Thursday, May 21, 2009
Good Summary of the Obama-Cheney Debate
Ann Telnaes hits the nail on the head in the Washington Post.
America's Detoxification Requires Patience and Perseverance
I want to begin by saying I'm an enormous fan of Glenn Greenwald and that I wish everyone in Washington would read his blog. I cannot imagine someone doing a better job of speaking truth to power and calling out the sycophantic public relations people that pose as journalists in our mainstream media.
That said, I disagree with him that Obama is transforming "right-wing dogma into... bipartisan consensus" by permitting military commissions, failing to release photos and keeping detainees deemed dangerous locked up for the time being.
There are a couple issues here:
(1) If there is a sound basis for deeming a detainee dangerous, but because the Bush admin tortured him or otherwise didn't gather enough evidence of an actual crime, e.g., let's assume he was picked up on the battlefield in Afghanistan, surrendered, but during his stay in Guantanamo has vowed jihad on the US thousands of times, then what other choice does Obama have? If we try him, there's no way to convict, and if we release him, the man will immediately resume his aggression toward the US. I suppose Greenwald would have us try the man, and upon acquittal, deport him back to Afghanistan or elsewhere where he'd join up with the Taliban and fight our soldiers or plot against the US. I suppose this happens all the time in our civilian law enforcement when they have to release a suspect they're pretty sure is guilty because they don't have enough evidence to hold him. Except what would happen that suspect kept saying he would kill the sons and daughters of the police officers if they let him go? Would they still release him in that case? And should they?
(2) It's dangerous to detoxify too quickly or radically - the process of cleaning up the Bush admin mess (and our country's resultant disease) must be gradual.
Here's an analogy: if you have mercury poisoning (as I do), you have to chelate (take chemicals that bind to mercury and carry it out of the body). But if you take too big a dose, you will get much sicker because your body can't handle the mobilization of so much mercury at once. So you start off with very small doses, and carry bits of it out gradually - and your body, while still sick, can tolerate that amount of mobilization. As some of the mercury is removed, you can start to up your dose as you're less sick and more able to tolerate larger mobilizations without debilitating side effects. Finally, you're able to tolerate high doses of the chelator and clean out the rest.
So it's not just a cost-benefit analysis - is it worth unjustly imprisoning people to avoid unpleasant political consequences (Greenwald's framing of how Obama sees it), but you can actually jeopardize the whole chelation program by overdoing it too quickly. We were a very poisoned country, and our media and many elected pols (and a large number of misinformed citizens) can't handle a massive mobilization just yet. But as the body politic grows healthier, the tolerance will go up, eventually culminating in justice. But you have to be very careful not to push too fast, and Obama understands this because he's been "chelating" in communities for years and knows how to calibrate the pace of change and overcome resistance.
Greenwald's not so much interested in that because it's not his job to be. It's his job to keep the pressure on the administration to bring the country in line with the constitution. And to that extent he's correct to push for our ultimate and complete detoxification. Those who would argue that we should just move forward without accountability are like ill-informed doctors who think any suffering from mercury mobilization is too much for the fragile patient, i.e, that the patient is far too sick to chelate and should just treat his symptoms going forward. However, this will lead to all kinds of chronic degenerative diseases, so it is imperative to suffer a tolerable amount of discomfort and chelate at low doses immediately.
So the sick body-politic must tread a middle ground between too rapidly exposing itself to all of its existing toxins at once and not moving forward with Greenwald's ultimate goal - to realign the nation with the rule of law and the constitution.
That said, I disagree with him that Obama is transforming "right-wing dogma into... bipartisan consensus" by permitting military commissions, failing to release photos and keeping detainees deemed dangerous locked up for the time being.
There are a couple issues here:
(1) If there is a sound basis for deeming a detainee dangerous, but because the Bush admin tortured him or otherwise didn't gather enough evidence of an actual crime, e.g., let's assume he was picked up on the battlefield in Afghanistan, surrendered, but during his stay in Guantanamo has vowed jihad on the US thousands of times, then what other choice does Obama have? If we try him, there's no way to convict, and if we release him, the man will immediately resume his aggression toward the US. I suppose Greenwald would have us try the man, and upon acquittal, deport him back to Afghanistan or elsewhere where he'd join up with the Taliban and fight our soldiers or plot against the US. I suppose this happens all the time in our civilian law enforcement when they have to release a suspect they're pretty sure is guilty because they don't have enough evidence to hold him. Except what would happen that suspect kept saying he would kill the sons and daughters of the police officers if they let him go? Would they still release him in that case? And should they?
(2) It's dangerous to detoxify too quickly or radically - the process of cleaning up the Bush admin mess (and our country's resultant disease) must be gradual.
Here's an analogy: if you have mercury poisoning (as I do), you have to chelate (take chemicals that bind to mercury and carry it out of the body). But if you take too big a dose, you will get much sicker because your body can't handle the mobilization of so much mercury at once. So you start off with very small doses, and carry bits of it out gradually - and your body, while still sick, can tolerate that amount of mobilization. As some of the mercury is removed, you can start to up your dose as you're less sick and more able to tolerate larger mobilizations without debilitating side effects. Finally, you're able to tolerate high doses of the chelator and clean out the rest.
So it's not just a cost-benefit analysis - is it worth unjustly imprisoning people to avoid unpleasant political consequences (Greenwald's framing of how Obama sees it), but you can actually jeopardize the whole chelation program by overdoing it too quickly. We were a very poisoned country, and our media and many elected pols (and a large number of misinformed citizens) can't handle a massive mobilization just yet. But as the body politic grows healthier, the tolerance will go up, eventually culminating in justice. But you have to be very careful not to push too fast, and Obama understands this because he's been "chelating" in communities for years and knows how to calibrate the pace of change and overcome resistance.
