The Fed and GDP

GDP is equal to money times its turnover or velocity, which is called the "equation of exchange" as developed by Irving Fisher (Nominal GDP = MV).

M is comprised of the monetary base (currency plus reserves) times the money multiplier (m). V is the velocity of money.

According to Barron's definitions: 1. Monetary Base:

Sum of reserve accounts of financial institutions at Federal Reserve Banks, currency in circulation (currency held by the public and in the vaults of depository institutions). The major source of the adjusted monetary base is Federal Reserve Credit. The monetary base, as the ultimate source of the nation's Money Supply, is controllable, at least to some degree, by Federal Reserve Monetary Policy. The adjusted monetary base data is compiled weekly by the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and is adjusted seasonally.

                                               2. The money multiplier:

Relationship between the Monetary Base and the Money Supply. The multiplier explains why the money supply as excess reserves are added to the banking system. When a bank makes a loan, it creates money, because part of the loan becomes a new deposit.
In practical terms, banks put money in circulation by extending credit. Assume that a bank makes a $100,000 loan and reserves 10% or $10,000 to meet its Reserve Requirement, depositing $90,000 in the borrower's bank. The borrower's bank sets aside a reserve of $9,000, leaving $81,000 available for another loan and another deposit. If carried to its logical extension, the original $100,000 loan would expand into more than $500,000 in deposits and $400,000 in new loans.

And V, velocity of money, equals how frequently the money supply is used.

Clearly the Fed and the Government can influence part of the supply but can not influence all of it, the multiplier or the velocity.

So why do they say they can influence GDP and, when they try, why does anyone pay attention?

On the Outside Looking Out

Some important areas in society have always been supported by a tiny group. The symphony is one. Its market is small, its requirements large. Often towns have a symphony because of the dedicated effort of a very few. But there is no conflict between the symphony supporters and the general community, just little in common.

Things may be about to change.

According to PEW Research the median net worth of white households in 2007 was $134,992. After the crash of 2008, in 2009 it was $113,149. The median net worth of black families was $12,124 in 2007 and in 2009 it was $5,677. Net worth not income; assets minus debt. As Algernon Austin said in the The Economic Policy Institute's report, "In 2009, for every dollar of wealth the average white household had, black households had two cents."

While this discrepancy implies a number of differences between the two groups, none is as important as how these two see the nation. It simply is impossible for them to see things in the same way. If your net worth is $5,677 you can not think of debt, interest rates, education costs or housing prices. More, where do you see the direction of the nation?

Obama's grassroots mobilization of this voting block was impressive. But, as a subset, the population responsible for the nation's economic and cultural growth is shrinking. And hostility towards them is apparently growing. The "1%", the racial element, "us vs. them" was very prominent.

What happens in a culture when the mainstream becomes the minority? And is disliked?

And if your constituency is made up of people who make up the majority but are not within the economic or cultural mainstream, what do you think they expect of you? And what can you do to please them?

Hopefully only symphonies and their music houses will be sacrificed.

The Philosophical Common Ground Among Leaders

Kleptocracy: a government or state in which those in power exploit national resources and steal; rule by a thief or thieves.


The New York Times reporter, David Barboza, has identified assets worth $2.7 billion belonging to various members of the family of Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, including his 90-year-old mother, a retired schoolteacher named Yang Zhiyun. This woman's extraordinary good fortune happened after her son was elevated to China's ruling elite, first in 1998 as vice prime minister and then five years later as prime minister. Bloomberg reports that "the net worth of the 70 richest delegates in China's National People's Congress . . . rose to 565.8 billion yuan ($89.8 billion) in 2011, a gain of $11.5 billion from 2010." That averages out to more than $1 billion per delegate; the senior party leadership is not included.

Washington Post's Carol Leonnig reports that the former vice president Al Gore's wealth is today estimated at $100 million, up from less than $2 million when he left government service on a salary of $181,400. This financial success did not come from his share of the Nobel Peace Prize. Nor was it from the book and movie proceeds from "An Inconvenient Truth." Instead, as Ms. Leonnig reports, "Fourteen green-tech firms in which Gore invested received or directly benefited from more than $2.5 billion in loans, grants and tax breaks as part of President Obama's historic push to seed a U.S. renewable-energy industry with public money."

This is not entirely fair. There probably is not enough money in those companies to account for his financial success. Gore was also named to the board at Google before its IPO and was rewarded with stock. He was paid with stock for his board membership at Apple as well. (About 2 Million dollars.) He is a highly sought-after speaker. So money came his way through a number of avenues. But not $100 million. $100 million is a lot of money for a simple guy who wanted to be a minister. One source is Gore’s investment company, Generation Investment Management, which sells carbon offset opportunities, and was the largest shareholder of CCX. (CCX called itself “North America’s only cap and trade system for all six greenhouse gases, with global affiliates and projects worldwide.” It closed because of the inactivity of  trading, the result of the failure of cap-and-trade legislation in America. They struck while the iron was warming, globally, but then things cooled. With the recent election they may warm again.)

I doubt the Chinese leadership are active bandits. Nor is Gore. But the world is much easier for the political class because of their proximity to our money. And, in a political climate that is so concerned with "fairness," this especially rankles. Gore's positions at Google and Apple were unlikely the result of his technical expertize. A Joint Chief's position in the aircraft industry, the senator who becomes a lobbyist, the legislator who works for a utility--all of these hybrids are the result of influence peddling; ability is a coincidence. The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (The STOCK Act) made it illegal for congressmen to trade on inside information. This was passed April 4, 2012; before then it was legal. Congressmen trading on inside information, much of it obtained through their regulatory positions, was  legal. Does this happen in the real world? Yes. All the time. Is it fair? No. Things will always come people's way through knowledge of people or processes. (Personally, I've rarely seen it work out well for either side other than politicians.) But being able to invest in a company that you can support with public funds and legislation through your influence is corrupt. If that is harsh it is because the circumstances demand it.

Abuse of trust and sacrifice of the people for the benefit of the people's leadership?

This clearly transcends politics, culture and ideology. It may be the real bond among nations and their leaders. And it shocks even me.

Twinkies and the Union Suicide Bombers

In 1978 Dan White, a former cop and firefighter, was a newly elected San Francisco supervisor. (Like a councilman.) After about a year White suddenly resigned saying his wife was pregnant and he could not afford to earn only $9,600 annually. Mayor George Moscone publicly stated that if White changed his mind, he could have his job back. Five days later, after appeals from firefighters, police and neighborhood residents, White decided he wanted the job back. But by then, liberal supervisors, led by Supervisor Harvey Milk, had persuaded the mayor to appoint a liberal to the vacated seat. Believing he had been betrayed, White loaded his .38 revolver on the morning of Nov. 27, 1978 and went to City Hall. To avoid the metal detectors, he climbed in through a basement window, went to the mayor's office and shot Mayor Moscone twice, once in the chest and once the head, both at close range. White then reloaded his gun, went into the supervisors' chambers and killed Milk.

The defense was faced with a difficult problem. There was no doubt about the events; they admitted that White had done the killings. The problem lay in the appearance of White's meticulous planning. This did not look like a guy who had just suddenly snapped. They argued that he was depressed, that he began withdrawing, ignored his wife, stopped bathing and shaving, dressed in a slovenly way and ate poorly. That, plus the politics, "drove him around the bend." Defense attorney Schmidt added, "Whether or not ingestion of food stuffs with preservatives and sugar in high content causes you to alter your personality somehow, or causes you to act in an aggressive manner, I don't know. I'm not going to suggest to you for a minute that that occurs. But there is a minority opinion in psychiatric fields that there is some connection . . ."

