Miscellany: 8/31/12

Quote of the Day 
We become 
just by performing just actions, 
temperate by performing temperate actions, 
brave by performing brave actions. 
Aristotle

Reflections on the GOP National Convention Day 3:
Part 2

Mitt Romney showed a sense of humor. In Wednesday's post, I noted Paul Ryan's teasing Romney about his tastes in music. So Mitt, after paying tribute to his running mate, said, "But Paul, I still like the playlist on my iPod better than yours."

Some excerpts (my edits):

• When [the 2008] election was over Americans were eager to go back to work, to live our lives the way Americans always have – optimistic and positive and confident in the future. That very optimism is uniquely American. It is what brought us to America. We are a nation of immigrants, ones who wanted a better life, the driven ones, the ones who woke up at night hearing that voice telling them that life in that place called America could be better. They came not just in pursuit of the riches of this world but for the richness of this life. Freedom. Freedom to build a life. And yes, freedom to build a business. With their own hands. This is the essence of the American experience. We Americans have always felt a special kinship with the future.  In America [immigrants] could build a better life, that in America their children would be more blessed than they.

Wow, this is great stuff, absolutely spot on. I mention in my March essay on if I were President: "Yes, when I dream of what it would be like to be President, I don't think of grand state dinners or giving the State of the Union Address, of saluting the troops, sitting in the Oval Office or boarding Air Force One. I think of something different, a Fourth of July on Ellis Island, of meeting and greeting the people I work for,  newly minted American citizens of every race, religion and tongue. I would assure them that the promise of America sometimes is difficult to see, but it never has left. It is still there for those of us whom want it and believe. Yes, dreams still do come true in America, and her beacon of liberty has never dimmed (we just don't look high enough): it's still the best place on earth, and we have been the lucky ones to inherit her promise. Yes, I love the America we see: her land, her people, her flag and tradition. But I love even more the America we don't see: her enduring ideas and promise."

I would like to think that Romney is sending out a message to all immigrants, including hard-working, honest Latinos whom have made and continue to make a positive contribution to our economy. 

I would probably tweak things a bit: I would be trying to suggest that some are casting a shadow over our unalienable rights of liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness. They seek to set paternalistic rules and regulations that intrude on our economic rights and other basic liberties, even the right to be left alone. They have faith in government coercion, not in the American people. They sap the economy of its vitality and obstruct its innovation; they encourage dependence on government, in place of self-reliance.

• I wish President Obama had succeeded because I want America to succeed. But today, four years from the excitement of the last election,  the hope and change America voted for  have given way to disappointment and division. For the first time, the majority of Americans now doubt what we were promised:  a better future for ourselves and our children, our businesses, and our nation, by paying down the national debt and rolling back those massive deficits. 

I had to heavily edit the text because it comes across as muddled in my judgment and focusing on college graduates and small businesses seems to be unduly restrictive. I would include 'college graduates' under 'children' and make a distinction between the troubled present (ourselves) and our dubious future (children).

Nice touch to say things like 'I wish Obama had succeeded' and 'Obama is a decent man with a beautiful family', etc. I've said similar things. To paraphrase: 'it's government; it's not personal'.

• Now is the moment when we can stand up and say, "I'm an American. I make my destiny. And we deserve better! My children deserve better! My family deserves better. My country deserves better!

I remember when I heard this I thought it was his McCain-like "stand up and fight" moment. I probably would have tweaked it a bit, something like this: my family is worse off than 4 years ago: we should have done better, we can do better, and we must do better. Together, we will do better.

• To be an American was to assume that all things were possible. Like all Americans we went to bed [on the day Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon] knowing we lived in the greatest country in the history of the world. Neil Armstrong's spirit is still with us: that unique blend of optimism, humility and the utter confidence that when the world needs someone to do the really big stuff, you need an American. [My dad] had big dreams.My mom and dad gave their kids the greatest gift of all – the gift of unconditional love. They cared deeply about who we would BE, and much less about what we would DO.

Mitt Romney here is attempting to explain the values and principles that have been behind his personal and professional success. He's doing at least two important things  First, he's refuting (by his discussion of unconditional love and those positive qualities: optimism, humility, and confidence) that Democratic robotic-like caricature of him. Second, he's smartly contrasting himself to Obama: he's telling people: "Look, I'm not going to talk down the economy like Obama did in his first few months in office; "I'm not going to bitch for 4 years about what a lousy economy I inherited. I'm up to this job and its challenges; I'll take responsibility for my decisions, and I'm optimistic about America's future."

• Mom and Dad were married 64 years. And if you wondered what their secret was, you could have asked the local florist – because every day Dad gave Mom a rose, which he put on her bedside table. That's how she found out what happened on the day my father died – she went looking for him because that morning, there was no rose.

GREAT STORY. It's sweet; it's romantic; you can tell that he has the same relationship with Ann. The fact that he shared that personal story tells me about his priorities in life. Romney is connecting with social conservatives and underscoring his faith in and the importance of enduring marriage; and I think that the story connects with women.

• When my mom ran for the Senate, my dad was there for her every step of the way. I can still hear her saying in her beautiful voice, "Why should women have any less say than men, about the great decisions facing our nation?" I wish she could have been here at the convention and heard leaders like Governor Mary Fallin, Governor Nikki Haley, Governor Susana Martinez, Senator Kelly Ayotte and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. As Governor of Massachusetts, I chose a woman Lt. Governor, a woman chief of staff, half of my cabinet and senior officials were women, and in business, I mentored and supported great women leaders who went on to run great companies.

I believe that this is Romney's way of reaching out to women in general, especially suburban moms and young women. There's a part of me that recoils from defensive political correctness, e.g., "some of my best friends are XXXXX". I would avoid giving laundry lists of (in this case) women in business and government. "I've sought out, listened to and have benefited from the insights, criticisms and advice from the women in my life: my wife, mother, friends, and colleagues. Some of the best executives, professionals, and public servants that I've known, worked with or mentored have been women, I value their inputs and contributions to public policy, and they will be an integral part of my administration."

•  The strength and power and goodness of America has always been based on the strength and power and goodness of our communities, our families, our faiths.

I would like to think one of the reasons that he's raising this is to rely less on central planning from the federal government and more on the volunteers, churches and charities of the private sector and/or decentralization of any necessary public responsibility, authority and policy to the local/state government.

Due to time constraints, I'll continue my commentary on Mitt Romney's speech and/or other convention details in tomorrow's post.

Follow-Up Odds and Ends

• Miscellany: 8/30/12: Reflections on GOP Convention Day 3: Part 1. I excerpted part of mother Pam Finlayson's story about how years ago Mitt Romney came to visit her and then premature Kate, whom she briefly noted passed away as a young woman in late 2010. While I was on Youtube, I ran across a tribute family video, which I infer was uploaded by Kate's younger brother. I've slightly edited the video liner notes below. I found the tribute incredibly moving. What a beautiful, loving family; what a precious gift from God. As a Catholic from a large family, I honor Mormon families, and the Mormons I've met are good, loving, virtuous people (well, except for one control freak client DBA whom spent most of his time trying to convert me). 

Around the end of my academic career in the early 1990's, I did go on an unsuccessful campus visit to a Protestant-affiliated university (which ended in a bizarre way); I think I had to stay over a Saturday for flight purposes and got to explore downtown Salt Lake City (the walk signals had seagull sounds, very cool). I explored around; the LDS has a temple complex, a genealogy center, etc.  

I also served as a temporary DBA project resource at a Springville, UT company, Flowserve. I got invited to the company family picnic while I was there, and I don't think I've ever seen so many blonds in one place in my life--with all these little kids laughing and running around. I used to work late hours (sometimes past midnight), but I recall that restaurants close early in nearby Provo (compared to elsewhere: like by 8PM or so). I think I was told it was because early evenings are family at home time for Mormons. There were 3 places I knew about that were open near my hotel: one was an all-night diner near the main highway, a Wendy's (but I think that closed at midnight), and a Taco Bell that I think was open until 1 or 2 AM. (Yeah, I know: after 11.5 years, I can still remember where I ate. I guess it must be my muscle fat memory...)

