Is Illinois the Worst State? Depends on What You Think Makes a State Good or Bad.

We're hearing a lot about Illinois being the worst state in the union. CBOE Chairman, Bill Brodsky, recently said that he is "embarrassed" to live in Illinois. He's embarrassed because Moody's downgraded Illinois' bond rating to A2 and placed our state dead last compared to other states.


That's the same Moody's that rated mortgage backed securities AAA in 2006 and 2007. But, nonetheless CBOE's Brodsky is embarrassed by Illinois and not by Moody's, and nonetheless, Brodsky recently blackmailed Illinois into granting CBOE a large tax cut on the threat of moving and taking jobs with them. Maybe he's really embarrassed that Illinois fell for his stunt.


Moody's dinged Illinois for "weak management practices." They didn't like that the state has failed to pass legislation to cut or eliminate public pensions, backed off on harsh Medicaid cuts (although they made plenty of them), and hasn't fired enough of those leech-y state employees like teachers and firemen(women).


Mark Kirk isn't a fan of Illinois either and that's a shame because Illinois made him its senator. He always said he hates Chicago, being full of thugs and goons and all, now he's going after the rest of the state.


Soon to be former Illinois State Senator, Susan Garrett, said that the entire Illinois General Assembly needed to work to raise the bond rating. That got me to thinking, do state governments exist to get a good investment rating, like corporations?


The Mitt Romney Bain Capital story has been going around the Internet lately. Bain is a private equity company that purchases "non-performing" companies to cure them of their non-performance. Sometimes the cure kills the patient. The thing to note about that is the meaning of "non-performing" to a firm like Bain. Most people would assume they mean companies on the verge of going out, companies paying too much is labor costs, producing bad or unwanted products or so woefully mismanaged that they need rescue. That is what Bain executives and others in the financial sector would like us all to think, and sometimes that is true, or true in part, but that's not exactly what "non-performing" means in that world. Non-performing companies, to a holding company like Bain, are companies that are not keeping up stock price or are not leaving enough for distributed profit or paying down debt. The "performance" they are looking for is the value of the stock price, or leverage value, not the quality of the operation of the company or its products. Now, it can be true, that a non-performing company may also have some other management, product and labor issues, but make no mistake, Bain is not concerned about product quality, customer service or labor force quality or satisfaction. It does not purchase companies to reform them so they succeed and create great products. It wants quick cash out from the companies it purchases.


Now, many of you are going to argue that Bain had a right to do what it did with companies. After all, if the companies Bain purchases and destroys are so great, or so loved by their former owners, they would not be up for sale in the first place. Robert Reich does a good job explaining  why the inequality caused by this type of capitalism isn't good for the country as a whole here.


So it seems that the CBOE Chair, and it's own Senator, Mark Kirk, are aghast at Illinois basically because it's a non-performing company. Should Illinois be a performing company? Let's take a look at a performing state, say like South Carolina. South Carolina is rated AAA by Moody's, just like those 2006 and 2007 mortgage backed securities. However, what else is going on in South Carolina? For starters, they just tightened the rules people have to follow to obtain unemployment benefits, forcing the unemployed to take extremely low paying jobs in lieu of the benefit. Some of you will argue that the new rules are good because people should be forced to give up their education and self-worth to make a few pennies, but you should also consider that South Carolina is a pretty poor state with high unemployment and low wages. Good low Republican tax rates and anti-socialist ways have led to underfunded schools, underfunded and inadequate roads and a fifth of its citizens having no real health insurance. They have those Orwellian named "right to work" laws that prevent unions from stabilizing wages. South Carolina's poverty rate is 3 points higher than the national average. As the article at the prior link points out, there are large disparities between young and old and between races causing lots of fear and segregation, both physical and emotional. The South Carolina answer to poverty is to isolate and ignore the poor, when they aren't admonishing them for being bad people. That's the portrait of a good state, a worthy state per an outfit like Moody's.


Here in Illinois, we don't gleefully fire public employees like the Scott Walker's of the country or the good old Republicans of South Carolina. We don't like to cut the benefits of retired employees or force folks onto the streets because their bosses made a mess of things. A bunch of homeless old ex-teachers or closed factory ex-employees is not a goal for most of us here in Illinois. While we had to further restrict the Medicaid laws to enforce federal law, we took our sweet time doing so and HFS did not end up finalizing the really tough rules they were considering. Frankly, I think Illinois is a lot better place to be than say South Carolina. The financial sector wants to contribute to Illinois' demise, as that bond rating will make all the things we want to do here in Illinois more difficult and expensive, and the bad-mouthing done by guys like Brodsky and Kirk will probably hurt job creation in the state, but that says a lot more about them than it does about Illinois in my book.


The bottom line for me is that no state, or other governmental unit, was created to be a high performing profitable company, by the definition of the financial sector. These governments represent the people's agreement to do certain things together that would be difficult or impossible to do alone, including educating our children, taking care of our elderly, creating an infrastructure that helps everyone live and do business, and helping each other be productive, innovative and happy. If Illinois was run for-profit, like Bain capital, what do you think it would be like? Where and to whom would the resources go?

I've never been able to get my cream cheese frosting to explode and other stuff.

I've never been able to get my cream cheese frosting to explode. What am I doing wrong:?


I fail to see what exactly the mouse did that was heroic. Why do we call everybody and every thing a hero for nothing more than proximity to a situation?


Isn't there a difference between a political organizer and a community organizer?


The Keystones Tar Sands Pipeline is not a job creator. Middle class workers are job creators.


Bob Dold is so disingenuous about payroll tax vote that even Crains cannot stand it. He forgot to mention why the Democrats would not vote for the Republican payroll tax cut bill, it contained several "poison pills".  Apparently, Bob is a bit confused about the pipeline, the Keystone Oil pipeline will not bring oil to the US for US use. It's for refining and delivery overseas. Poor confused Bob. He's now admitting to the media that he's not up for the job.


Mark Kirk tweets: "US long ago desig Taliban terrorists. Now Admin is negotiating with terrorists. How valuable are Taliban "promises"? I respond: "@SenatorKirk You said there were WMD in Iraq. In fact, you said you had personal knowledge of same. How valuable is your personal knowledge?"


