Tune in Next Time, Maybe

No future posts for this blog are planned at this time.

Weekly posts might be resumed after the start of the federal fiscal year, October 1.  Perhaps there will be no posts until after the U.S. Presidential Election.  Perhaps posts for this blog will be resumed in 2009.  Perhaps not.

You are welcome to follow me on twitter.

Is It Real?

We’ve been fooled so many times by the chicken-little stories we’ve all heard. 

We’ve heard that international terrorists are threatening local shopping malls near small towns and in big cities.  Terror has certainly been seen at shopping malls in medium-sized cities, but the culprits have most often been people down on their luck, who have apparently felt they had nothing left to lose.

There’s really no need to list every dire warning of doom and gloom that we’ve heard throughout our lives.  One of the worst has indeed been seen here in the United States.  No one who was alive and conscious of their surroundings 7 years ago will ever forget September 11.  There is just no need to list all the dire predictions we’ve heard before that day or since.

Now we are hearing about a mega-meltdown of our financial system, less than 2 weeks after being assured by some that the fundamentals of our economy are strong.  The American people are so shell-shocked since 2001, that many don’t believe the “financial meltdown” is real at all.

Here is one very ordinary anecdote that suggests to me that it is.

My spouse and I keep separate checking accounts.  We always have, for the entire 22 years we’ve been married.  We kept a third “house account” at a Savings & Loan for awhile, but we abandoned that plan some time ago.  That “bank” kept changing hands and changing names.  The rules for free checking kept changing and it was soon no longer called a Savings & Loan.  We thought maybe it was good that the institution was finally called a bank.

There was neither rhyme nor reason to how debits were made to that bill-paying account.  Since many of our bills came due around the same time each month, we started to rack up overdraft fees merely because of the order in which our checks were paid by the bank.  We were told that the debits were made in the order they were received from our creditors.

At first, the fees were waived because of the high-interest CD (Certificate of Deposit) that we had there from when it was a Savings & Loan.  That didn’t last long.  The bank managers were rude and insulting about how we managed our finances, so we closed the checking account and just continued to maintain our separate accounts at the different banks we’d used since before we were married.

We never bothered to calculate how much we ended up paying in overdraft fees before we closed the account.  Without a total, we certainly didn’t compare how much we paid in fees to what we had earned on the CD by the time we finally had the need to cash it.  I suspect it was the bank that came out ahead, not us.

Of course, this was in the 1980’s.  That’s when that large number of Savings & Loans failed.  It was reported that George H. W. Bush’s son, Neil, made out like a bandit and that John McCain was somehow involved.

We didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to those details.  We just started managing our household income as though we were single and we have ever since.

Now here is today’s anecdote:

I keep my so-called checking account (I only use a debit card now) at a large, international bank.  My spouse keeps the other checking account in a bank that’s named after the county in which we live, and monitors the account balance by telephone almost every day (sometimes more than once a day).  Since I do most of the bill-paying by direct debit, money is deposited to my account every payday.

It’s been taking longer and longer for the debit to show up when we check the balance at the local bank.  This time, it took a FULL WEEK!

My spouse blames my bank.  I don’t think my bank has anything to do with it, except that my bank did show the credit to my account within a day or two after we made the deposit from the other bank.  To quote Yogi Berra, “it’s like deja vu all over again!”

So, yes, I do believe that this financial crisis is real.  It’s not another chicken-little story.  I don’t believe it’s reason to panic.  I believe it’s time to be smart.

To panic about it would mean to be scared.  Being scared just lets the “bad guys” win. 

Our job, our Congress’ and Senate’s job, is to figure out who it is that is trying to make us panic and be scared for our financial futures, and steer clear of any plan they present to “save” us. 

If any of the financial snakes are running for office, we need to vote against them.

There was Once a Time

There was once a time, not all that long ago, when we all pulled together.  We were all on the same side of the issue, and we all agreed on what the issue was.

It was only 7 years ago, less than 8 years ago, when ALL of the good people of the world stood together.

Register to vote.

Let others know how YOU THINK we can all pull together again by leaving your thoughts in the COMMENTS section below (after the auto-generated related links).

The Half-Time Show

The Democrats closed their Presidential Convention Thursday and the Republicans begin theirs this coming week.  John McCain has set things up for a much more interesting GOP Convention than had he not named Sarah Palin as his choice for Vice President. 

