5/26/11
It is amazing how remiss I was in my last batch of posts in not writing ANYTHING about the passing of Randy Mario Poffo, better known as Randy “Macho Man” Savage. Equally amazing is that, after I sent my weekly (or bi-weekly sometimes) e-mail informing my regular readers of recent goings-on in the Pontificator, two guys with whom I worked at Kemper long, long ago almost immediately and simultaneously expressed their flabbergastedness (a word I just made up) at my omission. I can only say that I must have been awfully busy last Friday, the day when another friend from the money business, who goes back with me almost as far as my two aforementioned Kemper colleagues, called to inform me of the untimely death of the Macho Man. How else could I not have opined on the Randy Savage and taken the opportunity to reflect on the evolution of pro wrestling? Maybe I was trying to spare my readers from what should prove to be a long post, but one that I hope will be entertaining, insightful, and perhaps a bit poignant, all the while generously fertilized with the type of cynicism you can find nowhere else but here.
What most of my readers don’t know, but those who’ve known me for a long time do, is that pro wrestling has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Before I started writing this commentary, I used to write a political and financial newsletter called The Insightful Irregular Commentary and, before that, The Insightful Weekly Commentary. One of the best of those commentaries was written when World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) went public. That seminal, but now lost, piece was an extensive study of pro wrestling and its evolution, of its many near death experiences that abruptly ended with the emergence of a new medium that needed programming. Wrestling’s several golden ages coincided with the advent of, in order, television, UHF television, closed circuit broadcasts (a minor medium, at least as far as wrestling goes), cable television, and pay per view television. The last of these two go hand-in-hand, of course, and Savage was part of the 1980s golden age that drew its strength from cable television’s attaining truly national stature and thus needing plenty of programming both for its “no extra charge” extravaganzas and its pay per view mega-extravaganzas. More on this later.
What I didn’t realize until I had a moment to reflect on the Macho Man’s death is the ongoing, if minor, part he played, indirectly or directly, in my near lifetime of observing his “sport.” When UHF television was first making its debut in the mid to late 1960s, the new channels (WCIU channel 26 and WFLD channel 32 in Chicago, followed a bit later by channel 44, the call letters of which I don’t recall) needed programming desperately. The obvious choice, besides Red Hot and Blue (with your host Arkansas Big Bill Hill, featuring world famous blues guitar legend Otis Rush and sponsored by Don’s Cedar Club and Dell’s Discount Furniture Mart) and the very oddly juxtaposed Amos and Andy, was All-Star Championship Professional Bob Luce Wrestling. It was watching those grainy broadcasts with my brother in our room (Our parents were not pro wrestling fans so we couldn’t watch wrestling on the color set downstairs, but that made no difference because wrestling was in black and white anyway.), while trying to get remotely decent reception from the special UHF aerial on the back of our portable Zenith, that I developed my love of wrestling which, albeit almost exclusively in memory form, remains to this day.
Back in the mid to late ‘60s, wrestling remained a regional business in which the stars and scenarios were jealously, and often aggressively and violently, guarded by local promoters who were by no means unfamiliar with business tactics that approximated those displayed by their properties in the ring. In Chicago, the promoter was the aforementioned Bob Luce (though I heard recently, but have never been able to verify, that Mr. Luce was little more than a front man for Richard Afflis (mentioned in this same sentence under his real name for those of you paying close attention), who really ran the promotion around here) and the big stars were Moose Cholak, Wilbur Snyder, Verne Gagne, Mad Dog Vachon, Johnny Valentine, the Assassins, the Kangaroos, Big Cat Ernie Ladd, Pretty Boy Larry Hennig and Handsome Harley Race, along with their inimitable manager then known as Beautiful Bobby Heenan, the Crusher (occasionally called “Crusher Lisowski” in order to distinguish him from Crusher poseurs), and, towering (figuratively, by no means literally) above the others, Dick the Bruiser, who may have been able to, as they said, pack any arena in the country, but, given the disjointed nature of the “sport” at the time, rarely got the chance to do so outside the Midwest.
