4/28/12
Yesterday, we learned that both the Republicans and Democrats want to stop the scheduled doubling of the interest rate on one of the largest government student loan programs from 3.4% to 6.8%. Even the higher rate doesn’t approximate market. Would you loan money, unsecured, to a borrower with no job and, at the time the loan was made, few or no job skills, and who will not begin repaying you for at least for years? The only disagreement between the GOP and the Dems on this issue is how to pay for it, and “paying for it” has never kept our pols from spending any of your money that they had the faintest desire to spend.
We also learned yesterday that Congress is considering making private student loans (i.e., loans made by privates sector entities rather than by the government and not backed by the government) dischargeable in bankruptcy, reversing a 2005 law that made student loans not subject to the bankruptcy laws. The obvious problem with this latest effort on the part of government to help us is that it will discourage private lenders from making student loans and will force those that choose to keep doing so to tighten the terms and increase the cost of those loans. So this effort will turn out to be yet another example of the government’s efforts to address a perceived problem making that problem both real and more acute.
The larger, and perhaps less obvious, problem with both keeping interest rates low on government student loans and making private student loans dischargeable is that these “initiative” are, given the typical pol’s enthusiasm for handing out your money to just about anyone capable of concocting a sob story and/or writing a campaign check, just steps on the roads to forgiving student debt. So those parents who saved and sacrificed to send their kids to school with no, or as little as possible, student debt, those students who worked full or part time to finance their educations, and both students and parents who chose financially sensible schools and marketable majors rather than studying Public Advocacy or Modern Hip-Hop at the “the school of my dreams” will be made to be chumps. Why, parents, did you bother forsaking the nicer cars, home, or vacations in order to put money aside to fulfill one of your responsibilities as parents by financing, or helping to finance, your kids’ education? Why, students, did you bust your hindquarters working at McDonald’s or Starbuck’s 20 or 40 hours a week while carrying an 18 hour class load in, say, Engineering or even a solid liberal arts course of study that would have taught you to write and think and fulfill your role as a responsible, self-governing citizen when you could have been drinking yourself stupid at the bars or hanging out in your dorm room or at the coffee shop (perhaps the coffee shop at which you work) contemplating your navel and cursing the injustices of the capitalist system while pursuing a major in, say, Modern Grievance Nurturing? The federal government will show responsible parents the error of their ways by forgiving the debts of those who would not help their kids with college because, after all, those parents could not bear the ignominy of living in, say, Naperville or Oak Lawn, driving a Ford or Chevy, or having to tell their neighbors in Hinsdale or Kenilworth that little Ogelthorpe goes to the U of I, ISU, or the local community college for a few years when those neighbors’ children go to the highly exclusive Snuffy SnotNose U. You students who worked both inside and outside the classroom to graduate with a meaningful degree will also be shown how silly you were when the government rewards those students who chose having a good time over working; why bother earning money when you can just borrow it cheaply and discharge it altogether due to “inability to pay” (while paying for the expensive apartment and the BMW, of course)?
I can hear the objections already: “Why, not everybody who takes out student loans so that he can use his fungible (probably too big a word for those who would make such an argument, but I digress) funds to buy a Lexus and a place on the lake while sending his kids to UpScale U. Some of these families really need the loans to send their kids to reasonably priced schools.” I agree. Not every borrower is using student loans as yet another means to finance a lifestyle he or she could otherwise not afford. Surely, those who will argue for debt forgiveness will trot out the most pitiable cases when making their pleas for “economic justice.” But I would wager that a very large proportion of those who do take out student loans would not have to do so if their parents would make even the smallest sacrifice, they and their parents chose a lower priced college or university, and/or the student borrower put enough value on his or her education to work at least part time to finance that education. I would further, and perhaps more wholeheartedly, wager that college wouldn’t be as expensive, and therefore, in some cases, inaccessible as it is if student loan money were not so readily available, artificially driving up demand for what we sometimes laughingly call “college education.” And if we want to help those who genuinely cannot afford college (any college) and would benefit from a college education, we could more effectively employ mechanisms such as Pell Grants.
Perhaps a larger point needs to be made: When did we decide that everyone has to go to college and that it is the government’s duty to make sure everyone, equipped, motivated, or neither equipped nor motivated, goes to college? What’s wrong with a good job in the trades? We could use more skilled tradespeople who can actually employ a little sound reasoning and do a little math; we have enough performing arts graduates who can’t.
As it is, though, we are headed toward insuring everyone gets a “college education,” and the inflated expectations that come with it, and forgiving the loans of those parents and students who decided to borrow, and perhaps bet on some kind of forgiveness scheme, rather than make the sacrifices necessary to finance their educations on their own dimes. And we will slap those who financed their, or their kids’, educations in the face by, ultimately, forcing them to pick up the tab not only for their own educations but for those of their neighbors who, in many cases, live better than they do. This is how we treat those who work hard, sacrifice, and save in this country. And then we wonder why we get so little hard work, sacrifice, and, especially, saving in this country.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
WHEN WE LIVED IN BOSTON I DID LIKE THE TRUMP SHUTTLE
4/27/12
Today, those of us who were anywhere near a television news program witnessed the space shuttle Enterprise, on its common perch on the back of a NASA 747, doing a fly-by in New York City on its way to its permanent home on the U.S.S. Intrepid Museum in the Hudson River. The crowds on the ground cheered, and even I have to admit that it was an impressive sight.
But one has to ask: For what were the crowds cheering? I know what I would be cheering for, and I hope, and suspect, that many in the crowd were cheering for the same thing, i.e., that the shuttle program, which for decades almost literally burned taxpayer money, is finally, mercifully dead. What more perfect metaphor can there be for the wastefulness of government than this space jalopy, a veritable showcase of ‘60s and ‘70s technology, incinerating billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars to do the same thing over and over again with few discernible results? How many times did we need to hundreds of millions to watch a bunch of guys floating around and waving at the cameras while taking a break from doing some eight grader’s science project? Okay, maybe some of the experiments conducted on the shuttle are meritorious, but couldn’t they be done on earth much more cheaply and just, or nearly, as effectively? We’ve been orbiting the planet for more than 50 years now; what else is there to do on these repetitious and redundant missions? What else is there to see on these familiar orbital exercises in fulsome and feckless fiscal foppery? Couldn’t that money be better spent elsewhere, perhaps in more productive, and cheaper, unmanned deep space probes or simply keeping the money in the taxpayers’ pockets? Well, yes, but then the aerospace contractors who do so much to finance our politicians’ lifelong exercise in self-aggrandizement would not have quite as big a place at the government trough.
One hears several counters to this anti-shuttle argument that transcend the familiar “Why do you hate America?” line of reasoning one encounters when one suggests forgoing yet another senseless bacchanal on the taxpayers’ dimes in favor of returning to the spirit and intentions of our founding fathers. Some will ask where my sense of adventure is. Admittedly, at my age, I am not one who craves much adventure. But I have to ask even those who go for that sort of thing how much adventure there is in circling the earth over and over and over again. Wouldn’t it be more adventurous, indeed isn’t it more adventurous, to go into deep space and learn about the outer reaches of our solar system and beyond? Indeed, we can do that, and are doing that, much more cheaply than these increasingly banausic shuttle missions that did little, if anything, to stretch man’s imagination. But don’t we need to have people aboard our space shots in order for us to truly indulge our sense of adventure? The best answer to that question is another question: Why? But let’s suppose we do need people aboard to make it, I suppose, fun or adventurous or something like that. We have several private groups, including James Cameron and a few of his billionaire pals, who want to finance manned missions to the asteroids in order to mine gold at a cost of brazillions per ounce. If they want to fritter away their dough indulging their sense of adventure, more power to them, unless, of course, this is some kind of feint to secure their own place at the federal trough. These private groups will doubtless spend their own money more wisely, and productively, than NASA would spend yours, admittedly a pretty low bar. Why do we need to blow my, and your, money on such indulgences?
Second, people will point to all the technological advances, like, say, Velcro, that came about as by-products of the space program. Certainly Velcro, and perhaps many less mundane by-products of space exploration, is useful, but do the words “cost-benefit analysis” have any meaning any more? Was it worth the billions we have blown on the shuttle program to get Velcro and anything else the shuttle program has produced beyond silly news footage? Couldn’t all this stuff have been produced more cheaply? That is a completely rhetorical question.
Third, some will argue that, in the great scheme of things, the space shuttle program didn’t cost that much. What’s another billion and a half or so per flight in the context of a $3.6 trillion federal budget? The immediate answer is a lot of money, but even if we have become so inured to brobdingnagian levels of federal spending that a few billion doesn’t sound like a lot of money, the “drop in the ocean” argument says a lot more about the overall level of federal spending than it does about the relative pittance it has made of one of its very expensive components. Further, I would remind those who dismiss saving a little money because doing so does not save a lot money that those who are millionaires did not get that way because a million dollars dropped into their lap, or even because they busted their hindquarters and earned a million dollars all at once; great sums of money are accumulated by saving small sums of money. And great savings are achieved by myriad repetitions of small savings. The “It only costs (insert amount that those who want to spend it consider small, especially if it’s not their money), so why not go ahead and spend it?” argument gets very self-indicting, and very expensive, very quickly.
So yes, cheer for the space shuttle…cheer that one of the most salient examples of wasteful, pointless government spending has finally stopped doing its part to impoverish our country.
Today, those of us who were anywhere near a television news program witnessed the space shuttle Enterprise, on its common perch on the back of a NASA 747, doing a fly-by in New York City on its way to its permanent home on the U.S.S. Intrepid Museum in the Hudson River. The crowds on the ground cheered, and even I have to admit that it was an impressive sight.
But one has to ask: For what were the crowds cheering? I know what I would be cheering for, and I hope, and suspect, that many in the crowd were cheering for the same thing, i.e., that the shuttle program, which for decades almost literally burned taxpayer money, is finally, mercifully dead. What more perfect metaphor can there be for the wastefulness of government than this space jalopy, a veritable showcase of ‘60s and ‘70s technology, incinerating billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars to do the same thing over and over again with few discernible results? How many times did we need to hundreds of millions to watch a bunch of guys floating around and waving at the cameras while taking a break from doing some eight grader’s science project? Okay, maybe some of the experiments conducted on the shuttle are meritorious, but couldn’t they be done on earth much more cheaply and just, or nearly, as effectively? We’ve been orbiting the planet for more than 50 years now; what else is there to do on these repetitious and redundant missions? What else is there to see on these familiar orbital exercises in fulsome and feckless fiscal foppery? Couldn’t that money be better spent elsewhere, perhaps in more productive, and cheaper, unmanned deep space probes or simply keeping the money in the taxpayers’ pockets? Well, yes, but then the aerospace contractors who do so much to finance our politicians’ lifelong exercise in self-aggrandizement would not have quite as big a place at the government trough.
One hears several counters to this anti-shuttle argument that transcend the familiar “Why do you hate America?” line of reasoning one encounters when one suggests forgoing yet another senseless bacchanal on the taxpayers’ dimes in favor of returning to the spirit and intentions of our founding fathers. Some will ask where my sense of adventure is. Admittedly, at my age, I am not one who craves much adventure. But I have to ask even those who go for that sort of thing how much adventure there is in circling the earth over and over and over again. Wouldn’t it be more adventurous, indeed isn’t it more adventurous, to go into deep space and learn about the outer reaches of our solar system and beyond? Indeed, we can do that, and are doing that, much more cheaply than these increasingly banausic shuttle missions that did little, if anything, to stretch man’s imagination. But don’t we need to have people aboard our space shots in order for us to truly indulge our sense of adventure? The best answer to that question is another question: Why? But let’s suppose we do need people aboard to make it, I suppose, fun or adventurous or something like that. We have several private groups, including James Cameron and a few of his billionaire pals, who want to finance manned missions to the asteroids in order to mine gold at a cost of brazillions per ounce. If they want to fritter away their dough indulging their sense of adventure, more power to them, unless, of course, this is some kind of feint to secure their own place at the federal trough. These private groups will doubtless spend their own money more wisely, and productively, than NASA would spend yours, admittedly a pretty low bar. Why do we need to blow my, and your, money on such indulgences?
