letters2america

Letter 2 America for February 22, 2012

2012-02-21T17:34:41Z

As a nation, we seem to be turning an economic corner and heading in the right direction. But the distortion of capitalist principles that caused us to stumble has not been addressed. According to Sunday's New York Times, investors are still plowing billions of dollars into "derivatives" of one kind or another, and surprisingly, some hedge fund managers--and hedge funds in themselves are a perversion of capitalist fundamental principles--have dived back into the mortgage derivatives market. They may be pursuing different strategies, but the practical fact is that for every derivative bought one has to be written by someone who is effectively taking the bet of the purchaser. That leads ineluctably to the daunting realization that if the vast majority of a certain kind of bet have to be paid off because the economy does this or the mortgage market does that, the money to do so has to come from somewhere. Last time, it came from us, the taxpayers. We are still paying for AIG, which wrote billions-of-dollars-worth of a certain kind of derivative, the credit default swap, for the purpose of indemnifying...insuring against losses...thousands of rich people who were gambling on the ability of most mortgagors to pay their loans, and lost. And when AIG announced that it couldn't pay, the financial markets in general all shuddered and the capitalists at The Fed stepped in to make them more or less whole on our dime. We are headed for the same kind of catastrophe it seems, but no one is doing anything about the perverse practice of betting on the economy to the tune of billions of dollars that someone either rakes out of the economy in winnings--thus stunting the economy's continuing growth by diminishing the amount of capital that consumers have put into it--or loses, which also results in a decline in available resources for capital investment, and we lose again. Outside of regulating that market, even the Dodd-Frank bill did little to protect us from the next debacle, but right now, a different kind of derivative is on my mind.

I heard on the news Monday night that something like $11 billion has been injected into the petroleum futures market in recent weeks in anticipation of inflating prices per barrel caused by fear. That purported fear...the fear of Iranian belligerency closing the Straits of Hormuz or aliens coming and drinking all the oil, as I mentioned recently...drives the price ever up because people buy oil futures on the assumption that...well, fear will drive the price ever up. Fear becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The result is that along with the price per barrel of oil, the price of gasoline and the price of heating oil increase, as do the cost of plastics, chemicals, solvents and the like...all for fear that something will happen or that something else won't, and disproportionately to the consequences of those feared events in the bargain. As a result, there is less money for consumers to spend on other things, less needs to be manufactured, people get laid off and what is now a positive trend gets reversed. So, how do we prevent contrived fear from reversing the forward course of our economy? Well, the answer in part is what we did last time this happened: release oil that we have stored for a rainy day. It's raining.

You may recall that about nine months ago, The President released 25 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), and many of the oil consuming nations did likewise to the tune of 100 million barrels total. True, other things occurred: Libya got resolved and oil started flowing from that country again, but the sudden glut of oil caused by current events and the curtailed use of petroleum products by consumers who were weary of being overcharged, enhanced by the release from the SPR, led to steady declines in the price of oil and those things produced from it, and we actually got down to near $3 a gallon for gasoline...still too much but far better than $4. This time, while the Iranian problem may well go on for some time, we are now producing more of our own oil than we have in years: over 50% of our needs are filled domestically. And alternative sources of fuel are being developed more and more rapidly. Natural gas is cheap, and thus electricity prices have come down, so a little bit of increased pressure on the price of petroleum should do a lot of good. Why not release some more petroleum from the SPR? Here's why. Bloomberg Business Week reported on Monday that the Republicans in The Senate have introduced a bill that would tie release of oil from the SPR to approval by The Department of State of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which is now being delayed--by the Department of State, not The President mind you--because the route it would take across Nebraska would bring it through an area that has an important fresh water aquifer beneath it. The Canadian company building the pipeline is already preparing a new application with a different route that will meet environment concerns, but the Republicans don't want to talk about the fact that even the Canadians are preparing to, though they have not yet, addressed the problem in an amended application for approval. So it seems that their motive is something other than creating jobs since the prospect of those jobs has not disappeared, but has only been delayed until after the next election. What could it be?

Sometimes things are what they appear to be. In this case, the increasing price of petroleum products, gasoline in particular, has already been prescribed by Speaker of The House John Boehner as the basis for a strategy against The President's re-election. They want to blame Barrack Obama for these exorbitant prices--how they expect to be believed I don't know--and they will use any rationale to make their point. They are going to claim that declines in exploration and drilling permit approvals by the administration after the BP spill didn't just "kill jobs," they also diminished the supply of domestic oil...that even though it takes from five to fifteen years to get oil out of the ground or from under the ocean after a permit is granted. And then they are going to say that that reduced oil supply sometime a decade from now is the cause of high gasoline prices today. So, their strategy is to parlay inflated gasoline prices, which will slow the economic recovery, on The President instead of speculators, and thus blame him for the slow pace of the recovery that they are doing their best to impede by preventing him from taking action in The Senate. It's all too familiar, isn't it America?

Your friend,

Mike

Letter 2 America for February 20-2012

2012-02-19T19:30:54Z

Dear America,

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The President submitted his annual budget to Congress this week, and as usual it immediately became the object of the scorn of the opposing party. Since 1921, The President has been required by statute to submit such a document to Congress in January of each year, though in political times like these it is an act of folly in light of the fact that it has nothing to do with what will be appropriated or spent by Congress. It is in reality a political document that lays out for the American people what the party of The President has set as its social and political priorities and imperatives, and thus is the starting point for the political debate of any given year. That is important in a year like this one in which the next president, all congressmen and one third of all senators will be elected or reelected. I would guess that it is no surprise to you that the debate is not characterized by intellectual integrity, nor is it without casuistry or outright misrepresentation. And I would also guess that no one is surprised by the fact that the Republican Party seems to be leading with deceptive calumny rather than legitimate criticism. It always amazes me when they assume that no one will notice that they criticize the Democrats for things about which they have recently taken credit or eschewed responsibility. For example, they argue that President Obama's claim of reducing the budget deficit by the cost of prosecuting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next ten years is an accounting trick since the wars were going to end anyway, but they expect that no one will point out that they blamed The President for the part of the federal deficit caused by those wars even though they were already going on when he took office, but give him no credit though he is the one in office now at the time of their end. And while The President's budget makes reductions in defense spending, The Republicans claim that he cannot claim such to be deficit reductions as the budget/debt ceiling deal reached last August required $500 billion in cost cuts anyway...this despite the fact that they had no intention of letting those cuts take place; they openly contemplated changes in law to repeal that aspect of the bill passed to increase the debt ceiling. Of course, the revenue enhancements proposed by Mr. Obama are characterized as "job killers" even though they affect only those who create no jobs and yet rake in most of the income in this country. Suffice it to say that The President's annual budget is the target at which every politician of the opposing party aims for the coming year, and in this year in particular, that every politician either campaigns against or for. So the real question is in the analysis of the budget not for the numbers proposed, but for the philosophy behind it and the identities of those whom it benefits. No surprises there either.

But the budget is just one element of a Republican campaign for the presidency and renewed control of The House of Representatives. Paul Ryan, appearing on Meet the Press yesterday, characterized the budget as a lack of leadership because of putative accounting ploys that made it seem to reduce the deficit more than it actually did. He complained about the revenue--that is the tax increases on the wealthiest Americans--that are part of President Obama's plan for the fiscal future and he criticized the proportions of spending reductions as well as continuing economic growth programs, but he also raised the issue of The President's contra tempt with regard to mandatory free birth control as it relates to church affiliated institutions. Note that there was never a mandate that the Catholic Church--which opposes contraception as a matter of religious doctrine--provide birth control to its employees. Rather, the Affordable Care Act was deemed by The President to require institutions run by the Catholic Church--for example schools and hospitals, which have many non-Catholic employees who may well want the free contraceptives that those who work for other employers are entitled to--to provide insurance that includes free contraceptives to their employees just as other employers must. And though the issue of religious freedom and the first amendment may or may not have been implicated in the end, The White House modified its position to require all insurers to provide free contraceptives with all their mandated health insurance plans, thus relieving the church itself of the moral conundrum that obeying the law would have represented. Then there was the price of gasoline, which is now twice what it was when this administration began. John Boehner is counseling his minions to pounce on President Obama, rather than the avaricious few who manipulate the price, for the price gouging caused by an increase of over 30% in the cost of crude oil since September...an increase that is justified by nothing but claims of fear: fear that Iran will close the Straits of Hormuz or that aliens may land and drink it all. Of course, they are crying crocodile tears on that one as they agreed to the Social Security tax abatement only because they could get the offsetting effect of high gas prices in the economy to thwart the economic benefit of the tax cut for ordinary working Americans...forty dollars more in the pocket per pay check going out just as fast as it came in as a reward to speculators and hoarders of petroleum products, leaving a decreased net gain for the economy. And of course they are complaining about the effect of the tax cut on the Social Security program itself. Apparently it doesn't matter to them that current law created a $2 trillion surplus that the government has cadged for its own uses and is only being asked to repay a small part of in consequence of this tax cut.

