Interestingly, the new UAW talking point on why UAW workers shouldn’t take a pay cut is that UAW workers don’t make as much as Toyota’s workers.
Huh. Mickey Kaus makes the point that Toyota can afford to pay its workers that much because it’s profitable. But the sublter point he makes needs to be stated explicitly:
Factory 2: Non-unionized workers, higher wages, making money.
So if the UAW talking point is correct, they’ve managed to run their companies into the ground and didn’t even get more money for their workers out of the deal. The whole point of unions is to get more for their workers; according to Gettelfinger, now, the UAW can’t even do that. I think the UAW should change its talking point before people realize that its argument only shows that the UAW is a dead weight loss.
I wasn’t exactly a Palin booster this election, but this is pathetic:
MSNBC host Chris Matthews suggested Friday that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) may not have the reading or writing ability needed to complete the book she is reportedly shopping.
The Los Angeles Times reported Friday that Palin is seeking an $11 million advance for her memoir and has hired high-powered Washington attorney Robert Barnett to broker the deal.
Teasing a segment on the book during his show “Hardball,” Matthews said: “If she can read, if she can write, she’ll make some money.”
Matthews repeated his suggestion that Palin could not write the book later in the show. “The question is who actually will write the Palin book,” he said. “The only politician I know who can write is Barack Obama.”
Tom posted this at 11:05 AM HKT on Saturday, January 24th, 2009 as Journalism
Turns out that the inaugural quarter that I didn’t likewasn’t even for real. I’ll grant what they say, that there are some real concerns about playing amplified instruments in tune in 19 degree weather. But why isn’t that an argument to, um, not have this quartet rather than play a pre-recorded tape and pretend like the tens of millions of people watching are listening to live music? The quartet seemed very petty to me because it was nothing more than showing off a few individual talents at an event completely unrelated to them, and in a way that didn’t really make much sense considering the circumstances. Was a pre-recorded tape the very best we could do for the most hyped inauguration ever?
At the time, I noticed how bright and clear and in tune the instruments sounded, and thought that they must have had the greatest sound crew in the world to sound so good in those circumstances. I guess anyone can sound good if they cheat. Why even have them play at all? They could have just played Obama’s favorite cd instead of going through this stupid charade?
Apollo posted this at 1:46 AM HKT on Saturday, January 24th, 2009 as That's Not Change!
1. It signals that the Democrats are going to behave pompously toward Congressional Republicans. I don’t like Congressional Republicans now, and there’s roughly zero chance that they would ever stand against government spending on principle. There, though, a 100% chance that they’ll squeal like stuck pigs if the Democrats behave like asses. So we might get some Republican opposition to ridiculous spending! Yay!
2. This line is precious:
“How can you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives?” Boehner asked. “How does that stimulate the economy?”
Apollo posted this at 7:01 PM HKT on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 as That's Not Change!
One of the main talking points, particularly among left-wing bloggers, was that Wurzelbacher was a tax cheat because, it was revealed by ABC News, he had a tax lien of $1,182 for back Ohio state taxes. This fueled the argument that he was a fraud, his opinion didn’t matter. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.
Fast-forward to today. Timothy Geithner, President Obama’s choice to be the next treasury secretary, quite clearly tried to defraud the government of tens of thousands in payroll taxes while working at the International Monetary Fund. The IMF does not withhold such taxes but does compensate American employees who must pay them out of pocket. Geithner took the compensation—which involves considerable paperwork—but then simply pocketed the money.
His explanations for his alleged oversight don’t pass the smell test. When the IRS busted him for his mistakes in 2003 and 2004, he decided to take advantage of the statute of limitations and not pay the thousands of dollars he also failed to pay in 2001 and 2002. That is, until he was nominated to become treasury secretary.
Obama defends Geithner, saying that his was a “common mistake,” that it is embarrassing but happens all the time. My National Review colleague Byron York reports that, at least according to the IMF, Geithner’s “mistakes” are actually quite rare. Indeed, it’s almost impossible to believe that the man didn’t know exactly what he was doing given that he would have had to sign documents, disregard warnings, and all in all turn his brain off to make the same “mistake” year after year. And keep in mind, Geithner is supposed to run the IRS. So maybe sloppiness isn’t that great a defense anyway.
One somehow suspects that had John McCain nominated Geithner to be Treasury Secretary—which could conceivably have happened—Geithner would have been run out of town on a rail by now. So there’s a certain partisan tinge to the coverage.
Beyond that, however, government officials tend to mostly talk to other government officials, and it’s difficult for pundits (let alone ordinary people) to get points across to them. Eliot Cohen, though writing about foreign policy rather than economic, explains:
My first, sobering observation is that government pays only intermittent attention to talk on the outside. To a remarkable extent, in fact, government talks only to itself.
