TARP accounts status

One of the things that the Democrats ought to do is make up something as simple as a TARP accounts status website that gives a simple balance sheet on the status of the TARP funds. Something like the debt clock does for the national debt. I think that most people think that our costs on that program have been enormously greater than they have been.
The media has been very helpful in that particular misinformation. If you recall they made no distinction about whether the TARP funds were:
1. given to some corporation or
2. loaned to a corporation or
3 used to buy part of the corporation.
Just call them all bailouts.

If there is one already would someone let me know. I couldn't find it.

Credit Crunch?

“Ninety-one percent of small business owners surveyed in August by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) said all their credit needs were met. Only 4 percent cited a lack of financing as their top business problem. Plans for capital spending were at a 35-year low.” http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100925/D9IEME2G0.html

A common amateur mistake is to solve the wrong problem. The quote above from an NFIB survey would indicate that the problem is not that banks lack funds to lend, but that too few want to borrow.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

"Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins."

"A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions."
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.(March 8, 1841 – March 6, 1935)

The Constitution is not a suicide pact.

The US has placed Anwar Awlaki on a kill or capture list. His father is sueing to have him removed from it. Obama's people will probably use a variation of the title in their arguments in court.
The expression "suicide pact" was first used by Justice Robert H. Jackson in a dissent in Terminiello v. Chicago, in 1949.
The sentiment had been expressed earlier but not that concisely.
Thomas Jefferson: Changed his mind about how much power the Federal Government had when he got the chance to make the Louisiana Purchase. In justifying his actions, he later wrote: "[a] strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means."[1]
Abraham Lincoln: Suspended habeas corpus (a congressional power) as a wartime measure to maintain order and when criticized he responded: “ … Are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?"
Later in the war, after being criticized for the arrest and detention of Congressman Clement Vallandigham of Ohio, Lincoln wrote that he was arrested "because he was laboring, with some effect, to prevent the raising of troops, to encourage desertions from the army,. . . Must I shoot a simple-minded deserter, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert?"

NPV 4b is NPV Compact the best alternative? 1

The last comment on this thread was by Wayne at 9:30 Pm Sept23 as follows:
Each and every one of those elections mentioned in toto’s 9-23-6:15 note as well as all of the other 48 presidential elections that we have held have one thing in common. Winning of the popular vote was not the candidates’ primary objective. Whether we like the structure or not the name of the game was electoral votes. In each and every case the winning candidate won a majority of the votes that determined the election. (That includes the 1800 and 1824 in the House of Representatives.) The popular vote data begins with 1824, because until then they didn’t even record the popular vote. Popular vote is a wonderful thing. But when looking at elections which did not use that system it is strange to talk about those elections as if they did use that system. So perhaps Americans do not view the absence of runoffs as a problem in the present system because the present system always gives a winner who has a majority of the determining votes.

But NPV would change what the determinative votes are. In their system it is popular votes that count. OK but isn’t NPV then obligated to provide a method for dealing with a situation in which the votes are scattered among several candidates? The Bayh-Cellar amendment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)#The_Bayh-Celler_Amendment gave a way to do that. It required that the plurality winner have at least 40% of the vote or hold a runoff. A system doesn’t have give a majority winner but please spare us a 27% president (see 8-7-10 post).

NPV 4a - keep or drop the electoral college

This is one of the continuations of the comments on the 9-22-10 post National Popular Vote 4. This one concerns whether we should keep the electoral college. The other continuation deals with whether, if we change, the NPV Compact is the best way to go.

The last comment on this aspect of the thread was by toto on 9-24 at 4:27 PM as follows:

In FairVote's study of 7,645 statewide elections in the 26-year period from 1980 through 2006, the average change in the margin of victory as a result of a recount was a mere 274 votes. The original outcome remained unchanged in over 90% of the recounts.