Second, people will point to all the technological advances, like, say, Velcro, that came about as by-products of the space program. Certainly Velcro, and perhaps many less mundane by-products of space exploration, is useful, but do the words “cost-benefit analysis” have any meaning any more? Was it worth the billions we have blown on the shuttle program to get Velcro and anything else the shuttle program has produced beyond silly news footage? Couldn’t all this stuff have been produced more cheaply? That is a completely rhetorical question.
Third, some will argue that, in the great scheme of things, the space shuttle program didn’t cost that much. What’s another billion and a half or so per flight in the context of a $3.6 trillion federal budget? The immediate answer is a lot of money, but even if we have become so inured to brobdingnagian levels of federal spending that a few billion doesn’t sound like a lot of money, the “drop in the ocean” argument says a lot more about the overall level of federal spending than it does about the relative pittance it has made of one of its very expensive components. Further, I would remind those who dismiss saving a little money because doing so does not save a lot money that those who are millionaires did not get that way because a million dollars dropped into their lap, or even because they busted their hindquarters and earned a million dollars all at once; great sums of money are accumulated by saving small sums of money. And great savings are achieved by myriad repetitions of small savings. The “It only costs (insert amount that those who want to spend it consider small, especially if it’s not their money), so why not go ahead and spend it?” argument gets very self-indicting, and very expensive, very quickly.
So yes, cheer for the space shuttle…cheer that one of the most salient examples of wasteful, pointless government spending has finally stopped doing its part to impoverish our country.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
AN ARCTIC COLD FRONT PREDICTED FOR HELL!
4/24/12
As loyal readers might suspect, I have been looking long and hard at Illinois Governor Pat Quinn’s (no relation) plan to reduce the Prairie State’s pension liability. Given that the plan was concocted by Governor Quinn (no relation), there has to be at least something in there I don’t like. I haven’t yet found anything yet. I’m sure we all will, before this thing is over, hear lots of largely gormless “Nixon to China” parallels, and there may be something to such analogies. Still, how can Governor Quinn (no relation) and I agree on anything, other than the obvious merits of the Catholic League, let alone something as monumental as this proposed legislation? The answer, I must admit, almost forlornly, is that I suppose we can; this is an outstanding proposal that merits the support of anybody who is concerned about the future of our state and especially of those who call themselves conservatives, whatever that means nowadays.
As you doubtless know, the Quinn (no relation) legislation, in very summary form, offers state workers, including teachers in suburban and downstate districts, a new pension plan, the features of which include
--increased contributions by the employees to their pensions,
--annual cost of living adjustments to pensions that are limited to the lesser of 3% or half the rate of inflation,
--a gradual phase-in of a retirement age of 67 years,
--as a means of encouraging public employees to stay on even before the above retirement age is phased in, a delay of cost of living adjustments to pension payments until the pensioner has been retired five years or has reached the age of 67, whichever comes first,
--making cost of living adjustments using simple, rather than compound interest This is a much larger item than it appears at first glance.),
--restricting earned pension years to those years in which the pensioner was on the public payroll. (This provision is designed (We’ll see how it works out in practice.) to forestall the shenanigans which permitted union leaders to count time served working for their union towards their public sector pensions.), and
--a requirement that pensions be funded according to numbers (i.e., mathematics and the actuarial tables) rather than to the whims of the legislator and their henchmen in the executive branch.
To get around the Illinois Constitution’s forbidding “retroactive” changes to pension provisions, the Quinn (no relation) plan allows employees to stay in their current pension plans. But if they do, any increases in their salaries after the choice to stay in the old plan will not result in increases in their pension payments. More importantly, if they opt to stay in the old plans, they will forgo their retiree health care benefits; retiree health benefits are not constitutionally protected. This was a clever, and gutsy, move on Quinn’s (no relation) part.
Taken together, these proposals, according to Quinn’s (no relation) people, will result in full funding of the Illinois public pensions by 2042 , as opposed to the current projection of 80% funding by 2045. More important, reining in pension costs will allow the state to spend money on things other than pensions in the future.
This Quinn (no relation) proposal has received, so far, broad support. Senate President John Cullerton has come out in support. I haven’t seen anything indicating how House Speaker Mike Madigan feels about it. Mr. Madigan may have said something, but I just haven’t seen it, or this could be just another case of the man who runs this state holding his cards very close to his proverbial vest; I’d bet on the latter. And the Republicans, to their credit, for the most part have come out in favor of at least the broad outlines of the proposal, which should come as a surprise only due to the identity of the proposal’s “author,” not due to its substance.
Except…
There are some Republicans who have already declared opposition to the bill. Why? Because there is a provision in the bill that hints, albeit obliquely, that the state will soon require suburban and downstate school districts to pick up the pension costs of their teachers. Currently, the city of Chicago bears the pension costs of teachers in the Chicago Public School system but the state picks up the costs for all other districts. Addressing this curious disparity seems fair, at least to this observer, but some Republicans don’t like this provision at all. Why? Because they presuppose that asking their school districts (Republicans in the Illinois state legislature come almost exclusively from suburban and downstate districts.) to pay their own pension costs seems somehow unfair to these champions of local government and personal responsibility. Not expecting the state to provide them with the free lunch they have come to expect might even result in a property tax increase, and the GOPers feel obligated to stand four square against any tax increase.
There is probably no one more opposed to tax increases than yours truly. But what may be required, in this instance, indeed may not be a tax increase but just some hard choices to be made at the local level, where the Republicans claim they would like as many government choices as possible to be made. Instead of raising taxes to cover the pension costs these districts would have to eventually cover as part of this legislation, perhaps the districts, at their discretion (emphasis mine to make sure those GOPers who are wailing about a possible tax increase as a result of this bill while proclaiming the efficacy of and their fealty to government at the most local level possible can see clearly their utter hypocrisy on this issue), will cut teacher salaries or other programs (Believe me, as a father of students in a fairly typical suburban district, there are PLENTY of programs in a typical suburban school that could easily be cut while having no, or even a positive, effect on the educational experience.) This would result in less government spending, smaller government, and local control of schools, all things the Republicans purport to champion. Should a district decide that it can find no cuts (They just aren’t looking hard enough—MQ) to compensate for the additional expenditure involved in picking up its own pension costs, then there would have to be a property, or other local, tax increase. But that would be the decision of the local school district, not the state.
Further, having the local school districts cover their own pension costs might cause them to be a bit more circumspect when it comes to pensions at the negotiating table. It is amazing how spending one’s own money can cause one to focus on what is being purchased or negotiated. This wonderful adjustment of incentives alone would go a long way toward solving our pension problems.
Again, to their credit, many Republicans, including, it appears, the Republican leadership, in this state are behind Governor Quinn’s (no relation) pension proposals. But that plenty of GOPers are against the proposal simply because it might result in a property tax increase, and only if local officials lack sufficient fortitude to stand up to the teachers’ unions, is testimony to the hypocrisy that is so prevalent among all politicians, but especially to those who wear the Republican brand. They are all for smaller government…until it is one of their oxen that is being gored.
As loyal readers might suspect, I have been looking long and hard at Illinois Governor Pat Quinn’s (no relation) plan to reduce the Prairie State’s pension liability. Given that the plan was concocted by Governor Quinn (no relation), there has to be at least something in there I don’t like. I haven’t yet found anything yet. I’m sure we all will, before this thing is over, hear lots of largely gormless “Nixon to China” parallels, and there may be something to such analogies. Still, how can Governor Quinn (no relation) and I agree on anything, other than the obvious merits of the Catholic League, let alone something as monumental as this proposed legislation? The answer, I must admit, almost forlornly, is that I suppose we can; this is an outstanding proposal that merits the support of anybody who is concerned about the future of our state and especially of those who call themselves conservatives, whatever that means nowadays.
As you doubtless know, the Quinn (no relation) legislation, in very summary form, offers state workers, including teachers in suburban and downstate districts, a new pension plan, the features of which include
--increased contributions by the employees to their pensions,
--annual cost of living adjustments to pensions that are limited to the lesser of 3% or half the rate of inflation,
--a gradual phase-in of a retirement age of 67 years,
--as a means of encouraging public employees to stay on even before the above retirement age is phased in, a delay of cost of living adjustments to pension payments until the pensioner has been retired five years or has reached the age of 67, whichever comes first,
--making cost of living adjustments using simple, rather than compound interest This is a much larger item than it appears at first glance.),
--restricting earned pension years to those years in which the pensioner was on the public payroll. (This provision is designed (We’ll see how it works out in practice.) to forestall the shenanigans which permitted union leaders to count time served working for their union towards their public sector pensions.), and
--a requirement that pensions be funded according to numbers (i.e., mathematics and the actuarial tables) rather than to the whims of the legislator and their henchmen in the executive branch.
To get around the Illinois Constitution’s forbidding “retroactive” changes to pension provisions, the Quinn (no relation) plan allows employees to stay in their current pension plans. But if they do, any increases in their salaries after the choice to stay in the old plan will not result in increases in their pension payments. More importantly, if they opt to stay in the old plans, they will forgo their retiree health care benefits; retiree health benefits are not constitutionally protected. This was a clever, and gutsy, move on Quinn’s (no relation) part.
Taken together, these proposals, according to Quinn’s (no relation) people, will result in full funding of the Illinois public pensions by 2042 , as opposed to the current projection of 80% funding by 2045. More important, reining in pension costs will allow the state to spend money on things other than pensions in the future.
This Quinn (no relation) proposal has received, so far, broad support. Senate President John Cullerton has come out in support. I haven’t seen anything indicating how House Speaker Mike Madigan feels about it. Mr. Madigan may have said something, but I just haven’t seen it, or this could be just another case of the man who runs this state holding his cards very close to his proverbial vest; I’d bet on the latter. And the Republicans, to their credit, for the most part have come out in favor of at least the broad outlines of the proposal, which should come as a surprise only due to the identity of the proposal’s “author,” not due to its substance.
Except…
There are some Republicans who have already declared opposition to the bill. Why? Because there is a provision in the bill that hints, albeit obliquely, that the state will soon require suburban and downstate school districts to pick up the pension costs of their teachers. Currently, the city of Chicago bears the pension costs of teachers in the Chicago Public School system but the state picks up the costs for all other districts. Addressing this curious disparity seems fair, at least to this observer, but some Republicans don’t like this provision at all. Why? Because they presuppose that asking their school districts (Republicans in the Illinois state legislature come almost exclusively from suburban and downstate districts.) to pay their own pension costs seems somehow unfair to these champions of local government and personal responsibility. Not expecting the state to provide them with the free lunch they have come to expect might even result in a property tax increase, and the GOPers feel obligated to stand four square against any tax increase.
There is probably no one more opposed to tax increases than yours truly. But what may be required, in this instance, indeed may not be a tax increase but just some hard choices to be made at the local level, where the Republicans claim they would like as many government choices as possible to be made. Instead of raising taxes to cover the pension costs these districts would have to eventually cover as part of this legislation, perhaps the districts, at their discretion (emphasis mine to make sure those GOPers who are wailing about a possible tax increase as a result of this bill while proclaiming the efficacy of and their fealty to government at the most local level possible can see clearly their utter hypocrisy on this issue), will cut teacher salaries or other programs (Believe me, as a father of students in a fairly typical suburban district, there are PLENTY of programs in a typical suburban school that could easily be cut while having no, or even a positive, effect on the educational experience.) This would result in less government spending, smaller government, and local control of schools, all things the Republicans purport to champion. Should a district decide that it can find no cuts (They just aren’t looking hard enough—MQ) to compensate for the additional expenditure involved in picking up its own pension costs, then there would have to be a property, or other local, tax increase. But that would be the decision of the local school district, not the state.
Further, having the local school districts cover their own pension costs might cause them to be a bit more circumspect when it comes to pensions at the negotiating table. It is amazing how spending one’s own money can cause one to focus on what is being purchased or negotiated. This wonderful adjustment of incentives alone would go a long way toward solving our pension problems.
Again, to their credit, many Republicans, including, it appears, the Republican leadership, in this state are behind Governor Quinn’s (no relation) pension proposals. But that plenty of GOPers are against the proposal simply because it might result in a property tax increase, and only if local officials lack sufficient fortitude to stand up to the teachers’ unions, is testimony to the hypocrisy that is so prevalent among all politicians, but especially to those who wear the Republican brand. They are all for smaller government…until it is one of their oxen that is being gored.
“BUT THESE ARE AMERICANS!”
