By Request - Senator Joseph Robinette (Joe) Biden

My dad, a staunch republican who vehemently disagrees with nearly all of my views on politics, asked me to write a post analyzing the other candidates for Vice President, the same way I did with Sarah Palin.

Specifically he asked that I analyze the Democratic, Green party, US Taxpayer's Party, Libertarian Party, and Natural Law Party candidates in detail.

Well, Dad, here's the thing - there's absolutely no chance that any of the fringe parties are going to get elected outside of small local and/or state elections, and while I've glanced at their respective agendas, I'm not going to waste bandwidth on them.

However, I agree that I should in fairness post my take on the democratic nominee for Vice President, Joe Biden. I haven't written about my opinion of him previously for a number of reasons: first, because I have no direct experience with Biden the way I do with Palin; second, because he's far better known to the American public than Palin is; and third, because his political position, religious beliefs, and background don't seem to generate the media and social hysteria that Palin does.

Frankly, I just don't have much in the way of strong opinion about Joe Biden as VP - he strikes me as about average for a vice presidential candidate, i.e. an experienced politician with a decent (if not particularly stellar) education, and decent (if not particularly stellar) experience. He has run for president himself a couple of times, made the usual public gaffes, and done nothing exceptionally noteworthy as a Senator good or bad. His repeated reelection as Senator shows that his constituents in Delaware believe he's doing a decent job representing their interests. His committee appointments (Foreign Relations, Judiciary, and International Narcotics Control) give him respectable Congressional experience in the particular areas that Obama lacks - which is why he was chosen, of course. He's reasonably articulate and a decent if not charismatic speaker the way Palin is - though it's obvious that he knows his subject matter to a far greater depth.

One of the principle differences between Biden and Palin is this: Nobody expects Biden to step into the Oval Office when Obama goes belly up during his first tour in office. Whenever Palin's name comes up, the very first thing both Republicans and especially Democrats bring up is Palin's readiness to take over the Presidency. A rather significant number of folks speak of Palin's succession to the presidency as a foregone conclusion, i.e. John McCain will not live out his first term. Personally, I think this is a sucker bet, McCain is a feisty old bastard, he survived Hanoi and he's got the best medical care money and a Senate seat can buy and he thrives on stress - so, I'd say that the odds of his imminent demise are vastly overrated. Be that as it may, I think Biden is far more qualified than Palin in a number of ways to step up immediately into the Oval Office if necessary.

Now, with all that said I think Biden will make a decent vice president. Notice I didn't say great vice president. I think he'd be a better president than vice president, and I'll explain why in a minute.

Let's run down the same list of vice presidential duties that we did with Palin, shall we?

First, Constitutionally, the VP's primary job is to be the spare tire. We keep him in the trunk (that's the boot, for those of you in England), and only take him out if we blow a main. Should he have to step up, Biden is fairly well prepared. Biden has served in the Senate since 1973, he knows politics and Washington at least as well, if not better than John McCain and far better than Sarah Palin and Barrack Obama. His education is in history, political science, and law (and he's a member of the Delaware Bar) - compare that to Palin's degree in Communications/Journalism. I am not running down Palin's education, simply pointing out the disparity. Biden's formal education is far more extensive and is orientated towards the basic requirements of the office, Palin's is not. Biden is experienced in a number of areas critical to the office, his Senatorial experience gives him insight and connections into that body, he knows how to make deals and get bills passed - Palin can't claim the same. However, Biden has made enemies in the Senate and the House, Palin hasn't. What impact that would have on either of them as President, I can't say. Biden's experience as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Subcommittees on Antitrust Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, Crime and Drugs, Human Rights and the Law, Immigration, Border Security, Refugees, and Technology, Terrorism, and Homeland Security would suggest that he has a far more detailed knowledge of the things we expect a President to take the lead on than Palin does. With his track record, I have to say that should Biden be forced to take the helm, he is far better prepared now, than Palin is and I'm not sure how anybody could argue differently - and I notice that the Republicans have avoided this comparison by and large.

Next, Constitutionally, the VP's secondary responsibility is to serve as the tie breaker in case of Senatorial deadlock and to certify the Electoral College vote count. I don't think we need to belabor these responsibilities in any detail. Biden can easily handle both, no better or worse than Palin.

Informal duties: As I said in the Palin post, the informal duties of the Vice President vary, depending on the President. But for the most part we can depend on the last thirty years to give us some idea of what the Vice President will be doing with his or her time:

1) Act as spokesman for the administration: Well, there's no doubt that Biden could perform this role. However, Biden is known for speaking off the cuff, and for letting his mouth get the better of him. A bad VP can make the administration look like idiots, even if they're not. Take Dan Quayle for example. Despite being a reasonably intelligent, likeable, and harmless guy, his tenure as VP became the running joke of the first Bush administration. No matter what he did, the administration got pilloried for it - the difference here though is that Quayle was a likable fellow, Biden is less so. Quayle's screw-ups were often attributed to youth and lack of experience, Biden's screw-ups are often attributed to malice aforethought. And a gaff of the kind he's known for could seriously damage an Obama administration. Part of the problem here is that Biden is far more experienced that Obama, and he's got some strong opinions, and he's not shy about expressing them - and that tells me that he'll have a hard time acting as the spokesman for somebody he may regard as young, junior, and less experienced. Obama will have to keep him reined in tight. In this role I think Palin will do a better job, her lack of experience limits her to McCain's talking points in large part, making her a far better representative of his position than Biden is of Obama's.

2) Act as an advisor to the President: for the reasons previously stated, I think Biden's Senatorial experience and education make him far more valuable in this role than Palin will be to McCain - and I don't think there's much in the way of comparison at this point. Should Obama become President, I think Biden will spend a great of time in the Oval Office, and I think there's little doubt that Obama picked him specifically for this role. He's said so, on more than one occasion.

3) Chairman of the Board of NASA: Biden is no more qualified for this role than Palin. Just as with Palin, his ability to carry out this responsibility will depend entirely on his willingness to listen to experts - and I'm not sure he can do that consistently or sincerely. He's an opinionated guy. But again, in this regard I doubt he'll be any better or worse than Palin or his predecessors.

4) Member of the board of the Smithsonian: I think Biden will serve admirably in this role, his education, experience, and demonstrated leadership ability are precisely the qualities that this type of organization actively recruits. Unlike Palin I doubt his religious view point (he's a Catholic) will have much influence on his performance of this duty. As I said previously, Palin's creationism and public disregard for mainstream science causes me serious concern when it comes to direct influence on one of America's premier scientific institutions.

5) Carry out the formal ceremonial duties of the Presidency: I'm sure Biden can handle this.

Brass Tacks: Biden was a damned good choice by Obama. He rounds out the democratic ticket, filling in the gaps. He's older, proven, and experienced. He's a savvy politician. He's not particularly charismatic the way Palin is, but with Obama he doesn't have to be and he wasn't chosen for that reason. He's handled himself well in interviews and the debate, and shown confidence and detailed knowledge.

I'd say that if there is one thing lacking, it's that neither Obama or Biden have any military experience. They'll have to chose carefully when it comes to advisors, and I'd really like to know who those people will be and I'd like to know in detail prior to November. Both Robert Gates, the current SecDef and Richard Danzig (former Navy Secretary under the Clinton Administration and an Obama defense advisor) have been floated as possibilities. I worked for both, and have no objections though I don't much care for Gates, but I'd really like to know who Obama has in mind, at least the short list.

Additionally, neither Obama or Biden have any direct experience with the economy that compares to McCain's experience on the Senate Commerce Committee. Again they'll have to pick their advisors carefully. Though public perception at the moment seems to indicate that the public believes Obama is better qualified and prepared to fix the problems in the financial sector than McCain is. Only time will tell, and unless things go seriously pear-shaped, Biden will have little to do with it, other than maybe casting the deciding vote in the Senate.

Does that mean he'll make a good vice president? Not necessarily. He certainly has the potential, but the VP's primary unwritten job is to directly support the President and put his own ego and agenda aside - and Biden is going to have to work on that. Providing he can firmly limit himself to the roles, duties, and responsibilities of the office, without spending the next four or eight years campaigning for his own shot at the Oval Office, I think he'll do fine.

Compared to Sarah Palin, I think it should be obvious to all but the most fervently doctrinal conservatives that Biden is far more qualified for the job.

If this was a traditional job interview, I'd hire Biden over Palin any day of the week, simply based on his resume and the way he presents himself.

