The recently deceased CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite came in first in a 1973 poll when Americans were asked which public figures they most trusted. Who was runner-up? Richard Nixon. The avuncular Cronkite was, of course, a natural; but Richard Nixon in second place? This certainly says something about the People's Judgement. I don't know when this poll was taken, but by April of 1973 the Watergate scandal had already claimed presidential aides Haldeman and Erlichman as well as advisor John Dean. Nixon, a long-time supporter of Joe McCarthy and McCarthyism, had for years been the target of cartoons asking, e.g., "Would you buy a used car from this man?" Dwight Eisenhower, under whom Nixon served as veep, had already become disillusioned with him, and he had been involved in influence-peddling scandals. Yet Nixon came in second in the poll. Would you trust anyone's judgement who voted for him? Could Cronkite (no fan of Nixon's) have felt all that honored?
Similarly, could anyone still take Nobel Peace Prizes seriously after Henry Kissinger --perpetrator of the secret bombings of Cambodia among other crimes -- won one, also in 1973?
And finally, while I'm on the subject of significance, what about the critics of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor who claim that her reputation was somehow hurt when the Court overturned her judgement in the case of the New Haven fire fighters. The Court decision was by a 5 to 4 vote. I guess that means that at least 4 justices of the actual court were equally unfit. By logical extension, any justices on the losing side of a Supreme Court case are not fit to serve. Has any sitting justice always been on the winning side of every case? Of course not. Why do the news media even report such nonsense?
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Banks being Banks
So Goldman-Sachs, Bank America and Citi-Group recently announced second-quarter profits, each in the billions of dollars. All are recipients of billions in federal bailouts, which I am sure they are eager to return as soon as possible, in order to avoid regulation -- especially of executive compensation.
Several things seem clear. First is that these profits mean nothing in terms of the health of these banks or the banking industry in general. In fact, the money that pushed them into the black this past quarter has nothing to do with banking as we think of it. Goldman, as usual, makes the big bucks in trading -- including the misnomer "investment banking", another form of speculation these days. Goldman's forte is computerized high-speed trading of securities, including securitized loans and mortgages, a good chunk of which are now familiarly known as "toxic assets." CitiCorp, a disaster on wheels, similarly owes its temporary spurt to trading, not to fundamentals in any way related to healthy banking. If Bank of America is very sick, Citi is at -- or through -- Death's Door. But still its traders keep "slicing and dicing", as they say, loans and other assets of dubious value, and unloading them on anyone they can unload them on.
It's not like they told us in school, where companies raise money for innovation and growth by selling stocks and bonds to Average Folk who want to invest in American Business. In fact, a lot of the daily churning of market securities is day-to-day speculation, not in the actual fortunes of companies but on guesses about market reactions to these fortunes -- or on guesses about guesses. Also, the trading companies are constantly shifting their own positions -- positive, negative or straddling -- by buying or peddling to their own customers. If you want to get some idea of the ethics and attitudes underlying this kind of "investment", check out Michael Lewis' "Liar's Poker": a memoir of his days at Salomon Brothers in New York and London. In spite of warnings such as the Savings and Loan debacle of 20 years ago, the banks have been in the thick of this. Michael Lewis reports on this latest disaster for the banks in The End:
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom.
The sad -- no, outrageous -- part of this is the lack of any real re-regulation of these banks, even under the Obama administration. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that the financial community contributes more to the political parties than any other industry. Timothy Geitner, the Secretary of the Treasury, is, after all, a product of Wall Street and was supported by the Street during his confirmation hearings -- in fact, the market went up immediately in reaction his nomination for the post. He has done nothing to indicate that he supports stringent regulations for the financial community.
What's needed is for banks to go back to being just ... banks; i.e. lending money to qualified individuals and businesses, collecting interest, and paying dividends: no speculation, no slicing and dicing of obligations into securities, and no dealing in insurance policies on these securities. Today's news about Bank of America and CitiCorp shows that banks don't seem ready to resume this restricted role, and lawmakers don't seem to have the stomach to restrict them. But but these restrictions are necessary because, as Paul Krugman observes,
"The next crisis could look something like the savings-and-loan mess of the 1980s, in which deregulated banks gambled with, or in some cases stole, taxpayers’ money — except that it would involve the financial industry as a whole."
