New Year

Well the last day of another year and at least to those following the western calendar the chance to end some things and start new things tomorrow.

Of course in nature while it is related to the winter solstice and therefore the promise of spring the date is just another one in the series.

Still it is as good a time as any to reflect on what is good, what is bad and what needs to change.

Of course many will immediately think about the current administration but changes there will be decided by either the impeachment or the voters.

So what sort of resolutions do we need?

Well most of us and most of the world are aware that we face a potential catastrophe in our impact upon climate.  The few that deny this seem motivated by greed with the only rationale usually offered is that if we take the actions needed it will hurt our industry. 

It might and it might not.  We may very well lead the way to a better more efficient way to power the modern and future world.  To get there we have to move forward and create it. 

We also have the opportunity to embrace a new world of understanding for all people.  Too many want to enforce their own beliefs on others.  This type of bigotry is something that needs to be relegated to the past.

In addition to accepting people we need to assure everyone has access to the health care he or she needs.  Ideally we can progress towards a future that provides for the safety and security of all.

If that is not our goal, then what is?

Employment

Talk of the economy tends to focus on two areas, unemployment and the stock market.  The stock market has done well as corporate profits have based on current economic policies.  In addition each month we are reminded of how the unemployment numbers are near record lows.  The problem is that those statistics, while accurate are a bit misleading for many of us.  The chart below reflects workforce participation in the labor market.  As you can see following the great recession it dropped significantly This drop means millions of Americans are no longer looking for work, so they are not unemployed, but they aren't working.

This very well may reflect the impact of the boomers leaving the workplace, or it might reflect the jobs we have lost.

Wages have also been largely stagnant over this period, not completely but not rising as much as they would if the jobs of today were the same as the jobs of the past.

If machinist jobs paying $30 an hour are eliminated and filled by robots but a low paying service job is created paying minimum wage, we see employment numbers unchanged but wages decreasing.

So are people  better off than they were?  Not as much as they should be, if at all.

Tactics

I've lived through three presidential events, two impeachments and one resignation and while certainly each is unique what we are seeing is something new in this one.

With Nixon you had an unfolding of evidence where both sides were determined to find out the truth.  Certainly he had supporters, less over time but they acted like a tribunal in search of the truth.

It seemed likely that as dramatic development unfurled he was going to be both impeached and convicted and seeing the handwriting on the wall he resigned.

With Clinton, the act he was accused of was lying about an encounter with a young intern.  Once it was proven the encounter had happened and he apologized the crime he was accused of was effectively perjury under oath.  He was clearly guilty but he was not removed from office, partly because while a serious matter it was more of a personal issue where he lied about infidelity.  It didn't really have much to do with the National Interest.

Now in the current one we see charges of attempting to use national resources to further personal interests and then obstructing the investigation.  What seems different this time is that instead of trying to determine if the events happened, it is likely they did, his supporters  are on the attack, politicizing the process while accusing the opposition of being political.

Now we know the phone call happened and we know that witnesses and documents are being withheld.  The American public would like to see these documents and hear these witnesses, so the question becomes, was there enough evidence already for the House?

There was and if in fact there is evidence that the motivation was indeed perfect, one would think the Senate supporters would roll out the documents and witnesses to refute the accusations.

They aren't going to do that, they will simply acquit based on political reasons.

They think the American public will agree and some will.

I don't think it is enough for those who aren't already rabid supporters.  We will see.

Young People

Its easy as you age to criticize the younger generation.  After all, they generally don't listen to your advice and insist on doing the same stupid things you did when you were younger.

Of course this isn't universally true, but more true than not.

Some things have to be experienced to be learned.

If you touch hot things you will get burnt is a fairly universal example.

A lot of people like to act like the current generation of young people is the worst one yet.

It isn't, they are ultimately the same as all previous generations.

People respond to their surroundings, its why we have been so successful.

They may have a lot to learn, but didn't we all?

What I believe is inevitable is that as time passes they will become exactly what they need to be   The world is a bit different for them but they will manage to survive it.

Eventually they will have a younger generation to complain about.

The stupidest one ever.

Taxes

Think about taxes.

They are the amount you pay the Government in exchange for certain services.

The biggest items we pay for are National Defense, various entitlement program, and the Interest on the National Debt.

