October 31, 2011 -- Halloween is with us, the time for ghosts, goblins, and other scary things. With the usual apologies to David Letterman, let’s do a Top Ten list of things that may haunt us.
10. On Monday, 10-31-11, the world population will hit 7 billion people … at a time a potential president, Rick Santorum, is calling for a ban on contraceptives.
9. Potential president Rick Perry’s economic plan announced this week calls for the IRS tax form to be the size of a 3 x 5 file card … a convenient size for him since it would hold about everything he knows about the economy.
8. Legislation in Mississippi will declare a fertilized human egg to be a person, with all of the rights and privileges thereof … like applying for a student loan or carry a loaded gun into a bar?
7. The Newt Gingrich surge to third place among Republican candidates in recent polls may be scary … but does offer a little job creation as at the news Tiffany’s starts interviews for new employees.
6. Though potential president Mitt Romney once expressed concern about climate change he now says it’s not our problem because the term is “global” warming… so we should look for the “made in America” label.
5. If the debilitating partisan virus that has felled Congress reaches the NBA … will that be the end of basketball as we know it?
4. This week the House passed one provision of the Obama Jobs Act on a bipartisan basis … some fear for the safety of the legislators if it results in the roof of the chamber caving in.
3. According to current polls more Americans have a favorable view of Wall Street protesters than they do Congress …. makes you wonder just who voted those scary people into office?
2. Though ending up well up last week, the U.S. Stock Market is more volatile than its ever been … to follow its wild gyrations day by day you better be ready for a case of whiplash.
1. More than a dozen more Republican candidate debates are scheduled for the next 90 days … that’s a grim prospect that haunts those of us who follow politics.
By way of further explanation…speaking in New Hampshire this week father of seven Rick Santorum (10) reiterated his wish to ban contraceptives since sex is for procreation only and such devices are a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be, doing damage to this country. Mr. Santorum was born a hundred years too late. As for Perry (9) his plan, an old Steve Forbes stale flat tax, would reduce the information required by the I.R.S. so much it would fit on a file card, one of which he whipped out of his pocket with a flourish to illustrate. Of course it is a popular with the wealthiest of us since it would be an absolute bonanza.
It is called “The Personal Initiative” (8) and it going on the ballot in Mississippi. It defines a fertilized human egg as a “person” which would of course destroy women’s reproductive rights. Rick Santorum with a Southern accent. Gingrich (7) has surged as Perry has plunged down to fifth or sixth place in the polls. Time to celebrate by indulging in another piece of expensive jewelry.
In June, Romney (6) told a New Hampshire audience that he believed in man-made global warming, and that “reducing greenhouse pollution is important.” But this week he said: “My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet.” Besides it is a global problem so why should as one country spend our resources trying to solve a world problem. Players and owners in the NBA (5) are doing about as well as the Congressional “Super Committee” working for a compromise on budget cuts and have now delayed the opening of the season yet again. Scratch November. Hope for a Christmas present.
Actually, there is not much to be made about the “bipartisan” vote (4) since it was to eliminate a rule that nobody liked, and there never was a rule the Republicans would not want to eliminate. If polls are correct (3) only 16 our of a 100 people have a favorable view of Congress, while 25 out of a 100 support the Wall Street Protesters. 84 percent saying they disapprove of Congress. 25 percent have favorable view of Wall Street protestors. If it’s admiration you crave, get out of Congress and it the streets. Picture John Boehner in a baseball cap, waving a sign, FAT CATS LOOK OUT FOR ANGRY DOGS.
The stock market (2) is jumping around like a cat on a hot tin roof. Or, rather utter the word “unemployment” and it shoots South; say “Europe has a bailout plan” (a new one every week) and the market soars. A wayward school of fish. If you find Republican debates (1) a jolly form of entertainment, you are in great luck. There is a week in November where there are planned debates in Michigan, South Carolina, and Washington DC. If you think it is tough on you, think about the candidates. Jon Huntsman skipped the last one which allowed him to be critical of his fellow candidates without having to take punishment from them in return. Now Rick Perry for whom the debates have done more harm than good is talking about skipping several. Mitt Romney says that is probably a good idea, but that was today and who can tell what he will think tomorrow. They cost the candidates campaign tune on the stump, and money. Yet voters all over the country need to see them in action among other things to see how they behave under fire. It may be coming from cohorts, but you can hardly call it friendly.
Room for Debate: The Psychology of Occupy Wall Street
Thomas L. Friedman had a column in Sunday's New York Times that summed up what protesters are protesting focusing on Wall Street. While all of our attention was focused on the capture and death of Gaddafi, “Citigroup had to pay a $285 million fine to settle a case in which, with one hand, Citibank sold a package of toxic mortgage-backed securities to unsuspecting customers — securities that it knew were likely to go bust — and, with the other hand, shorted the same securities — that is, bet millions of dollars that they would go bust.” The Wall Street Journal quoted a C.D.O. trader outside Citigroup “as describing the portfolio as resembling something your dog leaves on your neighbor’s lawn.” Citigroup made $160 million in fees and trading profits. The Journal added. “As a result, about 15 hedge funds, investment managers and other firms that invested in the deal lost hundreds of millions of dollars, while Citigroup made $160 million in fees and trading profits.” This is legal? Fines but no prosecution? And they are free to do it again?