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/opinion/17krugman.html).
Several things seem clear. First is that these profits mean nothing in terms of the health of these banks or the banking industry in general. In fact, the money that pushed them into the black this past quarter has nothing to do with banking as we think of it. Goldman, as usual, makes the big bucks in trading -- including the misnomer "investment banking", another form of speculation these days. Goldman's forte is computerized high-speed trading of securities, including securitized loans and mortgages, a good chunk of which are now familiarly known as "toxic assets." CitiCorp, a disaster on wheels, similarly owes its temporary spurt to trading, not to fundamentals in any way related to healthy banking. If Bank of America is very sick, Citi is at -- or through -- Death's Door. But still its traders keep "slicing and dicing", as they say, loans and other assets of dubious value, and unloading them on anyone they can unload them on.
It's not like they told us in school, where companies raise money for innovation and growth by selling stocks and bonds to Average Folk who want to invest in American Business. In fact, a lot of the daily churning of market securities is day-to-day speculation, not in the actual fortunes of companies but on guesses about market reactions to these fortunes -- or on guesses about guesses. Also, the trading companies are constantly shifting their own positions -- positive, negative or straddling -- by buying or peddling to their own customers. If you want to get some idea of the ethics and attitudes underlying this kind of "investment", check out Michael Lewis' "Liar's Poker": a memoir of his days at Salomon Brothers in New York and London. In spite of warnings such as the Savings and Loan debacle of 20 years ago, the banks have been in the thick of this. Michael Lewis reports on this latest disaster for the banks in The End:
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom.
The sad -- no, outrageous -- part of this is the lack of any real re-regulation of these banks, even under the Obama administration. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that the financial community contributes more to the political parties than any other industry. Timothy Geitner, the Secretary of the Treasury, is, after all, a product of Wall Street and was supported by the Street during his confirmation hearings -- in fact, the market went up immediately in reaction his nomination for the post. He has done nothing to indicate that he supports stringent regulations for the financial community.
What's needed is for banks to go back to being just ... banks; i.e. lending money to qualified individuals and businesses, collecting interest, and paying dividends: no speculation, no slicing and dicing of obligations into securities, and no dealing in insurance policies on these securities. Today's news about Bank of America and CitiCorp shows that banks don't seem ready to resume this restricted role, and lawmakers don't seem to have the stomach to restrict them. But but these restrictions are necessary because, as Paul Krugman observes,
"The next crisis could look something like the savings-and-loan mess of the 1980s, in which deregulated banks gambled with, or in some cases stole, taxpayers’ money — except that it would involve the financial industry as a whole."
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/opinion/17krugman.html).
Saturday, July 11, 2009
The Minimum Wage
On July 24, 2007 the FMW (Federal Minimum Wage) rose from $5.15/hr to $5.85/hr; on July 24, 2008 it rose another $0.70 to $6.55/hr; in two weeks it will rise again, to $7.25/hr. This follows the longest ever period without a change: nearly 10 years. During that time the purchasing power of the minimum wage has declined steadily -- as it has declined since 1968 when its value in constant dollars was highest.
Since its first appearance in 1938 during the Great Depression, advocacy of the FMW has been a staple of Democratic and union politics, while it has been a subject of general Republican scorn. The first group views it as an important anti-poverty tool, and the second group sees it as anti-business and counterproductive.
So who is right about this?
I've spent the past week researching the arguments: looking at statistics, asking economists, and reading columns, websites and blogs of people with training in economics. I started writing a long explanation of what I found out, but that began to make even me nod off. So, in a nutshell, here's the conclusion: It depends. (You can tell I've been reading a lot of economists...)
The arguments from classical economics -- supply and demand, maximizing profit, etc. -- would suggest that when businesses have to pay their workers more, especially their lowest-paid and least skillful, then they will seriously consider laying some of them off if they can. Often, businesses can extract more productivity from their more skilled employees to compensate for firing or not hiring the least skilled, lowest paid.
(Recently, Wal-Mart has been supporting a raise in the FMW. One cynical interpretation has it that the company has enough money so that it can afford to train its workers to be more productive -- for example via computer training. This enables it to avoid minimum wage employees, while saddling its less-capitalized competitors with the increases in payments to their minimum-wage workers.)