It might be better to say we pay for Military services since most of it has a very tenuous line to actual defense of this country.

In fact its fairly safe to say that with our Nuclear Arsenal, it is unlikely that anyone would overtly attack us.

Before World War 2 we tended to keep a fairly small active army when we weren't actually at war.

Following that war, we perceived a need to counter the threat of worldwide communist expansion and defend our European Allies via NATO.

The chart below shows the last 100 years of spending and we see the increase of WW1 followed by a decrease and the increase of WW2 followed by a decrease.  However the post war amounts dwarf the prewar amounts and have continued.

What have we gotten for this spending?  Well the country has not been invaded but we have thousands of dead young people because of Korea, Vietnam and the War on Terror.

The question is, what do we gain by all this spending?  Consider how much less the National Debt would be if we curtailed it a bit?

Do the Right Thing

Besides being the name of a Spike Lee movie it is also, at its nature a reasonable basis on which to live your life.

There may be a question at times of what the right thing is, but for the most part in individual actions it isn't.

Problematically though the people doing what is clearly the wrong thing are simply enforcing some rules or following some orders.

Still, seeing children separated from their parents based on some immigration law interpretation is hard to justify as the right thing.

Using things that make climate change worse when there are viable alternatives is not the right thing.

Accepting wrongdoing in any person because he promises you some benefit is not the right thing.

After all isn't that the same logic a bank robber would use?

Holidays

I hope everyone is having a healthy and happy holiday, whatever holiday you are celebrating.  Even if you are not celebrating one, be healthy and happy.

Its better than the alternatives.

The Malevolent Force

When you hear people talk about the unknown "they" who are ruining everything and destroying American values, it isn't just a figure of speech,

America, as just about everyone realizes, has some deep divisions.  Perhaps the one hardest to understand is the rift between views of reality.

I tend to think reality is the same for everybody.  However, it clearly isn't.

There are people who actually think that certain facts are manufactured for some reason.

In fact at the bottom of many people's realities is a belief in an unknown force that is malevolent.

For Nazi Germany it was Judaism which was determined to economically enslave everyone else.  While that lives on to some extent, we now have new villains to consider, the Deep State, Immigrants, the oligarchy, and scientists.

The need to fight back against these malevolent groups is clear if you can enter the correct reality.

It is unclear why they want to disrespect the American Flag or seize everyone's guns, but they do.

Some of the villains have clear motives, like big pharma wanting to make more money.

Its less clear why some are pushing things like climate change, but someone will figure it out.

The Constitution

Many Americans give the Constitution a sort of magical quality and consider it nearly perfect.

It isn't but the best quality about it is one we use the least, the ability to update it.

This document was reflective of its times and permitted slavery, denied women the right to vote and is heavily geared to protect property owners and doesn't support one person one vote very well.

In fact in order to pass it we had to tack on the first 10 Amendments (the Bill of Rights) almost immediately.

The Constitution itself does a good job of creating three equal but separate branches of Government with three different intertwined roles.

There are still issues in this country that should be updated, if we want a democratic country.  For example the electoral college and the distribution of Senators by State are not democratic in  implementation and lead to states with lower populations having more influence than populous states.

States or ex-colonies had a lot to do with this as the federal government was primarily designed to deal with things like foreign policy while the States concerned themselves with the everyday stuff.

It is still an important document that has helped this country thrive but it did also allow this country to fight a bloody civil war.

Amendments have corrected some of its early flaws, but we haven't fixed some others.

We need to.

The Bully President

We are seeing a rather unprecedented, for this country, heavy handed takeover of a major American party.

It doesn't seem like this is going to be the new norm or even if it will last any time at all, but we have seen a large group of Americans who were elected to represent the American people, representing one person who may or may not even care about the country.

Without arguing about the motives of the party dictator, the more interesting factor relates to how they were forced to toe the line?

As always the primary motivator was fear, fear of losing their seat to his rabid followers.

One of the problems we have in this country is our process of selecting party nominees.

They are all subject to potential primaries after which they have to win an election.

Not long ago, a sitting politician hardly worried about the first, he was likely unchallenged and many were fairly assured of winning the second.

Today we see a situation in which, using social media, an upset President can turn his followers against you overnight.

So step out of line and face an expensive primary fight which even if you win is likely to hurt you badly in the general election as his followers aren't the type to turn around and support you.

