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Required reading on Andrew Ross Sorkin

Monday, December 8, 2014

A few days ago I mocked a recent column by Andrew Ross Sorkin, in which he defended, nay praised, Wall Streets practice of pre-bribing its own as they enter the revolving door to a government job. Of course, I only scratched the surface, pointing out the obvious.

Here's what should be required reading about Sorkin and his defense of Antonio Weiss which digs far deeper. Truly disturbing is the fact that Sorkin's real estate in the New York Times was bought for him by the very bankers about whom he reports. Quite tawdry.

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We want the world and we want it sooner or later

Sunday, December 7, 2014

A post at Daily Kos notes that there’s a push to enact federal legislation to extend the protections of existing federal civil rights laws to gays and lesbians. Ah, but there’s a rub:

That’s the good news. The bad news is that some Washington LGBT groups are already dashing their own hope, saying the landmark legislation “could take a decade or longer” to pass. Wow. Not the 114th Congress, not the 115th Congress, not the 116th Congress, not the 117th Congress. Maybe, just maybe, in the final stretches of the 118th Congress. Or maybe not. Maybe longer.

Are you kidding? This is the exact problem with most Washington-based groups. They’re nearly incapable of articulating a grand vision and then letting people be inspired by it, believe in it, and get behind it.

via Daily Kos

These groups may be correct, but there is no reason in the world for them to admit it. Unfortunately, it’s what we on the left do. Republicans, on the other hand, make loud and insistent demands for things that are equally unlikely to happen, at least in the short term. But the demands themselves make ultimate success more likely. Our tendency to demand what we think a compromise should look like (exemplified by the approach of our current president) simply makes us look weak, and the half successes we have (the stimulus and the health care law being two great examples) are barely recognized.

I can’t help but think that we’d still be in Vietnam if this had been our cry:

What do we want?

Peace!

When do we want it?

One of these days, assuming we can work out a deal that is satisfactory to the folks who want us to keep fighting!

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Andrew Ross Sorkin stands up for the little guy

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

One disadvantage of being a part time blogger, usually forced to bloviate at night, is that by the time you're free to write, the low hanging fruit has been picked clean. So I was sure this morning that by the time I got a chance to take a whack at Andrew Ross Sorkin's column in the Times this morning, I'd be the last of hundreds. Yet, among the many blogs to which I subscribe, only the ever reliable Dean Baker, at least if the search function on my RSS reader may be trusted, has gone after Sorkin.

Sorkin, it seems, can't quite see the problem with a relatively newly minted Wall Street custom. He thinks it's only fair that when a guy gets chosen to regulate his Wall Street peers, he (or the rare she) should get an unearned going away present from his former employer. Something modest, say $20,000,000.00, as Sorkin himself reported about Antonio Weiss a few weeks ago.

According to Sorkin, the country needs people who know how Wall Street works to regulate Wall Street, and we're not going to get them unless we allow them to walk away from their former firms with unearned millions. You see, the folks on Wall Street are different than you and me. What looks to us like payment for services to be rendered looks to them like a service to the public. After all, can we really expect someone with a Wall Street background to work for less than $200,000.00 a year? Why, that's a rounding error in their bank statements. If they don't get a fat check on the way out the door, with an implied promise that they'll get an even fatter one if they return from a job well done, then simply no one from Wall Street will want to regulate Wall Street, and, as Baker points out, we might get stuck with “academics, union officials, and people with business backgrounds other than finance” regulating our markets, with potentially disastrous results, which, I suppose Sorkin would have it, we've managed to avoid as a result of the quaint custom he defends. Remember, this is America. Our memories are supposed to go back no further than one week.

But, in a way, Sorkin is right. These payments can't do much harm, because even if they weren't made, these folks know they will be amply paid if they do the right thing when they leave “public service” and return to the fond embrace of their organized crime family former employer. It hardly matters if they get prepaid.

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Schumer’s prescription

Sunday, November 30, 2014

I'm no big fan of Charles Schumer, but he made some good points recently, urging the Democratic party to articulate positions that actually help people. I think he's wrong in treating advancing “middle class” positions and passing health care as being mutually exclusive, nor is he right about health care only affecting a small non-voting slice of the nation. In any event, the Democrats were actually in a position to do both things at once; they chose to throw that chance away in the name of collegiality and respect for the poor, downtrodden Republican minority. We see where that go them. Anyway, here's his argument:

First—we must ask ourselves, does this policy directly benefit middle-class families in an immediate and tangible way? Will the policy help increase their incomes or lower their expenses in a meaningful way? If we are to fulfill our pact with the middle class, we must articulate policies that will make their lifestyle more affordable. Period. These policies must be aimed at “who,” not “what.”

