This election year has been shaping up to be different from any I have known in my lifetime. Everyone is dissatisfied with our government and the politics that go with it. And we all should be. Neither political party has served us well. The Republicans, upon gaining power, immediately became big spending pork barrelers; cutting taxes, all right, but then proceeding upon a spending binge that would put the Democrats to shame.
So, in 2006, the public put the Democrats back in charge in Congress. Now we have gridlock, with the Democrats trying harder to make political points than to make progress. And, of course, the Republicans trying to obstruct them. The only thing they both agree upon is to spend money. The only disagreement is over who gets the gravy. The result is that Congress polls even lower than a very unpopular President. And they should. Both sides.
The Iowa caucuses are not really very important in the overall scheme of things in this election, but I do think it is telling that the two winners are persons who are actually outside the regular political establishment in each party. Although Obama is a Senator, he is too new to have had much of Washington rub off on him. For him to win in Iowa is significant, because it shows he can get votes from an overwhelmingly white population, and this takes the race issue off the table. He represents a big change for any political party. As David Shribman of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:
"We know by the winning performance of Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois that a black man can be a formidable candidate outside of the urban areas where black politicians have had their most profound impact. Iowa is only 2 percent black, yet Sen. Obama showed wide appeal. The biggest test of Sen. John F. Kennedy's Catholicism came at the very end of the 1960 primaries, in heavily Protestant West Virginia. Sen. Obama's test came at the very beginning of the 2008 primaries -- and continues this week in New Hampshire, where blacks constitute less than 1 percent of the population........"
Is Obama a new Kennedy? Where is Lloyd Bentsen? I guess we will have to wait and see.
Mike Huckabee represents a real change for the Republican Party. Certainly he is from outside the Washington establishment, but he is also outside the mainstream of the Republican Party. A populist, his policies in Arkansas as governor were much closer to those of Bill Clinton than to mainstream Republicanism. Why did he get the votes? Peggy Noonan has a suggestion that makes sense:
"...... From the mail I have received the past month after criticizing him in this space, I would say his great power, the thing really pushing his supporters, is that they believe that what ails America and threatens its continued existence is not economic collapse or jihad, it is our culture.
They have been bruised and offended by the rigid, almost militant secularism and multiculturalism of the public schools; they reject those schools' squalor, in all senses of the word. They believe in God and family and America. They are populist: They don't admire billionaire CEOs, they admire husbands with two jobs who hold the family together for the sake of the kids; they don't need to see the triumph of supply-side thinking, they want to see that suffering woman down the street get the help she needs......"
Another out of the mainstream candidate that showed well in Iowa was Ron Paul. He has been in Congress for many years, but has voted against almost everything since he got there. No one could possibly consider him to be one of the good ole boys in Congress. His 10% has to be an additional protest vote against the politics as usual in Washington.
What does this all tell us? Clearly, many voters, probably most, want change in Washington. I suspect big changes. The question is: to what?
Obviously, the pollsters have picked up on this. Look at the Democratic campaigns...they all advocate change. Only Huck and Paul do so on the Republican side. The problem is still: change to what?
My suspicion is that what we all most want is to be told the whole truth about things, without lies, without spin, and without condescension. We will never have consensus on what changes to make except for that. But that would be a good start.
The winner this year is going to be the candidate that the people trust the most. Telling the truth might be a good start for them all.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Bills coming due
It is the New Year, and everyone has been reviewing the old year. There are a lot of different views, some good, some bad. Perhaps the one I like the best was written by Victor Davis Hanson, entitled 2007The Bills That Came Due. He noted that everything comes at a price, and went through a number of things that brought that home to us. I recommend that you follow the link and read the whole article.
This post, however, is not about the past, but the future. What bills are going to come due this year?
