12/12/11
As a political junkie and lover of the Hawkeye State, I have long been a huge fan of the Iowa caucuses. Besides my aforementioned affinities, the caucuses provide the most wide open contest of any year’s presidential race, at least in the sense that the caucuses generally feature the largest number of candidates because the contest takes place before the winnowing process begins in earnest. Furthermore, the caucuses demand more from the voters than simply entering a voting booth and punching out names at random for who knows what reasons. In order to participate in the caucuses, one must care enough to actually spend some time, often more than an hour, to express one’s views and support one’s candidate. Would that all our elections be held in a similar manner! But I digress. Organization and commitment pay off in Iowa and, since the caucuses count only the votes of those who actually care, surprising and counter-intuitive results are not at all surprising and counter-intuitive at the caucuses. Note the victories in 2008 of Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee.
This year’s Democratic caucuses will, of course, be a snoozer with no one challenging the President, but the GOP caucuses look to be among the most interesting in the last few election cycles. Right now, Newt Gingrich looks to have the lead, but Mitt Romney has, over the last several weeks, decided to make a contest of it and hence might still be able to pull this one off despite at least feigning lack of commitment to Iowa in the wake of the Huckabee surprise the Hawkeye State delivered him in 2008. But the most interesting story line in the race might be the chances of Ron Paul. Dr. Paul has run strong, or at least stronger than the naysayers thought he would (or should), in virtually every poll taken this election season. He remains among the top three candidates and there is talk that, with all the money and time he and his people have spent in Iowa and all the ground troops he has in the Hawkeye State, Dr. Paul might just “pull a Huckabee” this time around, winning the caucuses and thus throwing the entire race into upheaval.
Before those of us who love a political horse race and/or support Dr. Paul get excited at the prospect of a Ron Paul victory in my second favorite state, we should consider something that, as far as I have read (and I am at least fairly well informed on the politics of our once great nation), no one has mentioned: The caucuses take place this year on January 3, as they did last year. Note that Iowa’s three big state universities and its nearly innumerable small and medium-sized colleges and universities are on semester break at that time. There are a lot of potential votes among college students in the Hawkeye State; both the University of Iowa and Iowa State have enrollments in the mid 20,000 range, Northern Iowa has over 10,000 students, and Iowa boasts one of the largest and best assortments of small and mid-sized colleges and universities in the country. All of these students over the age of 18 are eligible to vote in Iowa. Of course, only a small fraction would participate in the caucuses; many are not registered, many are registered in other states, and even many, probably most, of those who are registered in Iowa would not put forth the effort necessary to participate in the caucuses. Still, if even a small fraction of those students participate in the caucuses, they could have a big impact on a political process in a small state in which only a relatively small number of eligible voters participate.
This is a problem for Dr. Paul, ironically, because he is so popular on college campuses despite his being the oldest candidate in the race. Apparently, college students like the idea of genuine adherence, rather than lip service, to the Constitution…or at least they like that idea this year; in 2008, they turned out big for Barack Obama. But again I digress. However, if the kids are back home in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, etc., during the caucuses, a large measure of Dr. Paul’s support will not be there for him. This could make a difference in a tight race.
On the other hand, one of the reasons then Senator Obama surprised then Senator Clinton in Iowa in 2008 was because of his support from Iowa’s vast student population; in fact, there was a lot of grousing that Mr. Obama won due to the votes of students from Illinois who were bussed back to Iowa on January 3 by Obama forces, many of whom were from Chicago and had loyalties that ran to Mr. Obama via a guy named Daley. It was kids from Illinois, that argument went, and, to a lesser extent, from other surrounding states, rather than Iowans, who won the Iowa caucuses for Mr. Obama.
If Dr. Paul’s ground forces in Iowa are as good as they are purported to be, one would hope to see convoys of busses plying I-80 and I-88 on the evening of January 2. If they aren’t, or if weather becomes a factor, the chances for Dr. Paul’s pulling off a Hawkeye State surprise on January 3 will be diminished, perhaps not greatly, but diminished nonetheless.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Sunday, December 11, 2011
I DON’T SALUTE NEWT
12/11/11
A good and trusted friend asked me whom I would support, Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich, should it come down to a choice between the two. My reply turned out to be a tirade against Mr. Gingrich rather than an argument in favor of Mr. Romney; what is there to argue about, one way or the other, in Mitt Romney anyway? I thought that perhaps the thoughts I outlined to a friend were perhaps too strong to post on the blog, but then I figured “What the he(ck)? When have my readers ever known me to hold back much, if at all?” So here is the only slightly edited repeat of my reply to my pal Joe:
(By the way, the Peggy Noonan article in yesterday and today’s (i.e., 12/10 and 12/11/11’s) Wall Street Journal that I reference is, as are most of Ms. Noonan’s articles, a very worthwhile read.)
Thanks.
