Iowa and Maine?

There are three little bits of travel trivia that suggest to me that things are not quite sewn up for Mr. Obama as some would like us to believe.

1) Mr. McCain has of course been campaigning in a lot of swing states, but he has hit Pennsylvania very hard. The hits have been hard enough to cause Gov. Rendell to beg Mr. Obama to either come back or to send surrogates to shore things up. It is important to remember that Mr. Kerry only won Pennsylvania by 2.5% (about 144,000 votes). Any reasonable shift in the southern suburbs of Pittsburgh or in the Scranton and Bethlehem regions could overwhelm any additional turnout in Philadelphia and turn the state red.

2) Todd Palin has been dispatched to Maine. Mr. McCain has been making a strong push for that extra Electoral Vote in Maine’s second district, but the internal numbers are close enough to suggest that Mr. McCain has an outside shot to take the whole state. Mr. Obama hasn’t seemed to be able to get a better that 5-7 point lead in this state. What’s more, one of the largest aspects of Maine’s economy is family-owned, small business fishermen who tend to bring in between $200,000-$250,000 a year. If many of these fishermen believe that their taxes are going up under an Obama Administration, Mr. Obama’s support in this state could go down in a hurry.

3) Mr. Obama is campaigning in Iowa. Iowa is a state that Mr. Obama should win by better than 5 points simply based on Mr. McCain’s anti-ethanol votes. If Mr. Obama has to take time out of his schedule to swing through Iowa rather than reinforcing Ohio or Virginia that lends itself to an air of danger for him.

I’ll see if I can’t get a slightly better bead on things over the weekend and give my assessment of the overall race on Monday.

Halloween

I’ve actually seen a bit more Halloween dress up at work this year. Previous years it was usually the secretaries and accounting. The secretaries are still dressing up but accounting has moved to a different building so I expected a smaller costume crowd.

For the most part, I was right. But I have seen some interesting ones among the engineers. The fellow who sits catty-corner to me is dressed up in a very impressive caveman, animal skin costume. There is a fellow in the next aisle over who is dressed as Heath Ledger’s Joker (shades of The Office). I’ve seen a woman dressed as a bee and another dressed as sexy Dorothy. My supervisor is dressed as one of the Beastie Boys in cop gear (although I think he looks like Michael Imperioli’s character on Life on Mars).

I shall be scanning around to see if I can see anything else that amuses me.

Update:

How You Know an Election is Getting a Little Too Hot

A liberal woman wrote an article about how if Mr. Obama loses this election, there might be a second Civil War from those whose believe that this election has been stolen.

The conservative reaction has been a strong, “BRING IT ON B****!” with several discussions about the proper use of guns and urban assault tactics.

Let’s all just back away people and take a deep breath. It’s only an election.

Of course, I’m sure there were a lot of people saying similar things in 1860.

Still, I put about as much stock in the thought of a second Civil War as I did in the great Canadian Migration of 2004.

Amusing Football Note

Apparently, there is a bit of a legend regarding the Washington Redskins game held right before a Presidential Election. Since 1936 (when they were still the Boston Redskins) if the Redskins win, the incumbent party wins. If the Redskins lose, the opposing party wins. This held true until 2004 (they lost but Bush was re-elected). This year, the Redskins will be playing the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday Night Football.

Mrs. X and I compete in a little football pool against each other every year. What happens is that we pick the Bengals game and four other contests that seem like they would be close match-ups. Naturally, Pittsburgh-Washington would be expected to be a good game and I put it on our roster.

Given the trend regarding the elections, one would expect that I would prefer that the Redskins win and that Mrs. X would prefer that Pittsburgh would win. Guess how we picked the game?

I picked Pittsburgh.
She picked Washington.

BTW, Mrs. X is leading our picks by 5 games. Make of that what you like ;)

Statistical Weighting

Mrs. X called her brother Mr. A last night and they got to talking about the election (he lives in PA). Their conversation got us to talking and about polling specifically. Most people take polls pretty much at face value, but every pollster manipulates the numbers they get to conform to certain preconceived notions that they have about a particular race or geographic region. This is done with something known as statistical weighting. I’ll give a numerical example:

Let’s say that I’m a pollster and I call 1000 people in a geographic region. 453 people that I call say that they are members of party A, 438 people say they are members of party B and 109 say they are independent. Each group lists their voting preference for candidates X, Y, or a third party as follows:

X Y 3p Total
A 387 54 12 453
B 44 390 4 438
I 52 51 6 109

Taken as shown, candidate Y would be leading 49.5-48.3 (which most pollsters would just report as a 50-48 race). This might seem a reasonable breakdown with the two major parties being roughly even and a reasonable amount of third party affiliation.

