Blame the Auto Union!

Recently I had a conversation with some friends about the collapsing auto industry in America. One participant in the conversation was quick to blame lazy union members, for the industries' downfall. I can't say I blame him considering the misinformation that has been flying around. Some Republican members of the House, and right-leaning academics, have suggested that workers at American plants make upwards of $70 an hour, which if you actually think about it is ridiculous (this calculates to an average annual salary of well over $100,000 for a factory worker). It doesn't help that Harvard Economics professor, Gregory Mankiw, author of a popular high school AP Economics textbook, and former economic advisor to Bush Sr., has recently displayed his true colors by perpetuating this lie on his well-read blog. Fortunately, Factcheck and The New Republic investigated this claim and proved it to be bogus. In reality, the average American autoworker makes about $28 an hour, probably about $4 more than the average worker at Honda, Toyota, or Nissan plants in America; Hardly enough to explain the current collapse.

The reality is that management of the Big Three automakers did not have the foresight to budget for "legacy costs"--the costs of retiree benefits--or did, and assumed the government would never let them fail. They should have predicted that the rising number of baby boomer retirees would exceed the current number of people employed and adjusted accordingly. Malcolm Gladwell discusses this "dependency ratio" in depth in his New Yorker piece The Risk Pool. An excerpt,

An employer that promised, back in the nineteen-fifties, to pay for its employees’ health care when they were retired didn’t set aside the money for that while they were working. It just paid the bills as they came in: money generated by current workers was used to pay for the costs of taking care of past workers. Pensions worked roughly the same way. On the day a company set up a pension plan, it was immediately on the hook for all the years of service accumulated by employees up to that point: the worker who was sixty-four when the pension was started got a pension when he retired at sixty-five, even though he had been in the system only a year. That debt is called a “past service” obligation, and in some cases in the nineteen-forties and fifties the past-service obligations facing employers were huge. At Ford, the amount reportedly came to two hundred million dollars, or just under three thousand dollars per employee.

So, if there are less employees now than when the pensions were first created, there is a problem. Big picture: a pension is only as good as a company's ability to maintain a stable "dependency ratio". Obviously, in the case of the Big Three this was not happening.

Gladwell takes this one step farther and connects it to healthcare: "The average cost of health insurance for an employee between the ages of thirty-five and thirty-nine is $3,759 a year, and for someone between the ages of sixty and sixty-four it is $7,622." G.M. has an estimated 62 billion dollars in health care liabilities. Of course, ask the CEO of an American automaker who hedged his bet on Hummers and Tahoes, how he feels about universal healthcare, and he'll reply in opposition.

But, please blame the lazy auto unions.

Palin's Roe v. Wade Moment

At first I chuckle, and then I realize she could be a heartbeat away from the presidency. It erodes my faith American democracy to be honest. Well, at least we can laugh. It's a four minute clip, but stick with it. It's well worth it.


Watch CBS Videos Online

A Metaphor for Subprime America

An eerily prophetic excerpt from Thomas Friedman's "Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How it Can Renew America",

In some ways, the subprime mortgage mess and housing crisis are metaphors for what has come over America in recent years: A certain connection between hard work, achievement, and accountability has been broken. We’ve become a subprime nation that thinks it can just borrow its way to prosperity—putting nothing down and making no payments for two years. Subprime lenders told us that we could have the American dream—a home of our own—without the discipline or sacrifice that home ownership requires. We didn’t need to study hard and build a solid educational foundation. We didn’t need to save an build a solid credit record. The bank around the corner or online would borrow the money from China and lend it to us—with a credit check no more intrusive than the check you get at the airport when they make sure the name on your airline ticket matches the one on your driver’s license. When the whole pyramid scheme, operated by some of our best financial institutions, collapsed, everyone from simple homeowners to unscrupulous lenders looked to the government for a bailout. The politicians accommodated them, even though everyone knew that the lenders had not been betting that their customers’ penchant for hard work or frugality or innovation would enable them to make the payments. They were simply betting that the housing bubble would keep driving up the prices of homes and that mortgages rates would keep falling—that the market would bail everybody out forever. It did—until it didn’t. As with out houses, so with our country: We have been mortgaging our future rather than investing in it?

So, the question then becomes, what to invest in?

