underWater desert Blogging

Thank You America.

From those of us who no longer live at home.  Thank you for allowing us to proudly hold our heads high in foreign lands again.  Thank you for reminding the entire world why they admire us.  Thank you for making the world remember why we are the great shining beacon of hope in a foul, foul world.  Thank you for the sheer emotion that has flowed freely from your voices, and your faces, and your hearts.  We have felt it from here.

From those of us that believe strongly in the power of collective voices exercised through the democratic process.  Thank you for reminding yourselves of the power of people.  Thank you for being patient.  Thank you for being respectful, at least at the end.  Thank you for being gracious both in success and in defeat.  Thank you for uniting in a way that Oprah and Jessie Jackson were simple spectators to history just like Jonathon Lewis and Ahmed Ismail.  Thank you for reminding everyone who has fought for their right to vote of the value of that fight.  We are stronger for the process, not necessarily for the winner.

And from me personally.  Thank you for engaging.  Thank you for debating, sometimes collaboratively and sometimes combatitively.  Thank you for hoping.  Thank you for fearing.  Thank you for dreaming.  Thank you for dreading.  Thank you for talking.  Thank you for sharing.  Thank you for txting, and emailing, and facebooking, and IMing, and calling, and mySpacing, and walking, and knocking.  Thank you for engaging.  Thank you for not being complacent this time. 

Take this moment America. 

Revel in the historionics; revel in the hysterionics; revel in your personal victory; revel in your personal defeat.  Because tomorrow we get to work.  All of us must get to work. 

Progress only occurs collectively.  For those supporting the majority, you must ensure accountability for the policies or modes of interaction you value.  For those supporting the opposition, you must ensure accountability for the policies or modes of interaction you value.  Conversations cannot become one sided any more.  No party or creed or ideology maintains a monopoly on the path to our more perfect union.  Collectively, all voices, are what can continue to perfect our union.

What you have believed, what you have discussed, what you have debated, do not lose these things.  Your voice works every day of every year.  Not only on a November Tuesday every other year.  Continue to fight, continue to work, continue to engage, continue to think.  Democracies are driven by the breadth & depth of the voices contained within.  Do not lose yours.  It has inherent value.

Photos courtesy of here.

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"Things are moving so fast in race relations a Negro could be president in 40 years. There's no question about it. In the next 40 years, a Negro can achieve the same position that my brother has. . . . But we have tried to make progress and we are making progress. . . . We are not going to accept the status quo."

~ Bobby Kennedy, Editorial in the Washington Post, May, 27, 1968

GOTV

When I was in elementary school both of my parents worked and my younger brother and I used to ride our bikes to school.  It being Florida, I promise not to turn this into a in the snow, uphill both-ways story.  I remember looking at the signs over the years as the cycle eventually became faster and shorter.  Each November they would be there, demanding/requesting/mandating/asking for my vote for School Board or County Commissioner or Water Commissioner.  Other than being annoyed that they would often clip my legs, I wasn't bothered that they were there.  I liked that fact that adults would be milling about the school because it usually meant that we had longer recesses. 

And that was really similar to how I felt about politics for a long time.  For much of the time where I would have a say in who became Water Commissioner I spent more time thinking than acting.  I found it to be extraordinarily difficult and an extremely long journey to finally settle on what I felt my political philosophy truly was.  Humans being social creatures, cultural conditioning is a difficult thing to avoid and determining what I truly felt in a vacuum was difficult. 

This was the first election that I entered where I felt a strong notion of myself.  Views on foreign policy, economic policy, constitutionalism, and the role of government now could really be discussed.  I felt empowered that I had finally be able to solidify some modicum of a baseline worldview, while being open for that to change and flex over time and experience.  I had finally reached a point in my development where I was able to understand possible, probably and unlikely consequences of specific policy choices, and where I was able to foresee balances and tensions in ideas and what that would mean to different demographics and spectra of societies.

