Right in San Francisco

Media Integrity

   A friend recently asked me to write about the lack of integrity on the part of some bloggers - Andrew Breitbart in particular. In the spirit of "fair and balanced", I thought that I'd broaden the political spectrum and the discussion a bit. 

   First, obtaining an objective opinion requires work. My reading ranges from the Huffington Post on the left to the equally ideological Drudge Report on the right, with several other sources in between such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. I regularly watch MSNBC and Fox. The most noteworthy difference is what is not covered - on the left you wouldn't know much about the Justice Department's alleged policy of not pursuing discrimination complaints (such as those against the New Black Panther Party) on behalf of white clients; on the right you would have missed the latest dozen scandals in Sarah Palin's family. 

   As to Breitbart's edited video of Shirley Sherrod's NAACP speech, the difference has been in emphasis. There has been virtually no defense since he misled everybody; however, the Left has taken a delayed pound of flesh for his earlier exposure of Acorn and offers of rewards if anyone could prove claims of Tea Party racism, while the Right has preferred to focus on The White House's latest personnel ineptitude, completing the cycle from shoddy background investigations, to delayed hiring, to knee-jerk firing.  

   A more troubling media event has been much less reported (except by Rush Limbaugh and Fox) - the exposure of JournoList, a group of some 400 liberal "journalists" started by Washington Post reporter Ezra Klein, who share e-mails about talking points to protect Obama and attack conservatives - including encouragement to fabricate stories of racism on the part of Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, or whoever. Being paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't after you. (For those who doubt, read the Fred Barnes article.)  At least Breitbart was acting alone. 

   Even the "fact checking" sites can contain a bias. Snopes.com leans to the left; Factcheck.org is more to the center. Try both to see which Truth you prefer. 

   Finally, some advice as to integrity in widely divergent polls, most of which serve an ideological audience. The results become more conservative as one moves from "adults" to "eligible voters" to "likely voters." The whole range is available at www.RealClearPolitics.com, along with averages. Rasmussen (likely voters) has historically been among the most accurate. 

   But, it doesn't have to be that hard; for those seeking objective interpretation of the week's events without doing the work, there is always www.RightinSanFrancisco.com. 

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   In keeping with today's theme, here's Charlie Rangel offended that an MSNBC reporter (Tim Russert's son) would ask him real questions.  With any luck for the Republicans, the country will get to spend a good piece of the campaign season watching Nancy's swamp get drained. 

bill bowen - 7/29/10

Entrepreneurs: Hunkering Down

   One way to think about why there is anemic jobs creation while the economy has started to grow and company earnings are good is to look at the entrepreneurial class, as opposed to the large international corporations who have recovered from the Great Recession, and the "working class" who are accustomed to taking what The System gives them, or doesn't.    

The "entrepreneurial class" manages people, real estate, farms, small businesses, and investment portfolios. They figure out the rules, assess risk and reward, and make decisions about how to deploy their resources. They trust their judgment and believe that their decisions have a significant affect on outcomes. With Pelosi declaring that the Democrats needed to pass the health care bill to find out what was in it, and Chris Dodd admitting that we won't know the result of the financial regulation bill for years, those who must figure it out are screwed.

- For the shop owner or restaurateur, how long will customer demand be down; how should they deal with health care - their employees' and their own; will the bank pull the line of credit; what if the landlord goes under; which taxes will go up, and how much; how about undocumented workers?

-  For the farmer, will financial reform affect their ability to hedge crop and fuel prices; should he buy a new tractor; will the bank advance funds for the next planting season; what about his seasonal labor?

- For the small banker, how much will capitalization requirements increase; how much will FDIC fees increase; how will definitions and disclosure regulations change; will consumer credit become unprofitable; how will his borrowers be affected by changes in energy policy; when will the commercial real estate market turn? 

-  For the investor or retiree, what rate of inflation should he assume; what will capital gains, dividend, and estate tax rates be; what will happen to Medicare and Social Security; can he afford to contribute to college funds for kids and grandkids?

The natural response to waves of undefined change for the millions of people who make the decisions that drive the economy is to hunker down. For the disconnected politicians, it is to consider the job done when the 2000 page bill is passed. Let the bureaucrats write the implementing regulations, and move on to find the next apple cart to overturn - energy; immigration; whatever. Small wonder when the Obama administration has the smallest number of people with private sector experience (except lawyers) of any in the last century. This is why nobody is hiring in Obama's America.  

It is no surprise that countries are doing fine where the business managers know the rules - China; India; Brazil; Canada; Germany; Turkey. We will eventually recover, but not until much of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid legislation has been modified, the regulations have been litigated, and the managers know where they stand. Fortunately, we are an adaptive nation, blessed with leadership in technology and higher education in a century that will be dominated by technology and knowledge. Unfortunately, it will take years to undo the damage and let the entrepreneurs make informed decisions.  

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We don't normally endorse commercial products, but this You Tube submission by reader Themis Michos calls for an exception.

bill bowen - 7/23/10

The Race Card

Today's posting will entail a bit of risk, given the number of liberals who enjoy branding conservatives as "racist". But, I think some perspective is helpful in understanding what is going on in Arizona.