So what actually happens when the minimum wage goes up? Analysis is complicated. It is certainly well-documented that raising the minimum wage -- either on the local or federal level -- seems to hurt the employment chances of teenagers and unskilled workers in their early 20's. On the other hand, in places where there are a lot of low wage laborers, the sheer number whose wages increased modestly due to the legislation (including a "ripple effect" on slightly higher-paid employees) tended to create a modest decrease in poverty rates -- but this was not found in every study. Also, there are documented positive effects for certain younger and low-wage workers, especially high-school educated women and unwed mothers (my colleague, Andrew Sum, clued me into this).
There was a famous study by David Card and Alan Krueger comparing fast-food workers in the contiguous states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In 1992 NJ raised its minimum wage nearly 20% while the minimum wage in PA remained the same. When this happened, the full-time employment of the NJ workers actually increased by about 0.6, while the rate in PA declined by about 2.2. Some liberal economists take great heart from this study, but many economists don't think it means much; some dismiss it entirely. Given the difficulty of comparing all the factors involved here, it is probably only safe to say that NJ low-wage workers didn't pay any obvious employment penalty when the floor on their wages went up.
Actually, very few workers work for minimum wage, and, it seems, less than half are actually "breadwinners" in a family of more than one (themselves). Of course, this is not surprising since the minimum wage is nothing like a living wage. Any family with principal income from only a minimum wage would be placed well well below the poverty line. It is also not surprising that a large percentage (maybe a third) of minimum wage earners are students or other very young people living at home, and usually in families well above the the poverty level.
So, in summary, it seems that raising the minimum wage may be marginally useful; however, Paul Krugman, no right-winger, says in a book review:
"Now to me, at least, the obvious question is, why take this route? Why increase the cost of labor to employers so sharply, which--Card/Krueger notwithstanding--must pose a significant risk of pricing some workers out of the market [my emphasis], in order to give those workers so little extra income? Why not give them the money directly, say, via an increase in the tax credit?
(http://www.pkarchive.org/cranks/LivingWage.html)
I will post more details and references in a future blog.
Since its first appearance in 1938 during the Great Depression, advocacy of the FMW has been a staple of Democratic and union politics, while it has been a subject of general Republican scorn. The first group views it as an important anti-poverty tool, and the second group sees it as anti-business and counterproductive.
So who is right about this?
I've spent the past week researching the arguments: looking at statistics, asking economists, and reading columns, websites and blogs of people with training in economics. I started writing a long explanation of what I found out, but that began to make even me nod off. So, in a nutshell, here's the conclusion: It depends. (You can tell I've been reading a lot of economists...)
The arguments from classical economics -- supply and demand, maximizing profit, etc. -- would suggest that when businesses have to pay their workers more, especially their lowest-paid and least skillful, then they will seriously consider laying some of them off if they can. Often, businesses can extract more productivity from their more skilled employees to compensate for firing or not hiring the least skilled, lowest paid.
(Recently, Wal-Mart has been supporting a raise in the FMW. One cynical interpretation has it that the company has enough money so that it can afford to train its workers to be more productive -- for example via computer training. This enables it to avoid minimum wage employees, while saddling its less-capitalized competitors with the increases in payments to their minimum-wage workers.)
So what actually happens when the minimum wage goes up? Analysis is complicated. It is certainly well-documented that raising the minimum wage -- either on the local or federal level -- seems to hurt the employment chances of teenagers and unskilled workers in their early 20's. On the other hand, in places where there are a lot of low wage laborers, the sheer number whose wages increased modestly due to the legislation (including a "ripple effect" on slightly higher-paid employees) tended to create a modest decrease in poverty rates -- but this was not found in every study. Also, there are documented positive effects for certain younger and low-wage workers, especially high-school educated women and unwed mothers (my colleague, Andrew Sum, clued me into this).
There was a famous study by David Card and Alan Krueger comparing fast-food workers in the contiguous states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In 1992 NJ raised its minimum wage nearly 20% while the minimum wage in PA remained the same. When this happened, the full-time employment of the NJ workers actually increased by about 0.6, while the rate in PA declined by about 2.2. Some liberal economists take great heart from this study, but many economists don't think it means much; some dismiss it entirely. Given the difficulty of comparing all the factors involved here, it is probably only safe to say that NJ low-wage workers didn't pay any obvious employment penalty when the floor on their wages went up.
