Meanwhile, back at the ranch

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Gil Smart

Hm.

As of this writing, CNN and AP are reporting that a suspect has been arrested in the Boston bombing case, no name yet though. Kind of invalidates the video of the week we’d shot earlier this morning. Ah well.

The understandable (though always overkill) media frenzy over the bombings, and now the ricin-laced letters apparently addressed to a Mississippi Senator and President Obama – it’s all reminiscent of 9/11, on a smaller scale. You remember the anthrax letters that followed the WTC/Pentagon attacks. Sort of felt like things were coming apart. There’s that same sense now, on a smaller scale. And again, understandably – appropriately – so.

But in the meantime, all of if serves to obfuscate another huge story – a disturbing new phase in our economic struggles.

Don’t know how many of you caught this last week, the big rise, and subsequent crash, of Bitcoin. That was disconcerting enough. But then came the crash of gold and silver – down to the lowest levels in two years. The goldbugs are saying it was orchestrated. Well, of course they would say that, but – what’s the old line. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

And then here’s the IMF, just today, saying the world faces a new, “chronic” stage of the global financial crisis. And of course you’ve been seen the big stock market swings of the past three days – the Dow up or down triple digits each of the past three days.

If I was the tinfoil hat type…

I’ll resist the urge. But suffice to say, the Boston bombing, and the ricin letters, have relegated the financial news to the back pages. Which is bad, because economic volatility appears to be on the upswing, which may be an understatement; we would do well to pay attention to these developments. But we can’t, and so we won’t.

Why do I feel that’s going to come back to haunt all of us?

 

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Terror is “terror”

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Gil Smart

This annoys me greatly:

terrorismhed

 

 

This is our paper, but I’m not picking on whomever wrote the headline, which might have come directly from the wire service. Virtually every news organization in America is reporting it this way: The bombs “might be” terrorism.  Terrorism “suspected.”

There’s nothing “suspected” about it.

By definition, when someone plants a bomb in a crowded place, meant to kill/injure and cause terror, it’s an act of terror, it’s terrorism, regardless of the creed or rationale of the person who committed the act.

It’s terrorism if they’re white or brown or black, it’s terrorism if they’re American or they’re from the Mideast or anywhere else; it’s terrorism if there’s a political motive, it’s terrorism if it’s just a sick desire to kill.

It’s terrorism. Period.

But we as a society have been conditioned to think of “terrorism” as a very specific thing. “Terrorism” involves people the Mideast, Islamic extremists – right?

That’s the tenor of almost every news report I’ve seen. And maybe that is what happened here. There are reports of Saudi nationals being questioned in Boston, although as of this writing police haven’t identified them as suspects or even “persons of interest.”

Or maybe that’s not what happened here. And if it isn’t – how will it be reported?

In 2011, a man with ties to white supremacists planted a bomb in Spokane, Wash., along the route of a Martin Luther King Day parade. The bomb “was intended to hurl poison-laced shrapnel into the multicultural crowd,” but was found and disabled before it could explode.

Here’s a Seattle Times story of the guy pleading guilty. Guess what word isn’t used in the story.

Right. No mention of the term “terrorism.”

But this was indeed an intended act of terrorist; the white guy who planted this bomb was indeed a “terrorist.”

Again: If you attempt to inflict mass casualties and cause terror, you are a terrorist regardless of who you are and where you’re from.

So of course the Boston bombing was an “act of terror,” and you need no politician, nor news outlet, to inform you of this.

But I’m waiting, just waiting, for the likes of Fox News to attack Obama for not using the term “terror” or not using it often enough. I sincerely hope they resist the urge.

Finally, if you’ve been following the coverage, watching the videos and viewing the sometimes gruesome photos, you might have seen the guy in the cowboy hat helping the wounded. He’s a peace activist who lost a son in Iraq. An immigrant from Costa Rica. And, I’d say – an American hero.

 

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How I went to a rock show and became a Republican

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Gil Smart

So, I’ve been a fan of this band:

YouTube Preview Image

…for more than 20 years, ever since I read Rolling Stone review of their 1990 album “Third Eye” and thought – that sounds like something I would like. I did. They put out 2 more albums before breaking up in 1997, but just reformed and issued a new disc, and scheduled some dates along the East Coast, including Philly.

Philly? I’m there.

