Bill's Big Diamond Blog

Goodbye to 2008— and Good Riddance to an Era

As we come to the end of 2008 and also to the end of the 1972-2008 period of conservative America, I’m feeling increasingly disconnected from our popular culture and from our pulpy national headlines—and feeling just a little hopeful that the future might bring a small renaissance of earnest thought.  Maybe 2009 will usher in a new era that values ideals America once stood for, at least in the eyes of those who thought we lived in a nation founded on democratic principles.

 It would be pleasant to turn on the television and once again see debates between popular thinkers, wouldn’t it?  As children of the 1960’s, we were treated to Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley on the tube, slugging out the meaning of the Chicago convention in primetime and to Dick Cavett interviewing writers, directors, actors, and politicians with some time on the show actually reserved for their ideas.  Try doing that on any but the most obscure cable channel or public television today—and see how fast your show will be cancelled.

 I’d prefer to think that we’d be better off learning about the history of Palestine than the haircut of Governor Blagojevich this morning, when we’re faced with a choice of whether the continuing carnage in Gaza or show time at the Illinois Governor’s mansion gets top news billing.  I know… it’s depressing to think about massive rocket attacks using our weapons, focused on people without an escape.  It’s more diverting to get irritated at a psycho Governor who’s facing indictment, toughing out his final days.

 But it’s the way that novelty and kitsch almost totally trumps reality in our news (and in our entertainment— since they are now one and the same) that makes the increasing vapidity in our culture feel so hopelessly dominant.  Is it any wonder that celebrity Caroline Kennedy scores more New York Times headlines than any of several congressional candidates for a Senate seat appointment that could as easily go to a veteran legislator like Carolyn Maloney or Nita Lowey as to a political novice who’s touring her own state for the first time—with national paparazzi in tow?

 Well, here’s to 2009.  Let’s hope it brings some grey matter back into our daily news over our morning coffee.  We’ll certainly need it if we’re going to crawl out of the poorhouse and bring something of value back into a world that our financiers and politicians have spent so much time pulling apart.  It would be a small pleasure at the end of another year to think we were making some headway towards reminding our children that America once stood for creating something more worthwhile than CDO’s and “Survivor.”  

***

(See Memorandum for discussion)

Let's Start Taking Names of People to Ignore in 2009

Perhaps we should posit that those who claim the current economic crisis was unknowable are not now to be listened to in terms of what to do about it?

I gladly refer readers to Brad DeLong’s rant (and the original at Hilzoy's, which he references) about a hand-wringing Op-Ed piece by Robert Samuelson in yesterday’s Washington Post.  Here is an example of the wisdom Samuelson imparts:

So much that has happened was unexpected that the boom and bust's origins are obscured…

Prosperity, apparently forgiving of mistakes, bred the complacency that undid prosperity. On bad mortgages, losses could be recovered by selling the homes at higher values. Thus rationalized, bad loans were made. Some stocks might decline, but over time, most would rise. Risk seemed to recede, so investors and money managers undertook riskier strategies.

What will emerge from these shattered illusions? Will the crash stir social unrest, abroad if not here? Will Americans become so thrifty that they hamper recovery? Will economic nationalism surge? How will capitalism be reshaped? Much depends on whether the frantic policies to combat the recession succeed. Probably they will, but there are no guarantees. Our ignorance is humbling.

Well, Samuelson’s ignorance ought to be humbling—to him.  DeLong points correctly to the many warnings we’ve had from economic writers who often wrote of impending disaster in pieces for the general public, (Paul Krugman, Dean Baker, Daniel Roubini) not to mention the many more writers and scholars one might expect an economics writer for the Post to have been reading.

Even I noticed smart people talking about a real estate bubble growing—and how continued economic growth over the last few years relied heavily on consumers using their real estate assets as a piggy bank, as opposed to the economy actually producing more good jobs or more production.  Believe me, if someone as unskilled in economics as myself perceives a risk, it wasn’t unknowable.

States vs. Feds: Stimulus Meets Local and State Budget Cuts

Paul Krugman writes this morning on a subject I’ve been thinking about for the last month or so; what happens to a stimulus package when the states keep cutting their budgets? 

 …even as Washington tries to rescue the economy, the nation will be reeling from the actions of 50 Herbert Hoovers — state governors who are slashing spending in a time of recession, often at the expense both of their most vulnerable constituents and of the nation’s economic future.