Not all of these policies will involve spending. For instance, raising the minimum wage; negotiating good trade policies that prevent jobs from going overseas; and changing labor laws so workers can demand more pay all don’t involve spending, but rather changing the rules of the game to make it easier for the middle-class to fight the forces they’re up against.

Second—the policy should be simple and easily explained. Can it be grasped almost intuitively as something that will help middle-class families?

Third—is it likely to happen? Democratic priorities should be achievable. Yes, they must be easy to message, but they have to be more than just messaging bills.

Fourth—does the policy affect a broad swath of Americans? Even though health care had very real benefits, it did for a very small slice of the country. There are even some policies that would help constituencies within the middle class but not a great deal of people. Those policies should be considered but shouldn’t become part of the core of the Democratic platform.

Fifth—our program cannot seem like a group of disjointed, specific policies, but must fit together to create an effective theme, message, and even symphony, so that people don’t see individual Democratic programs as individual pieces, but rather, parts of a whole.

Folks elsewhere have elaborated on his points about the health care law. I want to concentrate on numbers three and five. It is an unfortunate Democratic tendency to refuse to advocate for anything that they feel has no present chance of passing. Republicans are not similarly constrained. They advocate for things that seem unachievable, like eviscerating social security, and over the years, it has become conventional wisdom, at least in the Beltway, that eviscerating social security would be a good thing. Imagine how much easier it would be to convince the nation (if not the Beltway) that things that actually do help people, even if presently unachievable, would be worth doing. Nothing ever gets done without demand, whether for good or ill. So, by all means, the Democrats should include in their policy prescriptions things that people want or need that seem impossible presently to achieve. If it's a good idea, the Democrats will be perceived as owning it. They can put up with some Beltway derision if it earns them votes elsewhere.

I'm not sure what kind of policy “theme” would, in Schumer's mind, satisfy Schumer's fifth requirement, but I agree wholeheartedly with the words he used. Most important is that people be able to understand how Democratic policies can improve their lives. We don't need no wonkish proposals. We can argue all we want that the stimulus made things better (or prevented things from getting worse), but almost no one actually felt that impact directly (or, more accurately no one felt that they felt it). Even those who got employment directly as a result of the stimulus were unaware of that fact. Yes, it was a good thing, but you need to be an economist to appreciate that fact. On the other hand, if we make higher education free or actually relieve the burden of student loan debt, there will be a clear understanding on the part of the beneficiaries of those policies that they owe their good fortune to Democrats. Same if we raise the minimum wage, or empower workers. We need to keep things simple, inasmuch as we have the propaganda stream flowing from almost all mass media against us.

So far as Schumer is concerned, the proof's in the pudding. It's hard to see how you can craft a really convincing message to the “middle class” (quotes because there's no such thing anymore) without perturbing Wall Street, which is Schumer's core constituency.

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Another petard does its thing (local edition)

Friday, November 28, 2014

As I noted in a previous post, the Democratic down ticket didn't do too well in these parts. One of our new Republican legislators is John Scott. John's campaign consisted mainly of distortions of his opponent's record. On the issues, he mainly confined himself to a fierce and unaccommodating dedication to the interests of insurance agents everywhere, but especially those in Groton.

John actually was a Democrat for awhile, but he switched back to the Republican Party after concluding that the health care law posed a mortal threat to his core constituency of insurance agents.

Anyway, shortly before the election John's insurance agency (Did I mention he was an insurance agent?) began running half page ads in the New London Day, prominently featuring: guess who. By some massive coincidence, which I'm sure John will be able to explain, the ads featured the very same photo of John that was featured in the taxpayer funded ads (John took public financing) that were annoyingly affixed to the front page of our newspaper on many a morning.

The Groton Democratic Town Committee filed a complaint with the State Election Enforcement Commission, pointing out that these ads, while superficially for an insurance agency, were pretty much all about John and could, by any rational individual, be perceived as both a violation of the campaign finance laws by John (for accepting donations outside the public financing system) and by his agency, since corporate donations are not permitted to state financed campaigns. We even sent a press release to the Day, but in the press of time leading up to the election they apparently were unable to follow up on the story, inasmuch as they were too busy endorsing John's characterizations of his opponent without bothering to see if they were true or to put them in context. At least, that must be the reason. Far be it from me to suggest that they didn't want to stop the flow of that ad money.

Okay, you say, this sounds bad, but when is someone's petard going to start hoisting?

I'm coming to that.

The SEEC just announced that it is going to look into the charges, meaning it has found at least some cause to believe that John was doing what everyone knew he was doing. This is an exclusive, by the way, as you still won't have read it in the Day.

Well, what's a guy to do? You don't really want to get slapped down by the SEEC before you've been sworn in and begun protecting insurance agents everywhere. Well, what John has chosen to do (judging by the last few issues of the Day) is start running half page ads again, to the delight of the Day, I'm sure, but probably not to John's delight, because half page ads can be expensive, and he really doesn't need them anymore, having won the election already. So John is hoisted, not high, but hey, we must take what satisfaction we can.