Joe Cirincione tweets: "This is a very important point. "@mattduss: No, Attacking Iran Won’t Help Iranian Dissidents http://bit.ly/rPcRRM""


Don't believe the Ayn Rand Institute backstory on how she came to the USA. They would have you believe she walked from Russia after fighting the Bolsheviks single-handedly at the age of 12 while starving. The story I was told by people with some personal knowledge is that she did spend some dicey months in Russia in the early stages of the Bolshevik part of the Revolution, but she was never alone. First, she had her parents and sisters, and then she had her Chicago family, my family. Her parents had participated in the earlier White Revolution, happy to be rid of the Tsar as were most Jewish families in Russia at the time. They fled with their children to the Crimea when the Bolsheviks marched into St. Petersburg, their home town, but returned shortly thereafter, probably due to lack of food and housing. When they got back, they found that her father's business was taken from him by the Bolsheviks. He was crushed and never recovered from it. The Revolution somewhat benefited the daughter, Alissa (later Alice and eventually Ayn), however, as it was her only chance to go to college, something that would have been forbidden to a female and a Jew before the Revolution. She adopted the Revolution's atheism and went to college in St. Petersburg, but she ultimately saw that there was no future to be had in Soviet Russia and told her parents she wanted out. She ultimately came over the same way thousands of Jewish refugees came over--though sponsorship by relatives already in the USA. Her parents wrote to my mom's great-grantparents asking if they would please take her in and take care of her. Being nice people and good liberals, they said sure. They housed, fed and clothed her and gave her money to make her way to California. Here's a little oral history as told by Fern Brown, my grandfather's first cousin. My mom's grandfather was the "Ike" referred to in Brown's story. I remember him well although he was very old when I was still a small child. I have no reason to doubt Brown, she was one of my mom's favorite cousins, but my grandmother told a slightly different story--that Rand lived with different parts of the family at different times and the family didn't really like her much because she kept them up all night. The point is that Rand did not make it out of Russia and to California on her own steam. The family was happy to help her out and she was happy to take their help and kindness. Isn't that what Americans generally gladly do for each other, and a far cry from the selfishness Rand later promoted?


On the Gill side of the family, we're busy with long-distance Internet book club. The book is Flowers for Algernon. Algernon is a real heroic mouse, well, the fictional version at least. So far here is my favorite quote: ‎Now I understand one of the important reasons for going to college and getting an education is to learn that the things you've believed in all your life aren't true, and that nothing is what it appears to be.


I have absolutely no problem with this holiday message from the President and I like my card with the Bo paw print signature: 

Health Care Reform, Now Just an Industry Bailout (and they're not even under water)

Firedog lake posted about health care reform on Saturday. Apparently, the sole cost savings touted by the Obama Administration, HCAN and MoveOn is now in the dust bin along with the public option. There will be no federal standard for insurance products sold on the exchanges. The states will be able to legislate standards or not. Many Republican state governors are planning to refuse the federal grants give to create the exchanges and will not be setting up any exchanges at all--just like they did with high speed rail. So, it pretty much looks like Obama has decided to cave into red state's governor's rights to harm their constituents for political fodder.

Word on the street about the Illinois is that the exchanges will be split up, separate exchanges for small groups and individuals. This is contrary to the notion folks were sold on back in 2009, that one large pool will make everyone's costs go down. Individual purchasers will still be charged a premium for being outside of a group and all this happening at a time when more and more people are being put out of insurance groups.

The latest word from Illinois is that the insurance companies are wrestling control of the exchanges away from the state. At best, the Illinois exchange will be one of a few state exchanges and pretty much just an aggregating website than a free marketplace for health insurance.

Many are trying to downplay the failure of the Affordable Health Care Act with anecdotal success stories.** They use anecdotal evidence of success because there is no statistically significant success to tout. A few people have been helped, but there will be no general help for the masses, and health care costs are likely to continue to skyrocket.

The false congratulations on health care will continue because of the upcoming elections.

On a call last week with Bold Progressives, IL-10 candidate Ilya Sheyman touted his work on health care through MoveOn. I had given him the benefit of the doubt in my last post which described how Sheyman's MoveOn worked locally against real health care reform, perhaps he was not a central figure in the bullying and silencing of single payer advocates, but now he's taking full credit for MoveOn's health care "reform" effort. 

On the Bold Progressives call, I asked Sheyman what he proposes to do for people like me who are self employeed and paying ever increasing premiums for ever shrinking coverage. Ironically, he answered that he supports Medicare for All. The Bold Progressives salivated at Sheyman's use of the right buzzwords, promised to make thousands of calls into our district from out-of-state and pledged out-of-state cash to him, but I found his answer hollow and their memories short. When he had the chance to work for health care reform, he opted to support anything the Obama Administration wanted to do, and refused to listen to very real concerns which have pretty much all become reality.

Unless something changes drastically, and this is unlikely, the cost controlling exchanges of health care reform will be reduced to state funded websites run by the insurance industry. Insurers will be able to offer plans that cover what they feel like covering with high deductibles going along with high premiums. We got virtually no reform, and for all their fights against the law, insurers have managed to wangle federal grants for website advertising. It's a bail out for an industry that's not failing, for an industry seeing record profits.

If you're going to run as the one progressive savior, it seems to me you need to do progressive things. That is why I have a real hard time taking the Ilya Sheyman campaign seriously. His "proven progressive leadership" only proved that reform would not happen and added to the argument that reform cannot happen. The health care debacle has given those against any reform plenty of ammunition against progressives and against reform. The saddest part of all of it is that the program itself, the shining example of progressive reform failure, is neither progressive nor reform and was never intended to be either. It was a solely political move for solely political benefits and has set back the cause of health care reform indefinitely.

**Note that the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan touted in the link is a temporary plan. Also note that the temporary Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan touted in the link is more on the model of a single payer system than the permanent exchange model plan.

Not to be rushed into a decision

Recently, Illinois Tenth Congressional District Candidate, Ilya Sheyman made a You Tube statement about the Occupy movement. He said he supports Occupy Wall Street and pretty much took credit for parts of it through his work with MoveOn.

The video was immediately lauded by progressives. Sheyman Gets It! they proclaimed. My first thought was that I'm not so sure. You see, Ilya's credentials, in fact his only significant credentials are through his work with MoveOn. According to his resume, he was the "Mobilization Director" for MoveOn.org from June 2009 through February 2011. I had an experience with MoveOn during that time and I wrote about it at the time.

Fall 2009 Health Care Debate

You may recall that the fall of 2009 was the height of the health care reform debate in Washington. I felt, and still feel, that single payer, Medicare for All, is the best health care solution for the country. It saves on administrative costs and puts all of the money into care while our current system, as slightly revised by the Affordable Health Care Act, supported by President Obama and many Democrats, puts a lot of money into insurance, marketing, advertising and paying for people to spend their time denying health care. A lot of very good people worked for single payer before the major health care debate of Fall 2009, during that time, and still work for the tested and true cost reduction plan now. However, during this critical time, around early November 2009, when public opinion was brought to bear on Congress through town hall meetings and in the media, single payer was silenced.

It was frustrating for single payer advocates like me to see single payer taken off the agenda in Congress and mostly because it wasn't the Republicans or the Tea Parties that took it off the agenda. It was Democrats and their supporting organizations, including OFA, HCAN and MoveOn.

I was incredibly disappointed to find that our very own community organizer organization, Citizen Action/Illinois, was taken over by HCAN, an organization dedicated to preserving private health insurance, but softening the blow through something that they called the "public option". HCAN, and OFA,  the morphed version of the President's own candidate committee, were very aggressive in promoting the public option, not so much as against Republicans in Congress, but against those advocating for single payer. Of course, none of this was such a big surprise. OFA was in fact a group made up of Obama campaign workers. HCAN was created solely to sell the public option as the only arguable solution. What surprised me was when MoveOn joined in on the push for the public option, the push that only pushed single payer off the table and out of the discussion.