I'd like to think that the Republican conservative complex (Rcc) was capable of some new ideas, but... Well, maybe in four years.

Your friend,

Mike

Letter 2 America for February 17, 2012

2012-02-17T16:47:59Z

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Dear America,

Once again, Social Security has become the object of Republican fantasy about the national debt and the yearly federal deficit. The payroll tax cut has now been effectively extended until the end of this year without a fight over how to "pay" for it--largely, I suspect, because the Republicans are getting their wish for something to interdict the salubrious effects of the tax cut and thus diminish the prospect of a Democratic gain in November in the form of windfall oil profits and speculation in the oil market--but they have continued to peddle the tendentious notion that we are borrowing from our children's future. Rand Paul, the Tea Party senator from Kentucky, led the chorus the day after it was announced by John Boehner that The House Republicans had acquiesced without holding the cut hostage for some actual "job killing" provision to pay for it. He said that it was the worst day in the history of Social Security since its creation in 1935. But the reality is different, and I must admit that when the first abatement of Social Security tax payments was announced, I too was against it because of my fixation on the solvency of the program. But what I have realized over time is that the solvency of the program is not really in jeopardy. Social Security has over $2 trillion in the bank. How can a program with that kind of surplus be in any kind of trouble.

But Rand Paul has a habit of spewing any fool notion that comes to his little mind without consideration of anything but his libertarian presuppositions to back it up. For example, he thinks that the federal regulation of light bulbs--and much of our energy use is a function of illumination of our consumer entities like stores and recreational facilities as well as our homes--is an infringement on his liberty...presumably his liberty to contribute to the destruction of our economy by eschewing conservation on the national level and thus enhancing our dependency on foreign oil. He thinks that low flow toilets are clogging the sewage flow from his home, and that we should thus make no use of the changes in "toilet technology" that have allowed for reduced water use, and thus reduced sewage disposal volumes and so forth. But while those foolish thoughts are little more than quaint ravings from a bumptious buffoon with a bad toupee, his ravings about Social Security are potentially harmful because they give credence to a conservative canard that could swing an election. And my reason for characterizing his point as foolish is best explained with an analogy.

Say you have a 401(k) with $2 million in it, and that you are no longer paying into it because you have suffered a decrease in earnings. Say you are concomitantly unable to pay your mortgage or buy the things your family needs for sustenance at the moment. You've got thirty years until you retire, but the bank is going to foreclose next month because you have missed a couple of monthly payments. Do you insist on preserving your $2 million in savings or do you use some to save your home and tide you over until you can get your income back to where it was. That is precisely the question we, as a nation, are facing with regard to Social Security, though on an obviously grander scale. It will harm no one for us to spend down our retirement surplus now to save assets and provide our sustenance for this interim period between the economic adequacy of the last two decades and the return to prosperity that is now in the offing for the foreseeable, and perhaps even near-term future. And as a bonus for doing so we will reduce the national debt by requiring the general fund of the federal government to pay down some of the debt it owes us Social Security participants. Of course, no one ever talks about that fact: the federal government has to pay into the system now because Social Security isn't collecting as much as it pays out right now, but it is only paying money it has borrowed from us in the first place. If the national debt is a problem as the Republican conservative complex (Rcc) says it is, to quote the patrician Martha Stewart, "it's a good thing."

Granted, we must make some adjustments to the Social Security program in order to ensure that we do not deplete our surplus to unsafe levels and that we can maintain that surplus with the cost-to-benefit ratio that will ultimately have to be established. And make no mistake about it, it must be done sooner rather than later. But it doesn't have to be done right now...now when we need some ready cash to tide us over, and that is what disturbs me about politicians like Rand Paul; they are willing to use Social Security as a political ploy, but it is too important to be trivialized by such a use. That is why when Republicans call Social Security an "entitlement program" I feel the need to point out that it is no such thing. The fact that the federal government administers the program doesn't make it an entitlement. It is not something that someone else is giving us. It is something that we have paid for and continue to pay for, and we are just getting from it what we are due in consequence of our and our progeny's contributions...and it is something that the next generation will get for the same reasons. It is not a form of welfare or a dole intended to accomplish a desirable social effect. It is the original safety net, and it was required of us for our own good by a benevolent government. It was not given to us by anyone.

The income level at which Social Security contributions end is too low. It is determined formulaically by statutory mandate, but the formula must be changed. In order to sustain our economic progress, we need tax abatement at the lower levels because that money goes directly into our economy in the form of consumption, and that is something we need long-term, not just today. But those at higher levels of income can afford to pay more without significantly impacting their lifestyles, and that is what the revised formula should take into account. The tax levy for Social Security is the same for all of us in terms of percentage of eligible earnings, but just as a graduated system is more equitable than a single rate for income taxation, it is more equitable for Social Security financing as well. And as for the eligibility of the rich when they retire, I do not agree that they should pay for the benefit and then not receive it. But when those eligible have other income that allows them to live above a certain level of comfort--say five times the national poverty standard--they should have to wait longer to receive their benefits...not forever, but longer. With just these two changes, we can restore Social Security to balance without any significant hardship for anyone, so that's what I think we should do...just not right now.

Your friend,

Mike

Letter 2 America for February 15, 2012

2012-02-15T16:03:47Z

Dear America,

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Rick Santorum made the Sunday morning current events rounds with ABC's This Week and NBC's Meet the Press, and he was really quite effective. Once you set aside his fundamentalist zeal and the jeopardy it puts the rest of our liberties at, the reasons for his recent electoral success are clear. He speaks with the calm demeanor of a rational man, and that puts him ahead of the slick Mitt Romney and the pedantic Newt Gingrich by a mile. As to Ron Paul, it appears that the tree hasn't fallen far from the apple, Senator Rand Paul. I don't believe that we are yet ready for a president from the libertarian fringe. So of the three viable Republican candidates, and there were only two a week ago, Santorum has the demeanor to beat. Yet, there is still something that will keep him from being the Republican nominee. His problem is what he says, not how he says it. And the specific areas in which he will disqualify himself are the economy, foreign policy and abortion rights...not necessarily in that order.

Starting with the last, he is sternly anti-choice, and I use the phrase anti-choice instead of pro-life with purpose. If he were just pro-life--that is if he just wanted to curb premarital sex and illegitimate births and he only wanted to defund programs that provided contraceptives and abortions, he could remain in the main stream on at least that issue. But I have heard him argue that life begins at conception. That means that all abortions must be banned for him to be satisfied, and we have come too far on the road to freedom of choice for women with regard to the reproductive use of their bodies to go back now. Despite conservative fulminations to the contrary, there will never be a political reversal of Roe vs. Wade, and abortion for at least the first term of a woman's pregnancy will persist for the foreseeable future, and the second term right will most likely last just as long. There will be no constitutional amendment, and the Supreme Court will not reverse that decision for fear that without their determination that abortions are legal, there will be a statutory right, and then they will have to decide many other tangential issues: when does life begin, do women have a property right in their bodies that is beyond the reach of the law, is abortion the termination of a life or simply the decoupling of one life from another, and on and on. And the majority of the American people do not want to go back to the days when countable numbers of women, especially young women, were murdered in dirty back rooms by people who were not qualified to perform the abortion procedure. As a nation, and more particularly as a people, we are nearly forty years older now, and we know that what Roe vs. Wade accomplished was the arbitration of an issue in favor of people who could express their pain and the pain of others as well. The line had to be drawn, and no one will erase it for fear that they will have to be part of redrawing it. As to contraception, Santorum says he opposes it as a Catholic, but he does not claim the right to deny it to others...yet. But if he would campaign for a reversal of Roe vs. Wade, he would campaign for a reversal of the case of Griswold vs. Connecticut, which was literally was about a doctor and Planned Parenthood counseling about contraceptives, but in the annals of the law it represents a "right to privacy" that is fundamental to both the availability of contraceptives and that of abortions as well. That is why it would ultimately be of interest to Santorum, and once the American people realize what reversal of Griswold would mean for them, including the end of reproductive freedom for women--and someone will likely bring that up between now and the day after election day, the time depending on how much more success Santorum has and when--they will balk at supporting not just him but the retreat from certain civil liberties that his incumbency would represent.