A Question for the Candidates

A federal judge has ordered the immediate release into the United States of a group of 17 Chinese Muslims who have been held in the U.S. military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for several years.

In 2001, just after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, a group of ethnic Uighurs (or more correctly, Uyghurs) fled the country into neighboring Pakistan. Where they were captured and detained by the Pakistani military. U.S. intelligence became aware of the detention and subsequently judged the Uyghurs to be members of the East Turkmenistan Islamist Movement.

I written before how intelligence, especially in time of war and crisis, can go horribly wrong. This is something I know a great deal about, and have extensive experience with. And as you are about to see, that's exactly what happened here.

The name, East Turkmenistan Islamist Movement (ETIM), is a loose term used to describe ethnic Uyghurs who advocate the creation of an independent, self-governing nation, commonly referred to as East Turkestan or sometimes Uyghurstan, within the Xinjiang semi-autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Xinjiang borders both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Here's a map for those of you not familiar with the geography:

Note: click on the image for a link to an interactive map in the World Atlas Online.

A bit of background regarding the Uyghurs. Following centuries of warfare, the Uyghurs, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Kazaks, Tadjiks, and a number of other steppe peoples came under control of China. Following the Cultural Revolution, these people, and the largely Muslim Uyghurs in particular, were forced to assimilate into Chinese culture. The assimilation was strictly one way. Like all non-ethnic Chinese, the Uyghurs daily face religious persecution and extensive discrimination. Muslim Uyghurs have strict limits on the practice of their faith: they may only use a state-approved version of the Koran, they cannot wear beards or head scarves, and the state controls management of all mosques. Children under the age of 18 are not allowed to attend church or mosque, and religious figures may not hold state jobs or be teachers. Significant numbers of Uyghurs have been executed as enemies of the state.

Now in all fairness, China does have a historic claim to the Xinjiang region, dating back well over a thousand years - and a number of Uyghurs have engaged in acts of terrorism as we in the west define it. China says that the terrorists are hiding behind claims of humans rights and freedom of religion in order to perpetrate acts of terrorism and weaken the state's hold on the region - and there is some validity to this. However, there is also validity to claims that China has marginalized the Uyghurs using brutal repression.

Be that as it may, there is no question that members of the ETIM have used terrorism and violence against the Chinese, and as such the group was declared a terrorist organization in 2002 by the Bush administration under pressure by the Chinese government and in exchange for China's limited cooperation in the Global War on Terrorism.

Because of this designation, Pakistan turned the seventeen detained Uyghurs over to the U.S. who promptly detained them as terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - where they've remained under guard until yesterday. That's about seven years, just in case you need help with the math.

Now understand something here, even if these people had been full-blown members of EITM, they committed no acts of terrorism against the United States or her allies. Their crimes, if any, would have been committed against China. However, China has lodged no international complaint against them. The men were apprehended fleeing the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, which unless I'm completely off the rails here, is not a crime in anybody's books. Though crossing into Pakistan could be considered a crime under Pakistani law - but that would hardly be terrorism, especially if they claimed refugee status, which they did.

Nonetheless, they went to Gitmo as terrorists. Where after three years of interrogation, actual intelligence work, communication with China, and the efforts of Uyghur Human Rights Project in America - it was determined that the men were not in fact terrorists at all. Period. Just a bunch of unfortunates who got caught up in the struggle, and nothing more.

So we gave them an apology, a couple of bucks, and a first class ticket home.

Oh, wait, that's not right.

What actually happened is that because there is neither Constitutional administration or any kind of proper international oversight at Gitmo, we, well, we just kept them there.

That's right. They weren't terrorists, or criminals, or anybody who was any kind of threat to America, just a bunch of poor bastards who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But for the last seven years, four since we determined that they were nobodies, they've been held at Gitmo by the United States of America.

See, here's the problem. China wouldn't let them come home, and nobody else wanted them, and because the Bush Administration regards the Constitution, U.S. Law, international human rights agreements, and Habeas Corpus to be nothing but quaint outdated notions -they got to stay in jail. For four years. Four damned years because our leaders could not, and would not, admit their mistake.

For four years, seven if you count their detention prior to the determination of their status, these people have been held in military prison, without recourse, without representation, without the right to protest. We knew they were not terrorists, or criminals, or anything else - but we kept innocent people in jail simply because it was the easiest thing to do. We did that, not China, not North Korea, not Iran, us. The United States of America, land of the free, home of the brave, bastion of civil rights, and beacon of freedom to the world. Us. And if they weren't enemies of America going in, they sure as hell are now.

You have no idea how much this offends me.

No really, you don't.

I feel nothing but rage at the small tyrants who have stolen our country away from us and the ignorant tyrannical bastard in the White House who continues to perpetuate the abomination that is Guantanamo Bay and all the rest of the secret prisons. I've written extensively about this (here and here and here and here for starters), I've spoken out in person and on the Internet, and I will continue to speak out. I have written to my congressman, and my senators, and my governor, and the presidential candidates, and Jimmy Carter, and anybody else who will listen and I will continue to do so. This must not be allowed to stand. Those responsible must be held accountable under the law and the Constitution and I will not rest until they are.

Those of us who fought for this country swore an oath to uphold and defend the principles of the United States. We swore to give our lives if necessary to defend freedom, democracy, justice, and liberty, not just for Americans, but for all. These are not just words, but the very foundation of America, and they are the very reasons so many have given so much over the last two hundred years.

There are those who say that we cannot pull out of Afghanistan or Iraq or any of the other places we are currently engaged in - because to do so would mean that those Americans who died in the conflict gave their lives for nothing. This is one of the loudest conservative rallying cries against the Democratic presidential nominee. We must not tuck tail and run, because the sacrifices of the thousands of American servicemen killed in those conflicts would then mean exactly nothing.

Just as the ultimate sacrifice of 50,000 thousand servicemen in Vietnam came down to nothing when the last chopper lifted off from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.

And they are absolutely right.

But what these same exact people fail to see, what they deliberately blind themselves to in their patriotic fervor, is that when we allow our leaders to hide away innocent men, when we allow secret prisons and secret tribunals, when we throw away the concept of habeas corpus, when we as Americans allow torture and unjust imprisonment - we spit in the face of every single American who swore to give their lives in defense of the Constitution and the principles of Freedom, Democracy, and Liberty for All. When we allow this to stand, we spit into the faces of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Paine, and all the men who fought and died and bled in order to create this country. We spit on our history and our principles and our flag. And this must not be allowed to stand.

I do not hate America, I love this country and the ideals it stands for - and I spent 23 years of my life proving it each and every day. But I am ashamed by what we have allowed ourselves to become. We must regain our honor and our dignity and our heritage if we are to continue to call ourselves Americans.

I watched the presidential debate last night, I watched the candidates and I listened to the sound bites, and I watched the Americans sitting like good little ducks in a row behind the speakers - and I wondered, which one of these men has the guts, the vision, the strength, and the honor to change the faulty course the last eight years have placed us on? I wasn't there and I didn't get to ask a question but if I were it would this: Senators Obama and McCain, what are your intentions? Will you uphold your oath to the Constitution and return America to a land of Honor, Justice, Democracy, Freedom, and Liberty? Will you restore our pride in ourselves and the admiration of the world? Will you?

But, I fear I already know the answer.

A Better Political Test

The previous political test I posted was, as I and several others noted, rather simplistic.

I found a better one, or least one that is a bit more in depth. This one has me outside the centrist circle, and slightly into the democrat camp. I don't necessarily disagree with it, for the purposes of this election.

You are a Social Liberal (66% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (30% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat

Explanation Of Results

We wanted to get beyond the two catch-alls of American politics, the Democratic and Republican parties, and see where people actually stand. Parties can bring together people with marginally differing values and make collective action easier. But party platforms can misrepresent their constituents, and blind loyalty to a party can convince individuals to harbor inconsistent views.

The goal of this test was to exactly classify your personal politics, without the traditional labels. We avoided the edgy party issues and focused on fundamental values. Your score is a measure of what you believe in, economically and socially.

Higher permissiveness, on either axis, indicates a "live and let live" philosophy. Of course, we're almost conditioned in America, "Land of the Free", to think positively of such a philosophy. But practically speaking, permissiviness (or its opposite, regulation) can create any number of outcomes:

For example, on the economic axis, a highly permissive system, like the American system of the early 1900s, might mean things like low taxes and increased scientific innovation. It might also result, as it did back then, in unrestricted child labor and millions of poor people with black lung.