12/11/11
I simply can't vote for Gingrich for four reasons, one of which might seem petty and one of which is no reason to support him over Romney because his stance on this issue is not all that different from Romney’s:
--Newt Gingrich’s character is abominable. I guess I should believe more in redemption than I do in this case, but three marriages, two of which were the result of illicit affairs and one of which resulted in his serving his first wife with divorce papers while she was in a cancer ward, are things I can’t overlook. And then he has the temerity to campaign among those who espouse “family values,” and they support him! Yes, there is no perfect person, but there is a great distance between a “perfect person” and three marriages and serial extramarital affairs and then being hypocritical about it. The man is a moral pygmy.
--As Peggy Noonan said in yesterday’s (Saturday, 12/10’s) Wall Street Journal,
What is striking is the extraordinary divide in opinion between those who know Gingrich and those who don't. Those who do are mostly not for him, and they were burning up the phone lines this week in Washington.
The clincher was Tom Coburn, the senator from Oklahoma and one of the few people in either house of Congress for whom I have any respect, who said, according to the same article.
that Mr. Gingrich was "the last person I'd vote for for president of the United States."
Note that Coburn has few, if any ideological problems with Newt. Neither do I, except for that outlined in my last bullet point.
--This might sound petty, but it means a lot to me. We learned earlier in the campaign that Mr. Gingrich and his wife Callista once owed $600,000 to Tiffany’s. Newt defended (!) himself by stating that it was a revolving line of credit that he paid off. As you can probably determine by reading my blog, in my opinion ANYONE who spends $600,000 at Tiffany’s spends like a fool and is a fool. To defend such an excerebrose peeing away of resources by saying that “I can afford it” only doubles down on the imbecility. He (or she) would never get my support for ANYTHING, political, business, or otherwise. He (or she) is a fool, an idiot, a popinjay, a poltroon, a spiritless, hopeless lost soul desperately trying to fill some kind of void with a useless, trashy, ostentatious trinket that indicates nothing but utter stupidity and overarching insecurity, a reflection of the moral vapidity that is destroying our country in so many ways. Think of all the ways that $600,000 could have been spent for something worthwhile, helping someone who really needed help, rather than for some worthless, valueless, tacky, reeking bauble or assortment of worthless, valueless, tacky, reeking baubles. Strong enough for you? How do you think I REALLY feel about this?
Maybe other candidates have spent $600,000 on the utter crap dispensed at places like Tiffany, but I haven’t learned of it yet; if I do, I will similarly dismiss them as serious human beings, let alone serious candidates.
--I obviously disagree with Newt on foreign policy, as you can deduce from our conversations on the topic. Newt seems to want to ramp up the disastrous Bush/Obama approach to foreign policy (“You’ll do what we tell you to do because it’s good for you because we say so (and besides, we owe our political careers to the defense contractors)!”), a policy that will only expedite our utter ruin as a nation. Unfortunately, Romney feels the same way, so this, perhaps my only substantive policy difference with Mr. Gingrich (except, of course, for the marvelous efficacy of Fannie and Freddie, which Mr. Gingrich used to espouse but apparently no longer believes in now that there is nothing monetary in it for him), is no reason to support him over Romney…six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Sure, if one takes no account of the utter gormlessness displayed by his imbecilic excretion of money on worthless symbols of the rot of the society he purports to want to save, Gingrich is smart in the ways our modern society judges smartness. Nixon, Carter, and Wilson also had considerable intellects. So that oft-mentioned argument for Mr. Gingrich holds little water.
So I could never support Gingrich for the reasons outlined above. Furthermore, from a practical perspective, Mr. Gingrich is likely to blow up and say something stupid (like the Palestinians are an “invented...people.” Who does he think the Philistines were? But I digress.) AFTER he gets the nomination, handing the presidency to President Obama. Mr. Romney may not be to my ideological liking (if there were any ideology there, but that is another issue), but I would surely support him over Gingrich, as I would (even) Bachmann (sp?), Perry, Santorum and (especially) Huntsman and Paul. If (Naperville professional homeless celebrity) Scott Huber were the only alternative candidate to Newt Gingrich, I’d have to think long and hard before voting for Newt.
All that having been said, I will not vote for either Mr. Romney or Mr. Gingrich, one of whom (and I still think Romney; see my 7/19/11 piece, MICHELE AND SARAH, MAKE ROOM FOR THE FAT LADY, and, while you’re at it, for more reasons to oppose Newt, see my 11/17/11 piece “I WISH YOU COULD HAVE COME UP WITH A BETTER STORY; I FELT DISTINCTLY LIKE AN IDIOT REPEATING IT.”) will wind up with the GOP nomination. I will, as I (almost) always do, vote Libertarian, regardless of who the candidate is, and I hope it’s Ron Paul, unless, of course, Dr. Paul somehow pulls off a miracle and gets the GOP nod.
A good and trusted friend asked me whom I would support, Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich, should it come down to a choice between the two. My reply turned out to be a tirade against Mr. Gingrich rather than an argument in favor of Mr. Romney; what is there to argue about, one way or the other, in Mitt Romney anyway? I thought that perhaps the thoughts I outlined to a friend were perhaps too strong to post on the blog, but then I figured “What the he(ck)? When have my readers ever known me to hold back much, if at all?” So here is the only slightly edited repeat of my reply to my pal Joe:
(By the way, the Peggy Noonan article in yesterday and today’s (i.e., 12/10 and 12/11/11’s) Wall Street Journal that I reference is, as are most of Ms. Noonan’s articles, a very worthwhile read.)