Greenwald's not so much interested in that because it's not his job to be. It's his job to keep the pressure on the administration to bring the country in line with the constitution. And to that extent he's correct to push for our ultimate and complete detoxification. Those who would argue that we should just move forward without accountability are like ill-informed doctors who think any suffering from mercury mobilization is too much for the fragile patient, i.e, that the patient is far too sick to chelate and should just treat his symptoms going forward. However, this will lead to all kinds of chronic degenerative diseases, so it is imperative to suffer a tolerable amount of discomfort and chelate at low doses immediately.
So the sick body-politic must tread a middle ground between too rapidly exposing itself to all of its existing toxins at once and not moving forward with Greenwald's ultimate goal - to realign the nation with the rule of law and the constitution.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
CIA's Weak Arguments Against Interrogation Memo Disclosure
Curious Wall Street Journal article on the CIA interrogation memo release debate.
Among the CIA's arguments to withhold the memos:
Intelligence officials also believe that making the techniques public would give al Qaeda a propaganda tool just as the administration is stepping up its fight against the terrorist group in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
If they tortured, then it's not a *propaganda* tool for al Qaeda, it's actually based in fact. Propaganda implies they're making up falsehoods about us. And since everyone believes that torture took place - otherwise why not release the memos - then the CIA is essentially admitting it was abetting al Qaeda recruiters through its misguided policy.
That's why they also argue:
But top CIA officials and some in the White House argue that disclosing such secrets will undermine the agency's credibility with foreign intelligence services.
Yes, it already has. But you can't embarrass and harm the interests of your country, then argue when called to account that doing so would embarrass and harm the country's interests.
You shouldn't be able to use a crisis of your own creation to excuse yourself from justice.
It is strikingly similar to what the banks did, though isn't it - they lobbied for changes in the law to make bad practices legal, damaged our economic security and claimed we had to spare them their natural reckoning because of the crisis they created.
The difference is that we know what banking laws and regulations were stripped. What agreed-upon protections and international safeguards were stripped by the CIA?
Among the CIA's arguments to withhold the memos:
Intelligence officials also believe that making the techniques public would give al Qaeda a propaganda tool just as the administration is stepping up its fight against the terrorist group in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
If they tortured, then it's not a *propaganda* tool for al Qaeda, it's actually based in fact. Propaganda implies they're making up falsehoods about us. And since everyone believes that torture took place - otherwise why not release the memos - then the CIA is essentially admitting it was abetting al Qaeda recruiters through its misguided policy.
That's why they also argue:
But top CIA officials and some in the White House argue that disclosing such secrets will undermine the agency's credibility with foreign intelligence services.
Yes, it already has. But you can't embarrass and harm the interests of your country, then argue when called to account that doing so would embarrass and harm the country's interests.
You shouldn't be able to use a crisis of your own creation to excuse yourself from justice.
It is strikingly similar to what the banks did, though isn't it - they lobbied for changes in the law to make bad practices legal, damaged our economic security and claimed we had to spare them their natural reckoning because of the crisis they created.
The difference is that we know what banking laws and regulations were stripped. What agreed-upon protections and international safeguards were stripped by the CIA?
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Terrible Washington Post Column
In a piece entitled Obama's New Tack: Blaming Bush the writer Scott Wilson passes along the GOP talking point that Obama's statement of the obvious - that he inherited a fiscal disaster - somehow violates his pledge to move beyond recriminations.
Let's leave aside that a key Republican talking point is to try preposterously to pin our financial problems on Obama rather than Bush, and Obama is merely responding to that. In other words, that he's merely responding to lies. The more pertinent point that the column totally misses is that Obama is merely stating a fact when he says he inherited this disaster. To say that Bernie Madoff swindled people out of their money and caused many to have personal financial disasters is also a fact and not the type of recrimination that Obama pledged to avoid.
Obama pledged to move beyond recriminations based on political philosophy - matters of *opinion*. We should not be recriminating the other side merely for disagreeing with us. That was the point. Not to stop pointing out facts, misdeeds, mismanagement and crimes. That Wilson completely misses this distinction is incompetent at best and corrupt at worst. Or maybe it's the other way around.
Let's leave aside that a key Republican talking point is to try preposterously to pin our financial problems on Obama rather than Bush, and Obama is merely responding to that. In other words, that he's merely responding to lies. The more pertinent point that the column totally misses is that Obama is merely stating a fact when he says he inherited this disaster. To say that Bernie Madoff swindled people out of their money and caused many to have personal financial disasters is also a fact and not the type of recrimination that Obama pledged to avoid.
Obama pledged to move beyond recriminations based on political philosophy - matters of *opinion*. We should not be recriminating the other side merely for disagreeing with us. That was the point. Not to stop pointing out facts, misdeeds, mismanagement and crimes. That Wilson completely misses this distinction is incompetent at best and corrupt at worst. Or maybe it's the other way around.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
One Benefit of the Financial Crisis
A couple years ago, at the height of the market, some new companies entered into my industry (the fantasy sports industry). They were funded by investment (I think venture capital money), and they spent a whole bunch of it hiring people and marketing themselves. They made a nice splash at the conventions because they'd sponsor events and they'd spend money on advertising with other companies. Sure, they had a business plan of sorts, but not a realistic one given the amount of people they hired and the amount of money they were burning through.
Having seen a number of these outfits come and go, it occurred to me that in a good economy, one where there's plenty of extra money lying around, all it really all it takes is someone who is good at pitching investors to create these pseudo businesses. They raise money, throw it around, act like big shots, spend their way into a modicum of market share, then, if the economy's still good, ask for more money; if it isn't, they fold.