Back to Kate:

Kathryn "Kate" Finlayson passed away on November 27, 2010, following a long battle with complications of hydrocephalus. She was 26 years old. Kate was born severely prematurely in Boston, Massachusetts, and suffered a major stroke with multiple other complications from which she was not expected to survive. She overcame her early illnesses, however, to enjoy a lively and happy childhood with her brothers Peter and Sam. Although she at first took up swimming to strengthen muscles that had been weakened by her neonatal stroke, with time, wonderful coaching, hard work and determination she developed into a surprisingly strong competitor. Some of the records she set still stand 18 years later. After moving to Tokyo with her family, Kate attended upper elementary and middle school with her brothers at the American School in Japan. She enjoyed studying Japanese, learning to play the Koto, performing in a memorable play, dancing, singing, swimming, doing volunteer projects with a wonderful church group, and making new friends from all over the world. 

While in Japan, Kate's medical condition began to decline, requiring multiple emergency surgeries. Kate reluctantly left Japan to move with her family again, this time to Alamo, California, where she swam with the Del Amigo Swim Team and briefly attended the San Ramon Valley High School, before declining health required her to complete high school through an independent study program at the Venture School in San Ramon, supplemented with coursework at Diablo Valley College. Despite some deficits and increasing illness, Kate worked extremely hard and graduated with an outstanding academic record; she was admitted to the Bachelor's of Nursing program at St. Mary's College and attended classes initially on a full-time basis, later shifting to part-time as her medical challenges grew.

Kate spent the final 16 months of her life in Phoenix, Arizona, receiving treatment at the Barrow Neurological Institute. Kate's rare and complex problems caused her great suffering and ultimately proved to be impossible to cure, but it was meaningful to Kate to know that her treatment inspired the invention of new shunt technology that has already been used to save other patients. Kate met her deepening medical challenges with remarkable courage and grace. After a stroke took away most movement on her left side, she worked with diligence and positive spirit and eventually was delighted to be able to recover the ability to sit unaided, to walk under her own power, and even to participate again in some volunteer service -- before overwhelming complications finally made further treatment impossible. Through all her adversity, Kate continued to seek and find joy in every moment. She never lost her characteristic patience, good humor, love of life, or sense of gratitude for the many people who blessed her life.  Kate was known for her pure heart, courage, determination, great capacity for love and sympathy, and kindness toward all Kate will be greatly missed by her family: parents Pam and Grant, older brother Peter and sister-in-law Nina, younger brother Sam, three grandparents, 15 aunts and uncles, 15 cousins, and her devoted dog, Wags.

To learn more about the fight against Hydrocephalus Kate inspired and supported, visit www.teamhydro.org.

Political Humor

A man in Florida has been arrested for wearing a President Obama mask while robbing a McDonald's. To show you how good this guy's disguise was, instead of a holdup note he was reading from a teleprompter. - Jay Leno

[He also demanded McDonald's campaign contribution in small, unmarked bills.]

This Obama robber made some pretty scary threats to the McDonald's employees. He said, "Give me your money, or else my economic plan will have you working here for the rest of your life." - Jay Leno

["Just wait until I tell Michelle what you're serving to the kids!"]

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups

Janis Joplin/Big Brother & the Holding Company, "Me and Bobby McGee". This is the end of this brief Joplin series; the next group will be Cheap Trick.

Miscellany: 8/30/12

Quote of the Day 
Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; 
you get knocked down by traffic from both sides.
Margaret Thatcher

Reflections on the GOP National Convention Day 3:
Part 1

It's Official: Romney Accepts Nomination

Mitt Romney, GOP Presidential Nominee 2012
Image Captured During Acceptance Speech

You cannot measure a man’s character 

based on words he utters 

before adoring crowds during happy times. 

The true measure of a man is revealed in his actions 

during times of trouble,

 the quiet hospital room of a dying boy,

with no cameras and no reporters.

Ted Oparowski

Mitt and Ann Romney on stage surrounded by family following speech
Still captured from live feed

The first observation I have to make is that I just realized that one of the campaign's slogans is: "We Believe in America." (As an aside, I was somewhat puzzled by the use of  "America first" earlier in the campaign--not the common sense interpretation of  "it's the domestic economy first", but because it was a slogan used by isolationists during the WWII era, and Romney's foreign policy is anything but isolationist.)

Now the reason I say that is because I wrote a one-off post/essay entitled "If I Were President" back in March, and I ended the essay by saying that I already knew the first line of my inauguration address would be (i.e., a variation of a line from one of my unpublished poems: "I believe in America, as good as the hearts of her people."). I seriously don't believe that anything I've published has been read by the Romney campaign, and I'm probably not the only one of 310 million people with a slogan of believing in America. It's just a coincidence, but if the Romney campaign can find anything of use in my blog they can use to get rid of the worst President in American history, they can borrow it--I care more about results than getting credit.

Incidentally, ever the perfectionist, I've recently edited that opening line, which now reads:

"I believe in America,
as beautiful as her children,
as limitless as their dreams and ambitions,
as worthy as her founding ideals,
as good as the hearts of her people."

Romney and other speakers went out of their way to mention how he brought women into influential positions in his administration, including an African American female Democrat, whom mentioned how Romney was receptive to ideas, no matter the source, and worked across the partisan aisle. This appears to be a conscious attempt to address the concerns of suburban Moms, which many pollsters suggest is a demographic that Romney needs to work on.

In my view, the best part of the night? If I was the Romney campaign, I would rerun the testimony of the Mormons whom gave absolutely riveting personal stories of how Romney helped them personally. In fact, I've led off this commentary with part of one of those stories.

As part of Romney's faith, he would do things for fellow Mormons in need; as these stories were told, the C-SPAN cameras panned out to the audience on occasion, and I see several female delegates wiping away tears. These are stories I've never heard, and I'm sure if every voter heard those stories, Romney would win the election by a landslide. The problem is that Romney doesn't want to politically exploit things he has done for other people; I don't know how or why these people came forward (probably not Romney's idea). My guess is that they wanted other people to know the Mitt Romney they knew.

Here's a story I don't think was touched on tonight but was retold by eldest son Tagg:

Tagg Romney spoke candidly about the sometimes misguided perception that the public has of his father's personality."He is emotional and kindhearted and soft in the inside. He projects a tough image on the outside," he said.

To demonstrate how his father prefers to keep quiet about his various acts of kindness, the 42-year-old told the story of how the former Massachusetts governor had watched over the daughter of a business partner who died suddenly from a heart attack.

When the woman asked Mitt Romney for a loan so she could attend medical school, his father promptly said yes, Tagg Romney said. "(He) made her a substantial loan. He actually … sat down with her at regular intervals to go over her grades," he said. After she graduated, Mitt Romney wrote her a Christmas card in which he said her loan would be forgiven.

Tagg Romney also suggested that his dad was leaning against a second run for the nomination in late 2010:

Tagg Romney said his mother, Ann Romney, asked her husband if he could fix the country's problems if he won. "He said, 'Yeah, I think that I can.' She said if you can then you don't have a choice, you have to run, it's your duty. If you don't think about what's going to happen to your grandchildren, they aren't going to have as bright a future, and it's not fair to them," Tagg Romney said. 

The Oparowskis gave a riveting account of how Mitt Romney and Tagg helped with their dying 14-year-old son David:

Back in the early 1970s, Mitt visited our home numerous times with his oldest son, Tagg, tagging along. You cannot measure a man’s character based on words he utters before adoring crowds during happy times. The true measure of a man is revealed in his actions during times of trouble.The quiet hospital room of a dying boy, with no cameras and no reporters – that is the time to make an assessment.

In 1979, tragedy struck our family when our youngest son, David, age 14, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Over a period of seven months, he was in and out of Children’s Hospital in Boston for treatment. Throughout that agonizing period, Mitt took time from his busy schedule to visit David. They developed a loving friendship. On one of his visits, Mitt discovered that David was very fond of fireworks. He went out and bought a box full of “BIG TIME” fireworks. We waited until we were able to go to Ogunquit, Maine, where we set them off on the sand dunes.

On another visit, David, knowing Mitt had gone to law school at Harvard, asked Mitt if he would help him write a will. The next time Mitt went to the hospital, he was equipped with his yellow legal pad and pen. Together, they made David’s will. So, after David’s death, we were able to give his skate board, his model rockets, and his fishing gear to his best friends. He also made it clear that his brother, Peter, should get his Ruger 22 rifle. David also helped us plan his funeral. He wanted to be buried in his Boy Scout uniform. He wanted Mitt to pronounce his eulogy. Mitt was there to honor that request.

Pam Finlayson described how the Romneys helped her family

In 1982, my husband Grant and I moved from California to Massachusetts, with our newborn son. We didn’t own a dryer, and the day he stopped by to welcome us, I was embarrassed to have laundry hanging all over the house. Mitt wasn’t fazed. In fact, as we spoke, without a word, he joined me and started helpfully plucking clothes from around the room and folding them.