And the "Twinkie Defense" was born.

White, who could have been sentenced to life, was sentenced to less than eight years and, with time off for good behavior, ended up serving five years, one month and nine days.

There have been many and varied evaluations of this case and most believe the food component in the defense had little to do with the decision. However, perhaps we should reconsider. Read the following selections from a Maine newspaper regarding the strike that has caused Hostess, the company that makes Twinkies, to close. You do not have to even eat the Twinkies to be driven crazy; proximity itself will drive you nuts.

1. Labor leaders in Maine say the resilience of the Hostess workers on the picket line at the company’s Biddeford plant, which is closing because of the strike and eliminating all the jobs, gives them inspiration in the face of what they believe have been ongoing efforts — by politicians, including Gov. Paul LePage, and corporate investors — to reduce union influence.

So destruction is production, defeat is victory, and this disaster should encourage people to want to be union members.

2. “Everyone can relate to the fact that the worker class is funding the investor class,” said Sarah Bigney, spokeswoman for the Maine AFL-CIO
The worker "class" is funding the investor "class." The cross-pollination of work and investment is entirely ignored, the inanity of work "funding" completely accepted, all for the sake of a homicidal quasi-economic theory from the mid-nineteenth Century.

3. The union’s willingness to go down with the sinking ship — and in some cases take credit for sinking it — in the Hostess case may prove to corporate investors that the working class must be reckoned with, said University of Southern Maine economist and labor relations expert Michael Hillard.

This guy is a "labor relations expert."

Self-immolation may be a lot of things but constructive is not one of them.

TARP, TALF, Stimulus and The Fed

A good way to keep a secret is to put it in plain sight. The Federal Reserve has given a ton of money to companies and countries over the last few years and people seemed little concerned although the specifics have been easily available since the Fed has had a public audit. Strangely, we know more specifics about the Fed program than we do about TARP, TALF and The Stimulus. The details appears on Sen. Sander's webpage as does his comment, "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."

From December 2007 to June 2010 the Federal Reserve bailed out many of the world's banks, corporations, and governments. The Federal Reserve  refers to these secret bailouts as a "loan program" but virtually none of the money has been returned and it was loaned out at 0% interest. This when the average American taxpayer has been suffering. Remember, this is separate from the TARP Bailout of 2008 which sent $800 Billion dollars to failing banks and corporations, separate from TALF which protects bad consumer debts from $200 billion to $1 trillion in capacity, and separate from the $787 Billion Stimulus Package which was only loosely targeted but apparently went to debt resolution for the states. (The Wall Street Journal estimates that only 12% of the funds will be spent on initiatives which could be considered growth stimulus.) And it is also different because it is sending American money to foreign corporations.

Although the GAO was mandated through recent law to audit the Fed, there has been little reaction. This is a summary of the largest loans, from page 131 of the GAO report. The caps are mine.

Citigroup - $2.513 TRILLION
Morgan Stanley - $2.041 TRILLION
Merrill Lynch - $1.949 TRILLION (Failed and became a part of Bank of America)
Bank of America - $1.344 TRILLION
Barclays - $868 BILLION (A Uk bank)
Bear Stearns - $853 BILLION (Failed and became a part of JP Morgan Chase)
Goldman Sachs - $814 BILLION
Royal Bank of Scotland - $541 BILLION (Another bank from the UK)
Deutsche Bank - $354 BILLION (A bank from Germany)
United Bank Suisse - $287 BILLION (A bank from  Switzerland)
JP Morgan Chase - $391 BILLION
Credit Suisse - $262 BILLION (Another Swiss bank)
Lehman Brothers - $183 BILLION ( Failed)
Bank of Scotland - $181 BILLION (Another UK bank)
BNP Paribas - $175 BILLION (A bank from France)
Wells Fargo - $159 BILLION
Dexia - $159 BILLION (A bank from Belgium)
Wachovia - $142 BILLION (Failed and became a part of Wells Fargo)
Dresdner Bank - $135 BILLION (Another German bank)
Societe Generals - $124 BILLION (Another French bank)

And then there is this line item: All other borrowers $2.639 TRILLION 
All other borrowers? 2.639 Trillion? Is that like etc.?

Much of the management of these bailouts were assigned to the same troubled companies, without bid, of course. Many of the companies had board members on the Fed Board.

They probably think this is capitalism.

Isn't this just unbelievable?

Sunday Sermon 11/25/12

Today is the feast of Christ the King, renamed Christ the King of the Universe. (Apparently the growth of the universe in the eyes of modern science requires an corresponding inflation of God.)

The gospel concerns the famous encounter between Christ and Pilate where Pilate asks Christ," Art thou the king of the Jews?" Christ answers with a question and in the next several paragraphs Pilate attempts to get an answer as to who Christ is and why He is brought before him.

Christ's initial response is curious, "Sayest thou this thing of me?" as if he is struggling with Pilate's idea of kingship or the word "King." He is like an alien before Pilate, speaking in absolutes to a man captured by a crazy human concept of temporary and provincial hierarchy. Finally He says "came I into the world that I should give testimony to the truth." He is speaking in universal concepts to a mortal man in a small community in a tiny area of a miniscule planet in one solar system that is one of one billion star systems in the galaxy whose super-cluster occupies one millionth of the known universe.

Later Pilate asks, "What is truth?" I doubt it was in jest. But Pilate was likely smart enough to know it was rhetorical as he placed his mundane and changeable concerns before the singularity of God.

And the rest is silence.



 

Cab Thoughts 11/24/12

Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.
Voltaire (1694 - 1778)

So a very flawed African-American overcomes his shortcomings and against all odds, with terrific high quality help and organization, and aided by naive and overwhelmed citizens, wins where no one logically expected him to. I was thinking of O.J. Simpson. Gotcha.

A reason why labor unions are flourishing among people who work for government might be government agencies do not go out of business, even if the self-destructive unions raise costs astronomically.

Renting a 20-foot truck one-way from San Francisco to San Antonio, for example, will cost $1,693. But the U-Haul tab to go in the opposite direction is just $983. This is the soon-to-be-famous "U-Haul Index." The University of Michigan economist Mark Perry has tracked this "U-Haul Index" and says the difference in these rental rates is the result of straightforward supply and demand.

Question Of The Day: What was the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857?

Generally economists believe that for every dollar of real income gained, consumption goes up by 70 cents. 70 percent impact on spending. Compare that with the 0.004 positive impact on spending for every one-dollar increase in wealth

42% of parolees return to prison or jail within 24 months of their release.

By some estimates, Congress has awarded $45 billion in subsidies to the ethanol industry since 1980.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121117/AUTO01/211170359#ixzz2CzHyMdaS

The EPA has rejected the request of 200 lawmakers and eight governors to relax the ethanol mandate for gasoline. Corn farmers are happy with the 400% rise in corn but pork and beef producers see it in the cost of feed. Some estimate the cost of subsidies to the ethanol industry since 1980 is in the range of $45 billion.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday rejected a request from eight governors and nearly 200 members of Congress to waive requirements for the use of corn-based ethanol in gasoline, after last summer's severe drought wilted much of the nation's corn crop.
The move is a victory for corn farmers who have seen corn prices jump 400 percent in recent years. But it is a loss for pork and beef producers who say the diversion of corn to ethanol raises feed prices and ultimately prices at the supermarket.


From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121117/AUTO01/211170359#ixzz2CzIPKo6Q

By some estimates, Congress has awarded $45 billion in subsidies to the ethanol industry since 1980.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121117/AUTO01/211170359#ixzz2CzHyMdaS

Can economic policy stimulate hiring in a service economy?

