Back in the saddle

Wow, it's been over a week since I last posted. This is mainly due to laptop issues... and before you start in with the "Macs are better" mockery, it was a hard drive failure, and last I checked, Apple hardware fails on occasion, too.

Anyway, the big story of the day is BAILOUT BAILOUT BAILOUT.

Before I attempt (and believe me, it will be an attempt, at best) to get into the nitty-gritty of the current financial situation of the United States, here is a graph that seems to accurately depict public perception of all bailout talk from Washington.



Whether or not this is fair or correct, let's remember that fairness does not factor into the realm of public opinion. Just ask anyone who works in public relations.

Now, the best way to get a handle on what the now-rejected Bailout Rescue Bill 2008 was is to read all 100+ pages of it. I admit I haven't. What I have read are others' criticisms of said bill.

Here is one, from a guy who mostly writes about sports and has a non-existent economic background.

Just One Bailout Thought: As Congress continues to debate whether they are going to hand over $700 billion of your money to the wealthy who screwed up Wall Street and the banking industry, you will be relieved to learn that top executives of the bailed-out firms temporarily will be limited to a strict $500,000 a year in tax-subsidized income. Surely you receive $500,000 a year in tax-subsidized income, don't you? Anyway, supposing we assume the bailout is required, here is what bothers me about the plan so far: Taxpayers don't get stock, what they get is warrants that can be exchanged for stock, and nonvoting stock to boot. This means that once media attention switches to the next crisis that everyone will claim in retrospect to have seen coming, the Wall Street rich can quietly lobby to have the warrants never called, thus keeping the entire bag of gold for themselves. Even if the warrants are called, taxpayers get no voting positions -- meaning the boards of directors of the bailed-out firms can do anything they damn please with taxpayers' money.

A week ago, Warren Buffett rescued Goldman Sachs by injecting $5 billion in capital. Did Buffett bargain for warrants that can be exchanged at an unknown later date for nonvoting shares? No: He is not a fool. Buffett gave Goldman Sachs $5 billion in return for senior preferred stock, the kind that votes and also is more valuable than ordinary shares. That is to say, he used his money to buy something. Goldman can now employ the cash to fix its liquidity problems. The United States Congress and the White House should use the public's $700 billion to buy something, namely senior preferred shares. Why are Congress and George W. Bush not simply following the road map laid out on this problem by the smartest investor of our era? Either Congress and the president are a bunch of blithering fools -- or what they actually want is to insure the public's money is never seen by the public again.

An interesting take on one aspect of the bill. People with more economic education than I have said he got it right, though.

And from Dave Ramsey, who does have a fairly solid economic background:

Years of bad decisions and stupid mistakes have created an
economic nightmare in this country, but $700 billion in new
debt is not the answer. As a tax-paying American citizen, I
will not support any congressperson who votes to implement
such a policy.

Instead, I submit the following three steps:

Common Sense Plan.

I. INSURANCE

A. Insure the subprime bonds/mortgages with an underlying
FHA-type insurance. Government-insured and backed loans would
have an instant market all over the world, creating immediate
and needed liquidity.

B. In order for a company to accept the government-backed
insurance, they must do two things:

1. Rewrite any mortgage that is more than three months delinquent
to a 6% fixed-rate mortgage.

a. Roll all back payments with no late fees or legal costs
into the balance. This brings homeowners current and allows them
a chance to keep their homes.
b. Cancel all prepayment penalties to encourage refinancing
or the sale of the property to pay off the bad loan. In the event
of foreclosure or short sale, the borrower will not be held liable
for any deficit balance. FHA does this now, and that encourages
mortgage companies to go the extra mile while working with the
borrower—again limiting foreclosures and ruined lives.

2. Cancel ALL golden parachutes of EXISTING and FUTURE CEOs
and executive team members as long as the company holds these
government-insured bonds/mortgages. This keeps underperforming
executives from being paid whenthey don’t do their jobs.