At the other end of the economic spectrum, a highly regulated system might conserve the environment, establish national health care, and eliminate poverty. But as we've learned from the Soviet system, extreme regulation can also lead to stagnation, sameness, and unhappiness.

The test is here, on the OK Cupid site. See how you do.

First Snow (updated)

Oh goody. It's snowing.



This is a shot out my sunroom window, looking down into the valley. Well, if you could actually see further than the edge of the tree line, you'd be looking down across the valley. That's snow and ice fog.

Wonderful.

It's not much, yet. But it's relentless.

Actually, sarcasm aside, it's beautiful. I love winter in Alaska, I do. I love the peace and quiet and the white snow on the mountains. This morning it's as if the world is wrapped in cotton, the sounds are muffled and it's just incredibly peaceful.

Just thought you all should know.
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update: the flakes are now as big as a quarter and falling so thickly that I can hardly see the trees at all.

A Little Clarification

My previous posts regarding Alaskan Governor, Sarah Palin, have gotten a lot of traffic. Some were reposted elsewhere in whole or in part, and have served to pull a significant amount of traffic to Stonekettle Station.

What I find perplexing is that my thoughts and words have been interpreted in wildly disparate ways depending who is reading them. Conservatives see my posts as direct support for Palin, liberals see my words as as a rail against Palin- or perversely support for her, or just plain confusing. I find this both interesting, and infuriating.

Initially I felt compelled to write about Palin, because as an Alaskan I kept seeing spontaneously self-generating falsehoods broadcast by the media, both about Palin's tenure as Alaska's Governor and about Alaska itself - and I'm still seeing a lot of hysterical nonsense and hyperbole being created whole cloth by those who have no experience in, or knowledge of, my state and the culture I live within, and because for the large majority of Americans, Palin is still a relative unknown and Alaska is a vast remote mythical land.

The intended gist of my posts was that instead of buying into hysterical or enthusiastic rumor, outright falsehoods, exaggeration, and preconceived notions about either Palin and/or Alaska, readers should base their judgement of the woman, indeed any political candidate, on accurate information, verified fact, and validated historical performance - and then vote according to whether or not those things fit within the acceptable boundaries of their political ideology.

My intention was never to endorse Sarah Palin, influence your vote, or to tell you who to vote for - only to exhort you to think before you make your decision and make certain that you are voting for or against the things you really want.

Here in Alaska, Sarah Palin represents a marked change from the corrupt nepotism of our previous executives. Many Alaskans, myself included, were aware of her religious beliefs and political leanings prior to her election, and we voted for her either because we agreed with those ideals or, in my case, because we wanted our state to move in a new direction. And in large part she has done exactly what many of us, but not all, wanted. For me, voting for a creationist, was no different than voting for any other Christian, or a Jew, or a Muslim, or for that matter an atheist - providing that they can separate their beliefs from their duty, I consider the point of minor concern.

Based on that, albeit brief, track record I wrote that I thought she would "make a dandy Vice President, and an even better President" somewhere down the line - which is probably why so many people took my words as a wholehearted endorsement of Sarah Palin.

It's obvious in retrospect, that I should have been much more clear and I will attempt to be so here.

First, see the previous post for a graphic of my basic political position: I'm a centrist, who leans very slightly towards liberal/libertarianism when it comes to social issues, and slightly to the right when it comes to matters of national security, defense, and the economy. I'm neither republican or democrat or libertarian. I'm an independent who votes my conscience, I believe in common sense, education, and intelligence and Joe-Six-Pack would probably call me an elitist, real elitists would probably call me a jumped up pretender - frankly I don't care, I am who I am and I like making it difficult for people to pigeon-hole me. If you're one of those people who just has to categorize others, you'll be extremely unhappy here, and it's best you leave now.

With that said, I think that, if we have to have John McCain as President, Palin will make a dandy Vice President. And I do think that she has the potential to be a decent president.

Wait, don't start screaming yet. Hear me out.

First, as regular readers are fully aware, I am diametrically opposed to Palin's publicly professed personal beliefs, i.e. creationism - from which all else in her world view depends. I think creationism is, well, to be blunt, just plain stupid and ignorant. While the Constitution says that the government has to respect Creationism as a religious belief, our law puts no such onus on me as an individual and I have absolutely no respect for what I see as deluded silly nonsense. Now, before the creationists out there get all red-faced and pear-shaped, don't feel singled out - I feel that way about most religions. However, as long as you keep it to yourself and don't attempt to push your beliefs on me, I'm perfectly willing to let you believe whatever you like. And that's how it's been here in Alaska, Palin, despite her religious beliefs has done a credible job of representing those who believe as she does, and those of us who emphatically do not.

In other words, for the two years that she has been Alaska's governor, she has placed her duty as governor above her personal religious beliefs.

This is in large part acceptable to me. I am quite familiar with with many folks who have the ability to separate duty from personal belief. The military, where I spent most of my life, is full of people who every day place their sworn duty above their personal, religious, and political beliefs. This is called professionalism. And based on her track record, Palin has by and large exhibited this quality as Alaska's Governor.

I do think that she has allowed her political beliefs to influence her professed views on certain things - such as the underlying cause of global warming. [As an aside here, I don't think this particular viewpoint is limited to Sarah Palin. Seriously, I think a hell of a lot more conservatives would be willing to accept the vast array of high confidence science that points directly to human activity as a significant contributing factor in global climate change if anybody but Al Gore was the spokesman for the cause. Any conservative who embraces the environment as a cause celebre, will be seen as a traitor to the party, period. I've always found this bizarre and perverse, but that's human nature in general, and politics in particular, for you.]

This is less acceptable to me. However placing the politics of the party above logic, science, and duty to the whole is unavoidable in our current system. Politicians largely place their duty to the party that got them elected over their duty to the whole. Like it or not, that's part and parcel of American politics.

Now, down to the crux of the matter at hand, i.e. justification of my stated opinion that Palin will make a decent Veep.

First, as long as she continues to place duty above personal belief, I believe she'll execute the Office of Vice President in a manner that brings credit upon the office. Will she? Place duty above belief, that is. All I can point to is her track record, which indicates that she will, anything else is pure speculation, hysteria, and presumption of guilt without proof.

Second, it is important to point out that she is the Vice Presidential candidate, not the Presidential candidate.

Now, the formal duties of the VP are limited by the Constitution to a few simple roles: 1) become President should the sitting President become unable to serve for whatever reason, and 2) act as the presiding officer of the U.S. Senate which includes two primary, and very limited, duties: a) to cast the deciding vote in the event of a senatorial deadlock, and b) to preside over and certify the vote count of the Electoral College. And if you want to get technical about it, the VP is also required to sit behind the President during State of the Union addresses, and try manfully to stay awake for an hour without resorting to either doodling or throwing spitballs at the back of the President's head.

Is Palin qualified to carry out those duties? No, and yes. I think that it's painfully obvious that she is not qualified at the moment, in either knowledge or experience, to execute the first duty of the Vice President, i.e. become the President should the sitting executive become incapacitated due to a rage induced stroke or sudden age-related cardiac infarction. However, based on her track record, Palin is both smart and a quick learner and given enough time in the standby seat I think she'll come up to speed fairly quickly. Additionally, as I've written elsewhere, a president's knowledge and experience is less important than who they get advice and consul from, and how willing they are to listen to that advice and consul - which is why I think it imperative that we as voters demand to know who those people will be now, prior to the election. Now don't get me wrong here, I do think this is a major concern, however, I think it's less a concern regarding Palin's qualifications than it is McCain's, and if you truly believe that John McCain will die in office, well, then you probably should have picked a different candidate - and that's a separate post entirely. Now, is Palin qualified to carry out the other formal Constitutional duties of Vice President? Yes, certainly. Her experience as town mayor and governor qualifies her for that. In the event of a Senatorial deadlock, she'll predictably vote along party lines, just as every VP has, whether or not she understands the issues in detail. And anybody of sound moral fiber can certify the Electoral College vote - additionally there's plenty of oversight, transparency, and a formal process for doing so, even those without sound moral fiber would be hard pressed to jigger results - not that it couldn't be done, but it's unlikely despite urban myth to the contrary.

