Posts Tagged ‘Sarah Palin’
Who’s nailin’ Palin? The media, of course. November 7th, 2008
Chicago
No sooner was the McCain campaign pronounced dead around 11 pm on November 4, the autopsy began. The initial area of interest: the dissection of an appendage called Sarah Palin.
After two months on a roller coaster ride, in which the highs were over in the first few days (that is before she opened her mouth) Sarah Palin is back in Alaska endangering moose as predicted. She leaves behind a trail of clothing bills; a gaggle of McCain aides finally able to vent their frustration; and an audience that will miss Tina Fey’s version of Palin on Saturday Night Live. Fey, whose impersonation would have pulled at least as many votes (if not more, it came across as smarter) announced that the character was buried two days ago.
But first, to the aides. That the old man had made a terrible mistake was apparent enough to anyone who followed Palin’s babbling through the campaign, but it took a classy prank to finally convince the McCain camp.
A Canadian comedian pretending to be Nikolas Sarkozy spoke to her on the telephone, softening her up with general platitudes about women in politics, praising her looks and then going on to say that he was looking forward to the new Hustler ‘documentary’ on her (’Who’s nailin’ Palin).
This was about the time that people get it, but not Palin, who giggled. Furthermore, it turned out that although it was ’set up’ days before, she had not cleared the ‘interaction’ with the campaign high command, thus finally establishing her foreign policy credentials for all those who harboured doubts.
It emerged during the subsequent investigation by furious McCain advisers, that Palin had a ‘foreign policy adviser’ herself. Someone, it is believed who lives even closer to Russia than even she does. This man took the fall.
In the recent past, in addition to insightful interviews for the public at large, she had given subtle hints to campaign managers on the inside that she was not Madame Curie. It has been reported that it was difficult to convince her that Africa was not a country, but a continent, for instance.
Then came the bills. $1,50,000 spent on clothing for herself and her family at such hockey mom-frequented stores as Saks and Neiman Marcus. Those around her blithely bought stuff on their personal credit cards and were duly reimbursed by public money.
But more than the clothes, it was the entourage. Palins little and big were all over the campaign, jostling for space in strategy huddles with hapless policy advisers. “The dynamic of meetings change” as a result, one insider told The New Yorker. One report even has her opening the door to her suite clad in two towels, to tell an aide to wait with her husband in another room.
Why did McCain choose Palin? This is a difficult one to answer without kicking an honorable man that’s down. But how he chose her was revealed by the New Yorker’s last issue.
Palin’s attempted crossing from Wasilla to Washington began when a little-known fundamentalist blogger began a campaign promoting her after eliminating other women republicans using wikipedia searches. Then, in the Summer of 2007, two batches of influential conservative media personalities visited Alaska on cruises. Pain hosted both groups and floored them with halibut, salmon and plain charm. Bill Kristol, pundit on Fox News Sunday and influential writer for The Weekly Standard, was the most enamoured. He called her his “heartthrob” and as good as made the announcement of her candidacy before McCain got around to it in early September.
Palin had successfully used the very Washington insiders that she purportedly loathed to get on the ticket.
The New Yorker also revealed that McCain had spent a total of less than three hours with Palin before announcing her as his running mate. But the backroom boys didn’t fare much better. They most likely did not know at the time of the announcement that her teen-age daughter was pregnant (sort of important, isn’t it for a christian values. There were serious gaps in the obviously hurried vetting process before she was flown down to McCain’s retreat in Sedona, Arizona.
Now the question is, if the old man could divine Palin’s neighbour Putin’s thoughts by looking into his eyes in a matter of minutes, what was he thinking looking into Sarah’s for hours?
Tags: Avirook Sen, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Sarkozy Prank, Saturday Night Live, US Elections 2008
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Visiting Joe The Plumber’s house November 2nd, 2008
Toledo, Ohio
“Hadn’t heard of him till last week”, says the lady at 457 Shrewsbury Street. Down a few houses from Toledo’s most famous address: ‘Joe the Plumber’s house.’
“Worked for the U.S. mail till five years ago, and I don’t remember them”, the lady says. Implying of course, that this old(ish) community is mildly under threat by recent infiltrators. Joe, or Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, is one of them.
