Growth Weaker Than Hoped?

Classic case of horrific reporting here. The much ballyhooed "recession" we are in continues to be just one quarter away....it seems that GDP grew (again), doubling in April to June the relatively anemic January to March figure.

We are in a slowdown, there's no doubt about it. But it isn't time to go to the mattresses.

Radley Balko Asks Senator Obama Some Questions

Balko is a pretty effective thinker over at Reason. He puts a few libertarian oriented questions to Senator Obama in this column. I have strong libertarian streak, but one of the problems with libertarians in general is that they have no real policy for actual governing. I like how libertarianism nuances conservativsm, but as an ideology all its own, it is suited only to theoretical situations.

Brazil Moving Out on Nuclear Power

Brazil is a country with a lot of problems....but with problems come opportunities. Proceeding forward with increased nuclearization of their electrical supply, side by side with an enormously effective reliance on sugar cane derived biofuels, puts this growing economy on a glide-slope to continued growth AND energy independence. We can learn from our growing neighbors to the South.

Accountability, Navy Style

News this morning of the firing of the Captain and XO of the USS GEORGE WASHINGTON, one of our nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. There was a fire onboard recently, one that caused upward of $70M worth of damage. I know little about the details of this story, only what I've read in the open press. Apparently, poor engineering housekeeping practice (stowage of flammable materials, unauthorized smoking areas) contributed to this fire.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is one of the things I love most about the Navy. The organization holds people accountable like no other (ok, maybe the Communist Party in China is better, but I digress). Anyone who has ever commanded a ship knows that you are inescapably responsible for everything that happens on your watch. There is no such thing as "I was asleep", or "I was ashore". With the benefit of unquestioned authority comes indivisible accountability and ultimate responsibility. It often seems unfair, and I have seen the lives of friends wrenched in the jaws of this harsh sanction. It is however, what distinguishes the Navy from other pursuits, and when on occasion, the Service deviates from this sanction, it weakens itself in an effort to appear more human.

In the early '50's, the USS HOBSON and the USS WASP collided with the loss of 176 lives. The Wall Street Journal offered the editorial below in an effort to explain why the Navy must act as it does. I reproduce it here to remind myself of its stirring words:

"One night past some 30,000 tons of ships went hurtling at each other through the darkness. When they had met, 2,000 tons of ship and 176 men lay at the bottom of the sea in a far off place."

"Now comes the cruel business of accountability. Those who were there, those who are left from those who were there, must answer how it happened and whose was the error that made it happen."

"It is a cruel business because it was no wish to destruction that killed this ship and its 176 men; the accountability lies with good men who erred in judgment under stress so great that it is almost its own excuse. Cruel, because no matter how deep the probe, it cannot change the dead, because it cannot probe deeper than remorse."

"And it is even more cruel still because all around us in other places we see the plea accepted that what is done is done beyond discussion, and that for good men in their human errors there should be afterwards no accountability."

"Everywhere else we are told how inhuman it is to submit men to the ordeal of answering for themselves; to haul them before committees and badger them with questions as to where they were and what they were doing while the ship of state careened from one course to another."

"This probing into the sea seems more merciless because everywhere else we have abandoned accountability. What is done is done and why torture men with asking them afterwards, why?........"

"We are told men should no longer be held accountable for what they do as well as for what they intend. To err is not only human, it absolves responsibility."

"Everywhere else, that is, except on the sea. On the sea there is a tradition older even than the traditions of the country itself and wiser in its age than this new custom. It is the tradition that with responsibility goes authority and with them both goes accountability."

"This accountability is not for the intentions but for the deed. The captain of a ship, like the captain of a state, is given honor and privileges and trust beyond other men. But let him set the wrong course, let him touch ground, let him bring disaster to his ship or to his men, and he must answer for what he has done. He cannot escape...."

"It is cruel, this accountability of good and well-intentioned men. But the choice is that or an end of responsibility and finally as the cruel scene has taught, an end to the confidence and trust in the men who lead, for men will not long trust leaders who feel themselves beyond accountability for what they do."

"And when men lose confidence and trust in those who lead, order disintegrates into chaos and purposeful ships into uncontrollable derelicts."