Actually, very few workers work for minimum wage, and, it seems, less than half are actually "breadwinners" in a family of more than one (themselves). Of course, this is not surprising since the minimum wage is nothing like a living wage. Any family with principal income from only a minimum wage would be placed well well below the poverty line. It is also not surprising that a large percentage (maybe a third) of minimum wage earners are students or other very young people living at home, and usually in families well above the the poverty level.
So, in summary, it seems that raising the minimum wage may be marginally useful; however, Paul Krugman, no right-winger, says in a book review:
"Now to me, at least, the obvious question is, why take this route? Why increase the cost of labor to employers so sharply, which--Card/Krueger notwithstanding--must pose a significant risk of pricing some workers out of the market [my emphasis], in order to give those workers so little extra income? Why not give them the money directly, say, via an increase in the tax credit?
(http://www.pkarchive.org/cranks/LivingWage.html)
I will post more details and references in a future blog.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Just a quickie: today's N.Y. Times reports:
In a statement Wednesday night, a C.I.A. spokesman, George Little, noted that the agency “took the initiative to notify the oversight committees” about the past failures. He said the agency and Mr. Panetta “believe it is vital to keep the Congress fully and currently informed.”
I see: we should give a pat on the back to the C.I.A. for volunteering the information that they had lied repeatedly to Congress since 2001 (see the rest of the story in the Times). This is beginning to make Nancy Pelosi's claims of being misinformed seem quite credible. Of course the Republicans, who called these claims "an unwarranted attack on the integrity of counterterrorism officers", wanted to have Pelosi investigated. Now, presumably, they should investigate anyone who believes the C.I.A.'s own claims that it lied. To follow their logic a bit further, they must now consider the agency's "initiative" a similar attack (on the agency itself), and refuse to believe it.
Ah, "What a twisted web we weave..."
In a statement Wednesday night, a C.I.A. spokesman, George Little, noted that the agency “took the initiative to notify the oversight committees” about the past failures. He said the agency and Mr. Panetta “believe it is vital to keep the Congress fully and currently informed.”
I see: we should give a pat on the back to the C.I.A. for volunteering the information that they had lied repeatedly to Congress since 2001 (see the rest of the story in the Times). This is beginning to make Nancy Pelosi's claims of being misinformed seem quite credible. Of course the Republicans, who called these claims "an unwarranted attack on the integrity of counterterrorism officers", wanted to have Pelosi investigated. Now, presumably, they should investigate anyone who believes the C.I.A.'s own claims that it lied. To follow their logic a bit further, they must now consider the agency's "initiative" a similar attack (on the agency itself), and refuse to believe it.
Ah, "What a twisted web we weave..."
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Robert S. McNamara
It is hard to begin writing about the death of Robert S. McNamara. Over twenty years ago I asked, in a letter printed in the Boston Globe: "So what accountability will there be? Those like McNamara, who cynically pursued a cause they knew to be doomed and wrong, are responsible for crimes of biblical proportions. What shall be their punishment? ... How can he continue living after all he has done?"
Although I am not in any sense religious, I felt at the time that the only possible response that McNamara could have taken would be to "fall on his sword": take his own life as a symbolic expiation for his collossal errors -- both intentional and unintentional -- that led to the deaths of perhaps a million or more people. In fact, McNamara, while conceding his guilt, did far less. Obituaries that have appeared recently describe his supposed "do-gooder" tenure at the World Bank as his penance: offering many loans to developing countries. Of course, the World Bank has long been known as an arm of US capital interests, and an agent of Western economic policies. He certainly didn't oversee the giving away of money to countries damaged by these policies.
So the years passed, with McNamara slowly fading from our memory. There was Errol Morris' Academy Award winning documentary "The Fog of War" which gave him a chance to philosophize about Vietnam. I refuse to watch this. I have read a lot about McNamara -- both during and after the war. The movie can not change the facts about what he did, and I don't care to witness any more of his weeping -- literal or figurative. I'm not impressed that Morris "likes" him -- I guess McNamara's a real sympathetic charmer. But just remember what he did.
