Copyright © 2008 Frank Lynch.
Copyright © 2008 Frank Lynch.
Me: Frank Lynch Home These are my mundane daily ramblings.
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I am not so easily encouraged. Last night on PBS' Newshour with Jim Lehrer, one of the topics of dicsussion was the report released yesterday by the Justice Department concluding that politics was an inappropriate factor in hiring/promoting decisions, and two aides had been breaking the law.
The nature of the laws broken means that most who broke them — now that they are no longer with the DOJ — will not face anything close to justice, since they won't face internal discipline; they might be subject to castigation or disbarment from their local bar associations is about it. Anyway, last night on the Newshour, two panelists seesawed about the implications of the report. David Rivkin, who worked in the DOJ under Reagan and G. H. W. Bush, said the following:
Do we need to be reminded here that the system would not have "worked" had the Republicans retained control of the Congress? This all came about in the wake of the firings of eight federal prosecutors in 2006. Prior to the change in power in Congress, the Republicans (the majority) were letting the Administration do whatever it wanted. Senator Leahy (D, VT) remarked after the 2006 elections that the Bush Administration was so used to getting its way, it was as if the Republicans in Congress were the minor capos listening to the Don. Or words to that effect, haven't found them yet. So technically the system worked, but the house needed to be cleaned in order for it to happen.
Losing sight of the bigger picture. The Dow dropped another 2% today, and if you watch the news enough you know that every night the newscasters will tell you how much it lost or gained for the day. If it surpasses other swings, you might hear them say "it's the biggest one day drop in x months," or something like that. Lost in the daily measure is this — and it takes a superior perspective for a newscaster to say it — but the Dow has lost 16% in the last 52 weeks. 16%, you read that right. It's a good thing we have a Republican in the White House; can you imagine how much worse it would be if the President were a Democrat?
Detroit's chickens have come home to roost. Last night we saw Who Killed The Electric Car?, a documentary about the combination of forces which prevented the electric car from taking off in California, as well as what would seem like spiteful reactions from Detroit once regulations no longer demanded a zero-emission car. One of the appeals for consumers in the know was that the cost of a mile was phenomenally lower because the energy source was the home's power sockets rather than gasoline; and although the day's range from a charge was more than adequate for the lion's share of the population, consumers didn't flock to it. You can thank the failure to market them properly, you can thank a lower tax incentive to switch to it (vs. the federal tax incentives to small businesses for SUV's). For a lot of reasons, the demand didn't develop properly. Anyway, we're now in a world of four dollar gas, and there are certainly misgivings about what it takes to drive a car to get from A to B. We've read stories about new SUV's being ignnored on lots in favor of more efficient vehicles, and we've read stories about mass transit systems experiencing ridership growth to such an extent that it's proving taxing. A logical extension of unsold SUV's on the lot — one I never stopped to think about — is that as the demand for new SUV's goes down, so does the demand for old SUV's, and under leasing contracts, Detroit is now on the hook for SUV's whose leases have run their course. Essentially another symptom of Detroit's lack of foresight and failure to diversify its product lines soon enough. I have a memory from 3 to 5 years ago about a new head at Ford, a member of the family with the last name Ford (imagine...), who wanted to move the company into a wider variety of vehicles, and be more inclusive of more energy efficient vehicles. The article was in the New York Times, and while I don't remember him as touting electric vehicles in the article, he was certainly against the singular focus on SUV's. (I've looked for it online, but haven't found it... I might be imagining it, but then again, I might not. We went to the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport this weekend, and one of the reasons we went was my enthusiastic reaction to a NY Times article about it I'd read in 1989. Twenty years ago — I didn't know the memories were that old until I saw it online.) One of the reasons I chose marketing research as a career was that I was dumbfounded that Detroit was caught with its pants down in the 70's when OPEC turned off the faucets, and Detroit didn't have efficient vehicles to compete with the imports. I chose marketing research because I saw a need for corporations to have better information for more well-informed decisions. Here we've gone again.