More on the HOUSING CRISIS (oh my!)

Robert Samuelson is a very smart man, and probably one of the better editorial writers on the scene today. His column this morning echoes something I've been pounding home here lately--that America's obsession with home ownership is not a great thing for our economy. Sure, owning a home is a great thing and generally speaking, a good investment. But not everyone should own a home, and not everyone should own as much home as they do. But further to the point, we should never forget that most of the people who are defaulting on their mortgages NEVER OWNED THEIR HOMES--THE LIEN HOLDER DID! The suggestion that someone "owned a home" who made 12 of 360 payments (or 24, 0r 36....) is loony.

We don't have a housing crisis in this country. A housing crisis would occur if there weren't enough housing. We've got plenty. What is in short supply is common sense and the strength of character to let people who have made unwise decisions suffer the consequences.

Trade Talks Crumble

A story probably not getting the press it deserves (what with a HOUSING CRISIS and all) is the failure of the Doha Round of trade talks. We're going to keep running into issues with China, India, Russia and Brazil as their economies grow and ours takes up a smaller share of the world's total. Not content to be told what to do, these developing nations are not content to sit idly by and have their economies yoked while the big, industrialized nations reap the benefits of their previous dominance. Energy, trade, defense, diplomacy. We'll see these countries over, and over again disagreeing with us. The only saving grace here is that we and the Euros generally agree....

Senator Stevens Should Resign

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Innocent until proven guilty...I know, I know. But Stevens has always rubbed me the wrong way, with his bullying bantam cock personality. I am very much against term limits for any office (including President, by the way), but I sure wouldn't have minded seeing one take this guy out long ago. He gives the Republican Party a terrible name.

We're Sorry About Slavery; Can We Move On Now?

It appears as if the House of Representatives, in their capacity of representing us, have apologized for the institution of slavery. To whom their apology is made, I find myself without answer, as anyone actually living at the time of emancipation is no longer with us.

On whose behalf they are apologizing is an interesting question also, as my relatives hadn't yet made it over from Europe when the Civil War ended.

But I am willing to accept that as a gesture, this has symbolic meaning to some Americans, and I am genuinely happy that those who sought such an apology have now received it. But can we move along to other subjects now?

A man is running for President who is half-black. Institutionalized racism is a thing of the past (if anything, the racial disparity in the "housing crisis" would point to the lending world's falling all over themselves to lend to minorities). Ain't no way in hell reparations are going to be paid, so what do you say we just move on as a society, huh?

Housing Crisis (cont.)....Extreme Makover Family Facing Foreclosure

Yes, our housing "crisis" rages on. It seems a family....basically handed a $450,000 house in ABC's "Extreme Makeover", used the house as collateral for a "business" loan. Now they are going to foreclosure.

All those people who volunteered, all those people who donated...screwed by people who never should have been trusted with an asset of that magnitude in the first place.

Home ownership is not a human right.

What Would Al Gore's World Cost

I don't think anyone who looks at energy closely is surprised by what it is going to cost us to ween ourselves from dependence on foreign oil and domestic coal. Ronald Bailey of Reason has done some calculating to guess at what Al Gore's Carbon-Free energy plan would cost...and the costs are staggering.

Why? Mostly because wind, solar and geothermal simply cannot yet scale to the capacity of our coal and natural gas electrical plants. Nuclear can, and it can do so for significantly less than Gore's favorites (Al's not much for nuclear power).

Bailey does a good job in this article pointing out how moving to alternative sources of producing electricity both benefits the environment and lessens our dependence on oil. As we become better at producing power cleanly, more reliance on electric cars will make much more economic sense. Less gas in cars equals less money in the pockets of folks who want to kill us or who want to fund people who want to kill us.

Deadbeat Businesses

The GAO says American businesses have underpaid over $58 Billion in payroll taxes (that's right folks, that was a "B"). Now I'm as pro-business (and especially pro-small business) as the next guy, but this is a scandal. The representative of the US Chamber of Commerce sounds a note of warning, urging caution that the interest and penalties could "sink" some companies.

