Category Archives: Current Affairs

Fannie and Freddie Don’t Deserve All the Blame

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From an interesting piece (found via Ed's blog) reacting to the Republican reaction to the Financial Crisis Commission's findings:

After 20 years of free-market fervor, the world of the mid-’00s had become one of overleveraged banks too big to regulate and trillions of dollars worth of derivatives bets that no one had track of — which in turn were helping to accelerate huge flows of capital coming in from abroad — and a Fed and government regulators who weren’t aware or weren’t watching.

And that was the real cause of the crisis, whose aftereffects continue to drag on the economy today. Fannie and Freddie were, like almost every other big player, both culprits and victims, but just two of many.

 

It’s Not the Rich, It’s the Educated

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If you're the parent of a teenager then you know one of the universal truths of teenage life has not changed since your own days in high school: if you want to be considered "cool" then you better not let anyone know you're actually doing your homework.  And if you're living in America these days you probably realize that anti-intellectualism is most definitely an in thing. If you don't then you should read this quote from Frank Rich's column about Sarah Palin's ascendancy:

It’s anti-elitism that most defines angry populism in this moment, and, as David Frum, another Bush alumnus (and Palin critic), has pointed out, populist rage on the right is aimed at the educated, not the wealthy. The Bushies and Noonans and dwindling retro-moderate Republicans are no less loathed by Palinistas and their Tea Party fellow travelers than is Obama’s Ivy League White House.

If an official from the administration of a President, who built his own image around being an average good 'ol boy, is pointing out that people are pissed off at the educated then you know we're in trouble. 

Al-Qaeda Marching Band in Macy’s Day Parade?!

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I love The Onion, and this piece titled Al-Qaeda Marching Band To Join Macy's Parade After Incredible Audition is a good example why. As with most satire there's always the risk that someone won't get it and take it seriously, which can offer its own form of entertainment.  A perfect example of this happened recently on Facebook when a friend of mine "shared" the aforementioned article and a friend of his took it seriously.  To avoid piling on I'm going to use pseudonyms when replaying the conversation that ensued in the comment section of the post:

Took It Seriously: absolutely obnoxious that this country even allows this to happen, what an insult to the Americans who have lost their lives to these people……….sorry <Jon'sFriend> call it as I see it, I hope you son never knows what it is like to find himself in the sight of an Al-Qaeda terrorist.

Jon's Friend: Its a joke <TookItSeriously>

Took it Seriously: It's a joke?

Jon's Friend: Yes – The Onion is a humor site.

Jon's Friend: Like this http://www.theonion.com/articles/worlds-power-brokers-hold-annual-summit-where-they,18474/?utm_source=recentnews

Took it Seriously: Quit givin me a heart attack <Jon's Friend>!! No chocolate for you this week!! Forgive my momentary loss of sanity!!

Before you're too judgmental about Took it Seriously, remember that we live in the post-9/11 age of hyperventilating news so we're inundated with seemingly implausible headlines like:

Seriously, if you live in a world where headlines like these appear on a regular basis I think you can be excused for mistaking The Onion for a real news outlet.

 

Let Me Tell You How America Works

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Found at the ever interesting local blog The Seventh Sense is this quote from the Washington Post's election coverage:

"Let me tell you how America works," says Foley, who wears a plaid shirt, a mallard-print tie and a woodpecker feather in his fedora. "You have Democrats voting for Democrats and Republicans voting for Republicans and then you have these people down the middle who are — " he lowers his voice " – undereducated, and are trying to make a living and do the best for their children, but they're so busy that they realize two weeks before an election that, 'Gee, I better start watching TV to get some news,' and by then the richest [expletives] in America have shoved their [expletiving] money into attack ads and that's what this middle group of people sees, and they vote accordingly and they're the ones who steer the country."

SSA Gets Punk’d; Average Wages Worse Than Originally Thought

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The Social Security Administration got punk'd by two people who filed wildly inflated W-2s, maybe as some kind of joke.  The result of the SSA finding is that they had to revise their latest wage numbers:

Removing the phony W-2s reduced total compensation by $32.3 billion or 0.55 percent of all the wages, salaries and bonuses earned by Americans. The total number of people with any work was reduced by two to 150,917,733.

