Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Armageddon!

In a column at Project Syndicate, economist Jeffrey Sachs begins with an ominous statement, "America is on a collision course with itself.", but then proceeds to back it up with the following:

"The problem is America’s corrupted politics and loss of civic morality. One political party, the Republicans, stands for little except tax cuts, which they place above any other goal. The Democrats have a bit wider set of interests, including support for health care, education, training, and infrastructure. But, like the Republicans, the Democrats, too, are keen to shower tax cuts on their major campaign contributors, predominantly rich Americans.

The result is a dangerous paradox. The US budget deficit is enormous and unsustainable. The poor are squeezed by cuts in social programs and a weak job market. One in eight Americans depends on Food Stamps to eat. Yet, despite these circumstances, one political party wants to gut tax revenues altogether, and the other is easily dragged along, against its better instincts, out of concern for keeping its rich contributors happy.

This tax-cutting frenzy comes, incredibly, after three decades of elite fiscal rule in the US that has favored the rich and powerful. Since Ronald Reagan became President in 1981, America’s budget system has been geared to supporting the accumulation of vast wealth at the top of the income distribution. Amazingly, the richest 1% of American households now has a higher net worth than the bottom 90%. The annual income of the richest 12,000 households is greater than that of the poorest 24 million households.

The Republican Party’s real game is to try to lock that income and wealth advantage into place. They fear, rightly, that sooner or later everyone else will begin demanding that the budget deficit be closed in part by raising taxes on the rich. After all, the rich are living better than ever, while the rest of American society is suffering. It makes sense to tax them more.
"

This passage in the piece reminds me of a recent Nicholas Kristof column that I blogged about last month about how the gap between rich and poor leads to dysfunctional countries.

Read the entire Sachs piece because it is not just another "left is right and right is wrong" diatribe. He is fairly critical of both sides for succumbing to the whims of the rich.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Behold, your new God! The Sun!! (It's gone for most of today though.)

Great article in The New York Times about this history of various cultures celebrating the sun (or rather, the absense thereof) for the Winter Solstice. One passage that's important to point out:

"The transition from Roman paganism to Christianity, with its similar rites, took several centuries. With the Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity in the fourth century, customs were quickly appropriated and refashioned, as the sun and God’s son became inextricably entwined. Thus, although the New Testament gives no indication of Christ’s actual birthday (early writers preferring a spring date), in 354 Pope Liberius declared it to have befallen on Dec. 25.

The advantages of Christmas Day being celebrated then were obvious. As the Christian commentator Syrus wrote: “It was a custom of the pagans to celebrate on the same Dec. 25 the birthday of the sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity .... Accordingly, when the church authorities perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnized on that day.”

In Christendom, the Nativity gradually absorbed all other winter solstice rites, and the co-opting of solar imagery was part of the same process. Thus the solar discs that had once been depicted behind the heads of Asian rulers became the halos of Christian luminaries. Despite the new religion’s apparent supremacy, many of the old customs survived — so much so that church elders worried that the veneration of Christ was being lost. In the fifth century, St. Augustine of Hippo and Pope Leo the Great felt compelled to remind their flocks that Christ, not the sun, was their proper object of their worship.
"

The whole article is a fun read. ENJOY!!!

Friday, December 17, 2010

So what's all this bickering over taxes really about?

Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein tries to explain why Democrats and Republicans disagree on tax policy:

"There may be some truth to the Republican belief that lowering taxes overall is a good way to boost economic growth or contain the size of government. However, that would apply just as well to cuts in corporate and payroll taxes or additional income tax cuts for the middle class. Yet you don't see Republicans drawing lines in the sand over those. What's so magical about the estate tax or the top marginal income tax rate?"

Read the entire column to find out the answer to this question. My personal take on it is both the Left and the Right have gotten themselves so wired up for a fight that they have forgotten the basic difference between fact and opinion.

The real story behind Wall Street Boguses..er..Bonuses

Four Wharten School professors wrote an excellent op-ed in The Washington Post about how, in the eyes of MBA students at Wharton, bonuses don't necessarily produce the results that the companies paying the bonuses claim to be getting from their employees. One particularly reflective quote from a student:

"Taking unpopular positions on the prospects of an investment in opposition to a partner may have helped the fund avoid poor investments, but this behavior would likely result in a lower annual bonus," one student wrote. "As such, I felt incentivized to agree with my superiors rather than make good investments."

Food for thought...

Saturday, December 11, 2010

If the NCAA had listened to me...continued

A follow-up on my blog post from last Sunday, based on the criteria I laid out in my February 4, 2009 blog post, this is what the BCS playoff matchups would be for the 2010-2011 football season:

#1 Auburn vs. #8 Connecticut (Sugar Bowl)
#2 Oregon vs. #7 Virginia Tech (Rose Bowl)
#3 TCU vs. #6 Oklahoma (Fiesta Bowl)
#4 Stanford vs. #5 Wisconsin (Orange Bowl)

Auburn and Oregon would probably steamroll through their respective first-round opponents but the other two games would definitely be worth watching. The winner of Stanford/Wisconsin against Auburn and the winner of TCU/Oklahoma versus in Oregon in the final four would be pretty huge too.

Why aren't you listening to me BCS?!?

NYTimes.com: Japan Starts to Shop Its Bullet Train Technology

A few points from a New York Times article earlier this week about Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's visit to Japan:

"Of particular interest to the Japanese has been a planned $1.25 billion, 84-mile high-speed link between Tampa and Orlando — the first leg of a corridor that state officials hope will eventually reach Miami. Twenty-two companies are bidding for the contract, and Washington is set to announce a winner this year."

"Central Japan Railway, which is based in Nagoya and is more commonly known as JR Central, is promoting its N700-I trains, which are in use in Japan and can run at a top speed of about 330 kilometers (205 miles) an hour.

"But JR Central has also been showing off its MLX01 maglev bullet train, still in its testing phase, which in 2003 clocked the world’s fastest trial run of 581 kilometers (361 miles) an hour. "

In case you're doing the math, the JR Central line in use in Japan today would make the Tampa to Orlando trip in 25 minutes. The MLX01 maglev would do it in 14 minutes.

For some reason people would rather sit in traffic for two hours and pollute the environment. Go figure.

Friday, December 10, 2010

If you scratch my back...

It's kind of embarrassing for India that the three countries ahead of it for having the most prevalent cultures of bribery are Liberia, Afghanistan, and Iraq: one country artificially created by the United States in the 19th century that is forever enthralled in political turmoil and two countries where the United States has actively engaged war recently. Perhaps this means the reason we Americans are so far down on the list is because we tend to export bribery inducement to other places?

On the other hand, considering India's economic progress over the past decade or so, I'd be curious to know if this percentage has actually decreased over that period.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

“Life is like a box of chocolates.”

In a blog post on October 6th, I said that the Republican candidates for Governor in Ohio and Wisconsin were only using the issue of high-speed rail for political posturing and really had no intent to turn away free federal money that would create construction jobs in their states.

I guess I was wrong because The New York Times now reports that California, Florida, and a handful of other states will be receiving the funding that Ohio and Wisconsin are turning away. (Update: The Wall Street Journal also reported this story on December 10th.) For those states, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.

As far as the newly-elected Governors of Ohio and Wisconsin are concerned, another Forrest Gump quote comes to mind:
Stupid is as stupid does.