The Enforcers at Work

A lot of my writing in the Summer and Fall of 2009 centered on the efforts of groups like HCAN and OFA to silence single payer advocates. The HCANNERS specialized in telling people they were for reform to gain support, and then backing off when it came time to fight and then berating those holding out for real reform. OFA threatened to kick me out for holding a house party event where single payer would be discussed in addition to the public option.

Things spiraled a bit out of control, at least to me, when several people speaking for HCAN and MoveOn joined a single payer advocate Internet group claiming agreement on the issue. The Internet group had been set up by single payer advocates for discussions among single payer advocates. It was not a general health care reform discussion group, but specifically for single payer advocates. At one point in early November 2009, a MoveOn worker, not  a run-of-the-mill volunteer, but someone with a title and in a position of leadership, advertised a MoveOn health care event on the Internet group. The response from the group was basically thanks for the invite; we'll be there with our signs and banners. The reply was if you think you're going to mention single payer at our event, you are uninvited. So, the single payer folks were invited to make their crowd look bigger, but not to advocate for single payer. Objections from both sides went back and forth and the conversation got tense. For a week or so the entire group was blasted with emails from the MoveOn person who basically told the single payer advocates, on their own Internet group, to stand down, and a few of the exchanges were rather harsh. I have the emails if anyone is interested in looking at them.

The Point

This brings us back to the present and Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Chicago and similar movements around the country. I think that one of the most important aspects of the Occupy movement is that the participants and supporters are sick of the empty promises and sick of business as usual in Washington. To me it's the anti-HCAN, or anti-Tea Party for that matter, group of people who do not want their work on issues to be sucked into a candidate campaign or astroturf organization that ultimately abandons the issues to benefit a candidate campaign. They want what they want on the issues and will not support the lesser of evils as those of us who work in campaigns are often told we have to do.

President Obama talked about single payer in his original Senate and then Presidential campaigns. He led people to believe that the topic would at least be discussed. Then, as his star rose, he changed his tune, and a good chunk of the progressive grassroots movement went along with him and enforced for him. Not only was the promise to work for a single payer or a similar system unfulfilled, they actively and loudly worked against any discussion of it. The term was "Off theTable!"  We were left with business as usual and these great "progressive" groups, including MoveOn, became enforcers of the status quo.

So, I guess I have a hard time getting all warm and fuzzy from Ilya Sheyman, Mobilization Director for MoveOn, telling me that he and only he gets the Occupy movement. I'm also having a hard time with PDA, the "Healthcare not Warfare" folks endorsing Sheyman, in fact gushing over his progressive credentials, without asking a question about this episode in his MoveOn past.

Mitigating Factors

In his defense, I have to say that it was not Ilya himself who sat on the single payer group and yelled at the single payer advocates. I don't know where he stood in the pecking order, and I do not know that he ordered the actions, accepted the actions as incontrovertible necessity, merely tolerated them, or if perhaps he did not even know about them. But, the facts are that he was in this organization, touts a central and supervisory role in it, probably had contact with enough information that he'd know at least as much as I did from outside the organization, and failed to take any sort of public stand against it. Had he read my blog at the time, he'd have known all about it. So, I still have a few questions for Ilya.

Questions

When you were at MoveOn, did you supervise or come into contact with council coordinators? Did you know that they were aggressively working against single payer groups? Did you ever ask the powers that be at MoveOn why they abandoned single payer? Did you fight them on that change or express any opinion that they should stand firm and not just stand with politicians? Did you take a public stand on health care reform in the fall of 2009? Did you feel that single payer needed to be taken out of the discussion? Why or why not? And finally, do you get that the Occupy movement is not about giving up on an issue, ordering its advocates to stand down, in order to support a politician?

Conclusion (for now)

Ilya Sheyman is running as the great progressive hero. I'm just wondering where he was and what he did when we needed a progressive hero and couldn't find one at MoveOn. I'm wondering if his supporters rushed into their decision to support him without studying the facts of this matter. I'm also wondering if there is some connection between progressives standing down on health care reform and our current conversation on the importance of child labor laws. We stand down and stand down, and then wonder why this country keeps moving further to the right.

Ann

When I was a kid, my parents watched, and had my sister and I watch, the Democratic National Convention every presidential election year. It was just part of our lives every four years. I always wanted to be a delegate, but when I actually had the chance, I wasn't really thinking about it because I never thought it was possible. I was never that connected, even when I was connected. How I became a delegate in 2004 is a whole other story which I have written about before. That's not my story here. Here I'm going to tell you about an inspiration that led me to do what I did that ultimately got me to the convention.

Flash forward from my childhood in the 60's and 70's to 1988. Texas State Treasurer, Ann Richards, took the DNC stage and delivered the speech of her life. We were suffering through the Greed is Good Reagan administration, and Richards got up and finally said what a lot of us were thinking, but the news media, in its love for the fake Great Communicator, was not articulating. There was something wrong here, wrong in the economy and wrong in our society excluding women and minorities from power. Richards talked about her childhood during the Depression, and the economic concerns of people in Texas that were being out-shadowed by it's swaggering tough-guy gun-toting image.

The most famous line from Richards' 1988 DNC speech (taken from a 1982 Frank and Ernest cartoon ) is often quoted even today:  [talking about two Texas women in 160 years making it as keynote speaker] "But if you give us a chance, we can perform. After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels." It wasn't the line itself, but her delivery that made it so great. Notwithstanding the famous line, this perhaps was the most meaningful passage of the speech:

They told working mothers it’s all their fault -- their families are falling apart because they had to go to work to keep their kids in jeans and tennis shoes and college. And they’re wrong!! They told American labor they were trying to ruin free enterprise by asking for 60 days’ notice of plant closings, and that’s wrong. And they told the auto industry and the steel industry and the timber industry and the oil industry, companies being threatened by foreign products flooding this country, that you’re "protectionist" if you think the government should enforce our trade laws. And that is wrong. When they belittle us for demanding clean air and clean water for trying to save the oceans and the ozone layer, that’s wrong.

No wonder we feel isolated and confused. We want answers and their answer is that "something is wrong with you."  Well nothing's wrong with you. Nothing’s wrong with you that you can’t fix in November!

Richards was the real Great Communicator of the 1980s. She rose to the national scene after her speech and became Governor of Texas in 1990.

Richards' life is now the subject of a play showing at the old Schubert Theatre in Chicago. The play was written as a one woman show by its performer Holland Taylor. Taylor is known for several movie and television roles, but I most remember her as a Boston circuit court judge from Ally McBeal and The Practice. I saw the show, Ann, this week.