In his “50 Herbert Hoovers” column, Krugman favors aid to the states for their most crucial endeavors in health, education, and infrastructure at this time.  States can’t print their own money and thus are stuck cutting aid at precisely the moment when it is needed most.  It’s left to the feds to fill the gap.

A corollary point that Krugman isn’t addressing is my suspicion that the governors are playing a smart game with the stimulus plan by cutting spending that they figure the feds will pick up as “shovel ready.”  I wonder what the net effect is when many of these projects are cancelled, then are re-started under the feds.  These jobs are ones that would have been funded by the states, but are now shifted, not newly created.

 It will be worth considering whether a separate category of funding, as Krugman suggests, should be created specifically as aid to the states to pay for currently scheduled projects and expenditures, funding which would not be provided under the stimulus plan.  If currently scheduled projects were not then included in the stimulus package, the states would be wise to use their aid money to keep them going.  Therefore, it would not be smart politics for the states to cancel needed projects with the expectation that the feds would step in.

 The last thing we need now is for one side of the boat to be bailing while the other side is busy opening the drains.

***

(See Memorandum for comment) 

Hail to the Chief?

Speaking of combatants, it seems that some American troops, fresh back from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are less than enthusiastic to be made part of a holiday military backdrop for President Bush...

Gaza Attacks Lower Bar For Who Are Considered Combatants

According to Tim Butcher, the scope of attacks against Hamas in Gaza is unprecedented.  Apparently, just being a police officer in Gaza is now enough grounds to be targeted with a missile from Israel. 

 Not a good sign for the future.

Go Gainesville State!

Rick Reilly’s ESPN column, “Life of Reilly,” is a real beaut.  Thanks to Susie Madrak for calling attention to it.

 We could all spare a little more of this kind of understanding and love for our fellow man.  When you see it on a Texas football field, it feels all the better…  

..."Imagine if you didn't have a home life. Imagine if everybody had pretty much given up on you. Now imagine what it would mean for hundreds of people to suddenly believe in you."  

Mortgage Interest Rates Still Too High

Paul Krugman has a suggestion to fight the huge spread between the rate on federal debt and mortgage rates: declare that Fannie and Freddy (already essentially nationalized entities) are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government and then if necessary, have the Treasury borrow on their behalf.

Doesn't the  lack of this kind of innovative thinking on the part of current management at Treasury make a person feel like the clock is running extra slow between now and 01.20.09?

Getting Off on Cheap Money: The Aftermath

Recommended reading: Mark Landler’s article on the American addiction to debt and the Chinese savers’ enabling of it to sell cheap goods abroad and save in another currency.  One pertinent quote:

 In the past decade, China arguably enabled an American boom. Low-cost Chinese goods helped keep a lid on inflation, while the flood of Chinese investment helped the government finance mortgages and a public debt of close to $11 trillion.
But Americans did not use the lower-cost money afforded by Chinese investment to build a 21st-century equivalent of the railroads. Instead, the government engaged in a costly war in Iraq, and consumers used loose credit to buy sport utility vehicles and larger homes. Banks and investors, eagerly seeking higher interest rates in this easy-money environment, created risky new securities like collateralized debt obligations. 

A Very Franken Christmas

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Minnesota for the Al Franken campaign.  Under the Franken tree (it’s a secular family celebration— I know, I know, Hanukah is still in the air, but hey, don’t mess with my semi-musical lede), there’s a very big present and it looks a lot like a Senate seat.  While the big box under the evergreen ornaments probably won’t be unwrapped until after some extra special judicial wrangling into January or February, the shape of the seat itself is increasingly clear under all the wrapping.

 The Minnesota Supremes have now ruled in Franken's favor over a Coleman challenge.  Oh, there will be more challenges, I know— over unallocated votes from some 1,600 absentee ballots which were left uncounted due to clerical errors (everyone agrees these can only help Franken), and also a challenge over some 130-150 votes the Colemanites believe to have been double-counted, due to machine malfunctions.  There will likely be at least one more major court challenge—after all this is done.  It may even be up to the US Senate to finally decide the credentials of its last remaining unseated member from the November 2008 polls.

