Major banks have said they are going to stop accepting California IOUs; the SEC says it is thinking of allowing them to be traded like stocks—so people can find some way to get money out of them.
Frightened consumers have begun to do something they haven’t done in years and years—save money. While that’s salutary behavior, it puts the 60% of the American economy that depends on consumer spending on hold for a bit.
Unemployment continues to rise at a clip that may scare even more consumers into saving rather than spending. PIMCO, the world’s largest manager of bond funds, suggests that while the actual recession might end this year, there will be no rampaging recovery like we’ve gotten used to since World War II. In other words, lots of people are going to go on saving or being unemployed.
Obama is perhaps the first president in ninety years to find himself in a situation in which he—and the United States—is not master of his and its own destiny. We had basically been a debtor nation since 1776, but in 1916, we became the world’s creditor. World War I was enormously good for business. We were about the only industrialized nation that wasn’t getting shot to pieces.
We allowed everybody else to do the fighting and dying until the last year of the war when we jumped in to “save Democracy” and protect our investment. The Allies owed us three billion dollars for war materials, a huge sum back when autos sold for $500.
(Germany and Austria only owed us about $30 million. They had no way of getting through the British blockade to buy anything from us. So, even if we hadn’t liked the Allies better, we really had to go with them. And, of course, the Germans made some disastrous PR blunders—like the Zimmerman Telegram in which they promised to give California and Texas back to Mexico if Mexico would distract us by attacking along our southwestern border.)
Because we got in the war at all, we were able to sit at the adult table at the Versailles Peace Conference, and Wilson got to force a bowdlerized version of his Fourteen Points on everyone. (Clemenceau muttered that God had only ten commandments and we hadn’t kept them.) Wilson had to be listened to. His was the most powerful nation left standing.
We had the money, we had the military potential—in the Naval Conference of 1922, England ceded to us the right to build a fleet equal to her own. Had anyone been so presumptuous in the previous century, it would have meant war. She had conceded the Caribbean as an American sphere of influence nearly twenty years before.
When we lost our footing economically in the Great Depression of the 1930s, we took everyone else down with us. During World War II we supplied every nation fighting Japan and Germany with material and munitions—free.
In 1944, we could summon the entire world to a conference at Breton Woods and basically dictate how the post war economy was going to be run. Today all sorts of nations and currencies could veto an agreement like that.
Only in the 1970s, when the Soviet Union finally recovered from World War II and had in its possession sufficient nukes to assure mutual destruction did a President have to take someone else into serious consideration when deciding on his foreign policy.
In the 1980s, Reagan upped the ante in what had become an international poker game between the USSR and the USA to a point where the Russians could not afford to continue playing. They folded in 1991, and we were left as the only Super Power on the planet.
America under Clinton and George W. Bush continued to be perceived that way until Wall Street REALLY laid an egg in 2008. Now it’s a totally different game, with totally different rules—some of which haven’t even been written yet.
All we really know is that the old ones—that FDR, Ike, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton—played under don’t apply. We aren’t even back to the Nineteenth Century. Then, at least we had the British Navy standing between us and the rest of the world.
Our situation in the 1800s, after 1820, was very comparable to Japan’s today. We defend Japan and do all the heavy lifting in their national defense. After Britain made it clear in 1820 that her fleet would keep Europeans from intervening in the United States and the rest of the Americas, all we needed was a handful of regiments of cavalry to handle the Indians.
American presidents were pretty free to do as they pleased with Indian tribes and Mexico. Britain even backed off and gave us half of Oregon. We were free to buy Alaska and Guam. When we took over the Philippines, Britain put her Asiatic Fleet across the bows of any other European power that might want to interfere. (Specifically the German navy.)
We had a very small expense on military affairs. This left us free—like Japan—to plow our investment into factories and product development. Within the boundaries of Britain’s vital interests, we had basically a free hand. Our army was so tiny that as late as 1916 a French general could sneer at us that France lost “more men before breakfast every morning than you have in your entire army.”
But this is a new day. There is no Britain to stand between us and anybody else. The incomparable power we enjoyed in the aftermath of World War II is badly eroded. There are other kids in the sandbox who have ideas of their own—and the heft to make people listen.
We have been a debtor nation again since 1986—a date that should seem hugely significant, but we tend to ignore it. Breton Woods is long gone. The dollar itself is being questioned as a world currency. Our consumers—whose spending drove world prosperity for so long—have pulled back.
Obama faces a whole new world. There is no one to call for advice. No one since James Madison has faced anything quite like the world situation he faces. Nothing at Harvard, the Senate or the neighborhoods of South Chicago could have prepared him for what he faces.
It’s probably going to be a lot less fun than the world most other presidents faced. It’s going to be lonely—who can he go to for ideas? I only hope that this quite facile and intelligent man quickly realizes he is in terra incognito—and adapts effectively.
Otherwise it could be an unpleasant ride for all of us.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Obama And The Seven--Dwarves No More
The Big Eight are meeting now—amidst talk of the American stock market being overvalued and the possibility that the United States will need a second stimulus package. Even the Vice President admits the administration got it wrong in January—“we didn’t know how bad things were”.
Actually it’s a smaller meeting right now—as the Chinese delegation hurries home to confer about the increasingly nasty ethnic riots in China’s western, Muslim regions. Russia remains very likely to veto any action suggested against Iran’s nuclear development policies.
She’s angry and resentful—feeling that when the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s and looked to the West (especially the US) for help, guidance and some semblance of friendship, she got badly used. Russian feels her overtures were met by American missiles in her front yard and an American attempt to take over the oil fields in the newly independent, ex-Soviet Republics.
Watching video of Obama talking to Putin reminded one of a desperate chap pleading for an uninterested girl to give him a date. Whether he’s right or wrong, Putin doesn’t feel that there is or ought to be much friendship between Russia and America. I doubt if we will change his mind by pleading or murmuring sweet nothings.
France hasn’t been a real friend since the 1960s (when De Gaulle threw NATO out of Paris and went ahead and made his own atomic bombs). And the power we once had to force everyone else to paper over the divisions and smile for the camera is gone. The seven dwarves have grown up.
Even as the International Monetary Fund proclaims that the end of the recession is in sight, no one of the other Big Eight Members can be unaware that the world’s largest economy faces problems that will not go away at the end of this recession.
A few figures: right now our national debt $11.4 Trillion. (We didn’t know what a trillion was when I was a kid.) That’s $37,000 indebtedness for every man, woman and child in this nation. (That doesn’t count mortgages, school loans, credit cards, auto loans, etc.) That’s 80% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) just in what we’re liable for government debt.
Using that figure is actually cheating. When you factor in unlisted liabilities—what will we really owe on the toxic assets we’ve guaranteed in our banks, for instance—unfunded liabilities—pensions and Social Security payments and so forth—and health care commitments, we come to $45 MORE trillion bucks you and I owe in government debt.
Total that up and you get $56 Trillion dollars (what comes after trillion?) that we owe in national debt. That’s $184,000 per head. (You say you’re pregnant? The kid already owes the price of a house just for being conceived—and the hospital bills haven’t come in yet.)
(Some will argue that this isn’t really a problem. We took on $75 million dollars in Revolutionary War debt right after we swore in George Washington. It took us until 1834 to pay it off—1834 and 1835 being the only two years we were every debt free. But this is worse. We were growing up until recently. We could afford to take on new debt. Now we have mammoth debt, we face competition like we’ve never known and our economy is shrinking.