There was no real "fog". Experts wrote thousands of pieces about the myths of involvement in Vietnam. I remember reading, in the early '60s, Bernard Fall and Jean Lacouture recounting French mistakes in Indo-China. A huge amount of expert criticism was available (even from the CIA in 1963 I recall) to dispell any "fog" surrounding the early commitments and mistakes. This commentary turned out to be uniformly correct and McNamara's analysis uniformly wrong -- even by his own later admission. The French including the very anti-communist Charles de Gaulle -- the original colonialists in Southeast Asia -- immediately realized the misunderstandings underlying U.S. policy. But McNamara ignored it all. Any fog was the result of the secrecy of the administrations that employed him and those like him. Things like the Tonkin Gulf "incident", "Body counts", "light at the end of the tunnel", "winning hearts and minds", "strategic hamlets" etc. were mists manufactured on the ground, not some sort of mystical fog rolling in from somewhere offshore.
Just because one is smart -- high IQ, good memory and a gift for quick analysis -- doesn't necessarily make one arrogant or give one power. In McNamara, unfortunately, one found that fatal combination. But that wasn't the worst. After he arrogantly ignored the many warnings of those who knew better, and persisted with his war under two presidents, he found out that it was all terribly wrong. But what did he do? Nothing. During the deaths and maimings and grief; through many elections in which anti-war candidates were accused of being un-American and protestors were beaten, jailed and even shot, McNamara did nothing ... nothing.
Then he started his semi-private weeping. Poor man.
If you want to know my feelings about Robert Strange McNamara, listen to Dylan's song "Masters of War", especially the last stanza:
And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead.
Too bad it didn't come sooner, when it might have mattered -- for him and for us.
Although I am not in any sense religious, I felt at the time that the only possible response that McNamara could have taken would be to "fall on his sword": take his own life as a symbolic expiation for his collossal errors -- both intentional and unintentional -- that led to the deaths of perhaps a million or more people. In fact, McNamara, while conceding his guilt, did far less. Obituaries that have appeared recently describe his supposed "do-gooder" tenure at the World Bank as his penance: offering many loans to developing countries. Of course, the World Bank has long been known as an arm of US capital interests, and an agent of Western economic policies. He certainly didn't oversee the giving away of money to countries damaged by these policies.
So the years passed, with McNamara slowly fading from our memory. There was Errol Morris' Academy Award winning documentary "The Fog of War" which gave him a chance to philosophize about Vietnam. I refuse to watch this. I have read a lot about McNamara -- both during and after the war. The movie can not change the facts about what he did, and I don't care to witness any more of his weeping -- literal or figurative. I'm not impressed that Morris "likes" him -- I guess McNamara's a real sympathetic charmer. But just remember what he did.
There was no real "fog". Experts wrote thousands of pieces about the myths of involvement in Vietnam. I remember reading, in the early '60s, Bernard Fall and Jean Lacouture recounting French mistakes in Indo-China. A huge amount of expert criticism was available (even from the CIA in 1963 I recall) to dispell any "fog" surrounding the early commitments and mistakes. This commentary turned out to be uniformly correct and McNamara's analysis uniformly wrong -- even by his own later admission. The French including the very anti-communist Charles de Gaulle -- the original colonialists in Southeast Asia -- immediately realized the misunderstandings underlying U.S. policy. But McNamara ignored it all. Any fog was the result of the secrecy of the administrations that employed him and those like him. Things like the Tonkin Gulf "incident", "Body counts", "light at the end of the tunnel", "winning hearts and minds", "strategic hamlets" etc. were mists manufactured on the ground, not some sort of mystical fog rolling in from somewhere offshore.
Just because one is smart -- high IQ, good memory and a gift for quick analysis -- doesn't necessarily make one arrogant or give one power. In McNamara, unfortunately, one found that fatal combination. But that wasn't the worst. After he arrogantly ignored the many warnings of those who knew better, and persisted with his war under two presidents, he found out that it was all terribly wrong. But what did he do? Nothing. During the deaths and maimings and grief; through many elections in which anti-war candidates were accused of being un-American and protestors were beaten, jailed and even shot, McNamara did nothing ... nothing.