A recount is not an unimaginable horror or logistical impossibility. A recount is a recognized contingency that is occasionally required (about once in 332 elections). All states routinely make arrangements for a recount in advance of every election. The personnel and resources necessary to conduct a recount are indigenous to each state. A state's ability to conduct a recount inside its own borders is unrelated to whether or not a recount may be occurring in another state.

If anyone is genuinely concerned about the possibility of recounts, then a single national pool of votes is the way to drastically reduce the likelihood of recounts and eliminate the artificial crises produced by the current system.

The U.S. Constitution requires the Electoral College to meet on the same day throughout the U.S. (mid-December). This sets a final deadline for vote counts from all states. In Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court has interpreted the federal "safe harbor" statute to mean that the deadline for the state to finalize their vote count is 6 days before the meeting of the Electoral College.

Rules of engagement

My understanding of the rules of engagement in Afghanistan is this. To have a chance to succeed we must have the support of the people. To get that you have to keep civilian casualties low. That means that you have to have very restrictive rules of engagement. That is, you must limit our people’s responses in various situations. That increases the chances that our people will get killed. What it would come down to is deciding how many American lives you would give up in order to keep the collateral damage (= civilian casualties) low enough to have a chance for success. That would be a tough decision.

Cuban layoff

Headline: CUBA LAYS OFF 500,000 GOVERMENT WORKERS
Apparently there is trouble in the Socialist Paradise, too.

debt and taxes

I think it is generally agreed that if the tax rate is too high then it will be a growth killer. Sometimes reducing the rates can be stimulator. Kennedy reduced the highest marginal rate (from 91% to 70%)and Reagan reduced it again to about 50. In both cases it spurred growth. You hear a lot about that from the right side tax cutters. But they usually don't mention what the numbers actually are. So what happens when you get down into the thirties? Will things go better with an even lower rate? On Sunday Sept. 19, I heard Bill Clinton say on Meet the Press that in the 12 years before he took office they (Republicans) quadrupled the national debt. His tax program eliminated the deficit and reduced the debt by about 700 billion. After he left office they lowered taxes and doubled the national debt. I think that that was roughly true.
PS The highest marginal income tax rate under Clinton's tax regime was just under 40%. Given how well the economy performed in the nineties and how not so well it did in the next 8 years perhaps we can conclude that that 40% was not a high enough rate to be a disastrous drag on business.
PS (15 hours later) Leaving them down for awhile may still be necessary because of the "great recession". But long term I think that is not too high.

National popular vote 4

In the post number 3 on this topic (8-7-10)I promised another argument against NPV. This is not it. This is a response to one of the main arguments in favor of NPV. That argument goes like this: Most states know which candidate is going to win the electoral votes of their state because each state runs a plurality winner take all system. That is, Texas will vote Republican and California will vote Democratic. So the election will come down to a few close battlground states like Florida and Ohio which are tossups. Everybody else is "left out".
The problem with this argument is that it is not the electoral college that causes a state to be taken for granted. It is the way the state chooses to assign its electoral votes. Most states use a "winner take all" method which assigns the electoral votes of the state to whoever gets the most popular votes - regardless of how close the outcome is. To become battleground states all Texas and California have to do is allot their electoral votes proportionately based on the split of the vote. That is, if you get 43% of the popular vote then you get 43% of the electoral vote. That will eliminate their being taken for granted. If they want to they can choose to become a battleground state.

Freedom of Speech vs Religion

Most of us in what is called the West have agreed that a religion has the right to demand a code of conduct and behavior by its followers. For about five centuries we have also agreed that a religion does not have the right to impose its code of conduct and behavior on those who do not follow that religion. In this country this is enshrined in the first amendment to the US Constitution.
Suppose we have a religion that is outside of this tradition and in certain foreign countries has (in varying degrees) merged itself with the power of the state which it uses to force all persons in those counties to abide by the code of that religion.
As long as these two principles are operating in different areas of the world, then the problems are resolvable.
What happens if some of this other religion’s practitioners decide that they have the right to demand that nonbelievers “respect their religion”? What if “respect their religion” means following a part of their code? What if they decide that this applies to Americans? What if that part of their code is in conflict with another part (speech) of that first amendment?
Even without going any further it seems to me that there is a real problem here.
But there is more. What if there is an element in that religion that is prepared to enforce that part of the code by assassination?
Does that religion have the same rights as other religions?
Do the adherents of that religion have a responsibility vis-a-vis the new Assassins?