About this time, one of the many strokes of good luck that have seemed to characterize my life took place. One of my dad’s friends from the meat business, who obviously had some political clout, got the job of Wrestling Commissioner for the state of Illinois, which involved little more than collecting a pay check and getting free tickets to the matches at the old International Amphitheater on 42nd and Halsted, almost literally around the corner from the meat packing plant that my dad and his partners operated on the outskirts of the stock yards. The Amphitheater may have been the scene of four national political conventions by then (with the most infamous, the ’68 Democratic convention, still to come), but to me it became famous because it was the place where my dad, my brother, and I could sit ring side and watch Dick the Bruiser get his just revenge on the likes of Johnny Valentine, Mad Dog Vachon, and the various minions of Beautiful Bobby Heenan. The stories I have from those early years of watching wrestling are legion, and if I ever write another book that does not involve Chairman Eamon DeValera Collins, I will record them all. But for purposes of this post, I will only note that a mid-card figure (not the first match, where the aspiring palookas recruited largely from street corners, barrooms, loading docks, or, occasionally, college or high school wrestling programs, took up time while the crowds filed in, but not the main or even the preliminary main match, either. Hence, the description “mid-card figure.”) at those events was a guy named Angelo Poffo, who, at the time, and unbeknownst to me or anyone else in the arena, for that matter, had two sons a few years older than I named Randy and Lanny.
It is amazing the things one remembers when one gets older. To the point of this post, I remember patiently standing at ringside (a few steps from our seats, actually) before a match waiting for Angelo Poffo to autograph my program when some kid in the crowd asked “How do you like Downers Grove, Angelo?” Being from the rather insular far south side of Chicago, I had no idea, at the age of eight or nine, where Downers Grove was; it sounded like a farm community somewhere in downstate Illinois, which may not have been all that far from the truth circa 1966. Angelo just nodded his head and said “It’s alright; my family likes it there.” Now I live two suburbs west of Downers Grove in a town (a city, really) called Naperville, which, I can assure you, might as well have been called Hooterville for all I knew about it back then. Life takes such turns, but I digress.
Even as I got older, supposedly matured, and got dangerously close to being somebody in life, my interest in pro wrestling continued on and off. Let’s fast forward about 17 or 18 years from the night I heard Angelo Poffo opine on the virtues of his new home of Downers Grove. I was by that time a junk bond analyst at Kemper and, as part of my work, would talk frequently with sell side analysts and salesmen about upcoming issues, about developments at companies in which we had invested, and, as is inevitable when people who work together and enjoy each other’s company talk, about other things that interested us. On one occasion, I was speaking with a bond salesman about my age with whom I had grown quite friendly. Knowing my affinity for pro wrestling, he asked me if I had heard the name “Macho Man.” I hadn’t. He reported that he had been downstate that weekend (maybe in Carbondale; that detail I don’t remember) and that he and his buddies and I think his wife had gone to see wrestling and the featured performer was a guy named Macho Man. My friend and colleague was surprised I hadn’t heard of Macho Man, but, at that time, the guy whose stage name was, as I would later learn, Randy “Macho Man” Savage, had not quite made the big time. My friend assured me that I would soon be seeing and hearing a lot of the Macho Man and, as usual, he was right.
A couple years later, I was in one of the institutional broker’s luxury boxes at what was then called the Rosemont Horizon, courtesy of another of my favorite bond salesmen who bravely tolerated my enthusiasm for pro wrestling, an enthusiasm that I managed to spread to a goodly number of my colleagues in the money management business. That night Hulk Hogan was at the top of the card but had wrestled earlier in New York and had jumped on a private plane to fly to Chicago to appear at the top, or end, of the card at the Horizon. The penultimate match of the evening was a contest for the Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship between Randy Savage and Tito Santana, two of the most athletic performers in the WWE. The match, as did any match involving Santana and most matches involving Savage, included aerial escapades, leaps off the top rope, flying body slams, and any number of physically demanding and skill requiring “holds” that, while perhaps not as entertaining as a simple folding chair to the back of the head (the aforementioned Crusher’s signature hold), were, to say the least, thrilling for the fans and exhausting for the wrestlers. The really interesting thing about this match was that Hogan’s plane was delayed by bad weather, and so the Santana-Savage contest, originally scheduled to go twenty, maybe thirty, minutes, about the limit of anyone’s physical abilities, given how these guys practiced their craft, had to go on and on and on until Hulk could make it to the Horizon, which, thank the good Lord, is only minutes from O’Hare. So an astute observer could notice that, each time one of the combatants found himself tossed out of the ring, he would look, exhaustedly, to the ref or to the timekeeping or announcer table as if to ask “Is he here yet? Can we wrap this thing up?” After getting a shake of the head or a shrug of the shoulders, the look of pure agony, exhaustion, and disappointment would be intensified on the face of Santana or Savage as he would reluctantly climb back into the ring for more aerobatics and two-counts. The match went over an hour. From the standpoint of sheer athleticism, showmanship, and a pure “I’m getting paid well, so I’ll do what they ask me to do” attitude, that Randy Savage/Tito Santana match was perhaps the greatest athletic event I have ever seen.