In the last days of a campaign that’s trying to put the plumbing in after building the house, John McCain is banking heavily on Joe the plumber. In the case of an unlikely victory, the man who discovered Joe may well become secretary of state.
Joe himself might initially be contracted to flush the White House clean of any residual cigars or pretzels blocking a presidential brain, sorry, drain. After the successful completion of this task, there are a number of options. Ranging from succeeding Hank Paulson to an appropriate role in urban planning.
In the case of a loss…? Well there’s always a book deal: ‘Joe Who? How McCain chose the wrong man after choosing the wrong woman.’
‘Joe Who?’ would have been a fair enough question on Shrewsnury Street, Holland, suburb of Toledo. Till the day John McCain invoked Joe (13 times, I’ve been told) in a presidential debate on October 15.
Since then, Joe has become one of the characters of this election. Joining people like Bill Ayers (innocent; former terrorist and Obama associate); Jeremiah Wright (guilty; Obama’s former pastor, of being a christian isotope of Louis Farrakkan, though with different views on Obama); and Sarah Palin (guilty; vice presidential candidate, of opening her mouth).
The multiple mentions have changed both him and his street. The lady at 457 talks about the row of television camera crews and satellite dishes that lined it the previous week, which is otherwise lined by a salubrious row of maple. When on the trees, in end-October, the leaves they burn like little maple-leaf-shaped suns. When on the ground, they need to be swept off the lawn so that there’s a new carpet to sweep tomorrow.
This is what the lady at 457 is doing when we find her. A radio journalist from Holland is there as well, which tells you how widespread, intricate and interconnected the network of the world’s sewage system is. The lady has a distaste for the ‘15 minutes of fame’ idea–more for her street than for Joe.
In the end, she says, “It won’t make any difference at all.” Not many people knew Joe (it follows that even fewer liked him). It’s all become a bit of a joke around here. Seeing two journalist’s walk up and down, a few jobless young adults shout ‘Joe!!’ and run into a house, but it’s got an Obama-Biden yard sign.
At 355, Joe’s house, there’s an SUV parked. No yard sign. (Come to think of it, would there be yard sign in the Palin home in Wassilla?). Joe is out on the trail in Utah, being the showpiece at Republican rallies, and the bell is answered by a tall, fit, middle-aged man and two dogs.
This is ‘Tom’, Joe’s business manager. If you added Dick and Harry, you’d get your average plumbing (or law?) firm.
This business manager thing freaks me out a bit. Two weeks ago, Joe was an employee in a business that had 3 employees at $40,000 a year. Now he’s got a ‘Tom’. Who also keeps house and takes care of the dogs when he’s away.
But consider that there are book deals on offer; a possible country western music recording contract; and the chance of holding elected office. Joe is considering the Congress.
Joe’s house is fairly typical of the neighbourhood: a garage, a little drive, a nondescript screen door with a wire mesh, so we see the business manager divided up into tiny little squares. He won’t open the door. He tells us that we needed to have given notice. Joe isn’t average any more.
In fact, he was below average to begin with if you ask people with plumbing in their DNA, like Tim Antoine, a local taxi driver. Tim’s grandfather was a plumbing inspector, his father was a plumber, his son is a plumber. A certified one, unlike Joe–and is a partner in a business. He earns $85,000 a year, tops.
Joe doesn’t represent the average guy, says Antoine. That guy needs a job before thinking about owning a business.
“Many years I’ve been driving a taxi here in Toledo… I’ve seen a glass plant on the other side of the city, where I grew up in East Toledo there was a glass plant and that glass is now in China. It used to have 5,000 employees, there’s nobody working there right now.” There’s also trouble in the, much larger, automobile industry.
This is a result, Antoine feels of Clinton policies on free trade. So “you’ve got to be cautious” when leaning democratic. But then, while explaining why Joe doesn’t represent him, he says: “I can’t see how any working man can be pro-republican.”