Good. That's what should happen. If you can't pay the basic obligations of your business (and meeting payroll is one of them), perhaps you really don't have a "going concern".

Senator (Dr.) Tom Coburn

Apparently, Harry Reid believes Tom Coburn is a bit of an obstructionist in the Senate. Coburn apparently has the temerity to wish to see programs evaluated and analyzed before money is spent on them, needlessly. I wish we had more fiscal conservatives like Coburn in the Senate. The problem I have with Coburn though, is his social conservatism, which I am less thrilled about. More on this in another post.

China and Energy

Great article in the WaPost this morning describing the growing car culture in China. The true scope of the energy challenges before us comes into sharp relief when one considers that even if only ten percent more of China's citizens move into the middle class, we're talking about 130 million people. We cannot drill our way to energy security, we cannot conserve our way to energy security, we cannot blow our way to energy security, we cannot shine our way to energy security and we cannot radiate our way to energy security. We can however, achieve energy security by pursuing a balanced portfolio of energy alternatives. Reliance on foreign oil in the face of huge increases in demand in the developing world is a plan doomed to fail, a plan that will hobble our economy, and a plan that will certainly result in a decline of American influence in the world.

Oil as a GOP Issue

I think the WaPost has it right with this story. Tying Senator Obama to the Speaker of the House's objections to increased drilling is a two-fer. You get to hammer the Dems on lacking a solid, executable energy solution at the same time you remind the Republican base who President Obama's best friends would be.

The Housing "Crisis"

Our friends on Capitol Hill, in collusion with the Secretary of the Treasury and the President of the United States, have acted to address the housing crisis (or more appropriately, the financial crisis within the housing industry). I cannot even begin to address my disappointment with this bill and the conditions that necessitated its creation. So I'll let a friend's email to me speak to it:



"I’m a little surprised President Bush is going to sign this. I’ll tell you why I don’t like this one. When I signed (in about 30 different places on as many forms) my mortgage papers at closing, I gave my word that I would do all the things in the contract or risk losing my home (or more precisely, risk losing my ability to live in the home my bank owns and allows me to inhabit as if it were mine). So did everyone who bought a house. Even the ones who bought a house between January 2005 and June 2007, the period for which this bill applies. I am also guessing that nearly every person who bought a house had the opportunity to achieve sufficient education to be able to read what he or she was being asked to sign. My mother is one such person who did just that). My mother lives on a very modest retirement income. My mother lives within those modest means by making decisions that enable her to keep her word to the lender with whom she made the contractual agreement. And, yes, like many, she has had some unexpected expenses about which she was too stubborn to tell her children who could help her, and which she covered by going without medication for two months and by not driving her car and staying home except to go to church. She did that because the thought of defaulting on her promise to the lender was just not an option in her mind. She pays her taxes on time and in full every year. Yet those who signed their contracts with lenders either without reading them or with no appreciation that it was a written promise TO BE KEPT NO MATTER WHAT, those people will, courtesy of our elected officials in Washington, and after infrastructural pass through costs, get my mother’s taxes to get them out of their “unjust” mortgage arrangements. I know my critique of this bill may sound, may even be, cold-hearted, but if the Federal Government rewards that kind of behavior, will this nation, this culture ever lift itself out of its addiction to credit? Is it going to take another all out depression to change us? It’s as if the Declaration has been rewritten to include “…life, liberty and immediate gratification”. I’d say we are a nation of whiners but that didn’t work out too well for the last guy who said it."



Ok, back to my words now...sorry about the font shift, can't fix it. I'm actually not surprised the President is going to sign this bill. He's the "compassionate conservative" and gosh, isn't this bill so very compassionate? He's also the "ownership society" President, whose late 19th century view of man, land and dwellings has accelerated this incredibly selfish march into fiscal insolvency.

A couple of thoughts: home ownership as an investment is over-rated, especially when the average American homeowner has 60% of his wealth tied up in his home equity. This is not "diversification" and as the decline in housing prices has shown, this does not make fiscal sense.


The mortgage interest deduction is counter-productive, convincing people that they can have more house than they can possibly need or afford under the guise of "getting it all back" at tax time. The problem comes in meeting monthly obligations waiting for that IRS check.