Monday, December 6, 2010

What would Brian Boitano do?

(If you didn’t get the reference, it’s from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.)

David Leonhardt explains in today’s New York Times what the $60 Billion that could be raised from not extending the Bush Tax Cuts for the highest income bracket would buy. Some of my favorites:

- Universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, with relatively small class sizes.
- A national infrastructure program to repair and upgrade roads, bridges, mass transit, water systems and levees.
- Free college, including room and board, for about half of all full-time students, at both four- and two-year colleges.

Paul Krugman takes the argument further by saying “a cold, hard look at the consequences of giving in to the G.O.P. now suggests that saying no, and letting the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule, is the lesser of two evils.”

What Krugman fails to mention, as does everyone else, is extending the Bush Tax Cuts permanently for incomes below $250,000 still blows a $2 Trillion hole in the deficit. Again, that’s $2,000,000,000,000! The $700 Billion the administration speaks of is the difference between the $2 Trillion Democrats want to create and the $2.7 Trillion Republicans want to create. In reality, both sides are being dishonest here and people are falling for it all over the place.

The most important question is, if you didn’t make enough to notice the tax cut nine years ago, do you think you’ll notice the taxes go back up now, especially since incomes have been flat over that period? Would you be willing to do that for the nation’s economy?

Sunday, December 5, 2010

If the NCAA had listened to me, we'd be sitting on pins and needles today...

If you've followed this blog since the beginning, one of my earliest posts was my solution to the BCS "Mess", where I made the following recommendations:

  1. Keep the BCS points system
  2. Use the Rose, Orange, Sugar, and Fiesta Bowls as National Quarterfinal games
  3. Select three new locations each year for the two semifinal games and championship game
  4. Take the conference champion from the Big Ten, Big 12, Pac Ten, Big East, SEC, and ACC. Then take the top two mid-major teams in the BCS standings, so long as they finish in the top ten.
The reason we'd be hanging on the edge of our seats for tonight is because of point #4: "Take the conference champion from the Big Ten, Big 12, Pac Ten, Big East, SEC, and ACC. Then take the top two mid-major teams in the BCS standings, so long as they finish in the top ten." Boise State went into yesterday ranked #11 but had a commanding victory over Utah State yesterday.

The question we'd be waiting to have answered would be is a victory over a weak opponent like Utah State enough to push Boise State up one spot into the top ten? Based on the BCS rankings going into yesterday's play, TCU was the only mid-major team in the top ten. Based on my criteria listed above, that would mean the other open spot would go to the highest non-conference champ in the BCS, which would be Stanford. Based on yesterday's results, we have the following:

  • SEC Champ: Auburn (currently #1)
  • Pac-10 Champ: Oregon (currently #2)
  • Big 12 Champ: Oklahoma (currently #9)
  • ACC Champ: Virginia Tech (currently #15)
  • Big East Champ: Connecticut (currently unranked)
  • Big Ten Champ: Either Wisconsin, Ohio State, or Michigan State (currently #5, #6, and #8, respectively)

So rather than the anti-climactic announcement of the Auburn vs. Oregon matchup, we'd be waiting to find out if Boise State cracks the top ten for an automatic bid and, if that doesn't happen, whether the automatic bid goes to Stanford or one of the Big Ten teams that does not get the conference's automatic bid. Then we'd be waiting to find out how the seeding works out. Instead the BCS and NCAA choose to give us a rather dull and boring bowl matchup announcement on Sunday night.

Think about it guys. My idea could have given you better ratings!!!

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

He Don't Know What He Don't Know

The New York Times' Tom Friedman writes an uncharacteristically humerous column today about what a WikiLeaks document from the Chinese Embassy in Washington would look like. After taking a very accurate cheap shot at Amtrak's Acela:

"The ambassador recently took what the Americans call a fast train — the Acela — from Washington to New York City. Our bullet train from Beijing to Tianjin would have made the trip in 90 minutes. His took three hours — and it was on time!"

Friedman goes on the state the obvious fact very few politicians are willing to say:

"But the Americans are oblivious. They travel abroad so rarely that they don’t see how far they are falling behind."

Unfortunately this has always been the case in this country. For example, we also complain about how high our taxes are in the United States even though our tax rates are among the lowest in the world. It's not surprising then that the places with the highest concentrations of immigrant populations as well as people that vacation abroad tend to be blue states. People living in those states actually have a clue as to how the rest of the world lives.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Wouldn't starving the beast just make it angry enough to consume disproportionately more than it should?

The Economist's Democracy in America blog has an interesting post about a column in The Fiscal Times by Bruce Bartlett, a former Jack Kemp staffer, advisor in the Reagan Administration, and Treasury official under Bush 41.

In talking about Reagan and Bush 43, the The Economist's blog writes:

"...both administrations revved up spending at the same time they were cutting taxes, in the political equivalent of an overweight person who rewards himself with an extra helping of ice cream because he has just purchased a membership in a gym."

The Bartlett column also provides empirical evidence contradicting its counterpoint, that raising taxes results in uncharacteristic increases in government spending:

"By this logic, the tax increase enacted in 1993, which raised the top federal income tax rate to 39.6 percent from 31 percent, should have caused a massive increase in the federal budget deficit. In fact, it did not. Spending was 22.1 percent of GDP in 1992 and it fell every year of the Clinton administration, to 21.4 percent of GDP in 1993, 21 percent in 1994, 20.6 percent in 1995, 20.2 percent in 1996, 19.5 percent in 1997, 19.1 percent in 1998, 18.5 percent in 1999, and 18.2 percent in 2000."

When a staunch Reaganite involved in its fiscal policy is jumping the ship on the economic theory they so dearly espoused, why are today's Republicans still hanging on dearly hoping against hope that they might be proven right this time against all evidence otherwise?

Monday, November 29, 2010

Washington Post: Five myths about cutting the deficit

Here’s one passage about #4 that is food for thought to people that think tax cuts can solve any problem with the deficit:

Budget discipline works only when it is imposed on both sides of the ledger. In 1990 and 1993, the last time we faced a serious fiscal crunch, Congress did just that, slashing spending and raising taxes. In contrast, in 1981 and 2001, massive tax cuts did not lead to reduced spending, despite the hopes of those who espouse the "starve the beast" theory of fiscal reform.

Instead, the tax cuts were accompanied by big increases in spending, thus boosting the deficit from both sides. The logic is clear: If some politicians reward their constituents through tax cuts, other politicians will see no reason that they can't reward their own constituents through more spending. It is only when fiscal discipline is comprehensive and coordinated that it works and endures.


The five myths about cutting the deficit are:
1. The United States is on the verge of a fiscal crisis.
2. The deficit commissions should propose reforms that are politically viable.
3. Social Security has a surplus, so it shouldn't be cut.
4. We can balance the budget without raising taxes.
5. A new short-term stimulus would be fiscally irresponsible.

Read the whole article to find out why the five myths are actually myths.

Friday, November 19, 2010

The REAL Reason the party of Reagan cannot accept the science of climate change

Former Republican Congressman Sherwood Boehlert wrote an interesting op-ed in today's Washington Post about why the Republican Party is eschewing science for political reasons.