As important on the ballot as the presidential vote in Ohio are the votes to purportedly protect/create jobs. Issue 5, for instance is a bid to remove the state’s 28% interest rate cap on payday lending. (This is America’s version of the village money-lender: interest rates can be close to 400%). The flip side is that 60,000 people reportedly depend on the industry, which isn’t profitable without absurd rates.
There’s issue 6 as well: advertised as the move that will bring 5,000 jobs into Ohio through the gambling business.
These are the concerns of the people on Shrewsbury Street, Ohio. Now that Joe’s out of the way–and the press is gone–they can think about them. They’re thinking: get a job, contemplation about owning a business can follow.
The republicans may have chosen the wrong Joe after all. He isn’t certified. Not to represent either the plumbing community; or his street; or indeed the working man. That guy would love to have Joe’s current position: smiling at rallies, negotiating book and record deals, dealing with the press through a business manager through a screen door.
But that guy also knows that the job is too good to be permanent. After November 4, there could be a load of sewage to clean.
Ohio Facts:
- Obama ahead by between 4 and 6 points in latest polls.
- Bush won the state (and its, substantial, 20 electoral votes) in 2000 and 2004
- Ohio has never voted against the tide since 1960: meaning the man who wins Ohio becomes president.
Tags: Avirook Sen, Joe The Plumber, Joe's home, John McCain, Ohio, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, Sarah Palin, Toledo, US Elections 2008
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Colorado will define a person this election October 26th, 2008
As America votes to elect a new president on November 4, the state of Colorado will vote on how to “define a person”.
On the 4-page ballot paper in Colorado, is Amendment 48 of the Colorado constitution (the U.S. system allows voting on citizen-initiated laws on the same ballot, provided they have a certain number of signatures to support this). It asks Colorado whether they would want a “the terms person, or person, to include any human being from the moment of fertilisation.”
This is not a simple question. If the people answer yes, the implications are huge, says Curtis Miller a 52-year-old pastor. He and his traveling companions are going through the 2008 State Ballot Information Booklet as we approach Glenwood Springs through surreal canyons on a slow train.
If there is a place where you seek answers to the kind of deep questions on the Colorado ballot paper, you could do much worse.
Pastor Curtis, supports the amendment, of course. But he does give it a think. There are practical considerations. But finally, it boils down to: “Life is a gift. And you have to draw the line somewhere.” He is from Denver, but if you ask him, he’ll say: “I’m from the womb.”
If Colorado thinks the same way as the pastor, then abortions would have a different name in Colorado: murder. Because the state guarantees a “person” the right to life. It would also mean a reversal of one of the most important judgements in the U.S. Supreme Court’s history. In 1975, Roe v Wade, the U.S Supreme Court legalised abortion in the U.S, on the ground that the unborn were not included in the word “person” as used in the U.S. Constitution.
John McCain does not agree with that judgement, and Sarah Palin is even more stridently ‘pro-life’, she has a special needs baby to show for it. But Roe v Wade is hugely important, because it upheld the right of a woman to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.
A reversal could limit private, personal choices and could be used to stop the use of commonly used forms of contraception (the ‘day after pill’, for instance) and even hinder stem-cell research
Steve Levitt, economist and co-author of ‘Freakonomics’ wrote a jaw-dropping paper on the correlation between crime and unwanted births–subjects that seem unrelated. Levitt’s argument, based on hard data, was: if you force women who 1) do not want the child andS 2) have no means to support it, to be single moms, then you will get cascading waves of kids turning to crime.
Banning abortion would mean more such kids. Legalising, as the Supreme Court did in Roe v Wade, would reduce crime.
Few churches come out openly in support of on candidate or the other. But in almost all, preachers tell the congregation that they must vote according to a candidate’s Christian values: to check if they are pro-life, and support the biblical version of the birth of the earth (done in 7 days; Noah’s ark and so on, as opposed to evolution from “monkeys” or “cells”) to name just two of these values.
One of pastor Curt’s companions had filled out the Voter “cheat-sheet” for measures on the 2008 ballot. These are provided well before election day, so voters can get a bit of practice for what is a fairly lengthy exercise.
She hands me the booklet before hopping off at Glenwood Springs. I find that she’s ticked the yes box for amendment 48.