As a result of the revisions, the data show that the average wage in 2009 dollars declined by $457 (not $243), a 1.2 percent decline from 2008. The revision shows that since 2000 the average wage, in 2009 dollars, barely changed in real terms, increasing only $347 or 0.9 percent after nine years.

The median wage – half make more, half less — was unchanged at $26,261. The median is $37 lower than in 2000 and $253 lower than in 2008.

So our country's median wage has declined over the last 10 years?! Add that little tidbit of info to the fact that a good chunk of us are living in houses, our single biggest asset, that are worth significantly less than they were two years ago and I think you begin to see why so many folks are ticked off right now.  

Our Strange State of Affairs

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I was in DC last weekend for a wedding, and although I'd totally forgotten about the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, I was quickly reminded that it was being held Saturday when I saw the massive lines of people trying to get into the Vienna Metro station to catch a ride down to the Mall.  What a strange state of affairs these days when the two largest "political" gatherings of the year were staged by media misfits.  First we had the conservative gathering in August organized by an ex-DJ/current cable TV Whack Job and called "Restoring Honor." Then this weekend we had the aforementioned Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" organized by two comedians best known for faux-news. Sheesh. 

Ah well, I guess we just need to roll with it.  Here's a montage of some of the signs at Saturday's rally, many of which are pretty funny:

 

Sign Montage from the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear from ekai on Vimeo.

Xenophobia? Take a Deep Breath People

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Anyone remember when the Japanese were going to own us back in the '80s and early '90s?  Hell, it was such a big fear that it became the plot line for a Michael Crichton book that was made into a movie starring Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes; a sure sign that the apocalypse was upon us.  So how'd that turn out? Still that doesn't stop us from moving on to the next great Asian boogeyman: China.

People, our problems are huge, our economy is in trouble and times are tough. Sure we have a ton of debt, and that tonnage is increasing, and the Chinese own a good chunk of it.  But if we don't stop hyperventilating and falling for the kind of xenophobic fear mongering the folks at CAGW are peddling this election season (see below) then I fear we just may be up **** creek without a paddle.  When you view this thing just keep in mind a couple of things:

  • The makers of this video toss out a nice red herring with the whole "Empires crumbling due to turning away from core values" thing and then segueing to stimulus spending,  healthcare reform, etc.  Silly me, I thought our core principles included things like freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom from taxation without representation, etc.  From which core principle does healthcare reform turn us away?
  • Our debt with China was a problem long before President Obama or most members of Congress came along, as was our trade imbalance.  It's been a problem as long as I can remember thanks to our true national pastime in America, shopping for crap we don't need and can hardly afford, combined with our brilliant economic policy of letting other people make the crap we don't need but continue to buy and then bitching about it when we realize that, gee we owe all those crap makers a lot of money. 
  • We're really morons if we think the new crop of politicians will do anything much differently.  Why? They're p-o-l-i-t-i-c-i-a-n-s. They'll change their stripes the same day Tony the Tiger does.
  • We have met the enemy and it is us, not the Chinese.  Don't be distracted by the boogeyman of the decade.  They need us as much, if not more, as we need them. Ask yourself this question: why did the banks get in so much trouble with this recession? Because they were owed money by a lot of people, and when a fraction of those people couldn't pay up the banks almost went under (yes that's oversimplified). It is in China's best interest for us to remain a strong, vibrant economy since it doesn't do them any good to own a bunch of debt from a collapsing or weak economy. So just take a deep breath and think clearly about the issues we face and the best way to deal with them. Maybe you'll come to the same conclusion you would have anyway, but at least you're coming to those conclusions via some rational deduction.

Do Unto Others

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The video below was shared by a friend on Facebook.  I lost contact with my friend when I left home for college and I consider it one of the great gifts of this age of social media that I've been able to reconnect with him and several other of my friends that I'd lost contact with over the years.