Islamic dna

Norman Benotman is a former associate of Osama bin Laden who published an open letter (9-10-2010) urging Osama bin Laden to call off his attacks. His perspective was that of a Muslim who believes that the attacks have been harmful to Islam. He said "‘Your actions have harmed millions of innocent Muslims and non-Muslims alike. How is this Islam or jihad? For how much longer will al-Qaeda continue to bring shame on Islam, disrupt ordinary Muslims’ lives, and be the cause of global unrest?"
I particularly liked an expression that he used in his interview with Fareed Zakaria which aired on CNN's GPS Sept. 19, 2010. To underline his point he said:

"Al-Qaeda is messing around with the dna of Islam itself."
.

perspectives

If you ask what caused the current financial breakdown you will generally get two answers: deregulation and subprime mortgages. If you ask which was the more important problem you will still get two answers: those generally tending to the left will say deregulation those generally tending to the right will say subprime mortgages. Is this an objectively answerable question and if so where do you go to find that answer?

First Amendment

I did not participate on Draw Mohammed Day - see 5-20 but I think that we need another presidential speech on the 1st Amendment.
Note: Awlaki, who put Molly Norris on their assassination list, is himself on America's kill or capture list.

Molly Norris goes ghost

begin Jim Miller post:
My Sympathies To Molly Norris
For the record: I published two of the Danish cartoons, and would do so again. (One interesting detail about that controversy: The Danish imams who were trying to stir up violence against the cartoonists had little luck in the Middle East until they added some fake cartoons, fakes that were almost as bad as the cartoons that the UK Guardian routinely ran against George W. Bush.)
Cross posted at Jim Miller on Politics.
Since the last thing Norris wants now is more publicity, I have closed the comments.
Posted by Jim Miller at September 16, 2010 09:01 AM | Email This
End of Miller post.

See also the WSJ article on this.

De-developed

You may add the term De-developed to your vocabulary - According to White House Office of Science and Technology Director John P. Holdren the U.S. needs to be de-developed. Here is the CNS article http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/75388

p.s. He also wants you to say “Global Climate Disruption” instead of “Global Warming"

Park 51- 7 – advertised review

Well I have had time to think it through. I think that these are hard questions and I don’t guarantee that I will still hold these views a year from now. We’ll see.
a) I still think Park 51 can be a good thing. If one really gets a bunch of interfaith folks to participate in it.
b) I will give Imam Rauf the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is not making the remarks in Park 51 – 6 as a threat. (The remark was that if such and such happened, then “The headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack.” ) However, it is so near to being a threat (see Park 51 – 8) that I don’t think it should be used as an argument. Even if Rauf is not the one who moves them to action (and it is not clear that he is not the one) his remarks would certainly be considered by the “Muslim radicals”
c) I do not think that those who worry about the possibility of Park 51 becoming some kind of “point of triumph” in celebration of the “Muslim Victory” on 9-11 are out of bounds. That is, I think that it is a valid position. Given a) I obviously disagree (I don’t think it likely.) but it is not irrational and it is not an indication of Islamaphobia.
d) Islamaphobia is likely to become the next ridiculously overused word. I expect it will continue to be used to attack anyone who “disagrees with any Muslim position”. Notice that the media has not coined an expression for Christianophobia or Americaphobia.
e) I think that the position that Park 51 ought not be built close to the former site of the WTC is reasonable position with which I disagree. I think we all agree that as a matter of law all religions are and should be treated equally. But when you are talking about the site of a horrible crime and the perpetrators committed the crime in the name of religion X, then, as a matter of civility, religion X should not claim the same access to the site of the crime as other religions could. Now, before you conclude that I’m equating the criminals with the religion that they were acting in the name of (which I’m not) I ask you to read about the convent at Auschwitz and then read this paragraph again.
f) Pastor bookburner (Why should we give him fame?) was going to burn the Quran to show that Islam was a violent religion. We implored him not to do it because it would surely “cause” death and destruction. Does that mean he won the argument? (Also see the last two comments to Liberty's Response on Sept 9.)