Thanks.
12/11/11
I simply can't vote for Gingrich for four reasons, one of which might seem petty and one of which is no reason to support him over Romney because his stance on this issue is not all that different from Romney’s:
--Newt Gingrich’s character is abominable. I guess I should believe more in redemption than I do in this case, but three marriages, two of which were the result of illicit affairs and one of which resulted in his serving his first wife with divorce papers while she was in a cancer ward, are things I can’t overlook. And then he has the temerity to campaign among those who espouse “family values,” and they support him! Yes, there is no perfect person, but there is a great distance between a “perfect person” and three marriages and serial extramarital affairs and then being hypocritical about it. The man is a moral pygmy.
--As Peggy Noonan said in yesterday’s (Saturday, 12/10’s) Wall Street Journal,
What is striking is the extraordinary divide in opinion between those who know Gingrich and those who don't. Those who do are mostly not for him, and they were burning up the phone lines this week in Washington.
The clincher was Tom Coburn, the senator from Oklahoma and one of the few people in either house of Congress for whom I have any respect, who said, according to the same article.
that Mr. Gingrich was "the last person I'd vote for for president of the United States."
Note that Coburn has few, if any ideological problems with Newt. Neither do I, except for that outlined in my last bullet point.
--This might sound petty, but it means a lot to me. We learned earlier in the campaign that Mr. Gingrich and his wife Callista once owed $600,000 to Tiffany’s. Newt defended (!) himself by stating that it was a revolving line of credit that he paid off. As you can probably determine by reading my blog, in my opinion ANYONE who spends $600,000 at Tiffany’s spends like a fool and is a fool. To defend such an excerebrose peeing away of resources by saying that “I can afford it” only doubles down on the imbecility. He (or she) would never get my support for ANYTHING, political, business, or otherwise. He (or she) is a fool, an idiot, a popinjay, a poltroon, a spiritless, hopeless lost soul desperately trying to fill some kind of void with a useless, trashy, ostentatious trinket that indicates nothing but utter stupidity and overarching insecurity, a reflection of the moral vapidity that is destroying our country in so many ways. Think of all the ways that $600,000 could have been spent for something worthwhile, helping someone who really needed help, rather than for some worthless, valueless, tacky, reeking bauble or assortment of worthless, valueless, tacky, reeking baubles. Strong enough for you? How do you think I REALLY feel about this?
Maybe other candidates have spent $600,000 on the utter crap dispensed at places like Tiffany, but I haven’t learned of it yet; if I do, I will similarly dismiss them as serious human beings, let alone serious candidates.
--I obviously disagree with Newt on foreign policy, as you can deduce from our conversations on the topic. Newt seems to want to ramp up the disastrous Bush/Obama approach to foreign policy (“You’ll do what we tell you to do because it’s good for you because we say so (and besides, we owe our political careers to the defense contractors)!”), a policy that will only expedite our utter ruin as a nation. Unfortunately, Romney feels the same way, so this, perhaps my only substantive policy difference with Mr. Gingrich (except, of course, for the marvelous efficacy of Fannie and Freddie, which Mr. Gingrich used to espouse but apparently no longer believes in now that there is nothing monetary in it for him), is no reason to support him over Romney…six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Sure, if one takes no account of the utter gormlessness displayed by his imbecilic excretion of money on worthless symbols of the rot of the society he purports to want to save, Gingrich is smart in the ways our modern society judges smartness. Nixon, Carter, and Wilson also had considerable intellects. So that oft-mentioned argument for Mr. Gingrich holds little water.
So I could never support Gingrich for the reasons outlined above. Furthermore, from a practical perspective, Mr. Gingrich is likely to blow up and say something stupid (like the Palestinians are an “invented...people.” Who does he think the Philistines were? But I digress.) AFTER he gets the nomination, handing the presidency to President Obama. Mr. Romney may not be to my ideological liking (if there were any ideology there, but that is another issue), but I would surely support him over Gingrich, as I would (even) Bachmann (sp?), Perry, Santorum and (especially) Huntsman and Paul. If (Naperville professional homeless celebrity) Scott Huber were the only alternative candidate to Newt Gingrich, I’d have to think long and hard before voting for Newt.