John's strategy may work. The lawyer in me says that the only relevant evidence should be his advertising practices before the election, but election laws in this country are rarely enforced, except those designed to prevent differently hued people from voting. So we'll see. Who knows, if they actually sanction John, the Day might get around to mentioning it.

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Quite a rap sheet

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

I have, in the past, compared our bigger banks (looking at you, JP Morgan Chase) to organized crime. It's hardly an original idea; in fact, only our major media and law enforcement agencies appear to have missed the parallels. Still, it's good to see someone do the work of putting the pieces together for future reference. Check out JP Morgan's rap sheet here.

The Mafia is small potatoes compared to this one bank, and while JP Morgan Chase may be first among equals, it's not the only bank that is a serial lawbreaker. Not a single banker has gone to jail. One would think that putting them there would be a politically popular move. The lack of prosecution is proof, if any were needed, that our politicians are not solely concerned with winning elections. Far more important to stay on the good side of the powerful, who will ease your transition back to the working world if and when you're voted out.

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Sympathy for the Devil

Monday, November 17, 2014

Now here is a religious group performing a public service:

The Orange County School Board last week discussed reversing its policy that allows religious groups to hand out materials at public schools after the Satanic Temple began handing out coloring books to students, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

“This really has, frankly, gotten out of hand,” board chairman Bill Sublette said during a workshop on Thursday. “I think we've seen a group or groups take advantage of the open forum we've had.”

Though the board discussed reversing the policy on Thursday, it won't vote on the matter until early next year.

The policy allows groups to hand out Bibles and some atheist pamphlets, and the Satanic Temple decided to start handing out its own materials about Satanism to make sure that students are exposed to various beliefs.

“We would never seek to establish a precedent of disseminating our religious materials in public schools because we believe our constitutional values are better served by respecting a strong separation of Church and State,” Doug Mesner, co-founder and spokesman for The Satanic Temple, said in a statement under the pseudonym Lucien Greaves. “However, if a public school board is going to allow religious pamphlets and full Bibles to be distributed to students — as is the case in Orange County, Florida — we think the responsible thing to do is to ensure that these students are given access to a variety of differing religious opinions, as opposed to standing idly by while one religious voice dominates the discourse and delivers propaganda to youth.”

via Talking Points Memo

There is something satisfying about seeing these “Christians” hoist by their own petard. What is interesting is the sense of entitlement that leads them into these situations. Years ago, they got Congress to pass a law that forced public schools to allow religious groups to sponsor after school activities. Now several states have abolished after school activities, because, guess what, if the Christians get to proselytize so do the gays and the atheists. It never seems to occur to them to be careful what you ask for.

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Not alone, at any rate

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

I have to pass this along, just to prove that I'm not entirely crazy. A few days ago I made a list of a number of policy positions the Democrats should take to attract, you know, voters. Among my suggestions: forgiveness of student debt and free college education. Well, I'm not alone at any rate. From an article by Joe Firestone at Naked Capitalism, discussing Elizabeth Warren's somewhat vague pronouncements about what people in this country actually want from their government; Firestone gets specific:

They also want more than a Government that will just help out students, but rather a Government that will forgive student debt, and, going forward, will provide free education for all Americans through College. They have it in Germany. Of course, we can afford it here too. Why isn’t Warren, one of our two supposedly most progressive professional politicians, advocating that.

We forget our past quite readily. There was a time when college educations were free in California, and almost free everywhere else. When I went to law school at UConn, and that, remember, is a graduate level school, tuition was either $300.00 or $600.00 a semester (I can't recall which, but it was one of those numbers). It is now $24,714 in-state and about double that for out of state. I don't need to do the math; inflation doesn't explain the difference (I'm not that old). If you go directly from college to law school chances are you come out with a mortgage on your life of around $300,000.00, assuming your parents can't afford to pay the freight, and the mortgage is only slightly less if you stop at the college degree level. It's hard to pay that kind of mortgage when the odds are good you'll still end up flipping burgers for our sub-poverty minimum wage.

We should recall, as well, the GI Bill, which after WWII offered educational opportunities to returning GIs that most would never have had otherwise. The nation got a solid return for that investment. There's no reason to limit such good social policy to veterans. Everyone has a right to an education.

The party that addresses this issue directly and effectively will win elections. But you can't eat around the edges. Lowering student loan interest rates by a percent or two is all very nice, but it doesn't effectively address the problem and it won't drive those swamped with student loan debt to the polls. This is an issue made for Democrats; the Republicans will never embrace real reform; they'd much rather hand the student loan industry back to the banks and the “servicers”. It's an equal opportunity issue; it affects people of all hues, genders and geographic origins. It doesn't only affect students; pity the parents who are trying to help out their struggling offspring.

