Obama is Right, McClinton is Wrong

Funny title, but really the same old post from me.

Americans are not the complete morons that most of our politicians think we are. We know that there is no such thing as a free lunch. We have the ability to understand that you can't just put a cap on prices and not expect that there will be other unintended consequences. We even know that if you cut a tax now, you are going to pay for it in the future with a higher tax or a lower level of services.

So then, how do you explain both McCain and Clinton advocating this idiocy about suspending the gas tax? McCain is easy - he wants to starve government to death by depriving it of tax revenue. He and his ilk do not believe in the protections (other than military) that the government provides. He is like Grover Norquist, a designer of the Bush economic "plan" who said

My goal is to cut government in half in twenty five years to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub

If you believe that government is bad, useless, provides nothing that working people need, then cutting a key tax makes some sense. But NOT for the reason of helping the working person. Specifically for the reason of killing the government. I wish our media would ask McCain how he expects that the white working class voters who he is counting on to abandon the Democratic party are going to sends their kids to college with no government assistance. Or how they will individually protect their food supply, or their air and water quality, or the safety of their cities and towns, or the stability of their banking system, or, or, or... So much for Straight Talk!

But Clinton? She has always respected the value of government. Why is she advocating this nonsense?

Let's take a short detour here and talk about why reducing the price of gas is bad. Supply and Demand works. If we reduce the price of gas now, then we send the signal to consumers that there is nothing to be gained by making the changes necessary to use less gas. That means that those who can buy more fuel efficient cars won't; that those who can take public transportation won't, and those who need to make even more drastic life changes so that they use less gas, really won't. All because our government will be saying "we'll fix the problem for you, so hold on." On the other hand, if we provide relief in a different way (say sending cash) but KEEP THE PRICE HIGH, consumers will have BOTH the incentive (high prices) and the ability (a little cash) to make some long needed changes to use less gas.

Back to Hillary. The reason she is spouting this nonsense is because she will say whatever she needs to say to get elected. She thinks we're stupid, and rather than do the hard work of educating people on why the gas tax should actually be higher, she takes the easy way out of lying to us.

Barack - stay strong! So far you have said that temporarily repealing the gas tax is a gimmick. Please keep telling the truth. Killing the gas tax means poorly maintained roads (even worse than now), higher gas consumption, more imported oil, greater need to be in Iraq and all sorts of other bad things. Find a way to put more money in people's pockets (a gas stimulus check would be the easiest thing, especially if it were explicitly funded by an increase future gas tax).

Gas Prices v.2

In my last post about gas prices, I may have been a little harsh. I basically said that people who are complaining about the price of gas are whining. That was maybe a tad hardcore.

Prices at the pump are very high. They are going to go higher. This is a good thing, and our government should act now to make sure that people understand this. Here's why:

People don't actually want to consume gasoline (or diesel), they want to be able to go from place to place. This is different than consumption of some other commodities, like bread or milk, where the amount of the commodity is actually what you want. In other words, if you could travel the same way that you travel now but use half the gas, all other things being equal, you'd use half the gas. But you want to use exactly as much milk as you actually use.

Many people do not have much choice - in the short term - over how much gas they consume. They may not be able to sell their gas guzzler and buy a more fuel efficient car, they may not be able to take the bus, they may not be able to properly inflate their tires (OK - everyone can do that). But other people do have the ability to immediately make some of those changes. If we remove their incentive (e.g. the high prices) they won't make those changes, and we'll continue to consume more gas the is necessary, which drives prices higher. In other words, high gas prices encourage lower gas consumption, and that is a good thing.

If we know that gas prices are going to stay at least as high as they are now, then our economy will adjust to that new reality. Car companies will bring their fuel efficient cars here and domestic car companies will design more of them. People will plan elements of their lives to take into account of these prices. On the other hand, if prices fluctuate and come down for a while, many will assume that the $4.00 gas was an aberration, and will not make the long term changes necessary.

As an aside, everything that I've said for consumers goes double for businesses. Lots of businesses are very energy inefficient. But since savings go straight to the bottom line, investments in energy savings are especially effective, BUT ONLY IF PRICES STAY HIGH!