All that having been said, I will not vote for either Mr. Romney or Mr. Gingrich, one of whom (and I still think Romney; see my 7/19/11 piece, MICHELE AND SARAH, MAKE ROOM FOR THE FAT LADY, and, while you’re at it, for more reasons to oppose Newt, see my 11/17/11 piece “I WISH YOU COULD HAVE COME UP WITH A BETTER STORY; I FELT DISTINCTLY LIKE AN IDIOT REPEATING IT.”) will wind up with the GOP nomination. I will, as I (almost) always do, vote Libertarian, regardless of who the candidate is, and I hope it’s Ron Paul, unless, of course, Dr. Paul somehow pulls off a miracle and gets the GOP nod.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
CLEAN UP YOUR ACT
12/10/11
Saturday, 12/10/11’s edition of the Chicago Sun-Times contained a page 5 article, complete with a page 1 headline, entitled “From Dumping Ground to City Playground.” The article outlines plans by various government agencies and levels of government to transform 140,000 acres on the southeast side from an environmental dumping ground into a sort of environmental paradise, complete with hiking trails, woodland areas, and habitats for the black crowned night heron. The project was, of course, hailed by the usual suspects (Governor Pat Quinn, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Senate Majority Leader John Cullerton, and Congressman Mike Quigley), and, an even have sentient read would indicate, by the Sun-Times and other media organs, as the type of affirmative, positive government that only the most curmudgeonly among us could oppose. So here goes:
Is this a good project? Being familiar with the area in question, I will easily concede this is a good project; the area in question is beyond bleak and dirty; it reminds one of a kind of moonscape or post-apocalyptic killing field with tons of toxins tossed in for good measure. The area ought to be cleaned up. But is this a vital project? No. The area, the city, and the state have lived with the area as it is for a long time now and surely we can continue to live with it indefinitely or at least until flusher times.
So if it’s not vital, why are we engaging in this project? The aforementioned politicians are always telling us how broke the city, the county, and the state are when they want to increase our taxes, and I believe them; after the number they and their colleagues have done on the finances of every governmental body in this state, who could argue that we aren’t broke? And if we’re broke, why are we about to embark on a project that will cost billions? If anyone tries to tell you that it won’t cost billions to clean up the area in question, he is talking through his hat or hasn’t yet talked to the guys who will win the projects for the clean-up, largely due to their friendship with and willingness to cut in the aforementioned pols and their pals, but I digress.
The governor, the mayor, the senator, and the congressman were quick to come up with anodyne assurances that the money would be no problem, especially, of course, for such a “vital” project. The state, they told us, will come up with $17.9 million in seed money, as if to reassure us that city taxpayers will not be stuck with the bill. But on the page immediately prior to the page containing this article, the Sun-Times reports that Cook County comes up with 40% of the income taxes and 36% of the sales taxes raised in the state of Illinois, so Chicago and Cook County taxpayers surely will come up with a large chunk of the spondulicks necessary to achieve this modern day edenization of an open dump. And even if, by some miracle, Chicago were completely off the hook, would it be such a good thing for the rest of the state, or the rest of the country, to pick up the bill to clean up portions of the southeast side? No wonder downstate lawmakers would like Cook County to secede from the state! (“The Great State of Chicago,” page 4, Chicago Sun-Times, 12/10/11) And even the pols are not so brazen as to label that $17.9 million as anything more than seed money; this is going to get more expensive…a LOT more expensive. But those costs are down the road, don’t you see, and, after all, it’s an “investment” in “our children’s children.”
Anyone who opposes this project will be accused by the likes of Pat Quinn, who, in his whole life, has never has had to deal with any money but other people’s money, of being environmental criminals, pursuing profits over “our children,” or not being focused on the future. Why be concerned about the money when “our planet” and “our children” are at stake? It is this type of thinking that has driven the state, our city, and our country broke, a situation that does not bode well for the environment, the planet, or the children.
Politicians simply cannot stop spending money; even in the worst of fiscal times, they can justify spending your money, and imperiling the economic future of “our children’s children,” by declaring any project, even those projects even more postponable than this one, to be vital, necessary, and morally imperative.
And we continue to elect these clowns.
Saturday, 12/10/11’s edition of the Chicago Sun-Times contained a page 5 article, complete with a page 1 headline, entitled “From Dumping Ground to City Playground.” The article outlines plans by various government agencies and levels of government to transform 140,000 acres on the southeast side from an environmental dumping ground into a sort of environmental paradise, complete with hiking trails, woodland areas, and habitats for the black crowned night heron. The project was, of course, hailed by the usual suspects (Governor Pat Quinn, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Senate Majority Leader John Cullerton, and Congressman Mike Quigley), and, an even have sentient read would indicate, by the Sun-Times and other media organs, as the type of affirmative, positive government that only the most curmudgeonly among us could oppose. So here goes:
Is this a good project? Being familiar with the area in question, I will easily concede this is a good project; the area in question is beyond bleak and dirty; it reminds one of a kind of moonscape or post-apocalyptic killing field with tons of toxins tossed in for good measure. The area ought to be cleaned up. But is this a vital project? No. The area, the city, and the state have lived with the area as it is for a long time now and surely we can continue to live with it indefinitely or at least until flusher times.
So if it’s not vital, why are we engaging in this project? The aforementioned politicians are always telling us how broke the city, the county, and the state are when they want to increase our taxes, and I believe them; after the number they and their colleagues have done on the finances of every governmental body in this state, who could argue that we aren’t broke? And if we’re broke, why are we about to embark on a project that will cost billions? If anyone tries to tell you that it won’t cost billions to clean up the area in question, he is talking through his hat or hasn’t yet talked to the guys who will win the projects for the clean-up, largely due to their friendship with and willingness to cut in the aforementioned pols and their pals, but I digress.
