The water’s not here yet, but the sharks are already at the door

My Sunday evening was spent watching the Oscars ceremony. I enjoyed it and was pleased to see so many Asians win awards and that the best song went to one from India. Last Friday Silicon Valley Bank collapsed and was taken over by the Feds. Biden said depositors will get all of their money, even though only $250K of it is insured by the government. Others have said that sets a dangerous precedent of putting money into an unstable bank knowing the Feds will protect them. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos wrote about the Republican response to the takeover. It’s the response they’re using for everything these days: The bank was too “woke.” The failure wasn’t because of their requests to weaken bank regulations, they say. Nor was it improper (or at least inattentive) actions by the board. It’s because the bank had a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policy. Which means “woke” has become an all-purpose attack. Republicans certainly don’t want us looking at this little detail from unusual_whales, that tweets market news, as retweeted by Leah McElrath:

Meet Joseph Gentile. He was the Chief Administrative Officer at Silicon Valley Bank. Prior to joining the firm in 2007, he served as the CFO for Lehman Brothers’ Global Investment Bank.

Lehman Brothers was one of those banks that collapsed at the start of the Great Recession. It seems he jumped just before that ship sunk and led another bank that just sank. Marlon Wayans hosted the Daily Show last week (before SVB collapsed) and he wondered where is the woke vaccine:

Nikki Haley said wokeness is more dangerous than any pandemic. I never had to miss two weeks of work for wokeness. And I’m dam sure Herman Cain didn’t die because he walked into a gender-neutral bathroom.

David From of The Atlantic tweeted:

If you're worried about what happens when one midsized regional bank doesn't repay its depositors, wait till you find out what happens if House Republicans force the government of the United States to default on its massive worldwide multi-trillion dollar obligations.

I had observed (elsewhere) that the national deficit has gone up under Republicans and down under Democrats. In reply to a response to Frum Ursula tweeted a chart that shows exactly that. Bill Clinton had managed the federal budget well enough that in his last three years the deficit had become a surplus, reducing the debt. SemDem of the Kos community wrote about the Little Haiti district of Miami (different from Little Havana) and the term “climate gentrification.” The people who settled in Little Haiti did so for racist reasons – due to redlining they weren’t allowed in white districts and this land was undesirable because it was between two railroad tracks. But there are a few things working against Little Haiti right now. (1) Miami is booming with a massive influx of people and a skyscraper boom, even though (2) Miami is being hit hard by climate change. Those high price areas on the coast are flooding more frequently. And (3) Little Haiti is ten feet above sea level – the high ground in the area. Add to that (4) 80% of Little Haiti residents couldn’t afford to buy, even here, and are renters. That means Little Haiti is highly desirable land (in spite of those two railroads) and residents are easily pushed out – just raise their rent. Home rental prices have already doubled, new condos and apartments are triple in rent. Local businesses are also being pushed out. Developers are already buying up the area. That prompted Valencia Gudner, Community Organizer in Little Haiti, to say:

The water’s not here yet, but the sharks are already at the door.

SemDem wrote there is another way this could have been done:

Too often, developers look at these communities they are invading as a problem that needs to be solved, as opposed to working with the community to make it mutually beneficial. Little Haiti residents are not under any illusion that they will be able to keep developers out, but it’s not binary. There are mega-projects and shopping districts all over the nation, but the reason people want to visit Miami is to experience the unique cultures and communities that you can’t find anywhere else. By embracing the community instead of pushing it out, by building affordable housing so local residents can actually live and work there instead of forcing them into another area pre-Jim Crow can be mutually beneficial and profitable. If the real estate moguls would work with the community to make it a place everyone would want to (and be able to) live, work, and visit, they will have a profitable development venture while being a good community steward at the same time.

Another area being hit by climate gentrification is Flagstaff, Arizona. Temperatures in Phoenix can now average 110F in the summer, so many in Phoenix are buying second homes in Flagstaff, which is at a much higher elevation and is much cooler. And long-term Flagstaff residents can no longer afford housing. Meteor Blades of Kos reported that Biden has approved the Willow oil and gas project on the North Slope of Alaska. Climate activists have been fighting this project for a long time and say approving it is both dangerous and stupid. Blades explains how stupid:

Since the 1960s, Alaska has warmed more than twice as fast as the rest of the United States. Scientists predict that the region will warm by an average of 2.2 degrees C (4 degrees F) over the next 30 years, thawing the Arctic ice and permafrost faster than is now occurring and undermining infrastructure on the tundra, including around heavy drilling rigs. To deal with this, ConocoPhillips plans eventually to install chillers—thermosiphons—to keep the ground frozen hard enough to support the rigs that extract the oil whose burning releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which adds to global warming, which is melting the permafrost. That is not exactly what you would call a virtuous circle. Dyani Chapman, state director of the Alaska Environment Research and Policy Center, told The New York Times last month that "it's absurd that as our tundra is melting because of climate change, ConocoPhillips plans to use 'chillers' to re-freeze tundra so it can drill for oil that will, in turn, make climate change even worse."

Joan McCarter of Kos reported the Supreme Court decided not to rule on another case that could have killed democracy. The case is about gerrymandering in North Carolina. Republicans in the state redrew the maps and the state Supreme Court said nope. So Republicans took the case to the federal Supremes with the kooky idea that when it comes to elections there is an “independent state legislature” theory that says the stat legislature – unencumbered by state laws, constitution, or state courts – can do whatever they want with election laws and results (including saying the voters got it wrong). So the Supremes heard the case with Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh indicating that kooky theory was a fine idea. Then there was an election and the NC Supremes shifted from Democratic to Republican majority. And the court agreed to hear the case again, though that shouldn’t happen unless the court “overlooked or misapprehended” points of law or fact. That rule is rarely used, maybe 1% of the time. And, gosh! – here’s some overlooked facts. Since the NC Supremes said they will rehear the case the federal Supremes gladly said great, we don’t have to. That’s great for the country. Not for North Carolina. How bad for NC? When the case is reheard, justices have refused to let Democrats in the room.

You want it bailed out? You do it.