THE CAPITAL MARKETS
This problem really started coming home to roost last year, but the bill will possibly come this year. Years (since the early 1990's) of freewheeling lending, then dividing pieces of each debt up into pieces (derivatives), getting greedy rating agencies to overrate the debt issues, and then selling them to the public and to each other, all of it subject to little or no regulation, has gotten the worlds financial institutions and capital markets in a bind. Once the sub-prime mortgages started losing value, it was discovered that there was really no easy way to put any value on a lot of this paper that was issued. This has led to a serious impairment of the capital of most of our large financial institutions, in the US and worldwide. The central banks have added huge amounts of new reserves (created out of thin air) to the markets, and the financial institutions and the banks have been writing down their reserves and selling stock to raise new capital. So far no panic has set in. But it is only the beginning. When one dances to the music, one must pay the Piper. This may well be the year that the Piper demands payment. If so....well, it won't be pretty.
OIL AND ENERGY
Oil and energy prices will fluctuate, with an upward bias, unless the capital markets crash and cause a recession worldwide. The United States and China, along with Europe, will compete for ever more scarce petroleum this coming year, and well into the future. The inability of the United States to agree upon reasonable efforts to adopt alternatives to petroleum will make it extremely vulnerable to cut offs of its supplies from abroad. As China races to build a "blue ocean" navy which could interdict our supply someday, we twiddle our thumbs and do little but subsidize the use of food to power our cars. This enriches corporate farmers and politicians at taxpayers' expense, but does nothing to address the energy problem. A new policy encouraging research and development of alternatives including nuclear is imperative. Don't anyone hold his or her breath.
IMMIGRATION
We are beginning to see some effects of the current immigration policy. The crackdown, though insufficient to secure the borders, is having some effect. However, the politicians are playing games with us all. They authorized the border fences, but didn't appropriate the funds to do it right. There still are not enough new Border Patrolmen to do the job. Of course, what we need is a new immigration law, but there is no consensus on how existing illegal immigrants already here should be treated. The whole system is broken, and needs to be fixed. Don't hold your breath on this one, either.
POLITICS
This is where I suspect things may really get interesting. There are at least two aspects to the upcoming elections that need to be looked at. First is the methodology of the nominating process, and the other is the public's reactions to the candidates and the political parties.
The last few election cycles we have seen the winners in Iowa and New Hampshire get anointed by the media as frontrunners, and the momentum generated by that have led to their nominations. Those early events have had a far larger effect on the process than deserved, particularly since neither state is really very representative of the whole.
Ronald A. Cass has a piece out today that discusses this phenomenum over at RealClearPolitics, entitled Is This Any Way to Pick a President? Madison's Nightmare. This is a good read that explains the problem.
This year, I get the sense that this is not going to be the case. Oh, the media will try to spin these things one way or another, but it looks like we may have a longer, harder process than usual. We need it.
One reason we need a longer process before the nominations are sewed up is that we don't really know much about most of the candidates, in spite of the length of the race so far. All we get is soundbites from the media. Those that spend a lot of time on it and don't just rely on the mainstream media for the sound bites they choose for us may know more about some of the candidates, but none of us knows enough. Bill Katz has a post over at Powerline that says it all. He says there is a distance between the candidates and the public that prevents the public from really getting to know about them, and gives three reasons:
".....First, the TV myth. Television, we're told, brings us closer to events. No, it doesn't. It brings us closer to the coverage of events, and the staging of events. But the very staging of something for TV separates us from the candidate. That, of course, is the purpose – to create illusion, not reality......"
"....The second reason for the distance between public and candidate is a routine demeaning of the American voter. Voters, we're told, are impatient, they won't listen, they're not interested, so let's reduce everything to sound bites.........."
"....The third reason for the distance, and the most important, in my view, is that the concept of "knowing" the candidates has changed, in part because the selection process has changed...."
Go there and read the whole thing.
My prediction is that the public won't be happy this year with the rush to nomination. Both of these races may go to the conventions. It will be interesting to see.
As for the candidates, well, my thought is that the public isn't really attracted to any of them. Oh, sure, each has his or her supporters, but looking at the overall public reaction leaves me thinking that "none of the above" might win it all this year if that were on the ballot. This probably ties in with what Katz had to say....we just don't know that much about most of the candidates. Perhaps we know too much about Hillary. Who knows?