What about the informal duties of the Vice President? What are those exactly? Well, that's a good question, and the answer often depends on the relationship between the President and the Vice President (I almost said between the President and his Vice, but that conjured up images of Bill Clinton and cigars and I really don't want to go there). In recent years the Office of VP has usually included the following duties: 1) spokesman for the administration's policy - which I think Palin has demonstrated that she's aptly able to carry out. 2) Advisor to the President - which, in Palin's case, would depend entirely on what type of salmon fishing McCain had mind. I'm being a smart ass, of course, but the truth of the matter is that Palin lacks any kind of experience that would make her a respectable presidential advisor in any significant capacity outside of a very few, very limited areas - such as Alaskan oil exploration and export (However, this may be a critical role, and one few others could provide). It is unlikely that Palin will be able to provide the type of advice and consul that the current VP does to George Bush. At the beginning of the current administration, Dick Cheney's experience in Washington far, far outweighed Bush's, this is manifestly not the case with McCain and Palin. However, the role of advisor is purely dependent on the person, and not a formal duty, and this is important to remember. 3) Traditionally, since the Kennedy administration anyway, the Vice President serves as the Chairman of the Board of NASA, and in this Palin is utterly unqualified, but so have been most Vice Presidents. Lyndon Johnson's tenure primarily emphasized beating the Rooskies in manned spaceflight, and getting as much of the resulting NASA pork barrel dumped into Texas as possible. And vice presidents since the last American left the moon in 1972, have mostly been about containing NASA's expenditures and reliving past glories. Note: astute readers might note that Alaska is one of only three states to have a spaceport (the others being Florida [Kennedy SFC] and California [Vandenberg AFB and the Mojave Civilian Aerospace Test Center]). However, the Kodiak Launch complex is used for unmanned, circumpolar orbital insertion and missile testing and Palin has no duties or experience relating to it whatsoever. Additionally, Palin lacks formal education or experience in hard science research and application, which is the mainstay of NASA's overall mission. Her ability to carry out the duties as NASA's Chairman of the Board will depend entirely on her ability to listen to others. In this regard, I doubt Palin will be any better or any worse than her predecessors. 4) The VP also serves as a member of the Board of the Smithsonian Institution, and here I do have a major concern when it comes to Palin's religious and political beliefs. I find it difficult in the extreme to believe that an avowed creationist would be able to separate her beliefs from her sworn duty when when it comes to this role. Additionally, Palin lacks any kind of formal education in mainstream science, history, or culture - the very things that the Smithsonian is entrusted with preserving and extending. However the VP's role on the board is not overriding and the amount of influence she has will be limited. And finally 5) the Office of VP is often delegated to carry out the formal ceremonial duties of the Executive Office, and in this Palin has demonstrated her ability to speak publicly and well, to rally the crowd with ease and expertise and here I think she'll do exceptionally well.

Now, let's get right down to brass tacks. I said previously that I though Palin was the best choice John McCain could have made for a running mate, and I stand by that statement. McCain isn't stupid, he's an experienced and savvy political insider, this isn't the first time he's run for president - and last time he lost, and he learned from that - he chose Palin for a particular reason, to get elected. And that is the primary role of the Vice Presidential candidate, and a role Palin is exercising with confidence and enthusiasm. And the numbers reflect the soundness of McCain's tactical choice. There's no doubt she embarrassed herself and McCain with her poor performance during the Katie Couric interview, but it's important to note that she corrected that deficiency two weeks later during the vice presidential debate with Joe Biden, while her performance wasn't exactly stellar, it was far and away better than anybody expected. So much so that the GOP could claim victory, or at least not concede defeat and embarrassment. It's obvious that she crammed for that debate, and that she stuck to the approved republican talking points, but that's exactly my point here - she's a very fast learner and she's growing politically very, very quickly. Others have underestimated her to their detriment, and so has the Obama campaign. Don't make the same mistake.

Does that mean she'll make a good Vice President? Not necessarily. The ability to get elected, and the ability to carry out the duties of office are two totally different things. There are many, many folks in this country who would make better presidents or better vice presidents than any of the current candidates, but they could not possibly get elected even if they wanted the job. The best we can hope for is that if elected by popular vote, the candidates will grow into the office and execute the duties of that office in accordance with the law and the Constitution.

Based on Palin's track record, I still think that she can execute most of the duties of vice president fairly well, however as noted I think she's seriously lacking it some of the most important areas. So was Johnson, so was Ford, hell so was Teddy Roosevelt.

Palin is not my choice for Vice President and I have no intention of voting for either her or John McCain - but then I wouldn't vote for McCain no matter who he chose for his running mate. I don't like him, and I don't like his party. And I feel this way because I've examined the requirements of the office, and compared both the candidate's experience, history, and stated goals, desires, and intentions. And not just because I've had enough Republicans in the White House to last me for a while, thank you very much.

McCain, Palin, Obama, Biden, none are the anti-Christ, or evil incarnate, or the end of America as we know it, or the downfall of Western Civilization and there is no need to pretend that any of them are. Who you vote for is entirely your business, but please, break it down line by line and responsibility by responsibility, and figure out whether or not the person you vote for is truly representative of your ideals.

Bottom line, no matter who wins this election - come January one of the darkest chapters of American history will come to a close, and personally, at this point I consider that a win for all of us.

Graphing My Politics

Your views call roughly the same amount of government with just a bit more liberty than we currently have in the United States today. Your views are probably best served by a nearly equal mix of Democrats and Republicans in the legislatures, as long as you choose the correct Democrats and Republicans.

Or, if you want to make sure government shrinks a bit, you could throw a few Libertarians into the mix. But just a few. The Libertarian Party calls for radical cuts in government far beyond what you want. Think of a tub of cold bathwater. To get it warm enough to be comfortable, you can add scalding hot water to bring the temperature up to ideal.

Approximately 10% of the takers of this quiz scored in this area.

Hmmmm, I'd say this is a reasonably accurate graph of my political center.

But, I don't know that I particularly agree with this political compass representation, I think it's too simplistic. I think the Pournelle chart is more accurate in identifying political ideologies, but I couldn't find an online test that plotted my ideology on a Pournelle Chart.

Problem is, neither of the current Presidential front runners fall anywhere close to what I'd like to see in a president.

I don't know if this is good to know or not.

On the other hand, I'm sure that big scaly lizard would end up with excruciating heartburn, serve him right.

From the Wood Shop: Old Wooden Rocking Chairs

A couple of weeks back, a friend of mine dropped by the shop.

I hadn't seen him in a while.

He'd been out of state, or as we say here in Alaska, outside. A great aunt had died, and he was the executor of her estate. While cleaning out her house, up in the attic, he came across a pair of old rocking chairs.

And not just any old rocking chairs, but heirloom pieces, made around 1880. The rockers had been hand-crafted by my friend's great grandfather who owned a furniture factory in Missouri and they were worth a fortune - or would have been if they'd been in decent shape. They'd graced his aunt's home for many years, but over time had gotten nicked and damaged and worn down and so eventually ended up forgotten in the attic for decades.

My friend wanted them. Badly.

He contacted a shipping company, who agreed to ship them ground freight to Alaska. Just one problem, they wouldn't fit in a regular sized crate. And if the company had to build special crates, well that would just about double the already significantly high shipping costs.

So, he tried to take them apart. He carefully separated the hundred and thirty year old hide glue holding the rockers in place, but still managed to break a rocker in the process - nearly breaking his heart as well.

Once they were safely in Alaska, he brought them to me.

Uncrated, they weren't much to look at.

The finish was nicked and faded, and the leather, while being in pretty good shape for century-old cowhide, was faded and stained.

I fixed the broken rocker easily enough, by boring a horizontal hole into the opposing faces of the break, then inserted a 1" oak dowel, and then glued it together with a polymer wood glue. It sat in the clamps for a week, and when finished was far stronger than the original.

Then I set about reassembling the chairs.

First the old wooden pins needed to be bored out of the rockers and legs.

Which I did with a forstner bit in the drill press for the rockers, and a hand drill for the legs.

Then I fashioned replacement wooden pins from oak dowel and inserted them into the rockers.

The original craftsman who first fabricated these chairs really knew what he was doing. The front pins were vertically mounted and glued into place in stopped blind holes. But the back pin holes were bored completely through the rocker at an angle, and at first I couldn't figure out why he had done that. Some experimentation answered the question. The rockers are first mounted by inserting the front rocker pins into the legs, then the back pins are driven through the rocker with a mallet - which served to draw the rockers tightly against the legs without glue or fiddling around. Brilliant, and an outstanding example of old fashioned master chair making.

Once the rockers were reattached, I did glue the front pins in place, sort of the suspenders and belt idea here, and clamped them to dry for a day or two.

Then I recreated the original mahogany finish by mixing mahogany dye into clear spar varnish. I lightly sanded down the old finish and applied my mix over the top. This preserved the original finish, fixed the nicks and scratches, and brought out the original color, shine, and vibrancy. Then I used a leather restorer on the seats and backs.