I’ve already adjusted my clocks for the start of Daylight Savings Time that begins tonight. Yes, I’ve recently seen a few things saying we really shouldn’t do that to ourselves. I like DST for a simple reason. In Detroit in July daylight savings sunrise is at 6:00 and sunset is at 9:20. We’re near the western edge of the eastern time zone. I much prefer the sun up at those times than have standard time sunrise at 5:00 and sunset at 8:20. The way our society is structured, including my standard evening activities, I would have a hard time adjusting to an earlier bedtime and earlier morning. Yeah, I’m aware that I don’t have to get up for a job on Monday morning and take a week to adjust to the new time. I’m aware that there tend to be more vehicle accidents and more heart attacks during this coming week. So I’ve thought of a way to lessen the problems of transition (and I’m fully aware how impractical this is). Instead of changing the clocks one hour on one day change them by two minutes a day over thirty days. For many people the clock they use most is their phone and phone companies can make that change happen automatically. Yeah, I didn’t think anyone would agree. Almost a year ago I wrote about the book Gay Like Me, A Father Writes to His Son by Ritchie Jackson. The book celebrates a son coming out to his gay father. That son is Jackson Foo Wong, also son of actor BD Wong. When I finally heard the full name of the other father I realized I had heard about the prequel to Jackson’s book, Following Foo: The Electronic Adventures of the Chestnut Man by Wong. And now I’ve read that one too. By prequel I mean 18 years earlier when Jackson Wong was born. BD and Ritchie wanted to start a family and chose surrogacy. As the story opens Shauna is carrying their twins, but goes into labor about ten weeks early. One of the boys, named Boaz, doesn’t make it. The other, named Jackson, spends three months in intensive care. BD sent out email updates, first to immediate family and close friends. Soon others asked to join and by the end the list has several hundred names. Those updates, in all their detail, became this book. Also included are responses from readers, plus some explanatory material. The story is fascinating as the baby faces one difficulty after another. It also shows a great deal of love from the fathers, from the rest of the family, and from the friend network. It is also at times hilarious, especially the chapter supposedly written by the baby. The kid explains his care from his point of view, using a lot of slang. He says that at times he does what he does to remind the adults who the real boss is. I recommend this one. I had originally thought it might be the book I leave in my car and read when I have to sit in wait somewhere. But it was too good for that. I finished it off in about a week. Last Friday Silicon Valley Bank failed and was taken over by the Feds. It is the largest bank failure since the start of the Great Recession. There are various news sources that will go into detail on this bank being for the venture capital investors of Silicon Valley, on why it failed, and how that has left some tech companies unable to meet payroll because only so much of their money is insured. I’ll instead go into what put Kos of Daily Kos into a rage. And that is rather simple to explain. Various financial voices are already calling for SVB to be bailed out by the Feds. At the same time other financial voices filed suit against the Biden administration to stop the moratorium on student loan payments, one part of a larger effort to deny Biden’s plan to forgive student debt. Yup, these money people are saying bailing out a bank is good, bailing out students is bad. Kos told Wall Street: You want this bank bailed out to protect all the companies dependent on it? Great! You fork over the billions to do it. You definitely have the billions. One reason you have those billions is because you pay taxes at a much lower rate than most Americans. Asking the Feds to bail out the bank means the money is coming from the taxes average Americans are paying and you’re not. From scanning recent Ukraine updates it looks like Bakhmut is still in Ukrainian hands. This is the town in the east that Russia and the Wagner mercenary group have been trying to take for perhaps eight months. The town is pretty much leveled and close to surrounded, but Ukraine fights on because any town farther west would get the same treatment. Early this week Charles Jay of the Kos community wrote that conscripted Russian service members from Irkutsk in Siberia appealed to Putin last month. Their story made headlines. They complained they were being sent to battle without training and with the Russian style of fighting that was a death sentence. The Moscow Times, operating outside Russia, said their prediction was accurate – by March 1 close to all of them were dead. Those that live are injured and many of those have been told they’ll return to battle soon. Yeah, a tyrant doesn’t listen to his serfs. The more loudly they complain the more likely they’ll be put in the way of certain harm.

A stadium full of Americans

Leah McElrath tweeted this along with a picture (you’ll have to follow the link to see it):

If a stadium full of Americans had been bombed and killed, people would understand the urgency of the need to respond to the threat, right?

Well, this is Dodger Stadium in LA on opening day in 2017.

That’s how many people have died in the US from COVID19.

So far.

Dodger Stadium seats 56,000 people. McElrath tweeted that a couple days ago. The US death toll has passed 57,000. And that’s the people we know died of the virus. There are likely thousands more who died of the virus but, because they weren’t tested, aren’t a part of the official count.

Replying to someone else McElrath noted this is the number dead in three months and is almost the number of US soldiers who died in Vietnam over ten years.

This number of dead doesn’t make sense to some people – why would the nasty guy cause a mass casualty event – including in his own base – just before an election? Sarah Kendzior replied:

He never intended to be re-elected; he intends to be reinstalled. Trump and his backers never sought a free and fair election, so they don't have the normal concerns that come with one -- like winning people over, or not killing your own potential voters.

Karine Jeah-Pierre, chief public affairs officer for Move On, tweeted a quote from a CBS News article:

Roughly 95% of Black-owned businesses, 91% of Latino-owned businesses, 91% of Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander-owned businesses, & 75% of Asian-owned businesses stand close to no chance of receiving a PPP loan through a mainstream bank or credit union.

Samuel Sinyangwe reinforces the point:

The PPP program is going to produce one of the most severe expansions of the racial wealth gap in history. A $660,000,000,000 wealth transfer to a privileged class of white-owned businesses while black and brown businesses are left struggling.

More about Moscow Mitch and his insistence on no blue state bailouts. Various red state officials are are also saying such things as why should someone on Dodge City, KS pay more in taxes to bail out NY and NJ?

Because, says Kos of Kos, blue states bail out red states every year. Red states got bailed out after long term flooding last spring. Then there are those bailouts to red state Florida after every hurricane. And red states get a budget bailout every year. Kentucky (Moscow Mitch’s state) is at the top of that windfall. And Florida and Kansas get a sweet bonus too. Nearly all of the top states who get more from the feds than they pay in taxes were red in the 2016 election.

Wrote Kos:

Red states clearly think they can keep up this bullcrap—pretending to be budgetary stalwarts in the face of profligate Democratic spending, claiming that it’s Democratic states and cities (i.e. Black Americans), that are sucking the budget dry. Yet the reality is the exact opposite.

And yet Democrats, with their desire to help people, were far too tolerant of this misinformation. No more.

Republicans don’t want disaster relief for the states hit hardest by the virus? Then no more disaster relief for states hit with hurricanes and floods and droughts.

Republicans want to shrink the budget deficit, and don’t want to raise taxes on the rich? Fine. Kentucky, you go first.

And…

A day later several red states are asking for bailouts, money to fix their budget holes caused by the virus.

Kos asks why don’t we start acting like the United States and stop with this red/blue stuff? Kos then shared a couple maps, saying they show what the country could become if it splits. I had written about the first map, the West Coast Pact and the pact of states around NYC, at about the time Michigan and neighboring states were forming a pact.

The second map shows similar coordination efforts and agreements along the Missouri River, around Arizona, among the central mountain states, between six states in the south, North Carolina to Maryland, and in New England. I think I count about ten of these agreements, some overlapping. There are even pacts between counties and between cities. And Washington State is also working with British Columbia.

Sarah Parcak, who wrote Archaeology from Space, also tweeted this second map and notes this same rise of regional power centers happened when the Old Kingdom of Egypt collapse about 4,000 years ago.

A merging of religion, white supremacy, and capitalism

After my post yesterday, which talked about the GOP demanding the economy be restarted in spite of the huge numbers of deaths to the elderly and the rest of us, my sister sent an email with questions.

- If The Nasty Guy delegated responsibility to The Vice to handle this crisis, why is he still talking about it himself? Why not let The Vice do that? Or am I the only one sick and tired of his daily stupidity?

You are far from the only one tired of his daily stupidity. There are efforts asking major news sources to not show those press conferences live because the nasty guy spews such misinformation and lies.

The reason why the nasty guy is doing it and not the vice nasty guy is because it shows the NG as in charge and smart enough to know all the answers. This isn’t about him giving info to the country. This is about him getting his ego stroked. Notice that when the VNG does speak it is always in terms of praise to the NG. He either believes it or knows how the game is played, likely the latter.

- If they don't care that The Virus is going after their constituents, the senior citizens who voted him into office, who will be left to vote him in again?

I’ve already talked about ways the fall election could be avoided. I’ve shown that the nasty guy doesn’t have the ability to change the date of the election. But I’ve also written that the GOP state legislatures could cancel the election and award their Electoral College votes to the nasty guy.

In the mind of an authoritarian it is a balance between oppressing others (including to the point of death) and trusting a rigged election system will keep them in power (and declaring it fake news when it doesn’t).

- Will believing like Thanos (bad guy in the Marvel Comics Avenger's Universe) does - that half of the population needs to die immediately to bring stability back to planets with overpopulation problems - really help him get reelected and solve pollution, environmental, and economic problems within The Nasty Guys "reign"?