It was when our daughter Kate was born three and a half months early that I fully came to appreciate what a great treasure of friendship we had in Mitt and Ann. Kate was so tiny and very sick. Her lungs not yet ready to breathe, her heart unstable, and after suffering a severe brain hemorrhage at three days old, she was teetering on the very edge of life. As I sat with her in intensive care, consumed with a mother’s worry and fear, dear Mitt came to visit and pray with me. I will never forget that when he looked down tenderly at my daughter, his eyes filled with tears, and he reached out gently and stroked her tiny back.

During the many months Kate was hospitalized, the Romneys often cared for our two-year old son, Peter. They treated him like one of their own, even welcoming him to stay the night when needed.

When Thanksgiving rolled around, Kate was still struggling for life. Brain surgery was scheduled, and the holiday was the furthest thing from our minds. I opened my door to find Mitt and his boys, arms loaded with a Thanksgiving feast. When I called to thank Ann, she sweetly confessed it had been Mitt’s idea, that most of the cooking and chopping had been done by him. She and the boys had just happily pitched in.

But complications of her birth remained with her, and after 26 years of both miracles and struggle, she passed away just a year and a half ago. In the midst of making the final decision to run for President – which had to be the most difficult of their lives – when they heard of Kate’s passing, both Mitt and Ann paused, to personally reach out to extend us sympathy, and express their love.

Due to time constraints, I will continue discussion of tonight's events, including Mitt Romney's speech, in tomorrow's post.

Fact Checking the Fact Checkers

I'm finally annoyed enough by inane fact checkers that I've decided to create a new label or tag. I'm not necessarily arguing wrong, incomplete or misleading facts by fact checkers but fairly shallow, superficial analysis and context. Just to parody the kinds of things I'm talking about, consider a hypothetical situation where Obama (who I have never met in person) was to say to me, "Nothing personal, Ronald, but you're fat." Whether I'm obese is a matter of fact. but Obama's comments would be intended as insulting: it's not the same as, say, his noticing my fly was undone coming out of a restroom. The point is, Obama would likely deny that he intended the statement to be insulting, arguing that maybe I hadn't noticed I had gained 75 pounds since I woke up this morning. The fact checkers would back up Obama's defense, arguing first of all, I am fat, and second, Obama explicitly said "nothing personal". (Obama deliberately couches his statements with enough wiggle room to argue that his intended meaning is "out of context" or some other disingenuous defense.)

I want to take issue with one item from Paul Ryan's acceptance address that illustrates exactly what I'm saying because the Democrats and fact checkers are climbing all over it. Now Paul Ryan is a big boy and can speak for himself, but the criticism is PURE CRAP. (Note that I have some issues with Ryan's positions and votes that he's taken (see a related commentary in an upcoming post). Their discussion is all beside the point.

To be honest, I would have phrased things differently than Paul Ryan did, and he should have realized that his remarks would have come under attack, particularly given the way that Obama has been focusing on the manufacturing sector. So first, here is the relevant excerpt:

My home state voted for President Obama. When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it, especially in Janesville, where we were about to lose a major factory.

A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: "I believe that if our government is there to support you. this plant will be here for another hundred years." That's what he said in 2008.

Well, as it turned out, that plant didn't last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that's how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight.

Okay, reality check: the plant closed Dec. 23, 2008. Obama was just under a month from taking office--how could he be held responsible?

That's a fairly shallow analysis; remember, one of the overriding issues in the Ryan speech was that Obama has failed to lead and perform: empty promises. Obama was specifically promising how the Janesville plant would benefit from government intervention--and he did make the quote in question. Let me cite verbiage from his 2/13/08 speech at the GM plant:

I realize that politicians come before you every election saying that they’ll change all this.  They lay out big plans and hold events with workers just like this one, because it’s popular to do and it’s easy to make promises in the heat of a campaign. [Americans] need a change in our politics – a leader who can end the division in Washington so we can stop talking about our challenges and start solving them; and that is the kind of President I want to be. We know that government cannot solve all our problems, and we don’t expect it to.

I know that General Motors received some bad news yesterday, and I know how hard your Governor has fought to keep jobs in this plant.  But I also know how much progress you’ve made – how many hybrids and fuel-efficient vehicles you’re churning out.  And I believe that if our government is there to support you, and give you the assistance you need to re-tool and make this transition, that this plant will be here for another hundred years.  My energy plan will invest $150 billion over ten years to establish a green energy sector that will create up to 5 million new jobs over the next two decades – jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced.  We’ll also provide funding to help manufacturers convert to green technology and help workers learn the skills they need for these jobs. 

We know that all of this must be done in a responsible way, without adding to the already obscene debt that has grown by four trillion dollars under George Bush.  We know that we cannot build our future on a credit card issued by the bank of China.  And that is why I’ve paid for every element of this economic agenda.

Just a warning to any fellow libertarians--the full speech will cause blood to shoot out your eyes. I leave in the typical legalese fineprint CRAP typical of ObamaSpeak: "I realize politicians make promises"; "government cannot solve all our problems". How many times and how many contexts have we seen or heard Obama use the same rhetorical device? At least dozens of times? For example, he'll say something like, "I don't begrudge success, BUT [the higher income people need to pay 'their fair share']"

What he's clearly saying here is: "I know OTHER politicians make promises and don't keep them, BUT I'm different--and I keep my promises. This plant will be here 100 years from now, because the federal government will make the necessary funding available to keep it open." [Of course, that funding will come with strings attached like making products that politicians or bureaucrats want, say, consistent with a green energy objective, which may NOT be what consumers want to buy.] And progressives will come up with the usual predictable excuses as for why they couldn't keep their promises, e.g., we would have provided all the necessary money to fulfill all our promises to failing factory union workers to buy their votes, except for those nefarious filibustering Republicans.

Obama KNOWS that he is writing a check that he can't cash: he knows that an independent GM CEO may choose not to use federal funding with strings attached, and/or he knows that the GOP will reject this funding for fiscal reasons and/or political principles. He SHOULD KNOW that if GM had a legitimate business model to keep the plant open, it would be able to secure such funding from the private sector, not the government. Why are taxpayers being asked to provide funding that the private sector regards as too risky?

Obama (after the election, of course) can argue after the fact that the world is complex, and of course he couldn't possibly guarantee keeping the factory plant open (say, anymore than GOP gubernatorial candidate Sarah Palin ran on building the Bridge to Nowhere, but cancelled the project several months later when it was clear that Congress wouldn't fund additional necessary funds), and everybody knows that. But there's no question that he is knowingly setting worker expectations on ongoing plant operations tied to the outcome of the coming year's elections, and he's doing so knowing that GM had serious financial problems (which he acknowledged at the beginning of the speech).

The issue I have is not that Obama didn't keep the plant open; I don't believe that the government has any place whatsoever intervening in the auto industry. GM's problems didn't occur overnight; the company was in a negative equity situation in 2006, while the economy was still in expansion. The WSJ reminds us that the GM CEO in June 2008 announced that the Janesville plant would close by 2010--and then auto sales fell off a cliff with the economic tsunami several weeks later.

The closure occurred AFTER Bush announced an auto bailout. Here's a relevant excerpt:

President George W. Bush stepped in Friday to keep America's auto industry afloat, announcing a $17.4 billion bailout for GM and Chrysler. "If we were to allow the free market to take its course now, it would almost certainly lead to disorderly bankruptcy," Bush said at the White House, in remarks carried live by the national broadcast networks. The money will come from the Wall Street bailout passed by Congress, a reversal for the White House. President-elect Barack Obama and Democrats had long advocated that course, and Bush had resisted it. The structure largely follows the pattern of legislation that failed in Congress last week in the Senate because of Republican opposition. 

EXPLETIVE DELETED! And Jeb Bush has the AUDACITY to push back on criticism of George W. Bush... What Bush did and said was a betrayal of fundamental free market principles--he was manipulated into bad decisions by fear-mongering Wall Street veterans like Hank Paulson... So much for "the decider"... And my fellow libertarians argue that there's no difference between Democrats and Republicans... What the heck about Republicans who were deliberately misled into voting for a government intervention slush fund?

Now how many hypocritical fact checkers and partisans are going to ignore that Bush had sided with Obama and the Democrat majority Congress on auto bailouts? How many times are they going to ignore the fact that  with the overwhelming 2008 elections giving Democrats near super majority strength in both chambers of Congress and a President Obama, whether or not Bush was still in office, Bush was IRRELEVANT. The auto companies weren't going to close plants because of lame duck Bush. (They could have simply shut down production for a few weeks.)