Years have passed, and wrestling has gone from pure sport (way before my time) to quasi-sport of tough guys who led hard lives to an exhibition of well paid guys who were, or made themselves, physical freaks of nature and national celebrities to the silly and pathetic soap opera that so disgraces this piece of Americana today. (I will write more on this if the aforementioned book gets written or if I merely get inspired to write a similarly themed Pontificator piece.) Randy “Macho Man” Savage was a man who spanned all those eras of pro wrestling (except the first), not temporally but stylistically. He was not a tough, brawling guy who, even while having the good fortune of having found a home and a career in pro wrestling, still led something of a hardscrabble life, like his father or other lesser lights of the Dick the Bruiser/Bruno Samartino era. Yet Savage’s life certainly had its tragic elements; witness the death by drug overdose of his former wife and stage “valet” and manager “Miss” Elizabeth Hulette in the home she shared with her lover, wrestler Lex Luger. Macho Man was also a consummate showman in his era of showmen, that of Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Ric Flair, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Jesse “The Body” Ventura, and the managerial career of Classy Freddie Blassie. And one wonders what he thought of what wrestling has become. Maybe he thought the current offerings from Vince McMahon were just fine, another way for the boys to make some substantial dough. But one would hope that, somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought that things had gone way too far, that a physical contest with many elements of a circus had become a circus with few elements of a physical contest.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
“HELLO, OLD FRIEND…”
5/25/11
In the wake of the untimely death of CNBC anchor Mark Haines, a fellow curmudgeon with a libertarian streak who, over the years, has come to be one of those friends I never met, the best tribute I can deliver is to repost an item I put up three years ago, almost to the day.
All of us, and not only us curmudgeons, will miss Mr. Haines. I am praying for this wonderful man and especially for his family.
CURMUDGEONS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!!!
5/30/08
On CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning, kindred spirit Mark Haines, who, like yours truly, has watched the financial markets, and generally been around, a long time and thus usually has the presence and the knowledge to step back and call nonsense what it is, was discussing the issue of the economic books’ being cooked, if you will. For example, a few weeks ago, we were told that the price of gasoline was down in April because of the idiosyncrasies of seasonal adjustment. This morning, we were told that inflation was well under control as measured by the personal consumption expenditures index. I’ve written on government statistics, especially the inflation statistics, on numerous occasions. The gist of my argument is that the books must be being cooked because of the government’s tremendous conflict of interest that arises from its both measuring inflation (in this case the CPI) and being on the hook to social security recipients for the adjustments to their checks for those very same CPI numbers. A less quantitatively tremendous conflict arises from the government’s measurement of the CPI and its having to adjust the principal value of its Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (“TIPS,” which are currently, and have been for some time, my favorite investment, but that is another topic). My conclusion is that either the government is cooking the books or that those who come up with such whoppers as a currently relatively stable CPI and the Wall Street wunderkinds who so glibly depend on those fantasies are so insulated from the real world that they haven’t the slightest hope for accuracy in generating such quantitative fairy tales. For example, if “transportation” means getting around New York or Washington in a price controlled cab and “food” meant eating in restaurants at which the actual price of the food itself is an almost immeasurable percentage of the cost of the “dining experience,” well, then, I guess that one could say with a straight face that the prices of gasoline and food don’t really matter and that, therefore, inflation is under control as long as the prices of, say, jewelry, luxury cars, and yachts remain stable, but I digress.
However, this entry is not about the substance of the discussion Mr. Haines was having with economists Steve Liesman and Michele Girard (both of whom I respect), another economist whose name I didn’t catch, and his co-host, the comely, witty, and well informed Erin Burnett. What made me want to stand up and cheer for Mark Haines was his rhetorical question in response to Ms. Burnett’s, and the other panelists’, contention that he is a curmudgeon:
“Why is it that when I get fed up with stupidity, I’m a curmudgeon?”
This statement so perfectly encapsulates my approach to life that even I, with all my skills with the written and spoken word, could not possibly improve on it.
