This is the second of the redacted versions of my end of a dialog I am having with an old, trusted, and valued friend concerning the situation in Egypt. I thought you might be especially interested in the analogy I draw between what is going on over there and the politics of my hometown; it’s probably not the connection you think.
For background, my buddy mentioned the Suez Canal’s being a choke point in the flow of oil from the Middle East to Europe. I share his concern and was amazed at a statistic I read in the Wall Street Journal this (Saturday, 1/29) morning.
1/29/11
Good point on the Suez Canal, but I read this morning that only about 1% of the world’s oil passes through the Canal (I find that hard to believe, but that’s what the WSJ reported this morning.), and, while life takes place at the margin, one can’t think that the disruption to the free flow of oil is a huge concern here…yet.
Mohamed ElBaradei seems to me to be the Rahm Emanuel of Egypt; a carpetbagger who is more the darling of outside forces than of the Egyptian people. He’s been out of the country a long time and doesn’t seem to have much popular support in Egypt. He does, however, have the favor of the cognoscenti in the salons of Europe and Georgetown and, like Emanuel, the money and support of outsiders may be enough to install him…for awhile.
I, too, am concerned about the Muslim Brotherhood’s taking advantage of the situation in Egypt. They are probably the most organized, and the most dangerous, element in the opposition. It may seem ethically and morally superior to support such concepts as “democracy” and “freedom,” even in the hypocritical fashion of the Bush/Obama administration, but casting a ballot (if people even get to do that in Egypt in the aftermath of this mess) without the proper prerequisites, such as rule of law and respect for property and contract rights, equates to democracy only in the sense that democracy, planted in ill-prepared soil, becomes little more than mob rule. When we topple the dictators, breaking our arms patting ourselves on the back in the process, we usually leave those closest to the situation to clean up the mess our self-styled morality has created, a la Iran, Iraq, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, etc., etc.
This all argues for wariness but only confirms my fervently held belief that we would be better off with a more humble foreign policy, a foreign policy that watches out for our interests without pretending to believe that we know what everybody else’s interests should be.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
YOU BREAK IT YOU BOUGHT IT…
A friend and I are corresponding about the situation in Egypt. I thought you might be interested in a redacted form of my end of the correspondence. This is the first of these that will wind up as blog posts:
1/28/11
Okay, maybe it’s just my usual “always look on the dark side of life” approach, but I think this is big, and bad, news. I wonder why it took the market so long to react; are the guys who make the really big money too busy watching “Dancing with the Stars” to notice what’s going on outside their narrowest definition of the financial world?
This is serious business because it has the potential to spread this type of thing through the whole Arab world and, even if it didn’t, Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, and Egypt (especially Egypt, the most populous Arab country) are enough. While Tunisia’s opposition is primarily secular and Yemen was such a mess before this latest series of episodes that it doesn’t make much difference, Egypt is especially problematical because it is not only big but also has a substantial radical Islamist element (the Muslim Brotherhood) playing a big role in the opposition. Further, it’s right on Israel’s border and is the only Arab country.other than Jordan, that has a formal peace agreement with Israel.
There are those (and I hope, but in my cynical way, doubt, that their numbers are small) who will, in their narrow little way, say that there’s nothing to worry about because no substantial oil producers involved. To this we can only say “not yet” and that we hope that those who make this argument realize that there is more at stake here than oil and pure economics. The potential tumult would be a disaster from both the geopolitical and humanitarian standpoints.
The problems in Egypt and Tunisia, which qualify in some quarters as staunch U.S. allies, also give the lie to the Bush/Obama administration’s ongoing protestations that they are for “democracy” in the Middle East while they sweat bullets over their preferred thugs being under siege or, in the case of Tunisia, already having left the country. It’s realpolitik, and I understand it. But why do these guys have to be so hypocritical in their pious protestations that they are for democracy and freedom? They are looking out for American interests, in their own twisted way. There is nothing wrong with looking out for American interests; I just wish they did so more effectively and a lot less intrusively, employing perhaps five minutes of thought before so ham-handedly inserting themselves into every situation in every country that can be remotely portrayed as being important to us. We may be on the verge of having made a whole list of new enemies in the Middle East as people express their resentment against the thugs we have installed, or at least supported. Sometimes thuggishness is necessary; indeed, now we are starting to see why Saddam Hussein was not the Arab world’s version of Mr. Rogers. But we don’t have to explicitly support such thugs, only later to toss them over the side when their continued reign conflicts with our sensitivities. Perhaps we’d be better off just keeping our noses out of other countries’ business.
1/28/11
Okay, maybe it’s just my usual “always look on the dark side of life” approach, but I think this is big, and bad, news. I wonder why it took the market so long to react; are the guys who make the really big money too busy watching “Dancing with the Stars” to notice what’s going on outside their narrowest definition of the financial world?