One beneficial side effect of a bad market is the elimination of these kinds of entities. It might seem like an industry is losing jobs or productivity, but it's not. I wonder how much of the loss in GDP in a recession is really just the elimination of this kind of bogus activity.
Having seen a number of these outfits come and go, it occurred to me that in a good economy, one where there's plenty of extra money lying around, all it really all it takes is someone who is good at pitching investors to create these pseudo businesses. They raise money, throw it around, act like big shots, spend their way into a modicum of market share, then, if the economy's still good, ask for more money; if it isn't, they fold.
One beneficial side effect of a bad market is the elimination of these kinds of entities. It might seem like an industry is losing jobs or productivity, but it's not. I wonder how much of the loss in GDP in a recession is really just the elimination of this kind of bogus activity.
Why the Bailout Doesn't Matter
I was getting worked up earlier about the idea that we're bailing out these incompetent scumbag bankers, auto company managers and delinquent home owners, but now I realize that it's much ado about nothing.
No money is coming out of my pocket presently, and the inflation created by the bailouts is not going to be a problem any time soon. So the real issue is that we, the taxpayers, are going to owe all of this on the back end. Just as Wall Street had its pyramid scheme which wound up with homeowners and banks holding the bag while the execs drained out all the money, we're just adding another layer to the pyramid with the taxpayers taking over for the banks. No problem, when we're asked to pay, we'll just do what the banks did - throw up our hands and say we're unable. At that point, there won't be anyone left to borrow from, and so the government and the world order will simply collapse. Which is what would probably happen now if we didn't give our money to the banks.
So we're buying a little extra time, pretending we can actually guarantee all that debt. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts. Because after the collapse - who the hell knows?
No money is coming out of my pocket presently, and the inflation created by the bailouts is not going to be a problem any time soon. So the real issue is that we, the taxpayers, are going to owe all of this on the back end. Just as Wall Street had its pyramid scheme which wound up with homeowners and banks holding the bag while the execs drained out all the money, we're just adding another layer to the pyramid with the taxpayers taking over for the banks. No problem, when we're asked to pay, we'll just do what the banks did - throw up our hands and say we're unable. At that point, there won't be anyone left to borrow from, and so the government and the world order will simply collapse. Which is what would probably happen now if we didn't give our money to the banks.
So we're buying a little extra time, pretending we can actually guarantee all that debt. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts. Because after the collapse - who the hell knows?
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Talk Radio Viruses
I just caught most of Right America: Feeling Wronged, and what struck me most was that the people were repeating talking points they had obviously heard somewhere - most likely on the radio. But not just repeating, but doing so with genuine emotion attached, and believing what they were saying as if it were the most obvious truth.
And it got me thinking that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the rest were able to infiltrate these people's beliefs by mimicking their thought patterns, speaking to their common fears and grievances, articulating actual feelings they have, then once hooked, steering them to a particular narrative, e.g., Obama's a socialist.
It's like a virus that tricks your immune system by mimicking it. Limbaugh will mimic the listeners' thought patterns, and once their attention and trust is hijacked use whatever normal skeptical and critical faculties they have against those speaking the truth. So if you say to one of his believers - actually, Obama's a capitalist and his tax plan just differs in terms of what bracket pays what, their skepticism, i.e., their immune system against falsehood, will immediately kick in and dismiss it. Instead of the healthy skepticism fighting bullshit, it's been subverted to fight the truth.
I don't know the long-term consequences of having 10s of millions of people with inverted critical faculties - in the near term it was Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Alberto Gonzalez, etc. - but I doubt they're good.
And it got me thinking that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the rest were able to infiltrate these people's beliefs by mimicking their thought patterns, speaking to their common fears and grievances, articulating actual feelings they have, then once hooked, steering them to a particular narrative, e.g., Obama's a socialist.
It's like a virus that tricks your immune system by mimicking it. Limbaugh will mimic the listeners' thought patterns, and once their attention and trust is hijacked use whatever normal skeptical and critical faculties they have against those speaking the truth. So if you say to one of his believers - actually, Obama's a capitalist and his tax plan just differs in terms of what bracket pays what, their skepticism, i.e., their immune system against falsehood, will immediately kick in and dismiss it. Instead of the healthy skepticism fighting bullshit, it's been subverted to fight the truth.
I don't know the long-term consequences of having 10s of millions of people with inverted critical faculties - in the near term it was Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Alberto Gonzalez, etc. - but I doubt they're good.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Kellogg Drops Michael Phelps
Kellogg, the maker of Pop Tarts, Frosted Flakes and a hundred other high-fructose corn-syrup snacks and pseudo foods marketed to children amidst an epidemic of childhood obesity and diabetes and out of control national health care costs, is dropping Phelps? If the executives at Kellog were as good at their jobs as Phelps is at his, every child in America would be obese, and not just the one third that's the case today.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Saving the Newspaper Business
In the New York Times Opinion section today, there's an article discussing the possibility of micropayments as a source of revenue for newspapers.
Essentially, you'd pay a penny for an article or a nickel for an hour of access to a web site, or something like that, and over time that $30 per month you'd spend would fund that paper's journalistic endeavors. But who's got an extra $30 or $50 or $100 a month to pay for that stuff these days? Not enough people to support all but niche subscription sites.
The key to making the micropayment work is to get the payment from the ISP, not the user. Think about it: Cable companies pay millions of dollars to their content providers like ESPN or the Discovery Channel so that they have those channels to to offer subscribers. Why would we be paying both our ISP AND for the content we can get by getting online?