The governor, the mayor, the senator, and the congressman were quick to come up with anodyne assurances that the money would be no problem, especially, of course, for such a “vital” project. The state, they told us, will come up with $17.9 million in seed money, as if to reassure us that city taxpayers will not be stuck with the bill. But on the page immediately prior to the page containing this article, the Sun-Times reports that Cook County comes up with 40% of the income taxes and 36% of the sales taxes raised in the state of Illinois, so Chicago and Cook County taxpayers surely will come up with a large chunk of the spondulicks necessary to achieve this modern day edenization of an open dump. And even if, by some miracle, Chicago were completely off the hook, would it be such a good thing for the rest of the state, or the rest of the country, to pick up the bill to clean up portions of the southeast side? No wonder downstate lawmakers would like Cook County to secede from the state! (“The Great State of Chicago,” page 4, Chicago Sun-Times, 12/10/11) And even the pols are not so brazen as to label that $17.9 million as anything more than seed money; this is going to get more expensive…a LOT more expensive. But those costs are down the road, don’t you see, and, after all, it’s an “investment” in “our children’s children.”
Anyone who opposes this project will be accused by the likes of Pat Quinn, who, in his whole life, has never has had to deal with any money but other people’s money, of being environmental criminals, pursuing profits over “our children,” or not being focused on the future. Why be concerned about the money when “our planet” and “our children” are at stake? It is this type of thinking that has driven the state, our city, and our country broke, a situation that does not bode well for the environment, the planet, or the children.
Politicians simply cannot stop spending money; even in the worst of fiscal times, they can justify spending your money, and imperiling the economic future of “our children’s children,” by declaring any project, even those projects even more postponable than this one, to be vital, necessary, and morally imperative.
And we continue to elect these clowns.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
FIRST THOUGHTS ON THE ROD-BOY’S GOING AWAY
12/17/11
Before we all go into high dudgeon about how awful Rod Blagojevich is and how terrible the corruption is in the Land of Lincoln, remember…
--Every major Democratic politician in Illinois (with the exception of Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who claimed her endorsing Blagojevich for a second term would be a conflict of interest because her office was investigating him. After you read my last bullet point, please re-read Ms. Madigan’s rationale, or rationalization, for not supporting Mr. Blagojevich. I do not digress in this instance.), and every national Democrat who was asked, endorsed Blagojevich. And we keep electing these guys.
--The Republican Party in this state made only the slightest of feints toward opposing Rod Blagojevich, putting up first perennial political loser, but nice guy, Jim Ryan and then the likeable and somewhat competent, but not to be taken all that seriously Judy Baar Topinka. The GOP was very comfortable with the political arrangements in Illinois, including having Dick Mell’s son-in-law, and then Dick Mell’s estranged son-in-law, comfortably ensconced in the West Ravenswood governor’s mansion. They were, after all, getting their share. And we keep electing these guys.
--By far the most important…We, the voters of Illinois, elected this portrait of arrested development…twice.
Before we all go into high dudgeon about how awful Rod Blagojevich is and how terrible the corruption is in the Land of Lincoln, remember…
--Every major Democratic politician in Illinois (with the exception of Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who claimed her endorsing Blagojevich for a second term would be a conflict of interest because her office was investigating him. After you read my last bullet point, please re-read Ms. Madigan’s rationale, or rationalization, for not supporting Mr. Blagojevich. I do not digress in this instance.), and every national Democrat who was asked, endorsed Blagojevich. And we keep electing these guys.
--The Republican Party in this state made only the slightest of feints toward opposing Rod Blagojevich, putting up first perennial political loser, but nice guy, Jim Ryan and then the likeable and somewhat competent, but not to be taken all that seriously Judy Baar Topinka. The GOP was very comfortable with the political arrangements in Illinois, including having Dick Mell’s son-in-law, and then Dick Mell’s estranged son-in-law, comfortably ensconced in the West Ravenswood governor’s mansion. They were, after all, getting their share. And we keep electing these guys.
--By far the most important…We, the voters of Illinois, elected this portrait of arrested development…twice.
H.L. MENCKEN AND ME…
12/7/11
My nephew, an insightful observer of and participant in the political scene, recently shared a thoughtful letter concerning the “housing crisis” that he sent to the Chicago Tribune. One of his fans (and there are many) responded that he ought to run for president. I decided to reproduce my reply to this worthy observation because this reply so encapsulates the, if there is one, overriding theme of the Insightful Pontificator. As loyal readers know, that theme is not sunny optimism based on chest-thumping while chanting “USA! USA! USA!”:
12/7/11
I agree that Jay ought to run for president and if I had any money I would be an enthusiastic financial contributor.
Unfortunately, Jay would go nowhere with such common sense and keen insight. The "American people" just want to be told that nothing is their fault. It's the greedy banks, the evil derivatives traders, the barnacles on the ship of state in Washington, those damn Chinese, anybody but them, who has caused our problems. The new American motto is no longer "Don't Tread on Me" or "Live Free or Die;" rather, the new motto is "It's Not My Fault." It is our right to spend money we don't have on things we don't need in order to impress people we don't care about, send the bill to someone else, and go back to anesthetizing our brains with the like of "Two Men and A Boy," "Dancing with the Stars," or Jay Cutler's thumb while whining about how everyone has it in for us and voting for the guy who either has the best sounding name, features the slickest thirty second commercial, or who promises to protect the programs that benefit us while promising “fiscal responsibility.” And Americans will only elect politicians that feed these tendencies and provide anodyne reinforcements of the crazy notion that no one is responsible for his or her actions; they have no use for the likes of Jay (or his uncle) who tell the truth.