While there are many ways to categorize the electorate - geographic; religious; class; education; economic/social/security orientation - one of the most obvious is race. With the population being about 65% white, 13% African-American, 15% Hispanic, and 5% Asian, the Democratic Party calculation is that they need 40% of the white vote, 90 % of the African-American vote, and 60% of the other minority vote.  (For perspective, Obama carried 43% of the white vote in 2008.)  

-  First, the Asians are evenly split, with the Koreans and Vietnamese tending Republican, the Japanese tending Democratic, and the Chinese split. The two politically prominent Indians, Bobby Jindal in Louisiana and Nikki Haley in South Carolina, are both Republicans.

   -  The African-American vote remains a solid 85 to 90% Democratic, despite Bush Administration examples such as Colin Powell and Condi Rice. A typical day's complaints by the likes of Elijah Cummings (Blacks not getting their share of Gulf cleanup jobs), Jesse Jackson (Lebron not being treated fairly), and Michelle Obama/the NCAA (racist Tea Party epithets) serve to keep this base in line with a message of victim-hood.   

- The Latinos are the swing group that needs to be energized if the Democrats are to have any hope of winning. While concentrated in the Southwest, they form meaningful blocs in Illinois, New York (Puerto Rican), Florida (Cuban), and many swing states, and, in the aggregate vote about 60% Democrat and 25% Republican.  Although 15% of the population, they make up only 9% of the eligible voter due to legal status and a large portion of children. 

So, how can they be turned into reliable, active Democrats for 2010 and beyond, as they were by Proposition 187 (no benefits for illegal immigrants) in California in 1994?

-  The benign answer is that Obama and Holder do see events through a racial prism, and think that efforts to seal the border are inherently unfair. Obama's knee-jerk reaction to the Professor Gates incident in 2009 probably reflected his true perspective. And with the public favoring the Arizona governor's effort by a two to one majority, the Democratic governors have highlighted the political downside of Obama's lawsuit.  He must be acting on principle, regardless of the consequences in this election, and doing what he thinks is right. (Right?)

-  The more cynical answer is that Obama has a difficult balancing act - energizing the Hispanics, while not alienating the white working-class base by pushing for comprehensive immigration reform which would legitimize millions of low wage workers at a time of 10% unemployment. In 2007, he had it both ways by publicly supporting the Bush/McCain/Kennedy comprehensive immigration reform effort, then torpedoing it by advocating toxic amendments -elimination of the guest worker program; prioritizing family relationships over skills and education.  Similarly, on behalf of white union leadership, his partisan Arizona lawsuit kills any chance of real immigration reform for now, while energizing the Hispanics, and perhaps helping his party in close Senate races in California, Colorado, and Nevada.  

In the longer run, the question is how soon the Hispanics move up the economic and social ladder, as have past immigrant groups. Democratic demagoguery aside, there are many aspects of the Republican perspective that appeal to Hispanics - they tend to be socially conservative and religious; they have a disproportionate number of children in school and few in the teachers unions; they disproportionately start small businesses (not working for large corporations); they disproportionately volunteer for the armed services. And like past immigrant groups, these are the people who have left their family and friends at home in search of opportunity.  Some of this will be reflected in California this year as Meg Whitman's millions help to support moderate Republican Abel Maldonado for lieutenant governor.  

The long term challenge is, of course, for the Republicans to find a way to stem the flow of illegals while welcoming the contribution of those who accept our laws. We were not far away in 2007. In the long run, the Republicans have more to gain than the Democrats.   

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This week's video is eloquent Senate testimony by an Army veteran speaking  about Elena Kagan's anti-recruitment policies at Harvard. With her replacing Judge Stevens, the Supreme Court will have no veterans and no Protestants. So much for "Red State America".

bill bowen - 7/16/10

Obamacare Update

Many suffering with Obamacare fatigue have spent the past months watching the president's handling of the Gulf disaster (ugh!), the war in Afghanistan (ugh!), the lawsuit against Arizona (ugh!), and jobs creation (ugh!). Just to make your day, I'd like to bring you up to date on the health care front.

As a starting point, I'd note that the bill which Obama signed on March 23, met the primary objective of extending coverage to 32 million folks; contained a very confusing jumble of variously-timed taxes, mandates, subsidies, and government expansions; and did virtually nothing to reduce costs due to vote-buying compromises with the lawyers, pharma companies, doctors, medical device providers, insurers, and hospitals. There will have to be a "Plan B".

Some things on a macro level:

-  Some 60% of voters now believe that the legislation should be repealed, but only 41% believe that it will be. Pelosi's "build it and they will come" hope lies in the future.

-  In April, Obama promised that everything would be "on the table" for the Budget Deficit Reduction Commission, whose recommendations are due December 1. Hopefully, that will include Paul Ryan's recommendations on health care. In a bad sign, one of the commission's first acts was to request more funding for the commission.

