We may not have John Edwards to kick around anymore – though that hasn’t stopped us from putting the occasional boot into his backside, has it? – but he did leave us with a paradigm that remains useful in surveying the political landscape circa November 2009. Forget, for the moment, Edwards’ rhetoric about the rich and the poor, and focus instead on the two wildly disparate narratives about the nation’s politics that have emerged over the past 12 months. On one side are those are still living in Bamalot, who see slow but steady progress toward fixing enormous problems in the economy, health care and foreign policy; on the other are those who see nothing but dollar bills flying out the windows of the Capitol. On one side are those who remain quietly, but fiercely proud of what America accomplished last autumn; on the other are those who loudly trumpet their conviction (or who put up with people who remain convinced) that the president himself is not an American.
On Tuesday, in a couple of states, one side sat contentedly on their asses and did nothing; the other harnessed themselves into an angry, energized mini-electorate that drove to the polls and turned their governors’ mansions from blue to red.
There was something deeply ironic about HBO’s decision to debut its new documentary, By the People: The Election of Barack Obama, on Tuesday evening. At the same hour on every news channel, a debate was raging as to whether Obama’s “movement for change” had hit a roadblock with the Republican victories in New Jersey and Virginia. But over on pay cable, it was Decision ’08 all over again as the Edward Norton-produced doc replayed the goings-on behind the scenes of Obama’s primary and general-election victories – and portrayed his opponents as little more than flies to be swatted along the path to the inevitable.
So, yes, the dichotomy was ironic – but it was also a nice metaphor for Tuesday’s outcome. Obama’s voters, feeling like they did their job last year and remaining pretty happy with the way things have gone since then, stayed home and watched TV, while the unhappy folks dragged their butts to the polls and changed the status quo. Such is democracy in America – particularly in these off-off-year elections, when the voters of New Jersey and (particularly) Virginia love to send Bronx cheers to the party in power. (more…)
The latest trend in the “something for nothing on the Internet” game is the pay-to-bid auction site. The auction operator lets such items as cash and gift cards go at prices far below face value because all the bidders, even the losers, have paid to place their bids. Some of these sites claim to be helping people beat the recession. One, PsychoAuction.com, even has a complicated back story involving a founder, Nick Dickreuter, who was let go when Lehman Brothers failed. According to the PR version of the story, Dickreuter lost all respect for money and now gives things away online.
Except, of course, that Dickreuter clearly respects money. Hs site stands to make a lot of it from those who don’t understand how giveaway auctions work. It’s not like Dickreuter took a vow of poverty and went out to serve the poor.
PsychoAuction isn’t the only site following a pay-to-bid model. DFWbid.com is another that has been mentioned on different bargain-hunting Web sites. The pitch is that you can get a $25 gift card for $8; the reality is that a lot of people spend money to bid without winning. (more…)
It’s darn near impossible for an investment manager to beat the market once you adjust performance for risk and fees. Every quarter, when Morningstar shows its fund reports, more than half of all funds prove to be laggards after adjustments. We all know that Warren Buffett can beat the market because he’s pretty much the only person who can. Bernie Madoff lied. And Raj Rajaratnam allegedly traded on inside information.
Alleged Inside Trader
Even then, it does not seem to have helped him much. The Galleon Group of hedge funds, which Rajaratnam managed, has shut down in the wake of insider trading charges against Rajaratnam and several associates. However, it doesn’t look like the funds’ performance was all that great, so Rajaratnam and company may base their defense on the fact that they did not make excess profits. One of the charges is that Galleon made $500,000 trading in options in Google after receiving a tip from an employee of Google’s investor relations company that earnings would be lower than expected. To make that profit, an inside trader would have to identify informants, figure out how to reach them, compensate them, act on the information, and take the risk that it was good information. These steps involve time and expense that cut into the profits from insider trading. The profits have to be huge to overcome the costs, and they may not be big enough to compensate the inside traders for the risk. And then, of course, the information has to be good. A wise inside trader would probably sit on the first few tips just to see if the tipper has good information. But even a tipper with mostly good information will have a few duds. (more…)
Now is the autumn of our discontent … at least for us Los Angeles baseball fans. Last night the Dodgers were polished off by the ruthless Phillies, their forever-teetering staff of pitchers finally crumbling in the face of Ryan Howard and that goddamned Victorino. Tonight the Angels may suffer the same fate – and even if they survive long enough to fly back east for the weekend, the Yankees will have their $161 million man waiting.