It didn't take a lot of this to scare the bejesus out of the politicians who primarily only care about their continued employment.

The bully President has no loyalty to anyone in his party who steps out of line and they know it.

In the soviet union the penalties for stepping our of line were often a trip to the GULAG, here its simply having to get a real job, a terrifying prospect for many of them.

The Economy

There is a lot of talk about how our economy is doing so well and we have low unemployment.

However we have at least much bad news as good when you consider the state of the American public.

Unaffordable college costs, increasing health costs and prescription costs, more and more Americans falling below the poverty level, wages not keeping up with inflation and more.

We see the wealth gap increasing because the economy is certainly doing well for the wealthy and investors, not the average worker.

`So when wall street and certain economists talk about the great economy, although most don't call it great, they discount the increasing deficit, the growing trade gaps and the income inequality.

Is the economy good?  Depends on who you are but not most people.

Eliminating Voters

Generally when you take an action it should make something better, not worse.

So we see a concerted effort underway to invalidate voter registrations, primarily in states controlled by republicans who don't like people in democratic area voting.

Now, the actions generally involve invalidating voter registrations because someone did not respond to a mailing.

This might have had some validity at one time, but I know that snail mail I get has a good chance of being discarded unopened if it isn't clearly something important.

Putting Important on the envelope isn't enough, in fact it almost a flag that it isn't, at least to my way of thinking.

I have opted everywhere I can to get mail electronically, and this includes statements and bills, so what I get via snail mail is almost exclusively spam, including ironically, many exclusive offers.

Now I do get a certain amount of official correspondence from say the Department of Motor Vehicles and other government agencies, but I know who they are.

Without having received a letter questioning my existence from some state commission to eliminate voters, I don't know if I would recognize it.

It would sound like spam if I even opened it, asking me to verify personnel information, something that is generally discouraged nowadays.

It would likely warn me that failure to respond could result in loss of my privileges, a common spam tactic.

The question is eliminating some number of people who has died or moved and therefore weren't going to vote anyways doesn't justify eliminating actual voters who might vote for someone you don't like.

Unless of course that was your objective all along.

Climate Change

With a few exceptions, like the current President, the impact of humans on the environment is accepted by all educated people.

We are taking carbon that has been stored in the ground for millennia and releasing it into the atmosphere.

In addition we have eliminated vast swaths of jungle and other carbon absorbing natural biomass.

This has led to a increasing impact on worldwide temperatures which serves as a trigger.

As the ice melts at the poles it does two things.  Raises the sea level but also exposes heat absorbing land to solar radiation.

While this is in fact a natural process, it was triggered by human activity and may already be self sustaining.

There is really no easy cures but we can mitigate the damage by reducing carbon output and increasing carbon absorption

It may seem too late, but it will be later tomorrow.

Health Care

There are issues which should be debated in the election on actual facts, not lies.

Unfortunately lies are abundant and will continue to be used for the foreseeable future.

Still we can consider some facts.

Take health care.

Health Insurance isn't the issue, health care is.  We have a system where most Americans think they have adequate access to health care, until they actually use it.

Especially before the Affordable Care Act, health costs were the leading cause of individual bankruptcies as insurance companies found ways to deny care, set coverage limits and do everything they could to transfer costs to the individual.  Of course that was true if you had health insurance.

In all honesty, when someone needs significant health care his concern isn't about the ins and outs of his health plan.

We need a system where every person in this country can get the care he needs when he needs it and not base it upon some affordability criteria.  So who pays?  We all do obviously.

Health care is one of those things you can spend much of your life not needing.  Then you do.

Since at any one time you have large parts of the population not concerned about it, we have convinced many, especially young healthy people its not essential.

Until it is.

The system should simply allow every person to get the care they need.  Medical professionals should be paid based on the skills they have, not the patients they treat.

Is a basic need, not a way to get rich.

Lessons Learned, or Not.

While I hesitate to draw too many comparisons between different countries, the recent election in Great Britain may reveal some important issues.

Perhaps the most similar trend is that both countries are in a post industrial period.

The industrial period was notable for its need for seemingly infinite workers who engaged in a long struggle to gain status with the Unions as a main factor.  It had a lot to do with their well being and led to certain political alliances.