The purpose of this web log is voter education, by way of both the blog posts by the author and the comments by readers.  What sort of education can we provide for one another?

What we have this weekend is a brief pause between the big conventions.  It’s time for major spin.  Sarah Palin has drawn much attention because she seems to have come out of nowhere, plus she is youthful and articulate.  She was not considered to be on John McCain’s short list with Mitt Romney and the others.  She is not well known throughout the United States.  She is even newer to the national consciousness than Barrack Obama.

If the announcement of her nomination was intended to steal the thunder from the Democrat’s Convention in Denver, it has certainly done that.  Obama outlined his hopes for what he would like to accomplish in great detail, while staying within the confines of the his Party’s Platform positions.  Now it is all out there and there is nothing to do but talk about his goals and the likelihood of whether the new Congress will allow him to achieve them.  People can even speculate on how the promises he laid out will be received and how he intends to accomplish them.

Sarah Palin, on the other hand, is known only to Alaskans.  People inside the Beltway must get to work to find out more about her in order to have somethng to talk about.  In the meantime, commentators and pundits can do nothing but speculate the air time away.  Voters can decide what they see in her, based on what little is currently in the national record.

All of Obama’s cards are on the table, leaving nothing really new to talk about.

McCain has chosen a relatively unknown running mate, leaving a nothing BUT new things to talk about.

This is the half-time show, ladies and gentlemen!

It will last 3 full days (barring disaster in the Gulf).  Let us hope that this political half-time show DOES last the 3 entire days, and let us not overlook the significance of Labor Day.

Who will get the most air time on television and radio?  Who will get the most column-inches in newspapers?  Who will be on the covers of magazines?  Who will be more discussed on the “interwebs,” Obama or Palin?

Would another announcement from McCain have allowed for a different conversation?  Would there have been more retrospective review of the previous week in Denver?  Would there have been the same kind of preview of the convention in St. Paul?

Maybe the discussion of John McCain’s running mate would be just as dominant had it been someone else.  The fact that it is Sarah Palin just makes it more fascinating, whether you like her or not.  Yes?

Let’s Chill Out and Lighten Up

Just how ridiculous will things get before voters who value the founding principles of the United States decide to just tune out and stay home on Election Day!

Where does all the hatred on radio, TV, and the Web come from?  Is decreasing voter turn-out the goal of the campaigns?

The next two weeks will be brimming with partisan smears with the two major conventions being held.  November can’t come soon enough, but until then:

 

 

“Stage-Managing” War

It was the opening day of the Olympics in Beijing.  Europe’s annual month of vacation had just begun.  The United States was approaching the peak of its Presidential Campaign season with the presumptive nominee of the challenging Party vacationing in Hawaii.  George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin were photographed seated next to each other during the opening ceremonies for the China Olympics in Bird’s Nest Stadium. 

If anyone held the belief that the Olympics represented peace among nations through sports, the events unfolding in South Ossetia presented a serious challenge to that belief.  NPR broadcast two reports that Friday afternoon, August 8, 2008, that armed conflict erupted in the Georgian province of South Ossetia on the opening day of the Olympic Games. 

The report from NPR’s Moscow correspondent, Gregory Feifer, described the violence in South Ossetia as the result of Russian armored vehicles crossing into the Georgian breakaway province.  Presumably they were moving in to assist the existing Russian peacekeepers, in the event that Georgia’s recently signed cease-fire with South Ossetia didn’t hold.  Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili was quoted as having had no choice but to defend the Georgian citizens, seeing Russian military vehicles and tanks crossing into that mountainous region of their country in South Ossetia.

NPR’s second report about the conflict that afternoon was an interview with Assistant Professor Lincoln Mitchell, from Columbia University’s School of International Affairs, by Melissa Block.  The short interview gives a brief history of conflict in the region, looking from both the perspective of Russia and of Georgia.

NPR also hosts a main report page titled, “Russia, Georgia Fight Over Breakaway Region.”  It features a collection of articles, interviews, and reports produced by NPR since the beginning of the conflict in South Ossetia.