This is serious business because it has the potential to spread this type of thing through the whole Arab world and, even if it didn’t, Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, and Egypt (especially Egypt, the most populous Arab country) are enough. While Tunisia’s opposition is primarily secular and Yemen was such a mess before this latest series of episodes that it doesn’t make much difference, Egypt is especially problematical because it is not only big but also has a substantial radical Islamist element (the Muslim Brotherhood) playing a big role in the opposition. Further, it’s right on Israel’s border and is the only Arab country.other than Jordan, that has a formal peace agreement with Israel.
There are those (and I hope, but in my cynical way, doubt, that their numbers are small) who will, in their narrow little way, say that there’s nothing to worry about because no substantial oil producers involved. To this we can only say “not yet” and that we hope that those who make this argument realize that there is more at stake here than oil and pure economics. The potential tumult would be a disaster from both the geopolitical and humanitarian standpoints.
The problems in Egypt and Tunisia, which qualify in some quarters as staunch U.S. allies, also give the lie to the Bush/Obama administration’s ongoing protestations that they are for “democracy” in the Middle East while they sweat bullets over their preferred thugs being under siege or, in the case of Tunisia, already having left the country. It’s realpolitik, and I understand it. But why do these guys have to be so hypocritical in their pious protestations that they are for democracy and freedom? They are looking out for American interests, in their own twisted way. There is nothing wrong with looking out for American interests; I just wish they did so more effectively and a lot less intrusively, employing perhaps five minutes of thought before so ham-handedly inserting themselves into every situation in every country that can be remotely portrayed as being important to us. We may be on the verge of having made a whole list of new enemies in the Middle East as people express their resentment against the thugs we have installed, or at least supported. Sometimes thuggishness is necessary; indeed, now we are starting to see why Saddam Hussein was not the Arab world’s version of Mr. Rogers. But we don’t have to explicitly support such thugs, only later to toss them over the side when their continued reign conflicts with our sensitivities. Perhaps we’d be better off just keeping our noses out of other countries’ business.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
OH, NO, SIR, IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT!
1/27/11
Much discussion over the last few days has revolved around the report issued by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Board, the panel of bureaucrats, politicians, politically connected business people, and similarly connected academics charged with diagnosing the roots of the economic crisis from which our public servants are supposedly delivering us. For example, an op-ed, entitled “What Caused the Financial Crisis” and written by three panel members, was published in today’s (i.e., Thursday, 1/27’s) Wall Street Journal.
As with most crises, which aspiring Chicago politician Rahm Emanuel pointed out are terrible things to waste, the financial problems we experienced over the last few years have provided a ripe opportunity for a vigorous exercise in pointing fingers and assigning blame. Some blame greedy financial firms, others blame lax regulation, still others blame Fed policy. While all of the above alleged miscreants deserve some share of the blame, the panel, due primarily to the timidity that seems to be a prerequisite for politically sensitive jobs and secondarily to a failure to understand the nature of the crisis, misses the most blameworthy players in this crisis.
The mistake the Financial Crisis Inquiry Board makes is in assuming, as does virtually every other “expert,” self-styled or otherwise, that the “crisis” from which we are reportedly emerging was a housing crisis. It wasn’t. As I have said ad nauseam in the past, what we experienced was a debt crisis, not a housing crisis. People’s houses just happened to be, in many, probably most, cases the vehicle they used to borrow money. But the essential problem was that people simply were borrowing money and far too much of it. People assumed that they were entitled to a lifestyle they could not afford and were taught by “experts” who were misguided, conflicted, or both, that borrowing excessively was normal, indeed, mandatory not only for borrowers to achieve the lifestyles they deserved but to keep the economy functioning properly. They were further taught that the most financially savvy way to borrow was to, first, take out first mortgages that were beyond their ability to pay and, second, take out second mortgages, euphemized as “home equity loans” designed to “tap the equity in their homes” that they had somehow “earned,” to finance a lifestyle commensurate with the homes that they now “owned.” Borrowing against their homes, by the way, did not seem to dissuade people from also maxing out their credit cards, and why should it have? The “experts” told them they could always refinance high credit card balances (“bad” debt, if such a thing were possible in the modern American lexicon) with one of those “home equity loans” (“good” debt, the adjective “good” being completely extraneous in the modern American financial lexicon) because, after all, the price of real estate “always” went up, don’t you see.
So while some of the blame goes to lax regulation, insane Fannie and Freddie policy, greedy lenders, and the most overrated man of all time, Alan Greenspan, most of the blame goes to the American people themselves who, in an attempt to live like the people on the television shows with which they anesthetize themselves on a daily basis, borrowed more money than they could pay back. It IS as simple as that.