Mr. Haines went on to utter a statement only slightly less profound:
“Standing up and saying something makes no sense is not curmudgeonly, it’s common sensical.” (sic)
As someone who still trades relatively actively, I am tuned into CNBC, albeit usually with the sound muted, throughout the day and, like most watchers, have come to, in a sense, know and like many of the hosts on its shows. (They are, by the way, quite an accomplished lot with, in most cases, considerable experience and genuinely useful books under figuratively under their belts. While one can see, judging from the appearance of most of the hosts (Messrs. Haines and Liesman excluded) how people can argue that one gets a job on CNBC from physical attractiveness alone, a look at the background of its on the air personnel quickly dispels that notion. But I digress.) I have, except for years ago when I first started watching CNBC (and was much younger), always liked the way Mr. Haines thinks. I’ve always gotten the sense that his approach to nonsense and snake oil was similar to mine. I also have long had the idea that his frustration with cheerleading and groundless, gormless optimism passing for thought and insight was, like mine, growing on a daily basis. But his observations today were so perfect that I felt compelled to break my long absence from these pages to draw your attention to them.
One more thing: I don’t mind being tagged with monikers like “curmudgeon” and don’t even mind “misanthrope” occasionally, even when such descriptives not preceded by adjectives like “lovable.” I take them as badges of honor in today’s world that is characterized mostly by silliness and idiocy being accepted, indeed celebrated, as long as enough people engage in such silliness and idiocy I suspect, but have no means of knowing, that Mr. Haines feels the same way.
In the wake of the untimely death of CNBC anchor Mark Haines, a fellow curmudgeon with a libertarian streak who, over the years, has come to be one of those friends I never met, the best tribute I can deliver is to repost an item I put up three years ago, almost to the day.
All of us, and not only us curmudgeons, will miss Mr. Haines. I am praying for this wonderful man and especially for his family.
CURMUDGEONS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!!!
5/30/08
On CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning, kindred spirit Mark Haines, who, like yours truly, has watched the financial markets, and generally been around, a long time and thus usually has the presence and the knowledge to step back and call nonsense what it is, was discussing the issue of the economic books’ being cooked, if you will. For example, a few weeks ago, we were told that the price of gasoline was down in April because of the idiosyncrasies of seasonal adjustment. This morning, we were told that inflation was well under control as measured by the personal consumption expenditures index. I’ve written on government statistics, especially the inflation statistics, on numerous occasions. The gist of my argument is that the books must be being cooked because of the government’s tremendous conflict of interest that arises from its both measuring inflation (in this case the CPI) and being on the hook to social security recipients for the adjustments to their checks for those very same CPI numbers. A less quantitatively tremendous conflict arises from the government’s measurement of the CPI and its having to adjust the principal value of its Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (“TIPS,” which are currently, and have been for some time, my favorite investment, but that is another topic). My conclusion is that either the government is cooking the books or that those who come up with such whoppers as a currently relatively stable CPI and the Wall Street wunderkinds who so glibly depend on those fantasies are so insulated from the real world that they haven’t the slightest hope for accuracy in generating such quantitative fairy tales. For example, if “transportation” means getting around New York or Washington in a price controlled cab and “food” meant eating in restaurants at which the actual price of the food itself is an almost immeasurable percentage of the cost of the “dining experience,” well, then, I guess that one could say with a straight face that the prices of gasoline and food don’t really matter and that, therefore, inflation is under control as long as the prices of, say, jewelry, luxury cars, and yachts remain stable, but I digress.
However, this entry is not about the substance of the discussion Mr. Haines was having with economists Steve Liesman and Michele Girard (both of whom I respect), another economist whose name I didn’t catch, and his co-host, the comely, witty, and well informed Erin Burnett. What made me want to stand up and cheer for Mark Haines was his rhetorical question in response to Ms. Burnett’s, and the other panelists’, contention that he is a curmudgeon:
“Why is it that when I get fed up with stupidity, I’m a curmudgeon?”
This statement so perfectly encapsulates my approach to life that even I, with all my skills with the written and spoken word, could not possibly improve on it.
Mr. Haines went on to utter a statement only slightly less profound:
“Standing up and saying something makes no sense is not curmudgeonly, it’s common sensical.” (sic)
As someone who still trades relatively actively, I am tuned into CNBC, albeit usually with the sound muted, throughout the day and, like most watchers, have come to, in a sense, know and like many of the hosts on its shows. (They are, by the way, quite an accomplished lot with, in most cases, considerable experience and genuinely useful books under figuratively under their belts. While one can see, judging from the appearance of most of the hosts (Messrs. Haines and Liesman excluded) how people can argue that one gets a job on CNBC from physical attractiveness alone, a look at the background of its on the air personnel quickly dispels that notion. But I digress.) I have, except for years ago when I first started watching CNBC (and was much younger), always liked the way Mr. Haines thinks. I’ve always gotten the sense that his approach to nonsense and snake oil was similar to mine. I also have long had the idea that his frustration with cheerleading and groundless, gormless optimism passing for thought and insight was, like mine, growing on a daily basis. But his observations today were so perfect that I felt compelled to break my long absence from these pages to draw your attention to them.