4/24/12
I was nearly shocked as I read the editorial pages of this (i.e., Tuesday, 4/24’s, page A13) morning’s Wall Street Journal and read the following closing sentences of an article entitled “As Goes France,” by Bret Stephens (I say “nearly shocked” because such good sense is not completely foreign to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal; while the Journal’s opinion section has, over the last ten years or so, become little more than the propaganda wing of the War Party, it still manages, probably more frequently than I like to admit, to champion the causes of free men and free markets for which it was a lonely beacon for much of its life, but I digress.):
“Above all, both in France and America, there’s a belief that, as exceptional nations, we are impervious to the forces that make other nations fall. It’s the conceit that, sooner or later, brings every great nation crashing to earth.”
Wow! Mr. Stephens has the intestinal fortitude to stand against the muddle-headed interpretation of American exceptionalism that permeates not only his own paper but also the parties (GOP and War) for which it propagandizes. Amazing. Note that Mr. Stephens was, at least in this article, limiting his observations to economic matters, and especially to the current Franco/American notion that easy money, and the inflation that inevitably accompanies it, is the cure for all that ails the world economy as opposed to a fleeting yet addicting dose of feel-goodism, or feel-not-as-badism, that it genuinely is. Mr. Stephens may or may not, but probably does not, share my wider beliefs on American exceptionalism and I don’t want to put words in his mouth or on his word processor; bear that in mind as I write the rest of this post.
America is, or at least once was until my generation took over and ran threw all the seed corn, and then some, in the pursuit of the hedonism and silliness that characterizes its modern condition, a great nation that has achieved much in the world. But American greatness does not mean that we are somehow super-human and can, as the oft-repeated drivel would have it, “achieve anything we want to achieve because, after all, we are America.” Great, seemingly exceptional, empires and nations have come and gone. They have all come when they had a sense of their limitations and an awareness of both their strengths and their weaknesses. They have all gone when they lost the sense that they had limitations and weaknesses and, for example, came to believe that they could defy the laws of economics through careful planning by the politicians and bureaucrats, spend every dollar they can make or borrow from overseas and still remain prosperous, or impose their wills on nations that had proven to be the graveyards of former empires that were felled by similar hubris.
Those who believe in the chest-thumping, evidence and common sense be damned manifestation of American exceptionalism that seems to permeate much of modern political discourse would do well to consider the last four lines of the second verse of America the Beautiful:
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
Back in the first decade of the 20th century, when Katharine Lee Bates wrote that song, people realized that America actually had flaws and that, since we didn’t know everything, we had to practice the virtue of self-control. And they didn’t love their country any less, and probably far more, than the chest-thumpers who substitute the cry of “American exceptionalism” for rational thought.
I was nearly shocked as I read the editorial pages of this (i.e., Tuesday, 4/24’s, page A13) morning’s Wall Street Journal and read the following closing sentences of an article entitled “As Goes France,” by Bret Stephens (I say “nearly shocked” because such good sense is not completely foreign to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal; while the Journal’s opinion section has, over the last ten years or so, become little more than the propaganda wing of the War Party, it still manages, probably more frequently than I like to admit, to champion the causes of free men and free markets for which it was a lonely beacon for much of its life, but I digress.):
“Above all, both in France and America, there’s a belief that, as exceptional nations, we are impervious to the forces that make other nations fall. It’s the conceit that, sooner or later, brings every great nation crashing to earth.”
Wow! Mr. Stephens has the intestinal fortitude to stand against the muddle-headed interpretation of American exceptionalism that permeates not only his own paper but also the parties (GOP and War) for which it propagandizes. Amazing. Note that Mr. Stephens was, at least in this article, limiting his observations to economic matters, and especially to the current Franco/American notion that easy money, and the inflation that inevitably accompanies it, is the cure for all that ails the world economy as opposed to a fleeting yet addicting dose of feel-goodism, or feel-not-as-badism, that it genuinely is. Mr. Stephens may or may not, but probably does not, share my wider beliefs on American exceptionalism and I don’t want to put words in his mouth or on his word processor; bear that in mind as I write the rest of this post.
America is, or at least once was until my generation took over and ran threw all the seed corn, and then some, in the pursuit of the hedonism and silliness that characterizes its modern condition, a great nation that has achieved much in the world. But American greatness does not mean that we are somehow super-human and can, as the oft-repeated drivel would have it, “achieve anything we want to achieve because, after all, we are America.” Great, seemingly exceptional, empires and nations have come and gone. They have all come when they had a sense of their limitations and an awareness of both their strengths and their weaknesses. They have all gone when they lost the sense that they had limitations and weaknesses and, for example, came to believe that they could defy the laws of economics through careful planning by the politicians and bureaucrats, spend every dollar they can make or borrow from overseas and still remain prosperous, or impose their wills on nations that had proven to be the graveyards of former empires that were felled by similar hubris.
Those who believe in the chest-thumping, evidence and common sense be damned manifestation of American exceptionalism that seems to permeate much of modern political discourse would do well to consider the last four lines of the second verse of America the Beautiful:
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
Back in the first decade of the 20th century, when Katharine Lee Bates wrote that song, people realized that America actually had flaws and that, since we didn’t know everything, we had to practice the virtue of self-control. And they didn’t love their country any less, and probably far more, than the chest-thumpers who substitute the cry of “American exceptionalism” for rational thought.
Friday, April 20, 2012
“OH YEAH, THE CHICKS REALLY DIG ME”
4/20/12
Many of the most pertinent observations about the extracurricular activities of (at this count) eleven secret service agents who were assigned to protect the President at the regional summit in Cartagena, Colombia have already been made. I have two more that, as far as I have seen (but, being an early to bed type, I am not an aficionado of the Leno, Letterman, O’Brien types of shows, so I can’t be sure), have not been made.
First, can you imagine the scene when these guys had to explain to their wives that they are losing their jobs, the source of their families’ livelihoods, because they were consorting with hookers in Colombia? One could guess that one of the obvious dangers; i.e., that their wives could contract some vile disease that their husbands might have picked up from one of his playmates for hire, would be completely eliminated in the wake of the delivery of such news…or at least one would hope so.
Second, the Wall Street Journal reports this (i.e., Friday, 4/20/12 morning):
Some of the men have said that there was heavy drinking and that their inability to speak Spanish caused misunderstanding with women they didn’t know would charge for sex, this person said.
So these guys are so obtuse that they didn’t realize that the women who so willingly went back to their hotel rooms were hookers? And men of such towering powers of observations are charged with the responsibility of protecting the life of the President of the United States?
Should Mr. Romney somehow pull off a victory in November, perhaps he should consider spending some of his own vast fortune to hire his own private security force.
Many of the most pertinent observations about the extracurricular activities of (at this count) eleven secret service agents who were assigned to protect the President at the regional summit in Cartagena, Colombia have already been made. I have two more that, as far as I have seen (but, being an early to bed type, I am not an aficionado of the Leno, Letterman, O’Brien types of shows, so I can’t be sure), have not been made.
First, can you imagine the scene when these guys had to explain to their wives that they are losing their jobs, the source of their families’ livelihoods, because they were consorting with hookers in Colombia? One could guess that one of the obvious dangers; i.e., that their wives could contract some vile disease that their husbands might have picked up from one of his playmates for hire, would be completely eliminated in the wake of the delivery of such news…or at least one would hope so.
Second, the Wall Street Journal reports this (i.e., Friday, 4/20/12 morning):
Some of the men have said that there was heavy drinking and that their inability to speak Spanish caused misunderstanding with women they didn’t know would charge for sex, this person said.
So these guys are so obtuse that they didn’t realize that the women who so willingly went back to their hotel rooms were hookers? And men of such towering powers of observations are charged with the responsibility of protecting the life of the President of the United States?
Should Mr. Romney somehow pull off a victory in November, perhaps he should consider spending some of his own vast fortune to hire his own private security force.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
MARK QUINN TO APPEAR AT THE BOOKIES’ CASH MOB ON THURSDAY, 4/26
4/19/12
The Bookies’ Paperbacks and More on 103rd and Artesian in Chicago (Artesian is one block west of Western; Bookies’ address is 2419 W. 103rd St., Chicago, 60655.) is holding a Cash Mob next Thursday (i.e., April 26) evening from 6:00 until about 8:00. As I understand it, a Cash Mob is a gathering of local authors who discuss and (obviously) try to sell their wares. Since Bookies’ has been carrying both my books (The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics) from the very beginning, I have been asked to participate and have jumped at the opportunity. Hopefully, I will see some of you there.
The Bookies’ Paperbacks and More on 103rd and Artesian in Chicago (Artesian is one block west of Western; Bookies’ address is 2419 W. 103rd St., Chicago, 60655.) is holding a Cash Mob next Thursday (i.e., April 26) evening from 6:00 until about 8:00. As I understand it, a Cash Mob is a gathering of local authors who discuss and (obviously) try to sell their wares. Since Bookies’ has been carrying both my books (The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics) from the very beginning, I have been asked to participate and have jumped at the opportunity. Hopefully, I will see some of you there.
I’LL GIVE YOU A COOKIE IF YOU’LL BE MY FRIEND
4/19/12
Most of us (i.e., those of us who don’t spend most of our time anesthetizing our brains with situation comedies, celebrity news, and the like), and doubtless all of the readers of the Insightful Pontificator and its sister publications, Mighty Insights at Rant Finance,
http://www.rantfinance.com/category/bloggers/mighty-insights/
are tired of hearing about such silliness as where the Romneys put their dog when they traveled (Though I have to admit, as a dog lover, putting a dog in its crate and affixing said crate to the top of a moving vehicle does trouble me more than a bit, but not enough to change my vote.), and Barack Obama’s youthful culinary preference for, or at least adventure in, dog meat. But yesterday, we were treated to what initially appears to be yet another of these piffles but that might say a lot about Mitt Romney, probably not something we didn’t already know but illuminating nonetheless.
Yesterday, while campaigning outside Pittsburgh, the GOP standard-bearer, Mr. Romney was meeting at the Bethel Park Community Center with a group of senior citizens. (I was happy to see that he was meeting with a group of senior citizens who are presumably retired and thus might have the time to serve as living, breathing props for bloviating politicians. Whenever I see a politician speaking in front of, to, or at, a group of (doubtless hand-picked) voters, I often ask myself whether these people have jobs and, if they do, how did they find the time to blow listening to some dandy on a mission of unabashed self-aggrandizement. When a pol meets with senior citizens, I at least have a possible explanation, though even most senior citizens I know have too much to do, and too much self-respect, to fritter away their time serving as extras for carefully staged campaign events, but I digress.) Commenting on the cookies that had been graciously provided for the event, Mr. Romney said to one of the women at the table
“I’m not sure about these cookies. They don’t look like you made them. Did you make these cookies? You didn’t, did you? No. No. They came from the local 7-11 or wherever.”
This turned out to be yet another case when Governor Romney stepped in it; the cookies had been prepared and provided by Bethel Bakery, a very well-regarded small business in the area that apparently produces cookies that are a source of profound pride in the entire area. (I have to remember to stop by Bethel Bakery if I am ever around Pittsburgh again and compare it to the incomparable Iversen’s Bakery on Western Avenue next to the site of the old Lyric Theater in Blue Island. If Bethel is even close, Mr. Romney indeed pulled quite a gaffe. But, again, I digress.) By claiming, without even trying them, that the cookies from Bethel were of 7-11 quality, Mr. Romney indeed touched a nerve.
Why is this important? Wasn’t Mr. Romney just trying to say something nice to the women present, complimenting them on their cookie baking skills? Surely that was his objective. One could argue that such a compliment is rather condescending, but I would venture a guess that none of those present would take it that way.
The big problem is that Mr. Romney was trying to offer such a compliment, convoluted as it was, when none was necessary; i.e., he was quick to say something ingratiating when it was completely unnecessary. He was trying to hard to get people to like him. This is a trait with which I am familiar; I have been, and, hopefully and/or thankfully, to a lesser degree, still am, guilty of such a trait. Many of us are. We say nice things to people that are completely extraneous just so that we can show them that we like them and that we would like them to like us. It’s a common human trait, but it can get annoying. This trait is especially characteristic of politicians. Most of us, as we grow older, wiser, and, to use one of those trite expressions about which I am going to write in the near future, comfortable in our own skins, we less frequently feel the need for such extraneous ingratiation. When we like people, appreciate people, and like their company, we express it in our actions and in those words and expressions of affection that arise naturally; there is no need to come up with artificial, cloying expressions to cement the deal. If they also like us, that is wonderful. If they don’t, that is life. By engaging in such gratuitous activity or banter, we are expressing a troubling desperation to be liked.