I am sympathetic to the author's position that verifiable scientific facts must not be questioned and the only political angle must be the solutions to address them. However, I disagree with him that the climate change skepticism is purely political, especially when we know evangelical fundamentalism is much more rampant in the United States compared to other developed countries. What has happened is the fundamentalism has infected right-wing politics, to the point where we have this joker potentially in line to chair the House Energy Committee, all the while believing that there isn't enough carbon on earth and once stating in a committee hearing:

"...the earth will end only when God declares it's time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood.... I appreciate having panelists here who are men of faith, and we can get into the theological discourse of that position, but I do believe God's word is infallible, unchanging, perfect. Today we have about 388 parts per million in the atmosphere. I think in the age of dinosaurs, when we had the most flora and fauna, we were probably at 4,000 parts per million. There is a theological debate that this is a carbon-starved planet — not too much carbon. And the cost of a cap-and-trade on the poor is now being discovered."

"There's an App for That" (Trademark Apple Inc.)

Apparently the US Government has a number of apps for the average citizen and one even for international audiences to learn about the US.

International Herald Tribune: Obama Op-Ed Today

President Obama pens an op-ed today in the International Herald Tribune directed at the European reader. Also, did you know the International Herald Tribune is really just the Global Edition of the New York Times?

Boldy going where no one has gone before?

Antimatter Breakthrough Could Lead to Starships, Says Scientist News & Opinion PCMag.com

Thursday, November 18, 2010

That ugly baby is really quite breathtaking.

Sometimes you just have to call the baby ugly rather than make people wonder if you were just being nice by saying it’s breathtaking.

Likewise, Matt Miller talks about our incessant need for reassurance and Nicholas Kristoff talks about how us turning into a banana republic is insulting to banana republics. What is striking about Kristoff’s column is he is typically a foreign affairs columnist that focuses on third world issues more than American politics. That is why this particular paragraph gave me chills to read:

I’m appalled by our growing wealth gaps because in my travels I see what happens in dysfunctional countries where the rich just don’t care about those below the decks. The result is nations without a social fabric or sense of national unity. Huge concentrations of wealth corrode the soul of any nation.

Hey America, your progressive income tax rates are really breathtaking.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

So I wasn't the only person that knew this was true!


Posted on Kaiser Health News and then Ezra Klein's blog at The Washington Post, which is where I first saw it.

"The Shroud of the Dark Side has fallen"

I've stated in the past about how Steven Pearlstein's column has become a must-read for me because of its pragmatic, fact-based perspective. A couple of key passages from today's column that are right on the money (pun intended):

"Republicans like to pretend that their real concern is for job creation, citing the fact that about half of all business profits now flow through partnerships and small corporations that are taxed at personal rates. ... Very few of those businesses earn more than $250,000 in profit, and those that do tend to be very successful hedge funds and law firms that are flush with cash and unlikely to be dissuaded from hiring extra employees or make new investments because of a 4 percentage-point change in the marginal tax. Because most hiring and investment can be done with pre-tax dollars, ... the tax rate is largely irrelevant to those decisions."

"...if Republicans were truly interested in reducing the deficit while stimulating private-sector job creation, they would have jumped to embrace the idea floated last week by Sen. Mark Warner, the centrist Democrat from Virginia: let high-end tax rates return to where they were during the Clinton years and use the $65 billion in additional income over the next two years for tax breaks for businesses that increase investments or hire new employees. After that, the extra revenue would go toward deficit reduction."

{Emphasis mine in both passages}

Pearlstein concludes by saying that no Republicans have taken up Mark Warner on his compromise proposal. So much for the much bally-hooed bipartisanship.

"The Shroud of the Dark Side has fallen. Begun, the Clone War has..."

That money could be going to your state Governor...

NYC Subway comes up with an alternative to the plan scrapped by Gov. Chris Christie. Looks like you should think long-term instead of short-term political posturing Governor. I doubt New York City Transit would be willing to share as much of the revenue with New Jersey as the state would have raised if it continued construction on the THE Tunnel in the first place.

On the flip side, I wouldn't mind this proposal as it would give me a direct line from a nearby point in New Jersey straight to CitiField. Of course, as a New York Mets fan, Gov. Christie may have been thinking the same thing.

Monday, November 15, 2010

FiveThirtyEight: Tim Pawlenty is the Republican Party's Gregg Jefferies

I really didn't understand the point Nate Silver was making in his blog post until the very last paragraph:

"Indeed, Mr. Palwenty is in danger of becoming the Gregg Jefferies of politics: the perpetual prospect who never blossoms into more than a league-average politician."

As I life-long Mets fan, I always hoped the hype around Gregg Jefferies would help him overcome his error at third base in the 2nd inning of Game 7 of the 1988 NLCS against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Unfortunately that never happened. Which seems to be what Mr. Silver is implying about Gov. Pawlenty.

"You Make The Call" (Part Deux)

I blogged earlier today about The New York Times' budget deficit calculator. Ezra Klein of The Washington Post has post today about that New York Times calculator and three other calculators: one at the Center for a Responsible Federal Budget, one for the budget overall at Center for Economic and Policy Research, and another one specifically for healthcare at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Enjoy playing with the online money gadgets!

"You Make The Call!"

Many of you that watched Monday Night Football in the 1980's might remember "IBM Presents, You May The Call", where they would show a play, give you some choices on the correct call, go to an IBM commercial, and then come back to show you the right answer. It was usually shown between the 1st and 2nd quarters of the game and when I was a pre-teen, it was usually the indicator of bedtime.

Well, The New York Times has a nifty little interactive tool to balance the Federal Budget. It is definitely worth checking out to see how you would go about balancing the budget.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

"That's the way it is."

Ted Koppel gives a great history lesson about TV news in an op-ed piece in The Washington Post. It's sad that, like so many other things, this innocent age of journalism is not likely to return in our lifetimes, if it does return at all.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

“...who in many cases were frankly pretty average...”

Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman tells it like it really is:

“There are a fair number of the senior folks who actually believe they are uniquely qualified on all issues relating to finance,” Gorman said [Monday] at a conference in New York. “As we saw, it’s just not true.”

Gorman, speaking at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association conference, said some individuals “who in many cases were frankly pretty average” made as much as 10 times that of people in other industries during the financial crisis.


It is sad but so true that not only were individuals in these positions making that much more than peers in other industries, they accounted for a large percentage of the salaries at their own firms as well. Adding insult to injury, when the market nearly collapsed, the ensuing layoffs were not people at these levels but rather the lower level clerks and assistants that made a fraction of these "heroes" (as Gorman called them.) That is the greatest shame of all.



Personal Disclaimer: I am currently employed in a consulting assignment at Morgan Stanley. The opinions expressed above and on this blog overall are solely my own, unless I explicitly state that it is someone else's opinion, such as when I quote a columnist or another blog.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Dog Bites Man; Man Bites Dog

The "Dog Bites Man" story: China, Brazil, and India are the best places for investors.

The "Man Bites Dog" story: Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer writes positively about something that involves President Obama, specifically the cost of his trip to India and why it was justified.

Huffington Post: George Bush Book 'Decision Points' Lifted Passages From Advisers' Books

I guess 'plagiarism' is another word we can add to the list of words Dubya doesn't know or can't pronounce (like 'nuclear'). Now, before people go off the deep end complaining about how Huffington Post is just a partisan lefty liberal site that never liked Bush, skip the main article and go straight to the slideshow of examples at the bottom that indicate the quote and page number from Bush's memoir and the corresponding quote and source of the original author.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Stories of high-speed rail's death have been greatly exaggerated...