However, let’s say that as the pollster, I don’t believe that this is the proper party breakdown. Instead, I believe that in the region I am sampling, its 45% membership for party A, 39% for party B, and 16% for Independents. Thus, I would then multiply my numbers by a weighing factor, which would be determined by taking my perceived party affiliation percentage and dividing it by the party percentage of my sample. In our example, I would have weighing factors of 0.99 for party A, 0.89 for party B, and 1.47 for independents. This would change my numbers as follows:

X Y 3p Total
A 383 54 12 449
B 39 347 4 390
I 76 75 9 160

Summing these numbers up, we now have candidate X leading 49.8-47.6 (or 50-48), a swing of nearly 3.5 points. The fundamental flaw that is introduced is that the pollster is assuming right off the bat that his sample is fixed and only mass defection of a party away from its candidate or a large swing in unaffiliated voters will determine the outcome of the election. In fact, a pollster has no way of knowing what absolute party breakdown will be come Election Day.

This is the key element of danger for the Democratic Party. During the primary, many people came and registered to vote as Democrats, there have been massive drives to sign first-time voters (many of whom would probably favor Democratic candidates), and Mr. Obama is said to have a large get-out-the-vote apparatus in place. These three things cause many pollsters to weigh their samples a bit heavier on the Democratic end of the scale.

Now one or all of these things could be true and Democratic turnout could be much heavier that Republican, but if polls are shown to favor Mr. Obama by large margins, it could lead to a sense of complacency among Democratic voters and the hubris that it might foster among Democrats could galvanize Republicans into their own large scale get-out-the-vote effort.

One other problem is that Democrats and media outlets that are friendly to Democrats have been trumpeting these polls, telling everyone that they should vote for Mr. Obama to be part of the “cool kids table” since he’s going to win anyway. That attitude might work if we all sat around and raised our hands in public to vote (see Oct. 16 post) but we don’t. We get to vote in a quiet little booth and only you and God know who you voted for. You could talk all you want about voting for one candidate, but then quietly vote for another and not a soul would know.

Things are certainly stacked in favor for Mr. Obama to win, but there is enough uncertainty and danger out there that I would suggest that everyone sit back and just wait to see what happens. Of course, that’s what makes this process so much fun.

Israeli Elections

Tzipi Livni, head of the Kadima party, has been unable to form a coalition government. As such, she has declared the Israeli government insolvent and President Shimon Perez has called for early elections, which will likely be held in late January or early February. Essentially this means that Ehud Olmert will remain PM throughout the rest of Mr. Bush’s presidency. Whether this means he will seize the initiative and go ahead with an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is unclear at this time. However, it removes some level of uncertainty and replaces it with a new type.

In all likelihood, Likud (right-wing party) will pick up seats at the expense of Kadima and possibly Labor as well. I’d look for the ultra-orthodox party of Shas to also pick up a reasonable number of seats and these two will likely form the main body of the next coalition government. This would return Benjamin Netanyahu to the PM slot that he held in the mid-90’s. Mr. Netanyahu is much more aggressive regarding Israeli security and if it looks like Likud and Shas will gain a large number of seats, we might expect the Arabs surrounding Israel to strike before being put on the defensive, no matter what Mr. Olmert does or does not do with regard to Iran.

Also note that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has fallen ill and that Iran is strangely quiet at the moment. I think something is up and the smell of blood is in the air.

A Very, Very, Very Bad Idea!

Mrs. X and I were talking last night and I happen to mention an article that I glanced at yesterday. Apparently discussion on this article has taken off so I thought I would enumerate some of the major problems.