Taylor bears a remarkable resemblance to Richards. She had met Richards, was a friend of a friend, and played the role affectionately. As the play begins, Richards is speaking at a fictitious college graduation. She kids around with the offstage president of the college, and tells the students how she got to be Governor from her days as a housewife who entertained a lot to break up the boredom, and drank too much. She tells stories about her parents, her loving, but bawdy father and her difficult-to-please mother. She told one of her fathers less smutty jokes and described her mother's approach to teaching her daughter to sew. She could not please her mother, but she pleased her father who always told her she could do and be anything she wanted, a very modern notion for a girl in the 1930s. 

Richards went to Baylor University and excelled in debate. She married young and she and her husband became politically active. She taught school and had her children. Eventually, her drinking took a toll on her marriage and she divorced in 1980.

Taylor describes Richards' dilemma when she was asked to run for Governor. After all, she was a woman, divorced and a 10 year sober alcoholic. But she had the nation's attention from that speech and Texas just wasn't that bad in those days, before it was gerrymandered into right wing lunatic oblivion. 

The scene then moves to Richards office in the governor's mansion. She's busy trying to set up the family's Thanksgiving, a fishing trip complete with turkey, ham and pies, with her 3 now adult children She's also trying to decide whether to stay the execution of a man who killed a nun, but had a terrible childhood that never made it to the court record. The execution was being protested by the Catholic church and the nuns who knew the murder victim had forgiven the murderer. At the same time, she's trying to get a first draft out of her speechwriter for an event she's attending that night. Then, she finds out she has to personally pay for an $8000 travel bill because one of her staff made a mistake in the vendor hired for the job. She's on the phone constantly and calling out to her secretary in between calls.

Taylor's play takes a poignant turn as Richards explains to her secretary and staff that few in Texas understand that as Governor, she is only able to temporarily stay an execution. She had no authority to pardon the perpetrator or grant any sort of clemency. As the Texas law was written, it was very likely that he would be executed in 30 days no matter what she did. As an aside, she comments that Texas cannot continue on in this way, but the audience knows that Texas decided to take a different path and now proudly executes the guilty and innocent alike without looking back.

Taylor then brings Richards to her election loss in 1994. Richards waxes philosophical stating that if it was her stand against conceal carry, then so be it. While never mentioning Bush by name, she then talks about her hopes for her successor, hopes that we know she knows will never be met and we know never were. Notwithstanding the unlikelihood, she hoped her successor would realize that the actions he would take as governor would have a real effect upon the lives of the people in Texas.

The play ends with Richards talking about her active life after the governorship and her ultimate battle with cancer.

I found Richards' 1988 speech inspiring. Here was an older woman (with Republican hair as she quipped), who cut through the meme of the time, that greed is good, profits are the only thing that's important and that Americans' duty is to shop for cheap goods increasingly made overseas. She talked about the poor in a time when it was fashionable to only talk about the rich and people did everything they could afford to emulate them. She also talked about inclusion, bringing women and minorities into the political process. Her proudest achievement was in making her government resemble the demographics of the state. That was the Richards who inspired me to get involved in politics. She described what I was seeing in everyday life in the 1980s when many others were seeing, or at least only willing to admit they were seeing, the riches of the popular television programs of the era, Dallas, Dynasty and Falcon Crest.

The play was a nice look back. It showed Richards grit and humor, but I would not call it particularly powerful piece of art. Holland Taylor's performance was good; she played Richards truly, but I think her difficulty in writing the play, described by her note in the Stagebill, showed in her performance. It must be hard to capture the essence of a person you admire, almost a contemporary, who died before her time from a difficult disease.

I give Ann 3 cat treats for helping us remember a woman who should be remembered for her compassion, toughness and humor in a time and place when humor and toughness meant picking on less fortunate people when they were down while brandishing a gun in their faces, and compassion was only a word used to win elections.

Margin Call Not a Thriller, but a Fairly Accurate Portrayal of the Financial Industry (and perhaps many other industries)

WARNING: There are a few spoilers in this review, but trust me, if won't matter much at all because you already know what is going to happen.

Your company made a large mistake. You warned your superiors about it several times over a period of several months, but they ignored you. To save themselves, the executives decide to do something wrong; something that will hurt a lot of people, maybe an entire nation, but to do it, they need your help. No matter what happens, you will lose your job, your credibility and perhaps your entire career. They will keep their jobs, bonuses, stock options and societal positions. What would you do?

That's only part of the plot of Margin Call, the J.C. Chandor movie about the beginning of the end of the mortgage backed securities investment industry staring Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci, Jeremy Irons and many others.

The movie is billed as a thriller. A thriller is supposed to be about building suspense and tension, but I didn't see it like that. It was more historical fiction than thriller to me because we all know that the highest echelon of executives never seem to have a hard time finding underlings to do their dirty work. They find them by controlling their lives through their livelihoods. It's hard to give up the nice home and the nice car once you've had them for a while.

The Stanley Tucci character was a manager in the risk management department. He was brutally fired just hours before the mistake was realized. In fact, he helped uncover the problem, but no one wanted to listen to him because they were too busy with their planned and outsourced mass layoff.

Tucci's character was treated badly during his firing. He was offered a pittance of a severance package by an outsourced staff reduction company, led out by a security force and to top it all off, they cancelled his cell phone without giving him even a moment or two to transfer his stored data. When firm's leading partner decided he was needed, or they needed to control his whereabouts to keep him quiet, they flushed him out by using his wife who was unaware of the firing and then they got him to come back by threatening the severance package and offering him a bit more cash. Funny, he didn't ask how he would know the check would clear. It occurred to me that if the firm went under, the severance package might be worthless. If I were him, I'd at least have asked for a wire transfer into my account, or maybe I would have said no and called The New York Times with the story. Maybe he felt assured because the firm was too big to fail, but wasn't Lehman?

Another theme in the movie was executive salaries. The lower level traders liked to talk about their bosses pay and perks. The compensation packages of the highest level executives at the firm were public record. People who work for large, public companies should probably keep tabs on that data as executive sales of company stock are also of public record. If the executives at your company are dumping their company stock, you might want to update your CV.

The junior executives and traders were the only characters in the movie who mentioned the effect of the firm's actions on the greater public. It seemed to go without saying that it's more important to save yourself than try to save a nation. How patriotic we have become as a flag waiving people.

My favorite of the movie's themes was the lack of knowledge at the top. The senior executives of the firm never seemed to understand anything. They were always asking the knowledge workers at the bottom to explain the problem in plain English. They don't want to know the numbers or the background, just the upshot. Jeremy Iron's character asked that things be explained to him as if he were a child. If the firm survives the day, Iron's character fully expects to go back to happy moneyed oblivion.

Somehow it has become common in our US companies to have the least knowledgeable people running the show. I experienced that myself in my own work history. Secretaries and receptionists were promoted to management when managers did the daily head counts, vacation coordination and supply requisitions. Then, suddenly, higher management decided that the knowledge workers knew too much and were not as flexible as they want them to be. So, they re-organized and the secretary-receptionist-managers suddenly had decision-making authority over the knowledge workers. Many Americans like to brag about how one can succeed in the US without a college education, but at the same time, wonder why our economy has tanked and US companies don't seem to be able to compete in the world. I still remember a saleswoman I knew back in the day happily chanting that the C students were managing the A students. Ha ha. Last laugh goes to her, no China really. She was layed off years ago.

