How Will Amendment One Affect Primary Voting?

Leave a reply

If you live in North Carolina and aren't living in utter seclusion, you're aware that the "Marriage Amendment" is on the ballot in today's primary. Normally a primary held after the presidential nominees have alreay been determined would draw only the hard core party faithful, but because of the amendment there's been an extraordinary amount of attention paid to this year's primary and it will be interesting to see how that affects the results.

Some questions to ponder:

  • In a state where 25% of the voters are independent how many of those unaffiliated voters will be drawn to the primaries because of the amendment?
  • Democrats make up 43%, and Republicans 31%, of registered voters. If independents decide to participate more heavily in the Republican primaries will they affect the outcome of some close races for NC Senate/House, city councils, county commissions, etc.?  
  • With either the Democratic or Republican primaries will the participation of independents skew the votes towards more centrist candidates?
  • If the independents participate more heavily in the Republican primary they will likely have a greater impact since there's a smaller pool of Republican voters. Assuming the independents will lean more towards the center will their participation hurt the more conservative candidates? If so, will the conservative Republicans' strategy of putting the Amendment on the primary ballot end up being viewed as a mistake in hindsight, even if it passes?

The 2008 primary was dramatic on the Democratic ticket because the presidential nomination was still up in the air at the time, but this year's primaries are dramatic all the way around due to the amendment. The debate about the direct consequences of the amendment has been well documented, but there hasn't been much exploration of the potential collateral damage the amendment might incur politically, and it will be fascinating to see how it shakes out.

Is Wealth Distribution a Problem?

Leave a reply

Dilbert creator Scott Adams has an interesting thought over at his blog:

Suppose you could snap your fingers and instantly reduce the huge disparity in income distribution across the globe. Would you do it?

Many of you will probably say yes. You'd take some of the "extra" money from the rich and use it to help the needy. But suppose I put one condition on this magic power of yours. Suppose the only thing you can do by magic is reduce by half the wealth of the top 1% while knowing the money would be transferred to no one. The money would simply cease to exist. The rich would have half as much, while everyone else remained the same. Would you use your powers then?

Of course he's right that burning half of Person A's money doesn't make Person B's life any better, but it's ludicrous to say that taking some of Person A's money and giving it to Person B wouldn't help make Person B's situation more comfortable. On the other hand giving Person B the money doesn't guaranatee he'll be any happier – money can't buy happiness and all that – but you can almost guarantee that Person B won't be any better off if Person A keeps all the money and helps engineer a system that insures that Person B won't have a chance to earn more money this year, next year and the years beyond.

Adams seems to be addressing the whole Occupy Wall Street – The 1% vs. The Rest of Us phenomenon, and focusing on the actual income disparity between the two groups in the process. That's a mistake. The real issue people have is with a system that appears rigged to insure that wealth continues to flow disproportionately to the already wealthy, and often to the detriment to those they employ. 

How can people not be enraged by a situation where executives garner huge financial rewards by running their companies for short term stock gains, without an eye towards long term health, and then walk away as their companies lay of thousands of employees in order to avoid bankruptcy? How can they not be disgusted by an economic/governmental system that rewards the executives who mismanaged their massive financial institutions to the point that it almost crashed the world economy? How can they not want to find a way to redistribute money from hedge fund managers who made their billions by not giving a flip about the common weal as they played with the economy like it was their own private bingo game?

Isn't it funny how you don't hear anyone complaining about how much the local car dealer, community banker, or restauranteur is making? No one cares because they can see what that person is contributing to the community, but that's not the case with the vast majority of the 1%, because most of them are perceived as leaches on the economy rather than contributors to it. That's probably not a fair assessment across the board, but in this world perception is reality and that's the perception many folks have of the 1% and that's why Adams' argument won't hold much water with the 99%.