Some might argue that since the financial industry, with at least the connivance of the government, was willing, in order to employ the cheap capital Dr. Greenspan’s monetary insanity made available to it, to lend people money they couldn’t pay back who can blame the borrowers for taking advantage of the lenders’ stupidity? This argument, though, is specious for at least two reasons. First, we are ultimately responsible for our own actions, debts, and decisions, the last good or bad. Second, personal finance is not rocket science; as radio host and personal financial guru Dave Ramsey says, it is only what your grandmother (and mother of father, if you are of my generation) knew and probably taught you, if you bothered to listen.
We won’t hear this from the politically connected types who compose the Financial Crisis Inquiry Board, though; people get ahead in politics, and in big business, flattering people and helping them deflect blame, not telling them the truths they don’t want to hear. Talk about origins of the crisis!
Much discussion over the last few days has revolved around the report issued by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Board, the panel of bureaucrats, politicians, politically connected business people, and similarly connected academics charged with diagnosing the roots of the economic crisis from which our public servants are supposedly delivering us. For example, an op-ed, entitled “What Caused the Financial Crisis” and written by three panel members, was published in today’s (i.e., Thursday, 1/27’s) Wall Street Journal.
As with most crises, which aspiring Chicago politician Rahm Emanuel pointed out are terrible things to waste, the financial problems we experienced over the last few years have provided a ripe opportunity for a vigorous exercise in pointing fingers and assigning blame. Some blame greedy financial firms, others blame lax regulation, still others blame Fed policy. While all of the above alleged miscreants deserve some share of the blame, the panel, due primarily to the timidity that seems to be a prerequisite for politically sensitive jobs and secondarily to a failure to understand the nature of the crisis, misses the most blameworthy players in this crisis.
The mistake the Financial Crisis Inquiry Board makes is in assuming, as does virtually every other “expert,” self-styled or otherwise, that the “crisis” from which we are reportedly emerging was a housing crisis. It wasn’t. As I have said ad nauseam in the past, what we experienced was a debt crisis, not a housing crisis. People’s houses just happened to be, in many, probably most, cases the vehicle they used to borrow money. But the essential problem was that people simply were borrowing money and far too much of it. People assumed that they were entitled to a lifestyle they could not afford and were taught by “experts” who were misguided, conflicted, or both, that borrowing excessively was normal, indeed, mandatory not only for borrowers to achieve the lifestyles they deserved but to keep the economy functioning properly. They were further taught that the most financially savvy way to borrow was to, first, take out first mortgages that were beyond their ability to pay and, second, take out second mortgages, euphemized as “home equity loans” designed to “tap the equity in their homes” that they had somehow “earned,” to finance a lifestyle commensurate with the homes that they now “owned.” Borrowing against their homes, by the way, did not seem to dissuade people from also maxing out their credit cards, and why should it have? The “experts” told them they could always refinance high credit card balances (“bad” debt, if such a thing were possible in the modern American lexicon) with one of those “home equity loans” (“good” debt, the adjective “good” being completely extraneous in the modern American financial lexicon) because, after all, the price of real estate “always” went up, don’t you see.
So while some of the blame goes to lax regulation, insane Fannie and Freddie policy, greedy lenders, and the most overrated man of all time, Alan Greenspan, most of the blame goes to the American people themselves who, in an attempt to live like the people on the television shows with which they anesthetize themselves on a daily basis, borrowed more money than they could pay back. It IS as simple as that.
Some might argue that since the financial industry, with at least the connivance of the government, was willing, in order to employ the cheap capital Dr. Greenspan’s monetary insanity made available to it, to lend people money they couldn’t pay back who can blame the borrowers for taking advantage of the lenders’ stupidity? This argument, though, is specious for at least two reasons. First, we are ultimately responsible for our own actions, debts, and decisions, the last good or bad. Second, personal finance is not rocket science; as radio host and personal financial guru Dave Ramsey says, it is only what your grandmother (and mother of father, if you are of my generation) knew and probably taught you, if you bothered to listen.
We won’t hear this from the politically connected types who compose the Financial Crisis Inquiry Board, though; people get ahead in politics, and in big business, flattering people and helping them deflect blame, not telling them the truths they don’t want to hear. Talk about origins of the crisis!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS, BUT GOLDMAN MUST ANSWER
1/26/11
While we are waiting for the Illinois Supreme Court to (probably) assure us that Rahm Emanuel has resided for the past year or so not where he actually lived but where he intended to live, we are presented with an opportunity to visit another area of inquiry and/or commentary. And I am not talking about the endless stream of banalities, platitudes, and pabulum that the State of Union address has become over the last forty or so years.
In an article on page A9 entitled “Europe’s Fate Still Looms In Davos,” today’s (i.e., Wednesday, 1/26’s) Wall Street Journal reports that Dirk Schumacher, a Goldman Sachs analyst, contends that Spain (whose economy, the same article reports, is twice the size of that of Ireland, Greece, and Portugal combined; an interesting fact of which I was not aware) faces not a solvency crisis (i.e., an inability to pay its debts), but, rather, a liquidity crisis (i.e., a temporary inability to make payments when they are due). Mr. Schumacher says that Spain’s debt can be stabilized at 90% of its GDP. Others, of course, disagree and argue that Spain, primarily because of the financial problems of its regional governments and banks, is in far bigger trouble and will follow Greece, Ireland, and Portugal to the EU trough.
