Celebrity

Some wag once said: “A celebrity is someone who is famous for being famous.”  The most famous such “celebrity” in today’s America has to be Kim Kardashian.  Let there be no doubt, Ms. Kardashian is quite beautiful and quite sexy.  But 100,000 to 1,000,000 American women are as desirable as she is, so why is she famous and they not?  What did she do to become famous?  Another perfect example of this kind of celebrity is Paris Hilton, great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton, founder of an international hotel chain that bears his name.  Ms. Hilton can barely be called pretty, much less beautiful.  So what she did do to gain fame?  She put herself in the way of paparazzi until they noticed her barely bizarre behavior.  Kim Kardashian was smart enough to know who to latch onto.  There is the reason for Kardashian’s celebrity, she was a hanger-on of another “celebrity.”

So, what do really famous people do?  How do really famous people become famous?  Easy, they do something!  They achieve something (beyond looking good).  Bill Gates, Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Michael Jordan, Stephen Curry, Tom Brady, Muhammad Ali, Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford, Angelina Jolie, Barack Obama, even Donald Trump, they all did something and you all know what they did.  And you all know that they put in thousands of hours preparing for their achievement before they began to attract even a small measure of fame.  What did Kardashian do to get where she is?  Nothing, really.  She grabbed onto another celebrity’s coattails.

Taxes, Again

When will I stop writing the same damn thing about taxes?  When enough Americans really GET what I am trying to say.  Voting for the guy who promises to cut your taxes is the same thing as voting to have a (bigger) Budget Deficit, which is the same thing as voting to explode the National Debt.  There is a reason that we have a nearly unimaginable $20 trillion National Debt: for 35 years we have not raised enough taxes to cover what we as a nation have bought.  Voting for a tax cut is the same thing as choosing not to pay down your unpaid credit card balance, the same thing as choosing not to pay for what you bought last month.  This essay will examine the sometimes surprising consequences of low tax rates, which include that they don’t make us happier and they don’t make us more free either.

The Day After

It's official: President-Elect Trump!

Note to the reader: I began this post the day after the ascension of Donald Trump to the presidency became clear.  Watching the results as they unfolded on Tuesday night was unsettling.  I did not vote for Hillary Clinton (of COURSE I voted!  And if you have read me at all, you should know that I consider our de facto two-party system an abomination) but the idea that Donald Trump might become President was very … troubling.  Never in our history, at least in MY lifetime, has a candidate been so unfit for the job: personally, politically, internationally and ethically.

The Electoral College

I have never written about the Electoral College before because I was not sure that I disapproved of it.  Its initial reason for being was to give the small states some extra power, which when one considers states instead of voters is not necessarily a bad idea.  It also undercut a direct democracy, which all of our Founding Fathers wanted to do.  Of course, the reason that folks want to do away with it today is that it is not “one person, one vote,” which bothers me some but not that much as I think that some folks ought not to vote at all (yes, there is someone out here who does NOT want everyone voting, at least not until they are prepared to vote, are responsible enough to vote).

Building the Wall

I sometimes wonder just how long Americans can be so stupid, so foolish?  Which Americans?  All of us.

Why do Mexicans and other Latinos risk life and limb to get to the United States?  Is this a difficult question?  Because there are jobs to be had, low-skill jobs, jobs that can be performed by persons who do not speak English, jobs that pay less than any Minimum Wage (if any are in effect in that state), jobs that pay so little that they can’t even compete with Unemployment Insurance or Welfare, but finally jobs that pay MORE than illegals would be paid if they stayed in their home countries.  Laws that penalize illegal immigrants are also written to penalize the companies that hire them, but these sections of the law are rarely enforced or the penalties are so slight that it is just a small cost of doing business.  If we really wanted to end illegal immigration at the source, we would come down on those who hired them, those who want them here in the first place.  We don’t need a wall, all we need is to end the incentive to come here.  This problem suffers from the same bad thinking as illegal drugs law enforcement: we go after the users who are really victims, instead of the suppliers, the really bad guys who profit from the illicit trade in drugs.  95% of law enforcement’s time and treasure is spent chasing the little fish while the big fish swim away free, and fat!