If you doubt it, walk along the shores of Muskegon Lake and look at the empty land where the foundries that won World War II used to stand. Those guys haven’t gone out and gotten better paying jobs, I assure you.)
Inflation has taken a savage bite out of what we think we still have. I read a figure the other day—if you had $100,000 to live on in 1970, you would have needed $175,000 to maintain the life style in 1997. Not everyone’s wages went up that much in twenty-seven years.
We’re still inflating—at about the same rate, around five percent or so. I recall that when I was a boy in the late 1940s and early 1950s, we used to compare how much our present dollar was worth in terms of a 1939 dollar.
It got down to sixty cents, fifty-five and, finally, dipped below fifty cents. At some point they simply stopped talking about the 1939 dollar—I suspect it was too embarrassing. What would it be worth today—less than a dime? Just a few pennies?
Remember when you could buy a large candy bar for a nickel? Make a phone call for a nickel? Buy a comic book for ten cents? Paperback books were a quarter and the really big, thick ones were 35 cents. A large hamburger was a quarter—a nickel extra for cheese.
In the 1960s, we called McDonalds the “fifteen cent hamburger store”. You could buy a VW for $1700; a Chevy would run you over $2000. In 1976, a friend bought a nicely tricked out Buick for $3,000. In 1980, I contracted for a house for $46,000. Twenty years before it would have been around fifteen.
Yes, that’s inflation. A sixty-nine or seventy-five cent candy bar isn’t really worth that much more than it was when it cost a five cents. No value has been added.
What concerns me is that somebody is going to figure out that inflation—hyper inflation—may be the best way for the government to handle all this debt. Desperation can make the unthinkable seem the most feasible alternative.
Imagine a scenario like that of Germany and Austria in the early 1920s. Ordinary workmen were being paid in basketfuls of billion mark notes. The currency was so debased that this would scarcely buy a week’s worth of groceries. But think how possible it would make paying off a debt that numbered in the trillions.
It is not absolutely impossible that the hugely indebted United States could reach a point like that in the next twenty years or so. Like the old Central Powers we are caught up in wars that cost and cost and never seem to end. Our national debt is spiraling out of sight. Job losses are getting serious—and no one can say for sure what kind of employment will replace the good paying industrial jobs that are disappearing. Whole industries have moved overseas.
This is something no one at the Big Eight wants to think about. Not even for a second. I’m sure they could go on and on about why such a thing could NEVER EVER possibly happen. Saying it does not necessarily make it so. This makes for a big shadow over L’Aquila, Italy.
Actually it’s a smaller meeting right now—as the Chinese delegation hurries home to confer about the increasingly nasty ethnic riots in China’s western, Muslim regions. Russia remains very likely to veto any action suggested against Iran’s nuclear development policies.
She’s angry and resentful—feeling that when the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s and looked to the West (especially the US) for help, guidance and some semblance of friendship, she got badly used. Russian feels her overtures were met by American missiles in her front yard and an American attempt to take over the oil fields in the newly independent, ex-Soviet Republics.
Watching video of Obama talking to Putin reminded one of a desperate chap pleading for an uninterested girl to give him a date. Whether he’s right or wrong, Putin doesn’t feel that there is or ought to be much friendship between Russia and America. I doubt if we will change his mind by pleading or murmuring sweet nothings.
France hasn’t been a real friend since the 1960s (when De Gaulle threw NATO out of Paris and went ahead and made his own atomic bombs). And the power we once had to force everyone else to paper over the divisions and smile for the camera is gone. The seven dwarves have grown up.
Even as the International Monetary Fund proclaims that the end of the recession is in sight, no one of the other Big Eight Members can be unaware that the world’s largest economy faces problems that will not go away at the end of this recession.
A few figures: right now our national debt $11.4 Trillion. (We didn’t know what a trillion was when I was a kid.) That’s $37,000 indebtedness for every man, woman and child in this nation. (That doesn’t count mortgages, school loans, credit cards, auto loans, etc.) That’s 80% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) just in what we’re liable for government debt.
Using that figure is actually cheating. When you factor in unlisted liabilities—what will we really owe on the toxic assets we’ve guaranteed in our banks, for instance—unfunded liabilities—pensions and Social Security payments and so forth—and health care commitments, we come to $45 MORE trillion bucks you and I owe in government debt.
Total that up and you get $56 Trillion dollars (what comes after trillion?) that we owe in national debt. That’s $184,000 per head. (You say you’re pregnant? The kid already owes the price of a house just for being conceived—and the hospital bills haven’t come in yet.)
(Some will argue that this isn’t really a problem. We took on $75 million dollars in Revolutionary War debt right after we swore in George Washington. It took us until 1834 to pay it off—1834 and 1835 being the only two years we were every debt free. But this is worse. We were growing up until recently. We could afford to take on new debt. Now we have mammoth debt, we face competition like we’ve never known and our economy is shrinking.
If you doubt it, walk along the shores of Muskegon Lake and look at the empty land where the foundries that won World War II used to stand. Those guys haven’t gone out and gotten better paying jobs, I assure you.)
Inflation has taken a savage bite out of what we think we still have. I read a figure the other day—if you had $100,000 to live on in 1970, you would have needed $175,000 to maintain the life style in 1997. Not everyone’s wages went up that much in twenty-seven years.
We’re still inflating—at about the same rate, around five percent or so. I recall that when I was a boy in the late 1940s and early 1950s, we used to compare how much our present dollar was worth in terms of a 1939 dollar.
It got down to sixty cents, fifty-five and, finally, dipped below fifty cents. At some point they simply stopped talking about the 1939 dollar—I suspect it was too embarrassing. What would it be worth today—less than a dime? Just a few pennies?
Remember when you could buy a large candy bar for a nickel? Make a phone call for a nickel? Buy a comic book for ten cents? Paperback books were a quarter and the really big, thick ones were 35 cents. A large hamburger was a quarter—a nickel extra for cheese.
In the 1960s, we called McDonalds the “fifteen cent hamburger store”. You could buy a VW for $1700; a Chevy would run you over $2000. In 1976, a friend bought a nicely tricked out Buick for $3,000. In 1980, I contracted for a house for $46,000. Twenty years before it would have been around fifteen.
Yes, that’s inflation. A sixty-nine or seventy-five cent candy bar isn’t really worth that much more than it was when it cost a five cents. No value has been added.
What concerns me is that somebody is going to figure out that inflation—hyper inflation—may be the best way for the government to handle all this debt. Desperation can make the unthinkable seem the most feasible alternative.
Imagine a scenario like that of Germany and Austria in the early 1920s. Ordinary workmen were being paid in basketfuls of billion mark notes. The currency was so debased that this would scarcely buy a week’s worth of groceries. But think how possible it would make paying off a debt that numbered in the trillions.
It is not absolutely impossible that the hugely indebted United States could reach a point like that in the next twenty years or so. Like the old Central Powers we are caught up in wars that cost and cost and never seem to end. Our national debt is spiraling out of sight. Job losses are getting serious—and no one can say for sure what kind of employment will replace the good paying industrial jobs that are disappearing. Whole industries have moved overseas.