This gave me an idea, or perhaps spawned a question, and it is a genuine question and/or idea, not a sarcastic and perhaps ironic knock on Goldman. While I, like many people, have a few problems with Goldman, I’m probably not among its severest critics and, in any case, this situation is not ripe for Goldman bashing.
I have no opinion on the depth of Spain’s financial difficulties; I just don’t know enough about the condition of Spanish banks and regions to formulate such an opinion. But if Goldman really believes that Spain is facing only a liquidity problem, isn’t there an opportunity, both financial and political, for Goldman here? Couldn’t Goldman raise some money for a bridge loan for Spain to tide it over its liquidity problems? One would think that Goldman could both put its own money where its mouth is and, probably more importantly, persuade institutional and institutionally sized individual investors, to invest in such a pool. Rates, of course, would have to be sufficiently high to compensate investors for the risk; this would be an investment, not a selfless rescue effort. Not only would Goldman and its partners make some money on the deal, but they could also do themselves some political good in the process, doing well by doing good, if you will. Further, should the effort prove successful, the pool could be expanded and used to provide temporary financing to other countries that Goldman believes face a liquidity crisis.
Spain would balk at paying market rates when funds would probably be made available at concessionary rates from one of the rescue facilities that the EU has put in place. But for those of us who believe in markets, and the discipline they impose on their participants, this might be an avenue that the EU, Goldman, Spain, and similarly situated countries might want to investigate.
While we are waiting for the Illinois Supreme Court to (probably) assure us that Rahm Emanuel has resided for the past year or so not where he actually lived but where he intended to live, we are presented with an opportunity to visit another area of inquiry and/or commentary. And I am not talking about the endless stream of banalities, platitudes, and pabulum that the State of Union address has become over the last forty or so years.
In an article on page A9 entitled “Europe’s Fate Still Looms In Davos,” today’s (i.e., Wednesday, 1/26’s) Wall Street Journal reports that Dirk Schumacher, a Goldman Sachs analyst, contends that Spain (whose economy, the same article reports, is twice the size of that of Ireland, Greece, and Portugal combined; an interesting fact of which I was not aware) faces not a solvency crisis (i.e., an inability to pay its debts), but, rather, a liquidity crisis (i.e., a temporary inability to make payments when they are due). Mr. Schumacher says that Spain’s debt can be stabilized at 90% of its GDP. Others, of course, disagree and argue that Spain, primarily because of the financial problems of its regional governments and banks, is in far bigger trouble and will follow Greece, Ireland, and Portugal to the EU trough.
This gave me an idea, or perhaps spawned a question, and it is a genuine question and/or idea, not a sarcastic and perhaps ironic knock on Goldman. While I, like many people, have a few problems with Goldman, I’m probably not among its severest critics and, in any case, this situation is not ripe for Goldman bashing.
I have no opinion on the depth of Spain’s financial difficulties; I just don’t know enough about the condition of Spanish banks and regions to formulate such an opinion. But if Goldman really believes that Spain is facing only a liquidity problem, isn’t there an opportunity, both financial and political, for Goldman here? Couldn’t Goldman raise some money for a bridge loan for Spain to tide it over its liquidity problems? One would think that Goldman could both put its own money where its mouth is and, probably more importantly, persuade institutional and institutionally sized individual investors, to invest in such a pool. Rates, of course, would have to be sufficiently high to compensate investors for the risk; this would be an investment, not a selfless rescue effort. Not only would Goldman and its partners make some money on the deal, but they could also do themselves some political good in the process, doing well by doing good, if you will. Further, should the effort prove successful, the pool could be expanded and used to provide temporary financing to other countries that Goldman believes face a liquidity crisis.
Spain would balk at paying market rates when funds would probably be made available at concessionary rates from one of the rescue facilities that the EU has put in place. But for those of us who believe in markets, and the discipline they impose on their participants, this might be an avenue that the EU, Goldman, Spain, and similarly situated countries might want to investigate.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
“THERE GONNA SAY ‘WHAT A GUY!'”
Here is a letter I wrote to the Chicago Tribune in response to its editorial ripping the Illinois Appellate Court for throwing its wonderboy off the mayoral ballot:
1/25/11
The Tribune’s lead editorial today refers to the Appellate Court’s “startling arrogance” and “audaciously twisted reasoning” in its ruling excluding Rahm Emanuel from the mayoral ballot. What the Trib, and most of the local and national media, fail to see what is truly startlingly arrogant and audaciously twisted: the media’s assuming the role of unabashed cheerleader for the candidacy of Rahm Emanuel. This editorial is only the latest example of this laughable bias in the coverage of this campaign.