So what do we do for the people who are hurting RIGHT NOW. That's a real problem, but the solution is NOT to reduce the price, but rather to provide immediate, but temporary, assistance to those folks. We could do this in several ways. One idea would be to send all Americans some money to help. Wait, we're already doing that. OK, we could send more. Or we could tweak the social security taxes to TEMPORARILY exempt the first 10 or 15 thousand of income (this would put about $100 per month into the pocket of every working person).

Of course, at some point we would need to pay for this subsidy. The best way to do that would be with an INCREASE in the gas tax to take place in the near future. The point would be to use this $4.00 gas as a turning point. We should look a this as an opportunity to never let gas drop below $4.00 per gallon again. If our government (in other words us) makes this clear, then the economy will adjust, more fuel efficient vehicles and mechanisms of personal transportation will appear almost as if by magic.

And by the way, gas is actually not really that expensive. It's just that is has been getting less expensive (in inflation adjusted dollars) over the past several years. Check out these sites (1 , 2) for a better explanation.

(and I thought I was a nerd - the guy who did the first chart has kept records of every tank of gas he has bought for the last 30 years - wow)

More Stupidity from Sacramento and DC

This posting has nothing to do with Obama or any campaign. It's about something that annoys me on a nearly constant basis.

Our representatives are either stupid or dishonest when it comes to energy policy. Here's the latest example.

The state legislature (Sacramento) is talking about raising the annual registration fees of cars that get poor gas mileage. The alleged purpose of this is to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere. It's a ridiculous idea.

To explain why it's so stupid, I'll first ask a very simple question: which vehicle uses more gas, my 1991 Suburban (with 35 inch tires no less) or my neighbor's Prius?

Sounds like a trick question doesn't it? No, it's not an electric Suburban or a Prius Monster Truck. So, either you know me, or you're going to guess (wrong probably), because I haven't given you enough information to answer the question.

That specific Prius uses many times more gas that specific Suburban. Because I drive the Suburban maybe 200 miles per month. The Prius gets driven every day, probably 18k to 20k miles per year. Raising the taxes on the Suburban would not cause a reduction of greenhouse gases. Raising the taxes on the Prius would also NOT cause a reduction in greenhouse gases.

Nothing that penalizes ownership of the car will reduce gas usage. People will just suck it up, pay the extra tax, and keep on using their cars because they have to have a car.

There is ONE simple way to reduce gasoline usage in this or any country. We all know what it is. Raise the price of gasoline! Tax the hell out of it. Make it cost $5.00 per gallon. At least!

We know this works because every time gas prices go way up, gas sales go down (slightly at first).

The biggest problem is that simply raising the price of gas will immediately hurt the working poor the most. The easiest and simplest way to fix that would be to reduce general sales taxes. An offsetting reduction in sales tax is as progressive as an increase in gas tax is regressive. And since sales tax in California is already pretty high, there should be enough room to reduce it and offset the increased as tax. But if there isn't enough room in the sales tax, simply mail rebate checks (equal amounts to every resident).

Of course, there will be whining, I mean objections:

"But Brian", you say, "what's the point of raising one tax just to lower a different tax, netting the no increase in state tax revenue?" The point of this proposal is not to increase the amount of money to the state, but to reduce gas usage. We all know how upset people get about putting $50 in their gas tank. What happens when that turns into $100? $150? I'll tell you - I put $100 into my Suburban a few months ago, it almost made me cry - why do you think I drive the damn thing so infrequently?

"But, I only have one car, and it gets 13 miles per gallon and I live 70 miles from my job. What will I do?" I don't know. Maybe you'll move. Maybe you'll sell your gas guzzler and buy a 91 Geo Metro (45 miles per gallon - 50+ on the highway). Maybe you'll get a job closer to home. Whatever you do, I bet you'll use less gas (and therefore put less CO2 into the atmosphere).

"But Brian, that Berkeley weirdo who rides his bike to work and doesn't even have a car will get the sales tax cut without having to pay any extra gas tax." Yup. And maybe more people will take his example and simultaneously get in shape while NOT using gas. Or maybe they'll just drive less, or car pool, or telecommute, or do what they need to do to make due.