At this point I will plug a movie, “Margin Call” which opened in San Antonio this weekend. I saw it and can say it lived up to its glowing review in the New Yorker, all politics aside it’s a superb drama that brings to life just such a scenario as the Citi Group banditry. But you can’t go wrong with Kevin Spacey and Jeremy Irons. For a taste of it, see this interview of Spacey on Morning Joe:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/vp/44943426#44943426
More from Friedman: “Our financial industry has grown so large and rich it has corrupted our real institutions through political donations. As Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, bluntly said in a 2009 radio interview, despite having caused this crisis, these same financial firms ‘are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they, frankly, own the place.’ ”
“Capitalism and free markets are the best engines for generating growth and relieving poverty”, Friedman writes, “provided they are balanced with meaningful transparency, regulation and oversight. We lost that balance in the last decade.” Can we get it back? As Friedman notes “there is now a tidal wave of money resisting that.”
Speaking of which, The Shadow Republican Party
In a matter of fact article in The New York Times today that I found chilling was an account of a kind of Shadow Republican Party disassociated from the Republican National Committee, an “Outside Groups Eclipsing G.O.P. as Hub of Campaigns Next Year.” They meet monthly in Washington to coordinate spending hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 12 months. Thanks to the Supreme Court, thanks to George Bush appointments, they are free of any legal penalty against buying elections for specific candidates (these folks have surreptitiously funded much of the Tea Party Movement, it being in their interest to reduce government oversight, rules, regulations and corporate taxes. They made great inroads in 2010. You will recognize some of them like Karl Rove and the Koch brothers, but they are not all by no means. Because of their hold on Congress, they are moving from a Shadow Republican Party to a Shadow Government. Here is a link to a list of names and photos of the most important players, a group who will, most likely have more to do with the way we live our lives than their surrogates, elected officials.
Meanwhile, I am very tired of hearing from the radical righters as in a column by Ross Douthat in the same issue of the Times as Friedman’s column about “soaking the rich.” You get that from time to time from columnist David Brooks as well, and George Will and others of that ilk. I don’t consider a tax of an extra five percent or so on yearly incomes in the millions after the first million in a year as “soaking the rich.” It seems to me a very small tab to pay to help maintain the health of a society that allowed the making of that much money. But then I guess I am an Agent Provocateur. I like the sound of that. It sounds dashing.
“I find no authority anywhere for anyone to authorize a curfew anywhere on Legislative Plaza”
Magistrate Tom Nelson in Nashville ruling for the Occupy Wall Street Movement in that city. The movement continues, growing daily, with mixed reception by authorities. This reminds some people of the Veteran’s March on Washington in 1932, when out of work World War II veterans, near starvation descended on the capital city in an effort to collect a promised one thousand dollar bonuses for their service. General MacArthur took troops and burned their tent city. President Hoover watched the glow from the fire from his White House window, then went to bed. Scenes of MacArthur’s actions were shown in Newsreels in movie houses all over the country and angered the nation. MacArthur didn’t get his reputation back until World War II.
Occupy Wall Street protests are still peaceful, but run afoul of authority here and there. Scott Olsen is the young veteran who suffered brain damage from apparently being hit by a tear-gas canister fired by police in Oakland, California. “People are hurt for no reason,” said Adam Jordan a supporter. Rubber bullets and tear gas have been used here and there. Police in Portland, Oregon, arrested about 30 demonstrators early Sunday. Denver police have been in conflict with protesters. But they are unlikely to go away any time soon.
The biggest problem facing the protesters now is not authorities, but the snow storm covering much of the country sever enough to leave over two million people without power and certainly tough on all of those who are living outside in tents and makeshift structures. Even when your blood boils with anger you are going to freeze your 99s in that kind of weather.
“The whole political class is just getting the memo that Ozzie and Harriet don't live here anymore.”
Comment by Edward Hill, a dean at Cleveland State University, on new issues like poverty confronting the suburbs. Seems to me Ozzie is a perfect symbol for the Republican Party. If you remember the program, Ozzie never went to work. He never had a job. There was speculation at the time as to how he provided for is ideal little family, but no one came up with an answer. Jobless. Just like the G.O.P. likes to see the middle income suburb class. If Ozzie and Harriet were alive today would they be one of the more than 10 million homeowners with loan balances larger than the values of their homes? And what would Ozzie say to that?
Another look at the past comes surprisingly from the presidential campaign of Herman Cain. He has a most peculiar commercial that sort of hitch-hikes on the old Marlborough Man. As Kathleen Parker put it in the Washington Post, “Herman Cain’s craggy-faced chief of staff, Mark Block, took a drag off a cigarette, blew smoke at the camera and sent the political class into coughing fits.” You must admit it is most peculiar and you have to wonder why he did it, but it did get everyone’s attention. Wonder if smoking was allowed in Cain’s old pizza shops?
Would you open a Victoria’s Secret store in Salt Lake City?
The odd Mormon concept of morally protective underwear is had to dislodge from the mind when you look at two executive types in tailored suits like Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, even if you don’t believe that a candidate’s religion should have any bearing on his qualifications for the job. For some unknown reason an old piece of light verse Ogden Nash wrote years ago for The New Yorker magazine keeps popping up in my mind. As I remember it:
The turtle lives twixt plated decks
That practically conceals its sex
I think it clever of the turtle
In such a fix to be so fertile.
My mind wants to adapt that to:
Mormon’s live in B.V.D.s
That cover them from neck to knees
Sexless yet do not affect
The propagation of their sect.
That doesn’t do much for my Agent Provocateur image.
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