Paul and Seth
"The necessaries of life occasion
the great expense of the poor. . . . The luxuries and vanities of life occasion
the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets
off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they
possess. . . . It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to
the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more
than in that proportion." I feel like
Larry David, except I never take anything out on my ex, who's a dear:
"I can't take much more of this. Two weeks to go, and I'm at the end of my rope.
I can't work. I can eat, but mostly standing up. I'm anxious all the time and
taking it out on my ex-wife, which, ironically, I'm finding enjoyable. This is
like waiting for the results of a biopsy." ~~~
Adam Smith, the "Father of Capitalism" (thanks to Andrew Sullivan)
~~~
It occurs to me that I have spent every other day of the past two weeks making
enough money to offset losses in the stock market in the past 24 hours.
And I certainly don't have much in the way of a 401(k).
~~~
As Sister Trish exclaims, this is
the best Palin bit to date.
~~~
In the Boulder Camera, they had a list of all homes that sold that week, the
name of the seller, and the price. Of the 30-odd homes in Longmont,
22 of them were sold by banks. Yikes. Until all of these
foreclosures are done, or we figure out a way to keep people in their homes,
it's going to be hard for the average house seller to compete.
This is also hurting a lot of middle-class people that used to work in
construction. Most of the home builder stock prices fell 20% today, after
Pulte Homes announced quarterly losses, and the CEO of Pulte said "it
appears that a bottom in the housing market may not come for some time".
Getting the foreclosures off the market would help a lot, since it's difficult
to compete with fire-sale prices. It would be much less expensive to the
government (and the tax-payers) to subsidize house payments than to outright buy
mortgages. I would guess that many of the families in foreclosure are not
that far from being able to keep their homes. And I don't think people
leave their homes, just because the current price is under water, mortgage-wise,
any more than they abandon their car in the first year when its resale value is
exceeded by their auto loan.
Of the 7% of all families that are either in foreclosure or behind on their
payments, one would have to guess that 5% of them would stay in their homes with
a subsidy of, say, $1000 a month. There are about 100 million homes (and
not all have mortgages). If 5 million of them are in foreclosure, it would
cost $5 billion a month to support them. That's a lot of money, but it's
also one-half to one-third the monthly cost of the Iraq war.
Another way to look at it is that the value of all home in the U.S. has declined
approximately $2,000 billion. We're hardly going to make that up, but a
lot of the decline is from competition with foreclosures. Taxing ourselves
another $60 billion a year for mortgage support might see a recovery of at least
some of that two trillion dollars.
~~~
Between them, Sarah and John are
spending almost $22,000 a month on makeup.
~~~
What a great issue of Poets & Writers.
There's my cyberpal Paul Guest with his own article. I knew Paul as
something between an acquaintance and a colleague at a popular poetry site years
ago, and have been amazed at how his verse has become deep and compelling in the
ensuing years. In the same issue, we have my buddy Seth Abramson waxing
about how best to consider MFA programs in a long and interesting article.
~~~
I'm spending a ridiculous amount of time visiting political sites. The
very first visit in the morning after writing my wakeup I Love You email to
Sweet Junie is 538 to see where we
stand. HuffPo is usually the
second for their wealth of opinions and headline news. Then in no
particular order: Crooks and Liars,
which is John Amato's liberal vehicle;
Firedoglake, which is reliably liberal and usually accurate;
OpenLeft, which often has pieces not
covered by the others;
TalkingPointsMemo, which does a good job with original material;
TalkLeft, which discusses generally
liberal topics, but focuses on "coverage of crime-related political and
injustice news"; ThinkProgress, which
has the most attractive format, methinks; The
Daily Dish by Andrew
Sullivan, that odd conservative with his occasional conspiracy theory;
Think Progress, another attractive site
with consistently good graphics; Raw
Story, which often has the breaking news, but whose zillion ads and slow
loading drives me a little nutz;
Politico, another good-looking site with its own columnists, but one with
news that always seems a little stale;
Pollster.com, as a second opinion to 538; The
New Republic, for diverse
views (though generally left-leaning);
Real Clear Politics, with its
too-busy front page and links to both left and right-oriented articles;
Time's political page, including
Joe Klein; The
NYT editorial page, including Dowd and Nobel Prize-winning Paul Krugman (I
could live without Kristol, Friedman and Brooks, but I still read them) (and,
yes, I know it's not a real Nobel Prize); that right-wing nuthouse,
Newsmax.com, for its recap of last
night's late-night comedy;
WaPo's op-ed page, including E. J. Dionne (I
also read George Will, who occasionally actually makes sense); and, of
course, the ever-irreverent Wonkette, who
could make the plague seem funny. Whom are you reading?
