February 10, 2012
Conservative Mind Expansion
An average conservative head is a complete mess these days. But it’s a creative mess. They have learned so many new words and names and concepts they haven’t heard of before and are so eager to share their newfound knowledge that they remind me of a teenager who has just discovered Nietzsche. They walk around dispensing words like socialism, Marxism, Objectivism, anti-colonialism, quoting Friedrich Hayek, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman and even Saul Alinsky. But I commend them for the mere curiosity and interest in learning new things. Why shouldn’t we celebrate when the unassuming inhabitants of Midwestern and Southern towns are now conversing in terms that you would otherwise hear at a preppy College Libertarians soiree?
January 27, 2012
The Spell of Wall Street
“Seek first to understand then be understood.” Anonymous.
Understanding Wall Street mentality is a bit like understanding military mentality. There’s something utterly profound when brothers in arms pull together in the heat of battle and persevere. Wall Street fancies itself to be like the military. The place is rich soil for military quotes and references and “war stories”. Making money in adverse conditions is viewed as an act of valor, a display of incredible courage. Many in a decision-making position have “killed” or “been killed” at least once. Read the rest of this entry »
January 10, 2012
Honest Conservatives
It is possible, although decreasingly so in American politics, to admire, if disagree with, your political opponents. I keep a dwindling collection of conservatives, who are not preoccupied with vengeance, destruction, pledges and sexual politics. I call them thinking conservatives and perhaps the matters where we disagree would come down to economics and foreign policy. David Frum is on that list, so is David Brooks. William Buckley, the lucid founder of conservative magazine National Review, whose son Christopher Buckley famously left his father’s venue and voted for Obama in 2008, was a pleasure to read before he passed away, if not for agreement but for his deft command of English. I can hardly imagine a current day conservative to publicly criticize Ayn Rand, as well as denounce John Birch Society as “far removed from common sense”. Who does the Right have now to carry the torch – Rush Limbaugh? Charles Krauthammer? It’s beyond embarrassing! Read the rest of this entry »
December 28, 2011
New Year Resolutions
“The way I learned it, the kid in the school yard who doesn’t want to fight always leaves with a black eye. If you indicate you’ll do anything to avoid trouble, that’s when you get trouble.” 50 Cent
As a rule, New Year’s resolutions are not directed at others but projected onto ourselves in an attempt to become better in the coming year. Thus, I will indulge myself in some inward-looking (in a collective sense) narrative.
Perhaps you are already familiar with the idea that the Left in general, while having the best argument, is weak to defend it. In an attempt to find a cure to this ailment, I first had to identify the source of the disease, and I can’t find a better explanation than the desire of liberals to “be nice”. This image of the Left, as going to great lengths to “be nice” and not to offend anybody, morphs into justifiable belief that liberals can’t fight for their values. “Being nice” manifests itself in many ways, including using reason when a show of force would be more effective, fighting for minor issues, like bike lane rights, when voting rights are being undermined in broad daylight, and taking offense at being called names while democracy is being undercut by unfair redistricting. Read the rest of this entry »
December 2, 2011
A Party without Judgment
Capt. Willard: “They told me that you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound.”
Col. Kurtz: “I remember when I was with Special Forces… seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate some children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn’t see. We went back there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember… I… I… I cried, I wept like some grandmother. … And then I realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand that these were not monsters, these were men… trained cadres. … If I had ten divisions of those men, our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral… and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling… without passion… without judgment… without judgment! Because it’s judgment that defeats us.”
John Milius & Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse Now.
I remember how in the run up to a debt ceiling debate last summer I wrote on my wall: “In the battle between the Tea Party and Wall Street I’m betting on Wall Street.” How naïve I was back then. How much faith I put, wishfully, into Republicans’ supposed concerns for other people’s hard earned money. How much weight I gave to the notion that Republicans will put business interests, money and fiscal responsibility first. How much significance I assigned to the bond between Wall Street and Republicans. In my head I had pictures of Wall Street moguls frantically dialing their buddies in Congress, saying: dude, look, I understand you hate Obama and stuff, but I have a huge position in this and that, you have to pass this, I don’t care about politics – just pass the damn thing! That was my bet. I lost, of course. I underestimated the will of the Republicans to cut off the arms of little children if it meant victory. Read the rest of this entry »
November 19, 2011
Why Play a Rigged Game?