Essentially, a small group of Democratic Congressmen, spurred on by the economic theories of a professor, have idly discussed removing the tax-exempt status of 401(k)s and related tax shelters. Their reasoning goes that this is a large source of revenue that is being withheld from the government and that people are so scared by the volatility of the market that they want something safe. So the plan being proposed is that a person would put after tax money into a 401(k) and then the government would invest that money in government bonds at a guaranteed 3% interest. The investment money would then be given to the Social Security Administration to look over and they put a little checklist out that says you own x number of bonds that will be worth y when you plan to retire.

There are several very bad things about this plan. First, under the revised rules, the 401(k) assets would now be subject to the estate tax, giving the government the ability to take 50% of all unused assets when the owner croaks. Currently, since the 401(k) is a before tax holding, it only gets taxed when people withdraw the money and the holdings could be passed on in ownership without incurring any tax liability. But under this new plan, a 401(k) will be seen as a real asset and subject to the taxes that occur when it passes hands.

Second, since all the tax incentives will be withdrawn, employers will stop issuing matching funds to a 401(k). Currently, a company gains a massive tax write-off by giving matching funds to their employee’s accounts. But if there is no available tax write-off, a company doesn’t have any reason to give money away. So a person is losing as much as half of his potential retirement savings without the matching funds.

Third, since people are only allowed to invest in government bonds, ownership of stocks through mutual funds would crater. This in turn drives down the stock prices and the overall market as the number of people who have the ability to buy goes way down. Worse, it’s possible that the government may simply hold on to the shares that they have seized rather than put them back on the market. In effect, this would make the government the majority owner in thousands of freely traded companies and would give them the right to dictate whatever policy they saw fit for any type of company.

Fourth, we would all have to work longer because our retirements will simply not accrue enough money to support us. In 2005 and 2006, the average 401(k) earned somewhere between 7 and 15% depending on the overall aggressiveness of the fund. Yes, some of those profits have been lost, but over the life of nearly 40 years, the rate of return on stocks is much higher than 3%. This means that a person will not see anywhere near the rate of return that is being seen now.

Fifth, people will no longer have the amount that they donate to their 401(k) to take off the top of their adjusted gross income. Right now, a person has an overall gross income and that is adjusted downward based on the pre-tax donations that a person makes to their 401(k). That’s why you see one number that you use on your 1040 and a higher number that is used when noting how much you have paid to Social Security and local taxes. But if a person loses that tax-exempt status on their 401(k), the number that goes on your 1040 will now be the larger overall number. Effectively, this will push anyone who had a 401(k) into a higher tax bracket that what they had been and we will be forced to pay more taxes while saving a lot less money.

At its root, this proposal turns a means of promoting wealth and increasing collective ownership of companies into a government managed savings account. One that they can tap and spend at will, so long as they leave that promissory note called a government bond. However, if they ever go ahead with this plan, I guarantee that we will see the economy crater like no tomorrow and the 1930’s will have nothing on what will go on after this takes effect. Incidentally, Argentina is currently implementing this plan, so we’ll have an example to watch of how bad an idea this is.

Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Uranium

A very interesting story has cropped up over the last couple of months. Back in late August, an Iranian ship was rounding the horn of Africa, making for the Suez Canal. However, they were waylaid by Somali pirates, an unfortunately common occurrence in this region, who intended to sell the cargo and ransom the crew. Upon boarding the ship, the pirates interrogated the captain and asked what their cargo was. The captain was evasive but finally said that it was minerals. The pirates didn’t quite believe him and cracked open a couple of the crates and found it to be a white, sandy soil, very similar to the way the captain had described. Perhaps a little disappointed that the cargo wasn’t anything of greater value, the pirates drove the ship to shore and had the captain give them contact information to demand ransom.

Three days later, all the pirates who had boarded the ship began getting sick with symptoms that included hair loss, vomiting, and severe skin rashes. Three weeks after the original capture, sixteen of the pirates were dead and the story was beginning to crack worldwide media. The freighter was then seized by a group of nations (including the US) who found that the “minerals” were in fact radioactive sand that had apparently been purchased by Iran from China in exchange for oil. The captain was questioned again and he disclosed that their instructions had been to sail into the Eastern Mediterranean and then abandon the ship off the coast of one of Israel’s ports. They were then to blow up the ship remotely on Yom Kippur (Oct. 9) where the prevailing winds would have carried the radioactive cloud over Israel’s major population centers. Undoubtedly, quite a few Palestinians as well as many Israelis would have been sickened and likely killed by this attack, but they were seen as collateral to Iran’s central goal of killing Jews and creating chaos that could have been exploited by the Syrians and Hezbollah.