Jesse Jackson has resigned his House seat. This allows him to avoid prosecution. It also allows him to keep his pension. A win-win for everyone except the people.

If the argument is that withdrawal of money from the private economy for less efficient application in the public economy is inherently bad for the general economy, why is the Republican plan to raise money by closing tax loopholes any better than general taxation as proposed by the Democrats?

A recent vascular surgery conference scheduled 2 days of 11 hour sessions a day, each session made up of consecutive lectures on different topics by different presenters, 5 minutes long. 12 lectures an hour, 11 hours a day, 2 days .

Nissan has given up on its sales target for its all-electric car this year. Nissan has sold 6,791 Leafs, down 15.6 percent from this time a year ago. It sold 9,679 all-electric Leafs in 2011.

Golden oldies (for Thanksgiving): http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2010/02/mann-made-global-warming.html

The military code of ethics, a code that soldiers all agree to, lists adultery as a military crime. This might be a big deviation from the social norm but, when agreed to, becomes its own norm in its own subset. And the government is the enforcer of that norm. What will happen when the government becomes the enforcer in medical care? Will new standards be legislated? Remember, Medicare pays for chiropractic spinal adjustments.

In the 9th century, Charlemagne recruited Jewish trading communities from Italy to the Rhine region to add the dynamic of trade to his largely agricultural kingdom. These Jews called the area to which they relocated Ashkenaz and became know as Ashkenazi Jews. Ashkenaz was an area in the Levant and many of the Jews associated themselves with this background. (It also was associated with learning and so may have had an additional appeal. In the 11th Century they made up only 3% of Jews but, in the 20th Century became 92%. They particularly suffered during the Holocaust and now are 80% of the Jewish population.) So Charlemagne developed his economic community by importing traders. Many of these Jewish communities suffered with the early Crusades when enthusiastic Crusaders, headed to fight the infidel in The Holy Land, decided to practice on those infidels closer to home. Some of these attacks were savage and many annihilated the local Jewish communities.

The City of Chicago has awarded San Francisco Bay Area startup Motiv Power Systems a $13.4-million contract for 20 Class 8 electric refuse trucks. The 52,000-lb trucks, powered by a 200 kWh battery pack, will have a range of up to 60 miles. Motiv suggests the ePCS design approach cuts operating costs by 50% over an eight-year period. With a medium-duty pilot shuttle, Motiv reduced operating cost from 80 cents per mile ($0.80/mi) to 10 cents per mile ($0.10/mi). However, 670,000 per electric refuse truck X ~$.70/mile reduced operating cost = 469,000 mile cost break-even. And that does not include battery replacement.

In its list of "options to reduce mandatory spending" and cut the deficit, the CBO says that repealing ObamaCare's insurance subsidies would cut federal spending by $150 billion in 2020 alone. Repealing the individual mandate would save another $40 billion that year. This is just too rich. Here is a summary of the options (from IBD.)

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In 2008 the Roman Catholic vote for Obama was 53 per cent but it dropped this time to less than 51 per cent. That he got any serious percentage at all indicates how far the Catholic Church has fallen as an influence in the daily lives of Catholics. And remember this is a group who identified itself as Catholic. The Church will never have a better referendum on its importance to American Catholics and it failed terribly. The Church now faces a brutal decision between giving up its principles-which will infuriate its loyal base--and giving up its social action activities. The only thing that can save it from this choice is the Supreme Court.

Since 1968, according to "Alien Nation" author Peter Brimelow, 85% of legal immigrants have come from "developing countries." I think that is a euphemism for "skill-less."

An influx of money into the long bond market has allowed longer term refinancing by corporations which has reduced bankruptcies. That is companies that otherwise would have gone bankrupt have taken out longer term, lower interest loans.

Lee Strasberg, the drama teacher from the Actor's Studio, taught many famous actors: Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, James Dean, Anne Bancroft, Julie Harris, Marilyn Monroe among many. Strasberg himself is best known for his role as Hyman Roth in The Godfather, Part II. He had a philosophy on acting that has some significance to every day life. He felt that acting demanded a transition from tension to relaxation, a transition he could see. He said, "The ordinary actor sometimes achieves relaxation by himself as a result of working on the stage, but that takes about twenty years -- literally. If you watch the development of an actor, you see that as he starts off he is young and energetic -- and tense. After about ten years he begins to overcome some of the tension, but nothing really takes its place. After about twenty years a wonderful thing begins to happen. It has almost nothing to do with whether he is good or bad." It's reminiscent of developing an expertise; one has to work on a thing 3 hours a day for ten years before becoming facile. Sort of like life.

There are about 11,000 hedge funds which invest about 2 trillion dollars. 99% of the hedge fund money is in 16% of those funds (about 1600) and 60% (over 1 trillion dollars) is in 350 funds.

In his first season with the Angels, Albert Pujols didn't finish among the top 10 in MVP voting for the first time in his career. R.A. Dickey won the Cy Young Award. It is a wonderful story, truly a victory of the human heart. However, the knuckle-ball is very different from real pitching.
Knuckle-ball:pitching::Mormonism:Christianity.

Watched Charlie Rose and some journalists talk about the Petraeus affair. It was more and more obvious that there was some remarkable ascension of some pretty lower-than-average people here. One of the commentators, a pretty girl who was a network correspondent, remarked on it and, in one paragraph, made two astonishing grammatical errors.

AAAAANNNNNDDDDD a graph:

JFK

The Thanksgiving holiday, one of the best holidays and certainly the best secular one, has been spoiled for everyone who was awake and thinking in the mid 60's by the assassination of Jack Kennedy. That promising shift from the generation of Eisenhower to its sons, to youth and its potential, to the charismatic and the virile was just stopped cold by Oswald in Dallas. We defaulted back to the older, ponderous Lyndon Johnson, a true guardian of the Old Guard. That loss--of youth, of hope, of promise, of beauty--has never been overcome and we are reminded of it every Thanksgiving. One only wonders how much of the unrest in the 60's and 70's was a result.

An aspect of the assassination that has dogged its shadow has been the shameless exploitation of the atrocity by writers, politicians and artists. This exploitation, which has become almost a cult, believes--or says it believes--that the assassination was a conspiracy of a number of men, groups or organizations. Every aspect of the event has been picked over, every inconsistency of life magnified, every possibility made a probability. The result is that the event, right before many of our eyes, has been completely recreated and, like an alternative universe, continues without interference with its own laws, experts and history. It is very like those academic musings run wild. "If, instead, you assume that history and archeology was 300 years wrong--or falsified--and Moses was actually alive in the court of Akhenaton...." "If, instead, you assume there is a unexplained and unexplainable driving force in history..." "If, instead, you assume that everyone is possessed at birth by sexual urges towards their immediate family...." It is another victory of the Art of the Plausible.

This is nowhere more revolting than is seen in the movie "JFK" where a seemingly respectable director rewrites the assassination story according to a man whose grasp on the event is dangerously close to psychosis. Oliver Stone writes a story of the assassination through the eyes and the belief set of James Garrison, the District Attorney of New Orleans, who had arrested, charged, indicted and tried a local community figure, Clay Shaw, for involvement in the Kennedy murder. Shaw's arrest was virtually random. There was no evidence against him other than the word of a psychiatric patient who failed a lie detector test and refused to testify. How an American citizen could come under such unreasonable, whimsical charges has never been explained. But Garrison persisted and then Stone followed up after the laughable trial (where the jury took longer to find their seats than to find "not guilty") with a movie inexplicably presenting the Garrison thesis as within the same time zone as reason. Of course, all the facts of the assassination were changed to implicate the innocent, the shooting presented was almost a complete fiction and this all was delivered by Kevin Costner, a credible actor, with certainty and outrage. Anyone who knew anything about the assassination walked from the theater with their collective heads spinning. But many with less of a good grasp left alarmed and resentful. This constant barrage of misinformation has done a lot to undermine this country's credibility and value in the minds of its people who, after all, own and run it.