When it comes to foreign policy, the electorate knows very little about his beliefs, but that won't remain the case if his popularity grows and he becomes a force to reckon with in the nomination process. He is a classic hawk, and a believer in the "Bush Doctrine," essentially the notion that the United States has the right to act preemptively to prevent terrorist attacks by pursuing not just terrorists and their organizations, but the nations that tolerate and abide them. That is how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan...Afghanistan in particular...were justified, and that is how we came to spend over a trillion dollars in the two countries and to expend close to 10,000 lives over the course of more than a decade in order to achieve what today, even in the light of retrospect, are at best dubious gains in our security. Extending the duration of that strategy--implementing a "Santorum Doctrine" in effect--will be a tough sell. And a return to the arrogance of a foreign policy based on the premise of what the neo-conservative movement euphemistically calls "American Exceptionalism" would be a return to what the rest of the world calls American imperialism. We can no longer raise a high hand to the world and expect it to be taken as a felicitation. That was the symbolic message behind Barrack Obama's Nobel Prize, and that is the message that even the terrorist networks of the world harp on.

As to economic policy, Santorum will offer more of the same as the Republican conservative complex (Rcc) has commended to us: lower taxes for those who own capital, lower wages for those who provide labor and reliance on cheap foreign labor rather than quality, but more expensive American labor in the quest for ever greater distribution of American wealth to those few who already have most of it.

So in the end, Santorum will look like a good old fashioned American traditionalist, but in the final analysis, he will plainly be something fairly new. He is the new paradigm for the reactionary right in our society: Calvinistic, prideful, dismissive of all others, and fortunately still in the minority. Let's hope it stays that way.

Your friend,

Mike

Letter 2 America for February 13, 2012

2012-02-13T14:57:11Z

Dear America,

It wasn't long ago that I made a prediction about the Republican course of action with regard to the Social Security tax abatement that is about to expire at the end of February. It was nothing more profound than predicting that the next panda born in a zoo will be black and white, but I must say that I am less than pleased that I was right. I said that the Republicans would do now what they did last year to make the current two month, temporary extension of the 2011 tax cut necessary. I said that they would try to extort from the Democrats some measures that would effectively neutralize the benefits of the tax cut, like reducing salaries of government employees. Sure enough, the Republicans in The House pulled that old chestnut out of the fire one more time with the smarmiest Republican of them all, Eric Cantor, leading the charge. Of course, tax increases on every million earned after the first one are not something they will consider because they claim that such tax increases "kill jobs." Aren't you sick of hearing that phrase? Everything they don't like kills jobs, but they never bother to explain how. Regulations kill jobs...but which ones? They never say. Taxes on the rich kill jobs, but they never address the fact that of the 340,000 top earners who file tax returns in this country--otherwise known as the 1%--only 2400 of them are small business owners who employ other people...less than one percent of the one percent. Incidentally, those aren't my figures. They come from the U.S. Treasury Department, but no matter. The Republicans are doing what they always do, and no one is surprised. The President called them out in a general way in his address to the nation this past Saturday, and I suspect that everyone (even those who hope that they succeed in undermining the economic progress that we seem to be making in order to enhance the dubious prospect that the Republican nominee will be able to beat President Obama) knows it. And as we get closer to the end of the month and the expiration of the old tax extension, if the polls continue to show that, as Bill Clinton used to say, "that dog won't hunt," there will be either another extension offered with grumbling and grudging claims that the Democrats are at fault, or the Republicans will recognize that they are extinguishing rather than enhancing their chances of electoral success in November and they'll give up the charade. But when they do what they ultimately will do, they'll need another torch to give the Republican conservative complex (Rcc) mob so that they can carry it up to the white house calling for the head of the monster they abhor. And here's what it will be: they will claim that this tax cut will devastate the Social Security program and cause it to fail...in thirty years instead of thirty five, though they won't mention the time frame as they beat the drum.

It's the same old bugaboo. They confuse everyone with talk about the general fund consequences of a decline in Social Security Trust Fund revenues, and then they call the tax decrease deficit spending that will increase the national debt, but it's baloney. The only connection between the general fund and the Social Security Trust Fund is that, since the general fund has borrowed all of that money, still much more than $2 trillion, they have to pay it back in small amounts every month to augment the revenues that newly go into the fund from payroll taxes. But what they fail to mention is that every time they pay off some of the government debt that is owed to the Trust Fund, they reduce the national debt...at least that part of the national debt that is owed to us working people. They borrow some of the money necessary from other sources--only about 5% of which comes from China, incidentally--but the general fund then owes us that much less in the end. Seems like a good thing to me. But if they are truly worried about incurring that debt, why not take the money in taxes from people who won't even notice it. The Democrats' proposal comes to about $5,000 per extra million in earnings...a pittance to someone who owns the islands that two or three of his houses are on. And we could make an exception for those 2400 small business owners if "killing jobs" is the only issue. Of course, that proposal won't get any serious discussion if the Rcc has anything to say about it. They think that the 340,000 votes of the rich will outweigh the 160 million votes of the people whose taxes are going up if the Republican Party doesn't see the light. And they are thinking that because they think, as I do, that because of the uncertainty they are creating about the Social Security tax cut, the public will begin resisting the need to spend any money they can hold off on spending, and the unemployment rate will go up a tenth of a point or two. Then, they will start a new refrain of their favorite song. "See, I told you so," they will croon. "The Obama economic plan is a failure." This is getting tiresome.

Your friend,

Mike

Letter 2 America for February 9, 2012

2012-02-09T15:12:33Z

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Dear America,

It seems that Rick Santorum is neither gone nor forgotten. He apparently still has a following, at least in the mid-west, in that he won in Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota, though his delegate total from those victories was zero as all three contests were non-binding. And even if he gets the delegates represented by his electoral majorities, he will have only about ten percent of what Romney has today. Still, the fact that Mitt Romney was second in two of those and third in the other is being touted as a failure for Romney, and perhaps it is, though it is hardly the death knell of his campaign. But what is troubling about these outcomes is that Santorum is so popular anywhere. While I would love to see The President run against a fringe, unelectable candidate like Santorum, I am daunted by what his popularity says about so much of the American electorate. I can't erase from my memory his response when a woman who obviously spent more time ranting than she did thinking asked him from the audience to "get rid of Obama" because he was a devout Muslim and he was not entitled to be president. Santorum glibly responded that he was trying to get rid of Obama, but he never disabused the woman of either her misconceptions about the office or her scurrilous bigotry about its occupant. That is what passes for a potential president in the Republican Party of Colorado, Missouri and Minnesota: a man who will take a vote any way he can get it and from anyone for even the worst of reasons...a man who apparently has principles only when they serve his purposes. I don't think even Newt Gingrich is that opportunistic and amoral.

The success of Rick Santorum in these non-delegate contests means little about even the campaign. Gingrich has already moved on to super-Tuesday states and is focusing on Ohio, and Romney made little or no effort to cultivate support in these three states other than Colorado, which must be a disappointment to him if not a cause for alarm. But it says something about the Republican conservative complex (Rcc) and what it really is. There is in it a level of unsavoriness there that is just barely below the surface, but is never-the-less plainly visible to all, especially the Rcc itself. This sub rosa vileness of bigotry, self-interest, materialism and lack of compassion or altruism would merit the concern of people who purport to be as righteous as much of the Rcc claims to be, but it seems more likely that erstwhile Christian virtue is in reality only unctuous lip service to the Christian principles that the Rcc claims to stand for when its members speak about the values they vote to preserve. They aren't your mother's Christian values.

