Too late: The Dems caved in to Lieberman.
Not too late: Don't cave in to Nelson.
Time to negotiate with rational people: Snowe and Collins, as I've said before. There's not much left of healthcare "reform" but we need to pass it to keep Obama from lameduck-hood.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Traitor Joe again
I guess I've said it a lot, but it bears repeating: jettison Lieberman. He is unreasonable, sanctimonious and undependable, and should have been subject to party discipline more than a year ago when he became a McCain supporter. What set this off is Lieberman just announcing that he'll vote to scuttle healthcare reform if it includes the option of letting uninsured people age 55-65 buying in, at full cost, to Medicare. This is exactly an option that Lieberman unequivocally supported barely 3 months ago, as you can see from this video. What a scoundrel!
Of course, the Senate Democrats have all but abandoned the "reform" in healthcare reform -- what else could they do when they established their willingness, from the beginning, to cave in on anything that would discomfit the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. As I've said before, this bill is now all about not embarrassing Obama and making him a lame-duck president after just a year in office. (Lame duck because it will guarantee that the opposition will defeat him via the pseudo-fillibuster on anything that matters.) This would give the G.O.P. reactionaries a propaganda advantage in the minds of the forgetful public; the party of the rich and powerful has been exactly about one thing: destroying Obama at all and any cost.
In connection with this, one can not underestimate the importance of fighting the resurgence of the Big Lie: the current recession is the fault of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and environmentalism and income taxes and Medicare and other "liberal" policies. You can read it in the WSJ editorial page or the Hannity Forum on the Web etc. It's as if A.I.G. and unregulated derivatives and subprime loans had never existed. T.A.R.P., started under Bush, is now somehow, in this revisionist view, an Obama program. The war in Iraq is rarely mentioned, and Obama will be criticized for anything that happens there or in Afghanistan -- wars that were both started and bungled by the Bush administration.
Of course, the Democrats are only marginally better, as a party, than the other one. Clinton and many of his economic advisors (e.g. Rubin, Geitner and Summers) were big advocates of deregulation, as was Alan Greenspan, whom Clinton never disputed. Goldman-Sachs, then as now, has been a shadow Council of Economic Advisors. However, the missteps of Clinton and company were done over in spades during 8 years of Bush-Cheney. Unfortunately, the public seems to have a memory of only a few months, so it doesn't seem to matter who did what.
Unless and until the Democrats have some sort of party principles and some sort of party discipline, they will be ineffective, either as a majority or as an opposition. Which brings me back to Lieberman. Apparently at Obama's request, he was brought back into the Democratic caucus without losing his coveted chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. This move was unpopular among rank and file Democrats then, and is even more so now -- see a new poll reported by The Atlantic. If the healthcare bill fails, it is essential, essential, that he lose his chairmanship, be purged from the majority caucus, and be publicly condemned as the major culprit in the demise of universal healthcare. The people of Connecticut (one of the wealthiest states) should have to pay, by the loss of his power, for re-electing him after he lost the Democratic primary. In a democracy, actions at the ballot box must have collective consequences.
I still think the Dems will get a healthcare bill through, but even if it passes, it will be a mostly hollow bill, enriching the insurance industry, and largely because of Lieberman's obstructionism.
I'll have more to say about Ben Nelson and the anti-abortion crowd later.
Of course, the Senate Democrats have all but abandoned the "reform" in healthcare reform -- what else could they do when they established their willingness, from the beginning, to cave in on anything that would discomfit the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. As I've said before, this bill is now all about not embarrassing Obama and making him a lame-duck president after just a year in office. (Lame duck because it will guarantee that the opposition will defeat him via the pseudo-fillibuster on anything that matters.) This would give the G.O.P. reactionaries a propaganda advantage in the minds of the forgetful public; the party of the rich and powerful has been exactly about one thing: destroying Obama at all and any cost.