I am more than satisfied with the results. Both of these chairs are nearly a hundred and thirty years old and fully restored to their original condition. They are incredibly beautiful in person, the pictures don't do them justice. Both are outstanding examples of a lost art - the art of American frontier furniture making with only basic steam powered machinery, hand tools, and elbow grease.

My friend has not yet seen them. He's coming by tomorrow to pick them up, I think he'll be pleased.

Steve Fossett

Searchers have found the wreckage of missing adventurer Steve Fossett's aircraft, high in a remote part of California's Sierra Nevada mountains.

So far they haven't located his remains.

On September 3, 2007 Fossett took off from an airstrip in Nevada and disappeared into history - I thought that was somehow a fitting end.

On February 15 of this year, he was declared legally dead after one of the largest and longest search efforts in history. The search resumed Wednesday last, after a hiker found Fossett's pilot license and other identification while hiking far off the beaten path in the area around Yosemite National Park

I'm of two minds about this.

I very much admired Steve Fossett. Mild mannered and a genuinely nice guy, in our modern age, he was an anachronism, an adventurer and explorer on par with the great names of history, James Cook, Roald Amundsen, Richard Byrd, Robert Peary, Sir Henry Stanely, Ernest Shackleton, and all those others who set out into the unknown and for far horizons - many never to be seen again. Fossett set many records in the air and on the earth, but he discovered no new lands and journeyed to no new worlds, and in that way he was more like Robin Lee Graham who set out as a teenager to sail around the world in a tiny sloop called Dove, or perhaps the person he most resembles is Amelia Earhart, who also disappeared on a flight over unknown territory.

In recent years, the horizons of our universe have become close and small, there are few places on our tiny world that you can go and not find prior evidence of man. There are very few places on the Earth that we have not been to or looked into with our instruments or explored in detail. We've long since passed the great ages of exploration, and we've long given up grand adventure on strange and distant shores. Oh, there are still frontiers, vast and unknown, out there beyond Earth's puny gravity well, just out of our reach. And we've send robots to see what's out there, mechanical unthinking proxies who dare nothing and feel no wonder or awe and do little to stir the soul. But as a people, we've long given up the thought of exploration and daring and great dreams, and limited ourselves to near Earth orbit.

There are still dreamers though, and men who dare to do more than just dream, and Steve Fossett was one of them.

As I mentioned, I thought it fitting that he should simply vanish into the trackless wilderness, rather than die old and ignobly abed. The word needs legend and mystery, those are the very things that drive us and inspire us to push the boundaries of our world. Fossett spent his entire life inspiring others to seek beyond their self-imposed limits, and I thought it fitting that his death should do the same.

But Steve Fossett left behind many who loved and admired him, and for them today's discovery of his plane's wreckage may bring them solace and closure. His remains have not yet been located, but it is highly unlikely that he survived the crash and it won't be long before his body is found and returned home.

For the rest of us, we are left with one less mystery in the world, one less dreamer, one less adventurer who dared to do things others cannot or will not - and horizons that are just a little smaller and closer.

Voyage well, Steve, wherever you are.

A Proposal Regarding Nationalization of the US Financial Sector

This is the forth straight day I've posted something about the US Financial Sector Meltdown. Don't worry, unless something significant happens it'll be the last one for a while.

Now, with that said, I do have some thoughts on the so-called bailout.

In a previous post, commenter Ilya took me to task for complaining about the financial sector meltdown, without proposing a solution. That got me thinking. I was trained as a US Navy Chief Warrant Officer, and if there's one thing about Warrants it's this: they never bring a problem to the chain of command without a proposed solution. And Warrant Officer solutions tend to be a bit, uh, different from the usual proposals (usually they involve violence, but not in this case). As such, I've given this some serious thought.

Here's what I think we ought to do:

In the last three posts I've mentioned that while I am ideologically opposed to bailing out the arrogant greedy bastards who dug this hole, I fully understand and appreciate why we have to do it.

But I've got to tell you, this whole thing hits me about the same as coming home after busting your butt on the third shift and finding that your roommate has thrown a blowout end-of-the-world party. The house is trashed, empty beer cans are everywhere, cigarette burns on the carpet, all the plates are dirty, the garbage can is overflowing onto the kitchen floor, there's vomit in the bathroom tub and used condoms on your pillow, and some drunk, half naked chick is passed out in the bushes. Your folks are coming by in a couple of hours, your roommate went home with the waitress the way he always does - and you get stuck cleaning up the mess.

Everybody else had a great time, the party was legendary, they'll talk about it for years.

You? Too bad you missed it. But, you get all the work as a consolation prize. You're a sport, you are.

No matter what the final version of the bailout bill ultimately looks like, the US Government is going to end up acquiring a rather large number of foreclosed properties (well over two million, and maybe significantly more depending on which figures you reference) and nationalize a significant fraction of the US Financial Sector.

I think nationalizing private property and a good sized chunk of the Financial Sector is a bad, bad idea and I think it is fundamentally opposed to the principles America was founded on. However, there appears to be no other solution at the moment. Those foreclosures are an albatross around Wall Street's neck, and it will be nearly impossible for the market to recover until that drag is removed - well, it could recover without the buyout, but it will take a long, long time. Ideally, those foreclosures should be bought out by the mortgage and S&L industry - and some small fraction certainly are being bought out - but the industry lacks the capital to relieve Wall Street of more than a small fraction of those properties and the average citizen isn't in a position to buy a new home at the moment.

And that leaves the Fed - and that's exactly where a lot of that $700 billion bailout package will go, in phases over a couple of years.

In order for this to work, those properties will have to be sold and that $700 Billion recouped over time, plus interest, in order to pay back the people and entities we borrowed it from in the first place - and ultimately ourselves, the taxpayers.

As I said, we have to do this. We've been given no good alternatives. But, here's what galls me more than anything else - once the Fed acquires those foreclosed properties and direct interest in Wall Street, we assume the risk. If those properties don't sell, both quickly and for high enough return, they'll end up being an albatross around our necks. Every day those properties sit empty in the Fed's hands, we're paying for them - not just the basic amount the Fed spent to acquire them, but the daily, compounding cost necessary to maintain them until they can be off-loaded on the home-buyer market, which is, as I mentioned, in the toilet.

Think about it for a minute, how many foreclosed properties are there in your neck of the woods? Regular commenter Beastly is currently working in foreclosure recovery in Arizona. He told me on the phone the other day that in the Phoenix area alone there are 50 - 77 thousand available properties on the books. 50 - 77 thousand, about a third of which are foreclosures. Some of those houses were significantly damaged by the previous owners, to the point where they cannot be occupied or pass a basic pre-loan inspection. They have to be repaired before they can be sold. Nationwide, we're looking at roughly 2.2 million foreclosed properties, and even if those homes are in salable condition, all of those properties have to be maintained. Heat, water, electricity. Somebody has to cut the grass, and clean the pool. Somebody has to keep the crack-heads and looters from pillaging the place. In neighborhoods where there are large numbers of empty house, those properties are dragging down the value of the homes around them. All of these things cost money, every day, and once the Fed becomes the landlord, we get to pay for it. Notice that little item isn't mentioned in the Bailout Bill (though technically, while not spelled out, I suspect that Sec 5(b) probably covers maintenance and upkeep and Sec 2(b)(1) covers hiring people to manage and execute the process (And once those people are hired, see if we can get rid of them anytime in the foreseeable future - we will in essence be creating a new branch of the Fed, sort of like a Mortgage Industry TSA).

Every single day that we, as taxpayers, own those properties, we're bleeding money - just exactly as the Mortgage Industry is right now. What? You didn't think those properties are magically going to be worth something just because the Fed purchased them, did you? If they were actually worth something on the current market, there would be no need for a bailout, now would there?

That's right, a whole bunch of people threw themselves a party, and we get to pay for the carpet cleaning.

Now, here's the thing, most of us didn't make this mess, we had it thrust upon us. But, if we have to assume the risk, and a significant risk at that, then we should get to enjoy some of the profit - should there be any.

__________________________

Now, here's what I propose: Create a National Permanent Investment Fund.

Let's start with some background:

Since Alaska has been forefront in the news lately, a large number of folks - both in the news media and in private blogs and forums - have noted that Alaskans get money annually from from the oil industry.

That's not exactly true.

We get money each year from the State, via dividend from the Alaskan Permanent Fund, the APF.