Concerns About the Bailout

An argument I continue to hear in support of the $700 billion dollar bailout has been that because assets are clogging up the system, credit could be very difficult to obtain if the federal government doesn't step in, quickly. I wonder if easy access to credit, or desire for that credit, wasn't the problem in the first place. From Naked Capitalism,

The US needs to wean itself of unsustainable overconsumption, and since consumption has come to depend on growth in indebtedness, a reversal, however painful, is necessary. Our excesses have been so great that there is no way out of this that does not lead to a general fall in living standards (note that the officialdom in the UK is willing to say that, but since perpetual prosperity is a God-given right in America, admitting we will be getting poorer is verboten). Thus, a sharp contraction in lending seems inevitable; the trick is to prevent it from crossing the tipping point into a vicious, accelerating downward spiral.

Naked Capitalism goes on to summarized two problems with the proposed legislation. The first comes from the direct wording of the bill, "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." So, this bill grants the Secretary of the Treasury power that would exempt him from judicial or legislative review? Not a huge fan.

Secondly, the bill does NOT require the federal government to pay market value for these mortgages. Imagine that, lenders holding the federal government hostage, extracting top dollar for toxic mortgages, while tax payers flip the bill.

While such a bailout may be a necessary evil, hopefully the government does not make a bad situation worse in haste.

(The proposed $700 billion legislation is too dense to read myself, but have at it here if you'd like.)

A Picture is Worth 4,000 Lives

A mosaic of 4,000 American soldiers killed in Iraq.

by Nico Pitney

Super Tuesday is Here!

If I Becky and I can get a babysitter tonight, we will caucus.

If you are tempted to caucus in Minnesota, but are just uninformed please check the following links or watch the interview with Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie below. If you are not from the state of Minnesota, check your Secretary of State's homepage.

• The Minnesota Secretary of State's caucus finder. A non-partisan tool that will help you find where you can caucus.

• Information from the Minnesota DFL about precinct caucuses.

• Information from the Minnesota GOP about precinct caucuses.

• Information from the Independence Party of Minnesota.

Don't know who to vote for? Check out these two quizzes that will match your political leanings with specific candidates.

• My Fox Candidate Matchmaker.

• Minnesota Public Radio's Select a Candidate Campaign 2008.
  

Martin Luther King Jr.

Every time I watch this speech from the 1968 March on Washington it gives me goose bumps and brings me to tears.



I absolutely agree with Greg Boyd's take on MLK Jr.,

Before marching, King would always tell his audiences he didn't want anyone marching who could not genuinely say she loved her white oppressors and was marching not only for her own freedom, but for the freedom of her oppressors (for King saw that oppressing another is as much a form of bondage as being oppressed). Not only this, but King would tell audiences he didn't want anyone marching who couldn't commit to refraining from all violence, even in self-defense. King explicitly based all this on the teaching and example of Jesus.

This makes what King did not simply a good and necessary social movement. It makes what King did a Kingdom movement. Indeed, I'd argue that the early civil rights movement, led by King, was one of the clearest expressions of the Kingdom [of God] in history.

Beliefnet posted a series of quotes from MLK's sermons. One in particular seemed relevant for American's today,

"In the terrible midnight of war men have knocked on the door of the church to ask for the bread of peace, but the church has often disappointed them. What more pathetically reveals the irrelevancy of the church in present-day world affairs than its witness regarding war? In a world gone mad with arms buildup, chauvinistic passions and imperialistic exploitation, the church has either endorsed these activities or remained appallingly silent. ...A weary world, pleading desperately for peace, has often found the church morally sanctioning war."

It was at this point in history that the cuddly black King became a nuisance to white America. It is one thing to target bigots who sic dogs on black teenagers and use fire hoses on peaceful protesters, it is quite another to criticize a war against Godless communism in Southeast Asia.

The American church today would do well to reflect on the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr. on more than just one day a year.

Hillary's Double Standard

I recently discussed Hillary Clinton's candidacy with female friend of mine. She was skeptical of voting a woman into the White House because she feared having an overly emotional executive.

I replied that this was unfair because it presents a double standard. Either a woman is too emotional for president or she shows too little emotion and is thought of as calculating, cold and devious, also making her unfit for president. Hillary has been accused of this calculating nature on the campaign trail and she really has no weapon against this. She has to toe the line between too emotional and a cold-hearted b*tch--a standard no man is held to.