The current period is probably best referred to as the technological era where the need for manual labor has been greatly reduced leading to a significant decrease in that well being.

Those worker have been forced to accept positions that don't pay as much or get government assistance.

It has torn at traditional political alliances leading to new voting patterns, at least in the last election.

It also pointed out that being zealous is not an effective vote getting process.  Many of the policies embraced just didn't have broad popular appeal, although eagerly supported by relatively small groups.

If your platform is viewed as radical by moderates, you will almost certainly lose a general election.

Finally they had a very individually unpopular leader.  It amazes me how that happens but it is the result of certain party infighting.  Becoming your party's nominee is hardly the goal, winning the general election is.

How to pick a candidate that has broad public support in the modern age is the challenge.

Past Sins?

People evolve over time.  Depending on how old you are, you have likely held various beliefs and opinions in the past that now seem wrong.

Rightly or wrongly when I was growing up in the Bronx we used to use words related to nationality that are now considered inappropriate.  They may have been pejorative, but they were generally used as descriptive.

Similarly many of us were raised to believe certain behaviors, now accepted were sins and illegal.  It wasn't something you formed an opinion on, it was simply what it was.  You may have wondered why but it wasn't something that was an issue until later.

Was it wrong?  From today's perspective it is but people were arrested for things back then that we wouldn't even blink at today.

I was reading an article today which talked about how the rail industry, itself an environmentally friendly form of transport, defended coal which it makes a lot of money transporting back in the 90s and to some extent later.

Was this wrong of them?  This article implies or states it was, but the railroads defended an item which was, and still is, a major customer to them.  Yes we knew a lot about carbon pollution back then, but it wasn't the consensus it is today.

Should people be condemned for positions they took at a time when that position was either the consensus position or at least a position you could honestly hold?

They might be demonstrably wrong using what we know today, but as they say 20-20 hindsight is easy.

I see a lot of people criticized for things they could have known or should have known but which at the time they didn't know.

The past isn't always relevant, it just isn't.

Impeach and Release?

One of the problems with Impeachment is that it is essentially a political process, where it starts to seem like more shenanigans.

Especially when there is almost no real chance at getting a conviction.

The founders allowed a simple majority of the House to pass articles of Impeachment but a two thirds majority to convict.  It therefore seems like a political stunt to do the first with no legitimate chance at the second.

The current Impeachment is problematic because the high crime and misdemeanor here is not clear and convincing to many, i.e. a smoking gun.

Yes he tried to get the Ukrainians to investigate a potential rival and held up things they wanted, a meeting and military assistance to get them to comply.  He then failed to cooperate in the investigation.

It just doesn't shock that many people.  Watching the hearings the arguments revolve around whether these are even impeachable offenses.

They clearly are since the only standard is what the House decides but then again they don't resonate.

Part of the problem is the low regard Americans have for politicians of both parties.  Sure they lie and manipulate to get elected.  This just seems like more of the same.

Many Democrats were effectively looking for something they could impeach him for.  When this came up they had something but its not a smoking gun.  Its more like convicting a gangster of tax evasion.  Is it enough to persuade the American people?  Well once again it is breaking down based on politics.

He's guilty but to many it seems more like a slap on the wrist issue than a lose your job one.

If you like to catch and release when you fish this may be satisfying, just not getting any dinner.

Entertaining Lies

Before we had fake news we had false narratives.

Its a technique where facts are taken out of context and spun into a whole new story.

This has been done throughout history as a way to justify actions which were in fact unjustifiable.

When Hitler invaded Poland, the German people were told how Poland attacked first.

We have the Gulf of Tonkin incident which may represent a similar rearrangement of facts.

The only real defense we have is a free press.  However  the thing which can defeat a free press is fake news.

If you have news outlets which follow no rules and publish stories meant to confuse and contradict we can create a confused public.

This seems to be the main tactic currently being employed by the Republican party, although of course in their version it is the Democrats.

Too many Americans have bought into alternative news outlets, some of which have high ratings, because they tend to be more controversial and entertaining.

So faced with boring legitimate news vs entertaining false narratives, we have to hope Americans make the right choice.

Its a close call.

Well He Served Himself

Pretty much everyone rationalizes their own bad behavior.

It starts early when toddlers often deny obvious bad actions.