I did not vote in the primary.  Still voting in Florida, and being a registered Democrat, it mattered not what I did and so I did not waste my time.  But I had decided, were my voice asked for, who I would have voted for.  I made this decision based upon pure policy alignment.  I was not interested in delivery, or persona, or groundgame.  I was interested in reading.  I screamed at my television more times than my roommate could probably stand for candidates to wonk out, more, more, more.  Like a kid with a new toy, I wanted to hear more of their thinking so that I could dive deeper into the rabbit hole. 

My turn came in the general election.  And it was not easy.  I had prearranged for my absentee ballot to be sent to my father's house.  Surprisingly, I made a last minute trip to Europe in order to get a visa so that I can marry in the UK next year.  After coordinating plane flights, I asked that my ballot be sent to my girlfriend's place in Holland. 

I was away from the house when the first delivery attempt was made.  On the package slip it said that there was some money due and that the package was 8 kg.  It seemed odd at first, until I thought that my parents had likely stuck in my Xmas presents. 

I was also away from the house when the second delivery attempt was made.  I was up in Amsterdam getting said visa.  By now I had developed bronchitis and a sinus infection.

I was at home when the third delivery attempt was made.  This was the day before I was to leave to return to H-town.  But I never heard the door bell.  Finally I went downstairs and saw the damn delivery slip.  After some investigation I realized that the door bell in our house didn't work.  Which is why my girlfriend a couple of days earlier when I was in bed had to rise me on the phone. 

When I called the number I was stunned.  I had to go across the country.  Literally to get the damn package.  So they said it would be ready for me to pick up at a given time.  So I hopped on for a 45 minute train ride (across the country in Holland is that far), followed by a 20 minute metro ride, a 10 minute tram ride, and a 2 mile walk in the now dark, freezing, coughing, sinuses clogged, abandoned, have-to-piss Rotterdam dockyard.  Finally I was about to give up.  And instead I found a bush.  After being able to think again I walked a little further and saw the stupid brown sign.  After another 45 minutes of hassling with Dutch people, and 50 euros, I had my package so I began the reverse trudge of 2 miles, followed by a 10 minute wait at a tram station which wasn't running because of an accident, followed by another 2 mile walk, followed by a 20 minute metro ride, and a 45 minute train ride back home.  The next morning before I left I filled out the ballot and dropped it off at the American Embassy on my way to Amsterdam.

It was a challenge to vote.  But it wasn't nearly the challenges that others in history have had.  I have fought for, literally, the right to vote.  This was small potatoes.  And here's the kicker.  I would have done it had he been a muslim.  I would have done it had he been William Ayers best friend.  I would have done it had his emblem been a red background with yellow stars.  I would have done it because I believe that he is a transformative figure in two particular related areas.  His ability to discuss complexities and his ability to create an environment of rationed discussion are what I admire most about him.  Sure there is a policy alignment.  Sure there is the style, and look, the voice, the rhetoric.  Sure there is the belief, the hope, the liberal utopian twinge in my heart.  But none of those made my cough my way to the docks.  It was the fact that I value an actual discussion about what matters rather than some idiotic discussion of a washed up terorrist that no one in my generation remembers or cares about.  It was the fact that I value someone who is willing to lay out the tensions and why a specific avenue was chosen rather than some idiotic notion of dissent = unpatriotic.  This is what pushed me over.  This is what I've valued.

That is why I voted for Barack Obama.

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Cook for Me Donna!

I will bypass comment regarding last night's debate.  It is almost painful to watch the death of the Robertson/Nixon Conservative coalition happen before our eyes.  If it hadn't have turned so ugly at the end (like new deal liberalism died a violent death with LBJ), it would have been actually painful. 

Instead, I offer for your consumption a slightly different perspective.



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Is This the Day the World Changes?

Maybe that is a bit provocative.  Maybe it is ipso facto.  I don't know.  And we'll have to see.

