken in that they elected Republicans such that they are a majority in House, and six new members in the Senate. The people have spoken, and certainly would not want the current Senate to do anything until it's new members are there. Except I think the people were lied to ("the Democrats have done nothing/have expanded government to a larger size than ever before") and misled. Now, you may disagree with that assessment, or say "so what, too bad". But I think I am entitled to say the Democrats should do now what they can as much as Mr Kelly is entitled to say Congress should defer to the (supposed) will of the people.

Kelly pretty much tries to mislead us in this column as well, intentionally or otherwise. For example, he takes pains at the beginning of the column to tell us the treaty itself is a bad treaty (not in our national security interests), and that he will get back to that. Then a bit later he says something about how progressives are frozen in cold war thinking, and repeats that the treaty is bad, as if he had made his case. Now granted, he then complains about China and about how ballistic missile defense might be harmed by the treaty, but if that is part of his case, he makes it in the most confusing manner possible.

And as far as ballistic missile defense goes, I have not heard of a successful test ever since the program was started during the Reagan administration. All it seems like is corporate welfare for defense manufacturers. Maybe it is time to scrap the program (remember - "deficit"?).

Kelly tries to flash his "national security" credentials today, but mostly shows himself to be a transparent shill for the Republicans. I do have to say, though, he risks angering those new darlings of the Republicans, the Tea Party, some of whom are ready and willing to cut defense as well as Medicare and Social Security.

You can't always get what you want ....

but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you neeeeeeeeeeee-ee-eeeeeee-ee-eeeeeed (ooooooo oo oo oooooooo). *grin*

What to say about today’s Jack Kelly column ? Well, I majored in econ (as well as poli sci) as an undergrad (a quarter century ago) but would not call myself an economist. But I wouldn’t call Mr Kelly one either.

I will bring up my own favorite left field loony idea. Kelly brought up numerous critics to “quantitative easing”: the Chinese, the Germans, Republican leaders, the Chamber of Commerce and somebody called Charles Hugh Smith. The one group he failed to mention is the one group I have been suggesting he is court (although I confess I don’t know why he is doing that). And mind you the group is more of a loose movement that doesn’t have specific leaders or anyone that can set specific policy or even articulate agreed upon goals; they’re more like a mob that picks up a chant. The group of which I speak is of course the Tea Party. Both Sarah Palin and rand Paul have spoken out incoherently against Fed Policy. I couldn’t say whether any of Bristol’s dance numbers were supposed to be interpreted as comments on Fed Policy (instead of comments on how dumb we really are).

So can I say Kelly is wrong about the effects “quantitative easing” will have? No, I am not that smart, and to be fair, there are a fair number of critics besides the obvious opponents of the Obama administration like Republican politicians and their patrons the Chamber of Commerce. I can not see how the Fed’s ultimate articulated goal of stimulating commercial lending will affect the extremely high unemployment rate (15%) of Americans without high school degrees. As I have said before, spend money (maybe the same amount as would be spent on quantitative easing) on transportation projects that give hiring preference to people without high school degrees (if that is feasible to do). As an executive department decision, call it a defense priority (national emergency highway system) and let Defense run it.

And something like that may still happen if Congress gridlocks next year. Meanwhile, though, after watching “Inside Job” I am unhappy about feeding the banks even more money, especially since they aren’t lending with the first round of money they were given. But the banks are where commercial lending takes place, so I suppose we still need to deal with them.

Back again ...

Back again. I still remember the podcamp speaker who said she hates when bloggers apologize for not posting. Never the less…

I went to a movie yesterday – “Inside Job”. Do you know the story? It is a documentary on the financial collapse. Yeah, I knew a lot of the material, but hardly all. The movie was well put together. Perhaps in some ways too well, but mostly it was words speaking for themselves (if you will forgive the phrase). They had many of the individuals in the crisis, not necessarily the CEO’s of Morgan Stanley or Lehman Brothers, but they had the guy who designed the Bush tax cuts. They had a major financial lobbyist. So I think it is fair to say they had the other side (as well as Barney Frank and others). The movie maker (Charles Ferguson?) asked the questions, to be sure, but there was the other side. It is at the Manor and a Bridgeville Destina theatre right now, and well worth seeing.

By the way, the movie spared neither Bill Clinton nor Barack Obama, they both subscribed to what is becoming our prevailing wisdom of deregulation and coddling the damn financial companies. And speaking of the prevailing wisdom, the movie reserved a chapter (one of six or seven) to talk about how economics has been co-opted, how economists are literally bribed by financial corporations. As someone who hopes that academia can help us understand and find solutions, it was really disappointing to hear (I think it was) the chair of economics at Harvard say that he didn’t think professors should have to disclose their possible conflicts of interest.