A day before Clinton won the New Hampshire primary she was asked how she was dealing with the rigors of the campaign trail. She replied tearfully,

...It’s not easy, and I couldn’t do it if I didn’t passionately believe it was the right thing to do. You know, I have so many opportunities from this country, I just don’t want to see us fall backwards. You know, this is very personal for me. It’s not just political it’s not just public. I see what’s happening, and we have to reverse it. Some people think elections are a game, lot’s of who’s up or who’s down, [but] it’s about our country , it’s about our kids’ futures, and it’s really about all of us together...

Click here for a great review and video of the entire exchange from the New York Times.

Pundits have been speculating since that tearful encounter what impact, if any, this episode had on her surprising victory in New Hampshire. I suspect it helped, since women were the difference between New Hampshire and Iowa. Regardless, Patricia Schroeder, who dropped out of the presidential race twenty years ago, has an interesting observation about the double standard Hillary is having to deal with, "The good news for men is: crying is a badge of courage...The bad news is that for women it's still a scarlet letter."

And of course the speculation continues. Op-eds suggesting the tears were manufactured are too numerous to count (just google "Hillary tears"). And while a man might face that same skepticism, would his tears signal weakness or emotionalism in the minds of voters?

Perhaps this double standard is why women have never been front-runners.

Barack Obama on Faith and Politics

I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict that Obama will become the Democratic nominee for president. This means the amount of anti-Obama rhetoric from the Religious Right will increase exponentially in the next year. So, here are some links to video clips from his website detailing his actual views on faith and politics.

A short 2 minute video made for his website.

A 2 minute excerpt from his keynote address to the Call to Renewal's Building a Covenant for a New America conference given on 6/28/06.

The embedded 39 minute keynote address below:

"Faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts. You come to church precisely because you are of this world, not apart from it. You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away because you are human and need an ally in this difficult journey. And it was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th street on the South side of Chicago one day and affirm my faith...I submitted myself to [God's] will and dedicated myself to His truth."



To what extent each of us considers a particular politician's faith when casting our vote probably differs, however, let's at least get the facts straight. Next time someone jokingly states Barrack "Osama" , referencing his Muslim heritage, let's be armed with the knowledge to set the record straight, regardless our political leanings.

Bill Clinton and Chris Webber

I know a lot of political conservatives who gag at the mention of Bill and Hillary Clinton, and I cannot understand why. It's one thing to disagree with a person's politics, it's quite another to judge an entire family's character. An entire segment of the right will characterize "Billary" as calculating, devious, and deceptive, which may be true, but how does that make them any different than your average politician? Surely amidst these qualities, which are most definitely exaggerated, lie honorable traits and intentions.

For instance, thanks to FreeDarko (via TrueHoop), I just learned Bill Clinton wrote a letter to Chris Webber after he blew the NCAA championship game against my Tarheels by calling a timeout, when the Wolverines had no timeouts left. The transcript of Clinton's letter is below:

Dear Chris,

I have been thinking of you a lot since I sat glued to the TV during the championship game.

I know that there may be nothing I or anyone else can say to ease the pain and discouragement of what happened.

Still, for whatever it's worth, you, and your team, were terrific. And part of playing for high stakes under great pressure is the constant risk of mental error. I know. I have lost two political races and made countless mistakes over the last twenty years. What matters is the intensity, integrity, and courage you bring to the effort. That is certainly what you have done. You can always regret what occurred but don't let it get you down or take away the satisfaction of what you have accomplished.

You have a great future. Hang in there.

Sincerely, Bill Clinton

Some, who have already decided the character of the Clintons will dismiss this as another shrewd political move, probably done to woo the Wolverine electorate. Seriously, though, where does that line of thinking end? Can't a Clinton just be nice? After all what kind of person would write a book advising people on how to change the world through giving? What a jerk.

Finally, a Political Bumper Sticker That Doesn't Make Me Angry

Not that I would put it on my car, but still, pretty cool.

Thoughts on Columbus Day

So today is Columbus Day and I'm trying to figure out why many American states honor his legacy with a holiday. According to the Library of Congress, President Benjamin Harrison urged Americans to remember Oct. 12th, the date of Columbus' landing. The Knights of Columbus followed by lobbying state legislatures to make it a legal holiday, and Colorado was the first to do so in 1907. Columbus Day was made a federal holiday in 1971. So, we continue to honor this day because it's been tradition?