I remember being maybe 5 or 6 and either watching this show, or at least the trailer for a show about life after the Soviets invaded America and took over.  It was the type of propoganda that I have to suspect most of those who spent more time in the Cold War than I were constantly subjected to.  Over the years I have read or heard various references either to this show specifically or to the genre generally.  Mostly these have been referenced by pop culture historians and the like.  It all seemed a bit far-fetched to me.  I remember thinking at the time of seeing the show or trailer, how could such a thing actually happen.  The mechanisms for how it happened just did not compute.  After the thought, though, I constructed for days a novel in my head about a young boy who frustrates the Soveit's attempts to actually get a foothold in Orlando.  Essentially I was the young Che in my mind.  I largely constructed this dream world while in a tree behind my Aunt's house who I went to every afternoon following school.  It may seem odd that the failure of the bailout to pass brings up such a memory for me, but trust me it's not as random as it seems.

It has been argued to me that there is enough liquid capital in the US economy to absorb the losses from the failed banks that the bailout was designed to absorb.  Although I have no hard evidence to backup my thinking, I have not been so sure.  It seems to me that the only viable financial institutions will be hoarding cash like a suburban mother buying cans for her bomb shelter during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  OK, I accept that Citi today finalized the deal for Wachovia, but perhaps they needed Wachovia's deposits to bolster their cash and were willing to absorb the liabilities on Wachovia's accounts, which when compared to Citi's must be miniscule.  So it seems to me that it was a short term tactic design to enhance their available cash.  Many of the bundled mortgages and other default credit swap items do not come ready packaged with a large amount of cash, however.  So I am not so sure that there will be an entity within the US economy capable of purchasing those at anything approaching market value. 

In many cases the financial industry would likely reach across the Atlantic.  But no one in Europe is willing to help.  First, they've all been burned by this nearly as bad as we have.  Secondly, they've got their own massive problems now with the Brit's having to broker numerous deals to bolster their banks (for the why, see 1).  Could we eat our pride and reach across the Pacific?  Maybe, Japan has already bought one of the failing banks (or a major piece I cannot remember and am too lazy to find a link). 

We will have to see what happens.  In my mind China's central bankers will wake up tomorrow and it will be Chinese Christmas for them.  They are likely the only ones that have enough liquid capital to do anything about this.  I have a distinct feeling that American's who didn't want the American government to own their homes may have a distinctly different feeling when they wake up and realize that the only people able to buy our mortgages are the Chinese sovereign wealth fund or one of the few tightly controlled Chinese banks. 

The real game changer, and why I am wondering whether in fifty years historians will pinpoint this day, is that this demonstrates once and for all the end of the dreams, hopes, fears of any continuation of American hegemony within the international community.  Military prowess?  Lost about the summer of 2005.  Moral authority?  Lost about the same time.  Ability to communicate?  Lost about January 2001.  Economic superiority?  Will it be lost?  I don't know.  But suspect that yes, yes it will.  American greed has driven the world's economy since about the mid-90s.  But what happens when American greed turns into American begging?  Don't know.  I will admit that this reads a bit doomsdayish, but I am not thinking that it will play any other way.  They will all blame us for their inevitable economic slow downs, but they will laugh at ours as it will likely be worse than theirs.  After those corrections the only ones left standing will likely be the Asians who had enough foresight and financial education to save relentlessly and not overextend their lines of credit and are now laughing at the stupid Americans that bought their goods (we and) they couldn't afford for so long.  But now they can afford their own goods.  And soon, we will not be able to.  So that is one observation. 

Another is reading the Roll Call analysis from the House vote is pretty amazing.  Sure Pelosi gave her speech.  Whatever.  Sure D 60-40 Y; R 33-67 Y.  That isn't what I think is interesting.  The statistic that is more interesting is this one (when combined with the last).  Of those House seats where the incumbent is in a tight race, only 21% voted Y.  Now combine that with the first and you have an imperfect estimate that more Republicans are in tight races than Democrats.  In other words the GOP is in more of a precarious position than I actually thought. 

There is some fundamental disconnect here that I admittedly do not understand.  As of earlier today the polls showed that only 11% of the public wanted the government to do nothing.  These ultimate free marketeers would reflect my general perception of how much of a percentage those types of people likely occupy in the American polity.  So that number made sense to me.  But what doesn't make sense is how that 11% was able to get what it wanted.  That is not to say the Bill is dead, but it is certainly in a coma on life support as it wasn't a narrow no.  It was a bipartisan, resounding No.  OK, fine.  But if this whole thing was negotiated by the leadership of both parties, what were the whips doing all weekend?  And I have no idea what the way forward is.