This is something no one at the Big Eight wants to think about. Not even for a second. I’m sure they could go on and on about why such a thing could NEVER EVER possibly happen. Saying it does not necessarily make it so. This makes for a big shadow over L’Aquila, Italy.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Michael Jackson: Fall of a Demigod
China has ethnic riots. Sarah Palin has had enough already. Putin looked like an atheist in church as Obama rattled on about how much common ground there is between Russia and the US. Bombs are blowing up in Iraq. Major auto parts manufacturer Lear just went into Chapter 11.
For the moment everything takes a back seat to Michael Jackson’s memorial service. A politician raised the ugly point that he may have been, after all, a pedophile (you don’t hand out millions to some kid’s dad because you were merely tousling his cute blond hair). Everybody is mad at him for saying it out loud. Who is this spoilsport ruining our national catharsis?
The Reverend Mr. Jesse Jackson reminded us that Michael came from a tiny house that held nine kids and a mom and dad. Dad held two day jobs and taught music at night. The good reverend rhapsodized that Michael was a role model for anyone who was born poor but had a dream.
Michael represented all that was good about “rags to riches” America. See, Jesse told the camera, what having a dream and lots of discipline can bring to pass. He was asked by the moderator if Jackson had “invented popular music”.
Even Jesse demurred at that. “No …, but he took it to a whole new level.” I’ll buy that—I do remember there was some music around in the 1940s and 50s before Michael Jackson was born. Guys like Fats Domino, Elvis, and the like.
But he was a phenomenon—a seven year old kid taking the world by storm. Yasha Heifetz started the violin at three, but he didn’t debut in Carnegie Hall until he was seventeen. And while he, too, may have the best at what he did—he had scarcely a thousandth of the impact.
Jackson was certainly not the first to die of drugs, if that’s what he died of. No official cause of death has yet been given. Doctors, friends, visitors, staff—all face police interrogation. The LAPD apparently pulled enough little pills and vials out of his house to stock a hospital pharmacy.
We remember Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. There was Marilyn Monroe and Jim Belushi. The list could go on and on. All the way from the night when Alexander the Great got so drunk he choked to death on his own vomit. These are sad and ugly pictures.
Alexander had reached the end of his worlds to conquer. Jackson was about to launch a fifty concert tour to try to conquer still more of his worlds. Both men started young, took the world by storm and left a vast cultural heritage. Both men somehow lost their way and destroyed themselves.
We need heroes. If they don’t come riding on a magnificent charger, we create them. We’re sometimes willing to put ourselves under the surface of the celebrity pond so that they can appear to be walking on water as they step on the hands and heads we hold up to them.
We do this to singers, entertainers, clergymen, politicians, business tycoons—and often we make them believe their own press. Almost. (Inside they know they are only human, and the fear of a misstep that could shatter the image they have built must tear at the insides. That’s when the pharmacopeia comes into play. It numbs the terror.)
It isn’t only baseball players and deer hunters who choke and can’t hit or aim. The Romans tried to protect their heroes by putting a slave in the chariot as the hero of the moment rode in triumph. The slave’s job was to remind the latest demigod that he was, after all, merely mortal.
“Sic transit gloria mundi”. “Thus passes the glory of man”. It was his job to keep repeating the refrain to the conqueror of the moment.
It was meant to keep the hero from feeling he could walk on water. We make our heroes and entertainers feel not only that they CAN walk on water—but that they MUST. That was a load the Monroe’s, the Bulushi’s and Hendrex’s couldn’t carry. Very possibly Michael Jackon—who spent so much of his huge fortune on a fantasy hideaway just for himself—couldn’t either.
He came out of nowhere as a tiny child. He remade MTV. He spread his new style, his manic dances all over the world. And then he went and hid. He became a grotesque caricature of what he had once been.
They followed the boy-man into his fantasy world and created total ugliness with charges that shattered much of his image even if they were never proven. Always there was something appealing about him—he kept many friends. Mostly they were people in the business who understood what his life was like and why he built fantasy worlds.
I recall that a New York publisher who wanted to do a piece on him sent Jackie Kennedy Onassis to interview him—knowing that she understood what it was to both need and fear public adulation.
People who have no idea—of what his life became like (he once said, “I only feel natural when I’m on stage”) and who he really was will line the streets. They will light candles. They will cry. They will turn on his music and his videos. Once again he will be the conquering hero.
And then the explosions in Iraq, the riots in China, the belligerence of Russia, the swelling rolls of the unemployed will come back to haunt us. Real life will again impinge upon our fantasies.
But for one day, we dreamt of another Camelot. I suppose we should thank Michael for giving us that. Fifty concerts probably couldn’t have done as much.
For the moment everything takes a back seat to Michael Jackson’s memorial service. A politician raised the ugly point that he may have been, after all, a pedophile (you don’t hand out millions to some kid’s dad because you were merely tousling his cute blond hair). Everybody is mad at him for saying it out loud. Who is this spoilsport ruining our national catharsis?
The Reverend Mr. Jesse Jackson reminded us that Michael came from a tiny house that held nine kids and a mom and dad. Dad held two day jobs and taught music at night. The good reverend rhapsodized that Michael was a role model for anyone who was born poor but had a dream.
Michael represented all that was good about “rags to riches” America. See, Jesse told the camera, what having a dream and lots of discipline can bring to pass. He was asked by the moderator if Jackson had “invented popular music”.
Even Jesse demurred at that. “No …, but he took it to a whole new level.” I’ll buy that—I do remember there was some music around in the 1940s and 50s before Michael Jackson was born. Guys like Fats Domino, Elvis, and the like.
But he was a phenomenon—a seven year old kid taking the world by storm. Yasha Heifetz started the violin at three, but he didn’t debut in Carnegie Hall until he was seventeen. And while he, too, may have the best at what he did—he had scarcely a thousandth of the impact.
Jackson was certainly not the first to die of drugs, if that’s what he died of. No official cause of death has yet been given. Doctors, friends, visitors, staff—all face police interrogation. The LAPD apparently pulled enough little pills and vials out of his house to stock a hospital pharmacy.
We remember Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. There was Marilyn Monroe and Jim Belushi. The list could go on and on. All the way from the night when Alexander the Great got so drunk he choked to death on his own vomit. These are sad and ugly pictures.
Alexander had reached the end of his worlds to conquer. Jackson was about to launch a fifty concert tour to try to conquer still more of his worlds. Both men started young, took the world by storm and left a vast cultural heritage. Both men somehow lost their way and destroyed themselves.
We need heroes. If they don’t come riding on a magnificent charger, we create them. We’re sometimes willing to put ourselves under the surface of the celebrity pond so that they can appear to be walking on water as they step on the hands and heads we hold up to them.
We do this to singers, entertainers, clergymen, politicians, business tycoons—and often we make them believe their own press. Almost. (Inside they know they are only human, and the fear of a misstep that could shatter the image they have built must tear at the insides. That’s when the pharmacopeia comes into play. It numbs the terror.)
It isn’t only baseball players and deer hunters who choke and can’t hit or aim. The Romans tried to protect their heroes by putting a slave in the chariot as the hero of the moment rode in triumph. The slave’s job was to remind the latest demigod that he was, after all, merely mortal.
“Sic transit gloria mundi”. “Thus passes the glory of man”. It was his job to keep repeating the refrain to the conqueror of the moment.