This trait is not unique to Mr. Romney or to politicians; in fact, one might say that it is indeed necessary if one is to be a successful politician. But it is not a trait that one should find attractive in one’s leaders. A leader with such a desperate need to be liked is dangerous.
Most of us (i.e., those of us who don’t spend most of our time anesthetizing our brains with situation comedies, celebrity news, and the like), and doubtless all of the readers of the Insightful Pontificator and its sister publications, Mighty Insights at Rant Finance,
http://www.rantfinance.com/category/bloggers/mighty-insights/
are tired of hearing about such silliness as where the Romneys put their dog when they traveled (Though I have to admit, as a dog lover, putting a dog in its crate and affixing said crate to the top of a moving vehicle does trouble me more than a bit, but not enough to change my vote.), and Barack Obama’s youthful culinary preference for, or at least adventure in, dog meat. But yesterday, we were treated to what initially appears to be yet another of these piffles but that might say a lot about Mitt Romney, probably not something we didn’t already know but illuminating nonetheless.
Yesterday, while campaigning outside Pittsburgh, the GOP standard-bearer, Mr. Romney was meeting at the Bethel Park Community Center with a group of senior citizens. (I was happy to see that he was meeting with a group of senior citizens who are presumably retired and thus might have the time to serve as living, breathing props for bloviating politicians. Whenever I see a politician speaking in front of, to, or at, a group of (doubtless hand-picked) voters, I often ask myself whether these people have jobs and, if they do, how did they find the time to blow listening to some dandy on a mission of unabashed self-aggrandizement. When a pol meets with senior citizens, I at least have a possible explanation, though even most senior citizens I know have too much to do, and too much self-respect, to fritter away their time serving as extras for carefully staged campaign events, but I digress.) Commenting on the cookies that had been graciously provided for the event, Mr. Romney said to one of the women at the table
“I’m not sure about these cookies. They don’t look like you made them. Did you make these cookies? You didn’t, did you? No. No. They came from the local 7-11 or wherever.”
This turned out to be yet another case when Governor Romney stepped in it; the cookies had been prepared and provided by Bethel Bakery, a very well-regarded small business in the area that apparently produces cookies that are a source of profound pride in the entire area. (I have to remember to stop by Bethel Bakery if I am ever around Pittsburgh again and compare it to the incomparable Iversen’s Bakery on Western Avenue next to the site of the old Lyric Theater in Blue Island. If Bethel is even close, Mr. Romney indeed pulled quite a gaffe. But, again, I digress.) By claiming, without even trying them, that the cookies from Bethel were of 7-11 quality, Mr. Romney indeed touched a nerve.
Why is this important? Wasn’t Mr. Romney just trying to say something nice to the women present, complimenting them on their cookie baking skills? Surely that was his objective. One could argue that such a compliment is rather condescending, but I would venture a guess that none of those present would take it that way.
The big problem is that Mr. Romney was trying to offer such a compliment, convoluted as it was, when none was necessary; i.e., he was quick to say something ingratiating when it was completely unnecessary. He was trying to hard to get people to like him. This is a trait with which I am familiar; I have been, and, hopefully and/or thankfully, to a lesser degree, still am, guilty of such a trait. Many of us are. We say nice things to people that are completely extraneous just so that we can show them that we like them and that we would like them to like us. It’s a common human trait, but it can get annoying. This trait is especially characteristic of politicians. Most of us, as we grow older, wiser, and, to use one of those trite expressions about which I am going to write in the near future, comfortable in our own skins, we less frequently feel the need for such extraneous ingratiation. When we like people, appreciate people, and like their company, we express it in our actions and in those words and expressions of affection that arise naturally; there is no need to come up with artificial, cloying expressions to cement the deal. If they also like us, that is wonderful. If they don’t, that is life. By engaging in such gratuitous activity or banter, we are expressing a troubling desperation to be liked.
This trait is not unique to Mr. Romney or to politicians; in fact, one might say that it is indeed necessary if one is to be a successful politician. But it is not a trait that one should find attractive in one’s leaders. A leader with such a desperate need to be liked is dangerous.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
“WHO YA GONNA TRUST; ME OR YOUR OWN EYES?”
4/18/12
Today, Mayor Emanuel offered an uncharacteristically, and only very mildly, recalcitrant City Council a few concessions on the Infrastructure Trust that he wanted to have completely rammed down their ultimately never unwilling throats at today’s Council meeting. The concessions include a “detailed mission statement” on each project that the Trust will finance. Given that every “mission statement” yours truly has ever seen, or, indeed, that the corporate or non-profit universe has ever conceived, is a namby-pamby, cutesy-pie, nebulous, vestigial, meaningless piece of dyspeptic pabulum, the existence of such a statement for every project the Trust will finance provides no comfort but serves only to prove that our Mayor comes from the quarters of our society (generally overeducated yuppie types of very limited experience at the strata of the business world that actually does the work for which said yuppie types take credit) that actually think such statements equate with achieving anything. But I digress.
I have so far avoided writing about the Chicago Infrastructure Trust because I have been able to obtain nary a clue as to what this piece of financial Rube Goldbergism is or how it works; I, and everyone else, as far as I can tell, have yet to see even a mildly detailed explanation of its structure or the particulars of its functions. Having had over 30 years of experience in the financial markets, and even having had some experience with (I think) similar funding mechanisms, I am guessing that the Trust will be set up something like a bank, with the private investors putting up some equity, the Trust leveraging that equity, and then conveying the proceeds to the city in one form or the other. (See below.) Or perhaps there will be no leveraging involved; the Trust will simply put up a lot of equity capital and then convey that money to the city and other public entities, but it’s hard to see how much money can be made for the private players under such a scheme. But I am only educatedly (if that is a word, and I don’t think it is) guessing here; I simply don’t know because details are scarce. I suspect details are scare because the people charged with designing the Trust, including the Mayor, don’t completely, or even approximately, understand it, the people designing the Trust don’t want anyone to know the details, or both.
Even with only speculation as to the particulars of the Trust, one can come up with one overriding question, which arises from the concerns raised in the last paragraph regarding conveyance of the funds from the Trust: Why is the Trust necessary? If the Trust is going to lend money to the city and have the loans serviced through either user fees or savings made possible by the investments financed with the trust, why wouldn’t the city and other public entities just go out and borrow the money in the municipal bond market without the middleman of the Trust? Perhaps the Trust is designed to own the assets or infrastructure improvements and lease them to the city. But surely the financial wunderkinds around the Mayor, and Mayor Emanuel himself, with his vast experience in investment banking, know that leasing, depending on how it is structured, is really the same thing as borrowing and is, again, depending on how it is structured, recognized as such by generally accepted accounting principles. And the Trust’s leasing the assets to the city would look an awful lot like the parking meter/Chicago Skyway/downtown parking garage fiascos of the Daley Administration, but that is another can of worms. It looks like Alderman Jason Ervin had it just about right when he stated at this week’s Finance Committee hearing that “It acts, looks, and walks like debt.” To that comment, the only reply he got from city CFO Lois Scott was the typically cryptic “You’re right. It would be, in many ways, like debt.” So why do we need the Trust?
One could answer that the city’s credit rating is so bad that it needs the trust, that presumably will be backed by its participants and thus will be endowed with their credit rating, to borrow the money to lend to the city. But then the Trust is taking some pretty big risks, risks the market is unwilling to take, for which the Trust will certainly expect to be compensated. Or maybe the Trust won’t expect to be compensated and will effectively lose money, or at least forgo potential profits, in this “public/private partnership” of the type of which Mayor Emanuel is so fond, in which he strong arms or cajoles the “private sector” to do the public sector’s bidding and the “private sector” participants go along because they are intimidated by the Mayor and terrified at the prospect of losing their places at the public trough.
While no one is sure of the particulars of the Chicago Infrastructure Trust, one can be sure that it will be yet another manifestation of Rahm Emanuel’s brand of crony capitalism or state directed capitalism in which the nominal private sector does the bidding of the public sector in response to the carrots and sticks that public sector can dole out to the trained seals of the “private sector” that do its bidding.
One suspects that the whole nation will, sooner or later, be the beneficiary, or, more likely, the victim, of Mr. Emanuel’s vision of an all knowing public sector and a completely obeisant “private sector.”
Today, Mayor Emanuel offered an uncharacteristically, and only very mildly, recalcitrant City Council a few concessions on the Infrastructure Trust that he wanted to have completely rammed down their ultimately never unwilling throats at today’s Council meeting. The concessions include a “detailed mission statement” on each project that the Trust will finance. Given that every “mission statement” yours truly has ever seen, or, indeed, that the corporate or non-profit universe has ever conceived, is a namby-pamby, cutesy-pie, nebulous, vestigial, meaningless piece of dyspeptic pabulum, the existence of such a statement for every project the Trust will finance provides no comfort but serves only to prove that our Mayor comes from the quarters of our society (generally overeducated yuppie types of very limited experience at the strata of the business world that actually does the work for which said yuppie types take credit) that actually think such statements equate with achieving anything. But I digress.
I have so far avoided writing about the Chicago Infrastructure Trust because I have been able to obtain nary a clue as to what this piece of financial Rube Goldbergism is or how it works; I, and everyone else, as far as I can tell, have yet to see even a mildly detailed explanation of its structure or the particulars of its functions. Having had over 30 years of experience in the financial markets, and even having had some experience with (I think) similar funding mechanisms, I am guessing that the Trust will be set up something like a bank, with the private investors putting up some equity, the Trust leveraging that equity, and then conveying the proceeds to the city in one form or the other. (See below.) Or perhaps there will be no leveraging involved; the Trust will simply put up a lot of equity capital and then convey that money to the city and other public entities, but it’s hard to see how much money can be made for the private players under such a scheme. But I am only educatedly (if that is a word, and I don’t think it is) guessing here; I simply don’t know because details are scarce. I suspect details are scare because the people charged with designing the Trust, including the Mayor, don’t completely, or even approximately, understand it, the people designing the Trust don’t want anyone to know the details, or both.
Even with only speculation as to the particulars of the Trust, one can come up with one overriding question, which arises from the concerns raised in the last paragraph regarding conveyance of the funds from the Trust: Why is the Trust necessary? If the Trust is going to lend money to the city and have the loans serviced through either user fees or savings made possible by the investments financed with the trust, why wouldn’t the city and other public entities just go out and borrow the money in the municipal bond market without the middleman of the Trust? Perhaps the Trust is designed to own the assets or infrastructure improvements and lease them to the city. But surely the financial wunderkinds around the Mayor, and Mayor Emanuel himself, with his vast experience in investment banking, know that leasing, depending on how it is structured, is really the same thing as borrowing and is, again, depending on how it is structured, recognized as such by generally accepted accounting principles. And the Trust’s leasing the assets to the city would look an awful lot like the parking meter/Chicago Skyway/downtown parking garage fiascos of the Daley Administration, but that is another can of worms. It looks like Alderman Jason Ervin had it just about right when he stated at this week’s Finance Committee hearing that “It acts, looks, and walks like debt.” To that comment, the only reply he got from city CFO Lois Scott was the typically cryptic “You’re right. It would be, in many ways, like debt.” So why do we need the Trust?
One could answer that the city’s credit rating is so bad that it needs the trust, that presumably will be backed by its participants and thus will be endowed with their credit rating, to borrow the money to lend to the city. But then the Trust is taking some pretty big risks, risks the market is unwilling to take, for which the Trust will certainly expect to be compensated. Or maybe the Trust won’t expect to be compensated and will effectively lose money, or at least forgo potential profits, in this “public/private partnership” of the type of which Mayor Emanuel is so fond, in which he strong arms or cajoles the “private sector” to do the public sector’s bidding and the “private sector” participants go along because they are intimidated by the Mayor and terrified at the prospect of losing their places at the public trough.
While no one is sure of the particulars of the Chicago Infrastructure Trust, one can be sure that it will be yet another manifestation of Rahm Emanuel’s brand of crony capitalism or state directed capitalism in which the nominal private sector does the bidding of the public sector in response to the carrots and sticks that public sector can dole out to the trained seals of the “private sector” that do its bidding.
One suspects that the whole nation will, sooner or later, be the beneficiary, or, more likely, the victim, of Mr. Emanuel’s vision of an all knowing public sector and a completely obeisant “private sector.”
