In Tribute - Steve Jobs

I'm glad my travels took me to the Apple store at Pioneer Place today..










There was a Portland style tribute to him, everyone thanking him and RIP on little sticky notes. The 2 green apples in front had hearts carved into them. Some people were just sitting on the bench outside watching and pondering him.

He was an amazing human, and the ipod, ipad, iphone, full-length animated movies starting with Pixar, all will forever live on in his memory..

The Seeds are Always There

It was called a failure of imagination.
It was called a failure to connect the dots.

When you enter politics, do these things, part of the human condition (didn't we all grow up playing dots in Calculus class..) go by the wayside?

Back in 9/11, say on 9/10/2001.. or even back in the Last Millenium which seems so long ago, even the street numbers have been changed since then. There were seeds. There were transcripts from bin Laden and friends. Statements that could lead you to imagine using aircraft as weapons of mass destruction. There were dots, unconnected, between the foreign surveillance apparatus, and domestic criminal intelligence. Alas the data systems did not talk to each other. But even back in the 1980s people were talking about data matching. When you enter civil service, as with politics, does your ability to connect dots and use your imagination go by the wayside too?

Today's imagination/dot exercise is the federal budget. Mr Elmendorf, head of the Congressional Budget Office, testifying in front of the Super Committee. In case you aren't able to listen to cspan at work (I am so totally lucky!) it is rebroadcast today on cspan radio. The non-partisan CBO chief says that if we continue on with current policies - those Bush tax cuts, those emergency unemployment compensation benefits, that doc fix which allows Medicare doctors to have full reimbursement.. That we are looking at an unsustainable situation, with spending beyond control and at something like 190% of GDP in the decades to come.

20% to 40% to 100% to 190%, its starting to be like trillions to me, and become somewhat meaningless. As my federal friends would say, after enough shutdown "deadlines" come and go and the world goes on, you tend to get numb to these things.

So what kind of imagination and dot drawing is needed today, and how do we inspire our elected representatives and civil servants to partake in this exercise?

Mr Elmendorf says there is no free lunch. That should be Rule #1. Deal with Problems Now. OK those benefiting from those tax cuts, the word "temporary" means they are going to end. And how long can an emergency exist, to keep providing unemployment to the non-working class. Doc fix, or county timber payments. Things tend to last forever. Till they don't.

I like the word "nexus". If Medicare is going to continue, let it pay for itself. Maybe every doctor and every patient needs to get a "haircut" as they call it in the financial world. The next world for the US will of course be national health insurance, like every other civilized nation on the planet. So if your heart is in it, and you practice medicine not for the degrees on your wall and the vacations in Bora Bora, then you'll stick with it.

Rule #2. Lets think about Obama's pitch for a second stimulus, to fund construction workers, teachers, fire fighters. How the typical Democratic pitch for public sector job creation has a stimulating effect on the economy. Lets do the math. A $45K public sector job may generate $3,150 back to the state in the form of income tax (using a 7% effective marginal tax rate). And $9,900 back to the feds in the form of federal income tax (using a 22% effective marginal tax rate). So - for $45,000 worth of expenditure, you reap back $13,050 in terms of income tax. Whoa! Even a refrigerator is more efficient than that. And where does the $45,000 come from - the federal taxes of other working people.

Why is it hard to see that having survived Stimulus 1 (almost, nearly) that to invest in Stimulus 2 doesn't really pay off. Is the way to grow the economy really up to the venture capitalists and innovators in the world, and the government can't really do it all (answer left as an exercise to the reader - look up the efficiency of refrigerators). Does that really require a leap of imagination, or a dot exercise? Please send a dot template, with instructions, to your local elected representatives, and ask them to participate.

Yes to $3.99 Dove Bars, Again!

I used to be able to buy those $3.99 Dove bars - you know, the kind with dark Belgium chocolate, covering dark chocolate ice cream. Only 3 in a box, and it was about $3.99 for each one. But it was so good.

Cutting back is possible, you can have half of one, or a mouthful to make it last longer. But what if someone promised you a whole one, every night! Wouldn't that be keen!

Obama's Jobs Plan reminds me of this. He is promising me the following:
* no more giving up those nights out to pay for gas or make the mortgage
* no more postponing retirement to put a kid through college
* every one in my neighborhood will have a job
* every pothole will be fixed
* I will only fly in the newest most high tech planes on the planet
* no more leaky school roofs
* $1500 tax credit to the average family
* $2000 to me since I've been a responsible mortgage holder

Well if those are the promises he is personally making to me, I wonder what other promises are in there. Sounds pretty nice, doesn't it. And it will all be paid for, since he'll just rack it up on the national credit card.