In connection with this, one can not underestimate the importance of fighting the resurgence of the Big Lie: the current recession is the fault of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and environmentalism and income taxes and Medicare and other "liberal" policies. You can read it in the WSJ editorial page or the Hannity Forum on the Web etc. It's as if A.I.G. and unregulated derivatives and subprime loans had never existed. T.A.R.P., started under Bush, is now somehow, in this revisionist view, an Obama program. The war in Iraq is rarely mentioned, and Obama will be criticized for anything that happens there or in Afghanistan -- wars that were both started and bungled by the Bush administration.
Of course, the Democrats are only marginally better, as a party, than the other one. Clinton and many of his economic advisors (e.g. Rubin, Geitner and Summers) were big advocates of deregulation, as was Alan Greenspan, whom Clinton never disputed. Goldman-Sachs, then as now, has been a shadow Council of Economic Advisors. However, the missteps of Clinton and company were done over in spades during 8 years of Bush-Cheney. Unfortunately, the public seems to have a memory of only a few months, so it doesn't seem to matter who did what.
Unless and until the Democrats have some sort of party principles and some sort of party discipline, they will be ineffective, either as a majority or as an opposition. Which brings me back to Lieberman. Apparently at Obama's request, he was brought back into the Democratic caucus without losing his coveted chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. This move was unpopular among rank and file Democrats then, and is even more so now -- see a new poll reported by The Atlantic. If the healthcare bill fails, it is essential, essential, that he lose his chairmanship, be purged from the majority caucus, and be publicly condemned as the major culprit in the demise of universal healthcare. The people of Connecticut (one of the wealthiest states) should have to pay, by the loss of his power, for re-electing him after he lost the Democratic primary. In a democracy, actions at the ballot box must have collective consequences.
I still think the Dems will get a healthcare bill through, but even if it passes, it will be a mostly hollow bill, enriching the insurance industry, and largely because of Lieberman's obstructionism.
I'll have more to say about Ben Nelson and the anti-abortion crowd later.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Barney Frank and online gambling
It turns out that my congressman Barney Frank, whom I'm generally a fan of, is working hard to legalize online gambling. More precisely, working hard to overturn a law which makes online gambling effectively impossible by forbidding the use of credit cards to pay for it. (There is an exception: online credit card gambling on horse races is currently quite legal.)
This law was passed in the later days of the Bush administration, probably as a gift to his fundamentalist (and anti-gambling) base. Frank is a self-proclaimed non-gambler, but seems to be enjoying his status as an icon of the professional gambling interests. My guess is that they have no other use for him, but they do like his stand on paying gambling debts with plastic. He has also collected more than $50,000 in campaign contributions from these people.
Mr. Frank claims that people should have a right to spend their money on legal activities as they see fit.
Frank's position is OK as a sort of general principle, but of course it can't be taken too literally. After all, it is legal to finance political campaigns, but not legal to give unlimited amounts of money to them -- especially anonymously. (I believe that Frank supports this kind of "campaign finance reform". ) It is also legal to buy alcohol, but not if you are underage or try to drink more in a bar when you have reached the limits of sobriety; in fact, bartenders have been held liable for drunken accidents when they failed to cut off the customers who subsequently caused them. It is also legal to buy legal drugs, but some of them require a doctor's prescription in order to protect people from their potential dangers.
So it is for online credit-card gambling. Unlike cash gambling, where (with some exceptions) you can't spend what you don't have, debts rung up through, say, online plastic poker can quickly max out one or more credit cards. Since credit-card companies regularly give people credit lines well above their ability to pay in a reasonable time, this can have disastrous effects. The main potential victims are compulsive gamblers and younger people with access to their parents' credit cards. I have read of dozens of accounts illustrating this; there must be thousands more that don't get reported. These date from before the enactment of the law that Frank is challenging.
I am not against gambling and I am not against online gambling, even with credit cards. But, something extremely careful must be done to prevent financial disasters from happening to vulnerable people. If credit cards are used, the least that should be required is that they be used only before the gambling is to take place, not to finance that "one last big hand" to make back money just lost -- the Gambler's Ruin. I can see people setting up limited accounts at gambling sites, using credit cards, for a fixed amount of money, and well in advance of play. The sites would have to check the cards' limits and perhaps only allow a certain percentage. The sites would also have to obtain written verification from the owner of the card, via the address associated with the card. This would require, then, that parents acknowledge that their card is being used for gambling purposes. It would also give the card issuers time to check the bona fides of the gambling site. You would think that banks would want to do this, but apparently they may not be currently liable for fraudulent commercial sites.