Virtually no one believes Columbus was the first European on American soil. The Vikings landed on the shores of Newfoundland 500 years prior to his arrival. Furthermore, some historians believe the Chinese arrived in the New World around 1421, trumping Columbus by 71 years.

If that's not enough, his arrival on Hispaniola, killed the entire Taino population. Sure, he could not have predicted the effect European diseases would have upon these natives, so we can't hold him and those Europeans followed totally accountable, but many Taino did die because of forced labor, and that is something we can hold them accountable for.

Many historians and certainly Native Americans will also argue that the Conquistadors were a direct result of Columbus' arrival (which seems perfectly logical to me). So, Columbus wasn't just an explorer who challenged the flat-world assumptions of the day to find a new trade route, but was instead the first of a long line of dominoes that led to the Spanish colonization of Latin America, a legacy that is still crippling natives today.

So, again I ask, what about Christopher Columbus' legacy deserves a holiday? If we are just honoring tradition, shouldn't we stop and ask why? Some traditions are worth changing.

"Pro-Life" Shouldn't Be About One Issue

On Saturday, Sept. 29th fifty leaders of the social conservative movement gathered in Salt Lake City, Utah to discuss their plan of attack in the event that the presidential nominee for the Republican and Democratic parties are both pro-choice. To clarify the events that took place at that meeting, James Dobson wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times. In it he writes of the conclusions the group came to, "If neither of the two major political parties nominates an individual who pledges himself or herself to the sanctity of human life, we will join others in voting for a minor-party candidate. Those agreeing with the proposition were invited to stand. The result was almost unanimous."

He continues to ponder with pen the possibility that voting for a pro-life candidate could cost social conservatives the presidency,

The other approach, which I find problematic, is to choose a candidate according to the likelihood of electoral success or failure. Polls don’t measure right and wrong; voting according to the possibility of winning or losing can lead directly to the compromise of one’s principles. In the present political climate, it could result in the abandonment of cherished beliefs that conservative Christians have promoted and defended for decades. Winning the presidential election is vitally important, but not at the expense of what we hold most dear.

Another issue discussed on that Saturday was the possibility of backing a third party candidate that would run as the pro-life alternative. There was less unanimity on this topic. Rasmussen Reports ran a poll on how such a third party candidate would effect the election, and the results aren't very encouraging for social conservatives. If it comes down to Giuliani, Clinton, and __________ (3rd party candidate), the poll indicates that the 3rd party votes would tip the election in favor of Hillary Clinton. I can't imagine James Dobson and his 49 friends thrilled about that outcome.

Of course, I cannot imagine James Dobson failing to foresee such an outcome either. One can't help to think this is more of a political threat than it is actual contingency planing (you don't actually think these leaders would support a pro-life Democrat do you?). Something along the lines of, "Lest you forget Republican party, social conservatives carry serious capital every election cycle. We delivered the White House to President Bush, and we can do the same for the next Republican nominee, but do not take us for granted. Our vote does not come cost-free. Bend on abortion or we'll take our votes elsewhere."

So, for social conservatives, I ask this one question: Are there other ways to protect the sanctity of life? I understand the opposition to abortion. I am father to a beautiful 8 month old baby girl. I am aware of the outrageous numbers of abortions that occur in this country. I've heard the commercials on my local Christian radio station calling abortion "genocide" and citing it as the number one killer in this country, however, I can't help but to think there might be other issues dedicated to preserving the sanctity of life. Here are some examples of such 'pro-life' issues :

• Opposition to war. Not just the U.S. war in Iraq, but wars in general. Are the lives lost in war not as valuable as an unborn fetus? Can one support war and be pro-life?
  
• Opposition to the death penalty in all fifty states.
  
• Support pouring resources into improving inner city ministries and charities where the cycle of drug use and gang violence leads many to the conclusion that death is inevitable.
• Support Stem-cell research. Tell Michael J. Fox you value life in one sentence and don't support stem cell research in the next. See how he responds.
  
• Support any U.S. legislation that increases financial assistance for AIDS relief in Africa and in other parts of the world.
• Support efforts to end the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. If abortion truly is the American "genocide," why is this "genocide" worth more activism than the Sudanese?