Here's the progressive Huffington Post:

The Paul Ryan campaign is pushing back against charges that the vice presidential candidate blatantly misled viewers during his acceptance speech, when he blamed President Barack Obama for a GM plant plant closure that took place while George W. Bush was president. 

I've cited relevant discussion: the Post is knowingly misleading its readers. Ryan simply made the point that Obama made a promise about government intervention; he never said or implied that Obama was GM's CEO at the time of the plant closure. And I've just shown that Bush went along with the auto bailout that Obama wanted.  And the undisputed fact is that despite the cash for clunker deal and tens of billions in auto loans, the Janesville plant hasn't reopened, 3 years into the Obama "recovery".

For the record, here is the Ryan spokesman response:

The facts are clear: when the GM plant went on standby, the president told the people of Wisconsin he would ‘lead an effort to retool’ it and restart production. But when the bailout’s winners and losers were decided, Janesville ended up losing. The people of Wisconsin, like so many Americans, are still waiting for the president’s imaginary recovery.

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups

Janis Joplin/Big Brother & the Holding Company,"Piece of My Heart".  My inner record producer wants to pick up the pace, more frenetic, mad percussion leading to the chorus, but this is a priceless rock classic as is. I don't know if there ever has been or ever will be a better female rock vocal: Janis was a rock goddess. Unfortunately, done too soon due to alcohol and drugs. There are a few other female rockers whose work I admire as well: Dusty Springfield, Tina Turner, Pat Benatar, and Joss Stone come to mind.

Miscellany: 8/29/12

Quote of the Day 
What was hard to bear is sweet to remember.
Portuguese proverb

Reflections on the GOP National Convention Day 2

In yesterday's post I included an official version of Neil Boyd's version of  "God Bless the USA"; I finally found a Youtube video of his dynamic performance last night:




The Republican Party did a wonderful thing tonight: tonight's invocation was given by Ishwar Singh. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is from a Sikh family; her father referred the party, which contacted him in the aftermath of the Sikh tragedy in Wisconsin, to Ishwar Singh, the head of the Sikh Society of Central Florida. Ishwar Singh, who wore a turban and beard and is an engineer by profession, leads a 300-family gurdwara (Sikh temple) in Orlando, delivered the first Sikh invocation of either party in the 100 years of Sikhs in America. American Sikhs are a blessing; I welcome immigrants of all races and creeds, each one with an unalienable right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and celebrate the achievement of their dreams. Any assault against our fellow citizens is fundamentally violence against the very foundation of this republic.

Sen. Scott Brown's (MA) beautiful 6-foot daughter Ayla Brown, a Top 16 finalist in American Idol 2006 who played basketball for Boston College until her 2010 graduation, sang the national anthem. I believe that her latest album is oriented to the country music audience. I was sorry to see her leave American Idol.



Both John McCain and Condoleezza Rice focused on a proactive foreign policy. Any familiar reader knows that I've become increasingly skeptical of our role in the Middle East and Gulf region. We have been in Afghanistan now for past a decade. My guess is that there are many other countries where human rights are not recognized or protected. Enough American blood and treasure already; we can't afford it with a nearly $16T debt. I see our efforts as morally hazardous: it's time for regional neighbors to step in--after all, instability will result in refugees throughout the region.

There was one telling quote that I, as a free trader, immediately noticed in Dr. Rice's speech, an implicit criticism on the Obama Administration for doing almost zero on the free trade front, only recently having moved on free trade pacts negotiated by the Bush Administration. Here is the same observation I found in a recent op-ed Dr. Rice published on FT.com:

But consider this: China has signed free-trade agreements with 15 nations over the past eight years and has explored FTAs with some 20 others; since 2009 the US has ratified three FTAs negotiated during the Bush administration and it has continued – but not concluded – talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which began in 2008.

Paul Ryan gave a great speech, but I really loved his tribute to his beaming Mom, which I thought was a truly wonderful moment in the speech:

My Mom started a small business, and I’ve seen what it takes. Mom was 50 when my Dad died.  She got on a bus every weekday for years, and rode 40 miles each morning to Madison.  She earned a new degree and learned new skills to start her small business.  It wasn’t just a new livelihood.  It was a new life.  And it transformed my Mom from a widow in grief to a small businesswoman whose happiness wasn’t just in the past.  Her work gave her hope.  It made our family proud.  And to this day, my Mom is my role model. 

Paul Ryan's 78-year-old mom Betty Ryan Douglas
at a Florida campaign event courtesy of the Blaze

Some basic excerpts:

President Obama was asked not long ago to reflect on any mistakes he might have made.  He said, well, “I haven’t communicated enough.”  He said his job is to “tell a story to the American people” – as if that’s the whole problem here? He needs to talk more, and we need to be better listeners?

Ladies and gentlemen, these past four years we have suffered no shortage of words in the White House.  What’s missing is leadership in the White House.  And the story that Barack Obama does tell, forever shifting blame to the last administration, is getting old.  The man assumed office almost four years ago – isn’t it about time he assumed responsibility?

Yet by his own decisions, President Obama has added more debt than any other president before him, and more than all the troubled governments of Europe combined.  One president, one term, $5 trillion in new debt. 

He created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report.  He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.

Republicans stepped up with good-faith reforms and solutions equal to the problems.  How did the president respond?  By doing nothing – nothing except to dodge and demagogue the issue. 

So here we are, $16 trillion in debt and still he does nothing. 

So here is our pledge. 

We will not duck the tough issues, we will lead.
We will not spend four years blaming others, we will take responsibility.
We will not try to replace our founding principles, we will reapply our founding principles. 

Finally, on the lighter side:

We’re a full generation apart, Governor Romney and I.  And, in some ways, we’re a little different.  There are the songs on his iPod, which I’ve heard on the campaign bus and on many hotel elevators. He actually urged me to play some of these songs at campaign rallies.  I said, I hope it’s not a deal-breaker Mitt, but my playlist starts with AC/DC, and ends with Zeppelin.

Romney's Spotify List via Huffington Post

You can check my "favorite songs" tag at the right, but here's an updated list of what's currently on my iPod Shuffle:

• Pretty Amazing Grace - Neil Diamond
• I Want to Know What Love Is - Mariah Carey
• Hands - Jewel
• Like a Prayer - Madonna
• Dreams to Dream - Linda Ronstadt
• I Hope You Dance - Lee Ann Womack
• One Good Woman - Peter Cetera
• Something Inside - from "August Rush"
• Annie's Song - John Denver
• Whatever Happened to Old-Fashioned Love - BJ Thomas
• Mary, Did You Know? - Christ Church Choir
• I Was Made for Loving You - Kiss
• I am America - Krista Branch
• Marry Me - Neil Diamond
• All My Love - Led Zeppelin
• When the Night Comes - Joe Cocker
• Annie's Song - John Denver
• The Way You Look Tonight - Bay City Rollers
• Midnight Wind - John Stewart
• Amazed - Lonestar
• Love of My Life - Jim Brickman/Michael W. Smith
• Perhaps Love - John Denver
• Harmon Killebrew - Jeff Arundel
• If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind - Agnetha Fattskog
• Glory of Love - Peter Cetera
• Your Wildest Dreams - Moody Blues
• I Only Have Eyes for You - Art Garfunkel
• St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion) - John Parr
• Two Out of Three Ain't Bad - Meat Loaf
• All I Know - Art Garfunkel
• I'll Stand By You - Pretenders
• I Know You're Out There Somewhere - Moody Blues
• Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow - Dave Mason
• Story of My Life - Neil Diamond

I'm not sure what songs Paul Ryan listens to--but AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" does seem to describe Obama's forced march down the road to serfdom.

As for Mitt, wow, it looks like a cross between early 60's rock and later country music. Yes to "Good Vibrations", "Runaway", "Ring of Fire", and "Crying". Mitt, Mitt, Mitt: Willie Nelson for "Over the Rainbow"? Really? Oh, come on!



Rothbard and the Origins of Progressive Regulation

When I went on my first UH Catholic Newman retreat (ironically my first nephew was born that weekend), it was an amazing personal experience, and it's where I met my liberal friend Tim, now an accounting professor at a southern California Catholic college. (Poor Tim; he remembers me from a time when I stood up for Ted Kennedy at my local Democratic precinct caucus. I took my first economics course that semester I met Tim, and it changed my politics. (The course was totally nonpartisan, but I started questioning my political assumptions.))