This is just the beginning. We need a lot of thoughtful preparation before we open up an activity that can lead to much personal harm.
(Just out of curiosity, does anyone know of any other federal law that restricts the use of credit cards in purchasing legal goods or services?)
This law was passed in the later days of the Bush administration, probably as a gift to his fundamentalist (and anti-gambling) base. Frank is a self-proclaimed non-gambler, but seems to be enjoying his status as an icon of the professional gambling interests. My guess is that they have no other use for him, but they do like his stand on paying gambling debts with plastic. He has also collected more than $50,000 in campaign contributions from these people.
Mr. Frank claims that people should have a right to spend their money on legal activities as they see fit.
Frank's position is OK as a sort of general principle, but of course it can't be taken too literally. After all, it is legal to finance political campaigns, but not legal to give unlimited amounts of money to them -- especially anonymously. (I believe that Frank supports this kind of "campaign finance reform". ) It is also legal to buy alcohol, but not if you are underage or try to drink more in a bar when you have reached the limits of sobriety; in fact, bartenders have been held liable for drunken accidents when they failed to cut off the customers who subsequently caused them. It is also legal to buy legal drugs, but some of them require a doctor's prescription in order to protect people from their potential dangers.
So it is for online credit-card gambling. Unlike cash gambling, where (with some exceptions) you can't spend what you don't have, debts rung up through, say, online plastic poker can quickly max out one or more credit cards. Since credit-card companies regularly give people credit lines well above their ability to pay in a reasonable time, this can have disastrous effects. The main potential victims are compulsive gamblers and younger people with access to their parents' credit cards. I have read of dozens of accounts illustrating this; there must be thousands more that don't get reported. These date from before the enactment of the law that Frank is challenging.
I am not against gambling and I am not against online gambling, even with credit cards. But, something extremely careful must be done to prevent financial disasters from happening to vulnerable people. If credit cards are used, the least that should be required is that they be used only before the gambling is to take place, not to finance that "one last big hand" to make back money just lost -- the Gambler's Ruin. I can see people setting up limited accounts at gambling sites, using credit cards, for a fixed amount of money, and well in advance of play. The sites would have to check the cards' limits and perhaps only allow a certain percentage. The sites would also have to obtain written verification from the owner of the card, via the address associated with the card. This would require, then, that parents acknowledge that their card is being used for gambling purposes. It would also give the card issuers time to check the bona fides of the gambling site. You would think that banks would want to do this, but apparently they may not be currently liable for fraudulent commercial sites.
This is just the beginning. We need a lot of thoughtful preparation before we open up an activity that can lead to much personal harm.
(Just out of curiosity, does anyone know of any other federal law that restricts the use of credit cards in purchasing legal goods or services?)
Friday, December 11, 2009
Regulating Wall Street
Since banks and financial institutions are some of the largest contributors to senators and representatives, it is no surprise that these organizations have become less and less regulated in recent times. The last serious attempt to curb their speculative excesses occurred during the grandparent of all financial disasters, the Great Depression. The regulations put into effect then -- including the Glass-Steagall act -- have been gradually but continuously eroded, most rapidly during the Clinton and Bush administrations.
The House just passed (today) Barney Frank's bill to re-regulate certain aspects of the financial industry, including not just banks but "private equity" investment houses. It would, for the first time, regulate derivatives, equities whose worth depends on the speculative value of other securities such as mortgages and insurance policies. It would also set up a kind of consumer protection agency for public investors.
Opposition consists mostly of ludicrous begging of the question, such as the charges that it would add ponderous regulations and expenses for the financial industry. Well duh! The lack of regulation just led us to the loss of trillions of dollars and tens of millions of jobs. Fly-by-night speculators and quick-profit traders have been bailed out and enriched at the expense of the vast majority of Americans. Tough ponderous regulation of their activities is exactly what we need to slow them down. However much regulations may cost to put in place and enforce can only be a tiny fraction of what their absence has cost us so far, and may cost us in the future if we don't have themn.