I assume there re psychological theories about this, but in my view it is simply because we are all the central characters in our view of the world and we understand why we did what we did.

We wouldn't do bad things if we considered them bad or if we didn't think the good outweighed the bad.

Of course we might know that the action is viewed as a crime by society but it doesn't outweigh our internal calculations.

Now take the current Impeachment inquiry.  The actions taken are clear and the charges related to those actions are also clear, but fundamentally the other side says how could it be wrong if it was supposed to benefit the incumbent.

There were potentially many more possible charges and counts including obstruction of justice in the Russian probe but in order to move it along it was reduced to two which clearly happened,

Abuse of power when he used the office of the President to pressure a foreign country to investigate American citizens, who were not charged with any crimes in this country.

Obstruction of Congress, well documented by the President's own memo and instructions as well as numerous public statements.

He thinks these actions were OK, after all they were designed to protect him.

What could be more important?

Freeing the Guilty

One of the things that we have in this country are protections for the accused.

In fact those protections have grown over the years until proving guilt can be quite challenging, even when you actually have the guilty party.

If you don't confess and go to trial, with a good lawyer and enough money, you may very well get off on what we call a technicality.

Every action by law enforcement and the prosecution has to pass scrutiny that they didn't skip any steps or mishandle any evidence.

Further, we impose upon witnesses who often have to miss work, travel distances and wait around to repeat their account which can then be attacked by the defense.

Of course we then have the jury which is also inconvenienced and we certainly don't compensate them sufficiently.

The vast majority of cases get settled with a plea bargain because we probably couldn't; handle the workload of all those trials.

Yes the police make mistakes at times but in the vast majority of arrests the person they arrest is guilty.

The smart ones just don't admit it. It certainly improves their chances of getting off.

Loving This Country

People who like to proclaim they love this country have a lot of funny attributes.

I'm not talking about the average citizen who goes about his everyday lie, pays his taxes, possibly serves in the military and exercises his right to vote.

I'm talking about those who feel the need to yell it out, generally implying that anyone who disagrees with them doesn't love this country.

First if you do love this country you would realize it is a land of free speech and free opinions, meaning not everyone has to agree with everyone else.  Failing to recognize that is hardly loving this country.

Second we are a nation of immigrants.  Very few of us are native Americans which means we are all immigrants or descendants of immigrants.  Attacking the more recent immigrants who are no different than earlier waves of immigrants is not loving this country, its attacking its very nature.

Third, our history is not all rosy.  Things happened that resulted in the near annihilation of Native Americans and the enslavement of millions.  We also saw a part of the country try to secede over the second issue, among others.  Not accepting our history is not loving this country, it is who we were, if not who we are.

We are clearly not the best in many areas, even if we want to claim we are number one in everything.  Many of our schools are sub-par and it shows in standard tests.  We have a lot of people who can't get satisfying work.  many of our citizens are effectively denied the right to vote.  Not everyone has access to adequate health care or the means to pay for it.  Our seniors do not all have comfortable retirements.  We could do a lot better and some countries do.

Love of country does not mean denying who we were, or who we are.  The country is the people in it, not the rocks.

Just Entertain Us

Life can be pretty boring for most people, and hard.

Childhood is usually a high point but not always.

At adulthood, we are usually asked to work, be responsible, settle down, raise children and other things which, even if fulfilling in many ways, are essentially boring.

This isn't new, its been the same essentially forever, and in many ways we have more comforts to make life a bit easier, however the boredom sets in and it shows.

Adultery and drug addiction are two symptoms

A third one is to watch shock shows on TV.

We live in the golden age of yellow journalism as the internet and the tremendous number of channels allow fringe views to spread.

Conspiracies, an evil "deep" state, shenanigan's by politicians and a general attack on our way of life has led to our unhappy state.

The fact that much of this is the idle ramblings of someone trying to get ratings and sponsors is irrelevant.

The fact that most of it isn't even true is also irrelevant.

Be entertaining by being shocking and you can get rich.

It worked back in the age of yellow journalism and it is working today.

It entertains us.
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Candidate Will Emerge

Before a single primary has been held we have lots of prognosticators talking about the potential Democratic candidate.

Based on his efforts to date, the current President seems to think that Joe Biden is the likely candidate, or at least the one he is most nervous about.

He may become the candidate, but then again he may not.