A blog post at NYTimes.com yesterday talks about the likely incoming House Transportation Committee Chairman, Rep. John Mica (R-FL). Unlike other Republicans, he's not interested in killing high-speed rail outright but rather redirecting its funding elsewhere.

I still think the Regional Hubs identified by the White House make sense and the incoming Wisconsin Governor does need to think twice about whether or not it makes business sense to sever the link between Chicago and Minneapolis that will run through his state. It's likely to generate quite a bit of revenue and I still stand behind my initial assessment that it's nothing more than political posturing for an election and not an actually policy decision that will be made.

Or at least I hope so, because I'd really like to arrive in Milwaukee one day in a train station that looks like the rendering of the proposed Milwaukee station pictured above.

Bipartisanship? Easier said than done. Easier dismissed than done too.

Joe Scarborough had a column in Politico earlier this week about bipartisanship. The column itself contained much recycled verbiage from the final chapter of his most recent book. In fact, I even cited this incident in my review of the book on Amazon.com. It still is a lesson in how a determined person with a curious mind can overcome the most opinionated of obstacles.

Which brings us to something that happened on Wednesday in Chicago. After a contentious Senate race that was determined by less than 2% of the votes, the Republican Senator-elect Mark Kirk and the Democratic runner-up Alexi Giannoulias decided to meet up for drinks. I'm sure this will soon be followed by the "Merlot Summit" between President Obama and the presumptive Speaker-to-be John Boehner.

The only issue is politicians have to work together and do so much less begrudgingly than people think. They are in it to get re-elected and if pandering to hate-mongering is the way to do it, so be it. However, that is not in their nature. The conventional wisdom is it's not in human nature either. But I'm starting to question that conventional wisdom when, after e-mailing the Scarborough column to a close friend of polar opposite political leanings, I received the following reply:

"Read it, don't agree with it. When a side wins it won't be wise to let their 'enemies' off the hook."

This reply came from someone I know pretty well and someone I know well enough to know that this individual did not feel the same way after the 2006 and 2008 election results. Where have our politics gone when common sense advice is dismissed by common sense people solely because it requires them to suspend their own political opinions long enough to listen to someone else's point-of-view?

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Be careful what you wish for...

I think Ezra Klein explains it best in today's Wonkbook why it seems like the most gridlock-inducing scenario is what ended up being played out as a result of last night's election results:

"Welcome to gridlocked America: The GOP is on track to win about 65 seats in the House of Representatives, and 47 or 48 in the Senate. This is a huge victory: the Republican House majority will be the largest since 1928. But it is not a governing majority, even on the congressional level. Democrats still hold the upper chamber. In fact, Harry Reid still leads the upper chamber.

From the perspective of actually getting anything done in the next two years, there was perhaps no worse outcome. Republicans don't fully control Congress, so they don't have enough power to be blamed for legislative outcomes. But Democrats don't control the House and they don't have a near-filibuster proof majority in the Senate, so they can't pass legislation. Republicans, in other words, are not left with the burden of governance, and Democrats are not left with the power to govern. Republicans don't have to be responsible, and Democrats can't do it for them.
"

By the way, the daily Wonkbook e-mail/blog post is a great read to stay on top of all policies issues going on in Washington.

Friday, October 29, 2010

I know we're trying but we really have a LONG LONG way to go...

A White House blog post this week talked about the Department of Transportation awarding $2.4 Billion as part of its efforts to develop high-speed rail in the United States. Now everyone that’s reading this knows how I feel about high-speed rail. What solidified it much more for me was what a colleague of mine from our Shanghai office told me. He’s working out of the New York office for two weeks and he said his hometown of SuZhou is roughly 74 km (46 miles) from Shanghai. He said the new high-speed line cuts the 45 minute ride of the older trains down to 25 minutes.

Someone show me a new train anywhere in the United States that covers roughly 50 miles between two major cities in under an hour, let alone 45 minutes or 25 minutes?

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Yeah, that sounds about right...

CLASSIC!


This just gets better and better the more you watch it...

Say it with me now: THE. RENT. IS. TOO. DAMN. HIGH!!!


Is there a reason the red line is so far north of the others?


A Wall Street Journal article today focuses on the White House initiative to boost Latino achievement in colleges. However, the report it cites states that Latino college-completion rates are depressed due to “language barriers and obstacles caused by immigration status”, which would also be the case with Asians too but the graph included in the article does not show that.

Now, in my lifetime I’ve known many people across every race, religion, and ethnic background and realized that intelligence is strictly an individual thing and nothing that can be attributed to a person’s race, background, upbringing, etc. In fact, the biggest factor I’ve seen is work ethic and it’s hard to argue that any particular group is inherently lazy or more likely to work harder and/or smarter than any other group. So what’s really happening here?

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

This is what high-speed rail really looks like...

Why is this hard for people to understand?

"...passengers would be able to travel from London to Frankfurt in five hours, Deutsche Bahn said. That compares to an almost two-hour flight — not counting time getting to and from the airports and going through security and check-in. A trip from London to Amsterdam, which takes just over one hour by plane, would be a four-hour train ride." {emphasis mine}


Now compare that to the proposed "high-speed" rail for Ohio, which will go a whopping 79 miles per hour, or roughly 121 mph slower than the trains discussed in the New York Times article.

Monday, October 11, 2010

President {insert name here} wants to destroy the Constitution!

Interesting op-ed by Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’S “Morning Joe” in Politico last Monday. This is remarkably, and sadly, a very accurate passage:

“For eight grim years, Democrats worked to delegitimize Bush. Opinion leaders on the left relentlessly bashed the 43rd president on national TV and online, accusing him of being a fascist and war criminal who worked in tandem with Vice President Dick Cheney to destroy the Constitution.

Eight years before Bush entered the White House, Republicans (like myself) glared at Bill Clinton as he was being sworn in as president, immediately declaring him unfit for office. Soon after he was sworn in, extremists began claiming that the 42nd president was a Marxist and fascist who sought to destroy the Constitution.

The ugliness that followed set a dangerous precedent that fed into the shrillness of the Bush era. And as the Age of Bush mercifully came to a close, a cacophony of enraged right-wing voices welcomed Obama to the White House by accusing him of being a Marxist, a fascist, a Nazi and a racist who hated America and was — stop me if you’ve heard this one before — trying to destroy the Constitution.”

“Self-drive, activated”

I have to admit, this is just really, really cool.

Friday, October 8, 2010

"WTF C.C.?" (No, not C.C. Sabathia, the bigger C.C.)

Short-sighted, misguided, and downright insanely ludicrous. There are no ways to even give Gov. Chris Christie the benefit of the doubt on finding other alternatives to the THE Tunnel. Though he seems like he would be a nice guy in person, the reality is he represents the 'Old' New Jersey, where the automobile was king, rather than the 'New' New Jersey that has to deal with scarce parking, high gas prices (even with the lowest gasoline tax in the country), and pothole infested roads that you don’t have to worry about while you’re listening to your iPod and reading your Kindle while riding NJ Transit.

Paul Krugman takes a more political and economic perspective but still explains it pretty straightforwardly in his column today, where he says:

“So, about that tunnel: with almost 1,200 people per square mile, New Jersey is the most densely populated state in America, more densely populated than any major European nation. {emphasis mine} Add in the fact that many residents work in New York, and you have a state that can’t function without adequate public transportation. There just isn’t enough space for everyone to drive to work.”