The Kevin Spacey character is the old guy who actually knows something, but who was passed over for the next promotion by the good-looking, blond wonder-boy played by Simon Baker. Spacey is needed to inspire the traders to sell themselves out of jobs and careers. He's supposed to be torn about where his loyalties will lie, but it's never really a question because despite all the money he's earned over his many years at the firm, he's broke due to divorce, big house, fancy cars etc. So, he tells the young traders that they are doing something important, something for the greater good and they will get a pile of cash at the end of the day. They forget to ask whose greater good or how they know the checks will clear. If your bosses will screw an entire nation, why would they hesitate with you?

Baker's character is the head of securities, another manager who doesn't seem to know what his department actually does. He doesn't really do anything, but look good and sneer at his counterpart in risk management, played by Demi Moore, who he seeks to maneuver into the position of scapegoat. As the dirty deed is done by the lower level workers, Moore's character sits alone in a room awaiting her destiny. Will she call the overnight desk at FT? Is there ever really a question whether she will or not?

No, Margin Call is not a thriller, so don't feel bad about my spoilers. You know what is going to happen from the very beginning. It's become pretty easy to justify high level wrong doing with short term promises of cash.

The rest of the story is about a dog.

For showing that parents who destroy the economy for a fast million bucks are not doing their kids any favors, Margin Call gets 3 cat treats.

The Occupation in Springfield

I was in Springfield, IL last week for the ISBA Small Firm and Solo Practitioner Conference. It was a rip-roaring Lincoln-y good time, but I did find time to occupy the State Capitol.

Under the Dome, as a tourist, observer

On Thursday morning, I went to the legislative session and witnessed a scene.

The Senate started on time, but after some banter about who's working how hard, they immediately adjourned for committee meetings.

The House started late, but hit the ground running. The place is chaos and no one appears to be listening to anyone else, but I later saw that they were.

Eighth District Rep. La Shawn Ford got up and asked his colleagues to observe a moment for the people at Occupy Chicago. Boos and jeers came from the Republican side. The Democratic side was silent. Then, one of the Republican reps who I could not identify (an older heavy woman who ate throughout the session) took her mic. She said she that she would never acknowledge the people at Occupy because they were all homeless people who have organized on the Internet.

Rep. Ford again got up and said that he believed that it was the legislature's job to listen to the people. That was met by more jeers from the Republican side and more silence from the Democratic side. Ford sat down and they moved on to a really important bill to allow folks with liquor licenses to run for mayor by allowing other city officials to choose the liquor commissioner if the mayor has a liquor licence.

As Part of the 99% on the Outside, Looking Into our Own House

Whose House? Our House!

On Saturday, I joined a couple of hundred people at Occupy Springfield. News reports said there were approximately 300 people at the event. Considering how deserted Springfield looked the entire rest of the time, that seemed like a lot of people. Springfield does look like it needs to address its economy with empty stores and a non-existent night life.

We marched from the Capitol to the Federal District Court, to Mark Kirk's fake Springfield Office that he never occupies, off to Chase Bank and then back to the Capitol. There, we evicted the lobbyists and legislators from the People's House.

The Springfield police decided to be smart and stay away. I didn't see a single officer or squad car and there was no need for them. The fire department was out, but they appeared to be just passing by to answer a call elsewhere.

The entire event was peaceful and orderly from start to finish. The organizers would not let a participant jaywalk or litter. I met a lot of nice people from all walks of life. There were young people from the universities at Champaign/Urbana and Bloomington/Normal. There were several women about my age from the Springfield area and there were senior men and women. No one was dirty, smelly, stoned and I noticed no hippies from days gone by.

There were no anti-Semitic signs, I saw no guns (unlike the tea parties) and there was no mob-mentality sort of feeling.Some of the signs were fairly creative, my favorite was a Monopoly game board (right). When the organizers spoke, everyone listened a lot more than they listen to each other inside the Capitol on a work day.

A colleague from the bar association who joined me in occupying Springfield mentioned to me that he felt the tone of the event was set by the invitation--addressed to "The Ladies and Gentlemen of Illinois". It was cleverly made in the Victorian style in keeping with the Lincoln theme of the city. I like to think old Abe himself was smiling down on us knowing a thing or two about what the racism and hate of can do to a political party and to a country.

A copy of the flyer was posted on the door of Aaron Schock's office, but surprisingly he failed to show up. Maybe he was not feeling gentlemanly.

I made a sign for myself thinking about my senior and disabled clients, that we should not abandon seniors and the disabled to war and corruption. My friend took a picture of me with my sign and I"ll post it when he emails it to me.

The people I spoke to at the event were concerned about the financial industry getting away with serious crimes that harmed the economy, unemployment and underemployment. The students were worried about college debt and employment prospects. One man I spoke to felt his generation from the 1960s and 1970s let the country down. He said there were many advances, but then they were mostly rolled back starting in the 80s.

Thanks to the Ladies and Gentlemen of Springfield and surrounds for welcoming the Chicagoans. Here's a group picture I took with my phone:

The Occupy Movement--Part II What

In the prior post, I discussed from the perspective of a liberal, sometimes Democrat, why the Occupy movement started. Here I'm going to tackle what I think it means.

Join Me! No, Join Me! No, You Were Following Me, right?

Now that Americans have taken to the streets like those in the Arab nations that had their spring, Democrats and Republicans are reacting. Democrats are jumping all over themselves trying to get out ahead of the pack and lead it. Jim Dean was on the Norman Goldman radio show last week trying to appropriate the movement for DFA. Local DFA tweeted about recruiting from within the Chicago occupation only to find out that no one there wanted to join NSDFA. MoveOn sent around Occupy petitions, and ooopsie, connected its own donation site to signers rather than the Occupy donation site. Obama's people apparently just got through counting and categorizing the participants by age and such, and in an unrelated action, unveiled his executive plan to cut student loan interest rates. They took a look at some signs about bankers, lenders and foreclosures, but wait, they already had a plan to ease foreclosures. They just hadn't gotten around to implementing it before the occupation. And they seem to have read only some signs out on Wall and LaSalle Streets as they have sort of ignored the issue that the program's hint of bailout might not be well received

All the political jockeying aside, it's pretty clear that the Occupy movement is not about any political party and not about half-baked plans to half-help the economy without bothering multinational corporations much. The people I've talked to do not want to identify themselves as Democrats, Greens, or Republicans for that matter. I did find a couple of young men who think of themselves as Libertarians, though.

Dirty, Smelly, Stoned Hippies

Leave it to Mark Kirk. Without setting foot near any of his own Illinois constituents on LaSalle Street, he deemed them dirty, smelly, and stoned. From what I'm seeing out on the Internet, that is the Republican meme on the Occupy movement. They have nothing more to say because they represent the 1% and are not ashamed about it at all.