There are two bad lessons here. The first is there are people and industries in the world who, even in those cultures with the highest of ideals, will do anything, say anything, publish anything to make a buck. If possible they will take the Plausible-made-Art and create an industry of it with historians, academics, and franchises. The second is that they often hide their entrepreneurship in the gowns of Art. How many of our greatest artists have questioned the reliability of memory, the interaction of history and art--even to the point of their blending? So Stone calls Julian Barnes and Cormac McCarthy as witnesses for his defense.

Stone is more Goebbels than John Huston here. He is everything that is wrong with businessmen gone rogue. His product is harmful to the society, toxic to the young and delivered without an ounce of social conscience. The real story about Garrison is how is it possible that Clay Shaw could be treated like a Kafka character in the United States. Another would be a clarifying and cleansing explanation of all the facts and evidence that has been gathered over the years about the murder. This might set the country at ease. But there's probably not much money, or return on arrogance, in this. Instead why not take advantage of the distressed and confused citizens, contribute to their malaise and cash in.

In 1976 the U.S. House of representatives created a commission, The House Select Commission on Assassinations, to investigate all the evidence in the murder again. This time they applied all the newer technologies available as well. Aside from the single and erroneous "fourth bullet thesis" not a single new conclusion was reached. Instead this august deliberative body concluded there was no evidence of a conspiracy--but they believed one existed anyway.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a tricky word. It means gratitude but it implies more than something to be grateful for, it implies something to be grateful to.

In the fall of 1621 the Plymouth settlers had a celebratory meal with a local Indian tribe as part of a traditional English harvest festival. There are two accounts; no mention is made of a Day of Thanksgiving but they were probably happy; since their arrival they had a 50% mortality. It lasted three days. A Day of Thanksgiving, a day the English would have considered religious, was first held in the new land in 1623 following a needed rainfall. Various days of thanksgiving were celebrated by the country over the years, the first in commemoration of the end of the Revolution by Washington. In 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, Lincoln formally made Thanksgiving an annual event.

It is interesting to see these two men, Washington suspicious of organized religion and Lincoln harder to read, celebrating an official Thanksgiving, but both seem heartfelt, Lincoln's surprisingly so. Washington's is almost a mirror of the mindset of the time. The two proclamations are below.

The Thanksgiving Proclamation
New York, 3 October 1789

By the President of the United States of America: a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor--and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me `to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.'

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be -- That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks -- for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation--for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed--for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted -- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions--to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually -- to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed--to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn [sic] kindness onto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord -- To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease [sic] of science among them and us -- and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New-York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

George Washington

Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day October 3, 1863

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence [sic], have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

Abraham Lincoln

Benghazi and Genovese

On March 13, 1964 at around three in the morning Catherine "Kitty" Genovese, returning home from work as a bar manager in Queens, New York, was attacked in her apartment parking lot by Winston Mosley, a machinist, devoted husband, father of two and a man with a history of a touch of necrophilia. In the next half hour Mosley stabbed Genovese many times, fled because of some shouts in the surrounding apartments, returned to the lot and hunted the woman who had crawled away and hidden, found her, raped her and killed her. This event had social repercussions that lasted a generation. Yet this innocent girl, her loud pleas, the killer's astonishingly savage profile all cast a shadow before the the remarkable indifference of the girl's neighbors. Many admitted to hearing her cries, some saw the attack but no one intervened and the police were not even called until the girl was almost dead. (Indeed, the two neighbors with the best vision of the attack were not called as witnesses in the trial because the District Attorney feared their callousness would distract the jurors' focus from Mosley.)

Mosley was convicted to the cheers of the courtroom and sentenced to death (cheers again) by a judge who said, "I don't believe in capital punishment, but when I see this monster, I wouldn't hesitate to pull the switch myself!" The sentence was overturned when an appeals court decided Mosley should have been able to defend himself as "medically insane." Later, on a trip to a hospital for a self-inflicted wound, Mosley took five hostages, beat one with a baseball bat and raped one of them in front of her husband. He was a participant in the Attica Riots. But man's thirst for improvement can never be confined; he got a B.A. in Sociology in prison. In his first parole hearing he declared, "For a victim outside, it's a one-time or one-hour or one-minute affair, but for the person who's caught, it's forever." He thought that was a defense. His next parole hearing is November, 2013. The entire nation should be on guard.

But there was no closure for the nation. The crime and circumstances have been analyzed raw. Fewer people than originally thought were so cruel to the poor victim. And a few did become involved. But the story became a symbol, a parable, of social isolation and man's indifference to man. This event became a national obsession. Books were written (author Gay Talese called A.M Rosenthal's "Thirty-Eight Witnesses" “a most important book by perhaps the most important newspaper editor of the last half century”), conferences held. One could argue that several entirely new social psychology specialties developed ("prosocial behavior," urban psychology," and "law and cognition") and new programs emerged (block watches, neighborhood patrols, the national 911 emergency phone system, provictim programs and legislation). It reappeared in fiction and drama. The hero in the graphic novel "Watchman" has, as his crime-fighting epiphany, the murder of Kitty Genovese. It touched Bernard Goetz' vigilantism. Indeed the Trevon Martin death is the grandchild of Genovese's.

Which brings us to Benghazi and Charlene Lamb, deputy assistant secretary of state: "“From that point on, I could follow what was happening in almost real time,” Lamb said in written testimony prepared for a hearing today by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee." (Businessweek) The government's response to this was simply beyond belief. The State Department followed the entire event in real time through broadcasts from drones. They sat in conference rooms and watched as their friends and colleagues were murdered. It took seven hours. One wonders if they had to send out for pizza. Regular coffee or latte? Call the wife and say I'll be late? Down in front? In spite of this incredible behavior, the Conservapreneurs think that the debate over some stupid YouTube video should be the real question.

The question is not whether or not the government watching this horror with their bureaucratic indifference is guilty of this criminal inaction, the question is whether or not we, as responsible citizens knowledgeable of the government's inexcusable behavior, are guilty of the same.

Genovese lives.

Managing Benghazi

This Benghazi story is another partisan nightmare. But for once the disingenuous politicians take a backseat to reality. The vision of the State Dept sitting and watching their people being murdered in real time is a chilling one. And the abandoned former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty still fighting six hours into the attack, "painting" the mortar position with laser guidance, expecting some help--expecting something--presumably from an AC-130 Specter gunship, is hard to understand.  Rear Adm. Charles M. Gaouette, the commander of an air craft carrier group in North Africa, has been relieved of command--according to some reports for trying to assist the Benghazi compound.

What are we doing?

Now this all becomes of interest because Petraeus and his affair are distantly related to it. But....
Krauthammer is saying he thinks the administration used the affair as leverage against Petraeus' testimony. This is outrageous if he can not prove it. Yet the suspicion was aired twice last night from different sources.

The sacrifice of these people is as ugly as government gets. But for some reason it is still not the story. The Real Right has been fascinated only with the ridiculous claim that the attack was provoked by a virtually unviewed YouTube film made by a totally unregarded filmmaker. Interestingly a recent CNN broadcast spent one hour on the episode and the centerpiece of the Right's outrage--the YouTube film--was not mentioned once.