 On Monday, C-SPAN broadcast a panel discussion hosted by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.  This discussion, with a 20-minute question and answer session, was moderated by Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute and the panelists included:

• Frederick W. Kagan (American Enterprise Institute)
• Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (U.S. Army, Retired)
• Lt. Col. Bob Hamilton (U.S. Army)
• Leon Aron (American Enterprise Institute)

This presentation at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) was titled, “The War in the Caucasus: An Initial Assessment.”  Recordings in video or audio format, and other media presented at this forum are available at no charge at this AEI web site.  The idea that the timing and other factors surrounding the conflict made it a “stage-managed war,” was put forward by Retired Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, the second speaker on the panel.

It’s easy to get subjective accounts of how this happened.  It may not be possible to do otherwise because even the most objective of news services must rely on often subjective accounts from their sources.  The best most of us can really expect is to get a sense of what’s happened and how it might affect the future in a context that is relevant to each of us as individuals.

Throughout the week, the first week of the Olympic Games in Beijing, there were many blog posts and articles posted on the internet that presented many different points of view.  A wide range of views were offered by vareious news services:

• FACTBOX – Georgia’s importance as an energy transit state
• The Georgian war – minute by minute, August 9
• Georgia ‘pulls out of S Ossetia’
• Georgia Conflict Map, August 11
• Financial Times – Russia must stand down by Joseph Biden
• CNN.com – McCain pushes hard line against Russia; aides attack Obama
• Does Nationalism Play Role in Georgia Conflict?
• Excerpt of Transcript: Gorbachev Interview on CNN Larry King Live
• Day-by-day: Georgia-Russia crisis

Personal and thoughtful perspectives were offered on various personal blogs:

• Report of a friend who has been to Georgia
• The Fall of the Nation State  
• It’s a very dangerous road the U.S.A. and Russia are traveling….in opposite directions
• Official U.S. Response: ‘…derailing [Russia in] Georgia makes no sense…’
• Nevada Mojo Rising: Fox News cuts off 12-year girl who survived bombing in Ossetia

C-SPAN broadcast a press conference presented by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RDE/RL) on Friday, at the end of that first week.  Audio and video are available at both the C-SPAN and the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty websites.  A transcript of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty press conference may be found in pdf-format at their web site.

One of the most striking comments made in the C-SPAN broadcast was an observation made by RDE/RL’s Georgian Service Director, David Kakabadze:  “You have to take into account that this is the only pipeline which bypasses Russia and pumps the Caspian oil to the world markets, and this is a very important point.“

Some individual bloggers believe this is an attempt on the part of Russia to influence the outcome of the Presidential Election in the U.S.  Some feel it has roots in tribal conflicts.  Some feel the primary motivation is control of energy supplies to western Europe.  These ideas, among others, are likely all components of the motivations that have led to this armed conflict (or war).

______________________________________________________

As stated in the author’s Profile for this blog, the motivation for this writing this blog is education.  There are many points of view that are not represented here because there are so many sources that it’s impossible to include them all and keep the length of this post reasonable.

While the U.S. Presidential Election will likely be influenced by these events, which candidate will be better suited to deal effectively with the unstable situation on the Georgian-Russian border? 

For either candidate, which of the likely Vice-President short-list picks would be best suited to strengthen the Presidential Candidate’s ticket in the November election, in light of the events in South Ossatia? 

If tribal loyalities and language play a role in the Georgian-Russian confict, how might this play into how the American people choose the next President?

For the U.S. and its allies, does energy play a small or large part in this conflict?

I hope the few readers that happen to read this blog, or receive it forwarded to them from a friend, will feel inclined to explore some of the links included in this post.  Whether the links draw further exploration or not, I am very interested to hear the point of view, in the Comments sectionm, of anyone who reads this.

If you have happend to have read this entire blog entry, thank you!  Please leave a comment.  Even if you haven’t read or explored the entire post, your comments will certainly help to move the discussion forward.

I welcome them and I look forward to reading all points of view!

Issues and Emotions

Have you ever voted with conviction for some candidates and voted for others with relative indifference?  Have you ever voted for someone you’ve never heard of to fill a down-ticket office?

Have you ever carefully filled out the sample ballot at home to take it with you on election day?  Have you ever stepped into the voting booth and just picked one?  Have you ever voted a straight party ticket?

Of those five questions, only one or two suggest that issues are what drives the voter rather than emotion.

