What Was Obama Thinking?

Joe Biden. OMG, is this man loaded with experience. Or is it time spent in a seat? And what has he made of that time spent in a seat? It's good to know that the potential Vice President will respect his commander for being a black man who is "articulate and clean." Theirs looks to be a great relationship to have behind the scenes. Even if we ratchet up the forgiveness dial to its benefit-of-the-doubtmost level, we still see Biden's effort to damn Obama with feint praise, to tag him as an empty suit. But you still have to be perplexed about that choice of words. Articulate, maybe he means well. Why is he surprised that Barack Obama is clean?

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr, king of inexplicable racial overtone comments, is the same man who declared, "you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent." He is the same man who wants to segregate Iraq along ethnic or religious lines. Why would Obama choose a narrow-minded bigot that led the race card fight against him in the nominating process? Does he think he will pick up the racist vote? I don't think it works that way.

Also shocking, in the wake of being unfairly accused of plagiarism, the Democratic hopeful takes on a man proved guilty of plagiarism, filching a speech from the British Labor Party no less. Bringing him in must be one of those questionable fight-fire-with-fire maneuvers.

How in the world could this new style pol end up with an embittered, fractious plagiarist for a running mate? Remember the old campaign: Choose to Defuse? What might that mean to Obama, and his choice of VP? If you can't stand Clinton, and must shield yourself, choose a Clintonista. Surely Hillary will hesitate to attack a nominal Biden ticket?

You know the other popular refrain—that choosing a Veep was Obama's choice and his choice alone? I don't think so. The coming days may tell us if the Clintons now think of Biden as friend or traitor.

All That Gas

Let's all sit back and enjoy that song from the economy murderer's row:

Come on babe, why don't we pay some more?

For all that gas

I'm gonna rouge my brains and throw my wallet down

For all that gas

Start the car, I know an oil slick

Where the tax is high, but the unleaded's thick

It's just a trip to the mall for which you'll nightly bawl

Over all…that…gas…

First there was Reverend Wright, then there was Louis Farakhan, and then Reverend Wright again. Now Obama is getting an endorsement from the former chairman of George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisors. Will his tormentors never stop? As reported by Reuters, Greg Mankiw says, "Score one for Obama," while in the same breath he says, "gas prices should be higher, not lower." Yeah, that should shut up all those people who say Barack Obama is elite and out of touch with the needs of the common man.

John McCain and Hillary Clinton agree that the 18.4 cent per gallon federal gas tax should take a summer vacation while Barack Obama rationally explains that the average savings would only be $25 to $30, or half a tank of gas. While one could also do the math for the poor who take driving vacations with older cars, and would save a full tank or more, Mankiw takes the opportunity to step in and say gas prices should be made higher "in light of the side effects associated with driving." What side effects is he talking about—getting to work, getting your groceries, or getting to your doctor's appointments? What are you supposed to do for money if you cannot possibly drive less?

But Gilbert Metclaf, an economics professor at Tufts University currently working with the National Bureau of Economic Research agrees. His reason? "If we want people to invest in energy-saving cars, we need some assurance that the higher price paid for these cars is going to pay off through fuel savings." In order words, Metcalf is saying don't take an ounce of pressure off of consumers even for a short time because only when we break their backs will more expensive alternatives seem cheap.

I want to save the environment too. The problem I have with economists handing out environmental advice in response to stimulus plans is the same problem I have with aerospace engineers performing gall bladder surgery in response to a landing gear problem.

Remember, the two economists, Mankiw and Metcalf, who became "many economists" in the Reuters story while riding Obama's coattails, don't just want to preserve the gas tax, they want the price of gas increased. To those in their camp, $5 – 6 per gallon is the sweet spot, which will force you to buy a hybrid and pay for the next generation of research. At $6 you save absolutely nothing even if you get 40 mpg. And if you already drive the minimum, you do absolutely nothing for the environment. Can't that very bad idea wait for another year? Perhaps they think they are practicing an even greater form of Macro Economics than their peers. Maybe they would call it Mega Economics with an environmental twist. But as they are incompetent in both realms, I call it Megalomaniacal Economics. An economy under a mortgage swamp with soaring food prices is not the time to say you have to go buy a new car, pay more for gas, and pay an extra $3,000 for a hybrid while you're at it.

Economists riding to the defense of high gas prices: That's one thing we don't have to buy.

Find a can, we're playing fast and loose

With all that gas

Right up here is where they pluck your goose

For all that gas

Come on babe, we're gonna pump it dry

I bet the price of gold never went so high

Cause when philosophy's clear

Why would they shed a tear?

For all...that…gas

A Housing Crisis in the Land of the Blind

Apparently, the media's housing crisis is like an unsolved murder: the statute of limitations on finding out about it, and beginning the investigation never runs out. If so, this one is surely a cold case.

As we watch it "worsen" with nails bit down to knuckles, lets inject a note of sanity. Falling prices means that homes will come within reach of new buyers who could not and would not touch the unrealistic prices. New home production will slow and inventories will eventually drop. That means that there are at least two groups of people who are not hurt: new buyers and long-term holders. The latter are experiencing a normal return on investment regardless of the paper gain fluctuations. In the meantime, we can learn something.