The Democrats would be crazy not to take up this issue; but then, the Democrats are arguably only the less crazy party in this nation.

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20141111 We don’t need no wonky politics

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

The meme seems to be taking hold, at least among the citizens of Left Blogistan, that Democrats lost big this year because they have no coherent message and offer voters no particular reason to vote for them, relying instead on the argument, express or implied, that you should vote against Republicans. While that latter statement is true, it doesn't sell.

Nor, in my opinion, do some of the issues we are told that the Democrats should push. A good example of what I'm talking about is here. I don't argue with any of these proposals on a theoretical basis; they are all good. But many achieve their results at second or third remove, becoming more diffuse and less effective in the process. Far better to push for things whose immediate impact is clear, unambiguous and meaningful; something people will turn out to prevent Republicans from taking away (Democrats ran on the threat to social security for years). For instance, the aggregate impact of a $500 per person increase in the personal exemption might be significant, but you need to be an economist to appreciate that. To the average voter it amounts to a small reduction in taxes that, while nice, is not life changing. Not the kind of thing to get a reluctant voter to the polls. Even the suggested raise in the minimum wage is weak beer. Why not go for a wage that is equivalent to that which prevailed when we had a middle class? That would mean a more than $17.50 minimum wage, against which a wage of $12.50 looks pretty weak. We have a tendency to advocate for things we think we might get after compromising rather than the things we actually want (or claim we want). We’ve seen the result of starting negotiations from what we think will sell to the nonexistent moderate Republicans; we end up with muddled results such as the ACA, which pleased no one. Imagine what Social Security would look like today if FDR had proposed a system he thought might be acceptable to Republicans. At least then, some Republicans might have listened, and they might have allowed a vote. That’s not happening now.

One would also hope that Democrats have learned that you can succeed through obstruction, as the Republicans have done in spades. That doesn’t mean we should obstruct; it does mean that if we can retake the majority we should destroy the means of obstruction and push through our programs. Better to lose because your policies failed than to lose because they were never implemented in the first place, which is precisely why we just lost.

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Equal Justice for All

Monday, November 10, 2014

I don't pretend to be an expert in the criminal law, but I'm sure if you're average street person violates again while they're on probation, their violation is rarely “waived”. But, not surprisingly, it's different for banks. It seems that the SEC often makes deals with banks that provide that, should they run afoul of the law again, some sanction or other will kick in. But the SEC staff (after all, they've got future jobs at the bank to think about) routinely grant waivers and allow the banks to accept another wrist slap for whatever new crime they've committed. (And yes, I know the SEC has no criminal authority; I'm exercising blogger's license). New SEC commissioner Kara Stein pushed for, and got, a requirement that any such waiver be approved by the commission.

Obama's appointee as SEC chair, Mary Jo White, is in the pocket of the banks, but, alas for them, even she has to observe the proprieties, so she must recuse herself when the case in question involves one of her former clients, which, and it turns out this is lucky for us, it often does. That means there are two Democrats standing against two Republicans. Since White will usually vote with the Republicans, the waivers would go through were she to vote, but when she can't, well, a tie vote means the waiver is not granted, and the bank in question must actually suffer a penalty that actually hurts.

In a letter last week, the bank’s top lawyer Gary Lynch made a pitch to the agency’s commissioners to waive additional sanctions set to kick in when the settlement is entered in court, said the people, who asked not to be named because the entreaty was private. Lynch argued in part that the firm is being unfairly treated because other banks had been given waivers in similar cases.

A former SEC enforcement director, Lynch said saddling the bank with a penalty that could include barring it from selling investments in hedge funds would be unprecedented and cause reputational damage, the people said. The case remains in purgatory because SEC Chairman Mary Jo White is recused, while the agency’s Democratic and Republican members are deadlocked.

via Bloomberg News via Naked Capitalism.

I'm straining here to find a comparison to some other situation in the legal system that would illustrate how ludicrous this argument is. How's this: this is sort of like a cop convicted of murdering an unarmed black guy claiming he should be allowed to walk because all the other cops who've murdered unarmed black guys have been allowed to walk. Closer to the subject: this is like the first banker to actually be convicted of tanking the economy arguing that he should go free because Jamie Dimon still walks the streets. But who knows, the Supreme Court might buy into this sort of argument, so long as it is restricted to banks. That way, a soft glove administration, such as those run by W and Obama, could tie the hands of some future president or attorney general, who might just think we ought to enforce the laws when it comes to banks and bankers. Don't expect it to work in your neighborhood criminal court, though. Any public defender who made such an argument would be laughed out of court, and possibly sued for malpractice.

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