This of course becomes even more interesting when one notes that two days ago, it was leaked that members of the Iranian parliament are favoring a pre-emptive strike on Israel to thwart them from destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities. Israel’s current estimate is that Iran will have enough nuclear material to begin building a nuclear bomb by February. Incidentally, it may have been this report which triggered Mr. Biden’s statement regarding Mr. Obama being tested. Iran threatening to detonate a nuclear weapon in Israel might indeed be considered something of an international crisis.

Vice Presidential Trivia

Pop Quiz time.

Until recently, a Vice Presidential candidate has usually been selected for their geographical relevance. It would surprise no one that New York is the leading supplier with 11 out of the 46 total Veeps.

Guess which electorally powerful state is number 2 on the list?

Hint #1 - VPs from this state started showing up in the mid-19th century.
Hint #2 - This state has gone for the same party since 1968.

Answer (Highlight to see): Indiana (5 - Schuyler Colfax, Thomas Hendricks, Charles Fairbanks, Thomas Marshall, Dan Quayle)

Barstool Economics

I found this yesterday and thought it rather interesting. It's very simplified and doesn't get into the all the other nice ways that the government leaches money from us, but it does in a pinch regarding income tax.

Our Tax System Explained: Bar Stool Economics

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with thearrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20." Drinks for the ten now cost just $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.

But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?"

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted thatfrom everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each endup being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (17 % savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed tothe tenth man, "but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I got"

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill! And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D. Professor of Economics, University of Georgia

A Reminder

Bush Derangement Syndrome:

Liberals rage in the press, equate Bush with Hitler, and hold rallies with giant puppets.

Obama Derangement Syndrome:

Conservatives own guns.

Asch in Elections

Have you ever been in a situation where you felt strongly about something but because everyone else in the room had stated the opposite opinion you went ahead with the crowd? Apparently this is fairly common reaction: you treasure your opinion but the social pressure is such that you voice something you don’t agree with just so you fit in. Every once in a while you get a situation where someone will actually question their own opinion in the face of such opposition, but for the most part people remain confident in their own opinions even they don’t voice them.

Apparently there was an actual study done for this back in the early 1950’s by Solomon Asch. Asch was a professor who would invite a group of students to participate in a “vision test.” As it turns out, only one student was the subject and the others were in on the true nature of the test. The professor would hold up a picture of a line and three lines next to it and ask which line of the three was closest in length to the solo line. He would go around the room and people would answer with the test subject usually being the last or second-to-last to answer. The students in on the test would give the correct answer for the first couple of questions, but eventually they would start giving the wrong answer. The test subject would usually hold out for a few questions, but eventually they would knowingly start giving the wrong answer. In after interviews, many of the subjects would state that they were confident of what the right answer was, but they were deliberately giving the wrong answer so they wouldn’t feel so isolated. Only in a few instances did the test subjects say that they began to doubt and assume that their senses were wrong. Asch reran the tests and whenever at least one other person stated the correct answer, the number of incidents where the test subject deliberately answered incorrectly dropped off drastically.

I mention this for two reasons. One, it’s really interesting from a social engineering standpoint. Second, it has bearing on something that’s been brought up in this election: the Bradley Effect.

The Bradley Effect is the factor that a certain percentage of white voters will say that they are going to vote for the African-American candidate, but vote for the white candidate instead. Now, this assumes that there is inherent racism on behalf of white America and that there is a segment of the population that physically cannot bring themselves to vote for the African-American for only that reason, whether they agree with him or not on other issues. In actuality, there is no way of really knowing as to why a group of people say they were going to vote one way but do not.

Dr. Asch’s tests might give us a reason. I believe that most Americans are not actually racist. However, many white Americans are terrified of being accused of being racist. So it is not surprising that a group of people would say that of course they are going to vote for the African-American candidate because it’s easier to not rock the boat that to say that they are not going to vote for him because they disagree with him on certain policy issues, out of fear of being accused of being racist. Incidentally, the Bradley Effect is a bit overstated to begin with because the poll that said that Mr. Bradley was going to become California’s next governor was conducted over a week out from the election. On Election Day, Mr. Bradley’s lead was down to two points, which was within the margin of error.