Since our shortsighted and stupid ISPs would never do this (remember, these were the greedy morons who wanted to charge extra for optimal web surfing speeds), what needs to happen is this:
Google realizes that its quest to organize all the world's information is compromised by a lack of quality investigative reporting and journalism. It also realizes that the current ISPs are greedy and shortsighted. So it commissions (with the blessing of the Obama administration) a nationwide network of high speed wireless service *for free*. At this point, everyone paying $30-$60 per month for high speed access now has extra money to be charged a micropayment calculated by Google.
If you scroll down in the Times article above, you'll see that the primary objection to micropayments is that the user will have to go through the trouble to decide whether a given article or link is worth two cents. That wouldn't be an issue if Google added it up for you and sent you the bill - likely $20-$25 per month, less than you're currently paying for access. Google would also sell far more ads and would be hugely profitable. (In the interest of avoiding a Google monopoly, perhaps another company (Microsoft or someone else could offer wireless access in many areas as well).
Problem solved - Newpapers get their revenue, users still pay the same or less for high speed access, and Google/Microsoft/Yahoo get their cut for administrating it and also by selling ads.
The big loses are the telecom companies, no longer charging us for use of their "pipes".
But they had it coming.
Essentially, you'd pay a penny for an article or a nickel for an hour of access to a web site, or something like that, and over time that $30 per month you'd spend would fund that paper's journalistic endeavors. But who's got an extra $30 or $50 or $100 a month to pay for that stuff these days? Not enough people to support all but niche subscription sites.
The key to making the micropayment work is to get the payment from the ISP, not the user. Think about it: Cable companies pay millions of dollars to their content providers like ESPN or the Discovery Channel so that they have those channels to to offer subscribers. Why would we be paying both our ISP AND for the content we can get by getting online?
Since our shortsighted and stupid ISPs would never do this (remember, these were the greedy morons who wanted to charge extra for optimal web surfing speeds), what needs to happen is this:
Google realizes that its quest to organize all the world's information is compromised by a lack of quality investigative reporting and journalism. It also realizes that the current ISPs are greedy and shortsighted. So it commissions (with the blessing of the Obama administration) a nationwide network of high speed wireless service *for free*. At this point, everyone paying $30-$60 per month for high speed access now has extra money to be charged a micropayment calculated by Google.
If you scroll down in the Times article above, you'll see that the primary objection to micropayments is that the user will have to go through the trouble to decide whether a given article or link is worth two cents. That wouldn't be an issue if Google added it up for you and sent you the bill - likely $20-$25 per month, less than you're currently paying for access. Google would also sell far more ads and would be hugely profitable. (In the interest of avoiding a Google monopoly, perhaps another company (Microsoft or someone else could offer wireless access in many areas as well).
Problem solved - Newpapers get their revenue, users still pay the same or less for high speed access, and Google/Microsoft/Yahoo get their cut for administrating it and also by selling ads.
The big loses are the telecom companies, no longer charging us for use of their "pipes".
But they had it coming.
Can the Problem of Executive Pay Be Reduced to a Logical Fallacy?
It's well known that executive pay has gone up dramatically relative to the wages of ordinary workers the last 20-30 years, but that in and of itself doesn't mean our current system is wrong. It might be politically problematic, and it might seem unfair, but that's a separate question from whether those executives, particularly the CEOs, deserve their comparatively enormous salaries based on value and merit.
It seems the most basic argument in favor of CEOs receiving outsized paychecks is the "but for" one. But for my being here, the company wouldn't have made x billion dollars in profits. If the last CEO were here, it would have made y billion. So I should get a significant share in x-y billion dollars.
First off, it's hard to know for sure what the former CEO would have done, or more pertinently, an average CEO. But assuming the current CEO were correct, and the company made $8 billion instead of $4 billion that year, shouldn't he be entitled to a bonus of some percentage of the $4 billion extra, say 5 percent? If that were the case, he'd be making an extra $200 million.
Assuming for a moment that the company's profits were sustainable, and the CEO's efforts helped foster long-term growth and not merely growth on paper to boost the annual numbers, I'd still argue that the CEO likely does not deserve such a large cut even if the average CEO would have only produced $4 billion in profits.
That's because the CEO is merely a "but for" cause of the company's enhanced earnings, and not by any means the sole or even primary cause. The company was obviously poised to post phenomenal earnings given proper leadership, and the CEO provided that leadership. But had the company not been amenable to such improved growth, the CEO wouldn't have been able to make the difference.
To use a sports analogy - some teams will win a title only if you hire a great coach. And some won't no matter who is coaching. That a great coach takes a capable team to the title doesn't mean the coach is solely responsible. He is a but for cause. Accordingly, while the coach deserves credit and higher pay than a mediocre one, the team he inherited must also be taken into account.
The idea that a particular executive is worth whatever they have to pay him because without him the company would be doing far worse is a false one. The executive would also be doing far worse without a company amenable to such tremendous growth.
It seems the most basic argument in favor of CEOs receiving outsized paychecks is the "but for" one. But for my being here, the company wouldn't have made x billion dollars in profits. If the last CEO were here, it would have made y billion. So I should get a significant share in x-y billion dollars.
First off, it's hard to know for sure what the former CEO would have done, or more pertinently, an average CEO. But assuming the current CEO were correct, and the company made $8 billion instead of $4 billion that year, shouldn't he be entitled to a bonus of some percentage of the $4 billion extra, say 5 percent? If that were the case, he'd be making an extra $200 million.
Assuming for a moment that the company's profits were sustainable, and the CEO's efforts helped foster long-term growth and not merely growth on paper to boost the annual numbers, I'd still argue that the CEO likely does not deserve such a large cut even if the average CEO would have only produced $4 billion in profits.