Poker is my religion. There are rules, upon violation of which, you get punished mercilessly. Some call it statistics, some – including myself – poker Gods.
When I sit down at the table I appreciate the plethora of characters from all walks of life. I appreciate the fact that there are winners and losers, luck and grind, spectacular twists of fate, rivalries but also universal fairness: In the long run, if you play correctly, you win. Very American Dream, isn’t it? There are quiet types you have to watch out for, business travelers, retirees, smelly hobos, students and “just passing by” types. There are also administrators of the entire establishment including dealers, floor managers, security that derive their sustenance from players; and an element of game – a deck of cards that is changed every few hours. You get my drift – just like a democracy. Except that we’ve been playing with the same stacked deck for the last few decades. Some people at the table will never get dealt two kings or two aces and it is not chance related. Others, who consistently win at the table make me wonder – have they really become so much smarter, savvier and better at math to beat the odds in such a remarkable manner? Am I to believe that some players are now so much sharper and more productive than they were 30 years ago, thus deserving not 20 times but 300 times the payouts of an average Joe Schmo?
That’s some impressive margin of error! So a hobo-looking character and a few students at the table complain about it and demand a new deck. And predictably, “good players” immediately jump in and attack them for being losers and comment on their personal hygiene. I wonder why – are they in on it? The sad truth is – correct play is no longer a guarantee against a long-term loss at this poker table of ours. And, if you don’t want to award any credibility to dirty hippies for voicing it, then who’s to know that better if not hundreds of thousands of people laid off from financial industry in the wake of the financial crisis. They played correct, solid game – they went to college, worked hard, got a mortgage, paid taxes and still got run over. Just look at the headlines from the last few days:
“Finance Job Losses Near 200,000 as BNP, Citigroup Cut Staff
Commerzbank sinks to first quarterly loss since ’09 and begins lending pull-back
UBS plans to cut 2,000 investment banking jobs
More heads roll in 2011 than in 2009
BNP Paribas to lay off 1,396 as crisis deepens” (Source: Options Group, Fins.com)
The first, and understandable, reaction of those laid off is to blame government regulation that encumbers the normal flow of business. If the government wasn’t pressuring banks to comply with strict rules those people would not have been laid off, the logic goes. While this can be somewhat true in the short term, are those people prepared to endure boom and bust business model in the future? And, more importantly, do they want to continue to play the game where the odds are against them, no matter how good their skills are? Guys, it’s been a juicy game at the table, no doubt, but not for you. Because to have a comfortable, middle-class life in Manhattan (not lavish, just comfortable!) you have to be a Managing Director at a Wall Street firm, but there’s simply not enough facility to accommodate everyone to become one. So what is the rest, the middle of the Bell curve with just college degree, strong work ethic and no delusions of grandeur supposed to do? Why is comfortable, middle-class life increasingly becoming a luxury available only to super achievers?
This juicy table is on the brink of breaking as more and more players are saying – we don’t want to play this game.
Those who think that OWS are anti-capitalists, iphone-using, Starbucks-drinking hypocrites and society leeches demanding handouts could not be further from the truth. “Get a Job” signs, while prompting self-satisfied chuckle in the Fox News crowd for being “clever”, fall flat. Those protesters would love to get a job but they can’t. Why is it that thousands upon thousands who lost jobs on Wall Street following the crisis deserve sympathy and the unemployed protesters don’t?
All they want is a new deck of cards. To clarify what I consider a new deck of cards is (just to start, in no particular order): reinstatement of Glass Steagall Act; effective government regulation (not necessarily more and not necessarily stricter – effective); enactment of Volcker Rule; a bailout fund sponsored by a tax on corporations to save themselves should shit hit the fan again; stricter regulation of credit-default swaps – you can buy protection only on the asset you own; executive compensation regulation. The latter is controversial and I would support a legislation that regulates the payouts of CEOs of deposit-taking institutions. If it’s a hedge fund that trades its’ own money – knock yourself out. But there’s no amount of stress and hard work that I can think of that would justify $68mln payout (Lloyd Blankfein compensation for 2007) for a bank CEO. Tough decisions to make, thousands of people to manage, sleepless nights, erectile dysfunction – fine – but unless you played with your own money and took your own risks and your downside is that you lose it all, move to the projects and dodge collectors – it’s not worth $68 bucks. Commanders in Iraq are under more stress and have to make decisions with lives, not money – for what a typical CEO considers change.