I skimmed about half of the Bill during my lunch break today.  It seemed, well, not great, but not awful.  Obviously, the most vital part of the Bill is the power for Treasury to pay the principle and interest on the bank's Treasury deposits, which allows the banks to right off those bills for the time being and use their cash on hand for operating expenses.  This is a backhanded way for the Treasury to sink a ton of cash into the system without incurring inflationary pressures that seignurage normally requires.  That was the core of the Bill as far as getting the Banks to resume lending to one another, which is what is needed as far as corporations are concerned.  The other core of the Bill was the purchasing of the assets of institutions nearing failure or already failed.  This is where the government would own your home.  In my mind there were seemingly gigantic problems with that section.  Especially with the valuation as the Treasury was requried to purchase assets, but the valuation of the assets was not established by any sort of mechanism other than what the Treasury was thinking they were worth.  I thought how in hell does Treasury know what they are worth, especially the bundled assets.  The answer is that they do not and really have little ability to find out other than what the seller is asking.  This creates a seller's market.  Perhaps that was the intention.  Give the financial institutions a bit of a windfall, which creates incentives for iBankers not to take themselves and everything they own out of the system and move to their land in Montana to open up a free-range cattle ranch.  Perhaps it was not the intention and one of the reasons the bill failed.  However, I see no other way to valuate the assets and am not sure what Congress and Paulson could have done. 

My main nervousness with the Bill was that it gave Treasury an insane amount of discretionary space.  Again, I see no other options so Congress was likely caught in a Catch-22 on that one.  The executive already has a massive amount of discretionary authority when it comes to economic policy in this country.  The Bill as drafted would have given the executive even more.  Although this is nice for Bushites who love the unitary executive theory, those of us who have a different philosophical conception of separation of powers may be concerned.  Certainly I was.  And still am.  As I think more and more about it, largely that concern is academic.  One major windfall for me is that the dollar's value is screaming through the roof as everyone clammers for cash-based assets.  This means the place Highlands and I want to buy in Edinburgh is getting cheaper by the Bush screwup.  Thanks buddy.

One last thought and then am off to bed.  How will this play on Thursday night?  Am interested to see.  Likely Palin will play the "it's people like you in Washington that don't care about the American public" card.  He won't, but I wish Biden would play the "it's people like the idiots from your small town you love so much that got us into this mess by, like you, not understand a single damn thing about economics or finances" card. 

Still hoping for if anything is passed we get some nice earmarks for mandatory financial literacy at the high school level.....

Update: McCain's campaign just called to inform me that earmarks are the anti-Christ and I should not reference them anywhere.  How did they know that I typed that as I haven't posted this yet? 

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Debate Reaction

Some initial thoughts.  It is 6:30 in the morning here and I've now been up all night, so maybe this will not be as eloquent or complete as I'd like.

McCain did well on FP, as was to be expected.  His best answer was on Georgia when he said that this was largely about energy and (didn't say but meant) that this is important to Putin in order to entrench himself.  He shine when talking about Ukraine and the need to stabilize it while hoping to keep it as an ally to counterbalance growing Russian strength.

Obama did well on FP, probably better than expectations.  His best answer was on Iran when he spoke about how the invasion of Iraq took away the regional counterbalance and thus strengthened their position in the short term and medium term vis a vis the region. 

On Iran, they are both going the same way, just from different angles.  They want and need a regional counterbalance to Iranian influence.  Obama says we never should have gone into Iraq, McCain says we needed the surge.  They are both right about one and about the other, but their arguments miss each other because they are taking into account different temporal timeframes which require different consideration.  Obviously both know that, but these are their stump positions. 

The economy half was pure stump for both.  No surprises big surprises there.  Except McCain considering a suspension of spending, which if you noticed the second time he hedged from defense, VA and entitlements to defense, VA and critical (or vital, not sure) areas.  I'm not sure how he would classify vital areas any more than how Obama plans to quantify combat troops in his 16 month pledge.  But am not bothered, it is political and not substantive.