Pro-Life and Pro-Choice

The Pro-Life position believes that a) human life begins at conception, b) abortion is a sin, and c) the sin of abortion should always have criminal consequences – a prison term – for the aborting woman and/or the aborting physician, at the national or state level.  The Pro-Choice position is indifferent about a) and b) and is only really concerned with c), the question of the criminalization of abortion (should a woman have a legal right to choose, or not, an abortion, free of legal restraint?).  For modern Americans, the Supreme Court decision, Roe v Wade, defines the Pro-Choice position, as women are free to have an abortion for the first 90 days after conception (even though any state may criminalize abortion 90 days after conception, and the federal government will criminalize abortion 180 days after conception).  Roe v Wade does not “approve” of abortion any more than the repeal of Prohibition approved of the consumption of alcohol; it only made it legal, i.e., an act without legal consequences.  Pro-Choice people do not “like” abortion, they just want it to be safe and legal.  The key distinction between Pro-Life and Pro-Choice is: do you want to imprison the woman who has an abortion in her first 90 days?  If you do not, you agree with Roe v Wade and you are really Pro-Choice, even if you call yourself Pro-Life, even if you vote Pro-Life.  I will wager that there are millions, if not tens of millions, of Americans who call themselves Pro-Life but who are really Pro-Choice.  But I have no hard evidence to back me up.  

The politics of abortion, complete in one paragraph of 265 words.

Businessmen Presidents

This post is not about President-elect Trump but it was in part inspired by him, and by the next most recent Republican candidate for President, Mitt Romney.  This post is about businessmen as Presidents.

A Strong Dollar -- A Socratic Dialogue

“A strong dollar is a good thing, right?”

“Yes, sure.”

“Wrong.  But I think that you meant to agree with the statement, ‘a strong dollar is good for America, good for Americans,’ right?”

“Yes, exactly, that is what I meant to agree with.”

“Well, wrong there too.”

“A strong dollar is not good for us?  It is only common sense that a strong dollar will benefit Americans, so why not?”

“Well, a strong dollar benefits some Americans and it burdens other Americans.  For example, a strong dollar encourages American travel overseas, as our dollar will go farther than normal.  So, it also benefits the travel industry that specializes in foreign travel.  But it hurts American tourism as now our tourism is more expensive for foreigners.  In addition, a strong dollar benefits firms that import foreign merchandise as these items are now less expensive.  But it hurts exporting companies who sell American products that are now more expensive overseas than normal.  A strong dollar benefits retailers like Walmart that sell cheap foreign-made products, now even cheaper, and if those cost benefits are passed onto consumers it benefits them, too.  On the other hand, it hurts companies that manufacture goods for a foreign market and it also hurts workers that are employed by these companies.  In short, a strong dollar benefits foreign tourism, exporting companies, and consumers, while it hurts American tourism, importing companies, and workers.  And it hurts individual workers more than it benefits individual consumers, because there are fewer workers to absorb the loss.  One last thing: as a strong dollar sends dollars overseas, a strong dollar is more likely to induce a recession than a weak dollar.  OK, get it?”

“Ouch, that is complicated.”

“Yeah, but it is common sense, once you really think about it.”

“I guess so.”

Being a conservative in Donald Trump's America

I feel your pain, bro, I feel your pain!

with a special nod to conservative blogger Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post.

Election Night 2016

Here is THE way to watch the Presidential returns Tuesday night.

1. New Hampshire (4) is an early indicator state, especially if it goes to Trump, as Clinton is favored slightly.
2. Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (16) and Virginia (13) all lean to Clinton; if Trump wins any of these states, it will be very meaningful.  Similarly, Georgia (16) and Arizona (11) both lean to Trump; if Clinton wins either of these states, it will be very meaningful.
3. Finally, Florida (29), Ohio (18) and North Carolina (15) are the most important toss-up states.  Trump needs them more than Clinton.  Indeed, if Clinton wins Florida, it may be all over.
4. Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight predicts 299-238 for Clinton; RealClearPolitics predicts 272-266 for Clinton.  I have no pony in this sorry race, but if I had to bet I'd wager a small amount on Clinton.