 

Managing impressions may be easier than managing events. And seeking justification is a lot different from seeking truth.

Keeneland

The first thing that you notice about the horse auction at Keeneland is the access; it is remarkably open and available. Anyone can walk right in, sit and watch. Bidding of course is tighter--you have to register and have some obvious credit--but the entire area--the stables, the exercise areas and the grounds--is all open.

People are everywhere, diverse and interesting looking people. There are the buyers, intensely studying cryptic sheets with numbers and bloodline flow sheets. There are anxious agents, working for farms, or sellers or buyers--or themselves--as they scour the lists for bargains. Some are breeders looking for mares to match with their stallions. Some are trainers looking for a horse to run or a yearling to develop. Some are pin-hookers, looking to find a horse to improve, develop and sell next year--like a house-flipper.

And the people are different. It is separate culture, like the cast of "Guys and Dolls," with more in common with like people across borders--like the ocean-going boating nation--than with geographic neighbors. There are Hispanic stable hands, what seems like a recent Vassar graduating class of horse handlers, farmers and cowboys, suits and stetsons.

 

The animals are beautiful, well mannered and powerful. There is obvious fondness between the ex-Vassar girls and the horses especially, but no commitment, no sadness when the sales are made. This is not a place of the hard present, it is a place of potential and dreams.

The money is plentiful but not very obvious. The bidding is self-consciously subtle but it is hard to imagine there are enough people for all the day's bids. Each section has a man who tracks and calls the bids from that section while the auctioneer raps incomprehensibly acapello in the background. The bidders are totally unpredictable; the most innocuous might bid a small fortune.

It is an arcane practice, democracy with a bank account. Subjectivity rules, sometimes with a splash of science. Some horses are obviously extraordinary but many of them blend together in the untrained eye in defiance of expert perception, sometimes by a factor of ten or twenty. The decisions are made personally: the shape of the head and neck, the size of the hind quarters, the gait. It is reminescent of Bill Beane's Oakland Angel's baseball scouts who insisted there was a "baseball face" and stayed away from players without it. And the genetics are out of Mengele. Some stallions breed foals of strong shoulders, some stamina, some turf speed--or so it is said.

It is a beautiful setting with beautiful animals and fascinating people; a bustling marketplace of hopes, science and magic. Someday this field will be invaded by the "sabermetrics" guys and someone will make sense of it all this and something wonderful will be lost.

Sunday Sermon 11/18/12

If the literal were our only path to truth there would be no poetry.

Today's gospel is filled with poetry. Christ starts by quoting Genesis:
"In those days after that tribulation
the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from the sky,
and the powers in the heavens will be shaken."

Falling stars? Shining moons? We know a lot more now. We all know that the moon does not shine except in reflected light. So should we jump up and down with scorn? Hardly. Christ is speaking in an apocalyptic voice, a common theme and voice of the time. But He, out of time, is always speaking in time. And the essence of Christ's intervention is his suffering, death and rising from the dead. That is beyond literal.

There was a moment in astronomy where cosmology was born. Maaeten Schmidt and Jesse Greenstein were puzzling over a star the Hale telescope had revealed: 3C273. They could not make sense of its spectrum and emission lines. Then, as Greenstein said "that first terrible afternoon," they understood. 3C273 was a single point of light 5 billion light years away moving away from the center of the universe, a light burning with the intensity of an entire galaxy--a hundred billion stars forced together in a point and ignited, with a tail of burning gas the size of three galaxies. The first Quasar. Eventually it was found the average quasar emits the light of one trillion suns. One in the constellation Cepheus shines with the light of one quadrillion suns. What could possibly do that?  And how can it be understood?

They wrote a paper describing it. The paper was two pages long.

We will understand many of these things in time. Resurrection, probably not.

But for now, “Learn a lesson from the fig tree.........."

Cab Thoughts 11/17/12

In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. --michael crichton

Why is federal spending a great way to create jobs and military spending not a great way to stimulate jobs?

This week the soccer goalie Hope Solo called police for help from threats from her boyfriend, Jerramy Stevens, a former Seattle Seahawk. The police arrived but not before Solo's brother tasered him. The next day the two married.

So now the campaign for the White House 2016 begins.

By the end of the seventeenth century, slavery and the products of slave labor comprised the single largest economic enterprise on earth. On earth! 2 million African slaves were sent to the Americas in the 17th Century and 6 million in the Eighteenth. The vast majority went to plantations in Brazil, the Caribbean with a small percentage (about 5%) to the British North America. While gold, guns and French brandy was the original exchange medium, it eventually became rum--made from Caribbean sugar cane. So an ugly cycle developed: Slaves from African chiefs to traders (mostly British, Spanish, French, and Portuguese) for rum, slaves to the Caribbean to the sugar cane plantations where they were traded for molasses made from sugar cane, molasses was made into rum, rum was sent to African chiefs for slaves. A significant advance in rum manufacturing accelerated the process and placed American rum in high demand in Africa. So the molasses was shipped to New York, Boston, Charleston, Philadelphia and especially Newport, Rhode Island -- where is was distilled into a superior rum, and this trade became the biggest business in the colonies for a while. With America being such a small part of the slave trade, why is it always on the forefront of the debate? Because it promises more.

Leno had a wonderful line about infidelity. How can anyone expect to get away with it when the guy who runs the largest secretive organization in the world with access to disguises, false identities and safe houses can't?

After years of plagiarism, exaggerations and falsifications in the press, with the Petraeus scandal suddenly everyone is worried about "journalism ethics." Why now? If you allow erosion of these concepts they get eroded.

Question of the week: who was Mary Pinchot Meyer?

This year the Marlins have gotten rid of NL batting champion Hanley Ramirez, second baseman Omar Infante and right-hander Anibal Sanchez, closer HeathBell traded to Arizona last month, All-Star shortstop Jose Reyes, left-hander Mark Buehrle and ace right-hander Josh Johnson. That's an All-Star team.

"Blood libel" refers to the widespread belief that Jews regularly murder non-Jews, particularly children, in order to use their blood for magic or religious rites, especially for Passover. It is surprisingly old, dating from the Greeks who believed it of both Jews and their Christian cousins. Much of this in Europe was stimulated by the religious fervor of the Crusades when the Jews of Germany particularly suffered when the hordes of fervent Crusaders passed through on their way to The Holy Land. Spain had several famous outbreaks usually cynically associated with nationalism. In England, the Jews of York committed mass suicide in 1190 rather than fall into the hands of the warriors of the Third Crusade, an event still commemorated weekly in many Ashkenazic synagogues.

Medical insurance for Sydney Crosby is $400,000 a month.

Are we really going to trade Petraeus for Kerry?

Billions of dollars were spent in the presidential campaign alone. The WSJ reports that seven of the 10 highest-spending political entities supported Democrats. Lord knows how much else was spent on the other elections. Why is someone willing to spend so much to achieve so little?

"Homeland" irony update: Brody is worried about his children's truthfulness.

From the IEA: "By around 2020, the United States is projected to become the largest global oil producer (overtaking Saudi Arabia in the mid-2020s) and starts to see the impact of new fuel-efficiency measures in transport. The result is a continued fall in US oil imports, to the extent that North America becomes a net oil exporter around 2030."

In the course of his first term, Obama increased the federal debt a little less than $6 trillion and in return grew the economy by $905 billion. So, in order to generate a dollar of economic growth the United States had to borrow about five dollars and sixty cents.