Americans love a good underdog story and often see Rocky or Billy Beane in themselves. That’s commendable, but under the current rules Rockys will be perpetually dragging that log and Billy Beanes will be perpetually tweaking those metrics with only a promise of a win in sight. I too love the element of competition and game in life, but to stay and play at that table would not make me a hero – it would make me a fool.
October 15, 2011
Keep the Customer Happy
“There has been class warfare going on. It’s just that my class is winning. And my class isn’t just winning, I mean we’re killing them.” Warren Buffett
Have you seen this We are the 53 percent website yet? The hard-working 53% sticking it to the 47% “whiners”? Somehow, in this country, it’s considered a badge of honor to suffer, to work oneself to the bone, to work two jobs and call those who are not “ok” with such a state of affairs “whiners”. These 53% are completely missing the point. The point is: it’s ok to work hard and make sacrifices in order to succeed not in order to get by. From those pictures I can tell that they are just scraping by, barely holding their head above water, and proud of it. Look, they are good folks, no doubt, but just because they are ok with being abused doesn’t mean all others should do the same. What about the disabled, elderly, single mothers? How are they supposed to work two jobs without health insurance? The 53% percent are looking for the culprit in all the wrong places. Somehow they think that the 47% are lazy bums on welfare who refuse to work. The 53% are either blissfully or willfully unaware that what keeps them from joining the 47% is one injury, one pink slip, one accident. Adversity is no doubt good for building a character but not everybody is Napoleon. And what do they have to show for such hard work that they’re doing? Guys, you’re on a treadmill that keeps going faster and faster and one day you won’t be able to keep up. I appreciate your fighting spirit, but you’re fighting the wrong war! The source of your suffering is not the unemployed, they are merely a symptom, it’s the rigged game that you play against the house. The 47% or the 99% of the OWS are simply saying: we refuse to play that game.
A few words about the house. I think the most honest business nowadays is a casino. Let me elaborate. First of all, they do not hide under the false façade: you know how their business model works. They do not pretend that your well-being is important to them, they are there to assist you in having a good time. When you’re a client of the casino they hold their promise: you get free drinks, you get comped, sometimes you get a free room. If you’re elderly or disabled you get an oxygen mask and an electric cart. And they take your money. Yes, it’s a fleecing business, but 1. You’re fully aware of this 2. You’re having a good time. Wall Street and corporations have thus violated the most important principle of the system they themselves built: keep the customer happy. And by customer I mean taxpayer. If they insist on running the country, if they insist on controlling government (read: taxpayers) resources then the first rule they should have upheld is keep the customer happy. Imagine if the casino gambled with your money, lost it and then had the chutzpah to call you a welfare bum. That would piss you off. But would you be pissed off at your fellow customers or at the casino? Wall Street fucked it up spectacularly! They would have never drawn so much attention to themselves and would continue to run this shop if only they adhere to some simple rules and knew when to stop. Everything was going in their favor. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision granting corporations a personhood, politicians in their pocket, oblivious populace immersed in Jersey Shore and the belief that hard work pays off. It is those customers, the golden goose, the sacred cow that should have been cared for, not slaughtered; it’s them that Wall Street needs, not the other way around. Nowhere in the world can you find such premium clients as American taxpayer. What more did they want? The conditions were ripe to once and for all to cement the corporate world domination (cue in Dr. Evil’s laugh here), but then they handed the reins to a few self-assured frat boys. Very imprudent! So, Wall Street really have no one to blame but themselves for the current predicament. Not the customers. Customers played by the rules.
October 7, 2011
Wall Street Protests
Remember how in the first Wall Street movie Michael Douglas, while riding in a limo with Charlie Sheen, describes to him what it means to be rich. “I’m not talking about $400K working Wall Street stiff flying first class and being comfortable. I’m talking about being rich enough not to waste time” and then points a finger at a bum and a man in a suit on the sidewalk and says something like: there’s no difference between the two. I agree. There’s no difference between the current day protesters and most of the suits who’s commute the protesters are obstructing. Sure, one has a job, a house in New Jersey, health insurance, wife and 3 kids, the other – a sublet with roommates in Williamsburg, no job, no prospects and crushing student loans. What they don’t realize is that socially they are on the same side of the barricades, although the former associates oneself with his bosses rather than with those proletariats on the street. Our Wall Street Working Stiff (WSWS) is right to be upset and unhappy: he wakes up at 5, takes a long commute to work, takes shit from his boss, fends off vultures, pleases clients, worries about bonus and how not to get fired, goes home, takes shit from his wife, worries about mortgage and kids’ college fund and if he’s lucky he falls asleep without medicine. Day in and day out, year after year. And then to pile up on his already miserable existence he gets painted by all kinds of bums as being the culprit. That’ll make you angry.