Monday, April 16, 2012
HEY, BUT TWO GOALS AREN’T SO BAD
4/16/12
My love for most things automotive and my continuing interest in advertising has caused me to notice the following ad that runs frequently on WBBM Newsradio 78/105.9, the local CBS news affiliate here in Chicago. (I am sure it runs on other stations, and I suspect it runs on WGN, where I suspect I have also heard it, but I know I hear it a lot on WBBM. I can’t quote it because I don’t have a photographic memory, but any difference between my recounting of the ad and the ad itself lies in minutiae rather than the heart of the ad…or of the present matter.):
Check out the Chevy hat trick: Three models that deliver over 40 mpg highway: Chevy Sonic, Cruze Eco, and Volt. Hybrid performance without the hybrid price.
Huh?
One cannot argue with including the Sonic and Cruze Eco in this ad, though one suspects that many drivers will not be able to quite achieve 40 mpg in those cars, though that probably isn’t Chevy’s fault. But how does one possibly include the Chevy Volt in this ad? How is the Chevy Volt not a hybrid? Okay, I guess that one could split hairs and say that the Volt is not a traditional hybrid, like the Toyota Prius, the hybrid versions of the Toyota Camry, Ford Fusion, or Honda Civic, or, stretching a bit, the Chevy Malibu Eco. Rather, the Volt is a plug-in hybrid, the technology of which differs substantially from that of a traditional hybrid. But even if one permits this rather persnickety and cantankerous objection, the “hybrid performance without the hybrid price” claim goes completely out the window for the Volt. The Volt costs around $41,000, or $33,500 after tax credits. That is MORE than a hybrid price, and don’t even try to tell me something like “more than a hybrid price” is indeed “without the hybrid price;” that is far too artful even for the slicksters of Madison Avenue.
Incidentally, the Volt is not selling well, primarily because of its aforementioned high price. But that’s not the only reason. The car’s interior is cramped. One has to remember to plug it in each night, or more often, unless one wants to have the gasoline engine ultimately charge the battery. (Okay, plugging in a car is not an arduous task, but in modern day America, where convenience is placed at such a premium, another task, even a small one, is not what consumers are seeking.) But perhaps the Volt’s greatest fault is that, once one goes beyond “pure” battery range (25-40 miles, depending on conditions) and starts having the engine run the back-up motor that serves as a generator that charges the battery, the Volt’s mileage advantage drops precipitously. Taking things to extremes, but not outlandish extremes, if one were to drive the car’s entire range electric/gas range of 379 miles (not all that far), the mpg falls to the high 30s to very low 40s. This type of fuel economy is less than that which can be achieved by many hybrids and diesels and can almost be reached by some very fuel efficient conventionally powered cars available here…like the Chevy Sonic and Chevy Cruze Eco, both of which sell for less than half the price of the Volt. Not only, then, is the Volt’s price high but, for any but those who will use it solely as a short distance commuter, its value quotient is alarmingly low. And those who would use the Volt solely as a short distance commuter might be better off with the pure electric Nissan Leaf of Mitsubishi MiEV. Have you noticed, by the way, the attractive lease deals now available on the Volt? Now you know why. But think about it awhile; if one drives few enough miles to make the lease work, the Volt makes even less sense as a value proposition.
So it looks like Chevy, or at least the Chicagoland Chevy dealers, have a misleading, if not downright false, advertisement…and maybe a lemon of a product…on its/their hands.
In Chevy’s defense, though, the Cruze, Eco or otherwise, and the Sonic are good, bordering on great, products; put automatic climate control and a manual transmission in either the Cruze or the Sonic, and yours truly is very interested. Keep the Volt, though.
My love for most things automotive and my continuing interest in advertising has caused me to notice the following ad that runs frequently on WBBM Newsradio 78/105.9, the local CBS news affiliate here in Chicago. (I am sure it runs on other stations, and I suspect it runs on WGN, where I suspect I have also heard it, but I know I hear it a lot on WBBM. I can’t quote it because I don’t have a photographic memory, but any difference between my recounting of the ad and the ad itself lies in minutiae rather than the heart of the ad…or of the present matter.):
Check out the Chevy hat trick: Three models that deliver over 40 mpg highway: Chevy Sonic, Cruze Eco, and Volt. Hybrid performance without the hybrid price.
Huh?
One cannot argue with including the Sonic and Cruze Eco in this ad, though one suspects that many drivers will not be able to quite achieve 40 mpg in those cars, though that probably isn’t Chevy’s fault. But how does one possibly include the Chevy Volt in this ad? How is the Chevy Volt not a hybrid? Okay, I guess that one could split hairs and say that the Volt is not a traditional hybrid, like the Toyota Prius, the hybrid versions of the Toyota Camry, Ford Fusion, or Honda Civic, or, stretching a bit, the Chevy Malibu Eco. Rather, the Volt is a plug-in hybrid, the technology of which differs substantially from that of a traditional hybrid. But even if one permits this rather persnickety and cantankerous objection, the “hybrid performance without the hybrid price” claim goes completely out the window for the Volt. The Volt costs around $41,000, or $33,500 after tax credits. That is MORE than a hybrid price, and don’t even try to tell me something like “more than a hybrid price” is indeed “without the hybrid price;” that is far too artful even for the slicksters of Madison Avenue.
Incidentally, the Volt is not selling well, primarily because of its aforementioned high price. But that’s not the only reason. The car’s interior is cramped. One has to remember to plug it in each night, or more often, unless one wants to have the gasoline engine ultimately charge the battery. (Okay, plugging in a car is not an arduous task, but in modern day America, where convenience is placed at such a premium, another task, even a small one, is not what consumers are seeking.) But perhaps the Volt’s greatest fault is that, once one goes beyond “pure” battery range (25-40 miles, depending on conditions) and starts having the engine run the back-up motor that serves as a generator that charges the battery, the Volt’s mileage advantage drops precipitously. Taking things to extremes, but not outlandish extremes, if one were to drive the car’s entire range electric/gas range of 379 miles (not all that far), the mpg falls to the high 30s to very low 40s. This type of fuel economy is less than that which can be achieved by many hybrids and diesels and can almost be reached by some very fuel efficient conventionally powered cars available here…like the Chevy Sonic and Chevy Cruze Eco, both of which sell for less than half the price of the Volt. Not only, then, is the Volt’s price high but, for any but those who will use it solely as a short distance commuter, its value quotient is alarmingly low. And those who would use the Volt solely as a short distance commuter might be better off with the pure electric Nissan Leaf of Mitsubishi MiEV. Have you noticed, by the way, the attractive lease deals now available on the Volt? Now you know why. But think about it awhile; if one drives few enough miles to make the lease work, the Volt makes even less sense as a value proposition.
So it looks like Chevy, or at least the Chicagoland Chevy dealers, have a misleading, if not downright false, advertisement…and maybe a lemon of a product…on its/their hands.
In Chevy’s defense, though, the Cruze, Eco or otherwise, and the Sonic are good, bordering on great, products; put automatic climate control and a manual transmission in either the Cruze or the Sonic, and yours truly is very interested. Keep the Volt, though.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
“I WISH YOU COULD HAVE COME UP WITH A MORE BELIEVABLE STORY; I FELT DISTINCTLY LIKE AN IDIOT REPEATING IT.”
4/14/12
Following up on yesterday’s post, “MR. PRESIDENT, WE CANNOT ALLOW A MINE SHAFT GAP!”, the War Party and its media organs apparently have neither a sense of shame nor time to reflect on, or edit, their arguments. On page A10 of this weekend’s (i.e. 4/14/12-4/15/12’s) Wall Street Journal, only three pages from a story headlined (page A7) “Pyongyang Admits Rocket Failure,” direly warns, in the continuation, headlined “Military Weighs Iranian Threat” of a page A1 article,
Beyond the waters of the Persian Gulf, military planners worry about Iran’s expanding arsenal of ballistic missiles, built with North Korean cooperation and know-how.” (Emphasis mine)
Iranian intentions are not in question here; both sides of the mullahs vs. Ahmadinejad rift have been perfectly forthright about their desire to destroy our ally Israel (though perhaps Mr. Ahmadinejad has been even more strident in this desire) and only slightly less emphatic in their willingness to wreak havoc among their Sunni Arab neighbors. But before we get all gung-ho about going to war with Iran (Note the GOP debates on this subject, lampooned perfectly, and hilariously, by Peggy Noonan in the same edition of the Journal (page A15).), perhaps we ought to soberly assess the actual capabilities of the Iranians. To the War Party, of course, sober reflection is a sure sign of weakness and treason. But I digress.
And it gets worse. In the aforementioned page A7 article on North Korea’s latest in a series of epic failures in its rocket program, the Journal states the patently ridiculous
Pentagon officials cautioned against assuming the latest failure meant Pyongyang’s advancement toward an intercontinental ballistic missile has slowed.
Huh? The effective explosion of the “weather satellite” bearing rocket a few minutes after its launch has not even slowed the nuclear program of Asian version of the Keystone Kops? Of course not, in the view of those who desperately need to keep the “Korean threat” alive. As the War Party’s most vocal media arm explains, Pentagon spokesman George Little says
“Their (i.e., North Korea’s) recent track record is not good. (Gee, Mr. Little, do you really think so? MQ) This is, in our estimation, their third attempt. We’re not ready to say that somehow the brakes are on North Korean military advancements.”
There is none so blind, one supposes, as he who will not see.
But the news is not all bad; some outside the War Party are noting that the failure of this latest missile launch has indeed thrown a monkey wrench into the North Korean nuclear program, and indeed into the workings of the entire regime, and for reasons transcending the obvious that the War Party refuses to see. Peter Beck, director of the Korea office of the Asia Foundation, is quoted, after noting that the North Korean ruling clique admitted failure this time, and only because they had to, as saying
“They’re (the North Korean rulers) losing their grip on the flow of information in and out of the country. They decided it would be better to get out in front of it rather than having the failure spread through word of mouth.”
The free flow of information is far more fatal to any Communist regime, or any tin-horn dictatorship of whatever variety, than all the billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars the War Party wants us to ladle out to those who fund its members’ lifelong pursuits of self-aggrandizement. That the information about the failure of this latest missile launch attempt would inevitably reach the North Korean people proved far more damaging than the seemingly inevitable failure itself. If we were really serious about toppling the Kim dynasty, rather than financing the reelection campaigns of those in the War Party, we would work more on getting information into North Korea than on “keeping our guard up” through the frivolous expenditure of taxpayers’ money on a military approach to the problem.
Following up on yesterday’s post, “MR. PRESIDENT, WE CANNOT ALLOW A MINE SHAFT GAP!”, the War Party and its media organs apparently have neither a sense of shame nor time to reflect on, or edit, their arguments. On page A10 of this weekend’s (i.e. 4/14/12-4/15/12’s) Wall Street Journal, only three pages from a story headlined (page A7) “Pyongyang Admits Rocket Failure,” direly warns, in the continuation, headlined “Military Weighs Iranian Threat” of a page A1 article,
Beyond the waters of the Persian Gulf, military planners worry about Iran’s expanding arsenal of ballistic missiles, built with North Korean cooperation and know-how.” (Emphasis mine)
Iranian intentions are not in question here; both sides of the mullahs vs. Ahmadinejad rift have been perfectly forthright about their desire to destroy our ally Israel (though perhaps Mr. Ahmadinejad has been even more strident in this desire) and only slightly less emphatic in their willingness to wreak havoc among their Sunni Arab neighbors. But before we get all gung-ho about going to war with Iran (Note the GOP debates on this subject, lampooned perfectly, and hilariously, by Peggy Noonan in the same edition of the Journal (page A15).), perhaps we ought to soberly assess the actual capabilities of the Iranians. To the War Party, of course, sober reflection is a sure sign of weakness and treason. But I digress.
And it gets worse. In the aforementioned page A7 article on North Korea’s latest in a series of epic failures in its rocket program, the Journal states the patently ridiculous
Pentagon officials cautioned against assuming the latest failure meant Pyongyang’s advancement toward an intercontinental ballistic missile has slowed.