A great scam: A guy who works on the Newark Docks says that the days before the Sandy storm his dock was empty and unloaded so they spent a whole day driving unloaded cars from another dock a few miles away into some massive protected parking lots. He knows of approximately 50 cars that were driven away before the storm. After the storm, they returned, got the cars they had moved and put them back in the middle of cars that got swamped. Like all these cars they will go to auction with a dirty title. The people who know the VINs on these protected cars will watch for these specific cars and buy them as damaged when they were not.

Ernst & Young reported that energy storage totaled more than a third of the $1.1 billion US venture capital investment in cleantech for Q3 2011, which was the highest of any single sector that quarter. In 2009, investment bank Piper Jaffray projected that the energy storage market would be at least $600 billion over the next 10 to 12 years. In the US alone, the Department of Energy has projected that over the next 5 to 10 years, between 10 and 100 gigawatts of energy storage will need to be installed, creating a $35 billion industry. Big stuff.

A religious brother I know said to me after the election: " The only way we can cast him out(!) is with prayer and fasting."

Golden oldie: http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2011/02/bathoes-show-ugly-face.html

Last year, the library at the Institute of Egypt in Cairo caught fire in the midst of the Arab Spring festivities. Several thousand rare books and manuscripts were burnt beyond repair. In an effort to amend the loss, the Emir of Sharjah Emirate, part of the United Arab Emirates, will be donating 4,000 rare books from his personal collection to the Cairo library.

After a weak electoral victory in 1992, Clinton got clobbered in the Gingrich revolt in 1994. Clinton moved towards the center. (Remember "The era of big government is over?") He won in 1996 handily. Obama won weakly in 2008 and got clobbered in 2010. What did he do? He did not change and won 2012. Does anyone think that he will look back over the last four years and be chastened or feel the need to compromise?

AAAAAnnnnnnndddddd a graph:

Ersatz Nation

A number of years ago, at the Country Music Awards, an award presenter was introduced as "a great friend of country music." It was Barbi Benton, a girl who took her clothes off for adolescent magazines.

The strangest people show up at the strangest places.

Take Ms. Broadwell, Petraeus' biographer, lover and Internet shrieker. Last night on Charlie Rose she was  most consistently described as "fit." Fit. The woman picked to follow, evaluate and record for posterity the most important military man in the nation has, at the top of her resume, "fit?" Were there were no real biographers available? No up-and-comer more stable? Instead of a professional we get a walking IED with good cheekbones?

And Ms. Kelley, the aggrieved and threatened third party, e-mailer extraordinaire. She is described as "an unpaid social liaison". Apparently--for reasons known only to The Real Housewives of Miami--she has access to every military officer in Florida--or who has ever been to Florida. Perhaps "a great friend of country military?"

Then there is the FBI guy who just had to go to Eric Cantor and make sure this stupid personal/social event became a national and political embarrassment. Why? Apparently he feared a political cover-up. A member of the justice establishment just had to leave his confidential and professional restrictions behind for other, competing, principles: He had to join the political catfight. But apparently these principles were not profound enough to force him to cover himself when he sent his pictures to The Unpaid Social Liaison. (The FBI agent is Frederick Humphries and this description is from the NYT account. He has recently tried to reshaped many of these events in a statement through an attorney.)

Who are these people and how did they get here? There was a certain symmetry between Clinton and Flowers; here there is none. This is like Lucky Luciano being assassinated by a bunch of midget clowns in a clown car. It is so peculiar that some people do not believe it and are searching for hidden agendas and motives.

How could we possibly be subject to the whims of people like this?

Soft Numbers, Hard Results

"There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.
Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil."
- From an essay by Frédéric Bastiat in 1850, "That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Unseen"



Sometimes we ask for more certainty than is available. Equations, for example.

GDP=C+I+G+E-I.

This equation looks rigid but is not. A change in one factor influences many other factors in the equation so that the outcome is often unpredictable. One component is the "multiplier" effect.

Multipliers, the economists just love them. They, in essence, are the proportional changes that occur in GDP when fiscal policies are changed. For example, federal spending influences GDP; it's in the GDP equation: GDP= Consumption + Investment + Fed Spending + Net Exports. But it is not 1:1. For various tax reasons if one decreases federal spending by 1%, there is more likely to be a decline in GDP by 0.5%. This is a crucial concept now when countries are terrified of their debt and are considering "austerity" by cutting spending. The argument against "austerity" is that it causes a decline in GDP --but also tax revenues--so that the deficit does not improve and the economy is still in distress.

But there are some new problems. These numbers are beginning to be reevaluated. Blanchard and Leigh have studies showing that the multiplier for government spending in Europe might not be 1:0.5 but more like 1:0.9 or even 1:1.7. So cutting a dollar in spending drops the GDP by $1.70. It gets worse; there may be national differences. If you remove the Greek and Spanish economies from consideration the multiplier goes back to the traditional 1:0.5.

Temporal distinctions, national distinctions--this is a mess. But the uncertainty has not created caution, has not suppressed ironclad and vehement differing opinion. And these opinions are trumpeted with certainty from every editorial page.

And there is a lot at stake. Look at the Romer study. The Romers have done studies trying to connect tax policy to GDP. Generally they found that a tax increase of 1% reduces real GDP by 3% over the next 10 quarters. This is relatively constant when corrected for government spending, monetary policy, the relative price of oil, and even whether the President was a Democrat or Republican. These results were published in the American Economic Review in June 2010--while Elizabeth Romer was in the White House on the President's Council of Economic Advisers.

In his 2013 budget, President Obama proposes $103 billion in 2013 tax increases, including $83 billion of higher income taxes on those who make more than $250,000 a year, or about 0.65% of GDP. Using the Romer baseline estimate, that would reduce real GDP by 2 percentage points over the next 10 quarters. Based on the general relationship between economic growth and unemployment, such a fall in output implies a loss of more than 800,000 jobs.

Of course, Mrs. Romer is now gone. But the problem remains. In an economic decline, these politicians want to support those on the lower end of the economic scale. But it appears as if increasing taxes is self-defeating; it appears that taxation causes a decline in GDP and aggravates the already precarious economic condition. Spending can be done with borrowed money but that leads to inflation and inflation hits the poor even worse.

The point is not that Blanchard is right or wrong or that Romer is right or wrong. The point is that all of these economic models have enthusiasts with different conclusions. Like "Good pitching stops good hitting" always has the response "Good hitting stops good pitching"; someone always has different numbers, different evaluations and different translations. Sometimes the studies are the same with different conclusions. Medicine is a good metaphor. People are always able to get differing opinions from physicians, but those physicians have no special access to unique studies; they all come to different conclusions from the same studies. More, there is the problem is that many studies are contradictory and that means some are wrong. And, in politics, honesty and sincerity do not necessarily trump inaccuracy.

These politicians are in some real trouble. Greece has shown that confronting problems directly can be hazardous to one's political health.


Perhaps it is better to just appear to care and to help.

Petraeus, Bernard de Clairvaux and Joe Frazier

One wonders about leadership and the problems it brings. Does every advertisement for ship captain have to be answered by an Ahab?

This Petraeus thing is a real problem. Petraeus is a very talented a man to lose from leadership, especially when one examines what is on the public stage at present. Certainly a CIA chief should be in enough control of himself enough to avoid the obvious problem of sexual compromise. but we have seen a lot worse and have managed these problems in the past. Kennedy (Hirsch etc.) was fairly close to a nutcase who was facilitated in his sexual weirdness by the best and brightest pimps in the history of degenerate man. The press certainly knew this. But they held their collective nose--and their tongue. Clinton was totally incontinent but was protected by his wonderful personality which did not allow anyone to take anything he did, even government, quite seriously.