What's unique about this particular friend is that he is gay.  Back in the early '80s when we were in high school he wasn't yet officially out, and to my recollection we never discussed his or anyone else's sexual preferences.  But after watching this video I'm left to wonder if I ever made any hateful or harmful comments about "fags", to wonder if I ever hurt his feelings because I said things that teenage boys say about gay people because, quite frankly, we're scared to death someone might think we're gay.  I wonder if my own insecurity led me to truly hurt someone that didn't do anything to deserve it.

For those who don't want to watch this video because you disagree with the gay or lesbian lifestyle I would urge you to think about something; try to remember how insecure, confused and lost you felt when you were a teenager. If you were a straight boy you were terrified that your "manliness" would somehow be questioned, and you were petrified that you would be rejected by the girls you were interested in. Now imagine how insecure you'd feel if you realized that you weren't like most of the other boys, that you were very different than your parents in a most fundamental way.  The teasing and taunting that a straight kid who's not a part of the in crowd receives is bad enough, and we can only imagine how much worse it is for a kid who's trying to come to terms with being gay.

The speaker in this video is right that we need to help stop the bullying and cruelty that children face every day.  This is nothing new and it's a problem that I think every generation has dealt with, but that doesn't mean we can't do something about it.  I think part of the solution is treating bullying at schools in much the same way that fighting has been treated.  From what I see at my kids' high school, fights are much less common today than they were when I was in school and I think that's a result of the "boys will be boys" thinking being replaced with "we will not tolerate any fighting" thinking.

The larger part of the solution lies with parents.  I'm sure that in the sanctity of our own homes many of us say things that we'd never say in public.  Maybe it's a slightly inappropriate joke that we think is harmless, or maybe it's a diatribe against "those people", but without really thinking about it we send our kids a message that people are different and somehow beneath us. I'm confident that in many homes the inappropriate jokes are accompanied by that old Seinfeld line "not that there's anything wrong with that," but the message is still being sent.  I'm also confident that in many homes there are overt and vehement statements made against groups that the parents don't agree with, but that does not relieve them of the responsibility of teaching their kids that no matter how they feel about that other child's race, sexual orientation, etc. they cannot tease or bully that child.

Of course we live in the real world, and no matter what we say as parents our kids will be kids, and they'll say hurtful things to other kids so they can look cool or somehow feel more important. That's life, but as parents what we can do is come down hard on them and let them know it's not acceptable behavior.  We can also take a look at ourselves and recognize our own weaknesses, our own human frailty, and endeavor to do better.

Personally I only hope that those I may have hurt or offended will forgive me.

Twitter Fight!

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So, the Winston-Salem ballpark has reemerged as a hot button issue because of this:

The Citizens Baseball Stadium Review Committee got its first look last night at financial information about the progress of BB&T Ballpark during a discussion that was not open to the public.

The committee voted unanimously to close the meeting because, it said, the financial information that the members would discuss — likely the stadium’s revenues, expenses and profit through June 30 — is confidential and protected by North Carolina law.

The Winston-Salem Journal objected to the closing of the meeting. Earlier yesterday, the city rejected a request by the Journal for the financial information supplied by the team to the city.

In a letter to the Journal, City Attorney Angela Carmon wrote that “disclosure of such confidential, competitively sensitive business information could cause substantial competitive harm or otherwise adversely impact the business interests of the Ballpark Entities.”

The Committee's decision to meet behind closed doors led to a scathing column from the Journal's Scott Sexton and then a little tete-a-tete broke out on Twitter between Mayor Joines and Sexton:

JoinesTweets

Sextontweet
A little later this appeared on the Journal website:

Mayor Allen Joines said today he will talk with the Winston-Salem Dash to see if the baseball team can release some financial information that might not otherwise be publicly available…

Joines said that the private information in the financial data includes vendor contracts, and that the team is in the process of negotiating those.

“The bottom line is, we need to determine what are the critical things the public would like to know,” Joinessaid. “I don’t think they want to see a vendor contract. I think they want to know what the attendance was and what the general total revenues are. Hopefully we can get something that is a compromise that we can share.”