As I recall, the retreat included meals, except for Friday evening when the retreat started. We were expected to have eaten dinner before we arrived. The retreat was several miles away from campus in the east Texas woods. I went in a car with retreat veterans, and they decided to stop at this diner just within a mile or so of the retreat location. Now I have to admit here even today, when I eat out, I prefer diners; I have to watch my diet, but I love Texas staples like chicken fried steak or deep-fried jumbo shrimp, chicken, etc. I love Grandy's, although I don't think I've eaten at one since I worked on a State of Oklahoma project while with Oracle Consulting (you spread a packet of honey on a split fresh oven-baked roll, and I swear it's like heaven on earth). The point of the story is that I loved the country cooking at this little diner and for the remaining retreats I attended, going to the diner became part of my ritual, and I would sing the praises of this little diner. I'll never forget the time we left the diner; one of the new retreat attendees told me that he thought I had oversold the diner: he expected better and it was ordinary as far as diners go. As far as I was concerned my dinner was great, but I understand people have different tastes.

As I write, I have only sampled some of the works of Rothbard, and I had not reviewed any videos of his work. But I found this video lecture snippet absolutely riveting (the point of the little story above is that others may think it's just a part of a boring lecture...) Rothbard is really setting the stage here for explaining the anti-trust era. (In fact, Mises has a Rothbard excerpt titled "Abolish Anti-Trust Laws") One of the most persistent myths underlying minimum prices (established or enforced by the government) is that predatory firms (with more resources) will undercut the competition below market and drive them out of business. Once the competition is driven out, the predatory firm sets prices over the former market price and enjoys windfall profits at the expense of the consumer.

I will simply point out that general price fixing in a dynamic market by government is almost always wrong from the get-go: as I've quoted Heraclitus before: "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." Over time, technology improves and the cost per unit widget declines; in a competitive economy, this means prices decline over time. There can also be creative destruction where cost structure can dramatically altered by innovation: consider, for instance, emails in contrast to the substitute use of USPS mail. Emails can be sent almost instanteously, more reliably and for negligible cost. There are various scenarios where almost any revenue goes straight to the bottom line: e.g., empty plane seats; an empty truck heading back to its home or branch location (before trucking deregulation). The brokerage industry was deregulated in 1975; artificially high fees had been maintained for trading stocks; Schwab, an online brokerage, dropped fees by 75% from 1998 to 2006.

Then there are the notorious browser wars that started out between Netscape and Microsoft. (Note: I have no direct financial interest in Microsoft.) Netscape used to charge non-academic users up to $40-50/copy of its browser; Microsoft distributed its freely. Whereas much has been made of Microsoft's dominance on the PC platform, comparably featured operating system alternatives often cost significantly more than Microsoft's $40-60 license per PC. Microsoft has a history of supporting a number of software vendors for its platforms, including alternatives to its own application software products. Netscape also ported its version to multiple operating systems. I should point out that Microsoft had approached Netscape for licensing its software: it saw browser technology as key innovation for its operating system. Netscape was well aware of Microsoft's resources, status as a competitive threat, and the likely outcome of spurning a licensing deal: recall that Microsoft's dominant Office Suite emerged under Windows, not DOS. And let me point out Microsoft did not suddenly start charging for Internet Explorer after Netscape decided to make its browser open-source (now currently evolved into Mozilla Firefox); in fact, I've installed multiple other free browsers (Chrome, Opera and Safari) on my PC's. I should point out that, just as in the case of the misguided government delay of the Sirius/XM merger, the anti-trust deliberations against Microsoft were similarly misguided. As in the case of satellite radio (e.g., wireless, high definition radio, etc.), there is competition to PC's in Internet access (e.g., for tablets/mobile,  iOS (Apple) has a 66% share, and Android (Google) has a 20% share). While Apple and Google stock prices have soared over the past decade, Microsoft's has barely treaded water. Whereas I didn't like some of Microsoft's hardball tactics at the time, there can be little doubt that the misguided actions of government meddling have been pushing on a string and are fundamentally anti-competitive. Government is used as a competitive weapon by companies which have made bad business decisions or have failing business models. This can result in analysis paralysis in the American crown jewels of high technology companies and impede introduction of innovative products and services. This following excerpt is somewhat dated, from an open letter to then President Clinton, signed by hundreds of economists, but I think the argument and insights are still relevant today:

The current spate of heightened antitrust activism seems to suggest that anti-competitive business practices abound.  Headline-grabbing cases against Microsoft, Intel, Cisco Systems, Visa and MasterCard, along with a flurry of merger investigations now under way, would appear to demonstrate the need for a vigorously enforced antitrust policy that will create checks and balances to eliminate consumer harm.

However, consumers did not ask for these antitrust actions — rival business firms did.  Consumers of high technology have enjoyed falling prices, expanding outputs, and a breathtaking array of new products and innovations.  High technology markets are among the most dynamic and competitive in the world, and it is a tribute to open markets and entrepreneurial genius that American firms lead in so many of these industries.  But, these same developments place heavy pressures on rival businesses, which must keep pace or lose their competitive races.  Rivals can legitimately respond by improving their own products or by lowering prices.  Increasingly, however, some firms have sought to handicap their rivals’ races by turning to government for protection
.    
Where antitrust authorities respond to these protectionist demands, the workings of markets are short-circuited.  Antitrust protectionism means that market decisions about how to compete for consumers’ favor are displaced by bureaucratic and political decisions. Many of the proposed
interventions will weaken successful U.S. firms and impede their competitiveness abroad.

Dominant companies must rely on both efficiency and innovation; low prices and margins discourage competition. New technology, materials or methods may introduce radically lower cost structures. Government interference in the market, whether imposing price floors on limo competition to taxis or California power companies are required to generate a certain percentage of high-cost renewal energy (with rates accommodating capture of increased costs to the consumer), is never in the interest of the consumer.



Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups

Toto, "Pamela". This is the last of my Toto series; tomorrow I'll start a very brief series on Janis Joplin/Big Brother & the Holding Company (just a couple of songs). Just in case you're wondering: over the years I've bought a large number of greatest hits albums for a number of artists; in my musical interlude series, I'm generally listing artists with one or more albums in my personal collection.

Miscellany: 8/28/12

Quote of the Day
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. 
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
Marianne Williamson

It's Official: Mitt Romney Nominated by the GOP



Reflections on the GOP National Convention Day 1

I did not watch wall-to-wall coverage; in fact, I didn't even watch the historic roll call vote of the states (see above). I see that Reason has a typical "hypocritical GOP" video on one of the convention's gimmicks: a focus on the debt clock. I am definitely empathetic to the point of view that Romney seems to have put 80% of the budget off-limits (entitlements and Defense spending); the only way the budget gap closes significantly  is with robust growth that we've seen little of over the past 3 Presidential terms and significant budgetary reforms (easier said than done, because cutting federal spending brings special interests out of the woodwork). But I would remind Reason that Obama didn't even need a full term to pile on more debt than Bush did over 2 terms bookended by recessions, and a GOP House was the only one to deliver on a balanced federal budget over decades.

The GOP is really harpooning Obama's Roanoke moment with a "we built it" theme and a variation of Clinton's "I feel your pain" with respect to the unemployed and various politicians discussing their lower middle class roots. In fact, I've done a number of segments on the Roanoke moment; I think that there's a very thin line here: it's important that the GOP stay away from any self-congratulatory behavior or defensiveness.

Most people don't own their own businesses; you need to broaden your message. And it's even tougher to start a new business with economic uncertainty, overregulation at all levels of government, and government coercing taxes from people and businesses that would otherwise be spent or invested in the private sector and competing with the private sector for resources, driving up the costs of doing business, i.e., opportunity costs for Obama recklessly spending money he didn't make from the current and future economy on ineffectual, inefficient government programs from a sense of entitlement. What the Romney and the rest of the GOP need to do to reach out to the middle class focusing on shared traditional values: virtues such as hard work, initiative, honesty, responsibility and thrift; these are common to business owners and working people. They don't want government playing favorites or giving out handouts; they want government to get out of the way, not engage in perverse incentives, e.g., for a father to abandon his family so they will be eligible for more government handouts.