C. This backstop will cost less than $50 billion—a small fraction
of the current proposal.


II. MARK TO MARKET

A. Remove mark to market accounting rules for two years on
only subprime Tier III bonds/mortgages. This keeps companies from
being forced to artificially mark down bonds/mortgages below the
value of the underlying mortgages and real estate.

B. This move creates patience in the market and has an immediate
stabilizing effect on failing and ailing banks—and it costs the
taxpayer nothing.


III. CAPITAL GAINS TAX

A. Remove the capital gains tax completely. Investors will
flood the real estate and stock market in search of tax-free
profits, creating tremendous— and immediate—liquidity in the
markets. Again, this costs the taxpayer nothing.

B. This move will be seen as a lightning rod politically because
many will say it is helping the rich. The truth is the rich will
benefit, but it will be their money that stimulates the economy.
This will enable all Americans to have more stable jobs and
retirement investments that go up instead of down. This is not a
time for envy, and it’s not a time for politics. It’s time for all
of us, as Americans, to stand up, speak out, and fix this mess.

This plan seems to be favored by the one Congress drafted two days ago, if the internets are to be believed. :)

The point is that there are a lot of good ideas floating around the country. There's no need for Congress to hurriedly put together something, anything, to placate the American people. Let's do this right the first time.

Now, from my point of view, I'd prefer we didn't grab an arbitrary sum of money from the taxpayers and throw it at the problem. Obviously that's a simplistic view of the proposed solution, but until someone convinces me I'm way off base, that's where I am.

Your political bearings

If you've never taken the Political Compass quiz, I recommend it. The site asks you to answer questions about thinks like economics, morality, the role of government, etc. and then shows you where you stand on a four-axis plane. Here's their take on it:

There's abundant evidence for the need of it. The old one-dimensional categories of 'right' and 'left', established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today's complex political landscape. For example, who are the 'conservatives' in today's Russia? Are they the unreconstructed Stalinists, or the reformers who have adopted the right-wing views of conservatives like Margaret Thatcher ?

On the standard left-right scale, how do you distinguish leftists like Stalin and Gandhi? It's not sufficient to say that Stalin was simply more left than Gandhi. There are fundamental political differences between them that the old categories on their own can't explain. Similarly, we generally describe social reactionaries as 'right-wingers', yet that leaves left-wing reactionaries like Robert Mugabe and Pol Pot off the hook.

That's about as much as we should tell you for now. After you've responded to the following propositions during the next 3-5 minutes, all will be explained. In each instance, you're asked to choose the response that best describes your feeling: Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Agree or Strongly Agree. At the end of the test, you'll be given the compass, with your own special position on it.

Nifty concept, even if you disagree with the method. 

Here is the result of a test I took today: 

And here's one I took in 2006:

Now, I know this blog and most of my online writings have a very conservative slant, but I think that's because the left annoys me more than parts of the right do. I hear and read things from the Republican party that make me roll my eyes or shake my head... I need to do a better job of pointing those things out. 

I'll make a more concerted effort to do so in the coming weeks. 

Politics and offense

I have a theory. Bear with me.

When having a political discussion, things usually get heated. This can be due to one of two reasons:

1. Personal attacks and mean-spirited comments or

2. Differences in opinion.

I think it's important to distinguish between these two. Personally I think differences in opinion should not be offensive, while personal attacks should be, and inherently are.

And yet, we see people become offended at differing ideas all the time. 

For example, some people believe the government should take a big role in supporting its citizens by taking taxes and then providing healthcare, social security, etc. Other people believe this is not the role of government. 

Nothing offensive about either of those viewpoints, right? 

"Heck yes, there is!" you say. Okay, but what exactly offends you? Do either of these viewpoints attack you, personally? 

I believe we interpret opposing views as offensive because, if they are correct, our ideas, which may be closely held, are wrong. And being wrong is something we hate. 

I also believe we need to get past that. We need to be able to exchange ideas without hurting feelings. We need to be able to hammer concepts against opposing concepts in order to find truth. While this process is inherently confrontational, I don't think it needs to negatively affect relationships.