He and his backers aren’t interested in solving pollution and environmental problems. They believe their billions will provide a way to live comfortably no matter what happens to the world. The environmental problems oppress the rest of us, perhaps aiding in killing us off. From their viewpoint that’s a good thing. As for economic problems – they have so completely rigged the system that when the economy goes belly-up most of them make money off the misery of others.

But yeah, they believe the world is overpopulated. A smaller population is easier for them to control. However, the humane way to stabilize or reduce the population is to allow women to have complete control of their bodies. But that would mean ending patriarchy and misogyny, and they’re not about to do that.

- And where are all the "I survived the 2020 Crisis" (or other sayings) T-shirts to sell and bring back the economy?

This sounds like an entrepreneurial opportunity. Create your own!

And ask more questions as they occur to you.



The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Michigan has topped 2300, up about 500 in the last day. Over 1100 of those cases are in Wayne County (where I live). Michigan Radio reports that Detroit area hospitals are close to capacity. They don’t know how big the situation will become because there still isn’t enough testing.



I had mentioned that the nasty guy suggested some alternate drugs would defeat the coronavirus, though no tests have yet been done to verify that, and some people have died. One of those drugs is critical for Lupus patients. And they are having a hard time getting prescriptions refilled.



On today’s Morning Edition on NPR Ayesha Rascoe explained what is going on with the Defense Production Act the nasty guy pretended to use and then didn’t. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has criticized the nasty guy for not sending enough ventilators, said:

Only the federal government has that power. And not to exercise that power is inexplicable to me.

Beyond that various government people say we’ve invoked it, no we don’t need to. The nasty guy said using it is like a government takeover of companies.

Peter Schulman, a history professor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, said private industry acting on its own won't be able to get the goods to where they're needed most. The act has previously been used for emergencies too big and complex for the country's free markets to handle.



I mentioned yesterday various GOP talking heads have been pushing the idea that the economy must be reopened and it’s fine of that kills off a few seniors. That got a lot of pushback today.

Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos reports the hashtag #DieForTheDow has been trending. Einenkel included several tweets with that tag. One is from a 59 year old woman who lists several ways she helps her daughter and grandchildren, who would be in worse shape without her.

Bree Newsome Bass tweeeted:

Everyone arguing that 1-2% of the population dying isn’t a big deal needs to identify 1 or 2 close family members or friends that they are willing to offer up to death in this moment for capitalism. Name them.

Say their names out loud and speak it into the universe with the same ease you condemn others to death.

Paul Jacobson replied stop using small numbers like 1% and 2%. That translates to 3 million to 6 million deaths.

The Good Liars tweeted photos of posters they put up around their town. The main poster is a take on the WWII poster where Uncle Sam points a finger and says “I want you to serve,” but in this one the nasty guy is pointing the finger and the words say, “I want you to die for our economy.”

And in another tweet they say, “Trump caskets. Coming soon.”

Samantha Bee of Full Frontal tweeted:

Trump wants to open up the nation by Easter because he clearly observes Christian holidays. For example, he gave up your grandparents for Lent.

Lots of people responded with scathing quips of their own. Such as an image that shows two buttons labeled “Save Grandma” and “Open Cheesecake Factory Again.”

A 90 year old: “So trump wants country open by Easter. Ok. So we’ll crucify him, put him in a cave and, if he resurrects, we’ll become believers.”

And Lady Leo: “The Republicans at EASTER Time Anti Abortion but PRO Killing Grandfathers and Grandmothers.”

The pro-life party is proposing this? Doesn’t sound pro-life. Which means their ranting about protecting the life of the baby wasn’t about the baby. It was about keeping the woman at home. And out of the business world.



Jared Yates Sexton soundly rejects the idea that there needs to be a trade-off between millions dead and a working economy. As part of his thread:

The truth is that billionaires could be multimillionaires with everything they want and this thing could stabilize. In fact, it would thrive. You’d finally get a stable economy, which we haven’t had for decades. It’d literally be better for everyone. But these people lack duty.

The fact is that Reaganomics pushes corporations and individuals until they grew larger than the nation that birthed them, until they became nations unto themselves and devoid of civic responsibility or conscience. They’ll sacrifice us, all of us, and they’ll do it happily.

In another thread Sexton provides a bit of history into the Cult of Trump, which is also the Cult of the Shining City. It started in the 1960s when MLK highlighted the social justice aspects of the Gospel of Jesus. Jerry Falwell, preaching a supremacist Confederate religion, shifted the Christian focus from social justice to prosperity as an indicator of God’s favor.

Add in Adam Smith’s capitalism and the “invisible hand” of the market that chooses winners and losers. Falwell and gang declared that hand to be the hand of a racist god. Pour in Reaganomics and his idea that poverty was a mark of sinfulness. We get a merging of religion, white supremacy, and capitalism.

People are constantly confused by how the Cult of the Shining City worships Trump as a messiah and stands by him, but he is the literal embodiment of their ideology. His wealth and power, not to mention his defense of white supremacy, makes him a perfect pope-like figure.
...
This worship of the market is inherent to the ideas of Falwell and Reagan. When you watch the DOW jump or fall, these people inherently believe it is a measure of God's pleasure or displeasure. They see a plague like this and see a supernatural punishment.
...
Here's a warning: The Cult of the Shining City is an apocalyptic cult. They're not afraid to sacrifice lives. They're not afraid to drive civilization over the cliff. This policy of reopening the economy despite the warnings of scientists does not frighten or impede them.

The Cult of the Shining City that worships Trump will watch while millions die from the pandemic and they'll chalk it up to God's will. You already hear that. I'm seeing it left and right in white-identity, evangelical circles. It's economic Darwinism made into scripture.

Ashton Lattimore of Our Prism on Kos notes the persistent use of the word “bungled” in describing the nasty guy’s response to the coronavirus. It has appeared in many headlines. But “bungled” implies accident. And if it is all an accident then the nasty guy is an innocent bystander. But the better descriptions would be “gross negligence” or “reckless indifference to life” which imply intentional non-effort and should demand removal from office.



Dems and GOP have come to an agreement over a rescue bill. I’ll let you read the details here. Alas, the vote is being held up by a bunch of GOP members who don’t like the idea that those at the bottom of the pay scale may make more money off unemployment insurance than from their low paying jobs.



Kos of Kos says life changed because of 9/11 (we still take our shoes off at the airport). He suggests there are at least 11 ways our lives will change because of the pandemic. Some of them:

* Reagan was famous for saying the most terrifying phrase is “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” It turns out in a global disaster the only thing that can help is the government. And the free market is asking for handouts.

* Security is more than thwarting terrorists.

* We’re in this together.

* Working from home is actually OK.

* Government-supplied health care will receive a boost. A lot of people are about to lose health insurance at the worst time to do so.

* We can tackle the big issues. The Obama bailout at $0.9 trillion was hugely controversial. And the Senate is talking about $2 trillion. If we can do it to survive a pathogen we can do it to prevent the death of the planet.



This evening I’m listening to Wagner’s Die Walkure – The Valkyrie. The famous Ride of the Valkyries opens Act III. After watching Das Rheingold yesterday and now well into the second chapter I feel again that Wagner could have used a good editor for his text. A great deal of of this opera so far is explaining how this set of gods works and doing so in dramatic overwrought music. Even so, the singers/actors at the Metropolitan Opera do a fine job of acting (even if sometimes overwrought) as they do a fine job of singing.

A saying of Wagner’s music is moments of amazingly glorious music interspersed in rather boring quarter hours. But, oh!, those glorious moments! (like the last 20 minutes of Act III).