The Tribune argues in today’s lead editorial that since 44% of the voters, according to the latest Trib poll, support Emanuel, “clearly they aren’t concerned about his residency.” But the law is the law, and a plurality of poll respondents’ not agreeing with a law does not justify ignoring it. The law says that someone who wants to run for mayor should reside in the city for a year prior to the election. The court, quite reasonably, argued that Mr. Emanuel did not reside in the city for the requisite year. One can legitimately argue that this is an unreasonable, even a silly, law; if the voters want to vote for a guy who just moved to town, why shouldn’t they be able to do so? But the rational response to a silly law is to change the law, not to ignore the law. This law has stood for a long, long time, and certainly no one heard the Tribune arguing for changing it until it affected the Trib’s candidate, Rahm Emanuel.
The Tribune further argues that, after the elections board ruled that Emanuel was a longtime resident of the city, “That should have been the end of it.” Really? Why does the Tribune suppose our judicial system, and our election system, contains an appeal process? Is the Tribune really arguing that no decision of the elections board should be appealable, or only that those decisions should not be appealable when the board rules in the Trib’s candidate’s favor?
Clearly, this editorial is just another manifestation of the Tribune’s, and the broader media’s, breathless enthusiasm for Rahm Emanuel. But what has induced the local media to go completely into the tank for Rahm Emanuel? A logical answer seems to be that Mr. Emanuel is sui generis with the types of people who control the editorial decisions at the Tribune and other local media outlets: lives (or, in Emanuel’s case, pretends to live) in one of handful of wards that hug the lakefront north of, say, Congress, grew up in the suburbs but moved here convinced that doing so not only made one a dazzling urbanite but also gave one the right to dictate to lifelong residents how their city should be run, is highly educated, only gets south of Congress or west of Racine when seeking a story or a photo-op, prefers restaurants in which the prices vary inversely with the quantity of food served, thinks the city’s boundaries really coincide with those of the 5th Congressional District, and wonders how anyone could possibly live in those tacky wards on the corners of the city. And even yuppie newspaper people, though they cluck their tongues at the notion of others doing the same, enthusiastically support members of their own group, however defined.
1/25/11
The Tribune’s lead editorial today refers to the Appellate Court’s “startling arrogance” and “audaciously twisted reasoning” in its ruling excluding Rahm Emanuel from the mayoral ballot. What the Trib, and most of the local and national media, fail to see what is truly startlingly arrogant and audaciously twisted: the media’s assuming the role of unabashed cheerleader for the candidacy of Rahm Emanuel. This editorial is only the latest example of this laughable bias in the coverage of this campaign.
The Tribune argues in today’s lead editorial that since 44% of the voters, according to the latest Trib poll, support Emanuel, “clearly they aren’t concerned about his residency.” But the law is the law, and a plurality of poll respondents’ not agreeing with a law does not justify ignoring it. The law says that someone who wants to run for mayor should reside in the city for a year prior to the election. The court, quite reasonably, argued that Mr. Emanuel did not reside in the city for the requisite year. One can legitimately argue that this is an unreasonable, even a silly, law; if the voters want to vote for a guy who just moved to town, why shouldn’t they be able to do so? But the rational response to a silly law is to change the law, not to ignore the law. This law has stood for a long, long time, and certainly no one heard the Tribune arguing for changing it until it affected the Trib’s candidate, Rahm Emanuel.
The Tribune further argues that, after the elections board ruled that Emanuel was a longtime resident of the city, “That should have been the end of it.” Really? Why does the Tribune suppose our judicial system, and our election system, contains an appeal process? Is the Tribune really arguing that no decision of the elections board should be appealable, or only that those decisions should not be appealable when the board rules in the Trib’s candidate’s favor?
Clearly, this editorial is just another manifestation of the Tribune’s, and the broader media’s, breathless enthusiasm for Rahm Emanuel. But what has induced the local media to go completely into the tank for Rahm Emanuel? A logical answer seems to be that Mr. Emanuel is sui generis with the types of people who control the editorial decisions at the Tribune and other local media outlets: lives (or, in Emanuel’s case, pretends to live) in one of handful of wards that hug the lakefront north of, say, Congress, grew up in the suburbs but moved here convinced that doing so not only made one a dazzling urbanite but also gave one the right to dictate to lifelong residents how their city should be run, is highly educated, only gets south of Congress or west of Racine when seeking a story or a photo-op, prefers restaurants in which the prices vary inversely with the quantity of food served, thinks the city’s boundaries really coincide with those of the 5th Congressional District, and wonders how anyone could possibly live in those tacky wards on the corners of the city. And even yuppie newspaper people, though they cluck their tongues at the notion of others doing the same, enthusiastically support members of their own group, however defined.