You see “Wall Street” as a composite is about 99% guys like WSWS. They are the accountants, the compliance officers, the programmers, the analysts, the back office, the middle office and most of them wear suits to work. But the majority of them never had the imagination and the aptitude to come up with the stuff that brought this economy down. Those who did are long gone with nice packages. There are some still left but they don’t walk past the crowds downtown. They have limos waiting in the garage. But for the protesters every guy in a suit is a villain. They can’t tell a difference. I can. Only wannabes wear pinstripe suits and carry a briefcase. Whenever I see a guy like this I smell stiffness, platitudes and fear. The real rainmakers wear shirts with rolled-up sleeves and cheap shoes. And the “Wall Street” has long moved to midtown. Only the Fed and the Goldman is downtown now.
Now that I have defended, to the best of my abilities, Wall Street Working Stiffs I should say I support the protesters for finally channeling the anger of many to the right place. The “Wall Street” as an idea is still there and any attempts by politicians to rein it in so far have failed. Dodd-Frank, already toothless enough at the inception in order to be passed, has been made into a joke with amendments that favor the wrong guys. The bad guys will never go to jail as it’s almost impossible to indict them. Who? On what grounds? Creating mortgage-backed securities, while abominable, wasn’t illegal, selling them to “qualified” customers wasn’t either. Knowingly misleading the clients is such a weak case and everybody knows Goldman was doing it and yet Lloyd Blankfein still has his job.
The only thing clear now is that we’re all in this together. WSWS and hippie protesters are the 99%. Each group’s existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to the other, is a natural result of flawed policies. Both played by the rules and both feel, rightly, shortchanged. But instead of blaming each other they should turn their gaze and anger upwards. The kids occupying Wall Street seem to understand it. The WSWS – not yet.
October 5, 2011
Thoughts on Republican presidential field.
You gotta feel sorry for Republicans. I do. Now that Christie is out it comes down to Romney vs. Cain. To a collective gasp for both moderate Republicans and Tea Partiers. I think it’s time for us on the left to stop calling Tea Parties racist, since from the copious, albeit unsatisfactory, field they ended up preferring a black guy. I also look in amazement at how much they must hate Romney! Losing Christie has deprived us from a promise of a good fight. He would be a formidable opponent to Obama. I guess Tea Partiers like Christie because he’s always angry and moderates like him because, anger aside, he’s rather middle of the road in his views on guns, gay marriage, and in general he errs on the side of getting things done rather than sticking to rigid principles. Not that I’d root for him, but he seemed like the most decent, honest and straightforward guy among the roster.
I also have a few words on Rick Perry. In my view, he showed his human side when he called those who want to deny illegal immigrant’s children a chance at education “heartless” only to be quickly brought down from the pedestal by the same people who elevated him there just a few weeks ago. They certainly didn’t like to hear the truth about themselves even coming from a gun-toting, death-penalty loving Texan. I’m afraid that with so many requirements for a perfect candidate and unwilling to compromise on any of them the Tea Party will never get laid.
From my partisan standpoint I like what I see in the opposition camp. But from the broader and more significant perspective I weep together with and for moderate Republicans for what the party of Lincoln and Regan has become. That’s the best you’ve got? In the whole South and the Midwest, from the plethora of Republican governors and senators, you’re down to flip-flopping guy from Massachussetts and a black guy who has never held a public office (the last one is particularly ironic). You refuse to even give a good look to Jon Huntsman or Gary Johnson or even to Ron Paul, for Christ sake, who loves your Ayn Rand so much as to name his son after her. Btw, since I mentioned Jesus and Ayn Rand in the same sentence let me expand on it: if Jesus and Ayn Rand married and had a child together the Tea Partiers would still be unsatisfied: Atheist who loves the poor, what a nightmare!
The best thing for Romney, should he get the nomination, would be to pick Marco Rubio, a Florida senator, for VP spot. Tea Partiers love him, he can attract the Hispanic vote that went overwhelmingly for Obama last time and they will have groomed the next GOP presidential contender for 2018 or beyond.