Banks get paid first

Something going on every night this past week. The usual bell choir rehearsals on Monday and Tuesday. Church meeting on Wednesday. On Thursday off to see the simulcast of the taping of the NPR show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me which was a lot of fun (though one ponders those familiar radio voices go with those faces?). And an orchestra concert last night. This morning was another bell rehearsal (concert tomorrow). And a People's Assembly this afternoon. I took notes (I'll have to remember to take pen and paper next time).

The assembly was held at Central United Methodist Church in Detroit. We were welcomed by Ed Rowe who said the meeting was very much the business of the church. I like his concept of church.

The first program host was Debbie Johnson. She characterized the current state of things as a war having been declared by the rich on the poor.

The first speaker was Helen Moore, an attorney and public education advocate. She talked about how education is set up so that "No rich child left behind" -- all others made ready for prison. The Detroit school system has been devastated. When the residents fight back (and win court cases) the law changes and they must start over. She handed out a fact sheet about the Education Achievement Authority (EAA), the current darling of Gov. Rick Snyder. This is a school system created out of the "worst" 15 schools in Detroit and Snyder is hot to take it statewide, to take over failing schools. But, according to the fact sheet, the teachers are inexperienced (those who bother to stay), lesson plans are revised for special needs students without parent consultation, the buildings have a high rate of violence with insufficiently trained staff to counter it, the students aren't learning, and the money to pay for it all is being sucked out of the regular Detroit Public Schools.

Next came Aliya Moore (don't know if related to Helen). She is a mother of a student in one of the more successful Detroit schools and one that serves special needs kids. It is being closed and students sent to nearby schools that are in worse shape and not set up for special needs.

Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellerman is the pastor of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in the Corktown neighborhood of Detroit. He says that one of the ideas of Milton Friedman was Disaster Capitalism (though Friedman didn't give it that name). A disaster (such as Hurricane Katrina) is an opportunity to impose (perhaps through violence) restructuring on an economy (and you can guess, from Friedman's Libertarian leanings, who that would benefit). Wylie-Kellerman says that conservatives have expanded that idea -- no convenient disaster? Make one. A lot of Detroit's problems are manufactured.

A young man (a lot of people were delighted to see someone young) by the name of B. Anthony works with cooperative economics. He said that banks are a power and that he has been following the money. He finished with a rap on what the banks are doing to us and what we need to do in response. While he (and everyone else) spoke I was thinking about powers as oppressors (something I've been linking to frequently lately).

A young woman with the name At Peace has been working as a youth organizer. Teens are wondering how they fit into the world. She guides them into creating and performing songs as a means of taking charge of their lives and challenging powers. She sang one of those songs.

The second host was Andrea Egypt. She said the city was sucked into a predatory lending deal and city services were offered up as scapegoats.

A generous round of applause welcomed Vanessa Fluker, a people's foreclosure attorney. She reviewed the mortgage disaster -- predatory lending was pushed to minorities in which deals were designed to fail (documented by Sen. Carl Levin). The banks bet against their bad loans, crashing the economy and sending many mortgages underwater. In the deal the gov't worked out to bail out the banks, they get full price of the mortgage (plus fees) only if they foreclose on the house. No wonder there is no incentive to negotiate. These banks then don't pay property tax, they don't keep up the property (many times stripping it), and thereby crash the property values of the neighborhood. Investors buy up these houses for dirt-cheap prices and become landlords. The original residents are ruined. The gov't is perfectly fine with all this, including the judicial system. The solution: Take to the streets first. Then the laws will change.

JoAnn Watson of the Detroit City Council spoke next. She's quite the firebrand. She connected several problems together (I wasn't quick enough to list them all) and said it is all about the same people getting paid. The problem is much bigger than Detroit and much bigger than the current USA government.

Another firebrand and angry speaker was Abayomi Azikiwe. He is angry that the media has ignored that this mortgage mess has driven 237K people from Detroit -- that's one quarter of the population. He is angry that citizens overturned the Emergency Manager law and the legislature promptly reinstated it and made it so we can't overturn it. He is angry because many conservatives claim that workers and people of color are not able to govern themselves, so we had better take that away from them.

Michael Shane is part of the group that used Freedom of Information Act requests to look into Detroit finances. They had to go to court to enforce it and got 3000 pages. They know there is more hidden in the records and are prepared to sue to get the rest. Of course, the office to handle FOIA requests is understaffed. Shane readily admits he doesn't understand all the deals. He is fortunate a union (he wouldn't name which one) and a law firm volunteered services and accounting expertise to explain it all. They're still figuring it out, but what they've seen so far he says shows criminal intent. That law firm got involved because they expressed delight in suing the banks. The documents are at Detroit Debt Moratorium.(actually in a Google Docs folder so you must have a gmail account to see them).

Shane had a PowerPoint presentation, complete with charts and graphs. All those subprime loans (the heart of the mess) were popular with banks because they generated 8 times more profit than regular loans. But they're based on massive fraud (which, as mentioned, Levin documented -- you can ask Levin's office for a copy). But nobody has been prosecuted for those crimes. As Eric Holder has said, the banks are too big to jail. So, those fraudulent loans (and the incentives to foreclose) hit 67K homes in Detroit -- 20% of the total housing stock. These banks own so many homes they owe $57M in property taxes (though many times they evict then "forget" to fill out the paperwork for ownership -- can't be taxed for what you don't own -- creating a zombie owner that haunts the evicted party). These same banks put together a deal to help the city deal with the shrunken tax base. I can't tell you the details, other than to note Shane says it was fraudulent.

The city has been taken over by an Emergency Manager. The law installing him says (1) the city must live within its means, (2) the banks get paid first, and (3) the EM has authority to rip up all existing contracts (such as with unions). This is a recipe for sucking all remaining value out of Detroit. It means there is money only for paying the banks. The city would have enough money for everything that's needed if it didn't have to pay these fraudulent deals.

Though the EM is forbidden to prosecute those fraudulent deals, the unions and lawyers are not. They're still building the case. Unions and other financially messed up cities are paying close attention, and helping out where they can.

Yesterday, Roy Roberts, the second Emergency Manager for Detroit Public Schools (not to be confused with the EM for the city), has resigned. The district's finances are better than when he started 2 years ago, but still not balanced. Shane says that departure was prompted by a comment Roberts made, that Roberts was hired specifically to "blow up the district and dismantle it." That leaves behind charter schools (for profit) and the EAA to educate Detroit's kids. Now remember that comment about, "No rich child left behind."

Something for your calendar: Detroit Eviction Defense has convinced leaders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to come to Detroit to see the damage they've done, then face the people. A People's Hearing will be on Monday, May 20 at 4-6 pm at UAW Local 600 Hall, 10550 Dix Ave at Wyoming, Dearborn.

Drug tests for all on welfare

Paul Begala, writing in Newsweek, noticed that Stephen Fincher, GOP House member from Tennessee, filed a bill to require 20% of welfare recipients to undergo drug tests -- after an appeals court called such tests unconstitutional because it is an unreasonable search. Rep. Fincher is a managing partner in Fincher Farms, which has $3.2 million in subsidies (which is a federal benefit even if mostly as repaid loans) over 10 years. And he has pocketed at least $50K a year beyond those loans. That's about 10 times the average welfare benefit.

So Begala proposes that Fincher's drug testing bill also apply to Fincher. While we're at it, test those on Wall St. who got bailouts, hedge-fund managers who exploit loopholes, and defense contractors. Perhaps also presidential candidates (drugs might explain a few strange debate performances on both sides).

Yeah, Fincher doesn't consider himself on welfare. So how about a hypocrisy test?

Who do they think they are?

As someone who experienced (thankfully only mild forms of) religious oppression, this visual caught my eye. I got it from here.

It is good to share an antidote. Sen. Al Franken's staff dressed up to urge voters to reject the marriage protection amendment in Minnesota.