What do you think? Is this an unrealistic goal? Again, I'm not talking about real personal attacks... calling someone an idiot or evil for thinking a certain way is non-productive and a good way to cause someone emotional distress. 

But maybe, the next time you run across an idea that contradicts your own, explore it without getting riled up. You might just end up tweaking your opinion in a way that you find to be positive.

Yaaaawwnnn....

BYU steamrolled yet another MWC opponent. Ho hum.

I hate to sound spoiled, but when there's little to no chance of BYU's opponent winning the game, I get bored.

Wyoming came into this game with about a .5% chance of walking away with a win. After BYU's defense got their lateral return for a touchdown, that was it. Sure, the Cougar offense didn't look as sharp as it did last week, but when your defense forces six turnovers, you can overcome offensive sluggishness.

The last time BYU pitched back-to-back shutouts was 1985, when they beat Wyoming and Utah State. The scores of those games? 59-0 and 44-0. 

Weird.

The last time BYU pitched three shutout games in a row? It was actually part of a four-game series of shutout football, in 1937, when the Cougars blanked Western State, Wyoming, Utah State and Montana.

Next up? Division-II (at least they should be) foe Utah State, in Logan. I'm willing to bet the Cougars get three in a row for 2008. In a year when the defense was supposed to be a weak point on the team, I'd say they're performing pretty well so far.

Sports Illustrated loves BYU...

even if ESPN doesn't.

SI posted an article about the Cougars today. Here are some excerpts:

So many gaudy statistics, so little time. Undefeated BYU, which hosts Wyoming on Saturday, is 2-0 against Pac-10 teams this season, including last weekend's paradigm-changing, 59-0 drubbing of UCLA, a result so surreal and stunning that it forced us to ask: which is the team from the BCS conference, and which the mid-major from the wrong side of the tracks?

Is parity coming to the NCAA? Is the event that the BCS was created to stop on its way anyway?

What has been terminated, officially, is Rick Neuheisel's Westwood honeymoon. While there is shame in suffering so lopsided a loss to a foe from what is widely (if mistakenly) considered an inferior conference, there is less shame than you might think in getting clubbed by the BYU Cougars. This is a smart, deep, superbly coached, well-disciplined club that has won 11 games each of the past two seasons, and is now sitting on the nation's longest winning streak, at 13 games.

Just win, baby, and everything else takes care of itself. You get noticed, you get opportunities for more exposure. And you can keep building.

ESPN, on the other hand, seems to have some kind of axe to grind with the Cougars.

During the Colorado/West Virginia game last night, ESPN put up a graphic showing the number of teams in the Top 25 by conference. There was no mention the MWC in that graphic, even though the Mountain West has just as many teams as the PAC-10 in the Top 25, for example.

Good times.

Some context

My friend Stu has rightly criticized me for posting a political, agenda-driven Youtube video without providing any context.

So here here is the context of Obama's words during the speech where he says he did witness Jeremiah Wright say some controversial things. He gave the speech on March 18 of this year.

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

And the CNN transcript of the Anderson Cooper interview from March 14 of this year.

It's a fairly short read, and nowhere in there does Obama say he actually, personally heard Wright say anything offensive. Not only that, but he claims no one ever told him about what Wright was preaching until Obama started running for president.

That is pretty far-fetched.

The double standard is appalling. If McCain had been attending a church where white-supremacist views were given from the pulpit, the media would have killed him.

Yet Obama gets free pass by saying, "Oh, I never heard anything like that during the several years I attended the church."

Gotta love presidential elections.

Obama caught lying

1. This is not flip-flopping. It's not changing your stance on an issue; it's a "yes or no?" situation that Obama lied about.

2. It's a terrible lie. You cannot claim you attended Jeremiah Wright's church faithfully for years and yet somehow managed to not hear anything controversial come from his mouth. It's a difficult situation, politically, to be sure, but the way out is not through lying to the media.

3. Obama supporters who refuse to even acknowledge that problems like these exist come across as shallow and kool-aid drinkers.

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