It was meant to keep the hero from feeling he could walk on water. We make our heroes and entertainers feel not only that they CAN walk on water—but that they MUST. That was a load the Monroe’s, the Bulushi’s and Hendrex’s couldn’t carry. Very possibly Michael Jackon—who spent so much of his huge fortune on a fantasy hideaway just for himself—couldn’t either.
He came out of nowhere as a tiny child. He remade MTV. He spread his new style, his manic dances all over the world. And then he went and hid. He became a grotesque caricature of what he had once been.
They followed the boy-man into his fantasy world and created total ugliness with charges that shattered much of his image even if they were never proven. Always there was something appealing about him—he kept many friends. Mostly they were people in the business who understood what his life was like and why he built fantasy worlds.
I recall that a New York publisher who wanted to do a piece on him sent Jackie Kennedy Onassis to interview him—knowing that she understood what it was to both need and fear public adulation.
People who have no idea—of what his life became like (he once said, “I only feel natural when I’m on stage”) and who he really was will line the streets. They will light candles. They will cry. They will turn on his music and his videos. Once again he will be the conquering hero.
And then the explosions in Iraq, the riots in China, the belligerence of Russia, the swelling rolls of the unemployed will come back to haunt us. Real life will again impinge upon our fantasies.
But for one day, we dreamt of another Camelot. I suppose we should thank Michael for giving us that. Fifty concerts probably couldn’t have done as much.
Monday, July 6, 2009
McNair, et al.-- No Fool Like An Old Fool?
A popular former NFL quarterback. The governor of South Carolina. Men with longstanding Christian ministries. Presidential candidates—all with seeming suddenness caught in the hideously embarrassing position of an involvement with a much younger woman.
We wonder: are they stupid? Is it a form of hubris (a counterpart of the “too big to fail” notion in economics)? Do they think they’ll never get caught? One of the first stories ever told of an older, married man and a young girl comes from the Bible, three thousand years ago—David and Bathsheba. The affair launched a civil war that didn’t end for decades.
The McNair affair, double murder, murder and suicide, whatever, raises the age old questions once again. Why? How? What did she see in him? What did he see in her? Especially, how did it all begin? We read the news accounts and they can’t really tell us.
I sat down and thought about it this morning. I’m not famous, rich or powerful. So I don’t have the temptation of younger women who are drawn to power or wealth like moths. (As Henry Kissinger once said, “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”)
(Years ago, when I enjoyed a measure of power in my job, I recall a few instances when a woman showed interest in me just because of that power. Once or twice I had to duck kind of hard. I was married at the time.)
So that’s a real consideration—something to be wary of if you have power or position. It isn’t necessarily that you are so dreadfully handsome or appealing; it’s just that your wallet or your clearance card is irresistible. If you choose to succumb, do so with your eyes open, aware of what’s really going on—and give some thought to potential consequences.
In short, it is highly unlikely that she loves you for you.
But there’s another factor at work here—and that’s the one a lot of men may be completely unaware of, and it can affect all of us. This is the one I reflected on this morning. We’re older. Just that, we’re older. And that gives us an edge we may not want to have.
It’s an edge we probably don’t even realize we have. Two things have happened since we left twenty behind, got married and lived a few more decades. One) we’ve gotten a bit smarter, and 2) we now come in the innocently appearing guise of being grandpa or even dad. Younger women tend to let their guards down.
Do you remember what it was like to meet a really interesting and attractive girl when you were eighteen? She had walls up—until she had vetted you for social, personal and educational acceptability. These guards protected everyone, annoying as they may then have seemed to a young male predator. How well we recall the frustration.
I still remember the first time I went into a supermarket and the young female cashier no longer dealt with me as a peer, but she called me “sir”. That was already long ago. Things began to change at that point.
I look like grandpa now. (And he’s safe, after all.) The smiles and twinkling eyes are quite unguarded today. Also, I don’t make the inane gaffes natural to a young, single man meeting someone for the first time. (At least not as many.)
If there is a moment, I can enjoy an intelligent conversation—where does she plan to go to school, what does she plan to be, where did she go to high school? Often she’s delighted to talk about herself. (I totally lacked the wit to use this as a pickup line when I was younger.)
Sometimes I find myself startled and delighted at the pinpoint precision with which she has laid out her life—what she plans to do and why. (Young men at that age rarely have as much direction—although I have had similar conversations with a relative handful.)
(I very carefully do not give my name or ask hers. When I walk away from the cash register it is over with and forgotten.)
I suspect that many a May-November affair begins simply because the older man shows a genuine interest in the person she is—or wants to be. Age and experience have brought him beyond the behaviors for which a young woman of our acquaintance once faulted an ex-boy friend.
“He’s twenty,” she said with asperity, “going on sixteen.”
I’m often struck when I substitute teach with how much more mature high school girls can seem than their high school boy friends. There seems to me to be about a ten year maturity gap in the teens. An older man who will talk seriously can seem appealing.
If he foolishly allows himself to be flattered into something more because of this, he is a likely candidate for tomorrow’s headlines.
Just remember gentlemen, your gray hair and the smoothness that comes from being several years older and smarter than you were in college can just possibly get you in much deeper than you planned to be. Even with “nice” and relatively innocent young women.
Throw substantial money and power into the calculation and you have an almost certain ticket to marital and political disaster.
Hey, I can still be attracted—but try to do at least some thinking above the waist. Remember, you’re “grampa”. She hasn’t suddenly found the love of her life, not really. It’s so easy to be flattered when an attractive young lady seems to be warming to you. Try to remember: you had your day. Back then, you probably made all the mistakes her contemporaries are making today. That’s part of being a young fool.
The wise thing for you to do might be to walk quickly away while you still can. Do that at day number one and the horrors and disasters that have come upon so many men in the news will hopefully not come upon you.
What did she see in you initially? Grandfather. Rich or poor.
We wonder: are they stupid? Is it a form of hubris (a counterpart of the “too big to fail” notion in economics)? Do they think they’ll never get caught? One of the first stories ever told of an older, married man and a young girl comes from the Bible, three thousand years ago—David and Bathsheba. The affair launched a civil war that didn’t end for decades.
The McNair affair, double murder, murder and suicide, whatever, raises the age old questions once again. Why? How? What did she see in him? What did he see in her? Especially, how did it all begin? We read the news accounts and they can’t really tell us.
I sat down and thought about it this morning. I’m not famous, rich or powerful. So I don’t have the temptation of younger women who are drawn to power or wealth like moths. (As Henry Kissinger once said, “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”)
(Years ago, when I enjoyed a measure of power in my job, I recall a few instances when a woman showed interest in me just because of that power. Once or twice I had to duck kind of hard. I was married at the time.)
So that’s a real consideration—something to be wary of if you have power or position. It isn’t necessarily that you are so dreadfully handsome or appealing; it’s just that your wallet or your clearance card is irresistible. If you choose to succumb, do so with your eyes open, aware of what’s really going on—and give some thought to potential consequences.
In short, it is highly unlikely that she loves you for you.
But there’s another factor at work here—and that’s the one a lot of men may be completely unaware of, and it can affect all of us. This is the one I reflected on this morning. We’re older. Just that, we’re older. And that gives us an edge we may not want to have.
It’s an edge we probably don’t even realize we have. Two things have happened since we left twenty behind, got married and lived a few more decades. One) we’ve gotten a bit smarter, and 2) we now come in the innocently appearing guise of being grandpa or even dad. Younger women tend to let their guards down.