So, I am going to be very curious come Election Day. If Mr. Obama doesn’t win by the margin he is expected to, or he even loses, much of the talking heads will talk about the Bradley Effect. But I think it more likely that there are simply a bunch of people who don’t want to be the odd person out and either don’t say anything or say, yes I’m voting for X, but instead will vote for Y when they are secured in the quiet of the voting booth.

Dewey Caveats

Over the past few weeks, essentially since the excrement hit the fan regarding the economy, we’ve seen evidence that Mr. Obama is going to coast to a landslide in the Presidential election. Certainly many of the political analysis class seem to be talking that way, which is annoying as one would expect the commentators to want a good dog fight (I miss Tim Russert).

No matter what happens at tonight’s debate (unless Mr. Obama starts talking about how he idolizes Josef Stalin) Mr. Obama will likely emerge looking Presidential and the same chattering classes will state that Mr. McCain did not do enough to reverse the tide and we should all look forward to a Democratic administration.

However, there is something that doesn’t quite add up to me. The polls that are showing Mr. Obama with large leads seem overly heavy on Democrats. I know there have been a lot of new Democrats registered, but weighting your samples 39-30 seems heavy to me. Less weighted samples from Zogby and Rasmussen are showing 4-5 point leads which seem more realistic to me. Now, these types of leads would still indicate that Mr. Obama should win, especially given the state-to-state analyses that I looked at a few weeks ago where the Mountain West states would seem to have most of the power.

Yet, I can’t help but think that with three weeks to go, things are being set up too much. Maybe it’s because I’ve been listening to Truman on cassette in the car, but all of this just feels a little too much like the political elite declaring the election for Dewey long before a single vote was cast. Now it should be pointed out that Mr. Truman had the advantage of a good economy during his barnstorming tour and knowledge of the farmer’s mentality, but I cannot recall any other election that people have been so ready to declare over before Election Day.

There are three particular things that have me raising my eyebrows before things get going. The first is that there are investigations (and one possible RICO indictment) against ACORN in fifteen states. Although ACORN is officially non-partisan, it’s no secret that the majority of the people they register tend to vote Democrat and there is documentation that Mr. Obama did hire ACORN in one state to assist with get-out-the-vote efforts. There is nothing wrong with either of these things, but bad press about ACORN could hurt Mr. Obama by association.

Second, the Sixth Circuit court has ordered Ohio’s Secretary of State to verify all same-day registrations and votes in the opening six days of the early voting period by Friday. She has protested that she doesn’t have the resources, but the court has ordered it anyway. Although no one has explicitly stated this, if she fails to comply the court could declare all ballots cast during this period as illegitimate and order them thrown out. Again, the general assumption is that many of these early ballots have been cast for Mr. Obama and losing these could end up tipping the vote total in Ohio to Mr. McCain.

The third is the complete absence of news from Israel regarding worries about Iran. The general talk was that Israel might attack Iran’s nuclear facilities between November and January, especially if Mr. Obama wins the election. However, the Iranians are also well aware of this. Israel has always conducted these types of raids (Iraq and Syria) with complete surprise. The one time that NO ONE is expecting Israel to attack is right before the American election. The next new moon would be right at the end of October (Oct. 28) and would provide the perfect cover of darkness in a period that the Iranians are not expecting. This attack could ignite some sort of wider conflict and could bring a military situation to the forefront of people’s minds less than a week before the election. This might benefit Mr. McCain, if it happens.

Now, none of these might mean anything and Mr. Obama wins in a landslide. They all might happen and not matter as Mr. Obama wins anyway (landslide or squeeker). But there are still enough variables in the air (these three being the foremost in my mind), that is not a definite given that Mr. Obama will defeat Mr. McCain. We shall see and I’ll be very curious to see how the numbers twitch around over the next three weeks.

Good Advice

Every day the head of my company has his secretary e-mail out a motivational quote of the day. Most are very stupid but every once in a while there is a good one. I rather liked this one from yesterday and thought it an important maxim to remember:

Irritability is immaturity of character. If you are subject to being cross and unpleasant with others for no apparent reason, you need to come face-to-face with the fact that you are thinking too much of yourself. After all, your feelings are not the most important thing in this world.