Huh? The effective explosion of the “weather satellite” bearing rocket a few minutes after its launch has not even slowed the nuclear program of Asian version of the Keystone Kops? Of course not, in the view of those who desperately need to keep the “Korean threat” alive. As the War Party’s most vocal media arm explains, Pentagon spokesman George Little says
“Their (i.e., North Korea’s) recent track record is not good. (Gee, Mr. Little, do you really think so? MQ) This is, in our estimation, their third attempt. We’re not ready to say that somehow the brakes are on North Korean military advancements.”
There is none so blind, one supposes, as he who will not see.
But the news is not all bad; some outside the War Party are noting that the failure of this latest missile launch has indeed thrown a monkey wrench into the North Korean nuclear program, and indeed into the workings of the entire regime, and for reasons transcending the obvious that the War Party refuses to see. Peter Beck, director of the Korea office of the Asia Foundation, is quoted, after noting that the North Korean ruling clique admitted failure this time, and only because they had to, as saying
“They’re (the North Korean rulers) losing their grip on the flow of information in and out of the country. They decided it would be better to get out in front of it rather than having the failure spread through word of mouth.”
The free flow of information is far more fatal to any Communist regime, or any tin-horn dictatorship of whatever variety, than all the billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars the War Party wants us to ladle out to those who fund its members’ lifelong pursuits of self-aggrandizement. That the information about the failure of this latest missile launch attempt would inevitably reach the North Korean people proved far more damaging than the seemingly inevitable failure itself. If we were really serious about toppling the Kim dynasty, rather than financing the reelection campaigns of those in the War Party, we would work more on getting information into North Korea than on “keeping our guard up” through the frivolous expenditure of taxpayers’ money on a military approach to the problem.
Friday, April 13, 2012
“MR. PRESIDENT, WE CANNOT ALLOW A MINE SHAFT GAP!”
4/13/12
The Hermit Kingdom launched its much vaunted “weather satellite” yesterday. The result was, predictably, merely the latest in a series of colossal failures of the North Korean missile/nuclear program as the rocket effectively blew up less than two minutes into its flight.
The serial failures of North Korea’s thinly veiled ballistic missile program, while beginning to resemble the similar futility of the Chicago Cubs’ attempts at baseball glory, will do nothing to calm the febrile rantings of the War Party in this country, led by the likes of Republican Senators John McCain, John Kyl, and Lindsey Graham, but not limited to the GOP (Note that even “peace candidate” and now President Barack Obama has fully bought into the program; witness our continued presence in Afghanistan, Barack’s excellent adventure in Libya, and, shortly after the upcoming election, our incursions, one way or the other, into Syria. But I digress.), that we must spend more on defense in order to counter the “aggressive actions of rogue states like Iran and North Korea.” Even though it appears that the North Koreans, as a close friend and relative would put it, could “(mess) up a two car funeral,” we must be ever diligent, and ever free with the taxpayers’ increasingly hard earned dollars, if we are to be safe from the modern day Odd Jobs in Pyongyang.
Defense enthusiasts, or those who have simply bought into the War Party line that we must always be strong (i.e., we must always spend trillions) in order to be “safe,” will doubtless cite hyperbolically strained old World War II analogy, reminding everyone that it was the West’s failure to check Nazi aggression that led to the War. Those who make this argument are absolutely right; if, say, France had challenged the Wehrmacht when it remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936, Hitler would in all likelihood have retreated to Berlin with his tail between his legs, soon to be never heard from again. But the analogy is beyond strained because the situations are radically different. France and, to a lesser extent, Britain, had a major, maybe THE major, world power on or near their borders, a power with the industrial capability and military potential to field a devastating military machine. Hitler’s Germany was serious business, but still counterable, in 1936. In 2012 North Korea, we have an impoverished backwater 6,000 miles away, a backwater with such pathetic technological capabilities that it is incapable even of feeding itself. North Korea isn’t a threat to us and is a threat to its neighbors only in the sense that an overserved teenager with the keys to his parents’ car is a threat to his neighbors; North Korea is, rather, either an object of pity or a source of great humor as its caricature of a leader routinely makes a laughingstock of himself on the world stage. Remember the old Saturday Night Live and/or Mad TV skits featuring Dear Leader (and father of the currently reigning crackpot Kim Jong Eun; see my two 12/20/11 posts, WHY DON’T WE JUST INSTALL ANOTHER SYNGMAN RHEE? and I’LL BET PARK CHUNG HEE NEVER TORTURED SMALL ANIMALS!) Kim Jong Il?
A better, but still not very good, analogy would be to the old Soviet Union. In that historical anomaly, we were facing a huge but underdeveloped nation with a political system brimming with inherent and irreconcilable contradictions, incapable of producing a decent car or kitchen appliance or, until Richard Nixon and the American farmer came to the rescue, of feeding itself. And yet our politicians convinced us that, because of the Soviets’ massive military might, we were on the brink of nuclear devastation or the greatest land war in history on the European continent as the Savage Russkies were getting ready to either send us to kingdom come with nukes or overrun Europe in two days. As it turned out, the Russians had no desire, capability, or (probably) both, to perform either of the above dastardly deeds. For example, why do you suppose there was a Cuban Missile Crisis? Because the Russians did not have either sea or air systems capable of delivering a nuclear device to the United States from Russian soil and thus, if they were to counter our multiple layers of delivery systems capable of vaporizing their country in a matter of hours, had to put their vastly inferior systems within a manageable range of the United States.
Military spending enthusiasts will counter that the Russians didn’t have the capability to either invade Europe successfully or attack us with nukes precisely because we were vigilant. But note that the same people, or their intellectual ancestors, were constantly telling us back then that we were woefully unprepared for “Red aggression” back then; remember the Missile Gap, and Qimoy and Matsu, from the Kennedy-Nixon debate (which, by the way, provides further evidence that war hysteria is not the exclusive province of the GOP)? They can’t have it both ways. If we were so woefully unprepared, why didn’t the Soviets incinerate us, or enslave Western Europe? Clearly because, again, they couldn’t do so, didn’t want to do so, or, probably, both.
All this ranting and raving by the War Party about the dangers that face us on the international scene boils down to the need of governments for a bogey-man under the bed. Governments need a bad guy not only to cow their populations but also to keep the defense contractors fat and happy with taxpayer cash so that those contractors can in turn finance the politicians’ endless pursuits of self-gratification and self-aggrandizement. If the American people see the utter ridiculousness of what is being touted as the North Korean threat, the Chinese, Putin era Russia, the radical Islamists, or any number of modern day Snidely Whiplashes will do. We just need an enemy, any enemy, that will somehow make us equate the willingness to spend taxpayer dollars, and squander resources and human blood, with patriotism.
The Hermit Kingdom launched its much vaunted “weather satellite” yesterday. The result was, predictably, merely the latest in a series of colossal failures of the North Korean missile/nuclear program as the rocket effectively blew up less than two minutes into its flight.
The serial failures of North Korea’s thinly veiled ballistic missile program, while beginning to resemble the similar futility of the Chicago Cubs’ attempts at baseball glory, will do nothing to calm the febrile rantings of the War Party in this country, led by the likes of Republican Senators John McCain, John Kyl, and Lindsey Graham, but not limited to the GOP (Note that even “peace candidate” and now President Barack Obama has fully bought into the program; witness our continued presence in Afghanistan, Barack’s excellent adventure in Libya, and, shortly after the upcoming election, our incursions, one way or the other, into Syria. But I digress.), that we must spend more on defense in order to counter the “aggressive actions of rogue states like Iran and North Korea.” Even though it appears that the North Koreans, as a close friend and relative would put it, could “(mess) up a two car funeral,” we must be ever diligent, and ever free with the taxpayers’ increasingly hard earned dollars, if we are to be safe from the modern day Odd Jobs in Pyongyang.
Defense enthusiasts, or those who have simply bought into the War Party line that we must always be strong (i.e., we must always spend trillions) in order to be “safe,” will doubtless cite hyperbolically strained old World War II analogy, reminding everyone that it was the West’s failure to check Nazi aggression that led to the War. Those who make this argument are absolutely right; if, say, France had challenged the Wehrmacht when it remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936, Hitler would in all likelihood have retreated to Berlin with his tail between his legs, soon to be never heard from again. But the analogy is beyond strained because the situations are radically different. France and, to a lesser extent, Britain, had a major, maybe THE major, world power on or near their borders, a power with the industrial capability and military potential to field a devastating military machine. Hitler’s Germany was serious business, but still counterable, in 1936. In 2012 North Korea, we have an impoverished backwater 6,000 miles away, a backwater with such pathetic technological capabilities that it is incapable even of feeding itself. North Korea isn’t a threat to us and is a threat to its neighbors only in the sense that an overserved teenager with the keys to his parents’ car is a threat to his neighbors; North Korea is, rather, either an object of pity or a source of great humor as its caricature of a leader routinely makes a laughingstock of himself on the world stage. Remember the old Saturday Night Live and/or Mad TV skits featuring Dear Leader (and father of the currently reigning crackpot Kim Jong Eun; see my two 12/20/11 posts, WHY DON’T WE JUST INSTALL ANOTHER SYNGMAN RHEE? and I’LL BET PARK CHUNG HEE NEVER TORTURED SMALL ANIMALS!) Kim Jong Il?
A better, but still not very good, analogy would be to the old Soviet Union. In that historical anomaly, we were facing a huge but underdeveloped nation with a political system brimming with inherent and irreconcilable contradictions, incapable of producing a decent car or kitchen appliance or, until Richard Nixon and the American farmer came to the rescue, of feeding itself. And yet our politicians convinced us that, because of the Soviets’ massive military might, we were on the brink of nuclear devastation or the greatest land war in history on the European continent as the Savage Russkies were getting ready to either send us to kingdom come with nukes or overrun Europe in two days. As it turned out, the Russians had no desire, capability, or (probably) both, to perform either of the above dastardly deeds. For example, why do you suppose there was a Cuban Missile Crisis? Because the Russians did not have either sea or air systems capable of delivering a nuclear device to the United States from Russian soil and thus, if they were to counter our multiple layers of delivery systems capable of vaporizing their country in a matter of hours, had to put their vastly inferior systems within a manageable range of the United States.
Military spending enthusiasts will counter that the Russians didn’t have the capability to either invade Europe successfully or attack us with nukes precisely because we were vigilant. But note that the same people, or their intellectual ancestors, were constantly telling us back then that we were woefully unprepared for “Red aggression” back then; remember the Missile Gap, and Qimoy and Matsu, from the Kennedy-Nixon debate (which, by the way, provides further evidence that war hysteria is not the exclusive province of the GOP)? They can’t have it both ways. If we were so woefully unprepared, why didn’t the Soviets incinerate us, or enslave Western Europe? Clearly because, again, they couldn’t do so, didn’t want to do so, or, probably, both.
All this ranting and raving by the War Party about the dangers that face us on the international scene boils down to the need of governments for a bogey-man under the bed. Governments need a bad guy not only to cow their populations but also to keep the defense contractors fat and happy with taxpayer cash so that those contractors can in turn finance the politicians’ endless pursuits of self-gratification and self-aggrandizement. If the American people see the utter ridiculousness of what is being touted as the North Korean threat, the Chinese, Putin era Russia, the radical Islamists, or any number of modern day Snidely Whiplashes will do. We just need an enemy, any enemy, that will somehow make us equate the willingness to spend taxpayer dollars, and squander resources and human blood, with patriotism.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
“I KNEW IT (WASN’T A TRUE FAMILY SEDAN) ALL ALONG…”
4/10/12
GM is in the process of launching the all new 2013 Chevy Impala. As something of a car guy, I am, well, maybe not excited, but interested in the pending unveiling of what, years ago, was the nation’s best selling car. I, like, doubtless most of you, wish GM and Chevy well with this car and anticipate a favorable reception for the car. Given that many SUV drivers, having visited the increasingly wallet straining gas pump far too many times, seem to have come to their senses, but still need plenty of room for their families or just to stretch out in comfort, the large but fuel efficient Impala seems to be in the sweet spot of the market. Further, given the progress Chevy has made with its product line (Let’s not talk about the Volt, which seems, at least at this point, to have been something of a miscalculation, judging from the early sales and reviews.), the new Impala should be one of the better cars in its class.
All that having been said, I was stricken by the 4/4/12 comments of Mark Reuss, head of GM North American operations, regarding the new Impala, as quoted by Reuters:
"You'll get a true family sedan here. We really haven't had a true family sedan since I've been at the company since 1986."
Huh?