One more thing: I don’t mind being tagged with monikers like “curmudgeon” and don’t even mind “misanthrope” occasionally, even when such descriptives not preceded by adjectives like “lovable.” I take them as badges of honor in today’s world that is characterized mostly by silliness and idiocy being accepted, indeed celebrated, as long as enough people engage in such silliness and idiocy I suspect, but have no means of knowing, that Mr. Haines feels the same way.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
RABBIT HOLE ECONOMICS
5/24/11
The Wall Street Journal’s Katy Burne reported today (Tuesday, 5/24/11, page C24) that yields on five year callable CDs, at 2.4%, are now trading 76 basis points under the CPI at 3.16%.
There are, of course, many conventional explanations for the negative real yield on what are among the highest paying CDs, to wit: flight to quality, lack of loan demand, people’s not believing the inflation numbers, preferring instead to believe that the real danger remains not inflation but deflation, a lack of alternatives, etc. There is doubtless much to these explanations. But step back for a moment and think about it. The financial crisis from which we are supposedly currently emerging had its origins in, simply, too much debt. It was called a “housing crisis” but, as loyal and long time readers know, for years I have been saying, correctly, that this was a housing crisis only in the sense that, in many cases, houses were used as the ultimate collateral for the debt that was accumulated by the financially clueless at the urging of the financially clueless. The problem we encountered was not a housing problem but a debt problem. (I digress, but I do so for a reason beyond pure entertainment.) Further, even if one believes that the problems that spawned the near financial meltdown (too much drama in that oft-used description, but, again, I digress) are behind us, one has to admit that the world still suffers from too much debt, government, household, and, maybe, commercial.
So in a world characterized by too much debt, people are still willing to lend their money for five years, and to give the borrower a call option on that debt, at a rate 76 basis points under inflation! This is amazing, even when one considers that CDs are de facto (de jure for that matter) U.S. treasury debt. (Note, though, that the issuer of treasury debt has been far from immune to the popular impulse to spend one’s self into oblivion that is (was?) the origin of the aforementioned debt crisis.) If there is too much borrowing, why can people still borrow still cheaply? The least one can say about this is that there is a bubble in the debt markets. But what would someone with no special expertise in finance or economics say if s/he were confronted with a situation in which there is too much debt yet that debt is priced so richly? S/he would say that something has gone haywire, that there is something wrong with the financial system, and maybe with the world. Yours truly, who at least purports to have more than a passing familiarity with the way the financial world works, would go so far as to say that the world has gone, in the immortal words of Group Commander Lionel Mandrake, "as mad as a bloody March hare," but such an assertion on my part would be not at all new.
The Wall Street Journal’s Katy Burne reported today (Tuesday, 5/24/11, page C24) that yields on five year callable CDs, at 2.4%, are now trading 76 basis points under the CPI at 3.16%.
There are, of course, many conventional explanations for the negative real yield on what are among the highest paying CDs, to wit: flight to quality, lack of loan demand, people’s not believing the inflation numbers, preferring instead to believe that the real danger remains not inflation but deflation, a lack of alternatives, etc. There is doubtless much to these explanations. But step back for a moment and think about it. The financial crisis from which we are supposedly currently emerging had its origins in, simply, too much debt. It was called a “housing crisis” but, as loyal and long time readers know, for years I have been saying, correctly, that this was a housing crisis only in the sense that, in many cases, houses were used as the ultimate collateral for the debt that was accumulated by the financially clueless at the urging of the financially clueless. The problem we encountered was not a housing problem but a debt problem. (I digress, but I do so for a reason beyond pure entertainment.) Further, even if one believes that the problems that spawned the near financial meltdown (too much drama in that oft-used description, but, again, I digress) are behind us, one has to admit that the world still suffers from too much debt, government, household, and, maybe, commercial.