Random other observations.  I have CNN here and they had the red blue green real time reaction.  I never saw green reaction for McCain go about the second line.  And I rarely saw the red go above that line.  A couple of times when he tugged at heart-strings it got close to being above for the red.  The green and the blue were largely tracking each other through most of the debate.  There were divergences when Obama would attack Bush.  But for the most part they were flowing together.

I think that Republicans will identify the number of times Obama pointed to areas of agreeance as a weakness or naivete area of Obama.  I enjoyed them.  Perhaps it is a difference of style.

I thought that McCain's patronizing of Obama was a bit overboard.  Fine one or two times say you don't get it, but nearly every answer that he gave was that way.  Not sure how it will play with voters, but the green line in the hall seemed to be turned off almost every time he said it. 

I was also struck by the shear about of mischaracterizations that McCain made of Obama's record.  I did not hear or do not remember but once or twice McCain have to parse Obama's words to clarify the record and recover from an attack.  I remember many many more times where that was the case. 

I was struck by McCain's answer on 9/11.  It was an open-ended question.  I heard him in the summer of 2006 give an excellent answer to a similar question where he talked about the root causes of terrorism and how those need to be addressed.  He spoke of poverty in Ramallah as well as how the Saudi system of government needs to be addressed with strength by the President, etc.  Views that are espoused by most main stream foreign policy realists.  Tonight's answer, and what I've heard him say on the trail is very different.  Much more neo-con.  I am not sure if he has gotten handled, there is some political coalition building going on or whether now that he is running for President he can assert some latent self that he could not as a Senator.  Whatever the case, he has seemingly drastically changed from what I perceived to be standard realist notions about the world to quite aggressive neo-con notions.  To include the League of Democracies.  It is absolutely idiotic, and every european I've talked to agrees.  So not sure who is going to join his League.  We already have enough international institutions.  We need to be clarifying and streamlining what they do rather that building more.  Here is a question.  How much of McCain's spending cuts will he need in order to facilitate the budget of the League of Democracies which will sit along side the G-8 and SC that currently fill the role he is looking to replace?  Will he keep funding the budgets of the secretariats of those two IOs and add a third?  It is cognitive dissonance to me.  But I have happily drunk the kool-aid so maybe I'm not the most objective observer.

Obama's answers seemed to show him as what everyone perceives him to be an internationalist realist.  He did, and has all along, stressed non-proliferation.  And he is right that it is a major threat.  He did well not to back down on missile defense, but I wished he would have tied it in a bit better to his answer on the Russia question rather than on the 9/11 question.  I agree with him about small-scale WMDs being the major threat to homeland security.  I think that he was distancing himself from WMDs as a word and focusing on nuclear weapons as a political maneuver. 

Most rich moment of the debate was when McCain tried to tie Obama to Bush.  How much of a hot potato has he become?  Obama tried throughout to tie McCain to Bush.  McCain tried throughout to distance himself from Bush.  It was hilarious. 

I saw Biden give Obama campaign spin after the debate.  He did his thing.  Preceding him was a senior staffer from the McCain camp.  McCain: unleash the pit bull.  I want to see what she's got.  Looking forward to next Thursday.

So we'll have to see how it plays politically.  Neither hit it out of the park.  Neither made any big gaffes.  Largely I was bored as much of it was stump and only towards about Russia did they actually get off the stump and talk any substance. 

Now to my bed.
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UPDATE: They are both wrong.  The surge would technically be classified as neither a strategy nor a tactic.  It was an operational response designed to achieve a strategic objective.  So it was an operation. 

Wow.

There is simply no other word that I can conjure. 

I would like to remind everyone that McCain is 73 and has had two, three or four incidents with cancer.  McCain has lived a tough life.  The Presidency routinely causes men not with white hair to go white as an indication of the stresses that are placed on one's body.  I know momma McCain is 92 or whatever, but she wasn't a Prisoner of War, didn't routinely have large amounts of G-force placed on her body over a significant portion of her adult life and didn't spend the rest of her adult life fighting, scrapping, and arguing with everyone and their brother on the hill. 

After knowing that.  Please watch this.