And so I was, Sunday night, with 3 amigos at a place called “Kung Fu Necktie,” basically a small hipster bar in the Fishtown/Kensington area.  I never in a million years thought I’d get a chance to see this band live, so I was psyched. Ran into the lead guitar player in the bathroom before the show and asked him a few questions about his guitar tone in the above video – which led to a very cool rockstar moment, when the guy broke his high E string on the first song. I was right in front of the stage – more on that in a moment – and he thrusts his gold-top Les Paul and me and shouts – “You play guitar, right? Can you change the string?”

Somehow in the darkness and jostling I managed to do it, but – as you musicians will note – the damn thing wouldn’t stay tuned up, breaking the string threw his whole guitar out of whack so he swapped it out with another one. Ah well – guitar tech to the obscure stars. I’ll take it.

Anyway. When I go to shows like this, which isn’t very often anymore, I like to get **right** up front, I like to see what pedals the guitarists are using, I like to see how they’re playing things, I like to rock out. So I made a point of grabbimg a full beer and making my way toward the stage as the second opening act was finishing up. Made it all the way up front, chatted with a few people, etc. – and then they were on. And it was freaking awesome.

Until.

There were two women behind me. One, a waif-ish, short girl; another, much larger, in a huge heavy overcoat. Both wanted to get in front of me. The waif let others do the talking for her – Hey, she’s a big fan, she can’t see, can she get in front of you? The one in the overcoat did her own talking – “Why don’t you let someone else up front, huh?” She began pushing me and yelling: “You’re a f****** arsehole,” and things like that.

I edged over so the waif could see, but the one in the overcoat – nope. And she kept pushing me, kept being obnoxious, kept saying that I – who had made a very specific point of getting up front early so I had an up-close-and-personal view of one of my favorite bands – should move back and let her up front. Because. She deserved it and I didn’t, apparently. And so I should move.

This went on, and on, and on.

And in that moment, I went full-on conservative Republican howl.

You know how, in the Incredible Hulk, when Bruce Banner gets angry and morphs into the creature? That’s how I felt. I was furious; I wanted to scream at this woman – EFFFF YOUUUUUUU, I was here first, kiss off. I wanted to push her back, really.

I didn’t do either of those things. Instead, two-thirds through the band’s set, I bailed out and went back to the table for a desultory beer. Plunged back into the crowd a few songs later, but only got about halfway to the front. Still angry. Then it was over, and I ranted about it – to my companions’ amusement – all the way home.

There are times, in stupid little moments like this, when I completely understand where conservatives are coming from with their resentment of those who would take what they have, what they worked for.

Why is it that those who have worked and planned ahead and made provisions for themselves should be compelled to provide for those who didn’t plan ahead, who haven’t made provisions for themselves?

Why should I give you what I’ve got when I made a specific effort to get it, and you didn’t?

The political reality is that it’s never this easy. A major illness, for example, has a way of upsetting the most carefully laid plans. As does a layoff. There are some who simply cannot provide for themselves – I’d lump all children in any situation into this category – and I fervently believe that this society does indeed have a duty to those people, that in a just society, individuals with should help provide for those without.

But I’m also increasingly sensitive to the reality – and I think it is reality – that there is a sense of entitlement out there. You see it in the small places – and honestly, you could probably catalogue your own experiences with this sort of things a dozen times a day. That’s indicative that it exists writ larger.

And so – let me throw a curve with this example – I may feel a moral obligation to the pensioner who worked all of his/her life and did sock money away, but in retirement has incurred medical or other expenses, rising property taxes and other things that have seriously eroded his/her purchasing power. Preserving Social Security – even expanding it – for such people is a good and moral idea.

But what of – I know folks in this exact situation – people who now can’t retire because in their late ’50s, just as their kids were getting older and on the verge of moving out, moved from a modest home into a McMansion they could barely afford – all about keeping up with the Joneses, of course – then had to move when the father lost his job, and have been playing catch-up ever since.

What is society’s obligation to these folks?

There is a pragmatic obligation, and that’s where I have tended to come from. Whatever you think about why a person needs government assistance, be it food stamps or Medicaid or whatever, the reality is that social welfare programs support the economy; they provide a degree of purchasing power that otherwise wouldn’t exist. More money it injected into the economy, which helps the economy at large. There’s no moral case to this at all – or if there is, it’s the macro case, that government has a moral obligation to foster an economy that fires on all cylinders, or gets as close to that ideal as possible. And if that requires subsidizing both those who can’t support themselves, and those who won’t – the greater good requires it.