Do you remember what it was like to meet a really interesting and attractive girl when you were eighteen? She had walls up—until she had vetted you for social, personal and educational acceptability. These guards protected everyone, annoying as they may then have seemed to a young male predator. How well we recall the frustration.
I still remember the first time I went into a supermarket and the young female cashier no longer dealt with me as a peer, but she called me “sir”. That was already long ago. Things began to change at that point.
I look like grandpa now. (And he’s safe, after all.) The smiles and twinkling eyes are quite unguarded today. Also, I don’t make the inane gaffes natural to a young, single man meeting someone for the first time. (At least not as many.)
If there is a moment, I can enjoy an intelligent conversation—where does she plan to go to school, what does she plan to be, where did she go to high school? Often she’s delighted to talk about herself. (I totally lacked the wit to use this as a pickup line when I was younger.)
Sometimes I find myself startled and delighted at the pinpoint precision with which she has laid out her life—what she plans to do and why. (Young men at that age rarely have as much direction—although I have had similar conversations with a relative handful.)
(I very carefully do not give my name or ask hers. When I walk away from the cash register it is over with and forgotten.)
I suspect that many a May-November affair begins simply because the older man shows a genuine interest in the person she is—or wants to be. Age and experience have brought him beyond the behaviors for which a young woman of our acquaintance once faulted an ex-boy friend.
“He’s twenty,” she said with asperity, “going on sixteen.”
I’m often struck when I substitute teach with how much more mature high school girls can seem than their high school boy friends. There seems to me to be about a ten year maturity gap in the teens. An older man who will talk seriously can seem appealing.
If he foolishly allows himself to be flattered into something more because of this, he is a likely candidate for tomorrow’s headlines.
Just remember gentlemen, your gray hair and the smoothness that comes from being several years older and smarter than you were in college can just possibly get you in much deeper than you planned to be. Even with “nice” and relatively innocent young women.
Throw substantial money and power into the calculation and you have an almost certain ticket to marital and political disaster.
Hey, I can still be attracted—but try to do at least some thinking above the waist. Remember, you’re “grampa”. She hasn’t suddenly found the love of her life, not really. It’s so easy to be flattered when an attractive young lady seems to be warming to you. Try to remember: you had your day. Back then, you probably made all the mistakes her contemporaries are making today. That’s part of being a young fool.
The wise thing for you to do might be to walk quickly away while you still can. Do that at day number one and the horrors and disasters that have come upon so many men in the news will hopefully not come upon you.
What did she see in you initially? Grandfather. Rich or poor.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
July 4: Hellfire, Masons and Clerics
Once again the argument is upon us. It was splendidly encapsulated for me today by a sermon this morning and a public television presentation this afternoon. Was the United States founded as a Christian nation? Was it secular at its inception?
The gentleman who preached this morning came in with a stack of late 18th and early 19th Century books and papers. These included the first English language Bible ever published in the colonies (1782), printed by Congress and advocated for general use.
(Britain had not allowed the colonies to print Bibles in English; you were supposed to buy them, along with most other manufactured goods, from the Mother Country. After the surrender at Yorktown, we felt free to print our own.)
He had a record of the three hour prayer meeting and Bible study that preceded the opening of the First Continental Congress in the fall of 1774. They had reason to be scared—they were on the verge of committing a real form of treason, and the certain penalty would be the gallows.
The report suggested that even some of the toughest of those present had tears in their eyes at the end of the Bible readings and prayers. John Adams especially urged Abigail to read Psalm 35 to herself and to her clergyman father. In it King David urgently asks God to defend him, protect him and take vengeance on his enemies. Very fitting.
At high speed the gentleman went through the various pro-Christian writings of the men who signed the Declaration and the Constitution. He cited the tremendous number of these men who had been educated as Christian clergy.
There can be little doubt that there was a tremendous amount of Christianity floating about at the beginning of the nation. There are endless references to Almighty God, to Jesus Christ and even to the Sacred Trinity. There can be no doubt of both the spiritual and cultural Christianity present in 1776 and 1787.
The PBS documentary suggested there was also present a darker side to at least some of these men. There was the Hellfire Club in England—frequented by government officials, the nobility—in short any one who held power, rank or wealth.
Young girls were brought in; orgies were held. Even in the church building the founder built on his estate there was a room for dalliance. One of the paintings on the wall shows Benjamin Franklin having a wonderfully debauched time.
After all, he lived in London over 15 years (as a single man) and even had ambitions to become a member of Parliament himself. (His conversion to the notion of American independence didn’t come until the mid-70s.)
The program went on to suggest that there is decent evidence to suggest that such clubs were exported to the American colonies. Again, men with wealth and power—and ambition to meet people who already had it—joined.
Franklin carried his promiscuous ways to Paris in 1776 where he single handedly obtained the munitions that kept us in the war. There seems to be no question that his way with highborn ladies and his willingness to join in the fun and games of the decadent French court aided the American cause significantly. (Other American diplomats were perfectly shocked at his behavior, but they weren’t getting the loans and the guns.)
Another factor PBS brought out was that Franklin’s membership in the Free Masonic Order gave him useful entry when he represented the colonies in both London and Paris. PBS went to some length in enumerating how many founding fathers were members of that order.
Washington apparently came from a family line that claimed to date its membership in the Masonic Order all the way back to some of the founding families in King Solomon’s time.
The program strongly suggested that the Masonic Lodges—since they were outside of any specific church structure—strongly influenced the American tendency to separate church and state. Such a postion would logically, offer Masons a certain amount of protection they might not enjoy in countries with a national church.
(Incidentally, the Constitution did NOT prohibit government affiliated Christian churches in the individual states. Several of these existed at the time the Constitution was written. It merely prohibited a NATIONAL church from being imposed by the federal government. This was no doubt as much to protect the state churches as it was to separate church from government.)
So we have two pictures—a nation founded by Godly men with strongly held Christian doctrines and positions. And a nation founded by men with sexual appetites that would draw prison sentences today, who were more firmly members of their lodges than their churches.
Which is true?
Both, obviously—just as it can be 2009.
One thing we can say. It was certainly not the intent of the founders to make Christian references and prayers off limits. Separation of church and state certainly did not mean that. It was much more a reference to preventing an INSTITUTIONAL rivalry, not prayer at football games.
We would not have a Catholic Church (Spain, France, Austria, Portugal, to name some) or a Protestant denomination (Holland, England, many of the Germanies, Scandanavia, Scotland, to name some of those countries) dominating the politics and the faith or our nation.
There is no doubt the founders—however personally hypocritical some may have been—believed this to be a Christian nation (just not under any one organizational banner). There can be little doubt that the Masons had a large influence (look at our national symbols!)—but they derived from Christian origins—modern Masons coming out of Presbyterian Scotland in 1599.
One could even suggest that eliminating prayer in schools violates the Constitution—as written and understood by the founders—as much as would creating a national state church. Today’s two pictures of America offered nothing in the way of a solution to any modern dilemmas.
But it did show us where we actually came from. That’s always helpful to know. It was somehow a mix of Hellfire Clubs, Masonic lodges and fervently Christian theologians. In other words, there were good people who did bad things; bad people who said good things.
How like today. We will solve nothing by suppressing either part of our heritage.
The gentleman who preached this morning came in with a stack of late 18th and early 19th Century books and papers. These included the first English language Bible ever published in the colonies (1782), printed by Congress and advocated for general use.