To hear Santorum talk about his presidency is to hear an emphasis on the fundamentalism that he thinks will "save" the United States, though he never says from what with any specificity. He claims that the Republican states in our electoral politics are dominated by adherents not just to Christianity, but to his kind of Christianity. When asked about the economy, he says that "family values" are good for the economy. He complains about "Obamacare," which he lumps with "Romneycare" as he claims, rightly in my opinion, that there is not a whit of difference between the two. Romney will protest saying that what was good for Massachusetts might not be good for Rhode Island, or whatever state he is in at the moment, and I am glad. I remember writing months ago that if Romney would take credit for the affordable care act that was passed by the Democrats, he would be a genuine threat to beat President Obama, but there seems no danger of that now. Still, Santorum's avowal of repeal of the current health care law almost guarantees that his only constituents are those red state Republicans who actually are Santorum Christians rather than real ones. But the fact that there are so many like Santorum in this country does not bode well for the future. The Republicans produced Barry Goldwater in 1968--he rather than Ronald Reagan was the father of modern conservatism--and it was only twelve years later that a conservative of Goldwater's stripe won the presidency. My worry today is that someone other than Romney will win the Republican nomination, and will thus be a landslide loser like Goldwater, but also the forerunner of the next Reagan: jingoistic, chauvinistic, materialistic, Calvinistic and self-righteous to a degree that we have never seen before. I worry that it is not just the direction of our nation that is in peril, but the very nature of our ethos. We do not have prayer in school because freedom of religion, including the right to have none, is a fundamental right in the United States of America, but what if a Santorum Christian is the president. We believe in a social safety net because we recognize that not everyone can be an investment banker or a CEO, and while we all have the right to education, it is beyond the means of many still, even with all we do already to help those in financial need to go to school. But if a Santorum Christian becomes president, the Rcc myth that everyone can succeed, be rich and ascend to the good life will become a virtual article of faith, and it will therefore be the impetus behind all legislation, including government budgets, that controls that safety net for the future: good for the investment bankers and the CEO's, but not so good for the rest of us, especially those at or near the bottom of the economic scale. And it is a scale rather than a ladder, because while many can climb up from where they are, many more cannot, and we have discussed the reasons--many of them simple arithmetic--in the past. Some can climb socially, but for the rest of us, our lives are defined by the weight and volume of what we can realistically hope to accomplish.

Rick Santorum does represent a change of direction in America, regardless of the success or failure of his presidential aspirations, but success for Santorum does not bode well for the quality of life in this country. Now, he is just the most recent Romney challenger, and he will fade like the rest have. But he is also a harbinger of our national fate, and we must be aggressively progressive if we are not to fall to the fate he augers. To quote a conservative patron saint, "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." And to quote one of our founding fathers, "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance." So look out, America. Be always on the lookout. From now on the rule in daily living in this era of terrorism is the rule in politics as well. If you see something, say something. Don't be shy, America. They're not.

Your friend,

Mike

Letter 2 America for February 6, 2012

2012-02-06T03:00:58Z

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Dear America,

The employment numbers for the month of January came out this week, and they were reflective of continuing success for the Obama/Democratic recovery policy. Despite the fact that the Republicans have thwarted any new initiative specifically directed at creation of jobs, they were forced to accede to the Democrats' demand that the Social Security tax abatement of 2011 be extended for at least two months in 2012 until the parties can agree on how to extend it for the rest of the year. And despite the fact that public confidence is surely diminished by the fact that the final extension is not yet an accomplished fact, consumer confidence was sufficient in January to spawn 250,000 jobs and to reduce unemployment to 8.3% from the 8.5% of December 2011. It is an indicator of progress that any person possessed of intellectual honesty would concede to be so, but the Republican conservative complex (Rcc), including those who consider themselves experts on conservative Republican politics and members of the party itself, continue to cavil about every Democratic success in a desperate attempt to vindicate their criticisms of the Keynesian opposition. But the arguments they have made along with those new shadings of them that they are currently claiming to be legitimate are beginning to look tired and contrived. The consequence is that even the Republican leader in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination has had to concede that the latest figures may reflect some success for the Democratic recovery strategy, though he cleaves to his disparaging attitude by resorting to the fall back position: the recovery would have come to this point sooner if Republican ideas had been the guiding principles followed by the Obama administration. That's going to be a tough sell if we have a month or two more of the progress that we are now experiencing, and my guess is that we will.

As Eric Cantor, the apotheosis of disingenuous politicking, stood in the well of The Congress to talk about the extension of the Social Security abatement, he apparently felt compelled to endorse the extension though he threw in the need to rescind some federal regulations and reduce the deficit at the same time. It was a harbinger of the strategy that his party will use, but it is the same policy that failed them last year. They cannot hold the reduction of payroll taxes hostage again because this time, the American people will not write their congressmen and call them to complain. This time they will vote against them in an election that will be only nine months away when the crunch comes... a short-enough period that the Democrats can keep the issue alive until it counts. So, the payroll tax cut will continue until the end of this year, and the concessions that the Republicans will be able to extort out of the Democrats will be minimal because the risk of trying for too much is that they will get nothing since the Democrats have already plumbed the depth of the electorate's sympathies on this subject...and the Republicans have too. Thus, without reduction in government spending of sufficient magnitude to stifle consumer spending by taking real money out of economic circulation, unemployment will go down. Oh, next month unemployment will probably stay the same, or even go up a tenth of a point because of consumer tentativeness, but the March figures should make up for that moment of national angst at the end of February when Republicans bellow in consternation from the corner they have put themselves into. They will agree to the tax cut in the end...probably just at the end...and the public opprobrium that their gamesmanship generates will be a Democratic windfall, but the improving trend will continue. Then, with new-found stature based on the apparent Democratic success in leading the nation out of the debacle brought to us by supply-side policies, significant chunks of the Obama plan for economic stimulus will have to be passed, adding momentum to what will be slowly becoming a Democratic juggernaut. In fact, it is my belief that unemployment will be below 8% by this November, and that the Republicans will get their oats...once again. But let's not get cocky.

With all those favorable prospects just over the horizon, and even with the Republicans showing faith in their advent by hedging their bets on Democratic failure, things could still go wrong as they did in 2010.

What is different now though is that the Republicans have squandered the impunity they had after the November 2010 "thumping" they managed. If they had not been so politically greedy over the past year, they might now be sitting in the proverbial catbird seat. If they had taken credit for the first payroll tax extension and pushed for passage of an extension instead of choosing to obstruct it in the hope that they could squeeze offsetting economic retardants out of the situation, thus preventing what will turn out to be the measure that stems the economic tide from doing so...If they had passed real bills that would legitimately reduce government regulation rather than just pandering to their moneyed constituent base...If they had refrained from the hyperbolic detractions of Democratic efforts to restore the welfare of the American people, they might have succeeded with an argument like the one they are now forced to rely on: that it would all have come sooner if it had been them in power. Instead, the one metaphor that President Obama went back to time and time again in 2010 will work where it failed in that year's election. But this time, not only did the Republicans drive the car into the ditch, they tried to stop the tow truck from pulling it out. "And now," President Obama will say, "instead of saying thanks they say they want the keys again before they have even sobered up enough to see the mistakes they made." And this time, my guess is, the American people will say what the last Republican president is famed for saying: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...and you can never fool me again."

Your friend,

Mike

Letter 2 America for February 3, 2012

2012-02-03T02:47:56Z

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Dear America,

Freddie Mac (the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Association), has been doing its usual business, that is buying mortgages from lenders in the open market and creating bonds called derivatives to sell to individual and institutional investors in another open market. Over the past week or so, it has become known that unfortunately, the bonds that Freddie Mac has been selling-- specifically derivatives known as "inverse floaters"-- create an incentive for Freddie Mac that is hostile to that of the borrowers on the mortgages backing them. The public image problem created by this practice was a function of the fact that an inverse floater pays less interest to its buyer if interest rates go up. Thus, there is an incentive for the financial institution that sells such a derivative, in this case a quasi-public entity that is intended to make home ownership easier rather than harder, to keep interest rates higher rather than lower. In the case of Freddie Mac, which essentially is a source of guaranteed funding for mortgage lenders, that means that they pay less on those bonds that they were selling if their mortgage-paying homeowners pay higher interest rates, a disincentive to the financial institutions that buy the bonds to refinance the mortgages in question to make them more affordable. And that enhances the risk that foreclosures will occur because it keeps monthly payments high in what we all know is not just a bad, but a tenuous time economically, all of which inspires this question: whose side are they on anyway.