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Palin's Brain

I still want to compose a tome about religion in politics.  But will have to wait until the weekend.

For now.  Please, someone identify a coherent thought - or even evidence of consideration of a coherent thought - or even something akin to intellectual capacity to grapple with the complexities and nuances - or, at least, a properly constructed sentence - contained within the following excerpt from Couric's interview with Palin (transcript courtesy here, video to follow)....

COURIC: Would you support a moratorium on foreclosures to help average Americans keep their homes?

PALIN: That's something that John McCain and I have both been discussing whether that is part of the solution or not ... you know, it's going to be a multifaceted that has to be found here.

COURIC: So you haven't decided whether you'll support it or not?

PALIN: I have not.

COURIC: What are the pros and cons of it, do you think?

PALIN: Well, some decisions that have been made poorly should not be rewarded, of course.

COURIC: By consumers, you're saying?

PALIN: Consumers and those who were predator lenders also. That's, you know, that has to be considered also. But again, it's got to be a comprehensive long-term solution found for this problem that America is facing today. As I say, we are getting into crisis mode here.

COURIC: You've said, quote, "John McCain will reform the way Wall Street does business." Other than supporting stricter regulations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years ago, can you give us any more example of his leading the charge for more oversight?

PALIN: I think that the example that you just cited, with his warnings two years ago about Fannie and Freddie — that, that's paramount. That's more than a heck of a lot of other senators and representatives did for us.

COURIC: But he's been in Congress for 26 years. He's been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.

PALIN: He's also known as the maverick, though. Taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he's been talking about — the need to reform government.

COURIC: I'm just going to ask you one more time, not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation?

PALIN: I'll try to find you some, and I'll bring them to you.

If we elect this ticket, I will not threaten to move to Canada, but I will certainly be confused and concerned.  My favorite is the penultimate response (for Alaskans, that means next to last).  It is like being asked what you remember most about your trip to Disney World and replying that Florida is known as the sunshine state. I have not watched part two, but it is included after part one.

Video:





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I am Skeerd

So, world.  What the f?  I go on vacation for one week.  Just one week.  A small amount of time for me not to be supervising you.  And what do you do?  Blow up.

My monetary policy teacher last year tried to convince us that the sub-prime mortgage "crisis" was no where near a crisis.  I wonder what he is telling his students this year.  I suspect it is a much more interesting class this time around. 

I am no economist, but I did get a grade that was higher than Palin's D in macroeconomics.  And I don't know about what small town mayors learn about economics anyway, but I have studied and thought about economics for a long time now. 

And I am convinced, utterly convinced.  That we are in the middle of a sh*t-storm here.  But I have absolutely no idea what is really wrong or how to fix it, although I do have my inclinations.  My major worry is not the short-term effects, but the long-term effects.  It is the problem with legislative inertia combined with crisis management.  I almost feel that it would be better to let the whole thing crash and rebuild correctly those aspects that are broke rather than nationalize / give to foreign sovereign wealth funds the entire financial industry, reward mis-calculations of risk-costing, and whatever else ends up happening on this thing.  I fear that CEO pay is going to be a more major talking point and decision point than the actual, long-term consequences of completely dismantling most of what we learned post 1929.  Markets are volatile.  That happens.  We, collectively, need to learn to manage our risk more appropriately.  I would love to see part of this bailout program to be funding for public high schools on financial literacy (which is incredibly low in our country, and in my mind a more root cause than overly risk-phillic i-bankers). 

The politics of this are fascinating.  Bush is completely impotent.  The only weapon he seeming ever used is the threat weapon.  And now, when admittedly, he likely needs it, people just roll their eyes.  Currently, NYTimes is headling: "President Issues Warning to Americans."  How many times have we seem similar connotations?  McCain is riding his white horse of bipartisanship to the rescue.  Obama is telling people he can multitask.  Palin is being told what risk and assets means.  Biden is ranting somewhere.  Majority and Minority leaders (along with Dodd and others) are struggling to balance politics with policy and short-term v. long-terms affects of those policy and how each will balance with the politics.  It is going to be a fascinating rest of the week.

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