It seems as if Mr. Dobson and his friends have simplified the issue of 'life' to one single issue, abortion. Either you are pro-life and you value life, or you're pro-choice and you don't. While I agree that abortion is an important issue, I also agree that life is not about one single issue, and social conservatives would do well to broaden there view to reflect this. Because, the way things are looking now, there's going to be a pro-choice candidate in office.

So, I'd recommend finding out how Republican and Democratic candidates feel about these other issues of "life." Or are social conservatives only concerned about certain types of lives?

The Mind, Body, Spirit Divide

Just last week I was fascinated to hear that a man with severe brain damage who had been barely conscious for 6 years was ‘awakened’ by doctors through electrical deep brain stimulation (read the story here). Now he is not totally conscious, like you and I, but within 48 hours of the surgery he had “turned his head in response to voices and kept his eyes open for prolonged periods of time. After more time, the patient, who previously could not talk, started naming objects and using objects, such as a hair brush, with his hands.” It is unknown whether this man’s condition will improve with rehabilitation, though it is not without precedent in similar cases.

When I heard about this, I immediately began to rethink my position on the Terry Schiavo case, which was pull the tube. After more research, it turns out Mrs. Schiavo’s Persistent Vegetative State (PVS) is very different than the minimally conscious state of this man and many others who will receive this same deep brain stimulation. Which is why the folks at Focus on the Family haven't chimed in with a “We told you so.” Even James Dobson can recognize the difference between an apple and an orange.

I still have one more question though. What does this tell us about the mind, body, spirit divide? Where was this man’s spirit for those six years and in what condition was it? This question totally blows my mind and I honestly don’t even know where to start. Thoughts?

President Bush's Theology

The following is a quote by Pres. Bush from David Brooks' most recent New York Times column:

The other debate [about Iraq] is whether or not it is a hopeless venture to encourage the spread of liberty. Most of you all around this table are much better historians than I am. And people have said, you know, this is Wilsonian, it's hopelessly idealistic. One, it is idealistic, to this extent: It's idealistic to believe people long to be free. And nothing will change my belief. I come at it many different ways. Really not primarily from a political science perspective, frankly; it's more of a theological perspective. I do believe there is an Almighty, and I believe a gift of that Almighty to all is freedom. And I will tell you that is a principle that no one can convince me that doesn't exist.

Even conservative bloggers, many of whom are Christians, jumped all over this statement. Christianity Today has it here.

Listen, I can appreciate the President recognizing every humans' right, and desire, to be free. This is admirable and good. Is this a theologically sound basis for conducting war? I don't think so. In fact, many might argue Jesus opposed violence. So, Mr. President, please keep God out of American foreign policy, it makes Him look bad.

Bush Laying Red Carpet for Hillary, Obama?

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire linked to a few polls on a Bush's current approval ratings. Here are some highlights.

From a study conducted by the American Research Group Inc.

• "...71% of Americans say they disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president..."
• "...25% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president..."
• "When it comes to Bush's handling of the economy, 23% approve and 73% disapprove."
• "This is the highest level of disapproval and lowest level of approval for the Bush presidency recorded in monthly surveys by the American Research Group."

From the Washington Post's analysis of Washington Post-ABC News survey:

• "The latest Washington Post-ABC News Survey shows that 65 percent of Americans disapprove of Bush's job performance, matching his all-time low. In polls conducted by The Post or Gallup going back to 1938, only once has a president exceeded that level of public animosity -- and that was Richard Nixon, who hit 66 percent four days before he resigned."

From the Harris Interactive Survey:

• 26% approve of President Bush
• 21% approve of Vice President Cheney
• 46% approve of Secretary of State Rice

From Pollster.com:

• After reviewing 6 polls, including those I mention above, Pollster states, "The trend estimate now stands at 29.6%, and the slope of the trend has clearly begun to bend from a steep downward trend to a less negative one."
• Whatever Pollster forecasts for the short-term future, it's pretty evident from visiting the site that things have only gotten worse for the President since 2005.

While many Republicans have been thrilled about President Bush's job performance during the last 7 years, I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict a Democrat will occupy the White House in 2009 (maybe untill 2016?), if for no other reason than the majority of Americans don't like President Bush, and, that is not good news for his party (or Giuliani).