Have fun!  And may the better (for America) candidate win!

  

Two Trillion Galaxies

I have a friend who has a very nerdy geeky friend.  In short, he likes numbers.  It seems that whenever a new factoid with a number gets into the news, this fellow likes to play with it.  So, I decided to ask him to write up his reaction to the latest numbers news.  So, here it is, with some slight editing to make it easier to understand.

A few weeks ago, astronomers announced that our (observable) universe contains ten to twenty times as many galaxies as they thought it had (a galaxy is a collection of stars held together by the center of gravity of the galaxy.  Our own galaxy, called the “Milky Way,” contains some 200 billion star systems (a star system is the star at the core, all its planets, asteroids, comets and other junk that is held in place by the star’s gravity)).  And our galaxy is an average galaxy.  Galaxies are HUGE affairs (the Milky Way is some six hundred quadrillion (600,000,000,000,000,000 = 6 * 10¹⁷) miles in diameter), and each galaxy is mostly empty interstellar (between stars) space.  Just weeks ago, astronomers believed that the count of galaxies within the observable universe was some 200 billion (200,000,000,000 = 10¹¹) galaxies, roughly the same number as the number of stars in the Milky Way.  Now they believe that the universe contains 2 trillion galaxies, ten times as many.

Our Lying Politicians

Years ago, when my daughter was just getting used to college in a western town, one of the first things that she noticed – that made such an impression on me that I remember it to this day – was that her classmates there did not mean what they said.  She was used to peers who said what they meant, who said stuff that they would deliver on.  Like, “let’s meet at the Shack at 5:30 this afternoon” or “let’s talk at 8:30 tonight.”  She observed that her college classmates said what they said just to fill the vacuum of “it’s my turn to say something” without worrying much about what they said, and without intending to follow through on what they had carelessly promised.

Stop the TPP

Initially, as a loyal member of President Obama’s administration, Hillary Clinton was for the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership).  She changed her tune as a result of primary battles with Bernie Sanders, who strongly opposed it.  What will she do should she become President?  Who knows?  But here is one man’s views on this controversial treaty.

The issue is not trade.  Trade goes on, willy-nilly.  It is the lifeblood of the world’s economy.  Without trade, you will only have what you can produce yourself.  Trade is not the issue.

On the Presidential Election of 2016

Anyone who has read my book or read a serious number of my blog posts knows that I tend to avoid writing about "politics" or the art of winning elections or the Page Six of our democracy.  I am content to leave this chatter to those who are amused by it.

But I DO have opinions.

Income Inequality

All four (yes, four) Presidential candidates have mentioned “Income Inequality” as an important campaign issue.  Some seem to grasp what it means, but few have discussed its causes and none has proposed specific ways to address it.  Here is what Hillary Clinton has to say, here is what Donald Trump has to say, here is what Gary Johnson (Libertarian candidate) has to say and here is what Jill Stein (Green candidate) has to say.  If you read what they wrote on their campaign’s web sites, you will notice that none of them really addresses the issue head-on.  On the other hand, one-time Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders did address the issue head-on.

The Kaepernick Kerfuffle

Yes, I confess, I had to check the spelling of his name!

And the other word – if you don’t know it, look it up, it’s a good word.

For

Colin Kaepernick is an NFL quarterback – for the San Francisco 49ers (for those who know what he does but not whom he does it for).  He has drawn attention to himself lately, by not standing for the singing of the National Anthem at a pre-season game against the Green Bay Packers.  And it seems that everyone is weighing in with his 2¢ worth.

So, here is my 2¢ worth.

Did he break a law?

No.

Should his action have been against the law?

No, as he was exercising his right of free speech (yes, some actions are considered “speech”), a right that we hold very dearly in this land.  There are few things more precious to Americans than those rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

American Exceptionalism, Revisited

I have written that, while we are an exceptional country in many ways, it is boorish if not wrong-headed to go around crying “we’re no 1!”  I have also written in the same place that there is no other place in the world where I had rather been born.  We are special!