This is all a residue of the financial practices that got us into this mess in the first place. The derivatives market, which purports to be a source of funds for people and entities that invest them, is really a huge casino in which people bet against the people outside the casino who are just trying to stay alive. It's like the Coliseum of Rome, only the gladiators are not slaves who kill each other, they are we regular people who are just trying to stay afloat, and the Romans for whose benefit we live and die financially are making money instead of just being perversely amused. Derivatives are so complicated that they defy understanding for even some of those who dabble in them. And they are diverse enough to include something as simple and necessary as agricultural futures, which are backed by actual goods, while also including credit default swaps, which are nothing short of bets on the success or failure of our financial institutions and are backed in the end by nothing... hence the need for the great bailout of December 2008. Now, The President is proposing to subsidize the whole process with taxpayer money by refinancing many of those mortgages that Freddie Mac has bet against in a fashion that effectively puts the government in the position of buying home equity that no longer exists, and in fact never did. And guess who gets to come out of the water dry...again. That's right. It's the big money guys at the big banks that hold all these derivatives, part of whose losses on what would eventually become foreclosures will be paid by us so that the value of their investments won't go down. True, the individual home owners who cannot pay the mortgages in question at the bottom of the financial pile-up will be able to keep their homes by being allowed to pay back new refinanced mortgages based only on their reasonable value, but someone will be paying the difference between what they will be getting and what they have now, and that's us. No, I have a better suggestion, and I've said it before.

The federal government should guarantee any adjustable rate mortgage on a house that is now worth less than the face value of the mortgage, provided that the homeowner applies and can demonstrate his ability to pay the rate on the mortgage at origination, and the bank should be compelled to accept that reduced payment for the duration of the mortgage or until it is refinanced or paid off by the borrower. The moral symmetry of such an arrangement commends it highly. The banker who prayed on the gullible home owner by telling him that he could refinance to get out from under any future rise in interest rates will have to pay the price for telling that lie by accepting payment of the mortgage at the original, artificially low rate. The homeowner gets a leg up, but not a free ride. The stock of foreclosed properties stops growing too fast to allow the housing market to recover. And then, new homes will become more appealing because with fewer foreclosures to compete for the buyers in the market, more jobs will be created building new houses. Consumption paid for with the wages from those jobs will go back into the economy and it will improve proportionately. I call it a do-over. Those who reaped ill-gotten gains have to give them back, but they pay nothing in the way of a penalty, and the buyers who thought they were getting something for nothing will have to pay for what they got. Everyone goes back to where they started and we are all the better for it. There's no loss for anyone...and no gain either, but society as a whole benefits. It's a way to undo this mess instead of contriving some bogus plan that is based on another fiction about the value of things. And best of all, no one gets hurt.

Your friend,

Mike

Letter 2 America for February 2, 2012

2012-02-01T17:46:46Z

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Dear America,

We have a Democratic governor here in Connecticut, but as in all other states, the Democrats are trying to out Republican the Republican conservative complex (Rcc) when it comes to business. So it was just announced that The State will lend $291 million to Jackson Laboratory to build a new research facility on the campus of the University of Connecticut's medical center. Under the terms of the deal, $192 million of the loan will be forgiven if the lab creates 300 jobs over a ten year period: $192 million for 3000 job years, so to speak. That's $64,000 per year per job. Of course the governor, for whom I voted rather than voting for a Mitt Romney clone from the "venture capital" business, has given the venture capitalist's justification in that he claims that the facility will somehow generate an estimated 16,000 additional jobs in Connecticut, though frankly, I'd like to see both the math and the theory behind that one. To me, the whole thing smacks of the starting assumption that because of this lab, pigs will be flying in tourists on their backs to see it. But let's set aside the assumptions and projections and concentrate on the simple math we know. Our state is paying $64,000 a piece for 300 ten year long jobs; how valid is the rationale for doing so.

Well, if indeed 16,000 are created in Connecticut, it's a pretty good deal. Those 16,000 taxpaying citizens will more than reimburse today's taxpayers for their investment, and they will do so many times over. But what other things have to happen in order for those 16,000 jobs to materialize, one might well ask. More specifically, what other contributions will the citizens of Connecticut have to make to other companies and what other tax stimuli will have to be given to them while other taxes and state jobs are taken from us. Bear in mind that we have already reduced the state budget by billions over the course of the next few years, including cuts in the salaries of state employees in the forms of furlough days and forgoing future cost of living increases as well...plus cuts in all kinds of state programs. So, the cost is not just the $192 million, but also the hundreds of millions more that we have paid in other ways. And then there is the question of how we can be so sure that those 16,000 jobs will be located in Connecticut. Besides that, there is the fundamental question that I asked in one of these letters just a few days ago, and it's this: if business is going to be stimulated to the extent that 16,000 new workers are necessary, why do we have to give Jackson Laboratory $192 million in addition to their profits. And these are just a couple of the reservations that many of us who don't fully get either supply side economics or the benefits that have been supposedly trickling down on us for the past thirty years are trying to resolve in our minds. The bottom line for me is that if anything that is not criminal, immoral or unethical will create 16,000 jobs, I say do it. But if the things we are doing are not relatively certain to create those 16,000 jobs, I say rather than give the welfare to business, give it to people who are hungry, cold, unemployed and tired of swimming upstream against a kind of capitalism that seems to be failing to distribute its burdens and benefits equitably.

What is especially frustrating to me about this deal is that it is the brainchild of a Democratic governor, and of other Democrats on a committee that he chairs for the purpose of stimulating business in this state. I voted against a venture capitalist because I wanted a governor who was more sensitive to the needs of his citizen constituents than to those of businesses both in the state and willing to come to it. And what I got for my effort was the opposite: a governor whois more sensitive to the needs of business than he is to those of his citizen constituents. The irony to all this is that the Republicans in our state government are against this venture, even though they were in favor of stimulating business at taxpayer expense when the budget cuts that requiredindividuals to sacrifice so much were agreed to. It seems that the world has gone mad, and right at this moment, I feel like I'm right there with it. After all, it is not just in Connecticut that these skewed priorities are de rigueur. In every stimulus plan propounded by President Obama there is an element of this kind of policy. In the original stimulus package The President and the Democrats acceded to the Republican insistence on such strategies by including tax cuts, mainly for business, in the final stimulus package...a package that the Republicans now claim was ineffective with no one pointing out to them that they got what they wanted in it at a cost of nearly $300 billion tacked onto the deficit and the national debt, according to them without beneficial effect. That part of the plan was the Republicans' idea, not President Obama's, which logic would dictate should cause them to rethink their policy preferences. And now, as President Obama presents to us his plan for additional stimulus, he argues for more of the same kind of stimulus: tax breaks for entrepreneurs and loans for small businesses while conservatives object, so who's the Republican here.

The need I see requires something else, and the Connecticut case makes the point. If we took the $192 million we are going to give to a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical company and repaired Connecticut's bridges and highways with it, we could cut out the middle man: business. By employing our citizens in projects that will enhance business logistics for decades we get two benefits for the price of one: consumer spending to stimulate business in the state and facilitation of business activities to encourage still more spending by lowering the cost of consumption with better infrastructure. That doesn't seem nearly as speculative as the premise that giving outright that kind of money to private enterprise will redound to our benefit many times over. But what do I know. I've been beaten senseless by all the wealth that has already trickled down on my head.