The difference, I think, is that conservatives tend not to take the macro view – they take the micro view. They get offended at the micro level; they see the behavior of individuals and realize that this behavior is subsidized by the government. And it pisses them off.

Now, too often conservatives base this resentment on things they “know” to be true, on mythical welfare queens they’ve never personally encountered, or on some forwarded e-mail from their brother’s co-worker’s father who – really and for true – saw someone buying prime rib with her food stamp card.

But the sense of entitlement does exist. If you’re honest – you’ll admit you’ve encountered it personally. Liberals rationalize it; conservatives loathe it. Well, every now and then – I get that resentment. And I get why some conservatives think liberals – with their lofty, macro focus – have their heads lost in the clouds.

I’m pretty far afield now so I’ll stop. The woman at the Redd Kross show, of course, had nothing to do with government. She was just a jerk, nothing unique about that. But she really did feel entitled; she felt entitled to my spot, she felt entitled to what I had, she really did assume that I should give it to her as a matter of course.

And even though I’d wager this woman votes for the same people I have voted for – that really is the entitlement culture, right there.

Posted in Entitlements, Music | 1 Comment | Post a Comment

Answers on ‘the answer’

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Gil Smart

Jeebus. Busy week. But, before it’s over, I wanted to toss something up regarding the reaction I’d gotten to last week’s column, “People of faith are the answer.” Maybe it was the timing, appearing on Easter (which was intentional on my part); maybe it was just that the subject struck a nerve, but I heard from quite a few people and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Which I don’t think I anticipated.

And maybe it sort of reinforces the thesis, that – even here – religious conservatism is beginning to wane.

Not to say that there wasn’t a response from religious conservatives; you knew there would be. Some of it was exactly what you’d expect, like this:

Have you ever read the account of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis-Old Testament? Apparently not – and have you ever read Romans 1-24-28 ? Apparently not. I challenge you to explain these passages in you next column. We conservative Neanderthal Christians always enjoy liberals attempt to explain these passages.

You’re not getting it, dude.

I accept that you believe this to be the complete and utter truth which must be abided by – but I don’t.

I’m not a theologian. But neither is the Bible the law of the land, and neither does, or must, the Bible direct how I or anyone else should feel about Teh Dreaded Gayz or anyone else.

So, explain those passages? I don’t really care about those passages. Is that enough of an explanation for you?

Then there was this:

The most compassionate thing a Christian can do for anyone and everyone is to point them to Jesus.

Because of sin and sinfulness in all of us, we are all part of the majority, who need the Savior. … Will Christians be criminalized for sharing the Gospel with everyone, including gay individuals?

Criminalized?

My God, the persecution complex here is unbelievable. Permitting gays to marry = criminalizing Christianity.

And again, share the Gospel all you want. But under no circumstances should you expect that anyone else is obligated to accept your view of the Gospel. You can preach against the gays all you want, but if and when people turn their back on you, that’s not criminalization. It’s simply that, you know, they’ve had about enough.

This is the hardest thing for conservative Christians to accept. They don’t retain the cultural control any longer; the broader culture is evolving despite their most fervently held beliefs or predjudices. They’re free to continue to hold those beliefs, but must understand, must accept, that no one else must, no one else can or should be compelled to hold the same.

They haven’t gotten there yet. Maybe they never will.

But a word, as well, on how some liberals reacted to last week’s piece.

One, a friend, suggested I was putting down those people who aren’t of faith, who aren’t religious, who don’t go to church, etc. Well, that certainly wasn’t the intention of the piece in any sense.

But I will say that people of faith, the churches, the synagogues, the organized groups, are in a better position to provide for the growing need I see looming on the horizon than the non-affiliated individual. Individuals give money and time and commitment and compassion, and all of it is needed. But – and this is just sort of a crude metaphor – there’s a reason the Amish don’t send one guy to go raise a barn. The community, the group, is more effective and efficient at fulfilling the need.