Which $161 million man? Now, there’s a question that could only refer to the Yankees. The one I’m talking about is CC Sabathia, the team’s most recent nine-figure pitching purchase, who has already shut the Angels down twice in this ALCS. But I could also be talking about first baseman Mark Teixeira, whom the Yankees plucked off the Angels’ roster last offseason for $180 million and who has repeatedly robbed his former teammates in the field this week (though his offensive numbers are pathetic). Of course, I might otherwise be talking about Derek Jeter, who’s nearing the end of his own $189 million contract. And as for Alex Rodriguez … well, he’ll earn $161 million in about the time it takes me to finish this column.
At least A-Rod is earning his salary (for once) this postseason. Still, like most baseball fans who don’t root for the Yankees, I have a hard time watching the Bombers without becoming queasy from the tsunami of dollar signs. In fact, Sabathia, Teixeira and A-Rod have ceased to function for me as human beings; their uniform numbers may as well be replaced with contract numbers – 161, 180, and 275, respectively. (Jeter gets a pass, since he came up through the farm system back in the ’90s, but the mind reels at the thought of the Yankees’ other free-agent acquisitions this decade – including tonight’s starting pitcher, number 82, otherwise known as A.J. Burnett.) If you add up the number of dollars the Steinbrenners have committed to their Big Three free agents through the end of Sabathia’s contract in 2016 – a total of $616 million – you get a number larger than the expected cumulative payrolls of 18 of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams over that span, even accounting for inflation. (more…)
The academic world is its own little terrarium that ends up affecting the broader cultural ecosystem. Universities are relatively (though not completely) removed from the economic cycle, so they tend to be stable employers. Students spend their three, four, or five years immersed in new ideas, meeting new people, and managing a set of new responsibilities. Faculty members do research, teach students, and talk to other people all day in an attempt to find out new things. It all filters into the world that the rest of us live in, although not always directly.
College students often take up causes, some of which they continue to pursue after graduation. A popular cause is the environment. Does student activism make a difference? The annual College Sustainability Report Card, released early this month, attempts to measure the influence of students and others in making campuses more sustainable. The report is prepared by the staff of the Responsible Endowments Institute, an organization that evaluated campus governance and endowment investing and is supported by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. This is the third year of the study, which now tracks the 300 colleges with the largest endowments as well as another 32 campuses that asked to participate.
The study evaluates campus facilities, student life, and endowment policies to grade different schools. Campuses can pick up points for green buildings, bringing organic produce into the dining halls, or committing part of the endowment to investments in sustainable technologies. The researchers focus on the money for two reasons. First, it gives some clues about the administration’s approach to transparency and engagement. Second, the more money a college has, the more it can spend on such things as LEED-certified buildings and alternative-fuel shuttle buses. It’s not necessarily a surprise that Harvard has an A- (the highest possible grade this year) and Youngstown State University is a D+. (more…)
Now here’s a fast-moving story: Just a week ago, word leaked that Rush Limbaugh was part of an ownership group hoping to bid on the woebegone St. Louis Rams. Within three business days, the head of the players union, a current owner and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell had all come forward with essentially the same message: “Like hell you will!” By yesterday, ESPN had confirmed that Rush was being dropped from the bidding group. And just like that…
Well, what, exactly? What has been accomplished with this brief minuet of misplaced ambition and swift smackdown? For one thing, Rush’s media profile clearly has bumped up an extra tick, as if he needed it – though he’s clearly sought it, considering his eagerness to sit down for an interview this week with the sworn enemy of all conservatives, the NBC/MSNBC juggernaut. (Maybe he felt the sticky, Nyquil-inebriated breath of Time cover boy Glenn Beck down his neck.) Meanwhile, the NFL suddenly – and, for the most part, unwittingly – has found itself politicized, with the usual crackpots insisting over the past week that they would never watch pro football again if Rush got the team (or if he didn’t, depending on whether the pot was cracked on the left or right side). “I will NEVER go to a game OF ANY TEAM, WATCH ON TV, OR LISTEN ON RADIO to one more NFL game EVER,” wrote one typical rantboy, apparently convinced he could bring down the monolith all on his own. Just in case you were wondering which side this all-caps screamer was on, his message twice dared the NFL to “exhibit bias” against Rush’s “equal right” to buy a team. (Thus we arrive at a third result, this one inevitable: Conservatives now have one more reason to feel aggrieved, and one more excuse for twisting the language of civil liberties to suit their agitation.)
All those outcomes are ephemeral – we’ll forget about them as soon as the next temporary outrage presents itself. But we’re also left with a lesson in resume building – more specifically, a primer in careers that don’t function particularly well as precursors for (and may even serve as disqualifiers for) other careers. Indeed, this episode may well serve as a What Color Is My Parachute? for hyperpartisans on both sides of the political divide. (Note to Rush: the colors of your parachute apparently aren’t blue and gold.) (more…)
The Author of this piece is pushing her own book, so no money changed hands.