Your friend,

Mike

Letter 2 America for January 30, 2012

2012-01-31T03:52:02Z

Dear America,

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About a month ago, the New York Times published a letter to the editor from a Westport, Connecticut neurologist opining that the solution to the deadlock in Washington...to the inertia that has led most commentators to call our capital, broken, or dysfunctional, or gridlocked or crippled by partisan gridlock...is to form a "third party of the center" as if the problem is that voters don't have enough choices with just two parties. This particular letter was selected by The Times' editorial staff for responses from readers, and five of those responses were published the following Sunday. One responder suggested that another party would just cause more fragmentation within the parties and a multiplicity of agenda that would defy formation of a consensus, and I agree; our problem is not a lack of choices for representative or senator. Another agreed with the good doctor, but parted with him on the nature and number of the new parties. He felt that there should be two new ones--essentially one conservative and one progressive--to "siphon off" the extreme ends of the political spectrum and leave behind two moderate parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. I have always said that we should call our parties by their right names, and conservative and progressive would suit me fine, but even four parties will not solve the problem in Washington. Another responder--a former political adviser to Ross Perot--points out that third parties have no record of success and that the preferred means of effecting change would be a sort of guerilla plan to elect congressmen of the right stripe to influence the outcome of votes in The House, and he is probably right that such a thing is possible. That is how the Tea Party came to bring Washington to its collective knees and turn partisanship into complete inaction in the form of intra-partisan internecine inertia. It's a solution that creates a result, but not a good one. Another commenter complained that a third party would not alleviate the primary cause of our political woes: corruption. And still another objects to a centrist third party, blaming centrism for our political stagnation, and I agree with them all as to the problems they identify...just not the solution.

Doctor Levine defended himself to those who had responded to him. He responded to each of them on a point by point basis, and his defense of his position was also cogent, but in the end, it makes no difference. The problem in Washington is one rule in one house of congress, and President Obama alluded to it in his State of the Union Address, just as I have in many of these letters. The problem in Washington is the filibuster in The Senate. By use of that odious tool, the Republican Party has been able to prevent action of any kind that they find objectionable even though they have not had a majority in the Senate since 2006 when the electorate voted overwhelmingly for a change to Democratic leadership of the congress in both houses. The problem is that even after affirming that choice in 2008, there were no more than sixty Democratic senators at any given time, and there were sixty only briefly. Beyond that, of the sixty, one became an independent, continuing to caucus with the Democrats whose constituents had rejected Lieberman in Connecticut forcing him to run as an independent and to be elected largely by the Republicans with whom he was really politically aligned. And there was another from the Midwest who admits to being a conservative, and who turned out to be as much a Republican in his votes on pivotal issues as any member of the opposing party. So, in reality, the conservatives in The Senate always numbered more than forty, and that is all it takes to prevent "cloture" of the filibusters that they declared to prevent passage of bills that would have become law if majority rule governed the operation of The Senate. It is not an insufficient number of parties that has brought Washington, and hence our nation, to its knees. It is the abandonment of democracy as the overarching rule in our congress...our Senate in particular.

So, I say to Doctor Levine and all those who commented on his opinion that their ideas may or may not have merit, but either way, they cannot solve the problem. The problem is that we, the American People have accepted a pale imitation of the democracy that our most conservative legislators in particular claim to love. What we need is to restore it, or more accurately, to vote only for senate candidates who will restore if in our name. At the beginning of each session of congress--that is in January after each federal election--the houses of congress have one day...the first day of the new session...to change the rules, including the filibuster rule. It is not written into The Constitution. It is not statutory law. It is part of the parliamentary procedure of The Senate in particular. Senators justify it by referring to "The Federalist" papers, for example, in which a couple of the 85 published essays on the need for ratification of the federal constitution then pending before the 13 states of our new nation tout The Senate that The Constitution includes as an organ designed to ensure stability and to keep the rule of the mob from becoming the law of the land. The three authors who wrote all those papers were great men and great patriots. But they were the product of a world in which monarchy was the rule, and they knew little of what we call democracy today. Besides, the prevailing notion of that day to the effect that old men were of necessity wise has been largely debunked by our history since that time, and relying on the supposed mandate of a document more than two hundred years old, no matter who wrote it, is folly...especially when those same old men get to declare it sage without dispute. So, in January of 2013, whether the November 2012 election is won by the Democrats or the Republicans, we need a rule change so that when a bill comes to The Senate, every senator has to put his vote on the record, and then live with it the next election day. And it doesn't matter whether he is a Republican or a Democrat...or a Bull Moose for that matter.

Your friend,

Mike

Letter 2 America for January 27, 2012

2012-01-27T16:57:53Z

Dear America,

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There was an interesting juxtaposition of comments in the New York Times today. First, there was a letter to the editor regarding the publication of three articles about, or mentioning, Apple's manufacturing process in China. Those articles were published over the course of the past two weeks or so, the third appearing only yesterday. What they disclosed is that working conditions in China are much like those that have prevailed here in the past...during the era of the company store and child labor. In those days, business and industry were unassailable, and the working man--sometimes the working child--were powerless to defend himself against corporate rapacity. That was when the corporation became a person under the law as handed down from on high...that is by the U.S. Supreme Court. ( Incidentally, the conservative cause has benefitted by judicial activism at least as much it has been hindered, but that is a story for another day.) That was before labor unions could do something about the things that the law wouldn't address because money was power...literally. It was in fact a period much like the current nascent era of fortune building occurring in China today. Billionaires are beginning to multiply in number and voracity in China, and the middle class is emerging for the first time...discovering materialismfor the masses...the kind that only nobility knew before Mao vanquished the war lords in the first half of the last century. And with those incipient trends come other phenomena: greed, social injustice, callousness in the service of wealth and mindless acquisitiveness itself--a perfect pallet on which to paint the picture of capitalism that, like Wilde's picture of Dorian Gray, is becoming the wizened visage of the corruption of a good idea--capitalism--as the sins of the few are perpetrated against the masses of the unfortunate needy and thus etched into the face of an entire society. And as one of those articles pointed out when it referred to a conversation between President Obama and Steve Jobs, that is why the jobs that Apple in particular has sent to China will not be coming back. The pickings are too good in China, and they are illegal or at least impermissible in this American age of unions and child labor laws. So much for the enlightened humanism that supposedly inspired apple at its inception. So much for the freedom it professed to be bringing us. So much for Saint Steve Jobs.

The three comments to which I refer were an editorial from the staff of The Times itself, a letter to those editors from a Tennessee woman, and a brief, innocuous comment from David Brooks, a noted essayist and thinker. The editorial was on a different subject: Jim Crow laws, arguing that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is still necessary because the vestiges of segregation persist in this country, and the states still need oversight if they are to be kept from reversing the gains they have made at the polls through new, restrictive voter registration laws. The comment from the Tennessee woman had a chilling irony to it in what the woman saw fit to defend in the American worker. The articles previously mentioned had pointed out that the manufacturing facilities of the companies doing Apple's bidding included dormitory facilities for as many as 3,000 workers, necessary so that they could stay on the job working what we would regard as double shifts and doing so sometimes seven days a week, with the resulting personal distress of the workers sometimes leading to suicide. She was reacting to a comment by a former supply/demand manager at Apple recounted in The Times in which she said, "What U.S. plant can find 3,000 people overnight and convince them to live in dorms." Apparently at Apple, that kind of demand on workers is a capitalistic coup, but the woman did not make the point that we had just spent a century remedying that kind of abuse of the working person. No, her complaint was that indeed there are people in this country who would live to produce I-Phones, abandoning their lives to do so. They are veterans, immigrants, homeless people and recent high school graduates who are discovering that they will not be able to live their parents' lives. Her point was that we can be more Chinese if Apple will just let us. And the third comment was from Brooks in his bi-weekly op-ed piece. It was about the need for change...not incremental change, but dramatic change. He said that staffers in The White House had said that, "[T]o compete with China, we only need to shift the playing field a bit," a criticism of President Obama's "cautious tendencies."