And then there were those who, apparently, simply hate religion. Like this:

Exactly what in the course of human history would lead you to conclude that people who believe in a god-fantasy and all the attendant myths, fables, and rituals would be the primary source of solving the economic, political, environmental and social problems plaguing our species in the real world?

Here’s an observation: the Bible, the Koran, and every other religious book, pronouncement, “revelation”, encyclical, etc. have never revealed ONE new fact about the real world that might bolster their case that something beyond this universe actually exists. It is quite feasible that one could make the opposite case that religious belief systems have had a detrimental affect on human development  by appealing to “make-a-wish” philosophies rather than examining reality as it is.

Why do I think people of faith are the answer? Because, to the extent they’re motivated by genuine compassion, they are compelled to try and make a difference. This isn’t about them lording their beliefs over anyone. It’s about feeding the poor, helping the downtrodden. Will those who denigrate religious faith on the whole do this? Do they feel the same moral compulsion?

Maybe some. But this attitude, I think, is but another branch of the tree of individualism. The future may be one in which it’s every man for himself. But in such a future – boy, I sure hope there are a few fish willing to swing against that strong tide.

Posted in Christianity, Religion, Religious conservatism | Leave a comment | Post a Comment

Borrowed money, borrowed time

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Gil Smart

David Stockton has a helluva piece the NYT over the weekend that has the usual suspects jawing, he’s basically saying the state and corporate capitalists and especially the Fed have completely screwed the economic pooch, and there’s just no way out of this canyon:

So the Main Street economy is failing while Washington is piling a soaring debt burden on our descendants, unable to rein in either the warfare state or the welfare state or raise the taxes needed to pay the nation’s bills. By default, the Fed has resorted to a radical, uncharted spree of money printing. But the flood of liquidity, instead of spurring banks to lend and corporations to spend, has stayed trapped in the canyons of Wall Street, where it is inflating yet another unsustainable bubble.

When it bursts, there will be no new round of bailouts like the ones the banks got in 2008. Instead, America will descend into an era of zero-sum austerity and virulent political conflict, extinguishing even today’s feeble remnants of economic growth.

Sounds like the stuff of preppers. Has the benefit of coming from somone who knows of whence he speaks.

Zero Hedge follows up by posting a transcript of a Bloomberg radio interview with Stockman today, in which he drills down deeper into a point I’ve been attempting to make for months: The fact that the Federal Reserve may say it will one day (and soon! They promise!) ease up on the QE throttle – it’s simply never going to happen:

Ask yourself, if the Fed said we’re going fishing for six months and we are not going to be in the market, we’re gone, do you think the treasury at ten years would stay two percent? Not a chance…It would go way up. There would be a tremendous panic sell off in the bond market because it is entirely propped up.

The market in general continues to set new highs for one reason only: It believes (and for the time being, rightly so) that the Fed is going to keep on pumping the money machine, and so long as that happens, prices won’t be permitted to go down.

That is – until they do.

All this amounts to living on borrowed time. Think the Fed can keep the economy elevated forever? Think the inorganic can ultimately triumph over the organic? Keep on plowing your money in, then. And good luck with that.

Which may lead into a little sidebar, which I’ll try to keep “little” (yeah, we know how well that goes).

If there’s a common theme to the things that appear in this space, that appear in the newspaper column, that appear in the video – it is, or I hope it is, the idea of sustainability. The idea that we really can’t have it all; that environmentally, for example, we can’t keep polluting and burning and using up the resources that have been provided us at a breakneck pace and expect them to last, and expect the environment itself to remain resilient.

But it has occurred to me over recent months that if I believe in the moral imperative of sustainability in environmental terms – well, I should be consistent. I must be consistent. And that’s utterly colored my view on economic matters, and one of the reasons I’ve turned away from Keynesianism.

Because Keynesianism just isn’t sustainable. Beyond that – our economy as currently structured, so dependent upon ever-increasing debt to grow – that’s nowhere near sustainable.

And don’t get me started on health care. The ever-rising cost of health care, the ever-greater percentage of GDP it eats up – if you looked in a thesaurus, that’s pretty much be pegged as the exact opposite of “sustainable.”

That which is not sustainable ultimately won’t be sustained. That’s true environmentally – it’s true economically. Which is why, then, I’ve said we need to have a national discussion, not on whether we have to live within our means – for ultimately, we will – but what are the things we want? If we are to live within our means, what are the things that are valuable to us? What are we willing to pay for, and what will we be unable to pay for?