Monday, January 24, 2011
“TAKE MY ADVICE, SON, I’M ONLY TRYIN’ TO SCHOOL YA…”
1/24/11
In my 12/7/10 post entitled MAYBE HE DIDN’T “FINISH WITH THE FOOTBALL,” I wrote, concerning the matter of Rahm Emanuel’s residency status:
There are enough powerful people who want Emanuel to be mayor, if one believes the press, that one can be reasonably confident that Rahm will be, in Chicago vernacular, greased through the challenges to his candidacy. On the other hand, if, as rumor has it, Ed Burke both controls the courts in this town and backs Gery Chico, this could get interesting. I was about to say that such a line of argument might be too Machiavellian, even for Chicago, but then I returned from my ever so brief and disquieting flight of idealism to the reality of politics in my beloved home town.
This may be another of those brief and disquieting flights of idealism, but I don’t believe, even after writing the above, that the Appellate Court’s decision that Rahm Emanuel does not qualify as a Chicago resident for purposes of running for mayor was anything more than a ruling on the basis of the law. The judges were looking at, and applying, the law, not wondering what their ruling would mean for their chances of being slated for reelection by the Democratic judicial slating committees controlled by Ed Burke, who backs Gery Chico to the point at which Burke is considered by many to be Chico’s political Godfather.
That having been said, I have to admit that I would take a sort of perverse, guilty pleasure should my contention that the Appellate Court’s ruling was on the square prove to be one of my infrequent and ill-considered flights into naïve idealism and optimism. As scary as the notion of Eddy Burke’s, or any politician’s, controlling the courts in Cook County and beyond might be, it would be great if Rahm Emanuel, who prides himself in being the ultimate tough guy practitioner of in-your-face, knife-in-the-back, twisted-arm, knee- in-the-groin, foot-to-the-back-of-the-knee politics were to be done in by a southwest side master of the art who was practicing such politics, and doing so with an elegance and aplomb of which Rahm can only dream, even before Rahm found his way to Wilmette’s New Trier Township High School.
In my 12/7/10 post entitled MAYBE HE DIDN’T “FINISH WITH THE FOOTBALL,” I wrote, concerning the matter of Rahm Emanuel’s residency status:
There are enough powerful people who want Emanuel to be mayor, if one believes the press, that one can be reasonably confident that Rahm will be, in Chicago vernacular, greased through the challenges to his candidacy. On the other hand, if, as rumor has it, Ed Burke both controls the courts in this town and backs Gery Chico, this could get interesting. I was about to say that such a line of argument might be too Machiavellian, even for Chicago, but then I returned from my ever so brief and disquieting flight of idealism to the reality of politics in my beloved home town.
This may be another of those brief and disquieting flights of idealism, but I don’t believe, even after writing the above, that the Appellate Court’s decision that Rahm Emanuel does not qualify as a Chicago resident for purposes of running for mayor was anything more than a ruling on the basis of the law. The judges were looking at, and applying, the law, not wondering what their ruling would mean for their chances of being slated for reelection by the Democratic judicial slating committees controlled by Ed Burke, who backs Gery Chico to the point at which Burke is considered by many to be Chico’s political Godfather.
That having been said, I have to admit that I would take a sort of perverse, guilty pleasure should my contention that the Appellate Court’s ruling was on the square prove to be one of my infrequent and ill-considered flights into naïve idealism and optimism. As scary as the notion of Eddy Burke’s, or any politician’s, controlling the courts in Cook County and beyond might be, it would be great if Rahm Emanuel, who prides himself in being the ultimate tough guy practitioner of in-your-face, knife-in-the-back, twisted-arm, knee- in-the-groin, foot-to-the-back-of-the-knee politics were to be done in by a southwest side master of the art who was practicing such politics, and doing so with an elegance and aplomb of which Rahm can only dream, even before Rahm found his way to Wilmette’s New Trier Township High School.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
I WON’T MAKE MANY FRIENDS WITH THIS ONE…
Clarification and mea culpa:
When I originally wrote this, I was under the impression that the presentation to which I referred was given at Naperville North High School. I have since found out that the presentation was given at College of DuPage, as noted below. The substance of the post does not change, but it was not fair to associate Naperville North or District 203 in any way, however remotely, from the “advice” this financial “expert” dispensed at College of DuPage. That the presentation was given at COD does not imply that COD endorses the message, as its being presented at Naperville North, if it had been given at Naperville North, would not have implied that Naperville North endorsed the message.
My apologies and thanks for reading.
1/22/11
Our oldest daughter is a senior in high school in the process of choosing the institution of higher learning at which she will matriculate. Her two siblings are not too many years behind her in this process. So we know how expensive it is to send kids to college and are as concerned as the next person about being able to pay for our children’s educations. In response to this concern, the other night College of DuPage sponsored a presentation by a guy who promotes himself as an “expert” in getting the maximum amount of financial aid when it comes time to pay for your kid’s education. I did not go to this “seminar,” supposing, correctly, as it turns out, that this was yet another flim-flam effort to promote a service that facilitates supposedly artful cheating and lying in order to get other people to pay for your kids’ education. At least this “financial planner” did not hold himself out as an expert on ethics.