In essence, the APF is a constitutionally established fund, managed by a semi-independent corporation, established by Alaska in 1976. The Permanent Fund was created by an amendment to the constitution of Alaska to be an investment for at least 25% of proceeds from some minerals (such as oil and gas) sale or royalties. The Alaska Permanent Fund sets aside a certain share of oil revenues to continue benefiting current and all future generations of Alaskans.

The Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation manages the assets of both the Permanent Fund and other state investments, but spending fund income is up to the Legislature. By law, the Corporation is to manage for maximum prudent return. The Fund grew from an initial investment of $734,000 in 1977 to the sum of approximately forty billion dollars as of July 13, 2007. Some growth was due to good management, some to inflationary re-investment, and some via legislative decisions to deposit extra income during boom years. Each year, the fund's realized earnings are split between inflation-proofing, operating expenses, and the annual Permanent Fund Dividend.

The Permanent Fund Dividend is a program benefiting Alaskans without a felony conviction who have resided in the state for at least one calendar year preceding the date applied for a dividend and intend to remain an Alaska resident indefinitely at the time applied for a dividend. The amount of each payment is based upon a five-year average of the Permanent Fund's performance and varies widely depending on the stock market and many other factors.

* Note, I took this description directly from the Alaska Permanent Fund Wikipedia entry, further details can be found there or on the Alaska State Website, Permanent Fund Dividend Division.

With the Alaska Permanent Fund as a model, what I propose is this:

1) Use the $700 billion bailout to acquire the foreclosed properties, as currently indicated by the draft provisions of the bill.

2) Create a national permanent fund in the Alaskan model, and put the money recovered from each property into it. Based on an estimated average of real recoverable value, say $250,000 per property, times 2 million properties we get approximately $500 billion give or take over time as a starting principal.

* Note, a number of those properties will sell well below the $250K average, and a number are valued at much higher worth but will not sell anywhere near their current estimated value. $250K is a lowball best guess based on the current mortgage foreclosure offload price, as best I can determine. The numbers are extremely fluid and vary significantly depending on source. Because of this, initial fund principal could be anywhere between $300 billion and $1 trillion, I used $500 billion as an average best guess.

The initial principal investment does not have to occur lump sum, but will build up as each Fed controlled property is sold back into the market.

3) By law, make the principal untouchable, except by 90% congressional consensus with concurrent presidential approval and Judicial Branch review. Make this a US Constitutional amendment if necessary. The principal must be protected from the politicians, who will always find a compelling reason to plunder it if given half a chance, always - which is precisely why the Alaska Permanent Fund was created and protected by State constitutional amendment.

4) Invest the principal in long-term, stable financial instruments, with the goal of maximum prudent return, managed by a purpose-created, semi-independent corporation under oversight of the Fed. This separation is a critical buffer between the money managers and Government oversight, and is absolutely necessary if the government is to maintain it's proper Constitutional role in our society. If the government manages the fund, there is no oversight responsible to the taxpayer, this is unacceptable.

This investment alone will immediately provide a massive and continuing infusion into the market and long-term stability. Because this will be a permanent investment, it will also provide a continuing cushion against future free market fluctuations - while at the same time not restricting the free will of both independent and corporate investment.

As a side effect, properly distributed this massive investment will almost immediately save retirement investment plans and individual long-term savings plans.

5) Unlike the initial half million dollar APF investment principal, the National Permanent Fund should immediately return a large dividend if properly invested in the market. Distribute the dividend return as follows:

(a) designate a percentage, say 10%, to reinvestment in the principal. Unlike the APF which depends for principal growth primarily on oil revenue input, the National Permanent fund will not have outside input once all the federally owned foreclosed properties are sold.

(b) use what percentage necessary to pay off the $700,000,000 bailout package per quarter. Note: this percentage, while high at first will decrease as the principal increases in size and value.

(c) Divide the remainder up as follows: (1) 50% to back to the national treasury to be spent as determined by Congress, see below. (2) for the first five years, reinvest the remaining 50% back into the fund in order to rapidly increase the principal. After five years distribute the remaining 50% equally to every US federal taxpayer. Note that the word 'taxpayer' is emphasized. See below.

- Taxpayers will assume the risk of this bailout, this will be their reward. If you don't pay federal taxes, you've assumed no risk and you deserve nothing in return. Yes, taxpayers will have to wait five years for their first dividend. We're talking a long term, permanent fix here, and that means long term rewards.

- Instead of a check, each taxpayer's dividend will be deducted from his or her federal income tax as a standard deduction. The initial amount will be small, perhaps unnoticeably small at first, just as it was with the Alaskan PFD, however over time and with prudent management the amount will increase significantly, dramatically, and exponentially. Done correctly, over a long enough time, Federal Income Tax may be reduced to a few dollars for the average American, or eliminated altogether. At which point, the excess will be distributed to each tax payer as an economic stimulus check. Note: this may not occur during our lifetime, but it can be done if given enough time.

- For the percentage returned to Congress (1): Require a portion be used to create a federally backed mortgage loan agency in the model of the Veteran's Administration Loan Division. In this case, qualifying taxpayers could get low-interest, fixed-rate, long term home loans backed by the fund - which would go a long, long way towards getting the average citizen within reach of the American dream without the chicanery of the interest-only, balloon-payment, sub-prime nonsense that got us into this mess in the first place. Additionally, precisely as in the VA Loan process, each home purchase would require a detailed inspection and value assessment prior to loan approval, providing the purchaser and the taxpayer a degree of insurance against over-valued or inflated-value properties which were a contributing factor in the mortgage sector meltdown. The VA Loan process provides an excellent and workable model that could be transferred whole cloth to a Federally backed National Mortgage Agency, and in fact that new agency could simply absorb the VA Loan operations as part and parcel of it's responsibilities, efficiently consolidating all federal mortgage loans under one roof.

- For the percentage returned to Congress (2): Initially require the remainder to be used to fund both short-term and long-term energy research and directly fund reconfiguration of the national energy infrastructure on the order of the Eisenhower Administration's commitment to the Interstate highway system. Soaring energy costs outside of our national control were a direct contributor to the mortgage crisis; using of a portion of the dividend to prevent that in the future and gain energy independence would be in the nation's best interest.

- For the percentage returned to Congress (3): as the energy infrastructure begins to become self supporting, the funds may be spent as determined by Congress via the normal process currently in place - my personal recommendation would be to allot a significant amount towards fully funding the plundered Social Security fund.

Additional thoughts:

- Create a federal and/or state home lottery system. Sell lottery tickets for certain federally owned foreclosures. This may be an excellent way to recoup far higher than market value for damaged properties, sold "as is." Local and State governments could determine which communities are optimal for such lotteries, and a percentage of the lottery income would be returned to them in order to fund the process. However, the majority of the lottery income would be input directly back into the Permanent Fund principal. Lotteries could be divided up into Individual and Corporate categories. Corporations could compete for blocks of properties. Note: while many Americans currently do not have the wherewithal to purchase a home in the current loan market, most could afford a $100 dollar lottery ticket for a chance to win a home. Now the home they win will have certain equity, even if damaged and unlivable. Because they didn't need a loan in order to acquire the property, they could get a home improvement loan against the property's equity even if that is far below what the property would be worth in good condition. If those loans are acquired through the aforementioned Federal Mortgage agency, the loan could be mandated for use in home improvement only. In fact this could be made an automatic part of the lottery process itself, waived if not desired by the winner. This way, people could acquire properties for no initial outlay other than the price of a lottery ticket, the Fed gets its money for the property (and probably a hell of a lot more, depending on the number of tickets purchased), the bank can loan money to the new home owner based on real assessed value at a rate that the new owner can afford even if he works at Pizza Hut, and the value of the property is restored to full market value. With a little luck and some common sense, a family with a combined income of $60K could end up owning a $300K house free and clear in a couple of years. And that, my friends, is just plain as good as it gets for everybody.

- Create an auction process for certain properties, similar in process to the eBay on-line model. Properly administered, this process could serve cities and townships as a tool for urban restructuring and development. I.e. municipalities could purchase blocks of home for low-cost subsidized housing, or for removal and rezoning, or as an investment of their own. Note: provisions would have to be put in place to ensure compliance with Federal non-discrimination laws and etc. Additionally, a block auction process would allow solvent mortgage agencies to compete for the available properties, which in turn would allow the market to drive the overall value of the properties vice a federally determined base value. However, just as in the eBay model, a minimum starting bid and a "purchase now" value could be set - either way the Fed, i.e. us, gets its money and gets rid of the property.