Officials in the foreign policy and defense worlds go through vast quantities of official data, briefing papers and talking points. They meet urgently with one another. They fly to foreign capitols and back in a few days. They telephone and email incessantly. Every day in the office I spent hours reading a three- to six-inch stack of intelligence, plus all the other cables, messages and memoranda that are the lifeblood of the Department of State. I scanned the press clips, reading an opinion piece rarely, usually when it was written by someone who had a track record for good judgment. By and large, the buzz on the outside was just that — a background noise of which I was dimly aware, unless it was either unusually nasty, or unusually perceptive, which often merely meant that it fit my own views.
Most commentators have a radically imperfect view of what’s going on. Those on the inside, including at the very top, know more, though less than one might think. Government resembles nothing so much as the party game of telephone, in which stories relayed at second, third or fourth hand become increasingly garbled as they crisscross other stories of a similar kind (”That may be what the Russian national security adviser said to the undersecretary for political affairs on Wednesday, but it’s not how the Turkish foreign minister described the Syrian view to our ambassador to NATO on Thursday.”) Add to this the effects of secrecy induced by security concerns, as well as by the natural desire to play one’s cards close to one’s vest, and the result is a well-nigh impenetrable murk of policy making.
But it’s even murkier on the outside. “Occasionally an outsider may provide perspective; almost never does he have enough knowledge to advise soundly on tactical moves,” Henry Kissinger once remarked. Or as the White House correspondent of one major national newspaper once confided to me, “We really don’t have a clue what’s going on in there.”
Cheery thought: Cohen was describing the last few years of the Bush administration. The Geithner blunder is in the first few days of the Obama administration. The unforced errors are probably going to compound.
Drudge is headlining this article, where President Obama got pissy because a reporter asked him a question.
“Ahh, see,” he said, “I came down here to visit. See this is what happens. I can’t end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I’m going to get grilled every time I come down here.”
Hmm. Would the press corp rather bathe in the Glow of The One, or do their damned job and ask questions? Money says it’s the former. Kudos, though, to Obama for putting the question in such a blunt, Chicago style.
Pressed further by the Politico reporter about his Pentagon nominee, William J. Lynn III, Obama turned more serious, putting his hand on the reporter’s shoulder and staring him in the eye.
“Alright, come on” he said, with obvious irritation in his voice. “We will be having a press conference at which time you can feel free to [ask] questions. Right now, I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself to you guys – that’s all I was trying to do.”
The president was quickly saved by a cameraman in the room who called out: “I’d like to say it one more time: ‘Mr. President.’ ”
Gee, wonder who that guy voted for. It’s all a bunch of glad handing and buddy-buddy backslapping between Obama and the press corps.
Apollo posted this at 1:32 AM HKT on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 as Journalism
Obama’s unprecedented power derives from the astonishing events of the past four months that have made indistinct the line between public and private sectors. Neither the public as currently alarmed, nor Congress as currently constituted, nor the Constitution as currently construed is an impediment to hitherto unimagined executive discretion in allocating vast portions of the nation’s wealth.
Tom posted this at 12:16 PM HKT on Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 as Bailoutistan
the largest deal in history for a closer who was eligible for arbitration for the first time.
What the hell kind of record is that? Real records are things like the fastest 100M Sprint or 50M Freestyle swim. This reminds me of the parody from Mr. Baseball.
LAST SEASON, I led this team in ninth-inning doubles in the month of August!
I watched the inauguration. What a petty display that was.
1. Too much DiFi! Seriously, we don’t need an announcer welcoming us to the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States. I’m pretty sure most people were aware of what it was when they tuned in or waited for hours in the freezing cold to watch. “What, this isn’t a replay of Super Bowl XVII? I’m changing channels!” Also, we didn’t need a speech from a senator telling us what a great occasion it was and trying to find as many ways to beat around the bush that somehow electing Barrack Obama was special. Properly understood, a great occasion shouldn’t involve its participants telling everybody how great the occasion is. But for those of you who weren’t sure what you were watching, or who were unsure of whether this occasion was in any way special, fortunately the good people of California gave us Diane Feinstein to explain it all.
2. How did Aretha Franklin’s hat make it past security? And who thought it a good idea to involve a woman who defines the word “diva” as a side show? Plainly she was going to make any involvement all about her, as her ridiculous hat and ostentatious performance of My Country ‘Tis of Thee – a very humble patriotic song – proved. It’s The Aretha Franklin Show, with special guest star Barrack Obama!