When prices were rising to levels that would have struck Salvator Dali as too surreal, few people sounded the alarm. Instead we heard platitudes like, "Buy real estate now, the best investment in the world; they ain't making any more of it," and "Don't be left behind. Turn it over and get rich." Everyone played musical chairs to the tune of "Pop Goes The Weasel," and when that bubble popped, the last buyers were the biggest losers. Remember the lyrics, "the monkey chased the weasel." When was that ever a sensible pursuit? Yet somehow when people were being conned into thinking they could afford the enormous debt, the word crisis wasn't applied. Or at best, in 2006, we saw the following headline from Barrons, "Is a crisis approaching?" And we only got that when they noticed the first "downward surprise." Am I the only one who finds it naïve that so many money mavens were so surprised? Lenders and tiger and bears. Oh my!

The rising prices, the burgeoning bubble itself, should have been described as a housing crisis before the downturn, and it never was. The experts, including our Fed chairman, got it wrong at every turn, and are on to a new phase of getting it wrong now. How many articles today, talking about "the steepest decline ever" provide any information on how it was preceded by the steepest rise in home prices ever? None that I can find. Surely we are in a housing crisis, but in the later stages of one. It cannot reasonably be measured from the time the first wave of defaults was noticed or even when prices began their long drop. I would measure it by the start of rapid price rise, out of proportion with growth of the ability to pay, or the moment lender's standards relaxed to a state of criminal irresponsibility.

Of course it is not so much a matter of what words are used, as that the reporting is indicative of a fundamental misunderstanding. Again in 2006, the Washington Post referred to an altogether different housing crisis, the issue of affordable housing, essentially misidentifying the underlying problem with an all-over-the-map indictment of "the market," and "snob zoning," while never once mentioning unconscionable and unsustainable credit.

The falling prices of today are the harbinger of the healthy economy to come. If there was panic to be had, someone should have panicked in 2006, perhaps the congress we elected that year, after the congress of 2004 ignored it. Instead, we're panicking in 2008 when we are two to four years closer to a healthy economy. Americans understand this better than the media. That's why this congress is reviled more than the President. While that dream team was hitting the minimum wage button over and over—the only thing they saw out of order on the domestic front—the extra dollar an hour wasn't going to cover the latest hundred thousand dollars added to a home price tag.

We're not suffering because the surge won't be enough and the stimulus package won't be enough. We're suffering because the poor things—congress and the media that parrot their talking points—have their crises all mixed up.

Swing and a Pass

Baseball. Yes, you might have thought you would not have caught me talking about baseball, but when the Earth shakes enough I do care. I will be succinct, however, and say what no one else seems to be saying.

It looks to me like efforts to reform baseball in the wake of the Mitchell Report have failed before they began. In the midst of the furor, someone had the bright idea to give a record-breaking contract to Alex Rodriguez because he's not been tarnished. And stepping up the payouts to unprecedented levels is glamorous publicity, right?

Not so fast. When you hand someone a $250 million incentive to be better than everyone else (whom we now know includes a vast army of cheaters), while on the other end, pay a laboratory only $.5 million to find a test for the last big drug, you are both stacking the deck in favor of cheating while simultaneously sending a message to players that you don't want them to stop. Of course those are only the latest twinned announcements of about financial distribution. If you add up all players salaries and compare it the money paid in efforts to insure a fair game, the imbalance is far greater.

While there is plenty of blame to go around between athletes, agents, unions, coaches, trainers, administrators, and fans, and sports writers claim it will take plenty of time and effort on the part of all those elements for reform, I say it will take only one element. If the fans are outraged, the money walks away, and the culture changes almost overnight. Until that happens, no athlete, agent, union, coach, trainer, or administrator is going to care.

Why Can't Johnny Vote?

France has a new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, elected over his socialist opponent by a comfortable margin. Most significantly, 85% of France voted for him, leaving only 15% whistling on the sidelines. I applaud the people of France, but does it make me feel inadequate?

In the United States, when 62% of voting age citizens vote, as they did recently, we call it a good year. 68%? A record breaker. Even the Iraqis did better than that in January of 2005, with estimates as high as 72%. Horrors! After we figure out who is the new U.S. president, our commentators sit down and cry and over the fact that we are wasting our freedom. If only more people would vote... then what?

We spend a lot of time every four years wondering whether we are bad Americans, or thinking that if we remind or badger people often enough, we can be more like the French. Rock the Vote? Yes, by all means rock the vote. Knock yourselves out. What is the point of initiatives like that one? The cliche goes: You don't just have the right to vote; you have the responsibility. They don't usually choose to explain what they mean by that. When they do, they tell you there are big issues at stake (they list them), and democracy itself is at stake. Their dirty little secret is that like similar movements, most of its adherents imagine the new voters will vote for their candidate. In fact, most of the people who cry about low voter turnout seem to think that all elections would have gone a different way had everyone voted, that maybe the will of the people wasn't expressed after all. In a country that runs on marketing surveys where multi-billion dollar decisions are made on the sampled opinions of 4,000 people out of 300 million, also known as .0013%, I think 62% is a damned good representative sample. As it turned out, voters who were "rocked" last time around didn't vote the way their cheerleaders hoped.