Part of the bill creates a way of dismantling large organizations deemed "too big to fail." Frank's House committee specified that the cost of doing this, when said businesses seem to be in a death spiral -- as were Bank of America, CitiCorp, AIG etc. not so long ago -- would be paid for by a tax on all financial corporations. Seems fair to me -- especially since, for once, the American taxpayers won't have to foot the bill run up by the Wall Street high flyers.
Let's hope the supporters of the bill can preempt the Big Lie campaign about it that is already being ramped up: "Government Interference", "Anti-Wall-Street, Anti-Business" etc. etc.
You betcha!
(Let's hope it also kills a few jobs -- those of the overpaid corporate CEOs.)
The House just passed (today) Barney Frank's bill to re-regulate certain aspects of the financial industry, including not just banks but "private equity" investment houses. It would, for the first time, regulate derivatives, equities whose worth depends on the speculative value of other securities such as mortgages and insurance policies. It would also set up a kind of consumer protection agency for public investors.
Opposition consists mostly of ludicrous begging of the question, such as the charges that it would add ponderous regulations and expenses for the financial industry. Well duh! The lack of regulation just led us to the loss of trillions of dollars and tens of millions of jobs. Fly-by-night speculators and quick-profit traders have been bailed out and enriched at the expense of the vast majority of Americans. Tough ponderous regulation of their activities is exactly what we need to slow them down. However much regulations may cost to put in place and enforce can only be a tiny fraction of what their absence has cost us so far, and may cost us in the future if we don't have themn.
Part of the bill creates a way of dismantling large organizations deemed "too big to fail." Frank's House committee specified that the cost of doing this, when said businesses seem to be in a death spiral -- as were Bank of America, CitiCorp, AIG etc. not so long ago -- would be paid for by a tax on all financial corporations. Seems fair to me -- especially since, for once, the American taxpayers won't have to foot the bill run up by the Wall Street high flyers.
Let's hope the supporters of the bill can preempt the Big Lie campaign about it that is already being ramped up: "Government Interference", "Anti-Wall-Street, Anti-Business" etc. etc.
You betcha!
(Let's hope it also kills a few jobs -- those of the overpaid corporate CEOs.)
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Major movement on healthcare
Healthcare reform in the Senate is proceeding pretty much as I had expected.., er, hoped. The Office of Personel Management plan, combined with lowering the age for Medicare enrollment, has turned out to be a winner. It looks like both Republican senators from Maine -- Snowe and Collins -- like the idea, as do Democratic waverers Lincoln and Landrieu; even Lieberman seems at least lukewarm.
The next issue is abortion. It is unclear exactly how adament Ben Nelson is about not voting for the bill unless it contains a Stupak-like amendment (the one passed by the House). Nelson's attempt at including such a measure failed, but he hasn't definitively ruled out voting for the bill anyway. Getting Snowe and Collins on board may make the issue moot, however.
Assuming the Dems get 60 votes, the bill still has to be reconciled with the House version, which contains a "public option." I don't think that this will be a problem: the House will go along with the Senate version on this issue. What may be trickier is the Stupak anti-abortion amendment supporters. However, it will be much more difficult for Democrats in the House (who have a commanding majority) to scuttle the bill over abortion once it has already passed the Senate; also, supporters need only a simple majority in the House. I'm sure Obama and the party leaders will put the screws to them.
I make a hopeful guess that the current Senate bill will, in fact, pass narrowly in the Senate -- assuming it gets a reasonable expense report card from the Congressional Budget Office -- and that the House will go along with the Senate version.
Let's keep our fingers crossed.
The next issue is abortion. It is unclear exactly how adament Ben Nelson is about not voting for the bill unless it contains a Stupak-like amendment (the one passed by the House). Nelson's attempt at including such a measure failed, but he hasn't definitively ruled out voting for the bill anyway. Getting Snowe and Collins on board may make the issue moot, however.