My point is that instead of reveling in the evolution of social justice in this country and dedicating ourselves to defending it, we seem to be lapsing into the mentality that in order to defend the amoral, we only need to pare down some of our morals. We can build dormitories for workers so that they can be housed for months at a time between weekend visits with their spouses and children. Never mind the righteous claim of the Evangelical Right that we need more family time and better family values, including two parents in the home. And we have people so starved for employment that they will work for less than a living wage because those at the top have tee times to make and Mercedes payments due at the end of the month. We can put our sixteen year olds to work, either in those dorms or as janitors in the schools as Newt Gingrich wants to do, and reverse a century of enlightenment that staunched the use of children as industrial fodder so as to allow them to go on to reasonable adult lives. If all of our progress toward civilization is dispensable, we can go to the lengths decried by the Times' editorial staff and forgo voting rights and opposition to Jim Crow laws. We can just go back to slavery and add children to the indentured class. That would be really capitalistic. You know, if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing all the way

Your friend,

Mike

Letter 2 America for January 25, 2012

2012-01-25T17:14:51Z

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Dear America,

The State of the Union Address, and for that matter the opposing party's response as well, are usually no more than broad statements of principle dedicated to the purpose of putting the American electorate on notice of what the president and his party intend to attempt to do over the next year and how the opposition intends to stop him. They are sprinkled with vague proposals-- sub-principles if you like-- but they are short on remedies for the problems that exist. It may have been at one time-- before there were mass media to be employed in making political hay-- that the state of the union was actually the subject that the president addressed, but no more. The President laid out his agenda last night, and Mitch Daniels, the conservative Republican governor of Indiana, laid out the Republican rationale for opposing, and in this modern era of the filibuster as a common form of obstruction, thwarting Mr. Obama's efforts to right the ship of state. In that sense, it was all very uninteresting. We know that the Republicans will do anything to prevent the success of the Obama Administration, especially now when they have been so successful at it that they are on the verge of accomplishing their purpose in doing so...that is fighting off economic recovery long enough to give themselves the chance to maintain their control of the House of Representatives and take control of The Senate in 2012. They hope to prevail in consequence of the opposition's failure to restore the American economy and to overcome the Republicans' recalcitrance, which has resulted in the governmental inertia that has been visited on us. If the Republicans and the Republican conservative complex (Rcc) in general can prevent remedial action for just six more months, they can call Mr. Obama a failure and perhaps take the White House along with the congress. They are rooting for failure, and that is what was interesting about The President's speech last night.

Throughout the speech, the camera focused from time to time on Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor, but Cantor in particular, sitting stone faced with hands in lap as the rest of the congress, or at least the Democrats in it, applauded for points made by President Obama that seemed indubitably universal. For example, it wasn't long ago that Republicans were chanting for tax reform, and several of the candidates for the Republican presidential nomination even floated plans of their own by virtue of which a single tax rate would apply to all and deductions of virtually every description would be abrogated. Yet, when President Obama talked about reforming the tax code in the name of restoring our economy so as to do those very things, Cantor and McConnell sat on their hands with their bare faces hanging out...on national television. Meanwhile, behind The President sat John Boehner, the Speaker of the House. He did not demonstrate any particular enthusiasm for any part of President Obama's speech, but he applauded politely whenever the occasion arose, thus demonstrating his partisanship, but eschewing the appearance of obstructionism or Machiavellian dogmatism. That is what interested me. Boehner seemed to be separating himself from the hard line partisanship of the Republican conferences in both houses, perhaps unintentionally, but never-the-less demonstrating that he is what even his political adversaries often say: a decent man. Cantor and McConnell however demonstrated that neither of them is any such thing. I have mentioned only The President's proposal to reform the income tax code, but there were other points in the speech when the Republican disloyal opposition revealed themselves to be interested in Political purposes but disinterested in doing anything, even the right thing. It was all there for the people and the press to see. The question is, did they see it, or more importantly did they see it for what it was.

President Obama took a milder approach to the issue of partisanship than I would have. But then, when I was still practicing law, I would often put aside for a day or two a letter I drafted in anger before I sent it, and more often than not, I would throw it away. So my attitude on the speech today may not be where I wind up after a period of temperate reflection. So, with the prospect that my emotions will subside with time, I must say that the speech did us all a lot of good. Mr. Obama calmly, but in no uncertain terms said that he intends to resurrect our economy with or without congress. And he pointed out that the filibuster is the favored tactic of those who would sabotage his plans, thus making an overt pitch for a change in the rules after the 2012 election, both in The Senate where the filibuster has prolonged the disaster of this recession/depression that was thirty years in the making and in The House where obstruction is also practiced but without the fanfare that it gets in the other chamber. And he astutely insulated himself from criticism for letting partisan politics influence him on that point by admitting that neither party was without blame when it came to misusing the rules of congress for ulterior reasons; he admonished both parties to stop the manipulation of national politics with process rather than substance...with tactics rather than casting their votes in the light of day.

This next ten months promise to be exciting if nothing else. The frustrations of obduracy in the opposition will continue to be present, but if The President has revealed his inner politician with The State of the Union Address, it will at least be a fight that we will all see...a true political battle for the hearts and minds of the American people...and for our wellbeing as well.

Your friend,

Mike

Letter 2 America for January 23, 2011

2012-01-23T03:48:52Z

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Dear America,

All my life I have striven to understand how conservatives could believe what they did. I could not see how they could validate their overarching principles if they were in touch with the real world, and the inability of progressives...my inability...to persuade them of the fundamental, logical error of their belief system has baffled me. Certain truths have seemed to me to be "self evident" all my life, and I have been unable to comprehend how such axiomatic precepts could be ignored by the other political pole. But I came to realize over the course of the current political dialectic-- the argument between the two main political schools of thought aimed by each at wresting control of the American political process from the other-- that the disparity between what I consider compellingly rational-- and more importantly, moral-- and what the conservatives in this country do is not a matter of recognition of the truth or of the facts as they are. What's more, it is not just a matter of differing opinion on the salient issues. It does not matter whether consumption creates jobs or suppliers create them leading to consumption. It does not matter whether more people receive food stamps today than received them ten years ago, nor is the shape and form of welfare, Social Security or Medicare really the issue. It is rather a matter of the most fundamental orientation of the psyche of each of us. I have both thought and said that the next election will be a determination of what kind of a nation we are, and I still believe such to be the case. But the nature of the outcome will actually be even more fundamental than that.

I would posit the notion that there are two kinds of Christianity. There is the kind that begins with a capital C and then there is the kind that begins with a small c, and while the two coexist in many people, it is not necessarily so for just as many, if not more of us. I recognize that you may find the distinction I am about to make sanctimonious and unacceptable, but to me it is an epiphany, and it has helped me not just to understand the variegation in the American polity, but to come to terms with it and accept it as expository of the polarity in our culture that has revealed itself so clearly over the past three years. The Christians are those for whom the tenets of organized religion are mandatory and irreducible. They proudly call themselves advocates for "family values," which they associate with the churches to which they belong, at least most of the time. They put money in the collection plate, say grace before they eat, refrain from swearing, don't indulge in premarital sex, or at least don't talk about it openly, and they respect their elders, which includes the nation as expressed in a certain kind of chauvinism...the kind that supports country without question unless those running the country are themselves asking questions about it. And they are proud of who they are, which is somewhat paradoxical in itself. They are not bad people, though I have to admit that I have gone through periods in my life during which I thought that they were. They are not even misguided. They are just conservative. They do not believe in situational or relative morality. To them, morality is an absolute, and when they have trouble determining what is moral in particular circumstances, they pray to the heavens for guidance in deciding rather than examining the world around them. They do not accept variance from their theism as a moral choice, and therefore find the rest of us lacking...so much so that they would enforce their attitudes as a matter of law if they could. Belief in God is a fundamental and necessary element of virtue for them, and in fact is the first qualification, the sine qua non for any claim of virtue. Apostasy can be forgiven so long as the apostate begins and in the end returns to his belief in God. Sin can be tolerated as long as forgiveness is sought, and return to the values of God and church are ultimately manifested in the sinner. Lapses in judgment, unkindness, lack of charity, depravity, prevarication and outright lying can all be overcome by demonstration of religiously defined virtue in the aftermath. Even pride-- the first of the seven deadly sins according to the Book of Proverbs in The Bible-- is acceptable if it is in the right thing. Capital C Christianity is doctrinal...like coloring between the lines.