Be Fruitful and Multiply

The Holy Bible, in the King James version, quotes the Lord God as saying “be fruitful and multiply” seven times (always in Genesis).  He speaks to the animals (Genesis 1:22), to the first male and female human beings even before they are named (Genesis 1:28), to Noah about animals (Genesis 8:17), to Noah and his sons (Genesis 9:1 & 9:7), to Abraham about Ishmael (Genesis 17:20), and finally to Jacob (Genesis 35:11).  God urges His line to “be fruitful and multiply;” but He is done urging it even before Moses rescues the children of Israel from Egypt.  Maybe He meant it as an eternal commandment (for everyone, for Jews), and maybe He didn’t.

The Democracy Movement

The Democracy Movement is a war over democracy in America, whether we shall have it.

The Democracy Spring event in Washington, DC in the spring of 2016 was not the opening salvo of the Democracy Movement, it was merely a sign of where we are today.

The Democracy Movement began in earnest as a response to the infamous Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010, a decision that declared, not for the first time but in no uncertain terms, that corporations were natural persons under the Constitution and therefore entitled to Constitutional rights and protections, and that money in unlimited amounts was protected speech.  As this decision undermined what we all were brought up to believe – that we are a democracy, that We the People rule, and that we are all created equal under the law – a movement broke forth to correct this insult to our collective identity.  And for lack of a better name, this is The Democracy Movement.

Some Observations about American Economic Growth

They say that the first million dollars is the hardest.  Each successive million dollars of gross revenues is easier than the previous million dollars; growing from $1 million to $2 million is easier than earning the first $1 million, and growing from $10 million to $11 million is easier still than growing from $1 million to $2 million (all examples of simple $ growth).  The reason is easy to understand: whatever it is you’re doing, doing it again is easier; practice makes perfect (and after a while it is just more marketing).  On the other hand, it is easier to grow your business by 10% while your business is still young.  For example, growing from $10 million to $11 million is easier than growing from $100 million to $110 million is easier than growing from $10 billion to $11 billion (all cases of 10% growth).  The same is true of stock prices.  Adding $1 to a stock price of $10 is harder than adding $1 to a stock price of $100 (simple $ growth).  But growing the stock price by 10% from $1.00 to $1.10 is easier than growing it 10% from $100 to $110.00 (%age growth).  All “mature” corporations had their most explosive %age rates of growth (gross revenues or price of a share of stock) while they were young.  And what is true about the rate of a corporation's growth and the increase in the value of a share of stock is equally true of a nation’s economy – its GDP – which is pretty much the aggregate of millions of companies big and small; it is easier for a GDP to grow from $1 trillion to $1.1 trillion than it is to grow from $10 trillion to $11 trillion (10% growth).  All “mature” economies had their most explosive rates of growth while they were young; mature economies do not grow as fast as youthful economies.  China, with its 7% rate of economic growth, is not a “dynamic” economy, it is a young economy; the U.S., with its 1% to 2% rate of economic growth, is not a “static” economy, it is a mature economy.  And it is “stuck” with the fact that a mature economy does not grow as fast as a young economy.  Changing the party of the occupant of the White House will not change that.

Messing with the Right to Vote

OK, I can hear some of you already: “That Ben Paine, he is totally off his rocker; his idea is bad enough, but publishing it is a sure sign of really losing it!”

OK, what’s it all about?

Democracy!  And who has the right to vote.

You have heard me say that a democracy is the ONLY way to go; any other form of government – oligarchy (rule by a few) or monarchy (rule by one) – is a form of tyranny, because no matter how benevolent they may be, they are NOT self-rule, they are NOT We the People ruling ourselves.  And you have heard me say that everyone should exercise his right to vote, it is his civic duty, it is the least he can do!  But I’d like to impose some conditions on a citizen’s right to vote.  Just to make things interesting.

A Study of Gun Violence in the USA

I am going to talk about guns in a way you have never seen before, so hold on.