What is very clear is that after months of soundbite campaigning and several meaningless "debates" we are still in the dark about what the candidates really think about the issues.
What seems to have occurred is that the general public has lost it's trust of the government, the politicians and the media. We know about the spinning of soundbites and the "gotcha" journalism. We would like to hear some real debate on the real issues, and not canned responses to soft and non-threatening questions.
A lot of people have a justifiable feeling of unease about the direction the country is taking. There are some serious threats out there, and our government does not seem to be responding well to what is occurring. I think we would all like to hear the candidates talk honestly to us about those things. Instead, we are only getting soundbites and canned BS.
So, who is going to win when its all said and done? There is no way to tell. Two of the most interesting candidates, in terms of how they are performing, are Obama and Ron Paul. These guys have virtually nothing in common, but Obama seems to have gotten the lead in the Democratic race, and Paul certainly has raised a huge amount of money, although he doesn't show in the polls that well. I think the one thing they do have in common is that they are different from the usual candidates. Is their showing a reflection of a public dissatisfaction with the "same old politics?" Will the public surprise us when the voting begins? Stay tuned.
And then there is Fred Thompson. His campaign is certainly non-traditional, and I think that is intentional. What is his plan, if any? Will it work? At least he has released detailed position papers, but, of course, the media has not covered them....no "soundbites" there. We will just have to see.
The rest seem to be going about things the same old way. The polls ebb and flow. Nobody can hold a lead. Personal attacks seem to be escalating. That won't work this time.
And then there is the strong possibility of a third (and fourth?) party. Mayor Bloomberg seems to be positioning himself for a run. If he does, who will it hurt? Will Ron Paul run as a Libertarian? It is going to be interesting, and scary.
One thing is for sure. We will have to pay the bill for whom we choose this year when it comes due. A mistake may be very costly.
This post, however, is not about the past, but the future. What bills are going to come due this year?
THE CAPITAL MARKETS
This problem really started coming home to roost last year, but the bill will possibly come this year. Years (since the early 1990's) of freewheeling lending, then dividing pieces of each debt up into pieces (derivatives), getting greedy rating agencies to overrate the debt issues, and then selling them to the public and to each other, all of it subject to little or no regulation, has gotten the worlds financial institutions and capital markets in a bind. Once the sub-prime mortgages started losing value, it was discovered that there was really no easy way to put any value on a lot of this paper that was issued. This has led to a serious impairment of the capital of most of our large financial institutions, in the US and worldwide. The central banks have added huge amounts of new reserves (created out of thin air) to the markets, and the financial institutions and the banks have been writing down their reserves and selling stock to raise new capital. So far no panic has set in. But it is only the beginning. When one dances to the music, one must pay the Piper. This may well be the year that the Piper demands payment. If so....well, it won't be pretty.
OIL AND ENERGY
Oil and energy prices will fluctuate, with an upward bias, unless the capital markets crash and cause a recession worldwide. The United States and China, along with Europe, will compete for ever more scarce petroleum this coming year, and well into the future. The inability of the United States to agree upon reasonable efforts to adopt alternatives to petroleum will make it extremely vulnerable to cut offs of its supplies from abroad. As China races to build a "blue ocean" navy which could interdict our supply someday, we twiddle our thumbs and do little but subsidize the use of food to power our cars. This enriches corporate farmers and politicians at taxpayers' expense, but does nothing to address the energy problem. A new policy encouraging research and development of alternatives including nuclear is imperative. Don't anyone hold his or her breath.
IMMIGRATION
We are beginning to see some effects of the current immigration policy. The crackdown, though insufficient to secure the borders, is having some effect. However, the politicians are playing games with us all. They authorized the border fences, but didn't appropriate the funds to do it right. There still are not enough new Border Patrolmen to do the job. Of course, what we need is a new immigration law, but there is no consensus on how existing illegal immigrants already here should be treated. The whole system is broken, and needs to be fixed. Don't hold your breath on this one, either.