(Britain had not allowed the colonies to print Bibles in English; you were supposed to buy them, along with most other manufactured goods, from the Mother Country. After the surrender at Yorktown, we felt free to print our own.)
He had a record of the three hour prayer meeting and Bible study that preceded the opening of the First Continental Congress in the fall of 1774. They had reason to be scared—they were on the verge of committing a real form of treason, and the certain penalty would be the gallows.
The report suggested that even some of the toughest of those present had tears in their eyes at the end of the Bible readings and prayers. John Adams especially urged Abigail to read Psalm 35 to herself and to her clergyman father. In it King David urgently asks God to defend him, protect him and take vengeance on his enemies. Very fitting.
At high speed the gentleman went through the various pro-Christian writings of the men who signed the Declaration and the Constitution. He cited the tremendous number of these men who had been educated as Christian clergy.
There can be little doubt that there was a tremendous amount of Christianity floating about at the beginning of the nation. There are endless references to Almighty God, to Jesus Christ and even to the Sacred Trinity. There can be no doubt of both the spiritual and cultural Christianity present in 1776 and 1787.
The PBS documentary suggested there was also present a darker side to at least some of these men. There was the Hellfire Club in England—frequented by government officials, the nobility—in short any one who held power, rank or wealth.
Young girls were brought in; orgies were held. Even in the church building the founder built on his estate there was a room for dalliance. One of the paintings on the wall shows Benjamin Franklin having a wonderfully debauched time.
After all, he lived in London over 15 years (as a single man) and even had ambitions to become a member of Parliament himself. (His conversion to the notion of American independence didn’t come until the mid-70s.)
The program went on to suggest that there is decent evidence to suggest that such clubs were exported to the American colonies. Again, men with wealth and power—and ambition to meet people who already had it—joined.
Franklin carried his promiscuous ways to Paris in 1776 where he single handedly obtained the munitions that kept us in the war. There seems to be no question that his way with highborn ladies and his willingness to join in the fun and games of the decadent French court aided the American cause significantly. (Other American diplomats were perfectly shocked at his behavior, but they weren’t getting the loans and the guns.)
Another factor PBS brought out was that Franklin’s membership in the Free Masonic Order gave him useful entry when he represented the colonies in both London and Paris. PBS went to some length in enumerating how many founding fathers were members of that order.
Washington apparently came from a family line that claimed to date its membership in the Masonic Order all the way back to some of the founding families in King Solomon’s time.
The program strongly suggested that the Masonic Lodges—since they were outside of any specific church structure—strongly influenced the American tendency to separate church and state. Such a postion would logically, offer Masons a certain amount of protection they might not enjoy in countries with a national church.
(Incidentally, the Constitution did NOT prohibit government affiliated Christian churches in the individual states. Several of these existed at the time the Constitution was written. It merely prohibited a NATIONAL church from being imposed by the federal government. This was no doubt as much to protect the state churches as it was to separate church from government.)
So we have two pictures—a nation founded by Godly men with strongly held Christian doctrines and positions. And a nation founded by men with sexual appetites that would draw prison sentences today, who were more firmly members of their lodges than their churches.
Which is true?
Both, obviously—just as it can be 2009.
One thing we can say. It was certainly not the intent of the founders to make Christian references and prayers off limits. Separation of church and state certainly did not mean that. It was much more a reference to preventing an INSTITUTIONAL rivalry, not prayer at football games.
We would not have a Catholic Church (Spain, France, Austria, Portugal, to name some) or a Protestant denomination (Holland, England, many of the Germanies, Scandanavia, Scotland, to name some of those countries) dominating the politics and the faith or our nation.
There is no doubt the founders—however personally hypocritical some may have been—believed this to be a Christian nation (just not under any one organizational banner). There can be little doubt that the Masons had a large influence (look at our national symbols!)—but they derived from Christian origins—modern Masons coming out of Presbyterian Scotland in 1599.
One could even suggest that eliminating prayer in schools violates the Constitution—as written and understood by the founders—as much as would creating a national state church. Today’s two pictures of America offered nothing in the way of a solution to any modern dilemmas.
But it did show us where we actually came from. That’s always helpful to know. It was somehow a mix of Hellfire Clubs, Masonic lodges and fervently Christian theologians. In other words, there were good people who did bad things; bad people who said good things.
How like today. We will solve nothing by suppressing either part of our heritage.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Happy Birthday, Uncle Sam
Happy Fourth of July. Like so many other things, it isn’t quite what it seems to be. The actual day Congress voted for independence was July 2. That’s when Adams—part of the committee that oversaw the Declaration—thought the holiday would be.
They finally got around to ratifying the Document itself on the 4th. It wasn’t signed until sometime in August. So, pick your day and celebrate. For us in Michigan, it’s really the start of summer. None but madmen and children small enough that their pain receptors haven’t yet connected to their brains go swimming in Lake Michigan before the Fourth.
It’s a beautiful lake. I’ve taken friends who have lived along the ocean down to see it. They are often astonished that something wet and fresh enough to drink (Green Bay, Milwaukee, Chicago, Gary, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids and uncountable small towns all do) can look so like the ocean.
But it’s cold. Only after a spell of truly hot weather—without much wind—does the water along the shore climb into the 70s so that an adult (with attached pain receptors) can go in without whimpering. Right now, on this Fourth—after recent wind and rain—it’s back down in the 50s.
You’re liable to have about ten good days for dipping more than your toes in the Lake, usually between July 4th and mid-August. The beach sand is some of the finest on the planet, even when it’s cold out. The State of Michigan had the wisdom decades ago to string the Lake Michigan shore with large public parks from the Indiana border all the way to Traverse City. You can camp or daytrip.
These are still wonderful parks—at one time there was budget enough to maintain them better. Most of the concession stands are shut down; the life guards have passed into the mists of history. There are still red (don’t swim), yellow (watch yourself) and green (go for it) flags, but everyone ignores them and few may know what they stand for.
A day in paradise is that rare occasion when waves are four or five feet and water is warm. You can body surf for yards or just stand and get knocked about. You can ride small surfing boards or inner tubes and then pull yourself back out for the next wave. (Life guards used to run up red flags whenever things got that much fun [See? Budget cuts aren’t completely horrible.] But there can be real danger—especially near a pier where there are powerful currents and undertows.)
No one should swim in Lake Michigan who hasn’t been told how to survive being caught in an undertow and dragged out to sea under water. Don’t walk on the piers in heavy weather. The most popular pier—in Grand Haven—has a large monument to all those who have been swept off to their deaths in storms. Waves can hit 15 feet. But there are no sharks.
On a relatively calm day, walking out a quarter of a mile into Lake Michigan is a glorious sight and experience. The promenade along the Grand River and out into the Lake is the finest I’ve walked either at the Atlantic, Pacific or Lake Michigan coasts.
People come for hundreds, even thousands of miles with their campers. Reservations at popular State Parks on holidays often need to be made a year in advance. For a few hours on the evening before the July 4th Holiday, US 31 looks like New York City at rush hour.
They come from Chicago, St. Louis, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Detroit, Texas, Kentucky, Ontario, the Carolinas, New York and even further. In the course of a summer it is not unusual for me to see license plates from every state but Hawaii. One year I actually saw one from there.
In between the State and county parks (some of them hundreds of acres in size) are the cottages. People from Grand Rapids and Chicago seem to predominate. Although you will also have cottage owners from as far away as Texas—they just leave a car up here.