While I did not go to this “seminar,” several friends of ours did attend, and reported that this “expert’s” most salient tip was to not put money into 529 college savings plans but, rather, to put the money one would have put into the 529s into one’s IRAs because the financial aid systems, embodied most prominently by the FAFSA, do not count IRA assets, but do count 529 assets, when assessing an applicant’s need for aid. Effectively, what this “expert” was telling people to do was to hide assets in order to appear needy or disadvantaged so that others would pay for their kids’ educations, thus allowing the parents to save more for retirement. To take it one step further, since money is a fungible commodity, what this “expert” was advising was to have other people pay for one’s retirement.
One would have hoped that the crowd, which, being out here in DuPage County, was composed largely of those small government, pull one up by one’s bootstraps Republican crowd that so detests giving people handouts, would have summarily shown such a charlatan the door. But, alas, the crowd seemed to lap up this advice, regretting only that they had not availed themselves of such wisdom earlier so that they would not have so foolishly saved for their kids’ educations when they could have had someone else pick up a larger share of that tab, thus enabling them to enjoy a more lavish retirement.
Some might justify such handouts (I should not use the term “handouts.” I suppose that, to the way of thinking of those who find such advice reasonable, or even admirable, such turns at the public teat are only “handouts” when they are given to other people.) by saying that other people are getting need based financial aid, so why shouldn’t I? This, of course, is a sure fire way to get the smaller, less intrusive government and the limits on government spending that the GOPers who inhabit these parts profess to so champion.
My wife and I know as well as anyone how expensive college is nowadays and how hard it is to finance a college education, or several college educations. But the solution is not to engage in chicanery and deception masquerading as “sophisticated financial planning” in order to get someone else to pay for one’s kids’ education. The solution is multi-faceted. One component of such a solution is to encourage one’s children to excel in sports or academics in order to improve his or her chances at a merit, either athletic or academic, based scholarship. Another is to send one’s children to less expensive universities, often, but not always, state schools, despite rationalizations, which don’t stand up to even the mildest of scrutiny, for going to “the best” (read “most expensive”) schools someone else can afford. And, of course, if there is a genuine need, not a faux “need” generated by financial prestidigitation, one should avail one’s self of the need-based financial packages colleges and the government make available. However, the more essential, and effective, component of financing college education is to save for YOUR kids’ education and to engage in the sacrifices that doing so entails. And, in many cases, the sacrifices required are not titanically burdensome: drive a Toyota instead of a Lexus, eat at IHOP or at home rather than at the latest trendy “dining venue,” don’t consider every school break (and we have PLENTY of those in District 203) an opportunity, no, an imperative, to take an expensive trip, don’t feel compelled to buy the most expensive house to which you can stretch your income and borrowing capacity, don’t define yourself and/or your self worth by the number of vestigial baubles and gimcracks you can flaunt within eye- and ear-shot of your neighbors, etc. There is no need to live like a pauper, but there is similarly no need to live beyond, or even anywhere near the limit of, one’s means in order to bend to societal pressures or (usually only in one’s own mind) impress the neighbors. Is this too much a sacrifice to ask for one’s kids? Or is it too much of a sacrifice when it can be avoided by using financial trickery to get others to pick up the tab, directly or indirectly, for a lifestyle one can’t afford but that one still deems absolutely essential?
I realize there are those who are not being hypocrites here; they have never professed any kind of fealty to limited government and have no problem with burgeoning government spending as long as the growth of government and its brobdingnagian spending redounds to their benefit. Nor are such types encumbered by any overweening sense of morality or ethics. But don’t such people who think it’s clever to get “someone else” to pay for one’s child’s education realize that it is often they who are the “someone else”? Or are they too consumed with acquiring the geegaws of 21st century American life to take the five seconds worth of thought it takes to realize this truth?
What is so disheartening is that such thoughts will sound so hopelessly out-of-touch, naïve, unsophisticated, atavistic, and silly to many of my generation, a generation only one removed from that which did so much to make this country great by practicing the virtues of thrift, self-reliance, sacrifice, and responsibility for one’s self and for one’s progeny.
When I originally wrote this, I was under the impression that the presentation to which I referred was given at Naperville North High School. I have since found out that the presentation was given at College of DuPage, as noted below. The substance of the post does not change, but it was not fair to associate Naperville North or District 203 in any way, however remotely, from the “advice” this financial “expert” dispensed at College of DuPage. That the presentation was given at COD does not imply that COD endorses the message, as its being presented at Naperville North, if it had been given at Naperville North, would not have implied that Naperville North endorsed the message.
