On the Contrary

Just a short note as I work on Vine/Wine Friday:  The Press is finally being the press and it is a welcome surprise.  The Republicans have been out on one of their talking point drives trying to tamp down the outrage about their sactioned torture.  In the past the press has gladly lent their stage for these conservative talking points, but on the torture issue they are confronting these Republicans with a few facts that don’t quite jive with their story.  A case in point was yesterday’s Nora O’Donnell (MSNBC) interview with Liz Cheney, the daughter of Vice President Cheney.  Liz Cheney was spewing all the misinformation about torture and with the memos and other information we now know about what actually happened, Nora was able to point out most of the out right lies in the talking points or the failures in logic.  Later Lawrence O’Donnell was interviewed and he trashed the rest of the logic including the claims of preventing terrorist attacks.  On that one, the attack was prevented 6 months before we captured the terrorist they purported to have tortured to prevent the attack.  You can see all the interviews on the Daily Kos.

There was another interesting tidbit on the Olbermann show (Countdown MSNBC) when Keith was interviewing Chris Hayes the Washington Editor from the Nation Magazine about whether Nancy Pelosi had, as John Boehner claimed, known about what was going on (which she denied).  Chris said, “I am inclined to believe Speaker Pelosi over John Boehner, but I don’ really care from a partisan standpoint, who sign off on all this.  Let it all be brought to light.  If it were the case that there were Democratic law makers who knew what was happening and gave it the thumps up whether tacit or explicit, we should know about that…” This is the primary difference between Democrats and Republicans.  They are protecting their own at all costs, most Democrats are standing up for a principal that torture is immoral.

So here is a hearty thank you to Nora O’Donnell and we hope the beginning of a new chapter in Press coverage where instead of just letting the pundit spout his talking points, the interviewer is well enough prepared to raise critical questions about them instead of just moving on to the next question, letting the false claims go unchallenged, and lending credibility to them.  I would love to see the same type of interview about the economy or energy.  It truly would be a new day

Watching Congress for the last couple of days has been quite entertaining although the destruction they are wreaking may be catastrophic.  Better yet watching Nora O’Donnell on MSNBC almost shrieking as she brow beat Representative Charlie Rangle who was in the conference committee on the TARP bill when he said he knew absolutely nothing about who took the language out of the bill to prohibit the bonuses, was watching misplaced rage out of control.  It turned out the language was removed at the request of Treasury long before it got to conference but that is beside the point.  They want someone to hang, and rational thought is not on the agenda.

The sad thing is that while the bonuses tell you everything that is wrong with the mentality on Wall Street, they are not the real problem.  The real problem is that the banks are broke, badly broke.  It may feel good to string up a few traders who helped get us there, but the reality is, they are small potatoes in the scheme of things.  The real action is getting the system working again and then fixing the systemic problems.  And just as a by-the-way, no laws were broken.  There apparently weren’t any to break.

Congress meanwhile, in wild political gyrations, is playing politics of the worst kind, opportunism.  Most Republicans went into the blame game mode to try to blacken the Obama administration and Democrats in any way they could, conveniently ignoring the fact that it was the Bush Treasury that agreed to these bonuses originally, but none of this is really important.  Some called for the resignation of Timothy Geithner.  Let’s move the chairs around on the Titanic and everything will be okay.  Meanwhile the Democrats headed them off at the pass by passing a bill to tax 90% of the bonuses in the House.  This kind of takes the wind out of the Republican’s sails because it was a problem, but was quickly remedied.  But then the Republicans found themselves caught between a rock and a hard place when they realized this was raising taxes which they had pledged to never raise and many couldn’t vote for it.  By all accounts all this is meaningless because the bill itself is most probably unconstitutional and if not, bad legislation at best.  It will never get past the Senate.

Steven Pearlstein, who is a business and financial columnist for the Washington Post wrote a wonderful article on Friday to describe why this is all about small potatoes and once again the focus is in the wrong place (Let’s Put Down the Pitchforks).  But his most important point was who was really to blame for this financial mess we are in.  We are.  When we finally get tired of lynching parties, maybe it is time to look in the mirror.

Our economy has been going strong not because we were manufacturing anything, but because we were borrowing up to the hilt and making truckloads of cash selling that debt to all comers.  Our entire economic boom was based upon creating and selling debt.  Much of the spending in the last 10 years was funded by 2nd mortgages and credit cards.  Even the investments in this debt was funded by borrowing.  While we ignored the real needs of our country by continued tax cuts, we were out with the credit card getting all those things we were entitled to and deserved.  Think about it.  It is the same mentality as the Master’s of the Universe.  They are entitled to their bonuses because they worked hard and sold all those worthless pieces of paper.  The common good is lost in all of this.  We became so selfish we all feathered our own nests while we emptied our governments and by extension, our children’s.

So what do we make of all this?  Well for the fury in Washington, we can draw the conclusion that nothing has changed.  They are still not focused on coming together to solve the real problems.  Most of our Congress thinks we can find a few scapegoats, score some political points, and things will be back to normal, meaning going nowhere.  But anyone who has ever had to manage a real program and get things done will tell you that shit happens and you make mistakes.  The way forward is not to shoot those who make mistakes, but to learn from your mistakes, correct them, and move on.  Joe Nocera in the New York Times on Saturday chronicled why what Congress has been up to is so damaging to the real problem with our economy (The Problem with Flogging AIG).  If we continue on this path we are doomed.