There are ways to parody Obama, e.g., take the act of chauffeuring Obama: he has to master a 2000-page driver's manual and present his union card; Obama questions him about fuel efficiency and then has him stop the car and has him go out and double-check the tire pressure; Obama notes that the chauffeur is driving on a different route than the one recommended by his GPS mapping software and demands an explanation; Obama has him stop the car because he has been driving too long between breaks; the chauffeur needs to fill up the car, but the nearest station bears the BP brand; Obama tells the driver to ignore the rules of the road because they don't apply to him; Obama reminds the driver if he doesn't get him to the destination in 30 minutes or less, the ride is for free, etc.

I wouldn't be opposed to a conservative PAC turning the table on Dem nasty attack ads: e.g., an Obama or Pelosi dumping a kid in a wheelchair over a mountain cliff of national debt...

Let me comment on something I've intended to point out in recent posts: Mitt Romney's attacks on Obama's all-too-frequent, predictable use of executive orders (realizing that he can't pass reforms through the Congress), in particular, modifications to welfare program administration. He needed to take on broader themes, not take the bait that Obama is deliberately setting (just like in the case of his "DREAM Act" executive order): the last thing Romney needs is to look like he's balancing the budget on the backs of or going after families desperately trying to make ends meet in a very difficult economy with tens of millions of people out of work or underemployed. (One could argue that Obama's anti-growth economic policies and morally-hazardous domestic policies perpetuate a permanent underclass dependent on Democratic political largess.) In this case, Romney also needs to address a related issue--dealing with liberalization of federal strings on funds. We could argue why is the federal government involved in the first place in dealing with state/local spending. Romney should note that a significant portion of any government social program does not trickle down to needy families but goes to feed the government beast of overpriced, ineffective, essentially lifetime appointed bureaucrats with gold-plated benefits at taxpayer expense. Romney would be well-served by focusing on that passage on Grover Cleveland's veto of the Texas seed bill (see Sunday's post), where Cleveland explicitly addressed how government gets in the way of more efficient, effective local charity relief.

I was really intrigued by Mia Love's appearance. The Brooklyn-born daughter of Haitian immigrants, Mia, a Mormon convert wife and mother of three, has been a city council member and multi-term mayor of rapidly-growing Saratoga Springs. She is running in the newly created fourth district; she is facing Blue Dog Second District Democratic incumbent Jim Matheson, whom felt his home district was in jeopardy after redistricting. (Matheson has an ACU rating of 38%, even less than retiring Senator Ben "Cornhusker Kickback" Nelson.) Take a wild guess whom I support in this race? Ms. Love is an articulate pro-life libertarian-conservative whom quotes Frédérick Bastiat (sound familiar?)

Pajamasmedia lists their video interview (the middle video below) with her under the title "Mia Love: Could She Be The Smartest Congressional Tea Party Candidate?" (Nick Gillespie of Reason writes a blurb under the title "You Just Might Fall in Love with Mia Love.") Here are the video liner notes:

Mia Love is running for Utah's Fourth Congressional District on a platform of "fiscal discipline, limited government, and personal responsibility." She is also one of the smartest congressional candidates, and can quote Frederick Bastiat with the ease of an economics professor. Is the Tea Party focusing too hard on the presidential race, and what should the President be doing to lower gas prices? Find out what Mia Love has to say and see why she just might be the next star of the Tea Party movement.

One of my favorite moments of the evening is noted by Time's blog feed:

7:31 p.m. The next act is Neal Boyd, the 2008 winner of America’s Got Talent. He sits on a stool and sings Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” People stand. Hands go into the air. Everyone sings the chorus together. As he gets to the chorus for the last time—“I gladly stand up next to you, and defend her still today”—Boyd stands from his stool. Everyone is going crazy. Boyd rocks. America does have talent. The crowd is awake.

I mustn't have watched AGT back in 2008, but with all due respect to Lee Greenwood, the original artist, Neal Boyd does to this song what Whitney Houston did to Dolly Parton's signature hit "I Will Always Love You": they just took someone else's hit to a whole new level. I'm absolutely stunned; I like to think I have a decent singing voice, and I'm not good enough to sing backup to this fellow big man. For some reason I couldn't find a video clip on the GOP convention website or on Youtube (yet), but I did find an earlier, similar performance on Youtube embedded below.

I liked the keynote address of my favorite direct, blunt governor, Chris Christie, but to be honest, I thought he would go in a different direction: focusing more on the issues he has dealt with in terms of a spendthrift Obama Administration, the lessons from managing a state government to the federal government, a comparison and contrast of how he has dealt with an opposition legislature versus Obama, etc. He did try to rally the troops, but I think I would have preferred seeing some of that directness we've seen in dealing with self-entitled school teachers, Obama's disingenuous attempts to hijack terms like "shared sacrifice" and "fair and balanced" as code words for divisive class warfare, etc.

As for Ann Romney, with all due respect to Laura Bush, Michelle Obama, and other reasonably articulate first ladies, Ann may be the best prospective First Lady speaker I've heard. I don't want to seem overly critical here, and I'm sure that Mitt will cover some things in his speech. I thought she did a good job of explaining why Mitt doesn't want to use past charitable acts as political hype, but I would have liked to hear more anecdotes about Mitt as husband, father and grandfather; it's hard to say without context, but for example, "that Democratic ad about Mitt singing 'God Bless America'? You should hear him singing in the shower... " Maybe examples of things he's done over the years, without being too specific: maybe it was picking up someone's medical bill, helping a deserving student get into a better school, mentoring a young consultant whom later started his own successful business, etc.

I've read stories about how Mitt adored his mother and was her biggest supporter when she unsuccessfully ran for the Senate during Nixon's first term. (Maybe Ann heard some amusing anecdote about Mitt from her in-laws...) And how how Mitt would curl up next to her when she was in bed dealing with serious health issues. I think Ann could have provided more of a picture for middle America, especially since the Democrats have been trying to paint him as this heartless outsourcing job killer, spending his wealth on frivolous things like car elevators: to some extent, Ann did address that by noting when they were first married, she had to live on a budget in a basement apartment, eating off plates on an ironing board, etc.

Overall, a very good speech, but I would still have loved to hear how he got out of a business meeting so he could attend his son's Little League game or some school play.









Republican National Convention Moment:
Congressman Tim Scott's (SC) Song Dedication 
to President Barack Obama



Remind Me: Why Are We Still in Afghanistan?

As a libertarian-conservative, I wouldn't say that I have a litmus test for those also claiming to be libertarian; after all, I'm pro-life and for sustaining the traditional definition of marriage. (My views are based on considerations of positive rights; I oppose government micromanagement of the lives of pregnant women or intervention into consensual adult relationships.) Still, I'm confused by some libertarian Republicans whom don't seem to see the same convoluted, overbuilt, nice-to-have but unaffordable, morally hazardous state of affairs in our military and foreign policy infrastructure, operations and commitments that we see in domestic government infrastructure, operations and commitments.

I recently wrote a commentary on the Gray Lady's coverage of the 2000 American fatality milestone in Afghanistan. This embedded story disheartens me. This, of course, describes a crime against humanity by a rogue movement that lacks any moral authority to govern; unfortunately, the United States is not the world's policeman, and brutal crimes occur all too often, particularly outside the world's democratic republics. Still, I think one Administration critic's comments are spot on:

According to the Obama administration, such incidents will not be allowed to "derail the progress that is being made." Rather than deal with increasing violence against American troops in Afghanistan and Afghan civilians, the President has been taking time out of his busy schedule of fundraising, faux interviews and campaigning against the real extremists threatening the world (you know, the Republicans).

Ah, yes: such is the "progress" delivered by progressives: the Democrats argued that we were fighting the "wrong war":  why, the Democrats would deliver a lesson on the "right way" to nation build....

Mr. President, fish or cut bait.



Political Humor

The world's oldest person turned 116. She said she lived a long life because she minded her own business. In a related story, she's also the world's oldest murder witness. - Conan O'Brien

[In other words, she didn't work for the government...]

Herman Cain was in Tampa. When a reporter asked him if Isaac reminded him of Katrina, he said, “I never even met the woman.” - Jay Leno

[Cain said, "Does it look like I'm walking on sunshine?"....  When the reporter asked Clinton the same question, Clinton denied ever talking to Isaac and added that "I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Katrina."]



Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups

Toto, "I'll Be Over You"

Miscellany: 8/27/12

Quote of the Day
Originality and the feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I'll Be Celebrating Happy Capital Day Monday!

Courtesy FEE.org

Gary North's Hierarchy of Careers: Thumbs UP!
(my edits)

Young men who are not good in physics or chemistry or engineering major in economics.

• The smart economics majors become bankers.

• The less smart economics majors become economists
• The bankers hire smarter economists to tell the politicians what to think.