Last week, the Federal Trade Commission announced it would fine bloggers as much as $11,000 for violating its guides to the use of testimonials in advertising. The rules are designed to ensure that customers have a fair basis for buying a product. The basic rules are that if someone is compensated, that should be made clear; if a celebrity endorses a product, he or she should actually use it. Most of us didn’t want to know about Bob Dole‘s Viagra prescription or Lita Ford’s favorite ball gag (NSFW), but at least we know they are telling the truth about their preferences. The full details are on the FTC Web site in all their bureaucratic glory.
This creates some sticky problems for people blogging about books, movies, and music. You know, folks like us here at Popdose and our readers, at least some of whom are artists looking to get attention for their work. I can’t speak for everyone involved with Popdose, as that is a job for Jeff Giles. But, yes, we receive books, MP3s, DVDs, and bottles of tequila to review. We also write reviews about things that we bought with our money. I write book reviews for Barron’s, and those books are usually sent to me through my editor. Sometimes, though, he has misplaced the book or can’t remember if the publicist sent him a copy, and he doesn’t want to ask the publicist to send out a new one, so I go to the bookstore and buy it.
Like most reviewers, I quickly end up with more free books than I can possibly read. I usually end up dropping these books off at random places through Bookcrossing or donating them to the thrift shop. Some reviewers sell their excess copies to used bookstores or online, turning them into cash that way, although I have heard tell of writers who use something close to their real name on Amazon being shunned by authors who feel cheated out of royalties. (more…)
President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, a decision that instantly created controversy. For one thing, Tina Fey wasn’t even nominated. For another, Obama’s been president less than nine months, and had only been in office for 12 days when his nomination was submitted.
In case you’re wondering who nominated him, NobelPrize.org states, “The names of the nominees and other information about the nominations cannot be revealed until 50 years later.” So if you’re an anti-birther or anti-taxer or anti-tolerater, the answer is: the Forces of Evil. (And if you’re wondering how I know about Tina Fey, sorry, but I’m not sharing my peyote with you.)
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which chooses the winner each year, explained that “Obama has as a president created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play.” According to the Associated Press, committee member and Norwegian politician Aagot Valle added that this year’s prize should be seen as “support and a commitment for Obama.”
The president, for his part, was humble about his victory. “I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformative figures that have been honored by this prize,” he said. “I will accept this award as a call to action.”
But just a few hours before Obama’s victory was announced, he stood idly by as NASA tried to blow up the moon! From what I can gather, the U.S. space agency’s $79 million rocket was supposed to poke a giant hole in the Alan Shepard Memorial Golf Course, at which point all the water inside the moon would rain down on Earth — because the moon is up above and we’re down below and that’s how gravity works — thereby solving our planet’s impending water crisis.
As a wired citizen of our not-terribly-United States, you’ve no doubt received your share of cranky, mass-distributed partisan e-mails. I get them all the time, and my favorites (a phrase I use here ironically) are the ones that purport to show the differences between two viewpoints by offering the best possible description of one side and the worst possible slander of the other. The preponderance of these seem to come from the right side of our political discourse – the side that’s much better at name-calling and manipulating good ideas to sound like terrible ones. (But there I go again…)
One might think I have better things to do than take personal offense when one of these anonymous hatefests appears in my inbox … but, no, I can never seem to let these things pass without a response. Sometimes I offer a reasoned debunking of whatever bilge is contained in the diatribe, but too often I crank up the flamethrower and launch a torrent of my own uncivil rantings. The latter was the case recently, and as soon as I hit “send” I regretted my contribution to the coarsening of the national dialogue … even if it was just between myself and a friend.
And then I thought it might be interesting to conduct a bit of a thought experiment. (Actually, it’s just a cut-and-paste experiment, but whatever.) What if we compared only the “best” views of both sides, and ignored the “worst” views? Might that reflect the true essence of the body politic? Or, alternatively, is a comparison of the “worsts” more representative of how blue sees red, and vice versa? (more…)
Given the massive Federal deficit, it’s a sure bet that taxes are going up sooner rather than later. Before the Teabaggaz start posting, I think we can all agree that cutting taxes while starting a war is a bad idea. Stuff costs money, whether we’re talking about body armor for our warfighters in Afghanistan or Under Armour shirts. But the problem is what to do about it, because we have to fund our deficit somehow. However, we also have a really fragile economy. If the government raises taxes, will it crowd out the investment and spending needed to create jobs?