Tags: Abortion, Amendment 48, John McCain, Pro Choice, Pro Life, Roe v Wade, Sarah Palin, Steve Levitt, US Elections 2008, Voter cheat sheets
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Escaping from Sarah to Dinosaur, Colorado October 25th, 2008
Dinosaur, Colorado.
Having heard that Sarah Palin was about to descend on Colorado after a week of poor ratings for the McCain Palin ticket, I decided I needed to run to a place where she would definitely not find me. Looking at the perfect rectangle that is Colorado, I chose the top left hand corner: a town called Dinosaur. (No, it is not named after John McCain.)
This town actually exists, I am serious. You can even have a ‘Cappasaurus’ (this town’s version of cappuccino) at the Bedrock Cafe on Brontosaurus boulevard. And one of the town’s 319 people should be there at the ‘welcome centre’ at the corner of Bronto and Stego to tell you about the attractions.
Local literature tells you that Dinosaur is an “excellent central location”. Right, as central as the middle of nowhere. This is why when they needed a mayor recently, they advertised the position in a paper in Grand Junction, which is four hours away. And why they stopped the bus service to here (from anywhere) about 10 years ago.
But with a little enterprise you can go down to nearby Vernal to look at dinosaur fossil bones found in the area; or visit the dinosaur national monument, a few miles east, where hidden in the folds of the Rockies is a magnificent canyon at the confluence of the Green and Yampa rivers.
What you cannot do, is escape Sarah Palin. I have chosen an unfortunate date for my attempted escape: her constituents are all over the place. Not because she’s in the area–but because it’s the beginning of the hunting season.
Their pick-up trucks whizz along Highway 40, the hoofs of some unfortunate elk or deer sticking out. At the gas stations or at drive by restaurants there’s the smell of coagulated blood. Big signs say: ‘Hunters welcome.’
A chunk of Colorado’s votes will be decided on who’s the better president for hunters, and they could be critical because it is a solidly republican state lurching leftwards.\
But here in Dinosaur, this is a no-contest, of course. It is a an area where the McCain-Palin ticket has all the experience, judgment and whatever ammunition is required. Palin likes shooting bears and wolves–specially from helicopters.
Two young men pull their truck into the lot of the Terrace Motel. A pair of beautiful horns stick out from the back of the truck and when it swings around you can see the animal. It’s blood, almost warm, leaching through its slashed stomach onto the floor.
The boys jump off beaming. Their names are Landon and Josh, from Craig (the elk-hunting capital of the world, a few hours east of Dinosaur). Landon’s the one who ‘got him’.
“We couldn’t find any elk, so we started coming down and we saw about 15 bucks. So we jumped out and shot him…(with his Roberts 257 at 250 yards).
“I shot him in the shoulder. He started moving, and we got up on a little cliff and we saw him lay down and we couldn’t shoot him again… he was too far away. And then he ran off and we tracked him down some more for about two miles… he wouldn;t go down.. and then shot him in the spine. Then we went up on him and he was still alive so we shot him one more time thinking that he was going to die. Then I shot him in the neck.
“And then, that was pretty much about it.
Landon has what is called a “resident youth deer tag”, which authorises a ‘discount hunt’ if you will. For $10.75, instead of the regular $45, you get to hunt a deer a season. The blue tag is now around the buck’s left ear. Josh, his hands blood-stained from hauling the thing, plays with it, and then turns his attention to fiddling around with the dead animals mouth, prizing it open with his fingers as if checking its dental health.
The meat, they will eat: about 75 pounds of steaks and burgers that should last the winter. Not bad for less than 11 bucks.
After severing the head (’just about there’ says Josh, pointing to the base of the neck) they will boil the skull and mount it. The fur will be given away to make rugs. The bones (’they’re no good”) will be thrown away.
Oh yes, one other thing, towns like Craig and Dinosaur will vote McCain-Palin. They think that the deer and elk population is getting out of hand, causing road accidents; they enjoy their cheap meat. They are patriotic Americans who love the legal, justifiable use of guns. (I am merely talking about hunting, not the war in Iraq). The candidates agree.
