Careful what you wish for

Ginandtacos.com makes an interesting point: the GOP’s decades-long struggle to restrict campaign funding and spending has come back to haunt them. Those crazy, whacky conservatives dominating the House and causing havoc in the Senate (e.g., Ted Cruz) have nothing to fear or gain from party leaders, including those who nominally run their respective caucuses in both houses.

By fighting so hard for the changes that were ushered in by the Citizens Uniteddecision, Republicans created a system in which individual candidates or members of Congress can get gobs of money without the party’s help. All they need is a cranky billionaire in their corner or sufficient ideological extremity to ensure access to the Tea Party / FreedomWorks / Koch Industries trough of money. John Boehner’s threat to withhold funds from the National Republican Congressional Committee doesn’t exactly leave any members, even freshmen, quaking in their boots.

 

Dysfunction typified

I can’t think of anything that signifies more the dysfunction of the U.S. Senate than the comedic act of one senator Ted Cruz, apparently smart, judging by academic pedigree, but an absolute loon as a practical matter. He, of course, believes that his 21-hour filibuster was all about protecting the interests of the American people.

Sure. Let’s continue to deny health insurance coverage to 50 million fellow citizens. We can applaud that, right?

Free to be fat

Milton Friedman, darling of the right and considered by many loons to still be alive and ready to serve as the new Federal Reserve chairman, penned an influential book summarizing his economic philosophy: Free to Choose. I never read it, but I get the picture.

In case you hadn’t noticed, freedom is a big deal for conservatives. They wish to be free from government and free to, well, choose. So they don’t like Obamacare, of course. However, they will go after you if you want to choose an abortion or have kinky sex in your bedroom. They reserve the right to tell others what to choose.

This extends into the classroom, where all kids should be taught certain things and never be allowed to engage in “critical thinking.” Lord knows what they might come up with. Hell, they could choose to become liberal, and how scary is that?

Digby confesses to being a student of the right, trying for years to divine how they think, if they think at all. In her blog today she wonders about the right’s obsession with Michele Obama’s trying to entice children to eat more vegetables. Indeed, the right loathes any effort by the government to steer us in a better direction, whether it be trains or healthier lifestyles. Digby writes:

…It’s not that they don’t think government should promote good health through programs, laws and communication, although they certainly don’t believe that. They don’t think people need to be or necessarily should be healthy.

That’s rather shocking, isn’t it? And yet I think it’s true. They don’t see good health as a value that affects every human being’s ability to live fully in this world. In fact they are hostile to the very concept. Wow.

I see no good reason why conservatives shouldn’t choose Governor Christie. Right?

Reading lists

Ed, at Ginandtacos.com, asked his college class if they had been assigned Grapes of Wrath while in high school. He had thought that all adolescents had read it or were supposed to have done so, but he was wrong. Only a few hands were raised in the affirmative. He wants to know how school districts around the country decide what books should be required reading.

Yet, why should any book be assigned? I choose books that interest me. Why can’t high school students do the same? Or, for that matter, college kids?

Education, it seems to me, should be open ended and begin with an individual’s passion. If you don’t give a damn about anything at all, then you’re the last person that should be told what to read, since there’s slim chance you’ll derive any benefit from the empty exercise.

Hush. Don’t tell the Republicans

An unrecognizable Earth

The graph in my previous post should be enough to stifle the climate-change deniers. It won’t, of course. But consider the last couple of paragraphs from the linked article to RealClimate.org:

The following graph shows the Marcott reconstruction complemented by some context: the warming at the end of the last Ice Age (which 20,000 years ago reached its peak) and a medium projection for the expected warming in the 21st Century if humanity does not quickly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Figure 4 Global temperature variation since the last ice age 20,000 years ago, extended until 2100 for a medium emissions scenario with about 3 degrees of global warming. Graph: Jos Hagelaars.

Marcott et al. dryly state about this future prospect:

By 2100, global average temperatures will probably be 5 to 12 standard deviations above the Holocene temperature mean.

In other words: We are catapulting ourselves way out of the Holocene.

Just looking at the known drivers (climate forcings) and the actual temperature history shows it directly, without need for a climate model: without the increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans, the slow cooling trend would have continued. Thus virtually the entire warming of the 20th Century is due to man. This May, for the first time in at least a million years, the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has exceeded the threshold of 400 ppm. If we do not stop this trend very soon, we will not recognize our Earth by the end of this century [my emphasis].

I will be long gone by then, but not my grandson. Sorry about that, Nicholas.

To climate change deniers

Look at this graph.