Chicago people cluster in whole colonies—spending the season in summer homes that have been in their families for generations. There are plenty of winterized, year around homes for people who commute from the shore to inland jobs the year around.
I know of one man who parks his family along Lake Michigan and commutes to his job in Boston. If you want to buy a home on the shore itself, just tack several hundred thousand onto what would normally be the price of that particular house. Even in a nasty recession.
That’s why it is so wonderful to have the parks with their hundreds of yards of open beach. Within 20 miles of my home there are five huge state parks, three large county parks and four city-owned parks. The smallest of these is contains a few football field lengths of public beach.
In one, guides will show you nature trails, you can stop in at the museum to learn how the huge dunes were formed or you can climb to a long walkway at the top of the dunes to see what they look like in their various stages of development. You can camp in all the state parks and at least one of the county parks.
Here come the tents, the pop-up tent campers, the camping trailers, the sometimes house-like motorized campers, the boats, the dune buggies, the four wheelers, rolling up US 31 or coming across on US 94 or 96. It is a procession that goes on all summer.
Of course you cannot forget the hundreds—no, thousands—of small lakes dotting the entirety of Michigan. Many have their own public beaches, campgrounds or boat launches. Their shores are lined cheek by jowl with cottages and winterized homes. People rent, own and/or commute from these as well. Tonight I’m going to the home of a friend on one of these lakes to watch fireworks over the water. We’ve done it for years.
The real push to get out of the hot cities begins this weekend. At ten miles from the shore, we are degrees cooler than inland. Drive toward the shore and it gets cooler by the mile. (That coolness gives us lots more snow in winter, too. An occasionally significant downside to living here.)
It’s party time here. I stood behind a man yesterday at my super market. All he was buying was tomatoes, strawberries, hot dogs and hamburger. Four hundred dollars worth. I kidded him about following him. He shrugged, “Come along. Just bring your appetite.”
The days are obviously gone when you could stand in line at the checkout and see Paul Newman or young John Kennedy ahead of you. But we still have some good festivals and parties here. In any case, Happy July Four.
They finally got around to ratifying the Document itself on the 4th. It wasn’t signed until sometime in August. So, pick your day and celebrate. For us in Michigan, it’s really the start of summer. None but madmen and children small enough that their pain receptors haven’t yet connected to their brains go swimming in Lake Michigan before the Fourth.
It’s a beautiful lake. I’ve taken friends who have lived along the ocean down to see it. They are often astonished that something wet and fresh enough to drink (Green Bay, Milwaukee, Chicago, Gary, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids and uncountable small towns all do) can look so like the ocean.
But it’s cold. Only after a spell of truly hot weather—without much wind—does the water along the shore climb into the 70s so that an adult (with attached pain receptors) can go in without whimpering. Right now, on this Fourth—after recent wind and rain—it’s back down in the 50s.
You’re liable to have about ten good days for dipping more than your toes in the Lake, usually between July 4th and mid-August. The beach sand is some of the finest on the planet, even when it’s cold out. The State of Michigan had the wisdom decades ago to string the Lake Michigan shore with large public parks from the Indiana border all the way to Traverse City. You can camp or daytrip.
These are still wonderful parks—at one time there was budget enough to maintain them better. Most of the concession stands are shut down; the life guards have passed into the mists of history. There are still red (don’t swim), yellow (watch yourself) and green (go for it) flags, but everyone ignores them and few may know what they stand for.
A day in paradise is that rare occasion when waves are four or five feet and water is warm. You can body surf for yards or just stand and get knocked about. You can ride small surfing boards or inner tubes and then pull yourself back out for the next wave. (Life guards used to run up red flags whenever things got that much fun [See? Budget cuts aren’t completely horrible.] But there can be real danger—especially near a pier where there are powerful currents and undertows.)
No one should swim in Lake Michigan who hasn’t been told how to survive being caught in an undertow and dragged out to sea under water. Don’t walk on the piers in heavy weather. The most popular pier—in Grand Haven—has a large monument to all those who have been swept off to their deaths in storms. Waves can hit 15 feet. But there are no sharks.
On a relatively calm day, walking out a quarter of a mile into Lake Michigan is a glorious sight and experience. The promenade along the Grand River and out into the Lake is the finest I’ve walked either at the Atlantic, Pacific or Lake Michigan coasts.
People come for hundreds, even thousands of miles with their campers. Reservations at popular State Parks on holidays often need to be made a year in advance. For a few hours on the evening before the July 4th Holiday, US 31 looks like New York City at rush hour.
They come from Chicago, St. Louis, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Detroit, Texas, Kentucky, Ontario, the Carolinas, New York and even further. In the course of a summer it is not unusual for me to see license plates from every state but Hawaii. One year I actually saw one from there.
In between the State and county parks (some of them hundreds of acres in size) are the cottages. People from Grand Rapids and Chicago seem to predominate. Although you will also have cottage owners from as far away as Texas—they just leave a car up here.
Chicago people cluster in whole colonies—spending the season in summer homes that have been in their families for generations. There are plenty of winterized, year around homes for people who commute from the shore to inland jobs the year around.
I know of one man who parks his family along Lake Michigan and commutes to his job in Boston. If you want to buy a home on the shore itself, just tack several hundred thousand onto what would normally be the price of that particular house. Even in a nasty recession.
That’s why it is so wonderful to have the parks with their hundreds of yards of open beach. Within 20 miles of my home there are five huge state parks, three large county parks and four city-owned parks. The smallest of these is contains a few football field lengths of public beach.
In one, guides will show you nature trails, you can stop in at the museum to learn how the huge dunes were formed or you can climb to a long walkway at the top of the dunes to see what they look like in their various stages of development. You can camp in all the state parks and at least one of the county parks.
Here come the tents, the pop-up tent campers, the camping trailers, the sometimes house-like motorized campers, the boats, the dune buggies, the four wheelers, rolling up US 31 or coming across on US 94 or 96. It is a procession that goes on all summer.
Of course you cannot forget the hundreds—no, thousands—of small lakes dotting the entirety of Michigan. Many have their own public beaches, campgrounds or boat launches. Their shores are lined cheek by jowl with cottages and winterized homes. People rent, own and/or commute from these as well. Tonight I’m going to the home of a friend on one of these lakes to watch fireworks over the water. We’ve done it for years.
The real push to get out of the hot cities begins this weekend. At ten miles from the shore, we are degrees cooler than inland. Drive toward the shore and it gets cooler by the mile. (That coolness gives us lots more snow in winter, too. An occasionally significant downside to living here.)
It’s party time here. I stood behind a man yesterday at my super market. All he was buying was tomatoes, strawberries, hot dogs and hamburger. Four hundred dollars worth. I kidded him about following him. He shrugged, “Come along. Just bring your appetite.”
The days are obviously gone when you could stand in line at the checkout and see Paul Newman or young John Kennedy ahead of you. But we still have some good festivals and parties here. In any case, Happy July Four.
Friday, July 3, 2009
State Of The States
We’re so used to getting our bad news with a New York or Washington tag line, it might be appropriate to look at the news that’s coming out of our state capitals. No, not just the fact that the governor of South Carolina took a South American vacation—and he’s now spending a little family time explaining things to his wife.