Needless to say, at this moment I am even more suspicious (and disgusted) with the prevailing wisdom(s). I don’t like how the Democrats are echoing Republicans, and I am really, really pissed about what the Republicans said before and still say after the election.

And I will pause and pivot here a minute to give my usual Sunday comment about Jack Kelly. I didn’t comment on last Sunday’s column in part because it wasn’t that interesting. He wants Obama to set aside in 2012. How should I interpret that? He talks in a Republican tinged prevailing wisdom, so already his view of reality appears distorted. Is it that he just doesn’t like the black man? He says the Democrats (which by the way I think he means Obama) lost working class whites; but since he doesn’t have a citation, I would wonder who he means – actual Democrats or just independent working class whites. One thing to consider is that apparently Obama only won white males under 30 in 2008. A majority of white males above 30 supported McCain, so Obama and the Democrats never had them to begin with.

This week’s column does much the same for Nancy Pelosi. He suggests she should not run for minority leader, and as proof he says that she might be the most unpopular figure in the country – only 8 percent of independents approve of the job she is doing.

“Independents”? Are they somehow more important than the rest of us? Any discussion of independents makes me think of a character in “12 Angry Men”. The “ad” man (George Webber) was swayed by the last authoritative argument that he heard, so he switched his jury vote a couple of times. Independents were clearly swayed by the Republican’s version of “prevailing wisdom” in the recent election. I already mentioned what I think about the prevailing wisdom, even or perhaps especially if supported by academic economic opinion (especially a Martin Feldstein, although Bernanke and even Laura Tyson did not come off well in “Inside”.

Kelly said a couple of interesting things in the last couple of weeks. Last week he said (and I agree) he foresees gridlock in Congress for the next two years. This week he came roaring back to courting the Tea Party with this final remark:
“We cannot restore the republic our forefathers intended unless we limit the terms of members of Congress, and limit their ability to sell favors.”
Yeah, I don’t like earmarks much, although I understand that politicians first and foremost do want to be re-elected (for better *or* worse), and so want to bring home presents for their constituents. But at a deeper level, Kelly’s folksy BS not only doesn’t help address the current financial crisis, it actively prevents our finding real solutions.

That would be a good place to stop, but there is one more thing I want to put out there, a general proposal to alleviate unemployment. I believe I have mentioned before that the middle and of course upper classes are not suffering as an aggregate group, 4.5% and 4% unemployment for bachelors and graduate level degree holders. But for people who do not even have a high school degree: 15% unemployment. We also know we need to at least shore up if not improve our infrastructure. Let’s put them together, manual labor jobs with preference given to people targeted as need job experience and training for projects working on our roads and bridges. In fact, I could also see public/private partnerships for solar, wind or tidal power corporations. A win win that would help the people really hurt by the recession. Therefore without a chance.

Two days ....

This post was inspired by a Paul Krugman column.

So the election is in two days. In Pittsburgh, Mike Doyle is likely to be relected, it is a possibly toss up between Toomey and Sestack, but apparently likely to be Toomey, and the same for Corbett and Onorato (Corbett winning). Now here’s a question: what do you think will happen when the Republicans take the House, and perhaps the Senate?

My answer: nothing. If you thought we did not see much progress on the economy in the last two years, get ready for less in the next two years. Some Republicans claim vaguely they want to reduce spending, and certainly they want to cut taxes for the rich. But most Republicans (besides some Tea Party fanatics) don’t describe specifics, even to the point of not pledging to reduce earmarks.

But assuming that Republicans can overcome their lack of enthusiasm and their history of spending during the Bush years, and pass bills in the house, how well things go in the Senate. The Republicans may or may not get a majority there, but we now know that 60 votes for cloture is the new standard for passage of legislation. What is to stop the Democrats from picking up the habits of the Republicans of the last four years? Personal holds and filibusters are absolutely possible. And if the Republicans change the rules to prevent Democrats from doing these things, then when the pendulum swings again, the new rules will apply to them too.

And at the end of the process, there is still Obama, who can veto legislation. And whatever else might be the result from Tuesday’s election, I don’t think the Republicans will have two thirds majorities in both houses.

So what will happen next January when the new members take their seats in Congress. My guess is nothing. I think the House may do some things, nothing that would help people who are actually unemployed. I don’t think a repeal of healthcare will pass the Senate, although some tax breaks for corporations and the rich might (and might be signed by Obama). I think the remaining middle class and those who do make more than a hundred grand (whom I classify as at least upper middle class) will continue to do OK. But I think the poor face more tough years, out as far as I can see.