In the military, of course, things are magnified; infidelity in the U.S. Army is a military crime. Cultures have struggled with this for eons. The Christian world in The Middle Ages was populated by many parareligious groups, groups with all sorts of complex assignments--the Templers were warriors and bankers, the Hospitallers were warriors and nurses--and all took monastic vows. The Janissaries were a similar military unit in the Ottoman empire--almost a caste or class--who eventually moved into many aspects of administration and who, originally, were a celibate entity. (There may be some warrior  magic here, as well; before his fights Joe Frazier took celibacy vows, sometimes for up to nine months. And there is a distaff side: A wife's fidelity in many cultures was seen as protective to the warrior-husband and an injury to him--or his death--was seen as prima facie evidence of her infidelity and she would suffer for it when the warriors returned.)

Perhaps because of Clinton we have relaxed a little. Bush was elected despite his alcohol history and, while recreational marijuana use in college destroyed a Supreme Court nominee in the 1980s, Obama ran defiantly with his cocaine history. On the other hand, no one could look past Gingrich's personal life. "Candidate," after all, come from the word meaning "white." Clean.

But beneath this is an old idea, championed by the Greeks, of symmetry. A man was likely to be reflected in his life, his behavior, in all facets--even in his appearance. No "compartmentalizing" for them. If you were dishonest in your business, your friends could not trust you. If you were indecisive in daily decisions, you could not be counted on in a crisis. If you subcontracted the defense of your city to a bunch of brave mercenaries, you got a man who could be bought.

An unfaithful, irresponsible accomplished man in power is an unfaithful and irresponsible man.

Born Yesterday: A Review

Born Yesterday is a play written by Garson Kanin. It premiered on Broadway in 1946 and starred Judy Holliday as Billie Dawn, a role that made her a star. It was made into a film in 1950. It showed recently at The Public Theater.

The play is a take on Pygmalion with a political/business corruption theme set in the 1940's. A rough, self-made millionaire (Harry Brock) with gangster connections comes to Washington D.C. to cement his relationship with a senator (Sen. Norval Hedges) with whose legislative help he hopes to complete a huge deal. With him has come his "dumb broad" mistress. (Billie Dawn). Brock sincerely loves Billie but becomes sensitive to her social shortcomings. Fearing Billie's coarseness might impair his business plans, Brock hires a journalist (Paul Verrall) to polish her up. As she begins to learn, Billie becomes more curious and finally more judgmental of Brock and his dealings. In the end she she destroys all of Brock's plans and leaves Brock for Paul.

There is a lot of mild tension in the play. Undue influence and crooked politics seem more ugly, as if America were newer and cleaner then. Brock really loves Billie but his decline in her eyes is easier than it might have been. The lawyer, Ed Devery, has had a moral fall but it is never emphasized more than an ironic regret. Paul is "fair and balanced;" he has no real animosity for Brock or the Senator.

The real story is Billie and her transformation, a change that is neither complete nor wholly satisfying to either her or the audience. She begins defiant: "I'm stupid and I like it." But soon it is obvious that she is more complicated. "I know what I want'" she says (of her furs), "And I know how to get it." She regularly clobbers Brock at gin rummy. And she wants her winnings; she wants what she's earned. As her education progresses the books pile up with her indignation. She begins to find fault with Brock's business plans, his illegality, the Senator's corruption, and her inadvertent involvement in all of it. But, as the drama intensifies, she is still fiery but is reduced to malapropism.

This is an enjoyable production, physical and sharp, that runs out of gas in the last act. The dialogue is crisp and clever. Melissa Miller is very good in Holliday's dreaded shadow as Billie, Ted Koch does well giving some dimensions to the often thuggish Brock, and Michael McKenzie's Devery is careful not to inject too much tragedy into the fun. Daniel Krell's Verrall is a bit academic and soft; one always worries that Billie might eventually eat him alive.

Kanin's original vision was to show that anyone--even a ditsy chorus girl--has the power to create change. And Billie does change everything, Brock's plans, his relationship with her, the Senator, Paul and, of course, herself. But the important change, the change in her, is bittersweet. She is less of what she was and little of what she might become. Nor has her education been entirely beneficial. At one moment she laments, "I don't know what I want," a real negative change from the solid individual the audience started with. Still, it's a fun night if it's not taken too seriously.

Fiscal and Moral Cliffs

So the election is over. We have a new president, same as the old president. The House and Senate are aligned exactly as before.

But new stories are afoot. The head of the CIA is sleeping with a reporter embedded--yes, embedded--with him for over a year. The Right will somehow connect all this to Benghazi; the narrative seems to be that evidence exists that this information was uncovered in May and that the administration held it in reserve so they could compromise him if necessary. The press is shocked; Petraeus seemed so solid. Questions of the esteemed reporter's ethics have not been raised but she is a mom and seems so solid. Anyway, freedom of the press is precious to us.

Petraeus is distracting for the citizens and the press because we are facing difficult financial problems and in the recent vote rejected an experienced financial guy in favor of a community organizer whose economic plan is to raise taxes and to cut military spending. 

We now face what the press calls the "fiscal cliff." If the government does not act, automatic legislation will be triggered which will raise taxes and cut military spending......wait a minute. Isn't that the President's plan? Isn't that his idea--to raise taxes and cut military spending? And if it's his plan, how could it be a cliff? And, if it's a crisis and he has to negotiate options with the Republicans, how serious will his negotiations be if the fiscal cliff is his plan?

No matter. Tell you what. I've already done the Electoral Death March; I am not going to do the Fiscal Cliff Death March. You will just have to let me know what happens. And, by the way, please spare me the ongoing, updated insights of the FOX News Conserva-preneurs with their predictions and their swell selling books. Unless they hire Petraeus' old girlfriend who looks pretty cute.

Sunday Sermon 11/11/12

Three widows in today's readings, one a widow who gives the last of her (and her son's) food to Elijah ("then we will die") and is rewarded by meal and oil for a year, one in a story where the scribes are criticized for their seeking approval--and their destructive self aggrandizement ("They devour the houses of widows") and finally the poor but devout woman who gives the last of her money to the treasury (versus the rich who give only their surplus.)

One could say the scribes are just looking for affirmation in the wrong place, they should be looking to God, but "devouring the houses of widows " seems a bit more than misdirected love-seeking. At the core of all this is Christ's relentless insistence upon the spiritual over the temporal. Rich or poor, renowned or anonymous, the spiritual must be followed and the material ignored, regardless of the consequences. One must seek the spiritual even if it leads to something as awful as crucifixion.

After all, no provisions are made for Elijah's widow after the miraculous year is up.

Cab Thoughts 11/10/12

47 of 53 landmark cancer reports can not be reproduced according to an Amgen report.

Gas demand in Europe is down about 7%, but EU carbon emissions so far in 2012 are up 10%. With the fracking bans in Europe and the Germans' closing nuclear plants, coal combustion and imports of US coal surge. With U.S. fracking and gas cheap, CO2 emissions are down to 1992 levels. The CO2 purists just will not accept half a loaf. It would be wonderful for the American economy to take advantage of this madness, develop their own natural gas, put it in trucks as fuel, decrease American petroleum use by 85% and use the trucks to drive coal for shipping to Europe.

Oliver Luck is among many who plan to shave their heads in support of Coach Pagano and his fight with leukemia. He, and those others, may have a political future. Symbolism always trumps reality.