- States, townships, and cities could pay the Fed, and again with the resulting monies funneled directly into the Fund principal, to advertise on the lottery and auction sites - i.e. states use the funds they have currently set aside for attracting business and residents (For example, the "Say Yes To Michigan" campaign) to make the advertised homes more attractive.

Both the lottery and auction models would make properties available to buyers nation-wide or even world-wide, rather than depending solely on the pool of local home buyers, drastically increasing the likelihood of a sale. Indeed, the lottery process would guarantee liquidation of the property in question, returning higher than market value to the Fund and removing the risk to the taxpayer.

____________________________________________

Obviously, this would be a radical departure from the current thinking, and just as obviously there would be many details to work out. There are a number of pitfalls I can think of, and a number significant advantages that I've only hinted at.

An additional item to note: implementation of this proposal would not hold up the current bailout bill before Congress, which needs to be implemented sooner rather than later. Rather, details and implementation could be worked out piece by piece over the next year and adjusted as necessary.

But the bottom line is this, we assumed the risk - go on, tell me why we shouldn't share in the reward. The phrase goes something along the lines of: When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Done right, this lemonade stand could be paying dividends far, far into the future.

The Cost

In the last couple of days, I've come across a number of sites and news broadcasts that list how many of (x) item we could buy for $700,000,000,000 - or the projected current cost of the US Financial Sector bailout.

- Jeff Jarvis on Buzz Machine talks about how we could Wi-Max the whole country and give damned near everybody in the world a laptop and Internet access, or provide a decent college education for a hell of a lot of folks.

- Tongue firmly in cheek, Gary Robbins at OCregister mentions that we could get breast implants for 70 million women (I'm assuming that Gary meant 140 actual implants, vice creating 70 million lopsided women, though I didn't actually do the math).

- The SunSentinel says they could get 21 new Marlin Stadiums for each county in the state of Florida.

- The generic blond bimbo on Headline News this morning mentioned that we could buy ourselves seven International space stations for $700 billion, though I'm not sure she wasn't talking about the space between her pretty ears.

And so on and so forth. The suggestions are many and varied, some silly and some less so - like say paying off the national debt or paying for the Bush Doctrine (which may actually be one and the same). However, all of these suggestions depend on the basic assumption that we actually have $700,000,000,000 stuffed under the Fed's mattress - which, of course, we don't.

We're going to have to borrow it, which means we're going to have to pay it back.

Now, the Fed is able to get a fairly decent interest rate, around two to four percent depending on a number of factors (and which actually turns out to be considerably higher when you start to factor in things like the dollar's decreasing value compared to foreign currency over time, the slipping GDP, and the transfer of our industrial base overseas, and etc). Just like anybody else, when we borrow money, we have to pay it back and that means we're going to have a lot less discretionary funds to spend on other things.

We're going to have to give some stuff up.

When an individual gets in over his or her head they've got two choices, 1) go bankrupt, file Chapter 11, and these days likely end up homeless - or 2) tighten the belt, buy carefully and make every dollar count, sell off the things they don't actually need, cancel cable and the paper and the magazine subscriptions, sell the SUV and buy a small cheap old car, and give up thoughts of home improvement and that vacation to Jamaica Mon, get a second job, and so on.

And that's the same choice we face as a nation. We can either go bankrupt (don't think that can happen to a Super Power? You didn't watch the USSR implode, did you?), or we can suck it up, take out the loan, and find the funds to pay it off from programs we really like but can no longer afford.

And I suspect that's exactly what we'll try to do.

So what's this bailout really going to cost us? What did the arrogant greedy bastards with multi-million dollar salaries and even higher bonuses saddle us and our children with?

I'm not clairvoyant, but I've been around enough to make some pretty good guesses.

First I'd say it's going to cost us The Pillars of Creation.

From Stonekettle Station

See, two days ago the primary data channel on the Hubble Space Telescope failed, which means the scope is basically dead in orbit. The scope still works, but the information it collects can't be downloaded to Earth. There's a backup channel, and NASA is going to try and reactivate it later this week, but if that doesn't work, or if the backup fails, the Hubble is lost. Now, NASA was supposed to launch a final repair and refurbishment mission next month. But with the sudden failure of the primary data transmitter, that's been put on hold until next year. Want to bet that it doesn't fly?

And speaking of being a space faring nation, NASA has pushed back, yet again, the launch date for the Aries/Orion shuttle replacement. The shuttle goes out of service in 2010 and Aries/Orion will not fly prior to 2015 at the earliest, want to bet that date slips right and right and right again as the budget dries up? We were supposed to return to the moon in 2022 and then go on to Mars. Anybody want to bet that when we get there, if we get there, it'll be as passengers on a Chinese Moon ship? Think I'm being an alarmist? Starting in 2010 we'll be riding to our own space station onboard Russian built spacecraft, if we can afford them that is.

Space is a luxury we likely will no longer be able to afford.

As is education, big science, national infrastructure, military strength, housing and assistance for the poor, environmental protection and enforcement, energy research, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and expensive wars in foreign lands. Look carefully at all the things the Federal government pays for routinely, then ask yourself which ones are most likely to be cut when people start to grow desperate.

It is very likely that this disaster and the price of the bailout will not only cost us our position in the world, but the very stars themselves.

I hope to hell it was worth it.

I doubt our children will think so.

Iceberg! Right Ahead!

Update: This post is a follow-up to yesterday's post: The US Economic Situation for the Complete Idiot.

In the post below, I advocated that the bailout bill contain a provision for punishing those responsible for the current financial meltdown. Commenters Ilya and Eric pointed out that this is not a good idea, and they are correct. Further expansion of my thoughts, and theirs can be found in the comments section.

My proposal for a long term, permanent fix can be found here.

- Jim

________________________________

In April of 1912 the largest passenger steamship then in the world, RMS Titanic, set sail from Southampton, England for New York.

You've seen the movies, you've heard the tale, and you all know what happened, right?

On the night of Sunday, April 14th, moving at full speed she struck an iceberg off Grand Banks, Newfoundland, gashed a 300 foot hole in her bow, and sank two and a half hours later with a massive loss of life.

Why did it happen?

Well, historians talk about rivets and brittle steel in cold water, calm seas and icebergs and excessive speed, a rudder too small for the vessel's size and a resulting lack of maneuverability at speed, watertight bulkheads that weren't actually water tight enough, the distribution of flooded compartments, buoyancy, the lack of lifeboats, and the state of the art in shipbuilding and iceberg predication and communications and etc. Wrong. All wrong. While it can be demonstrated that all of those things exacerbated the disaster once Titanic was set on her course with destiny, not one of those things was the underlying reason for the sinking.

So what was?

Having been a Sailor most of my life, and as an experienced bridge officer myself, I can say with complete confidence that Titanic sank for one reason and one reason only:

Hubris.

Hubris: overbearing pride and/or presumption; utter and abject arrogance.

Hubris, the belief that a ship sailing full speed ahead in dark and deadly waters without the ability to see the known dangers, without adequate safety equipment, will somehow make port safely simply because you so will it.

Hubris, the enthusiastic willingness to gamble with other people's lives and livelihoods, and the willingness to dismiss the warning signs of impending disaster or wrong doing with the belief that you will beat the odds where all others throughout history have not.

Hubris, the belief that it is perfectly acceptable to play God, to risk a disaster on a grand scale, far beyond your own personal concerns in order to advance your own wealth and pride and self worth, and the belief that those who are cast off in the disaster you created are lesser men who somehow deserve their fate in the frigid waters.

Hubris, the belief that great men dare greatly, and that should disaster fall, those great men should be rescued at the expense of others, set back on their feet, and allowed to try again.

And Hubris, my friends, is exactly what brings us to the current disaster unfolding in the United States financial sector today.

Just like with the Titanic, prideful greedy men set on us a course for disaster. Those captains of Wall Street, in their pride and arrogance, deliberately ignored the lessons of history, 1929, the S&L crash of the 70's, the Dot Com bust of the 90's, and all the rest of it. They ordered the boilers lit and the throttles pushed hard to the stops, in order to line their own pockets and to advance their own hubris, and they took all of us down here in steerage along for the ride.

And when we slammed head on at full speed into the iceberg, those arrogant bastards were the first ones to the lifeboats, - or the golden parachutes, choose your own analogy here - demanding safe passage from the crew, or in this case, the government, as they believe is their right.

And, just exactly like the pride of White Star Lines, there's not enough lifeboats to go around, and a lot of us are going to be left to sink or swim in the icy wine dark water.