-  Since the bill passed, the health care stock index has declined 12.2%, while the S&P 500 has declined 11.8%. Wall Street already got its way. 

And a bit more micro:

-  Some 20 states have joined in lawsuits to invalidate the law, particularly the provision requiring citizens to purchase health insurance. The relationship between required participation, pre-existing conditions, and rates is vital and there is some chance that the Supreme Court may favor individual liberty.

-  The insurance industry will have many companies stop some coverage as the requirement that 80% of premiums be paid in claims is defined by the bureaucrats. (So much for that "no cancellation" claim.)  Meanwhile, in California Blue Cross has withdrawn its proposed 39% increase due to "calculation errors" - after its announcement on the eve of the Senate's March vote sparked outrage (and helped obtain 30 million more mandated customers for the industry.)

- Early indications are that the $5 billion for interim "high risk pools" (for pre-existing conditions cases until coverage is mandated in 2014) will probably be inadequate - an early harbinger of the plan's real costs.

-  Conventional wisdom is now acknowledging that 16 million more Medicaid beneficiaries will mean more crowding in emergency rooms, and that the 10% increase in medical school enrollees between 2009 and 2014 will run into a bottleneck with little increase in residency positions. And, predictably, the currently-stalled "unemployment benefits bill" contains a 21% increase in payments to Medicare doctors- which had been left out of the CBO's cost estimate of Obamacare.

- Obama has used a recess appointment to bypass Congressional discussion of his leader for Medicare and Medicaid- a Harvard doctor who views health care as inherently redistributive, opposes private care providers, and acknowledges the need for rationing. See for yourself.

- And it is becoming harder for the media and politicians to ignore the Massachusetts experience - the highest premiums in the country, spreading price controls, and proposals to limit preventive examinations and physician private practice.

There will be a Plan B.

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And for the decreasing minority who still respect this administration, here's the head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration telling al Jazeera that the foremost mission of NASA is improvement of relations with the Muslim world. Truly. 

bill bowen - 7/9/2010

America's Funk

For the first 225 years as a country we could do pretty much anything that we wanted. For the last decade we haven't been able to do much of anything. The liberal intelligentsia blames it on Bush and Obama's timidity; less than a third of the country thinks that we are on the "right track"; the political mood is "a pox on both their houses." What's up?

Well, it has become obvious that "Yes We Can" was a vacuous campaign slogan, particularly for somebody who had never done anything of note, and had never had the personnel and budget responsibilities of a governor or business owner. It is now obvious that he can't:

1. Provide the clarity that the private sector needs in order to get the economy and hiring going again - a long, muddled health care debate that turns the system upside down; a shorter, inconclusive energy debate that threatens huge costs to producers; a long financial regulation debate which does not deal with rating agencies, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, and (to a large extent) "too big to fail"; the impending (to be adjusted?) end of President Bush's tax cuts.  What he, Nancy, and Harry have delivered is a $787 billion omnibus stimulus grab bag that many economists would say has done little to stimulate the private sector.

 2. Exercise any financial constraint - compromising away any cost containment provisions in the health care legislation; proposing budgets that project unsustainable deficits for a decade; telling the G20 that he wants another round of spending before the party is over; watching our prime lender, China, call for the end of the dollar's reign as the world's reserve currency.

3. Provide for security - Iran and North Korea; the Mexican border; an objective-less Afghan War; meaningful interrogation of terrorists.  

4. Fix the gushing metaphor in the Gulf - or at least provide skimmers to gather up what cannot be prevented.

So, where can optimists who believe in America's "exceptionalism" look for hope?

1. The first Tuesday in November. It looks increasingly possible that Nancy Pelosi will be out of a job, and that the Democrats will have a narrow majority in the Senate. Hopefully, the Tea Party fiscal conservatives will have enough influence to prevent the Republicans from returning to their pattern of the last decade.

 2. The world's greatest economic engine. We are the unquestioned technology leader in a century which will be dominated by technology. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we are still the leader in manufacturing output, and the patent office granted twice as many patents in 2008 as in 1990. We have the world's most productive agriculture and the best universities. We sit on enough energy if we can get our act together. Ongoing productivity of 3% leads to profitable companies, structural unemployment of some 10%, and a social problem, but that is under our control if we choose. 

3. The political system is self-correcting - perhaps our greatest strength. Many states and communities are starting to require that public employees retirement ages, pensions, and health care contributions look more like the rest of us. Here in California we have taken redistricting away from the legislators and mandated open primaries to help centrist candidates. Now, if we can just do what the Canadians did in the 90's (see last week's posting), and demand that the politicians produce balanced budgets.

Many Democrats who prayed that President Bush would fail now criticize Republicans for wanting the same for President Obama. On many policies this is reasonable - suing Arizona; trying terrorists in civilian courts; spending to oblivion - but in the larger sense we should be hoping that, despite much evidence to the contrary,  he has learned something about management.

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And this week's You Tube - the Obama administration's plan to fix the "undocumented worker" problem in Arizona.

bill bowen - 7/2/10