Then he started his semi-private weeping. Poor man.
If you want to know my feelings about Robert Strange McNamara, listen to Dylan's song "Masters of War", especially the last stanza:
And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead.
Too bad it didn't come sooner, when it might have mattered -- for him and for us.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Palin's resignation
Sarah Palin's recent announcement that she will retire as Alaska's governor points to both her own delusions about politics and the weakness of the Republican party nationally.
Without her selection, in despiration, by John McCain as her running-mate in 2008, she would have continued relatively unrecognized as a parochial governor who owed her election to factors totally unrelated to issues of long-term importance to either Alaska or the country. Her election as mayor of Wasilla was due to her raising of social and partisan issues in an election that had traditionally been what most mayoral elections are about: the running of city government and constituent services. At the time of this election, and her later election as governor, Alaskans were living in the never-never land of fortuitous oil revenue. To her credit, she was able to make oil companies pay out large chunks of money for the privilege of making huger sums from Alaskan oil. Of course, they got back their investment in spades both from these oil revenues and from her and her party's enthusiastic advocacy of "drill baby drill."
As governor, Palin continued, until the recent Republican recession, to live off the belief that she was responsible for Alaska's prosperity. A variation of Texan Jim Hightower's famous quote certainly applies here: (She) was born on third base and (everyone) thinks (s)he hit a triple. (Sometimes attributed to Ann Richards of Texas.)
Now that times are tough, even in Alaska, and call for someone with knowledge, imagination, and real political astuteness, Mrs. Palin's deficiences are all too apparent. Even to Alaskans it is becoming clear that she and her husband have treated Alaska as a personal fiefdom and political base, and have actually little to offer programatically. This alone provides proximate cause for her resignation.
So, does Sarah Palin have a national political future? Almost certainly a very limited one. The Republican party has a very loud, unified, and stubborn group which clings to backwards-looking social policies, and failed economic ones. Given control of both houses of congress and the presidency, and a slinking, cowardly opposition party, they have produced an economic disaster unequalled since the Great Depression. The demographics are against them -- even earlier than pundits had anticipated. Yet, like the Bourbons of the 18th century, they have learned nothing and forget nothing. This is Palin's natural constituency. If she intends to continue in national politics, she may very well count on them for support. But that's it.
As we have seen during and after the 2008 election, Palin can be a tremendous embarrassment outside this cohesive but small group. Americans are not big advocates these days about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; dealing with Russia from Alaska's waterfront is discredited; gay marriage is rapidly becoming a non-issue except to the hardcore religious right (with hetero marriage sinking of it's own weight among legislators); "Abstinence Only" sex ed is laughable when uttered on the same breath as "Palin."
Rush Limbaugh is a paper-tiger drug-addict bully to those outside his ditto-head followers; Newt Gingrich is a serially adulterous failed political insider. Palin could join them in a dream triumvirate on talk radio. Maybe Pat Robertson, who blamed the 9/11 attacks on American immorality, could make it an even foursome. Might that be Palin's secret desire?
Without her selection, in despiration, by John McCain as her running-mate in 2008, she would have continued relatively unrecognized as a parochial governor who owed her election to factors totally unrelated to issues of long-term importance to either Alaska or the country. Her election as mayor of Wasilla was due to her raising of social and partisan issues in an election that had traditionally been what most mayoral elections are about: the running of city government and constituent services. At the time of this election, and her later election as governor, Alaskans were living in the never-never land of fortuitous oil revenue. To her credit, she was able to make oil companies pay out large chunks of money for the privilege of making huger sums from Alaskan oil. Of course, they got back their investment in spades both from these oil revenues and from her and her party's enthusiastic advocacy of "drill baby drill."
As governor, Palin continued, until the recent Republican recession, to live off the belief that she was responsible for Alaska's prosperity. A variation of Texan Jim Hightower's famous quote certainly applies here: (She) was born on third base and (everyone) thinks (s)he hit a triple. (Sometimes attributed to Ann Richards of Texas.)
Now that times are tough, even in Alaska, and call for someone with knowledge, imagination, and real political astuteness, Mrs. Palin's deficiences are all too apparent. Even to Alaskans it is becoming clear that she and her husband have treated Alaska as a personal fiefdom and political base, and have actually little to offer programatically. This alone provides proximate cause for her resignation.