Assuming the Dems get 60 votes, the bill still has to be reconciled with the House version, which contains a "public option." I don't think that this will be a problem: the House will go along with the Senate version on this issue. What may be trickier is the Stupak anti-abortion amendment supporters. However, it will be much more difficult for Democrats in the House (who have a commanding majority) to scuttle the bill over abortion once it has already passed the Senate; also, supporters need only a simple majority in the House. I'm sure Obama and the party leaders will put the screws to them.
I make a hopeful guess that the current Senate bill will, in fact, pass narrowly in the Senate -- assuming it gets a reasonable expense report card from the Congressional Budget Office -- and that the House will go along with the Senate version.
Let's keep our fingers crossed.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Obama's speech & healthcare this week
Since I last blogged, about a week ago, we've gone through Obama's speech, healthcare debate in the Senate, gate crashers at the White House, and Tiger Woods' feet of clay. So, OK, here goes.
1. Obama's speech was pretty much as expected, and it doesn't change my arguments for starting to remove our troops; if anything, the situation is worse because now no one (besides John Kerry) seems to think that his plan has any real chance of succeeding. We don't have the money, as the President himself conceded, nor the troops as several generals have pointed out, nor the will to make sacrifices like instituting a war tax. I believe that Obama has made an honest attempt at finding some sort of "middle ground": the problem is that the problem has no middle ground solution. The sop he threw to the anti-war faction -- which now seems to be a majority of people both here and abroad -- is a date for beginning the pullback of forces. If that date does not represent a real commitment to withdraw our troops, as seems to be the case, then we are in for a siege that will not work and that we can't afford. If it is a real commitment, then, as most military experts seem to agree, we can't possibly "win" since our opponents will simply wait us out, while we have no realistic hope of a suddenly revved up Afghan army and police to replace us. And then we still have to face al-Qaeda in Yemen and Somalia.
2. The good news in the healthcare debate is that Olympia Snowe is once again a player. As I've said many times, she is more of a "mensch" than many so-called Democrats, and I think she genuinely wants reasonably-priced universal healthcare, as opposed to nearly all of the other Republicans and Joe Lieberman. She is currently working on a promising plan that may involve the Office of Personel Management becoming a bargaining agent for the uninsured. Since a meaningful "public option" -- much less single-payer -- has long been a dead issue (though still supported by a majority of the public), new ideas are needed and this may be a good one. Most of the discussion is now going on behind the scenes in the Senate. However, if a good compromise plan is worked out, Snowe may bring her Maine colleague Susan Collins into the fold as well, so Lieberman can be left to twist in the wind. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
I hate to say it, but it is becoming clear that we have to support Obama and hope that his programs succeed, simply because, if he badly loses favor either over Afghanistan or healthcare, it will help the party of the rich to regain power and continue in their effort to transfer more wealth to the wealthy. This is not merely a matter of opinion: 8 years of Bush and company have driven this country into a ditch from which we may never be towed. We simply can't afford any more of the same. The Democrats should have been running daily spots reminding people who got us into this mess. It's not too late now; Americans have very short memories...
BTW, each day it becomes clearer that the Republican party has no agenda other than to embarrass and undermine the President. They are now voting to make healthcare more expensive by cutting out cost-saving measures that were put in to make the reform actual reform. The G.O.P. is so beneath contempt, so bankrupt of any positive ideas other than more tax cuts for the wealthy, that I don't think I will even mention them in future blogs. If you want to hear attacks on these bottom-feeders, you might as well tune in to MSNBC.
3. What do White House gate-crashers and Jurassic Park have in common? They both show, one through reality, the other through fiction, that the non-linear world is neither entirely predictable nor controllable. In both cases, the "good guys" had state-of-the-art equipment: cell-phones, motion detectors, psychological profiles for the Secret Service, and a can't-possibly-reproduce all-female dinosaur population for the Jurassic Park scientists. And yet, things just didn't work out.
4. About Tiger Woods: It's been fun reading all the gossip, but there's nothing to say. Too bad people, even rich and famous ones, can't find happiness in their families.