As I watch those who are playing the blame game, I know they have never really been put in charge of something really important and had to make it work.   The media are experts at pointing fingers when someone stumbles.  The politicians know how to cover their asses.  But none of them has ever had to build an organization and lead it.  It is not about charging forward and shooting deserters.  It is about stumbling, trying something different, making mistakes, learning, correcting, and slowly building a team that can succeed.  It is so easy to criticize and it is so hard to take the risk to lead and then be vulnerable from those that can second guess you.  It would seem that our President has figured this out, but for the rest of the rabble, the jury is still out.

So bottom line here is we should get the money back if we can, but we shouldn’t pass legislation that could be counterproductive to your whole effort.  Note this legislation affects all banks and financial institutions that took federal money and employees who did not work in these troubled financial groups.  They may opt out of the program and just sit tight which is exactly what we don’t need (See Joe’s article above).  We may eventually find out that the deal was struck when the contracts were signed and lo and behold, Treasury was right when it said we could not violate those contracts, as unjust as they are.  If that is the case, swallow hard, lick your wounds, move on. And don’t make that mistake again.  The real battle is to save the economy, not get back one-tenth of one percent of the bailout money.  Meanwhile back in Washington the circus continues and as they do what they do best, finding fault and fixing blame.  Anybody think this is progress?  We need to stop the hysterics, focus on our real problems and start moving forward behind our President instead of this endless lashing out.

First I need to apologize for being missing in action.  I am finishing up a consulting job and it has taxed my writing skills so that all I want to do in the evening is go back to my hotel room, watch Rachel Maddow, dream about her announcing my “wonderful” blog on her show, and then being interviewed on all the important issues. Actually I would just like to meet her sometime because she is just so darn nice, smart, and lovely. There is also “Chuck” where we can suspend our disbelief and believe a babe like Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski), would really go for a nowhere nerd like Chuck (played by Zachary Levi).  It gives all us nowhere guys hope. So much for an active fantasy life, but back to the topic at hand

Fat old white men, unless you haven’t figured it out, are the establishment in the Republican Party.  As I like to say, it takes one to know one, and I am a fat old white guy.  That is all we have in common.  But they were out in force yesterday and all I could think of was, are they all auditioning for the part of Scrooge?  First there was Senator Richard Shelby from Alabama looking like the Grinch who stole Christmas as he threatens to filibuster any auto bailout deal.  One thing that is always consistent about Republicans, they are all about punishment.  The auto executives have sinned and they should be damned to Chapter 11 hell.  Senator Shelby is not going to reward poor management by throwing our tax dollars at those bums.

One has step back a minute to understand the glaring hypocrisy here.  Senator Shelby’s state has a very protected auto manufacturing base, albeit, foreign manufactures, all of which have gotten billions is tax subsidies to locate there.  Tax subsidies; isn’t that taxpayer money?  Now I will grant you that the auto executives are morons.  Remember that the guy leading the development of hybrid cars doesn’t believe in global warming.  But this is not what this is about.  It is about the jobs of millions of Americans.  From Shelby’s point of view, Merry Christmas, you are all fired.  What he misses here is that the money they earn is the money that fuels the economy that allows enough income so that others can buy the cars produced in his own state.

But typical of Republican thought, this is all about punishment and he doesn’t get the concept that we are all in this together.  It’s not my state against your state, they all have to thrive for us to prosper.  Republican ideology is about selfishness, not about shared interests.  Personally I don’t like the bailout very much either.  I hate the fact that the other fat white person (George “the moron” Bush) wants to appoint the car czar and will not support the Democrats requirement that the auto industry quit fighting environmental regulations in states like California.  I mean after all, we have seen Republican “management and leadership” for the last 8 years and if they had produced greener cars instead of filing lawsuits, they might not be in as deep a hole as they are in.  To save the jobs, the Demos will have to cave for now, but they had better have a plan on 20 January to undo this moron’s “leadership”.  I think we ought to get them through to the new Administration, and then see if a structured Chapter 11 with the government loaning them reorganization money and a real plan for the future would work.  It’s certainly worth a try.

The other fat guy that got my attention yesterday was the Chairman of the Republican Party, Mike Duncan.  He was on MSNBC being interviewed by Nora O’Donnell (I got all this while working out in the gym at lunch) demanding that Barrack Obama explain any and all ties he has with Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois (of how much is that Senator in the window fame).  He said something like, “I wish the President-Elect well, but he needs to come out and make a clear statement about his involvement in this affair.”  Now to Nora O’Donnell’s credit she asked him what involvement since the U.S. Attorney (Fitzpatrick) stated that they had no evidence of any involvement and played Barrack Obama’s statement that he had no knowledge of a “pay to play scheme”.  That didn’t faze Duncan who continued to try to somehow link Obama with this scandal.  Nothing has changed.  These guys are still playing gutter politics (it is all they know) instead of looking at ways to face our looming economic disaster.  Duncan wants Obama to fail so bad he can’t stand it.  Republicans have no answers for the future they just want to sling mud so they can get back in power.

In this day where I think the looming financial crisis has only been felt at the margins so far, Republicans are still in denial and have one simple approach:  Punish evil doers and say no.  Herbert Hoover did basically the same thing after the crash of the stock market in 1929, brought on the Great Depression.  They are at it again because their psychological make-up is about power, authority, and punishment, not about looking forward and working together in a cooperative way to solve our problems.  Hopefully they are a dying bred.

By the way, just to let you know how much in denial we are in about our financial crisis and possible depression, the Yankees signed a $161 million contract with ace left-hander C. C. Sabathia.  I don’t think many people are going to be able to pay the price of a ticket for the next few years.  I wonder how many jobs could be created if even half the money was invested in infrastructure?