"Okay big boss man; time to put your money where your mouth is..."

I have to say that I really, really like this idea from William D. Cohan, author of "House of Cards". He suggests that Wall Street worked well for everyone in the past mainly because in the days of partnerships, firm management had a personal stake in the profits and losses of the overall firm. About how the industry works today, he writes:

"Over the past generation, this business model has worked well for one group in particular: the bankers, traders and honchos who work on Wall Street. These days on Wall Street, around 50 percent of every dollar of revenue generated is paid out to its employees in the form of compensation. What other business on earth does this? None."

What gets lost in this last statement is that while $0.50 of every $1.00 of revenue is spent on compensation, I wonder what how many cents on that $0.50 goes to the rank-and-file staff that make their firms run day-to-day in thankless jobs? I'd say no more than $0.02 of $0.50 go to the people that give up much of their own personal lives only to be overlooked in good times and be the first ones booted out in bad times.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Pearlstein and Miller This Week

As I stated in a recent blog post, Steven Pearlstein and Matt Miller of The Washington Post are becoming my regular weekly must-read columns. Here are some excerpts:

From Matt Miller’s column today:

“The mother of all inconvenient truths is this: Global capitalism's ability to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in China, India and other developing countries comes partly at the expense of tens of millions of workers in wealthy nations. This awful, inexorable fact will soon pose an enormous moral and intellectual challenge for the American left.”

From Steven Pearlstein’s column yesterday:

“If you asked Americans how much of the nation's pretax income goes to the top 10 percent of households, it is unlikely they would come anywhere close to 50 percent, which is where it was just before the bubble burst in 2007… From World War II until 1976, considered by many as the "golden years" for the U.S. economy, the top 10 percent of the population took home less than a third of the income generated by the private economy.”

Please enjoy both reads and let me know what you think.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

“India and China, China and India; Elaine and Susie, Susie and Elaine”

(In case you didn’t get the Seinfeld reference.)

A couple of articles about India and China recently, related to population growth, economic growth, and issues related to economic growth. A few passages that stand out:

“The Indian government recognises the need to tackle the infrastructure crisis, and is getting better at persuading private firms to stump up the capital. But the process is slow and infected with corruption. It is hard to measure these things, but many observers think China has done a better job than India of curbing corruption, with its usual brutal methods, such as shooting people.” {emphasis mine}

“Many universities turn out graduates who are good at exams but unaccustomed to thinking about real-world problems.”

I have many personal anecdotes that corroborate this 2nd statement but will not make them here openly. I have a feeling that the people that will be offended by this statement are exactly the people I’m thinking about.

"If you build it, they will come."

A number of Republican Gubernatorial candidates claim to be opposed to construction of high-speed rail networks in their states. The reality is it’s going to get built anyway and these candidates are simply using it as an election issue to show their opposition to President Obama than any actual opposition to building high-speed rail. To understand why the lines will get built, look no further than:

1) The money set aside in the stimulus is strictly for high-speed rail construction and if it’s not used for that purpose it must be returned to the federal government.
2) The article cites many Republicans supporting high-speed rail construction projects, such as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA), Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood (R-IL), and former Medirian, MS mayor and Reconnecting America President John Robert Smith (R-MS).
3) Alaska’s At-Large Member of the House, Don Young (R-AK) wrote an op-ed piece that I blogged about on the need for high-speed rail.

So long story short, this is just election posturing and nothing more. And sadly, Democrats voting against these candidates will call them hypocrites while the Republicans voting for these candidates will forget they ever opposed the projects in the first place. Hopefully the country will not lose out from all of this superficial bickering.

Is this the Military-Industrial Complex Ike warned us about 50 years ago?

A blog post at The Economist offers a counterpoint to a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece authored by AEI's Arthur Brooks, Heritage's Ed Feulner, and the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol. One key point that jumped out at me was:

"The reality is that much of the world is free-riding off the security provided by American military dominance. Were American taxpayers to refuse to bear so much of the burden of keeping the world safe for Danish container ships, other countries would surely step up. Furthermore, considerations of basic distributive fairness suggest they should."

The blog posting also cites another great column at The Washington Post by Linda J. Bilmes and Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, which breaks down the actual direct and indirect costs of the Iraq War.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Does it really take 30 years to make a modest improvement?

"...the Next-Gen High Speed Rail line would reduce the travel time between Washington, D.C., and New York City from 162 minutes to 96 minutes. The travel time between New York and Boston would go from 215 minutes to 84 minutes."

So if you do the math, Washington, D.C. to Boston currently takes 6 hours and 17 minutes, not counting delays due to MARC, SEPTA, NJ Transit, Metro-North, and the MBTA Commuter Rail clogging up the tracks. The vision is to reduce this travel time to 3 hours to cover the same 440 miles by the year 2040. So instead of covering a maximum 70 miles per hour, we'll have trains that can go a maximum of 147 miles per hour 30 years from now. A nice improvement but, the Chinese already have a line in existence today that covers the 75 miles from Beijing to Tianjin in 25 minutes (or, 180 miles per hour. TODAY!)

So, in other words, is our vision to become today's China in the next 30 years? Not really, but why should it take us 30 years to do what's best for commuters (faster trips), the environment (fewer cars on the road), and national security (reduced usage of petrodictator's oil and you can't fly a train into a building unless there are tracks that lead to one)?

Be very careful what you wish for...

I'm adding Steven Pearlstein to my list of essential weekly reading, which currently includes Matt Miller, also of The Washington Post. My favorite line in today's column:

"Here is the hard political reality: You can't expect to support and finance political candidates who preach that government is menacing and wasteful, that public employees are incompetent and corrupt, that taxes are always too high and destroy jobs, and then turn around and expect that the government will respond to your demands to hold down the cost of health care, or fund basic research, or provide good schools, efficient courts and reliable transportation systems."

Again, be very careful what you wish for...

The efficient Germans: Less Talk, More Action

I came across this post earlier today on American Express Open Forum that I thought was very interesting.

"...Americans view time as a currency in the workplace, as opposed to output. Meanwhile, Germans view results as the biggest indicator of results."

The redundancy of that second line aside, there are too many employers in the United States (*cough* Goldman Sachs *cough*) that are highly focused on face-time and think they are making up for it by assuming money is a better motivator than actually allowing their employees to see their families once in a while.

Columns like this one validate what I've always felt about people that routinely put in 10-, 12-, or 14-hour workdays, five-to-six days a week in the office: it's not a badge of honor as much as it's a mark of inefficiency. Get over yourself.

Friday, September 24, 2010

"Ben Stein, the guy who got rich because when he talks it sounds so boring it's actually funny."

Bill Maher gives a sneak preview of one of his new rules that will be on tonight's episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher". I'd be curious to see the next Christine O'Donnell clip but unfortunately the HBO/Cinemax free preview was last weekend and someone manages to post it on YouTube anyway (before HBO makes them take it down.)

Einstein's Relativity Affects Aging on Earth (Slightly)

I have to admit, even though it has nothing to do with politics or sports I am posting this just for the awesome geekiness of this article. ENJOY!!!