~~~
Colorado has early mail-in and early in-person voting, along with 31 other
states. Some states use electronic voting machines, some paper ballots.
Some states require a photo ID when voting, some don't. Two states deny
voting rights to ex-felons, even after they have served their sentence.
Some states have many polling places and smooth operations, some have fewer and
long lines. Most voting matters in most states are overseen by (sometimes
amazingly partisan) elected officials, some of whom may at the same time be
active participants in the campaigns of those running for office. Some
states require voter registration proponents to pre-register and be certified by
the state and restrict the number of registration forms they can have at any one
time.
Why in God's name do we permit states to have authority over something as
important as voting?
Here's an excellent
recap of the GOP's attempts to suppress voter turnout among Democrats.
~~~
It seems that every two years the right-wing nutcases in Colorado dream up a new
amendment to our state constitution aiming at imposing their values. In
1992, it was the anti-gay Amendment 2 (struck down by the Supreme Court).
In 1996 it was Amendment 17 which would give parent the right "to direct
and control the upbringing, education, values and discipline of their children",
which sounds harmless enough, but was intended to serve as a basis to shut down
sex education and would have impeded the removal of children in abusive homes.
This year, the prize goes to the Personhood Amendment, which would make a
fertilized ovum a legal person at the very moment of conception. Many
birth control pills contain hormones that prevent fertilized eggs from attaching
to the lining of the uterus. Would they be banned in Colorado? The
morning after pills would be lethal weapons. Would women who drink alcohol
or smoke be accessories to homicide if they miscarried? Millions of
fertilized eggs from in vitro procedures would need to be stored
indefinitely (could they still be frozen?). And, of course, abortion would
be murder.
~~~
Listen to the moose.
~~~
On my way to Brewing Market today, I noticed that gasoline was $2.80 a gallon.
Crude oil prices have dropped by 50%, but gasoline prices haven't.
Conspiracy? So, I looked it up. It turns out that about 30% of the
price of gas is due to refining, marketing and distribution costs. Another
20% is state and federal taxes. The remaining 50% is the cost of crude.
So, when crude prices drop sharply by 50%, the price of gasoline should drift
down by 25%. And, that's pretty much what happens:
~~~
Bob the Banker
explains why Obama would tax him wildly more than McCain on his $280,000 income.
A whole $257. Says Bob: "Take my Jaguar. Do you have any idea how
much it costs just to have that thing tuned up?" Yes, I do, Bob.
That's why I used to tune mine up myself. The article is actually a pretty
funny send-up.
~~~
Here's why you gotta go out and vote:
~~~
Bummer. The Case Against
Long-Distance Relationships.
~~~
Have you ever bought one acre of moon property or had a star named after you?
Actually, there are no property
rights in space.
~~~
More as I think of it.
The
problem with cable is that, no matter how hard you try, you will eventually
click your way to a channel that actually hurts your head. Like this
morning, when I navigated past the Doodlebops and Danny Phantom and landed at
CSPAN. There was this woman speaking with this strange upper-crust accent,
almost British but not quite, and the moderator asked her if it was finally time
to reconsider the excesses of capitalism. Not at all, she said. We
suffer from too much government influence on the Invisible Hand. The
entire problem with the economy, the credit markets, and current stock
values was due to the Community Redevelopment Act, she said. Her name is
Diana Furchtgott-Roth and she is a waste of the planet's oxygen.