"But Brian, rich people will still drive gas guzzlers while the rest of us have to ride our bikes and walk." Yup. Rich people will always have it better than the rest of us. I wish I were rich. And if I were, I'd probably drive a Porsche 911 Turbo, which gets really shitty gas mileage. And I'd drive it for the hell of it because if I were rich, I wouldn't have a job. But so what, there are only but so many rich people, and what they do has a much smaller impact than what the other 99% of us do.


I almost want to scream at the TV when some talking head spews on and on about how much CO2 this or that car generates. It's crap. Say it with me people: cars do NOT generate CO2, burning gasoline does.

Our politicians know this, but they are too damn spineless to tell us what we need to hear. To sooner we make it clear to everyone in this country that energy that releases CO2 is expensive and is going quickly get much more expensive, the sooner we will stop using so damn much of it. It's not rocket science. It's actually very simple. Make it expensive and two very cool things happen.

1 - we use less of it.
2 - we develop substitutes for it.

Since it's so damn simple, why aren't are leaders saying it? Barack, are you listening?

Race, Volume 1

One of the things that I didn't think was a big deal in my support for Barack is his biracialness. I too am the son of a Black man and a white woman, and I too was born during the civil rights movement (just a few years after Barack). I just figured that the fact that he and I share many political ideas and convictions was just coincidence (or evidence of his good sense).

But after his speech on race, I have a new appreciation of how our shared biracial heritage has shaped our world views. Most Black folk have to be bi-cultural. We have to understand the ways of white folk so that we can navigate in their world. And even in our little hamlets and ghettos, it's still their world.

But biracial folks are put in a situation where we actually have to be able to see the world from both perspectives. For some, it's just too damned difficult to be forced to have multiple perspectives - it robs us of the easy, absolute, no-gray-area decision. It can create a situation where every sentence ends with "on the other hand."

But for the fortunate among us, that multi perspective vision creates an ability to see solutions based on common ground where others see only problems and division. I had believed that Barack has the 'good' version of that vision, but his speech on race in Philadelphia (coincidentially, my home town) proved it.

There's a lot in that speech, and I'll get to more of it later. But to me, the absolute biggest thing in the speech came after several paragraphs explaining in gentle but quite powerful terms, exactly how the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow affect modern Black folk. The most important part of his speech, the part that shows he has an understanding of the situation that is far riccher than that of most people was this:

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

In that short paragraph, he showed working class white people (and those who have been working class, or who have working class family or friends) that he understands their issue. He demonstrated a link between the effects of slavery, Jim Crow and institutional racism and the frustration that comes from thinking that someone else is getting an unfair advantage.

But note that he didn't say it was the same thing. Or that being white and feeling put upon by Affirmative Action was justified. He just said that he understood it. In fact, he didn't even say that Blacks were even benefiting from Affirmative Action, just that when a working class white person hears that Blacks are getting a benefit for something that that white person never did wrong, he understands that "resentment builds."

The reason why this is so brilliant is that he has pointed out a tiny bit of common ground for people who want to talk to each other to stand on. In the short term, that little bit of ground is not going to be big enough for the really angry on either side, but it is enough to get us started. And if we can listen to each other, and try very hard to understand where the other is coming from, maybe we can learn enough to understand that we are in this together. And by this, I mean this country, which is at war, in a recession (or worse), has inadequate schools, crumbling infrastructure and a divide between the haves and the have-nots that is threatening the very concept of the American Dream.

What We Almost Didn't Have

In addition to being a fairly rabid Obama fan, I'm also a fan of the HBO series "The Wire." Without going into all of the reasons for my obsession with Omar, Snoop, Dukie, Marlo, Bunk, McNulty, Bubbles (ok, I'll stop now, but it makes me smile, sadly, just thinking about em all, even the bad ones), I will just say that "The Wire" has a great deal to say about the state of our country.

One of the main things that is says is that the war on drugs is a horrifically criminal destruction of human lives, and that we are literally killing ourselves by continuing it. I agree.

