Just Cast my Puma Vote!

Posted: November 4, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: John McCain, New Orleans, No Obama, PUMA | Tags: , , , , , | 5 Comments

Those of you that know me, know I live in the ninth ward in New Orleans. I live in the inner city and we have the usual inner city problems including gang violence, a lot of drug-related crimes, and not enough money to rebuild our infrastructure and schools just for regular wear and tear. Let’s not even go  into the Hurricane Katrina wear and tear. My neighborhood is close to the river, so when the city filled up, we stayed high and dry.  However, they still haven’t rebuilt our police station.   We also don’t have banks or grocery stores any more.  That’s the upper ninth.  The lower ninth has less, if that’s possible.

I vote in the local fire house.  It was built in the 1920s and the old stables that used to house the horses that pulled the street car named desire and the fire carriages stand silently next to it.  There are two precincts that vote in this building.  I see the same little southern church ladies each time I vote.  The know me because I vote in every election–even the odd ones with just a charter change or replacement for the latest politician caught up and drug off to jail.  That’s the thing that makes me most sad about where I live at the moment. 

 My state senator just resigned for laundering money.  Two school board members and a popular city councilman at large are sitting in jail for bribery.  The entire country knows about Congressman Dollar Bill Jefferson.  He looks like he’ll be re-elected pretty much along straight racial lines.  Black folk seem to be mighty forgiving down here. It seems they’ll take any black face over a Hispanic, white or other face no matter what the circumstances.  The mistrust of white hegemony makes me feel like the Jim Crow Laws disappeared just yesterday. Black politicians get a wide berth. I’ve learned that lesson over and over down here.  In fact, our Mayor Ray Nagin lives more in Dallas than he does here. He comes in late on Monday and is out of here by Thursday night.  That says something about the living conditions in your city when your own mayor won’t live in it full time.  I have to say that I voted for him the first time, but I didn’t make that mistake again.  We call him Mayor Na-GONE for a very good reason.  I also think that he’ll eventually run for the Jefferson seat once the federal court finally throws the book at Ol’ Dollar bill.  My guess is he’ll be just as worthless of a congressman as he was as a mayor until they wind up having to redraw the state of Louisiana to eliminate one congressional district.  Then it might be another ball game. 

Until then, we’ll suffer because very few of our leaders actually care about the city or the state it is in.  They care about their political career and ability to live large.  We’ll also suffer because a lot of the electorate thinks the only qualification one needs here to be effective is the right demographic.  It has got me questioning the nature of racism these days.  I think it’s all about who is in power and abusing that power for the benefit of ‘your own’.  I now see that folks that once suffered from this can inflict it without much thought.

It makes voting disheartening when you’re actually interested in good government.  I get tired of watching one person after another get hauled off to jail.  I guess ex-Governor Edwards is getting a lot of new company.  There’s plenty of folks from the various Louisiana political machines still running for office as well as sitting in jails right now.  If you’ve never lived in a realm of political machines, there is no way you know what that does to the folks on the outs.  It’s thuggery plain and simple.

Thuggery, abusing racial identities, and machines brings me to the topic of voting in the National Election for obvious reasons. I wore my orange sweater to show my unity with Pumas voting all over our country.  I was really surprised that I didn’t have to wait in line.  There were only two suprises awaiting me.  The first one was this:  after voting election after election, the church ladies had this conversation before I entered the booth.  The one whose job it always is to clear out the previous vote, turned to the others and asked:  “Should I ask her the question?’  Since voting here has become extremely routine, this gave me a bit of a jolt.  The ladies nodded and I was asked “Democrat or Republican”?  Since there are not two seperate ballots for this election, I found this a very odd question but smiled and said “Democrat”.  I secretly smiled and thought, if you’re asking me if i voted Democrat at the top of the ticket, the answer would’ve been no.  I guess folks are still thinking we will vote along party lines.

The next thing that happened when I walked out of the fire station was also unique for me.  I was asked to fill out an exit poll form for the news agencies.  I never vote really early in the morning as a rule but I was trying to avoid lines so I got out the door the minute I’d walked the dog.  It was a simple one sheet form with the logos of nearly all the news affiliates across the top.  I was asked the usual demographic questions, age, sex, religion, income level, party affiliation, and education level.  I was also asked which issues most concerned me ( I said energy policy) and when I made my decision to vote (within the last three days).  I was asked to rank what I thought of the George Bush presidency. (Disaster wasn’t available so I had to settle for saying I was extremely dissatisfied). I said I was very worried about the future of the economy–another situation I had to rank.  There were also the candidate listing of President, Senator, and House Rep. I put McCain, Landrieu, and Moreno.  So when they are slicing and dicing the last minute voters … and they find the democrats for McCain in the exit polls, you will find me in that number.  I hope you find me representin’ in the ninth ward for a lot of you out there.

Just Survive …

Posted: October 12, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: U.S. Economy | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

I’ve really wanted to talk about the financial crisis more.  It’s been hard to write about because things on the ground are changing so quickly. The deal right now is just to survive the entire thing. Times are odd and the odd are getting odder.

The oddest of the the odds is that there are more than just one economic positions being borrowed from Hillary’s plan by BOTH the surviving presidential contenders.  Both of these guys are completely clueless on the economy and it’s really showing. They are like little boys in a class room cheating off that one little girl with glasses that has all the answers.