3. A John Williams arrangement of Simple Gifts? WTF? I get the point, it’s four fantastic musicians performing a piece by a fantastic arranger, specifically arranged to show off the talents of four fantastic musicians. But what did Simple Gifts have to do with this occasion? This seemed like a complete non sequitur whose sole purpose was to show off how good John Williams and those four musicians were.
4. Why was Rick Warren blubbering about who his personal savior is? It’s The Rick Warren Hour of Faith, with special guest star Barrack Obama!
5. How petty do you have to be to denigrate and take pot shots at your predecessor right after you’ve being sworn in as president? You’re going to have the next four years as president, and one day you’re not going to be as popular as you are at this moment. I’m sure, whenever your successor is being sworn in and you’re sitting there powerless in front of millions, you’ll appreciate not having someone who has no conception of how hard the job is, but who is suddenly the most powerful man in the world, talk about you like you’re chopped liver. Campaign’s over, dillweed; try to act presidential.
6. That poet chick was terrible. Simply, utterly, terrible. To fit in with my overall theme, I’d like to call her performance petty – and, truly, it was self-absorbed to an unseemly degree – but the most appropriate word for it is “terrible.”
7. I stopped watching partway through the terrible poetry crap, but evidently the guy doing the closing prayer prayed for a world where non-white people got a fair shake and white people recognized right from wrong. You get to speak at the inauguration of the first black president – didn’t you listen to DiFi tell us how important and historic this event was? – and you think it’s appropriate to trot out your race war hobby horse? Petty.
Petty, petty, petty. A bunch of very small people on a very big stage.
Apollo posted this at 6:20 PM HKT on Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 as That's Not Change!
The remarkable ability of Barack Obama to allow people to look at him and see themselves knows no bounds. The Haitian-born Governor General of Canada thinks Obama is just like her:
“I think that without having met and talked to Mr. Obama, he knows very well Haiti’s story,” she said.
What happened in Haiti, where in 1804 the country’s black African and creole population freed itself from slavery by overthrowing the colonial regime, was similar to Obama’s election experience, in that Haiti’s revolution was also “in the name of freedom, equality and fraternity,” she said.
I think there’s plenty of room so that, without wishing success to his liberal policies, I can hope the Obama administration turns out better than Haiti.
Drudge is headlining the fact that Californians’ state income tax refunds are going to be delayed because the government is running out of cash. One can only presume that as the cash situation there gets worse, the delays will grow longer. To the law student in me, this sounds pretty capricious and I wonder whether there’s any precedent establishing a right to a timely refund of overpayments: that is, can a disgruntled refund nonrecipient sue?
But fortunately my legal education is not so powerful yet as to overcome my sense of justice. Californians have been voting themselves down the crapper for most of the last 35 years, and in a democracy the people always get precisely the government they deserve. Every time there’s some sort of minidisaster like this in California, I’m curious of where the breaking point is that they start voting for different people. But who am I to judge? If they’re fine with the nation’s third highest unemployment rate, second highest tax burden, a dilapidated infrastructure that hasn’t been improved in over a generation, and an overall situation where more Americans are leaving California than moving into it, I guess that’s fine with me.
Texas’ fiscal troubles are nowhere near those of most other states because of the state’s economy and money left unspent by the Legislature in 2007, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst [, who sets the legislative agenda,] said in a statement.
“Today we have the funds necessary to deliver essential services instead of a deficit like dozens of states. That’s why we must continue the conservative fiscal policies, including maintaining a reasonable reserve in the Rainy Day Fund, that helped put us in this position,” he said.
This is the fourth state I’ve lived in, and the only one where there wasn’t constant talk of state budget emergencies. God bless federalism, and may He keep the Californians away from here.
Apollo posted this at 8:56 AM HKT on Saturday, January 17th, 2009 as Amer-I-Can!
Over at The New Nixon, some anecdotes about transitioning from the presidency. My favorite:
Long after nightfall on January 20, 1969, Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson arrived at their 330-acre Texas ranch. LBJ had been an ex-President for just a few hours. Throughout the day friends had gathered – first at Andrews Air Force Base, then at Bergstrom Air Force Base in Texas. They showed up to say thank you to the man who had ascended to the presidency in those chaotic Dallas moments more than five years before – and who less than a year before had pulled himself out of the race for a final term in the White House.
One of the first tell-tale signs that life was going to be comparatively perk-free was when they came upon their massive collection of luggage that had been left in the carport that evening, with no one around to carry the bags. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson laughed. Ladybird then uttered a phrase that captures what all former presidents probably come to understand as they take their first steps as former presidents:
“The coach has turned back into the pumpkin and all the mice have run away.”