My first impression is that Mr. Reuss’s statement is just plain wrong. The “old” Impala, while clearly not the best car in its class, was certainly competitive, especially at its price point. A friend who knows his cars drives one and loves it. Just a few months ago, in my role as most of my friends’ car advisor, highly recommended the Impala to a friend of a friend who was looking for reasonably priced, reliable, relatively fuel efficient transportation for his family. Even if one doesn’t hold the “old” Impala in as high regard as does yours truly, surely the Chevy Malibu, even the “old” Chevy Malibu in the process of being replaced, was fully competitive in its class, nearly, if not actually, the match of the Accord, Camry, Fusion, and Altima. One could make the argument that the Malibu is not a “family” sedan but rather a mid-sized sedan (See the second last paragraph of this screed.), one supposes, but that would be splitting hairs. And if one goes back to 1986, when Mr. Reuss’s tenure began at GM, one could easily cite several, perhaps many, “true” family sedans at GM: LeSabre, G-6, Bonneville (On a personal note, my ’90 Bonneville SSE, which closely resembled the Batmobile but still would have had plenty of room for a family if we had one at the time, was far and away the best car with an automatic transmission I’ve ever owned.), Intrigue, Aurora, Cutlass, 88, Grand Prix…you get the idea. Some of these were not up to the competition, some were, but all were “true” family sedans. At least that’s what I, who knows a few things about cars, thought.
But now Mr. Reuss, who is in a far better position than yours truly to know, is telling us, essentially, that none of the GM family sedans of the last 26 years was a “true” family sedans. Is he telling us they were false family sedans? Or is he telling us they weren’t good cars? One suspects the latter, or at least a lot of readers would interpret his comments that way.
Hmm…
Several disquieting thoughts come to mind.
First, I don’t remember Mr. Reuss or anyone at the General telling us that GM’s former family sedans were not up to snuff. In fact, the advertising and the public comments of GM executives at the time, a group that included Mr. Reuss, indicated that those cars were fully competitive in their segments, even in those instances when those of us who knew a few things suspected that the GMers were figuratively winking at us when saying so. Now Mr. Reuss tells us, effectively, they were lying all along, that those products were not “true” family sedans. So why are we supposed to believe Mr. Reuss now when he says that GM has, for real this time, produced a “true” family sedan in the Impala? One does not have to be as cynical as yours truly to wonder what will happen when the next Impala comes out. Will Mr. Reuss then tell us that this upcoming version of the Impala was not a “true” family sedan all along?
Second, and perhaps not as important, what are we to make of the new Malibu, by all accounts a terrific car, even better than its predecessor, that can stand toe to toe with the Accords, Camrys, and Fusions of the world? Is this car not a “true” family sedan? Is it not a good car? Is it somehow not a worthy car? One suspects that Mr. Reuss and his colleagues would counter with the contention that the Malibu is not a “family” sedan but, rather, a “mid-sized” sedan, but that is a silly, contorted argument.
I get a sense of déjà vu while composing this post. When Oldsmobile first began the introduction of the truly innovative Aurora in 1994, Automobile Magazine quoted one of the muckety-mucks at Olds (I can’t remember the name; it was a long time ago.) as saying (and again, I can’t quote because of the time) that the Aurora’s was the first Olds platform in years that was worth (in his words) a damn. I wrote to the Automobile asking why we were supposed to believe Olds in this instance; after all, they had told us for years how great their cars were but now were telling us that the platforms that formed the basis of those cars weren’t worth a damn. What, I asked, would they be telling about the Aurora’s platform when it came time for it to be replaced? The magazine printed the letter and the head of Olds called me at home. We had a pleasant, but frank, as they say in politics, conversation. I don’t expect the same response from Mr. Reuss or one of his minions in this case, but, were it to come, the feeling of déjà vu would become downright eerie and the reach of the Pontificator would once again amaze me.
GM is in the process of launching the all new 2013 Chevy Impala. As something of a car guy, I am, well, maybe not excited, but interested in the pending unveiling of what, years ago, was the nation’s best selling car. I, like, doubtless most of you, wish GM and Chevy well with this car and anticipate a favorable reception for the car. Given that many SUV drivers, having visited the increasingly wallet straining gas pump far too many times, seem to have come to their senses, but still need plenty of room for their families or just to stretch out in comfort, the large but fuel efficient Impala seems to be in the sweet spot of the market. Further, given the progress Chevy has made with its product line (Let’s not talk about the Volt, which seems, at least at this point, to have been something of a miscalculation, judging from the early sales and reviews.), the new Impala should be one of the better cars in its class.
All that having been said, I was stricken by the 4/4/12 comments of Mark Reuss, head of GM North American operations, regarding the new Impala, as quoted by Reuters:
"You'll get a true family sedan here. We really haven't had a true family sedan since I've been at the company since 1986."
Huh?
My first impression is that Mr. Reuss’s statement is just plain wrong. The “old” Impala, while clearly not the best car in its class, was certainly competitive, especially at its price point. A friend who knows his cars drives one and loves it. Just a few months ago, in my role as most of my friends’ car advisor, highly recommended the Impala to a friend of a friend who was looking for reasonably priced, reliable, relatively fuel efficient transportation for his family. Even if one doesn’t hold the “old” Impala in as high regard as does yours truly, surely the Chevy Malibu, even the “old” Chevy Malibu in the process of being replaced, was fully competitive in its class, nearly, if not actually, the match of the Accord, Camry, Fusion, and Altima. One could make the argument that the Malibu is not a “family” sedan but rather a mid-sized sedan (See the second last paragraph of this screed.), one supposes, but that would be splitting hairs. And if one goes back to 1986, when Mr. Reuss’s tenure began at GM, one could easily cite several, perhaps many, “true” family sedans at GM: LeSabre, G-6, Bonneville (On a personal note, my ’90 Bonneville SSE, which closely resembled the Batmobile but still would have had plenty of room for a family if we had one at the time, was far and away the best car with an automatic transmission I’ve ever owned.), Intrigue, Aurora, Cutlass, 88, Grand Prix…you get the idea. Some of these were not up to the competition, some were, but all were “true” family sedans. At least that’s what I, who knows a few things about cars, thought.
But now Mr. Reuss, who is in a far better position than yours truly to know, is telling us, essentially, that none of the GM family sedans of the last 26 years was a “true” family sedans. Is he telling us they were false family sedans? Or is he telling us they weren’t good cars? One suspects the latter, or at least a lot of readers would interpret his comments that way.
Hmm…
Several disquieting thoughts come to mind.
First, I don’t remember Mr. Reuss or anyone at the General telling us that GM’s former family sedans were not up to snuff. In fact, the advertising and the public comments of GM executives at the time, a group that included Mr. Reuss, indicated that those cars were fully competitive in their segments, even in those instances when those of us who knew a few things suspected that the GMers were figuratively winking at us when saying so. Now Mr. Reuss tells us, effectively, they were lying all along, that those products were not “true” family sedans. So why are we supposed to believe Mr. Reuss now when he says that GM has, for real this time, produced a “true” family sedan in the Impala? One does not have to be as cynical as yours truly to wonder what will happen when the next Impala comes out. Will Mr. Reuss then tell us that this upcoming version of the Impala was not a “true” family sedan all along?
Second, and perhaps not as important, what are we to make of the new Malibu, by all accounts a terrific car, even better than its predecessor, that can stand toe to toe with the Accords, Camrys, and Fusions of the world? Is this car not a “true” family sedan? Is it not a good car? Is it somehow not a worthy car? One suspects that Mr. Reuss and his colleagues would counter with the contention that the Malibu is not a “family” sedan but, rather, a “mid-sized” sedan, but that is a silly, contorted argument.
I get a sense of déjà vu while composing this post. When Oldsmobile first began the introduction of the truly innovative Aurora in 1994, Automobile Magazine quoted one of the muckety-mucks at Olds (I can’t remember the name; it was a long time ago.) as saying (and again, I can’t quote because of the time) that the Aurora’s was the first Olds platform in years that was worth (in his words) a damn. I wrote to the Automobile asking why we were supposed to believe Olds in this instance; after all, they had told us for years how great their cars were but now were telling us that the platforms that formed the basis of those cars weren’t worth a damn. What, I asked, would they be telling about the Aurora’s platform when it came time for it to be replaced? The magazine printed the letter and the head of Olds called me at home. We had a pleasant, but frank, as they say in politics, conversation. I don’t expect the same response from Mr. Reuss or one of his minions in this case, but, were it to come, the feeling of déjà vu would become downright eerie and the reach of the Pontificator would once again amaze me.
Monday, April 9, 2012
MORE ON MY LONG HELD ANTIPATHY FOR PRESIDENT BUSH AND THE PERFECT RUNNING MATE FOR MITT ROMNEY
4/9/12
A good friend and business associate sent me an e-mail this morning counseling me to calm down on my antipathy toward George Bush (See my 4/4/12 post HAS THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN HIRED PAUL KERSEY AS AN ADVISOR? and my 3/20/12 post TIME FOR THAT QUADRENNIAL PARLOR GAME “WHO GETS THE WARM BUCKET OF (SPIT)?”) and pointing out that, over the Easter weekend, he ran my VP idea (See the aforementioned 3/20/12 post.) past his politically minded son, who was intrigued. I think my readers might enjoy my response:
While my venom on all things Bush only seems to grow as I look upon the man Bush's bumbling has bequeathed us, I should bear in mind that venom and anger do nothing to hurt their object and only serve to harm their dispenser (and especially with the dispensee is an ex-president of the United States and the dispenser is a seemingly random ranter!), so your advice is wise and insightful and doubtless sincere. However, being a sufferer from Irish amnesia, I can't say with any degree of assurance that it will be followed!
My nephew, who is the rough equivalent of a GOP precinct captain out here in the western 'burbs, and I discussed the Coburn possibility. He, arguing against the possibility, advanced the small and deep red state argument along with Coburn's tendency toward independence of thought and action, a trait that I, and most Americans, including my nephew, find endearing and attractive but that upon which Mr. Romney probably will not look kindly. Both are great points with which I do not disagree
For my part, I continue to think Coburn, for the reasons I outlined in my post, would be the best running mate for Mr. Romney. But, as you, and my nephew, know, the 3/20/12 post concluded with
Note I didn’t say that Mr. Coburn will be on the GOP ticket; I only said he should be on the GOP ticket. As loyal readers know, I try to refrain from making overt predictions.
The post was prescriptive rather than predictive; i.e., Romney should choose Coburn but I have no idea if he will. If I had to guess now, I'd say that he won't, judging only from Senator Coburn's name never having come up in any discussion I have seen regarding the Veepstakes. But none of us can get inside Romney's head.
A good friend and business associate sent me an e-mail this morning counseling me to calm down on my antipathy toward George Bush (See my 4/4/12 post HAS THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN HIRED PAUL KERSEY AS AN ADVISOR? and my 3/20/12 post TIME FOR THAT QUADRENNIAL PARLOR GAME “WHO GETS THE WARM BUCKET OF (SPIT)?”) and pointing out that, over the Easter weekend, he ran my VP idea (See the aforementioned 3/20/12 post.) past his politically minded son, who was intrigued. I think my readers might enjoy my response:
While my venom on all things Bush only seems to grow as I look upon the man Bush's bumbling has bequeathed us, I should bear in mind that venom and anger do nothing to hurt their object and only serve to harm their dispenser (and especially with the dispensee is an ex-president of the United States and the dispenser is a seemingly random ranter!), so your advice is wise and insightful and doubtless sincere. However, being a sufferer from Irish amnesia, I can't say with any degree of assurance that it will be followed!
My nephew, who is the rough equivalent of a GOP precinct captain out here in the western 'burbs, and I discussed the Coburn possibility. He, arguing against the possibility, advanced the small and deep red state argument along with Coburn's tendency toward independence of thought and action, a trait that I, and most Americans, including my nephew, find endearing and attractive but that upon which Mr. Romney probably will not look kindly. Both are great points with which I do not disagree
For my part, I continue to think Coburn, for the reasons I outlined in my post, would be the best running mate for Mr. Romney. But, as you, and my nephew, know, the 3/20/12 post concluded with
Note I didn’t say that Mr. Coburn will be on the GOP ticket; I only said he should be on the GOP ticket. As loyal readers know, I try to refrain from making overt predictions.