Nor the fact that Alaska’s Governor Palin has just announced she is resigning at the end of July. Most assume that this is to free her up to launch a presidential campaign three years from now; some suggest that dropping the governorship this early is a bit foolish.
In any case it seems reasonably certain that she has no plans to quietly fade away. She burst upon us like a sun flare ten months ago, and she seems to enjoy the spotlight. I would not be surprised that there might be an element of wanting to show the Republican nabobs who treated her with such contempt last year, not least John McClain, that she is too a political force to be reckoned with.
(You do have to wonder what McClain was thinking last August. Or if he was thinking at all—beyond the desire to give the Democrats a momentary jolt. [It was very momentary.] But if I were Palin, I would feel used and abused. Not least because the Party first demanded I go shopping to upgrade my wardrobe—and then demanded all the clothes back. That’s adding injury to insult.)
Then there’s California where the governor announced this week that he would likely need to issue I.O.U.s in lieu of checks for welfare recipients, contractors, and a whole bunch of other people the state owes money to, in and out of state.
Can you imagine going to a grocery store and handing the cashier an I.O.U. from the State of California in the condition it’s in!? (I recall that my aunt took a teaching job in the State of Michigan back in the 1930s for six hundred dollars a year. They paid her $300 in cash that year—and gave her a warrant for the other $300. This is not a new idea—it’s just startling that we are back to it again.)
“BusinessWeek” suggests that the huge size of the California economy (one of the ten largest or so in the world) and the huge size of its deficit could slow down recovery for the entire nation. Unfortunately, unlike Washington, California has no printing press for money.
Speaking of California—and Michigan. The respective governors are trying to work out a deal whereby excess California convicts are sent to Michigan for incarceration in prisons Michigan can no longer afford to keep open. California will supposedly pay for this service—with what? I.O.U.s?
They are closing down the correctional facility in nearby Muskegon, Michigan, for one. Michigan is rushing to release prisoners as soon as they’ve served their minimum sentence—regardless of how dangerous they may be.
In the past few years Michigan, once an industrial hub of America—and the world, has lost around a fifth or even a quarter of its jobs. This is primarily due to the collapse of the auto industry. While it isn’t completely true that Michigan is a one company state, it’s close.
Now as General Motors sits in bankruptcy, lawyers are playing chicken with the government. One lawyer who represents some small bond holders was quoted today as saying that he can hold out for more money because the government would never let GM go down.
He hopes. But any way you cut it, a lot of people who were born in Michigan are going to have to move elsewhere if they ever plan to work again. Oh yes, they just laid off a raft of State Police—as tax income falls, there’s less money for fripperies like police protection.
A whole list of industrial states—Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, to name a few—are in serious trouble because of tax shortfalls due to declining industrial production, especially automotive.
Of course every state is saddled with a series of unfunded federal mandates. That means that when Washington gets a brilliant idea for making education—or some other state function—more complex and more expensive, it sends no money to pay for the new program.
There are a lot of federally mandated services out there that states MUST provide—and must also pay for. If they plead insolvency, they will be deprived of other federal monies as a penalty. This has been a growing phenomenon since the 1970s.
These mandates add to state grief. The states often pass these mandates on to local governments who must then pay for them without any state help. (That, boys and girls, is one of the reasons my property taxes keep going up, just like yours.)
For decades now this burden of unfunded programs mandated by Washington has grown heavier and heavier. (Some of Obama’s proposals will no doubt result in more of them.) It will not get lighter, no matter what the economy does.
Washington will volunteer no additional monies; it is extremely unlikely to repeal any of the programs or their mandates. At some point the whole upside down pyramid may just collapse.
Meanwhile, Palin has set her sights on Washington and California would like to ship a few hundred undesirables to Michigan. And this is the state of only a few states.
Nor the fact that Alaska’s Governor Palin has just announced she is resigning at the end of July. Most assume that this is to free her up to launch a presidential campaign three years from now; some suggest that dropping the governorship this early is a bit foolish.
In any case it seems reasonably certain that she has no plans to quietly fade away. She burst upon us like a sun flare ten months ago, and she seems to enjoy the spotlight. I would not be surprised that there might be an element of wanting to show the Republican nabobs who treated her with such contempt last year, not least John McClain, that she is too a political force to be reckoned with.
(You do have to wonder what McClain was thinking last August. Or if he was thinking at all—beyond the desire to give the Democrats a momentary jolt. [It was very momentary.] But if I were Palin, I would feel used and abused. Not least because the Party first demanded I go shopping to upgrade my wardrobe—and then demanded all the clothes back. That’s adding injury to insult.)
Then there’s California where the governor announced this week that he would likely need to issue I.O.U.s in lieu of checks for welfare recipients, contractors, and a whole bunch of other people the state owes money to, in and out of state.
Can you imagine going to a grocery store and handing the cashier an I.O.U. from the State of California in the condition it’s in!? (I recall that my aunt took a teaching job in the State of Michigan back in the 1930s for six hundred dollars a year. They paid her $300 in cash that year—and gave her a warrant for the other $300. This is not a new idea—it’s just startling that we are back to it again.)
“BusinessWeek” suggests that the huge size of the California economy (one of the ten largest or so in the world) and the huge size of its deficit could slow down recovery for the entire nation. Unfortunately, unlike Washington, California has no printing press for money.
Speaking of California—and Michigan. The respective governors are trying to work out a deal whereby excess California convicts are sent to Michigan for incarceration in prisons Michigan can no longer afford to keep open. California will supposedly pay for this service—with what? I.O.U.s?
They are closing down the correctional facility in nearby Muskegon, Michigan, for one. Michigan is rushing to release prisoners as soon as they’ve served their minimum sentence—regardless of how dangerous they may be.
In the past few years Michigan, once an industrial hub of America—and the world, has lost around a fifth or even a quarter of its jobs. This is primarily due to the collapse of the auto industry. While it isn’t completely true that Michigan is a one company state, it’s close.
Now as General Motors sits in bankruptcy, lawyers are playing chicken with the government. One lawyer who represents some small bond holders was quoted today as saying that he can hold out for more money because the government would never let GM go down.
He hopes. But any way you cut it, a lot of people who were born in Michigan are going to have to move elsewhere if they ever plan to work again. Oh yes, they just laid off a raft of State Police—as tax income falls, there’s less money for fripperies like police protection.
A whole list of industrial states—Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, to name a few—are in serious trouble because of tax shortfalls due to declining industrial production, especially automotive.
Of course every state is saddled with a series of unfunded federal mandates. That means that when Washington gets a brilliant idea for making education—or some other state function—more complex and more expensive, it sends no money to pay for the new program.
There are a lot of federally mandated services out there that states MUST provide—and must also pay for. If they plead insolvency, they will be deprived of other federal monies as a penalty. This has been a growing phenomenon since the 1970s.
These mandates add to state grief. The states often pass these mandates on to local governments who must then pay for them without any state help. (That, boys and girls, is one of the reasons my property taxes keep going up, just like yours.)
For decades now this burden of unfunded programs mandated by Washington has grown heavier and heavier. (Some of Obama’s proposals will no doubt result in more of them.) It will not get lighter, no matter what the economy does.
Washington will volunteer no additional monies; it is extremely unlikely to repeal any of the programs or their mandates. At some point the whole upside down pyramid may just collapse.
Meanwhile, Palin has set her sights on Washington and California would like to ship a few hundred undesirables to Michigan. And this is the state of only a few states.
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