August 25, 2011
Obama – a star in conservative cartoons.
Many conservatives like to create a caricature of a liberal in their heads and blogs and then proceed to successfully assassinate that made up character. They imagine liberals as weak-minded hippies who don’t know math and want everyone to drive Prius and eat vegetables at best, and who’re lazy, unemployed parasites who demand handouts at worst. That’s why it’s so upsetting for the conservatives when the exemplary members of our society, self-made true capitalists like Warren Buffett as a recent example, come out and disprove their case. There was no shortage of right-wing hacks trying to point out to Buffett why being socially responsible is an abhorrent human trait! It is customary for one to ascribe negative qualities to a person he already doesn’t like, to project qualities that subject loathes and the object doesn’t possess. That’s the case between conservatives and Obama – they award him qualities he doesn’t have and then hate him for it.
The fact is that Obama is center, even center-right. But nothing can placate the right, even if Obama brings Reagan from the dead on national TV, cuts all the taxes and drowns the government in the tub. They see an untrustworthy black man, burdened, in their imagination, with centuries old generational grievances that he wants to redress at the expense of a white man, thus they look at him, watch his every move and find evidence that he is the man that they have drawn in their minds. It reminds me of deeply religious people seeing Jesus face or Virgin Mary in inanimate objects like toasts and rocks. They see it because they want to see it. Except in Obama they see a socialist dictator or a petty criminal depending on the depth of one’s imagination.
Many believe first and foremost that Obama is going to take their hard-earned money away from them by raising taxes. Jokes about being robbed by Obama as a thuggish black man are abound. Oh, how I wish sometimes that he was indeed from the ghetto! Here mine and the Right’s wishes converge at last. They would thus get confirmation of their theories and someone who fits their narrative; and I and the lefties would get someone who punches back at them.
He won as a liberal but governs as a moderate Republican, but to acknowledge that for the Conservatives is harder than to cut off their arm. Careers have been built on hating Obama. Even Reagan raised taxes at some point but Obama went out of his way not to, where does that put him – to the right of Reagan? It is offensive for conservative to even think such thoughts. He’s supposed to be tax and spend liberal, he has to be, otherwise the case that was carefully being built against him for the last 3 years should be tossed! So they pile on.
Obama is a human receptacle of some sorts, a blessing for conservatives on whom they can project their darkest human qualities. That’s why there’s no lack of conservatives rushing, elbowing each other to the microphone or the TV screen to insult Obama in the most innovative and creative ways and high-fiving each other for daring and originality. Bashing Obama has become a crowded trade, a bubble even, to use market terms. He is a gift, he’s that vagabond black man passing through the town on whom all the unsolved murders can be pinned by a local police chief. If only Obama’s coke dealer or an intern under the table were found to complete the picture – imagine such luck!
Republican Congressman Joe Wilson infamously cried “Liar” at Obama when the latter said that no illegal immigrants will be covered in the health bill. And the facts confirm it. But that would mean that Obama does not wantonly spend taxpayers’ dollars on illegal immigrants – a notion that belies the entire carefully built narrative around Obama’s personality. He stubbornly fails to be reckless and hasty with other people’s money. To once and for all quell the issue of what taxes Obama raised here\’s Heritage foundation’s page (a right-wing enclave, so that there’s no accusations of liberal bias) with list of taxes that he did raise (the best they could find was cigarette tax and tanning salon tax, proceeds of which go to children’s health insurance programs. Clearly a path to socialism!). Obama never has raised any income taxes, which are the taxes conservatives have in mind every time they talk about them.
I fault Obama for not shifting the tax debate on our turf. We’re not demanding the conservatives to show how trickle-down economics and lower taxes benefit the economy. The income tax rate is the lowest in decades, but all this time it’s been a downhill for the middle class. The argument that lower taxes make businesses hire people doesn’t stand a simple test: the corporations are awash with cash right now and they continue to lay people off.
Having this discussion would be such a winning issue for the Democrats and yet they reduced themselves to placating the anti-tax Republicans and teapartiers by demonstrating that Obama is really a fiscal conservative. What do they expect conservatives faced with evidence to say – “Oh, ok then!”? We’re at the point where it is taboo to even talk about tax increases. Grover Norquist may not have succeeded yet in reducing the government to a bathtub size, but he succeeded in shaping the debate we’re having now. Obama is unable to govern as a Democrat. That’s his tragedy.