The American economy is (or was in 2006) about $13 trillion. But various investment companies made a $45 trillion bet that the housing bubble would pop. When it did, it is no wonder that so many insurance and financial companies went bust. Rob Tisinai created a 14 minute video to explain the financial meltdown from a few years ago (and is still a big part of this election season). He posted it to his blog with links to his sources if you want more info.

Tisinai posted a link to Box Turtle Bulletin. A commenter responded "You're wrong!" and provided a link. Another commenter replied, yup, a right-wing site.




Niall Ferguson, Newsweek's conservative columnist, thinks Obama will have an "October surprise" by announcing some kind of deal with Iran over uranium refinement, or giving Israel permission to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. (I'm linking, but I don't recommend you read it).

I think there has already been an October surprise. It wasn't named Iran, but Sandy. It is causing Romney to show his colors.

Back in chains

In a speech before a predominantly black audience, Joe Biden said the GOP policies would "unchain Wall Street" and "put you all back in chains." Yup, the GOP squawked about slavery. But there is an important point that Biden may not have intended, and the GOP missed.

Yes, the GOP policies are working to make sure blacks can't vote. Those policies have the greatest economic hit on black communities. Drug laws are causing more havoc on black communities.

And more blacks than whites are in prison. The privatization of prisons has meant those companies are looking for more sources of revenue -- such as selling prison labor. Yup. Blacks back in chains.



Terrence Heath reports on an analysis of Paul Ryan's plans for Medicaid. He notes these things:
* Medicaid is not the problem. Overall health care costs are the problem.
* Medicaid is not just for the poor. It is important to many middle- and working-class Americans.
* The cuts to Medicaid do not lower health care costs. They shift costs to those least able to afford them.
* Cuts to Medicaid are as unpopular as those for Medicare. Democrats compromising with the GOP do so at their peril.
The rest of Heath's post documents the pain the Ryan cuts would generate.



Government has declared the economic crash was nobody's fault and aren't pursuing prosecution. But there is evidence of crimes. The perps may not face jail, but we could make them face continued public humiliation.
* Repeatedly parade their crimes in public.
* Repeatedly count up their billions in ill-gotten gains and compare to the human misery they caused.
* Publicize details of dirty deals and disdain for clients.
* Make them pay millions to defend themselves in the court of public opinion.



Here are five things the rich get out of the government they claim they want to shrink.
* Security: A lot of what the police do is focus on crimes against wealth. Business keep the police focus on homeless, unemployed, and drug users to make sure these groups don't take their anger out on the wealthy.
* Taxes and regulations: The gov't is doing all it can to make tax avoidance, customer fleecing, and reckless polluting legal.
* Research and infrastructure: Long term research takes too much time for corporations focused on quarterly profits, so the gov't does it. Corporations take advantage of roads, ports, power grids, communication networks (including satellites) built and maintained by the gov't. Education, paid for by the gov't, trains the chemists, chip designers, and programmers, engineers, and analysts that corporations need.
* Corporate welfare.
* Disaster recovery: Most of the expense of oil spills are paid by the gov't. There is also financial bailout for those too big to fail.



Tony Danza (yes, the TV star) spent a year teaching 10th graders in Philadelphia, apparently for a reality TV series. He lived to write a book about it, due out next month. He wrote an article in USA Weekend, which comes with the Sunday Free Press. One thought from the article: Every time the school's budget is cut the students get the message that education is not important.



Every August Beloit College releases a Mindset List which looks at culture through the eyes of those entering college. It began as a way to tell faculty about outdated references. It is now used as a way of keeping track of the changing worldview of the young. Now that I teach college students I probably should pay attention. Examples:

They have had to incessantly remind their parents not to refer to their CDs and DVDs as “tapes.”

For most of their lives, maintaining relations between the U.S. and the rest of the world has been a woman’s job in the State Department.

Women have always piloted war planes and space shuttles.

My readership in Russia has apparently collapsed. A couple weeks ago I was getting more than 200 hits a week from Russia. Then suddenly it dropped to 20-35 a week. No idea why. My readership this week includes USA, Britain, Russia, Germany, India, Canada, Ukraine, China, Australia, Venezuela, Netherlands, and Thailand.

Defining the success of austerity

Terrence Heath takes a look at the austerity that is being imposed on several nations around the world (and the GOP would like to impose on America to combat the Scary Deficit Monster). Is austerity successful? Depends on your definition of success.

I've already discussed Ireland, where people are fleeing in search of jobs elsewhere. Here, success is being defined by the 1%.

When Communism collapsed in Russia, Yeltsin made things safe for the Oligarchs (the 17 people who because sudden billionaires), then turned the government over to Putin. But for the average Russian, things were much better under Communism. Most people are so desperate to survive they can't spare any effort to see how their neighbor is doing and the sense of community has collapsed. We can do nothing is true because "we" no longer exists.

That's why, when Russians protested the recent election, the chant was "We exist!"

Iceland was hit hard by the financial collapse in 2008. But they took a different route. The let the banks fail. They bailed out the citizens. They kept the social contract intact. They severed ties between corporations and the government, rewriting the constitution to do so. And they are doing just fine today. Success was defined by the 99%.

Hunter of DailyKos discusses austerity.

The current fad is to declare that austerity, in the form of slashed budgets, slashed jobs, a slashed tax based and so on will magically produce the opposite of all those things, as wealthy benefactors rush in to spend all the new money you have given them, create jobs creating new products nobody can afford to buy, and, I don’t know, start rebuilding infrastructure out of the goodness of their hearts. It is never clear, and nor is it honest: it is predicated on the danger of the Scary Deficit Monster, who was not at all scary during the time he was being fed by these same politicians and think-tank prophets, but who, like any false god, just happens to hate all the same things that his worshippers do.

As long as "we" -- a vibrant community -- exists there is a way out.



The Occupy movement is about to make a big splash -- they will enter a "human float" in the Rose Parade and might get 1-4 thousand participants. Why Occupy the Rose Parade? 50 million viewers in America, 200 million worldwide. In addition, the parade has become too corporatized (note how many corporations sponsor floats) and militarized (this year's Grand Marshall is an Iraq vet).

Critics have said the Occupy movement had no goals or demands. The Occupy the Rose Parade spells out 5 specific demands.

* Ban corporate cash from the election process.

* Separate investment and commercial banking functions (restore "Glass-Steagal").

* Punish the CEOs and banks that caused the dot-com bust and the 2008 economic collapse.

* Restore the Capital Gains Tax to 30% as it was before Bush II.

* Foreclosure relief.

A reminder -- because New Year's Day is a Sunday the parade will be on Monday.



A big settlement with Bank of America has been announced. It says that Countrywide, now a subsidiary of BofA, discriminated against blacks and Latinos by pushing them into costlier mortgages. Richard Eskow of Campaign for America's Future pulls it apart.

* Yes, the deal requires that a third-party settlement administrator distribute the money to those affected. That's good. Alas, BofA gets to choose the administrator.

* The pot of money $335 million isn't big enough. Countrywide made millions of loans and sucked perhaps an extra $10,000 out of each one. The pot may reimburse 35,000 victims, not millions.

* The deal doesn't require admitting wrongdoing and shields the bank from investigation.

* The deal requires Countrywide to not discriminate in its lending practices -- for 4 years. It does not require BofA to change its practices.

* This is only one small type of fraud committed by Countrywide and BofA.

* The settlement amount is peanuts to BofA. In the bailout BofA made $1.5 billion from the loans from the government. The settlement pot is 1/5 of that.

* The bank is still too big to fail -- or to prosecute. There are six such banks and BofA is reportedly the worst of the bunch, still run by the perpetrators and still able to bring down the economy.