Alliance Defense Fund Still Around

Leave a reply

If you thought the folks at the Alliance Defense Fund took their ball and went home after taking the Forsyth County Commissioners' prayer case and running with it all the way to the US Supreme Court and losing, you'd be wrong. They've reappeared as an influencer of the controversial NC Amendment One on tomorrow's primary ballots. From the Fayetteville Observer:

The official explanation issued by the state Constitutional Amendments Publication Commission on next month's measure, written to help voters understand it, acknowledges the "debate among legal experts" over the possible effects. It concludes: "The courts will ultimately make those decisions."

Stam, the Raleigh lawmaker, said he wanted a more narrowly worded amendment but was "overruled" by "national experts" he identified as the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal advocacy group.

Stam says the state needs the amendment to protect marriage from efforts to de-legitimize it. If unmarried straight couples want the benefits of marriage, he said, they should get married. 

Hurricane Lucy

1 Reply

If you know Lucy "Esbee" Cash, she of Life in Forsyth fame, you will not be surprised to learn that she's been named Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools' 2012 Judy Mountjoy Volunteer of the Year:

Between Paisley, where her son Leon is a seventh-grader, and Whitaker Elementary School, where her younger son, George, is in the third grade, Cash spends about 20 hours a week as a volunteer. 

All the work that Cash does – and all the care she shows for students and teachers along the way – prompted the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Council of PTAs to give Cash its 2012 Judy Mountjoy Volunteer of the Year Award last night. Established in 2000, the award is named for a former teacher and guidance counselor who has devoted countless hours as a volunteer.

It feels odd to be honored for doing something that’s so satisfying, Cash said. “I genuinely enjoy it.” 

If you've ever met Lucy you'll also not be surprised by these quotes from other volunteers:

“She has a lot of energy, and she is here all the time, no matter what,” said fellow volunteer Brierley Ash.

“If the teacher needs something, she’s going to figure out a way to get it done,” said Deena Dreyfuss, a Paisley volunteer who nominated Cash for the award. “She is here so much, she gets to know the kids. So many kids come up to her. She says, ‘How did you do on that math test?’”

Those of you who may have been wondering why her blogging at Life in Forsyth has been less prolific of late I think you have your answer as to why.

Well deserved Lucy. Congratulations!

Money Is an Illusion

Leave a reply

Daniel Suelo is a guy in Utah who gave up money in 2000 and started living in caves, eating roadkill, dumpster diving and living off the generosity of friends and strangers. Some would classify him as homeless, but are you truly homeless if you call your home a cave and live there on purpose? In watching the video below I was struck, as I always am by stories like this, that people who document these stories often fail to point out that although their subjects are living off the grid they are still dependant on the grid. Where did the dumpster come from that he's diving into? Some person or company who's living on the grid of course.

That nitpick aside I found one concept from the video to be thought provoking: when Suelo gave up money he declared that money was an illusion and the writer of his story asks, "When your house is worth $500,000 one day and $300,000 the next day where did that $200,000 go?" Indeed it seems like an illusion. 

They may be on to something. Watching PBS' excellent Frontline four-part series Money, Power and Wall Street it's hard not to think of money as an illusion when you hear about the creation of financial vehicles out of thin air. Rather than confuse ourselves trying to understand crazy things like synthetic collateralized debt obligations let's think of something as simple as our houses. We each believe our house is worth a certain amount of money; our local government believes it's worth a certain amount of money based on the (hopefully informed) opinion of a professional assessor; if we have a mortgage the bank believes it's worth a certain amount of money based on the opinon of its appraiser; rarely do these three values match, and so the true value of our house is merely an illusion.

But a house isn't money, it's an asset that is bought, sold and valued using money as a measurement. How could money, an actual dollar, be an illusion? Obviously that piece of fine paper it's printed on is not an illusion, but you could argue that what that piece of paper is worth is an illusion. Sure, we know that a dollar is worth 1/150,000 of a certain house (according to the appraiser), or that it's worth one candy bar, but that's today and that's because we think that our dollar will be worth roughly the same amount tomorrow as it is today. We trust that our government will not print one quadrillion dollars overnight and thus make that dollar in our pocket worth a penny tomorrow. That's a trust shared by all of us and all it takes is one violation of that trust for the perceived value to evaporate. So really a dollar is merely a token representing our collective opinion of the trustworthiness of our financial system – if that's not illusory I'm not sure what is.