Of the races, I am not a huge fan of Onorato, but I guess he would be better than Corbett. I am also not a fan of Doyle, but that race doesn’t matter (the primary was more important, but I don’t even remember if Doyle had a challenger). But the important vote is for Toomey or Sestak. Yes, it may not matter if I am right that the Republicans can never get enough of a majority to do anything. But I gotta say why give the Republicans reason to think they might be able to roll back the Democrat’s accomplishments. Plus, despite the Republicans/Tea Party’s overheated rhetoric, I don’t think either Obama or Sestak is that radical. But Toomey might be.

You will have to decide for yourself. I hope you read/watch more than one source, and if you have a job now, you ask yourself how much Republicans have tried to help the poor in the past.

Yeah, Kelly today ...

Yeah, so I haven't posted for a couple of weeks. I am hoping to get better about that.

I didn't bother with Jack Kelly's column last week, because he was blaming everyone for intelligence failures (except "Able Danger", an apparently muscular data mining program). I am a little baffled by Kelly's column today. He cites a report by Neil Barofsky, Treasury’s Inspector General for the Troubled Assets Relief Program. Now, apparently Congress saddled the TARP not only with saving Wall Street (a reasonable enough goal, or have we forgotten the Great Depression), but also with having banks lend to small business and even bring unemployment down. Now those were laudable goals but as Obama was elected Wall Street decided to refuse to play along. They have loaned little, and apparently are still engaging in risky behavior (as financial regulation slowly gets implemented). Loaning almost no money means that of course that there was not extra cash to expand business, which is how TARP would help unemployment fall.

But what is amazing is that in the interest of criticizing Democrats and especially Obama in any way possibly, Kelly is agreeing with this report from the TARP IG. He is agreeing with the idea that banks should have been forced to loan money to business. What happened to the free market, to shrinking the government, to getting the government off our backs? I mean, I might go for forcing the banks to loan money, but even I would have trouble with what mechanism would be used to decide where loans would be made (how the businesses would be approved and how much).

Kelly disguises his desperate embracing of any criticism of Obama as a criticism of the media. He claims that the “liberal” is deliberately ignoring the TARP IG’s report, because it criticizes the President. Maybe that’s true, although the media (liberal or otherwise) has not really been a friend of the President, with all the coverage of the President’s low approval ratings and sketchy coverage of the health care bill. But here’s a couple of questions: what about the people in government who eliminated the regulations that would have prevented the financial crisis? What about the banks that decided not to lend money?

As I said, TARP’s goal was laudable enough, but perhaps unrealistic. And as Democrats all over the country have done, I have some complaints about the President. But in this case, I think that the “crime” of not meeting unrealistic goals should take a back seat to other “crimes” that have been committed, such as getting us into this mess and those that have done little to nothing to help us get out of the mess.

It's Sunday ...

So today's Jack Kelly column has one interesting element. It has no pandering specifically to the Tea Party that I can see. Kelly does take a number of shots at a sitting United States Representative, and makes assertions that may not be fact.

Barney Frank is a interesting character. I realize saying that paints a big target on my (somewhat out sized) stomach, but I will make the obligatory statement that I have nothing against, and indeed have been friends with gays (although I am lousy about maintaining friendships with everyone, including my gay friends). I don't begrudge Barney Frank being angry if he thinks he is being attacked because he is gay. The reason I say that is because Frank was apparently really pissed when Stephen Colbert did a profile on Frank. Of course you should know what you will get when Colbert asks to do a profile of you (an often cringe-worthy event) and although I haven't seen it I believe Colbert went all out (I have seen clips of Colbert sashaying behind a striding, glaring Frank). What was interesting to me was that for months after words Frank emphasized in his appearances how he has a sense of humor. He even told a few jokes here and there (I think one on "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me") that were OK, not knee slappers. As I said, an interesting character.

Of course, Kelly said absolutely nothing about Frank being gay, which is no more than as it should be. What Kelly does say is that Frank is “The member of Congress most responsible for our current economic troubles” (and possibly in trouble) right off the bat. This is the alternate reality that conservatives live in. Kelly also identifies Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad, and also (interestingly) parts of the financial industry as villains in the economic collapse. Of course in the financial arena Kelly focuses on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, claiming their “bankruptcies accelerated the economic collapse”. Well, yes, that statement is obviously true, but to what degree did their collapse affect the recession as a whole? I would say not too much, but it fits Kelly’s view of the world to say the vast bulk of the recession is due to the Democrat created, assisting the poor Freddie and Fannie. In fact, Kelly re-writes history in saying that in 2003 and 2005 Bush proposed tighter regulation of Fannie and Freddie (read: gutting their mission of helping the poor get mortgages). I don’t remember Bush doing that, although I am sure he did, he just didn’t push very hard. Remember, Republicans held Congress in those years, and could have passed Bush’s regulations the way they passed the Bush tax cuts, through reconciliation.