Lincoln received 39.8% of the popular vote in the 1860 election. The remaining 60.2 percent was split among three other candidates: Stephen A. Douglas (29 percent), John C. Breckenridge (18 percent), and John Bell (13 per­cent) . There were two 'third-party' candidates -- Breckenridge and Bell. As a minority president his power was greatly diminished and the Civil War started as a chancy and uncertain effort. On the other hand, this lack of consensus created one of the greatest leaders the world has known.

Every 4 years about 3 million people age into the voting group and 3 million Americans pass away so in the space of just 4 years, the voting age population changes by 24 million, 48 million or about 30% in 8 years.

After December 31, 88% of households will pay higher taxes. The average family, $3,500 more. High-income earners can expect to pay an additional $14,100 to $121,000, or more.

Those of us who are cynical about alternative energies will have to come to grips with a surprising stat: While jobs grew in the economy 2.3% over the last 12 months, solar employment jumped 13% over the last 12 months. Solar industry employment increased from about 105,000 to 119,000, according to the solar jobs census taken by the Solar Foundation.

Baltimore is rolling out a surveillance system that, in addition to video, will record conversations. The police had an interesting take: Captain McCollum, commander of the MTA police technical services division, said that the audio is needed because he wants to take away a witness' choice not to get involved.

The United States has the highest percentage of single-parent families (34% in 1998) among developed countries, followed by Canada (22%), Australia (20%), and Denmark (19%). 13 percent of families were headed by a single parent in 1970.
real social experiment.

John Hayes, the British Energy Minister, said that Britain can “no longer have wind turbines imposed on communities” and added that it “seems extraordinary” they have allowed to spread so much throughout the country. His objections seem to be esthetic but reliability seems to be a concern as well.

From a Brit journal for the fleet industry: "Swapping to greener tyres offers the quickest return on investment for carbon-conscious fleets, according to a new report, recouping the additional cost three times quicker than an engine start-stop system and five times quicker than buying a hybrid." These small steps make more of a difference than the big, hopeful steps, it appears.

The hostility towards oil companies is curious. The ten companies with the largest oil and gas reserves in the world are all government owned. They own 71% of proven reserves. BP, ExxonMobile and Chevron combined have drilling rights, rights, to less than 2% of proven reserves.

Underpants Gnomes are little guys in the South Park series who have a business where they steal underwear. Their business plan is: 1. Collect underwear, 3. Profit. Urban Dictionary defines it as: A business model in which a company may have great offerings, but does not necessarily great profits due to a lack of strategy or how the business is run. An example: Petroleum companies are facing fines of $6.8 million for failing to meet a 2011 federal quota to blend 6.6 million gallons of the renewable fuel cellulosic ethanol into petroleum products. That is not much compared to the 180 billion gallons of petroleum fuel consumed annually in the U.S. but compliance is difficult because......... there is virtually no cellulosic ethanol made. Next: Federally funded unicorn ranches. The Chinese have great regard for the powdered horns.

The electric vehicle versus the internal combustion engine debate raise an interesting question about the direction of technology and efficiency. Would the average computer buyer think a new model of laptop that was more expensive, slower, takes longer to charge and whose battery lasts for a shorter time was an advance?

If we can influence the temperature of the earth, it is surprising we had no options regarding the hurricane that hit New York.

The 17-nation Eurozone now has unemployment reported at 11.6 percent, its highest level in 17 years of collecting data.

The federal government has a program that granted $11 million to provide business attire for 400 low-income job seekers in Detroit, Michigan. That's 27,500 dollars per person. An audit of the program showed that it provided clothing to 2 people.

AAAannnnndddd a graph.....

The Daughter of Time

"Relax, it's only natural in a period of transition for the more timid element to run for cover."
----The Hudsucker Proxy

The Obama victory has been explained in various ways: His early and often personal attack ads on Romney, new demographics, the use contraception as a proxy for young women, the weight of incumbency, the passive press. Yet these factors, as reasonable as they might be, are one generation removed from the essence of the question. The real factor here is a philosophical evolution in the American electorate. What we are seeing here is a true change in how the citizen sees his relationship with the government. There is an acceptance of government activity for the presumed benefit for the citizen, an approval of government intervention, a willingness to sacrifice individual responsibility for a perceived safety offered by governmental leadership. Essentially we are seeing a people increasingly willing to trade freedom for comfort. That is a new thinking that precedes gender or ethnic identification.

Or is it? Colin Powell said recently that Americans want more government involvement in their lives but a poll revealed that most Americans disagree. Most -- 71 percent -- say they want less government in their life. (Exit polls: 51-43.)

How can one ever explain these choices? How could Lincoln get only 35% of the vote? How could Obama get the Nobel Peace Prize? How did the room look after that vote? How could Teddy Kennedy repeatedly be elected Senator from a major state? Is there some clandestine Irresponsible, Drunken, Public Disgrace Lobby? Is Nancy Pelosi the public face of....what?  And Rick Santorium?

America is a gigantic diverse country organized around certain principles held in common, principles about the nature of men and their relationship with their government. It does not matter how many Latinos or unmarried women or gays or evangelical Christians there are voting. It matters what they think. And every voting citizen should think as an American first. If they think as a self-interested subset first, that will become America. A new America. But that America is not now. Nor will it happen over night.This is a legislative system where North and South Dakota with Wyoming outvote New York and California. And it will not be a transition that will be smooth. That self-interest has another side. This is an aggressive, demanding culture and long term mediocrity could be a long, difficult march.

New Men and Their Visions

An article in New York Magazine endorsing Obama provides several insights into the different ways of thinking that are in discussion in the nation. One line is particularly instructive: "Bipartisan panels of economists had long urged Medicare to reform its payment methods to curb perverse incentives by hospitals and doctors to run up costs as high as possible; Obama overcame fierce resistance in Congress in order to craft, as part of Obamacare, a revolution in paying for quality rather than quantity."

There is a lot here. First, it seems that there is opposition to the substitution of quality for quantity, many actually preferring quantity. Perhaps there is a "quantity lobby" that will be injured if quality is substituted. Moreover, they seemingly oppose quality. They clearly are abusing the system, are benefiting from inferior medical care and are opposed to health care improvement. Secondly, the original Medicare plan, as crafted by Congress, somehow failed to do this right. There is even the implication that the "perverse incentives" are "by hospitals and doctors'" as if they, and not government, wrote the law and are responsible for this perversion--a law, by the way, opposed by almost all physicians when it was created. This new law apparently is written by new people who know how to improve matters. The new leaders are of a different breed, have better vision and higher goals. Third, it is obvious that structuring the law makes the hope a reality. The answer is there just waiting to be uncovered by honest and well-meaning leaders--this despite the fact that most of the law is actually not very tight and is waiting for numerous committees and agencies to flesh it out. Legislating the goal makes it so.

These people live in a simpler world than most. A hospital once formed a committee to establish criteria for appendectomy; they met every week for 18 months and never came to a consensus. Amgen recently reviewed 53 landmark cancer studies and found 47 were not reproducible. 47!

Real life is hard and acting as if it is not or that some selected few have greater insight than the rest of us is dangerous. It is reminiscent of ancient societies where certain birth brought a birthright and where magic men with rabbit entrails and doves could read the implications of the past and future.

We may never step into the same river twice but it's the same old water.

The Vote

Imagine the U.N. "Observers" at the election yesterday. Imagine as they watched the lines slowly build at the polls, calm and expectant. Imagine the variety of the voters, older and younger, college and business, rich and poor. Some drive, some walk, a girl arrives on a bike--all fall in line , respectful and trusting--as they one by one equally participate in the single greatest creation of the modern age: The free man thoughtfully and confidently determining his political future. Imagine as they see the determination in the voter's eyes. Then the pride.

Imagine the "Observer's" envy.