So, does Sarah Palin have a national political future? Almost certainly a very limited one. The Republican party has a very loud, unified, and stubborn group which clings to backwards-looking social policies, and failed economic ones. Given control of both houses of congress and the presidency, and a slinking, cowardly opposition party, they have produced an economic disaster unequalled since the Great Depression. The demographics are against them -- even earlier than pundits had anticipated. Yet, like the Bourbons of the 18th century, they have learned nothing and forget nothing. This is Palin's natural constituency. If she intends to continue in national politics, she may very well count on them for support. But that's it.
As we have seen during and after the 2008 election, Palin can be a tremendous embarrassment outside this cohesive but small group. Americans are not big advocates these days about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; dealing with Russia from Alaska's waterfront is discredited; gay marriage is rapidly becoming a non-issue except to the hardcore religious right (with hetero marriage sinking of it's own weight among legislators); "Abstinence Only" sex ed is laughable when uttered on the same breath as "Palin."
Rush Limbaugh is a paper-tiger drug-addict bully to those outside his ditto-head followers; Newt Gingrich is a serially adulterous failed political insider. Palin could join them in a dream triumvirate on talk radio. Maybe Pat Robertson, who blamed the 9/11 attacks on American immorality, could make it an even foursome. Might that be Palin's secret desire?
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Coup in Honduras
Most discussions of the ouster of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya rightfully deplore the fact that it was engineered by the military. The long and sad history of military coups in South and Central America -- often aided and abetted by the CIA and other American agencies -- makes this concern quite natural. However, there is another aspect which should be considered.
By many accounts, the attempt by Zelaya to extend his term via public referendum is illegal. This is based on reports that the Honduran Supreme Court has declared that such a referendum is unconstitutional. I don't have access to the constitution of Honduras, but it would be enlightening if someone could provide a legal analysis of this.
The four-year term limit on the presidency in Honduras seems unusually short. It is eight (two terms) in the U.S., but not without some controversy, since this was enacted fairly recently in the 22 Amendment -- ratified in 1951 mostly in reaction, by his enemies, to FDR's four elected terms. On the other hand, it is my general opinion that the world suffers more from strong executives than from the opposite. Hyperthyoidal presidents have tended to be nationalistic and war-mongering. The theory of "the unitary presidency", most recently pushed by Dick Cheney and company, may possibly be only slightly less dangerous than the military coup, especially in a very strong country such as the US, capable of creating much military mischief. But even in weaker countries of this hemisphere, strong "presidencies" have simply been hidden dictatorships. That is why the more recent democratic constitutions in these countries have strongly limited presidential terms to four or six years.
President Obama has probably taken about the correct stance on this: deploring the coup but not threatening or advocating action to restore Zelaya. At this point in history -- and with the backdrop of our regrettable history in the "Americas" -- it is best to take a hands-off policy.
By many accounts, the attempt by Zelaya to extend his term via public referendum is illegal. This is based on reports that the Honduran Supreme Court has declared that such a referendum is unconstitutional. I don't have access to the constitution of Honduras, but it would be enlightening if someone could provide a legal analysis of this.
The four-year term limit on the presidency in Honduras seems unusually short. It is eight (two terms) in the U.S., but not without some controversy, since this was enacted fairly recently in the 22 Amendment -- ratified in 1951 mostly in reaction, by his enemies, to FDR's four elected terms. On the other hand, it is my general opinion that the world suffers more from strong executives than from the opposite. Hyperthyoidal presidents have tended to be nationalistic and war-mongering. The theory of "the unitary presidency", most recently pushed by Dick Cheney and company, may possibly be only slightly less dangerous than the military coup, especially in a very strong country such as the US, capable of creating much military mischief. But even in weaker countries of this hemisphere, strong "presidencies" have simply been hidden dictatorships. That is why the more recent democratic constitutions in these countries have strongly limited presidential terms to four or six years.
President Obama has probably taken about the correct stance on this: deploring the coup but not threatening or advocating action to restore Zelaya. At this point in history -- and with the backdrop of our regrettable history in the "Americas" -- it is best to take a hands-off policy.
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