• The less smart economists go into financial journalism.

• The ones who are not smart enough to major in economics major in politics and become politicians.

The GOP Platform and the Gold Standard

There were reasons why I discussed Grover Cleveland in yesterday's post: first, I wanted to call attention to the kinds of characteristics and policies that I look for in a politician. Second, I wanted to call attention to the discussion of a sound currency and Cleveland's support of the gold standard.

Let me preface this by saying I am not by any means a gold bug; I do not own precious metals. This is not a financial investment blog. That being said, I remember one of the co-workers at an APL timesharing branch I used to work with around the time I started on my UH MBA part-time in the early 1980's. This was around the peak of the gold bubble. He was shaving (electric razor) in our office at the beginning of the workday, which I found odd; he sheepishly explained that he had been putting all his liquid assets into gold, forgot to pay his electric bill and got cut off.

The US Constitution gives the Congress authority to coin and regulate money (Article 1 Section 8) and requires the states to settle debts by gold or silver (Article 1 Section 10). The Coinage Act of 1792, among other things, set up a bimetallic standard of 15 silver grains to 1 gold grain.

This discussion requires an understanding of  Gresham's Law. Basically the value of gold and silver can vary by supply and demand; they are used for purposes other than coinage, e.g., jewelry, industrial uses, etc. Thus, a fixed rate (like 15-1) is just like any government attempt to fix prices in a dynamic market. In essence, overvalued money chases undervalued money out of circulation (relative to the type of money). For instance, the ratio of 15:1 in 1792 overvalued silver. The net effect was to make silver coins the de facto standard coinage until 1834, when Congress changed the ratio to 16:1, which overvalued gold. The gold discoveries in California and elsewhere confirmed the overvalued status of gold coins and thus a de facto gold standard until the Civil War.

I'll give a very simple example of Gresham's law. In the 1960's the US debased silver coins (like dimes and half-dollars), i.e., mixed the silver with other, cheaper content. One of my brothers happened to be born the last year of silver dimes. My folks had a little pet bank we called "Mitchie". Every time my folks found silver dimes in their change, they fed them to Mitchie. Needless to say, the more valuable silver dimes quickly left circulation. Flash forward: the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market. Silver prices soared. (One figure I've seen is in 1980 a silver dime was worth $3.62 with silver at $50/oz.) My folks were able to redo their kitchen floor from Mitchie's proceeds.

The Civil War provides context for another common observation of commodity-backed currency: if and when nations are faced with a crisis (e.g., wartime or budgetary when tax increases are politically unrealistic), they often decide to go off a commodity standard and print fiat currency, e.g., greenbacks. (This is to prevent a run on the government's stock of the commodity backing the currency.) Then after the crisis they'll go back on the standard. (Germany, whose gold holdings backing its currency were depleted in the aftermath of WWI, experienced hyperinflation.)

There was a difference in our returning to the standard: we went from a bimetallic standard to an emerging international single metallic standard: gold in the so-called "Crime of 1873": no provision was made for a silver dollar. As Friedman points out, the international convergence on a gold standard quickly drove up the demand and price for gold: under Gresham's law and bimetallism, we would have returned domestically to a de facto silver standard. The global demand for gold and relatively tight supplies likely exacerbated deflationary pressures.

Of particular note is the emerging use of fiat currency (e.g., Civil War greenbacks); it is fairly clear that given the experience of Continentals and state-issued "bills of credit" that sentiment was against fiat currency at the time the US Constitution was ratified. The legal tender case for fiat currency in the post Civil War era, Hepburn, was held unconstitutional by SCOTUS, but a subsequent Grant-packed SCOTUS soon reversed it. Fiat money at this stage served as a proxy for commodity currency, e.g., you could exchange dollars for gold coins.

The "sound money" pro-gold standard vs. "free silver" battle was over farmers and others, with big loans and soft prices, wanting to expand the money supply, i.e., create inflation: in essence, the expectation was that inflation would push up crop prices and allow the farmers to pay back their loans with cheaper dollars. Of course, the farmers' discounted obligations would occur at the expense of bankers, and inflation would occur at the expense of consumers in general.

During the Depression we saw an unraveling of the Gold Bloc with gold runs on target weak currencies and fiscal deficits (wartime and/or state spending spending), and "beggar-thy-neighbor" currency devaluations and tariffs spawned trade wars. In the aftermath of WWII, there was a new system (the Bretton Woods system) of exchange rates in reference to the US dollar, linked to the gold standard. Nixon, facing mounting budget and trade deficits and a run on US-held gold backing the dollar, in mid-August 1971 announced that the US was leaving the gold standard.

The result was predictable: the related devaluation of the dollar made imports (including oil) more expensive, and inflation surged, resulting in a bull run for gold (which Americans were finally allowed to own again after FDR confiscated gold at old prices before he devalued the currency (i.e., raised the price of gold for international exchange)). Fed Reserve chairman Volcker finally broke inflation by raising interest rates to around 20%.

What conservatives (including Paul Ryan) and especially libertarians (like Ron Paul) are worried about is the excessive money supply growth in fiat currency, which in the long run is inflationary, a cruel indirect form of taxation adversely affecting all consumers; there is also an ethical issue of transferring wealth from savers and investors to borrowers.

This leads to the most intriguing development in the GOP platform of the creation of a commission to look at the feasibility of going back to the gold standard. The Fed has printed so many dollars over the past 4 decades I'm not sure that a standard can be reinstated (Churchill's issues with reestablishing at a former price in Great Britain duly noted), but the depreciation of the dollar is clearly unacceptable and is not  in the interests of the consumer. What is important is that we restore banking to free market principles.

If I was attending the GOP convention, I would vote for the plank and thus send a message to the rest of America and the world that we are committed to a strong dollar.



Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups

Toto, "I Won't Hold You Back". Another brilliant pop gem; my shower has heard this song a few times.

Miscellany: 8/26/12

Quote of the Day
There will always be a conflict 
between "good" and "good enough."
Henry Martyn Leland

The Gray Lady Looks in the Mirror

Across the paper’s many departments, though, so many share a kind of political and cultural progressivism — for lack of a better term — that this worldview virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times.

As a result, developments like the Occupy movement and gay marriage seem almost to erupt in The Times, overloved and undermanaged, more like causes than news subjects. - Arthur Brisbane, Farewell Column as Public Editor

During my salad days, I loved the Times. I think it has hurt its own hard-earned credibility with unforced errors (in particular, its February 2008 thinly-vetted McCain/lobbyist affair story). I do think that it is in the best interests of a news publication to provide a comprehensive, reliable, independent perspective and to guard against bias in tone, placement and emphasis; if and when the news source is invested in a story (e.g., be the first or exclusive coverage of some event), journalistic standards must be maintained.

Hearing Times' personnel justify their progressive perspective as reflective of their customers' views strikes me as circular reasoning: McDonald's executives in the past have responded to dietary criticisms of its menu by saying, "We are serving what our customers want."  (I did a strategic analysis of McDonald's in my capstone MBA course.) It is true that they are selling food to a lot of customers (and there are likely a number of reasons--convenient, well-maintained locations, consistent menu and product quality, fast service, etc.) But it isn't true that the customers wouldn't prefer other food options.

For example, as a Catholic, during Lent I normally abstain from meat on Fridays; I don't like fried fish sandwiches but I would buy a tuna salad wrap, if available. I remember when I served as a DBA contractor at a San Francisco TV station, there was this one convenience shop that used to roast turkeys one day a week for freshly carved sandwiches--and lines would stretch out the door. (One could adopt a similar concept, say, for carved ham, roast beef, BBQ meats; etc.) I would have preferred a less starchy, healthy breakfast alternative while on business trips.

McDonald's for decades hasn't figured out how to diversify its dinner menu or provide adult entrees beyond finger foods for parents whom didn't want a sandwich or salad; when McDonald's initially acquired Boston Markets (now divested), primarily for its real estate, I honestly thought McDonald's was going to cross-promote and sell a ton of rotisserie chicken take-home family dinner packs through its drive-through windows, maybe some joint restaurant concepts where parents could order comfort food entrees (say, chicken, pot roast, or meat loaf) with sides or frequent self-service soup and salad bars, while the kids had their favorite alternatives. (I would also think back when I was a kid and wonder why you couldn't order hot dogs, BLT's, grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese, peanut butter and jelly, etc.) [I can already anticipate the response--it's more difficult to manage a more diversified menu, apply Taylor management techniques, etc.]