I remain steadfast in a belief in the social safety net, and would sacrifice our global military hegemony for that. American money in America for Americans.

Yet even that probably wouldn’t be enough. Which goes to the perpetual point of how, as a society, we’re past peak prosperity.

I have less and less interest in printing up more and more money, incurring more and more debt that future generations – my kids! – will have to pay off, somehow. Look at Stockton’s point here:

They are saying that we are going to create 17 million jobs in ten years compared to two million in the last ten years, that we are going to go 14 years without a recession. It has never happened in history. Most cycles last 48 months. So when you actually do a forecast based on the last ten years, just say the performance in the last ten years, the growth rate, the business investment, job creation, you have $15 trillion to $20 trillion in deficits in front of us, not $7 trillion. We are not on a glide path going downward.

The official estimates are far too rosy. The number of jobs – of good-paying, family sustaining jobs – will be nowhere near the figures we “need.” The rate of growth we “require” to service all this debt will never be attained.

And if you accept that, you’re faced with the reality that all we’re doing is pulling demand forward; all we’re doing is pulling out all the stops to ensure we can continue to have it all today – and sacrificing tomorrow in the process.

Posted in Economy, Federal Reserve | 2 Comments | Post a Comment

Not so free money

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Gil Smart

See, this is where I get off the liberal economic bus.

Actually, I got off long ago.

But Matt Y., whose writing I generally like, goes ahead and says what a lot of economic liberals are thinking: Just give people money. Print it up; send a check; they’ll spend or pay down debt or sock it away and feel wealthier, thus spending more and invigorating the economy:

Compared to fiscal stimulus plans, this has many advantages. One is that it makes the budget deficit go down rather than up. Tax revenues will rise as economic activity speeds up, and the need to spend money on unemployment insurance and the like will fall if people get new jobs. … It’s also really fast. Stimulus designers necessarily end up torn between a desire for speed and a desire to spend money in smart, low-waste, high-value ways. Cutting checks is all about speed, and it lets you consider well-designed investments on a separate track.

Compared to other monetary policy options, it’s simple, fair, and transparent.

It’s also temporary, unsustainable, and does nothing to address the underlying problem.

Sure, you’ve got $10,000 to spend. You spend it.

What then?

Does the government have to mail you another $10,000 check to keep the ball rolling?

Me, I’d use it to pay down some debts. Which, theoretically, would free up money to spend elsewhere; in theory, my disposable income would rise.

But given that this “send ‘em money” approach doesn’t address the fact that technology and offshoring has permanently reduced the number of good-paying working class jobs available in America, and that this puts a lid on demand that we tried to raise by making credit as cheap as possible, but we can’t do that anymore – I’d do anything I could to bank whatever extra “disposable income” I had. Because I know this system isn’t sustainable. And frankly, when the rest of the world discovers that, I’d like to have a little something to fall back on – devalued though it may be by that point.

Alternately – what happens to the people who get jobs in this wonderful temporary economic boom, when everyone’s money runs out? They’re laid off again.

Yes, we suffer from a lack of demand. But why are we suffering from a lack of demand? How does a one-time infusion of free money bolster demand two years from now?

Posted in Economy, Federal Reserve | 1 Comment | Post a Comment

Choose wisely, GOP must

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Gil Smart

Funny. Been keeping one eye on SCOTUS and the gay marriage issue, but I tell you, this issue doesn’t have the urgency for me it once did. The country has simply come around. Terry Madonna over at F&M tweeted this earlier today:

So regardless of what SCOTUS does – it seems to me this battle’s been won. Oh, SCOTUS may ultimately wind up kicking it back to the states, and I have little doubt that many states will continue fighting to keep TEH DREADED GAYZ from getting hitched. But to the extent the Republican Party continues to the be party of keeping the queers down – it will continue to wound them grievously with younger voters:

There is a sharp generational divide among Republicans on the issue. Overall, 56 percent of Republicans oppose legal gay marriage.

But I asked the CBS polling team for a breakdown by age, and the result was that among Republicans under 50, a plurality of 49 percent supports legalizing gay marriage, versus only 46 percent who oppose it.