Fighting City Hall

In the first few sentences of the very first essay (A Citizen’s Manifesto) in my book To My Countrymen, I suggest that a good citizen doesn’t run away from fighting City Hall, that he indeed engages City Hall when he must, and that he wins – every time.  I wrote this essay two decades ago, and I meant it to suggest that part of our collective powerlessness is our own doing.  If we aren’t willing to fight for what we want, it is our own damn fault that we don’t get it.  And that when we do fight, we always win (yeah, and I know that the fight takes time and effort, and sometimes persistence).

The Libertarian Creed

I have a friend who is going to vote the Libertarian line this election cycle, and I applaud him for it – over the wrong-headed protests of those who mindlessly chant “you're wasting your vote.”  He is right to vote third party, and I have argued the point over and over again in my book To My Countrymen, because we must break the stranglehold of our antiquated and mischievous two-party system.

I thought it was Thomas Jefferson who wrote "that government is best that governs least."  But, evidently it was Henry David Thoreau, no slouch as American thinkers go!  So, perhaps Thoreau is the godfather of Libertarian thinking.  Pretty good lineage!

The opening words of the 2016 Platform of the Libertarian Party of the USA are these: “As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others (shades of Ayn Rand).”  And “We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.  …  We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.”  Damn, sign me up!

Judicial Review

The pre-eminent job of the Supreme Court is to decide whether a particular law is Constitutional.  This is what we have been taught for well over 50 years so it must be true, no?

No!  That is just so much bull-shit!  The Supreme Court is the court of last resort; it is the last place that an unlucky defendant can go for JUSTICE!

Deciding what law may or may not be Constitutional is called “judicial review.”  In Constitutional circles, the very idea that judicial review is a Constitutionally enumerated power of the Court is controversial.  John Marshall, in Marbury v Madison, 1803, asserted the Court’s power of judicial review, and he did so in a way that compelled his enemies to accept his decision.  So, we have over 200 years of the Court’s right to the power of judicial review.  Yet there are still scholars who claim that judicial review is not Constitutionally sanctioned as a power of the Court.

Pro-Life

As abortion is one of America’s premier divisive issues, Americans should be pretty clear what “pro-life” means.  But I am not so sure; I think that there is a lot of confusion about who really is “pro-life.”

Political Death Wishes

As of today, April 15^th, 2016, Real Clear Politics (Averages for the past month) has Hillary Clinton beating Donald Trump by 49.0% to 39.1% (a spread of 9.9%) and Ted Cruz by 46.0% to 42.6% (a spread of 3.4%).  It also has Bernie Sanders beating Trump by 53.4% to 37.1% (a spread of 16.3%) and Cruz by 50.6% to 39.4% (a spread of 11.2%).  Finally, it has John Kasich beating Clinton by 47.3% to 40.6% (a spread of 6.7%) while Sanders beats Kasich by 45.9% to 42.6% (a spread of 3.3%).

If these comparative figures hold through the Republican Convention in the week of July 18^th, 2016, three months from now, it would be a Republican death wish for them to nominate Trump or Cruz, anyone but Kasich.  Of course, they might make the argument that their guy will destroy Clinton or Sanders in the debates, but how often have debates mattered at all?

Universal Suffrage

“Universal suffrage” means everyone has the right to vote.  Everyone a) who is a citizen, b) who is at least 18 years of age (and c) who is not a felon (serving time) (a state by state requirement)).  Universal suffrage does not imply that a “democracy” prevails, because democracy means “the people rule.”  And while the people do choose their leaders, their representatives, their public servants, those who they choose seem more beholden to their “funders” – their significant campaign contributors – than to those who elected them to office in the first place.  This is a huge problem, of course.  It is the core of everything that I write about, that our democracy is a sham.

Fiscal Responsibility

The idea of “fiscal responsibility” is a pretty simple thing: the government pays for what it buys, or it buys no more than what it can pay for (and sometimes it even saves some monies that were collected from taxpayers, and applies them to pay down the National Debt a little).  Fiscal responsibility disappeared during the Reagan years (I know – you don’t believe me; look it up) when the conservative goal of “making government smaller” ran into a wall of Democrats who refused to slash their own precious programs; but Republicans went ahead and cut taxes anyway.  So, they accomplished half of “making government smaller” (the cutting taxes part); while they put the other part (cutting spending) on hold indefinitely.  The result was predictable and has come true with a vengeance for some 35 years: out of control deficits and an exploding National Debt.  This is NOT fiscal responsibility, it is fiscal IR-responsibility.