That's because the CEO is merely a "but for" cause of the company's enhanced earnings, and not by any means the sole or even primary cause. The company was obviously poised to post phenomenal earnings given proper leadership, and the CEO provided that leadership. But had the company not been amenable to such improved growth, the CEO wouldn't have been able to make the difference.
To use a sports analogy - some teams will win a title only if you hire a great coach. And some won't no matter who is coaching. That a great coach takes a capable team to the title doesn't mean the coach is solely responsible. He is a but for cause. Accordingly, while the coach deserves credit and higher pay than a mediocre one, the team he inherited must also be taken into account.
The idea that a particular executive is worth whatever they have to pay him because without him the company would be doing far worse is a false one. The executive would also be doing far worse without a company amenable to such tremendous growth.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
I'm Getting Fucked
There's been a lot of talk about bailing out homeowners so they can stay in their homes and bailing out the auto industry so they can keep people employed and bailing out Wall Street so it won't collapse the economy. (Turns out some of that bailout money is going toward bonuses). But what about the renter who in the face of a huge housing bubble acted responsibly and didn't buy something he could only afford if prices went up indefinitely, and instead put his money into the stock market? Not only did I miss out on the housing bubble, but I'm also missing out on the bailout. In the meantime, I lost 60 percent of my net worth when the burst housing bubble killed the stock market! Where's my bailout? Oh, bailing me out isn't important because I was responsible and will still buy goods and keep the economy going even if I don't see a dime of it.
This really is socialism when car companies produce shitty cars that are bad for the environment, and we bail them out. When bankers take irresponsible risks and we bail them out. But citizens who paid their taxes and their bills and acted conservatively with their money - we're getting fucked. It's a transfer from the responsible to the greedy and the needy without our consent.
This really is socialism when car companies produce shitty cars that are bad for the environment, and we bail them out. When bankers take irresponsible risks and we bail them out. But citizens who paid their taxes and their bills and acted conservatively with their money - we're getting fucked. It's a transfer from the responsible to the greedy and the needy without our consent.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Get Michael Pollan a Cabinet Post
Of all the problems facing us today, the destruction of our food supply by corporations and government lobbyists is probably the easiest to fix and one that might have the broadest consequences. As Michael Pollan has written about in his book In Defense of Food, the modern food industry has run roughshod over our eating traditions, and the results have been catastrophic. We're so worried about making health care universal and/or affordable, but we would need only a fraction of it if we just ate properly. But we don't eat properly because our food system is designed for quantity, addiction and profit rather than quality, health and taste. Pollan refers to numerous studies done on the Western diet's affect on people from native populations who had almost zero incidence of heart disease, cancer and diabetes before adopting it. They found that as soon as people adopted our eating habits, they got our diseases.
What's worse, our medical industry works hand in hand with the food industry, creating treatment for symptoms, but rarely addressing the underlying problem. So people take statins for the heart disease they have because they eat processed grains that flood them with too many Omega-6 fatty acids and inflame their systems. Instead of getting off the fake food and eating more organic fruits, vegetables and grass-fed meat, people continue with the Western diet and pay into the health care system. The medical profession has a vested interest in keeping us coming back for more treatment, and the drug companies lavish our doctors with unethical perks to persuade them to prescribe their products.
The good news is that it's an fairly easy solution - educate people to eat properly (not as per the AMA's faulty recommendations - they were part of the war on fats, and actually encouraged transfat consumption over natural products like butter), and watch the need for and cost of health care diminish to a fraction of what it is currently. The main obstacle to educating people on their health is that there's tremendous profit in having us eat processed foods. After all, you can patent the formula to Coca Cola, but you can't patent organic peaches. And growing organic takes more effort, and is harder to do on a large scale. But it's important not only because pesticides are harmful, but also because anything that artificially kills pests and diseases breeds produce that didn't have to develop the defenses itself. And many of the antioxidants that product against cancer and lower the risk of heart disease develop in plants to defend against bacteria themselves.
So there is an enormous vested interest in keeping us buying food from a box and also in using harmful chemicals that deprive us of essential nutrients. To that end, there are companies who commission studies designed to show that pesticides aren't harmful, and who hire lobbyists who make sure the laws on what can be sprayed on food and what can be run off into the environment are lax.
But if the population became truly educated about what they ate, they could vote with their dollars at farmer's markets and collectives - they could grow extra food in their back yards, they could swear off the fast food, and the food from a box. Moreover, they could make it known to their representatives that they want the food (and drug) companies to be held to high standards, and bloggers could call out the worst offenders and disseminate information to the public at large.
But just as President-elect Obama encouraged people to get involved in his campaign by creating a movement for change and setting up the infrastructure, he could also speed up this process of education about health vastly by enlisting his support, encouragement and network. With two foreign wars, a massive financial crises and huge entitlement liabilities, this might seem like a low priority, but it's not. It would solve the health care problem within a couple years by cutting the cost enormously. It would also have an enormously beneficial effect on the work force - people would be energetic healthy and productive - and it would be hugely beneficial to the environment. And there would not need to be a major outlay of cash.
Now that we're only beginning to understand fully the ways in which Wall Street and other corporate interests gambled with our pensions and retirement accounts to rack up huge profits before needing a bailout, it's important to go further and realize that the food and drug industry are doing the same in matters of nutrition and health.
So get Michael Pollan a cabinet post - (or at least a meeting) with our new president.