So in a world characterized by too much debt, people are still willing to lend their money for five years, and to give the borrower a call option on that debt, at a rate 76 basis points under inflation! This is amazing, even when one considers that CDs are de facto (de jure for that matter) U.S. treasury debt. (Note, though, that the issuer of treasury debt has been far from immune to the popular impulse to spend one’s self into oblivion that is (was?) the origin of the aforementioned debt crisis.) If there is too much borrowing, why can people still borrow still cheaply? The least one can say about this is that there is a bubble in the debt markets. But what would someone with no special expertise in finance or economics say if s/he were confronted with a situation in which there is too much debt yet that debt is priced so richly? S/he would say that something has gone haywire, that there is something wrong with the financial system, and maybe with the world. Yours truly, who at least purports to have more than a passing familiarity with the way the financial world works, would go so far as to say that the world has gone, in the immortal words of Group Commander Lionel Mandrake, "as mad as a bloody March hare," but such an assertion on my part would be not at all new.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
“I SEEN MY OPPORTUNITIES AND I TOOK ‘EM”
5/21/11
Yesterday, the Democratic (Speaker Mike Madigan, really) controlled Illinois House released its decennial remap of its districts. What is not surprising is that Mike Madigan, who, in addition to being the most effective Illinois politician since the death of Richard J. Daley, has proven to be one of the world’s foremost cartographers, went a long way toward insuring continued Democratic dominance of the state House for the next ten years by repeatedly lumping incumbent Republicans into the same districts. What is especially remarkable is the reason that Mr. Madigan was able to once again exercise his considerable map making skills: he managed to maintain control of the House despite the Republican tidal wave that swept the country, and, at least regarding the U.S. House, the state of Illinois, in 2010. Say what you will about the man, he is very good at what he does. But I digress.
While it is not a surprise the Mr. Madigan and his many minions were able to manufacture a map that maintains their majority in the House, the reaction of at least one Republican was a surprise. Representative Mike Fortner (R., West Chicago), the GOP’s point man on redistricting, according to the Chicago Tribune (Saturday, 5/21, page A4), questioned whether packing together so many GOP incumbent lawmakers was “reasonable.” What a silly question. Of course it wasn’t reasonable; it was politics.
Mr. Fortner himself was placed in a district with one of his fellow GOP incumbents, Tim Schmitz of Batavia. In response, Mr. Fortner said he wants “to find out why they (Speaker Madigan and his sycophants (my words, not Mr. Fortners)) did the things they did.” Even though I have never attained the lofty post of point man for the GOP remap or even that of a lowly Illinois State House backbencher (or much of anything else, for that matter), I can answer that questions for Representative Fortner: Because they can. Or, as Mr. Fortners’s GOP colleague, Sidney Mathias (R., Buffalo Grove) a man who appears to be more schooled in the ways of the world, or at least in the ways of Mr. Madigan’s world, than Mr. Fortner, put it, in a way that would make George Washington Plunkett proud, “It certainly is, to the victor goes (sic) the spoils.”
I don’t know Mike Fortner. I don’t know if he is a young man or an older man. I don’t know if he is a great guy or an insufferable curmudgeon. I don’t know if he is a smart man or dim bulb. I don’t know if he is a popinjay or a yeoman. However, judging from his statements in the wake of Mr. Madigan’s seizing his duly won spoils, one has to wonder why a man of such naiveté is in the position the House GOP has put him. Perhaps this says a great deal more about the state of the Illinois GOP than it does about Mr. Fortner.
Yesterday, the Democratic (Speaker Mike Madigan, really) controlled Illinois House released its decennial remap of its districts. What is not surprising is that Mike Madigan, who, in addition to being the most effective Illinois politician since the death of Richard J. Daley, has proven to be one of the world’s foremost cartographers, went a long way toward insuring continued Democratic dominance of the state House for the next ten years by repeatedly lumping incumbent Republicans into the same districts. What is especially remarkable is the reason that Mr. Madigan was able to once again exercise his considerable map making skills: he managed to maintain control of the House despite the Republican tidal wave that swept the country, and, at least regarding the U.S. House, the state of Illinois, in 2010. Say what you will about the man, he is very good at what he does. But I digress.
While it is not a surprise the Mr. Madigan and his many minions were able to manufacture a map that maintains their majority in the House, the reaction of at least one Republican was a surprise. Representative Mike Fortner (R., West Chicago), the GOP’s point man on redistricting, according to the Chicago Tribune (Saturday, 5/21, page A4), questioned whether packing together so many GOP incumbent lawmakers was “reasonable.” What a silly question. Of course it wasn’t reasonable; it was politics.
Mr. Fortner himself was placed in a district with one of his fellow GOP incumbents, Tim Schmitz of Batavia. In response, Mr. Fortner said he wants “to find out why they (Speaker Madigan and his sycophants (my words, not Mr. Fortners)) did the things they did.” Even though I have never attained the lofty post of point man for the GOP remap or even that of a lowly Illinois State House backbencher (or much of anything else, for that matter), I can answer that questions for Representative Fortner: Because they can. Or, as Mr. Fortners’s GOP colleague, Sidney Mathias (R., Buffalo Grove) a man who appears to be more schooled in the ways of the world, or at least in the ways of Mr. Madigan’s world, than Mr. Fortner, put it, in a way that would make George Washington Plunkett proud, “It certainly is, to the victor goes (sic) the spoils.”