 But Franken is ahead at the end of the canvassing board count, by 47 or 48 votes, depending on your source.  It’s now more likely than it has been throughout the incredibly close ballot counting and recounting that, in the battle to unseat Norm Coleman, Al Franken will emerge victorious— and take back a Senate seat that was once occupied by the upper chamber’s most progressive member, Paul Wellstone. 

 What makes this extra-holiday-special for the Minnesota Farmer Labor type Democrats is that Franken can finally feel the likely possibility of success after a grinding six-year mission to take back the seat.  Former comedian and then political talk host Franken began to think about celebrating this moment back in 2002, after focusing his outrage on the lies perpetrated in the scurrilous Rove-inspired, wingnut talk-show spread, fact-lite, accusation-heavy hatchet job done on his lifelong friends in the late Senator Wellstone’s family and among the Senator’s close associates.

 It was the ruthlessness in way that Rove & Co. abused the untimely death of Wellstone in a plane crash before the 2002 election that seemed to have motivated Franken to leave behind a successful comedy career for a more political life.

 For those who don’t remember the specifics, Paul Wellstone, always a real fighter for the poor, the underrepresented, those in need, for rank and file labor, and the victims of aggression or ignorance, died very shortly before the 2002 elections when his campaign plane, blinded by bad weather, went down in the cold Minnesota autumn.  His wife Sheila, his daughter Marcia, and several other campaign workers, as well as the two pilots, died with him in the crash.  Soon thereafter, because of an enormous outpouring of tribute and grief from grassroots supporters, his memorial service was moved to the University of Minnesota’s Williams Arena and featured a long stream of friends, allies, and recipients of Wellstone’s seemingly endless generosity, many of whom spoke in memory of the professor-turned-politician.

 The entire three-hour celebration of Wellstone’s life had the air of a progressive revival meeting, with a mix of political and personal reminiscences (personally, I watched it all on C-Span).  At one point, during the ceremony, the presence of Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott on the jumbotron engendered a smattering of boos in the audience.  Lott and Governor Jesse Ventura walked out of the memorial in protest—and soon thereafter was born a campaign out of Rush Limbaugh’s radio show and the usual wingnut corners to fight against Democrats “using Wellstone’s death” to political advantage.

 The spectacle of right-wingers, most of whom hadn’t attended Wellstone’s service, and who had never given Wellstone personal respect during his lifetime, capitalizing on the bad manners of a few of the grieving members of a 20,000-strong crowd in order to gin up anger against Democrats and progressives in the 2002 Senatorial campaign pissed off Al Franken.  Franken, who had been at the memorial himself and who had not been able to discern any inappropriate ruckus at the time, was moved to fight back against the right wing noise machine.

 Franken began his serious activism as a writer, radio host, and eventually as a Minnesota Senatorial candidate in the years since.  His first book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, told the Wellstone memorial story from his point of view and also began his personal campaign to unmask his opponent, Norm Coleman, as a political opportunist. Franken sacrificed economic opportunity in the entertainment business to take on the unglamorous struggle to bring reality and balance to the spin of American politics.  Franken became the most popular of many citizen journalists during the Bush era who waded into the maelstrom of post-9/11 reactionary fervor and spoke truth to the powers that be.

 Franken’s work since 2002 embodies the spirit of citizen activism: to fight for the underrepresented in an period when the power of big media and big corporate power ran relatively untrammeled.  His work as the only big ticket on the upstart Air America radio and as a progressive voice who challenged, by name (Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh), many of the right-wing talk giants and their concocted campaigns against individuals and groups because of religion or a willingness to speak out was invaluable as an example.  Franken gave a platform to many writers from the blogosphere on his show before it became de rigeur to quote bloggers.

 In short, Franken became a real mensch in the progressive world.  That he might now become a real thorn in the side of the powerful in the Senate is welcome news indeed.  Merry Chistmas!

***

(For more on the status of the MN recount, see: TPM, Talkleft, dworth at Kos, MN Startribune, Sam Stein)

Charges Filed in Deutche Bank Fire

Charges and condemnation of the Bloomberg Administration’s policies, lax oversight are made in the deaths of firemen, Robert Beddia and Joseph Graffagnino, in the Deutche Bank fire in August 2007.  

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau filed charges against several defendants and a subcontractor.  He took time to describe the city’s “general level of incompetence” in the fire at the un-inspected structure, which was being taken down after the September 11, 2001 attacks for half a decade before the fire claimed the two firefighters’ lives.