But not to worry! He will be solving this niggling deficit problem Real Soon Now. Just give him a little more time and a little more money.

Starting to sound like we need a 1-800 hotline for Politicians Anonymous. Making promises, racking up the spending, with no earthly way to pay for it. Making me wonder, wouldn't it be cheaper to just give everyone a $3.99 Dove bar?

Lets try the math. $300B Jobs Plan
vs. $3.99 * 300M people in the US = $1.2B. Can we be bought off for that and re-elect him?

A Section Chief in the Party's Propaganda Department

ok the Canadian Press tells it like it is. Oh, they are talking about a representative from the Chinese government. Where I suppose they really do have a Propaganda Department. He is now investing in Iceland. Tourism, don't you know.

Well we civilized and democratic nations don't have Propaganda Departments. Jay Carney is not a propaganda machine. I could say he is a member of the small animal genus called rodent, but actually I like a lot of rodents (like chinchillas). And squirrels always notice me when I walk around, or if I'm eating something delectable they want, so there is a certain acceptance there.

What do they call it in 1984, Big Brother? Where is my better half who reads all books to completion, are you back in school? Oh remind me so I don't have to go searching for online cliff notes, sorry I mean spark notes.

We have much cagier ways of purveying propaganda. Only to anyone who is even semi-conscious (this may leave out the rodents of the world, they are good at sensing the proximity of cheetos, not so great at recognizing lies and bamboozles) there isn't even any "there there". Most people must either be watching whatever season series is now in full swing, or buying those back to school supplies, or doesn't care. Or maybe they've escaped to Canada (yes!)

Maybe if they let me back into my home country I can create a new business card for myself. I like the title "Section Chief in the Agency's Propaganda Department". What was I writing the week before I left? It was creative fiction! It was a lot of fun! Oh, it was work too. It was top secret agency mission stuff so Don't Even Ask..

New Jersey never lets me down!

my claim to fame today! I won a contest! Politico Influence, by Dave Levinthal and others - one of the politico franchise of publications (this one an email newsletter about lobbying activity, and you bet the Super Committee is bringing them all out). Anyhow he posted a contest to give your best lobbying pitch for a state, so here is the rap about my winning entry. So excited!

And yesterday, a number of you responded with fantastic answers to our latest PI contest (details here: http://politi.co/ndwFTq), which asked you to make your best lobbying pitch for any U.S. state or territory that might not be feeling much political love these days thanks to Iowa, where just about every presidential candidate from Barack Obama to Michele Bachmann to the ghost of William Henry Harrison made an appearance in the past week.

The bad news: Not a single person lobbied on behalf of several minor jurisdictions, such as the Northern Mariana Islands, Palmyra Atoll and California. But we received four pitches for the great Garden State - yep, New Jersey - with the most impassioned entry coming from Courtney Brooks, a Jersey expat now residing in Hillsboro, Ore.:

"A state many are from. Everyone proud, in some fashion, to call themselves *from* New Jersey," Brooks wrote PI. "What is it about that state? A multicultural place where there are zillions of factions, before multicultural factions were cool. A place where you learned to survive dense crowds, body to body, like going to home room in high school, with 2500 fellow students in the hallway. The way of the future. The way the planet is going. ... And in the next global warming meltdown, or global ice age (take your pick), we are the ones who will survive."

For this winning entry, Brooks earns a wooden puzzle of the United States of America (http://bit.ly/oREx0F), in which New Jersey may, per the winner's discretion, be hand-painted gold. Congratulations!

The Facts and the Rhetoric, Part 2

And here in bubble Oregon, what is going on?

Fact: Bill Sizemore, splashed on the front page of the Statesman-Journal (the Salem newspaper, for all you lovely out of state people). He took a plea deal of 'guilty' which will require 30 days of jail, paying court attorney costs, and 3 years of probation. And be a convicted felon unless he can stay good for that time.

The alternative was to not plead guilty, but to face 15 years in jail, a fine of $475K. So is it wrong to take a plea deal just to avoid a harsh sentence?

Fact: he failed to submit Form 40, for Oregon income tax, for 3 years. Fact: he paid estimated tax of $51K. Was told by accountants not to file, since if you don't get it exactly right, that is an offense too, false claims or something.