I found it interesting that Kelly also blamed “Wall Street bankers” for their “bizarre financial instruments which were supposed to reduce risk, but multiplied it instead.”. He specifically mentioned Countrywide mortgages as a villain, a safe target since it is now defunct. I guess Republicans have taken a page from the Obama campaign playbook and now its ok for financial firms to be cast as villains in this election. After all, if Republicans take the House they can pass all sorts of deregulation and see if the Democrats in the Senate have the balls to stop them. The prospect of getting rid of Frank would be a big bonus for financial firms, since he has been a long time thorn in their sides.

EXTENDED THEME

The larger sociological questions of what is going on in this election are quite interesting too. How many people, in 2008, voted not for Obama but against McCain, especially after his poor debate performance? If Obama had tried to keep more of his campaign promises, such as to release more of the “detainees” (read prisoners) at Guantanamo, to stop being so secret about torture and wiretapping and to get us out of Afghanistan and Iraq, would the Democrats be more popular? Mind you, I would argue Obama has taken a half step on all of these (and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal, which has passed the House), but for every half step, there are more steps where Obama has allowed the Bush programs to continue, or even expand somewhat (predator drones). Mind you, these programs have nothing to do with jobs, and one might argue that the predator drone program, if correctly used, could be very effective against terrorists (even as one concedes it has not been effectively implemented). And speaking of jobs, what if Obama had not been distracted by health care for a year, what if he had made the stimulus larger and perhaps taken out some of the tax cuts in favor of spending on state and local government jobs. Would he have been a lightening rod for Republican fury such that Americans would not vote for a black candidate for President for decades?

Understand that in some ways Republicans won in 2008 in losing. They have been able to make wild accusations against Obama, the Democrats and what legislation has passed (health care reform, the stimulus) while using (abusing) the rules of the Senate to hold up hundreds of pieces of legislation. If Republicans win the House in the midterms and especially if they win the Senate, they will be expected to get things done. This will be a chance for Democratic Senators to take a page from the Republican play book and place holds on legislation, and use cloture against Republican legislation (especially if Democrats retain the Senate).

Meet the Press today implied that Obama may start to behave differently after the midterms (it’s not clear whether this depends on the outcome of the midterms or not). About time, I say. I think that Obama would re-energize his original followers if he became calmly strident towards the Republicans. He tried the reach across the aisle thing, and I will give him credit for that, but clearly the Republicans have rebuffed every effort (almost totally).

Tea Party in a bit more depth

I've been watching Bill Maher's "Real Time" (which I want to call "Politically Incorrect") when I remember to catch it. I have to say, Maher makes a habit of having conservatives on, such as Andrew Breitbart sometime one, two weeks ago. Unfortunately since he usually has celebrities on, whether left or right, the discussions never resolve anything.

This past Friday (yesterday) Maher had a young woman on who was in charge of the St Louis Tea Party. Maher had evidently been looking for a Tea Party person to come on this show and somehow connected with this young woman. At the risk of being sexist or giving offense I will say she is an attractive young woman (whose name totally escapes me) but also, I was perhaps as curious as Maher about what she would have to say.

So I remember maybe the first thing Maher asked her concerned why all the Tea Party candidates are Republicans. Personally I think it is to get the votes of people who wouldn’t vote for a third party candidate or for a conservative unless the only other option was a liberal. But this woman’s response was, as I remember, to say that she had been a Democrat in college, and was an independent before joining the Tea Party. In other words, se simply didn’t answer Maher’s question. He didn’t press enough, but the rest of the program also went like that. When the Stimulus was brought up, she said it failed, she said we spent more on the Iraq war than on the stimulus, she threw in the phrase “out of control spending”. In other words, whether she was making points or defending herself, she simply used little Republican/Tea Party phrases.

A lot of politicians give interviews in sound bites, but I thought the Tea Party was/is supposed to be the antidote to politics as usual. It was/is supposed to be a breath of fresh air, a cleaning out of the old boys and bringing in people who might not be operators in the political world, but are good honest folk looking out for the little guy.

That’s saying nothing of how the Tea Party manifesto states that the Tea Party doesn’t trust or intend to obey the Republican party. Except that they really are identical to them.