- Lawrence G. Lovasik

I have no idea who this fellow is but as one who does lose their temper on occasion, something like this is good to keep in the back of your mind.

"You are not to speak. I don't like you."

A wise man once said that it is not the crime that gets a person in trouble, but the cover up. A slight take on that could be that if a person puts something out there and then scrambles like a mad man to get it back into the fold, people are more likely to pay attention to it.

Mrs. X and I (having Toddler X) don’t stay up too late and thus don’t watch SNL very much. We did DVR the season premier with Michael Phelps, but aside from the opening Palin/Clinton sketch and the Charles Barkley Show sketch, it stunk. However, Mrs. X and I have been enjoying the Sarah Palin sketches and watch them on the SNL website.

Earlier in the week, we went to the SNL website and watched the VP debate sketch. It was okay (I think too many of the Palin jokes were recycled; Biden was okay; Queen Latifah as Gwen Ifil was very funny), but while we were there, we saw a link for a bailout sketch. This sketch was much funnier in my opinion (although the guy doing Bush was no where near as good as Will Ferrell) and roasted the mortgage companies, Bush and the Democrats quite well. However, it seems that the sketch is no longer available. There is a picture of it at the SNL website, but the link is dead.

Now all the other links and video are still there, so why is this sketch gone? Conspiracy theorists are suggesting that either Mr. Soros or Mr. and Mrs. Sandler (who are all real people mocked in the sketch) have pressured NBC to pull the sketch. I’m not in that tank as SNL would have never aired the sketch if they thought these people would call them on the carpet. But it’s more than a glitch or it would have been restored immediately once the conservative media started jumping on it.

Whatever the reason NBC has pulled the sketch, the very act of pulling it has garnered more attention that just leaving it where it was. If it was the bidding of some corporate master, either at NBC or outside, the act of retrieval has caused far more attention (and potential problems) than just leaving it alone would have.

UPDATE:

SNL has reposted the sketch with changes to the C-SPAN banner for the Sandlers. Apparently a line was also cut where Mr. Sandler thanks Congressman Frank for hiding their corrupt activities. It would seem that Mr. and Mrs. Sandler requested they not be attacked quite so nastily.

Let Down

There has been a rather big deflatement in the eschatological community. A few months back (May 8), I wrote about a theory promoted by a Washington preacher that the Rapture might happen over Rosh Hashanah due to his noting of some very interesting astronomical data that will occur over the next 7 years.

Well, Rosh Hashanah has come and gone and we’re all still here. I was skeptical about it then and it seems that my skepticism was justified. Again, I thought it was good scholarship and I still think that we should expect some very interesting happenings over the next 7 years. But there is a real sense of let down among a lot of people I think.

Probably the biggest source of let down is one of the most valid points that had been made in that previous argument: the fact that the Tribulation will probably correspond to a Sabbatical Cycle. The downside to getting everyone hyped up over Rosh Hashanah 2008 is that now that it is past, the next period where we should be examining the signs and thinking that the Rapture is immanent is around Rosh Hashanah 2015. Very little is more depressing that being told that you need to wait at least 7 years before something that you really want will arrive. There is also the very real possibility that 2015 will not be the time of things either and we’ll all have to wait until 2022, etc. This is why we are forbidden to date set. The let down is extraordinarily destructive to morale.

Now, it is important to remember that all this scholarship could be way off and the Rapture could happen tomorrow. I think that’s unlikely, but I’m not God and I don’t make the rules. So, it is important to continue to keep watching and being attentive. But is also important to remember what Paul told the Thessalonians: don’t forget to live. Live and work, but be watchful. So buck up. Yes, we might be waiting for a good seven years or longer, but it’ll happen and in the meantime, we have work to do.

Powerless

Bailout package fails in the House:

141-94 Democrats
66-132 Republicans

207-226 Total

Ms. Pelosi needed 11 additional members of her own party to pass this and she couldn’t do it. The knives are going to come out on both sides and I think there is going to be some blood spilled on both sides. I shall be curious to see how Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama react to this.