But I'm not going to try to convince you yy talking about the macro stuff. Like the at least six billion dollar cost of imprisoning people on non-violent drug offenses. Or the almost 2000% increase in the Federal prison budget since mandatory minimum sentences were enacted for non-violent drug offences. Or, or, or.

Instead, I'd like to make a page from the writers of The Wire, and make up a story: think back to the 80's or early 90's. A young man, a college student (race is irrelevant to this, but imagine him to be Black), buys some weed, with the plan of taking it home to share with some of his friends.

On his way home, he is stopped for speeding (or making an illegal left turn, or weaving in his lane, or just for being Black). The police find this small amount or recreational drugs in his car, and arrest him for possession. Let's assume that this young man is also honest and naive, so he admits to his plan of partying with his friends. The police now have enough evidence to charge him with possession with intent to distribute. And they do.

Let's imagine that our young man comes from a family with enough money to hire a good and well connected lawyer. This lawyer convinces the DA to reduce the charges to simple possession and to let our guy off with a guilty plea and a fine, but no jail time. And our guy is now smart enough to not tell anyone, so his college does not find out and he is not expelled. So now, our "lucky" middle class college student is out just several thousand dollars and is stuck with only a permanent criminal record for drug possession (and yes I did say our guy is lucky, because it could have been much, much worse).

Now, let's take a break from this fiction for minute and consider a few actual facts. Almost 30 million Americans have admitted to using marijuana in their lives. Almost 3 million have admitted to using it within the last 30 days. In other words, 10% of the population has admitted to committing a crime that could, in many places, get them locked up, or at least have them classified as a criminal. And we all know that once someone is classified as a criminal, the possibilities for their life are severely diminished. Forever.

Back to our college student. This young man realizes that his chosen career of the law is now no longer open to him, as you cannot be an officer of the court with a criminal conviction. He closes that door, and being a talented and intelligent man, picks a different path. He goes on to own a small business and lives a successful, but private, life.

So what, you say. He made a mistake and he paid for it, and it didn't even cost him that much. After all, he was still "successful." Now make the obvious leap - Barack was that college student, and but for dumb luck, we would have been deprived of the leader that he has become.

Wait, let me correct that: because of dumb luck and stupid laws, we have been deprived of great leaders, productive employees, good parents, wonderful children, loving spouses, etc., etc. etc. Hundreds of thousands of them, our fellow countrymen and woman. Deprived of their rights, segregated from society, labeled as criminal, simply for doing something that at least 10% of us have also admitted doing. And we are all paying for this idiocy. Some of us are paying with our freedom, some with our taxes. All of us are being deprived of the contribution that these people would have made. And all because of this short sighted, morally bankrupt and ultimately futile war on drugs.

So here's the call to action: if you are arrested for a non-violent drug offense, admit nothing and demand a trial by jury (but don't take my advice, talk to your lawyer, and educate yourself on your rights). If you find yourself on the jury for one of these trials, regardless of the actual red handed guilt of the person being charged, find him or her not-guilty. This is called jury nullification and it has been used to good effect in the past (it's one of the ways that Prohibition was ultimately shown to be impossible). It is a simple thing that we can do right now to bring this stupid "war" to an end.

I wish that this was something that Barack could run on, but it ain't. We'll just have to trust that he has the compassion (he does), the political will (I think he does), the intelligence (I KNOW he does) and the mandate (that's up to us) to put an end to this idiocy.

Pennsylvania Here We Come!

So this latest super Tuesday has not resolved the nomination. I guess this should be really no surprise, as Hillary has much more experience in a negative down and dirty campaign. In a way, I guess this is a validation of her point that the Democratic nominee must be ready for the opposition to go very negative. She's right of course. We know that the Republican machine will do pretty much anything legal (and much that is not) in order to gain the spoils of electoral victory.

Hillary's "3:00 AM" ad is pretty mild stuff compared to the this
ad against Harold Ford's run for senate. (Harold is young, Black and single, and was running for office in the South, so the visual of the white woman with no visible clothing, saying "Harold, call me" was pretty inflammatory). And in any case, the "3:00 am" ad is just a preview of what McCain will run against Obama in the general. So maybe Hillary has done Obama a favor by running this ad.