The Celtic Tiger has become a tiger skin rug

Yeah, it's been over a week since I've written something for this blog. It isn't because I haven't accumulated things to write about. Now that the holiday is behind us (as well as a fabulous performance of "Of Mice and Men" by Steinbeck at the Hilberry Theater) I can get to some of them. That means there will be a few that are no longer worth writing about. Sigh.

The GOP has been pushing for a smaller government and a bit more (perhaps a lot more) austerity for the rest of us. If the Bush years weren't a good enough example of how well that works we now have the example of Ireland. Essayist Terrence Heath explains it all for us.

Ireland is in the news (just today) because its celebrated Celtic Tiger has gone bust, the country has sunk into a depression, its banks need bailing out which puts the country under the sway of EU bureaucrats, its Parliament is pushing an austerity budget, and its people are demonstrating in the streets.

What happened?

The Celtic Tiger came into being because the Irish Parliament set the corporate tax level at 12.5%, much lower than the rest of the EU and the USA. Multinational corporations set up shop there and hired lots of Irish workers. But those corporations didn't go to Ireland because the locals were great workers, the move was to create tax shelters. Other than the pay for the workers the country didn't benefit. All that corporate profit didn't stay in Ireland, didn't enhance the local quality of life. That is now being called tax piracy. The same thing is behind the faulty claim that we shouldn't tax the rich because they create jobs. Even in the boom times the national budget was being starved of income.

The lack of local investment wasn't the only problem. As in America and elsewhere in Europe the drive to deregulate made the Irish more vulnerable.

Then the worldwide recession hit. Those big multinationals had to save money. Since they had no stake in Irish society (or any society) they shed workers. The recession hit Ireland first and developed into a depression. The national government, already strapped for cash could only handle the unemployed by going into debt. Until it couldn't.

There were austerity budgets, intended to calm the credit markets and get the economy booming again. Neither happened. The government told the people, "We're all in this together." The Irish people could easily see the lie -- perhaps 300 people living large and 4 million paying the tab.

The Irish people also saw something else. There had been a ladder that allowed the working class to climb to the middle class and the middle class to climb, perhaps, into the world of the rich. That ladder is being burned. Helping the poor isn't just about money (for something to eat and a place to stay). It's also about access to services that improve quality of life and expand choices in life. Those services are disappearing. Irish life is being divided into the rich and everyone else and the wall between the two is being built higher.

Austerity didn't work. Yet the price of the EU bailout is more austerity. It deeply affects everyone -- except the people who engineered the mess. Another way out is to raise that corporate tax rate. But that is one thing the government won't consider.

To those of us in America does any of this sound -- even remotely -- familiar?

Too many efforts by the American government are promoted solely by the number of jobs they will create. Yes, America needs job and lots of them. But America needs a lot more than just jobs. We need a way for the working class to climb into prosperity. We need protections for the environment. We need improved quality of life. Austerity won't get us there and will likely burn the methods of getting there. What will get us there? Raising taxes.



Sara Robinson took a look at why so many working and middle class Americans appear to be voting against their own economic interests by voting for the GOP. The insight is through a new poll about how Americans view the Bush tax cuts about to expire and in particular about the taxes on those who make over $250,000 a year.

The question was what is the percentage of families that make over $250K? Average guess is 17%. People think that about 1 family in 6 makes that kind of money. If true, then a typical family has a reasonable chance, with a little work, of pulling down the big bucks, and when they do they don't want Uncle Sam taking it all.

The real value is less than 3% of Americans make more than $250,000 a year. That's somewhere between 1 in 35 and 1 in 50 families. The average working Joe has no chance, outside a winning lottery ticket, of needing to worry about that tax bracket.

That means conservatives have pulled a masterful con job. They've convinced more people that upward mobility is possible while at the same time they've closed off the avenues for making that mobility happen.

How can I put it delicately?

Too big to fail is a reason to bail out a company? Any company? How about a company that deals in … porn? Consider -- if I can put it carefully -- that the government may have better luck getting its money back and might be able to get its money into the hands of the employees faster than with the auto companies. Also… (1) with the recession raging people are staying home, need entertainment, yet don't want to make babies they can't afford. (2) This industry makes something people can actually use, unlike much of the financial industry. (3) After a while people get tired of video games. So, isn't this an industry that would produce a bigger bang for the government buck? Alas, there is so much collateral exploitation.

Yes, they've been dealing with expensive gas too

My friend and debate partner wrote before Christmas about my discussion of the auto industry bailout as reported by Newsweek:

"Detroit has only this year had to deal with gasoline at $4 a gallon. Toyota and others have been dealing with gas more expensive than that for several years now."

Well, Newsweek may put that forward, but it isn't true. GM and Ford (and Chrysler until captured by Daimler) marketed vehicles globally for many decades. They got along pretty well in European markets with sky-high gas prices created by high govt fuel taxes. The Detroit 3 just never seriously believed they would face those gas prices here and weren't ready when it happened, even when forewarned by $3 a gallon gasoline in the U.S. in 2007.

Did Newsweek point out that those Southern senators were campaigning with McCain two months earlier behind his "Country First" signs? Those anti-Detroit-3 votes weren't Country First and won't be forgotten for a long time. The Macomb County "Reagan Democrats" surely understand now -- at long last -- what they really voted for when they voted Republican beginning in 1980.

I will only explain that Macomb County is immediately northeast of Detroit and contains the city of Warren, home of the General Motors Tech Center and several plants. You can read more about Reagan Democrats here.

What the UAW made

I wrote recently that as part of the auto industry bailout various GOP senators wanted to gut the UAW. I had forgotten a more basic reason: Union members reliably vote for Democrats. And GOP senators would rather commit economic treason than let a Democratic voting bloc pass unchallenged.

On to an article of what the UAW has brought to America. Before I mentioned that it had created the middle class. Here is the story in more detail (even so, this is only a summary).

After Pearl Harbor Detroit's Big Three drew up plans to convert their manufacturing power to the war effort. The UAW also drew up detailed plans -- that would accomplish the conversion even faster.

The UAW contract for 1950 is known as the Treaty of Detroit in which the union agreed to work with the auto companies (in contrast to the battles in the late 1930s) in exchange for lifting workers into the middle class. The workers got retirement and health security, and cost of living increases.

Marxism demands the workers rise up and take the means of production from the owners. The UAW specifically rejected that idea. Even so, and even killing off Marxism in America, 20 years later they were accused of creeping socialism and Communism by the GOP. But that "socialism" brought unprecedented prosperity for everyone and security for the workers. This social contract lasted 30 years.

The UAW provided the incubator for the Progressive Movement by supporting, among other things, the 1963 March on Washington, Cesar Chavez and the farm workers union, the National Organization for Women, the first Earth Day, and even proposed national health care. That last was particularly important because health insurance was seen as a perk of being a union member, not something available to just anybody.

That support of national health care is part of a sorry trend -- the UAW sounds a warning, they are ignored, they are proven right, then get blamed for the company's shortsightedness. Isn't that a measure of effectiveness and success?

Even though foreign auto companies built plants in states where it is hard to unionize, the UAW affects their pay and benefits. These companies have to pay better than other manufacturers both to keep the union out and to keep their workers from heading to unionized plants. Which means if the auto bailout forces a pay cut (to bring them in line with non-union plants) those plants will be able to cut pay too. Perhaps the GOP likes that idea.

The children of UAW members were able to afford college and get white-collar jobs and many even had enough money to see the world.