The buck is now driven off to the processing plant, perhaps in Maybell. Its wounds are drying up in the Colorado sun–it can’t feel them anyway. On its ear, is the fatal blue bling accessory of season. It’s eyes are open, though.
Tags: Barack Obama, Dinosaur Colorado, John McCain, Sarah Palin, US Elections 2008
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What the ‘red hatters’ are thinking October 16th, 2008
Dayton, Tennessee
The Red Hatters vote for joy, and this time around joy is the McCain-Palin ticket
“I’m a red hatter”, says Mrs Karen Black, talking about a constituency that I had not heard of as we sip sweet tea in the Dayton coffee house. Then she explains.
“There is a poem that says ‘When I grow old I shall wear purple/ With red hats that do not match and do not go/ I’ll learn to spit on the sidewalk and send the grocery money for brandy/ And tell the family that we have no money for butter..’ And the poem goes on, all these things that we’re never allowed to do as proper ladies. And then at the end it says, ’so that my family won’t be too surprised, I think I’ll start practicing now.’
“And so–and you will see this throughout the United States–there are gatherings of ladies fifty and older, who, regardless of what life has thrown at them, whether it’s widowhood, cancer, loss of a child… Regardless of what life has done to them, they choose joy. The red hatters are all about choosing joy. And you will see them with feathers and glitters and red hats and purple outfits.”
Mrs Black is 58, she is wearing a green floral outfit, without any sort of hat, but I have no reason to believe she is not a red hatter. She has the primary requirements to be one: in this election, choosing joy, would mean going with the McCain Palin ticket; she’s also a good Christian.
I ask her what denomination she belongs to and she laughs and says: “I’m a ‘methabaptapristacostal’… just a Christain. Then, assuming the air of someone who’s about to say something really important. She looks me in the eye and says: “The main things are the plain things.”
She begins counting the main things on her fingers: “Was He born of a virgin; was He crucified; did He die; was He raised from the dead; has He ascended to the right hand of the father… the main things are the plaayne things. And you can put any label you want to put on it, but the main things are the plain things. And they are true. They are true.”
Faced with these profound, and totally sincere beliefs, I can’t help turn the conversation towards other countries and other faiths. We begin in Iraq, where it’s difficult to tell either main or plain.
Mrs Black pauses a bit to take in the question. “I think about the bigger picture, I think that politicians will come and go and do whatever it is that they have to do. I think the truth is that God is in control. And the truth is that this is going to play out how He wants it to play out.”
She continues: “Things that are meant for evil, God has a way of turning them into good in the bigger picture that we don’t even see. I do know that the end-time war, Armageddon in Revelation, is going to be somewhere in the east. Somewhere, Iraq, Iran… somewhere there. I think it’s a fool’s game not to keep that firmly in mind.”
Right there, I thought, in succinct, easy language, was Bush’s foreign policy. Had Mrs Black ghost-written it?
But what about good young American kids going out there and dying, I ask.
“Good young American kids died for the revolution. Good young American kids died in World War 1, for World War 2, for Vietnam. Do I like good young American kids going to die? Absolutely not.”
Wouldn’t you want to stop the war right now?
“All wars. ‘The-o-ret-ically.” She draws the word out deliberately. “In a perfect world… that would be wonderful.
“In a perfect world, there would be no sorrow. In a perfect world we wouldn’t have people trying to come over and kill us. In a perfect world we wouldn’t have to have a bigger stick than the other guy to make them… behave. In a perfect world…”
She was clearly not ghost-writing Dubya’s speeches: they had nothing of the lyrical quality of her extempore.
“People have died for the rights that we have. To go to the churches we go to–or not. To pray when and where we choose… people have died for these rights that we have to make this country what it is.
“We have more a sense of ‘I appreciate that’ and clearly the rest of the world thinks that because they’re pouring in our shores legally and illegally by the millions. Clearly, other people think, ‘we see that, we like that, we want a piece of that’. We think that’s good. And our boys think that’s worth dying for. And the mothers send them off… To die for it.”
Two teardrops roll down Mrs Black’s pink cheek as she says this. She looks away, her lips quivering. I ask if I’ve upset her.