What’s more, the poll also shows that support for gay marriage is even higher among the voter groups that Democrats are increasingly relying on. For instance, among voters under 30 overall, a stunning 73 percent back marriage equality. And among college educated whites — a key pillar of the Democratic coalition of the future — 68 percent support gay marriage.

The GOP has to evolve to appease its own young voters – let alone appeal to those who now vote Democratic.

But not so fast! says Mike Huckabee, who warns the GOP that if they embrace gay marriage, “the base” will make them pay:

When asked if he believes the Republican Party will change its position and support gay marriage in a Wednesday Newsmax interview, Huckabee remarked, “They might, and if they do, they’re going to lose a large part of their base because evangelicals will take a walk.”

So consider the rock and hard place the GOP is wedged between. Continue as the party of keeping the queers down = alienate the demographics the party desperately needs to revitalize and win.

Embrace gay marriage = lose arguably the most committed members of the current Republican coalition.

Posted in Gay marriage, Republican Party | Leave a comment | Post a Comment

The rise of disability

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Gil Smart

This is a really interesting piece, and taking a lot of heat from the uber-liberal crowd on the site where I found it. The takeaway:

The federal government spends more money each year on cash payments for disabled former workers than it spends on food stamps and welfare combined. Yet people relying on disability payments are often overlooked in discussions of the social safety net. People on federal disability do not work. Yet because they are not technically part of the labor force, they are not counted among the unemployed.

In other words, people on disability don’t show up in any of the places we usually look to see how the economy is doing. But the story of these programs — who goes on them, and why, and what happens after that — is, to a large extent, the story of the U.S. economy. It’s the story not only of an aging workforce, but also of a hidden, increasingly expensive safety net.

The story goes on to talk about how some, maybe many people on disability, particularly in parts of the country where there’s little but back-breaking manual labor anyway, may be on disability not just because they have some physical limitation, but because there simply are no jobs available that they can do:

One woman I met, Ethel Thomas, is on disability for back pain after working many years at the fish plant, and then as a nurse’s aide. When I asked her what job she would have in her dream world, she told me she would be the woman at the Social Security office who weeds through disability applications. I figured she said this because she thought she’d be good at weeding out the cheaters. But that wasn’t it. She said she wanted this job because it is the only job she’s seen where you get to sit all day.

At first, I found this hard to believe. But then I started looking around town. There’s the McDonald’s, the fish plant, the truck repair shop. I went down a list of job openings — Occupational Therapist, McDonald’s, McDonald’s, Truck Driver (heavy lifting), KFC, Registered Nurse, McDonald’s.

I actually think it might be possible that Ethel could not conceive of a job that would accommodate her pain.

And it goes on to talk about how Bill Clinton’s ending welfare as we know it wasn’t quite as successful as we like to pretend, because while the number of families on welfare did indeed decline – the number of low-income people on disability rose.

Our economy is so broken in so many ways, this phenomenon is but one example of it.

I’m of a few minds on the issue of disability. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve known two people who went on disability who, I always thought, could have worked. One’s a guy I used to play music with, who was too disabled to work, but not too disabled to haul an 80-lb. speaker up two flights of steps. Another is a former cop who sustained a hand injury, and hasn’t worked since. Does a lot of traveling.

My inner winger gets resentful, and I tell myself that if that was me, I’d still be working, I’d find something, I’d find a way.

But we stuff the inner winger right back down because these two folks can hardly be considered representative, and that’s a common winger thing, “I saw this so-and-so buying lobster at the supermarket and paying with food stamps/an EBT card,” and suddenly all people on food stamps are moochers who buy lobster.

At the same time, however:

People at the Social Security Administration, which runs the federal disability programs, say we cannot afford this. The reserves in the disability insurance program are on track to run out in 2016, Steve Goss, the chief actuary at Social Security, told me.

Goss is confident that Congress will act to keep disability payments flowing, probably by taking money from the Social Security retirement fund. Of course, the retirement fund itself is on track to run out of money by 2035.

Goss and his colleagues have worked out a temporary fix under which the retirement and disability funds will both run out of money by 2033. He says he hopes the country will have come up with a better plan by then.

I don’t see how that’s possible. For there to be a “better” plan, we have to have an economy that creates jobs, and especially good-paying jobs for people without a lot of education. It ain’t happening. So neither, unfortunately, is change.