Source

 

 

Don’t bet against Apple

The pundits and financial “analysts” were wrong again. Decrying the lack of a “cheap” phone and a device with a bigger screen, the wrongheaded sages of Wall Street and technology blogs blew it once more. Apple announced today that it had sold nine million new iPhones from Friday through Sunday, with the more expensive 5s outselling the colorful 5c by a ratio of 3.5 to 1, or 7 million to 2 million.

“This is our best iPhone launch yet―more than nine million new iPhones sold―a new record for first weekend sales,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “The demand for the new iPhones has been incredible, and while we’ve sold out of our initial supply of iPhone 5s, stores continue to receive new iPhone shipments regularly. We appreciate everyone’s patience and are working hard to build enough new iPhones for everyone.”

Apple’s stock price jumped five percent today.

Proliferating banks

One thing downtown Everett (Wash.) doesn’t need: another bank. Yet, over the last couple of months the city will have added two, People’s Bank and Homestreet Bank. My problem with this is that money goes into these businesses but, judging by the state of downtown, stays there; it is not invested in improving the built and cultural environments.

I live downtown along the main street that defines “new” Everett, with Hewitt associated with the “historic” Everett. New Everett boasts a half-dozen banks within a three-block stretch.

As I walk north along Colby, the “business” street, I encounter three banks on the corner of Hewitt, which runs east and west. They are: Opus Bank, Union Bank, and Bank of America. Here’s a panorama shot looking NE, with Union Bank in the center, Opus to the left, and Bank of America to the right.

Opus, on the left, Union, in the center, and Bank of America on the right

 

A half-block north we find Coastal Community Bank.

Coastal Community Bank

 

At the end of this block citizens have two more banks in which to deposit their cash, the aforementioned People’s Bank and AmericaWest Bank.

AmericaWest Bank

People’s Bank

Lest you you’re not satisfied to put your money into these banks, the city provides a couple of more institutions just a short walk further.

Key Bank, on the SE corner of Colby and Everett Ave.

Banner Bank located recently a block further north.

Banner Bank

This morning’s Herald also featured an article on nearby communities’ efforts to revitalize their respective downtowns. Arlington’s civic leaders decided that their downtown, though quaint, was ugly. So they invested about four million to improve streets, sidewalks, and combine them into a coherent whole, which now attracts both people and their dollars, not to deposit but to spend. Further south, Mountlake Terrace is undergoing a similar effort to transform its urban area.

Everett, on the other hand, seems not to have a clue about revitalization, if it’s even on the radar of the city council and mayor. Filling up space with banks deters rather than enables vibrant places. Arlington’s spokesperson said:

You concentrate on your streets and the return is investment by business…We’ve had ups and downs during the past six years, but Arlington is in a good place right now.

What I find particularly sad about Everett’s newest bank is what was supposed to occupy its location. Art and Craig Skotdal, the owners of Library Place, were quite excited one fine morning as I happened by during my daily walk. Art took me into the space that was designed to accommodate a restaurant and bar. On warm summer evenings, he said, the sliders would be pulled back, opening the space to the adjacent courtyard that abuts the sidewalk.

Library Place (just to the right of the entrance was to be a restaurant-cum-bar)

But the space remained empty for months. Evidently no one, including any of the many bank managers, thought it worthwhile to invest in a restaurant. The Skotdals, of course, run a business, so rent revenues are important. Better to have something rather than nothing. The Herald:

“We’re excited to welcome HomeStreet Bank to downtown Everett,” [Craig] Skotdal said. “We toured several of their branches and we’re very impressed with their design and quality. It will be a new business for Everett and we always view that as a win.”

What about the people and vital communities? Everett, as usual, will have to wait.

Surplus labor

I am not going Marxist here, but it is becoming increasingly evident that millions of people are no longer necessary to the fortunes of the über rich. With the unemployment rate stuck above seven percent, some economists, including Paul Krugman, suggest that we may be in for a new normal, one that consigns many of us to impoverishment while the One Percent accumulate more and more of the economy’s wealth (chart below based on data from Saez, et al.). The rich have no incentive whatsoever to alter the status quo. Moreover, they simply don’t need us, if they ever did.

This gets old. What troubles me is that the information spewing forth on increasing inequality, misery amidst money, is that our political system is both unwilling and, in its current state, incapable of changing the trajectories.

Of course, many believe that the government has no role whatsoever in reducing the extremes. That a few people have so much while the many have so little is simply the product of market forces. Bull shit. There were markets in the 50s and 50s when the Gini index was much lower.

I, for one, am losing what minuscule hope I once possessed. Call me a barely functioning pessimist.