What does this have to do with news? If I perceive that a media source is biased, I simply won't rely on it or use it, or I'll have to use multiple sources. I subscribe to a wide variety of news alerts. I will only cite news sources if the media don't hide them behind a paywall. (The Wall Street Journal is particularly bad at this; in fact, they keep most of their editorial content behind a paywall, which is why I've rarely cited the WSJ over the past year or two. In fact, Cafe Hayek or Carpe Diem will occasionally cite an op-ed (say, the author's), and I'll run into the paywall. I will not pay for the privilege of referring readers to the WSJ portal.) The New York Times does have a paywall but it's less heavyhanded for a small number of pageviews.

All things considered, if I get half a dozen news alerts, the one that grabs my attention first is the NYT alert. The Times usually has a more substantive blurb, and I often find the Times' story is better-written and more detailed.

One might then question then: I just wrote that the Times is a great news source; so what do I care about Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, and various other tiresome, repetitive progressive groupthink columnists? The short answer is that I don't. What bothers me about the Times is what I would characterize as its tunnel vision.

During my adult years I've constantly challenged my assumptions: I started off as a pro-life social liberal; I then started questioning tax-and-spend policies and became a conservative. During all the time to date, I had tacitly identified with a proactive foreign policy; and then, over the past 4 years or so, as I was watching incompetent nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan, various other voices started nagging at me (George Washington, Dwight Eisenhower, Pat Buchanan, and Ron Paul, among others) about unintended consequences of foreign meddling, intervention and/or expansion.

The fact of the matter is that we have unsustainable federal government growth, and I expect part of the role of a free press is to question and probe the status quo, e.g.,  the effectiveness of long-term public sector programs, the fitness of someone who has never been an executive in either the private or public sector to administer a government spending nearly a quarter of the country's GDP, the doubling of the publicly-held debt, the ability of a federal government to take on a new entitlement when we already have over $40T in unfunded entitlement liabilities, etc.

I'm not saying necessarily that I expect the Times to serve the role of progressive critic. But this country has been driven by a progressive political agenda for more than century. If you are not questioning the system, you're a part of the system, not independent of it. When will the Times spend as much, if not more time investigating shady government financial statements as it does zestfully pursuing Bernie Madoff or corporations behaving badly? We have alternatives in the free market to bad companies; government uses force to collect revenues. When government behaves badly, all citizens are victims; it's not like we have an alternative government.

Follow-Up Odds and Ends

• Miscellany: 7/14/12. Around the World. This blog is not a fan of Argentine President Cristina Fernandez, whose approval has dropped 8 points over the past month to 30% , less than half of her reelection rating of a year ago. Industrial production is down year over year, inflation is soaring, GDP is flat, unemployment is up--and nearly half of the country attributes the economy's stagflation to the government's interventionist policies instead of Fernandez's finger-pointing at the European crisis. (What? Not George W. Bush?) Here's an interesting quote from the cited Reuters' piece:

Annual inflation, clocked by private analysts at over 20 percent, was another worry voiced in the survey. The government fines economists who publish their inflation estimates, which tend to double or triple the official figures.

I mentioned their state-of-denial central bank chief whom promised to take down Milton Friedman's picture. Just a reminder: inflation is a particularly nasty indirect regressive form of taxation affecting the poor and those on fixed-income; the well-to-do can shelter against government money-printing by hedging into, say, gold. 

Penalty = Tax = Insurance

Ever notice how the knee-jerk response of progressives to the fact that nearly half of workers don't pay federal (income) taxes (technically, there are a number of federal excise and other taxes/fees) is a reminder that workers pay mandatory payroll taxes. Setting aside any relevant income tax withholding, this normally includes federal or state mandatory benefit program contributions, direct (deducted from your wages) or indirect (employer-paid non-wage compensation). I don't really call these contributions "taxes" because functionally equivalent private sector contributions are called "premiums", etc. I prefer to use the term "tax" for a revenue intended to underwrite a government's generally-funded expenses.

There was a reason that the Obama Administration decided to hedge its position to SCOTUS on ObamaCare by asserting the penalty was really a tax. It turns out that FDR used similar reasoning in laying the groundwork for social security:

At tea at his house the year before, [FDR's Secretary of Labor Frances] Perkins has sat beside Justice Harlan Stone, and he gave her a tip.  She had confided her fears that any great social insurance system would be rejected by his court.  Not so, he said, and whispered back the solution: “The taxing power of the federal government my dear; the taxing power is sufficient for everything you want and need.”  If the Social Security Act was formulated as a tax, and not government insurance, it could get through. - Amity Shlaes, "The Forgotten Man" (HT Cafe Hayek)

Now as for Chief Justice John "Just Call Me Harlan" Roberts...

Grover Cleveland: A Great Democrat President

His last words: "I have tried so hard to do right."

First of all, let me point out that historians don't like him (see here for a typical example: "no real vision for the future...concept of the presidency as monarchical if not imperial...thought more in terms of command than leadership...lack of a college education...reluctance to provide the country with a clear, ideological direction or to bend Congress to his will");  the consensus ranking is in the second quartile.

Does it really bother me that I disagree with a number of historians or political scientists? No. Let me point out that historians are not very good economists; many of them presuppose or correlate federal government expansion with Presidential performance. I happen to like Harding and Coolidge, whom are universally panned, particularly on tax reform and a more streamlined foreign policy. (I do have issues with their advocacy of higher tariffs, monetary policies, other violations of free market policies (e.g., the maternity act and more restrictive immigration policy) and the handling of certain corruption scandals.)

If a President is principled on the concept of federalism, i.e., limited federal government, historians will complain that the vision is too limiting and not worthy of America's role in global leadership. They often don't think in terms of the opportunity costs of federal expansion or fail to consider the possibility that federal policies or activities can be counter-productive.

Grover Cleveland was a unique President in a number of respects: (1) his improbable meteoric rise from mayor to governor to President within a 4-year period; (2) he's the only President to serve non-consecutive terms. Plus, he won more popular votes in the interim (1888) election. In terms of this election, Lawrence Reed (see video below for his talk on whether Cleveland was freedom's President) had this to say about "I'm not Sore Loserman" Cleveland's gracious acceptance of defeat:

Alyn Brodsky, in a biography entitled Grover Cleveland: A Study in Character, records that when reporters asked to what he ascribed his defeat, Cleveland smiled and said, “It was mainly because the other party had the most votes.” He did not equivocate. He did not whine and fret that he won more popular votes than Harrison. The “votes” to which he referred were the ones that really matter under the rules of the Constitution—Electoral College votes.

Cleveland handled his defeat with dignity. No recounts, no lawsuits, no spin, no acrimony. His grace in defeat was all the more remarkable considering that the loss meant he had to relinquish power he already possessed, not merely accept failure to attain it. He would not tolerate his political allies making an issue of the discrepancy between the popular and Electoral tallies. There was nary a hint of a “constitutional crisis” because the Constitution was Cleveland’s “controlling legal authority.” 

Presidential Candidate	Vice Presidential Candidate	Political Party	Popular Vote		Electoral Vote
	Benjamin Harrison	Levi Morton	Republican	5,443,633	47.80%	233	58.1%
	Grover Cleveland	Allen Thurman	Democratic	5,538,163	48.63%	168	41.9%

Grover Cleveland was scrupulously honest; when Blaine's campaign uncovered the fact that the unmarried Cleveland was paying child support out of an extramarital affair (the mother named the boy after a married man she had also been seeing at the same time as Cleveland), Cleveland simply told his campaign to tell the truth (i.e., about his child support). He was notoriously frugal with the taxpayer's buck, when he took office as President, he eliminated many positions and refused to fire Republican civil servants for the sake of patronage: he preferred merit-based appointments.

How much do I love Cleveland as President? Let me count the ways:

• in an era of budget surpluses, he fought to lower protectionist tariffs
• he was opposed to American foreign meddling and expansion and reduced existing commitments
• he was vigilant in support of sound money and the gold standard, repeatedly pushing back silverites
• he aggressively vetoed special-interest bills (including phony Civil War pension vote buying) and populist giveaways: only FDR vetoed more bills (over more terms)
• he espoused a commitment to the principles of limited government, most famously in his veto message for the Texas Seed Bill (be still, my heart (my edits): I want to make Barack Hussein Obama write this passage 10,000 times):

I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. The lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the government, the government should not support the people.  Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.

Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups

Toto, "Africa". What can I say? This has to be Toto's signature hit. A genuine pop masterpiece, memorable arrangement and brilliant, spot-on vocals: one of my all-time favorite hits.