I've come to decide that there should be a cap on the home mortgage interest deduction, to say, $15000 or so. After that, no one cares how big your mortgage is and the size of your house should not have an inversely proportional impact on your tax bill.

Finally, the whole "bail out Wall Street but not Main Street" crowd has got it all wrong. Of course it is a shame if a lot of people are foreclosed upon. Horror of horrors, they'll have to rent somewhere until they can get their acts together. If the big banks fail though, the whole economy slides into the tank. There just is no real comparison here.

George Bush, Manager-in-Chief

David Broder's column in the Washington Post this morning is a thinly veiled shill for a friend's book; that said, the friend's book gets at something that I think will be come more apparent over the course of the ten years or so that follow George Bush's retirement from office: that while some of George Bush's decisions have been questionable, the common portrayal of him as stupid, uninterested, detached or worse...simply doesn't cut it.

Like Dwight Eisenhower, much of what we know of the Bush Presidency will be revealed in the research that follows it. Eisenhower was treated as somewhat of an amiable dunce of an old man while in office. Scholarship that followed revealed the lie this was. Eisenhower was a master organizer who completely redrew the White House decision making mechanism to ensure he got decision quality advice so that he could make only the tough decisions.

Anyone I know who has worked closely with George Bush, and there are just a few, are quite open about his intellect and his personal influence over the workings of the staff. They say without hesitation that HE is in charge, that he sets the tone and tenor, that he has constructed the staff mechanisms to suit his decision-making style, and that he is a superb leader and manager.

The decision to go into Iraq on the cheap without sufficient inquiry into post-war matters will serve as the blackest of black marks against this administration. That said, it is not the whole story, and in the light of accumulated evidence, when Iraq is a stable nation and Al Queda (sp?) is an afterthought, people will be able to judge this Presidency in a fair manner.

Obama: Light of the World

I'm sure many of you have seen this, but it is one of the funniest things floating around the internet today....

Anglicans, Episcopals, and Homosexual Bishops

I am watching with bemusement the events at Lambeth, the Church of England's every-ten-year international convocation of member church Bishops. As you all probably well-know, the Episcopal Church in America is part of the "Anglican Communion" and as such, is a participant in the events at Lambeth. Watching the events from the sidelines is at least one Episcopal Bishop, Gene Robinson, relegated there by the Archbishop of Canterbury in order that his presence does not cause additional commotion due to his much publicized sexual preference. He is gay.

The Anglican Communion is being split by the US church's elevation of Robinson to the Bishopric. US Episcopals wear their liberality as a badge of honor, with Robinson's elevation (as well as their overall leader being a woman) seen as evidence of the church's adaptation with the times.

Let's face it; the Episcopal Church is leading the way toward relativism in American Christianity. They have looked at something considered amoral by Christians for two thousand years and have now elevated it to the status of that which should be celebrated.

While I am not at all in favor of using the Bible as a rule book, I've got to believe that there are some things in it that you just don't mess with, at least not if you wish to be taken seriously as a Christian denomination.

I have on occasion, engaged Episcopalians in discussions of this matter...when I wonder aloud if they would elevate a priest to the Bishopric who had been openly cheating on his wife, they are aghast. It seems only trendy sins are worthy of embracing.

Oh Great California, Save Us From Ourselves...

The Golden State has banned trans-fats, Arnold be praised. As someone who may soon be making monthly trips to California, I am particularly grateful that I will no longer be exposed to the evils of these molecular killers.

Each time we let the government takes something away, we become less worthy of the freedom we have.

Obama and the Military Hospital

I don't know what to think about this one, and I urge readers to keep their powder dry. It appears Senator Obama's campaign was warned off from a visit to recovering service members in Germany, as the DoD wanted to ensure that the service members did not become part of a political show.

Ok, I can certainly believe that this was the case. I don't however, believe that the Senator would have been in any way prohibited from making a private visit without campaign staff and reporters. From the perspective of the campaign, I think this would have been even a better idea than a fully covered visit, as it would have shown the Senator in a more sedate, serious and contemplative light.

Either way, Obama made a mistake here, and a junior varsity one at that.