On the other hand, there is christianity with a small c. That is what I am: a small c christian. We are more interested in what I refer to as secular humanism than in what capital C's call "values." To us small c's, the issue is not whether God approves of a thing, but rather whether we think it is right. Of course without some God to advise us, we may be lacking the kind of certainty from which capital C's seem to take great comfort. We writhe over our perceptions of injustice and inequality without much consideration of who deserves what and whether "free will" is what gets us where we are rather than the collective effect of all the circumstances of our lives, many of them-- as we perceive them-- with ineluctable effects on us that vitiate any will that we might muster, free or otherwise. To us, the question is not who qualifies for what, but whether everyone has enough, and accretion of wealth is something that we would love to accomplish, but not at just any price. We believe in reward for work, but we do not believe in reward for ownership of capital, especially when that ownership is a result of birthright rather than earned right. And ironically, we small c's believe that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is rich man to enter the gates of heaven, at least for a rich man who covets and accrues more than he can ever use just so he can have it...something wholly acceptable, even laudable, to many capital C's. We believe that what people do in the privacy of their lives is their business as long as no one gets hurt by it, and that even the capital C's have the right to be who they are without interference as long as they leave us un-interfered with.

When I speak in terms of Christians, or christians if you prefer, I include us all: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Gnostics and agnostics, even atheists. And I chose Christians for small and large c's, but I could have chosen Jews for large and small j's or Muslims for large and small m's. It's all the same. The question is, do we believe in dogma or doctrine, in ritual or practice, in rites or rights, in the pride of sanctity or in doing what sanctity requires of us. We are at a crossroads, America, and I must confess, I am afraid.

Your friend,

Mike

Letter 2 America for January 20, 2012

2012-01-20T03:54:28Z

Dear America,

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

I've been cynical about politics for many years, but the last few days have disheartened even me. I have no illusions about the willingness of politicians to lapse into apostasy, even days after saying something. And of course, slipping out from under the blame for something is a political skill that is almost universally honed early on in public, political lives. And of course there is hypocrisy, the politician's stock in trade. But some of the things said over the past week or so would have been funny if they were not so indicative of the deterioration of the political class in this country.

A couple of days ago, Newt Gingrich said something that got Mitt Romney mad...something about Mitt's failure while in office to create jobs, and he touted himself as having created millions of them when he was speaker of the house and during the Reagan years when he was an up and coming congressman from Georgia. Romney responded with indignation, not just attributing the job creation during Gingrich's tenure to Reaganomics, or the supply-side economics doctrine to which he himself ascribes, but also declaiming righteously that government doesn't create jobs anyway. Business does. I guess he forgot that he has been touting his business credentials as the basis on which he should become the job creator in chief, because he knows how to create jobs and he will do so as president if he is elected. Apparently he failed to see that if Gingrich couldn't create jobs while a member of the government because government doesn't create jobs, the same will go for Romney if he gets to be in government again. Mind you, in Romney's case, he is probably correct as his record as governor of Massachusetts demonstrates. Romney probably can't create jobs from within government--he never has--and frankly, his record indicates that he probably can't do so even if he goes back to Bain Capital; there is debate as to whether he created any significant number of jobs in the balance over and above the ones he destroyedafter he and his fellow equity holders took their profits. It's too bad we have given up the medieval practice of naming people for their cardinal traits. We could call Gingrich Newt the grandiose, and Romney could be Mitt the apostate.

Then there was the announcement that Newt Gingrich's second wife is going to be interviewed on television about her life with The Speaker. In previews, she is heard to say that when Newt confessed that he had taken up with his present wife, Callista, he proposed that they stay married, but that he be permitted to keep Callista as his mistress: a sort of open marriage. Newt's response when he heard about the interview was to have his daughters write to ABC to protest the interview on the ground that it was a family matter and is not appropriate for public airing, and ordinarily I would agree. When a person falters in his commitment to his values, it is personal...the first time. But with the 84 charges against him when he was before the House Ethics Committee-- he only avoided being publicly tried for them by pleading guilty to only one that he now claims was minor while he never mentions what the other 83 were about-- and the fact that he did the same thing to his first wife that he did to his second, these moral lapses, which he chooses to characterize as "mistakes," are more like a modus operandi than peccadillos, and on that basis, I think his Republican supporters should know the truth. Notably, his two daughters seem headed for political careers as they not only wrote the letter, they got on television and earnestly informed America that there was never any such proposal of an open marriage, as if they could possibly know what their father said to their mother at what I must assume he would have wanted to be a private moment. As willing as they are to follow in their father's footsteps...in every respect...they will go far when they run for office, at least until their apparent moral flexibility catches up with them.

And then there's the way in which Newt couched his condemnation of the whole interview thing. He said "we" knew that they would make false charges against "us." "We" knew that they would engage in negative campaigning and unscrupulous tactics, but "we" felt that the country was worth it. That's the same country that he said at the beginning of his campaign he loved so much and was so devoted to that he forgot himself and made these mistakes that are now catching up with him. It was overwork on all our behalves that made amoral ...that and patriotism...not his lack of character, all of which left me wondering.Who are the other members of this "we" he keeps talking about? I hope he's not including me when he says that.

Your friend,

Mike

Letter 2 America for January 18, 2011

2012-01-18T03:20:06Z

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Dear America,

John Huntsman withdrew from the Republican presidential race on Sunday and in his final moments as a candidate, he demonstrated the lack of substance of the Republican field. He purged his website of the negative information about Mitt Romney, now the nearly inevitable Republican nominee, and threw his support to him as with panegyrical fervor. In a matter of hours, Romney went from villain to hero in Huntsman's esteem, and the principles on which the earlier criticism was based seem to have vanished, or at least become irrelevant. According to Huntsman, and to the rest of the Republican field as well, President Obama is the Anti-Christ and Romney is the chiliastic redeemer that each of them-- including Huntsman-- has been claiming himself to be until now. Newt Gingrich, as shameless as ever, points out that food stamp use is higher now than it has ever been before. But he never mentions that the previous highs were reached during the Bush administration's second term, the first peak just after Hurricane Katrina and the second at the end of that term as he left office. The point is that the vitriol reserved for Mitt Romney by John Huntsman was converted into vituperation of President Obama in Huntsman's concession speech, and Gingrich, one of the top three remaining candidates, has decided to fight on two fronts: one against his co-partisan and the other against The President. It's politics as usual as the candidates dwindle down to a precious few.

But the half truths that Gingrich relies on do not distinguish him. Romney continues to characterize any criticism of the rich as a class war as if anyone has an aversion to such a thing, and eventually someone will point out that he needs arguments to refute the points being made by many about the shirking of the richest Americans, including Romney himself. The growth in the gap between rich and poor that has burgeoned over the past thirty years of Reaganesque supply side economics is a fact that is beyond refutation. And the role played by people whose only employment is in the process of manipulating our financial system while they produce nothing but reallocate our more than their fair share of our national weal into their own bank accounts is indisputable. Eventually they will all have to play to variegated audiences including not just Republicans but Democrats and independents as well, and the articles of faith on which they rely-- that wealth is generated at the top and trickles down; that conservatives are virtuous by definition; that regulation stilts job growth rather than exportation of American jobs by businesses that are wealthier now than they have ever been; that all of the rich deserve to be rich; that capitalism is the worship of money rather than the pursuit of wealth through production and service-- will be greeted with the skepticism that they deserve by people on whom wealth has not trickled down and who earn less now than they did five years ago while their bosses earn much more.

The problem for the Republicans is that they not only have to make speeches that people believe when they hear them, they have to be right. And it will not suffice to claim moral collapse of the nation when they have their own peccadilloes to explain. And the defense that the criticism they suffer is class warfare will not sustain them in light of their sordid links to tycoons and hucksters for whom they have shilled, and both Romney and Gingrich have their share of those affiliations, as does the holier than the rest of us Rick Santorum. There will be no new blood in the campaign. The field is set as to the Republican nomination, and with Romney in what appears to be an unassailable lead, the two magor presidential candidates are probably set in stone. The Obama-Romney debates will be interesting in that the two men are of such different quality. What passes for brilliance in the boardroom is nothing but a liability in the hustings during a campaign. Romney's flat assertions of righteousness both in the moral and the economic sense will likely be susceptible of serious criticism when compared to those of President Obama, if for no other reason than the fact that President Obama's policies have brought over a million jobs into existence in the worst of times whereas Romney, the supposedly knowledgeable job creator actually presided over job losses in Massachusetts, no matter what he did as a private citizen at Bain Capital.

It makes me wonder why rich people go into politics. With all that money, you'd think they'd have something better to do.

Your friend,

Mike