“No, no, no, no, no! Honey I’m southern, we cry as easy as we laugh. We’ll probably hug when we’re through” she says, wiping her tears.
“I was saying that if a ship is moving then God can turn the rudder change the direction of the ship, but if it’s just sitting there stagnant then ain’t nothing gonna happen. So we’re moving, and if we’ve made mistakes, then God can alter and change them. Whether its through who gets in office or whatever he uses.
“Yes I vote–but I also pray.”
Tags: Christian, Dayton Coffee House, Dayton+Tennessee, Faith, George W Bush, Iraq, John McCain, Red Hatters, Republican, Sarah Palin, US Elections 2008, US Foreign Policy, War
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What Tennessee is teaching … October 10th, 2008
Dayton, Tennessee
Miss Eleanor would have been 3 when the ‘Monkey Trial’ trial took place here. She spent here life as a math teacher. One math problem that she or the several generations of teachers in Tennessee (including the present one) haven’t posed to their students is: If a boat were to accommodate a pair of animals of every species, how big would it need to be?
It’d have to be a little bigger than Dayton (10,000 people), and, in fact, all of the Bible Belt, I suspect. But why recalculate when Noah’s done all of that already?
Miss Eleanor will vote Republican. This is not a given with everyone who shares her beliefs–and everyone in Tennessee, give or take a few confused liberals, does. Religion is the superset here, two of its subsets happen to be republican and democrat.
Miss Eleanor’s decision has a lot to do with John McCain’s vice-preidential choice. “Long before she became a running mate. When everybody wanted her to have that abortion (Palin’s fifth Down syndrome, a condition that affects both physical and intellectual growth)… and she said that the Lord had given her this baby and she certainly wasn’t going to get rid of it… Oh I hope she wins this election.”
And with that she left the Dayton Coffee shop. It was her birthday, she had come in for lunch. As she does often, sitting at a table from where you can read the Ten Commandments on the wall.
People wear badges here saying: ‘I’m voting for Sarah Palin… Oh yeah, and that old guy too’. The Alaska governor is anti-abortion; her views on gay marriage are that the only union sanctioned by God is one between man and woman; and she is a believer in the biblical version of the origin of man and the world (created in a week). What more proof does Dayton need that she will make a fine vice-president? Even the dominant baptists grudgingly set aside their belief that the woman’s place is in the home for Sarah’s sake.
According to state law, and this applies to all public schools, creationism can’t just not be taught, teachers could get sued for even mentioning it. Darwin is an integral part of the curriculum and has to be taught as a theory (as opposed to a fact), because even though the evidence is overwhelming, it is still a theory, unlike, say, the laws of motion. People like Sarah Palin would prefer if creationism was taught alongside Darwin’s theory as an alternative theory, but tough luck to them.
In practice, though, schools and teachers in places with the same beliefs as Dayton have gotten around the problem quite easily: they simply make an error of omission, by not teaching evolution. Result: kids who have never heard of Darwin, leave alone the Galapagos islands.
There is one cost that these towns incur for doing this that they refuse to take into account. The Advanced Placement exam that high-schoolers take to go to college has a curriculum where evolution is a central theme. If you fail the test because you haven’t heard of natural selection or cannot answer questions on the evidence in support of evolution, your chances of going to college are greatly reduced.
Moreover, if you do well on these tests, you get credits to take with you to college. Which means you can graduate in less than four years. For parents who have to pay huge fees, every semester gained is several thousand dollars saved. One would have thought that Dayton, which so cleverly brought money back into town with the Scopes trial, wouldn’t mind sitting through a few evolution lessons if it saved a few thousand bucks. But no, that’s asking too much.
Judge McKenzie, who presides over the court in Dayton nowadays comes from a family that was involved in the trial that made Dayton famous–on the prosecution side. He says his favourite word is ‘jail’ and his least favourite word is ‘atheist’. Neither he nor his kids have read anything about evolution. Nor have the two young convicted felons I speak to next. ‘Do you think all the world’s animals would fit on one boat?’ I ask. ‘Sure’ says one, ‘if you took just two of each.’