The idea behind cutting taxes in the Reagan era was that if less money went to taxes, more would be used for private sector investing, and that the private-sector investing would generate so much economic growth that the loss in revenue from the tax cut would be short-lived. Eventually the economy would expand so much that more taxes would come in at the lower rate because of the larger base. Private-sector investing did increase; the U.S. remains the strongest capital market in the world. It didn’t increase by enough to offset the tax cuts, and part of Reagan’s economic legacy was an increased Federal deficit.
Money can be spent on taxes, consumption, savings, and investment. (Paying down debt is a form of savings.) Money that goes to one purpose cannot be used for another. Â Money that the government takes in from taxes can also be used for consumption, savings, or investment. War and Medicare are examples of government consumption spending (which may be on behalf of citizens). Paying down debt is a form of savings, and goodness knows that the government at all levels has plenty of debt to pay off. The government invests when it spends money on bridges, schools, airports, and the like. For accounting purposes, this is handled like consumption. (more…)
There was something deeply ironic about HBO’s decision to debut its new documentary, By the People: The Election of Barack Obama, on Tuesday evening. At the same hour on every news channel, a debate was raging as to whether Obama’s “movement for change” had hit a roadblock with the Republican victories in New Jersey and Virginia. But over on pay cable, it was Decision ’08 all over again as the Edward Norton-produced doc replayed the goings-on behind the scenes of Obama’s primary and general-election victories – and portrayed his opponents as little more than flies to be swatted along the path to the inevitable.
Which $161 million man? Now, there’s a question that could only refer to the Yankees. The one I’m talking about is CC Sabathia, the team’s most recent nine-figure pitching purchase, who has already shut the Angels down twice in this ALCS. But I could also be talking about first baseman Mark Teixeira, whom the Yankees plucked off the Angels’ roster last offseason for $180 million and who has repeatedly robbed his former teammates in the field this week (though his offensive numbers are pathetic). Of course, I might otherwise be talking about Derek Jeter, who’s nearing the end of his own $189 million contract. And as for Alex Rodriguez … well, he’ll earn $161 million in about the time it takes me to finish this column.
The academic world is its own little terrarium that ends up affecting the broader cultural ecosystem. Universities are relatively (though not completely) removed from the economic cycle, so they tend to be stable employers. Students spend their three, four, or five years immersed in new ideas, meeting new people, and managing a set of new responsibilities. Faculty members do research, teach students, and talk to other people all day in an attempt to find out new things. It all filters into the world that the rest of us live in, although not always directly.
Well, what, exactly? What has been accomplished with this brief minuet of misplaced ambition and swift smackdown? For one thing, Rush’s media profile clearly has bumped up an extra tick, as if he needed it – though he’s clearly sought it, considering his eagerness to sit down for an interview this week with the sworn enemy of all conservatives, the NBC/MSNBC juggernaut. (Maybe he felt the sticky, Nyquil-inebriated breath of Time cover boy Glenn Beck down his neck.) Meanwhile, the NFL suddenly – and, for the most part, unwittingly – has found itself politicized, with the usual crackpots insisting over the past week that they would never watch pro football again if Rush got the team (or if he didn’t, depending on whether the pot was cracked on the left or right side). “I will NEVER go to a game OF ANY TEAM, WATCH ON TV, OR LISTEN ON RADIO to one more NFL game EVER,” wrote one typical rantboy, apparently convinced he could bring down the monolith all on his own. Just in case you were wondering which side this all-caps screamer was on, his message twice dared the NFL to “exhibit bias” against Rush’s “equal right” to buy a team. (Thus we arrive at a third result, this one inevitable: Conservatives now have one more reason to feel aggrieved, and one more excuse for twisting the language of civil liberties to suit their agitation.)
In case you’re wondering who nominated him, NobelPrize.org states, “The names of the nominees and other information about the nominations cannot be revealed until 50 years later.” So if you’re an anti-birther or anti-taxer or anti-tolerater, the answer is: the Forces of Evil. (And if you’re wondering how I know about Tina Fey, sorry, but I’m not sharing my peyote with you.)
One might think I have better things to do than take personal offense when one of these anonymous hatefests appears in my inbox … but, no, I can never seem to let these things pass without a response. Sometimes I offer a reasoned debunking of whatever bilge is contained in the diatribe, but too often I crank up the flamethrower and launch a torrent of my own uncivil rantings. The latter was the case recently, and as soon as I hit “send” I regretted my contribution to the coarsening of the national dialogue … even if it was just between myself and a friend.