This week,  Senator McCain became the liberal by suggesting a plan similar to Hillary’s suggestion of some kind of HOLC like the one that bought up bad mortgages during the depression.    Everything he’s been suggesting is so populist that I keep pinching myself to see if I’m actually awake. The Sunday morning talk shows were filled up with democratic talking heads trying to explain that buying folks’ homes at their underwater positions and renegotiating them is going to help banks more than the home owner.  This program is basically a re-tooled Roosevelt New Deal idea that is geared specifically to folks living in their homes, not the speculators. If you were all for the banks, the agency would bail out ALL mortgages, not just firsts for home owners. As a progressive, I have to say, for Democrats to be taking a stand against this position JUST because McCain introduced  into the debate and Obama just says no, is a little, well, odd, to me.

Another odder than odd policy suggestion is Obama’s idea to let judges work out families’ mortgage problems in bankruptcy court.  This is probably a good long term solution, but wouldn’t it be nice to stop these families from showing up in the bankruptcy court?  I’m actually wondering if prevention of a problem is something a lawyer can even wrap their brains around.  I mean, they make money from exacerbating problems once they’ve gotten huge in a court case, not from problem prevention so is this why he’s stumping for this at a time when short term solutions are required?  Even my first year economic students couldn’t figure out why you’d want to let the bankruptcy court work the foreclosures out.  Why not try to prevent the foreclosures? 

The next thing is the Pelosi hint at yet another stimulus package.  Just about any one ought to realize now that the first one really didn’t do much but hold the recession off a few months and make folks think of other things.  While it’s a nice thing to get $600 in the mail, the government can’t control what that money gets spent on.  It’s one thing if you take the money and buy something American, but most folks either use it to pay down debt which is not the least bit stimulatory or they go buy something that stimulates the Chinese economy. Unless you create a no buying at Walmart rule, this is nothing but another make them feel better while we figure out what to do plan.

 Economists have shown empirically with both the Ford and Bush rebates, that rebates are not the way to stimulate the economy because they don’t have the desired results.  They usually just exacerbate the debt and make folks feel a little better.  They are not game changers.  You need underlying changes to the tax codes to do that or you need the government doing spending on something that might have a chance at creating jobs–like building roads.  This is another Obama suggestion. The problem with infrastructure spending at this point is that it takes a long time to get through the system.  It is needed, but how long will it take to get the program going?  Infrastructure improvements are an important part of both short run economic stimulus and long run economic growth, but it’s a little late to start suggesting these things now that we’re in a full blown financial crisis and down turn in the real economy.  They’d have to be coming OUT of the hopper right now to do any real good; not going into the hopper some time ‘soon’.  Again, this is a preventative type of action once you see things are slowing down.  It wouldn’t be soon enough at this point.  This again leads me to believe that Obama doesn’t seem to grok the concept of preventative and when it’s useful. I was suggesting this a YEAR ago as a way of preventing a recession and slowing job loss when it does happen.  It’s a little futile now.  Hillary was suggesting this a year ago too.  That and her green jobs initiative were great suggestions for the situation at that time.

Which brings me to another odder than odd.  Senator Obama is now wanting some kind of tax credit to home owners for higher energy costs.  What I’m waiting to hear is how this is different from just giving every one a tax holiday from gas taxes except you have to wait until the beginning of the year to file for it.  Again, every time you talk about a one time deal, even if it is a tax thing, every one knows it’s a one time deal and it doesn’t really change their behavior.  Any stimulus that comes from it tends to be very short-lived.  Plus, by the time any tax credits would take effect it will be the spring.  Not one economist will probably stick their head out to say what kind of things will be needed by then.  It doesn’t make sense to try to do that now.

Right now, Henry Paulson is the most important man in Washington.  It’s not the President and it’s not these two candidates.  The second most important man is Ben Bernanke.  Again, odder than odd because neither of these men are elected and both of these men may have very short tenures at the helm. However, I’m just hoping Dubya takes some time off at the ranch.  I know I can’t wish that one for every one up for election right now, but I really would like it.   It is in the hands of Paulson and Bernanke until January.  I’m okay with that because Paulson, btw, is not what the Republicans or the Democrats spin would make him to be. 

Paulson has always been odd for both a Wall Street and Washington insider.  Paulson is a man that grew up on a farm in Illinois and got into Dartmouth the old fashioned way–good grades.  He wasn’t a legacy of any one unlike our current crop of candidates AND the president.  His nickname is “the Hammer” because he’s seen as relentless.  He is also a devout Christian Scientist who does not drink or smoke and goes back to Illinois on the weekends. He did this even when he was on Wall Street.  He lacks ideology and has been criticized by the right of being selling out free-market principles  and on the left for bailing out his Wall Street buddies.  I always consider being criticized by both sides a good thing in a public servant, but then that’s me.

Now we seen a joint effort from G-7 countries to contain the contagion.  Almost all of these plans have to do some with some kind of nationalization of banks.   This includes McCain’s suggestion to get the taxpayer ownership which oddly enough was snuck into the bailout package, unknown to many.  I’m wondering where THAT came from.  Perhaps we’ll find some one taking the credit for that soon, but it seems it might actually be some one like Republican Senator Arlen Specter.  Again, odd, odd and odder.

Meanwhile, my strategy and tactics are just to survive with my job and my loans paid down. I’m also trying to put a little money aside in the bank.   I’m trying not to look at my 401k plan because it’s telling me that I will die at the podium at this point.  I haven’t changed anything about it except all my new contributions are going into bonds.  That’s my suggestion to every one right now, don’t panic, we’ve been here before, we just don’t know how long it’s going to last.  I actually do have faith in Paulson and Bernanke but not so much in ANYONE running for election right now.  Right now,  McCain is sounding like the Roosevelt liberal right now and Obama is sounding very moderate so turning to politics for economics signals right now just has me checking my hands to determine which is left and which is right.  I still know which way up and down are and that we’re in for more downs than ups for awhile.  Other than that, I have NO idea what to say other than it’s an odd time right now and the odd are just getting odder.

Bottom line:  Just try to survive.