This ain't your father's America any more; it is Alec Baldwin's, Paris Hilton's, Glenn Beck's, Sarah Palin's, Dick Durbin's, Barack Obama's, Jesse Jackson's, Keith Olberman’s, Michael Moore’s, Lady Gaga’s, or any number of excerebrose celebrities' you can name, America. It's over and it ain't coming back.
On that happy note, everybody have a wonderful, blessed Christmas (in today's materialistic, silly, and self-obsessed and idiot celebrity obsessed America a herculean task, I know) and a prosperous new year (equally difficult).
My nephew, an insightful observer of and participant in the political scene, recently shared a thoughtful letter concerning the “housing crisis” that he sent to the Chicago Tribune. One of his fans (and there are many) responded that he ought to run for president. I decided to reproduce my reply to this worthy observation because this reply so encapsulates the, if there is one, overriding theme of the Insightful Pontificator. As loyal readers know, that theme is not sunny optimism based on chest-thumping while chanting “USA! USA! USA!”:
12/7/11
I agree that Jay ought to run for president and if I had any money I would be an enthusiastic financial contributor.
Unfortunately, Jay would go nowhere with such common sense and keen insight. The "American people" just want to be told that nothing is their fault. It's the greedy banks, the evil derivatives traders, the barnacles on the ship of state in Washington, those damn Chinese, anybody but them, who has caused our problems. The new American motto is no longer "Don't Tread on Me" or "Live Free or Die;" rather, the new motto is "It's Not My Fault." It is our right to spend money we don't have on things we don't need in order to impress people we don't care about, send the bill to someone else, and go back to anesthetizing our brains with the like of "Two Men and A Boy," "Dancing with the Stars," or Jay Cutler's thumb while whining about how everyone has it in for us and voting for the guy who either has the best sounding name, features the slickest thirty second commercial, or who promises to protect the programs that benefit us while promising “fiscal responsibility.” And Americans will only elect politicians that feed these tendencies and provide anodyne reinforcements of the crazy notion that no one is responsible for his or her actions; they have no use for the likes of Jay (or his uncle) who tell the truth.
This ain't your father's America any more; it is Alec Baldwin's, Paris Hilton's, Glenn Beck's, Sarah Palin's, Dick Durbin's, Barack Obama's, Jesse Jackson's, Keith Olberman’s, Michael Moore’s, Lady Gaga’s, or any number of excerebrose celebrities' you can name, America. It's over and it ain't coming back.
On that happy note, everybody have a wonderful, blessed Christmas (in today's materialistic, silly, and self-obsessed and idiot celebrity obsessed America a herculean task, I know) and a prosperous new year (equally difficult).
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
“DON’T YOU WANT TO BE A (FINANCIAL) ENGINEER, LIKE YOUR UNCLE OTTO?”
12/6/11
The Wall Street Journal reported in a page A1 article in today’s (i.e., Tuesday, 12/6’s) edition that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy agreed to
never again pressure private investors into agreeing to voluntary losses on euro-denominated bonds.
I don’t think that’s what Ms. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy meant; I think what they meant was that they won’t pressure private investors to agree to voluntary losses on euro-denominated bonds issued by European sovereigns. The new Dynamic Duo couldn’t possibly mean that they never want any investor to lose money on any euro-denominated bond, regardless of the issuer, ever again. Given the rabbit hole into which the world’s financial system seems to have fallen, maybe the feckless Franco-German freres did mean the latter. But let’s assume for purposes of this piece that euro-estimables were referring to sovereign credits. I digress, of course.
Mr. Sarkozy, while at least figuratively beating his chest, proclaimed
“The message to investors from across the world is that in Europe we pay back our debts.”
Hmm…
It seems that the message to investors across the world is more like
Moral hazard be damned; toss your money at the most profligate spendthrifts you can find and we’ll make their markers good.
Some readers are doubtless saying that, in making the last statement, yours truly is merely being his usual outrageous self. Why, these guarantees, implicit or explicit, will be given only when a viable and enforceable mechanism for mandating fiscal discipline is in place. But what these ingénues seem to miss is that the pious pronouncement that “we pay back our debts” works against whatever legitimate mechanism for enforcing fiscal discipline might be put into place.
What would be the sanction against any country that decides it doesn’t want to abide by the Franco-German fiscal prescriptions? Denial of credit? Withdrawal of the guarantee? What would be the result of such a sanction? Default on the part of the miscreant debtor. Such a result would be bad enough, resulting in the impairment of pan-European credit and, possibly, the dissolution, or at least the shrinkage, of the euro that the French, Germans, and, apparently, the whole world are going through these machinations to avoid. But now that Mr. Sarkozy and Ms. Merkel, the latter of whom has a very un-German like tendency to fold like a cheap card table, have proclaimed that there can be no sovereign European default because “we pay back our debts,” such a default is unthinkable. Therefore, so is a viable mechanism for enforcing fiscal discipline.