The post was prescriptive rather than predictive; i.e., Romney should choose Coburn but I have no idea if he will. If I had to guess now, I'd say that he won't, judging only from Senator Coburn's name never having come up in any discussion I have seen regarding the Veepstakes. But none of us can get inside Romney's head.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
HAS THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN HIRED PAUL KERSEY AS AN ADVISOR?
4/4/12
Now that the world has finally come around to something that loyal Insightful Pontificator readers have known since at least July 19 of last year (See the instantly seminal MICHELE AND SARAH, MAKE ROOM FOR THE FAT LADY of that date), i.e., the Mitt Romney is the GOP nominee, talk has started in earnest regarding Mr. Romney’s potential running mates. Always ahead of its time, the Pontificator visited this issue two weeks ago in 3/20/12’s TIME FOR THAT QUADRENNIAL PARLOR GAME “WHO GETS THE WARM BUCKET OF (SPIT)?”, in which I came up with the perfect running mate for Mr. Romney. But, since the rest of the world usually somehow has a difficult time appreciating, let alone sharing, my wisdom on such, or any, things, the discussion will continue.
In this morning’s Chicago Sun-Times, ace political/gossip columnist Mike Sneed, a must read for anybody interested in the politics of the world’s greatest city or the nation in which it is situated, reported that the
“..latest mega-Republican rumble: GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is eying the possibility of choosing former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as his running mate…”
Hmm…
One could see how, on the surface, Ms. Rice might help Mr. Romney in his seemingly increasingly difficult, but not impossible, task of unseating President Obama. Ms. Rice might help close the yawning chasm between the Democrats and the Republicans with women voters, but probably not much. If women, and especially single women, are as hostile to whomever the GOP nominee will be as polls currently indicate, and I’m not sure they are (I genuinely am not sure that women are as opposed to the Republicans as the polls indicate; I am not employing the currently popular cutesy-pie affectation of saying “I’m not sure” when I mean “That idea is patently ridiculous,” but I digress.), having a woman on the ticket is not going to make all that much difference. Still, those women who really want to vote against Mr. Obama for economic and financial reasons but who really have a hard time with much of the sanctimonious rhetoric flying around the GOP primary contests might rationalize a vote for Mr. Romney if it can put an accomplished woman, who presumably will not deign to dictate to them how they should conduct themselves in matters personal, closer to the biggest job in the world.
One hopes that the GOP deep thinkers who are beating the drum for Ms. Rice are not sufficiently naïve, or condescending, to think that having Secretary Rice on the ticket will suddenly generate widespread, or any, really, black support for Mr. Romney in his battle with Mr. Obama. However, having Ms. Rice on the ticket may salve the consciences of those upscale white voters who would like to vote for Mr. Romney, or against Mr. Obama, but who think that voting against the President somehow makes them bigots. Ms. Rice’s presence on the ticket thus might help such confused types rationalize a vote based on their pocketbooks rather than on their muddled self-images.
All those caveats being stated, one can see how Ms. Rice would appeal to political types who insist, while decrying sexism and racism, on seeing everything though the prism of gender and race. There are, however, some very good reasons that Mr. Romney should dismiss immediately and out of hand the idea of Ms. Rice as a running mate. As my loyal readers have already guessed, these reasons have to do with Ms. Rice’s role in the administration of George W. Bush.
Note that, in the aforementioned instantly seminal 3/20/12 piece, TIME FOR THAT QUADRENNIAL PARLOR GAME “WHO GETS THE WARM BUCKET OF (SPIT)?”, I stated the following opinions on two oft-mentioned VP possibilities:
On Jeb Bush:
As you might suspect, I will NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, under ANY circumstances vote for someone from that family again for ANYTHING. I don’t think I’d even vote for anyone completely unrelated but with the same last name, even a name that is phonetically the same, for ANYTHING. In fact, if I still drank beer, I would have to give up Budweiser and its “popular priced” companion, because they are (or were, depending on how you look at it) brewed by Anheuser Busch. I don’t care how much one would argue that Jeb is not George; he is still related and that’s enough for me to send a few bucks to his opponent, ANY opponent. While most of the public probably does not share my intensity, they doubtless share my feelings and, hence, Mr. Romney is smart enough not to take this chance. I hope.
On Mitch Daniels:
Probably not a bad choice for most people. I, for one, being a lifelong sufferer from Irish amnesia (i.e., I’ll forgive, but I’ll never forget.) will never vote for Mr. Daniels given that he was OMB Director for George W. Bush, a job very much akin to being chief chastity enforcer in a house of ill-repute. But the GOP is not concerned with getting yours truly’s vote; it is concerned with winning the White House. And most people don’t know enough history to be aware of anything that happened before the last episode of American Idol and will take into account only Mr. Daniels’ admittedly quite good job as governor of Indiana, or, more properly, what they will be told about Mr. Daniel’s admirable work in his latest position. So Mr. Daniels is not a bad choice, but not THE choice.
So my objection to Condoleezza Rice should be obvious. The only thing that is worse than being involved with the Bush administration’s fiscal imbecility is being involved with its foreign policy malevolence. Even though many suspect, probably correctly that Ms. Rice had little to do with policymaking in the Bush Administration, she was, first, national security advisor and, later, Secretary of State in that den of iniquity, at least executing the orders of her bosses, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy (er, sorry, Dick Cheney and George Bush), that resulted in a series of foreign policy debacles that make the misaccomplishments of Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, and Dean Rusk seem positively Jeffersonian by comparison. She had the titles; she wears the jacket.
Mr. Romney would do well to avoid any association with the man who is either the winner or the placer, but definitely not as low as the shower, in the “worst president in the history of the United States” award. Choosing Condoleezza Rice, who is closely associated not only with Mr. Bush’s presidency but with the most malodorous aspects of that odiferous presidency, would be like conceding and going home to Boston before the general election even starts.
Clearly, most Americans do not share the intensity of my antipathy for George W. Bush and his reprehensible administration, but they do nonetheless share the antipathy. One hopes that Mr. Romney is smart enough to understand this and thus to avoid giving David Axelrod and company even more ammunition to somehow jam into the arsenal the carnival barkers in the GOP race have already provided them. But, in keeping with the general theme of the Pontificator, hope in things of this world is usually a dangerous thing that, in most cases, merely sets us up for disappointment. This is almost certainly the case for those who hope that Mr. Romney and the GOP wunderkinds who surround him will transcend the GOP tendency toward condescension and foolishness and conduct an intelligent, well reasoned campaign capable of unseating the President.
Now that the world has finally come around to something that loyal Insightful Pontificator readers have known since at least July 19 of last year (See the instantly seminal MICHELE AND SARAH, MAKE ROOM FOR THE FAT LADY of that date), i.e., the Mitt Romney is the GOP nominee, talk has started in earnest regarding Mr. Romney’s potential running mates. Always ahead of its time, the Pontificator visited this issue two weeks ago in 3/20/12’s TIME FOR THAT QUADRENNIAL PARLOR GAME “WHO GETS THE WARM BUCKET OF (SPIT)?”, in which I came up with the perfect running mate for Mr. Romney. But, since the rest of the world usually somehow has a difficult time appreciating, let alone sharing, my wisdom on such, or any, things, the discussion will continue.
In this morning’s Chicago Sun-Times, ace political/gossip columnist Mike Sneed, a must read for anybody interested in the politics of the world’s greatest city or the nation in which it is situated, reported that the
“..latest mega-Republican rumble: GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is eying the possibility of choosing former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as his running mate…”
Hmm…
One could see how, on the surface, Ms. Rice might help Mr. Romney in his seemingly increasingly difficult, but not impossible, task of unseating President Obama. Ms. Rice might help close the yawning chasm between the Democrats and the Republicans with women voters, but probably not much. If women, and especially single women, are as hostile to whomever the GOP nominee will be as polls currently indicate, and I’m not sure they are (I genuinely am not sure that women are as opposed to the Republicans as the polls indicate; I am not employing the currently popular cutesy-pie affectation of saying “I’m not sure” when I mean “That idea is patently ridiculous,” but I digress.), having a woman on the ticket is not going to make all that much difference. Still, those women who really want to vote against Mr. Obama for economic and financial reasons but who really have a hard time with much of the sanctimonious rhetoric flying around the GOP primary contests might rationalize a vote for Mr. Romney if it can put an accomplished woman, who presumably will not deign to dictate to them how they should conduct themselves in matters personal, closer to the biggest job in the world.
One hopes that the GOP deep thinkers who are beating the drum for Ms. Rice are not sufficiently naïve, or condescending, to think that having Secretary Rice on the ticket will suddenly generate widespread, or any, really, black support for Mr. Romney in his battle with Mr. Obama. However, having Ms. Rice on the ticket may salve the consciences of those upscale white voters who would like to vote for Mr. Romney, or against Mr. Obama, but who think that voting against the President somehow makes them bigots. Ms. Rice’s presence on the ticket thus might help such confused types rationalize a vote based on their pocketbooks rather than on their muddled self-images.
All those caveats being stated, one can see how Ms. Rice would appeal to political types who insist, while decrying sexism and racism, on seeing everything though the prism of gender and race. There are, however, some very good reasons that Mr. Romney should dismiss immediately and out of hand the idea of Ms. Rice as a running mate. As my loyal readers have already guessed, these reasons have to do with Ms. Rice’s role in the administration of George W. Bush.
Note that, in the aforementioned instantly seminal 3/20/12 piece, TIME FOR THAT QUADRENNIAL PARLOR GAME “WHO GETS THE WARM BUCKET OF (SPIT)?”, I stated the following opinions on two oft-mentioned VP possibilities:
On Jeb Bush:
As you might suspect, I will NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, under ANY circumstances vote for someone from that family again for ANYTHING. I don’t think I’d even vote for anyone completely unrelated but with the same last name, even a name that is phonetically the same, for ANYTHING. In fact, if I still drank beer, I would have to give up Budweiser and its “popular priced” companion, because they are (or were, depending on how you look at it) brewed by Anheuser Busch. I don’t care how much one would argue that Jeb is not George; he is still related and that’s enough for me to send a few bucks to his opponent, ANY opponent. While most of the public probably does not share my intensity, they doubtless share my feelings and, hence, Mr. Romney is smart enough not to take this chance. I hope.
On Mitch Daniels:
Probably not a bad choice for most people. I, for one, being a lifelong sufferer from Irish amnesia (i.e., I’ll forgive, but I’ll never forget.) will never vote for Mr. Daniels given that he was OMB Director for George W. Bush, a job very much akin to being chief chastity enforcer in a house of ill-repute. But the GOP is not concerned with getting yours truly’s vote; it is concerned with winning the White House. And most people don’t know enough history to be aware of anything that happened before the last episode of American Idol and will take into account only Mr. Daniels’ admittedly quite good job as governor of Indiana, or, more properly, what they will be told about Mr. Daniel’s admirable work in his latest position. So Mr. Daniels is not a bad choice, but not THE choice.
So my objection to Condoleezza Rice should be obvious. The only thing that is worse than being involved with the Bush administration’s fiscal imbecility is being involved with its foreign policy malevolence. Even though many suspect, probably correctly that Ms. Rice had little to do with policymaking in the Bush Administration, she was, first, national security advisor and, later, Secretary of State in that den of iniquity, at least executing the orders of her bosses, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy (er, sorry, Dick Cheney and George Bush), that resulted in a series of foreign policy debacles that make the misaccomplishments of Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, and Dean Rusk seem positively Jeffersonian by comparison. She had the titles; she wears the jacket.
Mr. Romney would do well to avoid any association with the man who is either the winner or the placer, but definitely not as low as the shower, in the “worst president in the history of the United States” award. Choosing Condoleezza Rice, who is closely associated not only with Mr. Bush’s presidency but with the most malodorous aspects of that odiferous presidency, would be like conceding and going home to Boston before the general election even starts.
Clearly, most Americans do not share the intensity of my antipathy for George W. Bush and his reprehensible administration, but they do nonetheless share the antipathy. One hopes that Mr. Romney is smart enough to understand this and thus to avoid giving David Axelrod and company even more ammunition to somehow jam into the arsenal the carnival barkers in the GOP race have already provided them. But, in keeping with the general theme of the Pontificator, hope in things of this world is usually a dangerous thing that, in most cases, merely sets us up for disappointment. This is almost certainly the case for those who hope that Mr. Romney and the GOP wunderkinds who surround him will transcend the GOP tendency toward condescension and foolishness and conduct an intelligent, well reasoned campaign capable of unseating the President.
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