What saddens me, is that in many voter's minds, Obama's unwillingness to be more negative than Hillary equates with a weakness on foreign policy. Specifically, they see the willingness to negatively campaign as being tough. And they see toughness as being the required trait to keep us safe from "the terrorists." The problem is that in order to defend against this sort of attack, Obama has to go negative. In going negative, he kills some of the goodwill that he has built, and makes himself seem like the lying, duplicitous politician he's said he ain't.

Maybe they are on to something. Maybe the desire to campaign in a positive manner correlates to a desire to NOT use the military to solve every problem. Perhaps being tough means not engaging in "shoot first, ask questions later" diplomacy. The Obama campaign needs to figure out how to make that point in a pithy 30 second ad. And they need to do it quick!

On the other hand, maybe that's a good reason for an Obama - Clinton ticket. Obama gets to be the good guy, the inspirational front man, and Clinton gets to be the viscous attack dog of a VP candidate. That could work! It would allows a rapid unification of the Democratic party, it would play to both candidate's strengths. The only downside is that Clinton would bring out the hard-core republican base. But maybe if she's the VP candidate and not the Presidential candidate, they won't be so excited.

Interesting stuff.

In the mean time, I am going to start calling people in my home state of Pennsylvania. We need em to vote, and in big numbers. PA isgoing to be tough to win, but it is critically important.

Is Nader Right?

First, let me say to my vast readership: I apologize to both of you for not writing for the past few weeks. I've been having some personal difficulties, and seem to have lost my muse. But I'll give it a try without the muse and see what happens.

I was listening to Ralph Nader talk about why he’s running again for president. And after I restrained myself from kicking the s#$% out of my radio for bringing me such insane news when there is so much at stake in this election, I had to admit something: he’s right.

Then later I watched the debate and heard Obama and Clinton argue about a tiny point of difference in their respective health care plans. What a waste of time. The fact is that both candidates would, as president, sign either plan if it passed congress. And they both should have said that.

But back to why they are wrong and Nader is right (and Clinton is closer to being right on this than Obama is). We need universal health care to be universal. If it’s not, then you don’t get the savings from covering everyone. Furthermore, if an individual can lose their coverage, for ANY reason, then none (except the very rich) can sleep easy knowing that they are, and forever will be, covered.

The simple (and possibly expensive, but I doubt it) expedient is to expand Medicare to cover everyone. Anyone could opt out by proving that they have other coverage, in which case their outside coverage premium would be subsidized by Medicare. Rich folk could opt out by self insuring (and keeping huge assets in their Health Care Reimbursement Accounts). Lots of folk would buy supplemental coverage to pay for additional stuff that isn’t covered under the basic plan. But everyone would be covered. This would provide all of the advantages of single payer (including all of the administrative cost savings) AND the advantages of private delivery (e.g. doctors would not be the employees of the government).

Obama’s point that people will buy health care if they can afford it is flat wrong. Some people will buy it. Others won’t. Some will think that they have, but will miss an important piece of mail, or forget to pay a bill, or get fired, or, or, or. Or worse yet, their life will fall apart due to an illness, and then they’ll make some paperwork mistake that causes loss of coverage. The point is that every crack in universal coverage is expensive in dollars and piece of mind. It is actually less expensive to cover everyone then not to.

But the absolute biggest reason to cover everyone under the same plan is to force the issue of what is covered into the public sphere. As a country, we currently ration health care by who can afford it, and by who is lucky to accurately predict exactly which illness they will be afflicted with when they pick their insurance. That’s insane. What needs to happen is that we decide what the basic level of health care that everyone gets by dint of being a citizen (or legal resident). That allows us to decide, as a society, that we will pay for aggressive pre-natal care, but will not pay for organ transplants for 90 year olds. If 90 year old want organ transplants, they can spend their grandchildrens' inheritance and pay for it themselves (that’s just a for instance).

There are lots more reasons to have single payer. Obama could bring it home if he chose to get us motivated to make it happen. I wish I knew why he didn’t push for it.

If you have contrary thoughts on this, please leave a comment. I will try to reply or incorporate your thoughts into later posts.