While you might hope that the Constitution guides the actions of our legal institutions, like the court system, and would be valiantly allowing people to express their first amendment rights - you know - things like free speech, freedom to assemble, freedom to petition the government for grievances. Hey, I don't know if I ever read the Constitution before 2002, but you know what - its never too late to jump on that bandwagon!

But, hope is not always reality. Did he get his day in court? Well, he was in court all right, but I would not exactly call it His Day. Not allowed to tell a jury about his situation, or estimated tax filing. Not allowed to bring forth facts such as accountants telling him not to file. Underneath it all is a story so complex you may as well call it NP-complete. Unions filing multi-million dollar lawsuits against him. Saying they had to spend millions (which they wanted recovered!) to fight his nasty ballot measures. Ballot measures that would hurt them.

Well, should the people who actually vote decide these things? Maybe the people who vote aren't smart enough - is that it? I should pay my dues to unions and let them decide for me, what measures I should vote for and which not? Or maybe my political party can just send me a ballot and, like in the old days, just pull a lever for all votes for Their Side.

Rhetoric, enter here: Sizemore was scamming the system to line his pockets, and never had an interest in making these ballot measures successful. This is the kind of stuff you read in every single newspaper, its like they all copy the same text (don't they know that plagerism is not good form?). This is not even rhetoric, it doesn't even have any basis in fact.

At least with the FAA (see previous post - The Facts and the Rhetoric) you have 'positions' that might make sense, at least on a philosophical level. Hostage takers and jobs lost and all that. Here, I suppose you have something along those lines. The mortal enemy of public employee unions, so absolutely evil that he cannot be allowed to roam freely. We are all in danger while he is a free man. So! Must find some trumped up charge and convict him, knock out his kneecaps, and render him unable to perpetrate his nasty ballot measures on free people.

Remember the movie Fantasia where Mickey Mouse cuts the dancing broom, thinking he killed it? Only to have each half continue to dance around. Tries to kill some of the offshoots, only to have them create new sub-brooms that continue to dance around. Do you really think Bill Sizemore is down for the count?

The Facts and the Rhetoric

Fact: While Congress decided they were tired, after all their debt standoff and dealing, and it was time for recess. You know, a pint of milk, some raisins, and a nap on the floor mat. Then maybe ride on the merry-go-round of campaigning a bit, you know, Recess.

Meanwhile, the FAA was in partial shutdown. With 4000 federal workers (tally that into the unemployment stats) furloughed, and 70,000 construction workers sent home, due to lack of FAA funds to pay for continued work on airport construction projects.

Fact: the airlines continued to merrily collect the $10 ticket tax, per ticket, totally about $30 million total over the 2 weeks of the shutdown. Pocket it. For the glory of their shareholders. After all, the mantra for business is not 'raise tax for the government', it is 'work to benefit shareholders'. Well, at least that was the 20st century mantra, not sure what it is today - survive maybe.

Rhetoric: U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said "its not a union issue". Put this in the same category of Obama-isms like "the Stimulus has created jobs!", or "we brokered a compromise for the debt deal!". Just cause you say it, and even if you are the leader of the free world and you say it, over and over and over again, does not make it True.

Fact: the National Mediation Board (there is such a thing) recently broke from decades of prior practice regarding workplace elections for unions. Instead of the usual rule - must have 51% of all workers say yes to forming a union, they changed the rule to -must have 51% of workers who vote and say 'yes' to forming a union. Making it easier since those who don't vote, don't count. You don't even need to 'get out the vote', just gather those who you think will vote your way, and voila, get your union (of course, all the "fair share" people who didn't vote, would probably still be subject to the same dues, conditions negotiated, etc.)

It used to be, that all those people who didn't give a darn basically served as 'no' votes, making it harder to form a union.

More rhetoric: complaints by liberal senators about "hostage taking". Does anyone fall for that anymore? Well - if you say it enough times, maybe people don't realize there are other ways of thinking.. Which still does not make it True.

So the real deal here, as I see it - all the hoopla about Republicans not wanting to extend the small airport subsidies, and willing to shut down the FAA over this. Partially true. The Democratic leaders saying it is crazy and unproductive (expletive deleted) to shut down the FAA over this and throw 74,000 more people onto an unemployment system that is already strained well past the breaking point. Partially true.

But underneath it all, a federal regulation changed. One which made it easier to form a workplace union. And the Republicans, faithful Federal Register readers all, most likely, took notice. And said no. In a very public way. Note to self: Federal Register daily digest, must subscribe...