I vote, by the way. I have never missed a vote in any year. But if you are concerned that not enough people vote, it behooves you to find out why the stay-at-homes don't vote. Studies always pull this line out of people: "It doesn't directly affect my everyday life," or its cousins "It doesn't matter," and "All politicians are really the same." Next in line, but perhaps more honest is, "I don't know enough about the issues to make an informed decision." And lastly, "I don't want to feel responsible for the decisions those people make in office." Maybe these reluctant ones know what they're talking about and have a point.

Still, the grassroots vote pushers say, "Get out and vote. You have to. Even if you don't know the candidates or the issues. Even if you're not sure. That's how you fulfill your responsibility." Maybe all voters should go into the booth blindfolded if it's just about going into the booth. They talk about fulfilling your responsibility as if it's the same as filling a cup with urine. You don't need to think about it; we'll test the results later.

I say that instead of attacking all the above non-voting reasons as illegitmate, we can make more progress by figuring out what they mean, and even consider the fact that they may well be legitimate reasons. If someone doesn't understand the issues, for instance, their vote would theoretically be worthless, random (a 50-50 outcome), or even damaging. So instead of demanding they vote blindly, let's try to educate them, and if we have failed that with some by election day, leave that group alone. Let those of us who were paying attention express an opinion.

Most interestingly, those who say, "It doesn't matter" may in fact be casting a vote of confidence in our country; may in fact be saying that we are so strong and there are such excellent checks and balances, and they have such faith in their fellow Americans that we will be fine no matter sits in the office. I don't happen to agree with those sentiments, but I find it a healthy barometer of a free nation. So the next time you think other democracies are superior to us, consider that maybe their people have good reason to show less faith.

The Vampire Disclaimer

It's time for a short sentence I like to call The Vampire Disclaimer. The views expressed in this blog are those of the author, and do not reflect those of my employer (whoever that may be), and in fact do not reflect anything.

To be unconventional and irritating, I've saved the greeting to my new blog fans,--and the explanation for the blog itself--for the second post. That goes to my mission of driving left and right wing extremists crazy.

Welcome to Ghost in The Back of My Head. Lisa Loeb fans will know that it comes from her song "Do You Sleep?" and references the following section:

" I saw you as you walked across my room.
You looked out the window, you looked at the moon.
And you sat on the corner of my bed, and
you smoked with the ghost in the back of my head."

Thank you, Lisa. I think the phrase I've borrowed is a great way to illustrate that I am a political Independent, listening to no one but the ghost in the back of my head, and inviting you to commune with him if you dare. I reject the notion that we must swallow an entire party platform, as I find the platforms of both the Democratic and Republican parties internally inconsistent. That is not to say that I will confine my comments here to politics. But it will explain, for example, why I'm on the side of the environment, and at the same time on the side of the USA. It will explain to anyone who is paying attention why I'm a social liberal and still for law and order. In the next few years, a similar combination may come to be known as a Guiliani Republican whether he is in office or not. Nonetheless, if you imagine we are the same, or that I am endorsing any candidate at this point, or being conventional in any way, please reread The Vampire Disclaimer above.

As the magnificent Maggie Estep used to say, "I've got a f---ing song in my heart, so let's go."

Your Private Energy News

You may want to cross your legs. At this very moment, people are looking into your urinary tract with intense interest.

You heard it here first, boys and girls. You know how in some towns we have to segregate newspapers, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, and some such into their own bins? Well, one day soon, mark my words, it will be your civic responsibility to pee into one of those bins. Some time after that, instead of searching for a rest stop along the highway, you will relieve yourself directly into your car, a model which may be called the new Ford Sprinkle. Good for your bladder and good for the environment.

It's all about oil, and corn, and global warming. The global warming plan calls for preventing the U.S. from unlocking the trillion tons of oil in our shale (which releases carbon dioxide in the process) so that we can single-handedly lower the Earth's temperature by seven tenths of one percent in seventy years. No oil refineries are allowed to be built for the oil that is readily available, and we are allowing China to claim the oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

In service of those policies (like 'em or not), edible corn is being converted into alternative ethanol gasoline blends at an unprecedented rate. Now the price of corn, the price of feed, the price of meat, the price of all the other crops too relatively unprofitable to grow, will go through the roof (and you've seen those prices climbing) unless scientists find another way to produce fuel. They are racing to do so. (Hmm, shouldn't they have been working on that sooner?) There are 114 corn ethanol refineries and 80 more under construction.

Dupont wants to make ethanol from corn waste; six other companies want to make it from straw (sounds like a fairy tale); and genetic engineers from Berkeley are looking into palm tree sap, termite guts, and--as I said--the human urinary tract.

You thought Germans and Americans loved their beer before? Starting tomorrow, guzzling is going to be downright patriotic.