I don’t know Mike Fortner. I don’t know if he is a young man or an older man. I don’t know if he is a great guy or an insufferable curmudgeon. I don’t know if he is a smart man or dim bulb. I don’t know if he is a popinjay or a yeoman. However, judging from his statements in the wake of Mr. Madigan’s seizing his duly won spoils, one has to wonder why a man of such naiveté is in the position the House GOP has put him. Perhaps this says a great deal more about the state of the Illinois GOP than it does about Mr. Fortner.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
THE SHORTEST POST IN THE HISTORY OF THE PONTIFICATOR
5/19/11
Have you ever noticed how everything—meetings, Masses, plays, concerts, recitals, ball games, phone conversations, homilies, political speeches, movies, any kind of ceremony, funerals, weddings, and, truth be told, even posts on this blog—is 30% too long?
Well, maybe not. Homilies and political speeches are usually 80% too long, but everything else is 30% too long.
Have you ever noticed how everything—meetings, Masses, plays, concerts, recitals, ball games, phone conversations, homilies, political speeches, movies, any kind of ceremony, funerals, weddings, and, truth be told, even posts on this blog—is 30% too long?
Well, maybe not. Homilies and political speeches are usually 80% too long, but everything else is 30% too long.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
“…AND IF YOU EVER LEAVE ME I WILL LOSE MY MIND…”
5/18/11
This morning’s (i.e., Wednesday, 5/18’s) Chicago Tribune reports that, so far in 2011, the state of Illinois has dispensed $230 mm in tax breaks and other aid, primarily through Economic Development for a Growing Economy (EDGE) program, a moniker doubtless concocted for a princely sum by a politically connected marketing/PR firm. This is nearly the amount shoveled out during all of 2010 in connection with such efforts.
The formula the state of Illinois is following is a classic prescription for any Chicago politician, or any self-aggrandizing politician (Using “self-aggrandizing” as an adjective with “politician” is the portrait of redundancy, but I digress.) for that matter: make life intolerable for business through a combination of high taxes, busybody regulation, and indecipherable and onerous workers’ compensation rules, but then make life easier for those businesses that come to the politicians on bended knee asking for relief. Then remind those beneficiaries of the pols’ beneficence at fundraising (i.e., all of the) time. Legions of gangsters have gone to jail for similar behavior conducted on a much smaller scale.
Don’t be surprised when it is the same “populist” Pat Quinn types who piously decry the cost, and very existence, of “corporate welfare” when election time rolls around, adding hypocrisy to extortion on their list of what would be crimes in any civilized society in which the citizenry paid attention.
One could argue that Illinois must engage in such “incentivizing” to either attract business to the state or keep business in the state, and there is doubtless something to that. But one wonders the degree to which states that are fiscally sound, low tax polities that treat businesses and people who work fairly have to bribe businesses to stay or locate within their borders. One would hope that, rather than compete with each other for the juiciness of the tax breaks the politicasters can dispense to those who are expected to return the favors at election time, states would compete for businesses and residents by working to make themselves the types of places businesses, and the people who work for them, would like to reside. By this I have in mind low taxes and efficient delivery of basic services rather than, as the politicians would interpret it, adding to the public payroll in order to “address the concerns of the business, educational, and non-profit communities” and to “meet the (ever growing) needs of those who work pay check to pay check” or some such drivelous politico-speak.
This morning’s (i.e., Wednesday, 5/18’s) Chicago Tribune reports that, so far in 2011, the state of Illinois has dispensed $230 mm in tax breaks and other aid, primarily through Economic Development for a Growing Economy (EDGE) program, a moniker doubtless concocted for a princely sum by a politically connected marketing/PR firm. This is nearly the amount shoveled out during all of 2010 in connection with such efforts.
The formula the state of Illinois is following is a classic prescription for any Chicago politician, or any self-aggrandizing politician (Using “self-aggrandizing” as an adjective with “politician” is the portrait of redundancy, but I digress.) for that matter: make life intolerable for business through a combination of high taxes, busybody regulation, and indecipherable and onerous workers’ compensation rules, but then make life easier for those businesses that come to the politicians on bended knee asking for relief. Then remind those beneficiaries of the pols’ beneficence at fundraising (i.e., all of the) time. Legions of gangsters have gone to jail for similar behavior conducted on a much smaller scale.