Personally, the UAW has benefited me. I was not a union member, but I worked for one of the Big 3 for 27 years. Whatever new benefits the union wrested for its members were also given to me. In the last decade or so of my work, the union idea of cafeteria benefits -- the company supplies a broad range of benefits and "flex-dollars" to pay for some of them and we select the ones that are useful to us -- meant that I could "buy" an extra week of vacation each year.

I was puzzled about the attitudes of my boss. He had worked in a factory one summer (long enough to convince him to get good grades in his last two years of college), yet was convinced the union was a leach on the workers. He didn't see what it did for him as a white-collar worker and a manager.

The benefits of economic growth go to everyone

About a month ago, when the auto industry was refused a bailout from Congress (I think for the first time), I wrote about possible politics behind the refusal. Senators in the South were hoping for the Big 3 to go out of business (at least get a lot smaller) so that their own factories of foreign owned automakers would grow to take up the slack. A Newsweek article is essentially saying the same thing. Here are some ideas from that article:

The Southern GOP senators don't like unions (Detroit has them, their auto plants don't) and are angry about the mess Bush has made of the financial bailout. They don't understand how Detroit works (legacy costs, union rules, less flexible factories), but they do understand how Southern plants work and wonder why Detroit can't do the same. They are quite happy that various states have given billions to foreign automakers (tax deals, subsidized power through Tennessee Valley Authority) to get the plants in their states but can't stand the idea of the feds doing the same for Detroit.

Detroit has only this year had to deal with gasoline at $4 a gallon. Toyota and others have been dealing with gas more expensive than that for several years now.

Here's another perspective from blogger Terence Heath. I used the phrase "downwardly mobile" just a few days ago in a posting about sundown suburbs who refuse to deal with those who can't maintain the lifestyle. But Terence suspects that downwardly mobile is one of the goals of conservatism. Get rid of unions and regulations and boost outsourcing until your American workers can compete in the global economy -- by being no more expensive than overseas labor. Get used to a lower standard of living.

The UAW, in a process well underway by the 1950s, created the American middle class. That spawned all the ideas that are at the center of American liberalism. Which is why the GOP hates the UAW. But why should a healthy middle class be considered unsustainable? Since the 1970s that myth has driven corporate-labor relations. Need increased profits? Take it out of labor's pay. The worker has been participating in the silent bailout since then. There are now so many unprotected workers they resent their unionized brethren.

And depressed wages meant those trying to maintain their middle class lifestyle had to do it on credit. High consumer debt is a big reason we're in the current mess. Alas, many are saying the way out of this mess is for the middle class to spend more. Without earning more. The only way out of this mess is for the benefits of economic growth go to everyone, not just the rich. Assuming conservatives want economic growth.

Cleveland!

As cantankerous as Ohio politics is this is a delightful surprise: The Cleveland city council voted to create a domestic partner registry and the mayor has said he will approve it. To make it comply with state constitution amendments it is not restricted to gays.


Yesterday, I saw an article in Between The Lines (alas, the online version won't be available until tomorrow) that some GOP members of the Senate, who killed the auto industry bailout today, are saying one provision of the package that might get them to change their vote is to order all three companies to suspend their domestic partner insurance programs. Just think of the millions of dollars they'll save! Never mind their analysis of the number of gays who use this benefit is off by a factor of 5. It's always the fault of the gays. Though that article isn't online yet here is a summary with some rather snarky replies.

Getting in the way of a good scapegoat

So what just happened with the world-wide financial system? According to blogger Alex Blaze (whose credentials are unknown), perhaps it was because:

Massive deregulation caused an explosion in the buying and selling of arcane and opaque securities, creating a huge bubble (bigger than all the money in the whole world put together!) that burst as real wages dropped, bad loans stopped being paid, and investors started to ask for real money on their investments.

But that explanation is woefully inadequate to a certain segment of Americans for several reasons:
1. It finds fault with free market fundamentalism, the foundation of conservatism
2. It places the blame on Republicans and a smaller group of "fiscally conservative" Democrats
3. It might usher in an era of increased regulation and raise class consciousness to where Americans are less willing to accept income inequality

So conservatives have started a counternarrative, blaming the current housing crisis on any of a number of factors, such as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Community Reinvestment Act, and poor people who couldn't repay their loans. By extension, the assault is on Democrats, social justice, and racial minorities.

The Community Reinvestment Act was designed to end "red-lining," where banks discriminated because of where the borrower lived. It requires banks to give money to low-income borrowers. And, of course, "low-income" borrowers are really people who are so messed up they can't hold a job and can't afford a house and are certainly incapable of repaying a mortgage. Which means the mess was caused by Democrats and affirmative action for mortgages. But don't let the facts get in the way of a good scapegoat.

And those facts?

Only a quarter of the faulty subprime mortgages came from institutions subject to the CRA. And those that were under the law made fewer dangerous loans.

Fannie and Freddie weren't allowed to take part in subprime mortgages. They can only work with loans with down payments and documented income.

If a bank makes a loan to a borrower they know cannot repay the loan, why does the borrower get the blame and not the bank? Doesn't that prove the bank's incompetence? For the record, the bank makes the loan because they get a fee for creating the loan. The loan is sold to someone else so the bank doesn't care whether the loan is repaid or not because they already have their fee.

While bad loans are at the heart of the problem there were other things that magnified it: deregulation and credit default swaps that hid the value of loans.

So why is that other story being pushed? The pushers can claim (other than "It's the Democrat's fault") such things as the problem isn't deregulation, but over-regulation, or the problem is dangerous minorities.

That last bit resonates when we might be electing our first black president while Palin stokes the fires of racism. Those pushing this particular story can claim the country will be screwed if Obama is elected (meaning we're not now?).

Stir that brew and add a bit more seasoning: McCain, the war hero, is being humiliated -- by black man -- and some people are taking that humiliation personally. As Obama pulls us out of Iraq (and a conservative goal of using Iraq as an American base to subdue the rest of the region is discarded) there will be calls that America was stabbed in the back by liberals (a claim that was made in Germany at the end of WWI and set the groundwork for WWII). The coming recession will be long and hard. All that means the racial hatred will bubble for most of the first term of an Obama presidency.

America used to be above such things. But the temptation to abuse racism to advance politics may be too strong to resist. In the second debate McCain hit most of the counternarrative points mentioned above. Will he do it in the third? (I'm not going to watch and will only hear about it in tomorrow's news).

If a little deregulation is good...

The lead (not cover) article in Newsweek is "The Fall of America, Inc." by Francis Fukuyama. America has a "brand," a particular set of values we project and the rest of the world has, until recently, wanted to imitate. Two of the biggest ideas of the brand were unregulated capitalism and liberal democracy.

After the Great Depression and prior to Reagan governments thought the more programs and regulation they offered the better things were for their citizens. However, welfare states and red tape were proved to be dysfunctional (as shown by Communism). Reagan and Thatcher cleared a lot of that away and while they made it easier to fire workers (and made the economy more chaotic), it also made it easier to hire them. That led to three decades of growth.

The problem is that Reagan's pragmatism became dogmatic ideology. Just because tax cuts and deregulation set the stage for growth doesn't mean that even more tax cuts and more deregulation will mean more growth. Clinton raised taxes and the economy still grew. This fallacy was masked because foreign governments were so willing to buy up our debt, leading Cheney to proclaim, "deficits don't matter." But the dollar dropped and the credit markets have frozen, proving Cheney wrong.

The goal of exporting liberal democracy has been around since at least the end of WWI and until Bush II has not been controversial. But Bush's claim of liberating Iraq for reasons of democracy has been seen as a cover for Imperialist goals.

The next president has a lot of work to restore our brand. And one important ingredient is to replace dogma (on both sides) with pragmatism.