Volcker puts the smack-down on, well, pretty much everyone that makes money from money

Check out the WSJ link while you can because it gets locked down for paid subscribers only after a few days. This was my personal favorite:

“We had all our best business schools in the United States pouring out financial engineers, every smart young mathematician and physicist said ‘I don’t want to be a civil engineer, a mechanical engineer. I’m a smart guy, I want to go to Wall Street.’ And then you know all the risks were going to be sliced and diced and [people thought] the market would be resilient and not face any crises. We took care of all that stuff, and I think that was the general philosophy that markets are efficient and self correcting and we don’t have to worry about them too much."

Thursday, September 23, 2010

The Economist: "There's rich, and then there's rich"

This is totally mind-boggling:

"...the top twenty-five hedge fund managers combined appear to have earned more than all five hundred S&P 500 CEOs combined (both realized and ex ante)."

Yet another awesome Matt Miller column...

I have to admit, I'm becoming a huge fan of Washington Post columnist Matt Miller solely for his independence of thought. He is neither a cheerleader nor an antagonist like other Washington Post columnists on the left or the right, respectively. Today's column is another excellent piece about things that need to be better about the Obama administration's economic policies related to healthcare and education.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

CFL player pulls a Leon Lett

This is why this guy is a defensive lineman in the Canadian Football League and not someone that's responsible for actually holding the ball in the National Football League.



On a totally unrelated note, I'm headed to the Jets vs. Patriots game today at the New Meadowlands Stadium. I can't wait to see the new stadium.

J! E! T! S! JETS! JETS!! JETS!!!

Friday, September 17, 2010

This is the way wealthy nations become poor.

Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein wrote a chilling column titled "So goes the center, so goes the economy" about our nation's political polarization and how the results of primaries earlier this week could be a harbinger of things to come. The part that stood out for me was:

"This is the way wealthy nations become poor. There are no vibrant economies without effective political systems, and there are no effective political systems without a vibrant center."

Something to think about if you're considering voting for a hyper-partisan candidate on the left or the right this year...

"He may well be too ambitious and narcissistic to be able to comprehend how much damage he is doing to our country."

The Onion gets it right once again...

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

"...nowadays instant gratification isn't quick enough for some people."

An excellent column today by Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum about why austerity has become so popular with the British public and yet is just a buzzword without any real substance behind it in the United States. According to Applebaum, a lot of it is politics but a lot of it is rooted in the personal histories of politicians in power today.

Definitely worth reading and hopefully it'll do more than just motivate you to add Postcards from the Edge to your Netflix queue.

Monday, September 13, 2010

"...and I am a Giants fan."

One of the Washington Post blogs has a post on Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Not to make light of an issue that is profoundly sensitive to many people but I have to point out this quote from the Imam:

"I belong to this neighborhood. I am a devout Muslim, I pray five times a day...and I am also a proud American citizen. Let no one forget that. I vote in elections, I pay taxes, I pledge allegiance to the flag, and I am a Giants fan."

I'm sure he wasn't disappointed by yesterday's result.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Please welcome to the stage, a very funny guy...

I liked the appointment of Austan Goolsbee already, but this line in the article makes me like him even more:

"...Mr. Goolsbee, an amateur comic as well as an economist..."

It's definitely a better post-comedy career choice than becoming a human target, like this guy. Either way, both of them give me hope.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Climbing aboard my soapbox again for high-speed rail...

Yes, I'm on that high-speed rail bandwagon yet again. This time even the Economist weighs in on high-speed rail as part of its commentary on American infrastructure overall, stating:

"America's rail system is inadequate and in need of repair and expansion." and "America could probably use a new high-speed rail network..."

At least the Infrastructure Bank proposed by the Obama Administration is a start but it will not be enough and, as The New York Times and Huffington Post point out, we are already far, far behind not just the rest of the world but even our own-country compared to 70-plus years ago.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Reich: How to End the Great Recession

Former Clinton Administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote a very informative op-ed in the New York Times. One passage that initially seemed like a partisan argument but proved to be an insightful observation was:

In the late 1970s, the richest 1 percent of American families took in about 9 percent of the nation’s total income; by 2007, the top 1 percent took in 23.5 percent of total income.

It’s no coincidence that the last time income was this concentrated was in 1928. I do not mean to suggest that such astonishing consolidations of income at the top directly cause sharp economic declines. The connection is more subtle.

The rich spend a much smaller proportion of their incomes than the rest of us. So when they get a disproportionate share of total income, the economy is robbed of the demand it needs to keep growing and creating jobs.

Friday, August 20, 2010

"India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border."

The relationship of China and India seems to be the topic du jour again for The Economist. Earlier this week I blogged about the historical presence of China and India in the global economy. Now The Economist has not one but two articles on the relationship (or perhaps lack thereof) between China and India.

For some reason though, what comes to my mind after reading both of these is the humility expressed in this quote by Hu Shih, former Ambassador of China to USA: "India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border."

For all of the two countries’ posturing over the last five decades, Hu Shih’s quote makes me feel like there is a begrudging mutual respect based on over 2,000 years of history that is not going to go away in light of or in spite of current events.

The truth is out there (somewhere in the middle)

I think it's safe to say that Michael Gerson and Eugene Robinson reflect the right and left extreme points of view on President Obama's record thus far. My personal take is he hasn't been as wonderful as Robinson claims and he hasn't been as lousy as Gerson claims.

Everyone has their own opinions and I encourage everyone to come to their own conclusions. However, all I ask is that you read both columns before you make up your minds.

You would need Spock and Yoda to pull this off...

Simon Johnson and James Kwak, co-authors of "13 Bankers" came up with some suggestions to restore the fiscal health of the United States that would probably be as popular as wearing a wet T-shirt at the North Pole on December 21st. However, if you really think about it, there is some merit to their suggestions. The writers think the United States should:

  1. Introduce a Value-Added Tax (VAT) and eliminate the tax deduction for mortgage interest
  2. Introduce Carbon Pricing
  3. Introduce a Financial Activities Tax
  4. Phase out the tax exclusion for employer sponsored health plans

Now Republicans would be against all four of these ideas because they are all tax increases in some way, shape, or form. Democrats would be against these because the tax deduction for mortgage interest is a sacred cow and many would also be against a financial activities tax and phasing out the tax exclusion on health plans.

However, if you put partisan politics aside and think about it, it does make sense, especially if you reduce or, if possible, can eliminate income taxes altogether and can generate enough revenues through these proposals alone. I even blogged recently, where I mentioned a column by Fareed Zakaria in the Washington Post where he says, "I don't like our current tax system. It's unwieldy, it taxes the wrong things (income instead of consumption) and its loopholes are legalized corruption." However, any radical change is met with skepticism from the side opposing the one that proposes it. If a Republican proposes these, Democrats will scream tax cuts for the rich on the backs of the poor. If Democrats propose the exact same proposals, Republicans will scream socialism for the exact same proposals.

As I said, to get people on board with these, you would need Spock from Star Trek to use his Vulcan Mind-Meld with some combination of the Star Wars Jedi Mind Trick by Yoda, Mace Windu, or Obi-wan Kenobi (but not Ki-Adi-Mundi, who in spite of being the 3rd ranking Master on the Jedi Council still didn't have enough knowledge of the Force to foresee his own clone troopers shoot him in the back.)

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Why aren’t more people talking about this article?