Seems to me that this constitutes a new definition of "success." Unless you've been under a rock, you know that McCain has been touting the results of the surge as a success, and has been attributing events which happened before the surge to the surge itself. (Kind of like Tyrone Slothrop's reaction to each V2 rocket 24 hours before it even hit the London block he was in.) Anyway, McCain has been claiming that he's got a better grip on the situation in Iraq because he was for the surge, when being against it would have been "easy," and now look what's happened. Why, the surge was a success! It was so successful, this is what McCain has said about it:
Anyone mind telling me why that constitutes "success"? And why it's so impressive if it's so very fragile? Doesn't sound like success to me yet. Sounds to me like you can point to some positive indicators, which themselves might be signs of success. But it's not success yet. It's kind of like "This is not a pipe." These are signs of success, but anyone who calls it a success knows not of what they speak, especially if "it's so very fragile."
"Wall Street Got Drunk." If you haven't seen the video yet, with Bush's simple explanation of the credit collapse, it's here. I have a little problem with the premise, though: sure, Wall Street was aggressively peddling complicated financial instruments and loan portfolios converted into a kickshaw. But it wouldn't have happened if Bush wasn't of a belief that everyone was better off owning their homes than renting them. In a vacuum that might be true, but out in the air some people can't afford to own and shouldn't tie themselves to a mortgage, much less one with odd terms developed in response to the loose credit policies of Greenspan's Federal Reserve. Would everyone be better off with a college education? No: the market needs plumbers, too, and plumbers are well paid because of it. Now, with that out of my system, I guess we can be thankful that Bush's views of private accounts for Social Security haven't borne fruit yet: I saw no reason to trust Wall Street with all of the nation's retirement savings before, and see no more reason to do so now. America needs Social Security as it's currently structured, and Wall Street can't take over that role. They've proven it,
with the kind ways they've handled the 401Ks they've already been entrusted with.
McCain, maverick seismologist. Did you know that Iraq shares a border with Pakistan? I certainly didn't. Maybe Saint McCain is so knowledgeable that he foresees the outcome of shifts of tectonic plates. Think the Press will give him a pass on this one, because he has so many years under his belt? They might, but that's partly up to you. Watch and complain. (One of my all-time favorite moments in entertainment history was from Denzel Washington, in a post-Oscar press conference when he had won Best Actor and Halle Berry had won Best Actress. Asked if he could look forward to a day when the press could write about two African Americans winning the highest acting awards and write about it as if it weren't special, Washington said something like "You can write that article tomorrow.") We don't need to wait for the press to come down on McCain, we can be part of it.
Obama on the Grand Tour. I have to confess, I'm not really fascinated by what might come from Obama's visit to Afghanistan and Iraq and how it might influence his opinions. John McCain seems to think it will have significant impact, because not only was he casting aspersions on Obama's failure to have done face-to-face consultations with General Petraeus et al, he was so ticked that he leaked the timing, thus introducing a security risk. (I don't think McCain was interested in putting Obama's life in danger — he surely knew that even unannounced Cheney visits prompted rocket launches into the Green Zone — rather, I think he was mostly ticked, as in "Dammit, now he'll have been there more recently than I have. Now I gotta go do that heavily guarded shopping trip again." Can you imagine the escalation, as both candidates start mounting those frequent flyer miles by going from Pittsburgh to Chicago via Baghdad?) No, what astonishes me is the shallowness of McCain's complaint that Obama needs a face-to-face meeting with Petraeus to get an understanding of what's going on in Iraq. Have you thought about it? I mean, does anyone remember FDR huddling with DDE or MacArthur in a war zone? Not me. And FDR was President, not a candidate. An actual President. Obama could pick up the phone. Petraeus could pick up the phone. Any of Obama's hundreds of advisors could pick up the phone. And so could General Odierno. I mean, some might like to be forgiving that McCain doesn't know what you can accomplish on the Internet, but should we be forgiving if he doesn't know what can be accomplished on the telephone? Are personal briefings so valuable, Senator McCain? Seems to me it depends on the audience. August 6, 2001: President Bush is in his ranch compound in Texas, and a CIA briefer makes a special trip to give him his daily briefing. "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In The U.S." And the President responds, "Thank you very much, you've covered your ass." And goes to prune the brush back, missing an opportunity to shake down the trees. It's not the medium, Senator McCain. Or "my friend," as you like to say in your town halls.
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