Posted in Welfare State | Leave a comment | Post a Comment

Brew crew, it’s not about you

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Gil Smart

I used to know a guy who ran a beer distributor here. I’d stop in every now and then, when I was doing a story on something LCB-related; he’d always pull up a couple chairs in the back room and we’d shoot the breeze. He was pretty frank with me, at least I think he was, about the economics of selling beer here in Pennsylvania. And he was against changing our byzantine liquor rules, allowing beer to be sold in more places. In part, that was self-interest; he had a nice little business, provided for him well. Allowing, say, supermarkets to sell beer would undercut that; why would anyone make a special trip to a special store if they could get their beer with the rest of the groceries?

But there was another part to that argument, the fact that – according to him – the biggest push to expand beer sales was coming from the biggest brewers, who were doing so – not so that Pennsylvanians could have more freedom in choosing where and when to buy brew; LIBERTY!!!… but to expand their market share. Specifically, here in Pennsylvania, they think they could sell more beer if beer were more widely available.

And in that, in supermarkets, you pay for shelf space – “slotting fees,” it’s called – he predicted that what you’d see is the supermarket shelves dominated by the likes of Anheuser-Busch products. You might have a harder time finding less-well known brands, he predicted; in fact – he warned darkly – while consumers access to beer might be expanded under an expanded system, the number of choices available to consumers could actually dwindle, if beer in supermarkets puts distributors out of business.

That’s an argument you don’t hear much about, but it’s one of those, “Be careful what you wish for” things that I thought of when reading today’s stories about how the Pennsylvania House passed Gov. Corbett’s plan to privatize wine and liquor sales.

I suspect there’s a lot of “Be careful what you wish for” embedded in this bill – which, to be sure, faces a tough road in the state Senate. Our local Republican House delegation voted for privatization en masse – which shows you how much times have changed, and how the political clout of the religious right has dwindled, even here.

The Democrats who argued against this fell back, in part, on the old religious right canard – OH TEH DRUNKENNESS!!! Please. If you’re arguing against this, this is what you argue:

They said privatization would cost 3,500 State Store clerks their jobs.

And they disputed Republican estimates that the proposed selling of liquor licenses would generate $800 million, which Corbett has said he wants to direct to public schools for early-childhood education, school safety, individual learning, and science, technology, engineering, and math programs.

Democrats also argued that the state would lose out on $170 million annually if the Liquor Control Board was privatized, in part because the LCB would no longer be sending its profits to state coffers.

Other figures say the LCB is transferring as much as $494 million annually to state coffers; the agency may still transfer some of that money, but if it’s radically reduced, this ultimately becomes a penny-wise, pound foolish bill; you gain $800 million…. which you would have gained via 5 years of LCB profits. And then you don’t have those kind of profits anymore.

Then there are the complexities of the legislation:

Indeed, the path to buying liquor won’t always be clear.

Under the bill, beer distributors could continue to sell just beer, or they could also apply for a license to sell wine, liquor, or both along with suds. Because not all will opt to sell the same products, consumers will not be guaranteed the convenience that privatization supporters claim it will deliver.

Supermarkets could sell up to 12 bottles of wine, but not beer, unless they had a special permit. That permit would require them to have a seating area where customers can eat.

Restaurants and hotels, too, could buy different licenses, but most would be allowed to sell only up to two six-packs to take out. They could sell wine and spirits, but only if those bottles were open – presumably after diners order a bottle with a meal.

So maybe the beer distributor’s fears will be unfounded, unless every supermarket has a little cafe section. Which, come to think of it, many already do.

The cost of licenses, quoted in this morning’s article in our daily paper here, also seem particularly high. One of the other criticisms I’ve heard is that we’re setting the table for the big boys, the large corporations who can easily afford the higher fees, versus the small businesses owned by locals.

And then, yes, there are the 3,500 state store clerks who now face a less prosperous future. We’ve riffed on that one before.