Why haven't more people talked about William Dalrymple's op-ed that appeared in Monday’s New York Times? Seeing as how he's a British historian well versed on topics relating to the Middle East and South Asia, he provides a perspective worth reading about the Sufis that are building the community center. A key passage in the piece:

"[The people against the community center] show a dangerously inadequate understanding of the many divisions, complexities and nuances within the Islamic world - a failure that hugely hampers Western efforts to fight violent Islamic extremism and to reconcile Americans with peaceful adherents of the world's second-largest religion.
Most of us are perfectly capable of making distinctions within the Christian world. The fact that someone is a Boston Roman Catholic doesn't mean he's in league with Irish Republican Army bomb makers, just as not all Orthodox Christians have ties to Serbian war criminals or Southern Baptists to the murderers of abortion doctors.
"

The sad part is most people don't realize that the animosity against the community center in lower Manhattan is identical to radical fundamentalists Muslims decrying the “Descendants of Crusaders occupying their sacred lands” in Saudi Arabia. In fact, History Channel had a great documentary a few years ago about the Crusades. One of the first acts of the Muslim rulers that retook Jerusalem from the Crusaders was to reopen not just the mosques but also the synagogues and Orthodox churches that were shut down or destroyed by the Crusaders. (Oh, and they left the Catholic churches open too.)

It just goes to show that when a tolerant society bends to the whims of intolerance, nothing good can or will come of it. That’s why conservative columnist Kathleen Parker also supports its construction. As Parker states in her column today, “The mosque should be built precisely because we don't like the idea very much.”

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

"...China and India were the biggest economies in the world for almost all of the past 2000 years."

Go to the post on economist.com to see the graph. It shows that over the past 2,000 years, China and India were the dominant economies for the first 1,700 of those years. Thomas L. Friedman once said that the emergence of China and India is not a new world order but rather the restoration of the old world order. This graph proves that to be true.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

WSJ.com: A Nation That Won't Be Fooled Again

In today’s Wall Street Journal, David Weidner criticizes the criticism surrounding the recent report by two highly reputable economists, Alan Blinder of Princeton University and Mark Zandi of Moody’s. My suggestion: read the report and decide for yourself rather than reading panicked analysts overreacting to its premises based on their own personal biases.

IALI Condemns Bigoted Attack Against Raj Goyle

I just received the following e-mail from the IALI that I wanted to pass along to everyone:


From: Indian American Leadership Initiative
Subject: IALI Condemns Bigoted Attack Against Raj Goyle
Sent: Aug 12, 2010 1:16 PM

Dear IALI Friends:

Yesterday, Raj Goyle's opponent in his race for U.S. Congress, Mike Pompeo, used Twitter to direct his followers to a blog posting which he said would be "a good read" about the campaign. Pompeo's suggested reading (http://bit.ly/cF05mp) includes, in part, the following:

"Just like his evil muslim communist USURPER comrad [sic], barrack hussein obama, This goyle character is just another 'turban topper' we don't need in congress or any political office that deals with the U.S. Constitution, Christianity and the United States of America!!!"

IALI President, Kathy Kulkarni, commented that "It is stunning that a candidate for federal office would support such a hateful and bigoted tirade. There are always people on the fringe who will use ethnic smears to attack Indian Americans, but we are outraged that a candidate for Congress would encourage his supporters to use such tactics. It is un-American and certainly contrary to the values of the people of Kansas. It is unfortunate that, even in 2010, we see campaigns tactics employed to generate fear, prejudice and hatred."

Four years ago yesterday, Senator George Allen of Virginia made reference to an Indian American as "Macaca" and the voters decided that he was not fit for elected office. Let's make sure Raj Goyle's opponent for Congress sees the same fate. To support Raj Goyle and for more information, please go to www.GoyleforCongress.com.

To keep up with activity related to all Indian American Democratic political events, please go to www.iali.com and Sign Up for our e-mail list.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Analysis Looks at Effect of Letting Tax Cuts Lapse for Rich - NYTimes.com

Three key points from this article in today's New York Times:
  1. "Given the progressive nature of the federal income tax system, in which tax rates increase with income, even the richest households would continue to pay the four lower rates on up to the first $250,000 of their income, under the approach being pushed by Mr. Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress."
  2. "Filers with taxable income of $500,000 to $1 million would still get on average a tax cut of $6,700 compared with pre-2001 rates, according to the data from the tax analysts. But that compares with roughly $17,500 if the top Bush tax rates were maintained."
  3. "Extending them for the next 10 years would add about $3.8 trillion to a growing national debt that is already the largest since World War II. About $700 billion of that reflects the projected costs of tax cuts for those in the top 2 percent of income-earners."
So just to recap, giving a tax cut of $17,500 instead of a paltry $6,700 to filers with taxable incomes of $500,000 to $1,000,000 would add $3.8 trillion to the national debt. Again, $3.8 trillion so people earning over a half million dollars can get an extra $10,800 in their pockets.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

NYT: The Horror Show

From Bob Herbert's column in today's New York Times:

"...there are now 3.4 million fewer private-sector jobs in the U.S. than there were a decade ago. In the last 10 years, we've seen the worst job creation record since 1928 to 1938."

Couple this with the short term memory of most people and what you have are the conditions for a Republican landslide in November. Yes those Republicans, the same ones that caused this mess and have remarkably tacked even further to the right of their very conservative standard-bearer that held the presidency from 2001-2009.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Gimpy Beltran in center of Mets' collapse - NYPOST.com

Ouch.

Some Monday Evening Light Reading

Some articles I came across today that were interesting to read for a variety of reasons:

  • David Callahan writes about the “greening” of the wealthy, where more and more of the affluent are environmentally conscious. It seems like a very optimistic approach to the failure of the Senate to take up climate change legislation.
  • Ross Douthat writes a very confusing column about the overturning Prop 8 in California. He lays out solid arguments in favor of gay marriage based on cultural and historical factors but says there is something about straight marriage that is different and must be honored. However, he never quite says what that something is.
  • Paul Krugman continues to anchor himself firmly on the left of the political divide. Much like Ross Douthat’s opinions on gay marriage, I agree with Paul Krugman most of the time but still feel as though that elusive reason for disagreeing with him is out there somewhere.
  • Matt Bai writes a great piece about the xenophobia on the right these days and how this is not a new phenomenon. On a side note, I always thought the deciding factor of the 2006 election was the fact that George W. Bush could not pass comprehensive immigration reform in spite of his popularity with his own party. In much the same way Bill Clinton passed NAFTA and Welfare Reform, going against his own party’s entrenched positions, the failure of immigration reform seemed like the canary in the coal mine for the Republicans as they approached the 2006 mid-term elections.

Social Security: The myth of the Social Security system's financial shortfall - latimes.com

This column from yesterday's Los Angeles Times evaluates the annual report of Social Security Trustees and details the actual situation of the Social Security Trust Fund. One passage in the column that stood out reads:

"...money from the taxpayers at the lower end of the income scale has been spent to help out those at the higher end. That transfer — that loan, to characterize it accurately — is represented by the Treasury bonds held by the trust fund.

The interest on those bonds, and the eventual redemption of the principal, should have to be paid for by income taxpayers, who reaped the direct benefits from borrowing the money.