Realty

Sorry, Mark, but I've been to LaSalle and Jackson and no one smelled, no one was stoned and I did not see any evidence of drug or "hippie" culture. I saw a diverse group of people, many of whom simply looked tired. One man told me he hadn't had a night sleep in 5 days. One day when I was there, I saw a couple of men with trader jackets in the group and a couple of people in business suits. I even saw a couple of women who called themselves the "Church Ladies" asking the 1% to repent.

I don't think Occupy is an extension of any Democratic or "progressive" (meaning we would call ourselves liberal, but we're afraid to) movement. The group is diverse in demographics and opinion when categorized conventionally. I met a man who wants both state services and lower taxes. Others voiced visceral reactions to the bank bailouts and what they are seeing in their jobs, or lack thereof, and homes, or lack thereof.

They know something is wrong, but are not quite sure what to do about it or who's plan to support. They mostly don't trust the plans that have been put forth, maybe because there is more politics than plan to most of the articulated plans from the parties and candidates.

Occupy Chicago has come up with some grievances (and then changed them and then tabled them for further changes). This is what I found so far in this work in progress:

1. PASS HR 1489 REINSTATING GLASS-STEAGALL. – A depression era safeguard that separated the commercial lending and investment banking portions of banks. Its repeal in 1999 is considered the major cause of the global financial meltdown of 2008-2009.
2. REPEAL BUSH TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY
3. FULLY INVESTIGATE AND PROSECUTE THE WALL STREET CRIMINALS who clearly broke the law and helped cause the 2008 financial crisis.
4. OVERTURN CITIZENS UNITED v. US. – A 2010 Supreme Court Decision which ruled that money is speech. Corporations, as legal persons, are now allowed to contribute unlimited amounts of money to campaigns in the exercise of free "speech."5. PASS THE BUFFET RULE ON FAIR TAXATION, CLOSE CORPORATE TAX LOOPHOLES, PROHIBIT HIDING FUNDS OFFSHORE.
6. GIVE THE SEC STRICTER REGULATORY POWER, STRENGTHEN THE CONSUMER PROTECTION BUREAU, AND PROVIDE ASSISTANCE FOR OWNERS OF FORECLOSED MORTGAGES WHO WERE VICTIMS OF PREDATORY LENDING.
7. TAKE STEPS TO LIMIT THE INFLUENCE OF LOBBYISTS AND ELIMINATE THE PRACTICE OF LOBBYISTS WRITING LEGISLATION.
8. ELIMINATE RIGHT OF FORMER GOVERNMENT REGULATORS TO WORK FOR CORPORATIONS OR INDUSTRIES THEY ONCE REGULATED.
9. ELIMINATE CORPORATE PERSONHOOD.
10. INSIST THE FEC STAND UP FOR THE PUBLIC INTEREST IN REGULATING PRIVATE USE OF PUBLIC AIRWAVES to help ensure that political candidates ARE GIVEN EQUAL TIME for free at reasonable intervals during campaign season.
11. REFORM CAMPAIGN FINANCE WITH THE PASSAGE OF THE FAIR ELECTIONS NOW ACT (S.750, H.R. 1404).
12. FORGIVE STUDENT DEBT – The same institutions that gave almost $2T in bailouts and then extended $16T of loans at little to no interest for banks can surely afford to forgive the $946B of student debt currently held. Not only does this favor the 99% over the 1%, it has the practical effect of more citizens spending money on actual goods, not paying down interest.

A lot of this sounds like what rank and file Democrats asked for a long time ago which demands were dropped in favor of "don't talk about this because it will make it harder for Obama to be reelected in 2012." Obama promised #7 during his campaign, and while his early days looked good for keeping that promise, his administration's will to keep the promise quickly deteriorated.

There is no doubt about it, early drafts of the movements manifesto are clearly  about campaign finance and financial reform. These folks are the not the buffoons who believe the country is falling about because Obama is African-American or a girl who has been raped can get an abortion. They clearly understand why the economy tanked--uncontrolled speculation by the financial industry caused by deregulation caused by unlimited money in elections and the revolving door between government and private industry.

They might not know it, but they are economic liberals and classic (old fashioned) financial conservatives all rolled up in one. They want progressive taxation, consumer protection and responsible regulation like new deal liberals. They also want law and order on Wall Street like any good conservative from the Eisenhower era and before would favor, not to mention Theodore Roosevelt. In short, they want things to be done correctly.

I've also seen a list of local demands, also work in progress, including TIF reform, protecting the Post Office, foreclosure relief on the local level, fair labor, fair immigration practices, police department reform, and protecting/adding trauma centers.

Going Further? Moving Forward?

It is not clear that this is official out of any Occupy movement, but someone in New York or someone referring to New York, but possibly from Arizona, put together the 99% Declaration. This looks like a plan to set up a convention or continental congress, scheduling and providing the framework for a national general assembly next summer in Philadelphia, complete with elected delegates based on congressional district. They envision this congress creating and ratifying a formal list of grievances, non-partisan and addressing the critical issues now confronting the People of the United States of America. It is apparent to this working group, that our congress is failing to do either.

The Declaration includes a suggested starting point for the grievance list, pretty much like the one out of Chicago, but adding real health care reform, environmental protection, education reform, immigration reform through the Dream Act, ending the Fed, abolishing the electoral college, and ending war for profit.

I'm wondering how this will be accomplished by a movement the hallmark of which is mistrust of organization (even if rightful) and group consensus governing. I may have a few suggestions for them in a later post.

What about 2012?

They say that elections are decided by the independents and since the Occupy movement seems pretty independent to me, they just might decide the 2012 elections. Last night, Rachel Maddow reported that Republican front-runner, Herman Cain's campaign is really Americans for Prosperity, the Koch Industries Koch Brothers funded fake grassroots group that funded the tea parties. So, it looks like it might be a match between the fake tea party and the Occupy movement which I believe is comprised of the real heirs to the Boston Tea party and ThinkProgress agrees. The problem is for whom can the occupiers vote. There don't seem to be many (if any) candidates that fit the bill.

The Occupy Movement Part I--Why

What is the Occupy movement? What are the secrets to its successes when other groups seeking the same outcomes have failed? Will the Occupy movement continue to succeed? Do they have any unified goals and what are they? What do they have to do to accomplish their goals and can they do it?

I've been thinking about these questions for a while as I've passed the protesters at LaSalle and Jackson and  talked to a few participants. In this post, I'll talk about why I think it came about from my perspective as a former and sometimes Democrat, and always a liberal.

Gut Feelings--Something's Not Right (or Left) Here

I have been wondering if the Occupy movement began for the same reasons my gut has been telling me to stop working with the Democrats. Over the past 3 years or so, I watched my own Democratic party inexplicably move to the right in apparent fear of it's own stated values. I watched John Kerry morph from the Massachusetts-style liberal, sweet grandfatherly figure I got to know in 2003-2004 to the guy who laughed as the Capitol Police were called to arrest single payer health care reformers and remove them from the Senate floor. I watched congressional candidate Dan Seals stop talking about people in favor of deficit reduction plans that rivaled those of Mark Kirk or Bob Dold for being off-topic to the real economic problems in the District. I watched the Israel supporters stop free and open conversation about what is really needed in the Middle East and in American foreign policy, and then watched as the health care reform movement took a page from them to silence all talk of real health care reform.