Tags: Dayton, Dayton Tennessee, John McCain, Noah's Ark, Sarah Palin, Scopes Trial, US Elections 2008
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Wear a smilette, happy days are ahead… but when? October 8th, 2008
Roanoke, Texas
There’s an uncanny similarity between the great depression and the present crisis, not just in the events but in Washington’s response. The republican president at the time, Herbert Hoover woke up late, as did the American people. They bought his line of ‘a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage’ (now they’re talking cycles!), electing him in 1928 only to quickly turn him into a universal hate figure (like Dubya, in the current polls).
But republicans carried on gamely at that time, trying to spread a message of hope and exhorting people to take responsibility. Much the way Sarah Palin did in the vice-presidential debate–even though she seems to know as much about the economy as she does about Alaska-Russia relations.
One of the better ripostes to this ‘hope; spend within your means’ line, appeared in a 1930s cartoon which said that prosperity was around the corner and if you cannot afford a smile, if you should wear a ’smilette’. This is precisely what kitchen table republicans are now advocating, though we are short of a good cartoon in response.
I met someone who lost his job last month. He would have been okay about wearing a ’smilette’. I suspect the disincentive is that if you wore it too long, you’d end up looking like a stewardess on a micro-light aircraft.
The ‘new direction’ that Washington is talking about has a word in common with FDR’s 1932 ‘new deal’ in the literal sense, but really, the steps being proposed are very much like the ones in the 30s. At a fundamental level will take taxpayers’ money. This is difficult to sell, politically, which is why the first attempt at getting the bill passed in the Congress failed.
FDR’s plans kicked in when unemployment was breaking America’s back and included things like soup kitchens, and (generally non-productive) government employment schemes. But he also set up the Home Owners Loan Corporation which lent money to about a million possible defaulters. This is very much on the table now, because apart from the from all the foreclosures, there are between 6 and 10 million people who have an incentive to walk away from their mortgage payments.
The most important response common to that time and now, however, is more regulation. The Securities Exchange Commission was set up in 1934 to prevent a repeat of 1929. One of the main changes it made was to stop margin buying. If you wanted a stock, you had to show about half the money.
In the present scenario, the financial markets will have to say goodbye to many of its unsupervised activities. The first in line will probably be the clandestine, and catastrophic, credit swaps (I lend you money, and then insure myself against a default with a third person, because i know you cannot repay; if, as i expect, you don’t pay me, he has to. this was the baby AIG was left holding.)
Regulation has been a bad word in America for the longest time, and the changes in the offing are likely to be profound: there’s a realisation that America has been a little too free and much too brave for its own good. Republican or democrat, this translates to ‘we always sort of knew that the market couldn’t take care of all our problems, but now we’re willing to admit it and do something about it’.
Deeper down, the crisis doesn’t just affect main street, or John McCain road. During the Great Depression, it entered people’s homes. in 1940, 14 years after the realty bubble burst in Florida and and pinged America into a downward spiral, a survey found that 1.5 million jobless, depressed, American men had abandoned their families.
The first reports of marriages breaking up over who’ll pay the mortgage bill are already coming in this year.
Tags: Barack Obama, Depression, FDR, Financial Crisis, John McCain, Main Street, Marraiges breaking up, Regulation, Roanoke Texas, Sarah Palin, Sub prime crisis, US Elections 2008
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Who’s the real monkey here?
October 7th, 2008
John T Scopes was a biology teacher arrested for teaching evolution
John T Scopes was a biology teacher arrested for teaching evolution
Having just watched Religulous (IMDB), in Grapevine, Texas, I’m off of Dayton in Tennessee, where the Scopes Trial took place.
Ms Palin and company believe that the world was created in six days, less than 10,000 years ago and that men and dinosaurs roamed together. The Scopes Trial took place because, even in 1925, there were people who thought otherwise (more here).
Then, I go to the birthplace of the Manhattan Project … and to where Colonel Sanders opened his first cafe–it wasn’t called KFC at the time and historical record suggests that the food was better.
Tags: Colonel Sanders, Manhattan Project, Religulous, Sarah Palin, Scopes Trial, US Elections 2008
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