Don’t be surprised when it is the same “populist” Pat Quinn types who piously decry the cost, and very existence, of “corporate welfare” when election time rolls around, adding hypocrisy to extortion on their list of what would be crimes in any civilized society in which the citizenry paid attention.
One could argue that Illinois must engage in such “incentivizing” to either attract business to the state or keep business in the state, and there is doubtless something to that. But one wonders the degree to which states that are fiscally sound, low tax polities that treat businesses and people who work fairly have to bribe businesses to stay or locate within their borders. One would hope that, rather than compete with each other for the juiciness of the tax breaks the politicasters can dispense to those who are expected to return the favors at election time, states would compete for businesses and residents by working to make themselves the types of places businesses, and the people who work for them, would like to reside. By this I have in mind low taxes and efficient delivery of basic services rather than, as the politicians would interpret it, adding to the public payroll in order to “address the concerns of the business, educational, and non-profit communities” and to “meet the (ever growing) needs of those who work pay check to pay check” or some such drivelous politico-speak.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
“STEP RIGHT UP, FOLKS, STEP RIGHT UP…”
5/17/11
The Chicago and national news media insist on continuing their, if reports are to be believed, unrequited love affair with now Mayor Rahm Emanuel. This morning, the news radio stations were all agog about Mr. Emanuel “hitting the ground running” on his first day in office. And what was Mr. Emanuel doing this morning? Shaking hands with commuters at the CTA station at 95th and the Dan Ryan.
This is “hitting the ground running”? Mr. Mayor, the campaign is over and it’s not the morning after the election; it’s the day after inauguration. Now the governing begins, and there is plenty to be done. Shaking the voters’ hands is not going to do anything about our fair city’s gaping budget deficit, horrific schools, or crumbling infrastructure. It’s time to get to work on the less glamorous aspects of the job.
How Mr. Emanuel spent his first day in office provides a stark illustration of one of my fears about Mr. Emanuel; i.e., that he is perhaps the archetype of the new politician who cannot distinguish between style and substance, between campaigning and governing. Further, having made his bones in fundraising, Mr. Emanuel shows no compunction about continuing to shake down businesses (and, having spent no time, beyond an influence peddling stint before running for Congress, in the private sector, sees no bottom to the pockets of business people) in order to finance this permanent campaign (See my 3/28/11 post HEY, THE BOYS NEED A LITTLE LUNCH MONEY…), this triumph of style over substance that his mayoralty may turn out to be.
The permanent campaign, financed by people who want something from government or who simply want to be able to conduct business without too much government harassment, is by no means a new approach to government; it is one of the reasons our society is fast heading toward the footnotes of history. What frightens some about Mr. Emanuel is the extent to which he engages in this approach to governance. And while famous pols of the past who paid close attention to style, sometimes at the expense of substance, knew what they were doing, one sometimes wonders if Mr. Emanuel and his ilk are capable of making the distinction.
The Chicago and national news media insist on continuing their, if reports are to be believed, unrequited love affair with now Mayor Rahm Emanuel. This morning, the news radio stations were all agog about Mr. Emanuel “hitting the ground running” on his first day in office. And what was Mr. Emanuel doing this morning? Shaking hands with commuters at the CTA station at 95th and the Dan Ryan.
This is “hitting the ground running”? Mr. Mayor, the campaign is over and it’s not the morning after the election; it’s the day after inauguration. Now the governing begins, and there is plenty to be done. Shaking the voters’ hands is not going to do anything about our fair city’s gaping budget deficit, horrific schools, or crumbling infrastructure. It’s time to get to work on the less glamorous aspects of the job.
How Mr. Emanuel spent his first day in office provides a stark illustration of one of my fears about Mr. Emanuel; i.e., that he is perhaps the archetype of the new politician who cannot distinguish between style and substance, between campaigning and governing. Further, having made his bones in fundraising, Mr. Emanuel shows no compunction about continuing to shake down businesses (and, having spent no time, beyond an influence peddling stint before running for Congress, in the private sector, sees no bottom to the pockets of business people) in order to finance this permanent campaign (See my 3/28/11 post HEY, THE BOYS NEED A LITTLE LUNCH MONEY…), this triumph of style over substance that his mayoralty may turn out to be.
The permanent campaign, financed by people who want something from government or who simply want to be able to conduct business without too much government harassment, is by no means a new approach to government; it is one of the reasons our society is fast heading toward the footnotes of history. What frightens some about Mr. Emanuel is the extent to which he engages in this approach to governance. And while famous pols of the past who paid close attention to style, sometimes at the expense of substance, knew what they were doing, one sometimes wonders if Mr. Emanuel and his ilk are capable of making the distinction.
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