My apologies and thanks for reading.
1/22/11
Our oldest daughter is a senior in high school in the process of choosing the institution of higher learning at which she will matriculate. Her two siblings are not too many years behind her in this process. So we know how expensive it is to send kids to college and are as concerned as the next person about being able to pay for our children’s educations. In response to this concern, the other night College of DuPage sponsored a presentation by a guy who promotes himself as an “expert” in getting the maximum amount of financial aid when it comes time to pay for your kid’s education. I did not go to this “seminar,” supposing, correctly, as it turns out, that this was yet another flim-flam effort to promote a service that facilitates supposedly artful cheating and lying in order to get other people to pay for your kids’ education. At least this “financial planner” did not hold himself out as an expert on ethics.
While I did not go to this “seminar,” several friends of ours did attend, and reported that this “expert’s” most salient tip was to not put money into 529 college savings plans but, rather, to put the money one would have put into the 529s into one’s IRAs because the financial aid systems, embodied most prominently by the FAFSA, do not count IRA assets, but do count 529 assets, when assessing an applicant’s need for aid. Effectively, what this “expert” was telling people to do was to hide assets in order to appear needy or disadvantaged so that others would pay for their kids’ educations, thus allowing the parents to save more for retirement. To take it one step further, since money is a fungible commodity, what this “expert” was advising was to have other people pay for one’s retirement.
One would have hoped that the crowd, which, being out here in DuPage County, was composed largely of those small government, pull one up by one’s bootstraps Republican crowd that so detests giving people handouts, would have summarily shown such a charlatan the door. But, alas, the crowd seemed to lap up this advice, regretting only that they had not availed themselves of such wisdom earlier so that they would not have so foolishly saved for their kids’ educations when they could have had someone else pick up a larger share of that tab, thus enabling them to enjoy a more lavish retirement.
Some might justify such handouts (I should not use the term “handouts.” I suppose that, to the way of thinking of those who find such advice reasonable, or even admirable, such turns at the public teat are only “handouts” when they are given to other people.) by saying that other people are getting need based financial aid, so why shouldn’t I? This, of course, is a sure fire way to get the smaller, less intrusive government and the limits on government spending that the GOPers who inhabit these parts profess to so champion.
My wife and I know as well as anyone how expensive college is nowadays and how hard it is to finance a college education, or several college educations. But the solution is not to engage in chicanery and deception masquerading as “sophisticated financial planning” in order to get someone else to pay for one’s kids’ education. The solution is multi-faceted. One component of such a solution is to encourage one’s children to excel in sports or academics in order to improve his or her chances at a merit, either athletic or academic, based scholarship. Another is to send one’s children to less expensive universities, often, but not always, state schools, despite rationalizations, which don’t stand up to even the mildest of scrutiny, for going to “the best” (read “most expensive”) schools someone else can afford. And, of course, if there is a genuine need, not a faux “need” generated by financial prestidigitation, one should avail one’s self of the need-based financial packages colleges and the government make available. However, the more essential, and effective, component of financing college education is to save for YOUR kids’ education and to engage in the sacrifices that doing so entails. And, in many cases, the sacrifices required are not titanically burdensome: drive a Toyota instead of a Lexus, eat at IHOP or at home rather than at the latest trendy “dining venue,” don’t consider every school break (and we have PLENTY of those in District 203) an opportunity, no, an imperative, to take an expensive trip, don’t feel compelled to buy the most expensive house to which you can stretch your income and borrowing capacity, don’t define yourself and/or your self worth by the number of vestigial baubles and gimcracks you can flaunt within eye- and ear-shot of your neighbors, etc. There is no need to live like a pauper, but there is similarly no need to live beyond, or even anywhere near the limit of, one’s means in order to bend to societal pressures or (usually only in one’s own mind) impress the neighbors. Is this too much a sacrifice to ask for one’s kids? Or is it too much of a sacrifice when it can be avoided by using financial trickery to get others to pick up the tab, directly or indirectly, for a lifestyle one can’t afford but that one still deems absolutely essential?
I realize there are those who are not being hypocrites here; they have never professed any kind of fealty to limited government and have no problem with burgeoning government spending as long as the growth of government and its brobdingnagian spending redounds to their benefit. Nor are such types encumbered by any overweening sense of morality or ethics. But don’t such people who think it’s clever to get “someone else” to pay for one’s child’s education realize that it is often they who are the “someone else”? Or are they too consumed with acquiring the geegaws of 21st century American life to take the five seconds worth of thought it takes to realize this truth?
What is so disheartening is that such thoughts will sound so hopelessly out-of-touch, naïve, unsophisticated, atavistic, and silly to many of my generation, a generation only one removed from that which did so much to make this country great by practicing the virtues of thrift, self-reliance, sacrifice, and responsibility for one’s self and for one’s progeny.
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