POLITICS
This is where I suspect things may really get interesting. There are at least two aspects to the upcoming elections that need to be looked at. First is the methodology of the nominating process, and the other is the public's reactions to the candidates and the political parties.
The last few election cycles we have seen the winners in Iowa and New Hampshire get anointed by the media as frontrunners, and the momentum generated by that have led to their nominations. Those early events have had a far larger effect on the process than deserved, particularly since neither state is really very representative of the whole.
Ronald A. Cass has a piece out today that discusses this phenomenum over at RealClearPolitics, entitled Is This Any Way to Pick a President? Madison's Nightmare. This is a good read that explains the problem.
This year, I get the sense that this is not going to be the case. Oh, the media will try to spin these things one way or another, but it looks like we may have a longer, harder process than usual. We need it.
One reason we need a longer process before the nominations are sewed up is that we don't really know much about most of the candidates, in spite of the length of the race so far. All we get is soundbites from the media. Those that spend a lot of time on it and don't just rely on the mainstream media for the sound bites they choose for us may know more about some of the candidates, but none of us knows enough. Bill Katz has a post over at Powerline that says it all. He says there is a distance between the candidates and the public that prevents the public from really getting to know about them, and gives three reasons:
".....First, the TV myth. Television, we're told, brings us closer to events. No, it doesn't. It brings us closer to the coverage of events, and the staging of events. But the very staging of something for TV separates us from the candidate. That, of course, is the purpose – to create illusion, not reality......"
"....The second reason for the distance between public and candidate is a routine demeaning of the American voter. Voters, we're told, are impatient, they won't listen, they're not interested, so let's reduce everything to sound bites.........."
"....The third reason for the distance, and the most important, in my view, is that the concept of "knowing" the candidates has changed, in part because the selection process has changed...."
Go there and read the whole thing.
My prediction is that the public won't be happy this year with the rush to nomination. Both of these races may go to the conventions. It will be interesting to see.
As for the candidates, well, my thought is that the public isn't really attracted to any of them. Oh, sure, each has his or her supporters, but looking at the overall public reaction leaves me thinking that "none of the above" might win it all this year if that were on the ballot. This probably ties in with what Katz had to say....we just don't know that much about most of the candidates. Perhaps we know too much about Hillary. Who knows?
What is very clear is that after months of soundbite campaigning and several meaningless "debates" we are still in the dark about what the candidates really think about the issues.
What seems to have occurred is that the general public has lost it's trust of the government, the politicians and the media. We know about the spinning of soundbites and the "gotcha" journalism. We would like to hear some real debate on the real issues, and not canned responses to soft and non-threatening questions.
A lot of people have a justifiable feeling of unease about the direction the country is taking. There are some serious threats out there, and our government does not seem to be responding well to what is occurring. I think we would all like to hear the candidates talk honestly to us about those things. Instead, we are only getting soundbites and canned BS.
So, who is going to win when its all said and done? There is no way to tell. Two of the most interesting candidates, in terms of how they are performing, are Obama and Ron Paul. These guys have virtually nothing in common, but Obama seems to have gotten the lead in the Democratic race, and Paul certainly has raised a huge amount of money, although he doesn't show in the polls that well. I think the one thing they do have in common is that they are different from the usual candidates. Is their showing a reflection of a public dissatisfaction with the "same old politics?" Will the public surprise us when the voting begins? Stay tuned.
And then there is Fred Thompson. His campaign is certainly non-traditional, and I think that is intentional. What is his plan, if any? Will it work? At least he has released detailed position papers, but, of course, the media has not covered them....no "soundbites" there. We will just have to see.
The rest seem to be going about things the same old way. The polls ebb and flow. Nobody can hold a lead. Personal attacks seem to be escalating. That won't work this time.
And then there is the strong possibility of a third (and fourth?) party. Mayor Bloomberg seems to be positioning himself for a run. If he does, who will it hurt? Will Ron Paul run as a Libertarian? It is going to be interesting, and scary.
One thing is for sure. We will have to pay the bill for whom we choose this year when it comes due. A mistake may be very costly.
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