1. Obama's speech was pretty much as expected, and it doesn't change my arguments for starting to remove our troops; if anything, the situation is worse because now no one (besides John Kerry) seems to think that his plan has any real chance of succeeding. We don't have the money, as the President himself conceded, nor the troops as several generals have pointed out, nor the will to make sacrifices like instituting a war tax. I believe that Obama has made an honest attempt at finding some sort of "middle ground": the problem is that the problem has no middle ground solution. The sop he threw to the anti-war faction -- which now seems to be a majority of people both here and abroad -- is a date for beginning the pullback of forces. If that date does not represent a real commitment to withdraw our troops, as seems to be the case, then we are in for a siege that will not work and that we can't afford. If it is a real commitment, then, as most military experts seem to agree, we can't possibly "win" since our opponents will simply wait us out, while we have no realistic hope of a suddenly revved up Afghan army and police to replace us. And then we still have to face al-Qaeda in Yemen and Somalia.
2. The good news in the healthcare debate is that Olympia Snowe is once again a player. As I've said many times, she is more of a "mensch" than many so-called Democrats, and I think she genuinely wants reasonably-priced universal healthcare, as opposed to nearly all of the other Republicans and Joe Lieberman. She is currently working on a promising plan that may involve the Office of Personel Management becoming a bargaining agent for the uninsured. Since a meaningful "public option" -- much less single-payer -- has long been a dead issue (though still supported by a majority of the public), new ideas are needed and this may be a good one. Most of the discussion is now going on behind the scenes in the Senate. However, if a good compromise plan is worked out, Snowe may bring her Maine colleague Susan Collins into the fold as well, so Lieberman can be left to twist in the wind. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
I hate to say it, but it is becoming clear that we have to support Obama and hope that his programs succeed, simply because, if he badly loses favor either over Afghanistan or healthcare, it will help the party of the rich to regain power and continue in their effort to transfer more wealth to the wealthy. This is not merely a matter of opinion: 8 years of Bush and company have driven this country into a ditch from which we may never be towed. We simply can't afford any more of the same. The Democrats should have been running daily spots reminding people who got us into this mess. It's not too late now; Americans have very short memories...
BTW, each day it becomes clearer that the Republican party has no agenda other than to embarrass and undermine the President. They are now voting to make healthcare more expensive by cutting out cost-saving measures that were put in to make the reform actual reform. The G.O.P. is so beneath contempt, so bankrupt of any positive ideas other than more tax cuts for the wealthy, that I don't think I will even mention them in future blogs. If you want to hear attacks on these bottom-feeders, you might as well tune in to MSNBC.
3. What do White House gate-crashers and Jurassic Park have in common? They both show, one through reality, the other through fiction, that the non-linear world is neither entirely predictable nor controllable. In both cases, the "good guys" had state-of-the-art equipment: cell-phones, motion detectors, psychological profiles for the Secret Service, and a can't-possibly-reproduce all-female dinosaur population for the Jurassic Park scientists. And yet, things just didn't work out.
4. About Tiger Woods: It's been fun reading all the gossip, but there's nothing to say. Too bad people, even rich and famous ones, can't find happiness in their families.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Guns and Butter but no new taxes -- again!
See retired general Douglas Macgregor's short and highly critical analysis of Obama's deployment plans in today's N.Y. Times.
Also in today's Times, Bob Herbert has very fine column, making pretty much the same points I've been making the past few weeks.
Unfortunately, Obama has succumbed to the standard weakness of U.S. presidents: fear of seeming weak and inordinate respect for military theories and the military in general. I'm afraid tonight's speech will be a big disappointment (at least for me). Lyndon Johnson also had big plans for America, domestically (the "Great Society") and in Viet Nam; all he needed was a few more troops, just a few more...
Also in today's Times, Bob Herbert has very fine column, making pretty much the same points I've been making the past few weeks.
Unfortunately, Obama has succumbed to the standard weakness of U.S. presidents: fear of seeming weak and inordinate respect for military theories and the military in general. I'm afraid tonight's speech will be a big disappointment (at least for me). Lyndon Johnson also had big plans for America, domestically (the "Great Society") and in Viet Nam; all he needed was a few more troops, just a few more...
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