*-*-*

If you remove regulation what stands against greed and corruption besides conscience? The recent credit crash showed us that when it is always legal to make a buck and there are no bad consequences to making a buck, people are going to rake in the bucks until disaster happens. Then the perpetrators will moan about the corruption their deregulation made inevitable.

Do the deregulators honestly believe their efforts will build a better society? Does self-interest drive society to its greatest heights? Is raking in money good for the society as a whole or just for the one pulling in the bucks? Do the people who are left behind deserve it? (I wrote about that just a few days ago.) Perhaps they aren't greedy enough? Isn't having a conscience giving the other guy an advantage?

If greed equals profit, then capitalism says any personal enrichment can be justified as a contribution to the society. What rises to the top of society isn't the fittest, but the unfit -- those who only know how to enrich themselves and know how to influence lawmakers to aid in protecting their money and removing constraints to make more.

If deregulation is the goal of conservatism then what we're living through now is success. Even in this "success" McCain is calling for reform. What does he really mean? Perhaps he claims the fundamentals are sound to reassure businessmen that the market will take care of itself and he need do nothing. Perhaps he'll do the bare minimum. Perhaps he'll call for more deregulation. All of which will lead us back to where we are now.

Surprise! its October

Lots of odds and ends:

Though her approval rating is dropping, might Palin pull off an October surprise? No, nothing involving the military (whew!). But she could accomplish much of the same thing with a big splashy wedding of her pregnant daughter and the girl's boyfriend. Shotgun weddings back in fashion? And Palin does know how to wield a gun.

When I've done training for programs that try to influence change (such as making my church denomination more gay friendly) the emphasis is on personal stories -- how a particular event made me feel, what I learned from it, and how it changed what I did. I can't say the training made me a spokesman for much of anything, but the premise is sound. People connect to stories. Sharon Begley of Newsweek says that people connect with Palin's story quite easily (or, given her dropping approval rating, did). There has always been a balance between voting your issues and voting your emotions with emotions usually winning. This year the emotional side is even stronger because with 24 hours news sources on TV and web we are bombarded with emotions and aren't able to take time to reflect on the issues. Enjoy this season of storytelling. The print edition of Newsweek has a drawing of Palin in a cluster of 10 eager listeners reading from the book "The Adventures of Sarah the Moose-Skinning Hockey Mom."

Sharon Begley has an article about the reliability of polls. At a time when one could say "another day, another 37 state polls" yet polls got some primary races quite wrong, there is a lot of discussion of poll methodology. Polls of "likely" voters tend to be more accurate, but to determine the likelihood of a voter are new voters, who tend to be for Obama, being excluded? Since it is illegal to do random-digit dialing to cell phones, are younger voters without landlines being undercounted? And back to the issue of balance between Dem and GOP respondents -- If your public is 30% GOP and your random-digit dialing gets you 45% GOP responses, a pollster might weight the GOP replies. But how stable is party identification? Do voters shift party allegiance when they switch candidates?

Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas has written with a great deal of passion that if one gets a start through Affirmative Action (as he did) one must always live with the shame and stigma that success, no matter how great, will always be suspect. Some people (including himself) say he got where he is only because he is black. The world mistrusts him and he mistrusts the world. The same stigma now seems to be at work in Palin. She got to be VP candidate because she is a woman, not because of her qualifications. The same mistrust appears to be playing out with Palin who sees everyone as a supporter or a hater.

Lionel Trilling was a English professor, literary critic, essayist and author who died in 1975. On the occasion of new publications of a few of his books, Jeremy McCarter of Newsweek took a look at some of Trilling's ideas. One of his books is "The Liberal Imagination" in which he shows fellow liberals a few blind spots. The problem is that liberalism, in explaining its goals, tends to simplify, producing lots of unintended consequences. To get the full story one should study liberal ideas through literature, because fiction doesn't (or doesn't have to) present the world in black and white, can present ideas in careful nuance with moral realism, and can teach sympathy and respect for variety. These ideas tend to get lost today because of our high-speed, always on media that tends to thwart imagination, attention span, and the willingness to read something with depth (gee, where have I heard that before?). Trilling highly recommends losing yourself in "The Princess Casamassima" by Henry James.

A new startup company is inverting the recycling equation. RecycleBank has trucks that rumble through suburban Boston, weighing and scanning the barcodes of recycling bins as they are dumped into the trucks. The weight and ID are sent to a website, where residents are given credit of 25 cents a pound which can be redeemed at area stores. Isn't recycling worth a latte? Offering a bit of incentive has shown recycle rates jump from 3% to 32% in Wilmington, Del. The company hopes to serve a million homes by the end of 2009. The Midwest might be hard for it to crack into because landfill fees are so cheap compared to the coasts.

If you allow me to be greedy, surely some of that money will trickle down to you. The last couple weeks showed up that lie. Greed does not get us to compassion, kindness, or social justice. It is time to eliminate it from economic policy.

The Mormon Church has a doctrine of Free Agency. An individual must determine the difference between good and evil and reap the benefits or consequences of those choices. This cycle of choice and consequence is the individual's own trial of faith, a piece of their plan of salvation. Amy Cox, the wife of the first counselor to a Mormon bishop condemns the church's meddling in the marriage protection amendments in Calif. and Arizona because such amendments restrict free agency. The church is meddling where it shouldn't. Mrs. Cox also says the Mormon Church has renounced its old belief that people with darker skins were cursed until they turned from their sinful ways, at which point their skin would supposedly lighten. Hmm. That never happened. The church should also renounce its belief that gays will become straight when they turn from their sinful ways. Perhaps all that Mormon sponsorship will mean those amendments will be linked closely with that church, causing a backlash and their defeat.

The moral hazard of dropping off the keys

I've written before about ethics of compassionate conservatism and the strange ethical solutions it appears to produce. The goal of the American Dream was owning a home. That leads to a more stable society in many ways. Some (including Bush) have also talked about an ownership society, one in which the average person (at least average middle class) has a stake in the economy both through home and stock investments. Those dreams and that ownership took hits during the dot-com burst and the Enron meltdown. Now we have a house meltdown. Many home buyers were sold interest-only mortgages. If the price of the house rose, the homeowner won. If it fell, the bank lost. Many homeowners were essentially renters, having little or no equity in the place where they lived. They crunch the numbers, see they owe more than the house is now worth, and see there is no way to get back above water. They even see repairs to the house not as improving their asset, but shelling out money -- absorbing costs -- to maintain someone else's property. Their solution: mail the keys to the bank and leave. Some even trash the place on their way out. Actual rent is usually cheaper (though with landlords defaulting and banks kicking out tenants rental properties are getting harder to find). It is better to default on the house then the credit card (that used to be the reverse). Americans are finding the dream betrayed. A candidate who dares to tap into this anger could go a long way this fall. By walking away thwarted homeowners find they may have lost out, but they can take their bank down with them. Those interest-only loans are like loaded weapons left in every house. Banks find it aimed at themselves. The Bushies find the weapon aimed at their buddies and only now must they act.

Bailing out the mortgages creates a moral hazard. Think of it this way: One man dug a hole to capture a second man, then the first man falls in as well. Which do you rescue and why? The Bushies are quite content in rescuing only the first man. The first man is the bank that made a bad loan on risky assumptions. The second man is the average homeowner. The homeowner isn't helped because economists say it is a moral hazard to not pay for the consequences of your risky actions. But with the bailout of Bear Sterns, who engaged in risky behavior as well, they are avoiding the consequences of their risky behavior. Most of the management gets golden parachutes while most of the staff gets a pink slip. No moral hazard here? Any government help of the common man and you get screams of "socialization!" especially in socialized health care. But now we get socialize wealth care -- the transfer of money from the government to select private citizens.