Trying to enforce fiscal discipline under these circumstances is like holding a bomb while sitting in a room with a churlish opponent and declaring that, if he doesn’t do what you would like, you will explode the bomb, thus killing both you and your opponent. You won’t do it, and your foe knows it. So he merely laughs in your face while making a rude gesture. You, meanwhile, accede to his demands.
So the message to creditors is that every European sovereign credit is a German credit. The message to all European governments is to party on and put everything on Uncle Otto’s tab. The message to the German, French, Dutch, Finnish, etc. taxpayer, and saver, is to bend over and take another and another and another and another. And, perhaps most importantly, the message to the European Central bank is “You’ve got your fig leaf; now get those printing presses into high gear.”
And the masters of the financial universe cheer. O tempora, o mores.
The Wall Street Journal reported in a page A1 article in today’s (i.e., Tuesday, 12/6’s) edition that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy agreed to
never again pressure private investors into agreeing to voluntary losses on euro-denominated bonds.
I don’t think that’s what Ms. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy meant; I think what they meant was that they won’t pressure private investors to agree to voluntary losses on euro-denominated bonds issued by European sovereigns. The new Dynamic Duo couldn’t possibly mean that they never want any investor to lose money on any euro-denominated bond, regardless of the issuer, ever again. Given the rabbit hole into which the world’s financial system seems to have fallen, maybe the feckless Franco-German freres did mean the latter. But let’s assume for purposes of this piece that euro-estimables were referring to sovereign credits. I digress, of course.
Mr. Sarkozy, while at least figuratively beating his chest, proclaimed
“The message to investors from across the world is that in Europe we pay back our debts.”
Hmm…
It seems that the message to investors across the world is more like
Moral hazard be damned; toss your money at the most profligate spendthrifts you can find and we’ll make their markers good.
Some readers are doubtless saying that, in making the last statement, yours truly is merely being his usual outrageous self. Why, these guarantees, implicit or explicit, will be given only when a viable and enforceable mechanism for mandating fiscal discipline is in place. But what these ingénues seem to miss is that the pious pronouncement that “we pay back our debts” works against whatever legitimate mechanism for enforcing fiscal discipline might be put into place.
What would be the sanction against any country that decides it doesn’t want to abide by the Franco-German fiscal prescriptions? Denial of credit? Withdrawal of the guarantee? What would be the result of such a sanction? Default on the part of the miscreant debtor. Such a result would be bad enough, resulting in the impairment of pan-European credit and, possibly, the dissolution, or at least the shrinkage, of the euro that the French, Germans, and, apparently, the whole world are going through these machinations to avoid. But now that Mr. Sarkozy and Ms. Merkel, the latter of whom has a very un-German like tendency to fold like a cheap card table, have proclaimed that there can be no sovereign European default because “we pay back our debts,” such a default is unthinkable. Therefore, so is a viable mechanism for enforcing fiscal discipline.
Trying to enforce fiscal discipline under these circumstances is like holding a bomb while sitting in a room with a churlish opponent and declaring that, if he doesn’t do what you would like, you will explode the bomb, thus killing both you and your opponent. You won’t do it, and your foe knows it. So he merely laughs in your face while making a rude gesture. You, meanwhile, accede to his demands.
So the message to creditors is that every European sovereign credit is a German credit. The message to all European governments is to party on and put everything on Uncle Otto’s tab. The message to the German, French, Dutch, Finnish, etc. taxpayer, and saver, is to bend over and take another and another and another and another. And, perhaps most importantly, the message to the European Central bank is “You’ve got your fig leaf; now get those printing presses into high gear.”
And the masters of the financial universe cheer. O tempora, o mores.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
THE BOSS IS BACK; BACK THE BOSS
12/4/11
In my instantly seminal 10/21/11 piece entitled …AND MAYBE THEY COULD HAVE COME UP WITH A MORE ORIGINAL NAME, TOO, I was at best minimally charitable to the new Starz series, ostensibly about Chicago politics, entitled Boss and starring Kelsey Grammer. Indeed, about the only good things I could cite in that post were the performances of Mr. Grammer himself (spectacular and getting better…see below), the wonderful views and backdrops of the world’s most beautiful city that are prominent features of at least the show’s introductions, and a clever piece of cinematography in the first episode in a scene in which Mayor Tom Kane expostulates on the legacy of Mayor Tony Cermak. My main complaint about the series was, as I put it so eloquently then,
The most salient and overriding observation about “Boss” is that it is hopelessly and, more importantly, needlessly over the top. The annals of Chicago politics contain enough true stories that are entertaining, compelling, and thought provoking. We don’t need to make up silly stuff…
However, I also stated in that post
I will doubtless watch “Boss” again because it was entertaining, at least for an hour.
and I have done so. Yes, there is indeed plenty of silly stuff still going on in the show, the usual banality that permeates television drama and that could have been set anywhere in America. For example we are insulted by the idea that the Mayor’s daughter, who is both an Episcopal priest and recovering drug addict, decides to (once again) consummate her curious relationship with her drug dealing boyfriend at the precise moment the aforementioned boyfriend is under hot pursuit by the Chicago cops. Talk about wham, bam…Sorry about that. And we still are confronted with the preposterous notions that there is real opposition in the Chicago City Council and that we have an articulate mayor. On the other hand, I am pleased to report that mayoral aide Kittie O’Neil, who dresses and acts like the Admiral Theater would be an entirely more appropriate workplace venue than the Fifth Floor, has managed to refrain in the last few episodes from removing her clothing and going about her usual task of servicing one of the series’ other major characters. I realize that the last comment has sent probably half my readers racing to the “on demand” channel to view earlier episodes, and I digress anyway.