I couldn't watch action by the Obama Administration against mortgage fraud, mortgage foreclosure fraud, securities fraud and war liars and war profiteers because there was none.

I was consistently told by all the candidate campaigns and self-proclaimed health care reformers, and others who claimed to know, that this is what we had to do to win, but we didn't win, so what was going on here?

Health Care Reform Movement Pushes Progressive Issue and Constituency Groups Over the Edge

During the health care reform debate, MoveOn moved on from actual health care reform to harassing single payer advocates on single payer advocate Internet groups. Citizens Action Illinois, a formerly wonderful organization that helped consumers, the sick, workers and the poor, became wholly owned subsidiary of Health Care for America Now--a group that stole the identity of Healthcare Now!, the original health care reform advocacy group advocating for single payer-- and turned health care reform on its head in favor of the insurance industry and the Obama campaign complete with fake staged debates, town hall takeovers and outright lies about their "public option" and the law that was eventually passed.

Other groups like Democracy for America and Progressive Democrats have had their own problems. DFA cannot figure out if it's an issue group or an arm of the candidate-driven Democratic Party. They claim they work to change the Democratic Party from the bottom up, but at least here in Chicago, they really just canvass for it's candidates, and drink lots of beer and trash talk political gossip between elections. So ineffective in their own area in Chicago, unable to make even a small dent in Chicago's mayoral race, that Chicago's DFA branch now imagines it controls elections out here in the suburbs from some bar on the city's north side.

Progressive Democrats of America/Illinois stay true to their values and base, but never seem to get any traction--perhaps because their Democratic Caucus in Congress has failed to live up to their end, often folding to join Obama or simply ineffective, or perhaps because they've had trouble coming up with a message that resonates with young people. Locally, it doesn't help that there don't appear to be any progressive democrats in Illinois government. Illinois Democrats have become another entity altogether burdened by Madigans' leadership and sometimes going off the deep end altogether in an odd attempt to attract more of the opposing party than their own.

Among the Democrats and their side groups, there's a candidate-driven infrastructure, but there are no unshackled ideas, plans, or values. It's "don't ask, don't tell" on liberalism. They don't think we can win if we hold true to liberal values. The operating plan seems to be to judge which Republican lies have gotten the most traction, and work within them with the claim that while the Republicans are right on the sacrifices ordinary people must make, Democrats will soften the blow.

Monsters, Inc.: Republicans Choose to Go Over the Edge with their Frankenstein-like Base

The one thing I am sure of is that in addition to anything having to do with the Democrats, the Occupy movement comes out of Republicans' failure to acknowledge the humanity of most of humanity and blame of average people for the world's economic problems. Herman Cain, Republican/Koch party frontrunner said it if not best, than most recently:

Don t blame Wall Street. Don t blame the big banks. If you don t have a job and you re not rich, blame yourself.

Republicans have opted for the Xanax and Zoloft course of action. Blame the powerless and rub their noses it it until they become dysfunctional.

They have also chosen to adopt the opinions of the most extreme of their group and push them to their conclusion no matter what. Through talk radio and Fox News, they've ginned up a rather hateful and unforgiving base that they don't seem to be able to control. Now, they have to sign all sorts of pledges against government, women, gays and always be for war, no matter how inappropriate for a given situation. If they don't obey, the base goes after them with frightening venom.

And they never learn. Mark Kirk is now pushing for war with Iran in the exact same way he pushed for war with Iraq. He literally has just changed the "q" to an "n" and I expect one day he'll slip up at some media event. And they don't have to learn because the corporate money is unending and Americans apparently need only to hear something repeated on television a few times for it to become truth.

But Here's the Rub: It is what it is on the ground.

Americans can bellyache about small government that only operates to monitor pregnancy and make war, and call for freedom from health care and other social programs, but they still want and need a social safety net and government works programs. In fact, as their corporate employers revel in lack of regulation and moral standards, Americans need social safety net programs even more.

One stunning statistic about education says a lot about the Occupy movement. Student loan debt is now greater than credit card debt. So, now a young person cannot get a job and cannot go to school. I used to write that we took the younger generations out of the local housing market and forced them to move away from our district. Now, we've pretty much priced them out of everyday life. While corporate profits are at record highs and jobs and job security are at record lows, American kids cannot realistically work on their skills so they can get better jobs or any jobs at all.

For these and other reasons, we have an Occupy movement that has spread from Wall Street, NYC to the rest of the country. You can call them dirty hippies, but they are not looking for the Age of Aquarius and do not want to turn on, tune in or drop out. They really just want to drop in, but we won't let them, so they're pushing the door down, crashing the gate, but for real this time.

The Message that Has Resonated

I've been in group after group grasping for a message that will resonate. We could not end the war in Iraq because the message was deemed unpatriotic. I've been told that you cannot even mention single payer health care reform because the term has been poisoned by Republicans and the media.

"Hope" and "Change" resonated for candidate Obama, but has since become a punch line as its reality faded into a cycle of gridlock and Democratic caving. Now, the best rendition can be found here (scroll down and to the right), a Shepard Fairey style cat and the slogan, "Feed". Yes, bottom line, we all need to be fed.

So what ended up getting the press and social media buzz: "We are the 99 Percent."

In all seriousness, I think part of the success of the 99% is that it is conducive to creative signage (here too) and can be altered in various humorous ways. There's even the 99 purrcent that is supposed to include middle-class cats. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert already proved that Americans prefer political humor to politics. Occupy has learned that lesson and uses it.

The slogan also brings power to the powerless and security to the insecure. The bankers may have money and access to government, but there are more of us. That brings some security to the insecure. Could all these people have done something wrong, as Herman Cain contends from the warmth of the dens of Americans for Prosperity and Koch Industries. That can not be, It must not be my fault and my fault alone that I'm unemployed, insecure and poor because so many others are too.

The other message is to Occupy Wall Street, or your local financial center. It's the historically accurate tea party in action. Not the corporate funded idiots with tea bags hanging from their hats, but the real heirs of the real message of the first tea party--don't let the East India Company (the Koch Industries of the Eighteenth Century) tread on us. Letting corporations make the rules is as bad or worse as letting government. At least with government, we have a vote (until they take that away).

So what do the 99% want to do? Do they have any defined goals? Can they succeed? Should they succeed? How can they succeed?

My Own Bipartisan Deal: Vote it Down, Everyone

I've been doing some reading and some listening on the so-called "Bipartisan Debt Deal".
This morning I read the "Fact Sheet". It seems to me that if you have to call the deal "bipartisan" no less than 13 times in the "Fact Sheet", you're admitting that there is no bipartisanship and there are no facts in the sheet. Take a look at it and tell me it's not a creepy and Orwellian read. "A Win for the Economy and Budget Discipline (Insert happy face here.) Aren't we lucky that most of it goes into effect after the 2012 election."