Fareed Zakaria

I would like to suggest to you Fareed Zakaria. In The Post American World he provides a view of a possible future which deals with the fact that, though America can be the first power in the world, it cannot be as dominant a power in this century as it was in the last. I expect that he would agree with Walter Lippman’s statement that Foreign Policy is “bringing into balance, with a comfortable margin of power in reserve, the nation’s commitments and the nation’s power.” He writes for Newsweek and has a Sunday talk show, GPS the Global Public Square, which gives you the opportunity to hear from foreign leaders themselves about their views so as not to hear only what our people think that the foreigners think.

Buckley

William F. Buckley was a silver tongued leader of the American conservatives who founded The National Review and had no chance of winning an election in the very liberal city of New York where he lived. However, in 1965 he did run for Mayor of NY on the new Conservative party ticket in order to attract votes away from liberal Republican John Lindsay. He responded immediately when he was asked what he would do first if he won: “Demand a recount.”

Tolerance

Is there a point at which the application of the tolerant mind set simply becomes nonsensical or possibly even absurd? As Americans we seem to be obsessed with being tolerant. Even to the point of feeling guilty if we are not more tolerant that those who we are being tolerant of.

If I ask “is it in my best interest” to always be tolerant will I be chastised for considering my interest and not the worlds interest? It has been a while since I read Ayn Rand’s “The Virtue of Selfishness”. It’s short; perhaps I shall read it again.

temporary note

There are delightful new comments to the Sept. 9 post.

The reason that I have not gone back to the Park 51 topic since Sunday is that I'm puzzling over whether that statement of Rauf's is a threat or just an attempt to use something that should not be part of the argument.

Obama's polls

I keep hearing about his disastrous poll numbers and I'm thinkin' "What are they talkin' about?" We are in the worst recession for 80 years and in two wars and his Real Clear Politics approval average is still at 46.6% two years before renomination time.
He has problems, but it is not in those numbers.

Mitch Daniels

Adam Madison told me about Mitch and I pass him along to you.
Andrew Sullivan calls him “a reality based conservative” and “a breath of fresh air”. I agree.

The last dollar.

Back in the sixties when I was in college, I didn’t have a lot of money, and I was not very responsible with what I did have. However, although it was not yet the heyday of plastic money, I did have some credit cards. I knew a man named Lloyd Harrison who was the father of a close friend. He was born about 1920 and had a clear memory of the Great Depression. He was very responsible with money. He told me about a time in the thirties when he was out with some of his family in a car and they had a flat. They changed the tire and went on into town and left the tire to have the flat fixed. He said that they used their last dollar to pay for fixing the flat. It was clear that that was a very significant fact to him. Perhaps it was because a dollar was so hard to get or because they didn’t know where the next one was coming from. For some reason I couldn’t turn loose of that expression, “the last dollar”, and his reaction to it. I finally came to the conclusion that there was no way that I could ever understand – in the same sense that he did – what that meant. I could understand it intellectually but it would never carry the same meaning for me that it did for him. He didn’t know that I had taken note of it. He’s gone now. I wish I had told him.

an open senate seat

In 2002 Strom Thurmond retired from US Senate where he had represented South Carolina since 1956. At the time Fritz Hollings had been the other US Senator from SC since 1966. Prominent SC Congressman Lindsey Graham was asked if he was ready to run for the Senate. He replied that he would have to be since “these seats only come open every 50 years or so.”