What's worse, our medical industry works hand in hand with the food industry, creating treatment for symptoms, but rarely addressing the underlying problem. So people take statins for the heart disease they have because they eat processed grains that flood them with too many Omega-6 fatty acids and inflame their systems. Instead of getting off the fake food and eating more organic fruits, vegetables and grass-fed meat, people continue with the Western diet and pay into the health care system. The medical profession has a vested interest in keeping us coming back for more treatment, and the drug companies lavish our doctors with unethical perks to persuade them to prescribe their products.
The good news is that it's an fairly easy solution - educate people to eat properly (not as per the AMA's faulty recommendations - they were part of the war on fats, and actually encouraged transfat consumption over natural products like butter), and watch the need for and cost of health care diminish to a fraction of what it is currently. The main obstacle to educating people on their health is that there's tremendous profit in having us eat processed foods. After all, you can patent the formula to Coca Cola, but you can't patent organic peaches. And growing organic takes more effort, and is harder to do on a large scale. But it's important not only because pesticides are harmful, but also because anything that artificially kills pests and diseases breeds produce that didn't have to develop the defenses itself. And many of the antioxidants that product against cancer and lower the risk of heart disease develop in plants to defend against bacteria themselves.
So there is an enormous vested interest in keeping us buying food from a box and also in using harmful chemicals that deprive us of essential nutrients. To that end, there are companies who commission studies designed to show that pesticides aren't harmful, and who hire lobbyists who make sure the laws on what can be sprayed on food and what can be run off into the environment are lax.
But if the population became truly educated about what they ate, they could vote with their dollars at farmer's markets and collectives - they could grow extra food in their back yards, they could swear off the fast food, and the food from a box. Moreover, they could make it known to their representatives that they want the food (and drug) companies to be held to high standards, and bloggers could call out the worst offenders and disseminate information to the public at large.
But just as President-elect Obama encouraged people to get involved in his campaign by creating a movement for change and setting up the infrastructure, he could also speed up this process of education about health vastly by enlisting his support, encouragement and network. With two foreign wars, a massive financial crises and huge entitlement liabilities, this might seem like a low priority, but it's not. It would solve the health care problem within a couple years by cutting the cost enormously. It would also have an enormously beneficial effect on the work force - people would be energetic healthy and productive - and it would be hugely beneficial to the environment. And there would not need to be a major outlay of cash.
Now that we're only beginning to understand fully the ways in which Wall Street and other corporate interests gambled with our pensions and retirement accounts to rack up huge profits before needing a bailout, it's important to go further and realize that the food and drug industry are doing the same in matters of nutrition and health.
So get Michael Pollan a cabinet post - (or at least a meeting) with our new president.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Obama's Strategy on FISA
Was debating with a friend about Obama's support of FISA - I think no big deal, he thinks it undermines Obama's credibility entirely.
But then I started thinking about why Obama would support FISA since he had to know it would get MoveOn and their ilk up in arms. And then it dawned on me that's precisely WHY he did it. What better way to appeal to the center and center-right than to say: "The far right AND far left are both angry with me." In other words, it's not about FISA or telecom immunity at all. It's about sacrificing a relatively small issue to generate the backlash from the left he needs. It's like microfracture surgery - the doctor scrapes the bone to cause bleeding and create scar tissue to cushion the joint. He's scraping the left just enough to cushion his reception with a significant portion of the electorate outside his base.
It's not his centrist stance on FISA that will win him votes. It's that he doesn't look quite so beholden to the left.
I think that's a good rebuttal to all the pundits who try to argue that supporting the FISA compromise and tacking to the center substantively won't help. No it won't, but their overheated criticism surely will!
When given the choice between believing that Obama is tone deaf and doesn't realize what's obvious to the left-wing pundits, or believing that this black man with a Muslim name who is the frontrunner for president of the United States is playing the game at a more subtle level than they can even fathom, I'll go with the latter. These people are like financial pundits slagging Warren Buffett's stock picks. If Obama weren't the smartest guy in the game, we wouldn't even know who he was.
But then I started thinking about why Obama would support FISA since he had to know it would get MoveOn and their ilk up in arms. And then it dawned on me that's precisely WHY he did it. What better way to appeal to the center and center-right than to say: "The far right AND far left are both angry with me." In other words, it's not about FISA or telecom immunity at all. It's about sacrificing a relatively small issue to generate the backlash from the left he needs. It's like microfracture surgery - the doctor scrapes the bone to cause bleeding and create scar tissue to cushion the joint. He's scraping the left just enough to cushion his reception with a significant portion of the electorate outside his base.
It's not his centrist stance on FISA that will win him votes. It's that he doesn't look quite so beholden to the left.
I think that's a good rebuttal to all the pundits who try to argue that supporting the FISA compromise and tacking to the center substantively won't help. No it won't, but their overheated criticism surely will!
When given the choice between believing that Obama is tone deaf and doesn't realize what's obvious to the left-wing pundits, or believing that this black man with a Muslim name who is the frontrunner for president of the United States is playing the game at a more subtle level than they can even fathom, I'll go with the latter. These people are like financial pundits slagging Warren Buffett's stock picks. If Obama weren't the smartest guy in the game, we wouldn't even know who he was.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Send In The Lorax
Because the California Bar Exam is only weeks away, I don't have time to do a proper post. But I did want to take a minute to note the disgusting irony of the Bush administration declaring polar bears a threatened species as a result of global warming, and only a month later issuing what are in essence grants of immunity to oil companies searching for oil and gas off northwestern Alaska.
In addition to the obvious link between oil/gas and global warming, the regulations provide five years of legal protections for the named companies if Pacific walruses or the 'threatened' polar bears are harmed by the companies drilling or pipeline activities.
Guess declaring a species to be threatened doesn't imply we want the threats to cease.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Victims Forever
There are a lot of reports of Clinton supporters pledging to support John McCain this fall. This is ironic for a few reasons.