OK, I've pushed the Titanic analogy to the breaking point - but the comparison is apt.

We seemed to have settled on the term "Meltdown" to describe the current financial crisis in the combined mortgage, S&L, and Investment financial services industry, and so that's the term I'll use here.

This meltdown was the result of hubris both large and small. As I described in the previous post, the meltdown is the result of a rather large number of prideful idiots:

- Those who failed to read the fine print on those interest only mortgages or utterly failed to see the implication of the conditions of the loan - or did, but thought, somehow, some way, that they would be able to refinance before the first balloon payment came due, despite the fact that instead of saving and working to build some kind of equity and collateral for that refinanced loan, they just kept spending and borrowing their way further into massive debt - in some cases you had couples with a combined income in the $100,000 range with debts totaling well over a million dollars, they couldn't pay the interest, let alone the principle. That, my friends, is the height of stupid greedy pride. These are the same clueless dolts who thought they would be able to sell those houses at a profit in time to stave off impending financial ruin, while driving past thousands of new construction sites and thousands more homes for sale, as everybody else jumped on the snake-oil mortgage bandwagon. On the Titanic, these are the people kicking around blocks of ice on mid-deck and having a jolly old snowball fight.

- Those greedy, dishonest bastards in the S&L business, who not satisfied with the pile of dough they were already sitting on, found a way to turn worthless loans into the largest bait and switch scam in history. These bastards, more than anybody else are responsible for the disaster, they dreamed it up and they deliberately hoodwinked as many suckers as they could find. In the Titanic analogy, these people are personified by J. Bruce Ismay, who placed profit and pride above safety.

- Those in the rating agencies, who gave those worthless bonds AAA ratings, who allowed themselves to be deceived, who bowed to pressure from the S&L's and from Wall Street Investment firms instead of actually doing their jobs. These people were the enablers, they didn't just let it happen, they actively encouraged it. On Titanic? Well, that would be Captain E. J. Smith himself, now wouldn't it? Savvy, experienced, who knew the danger and knew his responsibility to his ship and passengers and still ordered the last four boilers lit and the ship ahead at her maximum speed in utter disregard for good seamanship. And then went to bed.

- Those on Wall Street who jumped at the chance to build a house of cards on top of those worthless bonds, and then borrowed their way beyond any kind of rational sense when it all began to come apart - and still kept paying their departing executives astronomical bonuses for their brilliant leadership. These would be the White Star shareholders who cared little for the danger, as long as they got a dividend check each quarter.

- And finally those in government agencies and in Congress whose job it was to oversee and regulate the industry - and didn't. And here, the we don't need an analogy, because the government's role is this disaster is exactly the same as in the Titanic sinking. Exactly.

And so, now here we are. Today, Congress will vote on a bailout package, in fact has just voted it down as I type this - and "bailout" is exactly the right term here. If you're a fighter jock and you've been pulling some unauthorized stunts with your tax-payer owned, multi-million dollar aircraft and you screw the pooch and flame out, well, you pull the handle and punch the hell out of the cockpit. And that's exactly what's going on here, Wall Street Executives are pulling the ejection handle to the tune of $700,000,000,000 and leaving us with a giant smoking crater for our money.

Now, show of hands, how many of you think that we're going to get out of the current financial market meltdown for a mere $700,000,000,000?

If you do, you really haven't been paying attention. $700,000,000,000 has about as much chance of pulling us out of this tailspin, as Bush's tax refund did of stimulating the economy.

$700,000,000,000 is just the tip of the iceberg - and yes, I'm back to Titanic metaphors again. See, just like when that ship went down, some of the crew responsible for the disaster ended up in the lifeboats. They had to be there, because those boats needed experienced and trained crew to man them in order to save what passengers who were lucky and/or ruthless enough to find a seat onboard. Same here, we're going to have to save some of the institutions responsible for the meltdown, for the benefit of the rest of us - no matter how galling that may be. As satisfying as it would be to let Wall Street go down with the ship, all of us will suffer unless we save a few of those greedy bastards.

Don't get me wrong here, while I think that circumstances dictate that we must bail out Wall Street, and the Federal Government is the only entity large enough to do so, I don't think that they should in any way get off Scot-free. (and for the record, Scot-free is precisely the correct term, as it's etymology descends from the old English term Sceot, or tax. Those who didn't pay taxes were referred as getting off Scot-free or without payment or without punishment).

There are many, many problems, however, with performing a bailout of the financial industry.

- First and foremost, the process simply perpetuates the original reasons for the meltdown. Investment firms borrowed trillions to prop up their pyramid scheme. The federal government will have to borrow nearly a trillion, or more, themselves when all is said and done to fix the mess. We're in debt up to our children's eyeballs now, with the war and energy and inflation - tacking another trillion on top of that isn't going to improve the dollar's value against foreign currency at all. We will all pay for this, and so will our children, and maybe their children too.

- Second, a bailout rewards those responsible for the meltdown. Those who lost their homes (foolish though they may have been for getting themselves into ridiculous mortgage terms) lost everything, nobody bailed them out. Like the steerage passengers on Titanic, they've been left to the flood. Why should the S&L's and Investment Firm execs be any different? A bailout sends a very clear message that no matter how negligent they have been in their duties, no matter how blinded by greed and speed, there will always be room in the lifeboat for them, at the expense of those they climbed over to get there. The bailout simply reinforces the hubris they already believe themselves entitled to.

- Third, a bailout sets a precedent, or in this case perpetuates one. It says very clearly, just as it did the last time, that no matter what happens, those that control the financial heart of this country may act without regard for anything other than their own greed and avarice, despite the fact that their irresponsible actions affect all of us.

- And finally, the bailout bill, as currently drafted will nationalize a large part of the financial industry. If there is one thing we know about the free market, no matter how poorly greedy executives manage the market and industry, the government is far, far worse at it. And once the government is directly involved, it is absolutely impossible to get them out of it. I see a lot of calls this morning for nationalization of the banking industry - and this is just as shortsighted and idiotic as the decisions that led directly to the current mess. Seriously, folks, do you really want the same incompetent jackasses who brought you the War on [Drugs, Terrorism, Poverty, etc et al] running Wall Street? Really?

So, what do we do about it?

Well, I don't know. I'm certainly no expert on the economy. I can say few things with confidence when it comes to fixing the current situation - and I strongly suspect that nobody else can either, especially the 'experts' who aimed us square at the iceberg.

I will say a couple of things though:

- While there is a pressing to need to get a fix implemented, sooner rather than later, we need to proceed with common sense and an eye on the implications of whenever solutions are approved. It took a decade of mistakes to get us into this mess, and I seriously doubt that a bill slapped together by Congress at the eleventh hour is going to fix the problem or do anything but get us further into the hole. We need to take whatever time is necessary and find real solutions and long term corrections, rather than just throw money we don't have at Wall Street.

- I think that any presidential candidate who attempts to turn this mess to his own political gain in order to score points with the voters should be run out of town on a rusty rail - and I am looking directly at you, John McCain. So far, McCain's only concrete response to the crisis is to blame Barrack Obama, and for that if for nothing else he will not now, or ever, get my vote. Period. Now, I don't think Obama's response has been particularly exemplary either, but McCain has cast himself in the same foul cloth of the Bush Administration and frankly from where I sit I can no longer tell the two apart. If he truly thinks at this point that as a Senator his duty is to the country, then honor demands he perform that duty without regard for his own ambition. The mere fact that he can't shows exactly how far behind he's left his training as a Naval Officer, and exactly how similar his own hubris is to those who got us into this mess in the first place.

- And speaking of those who got us into this mess, I won't support any bail-out bill that does not directly punish, and severely, those arrogant greedy bastards. The executives of every S&L and investment firm involved in this process should be bankrupted, their personal assets seized and liquidated to help pay the trillion dollar debt they've levied on us without our consent or approval. I'm talking every penny, every stitch of clothing, every house, car, boat, bank account and bonus - and then dump them on the street in front of a homeless shelter. Fuck 'em, hard.

They're lowering the lifeboats half full of smug arrogant bastards in top hats and frock coats, and a chill wind is blowing. Many of my fellow passengers are going to end up in the water and there is neither room in the boats, or rescue on the horizon. The Captain of this disaster is still standing on the bridge, hopelessly twisting the wheel back and forth instead of out on deck taking charge, rallying the crew and passengers and saving what he can.

And meanwhile, in Congress, the band plays on - unfortunately, the tune they've chosen is Send in the Clowns.