Irshad Manji

If you have wondered where are the reformers among the Muslims, then you should meet this woman.

She has written about Park 51 on her blog and that article is a good introduction to her.

Park 51 - 6 A possible reversal

I've been waiting for the return of Imam Rauf (from what Foxnews calls “his taxpayer supported trip to the middle east”) and now he is back. I wanted to hear his calm serene view of the controversy that I had sided with him on in the 8-18 post. I was very disappointed. In an interview with CNN he said about the Park 51 project:
...
RAUF: I am extremely concerned about sensitivity. But I also have a responsibility. If we move from that location, the story will be that the radicals have taken over the discourse. The headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack. And I'm less concerned about the radicals in America than I'm concerned about the radicals in the Muslim world.
O'BRIEN: But isn't that also saying you're less concerned about the voices of opposition here?
RAUF: And if we do -- no, no, no, no. I'm sorry, I don't mean it that way. I meant it, the danger from the radicals in the Muslim world to our national security, to the national security of our troops.
I have a niece who works in the Army and served in Iraq. The concern for American citizens who live and work and travel overseas will increasingly be compromised if the radicals are strengthened. And if we do move, it will strengthen the argument of the radicals to recruit, their ability to recruit, and their increasing aggression and violence against our country.

He equates the “radicals in America” and the “radicals in the Muslim world”. It seems clear that by the first he means those who oppose his project by the second he means Muslim terrorists. It seems to be quite clearly an attempt to win an argument by intimidation. “If I can't build Park 51 then Muslims will kill Americans.”
I think that at best he has exhibited some very bad judgment. When I come to this kind of conclusion that (some would say) leans to one side I always want to check what the other side is saying. The quotes above are from Media Matters which tells me that “if Rauf is threatening us, then so was Petraeus”. Which means MM can't tell the difference between a) burning the Quran and b) saying no to something that a Muslim wants to do. That is pretty sad.
I will be interested to see Rauf's future remarks.

Chip at the Round Table

I knew this fellow named Chip in his late twenties who used to hang out the Round Table café in Commerce TX in the summer of 1971. One day his car was broken and he was desperately wanting to get to Dallas – about 50 miles SW.
He enquired of anyone he saw if they were goin' to Dallas.
Sometime later a group of very religious types wearing robes and the whole nine yards came in.
Chip didn't bother with them since they did not even look like good prospects for a ride across town.
One of them came up to Chip and asked “Don’t you want to know Jesus?”
Chip instantly replied, “Not unless he’s goin’ to Dallas.”

Park 51 - 5 - the right to build

From the August 16 post: “Obama said Muslims had a right to build a mosque. The media reported that he supported building it. Obama said he supported the right to build. The media reported that he supported building it.”
It has been suggested that the media has cleared that up afterward.
On Sept 9 Obama said: “If you can build a church on a site, if you can build a synagogue on a site, if you can build a Hindu temple on a site, then you should be able to build a mosque on a site.”
On CNN’s situation room that afternoon their discussion included this:
Anchor: after his waffling (see Aug. 16 post) “this was very clear and very definitive where he stood on the mosque”
Ed Henry “No doubt about it. When he first spoke at the White House … and then walked it back … “today there was sort of no hedging he just said (the quote above). That sounds like an endorsement.”

Exceptions

Quote of the day for September 10
Power concedes nothing without a demand.
It never did and it never will.
- Frederick Douglass

Would Washington’s abdication of power following the Revolution be an exception to this rule?

Liberty's response

Buy or read a Quran this Saturday!!
That is the proper response to the Florida book burner!
This suggestion from NPR could have millions of people doing that as a contrast to a tiny group of book burners.

Selected Today's Notes from June

6-10-10
The Liberal is impatient because his country is not more perfect.
The Conservative is concerned that his country will become less perfect.