Having Their Cake and Eating It Too

Leave a reply

According to an article in today's Winston-Salem Journal the Triad affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure is experiencing a deep decline in its fundraising after the Planned Parenthood controversy the national organization created last year. That's not terribly surprising, but a quote from the president of the Triad affiliate is a bit befuddling:

Natasha Gore, president of the Triad affiliate, acknowledged the challenges that the local group faces, stressing that most of the money raised here stays in the region. She also expressed frustration that some would-be donors do not differentiate between the local affiliate and the national organization.

"A lot of the time, people think we are one and the same," Gore said. "If they're boycotting us because of something happening with the national organization, it does not really fit with what's going on."

The quote is befuddling because it's amazingly naive, if not downright disingenuous. Of course people are going to confuse the organizations because in the grand scheme of things they are the same organization. Sure the local affiliate has it's own board, staff, volunteers, grants, etc. but it has affiliated itself with the national organization, which means it benefits or suffers from the national organization's activities. The Triad affiliate certainly benefited from the national organization's advertising and branding activities and I don't recall hearing any concerns about brand confusion from the local affiliate before the controversy.

So the donors aren't confused, rather they're saying loudly and clearly that they've lost faith in the organization and it is up to organization on both the national and local level to win back that faith. If the local affiliate thinks the brand is too damaged to repair then they might want to consider:

  • Disassociation from the national organization
  • A name change (would likely be required by the national group anyway)
  • A clear articulation of the local group's principles/standards and how they're different from the national group's
  • An ad/branding campaign to introduce the "new" organization to the Triad, and to highlight all of the organizations that benefit from its grants

In the end an affiliation is like a marriage: you're stuck with it in good times and bad, and if the bad gets horrific then your only choice might be a divorce.

Apparently Women Like to Highlight More Than Men

Leave a reply

Amazon has a list of the most highlighted passages on Kindles and all you have to do is look at the list and you realize that highlighting seems to be dominated by women. I know, I know, that's a terribly sexist statement, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Suzanne Collins and Jane Austen appeal much more to women than to men. On a separate note who knew Suzanne Collins was so deep?

Dunning the Sick

Leave a reply

Whenever I hear people debating health care reform or talk about "Obamacare" I almost invariably hear the statement, "Well, even with the system today everyone is able to get medical care – hospitals aren't allowed to deny anyone care." I've always thought that to be a dumb argument because it seems like it's an incredibly inefficient and expensive way to provide health care to those who can't afford it, and reading this article on collection agencies working in hospitals seems to support the argument that it is indeed supremely stupid and expensive:

Still, hospitals are in a bind. The more than 5,000 community hospitals in the United States provided $39.3 billion in uncompensated care — predominately unpaid patient debts or charity care — in 2010, up 16 percent from 2007, the hospital association estimated.

So it's no surprise that hospitals would try to recoup some of their money through collection agencies. Unfortunately, the tactics at least one of these agencies is using seem to be encroaching on the health care delivered by the hospitals:

Collection activities extended from obstetrics to the emergency room. In July 2010, an Accretive manager told staff members at Fairview that they should “get cracking on labor and delivery,” since there is a “good chunk to be collected there,” according to company e-mails.

Employees were told to stall patients entering the emergency room until they had agreed to pay a previous balance, according to the documents. Employees in the emergency room, for example, were told to ask incoming patients first for a credit card payment. If that failed, employees were told to say, “If you have your checkbook in your car I will be happy to wait for you,” internal documents show…

Patients with outstanding balances were closely tracked by Accretive staff members, who listed them on “stop lists,” internal documents show. In March 2011, doctors at Fairview complained that such strong-arm tactics were discouraging patients from seeking lifesaving treatments, but Accretive officials dismissed the complaints as “country club talk,” the documents show.

Nah, we don't need no stinking health care reform.