If we knew who we were going to support before the process plays out, we wouldn't need the process.

Some of the candidates are starting to become better known, and others are fading.

If you were to look back to 2008, at this time the front runner wasn't the eventual nominee.

We have to do the process and hopefully select the best man or woman for the job.

We have hardly started yet.

The Issues are the Issues

Nowadays people running for office are required, at least in some cases, to account for things that they did or didn't do, even when that event is simply routine life events.

I'm not talking about things which were crimes or which related to deeply felt political beliefs but simply actions which people do in the ordinary course of their lives.

Take a situation such as we have with Senator Elizabeth Warren who earlier in her life indicated on some documents that she had native American ancestry.

She does in fact have some but the amount is apparently inconsequential by some standards but was relying on some family traditions which spoke of it.

There is no evidence that she has specifically benefitted by this and she has never claimed tribal membership, however, it has led to her getting a nickname from the philanderer in chief and is almost guaranteed to become a prominent issue, at least at certain rallies if she becomes the Democratic nominee.

This obsession we have with inconsequential facts from people's past lives is ridiculous when you think about it.  The longer you have been alive and the more situations you have experienced. the more likely you are to have some things in your past that might be held against you.

God forbid they discover a photo or document detailing some foolishness you might have engaged in n school or elsewhere when you were still too young to know better.

What should matter, barring some real dark past is your current life and qualifications.

Of course with the rise of social media we will soon have a vast amount of opportunity to find "flaws" in the future.

You support Universal Health Care, but here is a picture of teenage you engaging in silly behavior!  Lets focus on that.

All In

Its clear that the only defense the republicans have is to deny reality.

First pretend that the acts never happened.
Second pretend they served the national interest.
Third argue they aren't really of any importance.
Finally argue the whole thing is a political act based on party politics.

The arguments are not designed to make a legal difference only a political one. It might be working since much of the American public is willing to accept any argument that lets them vote like they want.

Since the outcome is predetermined the only thing that matters is public reaction.  Pretending anything else is foolhardy.

The proceedings like most other things in America need to be dumbed down the American public is not going to become more interested or increase their attention span.

To pretend otherwise it's possibly noble but ineffectual.

The Republicans learned this and have gone all in.

The Democrats bet next.

Voter Turnout.

The process we now use in this country to pick our candidates and ultimately our leaders and regulators is based on Democracy.

It is at best partially Democratic since we don't get 100% voter participation.

Whether people who don't bother to vote would make a significant difference in who gets elected is arguable, but there are enough of them that they could make a difference.

There have been some demographic studies that show that non-voters are less white, less wealthy and younger than voters.

Those factors would indicate that they are likely to be a more liberal group, on the whole, than voters which partially explains why one of our political parties is into voter suppression as a tactic.

So getting out more voters, as the Democrats did in 2018 but failed to do in 2016 would seem critical to winning that election.

How to get these voters interested in the process is the problem.

Many are so disgusted by politics in general that they don't thing voting is worthwhile.

Changing that perception might be key and maybe some of the policies that appeal to them need to be prominent.

Of course if you alienate current voters you may have a bigger problem.

A Nation of Laws

Next week the Impeachment hearings go into another phase with the judiciary committee taking over.

Unfortunately it is probably a fairly meaningless exercise.

The facts have been clear for a while for anyone interested in the truth.

The President has violated any number of laws and constitutional prohibitions by using his office and public funds to further his private interests.  He has also engaged in obstruction of justice and as part of that witness interpretation.

The only thing that you can say he hasn't done is perjure himself since his lies weren't done under oath.

Now some of his defenders will argue that what he has done isn't an impeachable offence, with no real basis for that since the actions clearly violate the constitution.

Still there are arguments that seem to work with some of the American people which are simply strategies.  First they want to paint this as a Democratic witch hunt.  It turns out that it is almost exclusively a Democratic situation because of the stranglehold exerted on the Republican party by his base.  Because of the flaws in our primary system, it is fairly easy for a motivated group to either win or make life difficult in party primaries and since our congressmen and women are primarily interested in winning reelection, it is a powerful weapon.

Still it seems inevitable that impeachment will pass in the house but he won't be convicted in the Senate.

How this plays our in the general election remains to be seen.

We need to stay a nation of laws for our democracy to survive, if it can.