The bottom line on this plan is that it completely and unquestioningly accepts the notion that spending cuts are the cure to the economy, temporarily saves Social Security and Medicare from cuts, but allows an unconstitutional Super Committee cut the programs later to avoid automatic cuts across the board. The Super Committee is made up of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, setting the two party system in stone and ensuring election nullification if only one Democrat agrees with the Republicans. It codifies political hostage taking by creating economic armageddon if the Super Committee fails to come to a consensus.

It also seems to me that putting Social Security on the table only to "save" it, is a bit Orwellian in and of itself. Obama put Social Security on the table in the first place, so I'm not impressed that he saved it.

Like the fake health care reform, this deal mostly kicks in after Obama's re-election election, ensuring mostly that it will have minimum effect on his re-election. The claim is that the delay in the deal makes sure that the cuts won't adversely affect the recovering economy, a subtle and meaningless nod, but a nod nonetheless to the hidden truth that this deal is bad for the recovery and consequently bad for the economy in general, and over the long term. Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman explains that better than I can here.

Last night, my dad explained further. He was a successful small businessman for over 30 years and worked in corporate American for a few years after he sold his business. Dad told me that taxes are actually good for business and that he experienced the benefits of taxes in his own business, and again working for a big company in the same industry. When he paid taxes as a small business owner, he made less on each unit sold. Making less on each unit sold may sound bad, but it serves to push the business to increase volume. Increasing volume increaseed my dad's need for sales people and increased his orders to suppliers. He hired and his suppliers hired and the whole thing became an upward spiral of employment, wholesale and retail spending and again more employment and so on. Dad believes that was how Clinton succeeded during his presidency. Clinton's tax increases heated up the economy.

In his corporate job, he and all of the other store buyers and managers were encouraged to cut spending in their respective territories. My dad told me that he knew that was bad for business, so he went on spending amounts he felt were right based on his past experience in his own stores. The stores in his territory outdid the other territories every time.

Spending is not bad government and is not bad for business; it's good for business and it's good for innovation. Big corporations can make acceptable profits by saving, and can argue that it's better because they have to take fewer risks to make the same money, but they won't be looking for more and better sales, won't be innovating and won't be heating up the general economy. That Obama and the Democrats failed to make their case for spending, agreeing that the debate was not whether to spend or cut, but how much to cut, is there biggest failure in this matter.

My final read on the subject included the comments of Democrats on the deal. Most of my Facebook friends were disappointed in the deal, but there are a few Obama-or-bust die-hards. They are clinging to this post by Ezra Klein, a Cubs fan's lament about better luck next year and so on, giving the same reason to believe the Ricketts family has given Cubs fans--nada.

My read of Klein's comments are that taxes will eventually go up because the only way they won't is if Obama stands with the Republicans to prevent tax increases. That presumes tax increases on their own are the goal which of course is nonsense. We don't want to raise taxes for fun. We want stimulus and jobs to heat up the economy and spark innovation to keep the USA competitive. It also presumes that Obama won't stand with Republicans to extend the costly Bush tax cuts, but he already has over and over again.

I stand by my earlier comments that Obama failed early on in his administration when he failed to make the case for real economic stimulus and allowed tax cuts to overtake the stimulus. What we got was too little and too short term stimulus and a stage set for the present perceived emergency. Creating an emergency, created false urgency to make further cuts. The grand bargain fix codifies further false emergencies, false urgencies and further concessions to the hostage takers. It's a bad deal and it should be bipartisanly voted down.

If Casey Anthony Could Be Convicted on the Evidence Presented, We'd All Be In Trouble

I have absolutely no idea whatsoever if Casey Anthony murdered her daughter Caylee, or if she knew who did. If folks want to come down from their Nancy Grace HLN stupor long enough to look at what the prosecution proved, maybe they'd realize that if a jury could convict Anthony on that alone, we'd all be in trouble.

The prosecution's theory was that Casey chloroformed the child, duct taped her mouth and suffocated her, then drove the body around for a while long enough for the car to smell and dumped the body in a wooded area near the home. The body had animal damage from being there for so long.

This is what they proved:

1. there was duct tape near the body;
2. one of Caylee's hairs was found in her mother's car;
3. black plastic trash bags and a canvas laundry bag found near the body and at one point Anthony owned black plastic trash bags and a canvas laundry bag;
4. the child was found near her Winnie-the-Pooh blanket;
5. the car had a rotting smell, chloroform was found in the car, and a computer in the Anthony home had a search on chloroform;
6. Anthony got a tattoo when all good civilized people who watch Nancy Grace feel she should have been mourning her daughter;
7. Anthony was probably not a candidate for Mother of the Year, and the kicker;
8. the prosecution had enough money to hire someone to make a video of Caylee's face morphing into a skull wrapped in duct tape--a whole lot like the Republican party had enough money to hire someone to make a video of multiple amputee and war hero Max Cleland and morph his face into Osama bin Laden and what did that prove given that it was done to promote the failed, needless and expensive Iraq War?

What the prosecution did not prove:

1. any chloroform in Caylee's system or on or near her body;
2. who made the computer search and/or why;
3. that Caylee's face was in fact duct taped;
4. the actual cause of death;
5. that people who get tattoos after a death are statistically more likely to have caused such death; and
6. that videos made by someone who was not a witness to the crime, with no evidence to back up the video's plot, are at all accurate.

Our criminal justice system was set up under the theory that it's probably better to let a criminal go here and there than permanently incarcerate or execute an innocent person. If you've ever been or know an innocent person who's been accused of a crime, or if you note the sheer number of political prisoners taken these days, then you're probably grateful for that theory.

Video, like television, is a strong tool. It can spread a story or create and spread a false story. Remember those funny Chinese-made videos supposedly reenacting the Tiger Woods/wife/gold club scene? Do you think those were accurate? Police believed Elin Nordegren's story that she did not in fact chase his car with a golf club, but found him after the crash despite what a Chinese television station and TMZ cooked up. Anyone can come up with a theory and have a video made to support the theory. The key is what facts are behind the video.

Television shows such as the Chinese new show depicting the Tiger Woods incident, TMZ and the one with Nancy Grace broadcasted by CNN's Headline News are designed to cause a stir and get ratings. They are designed to be emotional, to tell a story and the more outrageous the story the better. Grace is paid to gin people up, tell a riveting story and keep people in their armchairs tuned in to the network all day.

If we exchange the theory of our criminal justice system with the theory of getting good ratings for a television show, a heck of a lot of innocent people will be convicted whether they deserve it or not. One of those people could be you or someone you love. Do you have black garbage bags in your house? Hmmm, how suspicious. You did a Google search on what? You should be ashamed of yourself. Oh, you say your boyfriend did that search? How did he get near your computer? What did you say you did 10 days after your Grandma's funeral? Hmmmm. Really? Why weren't you at home crying?

Those mad about the Anthony verdict should ask themselves if they'd like to be tried in the court of television ratings or the court of law.