6-13
Fortuna Fortes Juvat
- from Virgil's Aeneid
Motto of the 3rd Marine Regiment USA
(Fortune favors the bold)

June 14th
Is there anything wrong with having a tax cheat for Treasury Secretary?

June 15th Why do we care about the coup in KYRGYZSTAN? Because KYRGYZSTAN is our most important source of consonants. Jon Stewart – (paraphrase)

June 16th
I can be mistaken.
I’ll be the second to admit that.

June 17th
If you are 65 years old and you don’t do
what you want to, then you are just a damn fool.
George C. Copp, Professor of Math.

June 20th
Never let a crisis go to waste. - Rahm Emmanuel

June 25th
"I will make no windows into men’s souls."
Elizabeth I - queen of England 1558-1603
on choosing religious freedom

Park 51 - 4 - a worry point

I disapprove of Florida Pastor Jones’s plan to burn the Quran on 9-11 (or any other day), because it will incite religious strife. Also, as I said here earlier (8-08 and 8-18) I think that the Muslims not only have the right to build the Park 51 project, but that I think that it would be a good thing. That is based on my belief that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are as peace loving as the rest of us in the US.

However, that doesn’t mean that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are as committed to freedom of speech and religion as the rest of us in the US. I would like to look a little bit beyond the immediate question. What is the threatened response to Jones’s plan? There are dire warnings about the loss of life that will follow his actions. If we remember the response to the Danish cartoons which included considerable loss of life, then we have to take these threats seriously. That is at least part of the reason why we make our pleas to pastor Jones to stifle. But I think that this entitles us to ask another question. By doing this are we carving out a special arrangement for Islam? Christians (for example) have to endure insults to their religion - piss-Christ and elephant dung on Madonna - for two examples. Are we saying, in response to threats of violence, that we will not tolerate insults to Islam? ABC had an Imam on who said that this (Jones’s proposed action) was not freedom of speech it was crying fire in a theater. If insulting one religion is like crying fire in a crowded theater, then insulting any religion is like crying fire in a crowded theater. Unless there is something special about that one religion and if that is the case, then what is it?

Rhee in DC

If 95% of the teachers are rated as good and only 8% of the students are up to standard, then something is wrong.
paraphrase of Michelle Rhee on her controversial handling of the DC school district, particularly her handling of teacher evaluation.

American power

In recent years, I have often said to European friends: So, you didn’t like a world of too much American power? See how you like a world of too little American power — because it is coming to a geopolitical theater near you. – Thomas Friedman

comment on "The Mosque II" on Wed. Aug 18

The following was added as a comment to the Wed August 18 post about Obama and the mosque. After a few days I will remove it from here and leave it there.

Well, I was being a little too hard on Obama. It is part of his job to remind us about the restraints that are the other side of the coin of liberty. But I still think that getting 41-43 to issue a joint statement would have been more effective and kept the profile lower.
I also still believe that supporting someone’s right to do something is different than supporting their actually doing it.

organizational warfare

OK, so here are some questions. Can an organization “declare war on a country”? Can a person, citizen or not, “declare war on a country”? If a person joins an organization that has declared war on a country, may the country consider him to be an enemy combatant? Of course they can make the statements or take actions that make the statements for them. But does the country have the right to treat that as a war situation? What are the rights of and permissible actions available to the country in that situation? Can it take them at their word and treat them an “enemy combatants”? If they hide in dark alleys in foreign countries can it go there and kill them? If the answer is yes then what kind of procedure should a government go through before they put someone on that “kill or capture list”?
Obama has a kill or capture list and Awlaki is on it. The left is finally starting to ask questions about it. This is the same left that went berserk when Bush poured water in the faces of known terrorists but ….

Choices

Old professor’s advice to a new faculty member:
There are two groups of people in this place.
Those who try to get things done and
Those who try to get credit for getting things done.
I recommend that you join the first group.
There is less competition there.