First, they know that McCain would almost certainly appoint a pro life justice to the Supreme Court in the next four years, likely overturning Roe v. Wade, something that's supposedly dear to Clinton and certainly most feminists.
Second, Obama's policies are almost identical to Clinton's substantively, and McCain's are virtually opposite. This shows that the decision to abandon Obama is largely emotional - and is most likely driven by a feeling that somehow Hillary was wronged, or cheated out of the election. This idea of Hillary's victimhood first at the hands of an unfaithful husband and then by a right-wing attack machine and finally a sexist press and an unfair primary process, the latter ideas stoked by Clinton herself, has driven some supporters to reject Obama - even though he hasn't done anything sexist and certainly won fair and square despite long odds.
But the final and most striking irony is that because of this, some Clinton supporters are pledging to vote for McCain who abandoned his first wife (who had been disfigured in a car accident) for a younger, healthier woman! I mean of all the people to support - these lost Clinton supporters are choosing someone who actually ditched and cheated on his wife to punish Obama, who is by all accounts faithful to his!
Think about that for a moment - all those people who identify with Hillary as a victim are voting for a victimizer to spite a man whose campaign for the most part took the high road. It's almost as if they resent Obama's lack of identification with black victimhood more than McCain's willingness to overturn Roe v. Wade and his abandoning his wife because she was no longer attractive.
But I suppose that's what the mentality of victimhood is - not merely someone who's been wronged, but one who ensures that the wrong repeats itself and perpetuates one's identity as a victim. And come to think of it, Obama's more of a threat to their identity than McCain is. Obama is a counterexample to them - he shows there's another way to proceed. McCain is the other side of the same coin - he commits the outrages that they feed on. So if McCain gets elected, they can continue to whine and complain. If Obama gets elected, and asks blacks to rise above victimhood, those women are going to have to go along, too - or look feeble and pathetic by contrast. What a nightmare - to have to take responsibility for your own lives!
First, they know that McCain would almost certainly appoint a pro life justice to the Supreme Court in the next four years, likely overturning Roe v. Wade, something that's supposedly dear to Clinton and certainly most feminists.
Second, Obama's policies are almost identical to Clinton's substantively, and McCain's are virtually opposite. This shows that the decision to abandon Obama is largely emotional - and is most likely driven by a feeling that somehow Hillary was wronged, or cheated out of the election. This idea of Hillary's victimhood first at the hands of an unfaithful husband and then by a right-wing attack machine and finally a sexist press and an unfair primary process, the latter ideas stoked by Clinton herself, has driven some supporters to reject Obama - even though he hasn't done anything sexist and certainly won fair and square despite long odds.
But the final and most striking irony is that because of this, some Clinton supporters are pledging to vote for McCain who abandoned his first wife (who had been disfigured in a car accident) for a younger, healthier woman! I mean of all the people to support - these lost Clinton supporters are choosing someone who actually ditched and cheated on his wife to punish Obama, who is by all accounts faithful to his!
Think about that for a moment - all those people who identify with Hillary as a victim are voting for a victimizer to spite a man whose campaign for the most part took the high road. It's almost as if they resent Obama's lack of identification with black victimhood more than McCain's willingness to overturn Roe v. Wade and his abandoning his wife because she was no longer attractive.
But I suppose that's what the mentality of victimhood is - not merely someone who's been wronged, but one who ensures that the wrong repeats itself and perpetuates one's identity as a victim. And come to think of it, Obama's more of a threat to their identity than McCain is. Obama is a counterexample to them - he shows there's another way to proceed. McCain is the other side of the same coin - he commits the outrages that they feed on. So if McCain gets elected, they can continue to whine and complain. If Obama gets elected, and asks blacks to rise above victimhood, those women are going to have to go along, too - or look feeble and pathetic by contrast. What a nightmare - to have to take responsibility for your own lives!
Clinton Should Not Get Help for Her Campaign Debt
The NYTimes reported today that Clinton has a debt of about $21 million and talks about her options for retiring it, one of which was raising more money from her supporters, another of which was having Obama's supporters help raise money. Both options strike me as ridiculous.
First off, the Clintons' net worth was more than $100 million before the campaign started. Why should people struggling to make ends meet give them a dime? (I'd presume most people who aren't struggling gave the $2300 maximum). The Clintons can retire the debt personally and still have $75 million or so in the bank, with plenty more to come now that Bill's free to continue speaking and having other undisclosed business dealings.
The idea of Obama supporters giving Clinton money is laughable. Clinton was throwing good money at bad long after her only hope for winning was an Obama meltdown. While people have given her credit for "grit" and "determination," in most other endeavors this would just be considered poor judgment - racking up debt in pursuit of a lost cause. And that's fine if she's going to take responsibility for that poor judgment and pay for it out of pocket. But to ask people for money in a bad economy to free her from its consequences is bad form.
The one option not discussed that I'd find reasonable is not to pay Mark Penn the millions he's owed, and when he sues her, to countersue for malpractice - after all, not only did he run a terrible campaign, he was on the Columbian government's payroll, lobbying for a trade deal that Clinton was criticizing. That's a conflict of interest that might void the obligation.
First off, the Clintons' net worth was more than $100 million before the campaign started. Why should people struggling to make ends meet give them a dime? (I'd presume most people who aren't struggling gave the $2300 maximum). The Clintons can retire the debt personally and still have $75 million or so in the bank, with plenty more to come now that Bill's free to continue speaking and having other undisclosed business dealings.