Filling out a sample ballot in advance of an election allows the opportunity to research the issues and whose positions are objectively more in line with your own.  Voters who vote a straight-party ticket often do so because that party reflects their views on key issues that are important to them.

Party loyalty might be an emotional issue.  Do we align ourselves with the Party that takes a stand on issues that resonate with the things we feel strongly about?  Is handing out tire gauges an emotional appeal or an objective one?

Regardless of the strong feelings we each may have on either side of a given issue, there are some things that we all have in common. 

We all want to have a better country, even when we’re happy with the way things are.  We all want to feel safe inside our homes.  We all want to feel safe outside our homes.

We all want to be able to feed and provide for our families.  We all want to be healthy and able-bodied but, when we do get sick, we want our health care providers to be able to focus only on helping us get well.

We all want the next generation to be able to live at least as good a life as we do but, preferably, we’d like them to be able to live happier lives in a better world.

Campaign ads often frame issues in an emotional context.  Much research goes into creating those ads, so it’s probably safe to assume that emotion plays a large role in how voters make their choices in the voting booth.

While it is natural to make our choices out of emotion, the ability to reason is what has allowed humankind to triumph over the harsh and often ruthless forces of nature.  The ability to reason requires information and no one has ALL the information.  That is why it is important to not only listen, but to hear and consider points of view that differ from our own.

Is that even possible?  Hard as I try, I’m just not sure.

Simplistic Speculators

Walter E. Williams of Investor’s Business Daily Editorials has done an excellent job explaining how futures trading helps stablize commodity prices by using corn as the example in his article titled, “Stop The Scapegoating Of Oil Speculators And Give Them Good Reason To Go Short.”

“Say that today’s price of corn is $7 a bushel. I have a hunch that because of Midwest flooding, higher demand due to droughts and war in other parts of the world, that in May 2009, corn will sell for $12 a bushel.

I stand to make a lot of money by buying corn now for $7 a bushel, holding it, and in May 2009 selling it for $12 a bushel. If many speculators share my hunch and buy more corn now, today’s price, sometimes called the spot price, is going to rise, let’s say to $10 a bushel.”

The trouble is that analogy only goes so far.

“Congressional attacks on speculation do not alter the oil market’s fundamental demand and supply conditions. What would lower the long-term price of oil is for Congress to permit exploration for the estimated billions upon billions of barrels of oil domestically available, not to mention the estimated trillion-plus barrels of shale oil in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah.”

Corn is not the same kind of commodity as oil.  Corn is to grain as oil is to energy.

Many products that come from corn (as opposed to grain, in general) can ONLY come from corn.  Oil is only one form of energy.  The real commodity is ENERGY and oil is only one example of that commodity.

If there are trillion-plus barrels of shale oil in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, that’s great!  Assuming those states agree to the process of rendering that oil useful, why drill off-shore when oil is so abundant in these three states! 

The citizens of Wyoming already enjoy the benefits of tax revenues generated by coal.  Include shale oil and the per-unit tax burden to the energy companies might be less than it is now.

Still, oil is only one form of energy and energy is the commodity of concern.  People generally believe that sustainable alternatives are a long, long way off.  Researchers at MIT think differently:

“Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera’s lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun’s energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.”

Anne Trafton’s article in MIT News is well worth reading.

Then reread Walter E. Williams’s article, substituting “energy” for “oil.”  Does “drill here, drill now,” with the prospects of using oil from new exploration 10 years away, still seem like the only hope we have to “pay less” now?

Welcome

Welcome to Pixie Politics.

The political season in the United States is finally headed for the home stretch as the 20-month-plus presidential campaign season winds to a close.  Political blogs have held a predominant role since the concept of web logs was introduced.  Other than the perspective of the author, it’s unlikely that this web log will offer a lot of new information about the candidates.  Like many blogs, it will combine existing information in the context of the author’s day-to-day life.

The perspecive of the author is what makes any blog unique whether the information presented is original or not.  Most political blogs get lost in the stream of the thousands of political blogs that exist on the internet.  This blog is also likely to get lost in the stream because the author is not a journalist, not a politico, and not a writer with any professional training to speak of.  I am voter.  My family votes.  Most of my friends vote.

This blog will create a space for the author to process the information released by the presidential campaigns and the interpretations that gain my attention.  By creating this space, hopefully, the author will become a more educated voter by election day.  Perhaps it will serve that purpose for others too.