So all the whining you hear about how redeeming the trust fund will require a tax hike we can't afford is simply the sound of wealthy taxpayers trying to skip out on a bill about to come due. The next time someone tells you the trust fund is full of worthless IOUs, try to guess what tax bracket he's in.
"

Friday, August 6, 2010

Wyclef Jean Officially Running For President of Haiti

As I mentioned here last Tuesday, Wyclef Jean has filed the paperwork to become a presidential candidate in Haiti. In an open letter to the people of Haiti, he explains how he came to his decision and has his family's support. Wyclef also discussed how he explained his decision to his four-year old daughter. As the father of a four-year old daughter myself, I can understand and appreciate the manner in which he did it and his hope that "[his] baby girl will understand that...to live for yourself is to live selfishly, but to live for others is the best sacrifice that we can make as human beings." For this sentiment alone, I wish him best of luck in his campaign.

Monday, August 2, 2010

Five myths about the Bush tax cuts

A thought-provoking piece on the Bush Tax Cuts. The five myths, according to the writer are:
  1. Extending the tax cuts would be a good way to stimulate the economy.
  2. Allowing the high-income tax cuts to expire would hurt small businesses.
  3. Making the tax cuts permanent will lead to long-term growth.
  4. The Bush tax cuts are the main cause of the budget deficit.
  5. Continuing the tax cuts won't doom the long-term fiscal picture; entitlements are the real problem.

While we’re on the topic of the Bush tax cuts, Ezra Klein posted on his Washington Post blog earlier today the general sentiment regarding whether the tax cuts should be extended, partially extended, or be allowed to expire entirely.


Update: Fareed Zakaria also offers a very pragmatic piece about the expiration of the tax cuts and a general argument about how low our taxes are in this country compared to other countries around the world today and to the historical rates in the United States.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Fivethirtyeight.com: Introducing Partisan Propensity Index (PPI)

Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com introduces us to his new Partisan Propensity Index (PPI) to predict which way an open House seat will fall in a midterm election.

At least that's what I think it predicts. I'm always amazed at Silver's ability to crunch numbers and I generally digest them pretty well but this new index makes me wish I did better than a B+ in College Statistics.

Blue Jersey has a pretty good explanation of Nate Silver's new metric and how it impacts Congressional races specifically in New Jersey.

Why do I feel like Glenn Beck is secretly proud of this guy?

The clock is ticking, and this is starting to get out of hand...

Thursday, July 29, 2010

"It takes a thief to catch a thief."

This article on CNBC.com reminds me of FDR's reasoning for naming Joe Kennedy, Sr. as the first head of the SEC:

"It takes a thief to catch a thief."

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Corporate Profits = Jobs? No, not really (but CEO's want you to think that's true.)

In a column on his website, RobertReich.org, former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration and current professor at UC-Berkeley Robert Reich writes about why corporate profits have nothing to do with job growth. The one point he made that jumped out at me was the following:

“Corporations are using their pile of money to pay dividends to their shareholders and buy back their own stock - thereby pushing up share prices.”

This is something I have noticed for years. I always wondered why companies that reported consistent quarterly profits from 2004-2007 always tended to have more downsizing periods than hiring periods. They're boosting the income of their higher end shareholders at the expense of their much lower-end employees that have to scrape by to make ends meet in this job market of exploited employees.

This has always been my personal argument against the Bush Tax Cuts as well. I have no problem with wealthy individuals getting a tax break so long as they’re creating jobs with those tax breaks. If a job is being created, let them get the tax credit for it. I still don’t get the argument that tax cuts spur job growth and tax revenue through the actions of that multi-millionaire takes the extra $50,000 or $60,000 in his pocket each year and buys his 2nd or 3rd yacht with it rather than hire a new employee for $30,000 a year.

President Wyclef Jean?

Stranger things have happened!

Monday, July 26, 2010

Update on the Indian-Americans Running in 2010

If you read my blog post from July 7th, I mentioned a handful of Indian-Americans running for major elected offices across the United States. Just to give you an update, all but one of the candidates that I named in my post have either won their party's primary election or is running uncontested in an upcoming primary election. The only exception is Reshma Saujani, who is facing the nine-term incumbant Carolyn Maloney in the Democratic primary on September 14th for New York's 14th Congressional District.

Also, Politico recently ran an article about the Indian American Leadership Initiative. It wasn't a very long or detailed article about the IALI but I'm sure the publicity from a major Washington publication can't hurt!

Some good-natured fun at the expense of Democrats and Republicans

Ben Schott's blog at The New York Times, Schott's Vocab, offers some good-natured fun from celebrities and readers poking fun at both Democrats and Republicans. An example from conservative humorist P.J. O'Rourke: “The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then get elected and prove it.”

E N J O Y ! ! !

Sunday, July 25, 2010

News and Political Highlights of the Week

Since I haven't had a chance to blog in the past few days, here are some key highlights of the week (except Shirley Sherrod, who should just be left alone by everyone that threw her under the bus this week):

- President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Bill, enacting one of the largest regulatory reforms of the financial sector since the Great Depression. This post on New York Times' Dealbook blog has a great breakdown of the Dodd-Frank Act. If you want an interactive explanation, this interactive at the Washington Post is fun, easy to understand, and the pictures are too cute to ignore. (My favorites are the Derivatives panic people and the Regulators raising their hands to be picked.) Also on financial reform, Zach Carter writes in The Huffington Post about "Wall Street Reform: Five Key Fights After the Bill Is Signed"

- Elana Kagan passed the Senate Judiciary vote this week, with only one Republican, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, voting for her confirmation. The Hill has the text of Sen. Graham's statement. What's more telling though are the hateful comments from the readers at the bottom of the page. If you want an idea of how extreme our politics have gotten, read Graham's gracious statement and the venomous replies to them from readers.

- Some fantastic opinion pieces worth reading this week:
In Politico this week, Robert Borosage had an excellent opinion piece about the lack of leaders in DC, from the perspective of leadership as a personality trait rather than a formal position of authority. Here is an especially poignant excerpt:
"This country must build a new economic foundation — revive cutting-edge manufacturing, modernize infrastructure, revitalize education and training, invest in research and development, find ways to shackle speculation and drive private investment into longer-term horizons and empower workers to gain a fair share of the productivity they help generate."

Anne Applebaum of The Washington Post wrote about how people's words and actions can be in direct conflict with each other in a column titled, "A government of the people's every wish?"

Hopefully I can blog during the week. Otherwise, I'll check in next weekend! Have a great week!!!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

The "New" Indian Rupee

If you saw this blog post from March 2009, The Rachel Maddow Show did a story on how the Indian Rupee has no international symbol like the dollar, pound sterling, or yen. There was a contest to create a new Rupee symbol and the winner and symbol were announced today.

Congratulations Indian Rupee! And welcome to the international community of depressed currencies!

Monday, July 12, 2010

NYTimes: The Class War We Need by Ross Douthat

Okay, so I'm not in the habit of complimenting conservatives so this is a bit new to me. Ross Douthat makes some good points in his column in today's New York Times. Though I rarely, if ever, agree with Mr. Douthat, one positive thing I can say about him is he's not your typical over-the-top flame-throwing conservative. He actually "disagrees without being disagreeable", as President Obama would say.

One nice piece of criticism he levies on Republicans is the following:
"...conservatives need to recognize that the most pernicious sort of redistribution isn’t from the successful to the poor. It’s from savers to speculators, from outsiders to insiders, and from the industrious middle class to the reckless, unproductive rich."

Happy reading!