My major point is that, despite the aforementioned, the show has gotten much better over the last few episodes as the plot line has progressed to Mayor Kane’s culpability for a toxic dump in Bensenville and the ramifications that culpability is having for his political survival. Viewers are treated to scheming ward bosses, set-up ingénues, outclassed amateurs, venal and hypocritical journalists, mercenary spouses and other family members, ruthless political suzerains of various stripes…the type of stuff that makes you think, sometimes leaves you agape at the characters’ boldness rather than the scriptwriter’s silliness, and could have come right from the pages of my novels The Chairman and The Chairman’s Challenge. Indeed, many of Mayor Kane’s ruminations on his job could have come straight from the first chapter of The Chairman, the chapter that has been panned by some as being “too slow” while being effusively praised by those who watch the politics of our city closely as being right on the mark. Further, while Boss lacks the fidelity of my novels, it borders on the amazing how closely some of the scenes in the series, including the completely gratuitous scene in which we learn of a certain character’s proclivity for private female on female sexual performances, come right from the amazing annals of the politics of our town.
So my hat is off to the creators of Boss. The Chairman and The Chairman’s Challenge remain better, but Boss is quickly becoming a great series as it nears the end of its first season. I’m glad I didn’t give up on it.
In my instantly seminal 10/21/11 piece entitled …AND MAYBE THEY COULD HAVE COME UP WITH A MORE ORIGINAL NAME, TOO, I was at best minimally charitable to the new Starz series, ostensibly about Chicago politics, entitled Boss and starring Kelsey Grammer. Indeed, about the only good things I could cite in that post were the performances of Mr. Grammer himself (spectacular and getting better…see below), the wonderful views and backdrops of the world’s most beautiful city that are prominent features of at least the show’s introductions, and a clever piece of cinematography in the first episode in a scene in which Mayor Tom Kane expostulates on the legacy of Mayor Tony Cermak. My main complaint about the series was, as I put it so eloquently then,
The most salient and overriding observation about “Boss” is that it is hopelessly and, more importantly, needlessly over the top. The annals of Chicago politics contain enough true stories that are entertaining, compelling, and thought provoking. We don’t need to make up silly stuff…
However, I also stated in that post
I will doubtless watch “Boss” again because it was entertaining, at least for an hour.
and I have done so. Yes, there is indeed plenty of silly stuff still going on in the show, the usual banality that permeates television drama and that could have been set anywhere in America. For example we are insulted by the idea that the Mayor’s daughter, who is both an Episcopal priest and recovering drug addict, decides to (once again) consummate her curious relationship with her drug dealing boyfriend at the precise moment the aforementioned boyfriend is under hot pursuit by the Chicago cops. Talk about wham, bam…Sorry about that. And we still are confronted with the preposterous notions that there is real opposition in the Chicago City Council and that we have an articulate mayor. On the other hand, I am pleased to report that mayoral aide Kittie O’Neil, who dresses and acts like the Admiral Theater would be an entirely more appropriate workplace venue than the Fifth Floor, has managed to refrain in the last few episodes from removing her clothing and going about her usual task of servicing one of the series’ other major characters. I realize that the last comment has sent probably half my readers racing to the “on demand” channel to view earlier episodes, and I digress anyway.
My major point is that, despite the aforementioned, the show has gotten much better over the last few episodes as the plot line has progressed to Mayor Kane’s culpability for a toxic dump in Bensenville and the ramifications that culpability is having for his political survival. Viewers are treated to scheming ward bosses, set-up ingénues, outclassed amateurs, venal and hypocritical journalists, mercenary spouses and other family members, ruthless political suzerains of various stripes…the type of stuff that makes you think, sometimes leaves you agape at the characters’ boldness rather than the scriptwriter’s silliness, and could have come right from the pages of my novels The Chairman and The Chairman’s Challenge. Indeed, many of Mayor Kane’s ruminations on his job could have come straight from the first chapter of The Chairman, the chapter that has been panned by some as being “too slow” while being effusively praised by those who watch the politics of our city closely as being right on the mark. Further, while Boss lacks the fidelity of my novels, it borders on the amazing how closely some of the scenes in the series, including the completely gratuitous scene in which we learn of a certain character’s proclivity for private female on female sexual performances, come right from the amazing annals of the politics of our town.
So my hat is off to the creators of Boss. The Chairman and The Chairman’s Challenge remain better, but Boss is quickly becoming a great series as it nears the end of its first season. I’m glad I didn’t give up on it.
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