Lame Duck

Within only a few nano-moments of Justice Antonin Scalia being pronounced dead, the august Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of the great state of Kentucky announced that he would not allow the President’s nomination to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court to come to the Senate floor for advise and consent.  Putting aside his obvious-to-nearly-everyone-in-the-country political reason that the sitting President is a black Democrat whom he has battled from the gitgo, he asserted that President Obama was a Lame Duck President, and that it was therefore the President’s job to wait for his (Republican) successor to nominate the next (conservative Republican) Associate Justice, some eleven months and change from now. 

Unprecedented?  Yup.

But let’s spend a few words talking about his reason for delay: President Obama is a "lame duck" President.  But he is not a lame duck President.  He will become a lame duck when his successor is in place (look it up!), the morning after Election Day, Wednesday, November 9^th, 2016, more than eight months from this writing.  (Lame duck Presidents use this two and a half months’ time to help transition the President-Elect into office.)  Allowing for definitions to change (because Mitch McConnell is a powerful man), we might choose to see the lame duck period as the time that a sitting President in his second term has to contend with a Senate and a House of the other party, that is since January of 2015 – more than a year ago – or, worse, since the day after Election Day in 2014.  Is McConnell really saying that?  That President Obama has been a lame duck for the entire last half of his second term, that he should sit on his hands for two years, or go on extended vacation in Hawaii, with full pay?

Sample #4

Democracy

Democracy – rule by the people – do we really live in a democracy?

Sample #3

Liberals and Conservatives

The word "liberal" means free-thinking, generous, tolerant, open-minded, innovative, progressive.  The word "conservative" means restrained, cautious, moderate, conventional, respectful, traditional.  The younger mind tends to be more liberal, reckless, open to adventure; and the older mind tends to be more conservative, cautious and safety-minded.  Heaven forbid that we had a political system that honored one stage of life and slighted the other.

Sample #2

Preface

I will piss you off, I guarantee it.  But I do not want to lose you, on that account, before we even begin our journey together.  No matter if you are conservative or liberal, Republican or Democratic, Libertarian or Green, Independent or moderate or undecided – something I say will strike you the wrong way.  Nonetheless, I beg your indulgence, as the message of this book is too important to be left to those who agree with me 100% (not even my own family).  Whether you admire President Reagan or not, I will ask you to consider his words and for the rest of this book to give me the benefit of the doubt that I am not a “traitor,” that I am a patriot – one who truly loves his country – every bit as much as you are.

Sample #1

How to Read This Book

This book was written for Americans who are too busy to read 50 books a year.  It was written in a conversational style, an informal chat between me and you.  It was written to be digested any way that you like.  You want to begin at the beginning and read it straight through?  OK, but don’t expect to get the plot any better than if you read it wherever you happen to put your thumb.  Read it from the middle out?  OK.  You can read most of the book’s short essays in less time than you can hold your breath (“on your mark, get set, inhale.”).  You can read one while you’re taking a coffee break, while you’re grabbing a bite, or even while you’re sitting on your throne.  I have provided a check box (⎕) following each essay’s title for you to mark (√) an essay as “read.”  Or you could pencil a number in the check box for the number of times you have read that essay.  Or a number for how well you liked it.  Or a “Y” or “N” for whether you agree.  Or “*” for “I want to read this one again and tell all my friends about it.”

Chutzpah

If you are from New York, if you like New York, or Chicago, or Los Angeles, or Miami, or Philadelphia, if you live in a city with more than a handful of Jews, you probably know what "chutzpah" means.  In case you don't know the word, here is a perfect example of it: Ted Cruz panhandling folks he has just maligned!  And, by the by, if you are wondering what "New York values" really means, it's code for Jewish values.  Like chutzpah!  Way to go, Ted!