The idea of Obama supporters giving Clinton money is laughable. Clinton was throwing good money at bad long after her only hope for winning was an Obama meltdown. While people have given her credit for "grit" and "determination," in most other endeavors this would just be considered poor judgment - racking up debt in pursuit of a lost cause. And that's fine if she's going to take responsibility for that poor judgment and pay for it out of pocket. But to ask people for money in a bad economy to free her from its consequences is bad form.
The one option not discussed that I'd find reasonable is not to pay Mark Penn the millions he's owed, and when he sues her, to countersue for malpractice - after all, not only did he run a terrible campaign, he was on the Columbian government's payroll, lobbying for a trade deal that Clinton was criticizing. That's a conflict of interest that might void the obligation.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Rehabilitation for Hillary Clinton
This post by "Sean" on FiveThirtyEight.com pretty much articulated my feelings toward Hillary Clinton to a tee.
He wrote this before she made her speech, which ever-so-slightly exceeded my expectations of what she would actually do, but surely fell short of what Sean would deem necessary for her rehabilitation. I tend to agree with him.
The argument is that Clinton poisoned Obama's image in the minds of her supporters by acting like his campaign was dirty, sexist and disrespectful. So even though she's ostensibly thrown her support behind Obama and asked her faithful to do the same, she's done so without healing the perceived wounds. In other words, her supporters still believe that she (and by extension they) were somehow wronged by the process. In that case, they might feel that Hillary has to do this because she's being bullied by Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi et. al., but that they have still been wronged.
Therefore Sean's argument was for Clinton to heal those wounds by acknowledging that the outrage and emotion she stirred up in her followers were based on lies. And that she wasn't robbed, nor were FLA and MICH and that Obama's not by any means an elitist or a Muslim or a sexist. And that her campaign was the one fighting dirty, while his largely took the high road.
If she were to come clean about that, Sean argues, then maybe, possibly, he could see her in a different light.
But she didn't. And so now it's left to Obama himself to reach out to her supporters, and that's going to be far more difficult because she didn't come completely clean.
The more I think about it - it seems that this really isn't over, and she might, over the next six months, subtly undermine him with an eye on 2012. I hope I'm wrong - and that this wasn't a calculated half measure - but instead the best that she could do given who she is.
He wrote this before she made her speech, which ever-so-slightly exceeded my expectations of what she would actually do, but surely fell short of what Sean would deem necessary for her rehabilitation. I tend to agree with him.
The argument is that Clinton poisoned Obama's image in the minds of her supporters by acting like his campaign was dirty, sexist and disrespectful. So even though she's ostensibly thrown her support behind Obama and asked her faithful to do the same, she's done so without healing the perceived wounds. In other words, her supporters still believe that she (and by extension they) were somehow wronged by the process. In that case, they might feel that Hillary has to do this because she's being bullied by Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi et. al., but that they have still been wronged.
Therefore Sean's argument was for Clinton to heal those wounds by acknowledging that the outrage and emotion she stirred up in her followers were based on lies. And that she wasn't robbed, nor were FLA and MICH and that Obama's not by any means an elitist or a Muslim or a sexist. And that her campaign was the one fighting dirty, while his largely took the high road.
If she were to come clean about that, Sean argues, then maybe, possibly, he could see her in a different light.
But she didn't. And so now it's left to Obama himself to reach out to her supporters, and that's going to be far more difficult because she didn't come completely clean.
The more I think about it - it seems that this really isn't over, and she might, over the next six months, subtly undermine him with an eye on 2012. I hope I'm wrong - and that this wasn't a calculated half measure - but instead the best that she could do given who she is.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Get Lost Carl Icahn
I don't know a whole lot about the business of large company mergers and proxy fights, but it strikes me that Icahn should mind his own business and leave Yahoo and its board alone. Who is Icahn - some entitled billionaire who feels the need to buy a large stake and force yahoo to sell Microsoft? Apart from Yahoo shareholders, who stand to see their stock get a bump in the short term, who does that really benefit? Do we need more consolidation of the search business at the top? Are consumers really that ill-served by Google's dominance of the search market? How so?
My only experience with Yahoo is in our business dealings with them at RotoWire, and they're one of the best, easiest and least pretentious big companies we deal with. It would be a shame if they were sold to a company widely reviled as a bully that puts out a mediocre product.
Short-term shareholder value shouldn't be the be-all, end-all of business. I own Yahoo shares, and I don't care about the short-term profit I'd get if Icahn's plan were to go through. I'd rather see the company stay independent.
Perhaps I'm naive here, but hearing Icahn rip Yahoo's management and try to force them to accept Microsoft's since withdrawn takeover bid rubs me the wrong way. What does he even care? The guy is a billionaire already - what good does this do? As usual in mergers, people will lose jobs, and sometimes that's necessary in situations where the underlying business makes no sense, or the merger is highly beneficial to both companies. In this case, Yahoo doesn't want to merge, unless they're blown away by the offer, so why force it?
My only experience with Yahoo is in our business dealings with them at RotoWire, and they're one of the best, easiest and least pretentious big companies we deal with. It would be a shame if they were sold to a company widely reviled as a bully that puts out a mediocre product.
Short-term shareholder value shouldn't be the be-all, end-all of business. I own Yahoo shares, and I don't care about the short-term profit I'd get if Icahn's plan were to go through. I'd rather see the company stay independent.
Perhaps I'm naive here, but hearing Icahn rip Yahoo's management and try to force them to accept Microsoft's since withdrawn takeover bid rubs me the wrong way. What does he even care? The guy is a billionaire already - what good does this do? As usual in mergers, people will lose jobs, and sometimes that's necessary in situations where the underlying business makes no sense, or the merger is highly beneficial to both companies. In this case, Yahoo doesn't want to merge, unless they're blown away by the offer, so why force it?
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