Congress Trek II: Wrath of the Voter

If there is one thing one must always remember about politicians, it is that they are always trying to make sure you reelect them. One of the best ways to do this is to make sure they look like they are doing something to solve problems and that someone else is causing the problems (preferably from the opposite party).

Take this little mortgage kerfuffle. There is a problem as banks are in a bit of a bind and they need some relief. So something does need to be done. We have this bill proposed by Henry Paulson, so we know that the President will support it and sign it. There has been enough parading in front of the news to note that House Democrats, Senate Democrats and some Senate Republicans support the bill. No one has been talking about a filibuster so obviously at least 10 Senate Republicans support this and probably more. So why don’t we have a law yet?

House Republicans have been saying that they don’t like this and they won’t support it. So what? Last time I checked, the House didn’t have any special rules like the Senate where a minority could hold up the majority and Democrats have a reasonable majority. Yes, maybe some of the Blue Dogs are balking, but there are a few liberal Republicans in the house who tend to vote with the Democratic majority and create a counterbalance to the Blue Dogs. If the bill passes 218-217, it still passes and those that opposed it will just have to suck it up. So I ask again, why doesn’t Ms. Pelosi just ram it through and leave Mr. Boehner looking like the powerless man that he is?

There are two reasons:

First, the Democrats are reluctant to push through a bill that a lot of Republicans oppose and that President Bush supports. This would tie them to Bush’s unpopularity and undermine their attempts to link Republican candidates to Bush (like Mr. McCain). They don’t need that statistic floating out there 5 weeks before the election.

Second, although its not getting quite the headlines as the process is, there is still a majority of Americans that oppose this bill. Last poll I saw had about 57% opposed to any bailout of Wall Street. It might be necessary, but regular Americans want to see greed and incompetence punished and they don’t want to foot the bill. So, again with the election only 5 weeks away, Democrats don’t want to be the ones shown as working against the will of the people (even though the will of the people might be wrong) because they will receive the voter’s wrath and could lose their majorities in Congress.

Now we have a game of high stakes chicken. I rather doubt that House Republicans are going to move because they believe they have nothing to lose. Everyone will scream and complain, but the majorities will probably be forced to act because of the crisis frenzy that has been whipped up. Now, whether House Republicans get punished for being obstinate or House Democrats get blamed for defying the will of the people is something I’m not sure anyone knows right now, and that is what has everyone in government so jumpy at the moment.

Liberalism VS. Monopoly

There has been much terminology bandied about over the last few years and I feel compelled to point out one particular thing. Despite what folks in the conservative media tell you, there is nothing wrong with liberalism (in the definition of large government solutions to problems).

Our country operates in the capitalist system. Now, as anyone who has ever taken an economics course will tell you, left to its own devices, a capitalist system will always end in monopoly in one fashion or the other. Liberalism and Conservatism are the idealistic forces that pull against corporate monopoly and state monopoly respectively. In most cases, a free market has a natural tendency to drift towards corporate monopoly. In fact, this was one of the major problems with the American economy in the late 19th and early 20th century and took liberal actions from people like Theodore Roosevelt and other fair minded individuals to pull the economy away from this morass. Organized labor was another factor that helped break up the power of corporate monopolies.

Unfortunately, leftward monopoly (stateism) is equally harmful. Franklin Roosevelt was able to use the crisis of the Great Depression to try and make the government the largest producer of jobs and capital (spend our way back to health). This didn’t work either (with the exception of the TVA) and only increased demand brought on by World War II kick started the economy back up and gave corporations some of their power back.

One of the main reason that the 1950’s and early 60’s were so good for people was that market forces operated in a good balance. Labor was strong but not overwhelming management with frivolous power grabs and demands. The government offered security nets to low income and the elderly in the early forms of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Welfare. These programs worked because they existed solely as safety valves. Competition kept prices low so that most people didn’t need these programs, keeping government expenditures low, while the Social Security eligible population was also very small and did not stay on the public dole for long as the lifespan of these people was shorter than it is now.

Then things went south under Johnson and continued during Nixon. Johnson expanded all these programs, assuming more state control over the economy as prices rose. Nixon exacerbated the problem by introducing price controls and adding more bloat to the government as they offered more nanny-state services to people. When the price controls were lifted, inflation skyrocketed as market equilibrium returned, forcing further government seizure to protect the people as businesses went under due to the whiplash.