None of which is to say I wouldn’t personally like the LIBERTY to buy beer and wine in more convenient fashion, most Pennsylvanians back the proposal for that very reason. My point, I suppose, is that’s not why the legislation is being pushed; it’s not about you. The fact that you like it merely provides the opening for Corbett and Republicans to stick it to the state store union, and privatize what is now public. That’s always been the goal; and that you may back it is mere conveience.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/03/liquor_privatization_vote_penn.html#incart_m-rpt-1
Posted in Alcohol, Pennsylvania, Privatization, State Stores, Tom Corbett | Leave a comment | Post a Comment

Hey, hey Paul

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Gil Smart

Busy busy, but wanted to toss this up – this is excellent, a piece by Andrew Bacevich – former Army officer, teaches at Boston U., author, and his own kid was killed in Iraq. It’s in the form of an “open letter” to Paul Wolfowitz – those of you who slugged it out in the political arena around the time we marched off to war in Iraq will recognize the name. And perhaps spit it out, like nails.

In a fascinating take, Bacevich talks about the neoconservatives’ theory of the Iraq war, the intellectual reason Wolfowitz and others decided we needed to attack Iraq. It wasn’t about oil. It was, instead, America’s opportunity to prove America’s might, it’s willingness to go to war for what it considered “just” ends, to demonstrate and cement our morally deserved hegemony. In other words – America does what America wants, and the world is better off for it.

Except, of course – it wasn’t:

You immediately saw the events of 9/11 as a second and more promising opening to assert U.S. supremacy. When riding high a decade earlier, many Americans had thought it either unseemly or unnecessary to lord it over others. Now, with the populace angry and frightened, the idea was likely to prove an easier sell. Although none of the hijackers were Iraqi, within days of 9/11 you were promoting military action against Iraq. Critics have chalked this up to your supposed obsession with Saddam. The criticism is misplaced. The scale of your ambitions was vastly greater.

In an instant, you grasped that the attacks provided a fresh opportunity to implement Wohlstetter’s Precepts, and Iraq offered a made-to-order venue. “We cannot wait to act until the threat is imminent,” you said in 2002. Toppling Saddam Hussein would validate the alternative to waiting. In Iraq the United States would demonstrate the efficacy of preventive war.

So even conceding a hat tip to Albert Wohlstetter, the Bush Doctrine was largely your handiwork. The urgency of invading Iraq stemmed from the need to validate that doctrine before the window of opportunity closed. What made it necessary to act immediately was not Saddam’s purported WMD program. It was not his nearly nonexistent links to Al Qaeda. It was certainly not the way he abused his own people. No, what drove events was the imperative of claiming for the United States prerogatives allowed no other nation.

I do not doubt the sincerity of your conviction (shared by President Bush) that our country could be counted on to exercise those prerogatives in ways beneficial to all humankind — promoting peace, democracy, and human rights. But the proximate aim was to unshackle American power. Saddam Hussein’s demise would serve as an object lesson for all: Here’s what we can do. Here’s what we will do.

But it all came to shite. Which prompts Bacevich to say:

One of the questions emerging from the Iraq debacle must be this one: Why did liberation at gunpoint yield results that differed so radically from what the war’s advocates had expected? Or, to sharpen the point, How did preventive war undertaken by ostensibly the strongest military in history produce a cataclysm?

Not one of your colleagues from the Bush Administration possesses the necessary combination of honesty, courage, and wit to answer these questions.

And they haven’t been pressed on it, either.

A lot of lefties still regard Bush, Cheney – Wolfowitz – as war criminals, or the equivalent thereof.  But what I have wanted is a legitimate mea culpa from these people – an admission, and an actual recognition, that the Iraq war was wrong, it was always going to end in the failure it did, that we were too optimistic going in, that war is the last thing that goes according to plan. It was, to steal the term from the documentary that aired on Rachel Maddow’s show, hubris. Pure and simple.

But beyond that, it was the bridge too far. A truly conservative nation never would have gone out on a limb with speculative, “preventative” war. And in doing so – and in putting it on the credit card, not paying for it as we went along – we screwed ourselves. We gave the country a nice little shove down the far side of the bell curve so many of us perceive to be slaloming down.

War in Iraq didn’t shore up or prove the legitimacy of our hegemony. It undermined it, in every way possible.

Has Wolfowitz learned? I wouldn’t bank on it. Have the average Americans who howled at the Dixie Chicks, munched on “freedom fries” and sneered when Bush spoke beneath that “Mission Accomplished” banner learned? I hope some of them have, anyway. Others, well, you reap what you sow. Too bad all of us had to reap what a loud and insistent few sowed.

Posted in American Exceptionalism, War in Iraq | Leave a comment | Post a Comment