Steadily, government agencies have sought to absorb more and more power, reducing competition and making problems worse as prices always rise in the face of monopoly, with bloat (corporate or government) reducing the efficiency of services provided. Some of this is philosophically driven (believing that the state can control things better than market forces), while some is people trying to improve things in the short term and making things worse in the long.

We are now approaching the point where total state control is possible for certain industries. We are currently watching to see if the government will assume the majority stake in the mortgage market and since the early 1990’s, there has been a movement to nationalize the health care industry.

Health care is a special case as excessive malpractice awards by juries have spiked the insurance premiums paid by doctors and more complicated development of drugs has led to higher medication costs. To survive these price spikes, doctors clump together in the form of mini-corporations (HMOs), further reducing competition. However, this also allows insurance companies to spike premiums even higher as the collective wealth of an HMO allows for even higher malpractice awards (i.e. you’ll get much more money by suing Coke that you would by suing a local drink firm like Faygo). What’s more, with fewer doctors available to recommend their new drugs to, drug companies waste extra money on advertizing and convincing doctors to use their product. This extra capital is then made up by jacking the price of the drug another couple of bucks a pill. Nationalizing health care would take insurance out of the equation and give a single source seller for drug companies, but it would introduce all the problems of monopoly and it is unlikely that costs would decrease. Instead, the costs would be shared by everyone and many people would take advantage to make sure they are “getting their fair share,” increasing overall costs and driving up price. Greater competition, a cap on malpractice awards, and the elimination of drug company solicitation would go a long way to bringing prices down and making health care affordable to all.

Parsing all this together, it is my belief that government sponsored solutions are important and even necessary, especially to protect those who would have no other resource. However, total state control is just as bad as total corporate control. Competition is the only thing that keeps prices low and allows people the luxury of creating higher demand, which in turn creates greater profits and higher wages. We would do better to push back against the recent stateist tendencies and return to a more balanced mix of free market with government safety nets for the downtrodden.

How's that Knife Feel?

In case anyone might have missed it, Mr. Clinton is still very angry at Mr. Obama.

Yesterday, Mr. McCain pulled a little stunt where he announced that he was “suspending his campaign” to deal with the financial crisis. Of course, Mr. McCain could have gone back at any time, but by putting on a show and saying that he is sacrificing time with the voters, he tries to make himself look more Presidential. Good trick.

Mr. Obama promptly stepped in it, not by dismissing it as the stunt that it was, but by saying that he would be available should the Democratic leadership need him. A man running for President and is the head of his party should be the one dictating, not waiting for others to call when they think he’s needed. People don’t like cheep stunts but they hate gutlessness more. Mr. Obama should have called Mr. McCain’s bluff and been much more forceful about how he is directing things and not pulling stunts.

Then, on top of Mr. Obama’s misstep yesterday, Mr. Clinton goes on Good Morning America and promptly kicks him in the teeth. Mr. Clinton goes out of his way to remind everyone that Mr. McCain offered a series of ten townhall debates in the summer, so it looks less like Mr. McCain is afraid of debating Mr. Obama if he does in fact miss tomorrow’s debate (the VP debate is another matter). Mr. Clinton then goes and points out that Republicans have tried to reform the crisis several times over the past few years but that they were thwarted by Democratic members of Congress (with him being thwarted as well since he tried to fix the problem, he claims). Mr. Clinton is lying through his teeth about his attempts to fix the problem, but it does point out bills to try and fix the problem that were floated in 2003, 2005, and 2007 (Elizabeth Dole was the primary sponsor of all three) and were killed by both Democrats and Republicans who were getting massive amounts of money from Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac for their personal and political gain.

Mr. Obama is probably appreciating the knife in his back; especially after just a couple of weeks ago he came to New York to kiss Mr. Clinton’s feet to get him to campaign for him. Mr. Clinton has not forgotten what Mr. Obama stole from him when he defeated Ms. Clinton in the primaries and pointed out the buffoonery of Mr. Clinton when he tried to support her. Mr. Clinton is now going out of his way to sabotage Mr. Obama (while Ms. Clinton looks like the loyal soldier) to ensure that Ms. Clinton will be rolled in as the savior of 2012, sweeping him back into the power and glory that he loves and desperately wants back.